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Darkstar1st: violation of policy at WP:DISRUPT, failure or refusal to get the point, tendentious editing

I am reporting Darkstar1st for violation of policy at WP:DISRUPT on the grounds of failure or refusal to get the point and tendentious editing for editing behaviour here Talk:Socialism#The_first_socialist_society_was_the_USSR. He is pushing the idea that the Soviet Union was the first socialist society, and is cherry-picking sources to support his view. Darkstar1st's proposals have been unanimously rejected by all other users, and his usage of sources has been strongly criticized, but he refuses to accept consensus, and continues to push the issue.

I strongly believe that Darkstar1st has anti-socialist political views that are influencing his edits, he repeatedly edits articles in a manner that would appear to present Marxism-Leninism and fascism including Nazism as the major manifestations of what socialism is. The most important evidence I can provide of this is a cynical sarcastic-appearing remark recently made by Darkstar1st where he said "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was most certainly socialist and a shining example of the ideology in action.", here's the diff . He also has said in the past on the Talk:Libertarian socialism that the fusion of liberty and socialism's social ownership of the means of production is impossible to merge, saying "i fail to see how liberty and having your means of production seized go together", here's the diff . I believe that his intentions on Misplaced Pages with regards to material related to socialism, are to present socialism as a whole as totalitarian and linked with Marxism-Leninism and fascism.

He has been warned in the past to desist from similar behaviour on articles pertaining to socialism, and considerations of topic bans for Darkstar1st on socialism-related articles have been considered, as shown here: , where he was given advice by me on how to improve his understanding of socialism to avoid such assumptions of socialism being totalitarian. He has not heeded the advice or warnings of anyone there.

He has completely expired community patience at Talk:Socialism#The_first_socialist_society_was_the_USSR. Many users there are aggravated with his pushing of the issue. Multiple users at the talk page are openly angry with his behaviour, some have called it "trolling". Darkstar1st neither listens nor cares about their criticisms, he just keeps pushing the issue.

Since he was warned to desist from such behaviour here: Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Darkstar1st, and has completely refused to accept consensus, I believe that indefinate topic bans for Darkstar1st on all articles relating to: socialism, communism, fascism, and totalitarianism, is the minimal of what is needed. I advise that users here talk with other users who have been involved with the discussions here: Talk:Socialism#The_first_socialist_society_was_the_USSR.--R-41 (talk) 22:01, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Comments

I fully agree with this summary and this complaint. Darkstar is an exceptionally disruptive and tendentious editor. He constantly plays fast and loose with sources, he initiates long and repetitive discussion threads, and then, weeks later, when the issue has seemed long closed, he returns and repeats his intention to carry out disputed edits, he refuses to accept consensus, and he attempts to wear out other editors by repeatedly making the same contested assertions. He appears to be here mainly to push his personal political beliefs, to attack socialism and justify nazism. Although the RfC has been open for six weeks, he has failed to respond, except for one edit in the wrong section repeating his content argument. Several editors (myself included) have reached, and gone beyond, the limits of their tolerance in dealing with his behaviour, which now verges on trolling. I am convinced that an indefinite topic ban is required in all articles and talk pages relating, however tangentially, to political issues. Then perhaps the rest of us can get on with building an encyclopaedia. RolandR (talk) 22:13, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

i have no idea what you mean about my page identifying me as an opponent of communism, or any comments i made confusing totalitarianism and socialism, please provide difs or withdraw your accusation. the edit i propose, "the USSR was the first socialist state and the USSR was the first socialist society. here are quotes from the 6 RS i presented, none of which have been challenged as a RS

• The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within
• For the first time in the history of mankind a socialist society(USSR) was created.
• The Soviet Union was the first state to be based on Marxist socialism
• Russia was not just another country, it was the world's first workers state and history's first socialist society
• the establishment of the first socialist state in russia in 1917
• Soviet...the first socialist society.
• With their victory over the White Russians in 1920, Soviet leaders now could turn for the first time to the challenging task of building the first socialist society in a world dominated by their capitalist enemies. Darkstar1st (talk) 22:25, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

So you are asking me for a diff for a quote of what you said. Are you contending that you never said this: "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was most certainly socialist and a shining example of the ideology in action."?--R-41 (talk) 22:31, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

i said it. how does that make me an opponent of communism or think all socialist are totalitarian? much of the modernization of Russia can be attributed to socialism, which is what i meant with the words "shinning" and "action". perhaps you have simply read too much into my edit? Darkstar1st (talk) 22:37, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure you can say such convenient stuff now when your editing is under observation now, but I am familiar with your editing history as are many other users, you are determined to present socialism as associated with Marxism-Leninism and fascism. It's all here as recorded by the user TFD and others: Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Darkstar1st. I read exactly what you intended to say, in context of what else you have said and how you have edited, you view the Soviet Union as the epitome of what socialism is. On your user page you are photographed in front of a building in Hungary where fascist and communist regimes tortured people and say: i lost a bet to sn*wed that i could correct bl*urob*'s behavior, so i had to eat my only hat and decided the best place to do it would be in front of House of Terror, where facist and later the "liberating" Communist regimes interrogated, tortured and killed people. So by your own words, if the Soviet Union is the "shining example of socialism" and you went to a place where ""liberating" Communist regimes interrogated, tortured and killed people", I can see no other meaning other than that you view socialism as totalitarian and tyrannical. Since you wanted a diff, here is your edit where you said that: .--R-41 (talk) 22:42, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

so a photo in front of the house of terror makes me an opponent of communism? I read exactly what you intended to say, you should stick to reading what i write, not what you think i think. if you have a dif of me confusing totalitarians and socialist, plz provide here or withdraw your accusation. Darkstar1st (talk) 22:55, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

liberating" Communist regimes interrogated, tortured and killed people are not my words, rather from the article about the terror house. since the USA has also tortured/killed people do you think i am also anti-capitalist? Darkstar1st (talk) 22:59, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Stalin "liberated" around 6 million of his own citizens. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:17, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

You are here because you have grossly violated WP:DISRUPT involving failure or refusal to get the point and tendentious editing. You are here for that. I have adjusted my statement in accordance with your concerns, but it is my firm belief, regardless of your attempts to deny it here to avoid topic bans, that you are anti-socialist. You appear to have indicated at Talk:Libertarian socialism that the fusion of liberty and socialism's social ownership of the means of production is impossible to merge in your view, you said: "i fail to see how liberty and having your means of production seized go together", here's your diff . Regardless of whether you are anti-socialist or are not, I may be mistaken but I doubt it, your edits on articles related to socialism have been highly disruptive, you have ignored consensus and have pushed issues after consensus has rejected them. This is a long-term problem, identified by the user TFD here: Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Darkstar1st, you did not heed the warnings nor advice by TFD, me and others there and have continued your disruptive editing behaviour. Again, that is why you are here.--R-41 (talk) 23:02, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Darkstar1st has continued to argue a case despite no other editor agreeing with him. This is disruptive and I would agree to a topic ban as suggested by R-41. TFD (talk) 00:38, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Darkstar is persistently tendentious; he falsifies discussions (see his mendacious nonsense above about the six purportedly reliable sources he uses to push his spurious agenda, which have long since been rejected by all other editors in the discussion); and he has a severe case of WP:DIDNTHEARTHAT. A topic ban would be a wonderful idea. --Orange Mike | Talk 04:08, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

It's clear from both the talk page and RFC discussions linked above that Darkstar1st's edits have been completely rejected by other editors, and I think it's equally clear that he doesn't know how to actually understand, interpret, and weigh sources on this subject. Offering rhetoric from the Soviet Constitution claiming that it was the first socialist state in history as a RS for the factual claim that it was the first socialist state in history shows incredibly poor editorial judgment and a misunderstanding of core WP policies. The Soviet Constitution is a reliable source for its own content, and that's it; it's not a reliable source for verifying claims it makes about facts external to the Constitution itself and it should be obvious why this is so.

Maybe a topic ban is appropriate now (maybe he isn't WP:COMPETENT to edit Misplaced Pages at all), but I'd like to see a clear statement of what he understands consensus on the matter to be and what he intends to do next. postdlf (talk) 17:59, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

i understand consensus is against the proposed edit. the edit is a bit redundant anyway since the article already has an entire section dedicated to the 1917 revolution in Russia. the same claim (and thereby established the construction of the first socialist state) is made on the October Revolution article in the Soviet historiography section, so i really did not expect this kind of resistance. many people think there were socialist societies and states that pre-date the USSR, why are they absent from this article? wouldnt it be an improvement to note where socialism began? i plan to work on the tamarindo, costa rica article next. Darkstar1st (talk) 19:03, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

To Darkstar1st, you have said that you understand that consensus is against your proposal but you are still pushing for it to be included in spite of that. You have effectively admitted then that you have knowingly violated WP:ICAN'THEARYOU and you are still rejecting consensus.--R-41 (talk) 19:14, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

To Postdlf, from what Darkstar1st has just said, I think it is time for topic bans to be organized and implemented.--R-41 (talk) 19:14, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

what i meant by redundant is the edit i proposed in talk, is unnecessary and not worth perusing further, sorry for the confusion. Darkstar1st (talk) 19:18, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

As I pointed out on the article taklk page when Darkstar first offered this justification,, Darkstar here is completely misreading the article on the October Revolution, where the view he offers as neutral fact is explicitly presented as the position of Soviet historians concerned to demonstrate "the accuracy of Marxist ideology". To offer a misreading once could be ascribed to a lack of understanding and an inability to read text critically; to offer this justification a second time, at AN/I, after the error has been pointed oiut, can only be seen as deliberate misrepresentation and an attempt to mislead readers. RolandR (talk) 19:21, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Just looking now at the October Revolution article for the first time, but it seems obvious to me your explanation is correct, that it is not claiming neutral fact for the "first socialist state" statement, but instead attributing that to Soviet historians. Particularly given that the section is titled "Soviet historiography", and the sentence about the "first socialist state" claim opens with "In this view..." as a rather obvious qualifier. To miss all that takes some rather serious carelessness or fundamental problems with reading comprehension. postdlf (talk) 20:14, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

perhaps you could see the section of the October revolution title Legacy which has same claim without the qualifiers. The October revolution of 1917 also marks the inception of the first communist government in Russia, and thus the first large-scale socialist state in world history. Darkstar1st (talk) 22:15, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Thus you have proven to us that you have wasted everyone's time with pushing this within your proposal when it actually was referring to "the first large-scale socialist state in world history" that you misleadingly used to say that the Soviet Union was the "first socialist society" in history. Now I am certain that topic bans are absolutely needed as a minimal, and considering that Darkstar1st has inadvertently shown that he either is incompetent or unwilling to use material in the correct manner that it is worded, I would propose that it would be beneficial if Darkstar1st be indefinately blocked from editing Misplaced Pages altogether because of this level of complete incompetence or misleading behaviour (whichever it is).--R-41 (talk) 22:55, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

but i never cited the article as a source in my proposal, only here as an example of how similar articles have similar claims. i have also said i am no longer pursuing the edit which was two-fold and had sources for both state and society, so i only meant this as an example relating to state. Darkstar1st (talk) 23:13, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I am really getting frustrated. Darkstar1st, do you realize the level of trouble you have put yourself in because of pushing the issue in violation of consensus? Do you realize that by the fact that you have admitted that you know that your proposal was against consensus, but you still kept pushing, puts you in deliberate violation of WP:ICAN'THEARYOU? Do you realize that you have made multiple users so frustrated with you because of your editing behaviour involving pushing proposals against consensus, that they are all agreeing in calls for you to receive topic bans? I am asking you this, because it seems that you do not care at all about these issues of serious breaches of policy at WP:DISRUPT, and are just attempting to side-step them.--R-41 (talk) 23:25, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

i am sorry you are frustrated. i am also confused that you think i am still pushing the proposal when i have said twice now i am no longer pursuing the proposal. i do not intend to edit the socialism article or talk now, or in the near future. Darkstar1st (talk) 23:51, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

How is that going to resolve your long-term disruptive editing behaviour? All that does is let's you off the ticket on this one instance of such editing behaviour by us taking your word that you won't edit it now or in the "near future" (whatever that means), and I can tell this is going to happen again by the behaviour you have demonstrated today, and in TFD's report that shows you doing the same behaviour in multiple other articles. You have failed to adhere to the advice in TFD's report, you have expired the patience of multiple users with your consensus-violating behaviour. Why should we believe that such behaviour by you on Misplaced Pages is going to stop now when it hasn't despite people repeatedly telling you to cease such behaviour in the past?--R-41 (talk) 00:02, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

i hav e resolved my long term behavior by not wanting to edit articles in which the sources i present are not accepted contrary to my opinion. each article i have edited, as well as the articles i have authored have all included sources. some, like the mexican constitution in the article i created, Immigration to Mexico, are allowed as sources, some arent like here. i see the other editors point that maybe the soviets were lying to trick people into thinking they were the 1st socialist state. perhaps someone here knows the real answer to who was the 1st socialist state, what a great way to end this debate, with a simple answer to a simple question. happy new year all, if we are still here, we must be the only/intelligent friends we have left, egészségére! Darkstar1st (talk) 00:44, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

persistently editing a page or set of pages with information which is not verifiable

per wp:disrupt, i have presented 7 verifiable sources on the socialism talk page, yet made no edit to the article unlike R-41's recent massive rewrite of the lead. the editor who reverted wrote this, Reverted R-41's mess of the lead. You've been warned about this already. You need to get some form of consensus on the talk page before altering the lead.

• source one, The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within, source rejected, no where in the book does it state the Soviet Union was the first Socialist society.
• source two, The Constitution of the USSR source rejected, Constitutions are not rs for how the countries are actually governed.
• source three, The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2011 source rejected, "the first state to be based on Marxist socialism" If you can't see the difference between that and "the USSR was the first socialist society", then your reading comprehension skills are even lower than I thought.
• source four, Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia source rejected, Again you misrepresent your citation. What Melia actually writes is Russia was not just another country, it was the world's "first workers state" and history's "first socialist society"
• source five, Routledge encyclopedia of international political economy source rejected, Given your record, I suspect that you are quoting a snippet, out of context, and distorting the meaning.
• source six, Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914-1921 source rejected, THE SOURCE DOES NOT CLAIM THAT THE SOVIET UNION WAS THE FIRST SOCIALIST SOCIETY. IT STATES THAT SOVIET HISTORIANS HELD THIS VIEW.
• source seven, Contemporary World History, 2009 source rejected, Knock it off right now Darkstar. Your new source doesn't prove anything, it once again fails to note pre-Soviet socialist societies that you are refusing to acknowledge, you have just cherry-picked a source to support your view, everyone knows that you have an anti-socialist agenda here Darkstar1st (talk) 13:33, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I did not put the material back in and even though I disagreed with the user, I listened to the user and opened a discussion with that user on the topic. You on the other hand have not listened to any users on the talk page. You have refused to accept consensus that unanimously rejected your stance, not one single user agreed with you, but you keep pushing the issue, even here - that is a blatant violation of Misplaced Pages policy regarding failure or refusal to get the point, that I, TFD, Orange Mike, and RolandR all agree here about what you have done. You have cherry-picked sources to promote your view while having little to no understanding about the source - what it was about, what the context is, and who is saying what you have noted, etc. and multiple users have criticized you for that. But you neither listen nor care about the unanimous rejection of your proposal, nor multiple users' requests for you to cease pushing the issue; instead you keep pushing it. This kind of behaviour has gone on too long to be tolerated any further, and that is why I as well as TFD, RolandR, and Orange Mike are supporting topic bans on you.--R-41 (talk) 16:41, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

the point i was trying to make is i made a proposal on the talk page for a few words to be included in a subsection, you made a massive rewrite of the article lede without discussion, even tho you have been warned before not to do so. Darkstar1st (talk) 19:23, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The difference here is that, both here and elsewhere (Talk:Socialism/Archive 13#Original research, Talk:Socialism#would Bernd Hüppauf be considered a RS here?, Talk:Nazism#Rationing and shortages and many more) you have engaged other editors in exactly the same tedious time-wasting debates about misreading of sources, the origins of socialism and fascism, and other issues; that you consistently fail to hear what others are saying; that you repeatedly refuse to accept a consensus (even wheen you are the only editor in disagreement); that you will not drop an issue, but belabour it long after others have grown weary of explaining the same things to you time after time. You have exhausted other editors' patience and goodwill; R-41 has not. Your behaviour causes so many other editors to waste so much time, energy and emotion preventing you turning articles into a poorly-sourced POV nightmare thsat it is way past time that you were sent packing, enabling the rest of us to edit, and even when necessary to disagree, in a collaborative fashion. You are a drain on this project, and a net liability. RolandR (talk) 19:43, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

actually the main difference is one of us attempts to win consensus in talk before making an edit, which once it became clear no amount of sources would satisfy, i never made edit. Darkstar1st (talk) 23:54, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I already told you that I began a discussion with the user to resolve his disagreements, the issue of my edit is moot because it has been resolved, your long-term disruptive editing behaviour involving violation of policy at WP:ICAN'THEARYOU on Talk:Socialism and multiple articles is what is at hand here, and it has been recognized by multiple users here as a problem.--R-41 (talk) 00:37, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

i heard you several times, however since you have not read many/all of the sources to which you object, i did not feel it quite time to close the thread. you are also a socialist according to your home page, which perhaps explains your sensitivity to this topic, i truly am sorry for any discomfort my proposal caused you. Darkstar1st (talk) 01:03, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Given Darkstar1st's obvious refusal to accept consensus and stubborn WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, I'd support a topic ban on Socialism articles (broadly construed). — The Hand That Feeds You: 13:49, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

actually i have accepted consensus and agreed not to pursue the proposal further, see above. please note no edit was ever made, rather a collection of RS presented on the talk page when editors objected to the previous sources. Darkstar1st (talk) 15:42, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I said nothing about any edits, so bringing it up is odd. I only speak of your tendentious and persistent inability to accept consensus. And I see nothing in this discussion to believe you will stop doing so in related matters. — The Hand That Feeds You: 18:32, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

the incident here is concerning wp:disrupt, according to the complainant. wp:disrupt does specify the term edit. each source should be given examination according to wp:weight. it was my sincere belief with the right source the edit could be made. perhaps an easier path would simply add what the sources did say, since so many think i have taken the words out of context. or maybe the topic simply isnt relevant as one editor suggests. i still feel it would serve the article by identifying the 1st socialist state however i understand it is the consensus to not include such and see no reason to continue. Darkstar1st (talk) 18:46, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

You are attempting Wikilawyering, particularly examples 2, 3, and 4 shown in the intro of Misplaced Pages:Wikilawyering. It says that technicalities cannot be used to justify actions that violate the spirit and underlying principles of Misplaced Pages. Regardless, your claim of making a distinction between "editing" of articles as being distinct from that on talk pages is inaccurate, Help:Editing includes a section on "Talk (discussion) pages". The intentions of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT are clear, that failing or refusing to accept consensus is a serious breach of Misplaced Pages policy. You have repeatedly ignored consensus when it has rejected your assertions.--R-41 (talk) 23:11, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

i wish i could be more clear, i am sorry for the distress i caused you, i will not pursue the proposal further, i have no intention of editing the article or talk page in the future. Darkstar1st (talk) 23:35, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

You shouting in bold and offering promises that you will not do it again are not convincing to me and appears to not be convincing to HandThatFeeds, you have ignored all complaints by multiple other users about your failure to accept consensus on multiple articles in the past. It is not a matter of distress by me, that is trivial and I am not distressed; nor is it a matter of the proposal alone; it is a matter of long-term disruptive behaviour by you on Misplaced Pages. I and other users are seeking a resolution to this long-term problem of you refusing to accept consensus on multiple articles. Hours ago you attempted to say that "editing" doesn't include talk pages in order to avoid responsibility of violation of WP:DISRUPT on a technicality, I showed that the technicality was false. Now you are attempting to bargain by offering promises in order to avoid topic bans that I and several other users here all agree are necessary. If you had listened to the advice by TFD, me and others in TFD's report that explicitly warned you about your behaviour and gave you one last chance to desist in such behaviour, then circumstances would have been different now, but you did not listen and continued your disruptive behaviour. The fact is that the patience of multiple users with your conduct has expired, I, TFD, OrangeMike, RolandR, and HandThatFeeds all agree that topic bans should be applied, along with the administrator Postdlf saying he may endorse a topic ban. HandThatFeeds said to you "I see nothing in this discussion to believe you will stop doing so in related matters", I agree with HandThatFeeds' conclusion.--R-41 (talk) 02:11, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm feeling like this should perhaps just be closed now, and I'm not 100% convinced a topic ban is necessary at this point (though I can't say I'm actively opposed to one either). He says he'll drop it, and that promise in the context of this ANI (in which everyone commenting has agreed there is a problem) should be considered a serious one, with serious consequences if he breaks it. If he does break it, or continues the same kind of tendentious and poor editing at other articles on the same subjects, just come back to ANI and I think a topic ban then might be imposed in short order.

I'd also recommend to Darkstar that he look into a WP:MENTOR, because as I've said above, his demonstrated ability to interpret and use sources (and relevant WP policy) seems lacking. postdlf (talk) 02:45, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

You need to look at TFD's report and look at the multiple incidents TFD has noted where Darkstar1st has violated WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. It shows that multiple users been over this with Darkstar1st over and over again. I was the most liberal of them in that report, I gave him advice on how to improve his understanding of socialism amongst other advice, but he didn't listen to anyone and he hasn't changed his behaviour. Neither I nor HandThatFeeds trust his promises. There are limits to patience and trust given behaviour. Also, look at how he is approaching this: hours ago he attempted to use a technicality to avoid responsibility for violation of WP:DISRUPT, saying that talk pages don't count for "editing". It is my belief that he is tactically bargaining while having no real intention to change his behaviour. Accepting his promises will cause this whole thing to have to be restarted all over again, plus multiple users here believe that topic bans are necessary - me, TFD, OrangeMike, RolandR, and HandThatFeeds.--R-41 (talk) 02:53, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support topic ban I just had a look at Darkstar1st's edits. It's pretty clear that he has wasted much time and effort being tendentious, and will likely be so in the future. I support a broad topic ban to prevent further disruption. FurrySings (talk) 03:27, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

no i will likely not be so in the future. one of the Misplaced Pages articles i created is considered high-importance, i plan to spend my time creating new articles of equal importance and leave the well established topics to the editors above. Darkstar1st (talk) 05:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

In that case, why are you so opposed to a topic ban? You say you have no intention of again editing articles relating to socialism or nazism. Some of us, who have requested a topic ban, doubt your ability to self-police this undertaking, and are requesting a topic ban in order to formalise a situation which you say that you respect. Opposing a topic ban suggests to me that you still intend to edit relevant articles or talk pages.RolandR (talk) 13:39, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

i will not edit the socialism or nazism articles or talk pages, my sincerest apologies for the harm my actions have caused you and others. Darkstar1st (talk) 02:37, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

If you say you won't edit them and you say that you recognize the harm of your actions, then why not take both responsibility for your actions that have exhausted patience and trust by other users, by accepting the topic bans as a form of insurance that will guarantee that you will not be able to edit them? Promises with no enforcement risk violation. So if you accept the harm of your action, you should accept the responsibility of having exhausted the patience of multiple users, and accept the topic bans on political topics, as RolandR has proposed, as insurance to guarantee your compliance.--R-41 (talk) 04:49, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

you have been reverted twice this week for editing the lede of the very article we are discussing as your edit violated wp:weight . normally editors discuss major changes to established articles before. i sincerely thought the edit i proposed for a minor section would not be opposed. each time there was an objection to the source i presented, i found a different source thinking it would clarify the previous. now i am convinced no amount of sources making the claim would suffice, wp:weight seemingly not the deciding factor. i accept the article will never include my proposed edit, ussr was the 1st socialist state. who was the first socialist state, and why is it absent from the article on socialism? Darkstar1st (talk) 11:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

(outdent) This is ANI, not the socialism-hair-splitting page. Whether any state has ever really been socialist, and if so, which one was first, is not something anyone reasonably expected to see discussed in earnest here, much less resolved. No-one is obliged to answer your riddles. AlexTiefling (talk) 11:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

To: Darkstar1st: Now you have jumped back from offering apologies to denouncing me and all the users at that talk page, who you just apologized to, indicating that we are "conspiring" against you because you "now i am convinced no amount of sources making the claim would suffice, wp:weight seemingly not the deciding factor". Wow, what a reversal in your attitude towards the other users on that talk page that earlier offered your "sincerest apologies", in only a matter of hours. And all because of a comment I said that simply asked you to accept a topic ban to provide insurance to your statement that said: "i will not edit the socialism or nazism articles or talk pages".--R-41 (talk) 02:39, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

ok, i take back my apology and everything i have ever written you have read and every thought you think i thought: "I am familiar with your editing history, you are determined to present socialism as associated with Marxism-Leninism and fascism. I read exactly what you intended to say" ,. we will never cross paths again on ANY article of any subject, live long and prosper. Darkstar1st (talk) 03:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

That is a gross overreaction, but interesting to note that you are saying that you have taken back your "sincerest apologies" a day or so after you gave them. Yes, I do not trust your behaviour given your long-term editing history on those topics, I have strongly disagreed with other users but have trusted their behaviour. But don't make this personal, plus you are not in a position to complain about aggravated about this situation you are in, multiple users are extremely aggravated about this situation, their patience has expired with your tendentious editing behaviour, and they do not trust your behaviour given your repeated violations of policy on WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT.--R-41 (talk) 17:10, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

perhaps, but it would be better for us to simply not interact. you have made several claims about my beliefs, none of which i agree. you are a socialist according to your own page and think i am anti-socialist which i disagree with as well. it is impossible for us to interact with this gulf, therefore i choose to not edit articles you edit. so long, no hard feelings. Darkstar1st (talk) 17:21, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Stop trivializing this as being personal. Multiple users here have called for topic bans on you for your disruptive behaviour.--R-41 (talk) 17:24, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

nothing personal, we just shouldn't interact. you believe something about me which i do not, therefore we are at an impasse. since you are a socialist, and care about this topic perhaps more than others, i now choose to avoid it so i may avoid you. i assume you have no interest in the other topics i edit and will be fine working on those, or i may quit entirely. after almost a decade here i am beginning to lose my zeal for the project. Darkstar1st (talk) 17:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

If you are willing to work on other topics than political topics, and claim that you will avoid such topics given the situation that your violation of WP:IDIDN'THEATTHAT has created, then why not accept the topic bans on political topics as a form of insurance to guarantee your compliance?--R-41 (talk) 03:52, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I worry for the future of articles like Nazism. Perhaps you missed this edit, or maybe not? the nazistic overtaking...the first real nazist... the source listed refers to articles in the German language wikipedia. Darkstar1st (talk) 10:03, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal

This is going round in circles, like every other discussion involving Darkstar. In the discussion above, six editors (myself, R-41, TFD, Orange Mike, The Hand That Feeds You and FurrySings) have all expressed support for some sort of topic ban. I therefore formally propose an indefinite topic ban for Darkstar1st on all articles and talk pages on political subjects, to include ideologies and individuals as well as parties RolandR (talk) 22:47, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support as explained above. RolandR (talk)
• Support as explained above.--R-41 (talk) 23:10, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support as explained above. TFD (talk) 23:23, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm familiar with Darkstar, and they are a unique editor and have some uncompleted edges, but I've seen their edits to be sound and well sourced. I have given the situation only quick read-through and it appears that the edit that they were trying to make is very well sourced (that the assertion the USSR was the first socialist state exists, not necessarily that it is determined) and actually required by the weight aspects of wp:npov. I saw some pretty wild looking arguments contrary to their proposed edits. One was that, contrary to what the sources said, that the USSR Union of Soviet and Socialist Republics was not socialist, another that prior situations were Socialist even if the sources did not call them such, but that the sources "meant' to say that they were. Those are wrong on two levels....editor debating the source, and then editing against sourcing/wp:npov. If Darkstar has any "offense" it appears that it was that they caved to the tyranny of the majority in that particular venue, not that they didn't cave quickly enough. North8000 (talk) 11:54, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • If you believe that accepting a consensus decision means accepting a "tyranny of the majority", maybe you should discuss your theory with those who founded Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages is founded upon seeking consensus. Darkstar1st violated policy at WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. You are defending his motives while ignoring the manner in which he acted.--R-41 (talk) 02:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

There are many flaws in what you just said, but I'll go to the main point. In this case by "tyranny of the majority" I meant folks in a particular venue "voting" to override policy. North8000 (talk) 16:50, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Straw polls here on ANI are regularly used. They are not binding to enforce any action here, but they do show administrators what users want to be done. The administrator can look at these, evaluate their validity, and then take discretion on what to do.--R-41 (talk) 23:30, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment Also, on process grounds, ANI is not the proper venue for discussing such an immense wide-ranging whack against someone. Due to it's orientation for individual incidents, it has neither the structure and timetable for proper review and as a result not the participation (in any one thread....usually just the original combatants plus or or two people that run across it at ANI and chime in) for proper review of such a weighty wide-ranging proposal. North8000 (talk) 12:17, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. His content may even be accurate (in that it is a theory widespread enough that it deserves mention). --Nouniquenames 16:59, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • (Removed comment as per request by user, I questioned if the user had two accounts based on similarity of three colours used for each word in their user name that both had no spaces, I have no reason to assume any closely similar editing behaviour, so I am removing it.)--R-41 (talk) 02:01, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
    • Surely you know where SPI is. If you don't want to make an accusation, I'd request you strike the question. --Nouniquenames 05:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
      • I will assume that you are telling the truth and remove it, but given the close similarity of the user name templates, the question was reasonable.--R-41 (talk) 14:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support at least until we get a clear undertaking that the behaviour will cease. S/he goes on, and on, and on, and on .... ----Snowded 05:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support: There are two types of editors taken to task at ANI: (1) "I'm very sorry; I was wrong, and I won't do it again." (2) "Here's why I'm right ..." (several hundred words later, and repeated over a dozen or two posts), followed by "Okay, okay, I'll stop, you meanies." How very many times have we seen that #2's contrition is forced, unwilling, temporary and abandoned the moment the coast is clear? No. This matter is not moot. The easiest way to ensure that this editor stays away from such topics is to declare that he is to stay away from such topics. Ravenswing 06:10, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support. As an editor who gave up editing articles Darkstar was involved with on account of his editing behaviour as exemplified above, I would support a topic ban to prevent other editors from going through that experience. Kudos to TDF and others for putting up with it for so long, and for keeping a calm head and staying rational in their interaction with this editor. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:33, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
• Comment - Tendentious left-right fisticuffs at such venues as Talk:Socialism and Talk:Nazism abound. All parties need to knock it the hell off, and that includes editors from both the left and the right. Misplaced Pages is not a political blog. It is not a venue to declare black white and up down and to enforce that with 5 to 1 votes or whatever. It is not a place for trolling. Get busy writing articles and stop "debating" on big topics, all of you — that's my opinion. Carrite (talk) 21:32, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • This is to do with a user repeatedly violating WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. Violations of WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT by Darkstar1st have been identified on several articles for many months, in a RfC/U initiated by the user TFD.--R-41 (talk) 23:30, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support because of his long term behavior during his long running disputes, and the responses that he gave here. FurrySings (talk) 08:09, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. He's apologised and said that he isn't going to do it again. That's enough for me.  Tigerboy1966  22:23, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Other users don't trust his apologies given his behaviour, such as the users Ravenswing and FurrySings here. Plus Darkstar1st keeps changing what he is saying, yes he claimed to apologize, but then later he accused all the users of refusing to hear him out, which is not true. His stances were criticized. I strongly suggest you look at the links to the discussion and the user TFD's RfC/U that are linked in the intro of this. TFD has been following Darkstar1st's editing behaviour longer than I have and has identified repeated examples of Darkstar1st violating WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT.--R-41 (talk) 03:53, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Topic bans are not the proper means to remove an editor who is acting properly in a content dispute. The principle is to work towards consensus, not "declare a consensus first and remove those who disagree". Collect (talk) 00:02, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • This is not a content dispute, nor is this about removing an editor. This is a dispute about editing behaviour, he has repeatedly violated WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT on several articles, even after being informed in the RfC/U that he was violating it. The proposal is the application of topic bans on political topics, removal is not the proposal here, the user can continue to edit non-political topics. Other users agree that this is a dispute over disruptive behaviour, such as User:SMcCandlish who has commented below in another section.--R-41 (talk) 03:53, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. In this particular example, this user simply took part in a very long discussion at article talk page. I saw much longer discussions on other similar pages, and no one was reported. Are we going to report all such participants? I do not mind, but this is hardly consistent with policies. Now, speaking about the essence of the content dispute, every Soviet textbook claimed USSR to be the first socialist ("first stage of communism") state after Paris Commune which was first socialist government, not counting "primitive communism" societies. My very best wishes (talk) 02:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • No, this is not a content dispute here. This is about editing behaviour. Darkstar1st violated policy at WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT, he kept pushing the topic after it had been unanimously rejected.--R-41 (talk) 04:02, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose as per the above - the area is populated by extremely opinionated users all round. Youreallycan 02:37, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Cynicism about users being opinionated does not justify ignoring clear and repeated examples of WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT by Darkstar1st that have been noted by multiple users, and the multiple violations have been noted in the RfC/U filed by the user TFD, who is known to me to not be a highly opinionated user, but a user who seeks to follow Misplaced Pages principles to the letter. You should speak with TFD about Darkstar1st's behaviour, as TFD has been monitoring it longer.--R-41 (talk) 18:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose I consider that a topic ban is not the way out yet. I understand that, from what I've read, it seems to be the easiest solution; I find it a bit egoist. Maybe a formal case at ArbCom if DRN hasn't been proven yet would be a better path. — ΛΧΣ 03:17, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Moot

I commented at the RFC/U and didn't know it was duplicated here. It appears that their insertion was a well sourced minority viewpoint and a valid insertion per wp:npov even if more folks there preferred or felt that it not be in. There is a provision in the quoted-in-the-complaint guideline (which at the opening above was mis-identified as policy) which identifies and protects this. Either way since Darkstar has doubly given in on this wp;anI appears to be a moot point. RFC/U would be the only proper (and properly thorough) venue to pursue things outside of this now moot/resolved incident. Sincerley, North8000 (talk) 23:40, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

This proposal is not a response to one content dispute; it is a response to persistent tendentious editing, over several months and several articles. RolandR (talk) 00:36, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

There's an open RFC/U for that. North8000 (talk) 01:48, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with RolandR. I said in the proposal that this is part of a long-term problem and I proposed topic bans for several topics to avoid future problems altogether. Darkstar1st ignored the basic request of the RFC/U report started by TFD, that called for Darkstar1st to accept consensus even when it disagrees with his stance, a call for him to adhere to the policy on WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT, but Darkstar1st failed to adhere to WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT after being informed by TFD and others of his need to do so. Darkstar1st attempted here to avoid responsibility for WP:DISRUPT on a technicality on what constitutes "editing", that was false premise. Then Darkstar1st has begun bargaining by offering promises. Multiple users here, including myself, believe that there is little reason to trust Darkstar1st's promises given the repeated nature of the disruptive behaviour of ignoring consensus in spite of being warned by multiple users not to do this.--R-41 (talk) 05:14, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

it is not moot because the RfC/U is on going and this is not a content dispute. TFD (talk) 05:44, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

This ANI, within its proper scope, IS about assertions of behavior in a content dispute. The RFC/U is the proper & suitable place for the wide-ranging things people are bringing up here. North8000 (talk) 13:17, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

No, it's not. It's about tendentious editing, it's about refusal to accept consensus, it's about failure to hear the argument and repeating the same point ad nauseam, it's about one editor who, for more than a year, over several articles and talk pages, has wasted the time and exhausted the patience and good faith of very many other editors, who want to put a stop to this. RolandR (talk) 13:43, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

My point / opinion is that ANI is unsuitable for such a wide-ranging agenda with such wide-ranging actions being sought. And that RFC/U IS suitable for such North8000 (talk) 16:43, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

This does not have a "wide-ranging agenda" or "wide-ranging actions". Topic bans have been proposed for political topics in response to this user's repeated violations of WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. Darkstar1st ignored all the material in the RFC/U by the user TFD who filed the report, that informed him that his ignoring consensus was a violation of WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT, after he responded to the RFC/U he proceeded doing exactly the same behaviour on Talk:Socialism.--R-41 (talk) 18:21, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, RolandR, you seem to be completely mistaken about what this AN/I is about. It isn't about whether Darkstar1st has sources that might squeak though WP:RS, or is bringing up a minority but non-fringe viewpoint that needs to be addressed. This is about disruptive user behavior. Darkstar1st could have 5x that many sources but that wouldn't make the behavior acceptable. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 21:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I think you meant to refer to the user North8000, RolandR agrees that this AN/I is about Darkstar1st's disruptive behaviour.--R-41 (talk) 21:27, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

RFC user not closed

• - Please note the RFC user has now been closed Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Darkstar1st - Youreallycan 08:02, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

And I have reverted YRC's closure, since it did not meet any of the criteria for closure specified in Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct/Closing RolandR (talk) 12:46, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Please note , I closed the RFC user after a requestfrom one of the certifiers at WP:AN - see here .. Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#RfC - Youreallycan 15:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

From "sincerest apologies" to serious accusations

Earlier Darkstar1st recognized that his edits caused harm and offered his "sincerest apologies" and promised not to edit the articles socialism and Nazism, specifically saying:

"i will not edit the socialism or nazism articles or talk pages, my sincerest apologies for the harm my actions have caused you and others"

Then when asked by RolandR and then me that if he accepted responsibility for what he did and the loss of patience amongst users caused by his actions, why would he not then accept topic bans as a form of insurance to guarantee that he would not do so. Then his response completely reversed from offering apologies to insinuating serious accusations. He has just said:

"now i am convinced no amount of sources making the claim would suffice, wp:weight seemingly not the deciding factor. i accept the article will never include my proposed edit, ussr was the 1st socialist state. who was the first socialist state, and why is it absent from the article on socialism? Darkstar1st (talk) 11:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)"

He is in other words accusing all users involved there of deliberately rejecting his proposal out of a refusal to hear him out, rather than out of criticism of what he proposed. He is also inaccurate when he says here that his proposal was to say that the USSR was the first socialist state, his proposal specifically said the first "socialist society". His proposal was unanimously rejected and his use of the sources he chose was criticized by multiple users.

He has gone from offering apologies to launching accusations against all the users in that discussion who had unanimously rejected his proposal. Should the users involved in the discussion be informed of this serious accusation by Darkstar1st and asked to respond?--R-41 (talk) 02:37, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I read it as "even though it should be in there, I am giving up the effort". But the most folks here can just read it for themselves rather than you are or me telling them what "it says". North8000 (talk) 20:04, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

If what you said is true that he believes "even though it should be in there, I am giving up the effort", that does not demonstrate any respect for policy at WP:CONSENSUS or WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT at all, only an angry and reluctant tactical abandonment to attempt to avoid the imposition of topic bans that many users here believe are necessary. This is what User:Ravenswing above has stated, that this kind of response by Darkstar1st is common of users who have been caught violating policy who are only reluctantly claiming to abandon their ways, but then when they believe the coast is clear, the disruptive behaviour returns. Other users above have similarly said they do not trust his promises, given his long-term behaviour and his behaviour even on this noticeboard. He is clearly saying that people refused to hear him out, while neglecting to note that his usage of sources was criticized and he expired the patience of users by keeping pushing for inclusion of the material in spite of their criticisms, and opening up section after section to push it, in spite of unanimous rejection of his proposal by other users, a blatant violation of WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. That policy specifically says: "Believing that you have a valid point does not confer upon you the right to act as though your point must be accepted by the community when you have been told that it is not accepted."--R-41 (talk) 21:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

R-41, look from my view, who would want to edit articles with this amount of resistance to ones proposals in talk? i really do plan to stay as far away from this type of situation/topic/article/etc as possible. Darkstar1st (talk) 21:46, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I am particularly concerned by Saddhiyama's comment above, that s/he gave up editing articles Darkstar was involved with as a result of his behaviour. That alone is sufficient to keep him away from sensitive articles. RolandR (talk) 22:56, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

To Darkstar1st: As RolandR has said, your behaviour has aggravated users like User:Saddhiyama to not even want to edit political articles where you have activity on them. You have repeatedly expired many users' patience on multiple occasions, and that is bad for the Misplaced Pages Project. Now if you really are planning to stay away from such political topics, then accept the proposed topic bans on political topics to provide insurance to concerned users here, that will guarantee compliance and the situation will be resolved. You could still edit non-political topic articles.--R-41 (talk) 04:12, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

If I have any quests in Misplaced Pages, one of the is against mis-using the system to conduct gang warfare against an editor who the gang disagrees with. And that is what I see here, including much spin in the comments. I'm familiar with Darkstar from both when we agreed and disagreed. Their style is brief (possibly overly brief) discussions and edit summaries that often need a translator (vs. engaging deeply in more detailed conversations). Their edits are very intelligent and Wikipedian/source-based. For better or worse, they usually don't "cave" to the tyranny of the majority (e.g especially in any small kangaroo court venue) especially when they have policy on their side. I think that they caved too quickly on an insertion that many sources consider the USSR was the first socialist state. If the anti-Darkstar folks persist further, I think that it is time to reopen that question to a new debate on the underlying question with broader participation. North8000 (talk) 22:22, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

As I said earlier, On the RfC/U I was firm, but I offered Darkstar1st helpful advice on how to improve his understanding of the topics, and to behave more constructively. He ignored the advice and continued his disruptive behaviour. The most spin that I have heard here is coming from Darkstar1st who keeps changing the nature of his response from apologetic and concessionary to accusative. Also he has refused to give any answer to I and RolandR's question that if he does not intend to edit those topics, then why doesn't he accept the topic bans for insurance that he will not edit those topics? He refuses to answer the question, dodges it every time it has been asked and changes the subject. Calling people like me "anti-Darkstar" and that we "anti-Darkstar" people have conspired using "gang warfare" to create a "kangaroo court" governed by a "tyranny of the majority" are extreme examples of bias and spin, attempting to de-legitimize and belittle the long-term problems being addressed hereby portraying all the people supporting the topic bans as corrupt gangster-like thugs. As for "anti-Darkstar" "gang warfare" - I hardly know many of the users who have supported topic bans on Darkstar1st beyond first meeting most of them right here in the past few days, I have strong disagreements with TFD on topics, but both me and TFD agree topic bans are needed here.--R-41 (talk) 23:21, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Clarifying the intent of one dramatic term that I used, by "Kangaroo court" I really meant that the discussion there (and the group that moved here) it is a small isolated venue. The other terms I meant exactly as they sounded., North8000 (talk) 23:44, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• There is nothing to action here - and no community support for any topic ban - the report should be closed - keeping lengthy reports open at high profile noticeboards is undue and attacking in itself - this thread is over ripe to be closed.Youreallycan 23:29, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • "no community support for any topic ban" ??? There are many users calling for a topic ban as can be seen above. Just a day ago, most users in the proposal for topic bans were in favour, now a few more people have arrived who are opposed, this is far from moot. I do agree that this has gone on long enough and that an administrator needs to arrive to make a decision.--R-41 (talk) 23:36, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Either way this venue/format is not suitable for a discussion on such massive actions. North8000 (talk) 23:39, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• • • (edit conflict) - As you can see - there is little to no independent community support for a topic ban, and there are oppose comment, nowhere near any kind of consensus - even the RFC user has failed to attract interest and there is no current ongoing editing disruption back off from the dead donkey and allow this report to archive, its been open for over a week now. Youreallycan 23:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
      • Seriously, what are you talking about? Look at the number of users who believe that a topic ban is needed. You say you want "this report to archive" - why are you so adamant for no action at all - not even minimal action - to be taken? Because it ticks you off that it has gone on for a while? The policy that I have referred to of violation of WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT is valid, and multiple users here agree. An administrator needs to arrive to make a decision.--R-41 (talk) 23:49, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
        • (edit conflict) -There is no current ongoing editing disruption to the project apart perhaps for this report which Dreadstar is not responsible for. R-41 if you were at an RFA and were questioning anyone that opposed you would already have been warned about badgering. When there are issues and the community clearly speaks an admins shows up rapid to deal with it and close, when there is not a big issue they allow a bit of discussion and close when able, personally imo this has been allowed to develop long enough. - After over a week you have seven supports and seven opposes, its clearly no consensus please close. Youreallycan 23:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
          • • You are talking to me as if this is just some vain project of mine with no support. Have you spoken to TFD who has recorded Darkstar1st's repeated examples of disruptive behaviour on several articles and has written a report on it that I mentioned in the intro? P.S. I want an administrator to review this before it is closed, that is my position.--R-41 (talk) 00:05, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
              • If it wasn't for your posts to this thread it would have automatically archived, like yesterday - try it, back away. Youreallycan 00:08, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
                • First: Why are you threatening me by telling me to "back away"? Second: Why are you ignoring posts by others like RolandR and multiple others that occurred in the last two days?--R-41 (talk) 00:10, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
                  • Threating you? Yawn - Threads here archive after twenty four hours of inactivity, you are the only supporter of the topic ban that has commented in that period .. as for the previous comment .... You can't 'demand' admins comment about anything, in general they comment when needed. - Youreallycan 00:13, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
                    • I am going to ask the user TFD, who is very familiar with Misplaced Pages policy, to see if your contentions are correct.--R-41 (talk) 00:18, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
                    • Just upon checking TFD's board, he already answered that to a previous query I had. Users can request an administrator to close a thread, which is what I will do.--R-41 (talk) 00:22, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
                      • Cool - Yes, please do. Youreallycan 00:26, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
                        • Remember that what you consider "no support", is 7 people agreeing to topic bans and 7 people not agreeing to topic bans. A dead tie, that an administrator can decide on and close this thread. Given the amount of time it has taken here, I wouldn't be surprised if an administrator would reject it because all the discussion has stretched out what a straightforward request this was.--R-41 (talk) 00:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
                          • I have actually counted eleven editors who have explicitly supported a topic ban, either on this page or in the RfC: RolandR, R-41, TFD, Orange Mike, The Hand That Feeds You, FurrySings, Snowded, Ravenswing, Saddhiyama, Dave Dial, SMcCandish. And I agree with R-41's request that an admin looks at this, and the related RfC, and decides how to close it. RolandR (talk) 02:27, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Requesting administrator to review and close the AN/I thread

As per above in text, the request has been made here: .--R-41 (talk) 00:25, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Multiple Civility Issues relating to RFC on Article Talk page- Unsure How to Approach

I'm not notifying anyone at this time because I'm not sure whether this is an issue where Admins should get involved and I have no idea who I could talk to in order to determine whether or not they should short of coming here. I was hoping this problem would remain an "irritation" to me rather than something that I felt necessitated intervention, but...well, here we are.

I recently opened an RFC at an article's Talk page and I feel that multiple users have engaged in personal attacks rather than focusing on the merits (or perceived lack thereof) of arguments being made. If I wasn't an involved editor and frequent target (i.e. if other editors were being targeted) it's the kind of thing where I hope I'd likely warn the editors to knock it off, but under the circumstances I suspect that would only aggravate the problem.

I'm well-aware of the requirement to notify users if they're the topic of a discussion, but I don't know how that would be handled in this case; i.e. whether it's sufficient to leave some sort of notice at the Talk page of the RFC or whether it's necessary to notify each user individually (and at this point there are a significant number). Ideally I'd like to just have admins look over the discussion and take whatever actions they deem necessary...even if that's telling me that I'm out of bounds and should drop the matter.

In other words, I guess I'm basically asking whether it's prudent to provide more information, notify users in whatever manner you would recommend doing so and get this hopefully taken care of, or whether this is a case where I should just try to keep the high ground and hope it blows over.

Thank you very much for your time, advice, and assistance. Doniago (talk) 18:36, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

• Talk:Synchronous motor#Proposal B, if anyone is wondering what this is about William M. Connolley (talk) 18:46, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
• Quite the cesspool attacking an editor who actually believes that "verifiability" stuff. I've removed some of the more egregious personal attacks. NE Ent 03:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I've restored them. It's time to take the encyclopedia back from clueless editors who hide behind tags and simplistic dogma, and "civil" editors who stifle any debate of this. This is an encylopedia and it is built of content. If you're not contributing to that content, you're not building it. If you're destroying that content, you're destroying the encyclopedia. Andy Dingley (talk) 03:44, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
    • And yes, clueless. The root of this specific instance here is that Doniago is self-confessedly ignorant of anything to do with the article subject, sees no reason to do a modicum of basic research before commencing, yet sees neither of these as any brake on his blanking of the article. Andy Dingley (talk) 03:45, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
      • There is no problem at Synchronous motor (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (apart from the fact that some minor work by editors who understand the topic would be desirable). There was some confusion on the talk page where some editors gave the standard commentary that would be applied to a WP:FRINGE or WP:BLP issue (namely, contentious material must be removed until it satisfies WP:DUE and WP:RS)—however those comments are not applicable to the article in question where everyone agrees the text in the article is fine (although a little essay-like in some parts). Johnuniq (talk) 03:58, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
• Your error is threefold:
  1. Assuming that you have the high ground in the first place. You do not.
  2. Not following verifiability procedure. The correct procedure, that was in our verifiability and deletion policies in the same step-by-step fashion for some years can be found at User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage#What to do. What you did, on the other hand, was laziness.
  3. Making the usual "People are telling me that I'm doing things wrong, so they must be personally attacking me." leap. The only thing that has come close to personal attacks has been someone foolishly throwing around the "dirty -istas" epithets, which have never improved a discussion, which I have been explaining for some years as having no basis in either history or analysis, but which you'll find almost no-one here will treat as personal attacks (because that would involve uprooting quite a lot of entrenched nonsense that people want to hang on to, because they don't realize that they were jokes, such as m:deletionism and m:inclusionism).
• You removed content that said that a motor comprised a rotor, stator, stator housing, and slip ring for being "without sources". Content is removed for being unverifiable. That's not the same as not having little superscripted numbers. As User:Uncle G/On sources and content#The requirement is only that the sources be cited somehow explains, verifiability is the ability for readers to check Misplaced Pages content for accuracy. It's in the name. The correct approach to verifiability, and improving verifiability, is to attempt that check, and make the check possible for others if one's own attempt fails. If it turns out that one cannot make that possible, then is the point that one deduces unverifiability.

  Moreover, inability to make it possible here does not include mere inability to understand the subject on your own part. In any case: Knowing that motors have rotors, stators, housings, rings, and other parts is something that a ten-year-old with a build-your-own kit knows. Even I know it. It's outright stupid and destructive to remove such information from an article for supposedly being unverifiable. As was pointed out, there's scant difference in action and in effect between such an edit and the edits of section-blanking vandals.

  And it's lazy to then say that it's Somebody Else's Problem to deal with fixing the damage and not lift a finger yourself. Remember: When you say that "nobody cares to do the work" you are including yourself. If everyone around you is lazy and not working on improving the article, as is so often asserted by people in your position, then so are you. It's also seen as arrogant, because others perceive it as your setting the agenda for them, demanding that they work to it, without doing any share of the work yourself, and threatening that you will kick over the sandcastles if your demands that other people do work that you should be doing yourself are not met by your arbitrary deadlines. You are not apart from the other people whom you decry and demand should be working for you.

  This is why a lot of people are telling you that you are not putting verifiability and editing policy into practice, that your approach to editing is destructive, entirely uncollaborative, to the detriment of articles, and borderline indistinguishable from the section-blanking vandals in its practice. But since one person leapt to the "dirty -istas" epithets, you're ignoring the several editors on article talk pages and on noticeboards who have all told you how to put verifiability into practice properly, and concentrating on that one. It's the old they-told-me-I'm-wrong-so-I'm-calling-it-uncivil rubbish with an assist from one over-the-top fool. That one person used the "dirty -istas" is no excuse for ignoring the many people who have told you to pull your finger out, do what editing policy, verifiability policy, and deletion policy have always required from their very first versions — even though we mistakenly removed from policy the concrete step-by-step instructions showing how to properly go about it, leaving just the goal: an error that has caused a lot of grief since from the actions of people who couldn't figure out for themselves what steps to take — and not just sit on the sidelines doing nothing except demanding that other volunteers like you jump when you shout "frog!".

  Uncle G (talk) 10:15, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

  • *applause* Nice. Puts me in mind of this edit claiming that a source was needed to claim positrons were involved in positron emission tomography... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 12:46, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's verifiability policy is fairly clear: "All quotations and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed." NE Ent 13:03, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• They key word in that quotation is "verifiability". The content was removed for being unsourced, not unverifiable, and those are two very different things - it blatantly is verifiable. There are also riders on the second sentence, in that there is some content that does not need a source. It is plainly destructive to insist that unsourced material should be removed, even if it is blatantly accurate and can be easily sourced. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:35, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I think "fairly" clear is about as far as it goes. The policy is not absolute, it's not mandatory. It's permissive. As such, the policy necessarily assumes the exercise of sound discretion and judgment on the part of editors applying it -- both of which have been lacking in the reflexive challenges and excisions at issue here. The policy cannot mean literally for example that any fact nominally challenged by any editor, without any articulable reason, is properly removed if thereafter no citation is provided. That's a recipe for mischief. It's also important that the policy says that the challenged material "may" be removed, rather than "must" be. Automatic, unthinking removal of content purely because it lacks a citation entails no judgment and is not consistent with the premises underlying the policy even if the removal is permitted by the policy's literal terms. JohnInDC (talk) 16:02, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
• No, NE Ent, you clearly don't understand how to put policy into practice, either. Misplaced Pages is a collaborative project, and that means helping to improve articles, not sitting around claiming that the burden is on everyone else and that one's own responsibility is only to kick over the sandcastles and set arbitrary deadlines for volunteers. This is basic collaborative-writing stuff that's been in content and editing policy for a decade. Uncle G (talk) 01:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Misplaced Pages can be destroyed by being full of crap just as easily as it can be by "destroying content." Here's more from our alleged verifiability policy:

Sometimes editors will disagree on whether material is verifiable. The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a reliable source that directly supports the material. Emphasis original NE Ent 16:09, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

As far as the removed material -- rather than going on and on about how bad Donaigo is, why couldn't one of the editors actually spend 30 seconds googling a source (e.g. ) and just add it to the article? That would meet the requirements we are supposed to have and benefit the reader by providing a link to a more detailed explanation. Win-win. NE Ent 16:14, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• That question cuts both ways, and is more of the deflecting nonsense that so usual in these cases. Once again: Writing the encyclopaedia is not Somebody Else's Problem, and you are failing to ask "Why couldn't Donaigo actually spend 30 seconds googling a source and just add it to the article?". This is a collaborative project. And we're volunteers. Doniago had the itch. Xe should have scratched it, not tried to force the work onto other people. Uncle G (talk) 01:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• I am slightly troubled by the interpretation of the verifiability guidelines here. It does seem to be giving editors with general scientific/engineering knowledge carte blanche control over content on technical articles. It means they can create unsourced content that may be easily verifiable via a standard textbook, but not directly verifiable by the vast majority of potential readers. It seems to betray the central principle of Misplaced Pages: that articles should be constructed from published content, that can then be corroborated by the reader. It feels like the meaning of "verifiable" is being reduced to a game of semantics. It's reasonable for a reader to ask "Where did this information come from?" If editors cannot adequately respond to that question, either by providing a chapter or page number from a book or whatever, then a reasonable challenge has been raised to the verifiability of the content. In the case of the Synchronous motor, there should really be nothing in that article that cannot be found in a standard chapter of a standard textbook about standard synchronous motors: after all, this is an encyclopedia article giving a basic overview of the topic. Doniago is entitled to ask for a source, and someone should be able to give him a chapter or page number. That's all it takes; if there are then any claims that are not backed up by the main source, an editor should be entitled to remove those or request further citations. We are building an encylopedia, not a tutorial! Betty Logan (talk) 17:12, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • You don't understand how to put verifiability into practice as an editor, either, and your argument is self-contradictory on its face. Think! Content that is "easily verifiable via a standard textbook" is verifiable content. You just said it yourself. And reasonable challenge does not include "I haven't bothered to check anything at all or make any effort myself.". Accuracy is our goal, with verifiability as the only way to get there given that we're pseudonymous people using a fully open installation of MediaWiki as our writing tool. Verifiability is our best proxy for accuracy, and it is ludicrous to be so thoughtless in one's practice of verifiability that one makes no attempt onesself to determine whether content is accurate. Stop conflating "unsourced" with "unverifiable". If sources aren't cited but the content is "easily verifiable via a standard textbook", then the correct course of action, that was stated in policy directly in the form of how-to instructions for years before we made the mistake of taking out the steps to leave only the goal, is quite clearly not to remove the verifiable content, but to act like a collaborative editor and attempt to help make the article better still by looking for those sources and adding the missing citations. Uncle G (talk) 01:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
    • And you are missing the point that verifiability is a process, and not a standard! Something that may be easily verifiable for someone with an engineering background may not be be verifiable for someone without one, and sourcing is the means by which such content is verifiable. They are not distinct concepts! You are confusing sourcing with citing, and while something may not be cited it may well be verifiable if a source can be provided for the article. No-one is expected to go through the article providing citations for each line, but it is reasonable to request a source for the content in the article, and it is unreasonable to prevent the removal of that content if the source is not forthcoming. We have a bunch of electrical engineers arguing for the retention of the content in the dispute, so if it is easily verifiable through a textbook why don't they just give us the name and chapter of such a textbook? If you cannot provide a source for the content how can you argue that it is verifiable? Just because you know something through your own knowledge or background does not mean it is verifiable through published reliable sources, so arguing for its retention on the basis of what you know is not a valid argument for the verifiability of the content. Betty Logan (talk) 14:02, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
      • You aren't even reading what you yourself wrote, let alone what I did. Think, for pity's sake! You are the one who stated that the content is "easily verifiable via a standard textbook". It's right there, above. We don't have to argue something that you yourself stipulate. And it's downright daft to say to someone who is explaining how to put verifiability into practice that it's a process. Of course the putting of something into practice is a process. And it's a process that you don't have the first clue how to apply if you think that content that you've already stipulated to be verifiable should be removed from an article for being "unsourced". Once again, go and read the original instructions from the verifiability policy, preserved at User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage#What to do, and learn what you patently have not learned: that the correct action, in a collaboratively-written project, when sources are not cited but content is verifiable is not to kick over the sandcastles and remove the content entirely.

        This is basic content and editing policy, and always has been. It's also good sense. Indeed, it's even in the {{unreferenced}} notice. It quite clearly says "Please improve the article by adding citations of sources." not "Please just wipe out verifiable content wholesale and then sit around demanding that other people clean up the mess and damage without lifting a finger onesself.". One of the biggest of the many discussions where your error here has been pointed out time and again is Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)/Archive 83#Challenged or likely to be challenged. "y definition Misplaced Pages is done by volunteers who work irregularly, who might not even be aware of challenges. Some of the worst work on Misplaced Pages is done by people who do rules-based work on articles where they do not know, or make effort to know, the pros and cons of what they are deleting." is one of the many statements there of how the robotic, unthinking, approach that dumbly section-blanks verifiable content, is wrong.

        Uncle G (talk) 17:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

        • Amen. I could not agree more with everything you have written here. I just recently had to deal with this very issue in this discussion, facing the same attitude and same misinterpretations of WP:V and WP:BURDEN. postdlf (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
        • It would really help if you actually bothered to read what I wrote. Nowhere have I stated that this content is verifiable in a standard textbook. If I had a textbook that corroborated this content then I would cite it, and we would not be having this conversation. How do you know it is easily verifiable? Have you checked to see if it is? Are you assuming it is verifiable simply because a few engineers say it is? Betty Logan (talk) 19:43, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
          • "easily verifiable via a standard textbook" — your own words and description, right there. I told you that you aren't even reading what you yourself wrote. Uncle G (talk) 17:53, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

No...you are taking my comments out of context. What I said was "may be easily verifiable via a standard textbook", which is an important caveat: the only way you can know if it is easily verifiable by a standard textbook is if you know of such a standard textbook. Those were my words, not the selective portion you took to make it look like I was making a statement of fact about the verifiability of the content. My point was—and remains—that if you do not know of such a textbook then you have not satisified the criteria by demonstrating the claims are verifiable, and the policy demands the information is verifiable. Betty Logan (talk) 13:53, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

This whole conversation is really absurd. Look at the disruptive editing test which is codified in Wikispeak as TE - specifically This section:

Misplaced Pages policy is quite clear here: the responsibility for sourcing content rests firmly and entirely with the editor seeking to include it. This applies most especially to biographies of living individuals, where uncited or poorly cited controversial material must be removed immediately from both the article and the talk page, and by extension any related Project pages.

If your argument is called out specifically in TE, recognize the absurdity of your argument and your mistake. This discussion should be closed as WP:V prevailing with Postdlf and Uncle G being just plain wrong. Toddst1 (talk) 04:55, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break

I suppose, given how my original request for an opinion on how best to proceed has already been derailed...and frankly, I thought I tried to bring it up as mildly as possible...that it would be pointless to note that my reasons for coming here were, as stated, related to civility, not content. If one wants to discuss the content concerns, there is the active RFC.

I also suppose there are some editors who will refuse to believe me if I say at this point that the direction in which this has gone was never the direction in which I wanted any of this to go.

Thank you to the individuals who have shown an understanding, or at least an effort to try to understand, if not agree, with where I have been coming from with regards to all of this. Doniago (talk) 16:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• As you're discovering, that "civility" stuff doesn't apply to editors who swim upstream. Wish there was something I can do to fix that but realistically I can't. Sorry. NE Ent 17:02, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Nonsense. Only one person, the person who used the "dirty -istas" was even close to uncivil. Telling Doniago that xe is unequivocally and entirely wrong to make these sorts of edits is not uncivil. Our civility policy is not a suicide pact that prevents us from telling people when they are doing things wrongly and not working in a collaborative fashion to the betterment of the project. Uncle G (talk) 01:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Nor do I see where the discussion was "derailed", given that this thread was built on a false premise. Moreover, if, as is suggested, there is such a cesspool of incivility on Talk:Synchronous_motor, I'd like to see individual diffs/examples of it. I tried to read the whole thing but found nothing objectionable, excepting the RfC in the first place, a huge time and electron sink. Drmies (talk) 18:14, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
    • As multiple editors have noted, the "huge time and electron sink" likely could have been averted had any editor cared to simply provide inline cites and consequently satisfied WP:BURDEN. It appears we all prefer to discuss the principles of the matter instead, so here we are. Doniago (talk) 19:33, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
      • No, here you are, still arguing that you were right when you were wrong, both in principle and in practice. Drmies (talk) 20:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
    • This diff shows some specific content that was directed at Doniago and not towards improving the article -- "Neener neener" (in my chunk of the world, at least) is taunting and referring to another human as "it" is objectable to me at least. NE Ent 21:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Setup for suckers

Note the template which greets new editors on top of articles such as Synchronous motor

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

Notice how it says " Unsourced material may be challenged and removed."? It's just newbie baiting. NE Ent 17:02, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• I do not understand why asking for citations is baiting new members. Please could you explain.--Toddy1 (talk) 19:19, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I believe the point NE Ent is aiming for is that while the template explicitly states that unsourced material may be removed, when unsourced material is removed editors protest the removal, even if the tag was in place for well over six months and the material was moved to the Talk page rather than simply being deleted, and we end up with an RFC on the matter if the editors protesting the removal revert any attempt to uphold it. Doniago (talk) 19:24, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
• "May" means "it is permitted", not "it must happen". I'm generally sympathetic towards the argument that editors should be permitted to follow accepted interpretations of the guidelines on unreferenced material without being abused by editors pulling rank and shouting "it's obvious so do the work yourself", but this particular case almost seems contrived to contradict that (a fairly banal description of a common device, sans inline citations that could almost certainly be trivially pulled from online sources, being gutted based solely on process). No, having five guys on the talk page saying "this is obviously correct so stop whining" is not a substitute in general for actual direct citation, but it at least indicates that the article is not another Seigenthaler incident waiting to happen. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 23:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Five engineers knowing it is correct is a testament to its accuracy, not its verifiability. Many people who work in specialized fields acquire a sort of general working knowledge that may not be readily accessible in sources, since ground level principles can be sometimes pretty disparate. If something is easily verifiable it is generally not difficult to provide a source for it. Betty Logan (talk) 14:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
    • Which is why the advice to Doniago, from people who are experienced writers, is that that, rather than wholesale section blanking, was and is the right course of action, and xyr action was the wrong course of action. Uncle G (talk) 17:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
• As Thumperward said, you are mis-reading "may". It's a warning, not a direction to be slavishly followed. Uncle G (talk) 01:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • A warning? To whom, about what? A warning to the reader they shouldn't believe what they're reading? NE Ent 03:34, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
    • It's a warning, to editors, that if they add unsourced material it may be removed without further notice. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 04:28, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
      • Provided that the material is first "challenged", a requirement that can apparently be satisfied by nothing more that the observation that the material is, in fact, unsourced. JohnInDC (talk) 04:33, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
    • To be perfectly honest, right now it seems like you consider it an invitation to delete 3/4 of the content on the project. Is that what you are truly advocating? This is one of what? Two or three users on here that are actively working to prove this WP:POINT? Don't get me wrong, I disagree with this tactic and I think that once it crosses the line into disruption they should be blocked for as long as it takes to understand that it is disruptive. If the policy needs to be modified, let's do that. Until then, would someone please protect the content of the encyclopedia? - UnbelievableError (talk) 07:45, 4 January 2013 (UTC) (edited formatting) - UnbelievableError (talk) 07:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
      • That's not helping. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

In all seriousness

How's about we change that final sentence to "Unsourced content may be challenged, and unverifiable content removed"? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• In this case I would argue that that's exactly what occurred. The unsourced information was challenged when the CN template was applied back in March of 2012. WP:MINREF clearly states that tagging material is a legitimate method of challenging it. Material that was not established to be verifiable between then and December was then moved to the article's Talk page. I emphasize that because I feel some editors are trying to make a case that the information was deleted from the article as though it would be a significant difficulty to locate it afterwards, and simply put, that's not the case. Any invested editor with the resources to cite the material could easily determine what had been removed from the article, apply citations as needed and reinsert the information. Sadly, it seems that in some cases even editors who possess the resources to provide citations would rather argue about whether the removal was justified than take action to improve the article itself. Doniago (talk) 14:13, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • WP:MINREF indeed says that tagging suffices as a challenge. But as Template:Citation needed makes clear, a fact should not be tagged simply because it lacks a citation. "{{Citation needed}} (also known by the redirects {{Cn}} and {{Fact}}) is a template used to identify questionable claims in articles that lack a citation to a reliable source." (My emphasis.) I am still at a loss to understand how an editor can appropriately or meaningfully tag an article when the editor disclaims any knowledge of the subject matter at all, and, when pressed, cannot or will not identify what of the tagged material is in fact "questionable". JohnInDC (talk) 14:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
    • I believe it was made reasonably apparent that at least some of the material that was ultimately considered questionable was the material moved to the Talk page. Clearly if the material wasn't being questioned, it would not have been moved. Otherwise, material could have been deleted for lacking sources, which also would have indicated that an editor found it questionable. Of course, if any editors had issues with the article being tagged, they could always have, y'know, asked for clarification. They had quite awhile to do so. Doniago (talk) 15:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
      • (edit conflict) First, the mere act of tagging something does not make it "questionable". That has the cart before the horse. Questioned ≠ questionable. Unverified ≠ unverifiable. Second. Editors did ask for clarification. Repeatedly. Your response was, you were challenging everything that wasn't accompanied by a cite. It's not - helpful, you know? You'd find editors a lot more willing to dive into the material and round out the sources if you would describe what seems wrong about it to you rather than just complaining generally. All that being said, this discussion has become as circular as the original tagging and I think I've had my say about it. JohnInDC (talk) 15:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • To answer the original question, one should not notify editors when setting up an RfC (which is posted on the article's talk page), but should note on the article's talk page if one posts a discussion to a noticeboard. Interested editors have articles on their talk pages and notifying interested editors is canvassing. While you may remove unsourced material, continuing to remove material that other editors have restored is disruptive. Follow dispute resolution instead. TFD (talk) 15:12, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
• There has already been a discussion of the warning text, Thumperward. Remember Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 3#Seeking consensus on warning text? Uncle G (talk) 17:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure why I would remember a discussion from six years ago in which I wasn't involved. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 02:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support suggested change (with wikilinks added). NE Ent 16:08, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

TeeTylerToe Block Appeal

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

TeeTylerToe has posted a block appeal. Since his previous block and appeal were a result of discussion here I'm posting this here for discussion. I talked extensively with TTT on the #wikipedia-en-unblock IRC channel. My personal conclusion was that while TTT has the potential to be a good editor, he is still unwilling to get past his disagreement with the consensus opinion on the S-76 article. Further I expect he will not be able to accept any consensus (on any article)-edit which does not agree with his opinion, and therefore I recommend against an unblock at this point. However this needs more input than my own so I am posting here. Please take the time to review. Prodego 06:28, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

FYI TeeTylerToe has voluntarily suggested a topic ban on the S-76 article for himself as a condition of unblocking. I would be willing to do so under those circumstances, but I want to give some time to see if there is additional support before doing so. ⇒SWATJester 08:34, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I came here to point out exactly what Swatjester has; TTT suggests that he will be completely away from the S-76 article, consensus (which i take to mean the talk page) or dispute resolution regarding the S-76. This being the case, i would suggest unblocking ~ after all, he'll be watched, and he knows it, so surely wouldn't be foolish enough to venture back to that topic. Cheers, Lindsay 08:57, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Any potential unblock would need to come with a thorough understanding of WP:ROPE - and an understanding that it would be a very short rope provided. Topic-banning from the S-76 article would be a good start, although a very, very sharp eye would need to be kept out for that sort of attitude that led to the problem in the first place spreading elsewhere. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 19:36, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

TeeTylerToe's record on Misplaced Pages is full of raging disputes. (He has only 13 edits prior to June 2012, so it is fair to limit your attention to the period since June 10). All his past unblock appeals are still on his talk page, and you can get an impression of his attitude by reading them. His tendency to make personal attacks has been noted. In my opinion it would be excessively hopeful that steering him away from a single article, S-76, will allow him to have a productive career. I recommend declining. EdJohnston (talk) 19:53, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

• Tentatively support unblock, with topic ban. I say this with some reservations, because TeeTylerToe has shown long-standing problems, really based on not listening, and has a pretty bad record of personal attacks. However, it was all related to the S-76 argument, and with a topic ban on editing that subject (I'd say indefinite), and on the understanding that any repetition of the same problems will lead to a speedy reblock, I think we should allow a new chance. I do have fears that the extreme battlefield mentality shown by TeeTylerToe in the S-76 dispute might emerge in any fresh dispute, but I think we should assume good faith and let's see - plenty of people will be watching, and it's easy to reblock. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:21, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support unblock, with topic ban and mentoring. Having come across TTT before on Higgs boson, he seems to have good intentions, but does not seem to understand WP's policies. Therefore, I think mentoring would be ideal in this situation; it would help him learn WP's policies on various things as to avoid future instances of this. Of course, the topic ban from S-76 would be necessary as well given his behavior there, but I feel that he has the potential to be a productive editor if he takes the effort to learn WP's policies. StringTheory11 (t • c) 20:12, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support Unblock seems fine and indefinite is not infinite. We should be inclusive and welcoming. - Who is John Galt? ✉ 21:57, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support unblock' iff a mentor is found and TTT's topic ban covers helicopters broadly construed. --Guerillero | My Talk 05:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Any volunteers to mentor?

There appears to be broad consensus both here and on TTT's user talk page that supports an unblock conditioned on a topic ban broadly related to S-76. However, there also seems to be a subset of that consensus (without opposition so far as I can tell) that suggests strongly that TTT would benefit from having a mentor, especially as regards to policy, dispute resolution, and how to edit on articles one feels strongly about without edit warring. It would be best to try and sort that out now before he is unblocked. I unfortunately cannot dedicate the time; but would anyone else be willing to do so on? He'd stand to benefit even from just a small gaggle of admins willing to drop an eye on his talk page from time to time, if that's all we can drum up. ⇒SWATJester 12:54, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Unarchived

I was asked over IRC to take a look at this. I unarchived it for further discussion since there seems to be a hint of something productive happening if it had more time --Guerillero | My Talk 05:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose unblock I was the blocking admin here, and have commented on the latest unblock request (though I wasn't notified of this thread either on my talk page or on TTT's page...). While it's positive that TTT has agreed to a voluntary topic ban on anything to do with the S-76 article, I'm concerned about the lack of specifics in his response to the question I asked about what it was he plans to edit if the block was lifted (the response is here). This is especially the case in light of Prodego's statement that TTT was unable to let the S-76 issue rest in the IRC discussion; the extent to which TTT took this issue before being blocked was well beyond acceptable bounds. As such, it seems pretty much certain that TTT will end up being blocked again for further disruption if he was unblocked, and I see no benefit in exposing editors to this. Nick-D (talk) 05:35, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose unblock for now. I spoke to TeeTylerToe on IRC and told him clearly and in no uncertain terms what to do to get unblocked (see this message). I told him he needed a mentor but he kept skirting around that issue and eventually left the channel abruptly when I made it clear to him. I then see that he appears to have approached someone else on IRC afterwards. I'm a bit concerned he was forum shopping for an opinion he liked so he can avoid getting a mentor. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 13:09, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose unblock for now. If he's apparently trying to dodge mentoring at the moment, that's not exactly a promising sign. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 03:54, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

User:Barsoomian's civility

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

Barsoomian needs to be more civil.

• Responding to an editor on his talk page: You made your smarmy comment on Wrathful's page minutes after mine I don't want, need and will not follow your advice or admonitions. And specifically, don't write on my Talk page ever again unless it's a required notification.
• In a discussion on WP:VPP: I have no idea why you felt the need to make these idiotic remarks
• Believes that characterizing others' comments as "idiotic" is okay: That was a pretty mild response considering how how gratuitously insulting he was to me.
• Ownership of talk page: Well, if that's your attitude, then I'll clarify things: Never write here again for any reason.
• Responding to a user coaching Barsoomian to be less "BITEy" to another editor: Haven't you got anything better to do than breathe down my neck?
• Personal attack against that user: Changed the user's initial section heading from Less teeth, please to Pompous windbaggery

I'm involved in one of these (this one).

I bring this up here rather than trying to talk with Barsoomian myself because of the response I received previously, and the later response that Barsoomian gave to User:Jack Sebastian (we each tried to address the civility issue). Sancho 21:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• Scrap that second one (and the third one likewise)--there is nothing wrong with this remark: it's an appropriate comment to an idiotic analogy which I'd see as an ad hominem also. Drmies (talk) 21:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Okay. I can disregard those. Maybe I was wrong about them, but I was acting based on what WP:CIVIL says: "If others are uncivil, do not respond in kind.", and "Someone may very well be an idiot. But telling them so is neither going to increase their intelligence nor improve your ability to communicate with them." Sancho 21:34, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• Sure--but if person A says "government sources aren't necessarily reliable" and person B says "that's like saying you should wear a tin-foil hat when you go outside", then person B can be told that their analogy is not just incorrect but also derogatory--it's close enough to saying "you're nuts". Drmies (talk) 22:17, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• "Your statement is incorrect and derogatory" would have been a much better way to respond, I think. Sancho 22:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• You are entitled to your opinion. Drmies (talk) 23:24, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• For better or for worse, it's pretty much standard practice that editors are permitted to ask others not to post on their talk pages. The only one of the above that genuinely causes me concern is the last one (changing another editor's section heading), but it's an attack on the edit, not on the editor, so it's hard to describe it as a personal attack. I don't think you're going to get any administrative action just on the above, therefore, although clearly Barsoomian would benefit from some advice to play more nicely with others. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:59, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• That would be good advice well taken. But for now, in these diffs, they're staying on the right side of 'comment on edits, not on editors'. Not nicely, but still. BTW, I agree that the changing of a heading is not kosher--"Less teeth" was appropriate and "pompous windbaggery" is an insult...but again, it's pointing at the comment, not the commentator, though it's awfully close. AT any rate, Demiurge is correct: no admin will take any kind of action on these diffs alone. Drmies (talk) 22:20, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Not for nothing, but I don't recall a single instance of collaborative or civility while editing with this user - and I know I am not the only one who shares this opinion. And I believe that while one can dick with their pages in most cases, refactoring the posts of others (altering, instead of removal) is especially odious. This appears to be a deeply-seating anger issue waiting for an outlet - any outlet. We lose enough new users as it is; why bite the new contributors while they are testing the waters? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 22:16, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Of course, you don't have a score to settle with me, do you? Anyway, the "new user" you are so solicitous of has actually been editing for six years, as I told you earlier, so how you can still say he's a "new user" here I don't know, and despite your best attempts, we have had a productive discussion and may be working together on a new article. So you'll have to find another incident to nail me for. As for your comments on my talk page, 1) you made your post after I expressly asked you not to comment there further, 2) I did just remove them, though I admit for 19 minutes it was there under a more descriptive heading. Barsoomian (talk) 19:00, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Can't speak for other people, but as for me, I'll not block on these edits — but I will block without further warning (and advise anyone else to do likewise) for any future edits of this sort. After all, his block log is currently clean; it's not as if he's already in the middle of escalating WP:NPA blocks. I'll let him know this. Nyttend (talk) 02:03, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Responding to the specific points that have not been struck:

Regarding Sanchom's remark "I bring this up here rather than trying to talk with Barsoomian myself because of the response I received previously" -- I am astonished at this. I responded civilly, though I did not agree, and Sanchom never came back. I assumed the issue was settled. Drmies has now explained it more clearly than I did, so I hope that now it is settled.

• Responding to an editor on his talk page: You made your smarmy comment on Wrathful's page minutes after mine I don't want, need and will not follow your advice or admonitions. And specifically, don't write on my Talk page ever again unless it's a required notification.

I believe on my own Talk page, I am allowed to tell people not to post. Am I wrong? Sebastian (the person it was directed at) has on his own talk page "If I have asked you to not post on my usertalk page, please respect that request and don't do it. If you do anyway, I'll simply delete it and seek your block."

• Ownership of talk page: Well, if that's your attitude, then I'll clarify things: Never write here again for any reason.

Same point; "my" talk page. Also, this was after I had told the IP editor this was addressed to who kept putting "tb" tags on my talk page every time he responded on a discussion page. (Which each generated an email alert.) I told him at first that this was unnecessary, as I was watching the discussion page, but he kept doing it. This was in response to his comment "this won't be a problem unless you ignore my valid arguments" which indicated he was likely to keep doing so, so I was more forceful.

(added) Earlier requests had been made and ignored: ,

• Responding to a user coaching Barsoomian to be less "BITEy" to another editor: Haven't you got anything better to do than breathe down my neck?

I have told Sebastian many times I don't want his advice on any issue. His "coaching" is simply a way for him to patronisingly criticise me. This specifically was Sebastian butting into a routine and uncontroversial exchange I had with another editor that was resolved amicably despite Sebastian's attempts to make it all about me rather than the substance of the edits. Also note that he characterises my remarks as "biting a new user", when the remarks (in response to repeated reverts by said user) aren't overly aggressive and the user in question has been editing since 2007 and, if not prolific, could not be called a newbie.

(added) see here for the (non)BITEy comment and the subsequent discussion, without any drama, and no need for a "coach". Barsoomian (talk) 18:46, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Personal attack against that user: Changed the user's initial section heading from Less teeth, please to Pompous windbaggery

Sebastian's initial heading Less teeth, please was patronising and implied that I was engaging in "biting" new users, which was completely false, and there was no "new user" involved in any case. And in mitigation 1) I thought better of it and deleted the whole section a few minutes later 2) this was in response to Sebastian's continuing to make personal remarks to me on my Talk page, after I had asked him not to post there again. At great length, and with great self importance -- thus "pompous windbaggery" describes it concisely. But, since I'm being charged with making a personal attack, please note that "pompous windbaggery" is a description of the text in the section, not of a person. Barsoomian (talk) 04:51, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Bedtime for me, so no long response. I gave you that warning particularly because of this last section — windbaggery, for example, is produced by windbags, and more generally, statements like this about the text necessarily are statements about the one who made them. Additionally, many of your comments don't link to those comments or otherwise tell us how to find them; remember that WP:WIAPA prohibits such statements without evidence. Please provide links soon, unless you already did, in which case please show me that I overlooked them. Nyttend (talk) 07:16, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I didn't provide new links at first since the text I refer to is on the same page as the link in the complaint. I've now added above some refs for "Ownership of talk page" and "Responding to a user coaching Barsoomian" if that helps. Anyway, since it seems that "pompous windbaggery" is a trigger for this, I will address that: First, it was on my own talk page and I deleted the words 19 minutes later. Do I get no credit for that? It could only have been seen by someone actively trolling through my history looking for something to take offence to. Also, is "windbaggery" really offensive? It's not complimentary, but come on. Definition:

Collins Dictionary: "(informal) lengthy talk or discussion with little or no interesting content". Now I know that tit for tat is no excuse, but have you seen what I was (briefly) describing as "windbaggery"? See here. For instance, Sebastian describes my edits as "nonsensical, unnecessary comment". Is that not equally, or more, offensive than describing his words as "windbaggery"? He goes on to attack me personally "You are not the smartest guy/gal/whatever in the room" (attacking both my intelligence and sexuality). I shrugged this off and deleted it, along with his various threats and misrepresentations of what I had said, but apparently such foolishness is worth opening an ANI. I am being sanctioned for deleting these insulting words with a dismissive comment that was visible only for minutes. Barsoomian (talk) 16:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I wanted to add that I think civility to other editors is hugely important, especially in not putting others off the project. I found this user's recent messages on my talk page to be uncivil and uncollegiate - it was the main part of what made me decide to take a bit of a wikibreak this month, so I don't have to feel attacked. Boleyn (talk) 09:56, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Really? I was uncivil to you? What specifically was "uncivil? I "put you off the project"? You don't seem to consider that your reverts of my edits and your subsequent actions did the same to me. That was the only thing I expressed in my comments. In retrospect I might have been oversensitive, but if you construed any of that as an "attack", I'm sorry. Barsoomian (talk) 11:22, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I can understand why Sancho came here, as Barsoomian's attitude to others has been problematic for a long time and it doesn't seem to have improved any in at least two years. My first interactions with Barsoomian were over his addition of copyvios to List of Primeval episodes in 2010. A discussion on the article's talk page lead to further discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Copyright problems where his tone was less than civil, at one stage comparing me to a troll and referring to other editors as "a bunch of self-appointed bureaucrats". One of the edits I discovered today, while on a totally unrelated matter at Talk:Tron: Uprising, was an inappropriate change to one of my edits. (God only knows what was in the zip file he added) It's very hard to collaborate with Barsoomian, his snide edit summaries, and generally offensive behaviour towards others makes interaction with him highly undesirable. During "discussions" it very quickly gets to the point where nearly everything he says seems to be an attack, and I can see why Sancho took offence at the two struck-out items above. While Nyattend is correct in saying "it's not as if he's already in the middle of escalating WP:NPA blocks", this is certainly not the first time his actions have been raised at ANI or other places. Despite this, his editing is generally constructive. If he'd just play nicely with others, and accept that we do things for a reason instead of complaining about the way we do things (as was the case here and here) he could be a real, and appreciated, asset to Misplaced Pages. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:23, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, thanks for reanimating all your grudges from 2010. I see you're a believer in "revenge is a dish best served cold". And "complaining about the way we do things" -- what he means is "disagreeing with me and engaging in debate". Even to complain about an obvious copy-paste error I made, again years ago, that no one noticed at the time. Even debates he prevailed in, yet still wants to beat me down for daring to challenge him. Barsoomian (talk) 10:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

No, "complaining about the way we do things" is demonstrated by the opening of this very, very recent post. Even though we addressed the issue of what constitutes a copyvio at Misplaced Pages way back in 2010, "The copyright cops will tell you that rewording a press release is copyvio -- it's not in the real world, but that's what the policies here add up to" is still "complaining about the way we do things" two years later. Accept things and move on. Don't continually complain about things that can't be changed. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:32, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Look, I actually SUPPORTED YOU in that case and said what the copyright policy is. Despite my thinking it's silly, I have upheld it. I've reverted edits that violated it -- repeatedly, in that same article, for some weeks now. (, , , , etc.) Complaints about my "civility" is what this is about. I didn't know that "complaining about things" was subject to sanctions, but if you want to complain that I don't Love Big Brother, you should start your own ANI issue. And it's pretty rich to tell me to "move on" when you come here to try to make a meaningless typo I made two years ago into a sinister act. Barsoomian (talk) 9:55 am, Today (UTC−5)

Hey all, let's all just settle down a bit. This isn't a requests for comment. Admins have already taken the action they're going to take (asking Barsoomian to be more civil). That's a good enough outcome from this, so let's not get things off to a bad start by just piling on. Barsoomian, please ignore this extra stuff that's been added if you can (it is from a long time ago). Everyone else, Barsoomian's been asked to be nicer, so let's give it a chance. Sancho 15:36, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Barsoomian, I know that you've previously stated that you neither want nor plan to follow any advice I offer you, but I thought I'd point out the 500 lb gorilla in our midst: Here are several editors - experienced and otherwise, old and new (and yes, a user who has been here for almost 6 years and added less than 120 edits is still considered 'new') - who are addressing precisely the same issues with the way that you conduct yourself in your interactions. I didn't initiate this noticeboard post, though your posts seem to indicate you you thought it was a vast conspiracy to do so; a user I have never met or interacted with did.

And this is key: we are all saying the same thing about your behavior and conduct. Instead of attacking and parsing out your complaints to each of the people complaining, listen to what we are all saying. You have the potential to be a good editor, but have some significant challenges when it comes to treating others with the respect you yourself demand. And this is the same sort of complaint that has brought you to AN/I repeatedly. We are asking you to cowboy up (and that is no challenge to your sexuality gender if you are female) and take responsibility for your interactions with the rest of us, so that we can focus instead on the good contributions you often make. Even though I am the one you called a "pompous windbag" (semantic gymnastics aside, that is precisely what you were doing), I can see you being a better editor, if you can but get past this unfortunate wart of a behavior. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Jack Sebastian, while your comments may be good intentioned, I will ask again to please just leave this topic alone now (and I'll close this). Sancho 04:57, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Request for input, and if it boomerangs that's fine

I'll try to be short, sweet, and to the point.

I removed some tags on an article then when they were replaced without using the talk page I re-moved them and created a place for discussion .

Since then I've had a couple of administrators giving me medium-weight grief, during which I said on my talk page that they were being "tiresome twat". Can we either tell Guy Macon and SummerPhD what edit warring and personal attacks are (e.g.:questioning competency is not a personal attack) or can we tell me why what I did was one of those things?

Oh, and can we also tell Macon that it's not cool to tell users to fuck off, as he did to me?

124.168.221.199 (talk) 09:24, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think a key problem with SummerPhD's comments on the talk page is that he seemed to answer the question he'd like to answer ("What does {{external links}} mean?") as opposed to the actual question ("Why is {{external links}} still relevant for this article?) I see Canoe1967 has actually fixed the problem in the article, so the tag is no longer relevant. I would at this juncture consider the dispute resolved and advise deep breaths and pictures of cute kittens all round. --Ritchie333 09:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Sure...kittens all around, but let us not forget that if you remove a tag, you need to provide and actual reasoning why you did so beyond "It isn't having an effect". Simply put, the tag was a challenge to the content and the removal without addressing the content issue was not the right move. I would love to discuss why someone would tell another to "f" off when being called a "tiresome "t".....but I am certain editors already get that.--Amadscientist (talk) 09:47, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Templated maintenance messages may be removed by any user when there is no supporting section on the talk page. So, zero support for Macon's consensus that I was edit warring? That is my main concern. And, while I do take your point Amad that I was being less than cordial in calling him a twat when he was stomping around my talk page... But for that Macon told me to fuck off while telling me to stop making personal attacks.' - 124.168.221.199 (talk) 10:17, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the removal of templates, I should have thought that Guy Macons detailed explanation have covered that subject quite nicely. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:40, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I am not an administrator, and even if I was, administrators don't use their tools on pages where they are involved. Nor have I called for a block. The behavior I describe below arguably merits a warning template, nothing more.

The issue is not, as 124.168.221.199 implies, whether he did something that would call for a block, such as WP:3RR. The question is whether, as I claim, proper behavior when a dispute arises over content that has been in place without complaint for months or years is BRD (You Boldly make the change, someone Reverts it, then you Discuss it with the original content in place) or whether, as 124.168.221.199 claims, proper behavior is BRRD (You Boldly make the change, someone Reverts it, you Revert the revert and only then Discuss it, having forced your changes onto the article). I would not have gone to ANI over such a minor issue, but now that it has gone to ANI, I really won't consider this to be resolved until the BRD vs. BRRD question is answered. If left unanswered it is certain to come up again.

The civility issue doesn't concern me, as long as the targets are experienced editors. I would be concerned if the insults and personal attacks are ever used against a new editor, because of our ongoing retention issues. I think a gentle warning to all involved (myself included) that WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA are policies that apply to all editors and all pages might be appropriate. It does give one pause when an IP editor with ten edits starts citing arbcom findings of fact. One might even suspect sockpupettry.

My exact words were "I refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram." This was after 124.168.221.199 said that I was lazy, incompetent, tiresome twat (five times), condescending, head up arse, idiot, boring, dick, and having trouble with reading comprehension. (From Wictionary: TWAT: Noun (vulgar, slang) A vagina, pussy, vulva, clitoris.) given the fact that 124.168.221.199 filed this ANI and accused me of a PA over my reference to Arkell v. Pressdram, I think perhaps WP:BOOMERANG might apply. ---Guy Macon (talk) 10:53, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah, great, so you're all clever when telling me to fuck off, great for you. Do you win some kind of prize? You are being lazy when you not only warn someone improperly, but when the page you pointed me at in your "detailed explanation" says pretty clearly "Anyone who sees a tag, but does not see the purported problem with the article and does not see any detailed complaint on the talk page, may remove the tag". Since we're not all doing the kittens things here, can we start with that? The very essay I was pointed to says that my removal of the maintenance tag was fine. We can perhaps discuss Macon's reading comprehension problem (e.g. not understanding what edit warring is, what sock puppets are, or even the difference between an essay and a policy) later.

124.168.221.199 (talk) 12:00, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's a pretty essay. It may have been ok for you to remove the tags once because you had a belief. However, once the tag(s) were returned, you were never permitted to re-remove them, and that's from policy (✉→BWilkins←✎) 12:06, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

See, that was both polite and relevant, thank you Bwilkins. Link to said policy, please? And not the pea-soup of letters, thank you. (The reason I pointed out that essay was because it was the first thing pointed to me when telling me I was wrong... Is that somehow not coming across?) - 124.168.221.199 (talk) 12:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, first let's start by the hierarchy for a moment: a policy (set by the community) outranks a guideline (usually also set by community, but could be a subset) which really outranks an essay (sometimes written by only one editor). Guidelines and essays often amplify/clarify a policy. The essay on tagging and untagging amplifies basic editing concepts, especially related to problem articles. The policy on edit-warring states that "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions...an editor who repeatedly restores his or her preferred version is edit warring". The tags are for this purpose considered to be content. You disagreed with the content of a page (its tags), so you removed them. It was reverted (as per be bold, revert, discuss). When you re-removed them, you were repeatedly restoring to you preferred version, as per policy. Note: the three revert bright line and edit-warring are related, but different - you can actually be edit-warring with a single edit (✉→BWilkins←✎) 12:57, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I actually do understand the hierarchy, apologies if I didn't make that clear, I was suggesting that there were others in this discussion to whom it seemed quite vague. And is there a reason that you chose to remove "rather than trying to resolve the disagreement by discussion" from the quote?

Back to the point at hand: I am sorry, but there's nothing there in the that I can't do what I did. And yes, I do understand that three reverts isn't an entitlement, but FFS, I made a section on the talk page explaining my single revert AND informed the user on their talk page of both the reversion and the discussion site, if I recall correctly. Rather than spending all this time schooling me, and with respect failing in doing so, perhaps we could re-visit what started all this: Ham-fisted warning for a single revert? I finally ask, given that the page on edit warring says "repeatedly", how can you claim a single edit can be edit warring? - 124.168.221.199 (talk) 13:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

It's a warning, it shouldn't be ham fisted, and it shouldn't be worried over or responded to argumentatively. Nor should it be held against the warned editor (unless they ignore it, and carry on reverting, of course). No one should be using bad language, even relatively mild bad language - many people have uncharacteristically used bad language occasionally, we don't make a big thing about it, perhaps we should, but we do discourage it.

If someone uses bad language it is a bad idea to respond in kind

Be aware that most warnings are also templates, which often can be ham fisted - and some of us have worked on them to make them less so. The alternative, however, is hand written warnings which often neglect a vital point, say something incorrect or are even less felicitous.

A BRR is not the end of the world, but it is to be avoided - it result in trouble more often than not.

From the descriptions above Guy gets a trout for incivility, IP get a boomerang shaped trout for the same and a herring for the original revert, plus a mackerel for not hearing that it is BRD with only one R.

Rich Farmbrough, 14:36, 5 January 2013 (UTC).

Trout accepted. I did violate WP:CIVIL, and I should not have done that, no matter what the provocation. "He did it first" is never a justification for incivility.

I believe that the BRD vs.BRRD issue and tag removal issues have now been clarified so that everyone is running from the same set or rules. I would like a clarification regarding the theory that there exists somewhere an Arbcom finding of fact that says you have "latitude" to freely violate WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA on your own talk page.

If and only if such "latitude" actually exists, I would like clarification about the implied corollary that those who you attack on your own talk page cannot be uncivil or engage in personal attacks when they reply. (Implied by filing a case at ANI complaining about someone doing that) --Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Original history

The {{toomanylinks}} template was added on 10 July 2011. Four days later, the same editor removed a link from that section. Perhaps that editor still thought that there were too many links but as they didn't start any talk or otherwise indicate which links were superfluous, we can't tell. Later, the template was moved from that section to the head of the article. As the template had then become considerably separated in time and space from the original concern and the original editor had also taken action himself, it seems to have been quite reasonable for 124.168.221.199 to have removed the template. It was therefore unhelpful for editors to force this template back onto the article without establishing whether it was still appropriate. Banner templates at the top of BLP articles should be used with restraint because this is a common complaint made through OTRS — that the templates seem derogatory. Warden (talk) 13:55, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The IP removed the template because, in their opinion, it didn't seem to be working, not because it wasn't valid. I restored it saying it was still an issue, with a template stating it may not have been their intention to remove the template without giving a good reason. It should have been clear that, if nothing else, I considered it an issue. At this point, the editor could have clarified that they had removed it because there was no issue. Instead, they restored the tag and reiterated that "It's clearly not having the desired effect" and, despite my edit summary, asserted that I must have ignored theirs. A third editor fixed the issue then removed the tag (and good for them). Whatever.

The personal attacks are an issue, mostly because the IP apparently does not see personal attacks as an issue. Edits contrary to their intent and standard templates were "made lazily and in haste". The IP has also asserted another editor's "incompetence". When another editor warned them to be civil, they decided to "be direct: You're a tiresome twat. (See, that was a personal attack.)" When warned for that personal attack, they asked for clarification of which personal attack they were being warned for (after all, how could they know that their "personal attack" was a personal attack, I suppose. This warning was also labeled a "repeated and useless warning". Unfortunately it does seem to have been useless in this case as the IP told us we were "being idiots" (but not saying it because, after all, they crossed it out "I won't stoop so low as to point out my opponent's long history of alcoholism"). They then called me a "A twat, or 'A person regarded as stupid or obnoxious.'" The other editor was told "you're being a grade-A arsehole here. F U CK OFF." and calling their discussion "self-serving bullshit" and advising "Don't be a dick. Being mildly clever in telling me to fuck off does not make you less of a dick." That the IP does not see a problem is clear enough: "I'd do exactly the same thing again. Probably including calling you a twat, because you're being one. Let me repeat that, as you appear to be having trouble with reading comprehension today: If, on some other article, exactly the same thing happens, I'll do exactly the same revert-and-make-talk-page-entry. So whatever warning you think you've given, whatever message that you are trying to impart, you've failed in doing so."

Yes, we are failing to get the message across: making personal attacks is not acceptable. A personal attacks that you call a "personal attack" is not acceptable. When warned about a self-identified personal attack, reiterating that personal attack is not acceptable. Saying that you would make the exact same personal attack again is not acceptable. The point is "Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Misplaced Pages." This is the message the IP doesn't hear. - SummerPhD (talk) 16:15, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I am going to try to answer the questions 124.168.221.199 has asked in his last few edit summaries:

Q: "Since we're not all doing the kittens things here, can we start with that? The very essay I was pointed to says that my removal of the maintenance tag was fine."

A: The essay you were pointed to (Misplaced Pages:Tagging pages for problems) lists the valid reasons for removing a tag. If you had given one of those valid reasons, then and only then does the essay say "your removal of the maintenance tag was fine". If at that point someone who disagrees with your reason reverted, at that point the two of you would have, together, followed the B and R of WP:BRD and both of you would have acted properly up to that point.

You did not, however, list one of the valid reasons for removing a tag. Instead, you removed it for invalid reason: "It's been there over a year". At that point, any editor is free to revert the removal on the basis of a tag having been removed by someone who does not appear to know what the valid reasons for removing the tag are. As before, the next step should have been D (discuss) and ideally you would, in that discussion, give us a valid reason for removing the tag. And indeed, I attempted to discuss exactly that with you but instead of calmly discussing it you went into full attack mode.

Q: "I am sorry, but there's nothing there in the that I can't do what I did. given that the page on edit warring says "repeatedly", how can you claim a single edit can be edit warring?"

A: Misplaced Pages:Edit warring contains 2308 words, not just the 28 words in the first sentence. In particular, I would once again call to your attention the sentences "it is perfectly possible to edit war without breaking the three-revert rule, or even coming close to doing so." and "Misplaced Pages encourages editors to be bold. A potentially controversial change may be made to find out whether it is opposed. Another editor may revert it. This is known as the bold, revert, discuss (BRD) cycle." It's just that simple. Go ahead and be bold, making whatever edits you think are best, and if someone reverts one of them, discuss it without engaging in personal attacks. Don't re-revert.

At the time I gave you a warning about edit warring, you had every appearance of being a new editor (less than ten edits total) who simply did not know about Misplaced Pages:Edit warring. It is very common for such editors to revert again and again, not knowing that doing so is not allowed, and indeed, any request for a block because of such behavior will be rejected if the user was not warned. My decision to warn an apparent newbie in the early stages of edit warring was proper. What you should have done is to discuss it with me (are you seeing a pattern here?) in a calm and rational manner. Instead you went into full attack mode again.

If you want to become a productive part of the Misplaced Pages community, you need to calm down and start discussing things. Let's assume for the sake of argument that someone gives you a warning which is completely bogus. If that happens, just calmly talk it over instead of firing up the flamethrower. Treat other editors with respect and dignity even if you think they are wrong. It's that simple. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:50, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Legal threats and incivility from User:Old Lanky

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

Old Lanky has threatened to notify the police about two IP contributors (or, perhaps more likely, one contributor with two IP addresses). His reason is that they're trolls, which, apparently, is illlegal in the UK. Reading User talk:Old Lanky#Back Again, I'll agree that they're being a bit rude, but he more than makes up for it with his own incivility , even giving me shit after I did him the courtesy of not being a dolt and checking to see if there was anything of actual substance to his claims. (I mean, sure, the comments are a bit mean, but if I tried to have everyone who accused me of sockpuppetry arrested, the prisons would be overflowing.) Regardless of merits of his complaint, this seems like a pretty clear-cut NLT violation, and since he's stated repeatedly that he's willing to be blocked, I suggest we give him his wish. — Francophonie&Androphilie 13:26, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Given this response you made to him, I'm inclined to block you both. However that would be ultimately self-defeating, so I instead choose to bash your two heads together and tell you to play nice. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 13:33, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Someone is clearly being a WP:DICK and accusing him of being a sock, without the cojones to actually file an SPI report. Continually accusing someone of socking without filing is WP:UNCIVIL. However, the response by Lanky is almost "methinks thou do'est protest too much". His talkpage isn't going to be protected as he asked for because it's not harassment, not at least how he's linked it. If Lanky wants to make legal threat, then yes, block'em. If he wants to revert and ignore (because he cannot block by himself), then it's the most intelligent way forward. If the person starts edit-warring with him, etc, it will become more of an offence (✉→BWilkins←✎) 13:35, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Add: Deskana, don't forget to block the IPs :-) (✉→BWilkins←✎) 13:35, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to semi the talk page, especially if it continues. Those IP edits don't looked like an unbanned user without a problem to me. Not excusing that response in any way. BTW, I seem to have come across Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Richard Daft. That's the IP, right? -- zzuuzz 13:42, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Fair point Bwilkins. IPs blocked for one month due to clearly not being here to contribute constructively. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 13:50, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

In re my response, perhaps I was a bit crabby, but he'd already engaged in all sorts of nasty language, and I don't see much of a problem with not taking nicely to being talked down to by someone who I was trying to save from an NLT indefblock (which is what I was doing - I could've easily taken him here after his first refusal to retract the threat). Either way, as I said, the incivility isn't nearly as much of a problem as the threat. — Francophonie&Androphilie 14:05, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

He's been warned for it and as far as I can see hasn't done it since, so I consider the matter resolved. You definitely need to be more civil though, because honestly you don't help your case when you report someone for violating policy and you're also guilty of doing so yourself. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 14:08, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I didn't really think I had a case to be helped - I was under the impression that users have to retract any outstanding legal threats if they wish to avoid being blocked; was I mistaken? To me, the incivility was just gravy, and if you really think my comment was equal to some of his, then I don't see how I can convince you otherwise. — Francophonie&Androphilie 14:36, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Been looking at some of the stuff in Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Richard Daft/Archive per zzuuzz above who has definitely hit the nail on the head. It is a long saga of abuse and disruption aimed at the WP:Cricket project in general and at two of its members in particular, both of whom were named in the allegations levelled at me. I note especially that the troll has formerly used this tactic of accusing new users of being an alias of one of his two enemies to try and get all parties discredited. He has failed each time, mainly because his targets have always been genuine editors, and I daresay he will not go through the proper procedure you mentioned above because he knows he will fail. He has picked on me because I found an attack on Associate Affiliate and challenged it. I see he is subject to WP:BAN which looks very final, but evidently is not. May one suggest that the site should allow members only to edit? "Anyone can edit" does tend to mean "anyone will edit". --Old Lanky (talk) 15:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

One may suggest it but it's unlikely to happen as explained here. NE Ent 15:16, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for that link, NE Ent. Very enlightening. Having read that, and given recent experience, I've decided to rejoin the ranks of the IP community and stay there among the 76% to 82% whose edits benefit the encyclopaedia. I'll miss the watchlist, HotCat, page moves and Twinkle but I managed without them before. All the best to the genuine editors and admins. So long. --Old Lanky (talk) 16:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

While we're on the topic

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

Could somebody a bit more familiar with the case history here please tell me if BDOPAF (talk · contribs) looks like another Richard Daft sock? I just got this wholly unconstructive comment as I was trying to put this whole thing to bed - clearly an AGF violation, and I see no way that someone with 12 edits would have a reason to allege sockpuppetry without being a sock themselves. — Francophonie&Androphilie 15:19, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

If an editor suspects a master spi is preferred, especially since A & F isn't following two ANI practices (i.e. discuss w/ editor first, and notify user if discussing on ANI). Spi does not require notifying a user. NE Ent 16:08, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi again. I had a little unfinished business before I go. I looked at this SPI process and rounded up all the recent IDs of this Daft individual and listed them there. The IPs are either gone or have been banned per the discussion above, but F&A is absolutely right that a ban must be placed on BDOPAF. Bye now. --Old Lanky (talk) 16:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to do all that, OL. JSYK, you should read WP:BLOCKBANDIFF before you get yourself TROUTed by any of the grumpier ANI-watchers (grumpier than most, that is ). — Francophonie&Androphilie 17:00, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) When a user with 12 edits tracks me down to accuse a previously harassed editor of being a sockpuppet, and there's strong reason to believe they are in fact banned, I think that that constitutes a fairly solid exception to AN/I S.O.P.. As for your other point, please remember that Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy. I'm well aware of the differences between SPI and ANI, and thought it would be more effective to bring it up here. If you think an SPI would be more useful, then you're welcome to start one, but you know as well as I do that "You filed your paperwork in the wrong place" is not a valid response, especially to a very simple question. — Francophonie&Androphilie 17:00, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

IP vandalism of MMA articles

188.75.201.153 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) was warned and then blocked for vandalism and abuse of editing privileges on 24 November 2012. Since then, the IP editor has returned to vandalism of MMA articles on several occasions. On 9 December, s/he vandalised the MMA record of Brandon Vera and was reverted. On 11 December, s/he vandalised the MMA record of Gabriel Gonzaga and was reverted. On 17 December, s/he vandalised the MMA record of Pat Barry (fighter) and was reverted. Today, s/he vandalised the MMA record of Alexander Volkov (fighter). I noticed after another IP blanked the section, an action I thought was vandalism and reverted but then noticed that the record was ridiculous (fights in 2028, for example). The IP has not had a talk page message since the block, so an AIV post would be pointless but my just posting a vandalism warning seems an under-reaction. I have not seen any edit that was constructive, though I haven't checked every edit. Would an admin like to take some action, please? I'll post the ANI notice to the IP after saving this edit. EdChem (talk) 15:46, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I have posted notification at the IP editor's talk page. EdChem (talk) 16:13, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, I guess this is stale now, but I would like to understand why this request wasn't even worth a response... EdChem (talk) 06:01, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate you taking action, Materialscientist, and that I wasn't reporting for no reason. EdChem (talk) 05:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Inappropriate actions, including talk page censorship, uncivil and unfounded accusations and edit warring

Could I please bring attention to the actions of Gimmetoo (talk · contribs), which has included to date:

• odd bits of edit warring
• further edit warring and no attempt to take the matter to the article talk page.
• false accusations of edit warring; and
• further accusations of "disruptive editing", which led to:
• an implied threat of "acting like an admin", closely followed with
• a direct threat, despite there being no indication of any further edits about to take place (as the article was correctly formatted at the time). This was followed by:
• a false accusation of my "willingness to edit war", despite there being no need for further edits, as noted above.
• censoring the comments of others; not once but twice, despite being told not to (his reversions also constitute minor edit warring on this point also).
• uncivil and unfounded accusations of sockpuppetry

I think that the editor has lost his sense of perspective over this and is throwing increasingly wild and ridiculous accusations around without any basis whatsoever. I asked the editor to withdraw his baseless accusation, but no retraction was forthcoming. - SchroCat (talk) 16:41, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

This editor has edited in violation of DATERET, despite being informed, and has been repeatedly uncivil to me, and has directly told me that I do not understand the guidelines of which I am partly the author. Given the behavior, I suspect the user is someone I have had a conflict with in the past under some other name. Gimmetoo (talk) 16:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

This is the sequence of events:

• 23:02 3 Jan - Fanthriller removes a space in a category
• 23:05 - I notice the edit and revert it
• 23:08 - I notice the date formats are inconsistent, and reconcile the access dates to the majority format, fix one access date that it not in an approved format, and fix the ref marks. At this point the article has consistent access dates.
• 23:16 - Fanthriller does a blanket undo of my edits
• 23:30 - I restore it with more descriptive edit summary
• 23:47 - Fanthriller posts on Schrodinger's talk page
• 23:50 - I provide explanation of MOSDATE there. There is no problem at this point.
• 02:54 4 Jan - despite the explanation, User:Schrodinger does a blanket revert of my edit, including the other fixes I made. This is a problem.
• 05:57 - I notice the blanked undo of my edit, and restore the date formats to the consistent form I had left
• 06:00 - I also restore the other fixes that were removed in the blanket edit, but without touching the other edits User:Schrodinger had done
• 06:04 - After noticing the edit, I consider that the user may not have understood the STRONGNAT guideline they mention, so I draw their attention to it specifically, and the blanket undo
• 06:05 - User:Schrodinger undoes again, after being informed, and while discussion was ongoing on User:Schrodinger's talk page. This is a problem, in my view.

I see I have made the mistake of trying to engage, discuss, and explain longer than I should have. I tend to mistakenly assume that this a professional environment. Gimmetoo (talk) 17:50, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Original dispute

There seems to a preliminary consensus that Cat is not a Merridew sock based on evidence presented. I apologize to Cat for my suspicions, but the similarities were there and had to be analyzed, and having been the subject of serious wikihounding for many many years, I don't blame anyone who begins to see shadows. Perhaps now folks can look at the underlying dispute with that in mind. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:25, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I'm also sorry for suggesting it. Gimmetoo (talk) 18:32, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I accept your apologies. - SchroCat (talk) 19:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Getting back to the original complaint. It looks to me like Gimmetoo may have gone to the Bond girl article under the mistaken impression that he had located a sock of Br'er Rabbit (Gimme's first edit to the article was on 3 January 2013). The material on the article talk page is reminiscent of my experience at Sean Combs, where there were extensive discussions about adding citation templates and changing the styling of the dates on the citations. The initial discussion is at Talk:Sean Combs/Archive 1#Date format change proposal and there's further stuff at Talk:Sean Combs#GA. In a nutshell, in a discussion closed by an uninvolved admin, a group of editors decided that the consensus for that particular article would be to add citation templates and change the layout of the access dates. Later, in July, Gimmetoo tried to revoke the article's promotion to GA, an effort which I undertook, with a GA review completed by a totally uninvolved editor. I had a heck of a time getting him to tell me what he thought was wrong with the article but finally he was satisfied or decided to walk away. My point of telling this story is that I think there's a pattern of behaviour here on Gimme's part, behaviour that's not conducive to collegial editing and cooperation among editors. He has also been involved in other recent imbroglios at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical)/Archive 106#user:GimmeBot and template:article history and User talk:NuclearWarfare#BN Comment. -- Dianna (talk) 21:47, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Please review WP:AGF; Gimme laid out the history of what brought him to the article, and bringing in a list of disputes that have nothing to do with this one demonstrates a further issue of good faith. Others are trying; perhaps you can, too. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:06, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Pot, kettle. NE Ent 02:18, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

While Dianna's first statement (that Gimmetoo came to the page because of a Br'er sock) isn't correct, the rest of her comments are entirely correct and valid in this instance. There is an issue of his approach and behaviour, which is not conducive to collegiate editing and his comments above "I see I have made the mistake of trying to engage, discuss, and explain longer than I should have. I tend to mistakenly assume that this a professional environment" are indicative of highlight the unhelpful and confrontational approach. Statements like that are inflammatory and are always going to rile other editors. I'm glad—and also disappointed—to hear from Dianna that other editors have suffered this type of behaviour too. It's this approach that has led us here.

Perhaps, SandyGeorgia, when Gimmetoo came to your talk page you should have discussed good faith with him then and tried some for yourself too; and perhaps you could also let me know where we have negatively interacted before too. I am trying to keep a sense of good faith and perspective, but when I see interactions like this, I find that a struggle. - SchroCat (talk) 04:28, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Diannaa's statement is incomplete, in several ways, and also leaves the impression that it was Gimme that was seeking to change established citation style, etc. As but one example, here is the history of contributors to Sean Combs, and here is the history of contributors to the talk page of Sean Combs; Gimmetoo/grow had maintained that page for years (since 2006, as shown in the contribs history) when a group of editors appeared there wanting to change the citation format, per personal preferences, to a different one than that long established in the article. The contribs history show a number of editors appeared on Sean Combs in 2012, including Diannaa, a Mattisse sock, a Merridew sock, and others who are also present in some of the other discussions linked above.

Gimme has been followed in the past to articles he had long maintained, which is why the chronology of this dispute was important to establish (which we did above before proceeding to look at this dispute, and it was revealed that you had not followed him). But there is a years-long pattern that has happened elsewhere, as referenced in the now capped sections above, involving at least three socks or returning users, which is why there was a concern earlier in this thread.

As another example, the discussion of GimmeBot and articlehistory was one where many of the same editors sought a change in the bot processing of articlehistory templates that was established back in 2006 or 2007 when Gimme and others wrote the bot and the articlehistory template simultaneously. That name change request was closed on weak consensus, based largely on personal preference which would cause extra work for the bot with no gain, and which the closing admin noted, and included support from said editors mentioned above. The closing admin said he would reverse the name change if it caused problems and it has -- the closing admin has not edited since mid-November, so the name has not been changed back. At any rate, there has been a pattern-- not of Gimme causing changes-- but of a group of editors appearing in discussions involving Gimme and imposing personal preferences on citation style or personal preferences that make bot processing harder.

SchroCat, we discussed the sock concerns already here and on your talk. I did not say we had negatively interacted, but your editing had come to my attention unrelated to Gimmetoo; your user name is a bit unusual, you have similar editing interests and editing overlap, but evidence here indicates that you are not Merridew, and I have long since sincerely apologized (both here and on your talk) for the suspicion. I acknowledge that being suspected of sockpuppetry is unpleasant (it has happened to me, too-- it happens to many editors) and that it may continue to trouble you, and I'm sorry for that, again. I hope that you can set that aside and focus on how to resolve the current dispute. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:36, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I am sticking to the point, and have not raised the sock issue above (although I'm still slightly confused as to why editing six or seven list articles with sortable tables makes me a Br'er sock suspect—it is still beyond me). However, the point still stands: can you please provide a diff as to where we have previously interacted? (I take your point about not having said there was "negative interaction", but it's not a massive leap when your response is "I also encountered problems with that editor"). My other original points from the opening of this thread and from Gimme's response still stand—can you also explain to me, for example, how "I see I have made the mistake of trying to engage, discuss, and explain longer than I should have. I tend to mistakenly assume that this a professional environment" is conducive to a collegiate editing environment? Could you explain how threatening editors about a one element of page that no-one has edited for around 40 minutes (and discussed on my talk page) is ensuring a smooth and enjoyable editing procedure? Could you explain how censoring the talk pages of others is somehow acceptable (twice?) To put the whole situation in context, I wake up one moring to find a discussion being held on my talk page in which one editor has left an inconclusive response to a third party. I reverted that editors edit on the article page in entirely good faith and find myself accused by him of edit warring. That is very poor practice. The editor then reverted—edit warring, no other way to describe it—without bothering to go to the article talk page. Talk me through how all this is acceptable behaviour in any editor, let alone in an admin. Explain to me how this falls into the expectation of being able "to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others". - SchroCat (talk) 08:25, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

02:54 This was a blanket undo of my edits, leaving the article with an inconsistent date format. When I fixed that again, your response was 06:05 to tell me "do not edit war with two editors" - for making the accessdate format consistent in an article where it was inconsistent, and where those two editors, including you, were restoring that inconstancy, and where you had not made the formats consistent. How is that civil and appropriate editing behavior from you? Gimmetoo (talk) 12:55, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Can you try and keep to more precise language, please? It wasn't a "blanket undo" of your edits, as I left the category pipe in place. As to the second edit: it was, rather obviously, an oversight. I would hardly have re-introduced a different format into the article under those circumstances. As to telling you not to edit war with two other editors, that is precisely what you were doing, without going to the article talk page to discuss it. While I was in the article making the changes, you posted a second response on my page, which was not seen until the orange bar appeared upon me saving the page. Prior to that, you had only left one comment on my talk page, which was subsequently rebuffed and refuted by myself and two other editors. So when I undertook my 6.05 edit, it was on the basis of one spurious comment from you some hours earlier, which the consensus (albeit very limited and local) had thrown out of court. Hardly any need to accuse me of edit warring, uncivil behaviour etc on that basis then, was there? - SchroCat (talk) 13:25, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

(several edit conflicts) SchroCat, I have intentionally avoided commenting on the substance of the current dispute. I have a long association (since 2006) of working closely with Gimmetrow/too on developing and updating articlehistories and bot closings of content review processes, and maintenance issues related to both; he is someone I have worked closely with on Misplaced Pages, and I have had nothing but good experiences with his typically thorough and correct work. As a general principle, the actual dispute should be reviewed and addressed by uninvolved neutral editors (which, for example, Diannaa is not as she has been part of several disputes with Gimme, nor am I, because of our close working association, but if she is going to present a misleading or incomplete history, I will address that portion). My silence as to the current dispute is neither endorsement nor condemnation in either direction ... it is that I am simply staying out of that part of the discussion because disputes are best reviewed by uninvolved editors. When this thread appeared here, I was concerned about the history of hounding by socks, because there was a similarity and those were issues I have experienced that affected the work I did with Gimmetrow/too (where I depended on his bot for closings of content review processes and updating of article talk pages), and having also experienced hounding by socking, I acknowledge that one doesn't behave at one's finest under the circumstances. Again, your editing came to my attention in a completely unrelated manner (we can discuss it on your talk if you wish), we have not previously interacted, but I had watchlisted your talk because of the similarities I noted after looking into the articles above. I'm very sorry the original issue was sidelined for sock concerns, and I hope you are both able to resolve this dispute. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:08, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

On that same note Sandy you should keep in mind that many others have had positive interactions with editors which displease you. Be it Jack, Mattisse, or whoever your current "rant of the day" happens to be. It's hurtful to read disparaging things about people we've had good interactions with. Just something you may want to keep in mind for future reference. — Ched :  ?  09:25, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure you didn't mean to compare Gimmetrow-- a productive admin in good standing-- to two of Misplaced Pages's most prolific sockmasters, banned and indeff'd, or to take the original issue even further off-topic. But you did. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

(watching) I don't think that the word "compare" in the above is used as I understand it. I don't see any comparison, just a reminder of what I quote on top of my user (nod to Geometry guy): "Every editor is a human being." --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Gimmetoo visited an article he had never edited before, edit warred to impose his preferred formatting style over the local consensus that was being created for a suite of articles, and threatened with blocks anyone who should get in his way. I find this behaviour to be extremely unbecoming of an administrator on this wiki. The fact that he may have thought he was dealing with a sock of a banned user might actually mitigate his actions or partially explain them, but since he was not, his behaviour strikes me as being super inappropriate. -- Dianna (talk) 14:04, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Wahhabi

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

Please can the article on Wahhabi be protected from edits by non-autoconfirmed users. In the past few days it has been repeatedly edited by editors whose sole purpose for having an account on Misplaced Pages is to label it as "extremist"/"radical" and not "Sunni".

• 20:05, 5 January 2013 Dingdong85
• 19:28, 5 January 2013 Dingdong85
• 19:28, 5 January 2013 Hapytapy
• 00:21, 5 January 2013 Wikicrappy
• 23:16, 4 January 2013 Wikicrappy
• 09:08, 4 January 2013 Seektree
• 12:07, 3 January 2013 Seektree
• 21:48, 2 January 2013 Magnabug
• 05:51, 2 January 2013 Magnabug
• 02:31, 2 January 2013 124.190.233.226

--Toddy1 (talk) 20:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

See also Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Magnabug, which deals with the suspected sock=puppetry aspect of this.--Toddy1 (talk) 20:36, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Suggest autoblock with a/c creation blocked for a week or so. In other words if CU agree that a based block can make this socker go away the article can be left. Rich Farmbrough, 20:52, 5 January 2013 (UTC).

Hoary got one and I got the others. It was pretty obvious they were either sock or meat puppets of each other. I was giving them time to see if they would make any edits that would tie them to an earlier group of sockpuppets. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 22:15, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Since this was closed last night, three new accounts have continued the same process. If I can give an analogy, if someone is stabbing me, the solution adopted so far has been to bandage my wounds, but to allow the person with the knife to carry on stabbing. Please can this article be protected. This person will just carry on creating new IDs to continue this until the article is protected.

• 08:40, 6 January 2013‎ Theone474 m . . (55,474 bytes) (-51)‎ . . (Undid revision 531589462 by Lerdthenerd (talk)- Wahabism is a sect unto its own, references have been clearly sighted.)
• 08:29, 6 January 2013‎ Theone474 ‎ m . . (55,474 bytes) (+1)‎ . . (Elaborating on the exact definition of wahhabism, it being a sect with Islam, part of the 73 known sects to date.) (undo)
• 08:17, 6 January 2013‎ Ebomobe ‎ m . . (55,473 bytes) (-52)‎ . . (Undid revision 531583411 by CambridgeBayWeather (talk)- Again you ignorant communist who thinks they know everything, wahabism is not sunni, its a sect on its own. ,)
• 01:29, 6 January 2013‎ Ebomobe ‎ m . . (55,473 bytes) (-2)‎ . . (Although they are extreme, radical would be more appropriate than extremist/ultra conservative to maintain an unbiased approach.)
• 00:23, 6 January 2013‎ ‎Samtheman78 ‎Samtheman78 (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (55,475 bytes) (+125)‎ . . (Undid revision 531512656 by Lerdthenerd (talk)-The Wahabis are a sect unto their own, with extremist views. CLEAR references sighted you communists.)

--Toddy1 (talk) 08:58, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Here is another, it does not stop:

• 08:57, 6 January 2013‎ Dudbudfud‎ m . . (55,538 bytes) (+64)‎ . . (Wahabis themselves are extremist, the religion has many extreme, radical, and terrorist links.)

--Toddy1 (talk) 09:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Evidence is clear, I was first to notice the new ones, except the one blocked by Cambridge, I suspected ebomobe when he called Cambridge a communist, I've added him to the SPI, can you add the others--Lerdthenerd wiki defender 09:09, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Quack, quack. Socks blocked. If this keeps up, I'd agree with semiprotection for some period of time, let's see if the sockmaster here is that determined. Seraphimblade 09:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Please also block User talk:Ebomobe. Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Magnabug has confirmed that he/she is also a sock.--Toddy1 (talk) 09:15, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, figured that one would've already been done as of the last SPI. Now blocked, in any case. Seraphimblade 09:18, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Catperson12

The above named user has been warned and blocked previously (here) for unilaterally changing the legal description of towns in Virginia to cities. Particularly Warrenton, Virginia. He has found a new, slightly less destructive way to do it now, but still is not talking about it. diff Just wanted to get him on the radar again. Gtwfan52 (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, that diff was not at all vandalism, and you were incorrect to revert it as such. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:17, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I too am confused why you object to this specific edit — Warrenton is a town, as shown by the fifth page of this document; it's not an independent city. Nyttend (talk) 22:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I know it is a town. The standard layout on town's info boxes in Virginia is "Town of ####" So instead of just inserting city, like he was, he is now just downgrading the visibility of "town", unilaterally. He needs to discuss it before changing it. He appears to have some strong personal dislike for the word "town". Gtwfan52 (talk) 00:47, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

@Nyytend - Slightly off topic: Are you sure about towns in Virginia not having taxation powers? I only ask because I'm fairly sure that towns here in New York do. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:44, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

This seems to indicate that Warrenton can levy taxes. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:48, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I removed it because the paragraph said "Like many incorporated towns in Virginia, the town of Warrenton has government and taxation separate from the county" — cities have separate governments, but towns are within counties rather than separate from them. Nyttend (talk) 22:55, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand your reasoning. If a town has a government, and the county has a government, are they not "separate" from each other? True, the town exists within the county (and the majority of cities in the US do as well, by the way), but the governments and the taxes are separate. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:28, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, Virginia is very much the exception with their independent cities. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:15, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Virginia has Counties that can contain Towns, and Cities which are not part of the Counties that enclose them, but no Cities that are part of a County. These Cities are known in law as "Independent Cities" because they are exactly that - they may be landlocked within a County, but they are completely separate from it. We're a little odd down here in the oldest part of European America :-) RossPatterson (talk) 04:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Towns can and do levy taxes in Virginia. Chief among them is real-estate (land) tax, but there are others as well. Leesburg, Virginia, an incorporated Town within and the seat of Loudoun County, Virginia has a page describing what residents are expected to pay. RossPatterson (talk) 04:15, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

519 edits, 518 mainspace, has never edited own talk page, 3 blocks. Another apparently good faith but totally non-communicative editor. Seems a shame to have to kick them to the good curb but not sure what other solutions exist. NE Ent 00:01, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

At least you get it. I wonder why I bothered looking up the archive if no-one was going to read it. If he sees his talk page, I disagree about him being a good faith editor. His earlier antics were persistent, even after both templated and written warnings. Would an admin consider sending him an email? Gtwfan52 (talk) 00:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

He was already blocked for a month for refusal to discuss anything. Looks like a trend. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:45, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes, but how did we know if they see their talk page? I know it's hard to imagine someone not noticing the big orange but it's happened before with other editors. I'm not seeing an "Email this user" link on their user page so I don't think anyone can email them. NE Ent 00:48, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I and others have attempted to engage Catperson12 back in September 2012, offering to discuss their intention behind these oft-reverted changes, to no avail. Reading through every one of their edits in the past, I believe Catperson12 to be intelligent enough to push a point, and perfectly capable of noticing a big orange sign advising them of new messages on their talk page. I can draw no other conclusion but that they do not wish to engage in discussion about this town vs. city issue. I agree with Gtwfan52 that Catperson12's current edits appear to be a stealth technique to advance the same agenda, whatever it is. RossPatterson (talk) 04:03, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, so here we are. An editor that will not discuss. We have no real policy that requires discussion. And this is that editor. One who has no record of any type of discussion whatsoever. Now what?--Amadscientist (talk) 05:49, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I am incorrect. It seems they did make a single edit to a talkpage. I wonder if this attitude can be traced back to that edit. --Amadscientist (talk) 05:54, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

That would be this, which sat unanswered for about 5 months. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:16, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you....I dreaded trying to find it.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:24, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Use the "Namespace" dropdown to filter the results on User Contributions; i.e. Special:Contributions/Catperson12?namespace=1 NE Ent 14:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

User:8tsunami7

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

Please take a look at User:8tsunami7. -DePiep (talk) 00:57, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Hardly a report, DePiep. In any event, the editor is probably a puppet of User:Guinsberg. When I have a second, I'll file the report. In the meantime, I've protected the article the user has been editing.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree, a bad report I made here. Thankx for taking care though. -DePiep (talk) 01:15, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I've met so many bad users, I thought this one remark here could go without notice (as a sock would). But maybe it was not that clear. All fine, thanx for the action, and I'll be better (with diffs) next time. -DePiep (talk) 01:38, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Move of Anilingus article to Boners(Erectionmasters). Compromised account?

When I saw this, I couldn't make out what is going on with this user. And I still can't. I initially thought that this must be a vandalism account, but that's not the impression I've gotten from briefly looking over this user's edit history. So I wonder if the account has been WP:Compromised.

I first went to User talk:Boing! said Zebedee about it, and then to User talk:AndyTheGrump, because I wondered if I should try to talk this over with the user first. AndyTheGrump said "straight to ANI, I'd say. I'd guess a compromised account - so you'll not know who you are talking to." But since then, administrator J.delanoy has attempted to talk to the user. Flyer22 (talk) 04:51, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I looked into this already, and talked about it with a checkuser (the abovementioned J.delanoy), who found nothing problematic in the records. Given that, and given that there's no ongoing vandalism, I'm personally going to wait for an answer to J's question before deciding to block, unless more bad edits happen. I'll be keeping an eye on his contribs. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 04:58, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think compromised, but given there's only about 500 edits, and that the user talk page history is colorful, not exactly a user in the greatest standing either. --Rschen7754 05:04, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The user has responded on my talk page about this. Flyer22 (talk) 21:02, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:BROTHER. Since there are a number of other questionable edits in Intensity254's contibutions -- like the April 6 move of Tracy Morgan to Panda Bears(Movie Man) and from there to Tracy Jordan (Actor), and the April 8 replacement of 115K of text from List of Doctor Who serials with "Hi Peter" -- the editor should be aware that they are responsible for the edits made using their account, no matter what family member made them, and can be sanctioned for them. He or she should try to be more careful about staying logged in. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:17, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

MMA Project needs somebody to step in

There is a huge split in the project. A lot of articles are being put up for deletion which actually meet the notability requirements. Where one of the major problems is coming in is WP:NMMA says in order for an MMA fighter to be noteable he must have 3 professional fights for a top tier organization. The fights that happen on the Ultimate Fighter are professionally, sanctioned fights. If they weren't, they would be illegal. They are put on by the UFC, which is a top tier organization. We have people absolutely refusing to accept that they meet the requirements. We have tried to explain it, and it hasn't helped. I have tried to come up with another system for notability. They oppose it, so I keep asking them to come up with a compromise. They keep drawing a line in the sand and aren't wanting to compromise or work out something that the entire group can live with. I even have a couple of them threatening to try to get me blocked or get an admin review on me because I don't want to just drop it and do it the way that those couple people are trying to dictate. I keep asking for other ideas, asking for a compromise, but it appears as if there are a couple people who don't want to work out a diplomatic solution. I am just not sure where to go with this. What do you do when there are a couple people trying to dictate the project and don't want to compromise with the rest of us. If we try to change anything, they just create editing wars, which I don't want to get into. I think the MMA project needs somebody from outside the project to come in and help create a compromise that might not make anybody happy, but is something that the entire project can accept. Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Mixed martial arts#Consensus for WP:NMMA Vote Help up us out please. Willdawg111 (talk) 06:21, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Why is this one ANI? Anyway please remember the basic notability requirement is sufficient coverage in reliable secondary source. If the criteria you're proposing doesn't tehd to only include people who meet the basic notability requirement, it's most likely flawed. In particular, any complicated 'point' based system is almost definitely not something we want. Nil Einne (talk) 06:44, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• Essentially what Nil Einne said. If these items are notable, go to their AfD discussions, and show they've been covered in depth by multiple reliable uninvolved sources. If they haven't, they're not notable and should be removed, whatever the MMA project's internal pages say to any other effect. Seraphimblade 06:55, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't have a dog in this fight (bad pun, not intended), but this MMA stuff keeps popping up over and over, and cursory references to GNG is not going to cut it. I agree this isn't an ANI issue, and am fine if someone moves it, but it seems clear that something needs to get concretely done about an MMA criteria. RFCs that matter are always horrific processes that have walls of text... I'm not sure we have a better method here. Regardless, MMA articles right now are being handled piecemeal at AfD with all the problems that go with that. It would be nice to have a consensus criteria that put some brightlines down, so at least the AfD discussions could have some anchors to work from, instead of the current mess they are. Shadowjams (talk) 08:06, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • That's been proposed before, but (if I remember correctly) no proposal got consensus from the broader community; Example. There's been so much discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Mixed martial arts/MMA notability that it has 7 archive pages. Personally, I think that project-specific notability rules tend to cause needless strife and wikilawyering, but I think it could be a good "tactical" solution in this case... bobrayner (talk) 12:07, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
    • Yeah I'm aware there is/was an RfC about it. The extent of my involvement is that I think I've !voted in a few MMA article's AfDs, but that was when I was naive about the broader discussion. I agree with you that this issue, the RfC in particular, seems hopelessly deadlocked, but we've had these issues before. It's somewhat strange (maybe ironic) we're at this point, but Misplaced Pages has dealt with much more contentious issues too. I don't have a concrete idea of the way to fix this, but I think this issue can be resolved to all party's satisfaction better than some of our other more intractable issues. The RfC needs some really dedicated administrator (maybe a panel of administrators) that can corral that mess into a meaningful discussion. It's difficult, but not unique.
      I'm not sure what the way out of this is ultimately. It's not going to go away. This sport is essentially an equivalent to boxing, and there are tons of minor events that aren't notable, and lots of large events that clearly are. We need some logical way to deal with them. And doing it halfhazard at AfD is a really bad way to deal with them. It'd be nice if we had a better method than RfC, but short of arbcom, we don't have one for an issue like this. Shadowjams (talk) 13:57, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
      • An MMA notability guideline may be okay, if it's done with the right aim and designed at least partially by someone with a general understanding and experience of our notability criteria and how to write them. Proposal like the point system link above, well to be blunt while the editor may be acting in good faith, it doesn't help anything. Nil Einne (talk) 21:46, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, an impending incident that probably does need wider administrator attention is the current spate of immediate AFD re-nominations that are being made in this area as soon as AFD discussions are closed:

• Jamie Yager (AfD discussion) — renominated just over 24 hours after prior AFD discussion closure
• Antonio McKee (AfD discussion) — renominated just over two hours after prior AFD discussion closure

Uncle G (talk) 13:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I've watched passively for a long time about the constant war over the MMA articles, yes the project has had some issues with its own contributors, yes there have been some off-wiki canvassing by others, but there is also a concentrated effort by a few users to purge the content off Wiki. The simple fact is, that MMA project is decimated right now and many of the contributors have already left wiki leaving few people capable of actually making decent arguments about the material. Something needs to be done, but no one seems willing to take a stand and fill that void and at this point, who can blame them. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion Close this WP:CANVASSING request with prejudice. OP doesn't like that the same proposal that's been raised 2 times previously (Both times since December 29th 2012) is getting shot down again for the exact same policy reasons as before. Consensus can change, but there should be a reasonable limit to how many times the exact same proposal can be floated without the proposer transcending to the "I didn't hear that" level of disruption. I suggest a reading of the {{Uw-mmawarning}} over the editor so as to make it clear that their efforts are disruptive. Hasteur (talk) 17:39, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Hasteur keeps repeating that same mis-information. The idea was brought up, there were mixed comments about it. I actually drew up a proposal and presented it and Hasteur threatened to turn me in for an admin review. There is no basis for this nor is it disruptive. I keep repeating that I don't have an issue with people not liking what I suggested but it is just a suggestion to try to move things forward with a compromise (I've even asked the people who didn't like my suggestion to propose a compromise). The only way this works is if EVERYBODY in the project compromises and comes to a solution that everybody can live with. The issue we are having is that one side refuses to compromise, which is why I requested that we get a mediator from outside the group to come in and try to work out a compromise with all the active editors. Willdawg111 (talk) 17:53, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

And here the first stone gets thrown. I cite Wikipedia_talk:MMA#MMA_notability where you were told no because it was too gamey (December 29th 2012). I also cite Wikipedia_talk:MMANOT#Doing_away_with_the_tiered_system as the second case where the exact list was used again and again I had to explain why the list and points are not appropriate. It is not mis-information if it's not incorrect. Willdawg111 wants to use a system of their devising using arbitrary points to brightline the Notability threshold. As has been explained 3 times before, this type of regime is inherently gameable as an individual fighter could collect the points they needed by fighing in 2000 of "Bob's Backyard Brawl MMA" events and would then be able to have the "He has the points" pushers to never let the fighter out of wikipedia. I call for an admin to review Willdawg111's behavior entirely to observe the personal attacks, snide remarks (even in his original posting here), disruptive pushing of ideas that were not appropriate, and intentional misstatemens of fact. Hasteur (talk) 18:20, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it seems to me that Willdawg suffers from a bad case of "I didn't hear that". His latest example is his persistence to claim that UFC TUF reality show exhibition fights can be included to justify a fighter's notability as per WP:NMMA. He makes this claim, yet again, even have it has been explained, multiple times, that these exhibition bouts are not "professional competition at the highest level".(There are also multiple AfDs Willdawg111 participated in where the same explanations were offered.) This is just a single instance of this behavior. There has been similar instances in regards to changing result table formats, rankings of MMA promotions/organizations and AfDs. (I can go find all the diffs if requested, but it's going to be a long list.) I'm unsure what the solution to this situation is, other than perhaps an uninvolved editor offering WP:MENTORSHIP to Willdawg111. --TreyGeek (talk) 19:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Hasteur is exactly correct here. As I watch the AfDs, I find myself taken aback at some of the arguments. It seems to me that the entire MMA Project needs to take a close look at what they feel is notable, and what actually is notable. I don't know all of the personalities or their motivations. What I do know is under some of the logic I have seen in the AfDs, that my son and I would qualify for articles ourselves. Obviously it isn't that way with every MMA Project AfD, but I do think that perhaps they should have a conversation among themselves, with neutral third parties, and listen to what those third parties have to say. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 06:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Could someone help Willdawg111 with their SPI report here. It appears to be improperly filled out as the accused sock puppets is not explicitly stated (though I think he is accusing me of being a sock of someone else). --TreyGeek (talk) 23:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to the fact that some guideline needs to be made for MMA; the issue's gone on for simply too long. But nothing's going to happen here at ANI to help that, and this thread is not going to go anywhere. There should be a more visible RfC with specific proposals. And I would highly encourage the regulars in MMA notability to seek out some neutral admins to agree to help dig through an RfC that has specific proposals. I don't think that will happen at ANI though; maybe requests for closure. Shadowjams (talk) 05:31, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

AsianGeographer

Hi all, am I crazy, or does AsianGeographer (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) seem like a sockpuppet? AG registered on 2 January and has made over 1000 edits in the four days since then with a maximum level of disruption. They also knew how to use categories and Hotcat from their third edit, and knew what "rv" (revert) meant by their seventeenth edit, just sixteen minutes after their first overall edit. Note that I've blocked this user for 31 hours for the aforementioned disruption and edit warring. Ed  09:51, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, apparently Hotcat was enabled by default for all registered users starting in November. But, the other points still stand. Ed  10:08, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree, somewhat strange. I had been having an ongoing conversation with the editor at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Proposed provinces of Indonesia, right up until he was blocked. Perfectly civil (perhaps a bit bludgeony, maybe, but AGF and all that). That said, I re-edited his comments and those from another user to fix their votes at AFD (from "oppose/support" to "keep/delete"). The WP:OTHERSTUFF arguments (again and again) is a classic new-user-at-AFD tactic. That sort of thing would seem to be either the work of a very (very) clever sock-puppet (intentionally making very public "rookie" mistakes to seem inexperienced) or a genuinely new user. 1000 edits in 4 days is insane. I have 5 times that many in 4 years. If nothing else, he should be strongly encouraged to slow the hell down. WP:NODEADLINE and whatnot. The block, I think, was justified to allow that message to be made clear and to prevent immidiate disruption. I'm not sure C-Us would be excited about a fishing expedition SPI. Stalwart111 10:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I ran into them - something about renaming a category. I'd say that the "speed" is all about their categorizations of articles - which with HotCat is a pretty quick process. As they have an interest in a particularly undeveloped area of the encyclopedia in some regards, categorization was likely very valid - although they ran into some issues with understanding how Misplaced Pages works (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Another thing that was strange was him knowing how to this. When I created Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Proposed provinces of Indonesia, I accidentally stated that it failed WP:V (instead of WP:N). I, instead of thinking to strike it out, changed it after he had asked why it failed WP:V. Then he put it back with a strike through it and left this edit summary: "If you alter your text after other people have replied, then do that by striking." I wonder how he knew that. United States Man (talk) 20:25, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, I recall using the abbreviation "rm" at the age of 13 or so on my dad's article (editing on IP), simply because I'd checked the history, seen someone else using it, and taken an educated guess at what it meant. — Francophonie&Androphilie 12:23, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Just to add my two pennies in. I was trying to sort out this dispute "here". I contacted User:Merbabu "here" and was contacted by User:SatuSuro in turn. Both have stated that advice given on the edits he has made has been is ignored and accusations of attacking are made on a regular basis. My own interactions with him seem to indicate that he constantly believes he is being attacked by the two users above, that he is in the right and the other users are in the wrong. Sock-puppetry wasn't brought up by either of the users I talked to. Sorry if I'm telling you things you're already aware of. --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 13:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I had a look thru this user edits and actions while its been a while since I've spent time looking at Indonesian topics there is something familiar about the editor but its been a good 18months 2years since that person last editted so CU would find nothing. The block looks fine to me the user posted that "he" was going to bed in the middle of the afternoon local id.time Gnangarra 14:18, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I've heard suspicions that the user may be User:Tobias Conradi, a known sockpuppeteer with a history of involvement in Indonesia-related articles. See, for instance, Talk:Jambi. Perhaps someone who knows Conradi's style better than me can check. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:23, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • The pattern of article creation looks similar to that of other Tobias Conradi socks in other areas, to my inexpert eye. bobrayner (talk) 01:42, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Wahhabi edit warring, POV pushing, sockpuppetry

That ended quickly. Ed  10:09, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

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

Can an admin take a look at Wahhabi, where it looks like there is an edit war being propagated by a POV-pushing individual who is repeatedly creating sock accounts. --Biker Biker (talk) 09:58, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

thats already been sorted out! *facepalm*--Lerdthenerd wiki defender 10:00, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Materialscientist (talk · contribs) protected it for a few months, two other socks blocked by me, everything reverted—I think we're done here. :-) Ed  10:04, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Swift and decisive. I like that. --Biker Biker (talk) 10:06, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

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

Canvassing

User:Doncsecz is sending messages to Hungarian users to influence the vote at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/László Kovács (writer), where the deletion of the article about László Kovács. a Hungarian writer, is requested. This comment "Yes, as the arguments for the deletions is nonsense, only the humiliation of the Hungarians or Europeans. " of User:Doncsecz has also to be noted Transerd (talk) 13:17, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The "nonsense" or "humiliation" words is not unethical words. See also other talk pages about other articles. Doncsecz 13:49, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

This is a battleground mentality, you see Misplaced Pages as a war betwen nations (Hungarians vs enemies) Transerd (talk) 13:51, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Also in other talk page (see Syrian Civil War) was hard talk: in my talk page, which is shouting. Nonetheless i was not Judas, and not discloses the user. Ergo this is your personal action. Doncsecz 14:21, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Enemies? No comment. I am a Hungarian. So what? I don't care your nationality and I have no enemies. --Norden1990 (talk) 14:35, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I only ask the users, as the wiki is great and is difficult to monitor everything. Transerd is new user, probably sockpuppet. Doncsecz 13:22, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Do you have any proof of that? If so, then take it to WP:SPI. If not, I would stop with the accusations of socking. --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 13:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Transerd is sockpuppet?

Transerd is a new user and suddenly joined a deletion. This is presumably a sockpuppet. How is the investigation? Doncsecz 13:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

If you truly think that, then open a sockpuppet investigation at WP:SPI. Be aware though, that you will have to provide proof that he is sock puppeting. --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 13:46, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Transerd indeed a sockpuppet. The owner is User:Iaaasi. See the User:Transerd page. Doncsecz 08:44, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Try for an SPI -- than another editor who is not an admin sought to label a person as a sock does not make them one. See WP:SPI please. Collect (talk) 12:35, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I did suggest that twice, but it seems to have been ignored. --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 12:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Bureaucrat OhanaUnited - are they right, am I wrong?

OhanaUnited (Talk) just gave me a public warning on an article talk page, over a comment which was wholly irrelevant to the current discussion. This user is a WP:BUREAUCRAT so because of the formal nature of such a warning and the circumstances leading up to it, I feel it necessary to come here to ask:

• Are this warning and its placement appropriate and deserved?
• Has OhanaUnited behaved correctly?

OhanaUnited had posted this comment in a discussion, accusing one of the regular page editors (User:MilborneOne) of deliberate straw man tactics. This helped upset the editor as well as another.

I dropped a note real politely to say that some editors were upset, whether intended or otherwise, and that an apology might be appreciated.

OhanaUnited's inital response (17:56, 3 January 2013) was more abuse - this time aimed at me on my own talk page by accusing me of hypocrisy.

Nevertheless a couple of hours later the message seems to have sunk in, because OhanaUnited followed up my thought with the above "I didn't mean to" apologia (at 19:05, 3 January 2013. Meanwhile I had posted a Misplaced Pages:Forgive and forget type comment and tried to the real discussion on. Curiously, OhanaUnited posted their apologia _above_ that comment, making it look like my forgive and forget wording might be pointedly ignoring it, with only close inspection of the datestamps showing that it came after the event. Still, no real harm done.

Anyway, I soon found his insult there on my talk page. I do not feel it was valid (as I was making no judgement of intent, only commenting on the outcome of the guy's post as politely as I could), and their comment appeared to flagrantly breach WP:ETIQUETTE so I blanked it. The guy's user talk page says they don't watch(list) other user's talk pages, and somewhere (if only I could remember where) there is advice to the effect that if you abuse a user on their own talk page, you can't be surprised if they delete it with a dusty edit comment - so that was what I did: my edit summary on my own talk page just said, "dickhead".

OhanaUnited chose to push this back by warning me off, and repeating my rude word over the article discussion page too. Whatever the merits of my own behaviour, I find this a gratuitous, inappropriate and possibly disruptive escalation of an irrelevant matter: the discussion was in general well behaved and that warning should have gone on my user talk page or nowhere. Perhaps I am wrong to see it that way.

I feel bullied and harassed, the way this bureaucrat is now apparently following me around and escalating a personal gripe by threatening me publicly in an inappropriate place. I am happy to apologise, especially if that advice I recall does not actually exist and my momentary value judgement is after all unacceptable, but I feel this guy is riding me and I need to know whether the wider community thinks he is, and whether he is right to do so. So I don't feel able to let this rest. But I don't know any other bureaucrats well enough to ask them personally for a quick and informal intervention. Anyway, that's why I am asking here yet again. Have I done bad again? Has this bureaucrat let the side down? FYI, here's my list of contributions so you can check out my wider attitude. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

OhanaUnited is not a bureaucrat. The very page you linked to, WP:BUREAUCRAT, tells you this. Additionally, this matter has nothing to do with the bureaucrat role, instead being focussed on civility. Your post here is, therefore, a little baffling. You may wish to refactor it to remove these inconsistencies. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 13:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Steelpillow - Your case isn't entirely without merit. I see MelborneOne's point of view that, obviously, if you are having a discussion on the validity of a source then it makes sense that someone with an opposing point of view would find items that demonstrate their point of view. I agree that OhanaUnited's argument against that is silly. I was just reading the Apteva topic ban on AN and I felt like folks on Misplaced Pages just do not like being disagreed with. However, there is hardly anything blockable that OhanaUnited has done. On the other hand, you escalated the situation by calling him a Dickhead. I wouldn't block over it alone, but you're certainly closer to that than he is. If I were you, I'd hit the brakes and try reengaging and explaining how you feel.--v/r - TP 14:39, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I suggest that this be closed with no action. I tend to agree with TP that some actions here were far from ideal, but there's no need for blocking or sanctions. The best thing to do would be to calm down and walk away for a little while. (I think the confusion was caused by OhanaUnited's status as a crat on another project?) Mark Arsten (talk) 16:49, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Just to explain, seeing you say that, I suppose got confused by OhanaUnited's Biography section on their user page. It says that this user is an admin and links to Misplaced Pages:ADMIN so I take that to be true. It also says that, "On March 18, 2008, he was promoted to become the 13th bureaucrat on WikiSpecies," but with no obvious link to explain this, so I guess I misunderstood. For "bureaucrat" in my comments above, please read "Admin".

I apologised personally for my bad language when I advised OhanaUnited of this discussion, and my post here records how I feel. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:32, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

WikiSpecies is another Wikimedia Foundation project, separate from English Misplaced Pages. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:06, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Sock stuffing at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Josh Simmons

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

Can an admin please take a look at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Josh Simmons. While one should assume good faith, a large number of newly-created accounts have all weighed in to vote against deletion. I can hear, see and even smell a duck here, so would appreciate someone who knows what is the the appropriate action in these cases to take a look. Thanks. --Bob Re-born (talk) 17:45, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Cavarrone and I have tagged the hell out of all of the SPAs. I'll go write up an SPI - if it returns the expected result, I figure we can just hat/strike/delete/whatever all of the sock !votes. — Francophonie&Androphilie 18:53, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I semi-protected the AfD and hatted the SPAs.--v/r - TP 19:00, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

While you were busy doing that, I filed a now mostly pointless SPI, for anyone interested. Accursèd speedy admin action! — Francophonie&Androphilie 19:28, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

User:Aryan2012 and expiration of protection on Omar Bakri Muhammad

It appears the above user has made a return to Misplaced Pages. The user in question used a series of accounts to wage a campaign of sanitization of referenced material on Omar Bakri Muhammad. This led to the article being protected for a period which expired on 3 Jan 2013. It appears the person in question has returned now that protection has expired. He/she appears to have also returned to their other hobby-horse of subjects related to Cyprus. I have reverted their edits to National Federation of Cypriots as some of these just render the meaning of the article nonsense (as well as changing the organization's name). I also have my doubts on Nikos Sampson, its the first time a reference has been supplied here (even if it is to a book on Amazon without page numbers), however I have left the edits for now to see if someone with access might be able to verify the reference. Pit-yacker (talk) 18:26, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, User:Britishpatriot2014 does quack very loudly, but I'm certainly not going to disagree with this edit of theirs, because whether a BLP subject's daughter has a job as an exotic dancer is utterly irrelevant and undue. I'd suggest raising an SPI in the meantime. Black Kite (talk) 13:36, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Backlog at SPI: Will somebody please block this latest User:Mangoeater1000 sockpuppet?

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

Because of the backlog at SPI (see Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Mangoeater1000), and because this is clearly a WP:DUCK situation not requiring a check user, will an admin please block User:Mirafori as one of the many sockpuppets of Mangoeater1000 editing NYU Poly articles (see Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Mangoeater1000/Archive). Thanks, 72Dino (talk) 21:12, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, NuclearWarfare! 72Dino (talk) 21:50, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Any admins with OTRS access (permissions)

Daffodil International Professional Training Institute is a CV of . There is a message on the article talk page suggesting that permission has been emailed; in light of which, I've not CSD tagged it, but the talkpage post is dated 22 November 2012, yet the article was only created today. All looks very sus. If it is deleted there are several redirects from incorrect page moves in the page history. Pol430 talk to me 23:09, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I've put a copyvio tag on it as an interim measure. Beyond My Ken (talk)
  • I'm nominating it for deletion as non-notable at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Daffodil International Professional Training Institute. —— 01:22, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
• An attempt at locating the ticket proved unsuccessful. However, that does not necessarily mean it doesn't exist. KTC (talk) 01:40, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
• It was also created, with almost exactly the same wording, in May 2012 by Alam5131 (talk · contribs). This is a single-purpose account that has edited almost exactly the same range of articles as Wikiwebsbd (talk · contribs), including Daffodil International University and Md Sabur Khan. Non-administrators may like to know that several paragraphs from that latter, Md Sabur Khan, can also be seen in Sabur Khan (AfD discussion), including "aimed to position his footstep" and "22 years of glorified career". Uncle G (talk) 08:16, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Md Sabur Khan now G4'd. Dougweller (talk) 15:44, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Edits by User:Cantaloupe2

This editor has become tiring and tenditious constantly pushing his "America-centric" genocide obsession into articles destroying numeric charts and any technical example that uses numeric "America-centric" information. He was advised not to do this by several editors and yet he persists,,,,,.

When his edits are challenged or removed he progresses to tagging the article to excess despite being requested not to do that by other editors. Look here where his edits have been challenged repeatedly and what resulted to the article. What would readers think? An angry person was allowed to make a mess of WP?

When talk page discussions are initiated he attempts to confuse the issue with side-tracking issues(first and second sentence are not related or topic) and then avoids continuing to consensus or resolution.,, This is not a newbie and these tenditious edits appear to be very WP:Pointy with his "America-centric" genocide article disruption. His attitude are pushing editors into just giving up.

Being followed around with many edits challenged with some new pointy policy angle seems like simple harrassment is just not worth the stress.

Here are my communications on his talk page. I named him in an IPsockpuppet CU, by accident (sloppy cut n paste) My apology and further request for him not to group large quantities of edits. but it seems he may hold a grudgeand it seemed another distraction from the talkpage discussion at hand. I attempted to stay on topic with. .

I attempted to explain how I felt about his disruption of articles. after his injection of facetious edit history comments and data. here - note history. He responded with rejection and this. I don't believe I made any ad hominem remarks and tried to only refer to his edits. He did comment on my mention of his "America-centric obsession" as a personal attack. "America-centric" is Cantaloupe2's favoured phrase and he admits it frequently in many edits and histories.

I feel I have attempted to resolve this matter amicably a few time to no avail. After seeing other editors frustrated by the same POV pushing I came here in a frustrated attempt to fix this waste of editing time. Thanks. 174.118.142.187 (talk) 02:35, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Cantaloupe2 notified. 174.118.142.187 (talk) 02:59, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I can see a dubious pattern of edits on electrical engineering topics, but haven't yet seen anything about genoicide. Can you clarify? bobrayner (talk) 02:57, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I switched comment order for clarity (above) Perhaps "genocide" is not the correct term for this. Cantaloupe removes any North American references, especially numeric data from articles. Some conflicts I have observed of this was Compact fluorescent lamp where he removed all dollar data from a financial comparison chart, calling it spam. Then he proceeded to remove referenced edits that used the American EPA. A US Coast Guard reference was deleted claiming it was "political propaganda". US magazine Times online reference. Notice the edit history and how section motion hides edits. I mentioned this to him (see link above). Changes any numeric examples to "American" label referring to talk page comments that didn't exist. More pointy edits. Then when the campaign doesn't get consensus from editors he begins flagging articles with pointy tags.

It should be noted that I am Canadian and have no interest in any particular AmEng bias. I want numeric examples as readers can relate to them better than abstract formulae (50%Va-b). I believe this area-generic POV is negative to tech article clarity. Invitations to add other area examples were welcomed several times, that I witnessed. 174.118.142.187 (talk) 03:51, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Per the admin SpinningSparks, I was advised it should be globally focused, and not just English language. In the article, complainant wants America specific hard numbers which were arbitrarily chosen historically. Of those, the user arbitrarily chose some applied examples such as 120:208, 347:600. The number pair maintains a relationship which is 1:√3. Since it was disputed by the complainant, I compromised with including both that and a region neutral numeric values based on % scale, so 100:173. Same issue in this article Delta-wye_transformer where the user inserted a list of region/Canada proprietary numbers. I find that such proprietary values are not encyclopedic and replacing them with universal formula ensures global neutrality. It would be a limited audience interest, such as for electrical wiring technicians in a relevant. There's no reason that people versed with enough prior knowledge to read this article needs a looong list of number tables to understand it. The article isn't a list of world's various voltages.To expand on actual technical implementation which an editor commented have no place in articles, the article would be filled with country by country list of every voltage set imaginable which is not informative in expanding in the contents discussed. But Wiki is not a directory.

Preference to build articles to revolve around one region is biased and is a neutrality issue. This editor also accuse me of incompetence while continuing to add free write contents based on anecdotes and personal experience which ignores the expectations of verifiability with in inference that the user itself is competent.

Addressing the CFL article issue, this is discussed in article Talk:Compact_fluorescent_lamp#NPOV talk. The complainant singularly objected based on unfounded reasoning "The average reader wants to know about the bottom line... money". I also removed references to price, because they are inappropriate web store links where items are sold, which is not permitted here as references as it is a magnet for spam. Expressing it in terms of $ and unit cost is like expressing a car's mileage in terms of miles per American dollar of gas at the day the article is written whereas my approach to simply list the watt is like approaching it in 100km/L which is not time sensitive. I removed a good chunk of article that was advancing political concerns which was straying off topic. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 04:23, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, regarding this contention provided, go back one more edit. You corrected a spelling error, but along with it, you removed a "" tag from unattributed statement, but did not replace it with a reference. I restored the tag, because the statement was not referenced. Going back some more edits, you inserted a statement which appears to come from your thoughts without attribution.unreferenced addition. I asked you not to insert anecdotal evidence. When something is challenged, the burden is on the person restoring or inserting to WP:PROVEIT. Removal of reference requested tags without providing reference is nonconstructive. I tagged them, because I'm challenging the claim you're making. You claimed that this design may make it more susceptible to metering error, and that the resulting product 1/2*V(Ph to Ph)*√3 is inherently more uncommon than 1/2*ph to ph or ph to ph voltage. I'm not convinced and when I challenge it, the policy says you have to prove it. My guess is that you made common/uncommon based on comparison of voltages provided by such systems in applied actual technical practice in your municipality incorporation. Centering whats common and not common around your locale and applying to article that is supposed to be globally neutral is where my contention of Geo-centrism comes from. This is the kind of thing I believe VQuakr said does not have place in article here Cantaloupe2 (talk) 06:44, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Are you referring to this edit where English is not mentioned at all? Was there another statement by Spinningspark other than his clarification of the guideline? 174.118.142.187 (talk) 05:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

correct. You also inquired who to cater to if it isn't for Europe or America. In the question you posted on SpinningSpark's talk page, he told you that it should cover globally here. When you constrain the coverage, it causes the language to be an envelope that distorts worldwide coverage. Some of the longest transmission lines are Russia, China, Brazil and such. Also, Japan has very well established electrical distribution system as well. All four countries I just mentioned ideally should receive equal weight. Some region centric examples you disseminate as common, popular, often used, etc are likely to be misnomer in world wide usage. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 11:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe this was where contentions begun. An admin SpinningSparks mentioned article should represent global point of view. Before my edit, it was filled with examples, advantages, disadvantages that revolve around installations specific to US systems. I replaced examples with formulas. When the complaining IP editor expressed that reader may have trouble with formulas, I added a geographically neutral examples using percent scaled example. In my good faith edit, this was a better approach than addressing each technical variation for every country. An editor commented to me that actual technical application shouldn't stay in the article as well. The IP editor continue to insert first hand accounts and anecdotal interpretive statements and nagged me with WP:COMPETENT even though many of his additions are not verifiable. I am all about writing it so that it is region free and examples are not geo-centric to particular place and the IP editor contends I'm "obsessed with America centric".

While this is on the table, I would like to present my concerns with harassment from the complainant pejorative remarks such as "temper tantrum" "obsession" and misrepresenting me as "admitting to less than positive intentions". The diff in question. According to WP:TPNO his insulting, ad hominem attack left on my page violates WP:CIVIL policies. The comment was left on my talk page, perhaps by coincidence, shortly after I sought SpinningSparks comments over contentious comments on complainant's own talk page labeled interesting edits which includes contentious tags of other users, such as "agenda" "coverup" "competent" and even libelous misrepresenting another editor DieSwartzPunkt as: "admission of sock puppetry"(when the investigation found that editor not malicious). Since WP:TALK says general rules for talk page applies, I would think that his behavior of misrepresenting other editors fall under WP:TPNO behavior.Cantaloupe2 (talk) 03:37, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Cantaloupe2, Please do not canvass hostile editors as you did with this edit. See WP:Canvassing. I realise you are quite upset right now but a few hostile editors to attack me may complicate this process. This needs to be a learning experience for both of us so we may work in harmony later. I fear the editor in question has gone or morphed again and he was a good tech guy. 174.118.142.187 (talk) 04:39, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with your assessment of canvassing. In my response, I addressed some behavioral concerns about you which includes your accusation of sockpuppueting towards the aforementioned editor and failing to assume good faith. Since that dispute discussed involved him/her, it was a courtesy notice. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 05:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) IP, if Cantaloupe2 mentions another user in discussing your report (with its highly inappropriate previous title), it is perfectly in order for him to inform that user. Your comment about realising that Cantaloupe2 is "quite upset" is unhelpful and borders on harassment. The underlying issue of using country-independent examples concerns content rather than conduct, so can't really be addressed here. There is no need to add a signature (four tildes) to your edit summaries. Mathsci (talk) 05:10, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I understood these notices should remain in a neutral tone. I felt "One of the discussions I've added there is the sock puppetry accusation made towards you by the same editor." could be interpreted as an attempt invoke a certain response from an editor. Thanks. 174.118.142.187 (talk) 05:54, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Please see WP:POT: you're the user who wrote "genoicide" in the original title here; you're the one that seems to be collecting a laundry list on his user talk page. Please watch out for the WP:BOOMERANG. Mathsci (talk) 05:58, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Facts:Several issues are getting discussed here. Of those issues, your accusation of him sock puppeting is the only issues that concerns him, therefore what I left him is consistent with notifying him that there is a discussion where he is mentioned, and how it pertains him. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 06:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

IP, please do not insert comments in the middle of Cantaloupe2's postings. It makes everything unreadable. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 05:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Apologies. I thought I saw a signature. Thanks for fixing! 174.118.142.187 (talk) 05:42, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

It has been brought to my attention that I have been referenced in this discussion. My comments seem to have been somewhat misrepresented. It is true that I have advised that articles should take a worldwide perspective. However, this was in the context of replying to whether an article written in American English should use exclusively American numeric examples. I have not advised Cantaloupe2 (or anybody else) that algebraic examples are preferable to numeric examples. For what it's worth, I have given exactly the opposite advice. SpinningSpark 14:36, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Union Flag move to Union Jack

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

In August 2012, there was a request for moving a page from Union Flag to Union Jack without, from what I can see, any compelling arguement to do so. This is a controversial move that should not have happened, and there have been a few other users to comment that there wasn't a concensus reached to move this page. I'm not sure how the Admin came to this controversial decision. I'm appealing for this decision to be reversed as it was made without any consensus to move the page. – Marco79 04:20, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Did you try discussing this with Jenks first? Or did you come straight here? Jauerback/_dude. 04:25, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

No, Jenks24 seems to be inactive since November, but I did put a notice on user's talk page, which I think should be enough. – Marco79 05:25, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I watched that move discussion. It was not a good one. The move was proposed on the basis of WP:COMMONNAME. Most of the opponents argued that while it might be common, it's wrong. Since such posts completely missed the point of WP:COMMONNAME, I can understand why the move occurred. Since opponents missed the point of WP:COMMONNAME, they feel ripped off. Attempts at explanation at the time got nowhere. I doubt if they will now. HiLo48 (talk) 04:34, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I participated in the RM (and supported moving it) and HiLo's description is 100 percent correct. Hot Stop (Talk) 04:38, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I think HiLo48 has missed the point too. Some of the opponents were making the point that they are both common names, but one is a more correct terminology (ie, Union Flag) then the other (ie, Union Jack). Some of the supporters were only supporting common name and not making any other claims as to why. – Marco79 05:25, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Some of the supporters were also dismissing the term Union Flag as a common name, even though many media outlets now use it (ie, BBC in Britain, ABC in Australia, various worldwide newspapers, etc.) and it is also used in pop culture (ie, Doctor Who, etc), so to say that it is uncommon is not right. – Marco79 05:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

In the UK the expression is not "waving a union flag" (most Brits wouldn't have a clue what that meant): it is "waving a union jack". That would apply to commentary during the BBC's coverage of the Queen's Jubilee (despite the rain). Mathsci (talk) 05:51, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

There is no expression for "waving a union jack either"! Do you have any evidence to support your statement that "Brits wouldn't have a clue what that meant"? I doubt it. And the BBC commentary used the term union flag most of the time, apart from ocassional lapses to union jack. - SchroCat (talk) 05:57, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Why is it a "lapse" to say Union Jack? Are you sure you're really being objective here, or pushing a particular POV? HiLo48 (talk) 07:05, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Here are some examples from the BBC. (jack/flag "pedantry" is discussed by an expert) , , etc. Mathsci (talk) 09:10, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we can all find references on the BBC . Your last penultimate one is a comment from a member of the public, rather than from the BBC per se. - SchroCat (talk) 09:17, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Schrodinger's cat is alive, why not just go and order that BBC "Union Jack Party Set" while stocks last? There's certainly plenty of Union Jack saucers for milk or even cream, if you feel like celebrating. Mathsci (talk) 09:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Either way, there is certainly no consensus to move, as can be seen from the page, so why was the decision taken? - SchroCat (talk) 05:27, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Two editors aggressively opposed does not prevent a consensus in support of a move. It's worth noting that the closing Admin's comments included the words "The comments in support are significantly stronger, in terms of Misplaced Pages policy, than those in oppose." I'm pleased to see quality of argument being credited here. Too many want such discussions to be treated as a vote. We don't vote here. HiLo48 (talk) 07:03, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Jenks24 said "The comments in support are significantly stronger, in terms of Misplaced Pages policy, than those in oppose." Now I haven't read through the discussion but that does not negate the fact that they thought there was one. I noticed the discussion was closed 29 August 2012 and the page moved the same day. It's now just over four months later. I would have thought that if it was really important you would have contested it earlier. Go back to the talk page and try again. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 07:22, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Ghits: "Union flag" – 6,110,000; "Union jack" – 14,800,000. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:06, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Not altogether scientific. No explanation of the use of "union jack", which is a correct term for the union flag on the jack-staff of a boat: a significant proportion of those uses would also be accounted for here. - SchroCat (talk) 09:21, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

In the USA, at least, "Union Jack" would be the common name. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 09:22, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

If a new user types "Union Jack" into Misplaced Pages and finds out information about it, is there an issue? Nope - I don't see an issue over Myocardial infarction being an obscure term - most people will probably get to it via the common name Heart attack. Everything else is nitpicking. --Ritchie333 09:31, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Speaking as a Brit (though getting old and possible out-of-touch with the Common Man, lol!) the term Union Jack, no matter how technically incorrect, is, in my experience, far more widely recognised here in the UK by The Common People. It's what we all call it (and yes, many of us know it's technically wrong, but we do it anyway ...). What's wrong with the idea of just having one title as a redirect to the other ...? Pesky (talk) 09:42, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

There already is a redirect. What you're seeing here is a microcosm of the countless wasted hours in[REDACTED] over "the names of things", arguments which are of no value to the readers. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 09:51, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Google hits in Australia: "Union flag" – 8,120,000, "Union Jack" – 18,200,000. The Australian government refers to it as The Union Jack (also known as the Union Flag). Many of the Google results for "union flag" are for something other than the British flag, such as European Union flag (site is blacklisted), CBNGN-003 Union Flag, Transformers Union flag, Grand union flag from the first 20 results; whereas all of the first 20 results for "Union Jack" address the British flag or something named after the British flag. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 09:58, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Sooooo ... disambiguation page for "Union Flag", with links to the relevant articles, with "Union Jack" being the one which many of us know as the Union Jack? ;P Pesky (talk) 10:37, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Extreme POV pushing and disruptive editing by User:Borsoka

I am forced to report here the very disruptive editing done by User:Borsoka on the topic of History of Romania, especially covering the ancient times and the Middle Ages. One of the recent unacceptable behaviors is the redirect of the Daco-Roman article () as well as the repeated removal in mass of sourced content from it (, , ). The same has been done with the Thraco-Roman article: repeated redirect attempts to terrible choices (, ); repeated removal in mass of sourced content (, , , ). This was done without discussions, without proposing the mergers/redirects and without attempting to reach consensus. This is all driven by a desire to push radical Hungarian POVs and revisionism on the Romanian history. The general idea of this POV/revisionism is to break or erase the obvious links (considered mainstream by most historians today), between modern Romanians and their ancestors, the Dacians, the Romans and the Roman Dacia time/space. One example of pushing these extreme views is the complete rewrite of the Origin of the Romanians by User:Borsoka from the Hungarian extremists point of view, an article which he attempts to also WP:OWN as you can see from the many edit wars. To support the ideas in this important article, other articles/concepts like Daco-Roman and Thraco-Roman cultures have to disappear or be pushed into obscurity at any price since otherwise they completely invalidate the claims of Hungarian extremists. A simple review of Borsoka's contributions shows that 90-100% of his "work" involves rewriting articles on Romanian history with an extreme Hungarian POV. If he loves Hungary and its history that much, I don't understand why he doesn't spend 90% of his time, in a positive and constructive fashion, writing great articles about this country's achievements and history. It is not at all justified and acceptable to spend one's entire time attacking and attempting to rewriting another country's history, causing conflicts and promoting disruptive editing in the process. Another aspect of User:Borsoka's "contribution" involves a widespread trend of copyvio and plagiarisms, as can be seen in this investigation (see also Misplaced Pages:Contributor copyright investigations/Borsoka). To me, all this activity is far from Misplaced Pages's goals, even though some parts of his contributions have merit and the editor has been around for a while. Me and many other contributors have tried to discuss the matters on the talk pages of some of the involved articles, have tried to solicit 3rd party opinions, but to no avail so far. The situation as it stands now it is far from being just content dispute on one article or another. Way too many articles have been attacked, rewritten with POVs, with copyvios, or hidden behind non-sense redirects for one purpose or another. As such I am forced to report the behavior here and suggest a thorough investigation and if considered fit, a topic ban. Thank you for your time. --Codrin.B (talk) 13:26, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Dear Codrinb, I think your above claims are driven by emotions which is not an issue, because we are human beings. Therefore, I would only like to reflect to one of your above points: plagiarism. Yes, there was a time when I was "green" and accepted other editors' push to cite verbatim in order to avoid any accusation of OR. I think my naivety is demonstrated by the fact that all sentences taken from the cited sources were properly referenced (I even added the relevant pages). If you think that any edit I made following the above investigation contains plagiarism, please report it because it should be fixed. However, I think no such a case can be demonstrated. Borsoka (talk) 13:44, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

In-mass sourced content removal continues even after this report: , . This is hopeless...--Codrin.B (talk) 14:30, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Indirect personal attack of making "racist comments"

The following entry onto the user’s talk page was made the day before the IBAN issued the following day, so perhaps it is not a violation of that, but it would certainly appear to be an indirect personal attack insinuating that I am a racist for making comments about dissimulation and the Mossad, and Evildoer187's irrational attacks against anything he deems to be "Anit-Zionist" in the context of discussion where RS mention “Zionist colonialism” and the like.

Perhaps he is trying to equate Zionism with Judaism, but that is inconsistent with the definition(s) of Zionism, nor with discussion such as that in this official UN publication THE INTERNATIONAL STATUS OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.

There is nothing racist in my comments, and I would like such insinuations removed from this website.

“racist comments” diff

you are again engaged in an act of duplicitous dissimulation; the Mossad would be proud, maybe you should apply, seeing as you need a job. Hey, if you are going to act as a proxy for the Israeli government, you might as well get paid for it, just like those NGO directors, right?!

re: “ABOUT US”

NGO data on UN site

The following diffs are instances in which he accused me of "spreading crass anitsemitic conspiracy theories", mentions “Stormfront”, etc.: , , ,

Another user has described him as follows “personal crusade”

In response to this comment by deskana , I referred to him as a “Zionist zealot” reply to deskana, to which he took offence.

“insulting”

reply

Anti-Zionist zealot”

Here previously had this remark on his user page I am extremely outspoken on antisemitism, and largely unsympathetic to anti-Zionist viewpoints.

So I repeat, there is nothing remotely racist in my statements, and would like any suggestion that there was removed.

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