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Rich Farmbrough's persistent disregard for community norms and (semi-)automated editing guidelines

Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfas · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · socks)

SmackBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)

Earlier today, I advised Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) that I would request both he and his bot be blocked if he continued making trivial and unnecessary changes that have proved controversial without first obtaining consensus for these changes .

Rather than cease making the changes, he simply went on ahead with them on both his bot account ( - unnecessary capitalization changes), and his main account ( changes spacing around header for no reason; capitalizes template for no reason).

It is perfectly reasonable to hold the view that all templates should be ucfirst, it is perfectly reasonable to hold the view that headers should have no spacing around them. However, it is unreasonable to push these views on the community without first obtaining consensus for them. The edits today display a shocking disregard for the collaborative editing model and indicate that Rich feels that he does not have to operate within the consensus model.

This is unacceptable behaviour for a bot operator and administrator and I request he be blocked pending the decision of the proposed restriction below, which has been copied here from the ANI subpage for greater visibility. –xeno 22:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposed editing restriction: Rich Farmbrough

This is an alternative proposal to more strict proposal here, which generated a fair amount of support for a complete ban on non-manual editing

Regardless of the editing method (i.e. manual, semi-automatic, or automatic; from any account), Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) is indefinitely prohibited from making cosmetic changes to wikicode that have no effect on the rendered page (excepting those changes that are built-in to stock AWB or those that have demonstrable consensus or BAG approval). This includes but is not limited to: changing templates to template redirects, changing template redirects to templates (see here for AWB stock changes on this item, with the understanding that bypassing template redirects will only be done when there is a substantive edit being done), changing the spacing around headers and ordered lists (except to make an aberration consistent with the rest of the page), and changing the capitalization of templates. Furthermore, prior to orphaning/emptying and deleting categories or templates, the appropriate processes (WP:CFD/WP:TFD) should be engaged.

Thoughts? –xeno 15:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

What about emptying and deleting categories? This is what happened in the immediate incident. --Philosopher  15:21, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Added a sentence, though that is expected of any editor already. –xeno 15:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Unless a guideline directs such a change. There's always the potential for future guidelines on the matter. Otherwise, it seems a fine proposal to me. --Bsherr (talk) 15:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

That's covered by 'demonstrable consensus'. –xeno 15:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Good enough. --Bsherr (talk) 15:31, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support --Bsherr (talk) 16:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I think this has become stale now, but I'll revisit if that seems to change. --Bsherr (talk) 19:55, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
• I think this is agreeable, this has my support. Rich, I hope you will do an effort in checking the diffs before you save, and not save them if they are mere changes of capitalisation, etc. Real mistakes, well, we all make them (as do our bots), I do hope your fellow editors will treat them for what they are. --Dirk Beetstra 15:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
• Now that's a whole lot better, being a lot less disruptive and punitive. But how about discussing with Rich about the categories' name changes and moving, instead of immediately reaching out for punishment? --Ohconfucius 15:40, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Discussion doesn't help if he ignores objections and continues full-steam ahead without stopping to gather consensus for his changes. –xeno 22:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. This proposal is more about setting a bot policy rather than addressing or remedying the allegations. Bot policy should be debated elsewhere. Glrx (talk) 17:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

  Policy already exists to prohibit these changes (WP:AWB#Rules of use #3/4), this is more of a compliance issue. –xeno 19:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• We're prohibiting him from something that's already prohibited (using a bot or script to make cosmetic changes) and telling him to use the processes that he's already supposed to be using (CFD/TFD). Is there any substantial difference here from doing nothing and hoping the problem resolves itself? Mr.Z-man 21:24, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I suppose there's also the prohibition of using even manual methods to make those cosmetic changes, and it looks like even if those cosmetic changes are made at the same time as another edit they would still be disallowed (without bot approval, which I suppose is already bot policy). To my mind this is just because it's difficult at times to tell if Rich is making manual, semi-automated or fully automated edits from his account (because, as you know, in violation of the bot policy he appears to make all three from his main account, without using proper edit summaries). Personally I think we should be stopping this problem there. With enforcing the bot policy and stopping him from making any bot like edits from his account, as proposed above. But would also support this alternative proposal after the original one. - Kingpin (talk) 21:34, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • The restriction would make it clear that these changes lack consensus and he may be blocked if he continues making them prior to gathering consensus. –xeno 22:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Strong oppose We are all volunteers here and those who edit consistently and spent a lot of time working on here should be commended not restricted.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:39, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• Commended for creating ultra-infra-microstubs like Sanapia, Franklin Lafayette Riley, Jr., Martha Lipton? He is basically just ripping this page to create these useless articles. If the full text of your article is "Azeline Hearne (1825-1890?), Slave.", then you should not be commended. Fram (talk) 06:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
• Notice that the result of such rapid (11 articles created in 4 minutes) and poor article creation is that you are bound to make mistakes (apart from not providing any useful information), because you don't have the time to check anything. The article Monroe C. Beardsley should not have been created, since we already have it in a useful form at Monroe Beardsley. Not really hard to find... Similarly, Morris Moe Foner is now redirected to the already existing Moe Foner. Fram (talk) 07:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

One of his ultra-infra-microstubs now looks like Sanapia. A good catch and highly interesting in my view. I'll be honest. I wish he did more article writing on here but he more than makes up for that with his auto generated editing which has gone to massive lengths to help clean up the site.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:48, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense

This is a storm in a teacup. No one cares about the bot capitalising clean-up templates, except that they think I am offending others by doing it. There are no others, except apparently xeno has moved to-day from neutral about it ("I don't care about the actual minor bits themselves") to opposed ("Me for one") and dePiep is saying the same in the next comment (about 20 minutes ago). Hardly anyone cares about any of them. Those that do have an opinion would almost certainly, by the figures, support capitalising of Infoboxes. I have explained that for technical reasons that I made a choice, some four years ago for Ucfirst rather than lcfirst - after much careful thought. the reason is to enable me to write regexes like:

• {{\s*(Cleanup|Attention+\(on+talk+page\)|Clean|Cu|CU|Tidy|Cleanup-quality|Cleanup-date|Attention+needed+\(article+page\)|Attn|Attention+see+talk|Attention|Attention+needed+\(talk+page\)|Clean+up|Cleanup-because|Clean-up|Cleanup-reason|Cleanup-since|Ugly|Cleanup-Pitt|Improve|Quality|Clu) *() => {{Cleanup$2

and then do the date manipulation on a much simpler regex - a sample of which still runs to maybe 4 or 5 k.

Here's my proposed solutions:

1. Forget it and go and write an enyclopedia.
2. Have an centralized discussion on the case of cleanup templates. Tell me the result. I will implement that.

Rich Farmbrough, 22:38, 24 October 2010 (UTC).

Your dismissive attitude ("No one cares..."; "Forget it and go and write an encyclopedia."; "There is no controversy here. Nothing to see, keep walking.") is a major part of the problem.

I don't know how many people care about this, but I can tell you that I do. When I consult diffs to evaluate the edits, your bot's inconsequential changes waste my time. I've gone to your talk page to raise the issue, only to be reminded by the existing complaints (and your responses thereto) that you routinely ignore/dismiss such criticisms. So I don't bother to add my voice to the futile chorus (and I assume that others act in kind). —David Levy 23:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Well not bothering hardly helps. Nor does the negative characterisation of my talk page. Nor yet quoting out of context.Rich Farmbrough, 00:05, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Well not bothering hardly helps.

Nor does wasting still more of my time by posting yet another comment for you to dismiss/ignore.

Nor does the negative characterisation of my talk page.

You mean my observation that you routinely dismiss/ignore these criticisms (just as you've done above)?

Nor yet quoting out of context.

How have I done so? Two of the quotations are taken from this very section, and I linked directly to the third's diff. —David Levy 00:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The diff is not the context. The context is an extensive conversation over several pages. Rich Farmbrough, 00:43, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Please link to whatever threads/diffs you believe provide essential context. —David Levy 00:57, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally on the substantive point you raise, you can set your w/l to ignore bots. HTH. Rich Farmbrough, 00:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

And that would not be a reasonable solution. Sometimes people will still want to see bots. We shouldn't have to stop seeing other bots because yours is behaving badly. I will have to agree with the other people in that these edits cause more trouble than help. -DJSasso (talk) 00:18, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm well aware of that. I don't want to ignore bots (which would cause me to overlook problematic mass changes, including those caused by malfunctions). I want to be able to monitor their edits without having to wade through the utterly pointless ones that your bot performs. —David Levy 00:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd add on that score that ignoring bots seems to cause another issue: if, say, an editor vandalises a page, (edit 1) then a bot goes past and makes a change, (edit 2), nothing turns up in your watchlist. As you are set to ignore bot edits, the watchlist code doesn't notify you of any edits, as it only checks to see if the most recent one warrants notification. Thus you are lead to assume that nothing has happened in the article. I found this to be a particular problem with SineBot, but generally that flag causes too many issues to use it. - Bilby (talk) 02:59, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Well as not a great user of watch-lists, I had seen that comment before, but not got round to investigating it. It seems like a suboptimal way for watch-lists to work. Rich Farmbrough, 18:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

"Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" should bypass that particular concern. –xeno 18:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Also vote for bug 9790. Rich Farmbrough, 02:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

• Regarding your explanation regex: AWB can do this with the stock engine now without having to change the case (WP:AWB/TR). This is why I asked you to update SmackBot to the latest SVN snapshot. And you're right, I said I don't care about the minor bits themselves - I do care about the unnecessary, disruptive, and distracting changes to the minor bits that lack consensus - I would similarly ask an editor who was going in the other direction to stop. –xeno 15:05, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

  I have uploaded my redirect list, so that should help AWB. There are teething problems here, yet. For example trying to maintain ucfirst/lcfist across redirects has lead to imdb => iMDb name. But there are other problems with template names that are bigger than these minor quibbles. Rich Farmbrough, 02:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC).
  

Re: "imdb => iMDb name". If we can agree a convention whereby some templates are excluded from the 'keep existing case' rule (perhaps when first word of new template name is all uppercase?) then I can implement it in AWB

. Rjwilmsi 21:13, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

What actually needs to be done now: Need an uninvolved admin

I think, at this point, we've discussed this to death. What I think we need is an uninvolved admin who has maybe a couple of hours to read up on this, and then close the discussion and editing restriction proposals at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/October 2010. A number of different remedies have been offered there, and I think a closing admin can judge a suitable consensus on how best to proceed. I don't think it's worth our time talking about this all over again at this point. Especially when the previous discussion hasn't yet been closed. At this point I feel that the discussion and editing restriction proposals are ripe for closure, as that thread is no longer constructive (it appears to have degenerated to edit warring, repetition, and personal comments, rather than actually furthering discussion on the actual issue tat hand, despite this I think there is already enough content there to reach a consensus). If the solution provided by a closing administrator does not work after some time, then there are other venues, such as a RfC/U, which would be more appropriate, since it appears ANI is not helping this issue much. - Kingpin (talk) 09:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Fram (talk) 09:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we need an uninvolved admin to step in here. Subsequent to this thread being posted, Rich made nearly three thousand edits with SmackBot that 1) do not appear to have BAG approval (I found this, but perhaps it should be revisited - approval should not have been granted for spell-checking) and 2) appear to violate the bot policy on spell-checking (based on new information what happened was the operator had set it wrong, as opposed to the bot running amok) and 3) made obviously erroneous edits like this . We have policies and guidelines on automated and assisted editing for a reason, and flagrant disregard for those norms is unacceptable, especially when the result is editors having to manually review thousands of bot edits for errors. –xeno 14:06, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a bit of a rabbit out of a hat. "editors having to manually review thousands of bot edits for errors". Rich Farmbrough, 17:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Should I assume the one edit I picked out at random and found to be in error was 1 in 3000? Are you going to check the rest of the edits yourself? (I see you ran over the pages to fix World Series of Poker back to how it should be - Thanks for that). –xeno 17:59, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes I picked up a bunch of other WSOP errors too. Rich Farmbrough, 19:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

• He also made this edit which does nothing but capitalize a template while tweaking some whitespace. Making disputed edits while they're under discussion at a noticeboard strikes me as inflammatory. –xeno 14:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

  Again human error, some small task I started nearly a week ago, and that item was already fixed - by an unassisted human. (I won't say why the task is taking so long - I will mention that it would have just happened in the good old days prior to 29 Spetember.) Rich Farmbrough, 19:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC).
  

  So you had it in auto-save mode? –xeno 19:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

  Uh.. borrow my deerstalker and meerschaum xeno, they are freshly cleaned. One edit on it's own is very unlikely to be automatic. No I just flipped windows, scanned the diff for errors (which is as automatic for me as reading - look at a printed word and try not to read it) clicked "save" and uttered a choice expletive. Considered reverting myself, but that's a bit nutzoid on a practical level - creating an extra edit to show that you aren't deliberately creating extra edits. Rich Farmbrough, 02:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC).
  

Hmm .. indeed, that last one should not be there. I don't think that I saw any spelling-changes. Most decapitalisations seem OK and proper, but there are some decapitalisations in headers which should actually be capitalised (like the example you gave). Xeno, did you point Rich to these edits, and asked for explanations on the errors and .. useless edits? --Dirk Beetstra 14:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but because of obfuscation and handwaving, I've just about exhausted my patience for speaking directly with Rich. (Further reading: Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Capitalisation of section titles, Misplaced Pages talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Probably erroneous approval for a form of spell-checking (SmackBot)) –xeno 14:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Handwaving! I have supplied pretty much the only hard facts , the majority of the argument is fuzzy to an extreme. Rich Farmbrough, 17:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Uninvolved admin would be good. But if they can get through it in a couple of hours I would be amazed. This debate has eaten hundreds of hours of my time, and every time we get close to closing it down there is a change of venue. Rich Farmbrough, 17:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Funny enough, I do think that this edit contains two 'errors' .. one title which is probably correct in the current case was (half) converted to a lower case title, while the next section, which should have been converted, was neglected. Whatever the case, I don't think that this gets over 28 errors (i.e., less than 1%; I still refuse to see the capitalisation/whitespace change as an error, I do define it as 'useless'. And though I also think that of the fuss about it is equally useless: Rich, is there really no way of not doing that, it is certainly not necessary (run regexes on the wikitext with the 'i' parameter and it does not care whether it is upper or lowercase, so why uppercase them all), and it will stop the equally, if not more, unnecessary complaining about it?). I also don't think that this falls under a spelling correction, and I do think that it is important enough to be done by a bot - unfortunately it is too error prone (I would suggest to add the standard ones, and record all the rest with statistics, if there are other common ones which need conversion, add those to the list, but be careful with converting them all).

All these discussions are not worth this fuss, Smackbot makes by design on every task some errors, some inevitable and some avoidable - others should be repaired (and are generally repaired) before continuing. The errors are minimal, diverse, and IMHO Rich either explains that some errors can not be avoided (e.g. the subst problem), most errors don't break things (they annoy people), and for the rest, a lot of complaints are about useless edits. I understand that the regular errors do give a feeling of 'Smackbot makes a lot of errors', but overall I don't believe that there are really thàt many (and then, some are because the bot is fed a broken page to begin with; or other errors which can not be repaired, still get regurgitated over and over). I also think that many errors were resolved, but also still regurgitated. Now, if we take away the annoyances (I suggest that Rich tries to take most annoyances away, and the annoyed to stop complaining about these things that IMHO do not need this much complaining; it is not worth it), and that future errors are met with 'could you do this different, or ignore these terms' (which I then also expect Rich to follow), then it is now time to move on. --Dirk Beetstra 19:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I actually don't have a huge problem with honest-to-goodness errors; it's the fixing things that aren't broken that I take issue with. As best as I can tell, the main excuse (other than ILIKEIT) for the template capitalization changes is because it's easier to write a regex that results in capitalization changes. Well, that's not a good excuse, and regex can fairly easily be written to maintain the case (and I know Rich is a wizard when it comes to these things - he helped me with some code for Xenobot Mk V); and in fact, AWB now has built-in redirect bypassing at WP:AWB/TR that won't do the unnecessary capitalization changes. So if Rich just worked within that framework, we can be done with this. –xeno 19:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Conclusion

This Gordian knot clearly needs cutting, and I hereby cut it: the restriction proposed above is enacted. In essence, Rich is injuncted from making cosmetic changes which do not have demonstrable community support; this is recorded at Misplaced Pages:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Misplaced Pages community and as usual enforceable by escalating blocks. I will also clarify that there is no currently demonstrated community consensus on capitalising template calls. In addition, I will say to Rich that the community recognises and appreciates the work you do in using and maintaining a range of powerful tools, but that with power comes responsibility, and you do need to ensure that you err on the side of caution in ensuring that these powerful tools, and your use of them, has sufficiently strong community support. That is all. Rd232 09:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"This Gordian knot is quickly scissorable! ...." (You may fill in the next line yourselves.) Thank you for reviewing this ungodly mess. Rich Farmbrough, 10:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

Further to this, Rd232 is hereby enjoined from inventing ugly new verbs by back-formation from nouns. --TS 10:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm just richifying the malleable English language. :P Rd232 11:39, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

More cite capitalisation, a few minutes ago? 195.27.52.146 (talk) 10:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot stopped for now, until Rich has a version running which won't do this. Of course, it's hard to tell what's built in AWB and what's not. But until we've got an explicit "SmackBot is okay to go" from Rich, it's stopped. - Kingpin (talk) 10:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

AWB does a number of changes to templates, replacing a redirect to a template with the actual template is done for this list: Misplaced Pages:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects. I have asked whether this, implemented about a month ago, actually has consensus, as it seems to go against regular practice of leaving redirects well alone. But anyway, the change of SmackBot (chanbing cite journal to Cite journal) is not included on the above list if template changes, i.e. "The redirects are first letter case insensitive e.g. and are treated as identical." and "The first-letter case of the redirect is kept in the new template name. The template name is first-letter case insensitive e.g. and are the same." If it is done by AWB regardless of this, then AWB needs to be changed. If it is a Smackbot rule, then Smackbot needs to be changed (also e.g. here, changing "dead link" to "Dead link"). This one changes template capitalisation (unreferenced to Unreferenced, Infobox Album to Infobox album) and adds an unwanted defaultsort. The only result of the defaultsort change here is that Republic of China referendum, 2004 now is sorted before Republic of Austria v. Altmann instead of the correct after in Category:2004 in international relations. Before SmackBots change, this sorting was correct. This problem has now been raised repeatedly, but no justification has been given or correction has been made. Fram (talk) 10:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"AWB does a number of changes to templates, replacing a redirect to a template with the actual template is done for this list: Misplaced Pages:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects. I have asked whether this, implemented about a month ago, actually has consensus, as it seems to go against regular practice of leaving redirects well alone.". Yes, That currently does have consensus and is allowed via BAG and the related bot policies BUT the edit must also contain other constructive edits as well (You can't just do solo edits for that content to replace the redirects). Peachey88 07:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Like I said there: "Where can I find the discussion that established that these kinds of chanegs have any sort of consensus?" No one has indicated that to me yet. Fram (talk) 08:12, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Album => Infobox album is not case changing rule it's a redirect removing rule.

Defaultsort fixed. Also fixed (which shows why DEFAULTSORT is used by the community):

• 2004 Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta
• 2004 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel
• 2004 Israel – New Zealand spy scandal
• 2004 Russia–Belarus gas dispute
• 2004 enlargement of the European Union
• 2004 world oil market chronology

to

• 2004 Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta
• 2004 enlargement of the European Union
• 2004 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel
• 2004 Israel – New Zealand spy scandal
• 2004 Russia–Belarus gas dispute
• 2004 world oil market chronology

All the best. Rich Farmbrough, 23:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

Songs for the Road now sorts thus:

1. Something to Believe
2. Songs from the Road (Jeff Healey album)
3. Songs Inspired by Mulawin
4. Soul Donkey

Previously it would have been listed out of order. Rich Farmbrough, 00:10, 27 October 2010 (UTC).

(I seem to have inadvertently deleted this section, thanks for restoring it Epeefleche). I have started a discussion regarding the sortkey issue at Misplaced Pages talk:Categorization#Sortkey. Your section above where you said you fixed five articles to the same five articles is a bit bizarre, I assume you mean that you added five defaultsorts to these articles, so that e.g. 2004 Russia-Belarus gas dispute now sorts correctly before, umm, no other article starts with the same three words, and only the fourth is capitalized, so a totally useless defaultsort is added... As I said on the discussion on the sortkey, in the limited number of cases where a sort for one category would be better with caps, such a sort can easily be added to the article on a case-by-case basis. Adding unnecessary and harmful (in the case of a move) defaultsorts to all articles, just to solve a few problems, is creating loads of collateral damage for little actual benefit. Fram (talk) 08:10, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Revive previous proposal

For some reason, the edit restriction proposal at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/October 2010#Edit restriction proposal for Rich Farmbrough, which generated a fair amount of support, was abandoned for xeno's proposal, which got hardly any comments. As could perhaps be predicted, the problems not adressed by this second proposal, but adressed in the first one, simply continue.

Rich Farmbrough is now testing a new bot on his main account, which again creates a lot of problems. I notified him at 11:36 yesterday that he created a number of redirects from the mainspace to his userspace. This included a group of 10 redirects created at 11:27 (together with ten more edits the same minute). However, at 21:12, 11 more of these redirects were created, from a total of 19 edits that minute. At 21:18 - 21:19 6 more redirects were created (or recreated). Some of them were deleted by Rich, a number were not though and had to be deleted by other admins.

He also created a number of pages in his user space, and edits them incorrectly at a very high speed. Between 01:28 and 01:30 this morning, he edited 28 articles, putting all 28 articles (biographies of long dead people in his user space) in the cats for living people. Apart from the fact that these cats were obviously wrong, they should also not be used on user space articles. Rich Farmbrough made a few edits afterwards, but apparently didn't notice the errors of his unapproved bot, so I cleaned this up this morning.

Any reason why we don't enact the previous proposal, seeing how he clearly is not interested in taking into account voluntary the points adressed in it, despite the many supports for it, and seeing how his current activities, with dozens of incorrect edits in minutes, are clearly a violation of the bot policy? Fram (talk) 07:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

And he just added tjose 28 articles to those categories again in two minutes time. Can someone please block this unauthorized bot (and yes, that means a block of Rich Farmbroough, tough luck, he violates the bot policy again and again on his main account...)? I am clearly involved so I can't block it... Fram (talk) 14:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Note: Rich seems to have subsequently responded to these concerns in user talk discussion (there seem to have been coding issues), notably using a separate account for bot edits, as bot policy does indeed require. Rd232 14:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Note: and he is back at his old tricks, or so it seems. He is now creating, with his main acount, in the mainspace, loads of redirects, some potentially useful, some utterly useless, but clearly this happens in some automated manner, even though there is no indication of this in his edit summaries. He e.g. created Communications in Brunei. as a redirect to itself at 08:48 today, deleted it at 08:53, and recreated it as a redirect to Telecommunications in Brunei at 09:24. I deleted it again, as redirects with extra punctuation are an endless list of useless redirects. I also deleted his redirect from Geometric mean, to Geometric mean as implausible, but he restored that one. I have left most of his other redirects alone, but she we really have semi-automated creation of redirects like Autpert Ambrose (Ambroise) to Autpert Ambrose? His rule seems to be that if whatever is bolded in an article is different from the actual title, then a redirect has to be created, no matter if it just a simple error like with Geometric mean,... So far, maily due to errors in his script, 21 of these redirects have had to be deleted the last hour.

Why do we let him continue running unauthorized bots and useless scripts, when time after time they are filled with errors? Do we really need a bot that creates redirect from Cook Island(s) to Cook Island? Do we really need the creation of more of his extremely short stubs, like Lenon Hoyte, which were kept at AfD because the topic merits an article, but were most uninvolved editors asked him to stop the creation of any more of these in this format? There is just no change of behaviour at all... Fram (talk) 09:57, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. Some of those redirects are good, but many of them are so blatantly poor, the Geometric mean, and Cook Island(s) ones you point out for example, and some of them only seem to change the case, which the software sorts out automatically. I honestly think ArbCom might be the way to go from here. - Kingpin (talk) 10:16, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

In this pattern, I noted this at RF Talk: RF created Redirect pages like Capability Maturity Model (CMM), which is doubling the abbrev, and not a real alternative anyway. Redirect title is copied from the intro bold text. Seven pages thus. -DePiep (talk) 19:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I've asked Rich to comment on this error. --Dirk Beetstra 10:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

And his "response" to this thread, the deletion of a number of redirects, and the posts on his talk page from KingPin and Dirk Beetstra, is to simply recreate things like Transportation In Guatemala. and Communications in Brunei. This means that he has now created the same faulty redirect three times in one day. Fram (talk) 15:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I know I'm no admin (and don't want to be one), but I think it's about time someone use a block as a way of hitting RF with a clue-by-four here. This is just getting ridiculous, and someone needs to get his attention. rdfox 76 (talk) 22:45, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Since I put much effort in the past to delete any redirects that contained punctuation, please inform me if they are any left. The same goes with redirect that contain the abbreviation. I strongly disagree with the creation of this kind of redirects and in the past many of them were deleted via RfD. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:04, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

From User talk:Rich Farmbrough#Redirects ending in punctuation

• Eusebius (Bruno) of Angers
• Capability Maturity Model (CMM)
• Biathlon World Championships (BWCH)
• On-base plus slugging (OPS)
• Customer relationship management (CRM)
• Ascending chain condition (ACC)
• Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) Classification System

and one other, created by the same author

• Industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) ‎

There may be others, I suppose. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Other problem edits since the last time include:

• Delinking March 707 here, even though it is not a date but a model of racecar...
• Recreating the faulty redirect Lucius Caelius to Lactantius, based on his automated script
• Adding a place of birth (or similar) to a Persondata which already has a PLACE of BIRTH, e.g. here, here
• And of course 60 or so of his Smackbot edits that he reverted because they changed "Refimprove" to "Religion Primary"...

These are just the ones I noticed on spotchecking and browsing the latest 100 edits he made. Fram (talk) 21:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Er, what exactly is your point here? There are occasional bot errors, and as far as I can see they get reported to Rich and he handles them. Please elaborate on what, if anything, you expect to happen on the basis of your report above. The recent issue that concerned me was mass creation of redirects, which per xeno's note on Rich's talk page should really have BRFA approval; as far as I can tell Rich has stopped that. Rd232 11:09, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that every day, he is doing bot stuff that is unauthorized and very buggy, only for other people to correct or even just control it. He is a prolific bot writer, but he doesn's check his contributions, leaving this to other people. An occasional problem, like the March 707 delinking, is in itself not a problem: the amount of problems, day after day after day, with often repeats of previous problems as well, is the issue. He is e.g., despite countless requests to stop this, still changing the capitalization of templates. He adds a "date of birth" in the Persondata (year only, for some reason) to an article that already had the DATE OF BIRTH field (empty, but now it has both an empty field, and a partially filled one). No idea why he added the wikify tag here. Fram (talk) 11:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I've left Rich a note about the capitalization issue. The persondata issue has already been identified as a bug. There seems to be some buggyness, but I'm not sure how much is normal or what can be done to improve that. Repeat problems and unauthorised bot stuff are not good, but various things have been pointed out and improvements made. Rd232 12:14, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Redirects noted above now nominated. However, those were supposedly reviewed edits; he states he's not going to do it again, but he would be in a better position to delete them than I. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

We all make mistakes, and we don't catch them all ourselves, that is only logical. But the amount of mistakes he makes, and the scale on which they happen, are far beyond those of other editors, and it looks as if most of them have to be found by others before he eventually corrects his scripts. Considering that not all of these scripts are acknowledged, tested, approved, ... it makes it even harder (e.g. his redirect script that caused a lot of trouble). He has tonight corrected some 400 Smackbot edits where the Persondata was incorrectly edited. It is good that he corrects it, but this is too late, and should have been caught and corrected earlier. And whether his "correction" really gives the desired result? here we now have two parameters in uppercase, and two in lower case: not really the preferred state... Before the Persondata, it was the incorrect Religion template, the redirects, ... His Smackbot edits regularly include, next to pointless edits like this, rather stupid mistakes, like changing (2007 - ) to (born 2007) in this one, where the 2007- actually represents a term for a member in the list Members of the Louisiana House of Representatives. He moves a long standing template template:Monthly clean up category to template:Monthly clean-up category with the edit summary "Hyphenate per user request.", and then makes a series of AWB edits to correct all the links to it. Rather pointless, and a direct violation of his editing restrictions: "This includes but is not limited to: changing templates to template redirects, changing template redirects to templates (see here for AWB stock changes on this item, with the understanding that bypassing template redirects will only be done when there is a substantive edit being done)": in edits like this one (24 in total) no "substantive edit" is done, only a bypass of a template redirect he created in the first place. Fram (talk) 08:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

(od)The template rename is OK I think, it was a spelling correction and fixing the resulting redirect affected a small number of pages. The Smackbot DEFAULTSORT I've left him a note about. In terms of errors and checking, I don't know what to say; substantive changes should get approval and AFAIK that is happening. Perhaps someone more familiar with hands-on bot operation could say something about the viability of better testing. Rd232 09:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

How was it okay? How was it not a violation of the editing restrictions? The edits were purely cosmetic, the template works equally well as a redirect than it does directly. The editing restrictions were not about number of pages (this were in the proposal that was not accepted for some reason, while the much less supported current restrictions were). That a violation of editing restrictions in itself doesn't break anything has never been a reason to ignore them, just like e.g. a violation of a block or ban to make as such correct edits isn't acceptable either. Fram (talk) 09:52, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Note that he since has done 25 more of these edits... Fram (talk) 10:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Well I thought it was outside the spirit of the editing restriction in terms of reflecting a non-controversial template renaming; and besides it affects only Misplaced Pages maintenance category pages. However I also thought it was just a handful of pages but in fact it will be a lot, which makes it more of an issue. Rd232 11:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Running bots on your main account is a violation of the bot policy. Bots need to be run on specified bot accounts. This needs to stop. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 15:26, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought it had. Recently I see correctly identified AWB edits, which is surely OK. What prompted your post? Rd232 22:12, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Huge backlog of tagged unsourced biographies of living persons

Entire section has been moved to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Unsourced biographies of living persons to save space on the WP:AN page and to centralize discussion.Please do not timestamp until this reaches the top of the page. –MuZemike

Backlog at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations

We can use some help over at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations in clearing up some of the cases there that are listed which have been sitting there for a while. Quite a few of them have already had a CheckUser look at them (if necessary, others do not) and need a regular admin to make a call as to what action is to be taken. The same goes with the other cases which do not need a CheckUser; admins need to go through and make those calls. If there are any questions, let an SPI clerk or a CheckUser (such as myself) know, and we can try and help whenever we can. –MuZemike 06:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Can you expand as to what is required of Administrators at that page and/or the closure procedures? Nakon 07:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Really, for anything not listed as requiring a checkuser (anything that says "Open" at the top), any uninvolved admin can come in and act upon the report. Simply make a decision based off the presented evidence regarding whether or not WP:SOCK is being violated, apply blocks as necessary, leave a note, and then mark the case as closed by changing {{SPI case status}} to {{SPI case status|closed}}. Don't really worry about screwing anything up; clerks are constantly monitoring those pages to make sure all the technical details are in order. Administrators really only need to worry about the "make decision, place block" part. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 07:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

 Doing... Nakon 07:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I've taken care of the ones that have had a CU response. There are at least 18 reports open that require a CU. Nakon 07:59, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually the cases that just say open, those never need a CU (or if they do, the status changes), infact open means practically that admins need to deal with unless there is no reason to block. You can look to my caselist page which has a list of open cases and is updated every 15 min by a bot, and only the blue and yellow ones need a Checkuser or SPI clerk to deal with. That ugly brown/pink or what ever it is is the open ones which admins can handle easily. -- DQ (t) (e) 12:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Here's to clarify what the major SPI case statuses mean (since we did make a recent major change in which I think simplifies the process:

Status Template parameter in bold	What this means
Open	No CheckUser has been requested for the case. An administrator is expected to determine whether or not socking is occurring and take admin actions if needed. Keep in mind that anybody may request a CU to look at the case by adding |curequest to the {{SPI case status}} template on the top of the case page.
A user has requested CheckUser. (curequest)	Just as it says. One of our highly-trained monkeys SPI clerks will take a look and endorse or decline the request.
A clerk/CheckUser as declined a request for CheckUser (decline/cudecline)	An SPI clerk or CheckUser has declined the CU request for a reason that is explained at the bottom of the case page. It is then left to any administrator to take any additional admin action if needed and close.
A CheckUser completed a check... (checked)	A CheckUser has completed a check, and the results have been posted. It is then kicked back into the regular queue for an administrator to take any actions (if needed) and close.
This SPI case is closed and will shortly be archived... (close)	The SPI case has been marked for close and will await archival by an SPI clerk or CU. Note that any administrator can mark an SPI case they handle as closed.

Hopefully this helps a little bit. Keep in mind that it's the administrators out there (not just the SPI clerks or the CheckUsers) who need to take the lead and handle these cases, just as they are expected to handle edit warring cases and AIV reports. –MuZemike 21:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Administrators instructions is a handy guide for regular administrators to follow for SPI cases. –MuZemike 22:12, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Appeal by Triton Rocker

Appealing user

Triton Rocker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction being appealed

One year block

Editor who imposed or found consensus to impose the sanction

Looie496 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) / Looie496 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Notification of that editor

The following was submitted as part of an unblock request at User talk:Triton Rocker#Ublock Request II. Because the block was made in application of community sanctions, WP:GS/BI, I am referring this request to the community as an appeal against community sanctions. This is a procedural referral and I have no opinion about the merits of the block or the request.  Sandstein  12:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

"Therefore, my point remains, the non-involved editors of good faith saw the length of block for the perfectly civil single talk page edit I made as being excessive I believe they were correct and that Looie496's, a new admin with only a couple of week's experience, interpretation of my words was over-enthusiastic.

Please note that the length of this ban was determined by a previous one month block based again on a single edit to a talk page, here --- again, in itself, perfectly formal and polite enough.

Cailil construed a report is here: using prejudicial accusations relating to an outstanding checkuser report, here which was later overturned as "conclusively unrelated".

I requested that such discussion of Cailil accusation was delayed until the checkuser findings were delivered. That polite request was ignored. I was never given a fair chance to defend myself against it as I was blocked from editing even my talk page at the time. --Triton Rocker (talk) 02:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)"

• I checked TR's last post at BISE. In that post, TR comments on another editor (Bjmullan) & his editorial motives. The sanction TR was/is under forbade him to do so. Alleged political motives, conspiracies etc, are irrelevant & having a siege mentality approach is un-productive. Until TR recognizes that he got himself blocked? his appeals won't be successful. GoodDay (talk) 12:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with GoodDay. Regardless of Triton Rocker perceiving other editors' editing to be biased/problematic/whatever there are dispute resolution procedures in place for dealing with that. He hasn't attempted to use any of those, and just keeps going on about other editors. Multiple blocks haven't prevented that, and his appeal really doesn't address the reasons behind his block. There's a definite siege mentality with his refusal to listen to outside input, and unless he is willing to listen and agree specific unblock conditions there's no way I could support his unblock. 2 lines of K₃₀₃ 14:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• Question: Is Triton Rocker saying that the reasons for the present block were not valid? I'm not even sure I quite understand the appeal here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:21, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• Comment TR's restrictions are in two parts. 1)Imposed by Black Kite - a topic ban from editting in the article space in relation to the British Isles naming topic. 2)Imposed by the community as proposed by me - civility parole.
  TR's sanctions were imposed and reviewed by the community on WP:ANI (twice) and on WP:AN. Users other than TR (LevenBoy and LemonMonday) who are single purpose accounts that edit in this area raised two of these re-reviews for TR. This matter has been discussed and has community approval.
  TR's way back is to accept site policy, his restriction, and start editting accordingly. I already cautioned LemonMonday about "asking the other parent" in this regard and I believe TR should be warned accordingly too--Cailil 14:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• Furthermore, TR is still under a civility restriction even if blocked. This comments are a personal attack, they also cast aspersions about me and assume bad faith, thus I request an uninvolved sysop review this please--Cailil 14:47, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Triton Rocker continues to blame others for getting him into the position he finds himself. Even today he repeated (in bold) that I had gone against sanctions when I edited at BSkyB. I will repeat here again so that he may understand, I am under NO sanctions at BISE. In addition he considers that my edit was wrong even though it is supported by references. Triton Rocker seem only to see in one colour and concentrates on the supposed motives of others rather than looking at his own. Since the block was imposed he has done nothing that makes me believe he has changed ways or even to consider that what he did was wrong. Bjmullan (talk) 15:00, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• According to the blocking admin, "The direct cause of the block was the line 'It takes no degree of intelligence or integrity to surmise that...'". While not civil, I don't think it rises to the level of a year block even given this users previous history of incivility. I looked at some of the users other edits from coming off the 2 month block to the present block and they don't look particularly bad. I support the original block, but reduced to time served or up to about a month. -Atmoz (talk) 15:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• A year block seems rather long; normally it would be a choice between indef (giving up on the editor ever being productive) or something shorter (time out to get perspective). So I'd figure 2 or 3 months, given a prior 1 month block. Rd232 15:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Comment from blocking admin From my perspective, the fundamental problem is that TR has thus far (to the best of my knowledge) refused to even acknowledge that the comments in question were uncivil. If he can't recognize that, how can he possibly avoid being uncivil in the future? This block is purely preventative in intent. Viewed as punishment, it is overkill, but it is not intended as punishment. If I saw any reasonable prospect that TR wouldn't quickly repeat the same sort of behavior after being unblocked, I would be entirely open to an unblock. Looie496 (talk) 16:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
  • If that's your position, it should really be an indef block (emphasising indefinite, not permanent). Rd232 16:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
    • The Arbcom sanctions only allow blocks of up to a year. An indef block would have to be made using a different process. Looie496 (talk) 18:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
      • This statement is contradictory to this where you state that "this is a community sanction rather than an Arbitration sanction". -Atmoz (talk) 20:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
        • Gah, you're right of course. Sorry for the confusion. Looie496 (talk) 20:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
          • User:Cailil, the admin who imposed the "civility parole", said that any individual admin has the discretion to unblock. That would appear incompatible with the claim this was a "community sanction". Gimmetoo (talk) 12:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
            • The restriction is a community sanction Gimmetoo - the block is an enforcement of that sanction. The editing restriction cannot be undone without community approval (see WP:GS/BI). A block can be undone unless there is a community consenus for that block. In that case consensus to unblock should be sought. In other words a reviewing sysop has discretion to unblock but has to weigh the consensus in threads like this one and TR's unblock requests per WP:BLOCK--Cailil 12:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
              • So you are reversing your previous statement - admins do not have discretion to unblock if, as you claim, they cannot do so without "community approval". Gimmetoo (talk) 13:03, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
                • No, an admin has discretion to unblock an enforcement of a sanction if they believe it meets with the criteria for an unblock (one of those being seeking conesnus to unblock if necessary). They cannot undo a community approved sanction/restriction like a topic ban without community consensus to do so. It's all there in WP:BLOCK--Cailil 13:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support block Discussion of shortening it should be predicated on the editor's ownership of his own role in the issue. If he won't, a year or an indef block is a problem we may need to deal with next year, but not worth stressing over now. Jclemens (talk) 18:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• A year is too long. Agree with 2 or 3 months. The remarks made, whilst not civil, would probably not have been blockable in themselves had he not been under restrictions. Also agree with unblock if there was any sign of understanding why he was blocked. Fainites scribs 22:00, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Retain block for at least three months. Triton's been blocked enough times already and is showing no sign of learning anything, as his constant efforts to portray his block as the fault of others shows. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 06:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Agree - in fairness to TR we should review this after 3 months from date of original block. If he a) accepts site policy and b) his restriction and c) demonstartes he'll move on and edit accordingly then we should unblock--Cailil 14:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Update

Triton Rocker posted this this morning. I would like to clarify for all reviewing that he is disputing 1) his editing restriction, 2) his year-long block, and 3) his block reviewers. He has made in this comment an accusation of "deliberate" misconduct by myself (in my bringing a motion to ANI) and an accusation of bad faith about Jehochman (these attacks are just the latest in a series of spurious accusations of malfeasance made by TR about others while blocked and are explicitly prohibitted by the terms of his restriction - diffs below). I will state once more that editing restriction (civility parole) has already been reviewed twice by the community and was imposed by the community originally (see my first comment above for links). This block has been reviewed multiple times in this thread, and on his talk-page, and we may differ on the length and whether it should be indefinite or not there is no consensus here for an unblock.
I'm asking the community to review TR's repeated personal attacks and accusations of bad faith while blocked in light of his restriction. These comments are both an abuse of talk space while blocked and a breach of the restriction in place. I'm wondering if it is time to protect that page for a period of 3 months at which time I believe we should review the year-long block and offer TR a way back to editing constructively--Cailil 12:20, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The way you are using your civility restriction would create a bit of a Catch-22 for TR and make it rather difficult to appeal. Also, I still do not see, in the links you provided (above), where the specific wording of TR's specific civility parole was discussed. Could you point me to that? Gimmetoo (talk) 13:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Gimmetoo, you've had warning to stop wikilawyering (at the last ANi thread) in relation to the wording of TR's restriction which was discussed in the inital ANi thread linked above, and was approved twice subsequent to its imposition. TR has perfect right to appeal while AGFing and not attacking others. That does not make appealing difficult - that's the minimum requirement for editing--Cailil 13:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

As an FYI, in case it is the formula of words you are asking about the restriction given to TR uses the wording of WP:RESTRICT - per all civility paroles (and other restrictions). It was placed on TR's talk page as a courtesy so he was clear what would happen if he breached the restriction. And if you are wondering why certain policies are not explicitly listed at WP:GS/BI please read through WP:CIVIL which encompasses many policies and guidelines (including WP:AGF)--Cailil 13:55, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Note that his unblock request has been on hold for two days at this point -- could someone resolve it please? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:13, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

6 Month old legal threat?

I've got a bit of an issue. Seeing a political edit reverted (correctly, involving the race of a politician), I checked the editor's talk page to see if there were other such edits, if their contribs had anything else that needed reverting, etc. Usual vandal check. I found that they had several images deleted in May, and responded (on their own talk page) by telling editors to get off their back and give them equal opportunity to post their work, and that editors should "Check into it before I sue." Now, this is a clear legal threat - block-worthy, in my opinion. Ideally, they'd retract it and they'd be unblocked and that'd be that. But it's 6 months old - so does it matter? Do we still block, even now? Or do we take it as an editor blowing off steam and presume that they cooled off in 6 months, and we leave it at that? Or do I just warn? "Hey, this was bad, don't do it again" sort of thing. Any insight is welcome - not sure what to do here. Thanks. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 18:27, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

"Hey, this was bad, don't do it again" sounds like a plan. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:31, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I think a polite reminder sounds appropriate rather than specifically making a warning that fully focuses on something that was said/done 6 months earlier. "Please be aware of NLT policy. This is just a reminder that it is important to comply with this policy. Users who make edits like this usually tend to be blocked from editing for the reasons stated in that policy, so it's best to avoid making edits like that in the future. (add more niceness)" Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Admin needed to look at this

There has been a very long discussion here: , someone is needed to go through this entire discussion and see if there is consensus. Its important that you look at the arguments. I believe there is consensus for Proposal 2, and that the majority support it. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 21:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

If you're looking for an univolved admin to close a contentious discussion, it would be best to post a pointer to the discussion without a mention of your own conclusion regarding it, which somewhat muddies the waters. Not that I think that admins aren't capable of making up their own minds, it's more a matter of good form. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

GBC Asset Management - a division of Pembroke Management

I would like to start a page for GBC Asset Management - a division of Pembroke Management and would like the help of an administrator. The Firm is one of the oldest in Canada and I find it strange that a page has not already been created... I have tried, but my attempts have not been up to par.

I would appreciate your assistance...

Best regards, Jack

http://www.pml.ca/# —Preceding unsigned comment added by A341672 (talk • contribs) 21:32, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

You can try submitting an article to Articles for creation. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 12:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Tidy up at WP:RESTRICT

Moved from a misplaced discussion at ANI. --TS 23:44, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I was quickly looking through the Editing Restrictions, and came across these "expired" restrictions. If there are no objections within 24 hours, I will remove them - otherwise I will go by the community discussion here:

User:House1090

Discussion on this restriction:

• Note: House1090 has been notified of this discussion -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

User:MyMoloboaccount (formerly User:Molobo)

Discussion on this restriction:

• Note MyMoloboaccount has been notified of this discussion -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

There's no need for discussion of expired restrictions. Just remove them. --TS 23:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

... or archive them, as appropriate, of course. Expiration based on time is automatic. Jclemens (talk) 00:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• (puts on best Yul Brynner voice): "So let it be written. So let it be done." -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 03:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Keep - The sanction has not expired and should not be rescinded. The sanctions are the result of a most generous offer for the Molobo account to return to editing after their second permaban. The account has previously been identified as an anti-German SPA banned virtually everywhere in the web except for en.wiki, see this village pump thread and its discussion in the Piotrus2 Arbcom case. The user has not changed after the sanction, he has used sockpuppets and was blocked for one year (until recently); while blocked, they comntinued to be a member of the EEML and had their edits proxied on-wiki by their buddies. He continued to coordinate offline with the EEML core even after the case closed, as evident from the infamous, now oversighted on-wiki-posting of the inbox of another EEML member. There is no need nor any justification for removing the sanction without re-enacting the respective (second) permaban. Skäpperöd (talk) 17:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• The restriction on House1090 has to come off. It's way overdued. As for MyMoloboaccount, perhaps now it's the time to bring this issue into light and generate discussion. OhanaUnited 20:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Skapperod's contention that "The account has previously been identified as an anti-German SPA banned virtually everywhere in the web except for en.wiki, see this village pump thread" is completely unsupported and false. Note that what he links to is an extremely long rant by what was obviously some kind of sock puppet SPA . The response to that extremely long rant, which Skapperod tries to pass off as evidence, by non-SPA users is here here and here. Skapperod's statement then is really nothing but a personal attack, disguised by the inclusion of an irrelevant "diff".

Additionally, there's no such thing as "Piotrus2 ArbCom case" (note lack of a link). Molobo was not sanctioned in any way during the EEML case. Skapperod's obviously quite involved here.radek (talk) 21:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The response by Radeksz aka VM (renamed yesterday) is deliberately misleading:

• Radeksz participated in the Piotrus2 arbcom case, his pretending here that such a case did not exist is obviouzsly false and he must know that due to his involvement there - the case was simply renamed post-closure to EE disputes.
• In that arbcom case, Molobo was not sanctioned because the sanction now under discussion was already in place ; during the EEML case, Molobo [served a one-year block for sockpuppetry (he socked to insert a BLP violation into an article about a German politian).
• Radeksz is one of Molobo's EEML-pals and proxied for Molobo during their block. This is in the EEML evidence and in the respective findings of fact, and was one of the reasons Radeksz was sanctioned.
• That Molobo and Shade2 are the same person, who disrupted not just wikipedia but also several web fora with their agenda as outlined in the abovementioned village pump thread, was sufficiently established by matching IPs and behavioral evidence during the Piotrus2 arbcom (collapsed below for convenience).

There is no reason to lift the sanction, which is btw a pretty light sanction (1rr and civility) compared to the two permabans which were already issued and the extensive block log of that user. Skäpperöd (talk) 08:48, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I.e. there's no such thing as "Piotrus2 ArbCom" case. The case was renamed for a reason. Basic civility and propriety requires that Skapperod respect the fact that it was renamed, rather then continuously and purposefully misname the case just to attack Piotrus. My "participation" in the Eastern European topics case consisted of something like two minor comments, unlike Skapperod's extensive involvement.

Let's repeat: Molobo was not sanctioned in the EEML case. He could've been admonished, or some findings in regard to him could've been made or his sanctions extended as Skapperod is trying to do here. But none of that was done.

This whole Shade/Molobo thing appears to be based on a rant posted by a SPA to Village pump, which then one of Skapperod's buddies tried to introduce as "Evidence" into the EE case. It was ignored by everyone but Skapperod. Even there it was dangerously flirting with "Outing" (and perhaps false Outing at that), since it concerned things that had nothing to do with Misplaced Pages, and there's no need to rehash and reproduce those accusations and personal attacks here.

This is just another instance of Skapperod block shopping for Polish editors.

There's nothing misleading in my statement, either deliberate or not.radek (talk) 09:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Contrary to your assumption, Molobo was admonished during the EEML case, all of you were - and that he was not subject to further sanctions like you resulted from the fact that he already served a long-term block during and after the case. And no, the village pump thread was not posted by a "buddy" of mine - in contrast to Molobo and you, I am not a member of any organized wiki interest group. And to pretend that there was no Piotrus2 case when one even participated there is deliberately misleading, period. Skäpperöd (talk) 09:21, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Molobo was not specifically admonished. He was not sanctioned either, period - you're in no position to read the ArbCom's mind and pretend that you know why this was so. I did not say the village pump thread was posted by a buddy of yours - don't misrepresent what I said - I said a buddy of yours tried to put it in "Evidence" after some sock puppet SPA posted it to the Village Pump. I am not a member of any organized wiki interest group, aside from the Wiki projects indicated on my talk page. You know this, so why are you saying otherwise? I am not pretending there was no Eastern European case - as is clear from what I wrote. What I am saying is that there is no such thing as a "Piotrus2 case". Which there isn't. As you also are well aware.radek (talk) 09:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Stop fighting please. I don't know why this is even here: Molobo's sanction exists, and for a reason, there's no doubt about that; and it is still in force, unless I'm missing something. If Molobo wants it reviewed, it's up to him to initiate a review. In the absence of this, why are we even discussing anything here? Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Because the sanction was delisted as "expired" by Phantomsteve . Skäpperöd (talk) 10:35, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that now. But deciding on whether that was a procedural error or not is a purely formal issue: was there an expiry or not? (I've asked Phantomsteve to explain.) It doesn't require rehashing mutual accusations. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:42, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Fiction noticeboard proposed marking as historical

A discussion that may be of interest to administrators may be found at Misplaced Pages talk:Fiction/Noticeboard. The issue is regarding the noticeboard and whether or not it should be marked historical. Yes, I am going through all the noticeboards to check them out Netalarm 02:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Saltshaker time

Fire It Up (EP) has been deleted via AFD in October 2008 here (albeit under a differently-punctuated title) and again only a week later here. The current revision seems no better than the last two, and all three versions had the same author. Might I suggest that this be deleted again and salted? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • 02:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I deleted it as a recreation because there is no more indication of notability now than there was the last two times, but two recreations in two years doesn't seem enough to justify salting, so I've left the name unprotected. --RL0919 (talk) 02:36, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad you made the call. I was tempted to decline the G4 and recommend AFD and then I took a look at the creator's talk page and contributions. He's been here since 2006 and has never said anything on in any talk space, just uploaded copyvios. I have zero sympathy for anybody who won't discuss their edits. Sort of reminds me of Brexx but at least he attempted to communicate. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Request for Administrator resolution of Gavin.collins RFC/U and other issues

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

• Analysing and closing. Courcelles 18:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The following request was based on a consensus of editors as discussed here

User:Gavin.collins (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been the subject of three user RfCs, one in October 2007, one in December 2008, and a more recent one that began in September 2010. Each RfC cited complaints with his interaction style, with many attempts to warn and reform Gavin in between. The recent RfC/U has reached a consensus that he is disruptive; several users (including Hiding) stated they have limited or ended their participation on Misplaced Pages due to Gavin's actions. He has a long history at AN/I and other noticeboards, and as the third RfC/U progressed, another AN thread was started, during which the community discovered that most of Gavin's substantive contributions to the main namespace clearly and directly violated the copyright policy. As a result of that discussion, Kww volunteered to mentor Gavin, but his efforts had no effect on Gavin's behavior and Kww thus discontinued his mentorship. The discussion on his third RfC/U ultimately established that there is consensus that his disruptive behavior cannot be addressed with warnings or requests for improvement, and instead need more serious sanctions.

Gavin.collins refuses to compromise in the consensus-building process, resulting in disruptive editing and gaming the dispute-resolution system. It is, of course, acceptable to hold an opinion that is shared by no one else (or by a minority of the other participants). But for such a minority viewpoint (see his one-man crusades on "WP:FICTION", "links in infoboxes" 1 (and 2), "notability of lists" 1 (and 2), and his first and second demands to ban a user (with admins' response)) his comments dominate the discussion and discourage other editors from participating. In discussions, Gavin.collins' tendentiousness and repetition of arguments ad nauseum impede progress on the development of solutions where consensus does, in fact, exist. Even after his point of view is rejected by the community, he still will not cooperate with efforts to find middle ground. This damages the community by causing editors to leave in frustration, eliminating their valuable input, and allowing disputes to continue for years unresolved.

See the RfC itself for a list of examples. Please also note that after the RfC reached equilibrium, two other incidents have occurred despite multiple warnings and the generous mentorship of Kww.

1. Refusing to accept consensus for notability of lists: There was a contentious RfC on lists, but there were a few issues where there was consensus. Shooterwalker spearheaded an effort with the other participants to summarize the few areas where there is a consensus on lists. After one week, Shooterwalker made a request to an uninvolved admin to close the discussion, but Gavin accused him of operating in bad faith. Gavin was admonished by FT2. Rather than helping to find areas of agreement, he returned to the RFC to push his own point of view and prevent closure. When he did not gain any support for his viewpoint, he tried once again to accuse Shooterwalker of operating in bad faith. The remaining participants defended the summary as accurate, but wasted time and energy dealing with one editor who should have understood the community's consensus.
2. Refusing to accept consensus on WP:OR and WP:COPYVIO: Gavin has an interpretation of WP:OR that is far outside the consensus and apparently inhibits his ability to edit article content without violating copyright. He believes that to summarize a source in your own words has a high probability of injecting original research, and this interpretation has caused him to repeatedly engage in significant verbatim copying from sources that result in copyright violations. Editors have tried to explain to him that he is welcome to his opinion, but that he must avoid acting as though such opinions are policy if he wishes to avoid being blocked again. Gavin interpreted this advice as a personal attack. Around the same time, Kww decided that mentoring Gavin would not be "fruitful".

In summary, Gavin refuses to make constructive compromises when his ideas are rejected by the community, and instead uses argument ad nauseum to stonewall and filibuster issues where there is otherwise a consensus. He insists his viewpoint is in fact policy and blames other editors for violating his one-man rules. When other editors point out that it is against Misplaced Pages rules to ignore the consensus and enforce one's own view of policy, he accuses other editors of bad faith. The consensus of the most recent RfC/U is that there is no other recourse but administrative action, possibly including a ban, the details of which are to be determined here.

On behalf of the participants in the RFC/U on user:Gavin.collins --Mike Cline (talk) 15:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Needless to say, I really can't add much to what is already in the statement except to note that the first admin who dropped by to close the RfC got so fed up with Gavin that he walked away from it (a fully understandable response). The next editor subsequently stated that he seriously contemplated just making the proposal to the Community directly. Seriously, I can count the number of editors who don't think Gavin is disruptive using one finger. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 15:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  Very interesting - I had read the exchange between Gavin and BWilkins on Gavin's talk page, but I had not yet read Ncmvocalist's comments on his own talk page. Thanks for that. BOZ (talk) 16:13, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  Just as an FYI, Ncmvocalist is not an admin. → ROUX ₪ 16:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  This is tendentious editing so the question is this: is the problem limited to certain topics or does it just comes part and parcel with all of his contributions to Misplaced Pages? If that's too difficult to answer, alternatively: when have his contributions not included tendentious disruptive editing? Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:19, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  You'll have to look at the RfC/U for all the details, but the consensus there was that the problem extends across both articles (due to copyvio issues) and policies (due to tendentious editing etc.). --Tryptofish (talk) 16:23, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• I endorse the idea that Gavin is disruption. He hasn't responded to warnings, and has been uncooperative with friendly editors, RFCs, and now even a mentor. I'd hate to use a full ban on someone who hasn't gone completely postal. But there has to be some kind of restriction that tells him that he has to be more collaborative and accept community decisions if he wants to stay here. Or at least stay out of the decision-making process. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• I also endorse this summary, and I particularly make note of the fact that the mentorship of Gavin by Kww, that grew out of the previous AN discussion, resulted in Kww giving up on the possibility that mentorship would be productive. At this point, I think that some sort of a ban (I'm not sure about the specifics, but, regardless of duration, it would probably have to be a site ban rather than a topic ban) may be the only option. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• I am not sure that this is an appropriate venue to disucss these issues at length, so I limit myself to a few points, as all of the issues have been discussed elsewhere at length. My understanding of the situation is that:

1. My interaction with other editors is extensive, but clear, reasonable and for the most part based on courtesy and respect, although this has been disputed at the recent RFC;
2. Hiding's decision to limit his involvement with Misplaced Pages is his own decision and is out of my control, but I bear no ill will or bad feeling towards him;
3. I reject the idea that I have ever engaged in stonewalling, intimidation, misrepresentation of any sort;
4. The copyright violations which I have carried out have some mittigating circumstances due to a misunderstanding on my part regarding the use verbatim citations, which I have previously explained, applogised and undertaken to make amends for.
5. In fairness to me, I have provided clear and precise citations, and this will assist with cleanup, which should take no more than several weeks to correct, on my own if need be. The copyright violations themselves are numerous, but involve relatively small amounts of text from multiple sources, and should be easy to correct;
6. Kww decision to withdraw his mentorship is his own, but it not clear why he withdrew his offer so soon and and at such short notice. My request for further clarification and advice going forward has been unanswered;
7. I am aware of many accusions of disruptive behaviour by editors such as postdlf, but I do beleive these accusations to be of a mainly rhetorical kind, designed to undermine me as an editor rather address the subject matter of the discussions we were engaged in;
8. I am not oblidged to conform with any ideas deemed to be "consensus" if they are seriously disputed, that are little more than the beliefs of a few editors whose views differ from my own, particularly when those ideas conflict with existing policies and guidelines and my own are supported by them. In any case, a dissenting viewpoint should always be tolerated, if not accepted, and I see no fault for any editor to hold a dissenting view;
9. I am being asked to participate in the ANI equivalent of a trial by ordeal, in which my absence from the discussions, as well as my partipation (and the writing of these points) will be taken to be evidence of guilt, lying or proof that the accusations against me must be true. At this point, I request that good faith be assumed, rather than using this discussion as an opportunity for mudslinging;
10. Lastly, I think it only right that editors (inclduding myself) should be allowed to particiate in discussions about policies and guidelines in an atmosphere of mutual respect and courtesy without the personal attack which have been leveled against me. If I have harmed or annoyed any editor, I do appologise now, and if there is any instance of where I have offended any editor, I am happy to appoligise again if asked on my talk page.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to assist further with this discussion. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 17:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• To any neutral observers, look carefully at #8 and unpack the rhetorical gymnastics. According to Gavin, it's the community's fault is because we don't like him explaining to the rest of us what the guidelines are. His justification for ignoring consensus is because he's enforcing guidelines. But guidelines "are best practices that are supported by consensus". The only way he can handle this cognitive dissonance is to believe that his solitary viewpoint is grounded in policy, but everyone else's consensus reading of policy is actually ignorant. This is the belief system that makes it impossible for Gavin to engage in consensus-building in good faith. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I did not say anything of the sort, and in any case, I have frequently gone on record that I think it possible that I may be mistaken, so am entirely aware that my views are my own. However, I am entitle to them, regardless of whether you think I am "actually ignorant" or not. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 19:26, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

To any neutral observers, notice how he took my words out of context to try to accuse me of making a personal attack. He does it routinely. Yesterday to an uninvolved admin. The day before to me.

To Gavin, when you say "it's possible" that you "may be mistaken", you're missing the point. Look at the other comments here. There's a consensus that you ARE mistaken, no possibilities or maybes. At this point you should be doing what so many other helpful editors have been telling you for months: stop pushing back, reach out, make concessions, and hope you can build a consensus with everyone else. If you make this change, I'm afraid that might you might be a day late and a dollar short. But I'm a forgiving person. I'd stick my neck out and try to argue for something less than a full ban if you'd acknowledge that you understand how WP:consensus works, and how it's about to get you banned. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:47, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Gavin has not attempted to edit any article to incorporate new material since the copyvio issue. He has stated that his concern is that unless he quotes verbatim, he cannot prove that something is not original research; however, in discussion over the copyvio issue (apologies that it's a whole section, but you have to see the thought process) he was advised that ascribed text and quotes should on the whole be kept to a minimum.Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Further (apologies, I didn't have time to include this above), Gavin has made no attempt to repair any of his copyvios. As folks can see from his statement above, the reason for this is that what he wants to do is to turn every one into a quote, but in the course of the discussion linked above, several people said that ascription (Elen of the Roads said "not on your nellie") was not appropriate for conveying factual/non- contentious information outside of exceptional circumstances. If people check the page history of Accountancy and look at all the text I removed as copyvios etc, it's clear that it can't be put back as ascribed text or quotes, so my impression is that Gavin has not repaired any of the copyvios because he doesn't know how to go about it.Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:06, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• It should be noted that Gavin has had plenty of opportunity to work with the community in the previous RFC/Us and the ANI to resolve the issues but instead refused to participate, taking these as personal attacks, or requesting a much smaller venue (his talk page) to resolve one-on-one editor conflicts. I do not know whether he will participate now, but it is important that we've never prevented him from speaking his mind about his behavior. (Obviously, I support any admin action that is reasonable for Gavin's disruption). --MASEM (t) 16:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• I'm going to point out a rather fair question that Kww asked of Gavin on his talk (during the 24-hr block below, ): "Are you able to exercise reasonable judgment about the consequences of your actions?" I think, when you take in the whole picture of Gavin's behavior over the last few years, this points out the underlying problem in that Gavin lacks the self-awareness that is necessary to have in working within consensus, maybe not spelled out exactly that way at any time before, but certainly advice and other suggestions have been on those lines. Gavin cannot seem to state that his ideas are incompatible with consensus since they seem compatible with policy (by his interpretations), and cannot see how his discussion approaches is immediately off-putting to consensus building. I was actually surprised to see Gavin apologize for the copyvio aspect, which in hindsight is the first time I've seen Gavin be self-aware. I realize self-awareness is not an innate skill we expect editors to have, but it is one we guide them to practice (eg through things like WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, WP:TE, and WP:DEADHORSE) in order to build consensus. A question to ask ourselves is: have we given Gavin ample opportunity through the 3 RFC/Us and ANI reports to correct his lack of self-awareness? To me, yes (particularly given RFC/U #2's conclusions that basically are repeated into #3), but that might be the distinction between a topic ban, site ban, or indef block to others. --MASEM (t) 14:19, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Ban/indef-block proposal?

Per normal community sanctions proposal best practices, this should be left open for not less than 48 hrs at a bare minimum from the time it was proposed, in order to give maximum opportunity for diverse input from community members. WP:SNOW does not apply to community sanction discussions. If consensus is achieved by that time, any uninvolved administrator may close at that time. In the absence of consensus longer discussions are acceptable. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Per WT:BAN, only 24 hours is needed, and given the overwhelming consensus, I think it would be wise to shut this down now, to help preserve the user's dignity. Jehochman 15:28, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

There are two ways that the most restrictive measure can be imposed for tendentious editing of this nature. The first way is to site ban him as a community (he'd need to appeal to the community or ArbCom to return). The second way is to impose an indef block (an admin can unblock if he can satisfy that admin that he's resolved his issues). Thoughts? Please please please state your level of involvement (if any) with the user when commenting. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

FYI - Banning Policy vs Blocking Policy --Mike Cline (talk) 16:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support either as proposer. I didn't comment in the RfC/U itself, but I did deal with procedural matters of formatting, closing the RfC/U, etc. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support either per proposer.   — Jeff G.  ツ 16:50, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support site ban. I commented in the third RFC after interacting with him in the recent list RFC. I also helped review some of his edits for the copyright infringement investigation. It's those copyright infringements that turn this situation from one requiring a topic ban into a complete site ban. There simply is no benefit to allowing him to edit any longer. postdlf (talk) 16:39, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support Topic Ban, Oppose Indef Block, Tolerate Site Ban Hate to sound wishy washy here. Disclosure: I agree with Gavin on third-party sources, but Gavin has accused me of bad faith for asking him to moderate his other radical views (or at least accept that he can't enforce his views without a consensus). I don't want to ban him, because he isn't completely unhinged. But I see an indef block as fruitless, since Gavin will have plenty of abstract platitudes at his disposal. He can say he's trying to enforce (his view of) policy, and argue that (his view of) policy is on his side, and that he wants to work with other editors to reach a shared understanding of (his view of) policy. My first choice is to restrict Gavin's privileges to a narrow part of Misplaced Pages, where he can hopefully prove that he's actually capable of good work. (Not just convincing an admin that he will do good work in theory.) But if he's not capable of good work, we should skip the indef block and go straight for the ban. (I support Mike Cline's position below.) Shooterwalker (talk) 16:43, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support site ban. I commented in the third RfC after interacting with him in an AfD and on some policy page talk pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• I support a full site ban for Gavin.collins. My first interaction with him was slightly over three years ago; I co-authored his second RFC/U, so my history with him is well-documented there. I have had virtually no interaction with Gavin since his prior RFC/U, and I find it disturbing that not only has his tenditiousness and lack of ability to cooperate with other user has continued, but apparently gotten worse over time. I was highly disappointed to see that he was conditionally unblocked upon his agreement to help clean up the mess he made with the copyright violations, but then offered absolutely no help in the cleanup efforts whatsoever. If you remove the copyright violations, template tagging, and deletion nominations from his article space edits, you are left with virtually nothing. What is left of his contributions amounts to thousands of edits to Misplaced Pages-space talk pages, and it is that which brought about his third RFC/U. Like everyone else, I would like to see Gavin become a productive contributor to the community, but I have no hope of such a dream being realized, and thus I feel this community is better off without him. BOZ (talk) 16:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support long-term community ban from entire site. An indef block is my second choice. By "long-term", I mean a minimum of one year. I've already done "patiently explain", and "assume good faith", and "last chance", and "unblock with (broken) promises". The community needs this disruption and copyright violation to stop. IMO a ban is the only reliable method of stopping the disruption. I've moved on to WP:COMPETENT: Not every person belongs at Misplaced Pages, because some people are not sufficiently competent. Good faith is necessary, but not sufficient.
  For those who want to consider gentler remedies, please note that the documented problems are: (1) copyright violations, (2) radical incomprehension of NOR, (3) article titles, (4) notability, (5) article deletion, (6) disruption of talk pages and noticeboards, (7) anything consensus-driven, and (8) pointy abuse of tags. So if you want to keep Gavin as an editor permitted to do things that haven't been a problem, please tell me what Gavin could do that doesn't involve either articles, templates, or any sort of discussions. As far as I can tell, what's left is the null set, but I'm willing to listen to a rational argument if someone has found a tiny corner that he hasn't already disrupted. Just plan to be concrete and specific: "Surely there's something..." isn't going to convince me, any more than "Surely some sources exist..." convinces me to keep an article of distinctly dubious notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

For one, there is an near endless amount of articles to be assessed and a large amount of project tagging required. Regards, SunCreator 22:27, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Gavin has already demonstrated disruptiveness with tagging, mentioned elsewhere, and assessment seems like an area where his difficulties would be in full force. —chaos5023 (talk) 22:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support either per proposer. I commented on the RfC and previous AN thread. I've previously had a particularly fruitless argument with Gavin over the issue of foreign language sources which is related to his understanding of WP:OR as well as his two ban proposals cited in the statement posted by Mike Cline. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 16:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Addendum There seems to be some confusion about the meaning of #8 in Gavin's list of principles in the above section. When Gavin speaks of misunderstandings (or whatever he might call them) of policy what he really means is that those policies don't actually mean what the majority of Wikipedians think they do. That's textbook Wikilawyering. With that in mind I don't see how he could ever contribute to article space in a constructive manner. He has had 3 1/2 years, a vast number of edits and plenty of warnings to show that he is willing to work with other editors rather that repeat his own interpretations of various policies over and over despite being told that he is wrong. Game over. Misplaced Pages is not therapy and other editors shouldn't have to suffer any longer just because he suddenly makes a few good edits to a talk page. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 23:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support Topic Ban - I have been involved with Gavin.collins as an editor and admin for at least a year on a variety of issues mostly related to WP:Lists and WP:OR. I firmly disagree with many of Gavin’s positions on the application of WP policies and guidelines. I have repeatedly tried to engage Gavin in discussions outside the drama of RFCs, talk pages and incident boards. Here, Here, and Here. I firmly believe his disruptive behavior and misguided views on consensus and policy are directly attributable to his lack of real content experience. His recent copyvios are proof he can’t even apply existing policy to his content work, despite his years of participation. His policy positions, as idealistic as they may be, do not reflect a functional understanding of how this community works. If Gavin.collins wishes to continue participation in WP he needs to immediately undertake two changes in his behavior:
  • He needs to understand and apply the concept of WP:Consensus to all of his future behavior and interaction with other editors.
  • He needs to restrict his participation to article work (content creation) and forego participation in any policy, guideline, deletion, et. al discussions, including the tagging of articles for perceived transgressions of policies, guidelines, etc. In doing article work, Gavin.collins needs to demonstrate to the wider community that he understands the application of WP policies and guidelines (as they are written and applied by the consensus of the community) to his content work. As a community, we can consider his previous content mistakes (copyvios) as just that, mistakes. As a community however, we will have high expectations that he won’t violate content policies and guidelines in the future.
• To that end. I recommend and support a Topic Ban for Gavin.collins—the topic being all discussions on policies, guidelines, deletions and article tagging. Gavin.collins is free to create and edit articles within the scope of existing policies and guidelines. He is free to discuss article content on article talk pages in a collegial, WP:Consensus way without imposing his personal views on what WP policy should be during those discussions. This ban should last for 1 year. Should Gavin.collins refuse to comply with the details of this ban at anytime during the year (including a failure to apply existing policies), a full site ban should be imposed immediately. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support site ban for 1 year. Note that above he claims to have asked for advice/guidance from Kww -- but he did so on his own talk page after Kww withdrew, making it highly unlikely he was going to get an answer. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:27, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support topic or site ban. I had a lot of hope that Kww's mentorship would help, but nope. Gavin has had many chances to improve his behavior, and each has been taken as a license to keep pushing his agenda through tendentiousness. Misplaced Pages is not therapy; our responsibility to help Gavin work through his issues so he can become a positive contributor is limited, and that limit has been reached and considerably exceeded. Enough. —chaos5023 (talk) 17:43, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  Apologies to Ncmvocalist for missing the request to state level of involvement. I've been moderately involved in a couple of notability-related debates Gavin participated in over the past few months, and have made a couple desultory attempts at getting through to him on his talk page. —chaos5023 (talk) 05:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support community ban - Just get it over with. An indefinite block is just wasting time. If he wants to come back, he can follow the steps in the standard offer, or e-mail Arbcom. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:23, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• the distinction between banning and blocking is pure pedantry at this point. I might support a topic ban, if I knew those to provide any positive results whatsoever. My experience with topic bans is that they do not. they infuriate the person subject to the ban, provide ammunition for opponents and are generally unenforceable. So as an alternative I will weakly support a site ban, if that is the only solution. Bear in mind, however, that banning gavin under these circumstances will not be forgotten. Misplaced Pages isn't a court of law, so there are no precedents, but suffice it to say this is not the first nor the last time we will see persistent disruption along the inclusion/deletion spectrum. Protonk (talk) 18:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
  • In earnest... I hope this is not the only time we consider this sort of remedy for this sort of problem. Gavin is not the first editor to push WP:IDHT beyond reproach, and he won't be the last. We should modify WP:GAMETYPE or WP:IDHT to make this kind of disruption more clear. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support permanent site ban per Gavin.collins massive plagiarism and copyright violations coupled with endless attempts to have as much free content deleted as possible under any conceivable pretense. Almost all of Gavin.collins contributions have been destructive and and harmful to Misplaced Pages. Goodbye, and good riddance! Peter Karlsen (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• question I would support a topic ban rather than a total ban, except for the problem of what to limit it to. My own difficult interactions have been only in WP and WT space, but it seems from the above that the problems others have been finding extend to article space also. DGG ( talk ) 19:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  Yes, a WP and WT namespace ban doesn't address Gavin's plagiarism and copyright violations, his persistent unwillingness to provide any assistance in cleaning up his copvio mess, his bizarre insistence that rewriting material from references in one's own original language constitutes original research, and his general and continued refusal to acknowledge the requirements of Misplaced Pages:Copyrights and Misplaced Pages:Non-free content (as explained above, his proposed remedy for his plagiarism and copyright violations was to leave all non-free text intact, but simply place it in quotation marks, notwithstanding the brevity requirements of the non-free content policy.) The fundamental problem with any limited ban is the question of what purpose it is intended to serve. What could Gavin possibly offer Misplaced Pages besides more copyright violations and general disruption? Peter Karlsen (talk) 20:01, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  I would be happy to see him editing articles if he can work out his issues with it. He has said himself that he finds it next to impossible to summarise text, and he considers it OR to write a paragraph where you cannot directly source every word and phrase to a reference (you can see him continually rewriting paraphrases so they match the source wording more closely), so he is going to struggle. His contributions in WP and WT space though are too problematic in my opinion.Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:06, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  I'm not defending the copyvios or gavin's interpretation of OR but please understand that there are a number of good editors who hold wildly different views of what OR does and does not say about paraphrasing text. For instance, if you read my articles you will find rather workmanlike prose sourced painstakingly, but very few broad synthesizing sentences. If you read articles written primarily by editors with a more liberal interpretation of OR you will see fewer cites per paragraph and stronger claims in text not directly linked to cited articles. We thrive by tolerating a broad spectrum of opinions on this subject. Protonk (talk) 20:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  I can certainly see that. My only onbservation is that it causes Gavin himself problems. However this is an example of Gavin working well with other editors, and making good strong suggestions about text. I would not wish to prevent him from doing that. Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support permanent site ban -I'm never one who usually wishes to banish people from wikipedia however much I loathe them but Gavin my experience is extremely spiteful in eveyr instance I've seen of him and is not a constructive editor. He is a trouble maker and has sparked off countless unnecessary debates and igniting ill feeling between editors which could have been avoided. A definate candidate for a permanent block.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:38, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Question -- Before I express my opinion/vote on this, I'd like to hear Gavin.Collins' answer to this question: In #8 of your list above posted at 17:17 3 November 2010 (UTC), you stated that "I am not oblidged to conform with any ideas deemed to be 'consensus' if they are seriously disputed"; by "disputed", whom do you mean? Specifically, are you talking about one or more uninvolved Wikipedians, or do you include yourself as one who disputes consensus? You can either respond here, after Sarek's block is lifted, or in email to me, & I will repost your answer here. -- llywrch (talk) 20:51, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

My take (not Gavin's) on #8 is a situation where a number of editors have reached a consensus but that consensus elsewhere in terms of a guideline or a policy or none involved editors is different. This can be due to the consensus editors pushing a point of view or varies guidelines/policies in conflict with each other or editors of a certain view being drawn together. The situation seems quite common in fact. Regards, SunCreator 22:43, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer to hear Gavin's explanation. But thanks for the answer. -- llywrch (talk) 04:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support community ban. The user is consistently causing problems, sometimes severe problems, due to an extreme lack of competence that appears unlikely to sort itself out, combined with stubbornness. Hans Adler 21:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support Topic Ban, Oppose Indef Block, Oppose Site Ban carefully reading back over what appears a long list of interactions. Mike Cline has written it nicely above "Gavin.collins needs to demonstrate to the wider community that he understands the application of WP policies and guidelines (as they are written and applied by the consensus of the community) to his content work. As a community, we can consider his previous content mistakes (copyvios) as just that, mistakes. As a community however, we will have high expectations that he won’t violate content policies and guidelines in the future". I would add that a mentor is advisable and would recommend it as a requirement as being able to more effectively communicate with others is going be key to whether continued participation on Misplaced Pages is going to be suitable for Gavin. Regards, SunCreator 22:13, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Are you volunteering to be his mentor? The prospects of using a mentor depend on whether someone is ready to hold that position. On the other point, what topics are you proposing a ban on, and how will that prevent the issues popping up in the topics he is not banned from? Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:16, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support a full site ban having dealt with Gavin's narrow view of what is and isn't consensus for years on I am simply tired of fighting over every single edit. Especially in light that he seems to have been gaming the system in various policy threads. He has had numerous chances, lets spend this effort on an editor that can be more productive. Web Warlock (talk) 21:25, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support a site ban. In my interactions with Gavin, and my observations of his interactions with others, I've found Gavin to be contentious, unreasonable, disruptive, and unwilling to work toward consensus or compromise. Efforts to resolve the difficulties other editors have experienced with Gavin always seem to fail. In the rare cases when Gavin does agree to change his behavior, he invariably ends up reverting to form. Furthermore, as Boz has mentioned, Gavin's contributions to Misplaced Pages consist mostly of tagging articles, copyright violations, and arguing on talk pages about his edits--ie, little or no content contributions whatsoever. From what I've seen, Gavin has been given numerous opportunities to change his behavior, and nothing has worked. It's time for something that might actually work.--Robbstrd (talk) 22:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support either, I've had interactions with him on the Criticism of Judaism and Article Titles discussions, my feeling is that he does not fully understand what consensus building entails, and is currently incapable of stepping back from his own views in order to . I am particularly concerned with his reactions to the copyright violations, and would point to this edit, in comparison to page 74 of the source as a particularly egregious example. I was disappointed that he did not make immediate efforts to go back and clean up the mess, but remain unsure as to whether this reluctance was due to confusion as to the nature of the problems or adherence to the belief that there is not a problem that needed to be fixed. Regardless of other outcomes, I think a mentor (or 2-3) should be required. --Nuujinn (talk) 22:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support site ban Repeated time sinks are disruptive and ultimately need excision. Even after all the above, when Kww below stated they did "not receive an answer to the question I was asking", Gavin.collins answered(diff), not by finding a question he had answered, or showing some evidence that Kww had never asked questions, but with the time-sinking retort "Which questions did not you not get answers to?". That might win in a law court, but all the evidence presented above is sufficient to show that further trials are pointless. I believe this is my first direct interaction with Gavin.collins. Johnuniq (talk) 03:02, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
• Blanket Support for the most stringent sanctions gaining community consensus, up to and including permanent banning. If I were completely uninvolved, I would have closed the RfC/U with a suggestion that the community limit Gavin to 1x/day personal contributions to policy or policy talk space (anything beyond 1 edit per day would have to be conveyed by another editor) in an attempt to end the textwalling and coerce cooperative editing without censoring him for his viewpoints on notability, which differ markedly from my own. But Gavin's intransigence extends to copyright issues. If we've lost Rlevse through hectoring on not-dissimilar copyright misunderstandings, it is the height of dissonance to not ban Gavin for his efforts. Rlevse was a superior contributor in every way to Gavin, and he chose to leave of his own accord. Gavin can well and indeed be shown the door without any injustice, since he doesn't have one smidgen of the integrity (no, Gavin, intransigence is not integrity) that Rlevse does. Jclemens (talk) 04:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support full and permanent site ban. I encountered Gavin Collins over a notability issue (links on my talk page) in 2008 when he behaved in the uncompromising manner that is so frequently described in the three RfC/Us, the last of which I contributed to. I have observed his editing pattern since 2008 and noticed that, since then, his behavior has gotten, if anything, worse. Many editors have demonstrated charity and forbearance well beyond the call of duty in their attempts to get him to edit in a manner acceptable to the consensus of editors. They have failed, not through any want of trying. Gavin Collins has been given many last chances. It is pointless and probably not appropriate to speculate on the motives for his behavior. Whatever they are, the end result is that, after interminable advice and tuition, he has not developed the competence to edit Misplaced Pages in a way that is acceptable to editors. As the article says "Give editors a few chances, and some good advice, certainly -- but if these things don't lead to reasonably competent editing within a reasonable timeframe, it's best to wash your hands of the situation. Not every person belongs at Misplaced Pages, because some people are not sufficiently competent. " Xxanthippe (talk) 05:12, 4 November 2010 (UTC).
• Support site-ban. He has had plenty of warnings, and the issue over copyright violations should have been a huge wake-up call. It wasn't. The later comments, especially this one where he doesn't think the problem is with his conduct, indicates that he still doesn't get it or doesn't want to get it. The vast majority of his edits have been all to Misplaced Pages/ space, where the current grief is being created, and User_talk space where he continues to fight and deny all charges. The very limited number of edits to article space are 90%+ devoted to adding various tags, and sometimes edit warring to keep the tags in, and much of the remainder are, as we know copyvios. That leaves far too little constructive work which is worth keeping, so a topic ban is insufficient. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:34, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

  Regarding my involvement, I have posted outside views on all three of Gavin's RFC/U. I have been engaged in several disputes with him over notability policy. An AFD in particular where I have argued with him in the aftermath is the one on Ellen Hambro, the reasons for which I have elaborated in the third RFC/U. I was the admin who unblocked Gavin a few weeks ago due to his apology for the copyvio thing. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:48, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support either a full ban, or a topic ban from all WP:namespace pages, with a clear indication that this chance to concentrate on article editing is a last chance, and that repeated or egregious problems (e.g. further plagiarism) there will result in a full ban. Note: I am not uninvolved here, I have encountered Gavin in many discussions over the years, where he generally exhausted the patience of any other editors, with far-out statements like the recent "We know that Misplaced Pages is a not a directory of every village in the world; rather it provides encylopedic coverage about a settlement if there are sources to provide context (commentary, analysis or criticism) to the reader. Redirects don't provide context, so I don't see what useful purpose a redirect could serve." (emphasis mine: this on the subject of redirecting articles for smaller villaegs to articles about larger subjects, e.g. a submunicipality would redirect to the municipality). Fram (talk) 08:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support Whatever form of sanction. Thanks to Gavin concensus has become harder to reach in some areas and the community even more divided. --KrebMarkt (talk) 12:22, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support full and permanent site ban Three RfCs and Gavin Collins hasn't changed. He still lies (claiming he wasn't informed of the RfC), he's still disruptive, and he still thinks that he can ignore consensus. He was blocked for copyright violations. The block was removed with the understanding that he work to fix those violations, but to date he has not fixed any of them. Instead he ignored and annoyed his mentor and continued with his same disruptive behavior that has already driven several people away from Misplaced Pages. People who, unlike Gavin, were able to contribute to Misplaced Pages without violating copyrights and with respect for consensus. Seanr451 (talk) 14:04, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support site ban per WP:BAN: as having exhausted the patience of the community--Cailil 15:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Blocked 24 hours

Per the attacks/lack of AGF in this edit, I have blocked Gavin for 24 hours. I leave it to an uninvolved admin to decide if it needs to be extended per the discussion above. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:02, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I can't decide if Gavin tells fibs, or if he just processes and stores information very differently to most people. At my suggestion, Mike Cline posted the proposal on Gavin's talkpage nearly 24 hours before this was posted here . Gavin ignored this (I checked his contribs - he edited in other places). He then accuses Mike of not attempting to communicate on his talk page. Same weird schizz as the RfC - Mike notified him as soon as it was posted, but Gavin refused to contribute on the grounds that he hadn't been notified. Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Small nit : I was the one that posted the RFC/U (#3) and then notified him minutes later. Same result. --MASEM (t) 20:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Apologies. I relied on my memory - mistake. Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:38, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, no problems. Just in case people are trying to confirm this in Gavin's history... --MASEM (t) 21:06, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree that commented warranted a block. Gavin is certainly welcome to think that people agitating for his indefinite ban aren't out to help him, and say as much. There were no personal attacks there, unless you consider characterizing actions as a personal attack. Looks like this will all be beside the point anyway, but I figured I would register my disapproval. Protonk (talk) 20:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll go out on a limb and agree with Protonk on that one. Those sort of comments are par for the course from Gavin anyway, and if they were blockable, then he would have been indeff'd long ago. Blocking him robs him of his ability to respond to this thread, if he should choose to do so any further. BOZ (talk) 20:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't, and I agree that significant, persistent ABF should be blockable. Saying that Mike's offer was made in bad faith and that Mike's "so called "help" is actually nothing but generalised mudslinging" is not the kind of behavior that helps Misplaced Pages. If it takes a short block to stop this kind of unwarranted nastiness, then I'm willing to have that done. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:43, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

While the specifics of this particular incident appear quite damning and the conclusion seems inevitable, I am concerned about an editor being blocked while we simultaneously discuss permanent or long-term sanctions. I hope someone is watching his Talk page to ensure his voice is being heard during this discussion, ideally by transcluding a section or copying material to this noticeboard. ElKevbo (talk) 20:37, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The page is on 90 watchlists, not counting people like me, who hit the page occasionally without watchlisting it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:43, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)x2 -- Assuming Bad Faith can be a personal attack, and since the previous edit also ABFed, and the last few comments have been similarly unhelpful, I figured it was time to stop the hole-digging. Your mileage may (and obviously does) vary. Since GWH has stated this will run for at least 48 hours, he'll be back before a final decision has been made.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:38, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Meh. ABF is ABF, not a personal attack. If that is the reason for the block then fine, but lets not broaden our definition of personal attack strategically. Protonk (talk) 20:42, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The second-to-last edit was straight ABF, and not terribly blockable in my view. However, the last edit, with comments like "Your so called "help" is actually nothing but generalised mudslinging", was a bit much for me. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll agree with that, though there is some merit (not always) in allowing latitude. I think my opinion on the block comes down to a difference in preferences. 20:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

This was obviously made in good faith, and I'm aware a few admins and editors are talking to him on his talk (maybe this will make him reflect on things). That said, I agree with BOZ - that's not block-worthy, and I'd strongly suggest that a block like this is avoided in the future. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• There is a rough consensus here that the user should be left unblocked so he can respond. I will this unblock (perhaps temporarily, given the apparent direction of the conversation, and the user's stubborn refusal to admit that they might be in the wrong and need to change their editing style, but there is always hope of a last minute epiphany). Jehochman 14:29, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Mentorship abandonment

Just to clarify, there's nothing behind the scenes or hidden involved. I would ask the same question multiple times, and not receive an answer to the question I was asking. You can't even get started on a mentoring relationship if the person being mentored won't respond to questioning.—Kww(talk) 17:38, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Which questions did not you not get answers to? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 19:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion this is all pretty amazingly ridiculous. Why would anyone block someone like Gavin? The answer is that a whole contingency of editors want to take wikipedia in a direction in which it should not go. These people can be thought of as "activists." They all have an ax to grind—an agenda. They are not satisfied with merely being the creators of the world's greatest store of easily accessed information—they also want to put their "spin" on certain segments of that information. Gavin stood at every juncture warning them that this is inconsistent with fundamental principles upon which this project was founded—specifically the close adherence to sources. It's pretty much that simple. Those above present the argument that wikipedia is a free-for-all. The mantra is "consensus." If consensus says do things in a certain way, it is deemed justified. That is thoughtless silliness, and detrimental to this project. Bus stop (talk) 17:22, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

For some reason your comment reminds me of No, I'm Spartacus!. Perhaps because the comment seems designed to be a declaration of intent to be Gavin Collins Mark 2, rather than actually help Gavin or at least constructively criticise the ban process. Rd232 17:52, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Bus Stop has made it abundantly clear in the course of the RFC and policy discussion that Gavin can do no wrong in his eyes because Bus Stop sees him as some kind of deletionist warrior-hero. His unflagging support of Gavin is political in nature, completely uncritical and utterly divorced from any kind of examination or even knowledge of the actual policy positions Gavin advocates. His credibility is up there with Jayson Blair's. —chaos5023 (talk) 18:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

What's more telling than the number of people advocating that Gavin be banned is the absolute dearth of people defending him: Just as the fed-up people are notably not rabid "inclusionists", there are no "deletionists" defending him. What we have instead is a broad spectrum agreement that regardless of our specific viewpoints, Gavin's argumentation and engagement style is disruptive, unproductive, and hobbles forward progress by refusing to accept consensus based on his own interpretation of policies. Jclemens (talk) 18:12, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Bus Stop has had their own problems on Misplaced Pages, to the point of being community banned. In reviewing this thread to determine consensus, I view BusStop's view as an outlying data point that does not carry much weight. Their arguments are not based on facts or Misplaced Pages policies. Jehochman 18:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Conclusion re: Gavin Collins

This discussion has been open for 23 hours. I am reading through the above materials, and checking the links and diffs. In about an hour I am planning to close this discussion. Jehochman 14:25, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Bad idea. Gavin is blocked and can't defend himself here. Wait until the block has expired and he's been given a fair chance to post a defence here. The notice at the top of the thread says 48 hours minimum. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 14:28, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. I was unblocking Gavin while you wrote that, and WP:BAN specifies a minimum of 24 hours. That page takes precedence, I believe. We have a very large amount of comments above, a veritable pile-on. We should try to minimize the very public criticism of any volunteer. If somebody needs to be banned, it should be done in a way that is kind and helps to preserve their dignity. Jehochman 14:34, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

As for having a chance to respond, there were three RFC's and the user has posted to this thread (quite intransigently). I am in favor of giving them one final chance to reply, but given the pattern of past responses, the user will have to take a completely different approach if they want to avoid being banned. Jehochman 14:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Um, you've argued effectively for a snow close on this discussion, after 24 hours instead of the planned 48, and not waited for anyone to agree; indeed the only commenter disagreed. What really makes that seem odd is that less than an hour after saying you would unblock to allow him a final chance to reply, you declare the discussion over, without the user having said much in the interim. This is unfortunately and unnecessarily messy, when it was all quite surprisingly neat for a ban discussion. Rd232 15:57, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Do you think another 24 hours will do anything more than further humiliate the user? The discussion is extremely lopsided. (Note: the user has not been blocked yet. That detail should be addressed, and the ban logged, before this thread gets archived, whenever that may be.) I looked, and WP:BAN says 24 hours. I don't know where this 48 hours came from, other than one or two users declaring that number. Jehochman 17:49, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I've no idea what the next 24 hours might do, and neither do you. Probably nothing. But the point is it was generally agreed, including by you, that Gavin should have a final chance to respond. Some seem also to have left the door open for a lesser sanction than a site ban (i.e. topic ban). I wouldn't use the word "humiliation" but whatever element of that which exists comes primarily from being ejected from Misplaced Pages, not from what is said during the discussion. Rd232 17:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the main source of humiliation is having one's name posted on WP:AN (a high visibility page) with tons and tons of negative comments. We ought not keep the user in the ducking stool any longer than necessary to establish a consensus. If the above is not a consensus, I don't know what is. Jehochman 18:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• Suggest we close this now. I do not see any value in holding this discussion open any longer. Jehochman 18:15, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Collapsibility of the top of Recent changes

Hi. The collapsibility of the top of Recent changes is currently being discussed at MediaWiki talk:Recentchangestext#Collapsibility. I would appreciate your input. Thank you.   — Jeff G.  ツ 16:15, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Request for uninvolved administrator to close ArbCom elections RfC

At 22:01 UTC (about two hours' time), the RfC on how the voting is to be conducted for this year's ArbCom election is scheduled to close. An uninvolved admin is needed to read over the discussion and the talkpage and interpret the results. For the most part, it's a straightforward RfC, with proposals on mostly relevant issues with varying levels of support, which need to be assessed to see which have consensus for application. There are a few nuances to keep in mind in closing though, which require more than just a summary of the levels of support for each proposal. There are some popular proposals which may be in conflict, and some which may not be technically possible to implement without outside (i.e. developer) help. In order to proceed with the election, we need a clear indication at minimum on whether secret voting through SecurePoll is to be retained, or if open voting or some other tried and tested method is to be used. The closing statement on last year's RfC may be useful for reference. Thank you for your attention, Skomorokh 20:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

If no one else has taken this on, I will close it. (Some of it looks pretty straightforward.) As for uninvolved, I haven't decided even if I will vote in this year's elections, so that makes me about as uninvolved as it can get. If someone has taken this on, & wants a second opinion on their decision, email me in the next 15-20 minutes so we don't duplicate our efforts, & tell me if you would like a second opinion on your decision. -- llywrch (talk) 21:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

RfC closed. I fully expect to be lambasted as completely deficient in logical thought, & for UltraExactZZ to be greatly offended for citing him by name. Let the politicking for the most thankless jobs on the English Misplaced Pages begin. -- llywrch (talk) 23:15, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thank you Llywrch, very clear and just what the doctor ordered. Appreciate your time, Skomorokh 00:46, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, a very good close - and quite to the contrary, I'm flattered that my close from last year's RFC was fancy enough to get quoted verbatim. Thanks for taking a look at this one. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 13:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone for the kind words, but I'll believe I made a good close only when those people who advocated for the thoughtful proposals which failed to attract sufficient support agree with my opinions. (And, yes, my words above about being lambasted, etc., were made partly as a joke.) But having slept on my closing, I feel there are a couple of points I should have made at length:

• The original open elections for ArbCom should be considered as simply an accident of history. I was there at the time, & I can attest that it was done that way simply because (1) it was quick & easy, & (2) we didn't seriously consider any other way of doing it. I have no strong opinion on this point, & if people work to convince the community to go back to open elections, it won't make enough of a difference to me to influence whether I vote or not.
• I forgot to mention one assumption I had reviewing this: this is not a ballot for 18 separate elections. All ArbCom candidates are running against each other for the open seats, & the 18 people who get the most votes are considered the winner. IFAICR, this is how the election has always worked, & how it will work this time around. If I made a mistake here, & enough people are upset over it, we need to open another RfC. However, I hope everyone agrees to allow my assumption to stand, & to reconsider this before the next election.
• I'd like to further discuss one proposal which failed get a consensus: the requirement that all successful candidates have at least 50% approval. While it is clear that proposal is in no way binding on anyone, I believe we can all agree this is an understandable concern. And while the best thing would be for this never to happen, I ask that any committee charged with certifying the results explain why they resolved this issue the way they did. That is, why they either approved one or more candidates who didn't get sufficient votes or approved less than the required number. Offering an explanation -- which should be more than simply pointing to WP:IAR -- will allow everyone to accept the results: those who won, those who lost, & even those who didn't participate for whatever reason.

And having written all of that, I'll stop talking & hereby step down from my role. Anything further from me on the matter should be considered as the opinions of Just Another Wikipedian. -- llywrch (talk) 16:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Xanderliptak RFC/U - Community ban and / or Sanctions

Moved from Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for comment/Xanderliptak - regarding Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Xanderliptak - Proposals were made to ban and/or severely restrict Xanderliptak on that page; I believe current process requires that such discussions happen on AN (or another noticeboard). This discussion must remain open for a bare minimum of 48 hrs from posting at AN per current community sanction best practices, to ensure adequate notification and opportunity for participation by the Misplaced Pages community; WP:SNOW does not apply to sanction discussions. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Xanderliptak has either retired or gone on unannounced Wikibreak, not having edited for a week.

Comments have also tapered off.

We're not quite in the situation that this RFC/U can be closed quite yet - see Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct/Closing. However, parties who are interested should review that and the RFC/U and consider what might be appropriate resolutions. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Recommend indef block for all 3 accounts, which he can appeal if he returns. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

An indef block seems a bit dramatic when his conflict concerns only watermarks. Maybe we can prohibit him from editing image descriptions or making edits that remove or replace his own images, subject to a ban if he doesn't comply. I'm open to ideas though. Dcoetzee 03:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Dcoetzee, please read the entire RFCU. Watermarks are far from the only issue. → ROUX ₪ 12:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of any specifics, he doesn't need three user accounts, so two of them ought to be blocked. Given that he's best known for editing under the Xanderliptak account, it's probably the other two that should be blocked. — Gavia immer (talk) 03:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

That would be good. And then keep an eye on the Xanderlip account, as unless he's actually left, he's probably waiting for the fire to be switched off. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:20, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Given the summary I presented, I think that an indef block of Xanderliptak's account is warranted, as long as it's understood to be in effect until Xanderliptak presents some evidence that he understands that his behavior has been antithetical to the basic tenets of Misplaced Pages, and awareness that he is expected to edit collegially and collaboratively, to the benefit of the encyclopedia, and not simply to his own aggrandizement. To this point, he's not presented any indication that this is the case. He still may have value to impart to the project, so the door should be left open to him, but it really does seem necessary to send a strong message at this point, since nothing else seems to have gotten through to him. (I agree also that only one account -- of his choice -- shoudld remain open, the other(s) should be permanently shut down. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

My concern is that he's just waiting for the heat to turn down so that he can come back and resume what he's been up to for the last year or so. His account could be indef'd with the caveat that if he owns up to the issues he's caused, he could be unblocked. That would force him to confront the problem instead of just sneaking back in. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 05:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I largely agree with Bugs in that it seems clear that Xanderliptak is merely waiting for the heat to die down, and will then resume his disruptive behaviour. Note, for example, that he did edit recently under his IP , which indicates that he was still around on 27 October. To be perfectly frank, I would be flabbergasted if Xanderliptak isn't already using another account or IP. But there is not enough evidence (apart from sheer common sense), and so I cannot make the accusation directly. It is merely a suspicion. Or maybe GWH is right and he actually has retired. I find this incredibly unlikely. So I have three proposals, which can be applied together, separately, or in various permutations thereof:

Proposal 1: RfC/U on hold

Suggest we simply put this RfC/U on hold, and when--not if, let's be honest here--Xanderliptak returns under his current username or another, we revisit it to finish it up, implementing Proposal 2 or 3 at that time.

Proposal 2: editing restrictions for Xanderliptak

This account has been blocked indefinitely because CheckUser evidence confirms that the account's owner has abusively used multiple accounts. (Account information: block log · CentralAuth · suspected sockpuppets · confirmed sockpuppets)

:

1. is forbidden, indefinitely, from uploading images which are in violation of WP:WATERMARK.
2. is forbidden, indefinitely, from attempting to change licencing conditions after upload of artwork he has created. The sole exception will be removing licencing conditions; any attempt to add or further restrict the licencing he agreed to at upload is forbidden.
3. is forbidden, indefinitely, from participating in any discussions about image policy.
4. is required, indefinitely, to prominently link all accounts he uses together at the top of each user page. (Note that on Commons such linking ended up having to be done by administrators who then had to fully protect each user page to prevent Xanderliptak from removing the linking. This may need to be done here.)
5. is required, indefinitely, to provide accurate diffs of any allegation he makes about another editor.
6. is required, indefinitely, to provide accurate diffs of any claims that another editor has said or done something.

   In regards to the above two requirements, any user may remove allegations/etc which Xanderliptak has made if he fails to provide diffs in a reasonable time.

7. is forbidden, indefinitely, from summarizing any discussions held elsewhere, and is restrained to direct comments supported by diffs only.
8. All of the above to be very broadly construed.
9. Violations to be met with the usual series of escalating blocks.
10. Restrictions to take effect on Xanderliptak's first edit (with any account) after this date, or upon granting of an unblock as listed in Proposal 3, whichever is later.
11. May appeal these restrictions six months after implementation, or six months after the end of the most recent block for violation, whichever is later.

Proposal 3: Indefinite block

Xanderliptak (talk · contribs) and all related accounts are indefinitely blocked from editing Misplaced Pages. He may request unblock only from the Xanderliptak account, and must show understanding of what he did wrong and how he will change. Note that such an unblock request must include accurate summaries of past events. More misrepresentation of the truth will not be tolerated.

→ ROUX ₪ 12:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

• I personally support 3 to be implemented immediately, followed by 2 to be implemented if anyone ever unblocks him. I included proposal 1 for fairness, but I think it (WP:BEANS). → ROUX ₪ 12:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• The last time he used any of his three known ID's on commons was the 25th. I've asked there whether discussions here can also be applied there for the sake of uniformity. Any of these proposals seem reasonable, given the circumstances. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Proposal 1 simply postpones action. I believe #2 is impractical, because Xanderliptak has shown no capacity (or interest) in modifying his behavior in that way, and I have difficulty believing he would hold to it. Support #3, with #2 to be considered for imposition as conditions if Xanderliptak applies to have the block removed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:41, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Beyond My Ken's position makes sense to me. In the absence of any recent participation from Xanderliptak in this RFC, the wise thing to do would be to block his account to avoid him returning without re-engaging with the community regarding his problematic behavior. If and/or when he requests a removal of that block, the set of restrictions in #2 can be presented to him as conditions for his return. keɪɑtɪk flʌfi (talk) 19:13, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Yes, I think Beyond My Ken has it right. Proposal 2 is a good draft of the restrictions we might impose if we thought Xanderliptak would follow them, but right now there's no indication that he would, so a block until he acknowledges his responsibilities as an editor of a communal enterprise is correct. — Gavia immer (talk) 19:19, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I think the restrictions are important, whether or not he shows an indication that he would follow them (and I agree that he has shown no indication that he will follow even established community norms). Basically such restrictions are drawing a line in the sand and saying "if you cross this completely unambiguous line you will be blocked repeatedly, and eventually permanently." That then makes the (inevitable, to my mind) series of blocks entirely his fault for behaviour he was specifically forbidden. No wiggle room, no wikilawyering; clear and concise 'you may not do these things.' At that point, his continued participation here is entirely up to him. → ROUX ₪ 19:47, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• I do find indeffinate blocking a bit harsh, and only like it used when really warranted. Sadly, in Xanderliptak's case, that looks like the best solution, which is sad, because he has much to offer, and his artistic skills are very good, but he simply refuses to accept when he is wrong, and forces upon us his work even when it is not acceptable, either due to watermarks, or being incorrect in certain ways. For that reason, I support prop 3, perhaps with the addition that if he owns up to his actions and learns to behave in a manner which is expected here, that he can return. Fry1989 (talk) 20:28, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• I believe that procedurally, community sanctions need to be taken up on the administrators' noticeboard - I am going to copy this over there and will provide a subsection link to there once copied. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• After reading the RFC, I support an indefinite block as outlined by Beyond My Ken.  Sandstein  21:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• I would like to note that while I support an indefinite block (as I noted, I would prefer Proposal 3 followed by 2 should Xanderliptak seek an unblock), I adamantly oppose a community-based ban in favour of any admin being able to unblock on their own initiative if Xanderliptak agrees to either the conditions set forth in Proposal 2, or similar conditions which address the most egregious issues: WP:OWN, WP:BATTLEGROUND, licencing problems, and his tendency to misrepresent the tenor, tone, and content of what others have said. → ROUX ₪ 21:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Put it on hold. Editors aren't required to announce wikibreaks. (In fact, it goes against standard security advice: Don't tell the world that now is a good time to hack your account/burglarize your home/etc.) If we make choices now, and he's back tomorrow with a story about being sick, being unexpectedly called out of town, a computer failure, etc., then we're going to feel kind of silly for assuming that he won't be back. There's no magic 30-day timer, there's no deadline, and waiting another week or two to see whether this relatively short absence is being extended won't hurt anyone. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

There was considerable agreement on the RFC/U that there were problems here; it was not prompted directly by the break, though that focused an endpoint to the discussion in a way. What would the point be of waiting? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

If you close it now, with only a one-week absence, there's a significant risk that it will need to be re-opened next week. There are always a few editors willing to say that any decision taken during a short absence is invalid, or even unfair. (If you'd come here with a two-week absence, I'd have a different view about the likelihood of the editor's return.)

NB that I do not comment on the merits of the case, only on the risk of having egg on your face if you "rush" to close the RFC after a one-week delay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:39, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

User has been notified on his talk page and via email, and is not blocked at the moment. If he choses to come participate he's welcome to do so. Lack of participation is not a bar to the community (or individual admins) issuing a finding or imposing sanctions. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:02, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing is just outlining standard practice in relation to RfC/Us. If someone is away, we close it and don't bother until/unless they come back. That they have left is a remedy in itself and it doesn't require immediate enforcement, particularly if they come back with a different outlook. If they persist on returning or whatever, that's when we should come back here and cite the previous Rfc/U as a reason for considering several options. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:19, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• Prefer 3, will not go crazy if 2 is chosen. 1 isn't worth the time waiting; if he's left, so be it; if he hasn't, then he'll be subject to a block or restrictions anyway. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 02:52, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
• Agreed - I'm going to suggest a permanent block on the two accounts he has not used much recently, and an indefinite block on his main account with the opportunity for returning under strict terms if he promises good behaviour and has a mentor to watch him. I don't know if I'd use exactly the terms in (2) above - for example allowing him to remove restrictions from licenses could be misinterpreted and abused, and some of the terms seem unnecessarily harsh - but such terms could be revisited if and when he is unblocked. Dcoetzee 01:42, 4 November 2010 (UTC) copied from RfC/U by Beyond My Ken
• Agree with the general trend here to take proposal 3 and modify to 2 given positive communication from Xander. I have never launched an RfC/U before and hope never to have do so again, but I felt there was an urgent need to make plain to Xander where his behavior did not conform to community standards. This was meant to give him one clear opportunity to recognize the problem and address it of his own accord. He never showed any inclination towards doing so at any point in the RfC/U. The problematic behavior, if anything, intensified at the RfC/U's talk page. Whether Xander had chosen to go low profile or not (and he did edit twice as an IP two days after he stopped contributing under his named account), we would almost certainly have reached the stage of proposing sanctions soon, since he was obviously taking nothing constructive from the last ditch dispute resolution process. Delay would serve no purpose, I'm afraid, and if Xander is truly interested in revising his behavior when he returns that will become plain soon enough. If he takes on the restrictions and lives up to them without problem, they can be adjusted accordingly. Most of them aren't extraordinary; except for #3 and #7, they're all basic good practice. The need for #7 will be clear to anyone who reads the talk page of the RfC/U. The thrust of 3 is necessary as well (he has a history of trying to wikilawyer his way), although it may be possible to relax that one with any showing of good faith. If he doesn't return, it does no harm. --Moonriddengirl 11:22, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
• Per Beyond My Ken It is always the errant editors that have something to offer that are the timesinks. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Undeletion procedure advice

Todd Young was deleted after an almost-unanimous AFD early this year; however, because he won a US Congressional race in yesterday's elections, he now passes WP:POLITICIAN, and the article was recreated yesterday. Is it appropriate to undelete the old revisions, since they were deleted simply because he didn't pass WP:GNG at the time? I was going to ask the deleting admin, but his talk page has a notice saying basically "I'm not editing much, so if you want to have a page undeleted that I deleted, ask someone else". Nyttend (talk) 22:13, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't see why not. It looks like there's a lot of valuable content in the deleted history. Plenty of which could be trimmed down probably, but why not put it all out there for everyone to edit now that it's clear the topic merits inclusion? I see no policy or pragmatic reason not to undelete the old revisions, and every reason to do so. postdlf (talk) 22:19, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Done. --Stephen 22:53, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

There's no policy against history-undeletion; that's what this section of deletion review is for. Graham87 01:55, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

RFC/U certification procedural question

At Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Doncram 2, Doncram has requested speedy deletion of the RFC per "terms stated", presumably meaning the requirement that two editors certify within 48 hours. The RFC/U was created by SarekOfVulcan and certified by Blueboar; is that not two editors, or does Sarek not count? —chaos5023 (talk) 23:23, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it was properly certified, because it doesn't have the diffs of two editors trying and failing to resolve the same issue.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Certainly more than two editors have actually tried and failed; I don't think we want to delete it simply because some bureaucratic hoop wasn't jumped through -- especially since using the template is not mandatory, so "putting the relevant diffs under 'Description' rather than under 'Evidence'" (which is what was done here) is not justification for declaring the diffs to be not be present on the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, i obviously am not familiar with the procedures here but i thought that was an obvious deletion to make, and it seems unpleasant to have that hanging out there. I had noticed SarekOfVulcan specifically declining to certify, at an earlier point, in this edit at S's Talk. And SarekOfVulcan's comment above indicates non-opposition to it being deleted. I believe S, as an administrator, has continued access to the deleted draft. You all do what you want.

I noticed this from WhatamIdoing's note at another Talk page, not that i was informed of this discussion per terms i see stated for this page, but i will see followup here so don't need to be informed further. --doncram (talk) 00:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't go as far as to call it "non-opposition" -- I just acknowledge that by a strict reading of the rules, it does not seem to be certified. Someone with more experience working with RFC/Us might disagree. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:19, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

My days of interpreting you as fairly skillfully, yet a bit too obviously, gaming Misplaced Pages process are certainly coming to a middle. —chaos5023 (talk) 00:25, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I call him Vera. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:31, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Can we send someone to "the special hell" here at AN, or is that reserved for ANI? Jclemens (talk) 01:07, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• There are clear minimum requirements, and failure to meet these are met with a speedy delete response. The RfC/u was opened on 1 Nov, and now it's 4 Nov; that's quite clearly well after the 48 hour requirement. The entire purpose of these minimum requirements is so that users do not misuse RfC/U in circumstances where not enough effort has been put into trying to resolve the dispute before requesting further comment. The failure to produce diffs in the appropriate mandatory sections of the RfC/U suggests there is a failure to meet "minimum requirements" and that it is not ripe for this step in dispute resolution. If there are diffs, then that's the first part that needs to be filled out, which is again why there's a firm emphasis to complete the minimum requirements first or to make a draft so as to ensure all of the requirements are completed. I've replaced the speedy delete template, and suggest to the filers that if there is a dispute which requires comment, use a draft before making it live in the future. See also the guidance pages. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Instead of deleting this, couldn't we just userfy it to remove it from the page, but not eliminate all of the work gone into it already? So far, it appears that this is mostly just formatting issues, while I agree that 4 days is more than long enough to have fixed these if the page needs to be kept in the main RFC/U stream, perhaps we should just "send this back for finishing" to the filing user, rather than just ourtight deletion? Just an idea. --Jayron32 05:15, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Well, usually admins would provide the text of what was deleted should a party (or author) request that text. Still, I don't mind if it's moved into one of the party's user space, so long as the page containing the redirect link is deleted due to it being uncertified the first time it was put up (or if this is not the first time, then the nth time this has happened; this wasn't an 'exceptional dispute'). But really, this is up to the party to have requested at the time; I don't think others could just move into another's userspace unless it's something like an involuntary sanction. Users are free to participate in a process even without reading the relevant pages, but if they do something that they shouldn't, or miss something significant, and there is already an outcome to expect for that, then that outcome would ideally discourage such users (and other users who are looking) to not do the same thing in the future. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Userfy the whole thing (or the creators should copy off the wiki text for now) and meet the procedural criteria. It'd probably be better to prepare for the merits though, since there's no real issue preclusion here. Shadowjams (talk) 06:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

It's deleted but the user can request the text from any admin if they want. Indeed, there's nothing precluding the user from refiling the RfC/U (so long as minimum requirements are fulfilled). If they do, hopefully they'll read the relevant pages before-hand (and we won't have the situation where an involved user labels their view as an 'Outside view'). Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:16, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

If anyone wants to refile this properly, I'll be happy to userfy it for them. As a further submission, I'd like to share this tidbit from last night: "Polaron, i have repeatedly stated that I will tend to want to defer to editors who actually do productive work. That is not a blanket promise to agree to anything you choose, once you do some work. If there are policy reasons or strong practice-based reasons, or factual reasons to disagree, i will still disagree. In practice, many issues in editing come down to editorial judgment; in these i will tend to want to defer to one who has earned some right to make the judgment. I will not be stupid about this though. If you never are willing to defer to my editorial judgment where there are no other good way to make a decision, then why should i ever defer to you? I have often deferred to your wishes, anyhow, but you remind me that maybe i shouldn't, i dunno." --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:42, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The reason why uncertified RFC/Us are deleted is so that other users cannot continue to use the uncertified page as a proverbial "noose" to dangle over the user's head. Personally, I don't have much a problem if an admin emails any other involved user a copy, but it shouldn't be on-wiki. However, I can see how others may disagree on that, as we do keep other discussions about said user from other venues, such as article talk pages, ANI, etc. –MuZemike 16:43, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

To clarify my earlier remark, which may seem more expansive than it was:

The fact that the "attempted and failed" diffs were listed under ==Description==, rather than under ==Evidence of having tried to resolve the dispute==, in this strictly optional pre-formatted template, is unimportant. (See NOTBURO, PPP, IAR, etc. -- not to mention the standard RFC/U minimum requirements, which do not require the existence of an ==Evidence of having tried to resolve the dispute== section, much less any diffs in it.)

The fact that a second editor hadn't signed on within 48 hours is IMO material, and I agree with the deletion (even though I expect it to be re-created very soon). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Tranches: a new way to patrol BLPs

This is an initiative related to a recent discussion on this page.

Please visit the page below and consider adopting one of the 100 lists of 5000 BLPs by putting your signature at the end of the corresponding line.

The idea is to get every single edit to a known BLP patrolled, even the articles that are not otherwise watched.

To patrol recent changes to the articles, click on the "related changes" link for your chosen list. Diffs can be inspected in the usual way; it's not unlike a normal watchlist. Start at the bottom and work your way up.

The lists will be refreshed regularly to account for changes in the content of the living persons category.

• User:Tony Sidaway/Living people/tranches

--TS 00:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Excellent idea, but where can it be briefly discussed? If here, what does "lists will be refreshed regularly" mean? What is reasonable for patrolling? Scenario: text added is "This person is a loser" (action: undo or possibly revert). But what if text added is "This person ran a mile in under 4 minutes", or a change of birth date? There might be no source or a hard-to-access source. I guess I'm looking for confirmation that the plan is to remove unreasonable negativity, while probably ignoring other changes because properly monitoring 5000 BLPs is too difficult. Johnuniq (talk) 03:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

To discuss this project, try User talk:Tony Sidaway/Living people/tranches.

I'll respond to your questions here only because they concern well established policy.

As with all edits to BLPs, remove dubious unsourced or poorly sourced data. For instance if the article didn't already give a properly sourced birth date and the edit changes the birth date without proper sourcing, remove it altogether because it's unverifiable.

The notion that the BLP and the verifiability policy only apply to a subset of unverifiable statements, namely "negative" ones, is a misunderstanding. All information on Misplaced Pages, especially about living people, must be verified or removed. --TS 18:21, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards
• Misplaced Pages sockpuppeteers