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...and if you had no relations with Dr. Christensen then why without his knowledge might you be editing the Misplaced Pages article about him? Besides, why would anyone have reason to personally attack Jiuguang? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.1.18 (talk) 08:57, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I also received e-mails from Julie Dancer. Be advised that they have many sock puppets and are likely to continue harassment using these; I advise blocking all of them for a similar period. Dcoetzee17:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I have blocked this account for a week for block evasion. I'm going to block for longer if any more socks appear. Kevin (talk) 21:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
All of this blocking activity is clearly for the purpose of fulfilling the agenda of Communist dictatorship by the masses through the act of denying users the opportunity and benefit of reply. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.1.224 (talk) 09:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Just a comment, but if this diff is what is being referred to as "antisemitic", I'm not sure that is accurate. In a discussion that compared the Patriot Act to Nazi Germany, this user referred to another as a "lieutenant in the SS". While obviously inappropriate (and somewhat confusing), it was contextual to the conversation (i.e. a Nazi Germany comparison), and not necessarily a reflection of an antisemitic attitude. I am in now way defending the comment, but I also don't think an editor should be labeled "antisemitic" inappropriately, as this may severely influence actions taken against them. If I misread the situation, or if the accusation is based on other, more relevant comments, then feel free to ignore me. ~ JohnnyMrNinja06:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
While I concur that the November 2007 comment was borderline anti-semetic at best, I don't think it has a bearing on this block. It's reasonably clear that this editor is working in tandem with Julie Dancer, to the point of echoing similar accusations (utilizing similar phrasing to do so), and is easily considered a meatpuppet. It's quite possible that they're socks, which checkuser would reveal. As for the one week block of Julie, I conceded that it might be a little light for the threats indicated. My thinking was that it was a little heavy for a first block, but that anything less than a full week had limited value. It was also unclear at the time whether it was someone whose article was deleted flipping out about it, or someone with genuine malice of intent (with threats and contacting an editor's college off-wiki, for example). No objection from me if other editors think a longer (or indefinite) block is warranted. UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence12:35, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
In the first place it is Jiuguang who is attacking Julie Dancer on the grounds of his difference with the article she wrote in the Wikia which uses logic to define, support and defend the existence of God. I agree that some Jews may be offended by her personal conclusion that Jesus Christ is God but she is only claiming that as the personal basis of her religion and not implying that anyone else does not have the right to believe whatever they choose. In the case of Jiuguang he is not Jewish and was born in Beijing, raised as an atheist, indoctrinated as a Communist, trained from a very early age on computers and sent to Atlanta at age 12, where he eventually entered Georgia Tech where he is now a robotics student. His statement that he disagrees with Julie Dancer's article in the Wikia makes his subsequent nomination for deletion of her Optimal classification article in the Misplaced Pages a personal attack and his subsequent deletions of her links between her article in the Wikibooks and references in the Misplaced Pages an act of stalking and harassment against her. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.1.18 (talk) 08:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, my patience has been exhausted. I'm reseting the block to indefinite because of these ridiculous block evading personal attacks. Kevin (talk) 08:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Support. I was ready to do this but Kevin beat me to it. For the record, this sort of obvious sockpuppeting doesn't require an WP:RFCU: it passes the sniff test, and it's perfectly fine to treat obvious sockpuppets as such without the imprimatur of a checkuser. Nandesuka (talk) 14:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, these are all perfectly obvious. In this case I thought that there may have been more socks held in reserve, hence the checkuser. Kevin (talk) 01:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
The easiest way I've found is to create the new cat, change the article links via AWB, and then delete the old cat. True, you can't actually move a cat. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
There should be a page in the MediaWiki namespace that puts a "speedy rename" tab at the top of Category: space articles. That would reduce a lot of confusion for newbies and editors not familiar with category renaming, wouldn't it? —Mizu onna sango1502:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm unsure where I would have looked for moving help besides an admin board. If the page had the "move" tab enabled but then took me to a special "how to move categories" page that may have helped. Banjeboi07:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
The other day, I responded to a helpme template issued by User:Turner&associates. Right off the bat, there's an obviously username issue there, and I mentioned that in my reply. What was refreshing to me was that this particular user had written an article in their userspace (restored for ease of reference), but was politely asking if it was worthy of inclusion before putting it into the mainspace. I also mentioned the COI issue that was quite obviously present and told them I wasn't sure if this individual met our notability guidelines for people. In the meantime, the user was blocked (appropriately, but I would've liked more time to discuss the issue since they weren't being disruptive) for their username. The blocking admin was kind enough not to template the user, as I had clearly already mentioned the username issue to them. This user quite politely accepted my determination that the article was likely not worthy, and made a further query about citations, to which I responded thusly, asking for some more reliable sources.
Now, this act of users templating other users while admins are in discussion with them is perhaps my greatest annoyance. If an admin is in full control of the situation, there is no need for another user to be throwing templates around. This needs to be written into the guidelines. That being said, the major problem which brings me here today is Calton's attitude towards admins. He seems to feel that he knows best - whereas admins are the ones who have been entrusted by the community to uphold its standards as they see fit refusing to accept any one's judgment of the situation but his own. This user in particular did not deserve templating because they had the common courtesy to actually ASK if their article was worthwhile of inclusion. Whether or not it is - is completely peripheral to the matter. I felt it necessary to show the user the same level of respect that they had shown us.
Ironically, while I was writing to him tonight to tell him not to template users while admins are discussing issues with them, he was simultaneously involved in edit warring to reverse another administrator's actions at WP:UAA. I also see that there was another similar issue some months ago with respect to him adding a now deleted template to userpages as he tagged them that several administrators attempted to address him about. He seems to be unwilling or unable to accept the judgment of administrators.
This is a typical type of behaviour shown by Calton, he's extremely quick to tag/warn users with promotional usernames, regardless of what their intent is here. He isn't willing to discuss issues with users, he simply tags and reports, and when concerns arise, he gives flippant replies and carries on regardless. I personally think that his COI and promotional username work is detremental to the project, and I'd certainly support a topic ban the prohibits him from working in these areas. There's a serious case of WP:BITE here, and this has been brought up on AN/I before. Ryan Postlethwaite00:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I was just going to let this drop (I usually don't let myself get too worked up about things) but since the AN/I is already here I'll come comment. As a fairly regular patroller of UAA, I can only agree that Calton has had something of a history of making borderline reports, and often in large quantities. This isn't too troublesome in and of itself, but going back and repeating declined reports is pretty unhelpful. As an "involved" administrator I will refrain from belaboring this topic further and leave it to 3rd parties to observe and decide what to do. Shereth01:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
The "borderline" judgment, to go by the talk page of WP:UAA, appears to be yours alone. Given that your judgment's been questioned -- by at least one other admin -- it's clear that a third opinion is needed. --Calton | Talk01:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
(ec)I've been privy to his behavior at WP:UAA where Calton shotgun reports usernames that match a person, band or company that has created an article, whether blatantly advertising or not. Regardless, it's the not the mass reporting that bothers me (although it does peeve abit), but it's the sheer unwillingness to listen when approached. I have major concerns with users who breach WP:BITE, and we all know that UAA is one of those hot zone areas that need special sensitivity. The above behavior described, coupled with the activity at UAA, lead, me to believe that he is being more detrimental to the project than anything else. Wisdom89(T / )01:03, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Wrong. I tag blatant advertising -- but even if you disagree about the "blatant", perhaps a read of this would be helpful, or perhaps you should take up your concern with the multiple admins who do the actual deleting and the actual blocking. --Calton | Talk01:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
To be honest, I'd like to see Calton steer clear of UAA for a while, or at least approach it more gingerly. Wisdom89(T / )01:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
This is absurd to the point of ridiculous. The most succinct replies I can give to Xenocidic's long-winded explanation are 1) to point out he seems to forget what admins actually are: they're editors with a few extra buttons. They're not gods, they're not supervisors or managers, and their edits and work have no more authority or judgment than any other user; in fact, given their extra buttons, they need to be more careful about their work. Yours was careless and had not the slightest grounding in policy, practice, or guideline -- or at least none you would reveal, since all you did -- and are doing now -- is throwing your weight around. 2) to point out that you put up not a single rebuttal to the numerous rules, guidelines, policies, and standard practices I pointed you to, relying instead on vague handwaving. 3) that your resorting to thinly veiled personal attacks ("If you had bothered to read", "use common sense") while complaining about civility is more than a touch hypocritical. 4) mistaken about WP:UAA, which a simple reading of the talk page would have shown, and would show that User:Shereth's judgment had already by been questioned, directly by, hey, an another admin 5) that employing obvious hyperbole such as "He seems to be unwilling or unable to accept the judgment of administrators" is not only damaging and false, but assumes facts not in evidence? Certainly the various Barnstars I've received point out how ridiculously inclusive that claim is. And for the record, I am unwilling to accept the judgment of editors who don't know what they're talking about; who provide no actual reasons for their judgments; who make false claims; who resort to insults throwing their weight around in lieu of actual arguments; or who violate actual policies, guidelines, rules, standard practices, or the actual goals of the Project: whether said editors are anon IPs, ordinary-level users, or administrators doesn't and shouldn't make the slightest bit of difference if they are, you know, wrong.
Speaking of absurd, could Ryan Postlethwaite explain exactly how removing blatantly obvious spam and COI --- 'exactly as is done at WP:UAA every single day by multiple users and -- mirabile dictu -- admins? "detremental to the project", and how, exactly, he divines the intent of said spammers outside of their actions ("regardless of what their intent is here", to quote you)? The rest of your comments, I'll simply say because I'm tired of typing, are outright false (deliberately or not, I don't care) and I'll leave it at that. --Calton | Talk01:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I think the point I was trying to make is sometimes you need to forget about rules, guidelines, policies, and standard practices, and just talk to people like they are human beings. –xeno (talk) 01:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
You really can't help yourself with the thinly veiled insults, can you? I guess I'll just have to ask you when you stopped beating your wife, then? --Calton | Talk01:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Speaking of absurd, could Ryan Postlethwaite explain exactly how removing blatantly obvious spam and COI --- 'exactly as is done at WP:UAA every single day by multiple users and -- mirabile dictu -- admins? "detremental to the project", and how, exactly, he divines the intent of said spammers outside of their actions ("regardless of what their intent is here", to quote you)? The rest of your comments, I'll simply say because I'm tired of typing, are outright false (deliberately or not, I don't care) and I'll leave it at that. --Calton | Talk01:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Let's cut through the noise: all I do is tag the spam pages and report said spammers. Multiple admins -- might as well do the appeal to authority bit, too -- are the ones who do the actual deleting and actual blocking, not me. If you have a problem, take it up with them, or work to get actual policies, guidelines, rules, and project goals changed to match whatever it is you have a problem with. --Calton | Talk01:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
After removing some non-blockworthy listings from the odd "relisted" section, I poked around in the WP:UAA history to see what was up with that section, which led me here. Calton, knock it off. Your reports push the borderline. Multiple admins tell you this, and you ignore them. It's one thing if you continue to list new borderline cases, I would never have a big problem with that. But this relisting thing, which is a serious ongoing problem with you, has to stop. Although Calton is a great asset to the project, this admin shopping he does is really really inappropriate and I advocate blocking if it happens again. Enough is enough, I've been seeing this behavior from Calton for over a year. Mangojuice01:54, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
What the hell ARE you talking about? What "ongoing problem"? What "admin shopping" What "multiple admins"? Your comments don't make the slightest bit of sense and don't seem to have the slightest relationship to what's going on. Did you read the talk page? --Calton | Talk02:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
And let me repeat: "And for the record, I am unwilling to accept the judgment of editors who don't know what they're talking about; who provide no actual reasons for their judgments; who make false claims; who resort to insults throwing and their weight around in lieu of actual arguments; or who violate actual policies, guidelines, rules, standard practices, or the actual goals of the Project: whether said editors are anon IPs, ordinary-level users, or administrators doesn't and shouldn't make the slightest bit of difference if they are, you know, wrong." --Calton | Talk02:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Calton, I understand you're indignant and maybe a little frustrated here, but your tone is starting to become incivil and even hostile. Just cool off a bit and discuss the situation. Wisdom89(T / )02:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
You're damned right I'm upset: the charges of Xenocidic & Ryan Postlethwaite -- especially the latter -- boil down to nothing but indignant and fact-free cries of "Respect Mah Authoritah!" and the subsequent pile-on, from Mangojuice on down is similarly fact-free.
One more point - I can't speak for anybody else, but I assure you that I am not implying or asserting that administrators are above any other user. Goodness knows that's not true. However, this brings me to another one of your comments: Just because administrators block your username reports does not absolve the continued action that obviously multiple users have a problem with. Wisdom89(T / )02:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Catron is doing the work of God, keeping the spamming scum off WP user pages. This is Catron's "current project", secretly given unto to him by Jimbo himself in the sacred Temple of Wikia. How dare you question? FishNewbieWikiNoob (talk) 03:46, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Good Lord. Calton doesn't seem to understand the concept of discussion at all. This kind of behavior in response to reasonable requests from multiple concerned editors is like a cliche that people who hate wikipedia bring up in online discussions. Dayewalker (talk) 04:05, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
And you don't seem to understand what I wrote, so I'll repeat once again: "And for the record, I am unwilling to accept the judgment of editors who don't know what they're talking about; who provide no actual reasons for their judgments; who make false claims; who resort to insults throwing and their weight around in lieu of actual arguments; or who violate actual policies, guidelines, rules, standard practices, or the actual goals of the Project: whether said editors are anon IPs, ordinary-level users, or administrators doesn't and shouldn't make the slightest bit of difference if they are, you know, wrong." I'm still waiting for an actual explanation of what it is I'm doing that's violating any rules or guidelines or is somehow detrimental to Misplaced Pages -- especially from Ryan Postlethwaite, who had NEVER done anything close. --Calton | Talk09:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
This admin shopping behavior is far from new for Calton; he's been doing it for years. My first (and maybe only) interaction with Calton was back in July '07 when he tagged User:Losplad as spam. He tagged it with {{spam}} once, and OwenX (talk·contribs) decline the request. He tagged it a second time, and VirtualSteve (talk·contribs) decline it. Calton tagged it a third time, and I declined it. After OwenX, VirtualSteve and I all explained the issue to him (and why were declining the request), the issue seemed resolved. Then, two weeks later, Calton tagged the page a fourth time and came up lucky; Kylu (talk·contribs) deleted it. His behavior is nothing new, and it's just as unacceptable now as it was then. - auburnpilottalk04:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't remember that in detail, but I certainly don't remember any detailed explanations: I remember two admins mindlessly backing another -- and the fact that it was eventually deleted should have been a tiny clue that maybe, just maybe, you were, you know, wrong. --Calton | Talk09:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I see lots of users sitting around complaining about Calton, but not doing anything about it. Maybe it is time for some kind of topic ban? Tiptoety05:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
This is not a new pattern of behavior for Calton. He is incessesantly abusive towards all users who disagree with him and has been for years. No one has ever done anything about it, aside from the occasional RFC: Calton has shown a consitant and unchanging pattern of behavior that includes refusing to work with others or compromise his position on anything, admit fault in any situation, and is unyieldingly rude and dismissive of all other editors. Some established set of sanctions, such as civility parole, needs to be enforced with escalating blocks for this long pattern of behavior. It is only because he always gets away with it that he continues. --Jayron32.talk.contribs05:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
While civility seems to be a concern, it's not the major one. WP:BITE whether intentional or not is the major problem. User should be temporarily banned from UAA and CSD spam. Wisdom89(T / )05:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I've worked with Calton before and he can be quite abrupt. Perhaps working with new users that may be influenced to become productive contributors, mindful of role account, SPA, and COI issues, if dealt with politely, but may also be influenced to give up, badmouth Misplaced Pages, sock, vandalise, etc if dealt with abruptly... perhaps this area may not be the best use of Calton's talents. So yes, perhaps Calton should be encouraged to contribute in other ways for a while. And if he is not willing to take that polite guidance from his peers, perhaps a topic ban would be the next thing to try. Because I think Calton misses the point... the point here is that situations like Xeno described in the opening of this section, if they are valid descriptions of actual events, ought not to happen, and input about that ought to be accepted. Coming in guns blazing with templates slapped down when another volunteer is already in polite and constructive discussion with a new user is almost certainly not the best approach. ++Lar: t/c05:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
not willing to take that polite guidance from his peers - except, of course, no one has actually offered any. When that starts -- either the adjective or noun, separately or together -- you might have a point. And your mischaracterization as "guns blazing", while colorful, has the slight problem of not actually being true. --Calton | Talk09:46, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Someone did offer some. Actually a lot of someones did. You just don't choose to acknowledge it, which a big part of the issue. To be crystal clear, I'll reiterate it for you... If another user is working with the newcomer, and a productive dialog is underway, don't slap templates down that interfere with that dialog, and especially, don't revert war to keep them in place... instead take the time to look at what is going on and if it's being handled, let it be.... clear enough guidance for you? I see multiple places in this very thread where you have been told not to do that. Politely. ++Lar: t/c15:53, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Yep, I must agree and after dealing with Calton myself in a previous case I see the likely hood of him taking on the advice given here relatively low. I support a topic ban from UAA along with spam related situations (CSD, userpages...ect). Tiptoety05:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
If someone were actually offering actual advice instead of vague unsupported claims and abuse, you might have a point. As no one, including you, as actually done so, makes it hard to take the comment seriously. --Calton | Talk09:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Support- Agree, I would like to add to my previous suggestion above, COI concerns and CSD tagging in userspace, not just spam articles and UAA. Wisdom89(T / )05:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Support a la Tiptoety. Civility towards established editors aside, this guy seems like a horrible welcoming committee for wikipedia. This topic ban would keep him as an editor, and also protect the newbies. Dayewalker (talk) 05:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, as it's very important to welcome as many spammers and site abusers as possible to Misplaced Pages, as it gives the page patrolers something to keep them busy. --Calton | Talk09:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Weak support. I wish this wasn't necessary, because frankly Calton does a lot of good work, especially finding these spam pages and reporting them for CSD. But yes, this is a problem. I was going to suggest the ban be just for WP:UAA, but it's not the only area. But it's Calton's extreme frequency of incivility combined with his complete disrespect of anyone who disagrees with him or criticizes him, that makes him just really not the person we want dealing with new users. Mangojuice05:56, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't deal with new users, I deal with spammers and other abusers of Misplaced Pages. This is not difficult distinction, no matter how you muddy it. --Calton | Talk09:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Support topic ban from UAA, CSD, and spam/COI-related with other users or with articles in general. I've had no prior interaction with Calton, but his tone in the discussion above confirms the concerns raised by Xenocidic and others. Sandstein 07:58, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
My "tone" is the product of my complete disgust of the fact-free railroading, the hyperbolic claims, the thoughtless pile-ons, and the overall cumulative insults to my intelligence. --Calton | Talk09:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Absurd. Let Calton take a couple of weeks off, but a topic ban? Please. Everyone who deals with abuses of the project on a long-term basis gets a bit jaded over time and can become inclined to see abuse where none exists, and it is absolutely true that bands, companies and other entities arrive at Misplaced Pages in large numbers to promote themselves. Oh, and the "Turner&associates" page is a biography of the founder of Turner & Associates, a firm of no obvious notability. See WP:COI. Guy (Help!) 09:15, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I dealt with Calton around the beginning of his editing career, and I can testify that his attitude has always been terrible and completely uncivil. To present it as though he gradually became jaded after dealing with problems for a long time is completely inaccurate. Everyking (talk) 05:13, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
...his complete disrespect of anyone who disagrees with him or criticizes him - perhaps if those anyones would include a few actual facts, actual references, or actual charges I can actually answer, they might get some "respect". --Calton | Talk09:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Oppose - too broad (particularly, 'spam-related discussions') and somewhat premature to be that broad. On the other hand, I wouldn't oppose the topic ban on UAA and CSD, and a ban on him inserting, modifying or removing block-templates (or block-tags) in his edits, particularly on user talk pages. I think Calton just needs a break, and stepping back would be helpful as a first step to address other concerns. A proposal similar to mentorship would be the second option - ideally, it wouldn't go beyond that. (If it did, the wide topic-ban suggested would be the third, and finally...well everyone knows what that would be....) Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. A topic ban isn't the answer to this; perhaps a wikibreak may be what the doctor has ordered. I'm with JzG on this one, and I have seen some particularly good reports in my dealings with him (all of which have been civil if memory serves). Rudget11:34, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. For several reasons. (1) It seems excessive to pull out a host of past grievances in an ANI report and use that to take broad action against a user. At best, Calton should be told to cease and desist in this specific case. If anyone feels that the case should be broadened, an Rfc that seeks community consensus would be more appropriate; (2) According to Xeno: If an admin is in full control of the situation, there is no need for another user to be throwing templates around. This needs to be written into the guidelines. That being said, the major problem which brings me here today is Calton's attitude towards admins. Consensus on actions are determined by the community, not by a cabal of admins. The complainant seems more upset with disrespect shown to admins rather than with the actions of Calton, which, with apologies, is not a constructive attitude since, technically, there is nothing special about an admin except for a few extra buttons. I don't disagree with the 'trust' and 'experience' part but expecting other editors to butt out when a couple of admins are involved is excessive. --Regents Park (paddle with the ducks) 12:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
How is it excessive, is this not what ANI is for? A user with a long history BITEy behavior and incivility should not be dealt with appropriately and past events should be excluded from the discussion? I mean how do you propose we deal with users with a long history of disruptive behavior? Sweeping it under the rug and telling him to take a break has proven not to work. Tiptoety13:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
What we have here is an editor who believes that he/she is acting for the betterment of the encyclopedia by identifying COI and advertising accounts. This is not vandalism and the editor should be treated with appropriate respect (civility works both ways). If several editors believe he/she has a civility issue, then it is far better to address that issue directly in an RFC where he/she can respond to all the charges/issues at one time rather than having to deal with serial complaints. (I'm not saying don't address an issue if you think it important, but rather that this is not the right way.) --Regents Park (paddle with the ducks) 15:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment - Calton has this phrase on this talkpage - "Adherence to common sense and rational argument trumps ruleslawyering, as far as I'm concerned." - how about he actually adheres to his own advice? Exxolon (talk) 13:29, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
How about you show where I haven't? Let me make this simple for you: Spam is bad for Misplaced Pages. I find spam. I tag spam. Spam gets deleted. Spammers get blocked. Easy enough?
Ok - you asked for it. The COMMON SENSE thing to do here would be to admit that certain editors have a problem with the way you're editing and to work with them and the rest of the community to resolve the situation amicably. Instead you seem to be under the impression that working to prevent spam gives you carte blanche to ignore other editors concerns, talk down to them and generally behave in an unpleasant and condescending manner. Misplaced Pages is a collaborative environment, not a battleground - if you can't work constructively with other editors then there's no place for you here. Exxolon (talk) 15:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm not exactly sure what the best course of action here is. I don't think anyone should be templating a user while an administrator (or anyone, for that matter) is discussing the situation with them. Plain and simple, it's rude - to both parties. @JzG, as I said, it isn't about whether the T&A account or their proposed article was worthy of inclusion - it was about showing them the same respect that they showed us. This is what I was trying to convey to Calton, and instead he edit warred, dismissed my concerns, and made an appeal to the letter, but not the spirit of our rules. And in this entire thread, the behaviour is repeated - a downright refusal to admit any possibility that perhaps he has made a mistake. Users like this necessarily have problems working in a collaborative environment. I'll admit, my initial approach to him lacked tact, and I tried to de-escalate the situation and extend an olive branch - one that was refused. My request is simple and flows from not any rule, policy, or guideline, but from common sense: don't template a user while the situation is under discussion. –xeno (talk) 13:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm troubled by this one. I think Calton does a great job finding the hidden spam. Most of the userpages I've found tagged by Calton, I've felt were straightforward, reasonable matters for deletion. I don't know that preventing Calton from doing what (a) Calton is very good at doing and (b) other people don't seem to be so keen on doing is all that good for the project. (Note that I don't mean by this to defend disruption in the doing.) OTOH, speedy deletions are meant to be uncontroversial. With the exception of copyright & attack pages, there should be no reason to repeatedly list an article or userpage for speedy deletion. Any editor who disagrees may remove the tag, following which other processes (like MFD) should be followed. With respect to CSD tagging, I wonder if it would suffice if Calton agreed to tag an article or userpage only once? --Moonriddengirl14:02, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
First of all, bringing up a history of misconduct is not pulling out a host of past grievances. New users are the lifeblood of Misplaced Pages and his ongoing newcomer biting needs to cease. These issues have been coming for literally years. Support topic ban (even if temporary). If that doesn't stick, a block is a perfectly reasonable way to prevent his biting new users and ongoing bad judgment in a sensitive part of Misplaced Pages. Preventing spam is not more important than treating new users with respect. RxS (talk) 14:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Strongly oppose topic ban. I've clicked on xeno's links, and feel somewhat uncomfortable with Calton's salty edit summaries, but very uncomfortable with xeno's responses to them. Xeno being the admin, more is expected of him—that's an important principle here. I will offer a little advice to admins in their interchanges with experienced users. Don't try to squeeze deference out of people like Calton; it's inappropriate, and it's simply doomed. Look to your own demeanour, ignore his. YMMV, but, for example, I'd never go "NPA!" when somebody says "Don't be daft"; xeno, such a response is just going to make you look starchy and fussy, you know. (Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever invoked NPA because of something said to me.) It's much better to respond to the point being made. You're an admin, yes; but the only relevance of your adminship to this issue is that, being an admin, you'd do well to develop a thicker skin. For instance, I can't agree that Calton's responses are "approaching disruption", as you write in this edit summary. Not anywhere close. In the guideline dealing with disruption, that term is defined as "gross, obvious and repeated violations of fundamental policies, not subtle questions about which reasonable people may disagree." . The word "disruption" is woefully overused, by no means by xeno alone, whenever admins can't think of any more specific accusation. It should never be used to mean that an admin isn't getting as much deference as they'd like. It's an absurdity here. Is Calton approaching "gross, obvious and repeated violations of fundamental policies"..? Is he within shouting distance of such violations, in anything linked to above? Certainly not. Xeno, please try to get over your sense that "admins are the ones who have been entrusted by the community to uphold its standards as they see fit" . You've been entrusted with a mop and bucket and a little extra responsibility, that's all'; you haven't become Misplaced Pages nobility.
(Full disclosure: Calton's no friend of mine. He's been startlingly rude to me, details on request. But we're not all cut with a cookie-cutter. I advise him to make a habit of assuming more good faith from newbies; but in the individual case, I can rarely fault his judgment on this or other issues.) Bishonen | talk14:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC).
Edit warring is not disruption? As far as the comment about nobility - I'm not sure what that's all about. Yes, I have the tools. So, I was fully prepared to delete the page once my discussion with the user had come to a satisfactory close. Blanking it with "indefblocked" was unnecessary - it wasn't harming anyone. It's tough to discuss a page with someone when it's been covered by a template. And the user had already been blocked - had they attempted to edit outside their talk space, they would've been presented with the {{usernameblock}} notice. No need to pile it onto their talk page. In other words: it was under control. –xeno (talk) 14:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
No, that's right; edit warring's not disruption. Not unless it's "gross, obvious and repeated". And, uh, was Calton edit warring with himself, or with whom..? With you, am I right? And before you tell me he had the effrontery to edit war with an admin; no, that's not worse than edit warring with somebody else. Not in a month of Sundays. As for your not being sure what the "nobility" crack was about, I'll have to work on expressing myself more clearly. I thought my quoting your assumptions about the powers and privileges of admins would do it. Here they are again: "admins are the ones who have been entrusted by the community to uphold its standards as they see fit" . No, they're not, you know. I really wish you'd take this to heart, because you're wrong. Admins are merely the ones entrusted with a few extra buttons, which they're absolutely not supposed to use "as they see fit". As Jimbo is fond of pointing out, we were all admins at one time:
In the very early days of Misplaced Pages, all users functioned as administrators, and in principle they still should. From early on, it has been pointed out that administrators should never develop into a special subgroup of the community but should be a part of the community like anyone else. Generally, the maintenance and administration of Misplaced Pages can be conducted by anyone, without the specific technical functions granted to administrators.
That's policy: Misplaced Pages:Administrators. Admins should never develop into a class of nobles. Calton is dead bang in policy when he conducts " the maintenance and administration of Misplaced Pages", and your quest for a guideline that says he's not supposed to is doomed to failure. Bishonen | talk15:55, 2 August 2008 (UTC).
That's not really what I was trying to get at, so given this unfortunate interpretation, struck and annotated. It's the fact that he seems to believe he is always right - no matter what - no matter who (admin or otherwise) disagrees with him. –xeno (talk) 05:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree with what you're saying, but I'm not convinced in regards to this particular case. The block was placed at the discretion of the blocking admin, as was the choice not to template - according to the initial complaint at the top, there was none due to issues raised by xeno, who was in discussion with the blocked user too. For Calton to then blank the userpage and insist on placing the block tag (3 times without discussing it with either the blocking admin, or the user reverting him) seems to be gross, repeated and obvious. Thoughts anyone? Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
not the spirit of our rules - Encouraging spam and spammers is "not the spirit of our rules". Editwarring to restore spam is "not the spirit of our rules". Editwarring yourself is "not the spirit of our rules". Throwing your weight around as an admin without justifying it is "not the spirit of our rules" -- and certainly bears no relation to your gas about "working in a collaborative environment". More to the point, other than vague handwaving, you haven't said word one about what actual damage this {{indefblocked}} is supposed to be doing, given that a) the editor was indefblocked, b) the editor is still indefblocked, c) whatever the result of your talks, that name will always be indefblocked, since it's a role account. --Calton | Talk14:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Not necessarily, the account may be temporarily unblocked so the user can request a change at WP:CHU. The intent of my talks were to show the user the same common courtesy and respect that they showed us by asking (politely, might I add) if their "spam" (so-called) could be included in the encyclopedia. –xeno (talk) 14:51, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Oppose topic ban Calton is one of those guys where you occasionally want to ask for his badge number and file a report! Still, topic bans and administrative action are far too likely to drive a user away from the project permanently and bitterly. We shouldn't "criminalize" Calton's actions in the way we're saying he has done to others. I'm aware that his BITEy actions are themselves a threat to drive users from the project, but this has to be dealt with some other way. Mr. IP《Defender of Open Editing》16:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Suggestions - Xeno, you could have just left everything Calton did in place, apologized to the user for the 'drive by', and continued your conversation. A history link could be provided to the blanked proto-article and things gone on with only minor disruption. Had Calton blanked or requested protection of the talk page that would have been a different matter, but short of something which actually prevents progress on more diplomatic lines it's almost always going to be more trouble than it is worth. Likewise with the statements above about reposting of items to UAA... I'd suggest just adding a note saying that they were previously rejected and possibly a link to such to inform the next admin who reviews them. Yes, it would be nice if people always considered all sides of an issue and preceded with due care... but they don't. Just accept it and be the better person.
Oppose per Bishonen's well reasoned argument, an admins opinion should carry no more weight than any other editors. RMHED (talk) 21:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Support, Calton has been abusing people (myself included) for years, and it's high time something was done to limit his behavior. Everyking (talk) 05:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Support until he realises why people are getting sick of it. Then we can lift the ban and see how it goes. —Giggy05:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Oppose He's doing routine spam fighting. It's much better than the admins that actually do the tagging AND the blocking. At least there is a review. Give him a barnstar and recruit more regular editors to do that kind of work. This isn't 'MyWikiBiz'. --DHeyward (talk) 07:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Support, given that Calton's attitude throughout this entire discussion is that he can do no wrong, and refuses to "hear" the kind advice being given him. His past record of being blocked should be a strong indication that (once again) a "time out" is needed. P.S. What is "MyWikiBiz"? -- Shuckers Long Neck (talk) 15:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Strong Support. Calton is not just the guy whose badge number you want to see. He's the abusive cop you want fired from the force because his behavior is so frequently incivil and lacking any good faith, that he gives the department (Misplaced Pages) a bad name with the public. Just imagine this guy with a taser. How fast do you think he'd end up on the news? The very nature of HISUser & Talk pages are disturbing. By the third line he is already making open insults and even a personal attack on a person. "(The above obviously includes the various trolls, spammers, quacks, greedheads, and crackpots -- and their enablers -- who hang out at ED and WR. I also seem to have attracted the unwanted attention of a crackpot spamming "psychologist" calling himself "Wyatt Ehrenfels". If you're one of the those various trolls, spammers, quacks, greedheads, crackpots, and/or their enablers, welcome! Now get lost.) Is THIS really what Misplaced Pages considers being CIVIL or showing GOOD FAITH? Welcome, now get lost??? Calton is the ill-natured cop who joined the force because he was DYING to taser and billy club punk kids, but never had ANY intention of adding anything constructive like helping old ladies cross the street or getting a cat out of a tree. (or creating and editing articles) Bad attitude. Bad intentions. No matter how many smammers he blocks (skaters he tases), he is bad for Misplaced Pages. For a very clear example of how blatantly insulting and abusive he behaves have a glance at my User talk:BillyTFried#Your e-mail. BillyTFried (talk) 21:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Clearly a short break is not a way to resolve this issue, but instead just push it under the rug until another incident occurs seeing as this issue has been going on for quite some time now, there needs to be a resolution and everyones concerns need to stop being ignored. Also, no one said the ban would be permanent. Tiptoety23:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Concerns over specific conduct issues need to be expressed in order for the break to have any chance of being effective of course (RFC on user conduct is a good way of doing so). That, accompanied with a break from the area, is something that can resolve the issue. I think people here would be more willing to support a ban proposal if there's still no change after taking those steps. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Support revert and/or re-tag ban The solution here, I think, is not to ban Carlton from CSD'ing what he sees as spam completely, because in most cases he is correct in his view, and we shouldn't push someone away from an area where he is doing what is mostly a good job. The main problem here, from what I can see, is his unwillingness to accept when another user (admin or not) declines the speedies or reverts his edits. So I propose that he be banned from re-tagging declined speedies, and also that he be banned from undoing reverts of his edits without first discussing it politely with the reverting editor. I think this finds the right balance.--Aervanathlivesinthe Orphanage01:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Given the vague and entirely fact-free claims above -- especially by Ryan ("I am the law") Postlethwaite, who's never lowered himself to give the slightest explanation of whatever the hell I'm supposed to be doing wrong -- and the obvious kneejerk "support the admins" responses that followed, let me explain EXACTLY what I do. Feel free to tell me where the horrible crimes are.
2) When (not if) I find obvious candidates, like this...
05:46, August 2, 2008 User:Uniproma (hist) Uniproma (talk | contribs) (← Created page with 'Uniproma is a value-creating bridge between China and the rest of the world. Since its founding, Uniproma has been striving to add value to a global supply chain, ...')
a) User name is a company, organization, band, or product: check.
b) Text of created page is advert for said company, organization, band, or product: check.
3) I right-click it to open the page onto a new tab in Edit mode.
4) I continue until I have several tabs at once. This, sadly, almost always takes just a few minutes.
6) I go to each talk page. Some fraction of the time (10 or 15 percent) there's already CSD warnings regarding spam addede in article space. I add the {{Spam-warn-userpage}} template, which I wrote myself and which reads:
A tag has been placed on on your user page, Uniproma, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Misplaced Pages. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page seems to be blatant advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service or person, and which is a violation of our policies regarding acceptable use of user pages: user pages are intended for active editors of Misplaced Pages to communicate with one another as part of the process of creating encyclopedic content, and should not be mistaken for free webhosting resources. Please read the general criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 11, as well as the guidelines on spam, the guidelines on user pages, and, especially, our FAQ for businesses.
If you can indicate why the page is not blatant advertising, you may contest the tagging. To do this, please add {{hangon}} on the top of the page in question and leave a note on this page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this.
7) I go to WP:UAA with the names I've gathered and list them there, where 99% of the time -- at least until User:Shereth's recent peculiar and essentially unilateral rewrite of actual policy and practice -- actual (and multiple) admins delete the pages and indef-block those I list.
Now, begging your pardon and in the interest of eliminating the vague handwaving, kneejerk agreements, and general chest-puffing -- will somebody tell me where the fracking hell in that process are my monstrous crimes against policy, practice, common sense, decorum, and/or Ryan Postlethwaite's delicate sensibilities? --Calton | Talk14:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Calton, as I mentioned earlier, you have unfathomably excellent skills at rooting out the spam userpages, promotional usernames/edits/accounts etc., and any other accounts that are relevant and fall under the username policy and thus able to be reported to the UAA noticeboard. I've worked with you on occasions before (at least I think I have) and found your efforts to sift through the newuser log highly admirable, and I've consequently become more involved through the process due to the straight-forwardness of the reports absent few. However, commenting on Xenocidic or Ryan Postlethwaite in a less-than-constructive manner (whether they are right or wrong) is not conducive to finding a resolve to this. Rudget14:53, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
You just don't get it do you? The issue is not WHAT you are doing but HOW you do it. Enforcing our policies on spam is good. Behaving in an arrogant and condescending manner while doing it is NOT. Exxolon (talk) 15:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Calton, thanks for the link to the spam search list. I think that rather than arguing the toss here we might all be more productively employed clicking some of those links. "Our services" include nuking spam. Guy (Help!) 15:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm not trying to dismiss Calton's contributions to spam-fighting, and in the vast majority of cases, I'm sure a tag, block, tag combo is just what the doctor ordered for some spammers. This particular case was different (because the user was kind enough to ask, I felt I could take the time to explain it to him without templates), and all I really want to hear from him is, "OK, maybe I don't need to template a user while another user is discussing that same situation. I won't do it again." or something along those lines. No topic ban. No RFC. Just a simple head nod and a "I'll take this into consideration for the future". –xeno (talk) 15:22, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes. Calton, I don't think anybody here objects to your commendable efforts to fight spam and other disruption; quite on the contrary. What we object to is the way in which you go about it and the way you interact with other editors. This is, after all, a collaborative project; tact and civility are not optional for any of us. I've not examined your contributions in this matter thoroughly, but the uncollegial and heated statements that you have made in this discussion lead me to believe that Xenocidic was justified to bring the matter up here. Whether the appropriate outcome of this discussion is a topic ban, a different sanction or no sanction at all is certainly open to discussion, but that outcome depends on you above all. Sandstein 15:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
My fundamental concern is the same as User:Wisdom89. While it can be a little frustrating at times, there isn't really any issue with Calton's occasional reporting of large blocs of users. I also really don't care that he wants to butt heads with administrators, and he is absolutely correct when he says that admins are editors and should not be treated as being special. I do have some problem with what appears to be habitual opinion-shopping by re-adding reports until he gets the desired result. Calton needs to understand that his interpretation of what is and is not a blockable offense is just that - his interpretation. (This is where I expect him to call in to question my eccentric reading of WP:U, but I still challenge anyone to show me where the policy states that a user with a company name as a user name must be blocked on sight.) In any event, it's the WP:BITE issues that I have the biggest concern with. I am not really keen on the notion of imposing a topic ban on Calton, but it needs to be understood that blocking is an extremely sensitive issue and prone to evoking strong emotion and opinion. Making the reports to UAA is one thing, but continuing to push his cases until they get blocked isn't the solution. He accuses myself (and by extension other editors) of making unilateral decisions when removing a case sans discussion, but isn't that how 95% of the blocks proceed - unilaterally and without discussion? If a problem persists then I see no harm in re-adding a report, but doing it just so that a block can be issued comes across as malevolent. All I would really like is for Calton to see that his crusade against spam is not the most important thing possible, be willing to accept that his judgment of what should be blocked is not the end-all, and that sometimes blocking a potentially spammy username is not the most expedient solution to an issue. Shereth16:22, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Above Calton asked "will somebody tell me where the fracking hell in are my monstrous crimes against policy, practice, common sense, decorum, and/or Ryan Postlethwaite's delicate sensibilities?". The answer is that they're not there - the 7-step process is beneficial work which (a) no-one else seems to engage in with anything remotely approaching to the dedication that he does, and (b) keeps this encyclopaedia clear of spam that shouldn't be here.
The problem is in step 8 - it's not included on the list above, but just as formulaic and predictable a part of his actions as the preceding seven steps. Step 8 is what happens as soon as anyone dares disagree with his actions, or question his judgment (or, as he terms it, "insults his intelligence") - whether that be in flagging the page for speedy, listing the name at WP:UAA or whatever - they open themselves up to his, erm, interesting and somewhat relentless style of discussion.
The DRV linked to above is a prime example - the declining admins get a dose of step 8 (here, here and here), and it doesn't take a lot of looking through his talk page and its archives to dig out similar episodes almost beyond number - I've been on the receiving end of it myself a couple of times, in both cases because I've declined or removed a speedy tag. Maybe it's not a "monstrous crime", but it's clear that his way of dealing with all other users, and not just spammers that he deals with, that is against policy, practice, common sense and very definitely against decorum. I can't speak for Ryan's sensibilities, delicate or otherwise.
I would oppose a ban from WP:CSD or WP:UAA - doing so would be to cut off our noses to spite our faces, because I do think that the work that he does is exceedingly valuable, and he rarely gets enough credit for it.
I would support some sort of check on his behaviour, however - even though it's fun to see how long he can resist before wheeling out one of his staple phrases (accusing the other person of "projecting", of making "vague, handwaving assertions" (which he's used three times in this thread alone), "reality check", "period / full stop", "Guy" and "Buckwheat" invariable make an appearance somewhere along the line), no matter how much he may feel his intelligence is being insulted there's not excuse for the manner in which he responds to it.
I'd also support a restriction on resubmitting the same pages repeatedly to CSD or the same username to UAA.
Numerous reports to WP:ANI, blocks and an RFC in the past haven't actually lead to any modification of his behaviour, though, so I wonder how much benefit all the above discussion will actually result in, if any. Gb21:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
This discussion seems to be losing momentum, but I must say that, IMO, Gb absolutely nails the situation on the head here.--Kubigula(talk)04:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Related discussion at DRV
I've opened a deletion review for the page User:Losplad, mentioned as an example a few subsections above, as its deletion seem to have been at least somewhat controversial. I hope this somewhat nonstandard DRV nomination may help determine the actual consensus on whether pages like that one should be speedily deleted or not. Everyone involved in this discussion here is welcome to comment. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
kind of a moot point being a year later (though the precedent may be worthwhile), but it does demonstrate his tendency to edit-war/admin shop on these types of things. –xeno (talk) 18:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Selective and partisan policy enforcement by Will Beback
Will Beback (talk·contribs·logs) has a history of turning a blind eye to policy violations by editors who share his POV, while being quick to take action against editors who don't. I have seen this in connection with the LaRouche articles, where Will seems to have a strong personal interest. Recently he chided User:Polly Hedra() for this edit which he called a personal attack and deleted, while finding nothing untoward about this edit and this one by User:Cberlet, Polly's antagonist. Another admin stepped in and gave Cberlet a 24 hour block for incivility, which was the subject of a discussion on this board. Will lobbied for a similar block against Polly Hedra, but found little support. In fact, one other editor specifically commented at ANI on the partisan nature of Will's interventions.
Two days ago I removed a link that User:Dking posted to his personal, selfpublished website. Dking has a history of violations of WP:LINKSPAM (cleanup by COI noteboard team member ... Dking coming around again to re-add the spam:.) Dking responded by accusing me of "censorship" and branded me a "Follower of LaRouche." I replied by saying "I am no more a 'follower of LaRouche' than I am a 'follower of Robert Mugabe,' even though I have worked hard to keep POV-pushers from using both biographical articles as a soapbox against those subjects. Secondly, if I were a 'follower of LaRouche,' it would still be a violation of WP:NPA to use that as a debating tactic: Using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views—regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream." I am emphasizing this here, because I anticipate a similar argument from Will in his response to his notice. I also posted the examples above of Dking's Linkspam violations. In response, Dking deleted the examples and reiterated his personal attack. When I re-added the examples,, I received a warning on my talk page from Will, threatening me with sanctions for "taunting." I looked at Dking's talk page for similar warnings and found none. Will then "prematurely archived" the talk page, supposedly to "foster peace," but more likely to protect Dking's conduct from scrutiny, as was the case with Will's out-of-process closing of Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct/Dking. --Marvin Diode (talk) 06:19, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Three things: first, can you tell us what the CoI noticeboard's consensus was on Dking's website? And second, could you back up the statement that Will has a "strong personal interest", or withdraw it? Third, where did Will use admin tools in this dispute? Thanks. --Relata refero (disp.) 07:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
See
Let's put it this way, I have never seen a LaRouche-related dispute where Will did not weigh in in support of Cberlet and Dking, going back to the LaRouche II ArbCom case where he was a party.
In this instance, Will threatened me with sanctions, while making no equivalent threat to Dking, who actually did make a personal attack, twice. I have seen Will ban editors in the past whom he deemed to be "LaRouche editors," on what I considered to be extremely flimsy evidence. While he has not formally designated me a "LaRouche editor," I take the threat of sanctions seriously; it's not a use of the tools per se, but it does represent an abuse of the office if it is used to intimidate, particularly to gain ground in a content dispute. --Marvin Diode (talk) 15:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
The posting from Marvin Diode which I think was out of line was this, in which he said, referring to the prohibition on spam, "In some cases, it may be just to boost a faded reputation for egotistical purposes." That was a clear dig at Dennis King/Dking. I complained about it on the talk page but didn't get a satisfactory response. I warned Marvin Diode on his talk page that taunting is a form a personal attack and will not be tolerated. Meanwhile Dking and Marvin Diode were bickering and refactoring each others comments on the talk page. I decided the best thing would be to "prematurely" archive the discussion in order to end what apppeard to me to be a pointless and contentious debate. I didn't sanction anyone (though I warned that sanctions may happen if behavior doesn't change) nor did I use any admin tools. ·:· Will Beback·:·08:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
You warned me, you didn't seem to think Dking required a warning. This is what I mean by "selective enforcement." If it weren't such a consistent pattern, I wouldn't bring it up. Note also that Dking made the claim that since he doesn't directly harvest income from his website, it couldn't possibly be a violation of WP:LINKSPAM to post links to it all over the project. This is a misreading of the LINKSPAM policy, which was the point of my comment. --Marvin Diode (talk) 15:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Generic rouge admin abuse complaint, the complainant moves one step closer to a topic ban per the multiple arbitrations on LaRouche and the tendentious editors clustered around that topic. A bit more investigation shows a long-term pattern of activism against Dennis King by Marvin Diode, who has been trying for a long time to get all links to King's websites off the project. While agreeing that they are, on the surface, not reliable sources, he has shown considerable evidence of a deeply vested external agenda against King, and his determination to remove "unreliable" sources appears to apply only to those sources which are critical of LaRouche. Guy (Help!) 08:51, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
There is only one Dennis King website at issue here, and it is a personal website/blog. Removing links to it should be non-controversial, particularly when the owner of the personal site has very aggressively added and re-added it in defiance of policy. You make a dazzling leap of logic by insinuating that, by calling attention to the excesses of an unusually tendentious editor, I am pursuing a secret agenda of shielding LaRouche from criticism. --Marvin Diode (talk) 15:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
There is only one Marvin Diode at issue here, and it appears to be a participant on one side in a long-standing dispute, bringing said dispute to Misplaced Pages. Guy (Help!) 17:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
...and only his side ought to be sanctioned for it, while participants on the other side of the dispute are fine and dandy? "Sauce for the goose; sauce for the gander" really needs to be applied; I guess I ought to write an essay at WP:SAUCE if none exists already. *Dan T.* (talk) 17:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Uneven sanctions are not by themselves evidence of bias. It is neither "selective" nor "partisan" for an administrator to sanction a single side in a dispute. Assuming the administrator is acting in good faith, it is a simple exercise of discretion. The administrator may simply have found that one person's behavior rises to the level where it needs administrative intervention while the other's does not. Moreover, even if both side's behavior is sanctionable there is no administrative abuse in sanctioning only one side - not unless the administrator truly does have a conflict of interest or is using sanctions to further a position on content. It could be a simple oversight. It could even be appropriate. It takes two to fight, usually, so removing one may well have the desired effect of ending the fight. Moreover, as controversial as LaRouche is, it's hard to equate the frustration of people trying to promote him on the encyclopedia with the frustration of people trying to avoid promoting his views. Reviewing the diffs, even though both sides became uncivil out of frustration, Poly Hedra's accusations were direct and personal, whereas Cberlet was expressing generalized disapproval of a group of editors for pushing content bias. It's not obvious who deserved sanctions and who didn't but that's a moot issue at this point, and there's certainly nothing that shows any abuse here. In short, Guy's right.Wikidemo (talk) 17:53, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
But Marvin Diode is not a Larouchian, but has been unfairly labeled as one, which is a dirty tactic used by some in this fight, which is not simply a case of "Larouchians vs. Mainstream" as it's sometimes portrayed. Anybody who objects to the actions of some of the "anti-Larouche" people seems to get automatically fastened with a political label that might not have any resemblance to their actual position. *Dan T.* (talk) 19:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Dtobias, have you reviewed Marvin Diode's contribution history? While we can't say if he is a "LaRouchian" or not, all of his edits are either to LaRouche-related articles or, if to other topics, they promote the LaRouche POV. His attacks against Cberlet and Dking are consistent with the decades-long conflict between them and the LaRouche movement. While Marvin Diode may claim to not be a follower of LaRouche, and may choose to be offended if called that, the reality is that he gives the appearance of being a LaRouche follower by his actions and words on Misplaced Pages. People can follow any religion or philosophy they like, but when they push a POV or use Misplaced Pages as a battleground then it's a problem. Misplaced Pages's problem with accounts that push the LaRouche POV goes back at least four years and includes three ArbCom cases and numerous sock puppets. ·:· Will Beback·:·20:02, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
This is a standard tactic I've seen Will employ time and again. "Have you reviewed Joe Editor's contribution history? He edits articles on topics of interest to LaRouche." The trick here, as anyone with a slight familiarity with LaRouche knows, is that LaRouche has expressed an opinion on virtually every topic covered on Misplaced Pages, with the possible exception of the Pokemon characters. If you were to review Will Beback's contribution history, you will find -- shocking as it may seem -- that he edits articles on topics of interest to LaRouche. As far as my edits "promoting LaRouche POV," that's a con job. This goes back to the argument that I anticipated in my initial statement: since LaRouche is a uniquely evil person, anyone who interferes with the use of Misplaced Pages to denounce him may be treated in flagrant disregard for Misplaced Pages policy. Which I guess is what Dan T. already said. In response to Wikidemo, yes, I am alleging that Will is using sanctions to further a position on content. I disagree in the strongest terms with Wikidemo's characterization of these disputes as "people trying to promote him on the encyclopedia vs. people trying to avoid promoting his views." I got involved in the first place because I saw a small group of individuals trying to use the encyclopedia as an attack platform against LaRouche, in violation of WP:BLP, WP:SOAP and Lord knows how many other policies. And if someone steps in and says "but what about Misplaced Pages policy," they are immediately charged with "promoting LaRouche." Again, compare my edits at Robert Mugabe. Would you care to argue that I am "giving the appearance of being a Mugabe follower"? --Marvin Diode (talk) 21:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I have reviewed your contribution history, and it is dominated by LaRouche articles, and your contributions to those articles and surrounding debates are dominated by an LaRouche apologetic stance. If you are genuinely trying to be neutral on this subject then you are doing a very poor job of it. You are giving a very strong appearance of a vendetta against King, in fact. Guy (Help!) 09:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
An impartial review of my contribution history will reveal that I have never taken a position either pro or con on LaRouche; my role has been simply to insist on the strict application of BLP and other policies, in any article where I have seen a problem. Your comments give a very strong appearance that as far as you are concerned, policy is nothing, POV is everything. You and Will seem to wish to grant a 007 "license to defame" to Dking and Cberlet. If Misplaced Pages policies such as BLP are not applied evenly across the board, even to the most controversial characters, the project loses credibility. --Marvin Diode (talk) 14:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
@DanT: I did not say that, I said that partisans coming here to bitch because they are not getting their way in a long-term and largely external dispute is not helpful to the encyclopaedia. It's not clear to me why you decided to butt in in the first place, actually, since your input was 100% unhelpful and unproductive. Guy (Help!) 09:05, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm still not sure which sanctions I've applied that Marvin Diode is complaining about. I've never blocked him. All I did was issue some warnings not to post personal attacks. As for Mugabe, Lyndon LaRouche is a strong supporter. LaRouche is anti-British, anti-colonialism, and anti-George Soros, all of which are involved. Marvin Diode has been editing to provide the pro-Mugabe POV favored by LaRouche. However that doesn't mean he's a follower of Mugabe. All that matters to Misplaced Pages is that POVs, whatever they are, aren't pushed behind their proper weight, and that editors are civil towards each other. I think that this editor has problems with both, as have a string of similar accounts going back some years. ·:· Will Beback·:·22:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Interesting. So, let's suppose hypothetically that author Kitty Kelley were to start a Misplaced Pages account called Kkelley and post links all over Misplaced Pages to a site promoting her book, The Family, which is said to be "filled with lurid allegations." If one or more editors were to object, do you suppose that they would be labeled "followers of George W. Bush" and that the conversation would immediately turn to speculation about these supposed "George Bush supporters," ignoring the obvious inappropriate behavior by the hypothetical Ms. Kelley? --Terrawatt (talk) 23:30, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I think there are some valid concerns here. It appears that Will has a long-standing habit of favoring one side in these disputes, and if he is going to take any kind of administrative role in the matter he needs to avoid that. I think it would be best if Will didn't involve himself in this any further, although of course it should still be monitored by someone who is accepted as impartial. Everyking (talk) 09:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
''Everyking (09:22): "monitored by someone who is accepted as impartial"
Will's impartial style is so economical that it's difficult to duplicate. Who else impartial but less economical, wants to waste so much monitoring time – day in, year out – while periodically defending themselves against meritless charges like this, all because of actually being fair?
"It appears ... favoring one side in these disputes"
However, it's not a fact. Based on my many samplings of his actions, Will Beback is among the most neutral editors and impartial admins on Misplaced Pages. He should be thanked, not criticized.
As for being partial to one side, I endorsed the recent block of Cberlet for incivility. Can you point to any action that I've taken which is incorrect? ·:· Will Beback·:·17:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
While I have no interest in the Lyndon LaRouche article, my experience with Will BeBack is in line with the concerns that Marvin Diode has raised. He takes a non-neutral approach when it suits him. This latest issue makes me more concerned about his actions. I would ask that an uninvolved party review his edits and admin actions with an eye toward either establishing or disproving the bias that Diode and I have seen from him. --SSBohio18:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I invite all editors to review my administrative actions. To date no one here has asserted that I've made even a single incorrect use of the tools. As for Ssbohio's assertion, I believe the only article we've worked on together is Justin Berry, so I presume that is what he's referring to. I stand by my work on that extremely contentious BLP. ·:· Will Beback·:·19:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Even if the tools aren't used, a threat of their use or the use of the bully pulpit are also areas open to concern.
Justin Berry, Timothy Ryan Richards, and related topic areas and administrative processes are all areas where we've come in contact with each other, Will. For the most part, I think you do an admirable job with contentious situations, but not all the time, and not with an absolute lack of partiality (SqueakBox comes to mind). Even if it's just Marvin & I, it raises the question of there being a pattern and practice on your part. --SSBohio20:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Based on the articles you list (I think we may have both edited Child sexual abuse and Pro-pedophile activism as well), I presume you think I'm biased against pedophiles/pederasts. I've tried to avoid acting in a biased fashion, but at the same time I've sought to make sure the majority viewpoint is given proper weight, and that minority viewpoints don't dominate. Please explain and document the bias that you allege. ·:· Will Beback·:·20:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Your presumption is incorrect. I believe you have a bias in favor of anti-pedophile activists, as their grinding their particular axe seems to go unnoticed by you more often than that of the similarly POV-pushing pro-pedophile activists. We both have a bias against pedophiles and pederasts, as do most people. However, we're here to write an encyclopedia, not to fight the good fight against them. Ironically, your defense of hagiography in the protrayal of Justin Berry has the effect of protecting a producer of child pornography. I had honestly intended this to be a simple "I've had the same problem with him" comment, not a rehashing of our history. If you want to get into the details, we can, but it should probably go into a new section; I just don't see the necessity, as my concerns about you don't concern a current issue. As always, I invite you to discuss these matters with me at my talk page. --SSBohio20:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
If you're going to accuse me of bias and misusing administrative tools then yes, please do document the allegation. It's better to clear the air now than to have you pop up everytime another user has an unrelated complaint. ·:· Will Beback·:·
As to posting diffs, you have the advantage there; Most of the edit histories of these articles have been entirely or partly deleted; You still have access to it, but not me. Still, I'll see what's still available.
Concerning your assertion that Marvin's complaint is unrelated, how do you come to that conclusion? He sees evidence of bias in how you carry out your duties and so do I. The conduct in each case seems not only related, but hard to differentiate. --SSBohio23:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
What is the relationship between Lyndon LaRouche and Pro-pedophilia activism? I can think of one - both topics have long been the targets of editors seeking to promote minority viewpoints, and both topics have been brought to the ArbCom repeatedly. In none of the ArbCom cases has there been any finding of fault regarding my edits or admin actions on those topics. Neither Ssbohio nor Marvin Diode have presented any evidence that I have engaged in "selective and partisan policy enforcement". The community can see for itself where the problems are with these topics. ·:· Will Beback·:·00:43, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Will has a perfect right to possess a strong POV on certain topics, and to enter into content disputes on those topics. However, my view is that he ought to scrupulously avoid the use, or the threat of the use, of admin tools, when it might be seen as an effort to gain advantage in a content dispute. --Marvin Diode (talk) 21:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Again, when have I done so? Warning a user that they may be blocked for posting personal attacks is not a threat to use administrative tools. Telling a user to stop making personal attacks is not an effort to gain an advantage in a content dispute. Please document your allegations or drop them. ·:· Will Beback·:·21:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Can someone edit this to add 'withdrawn' as a possible AFD result? The template is protected for some reason so I can't do it myself. Thanks. Exxolon (talk) 13:15, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Sennen goroshi (talk·contribs) and 203.165.124.61 (talk·contribs) resumes stalking me as one of his long-time disruptive habits. The user has a long history of harassment and stalking of me. At this time, Sennen goroshi is gaming the system with his ISP as if his account and ISP are unrelated. Besides, the user also deceives people as blanking properly cited information from academic sources as leaving nasty edit summaries like "uncited BS removal". "crappy unreliable POV sources removed. use a credible source next time" to Nanking Massacre and "rvv" to Category:Comfort women. Although these lies were discovered quickly, the user did not retract this behavior and continues today. I gave him formal warnings without not knowing the identity because his edits on Nanking Massacre looked like a typical vandalism, so reported to WP:AIV, and the user gave a contradictory lecture at my talk page. I recognized him per his usual pattern of gaming the WP:Civility policy and indeed the anon is Sennen goroshi. On the other hand, admin User:Tanner-Christopher spot his reverting campaign, so gave him a formal warning for his disruptive behaviors and blind reverts. However, he rather visited him as ridiculing 3RR policy like this
The user also wikistaling me today and reverts whatever I edit today which look like he wants to drag me into edit warring and block for 3RR. That scheme was successful once, so I would not deceive it any more. I have enough of this user's disruptive wiki-stalking, harassment, and incivility and so forth. I think this time he should get more that warning because whenever the user is summoned to here for his disruption, he pledges vain promises not to do such things in a disguised politeness in front of admins.--Caspian blue (talk) 17:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Stalking? I think not, we both have an interest in articles relating to Japan and Korea (although perhaps different viewpoints on the two nations) - I can edit any article relating to Japan in WW2, war-crimes, Takeshima, or Japanese/Korean food, and I will be more than likely to find you editing the same article. You might not agree with my edits, but they are certainly not intentionally disruptive - they are a mere content dispute. When I was accused of breaking the 3RR, I was rather amused that an admin would count my self reverts towards 3RR and my comments reflected that. Please stop dragging all your content disputes into ANI. By the way, don't make assumptions about my IP, this is my one and only IP. 203.165.124.61 (talk) 17:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
This is not a content dispute, but your disruptive long-time wikistaling, harassment and so forth. Your wikistaling not only me but also several individual, so you have been summoned for that. This needs to be stopped by administrator's intervention.-Caspian blue (talk) 17:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I am shocked !!! according to yahoo finance LMAMF means something totally different http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=LMAMF.X - but then again who would use yahoo finance as a source when you have the ultra reliable urban dictionary at hand?
By the way, why did you get the IDs of people from my talk page, that I have had disputes with and ask them to input on this issue? That is clearly canvassing. 203.165.124.61 (talk) 17:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Caspian blue we really need to see some actual evidence of wrongdoing. Evidence of stalking would be him editing a page after you edit, preferably several pages. Evidence of revert warring would be diffs showing us the reverts. He states that some of them were self reverts and he is right in that if he reverts himself then obviously this isn't warring. Theresa Knott | The otter sank17:57, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Of course, I would provide enough evidence of his wikistalking and harassement. This report was made in hurry. I previously filed reports on him for his behaviros and death threat, but mine were too lengthy for admins to look into them. You also seem to miss his tendency of lying and such disruptive comment. That slurs are, I think, enough for an immediate block per Wiki policy--Caspian blue (talk) 18:05, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I cannot see anything that warrants an immediate block. He has a tendency to troll, rise above that. It's not easy for an outsider to spot lying unless you give us evidence that contradicts what he is saying. Theresa Knott | The otter sank18:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
OK, one last message before I go to sleep. I did not make a death threat, I did not call anyone "lonely mice" (that is beyond absurd) and all of this stems from our different perspectives on shared interests and content disputes that we both seem to have. However I am sure that a part of the blame can lay at my feet, I am sure that I could be a little warmer in my attitude and that using a little more tact in my interactions with fellow editors would be welcomed. 203.165.124.61 (talk) 18:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I looked at the first one. He removed "Pregnant women were often the target of murder, as they would often be bayoneted in the belly, sometimes after rape." (emphasis mine). The source gives one example of this happening. So assuming good faith, I wouldn't call that one exactly a lie. Theresa Knott | The otter sank18:30, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Look if our article states it happened often but the source states it happened at least once then the claim that it happened often is uncited. I don't agree with the wholesale removal of the section and would have edited it rather than remove it but that doesn't mean he was lying when he stated it was uncited. Now do you have any evidence of stalking or revert warring? Theresa Knott | The otter sank18:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Sennen gorosh had not edited Japan-Korea related articles since his attempt at Liancourt Rocks to block Korean editor with his deceptive edit summary. So this is clear sign of his resuming wikistalking again.
--Caspian blue (talk) 18:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
These two past reports on him would be good answers for his long-time wikistaking and harassment to me. this insulting comment would be a definitive definiton telling his past conduct to me.
See the trouble is I clicked on the last one on that list first. And what do i see? An edit war between the two of you in which you appeared to follow him to the article see the page history Did you really think I wouldn't check that? Theresa Knott | The otter sank19:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
No, you did not carefully check on the history of kimchi. You defend his lying and then falsely accuse me that I followed him? Nope. I'm very disappoint at your condoning his disruptive behaviors.--Caspian blue (talk) 19:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
You are right I didn't go back far enough. I apologise for that. In future if you need to show someone is following you then show your edit followed by their first edit. Not the last one after a long edit war. Theresa Knott | The otter sank19:51, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I usually represent all details and evidence, but doing such takes a lot of time and admins say like "Oh, it past 3 days, or weeks, so it is stale. We assume WP:AGF that he would not do that". Or they say like my writing is too lengthy to read, so I try to be as succinct as possible at this time.--Caspian blue (talk) 20:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Caspian Blue, you need to nail in the evidence as clearly as possible. Administrators are not willing to help, it is hard for me to follow too. I think sennen goroshi is wikistalking too, but you need to make it clear. If the administrator decide that he is not wikistalking, ask another administrator to warn him because it is obvious that he is not here to contribute in the best intentions. Good friend100 (talk) 03:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Hmm On closer inspection I see that it was Caspian blue who removed it. Although I agree that indefblocked users should not be allowed to edit it would have been much better had someone else done the removing. Theresa Knott | The otter sank13:41, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I can only echo what everyone is saying about Sennon, leaving abusive messages on your talk page and generally trying to stir up trouble. (~~#~)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Fadiga09 (talk • contribs) 2008-08-03T17:05:44 (UTC)
How very very ironic - the above comment was made by user Fadiga 09 commenting on abusive messages - Fadiga 09 is the user who left the following message on my talk page "Haha, your such a laugh, you fucking tosspot, neither us or Arsenal have won it, so that's fine with me, us two are the two biggest clubs to not have won it, so that's fine with me you fucking imbecile, and on the Canizares thing, LISTEN CAREFULLY, HIS CONTRACT ENDED IN JUNE AND IT WAS NOT RENEWED. (Fadiga09 (talk) 17:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC))" http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Sennen_goroshi&diff=prev&oldid=225628614 - so excuse me if I don't take your comments about abusive messages too seriously. Sennen goroshi (talk) 02:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Sennen goroshi, you might be very proud of yourself as evading the attention on your wrongdoings here by attacking other user?
In this edit, Sennen goroshi just blindly revert as wikistalking me. He does not regard the naming convention or alphabet order in Japan-Korea related articles as he always proclaims to be kept. If he wants to follow the admins' advice, he should not edit articles that we disputed before. However, the user broke the promise and ignites again with his inconsistent editing. I have seen his "fake promise" more than enough. I want a justice.--Caspian blue (talk) 03:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
There was no breach of 3RR, I have never tried to hide my IP address, and there were no instances of more than 3 reverts with a 24 hour period, even when you take into account edits made in and out of account. This is all getting rather tedious, this report has been marked as resolved twice. You are flogging a dead horse. Sennen goroshi (talk) 03:34, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
The person does not think that you did not breach of 3RR. I see your all the same weird agenda on the articles as done to Korean related articles. Two admins already gave you warnings and you pretends to listen to but breaks the suggestion by yourself first. You owe me an apology at least your dirty languages at me two days ago. Well, is the dead horse YOU? As long as your disruption is active, the dead horse appears to gain a revolving life again.--Caspian blue (talk) 03:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I stated this on my talk page and I will state here too to ensure you both see it. No editing each other's talk pages whatsoever. No editing any article that has been edited by the other for a period of five days. Anyone who breaks this gets a block form me. Stay away from each other, or stay away from Misplaced Pages, the choice is yours. Theresa Knott | The otter sank08:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
For the start, Theresa, you have not been standing on a neutral point of view. Why did I file this report? Several editors provided their opinion on his disruptions and harassment, and you keep ignoring all evidences and even falsely accused that I followed him. If you can't see through the case properly, well, you're not right person that I can reply on. --Caspian blue (talk) 15:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
You filed the report to get him blocked. I'm not ignoring evidence and have in fact blocked him for 24 hours for his edit today. But you are being just as disruptive. You are playing a victim and looking to get him in trouble like a child would. Hence my warning to you too. Stay away from him. Theresa Knott | The otter sank16:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Regardless of the evidences and baiting by him, you said you would equally enforce to either of us according to your rule that only Sennen goroshi agrees with. Sennen gorshi falsely reported me first on your talk page on contrary to his breaking the suggestion first. Per your above blame, if I were in the opposite situation, you would not speak such the personal insult to him. Unfortunately, this unnecessary soap is not solely created by me.--Caspian blue (talk) 17:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't care if you agree with my rule or not. If you edit a page after him, after accusing him of stalking you then you are being disruptive. I have blocked him not you so quit complaining already. Theresa Knott | The otter sank19:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Still problems with wiki-lawyering and a possible COI on Jetsunma
The language in the article is defamatory and violates WP:HARM
The claims in the article are not susbtantiated and violate WP:SUBSTANTIATE
The article is false and misleading information about a living person, violating WP:BLP
Published material (in defense and apologetic) of Jetsunma from an association she maintains control over is allowed in the article, because of WP:QS, WP:SPS, WP:SELFPUB and because it avoids WP:PEACOCK
Even though Jetsunma is a public figure or at least there's no serious question about it (I emailed Mike Godwin to be sure and he said she obviously is), we should still be cautious and apply WP:NPF to the article, in order to avoid a libel case. Let me state that again: Even though Jetsunma is a public figure, we should still apply WP:NPF to the article.
Also (this one is especially good!), Mike Godwin's opinion that Jetsunma is a public figure shouldn't apply, because he has a WP:COI!
Jetsunma isn't found in the NNDB and therefore, Mike is wrong.
Twice now, she copied and pasted large sections of text from policy pages into the talkpage. The second time she did it, I removed it all and told her not to do it again, that it was disruptive and simply mentioning the dozens of policies she invokes is enough.
Now, do I really have to deal with this? This user has been working at this article for like over six months now, in every case scrambling for an argument to justify adding misleading content or removing information. Now, in the past there was a sockpuppet named User:Curious Blue who we should be weary of and Longchenpa is biased to be sure (and so am I, I suppose), but this kind of behavior seems pretty ridiculous, really way far beyond the scope of mere "unreasonable". When a user is actually suggesting that Mike Godwin has a COI in his legal opinion about something, are we expected to actually debate with such a person?! ☯Zenwhat (talk) 18:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
So far we've had a third opinion here by Athaenara, requested by Zulu Papa 5. We've had two editors Zenwhat and Ricky81682 join the fray. I am biased but I have journalism experience and know how to write a balanced piece. I started at the center on this article back in December. Since then I've found I've have to fight just to keep mainstream articles from Random House, Elle, and Mirabella magazines in the piece. Longchenpa (talk) 05:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Mosedschurte (talk·contribs) has been continuously adding and reverting to re-add an entire section on the Jim Jones cult People's Temple and now has expanded to simply revert this material as well as the controversy section on "The outing of Sipple" (Oliver Sipple). An RfC was started to try to end the edit warring and consensus has been that the previous content about the People's Temple was appropriate whereas the entire section was undue. I also expressed that it was bordering on WP:FRINGE. The other issue that came up was that another section, "The outing of Sipple", although well-referenced, is also undue. Complicating things is the proliferation of SPAs. I moved both problematic sections to the talk page and now Mosedschurte is calling me a vandal and reverting. Am I misreading things here? There seems little evidence that the People's Temple incidents were anything more than Milk doing his political duties of getting elected and staying in office. Mosedschurte has also ensured this content is placed in other articles already so I see no reason to inflate in this one. Would appreciate fresh perspective on this. Banjeboi22:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Benji, you might want to say that this is happening in Harvey Milk. A major problem here is that Milk's article is not at all comprehensive, unfortunately. I hope to fix part of this by expanding the article soon to give weight to the rest of Milk's political career. However, as the article stands now, information about the People's Temple is grossly WP:Undue in the overall political influence Milk had. Had all the time in the world to write all the information possible, it might clear up a lot of these issues... That's what I get for living in a linear dimension. --Moni3 (talk) 22:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Lol! added link to section title, sorry! Yes if this were expanded exponentially these sections, in a trimmed form, could serve to add to the article. Likely not as stand-alone sections though. And WP:UNDUE pretty much goes by what the article currently is although even and expanded article wouldn't include much more about the People's Temple which seems to be this user's specialty. It's already in other articles and i don't object to that. Banjeboi22:37, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
There area a number of inaccuracies and omissions here, as anyone can see by viewing the editing history of the article Harvey Milk:
(1) Months ago, a tiny section was added to the Harvey Milk article that was entirely sourced and stated in NPOV terms. It merely shortly described Milk's well known support for Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple which was not mentioned in the article. More importantly, it very briefly described Milk's opposition to those calling for a federal investigation of Jonestown through a letter from Milk to President Carter calling those attempting to extricate their relatives "liars," which had received considerable media scrutiny.
(2) Milk's campaign is not only now well-known and public, but in the days after the tragedy killing nearly 1,000 mostly Bay Area citizens, it had already come under considerable press scrutiny just before his death.
(3) In response to concerns from Benjiboi, the section was pared down even further.
(4) The assertion by Benjiboi that "Milk doing his political duties of getting elected and staying in office" is entirely unsourced, somewhat odd, likely factually incorrect (not that that particularly matters) and irrelevant to the issue of presenting encyclopedic NPOV content.
(5) Benjiboi then started a Request for Comment on the section.
(6) In response to Benjiboi's Rfc, not surprisingly, no consensus developed to delete it. In fact, if anything, most weighed in to keep it. Which makes sense given the extreme gravity of the events and the tiny size of the section.
(7) Today, Bejiboi then began deleting every word of the entire Peoples Temple section in the Harvey Milk article.
(8) Note that the section as it stands mentioned only one of Milk's many letters supporting Jones against investigation and only briefly states that Milk made many supporting statements about the Temple and Jones without even elaborating, lest that be viewed as giving it "undue weight."
(9) In fact, much of the section as it now stands has either been added by Benjiboi or added to address concerns of Benjiboi. Mosedschurte (talk) 22:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
No, I have not been contributing to that section and feel the material presented further up in the article is sufficient. SPA votes, as far as I'm aware, don't count. The section still violates WP:UNDUE, and IMHO, borders on WP:FRINGE. We haven't yet started discussing the sources but they too are borderline acceptable per reliable sourcing policies. Of course, the People's Temple people think his endorsement is notable, but did anyone else. And Milk was a city supervisor while the City's mayor George Moscone and more prominent politicians at the time did the very same things or more, so again, nothing too notable that isn't already covered in the article. Banjeboi22:58, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Regarding: "Of course, the People's Temple people think his endorsement is notable, but did anyone else. "
The San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times and San Francisco Examiner are three that come to mind.
Not only that, the section doesn't just describe Milk's endorsement. In the middle of the controvery, after Jones fled to Guyana with 1,000 followers, Milk actually opposed the investigation of Jones, writing none other than President Jimmy Carter that those wishing their relatives would be extricated were spouting "bold-faced lies."
Frankly, in order to address your concerns of "undue weight" -- odd considering the section about the 900+ deaths at Jonesotown literally follows text in the Milk article about a pooper scooper law -- I didn't even include the press accounts of Milk's letters to the government of Guyana directly on the issue, or gushing statements Milk made personally about Jim Jones. Mosedschurte (talk) 23:22, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I have again removed this section and the Sipple one as well as the RfC has not supported their inclusion. You mention "The San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times and San Francisco Examiner" but I notice none of those are used as citations. Perhaps those citations could be presented for other editors to also verify what they say about this and what weight they put on this in the context of Milk's life. Of all the biographies and overviews of Milk's life this information is rarely mentioned, if at all, and has usually been presented as San Francisco was still reeling from the Jonestown massacre when the Moscone/Milk assassinations occurred. Banjeboi05:05, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
You are now 1 revert away from violating the 3 Revert Rule by exceeding the 3 reverts on the Milk article in 24 hours.
This violation is particularly egregious here, where you specifically requested an Rfc for deletion or modification of a sourced NPOV section, no consensus was reached to delete the section and, rather, most appeared specifically NOT to want to delete the section.
That you are now oddly claiming this failure to reach consensus to delete (and, in fact, most said not to) as somehow justifying unilaterally deleting whole sections of the article is not only incorrect and contrary to Misplaced Pages editing rules, but frankly bizarre. Mosedschurte (talk) 05:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
An even further edited down section that before has now been placed in the article.
The fact remains that complaints about "undue weight" in this context have not only been addressed repeatedly, but at this point appear to be non-good faith justifications to repeatedly delete a sourced NPOV section of the article an editor does not like. City Supervisor Milk actively supported one of the most notorious figures in United States history, including making gushing statements about him. He then actually opposed investigations of Jonestown, writing none other than United States President Jimmy Carter that those attempting to extrictate their relatives were spouting "bold-faced lies."
No one is saying that this should dominate the article on City Supervisor Milk, though I'm sure some Jonestown victims relatives would disagree. Rather, it is a tiny section stashed away in the middle of the article.
Thus, there is really not even a good faith argument to be made that this tiny section carries "undue weight" in the article (rather, if anything, the argument might be that it does not elaborate enough). Much less a convincing argument in that regard.
This is why you received no consensus on your Rfc to delete the article.
Please stop unilaterally deleting this small sourced NPOV section in its entirety. At this point, especially after the Rfc, these edits are clearly not made in good faith and are contrary to the principles of Misplaced Pages article editing. Mosedschurte (talk) 06:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I'll take a look and may weigh in but it sounds like a content dispute, i.e. nothing requiring administrative help. Is there edit warring or any kind of behavior issue? Failure to honor an RfC or consensus is still a content issue unless it gets to the point of active edit warring or incivility. Wikidemo (talk) 06:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate it. It does seem like an edit war and has been going on since early June. I started the RfC to stop the warring in the first place. There is also the matter of the SPAs voting, all seem suspect but I'm not sure if checkuser worthy or possibly canvassed offline. Most have made only edits to the RfC. I feel this user won't relent until they get this content inserted so this looks like it will continue until some fresh voices can help sort this out. Is this a good candidate for the WP:FRINGE board instead? Banjeboi07:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
There has been an "edit war", but it has mostly taken the form of Benjiboi repeatedly deleting the entire section after every edit has been made to acommodate his concerns. Please examine the Edit Page of Harvey Milk for repeated examples.
Moreover, after his Rfc to delete the section, Benjiboi received several responses from those not wishing to delete this tiny section:
"I've reviewed the Milk page, the Moscone page, and have worked on the various Jones pages. I disagree that this is being given undue weight. His involvement with, and defense of, Peoples Temple, during and just after their time in California, is relevant." Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:09, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
"I agree with this writer. Please do not delete. It is true there is no consensus to delete the section emerged." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caramia3403 (talk • contribs)
Given the context and timing, the Peoples Temple section is far too important in this article to delete or merge. Especially the letter cited in the article attacking people calling for an investigation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.23.197.82 (talk) 16:06, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
"The Jones section has to stay in a page like this. It's way too big if its true. I don't know why it would be cut. The part about Harvey being scared of him should be added to it." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.215.117.116 (talk) 13:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
"Finally, the entire Peoples Temple involvement, even with Jonestown literally dominating the Bay Area and Milk's key support, is only a tiny (6%) portion of the article, thus there is no undue weight issue. As well, included is only a tiny portion of Milk's involvement with the Temple." - obviously me. Mosedschurte (talk) 08:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
In any event, tired of continued edit war wholesale deletions of every sourced NPOV contritubtion made, I have now slashed the section down to 3 short sentences.
If anyone else wishes to add interesting encyclopedic content to the article, I encourage your do so. Do not let the particular obstinancy here discourage such additions. I agree with others that the article leaves the reader wanting to know more about Milk, a thoroughly interesting figure, on a variety of policy issues that are largely glossed over as is. Mosedschurte (talk) 08:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Some mention of the incident should remain in the article, as well as some phrasing indicating that Milk was not a "co-conspirator" in the death of 1000 people, which is a bit how it reads at the moment. Haiduc (talk) 15:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Well that's the funny or tragic part, really, after this idea was inserted I did look into reliable sources as after years about reading of Milk's life I've never even heard of it. In fact, Milk didn't seem to get any special treatment that all political folks got from Jones but I did research and added some NPOV' and reliably sourced information about this connection. But apparently this user demands an entire section, despite policies of WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV and WP:RS. Banjeboi21:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Help please. This user keeps inserting this information despite concerns and with no consensus to do so, and despite it already being covered - neutrally and with RS's - in the article already. I've been doing slow reverts lately but would like this behavior to stop until they can find consensus. The material is already covered and the addition of this section, I think we're up to a dozen times over the past two months, is disruptive, IMHO. I've pretty much stopped doing any other work on the bio until this stops as it's quite distracting. Banjeboi02:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment. I guess I should have looked earlier but a similar section has been added on George Moscone; Milk and Moscone were assassinated together but no linsk between their deaths and People's Temple have been shown. I'm not familiar with that bio but being given a whole section I would say the concerns are also of WP:UNDUE. Banjeboi12:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment: Benjiboi is wrong in claiming that there was no consensus to include the information in the article. After reading the article’s talk page, there did seem to be a consensus to include the material. The material is notable, dozens of reliable sources have commented on it both in a factual manner as well as looking into the controversy involved. Benjiboi, IMO, objects to the material on principal and does not want to see it included regardless of its notability. CENSEI (talk) 19:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
An interesting interpretation but not an accurate one. The consensus seems to be, per the RfC is that the material is sufficiently covered without this added subsection alleging it is somehow greatly significant. So the material is already in there and no need to repeat and expand it with an addition subsection - per WP:UNDUE. There actually doesn't seem to be "dozens" of RS's only a handful which is odd considering there are hundreds about Milk - the subject of this bio and almost none have suggested this is a a big or any controversy at all, hey are passing mentions that he did political type things, (speeches, letters) that every other politician would have have done. i object to the material based on policies that apply to all articles and would like help as this editor shows no signs of wishing to abide by consensus but does show evidence of volume over substance. Banjeboi22:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I have my own opinion about the content and about the state of consensus, but could we please urge the primary advocates on each side of this not to edit war with one another? Between them they've done 10 reversions (5 each, and arguably another each) in the past two days, continuing despite this AN/I report and maintaining a constant state of 3RR. That makes it hard, and intimidating, for neutral parties to examine things and weigh in. I don't know that they've been properly warned about edit warring but maybe it's time to go down that path. Thanks, Wikidemo (talk) 22:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Frankly I'm quite fine cooling off as long as the contested section remain out of the article until consensus to include it is reached. The relevant material is already in the article so this "bonus" section is repeating this content out of context as well. Mosedschurte has been inspired to participate, and call me a vandal amongst other things, only when the section is removed. I'm quite happy, as is evidenced, to give reasoned explanations and discuss policy about what material is relevant and of due weight to be included, just as I've done for months on the article. I only came here when they have continued to edit war after an extended RfC resulted in removal and they kept reinserting an entire undue section knowing it was contested. I would also like clarification on how to treat the SPAs that conveniently have popped up. Agree that this edit war has all but halted most constructive improvements to this article, Mosedschurte seems only interested as painting the subject as somehow deeply involved with the People's Temple/Jim Jones and even their sources don't support this. Banjeboi22:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Benjiboi, continuing to claim that there exists a consensus to exclude the material does not make it so. Three other editors, to my knowledge, have all agreed that the material is significant enough to be included in the article. And for the last time, there are many sources that highlight Milk's relationship to Jones. Remember that no one owns this article. CENSEI (talk) 00:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
CENSEI, agreed, and neither that claiming that consensus exists to include this additional section exists makes it so either. It doesn't. The content is already in the article so repeating it, it its own section, doesn't make sense, and seems quite WP:UNDUE. And more than three editors have agree to include the content, all have, and it's in there. And no, there doesn't seem to be many reliable sources that there is any special connection between these two, at all. If there is some source besides the biographies we're already using please post to the talk page as a new possible source. And yes, I'm well aware of WP:OWN ergo I've asked for other opinions and eyes on this situation. Let's hope the new article about Jones' political support that Wikidemo started will help appease the situation. Banjeboi00:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
DYK topic banned User:Wilhelmina Will asked if she can have someone else nominate an article for her.. She was told, "Yes, you can,
" by User:Abd who is also, apparently, advising her to do it via e-mail so she doesn't get caught. "Be careful." He is also, apparently, advising her that she can "create" sources for her articles. See User:Abd's talk page and talk page history and User:Wilhelmina Will's contribution history for the exchange.
A community topic ban was a small step, it seemed appropriate for the situation. However, the user is clear that she will not respect the ban, and is actively seeking and being advised on how to get around it.
The articles she has written, that she submitted to DYK with the full knowledge she did not understand the material she was using to write the articles, but simply hoped someone would correct the crap vandalism, still need corrected. There are some 30 of these articles, so she says, 3-4 of which have been partially corrected, all of which probably contain unusable crap vandalism.
Essentially, from the link above, this was her plan with the 30 articles:
"I am not afraid or humiliated to admit that I don't really understand the terms used in paleontological journals, which are the only sources I can find over the internet, most of the time, but I thought that the article could at least be left the way it was until it became a DYK article, and then the corrections could be made. I would even have helped, the best I could, to fix it up."
She used sources she admits she did not understand--it was clear she did not understand the sources or what she was writing from the articles she wrote and how she used the sources, as every line from a paleontological journal that she included, except for one, was wrong, when I checked a couple of her articles. This was about 20-30 lines of misinformation deliberately given to Misplaced Pages's readers. And another 30 articles at least sitting on Misplaced Pages just waiting for someone to correct them because Wilhelmina Will won't because she can't.
At this point, it is clear that this user, Wilhelmina Will, has no respect for Misplaced Pages policy or Misplaced Pages articles. She is here to submit content that will get her "Misplaced Pages awards," under any circumstances. I ask that she no longer be rewarded for crap vandalising Misplaced Pages. Also, if she cannot be trusted to even understand the conditions of her topic ban, there's no point in allowing her to continue to edit as badly as she has edited.
Barnstars are given by users for any reason at all. She can even give herself barnstars. The problem is all the burden for this ban is on everyone but Wilhelmina Will, including if you add no brownie points for DYK. She is abusing the time of other editors. Her articles have to be cleaned up, she can't and won't do it. Her ban has to be monitored, she can't and won't understand and honor it. She's busy finding ways to get around it to create more crap vandalism. --Blechnic (talk) 06:52, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I would support an indef block of this user. There is no tangible benefit to allowing this editor to continue editing wikipedia, no matter how far you stretch your imagination. I would also recommend a lot of eyes on DYK for awhile as given the behaviour socking would probably be inevitable.--Crossmr (talk) 06:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I had suggested an alternative punishment, that she would have to have five successful nominations before she can self-nom, but if she doesn't understand a subject, she has no business making DYK articles period. I don't write articles on auto repair or trigonometry; she shouldn't do these. I'm afraid she needs to avoid DYK for a while.--King Bedford I07:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
If she is having someone else review her request, then it is not a blind-proxy. This really shouldn't be an issue, since at that point the reviewing editor would make the call to nominate or not based on her recommendation. However, she should only be asking editors who are willing to help her, rather than bug people at random. -- Ned Scott07:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Here is what happened. I had originally become involved when I wrote a message consoling User:Ottava Rima who took a great deal of flack for attempting to protect User:Wilhelmina Will from incivility. User:S. Dean Jameson promptly attacked User:Ottava Rima on my talk page, and warned me against getting involved. So, naturally, this huge fuss unfolding before my eyes, I started looking into it, and found what seemed to be to be excessive roughness, so to speak, dealing with User:Wilhelmina Will. So I wrote a consoling note on her Talk, suggesting that there might still be ways she could contribute. She came back to my Talk and asked about it. She didn't solicit anyone. She did nothing even remotely improper. So then Blechnic, who is obviously following her contributions, pops onto my Talk to threaten her that if someone posts a nomination on her behalf, he would have her blocked. It seems I suggested something that an ignorant editor, who apparently imagines himself to be a wikilawyer able to better understand guidelines and policies better than those with years of experience, called "proxying." But, as Ned, above, correctly notes, if the reviewing editor takes responsibility, and doesn't just automatically put it up, as a true proxy would do, it's not meat puppetry. It is, in fact, closer to mentoring, or simply to what happens when ArbComm topic-bans someone: they can still make suggestions. Now, the whole thing is pretty crazy. She's not blocked, she is not a "banned editor," and the topic ban, itself, is pretty shaky. For example, how long does it last? There was no consensus. She hadn't done anything that was a blockable offense, beyond the very vague "disruption," and from my point of view, she is by far not the most disruptive editor involved. She is being harassed, beyond all necessity, in a quite ugly way. Look at the following from Blechnic, which assumes that a motive to get DYK credits is a bad one, and that if someone else assisted her, this would be proxying. I'm beginning to suspect that DYK attracts some people with strange ideas about Misplaced Pages, DYK seems to have developed this whole complex set of rules, quite anomalous for the project. Trying to match rule requirements was one thing that tripped Wilhelmina Will up, she improperly reverted a change that would have lowered a word count to a level that didn't meet some rule by a few words. This kind of thing is seriously contrary to project policy, and it's possible the whole mess should be ripped out. (But compared to everyday, ordinary POV-pushing, this was trivial to address and fix.) --Abd (talk) 22:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
What the ban policy says is, "Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying," unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and have independent reasons for making them." No one has an "independent reason" for earning DYK credits for Wilhelmina Will. This is her clearly stated purpose for creating the bad articles in the first place and for nominating them. If another editor nominated an article she created without her requesting they do so, your argument that this is not a blind-proxy might apply. At least I would consider it did. However, as the sole reason for the nomination would be to get Wilhelmina Will her DYK credits, if she were to ask someone, this is proxy editing. --Blechnic (talk) 07:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
That's correct, she and User:Abd are still working out the details of how to do it on his talk page, and probably via e-mail. This probably means we get to move into a whole new level of behavior that will generate discussions and actions and not take care of correcting the bad articles she has already produced because she figured that after she got the DYK credit for it being on the main page, someone could get around to removing the gibberish. --Blechnic (talk) 07:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Why do I get the feeling that none of these articles would get deleted in an AfD discussion? I've spot checked a few, and they pass our basic inclusion guidelines. I would rather have someone start these articles in less-than-perfect form than not have them at all. -- Ned Scott07:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
There's a distinct and important difference between "less than perfect" and "fundamentally incorrect." In the latter case, having no article is better. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz)08:07, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Do we have any examples of this? The ones I spot checked didn't seem to be fundamentally incorrect, but maybe I'm not looking at the right ones. -- Ned Scott08:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Here's just a quick link to one of her most basic mistakes that doesn't require any background in biology to understand. Read the reference, and read her interpretation. There are more attached to this article, where she included an edit that had been corrected for substance because that edit would have reduced the word count below what she needed for it to be a DYK. She admits this in the edit summary. Check out this articles history. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. --Blechnic (talk) 08:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
All of the information she put in might get deleted, but the article would stay. In fact, the articles of hers that have not been checked probably should be deleted. If they're wrong, they're of no value. --Blechnic (talk) 08:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
oppose a ban. I don't care what their motivation is, I'm seeing a ton of valid articles being started by this user. Unless this actually does turn into a situation of blind-proxing, there's not much else to discuss here. We can try to predict the future all we want, but this user hasn't actually done anything to violate their restrictions yet. -- Ned Scott07:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
"Ton of valid articles?" Is that after you remove all the ones where she just wrote anything so they'd get on DYK in the hopes of someone else correcting them, or is that including them? There's nothing valid about the articles she is writing. Even she admits she doesn't understand the sources she uses and is simply putting anything in the article to get a DYK credit. If she doesn't consider her articles valid, I don't see why you do, or why anyone would. --Blechnic (talk) 08:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Then the issue here really isn't the DYK ban. Consider myself to be neutral on this until we can get some links from past discussion in here to help sort some of this out. -- Ned Scott08:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
If I remember correctly this editor also has a habit of including a lot of copyvios in her articles. If these articles do contain extensive copyvios, they should be deleted, and the user should be deterred from continuing to edit Misplaced Pages if she persists with such plagiarism.--Father Goose (talk) 08:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
This is really getting ridiculous. Talk of indef banning an enthusiastic 16-year-old kid who writes very well for her age is just way over the top.
I think I should add that I'm pretty pissed off myself to read that this rather ill-considered ban has caused a good faith user to "cry for two hours". Surely this is not the sort of experience we want to be giving to our contributors? Blechnic is trying to impose professional standards, and while that may be a commendable goal in general, this is at the end of the day a strictly amateur project - the "encyclopedia anyone can edit" - and it simply isn't appropriate to be stomping all over people who make a few mistakes as if they were derelict employees.
Furthermore, as I understand it many people only supported a conditional ban, which could be lifted if she was willing to acknowledge her mistakes and work constructively with others to overcome her editing deficiencies. As long as she does that, I personally can't see why she could not be permitted to keep submitting articles to DYK, so long as she stays away from technical topics which by her own admission she is struggling to understand. Gatoclass (talk) 08:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
There are plenty of young editors on Misplaced Pages who write excellent and correct articles. Some are even administrators, so I understand. Are you saying that because she's young she can include wrong information in Misplaced Pages articles?
She's made more than a few mistakes in just that one paragraph of one article. Multiply that by the number of articles she's submitted while she was editing under the assumption of just including any information pasted from journals she found on the web, even when she admits she doesn't understand in, in the hopes that it will make it to the main page and give her credit for it then someone else can repair it, and we may be talking about hundreds of mistakes, not a few.
Do you understand this, Gatoclass? She admitted she used paleontological information to create some 30 articles for DYK, information she didn't understand, because she sould get credit, then someone else might correct it after it got on the front page?
She not only hasn't admitted anything other than the completely lousy nature of her articles, when she could no longer hem and haw about it, but she's working on ways to skirt the ban.
It is really hard to understand this support of a creator of wrong and bad articles. It's insulting to the young editors of Misplaced Pages who are capable of following rules and creating good articles, reading technical information and adding it correctly without plagiarizing, to say that being 16 is an excuse for writing crap vandalism.
What is it about Misplaced Pages that draws so many people who say, this isn't a real encyclopedia, just a playground, let the kids play.
Sorry, 16 isn't an excuse. She refused to respond to initial accusations, she refused to change her editing style, she refused to correct the crap vandalism she's already contributed and is just creating more, and now she's getting around the ban. Sixteen doesn't mean you're stupid. --Blechnic (talk) 09:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
You are merely speculating when you say she may have made "hundreds of mistakes". But I dare say if you looked at half the work of our more prolific editors, you would probably find a considerable number of errors in their work too. In fact, my bookshelf is stacked with reference works that are themselves riddled with errors. Mistakes are a commonplace, even at the professional level. And everyone knows that Misplaced Pages is not a reliable source - even Jimbo acknowledges as much.
I am simply saying it is not appropriate to go making a song and dance over every editor one comes across who makes a few mistakes. The idea here is that when you find a mistake, you correct it. If someone is absolutely incompetent, then obviously one may need to take steps to protect the encyclopedia. But Wilhelmina does not strike me that way. It seems in this case all that has been established thus far is that this editor has in some cases been biting off more than she can chew. Fine - let's ban her from submitting technical articles to DYK, and see how she does for a while on more mundane subjects. Gatoclass (talk) 09:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
An editor who has been creating articles for the sole purpose of personal credit on a subject she knows nothing about and after the community finally bans her from doing it, tries to find a way to game the system and work around the ban isn't just making a little mistake. She's burned all good faith at that point.--Crossmr (talk) 09:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Just to clarify, as I'm neutral on this - she didn't try to find a way to game the system, but instead Abdstated that others could nominate her articles. She slightly misinterpreted this to mean that people can nominate for her, which Abd then clarifies (quite rightly) to say that the nominator has to take responsibility for the nomination. In short, she was given honest advice, misinterpreted, and was corrected. - Bilby (talk) 10:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
He just told her people would have to take responsibility for it, he didn't dissuade her from asking others to nominate her articles. He was just trying to impress upon her the investment that is required for someone to nominate an article. While he did recommend it, I'd be curious as to why Abd did so, and it seems like she took an interest in it. My call to make sure DYK is heavily watched for the next little while, stands. The conversation doesn't leave me feeling like she is going to edit articles for the sole reason of editing articles. It still looks to me like she's going to be driven to create content to try and get on DYK, even if she doesn't nominate it herself.--Crossmr (talk) 10:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Hopefully Abd will clarify what he meant, but I gathered his first suggestion was simply that other people could nominate her articles, not that they could nominate for her. When she interpreted as nominating for her (rightly or wrongly) the point he made was true: she can reasonably ask other people to look at an article and nominate it if they find it deserving, in which case they have to take responsibility for doing so. But t can be interpreted differently, as you say. - Bilby (talk) 10:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I have to agree with Blechnic. I'm all for second chances. However That comes with strings. The user has to appreciate what they've done and work towards changing their behaviour. In this case she isn't. Age is immaterial. She can come back when she is more mature if her age is a mitigating factor. Editors should be spending their time creating and expanding articles with solid content. Not chasing after users trying to game the system for some personal credit. She's been told, she isn't interested in stopping. Not only isn't she interested in stopping, she's interested in getting around the sanctions imposed. She doesn't want to work with the community, the community cuts her off. The endless coddling of problem users on wikipedia doesn't really help anyone. It expends a lot of time and resources, and contributes to editor burn out to hand-hold these editors for an extended period of time on a hope and a prayer that they'll finally get it.--Crossmr (talk) 09:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Uh, wait a minute, where is the evidence that she tried to "game the system and work around the ban"? As far as I could see from reading the exchange Blechnic posted, it was Abd who was proposing ways she might get around the ban, not Wilhelmina. Again she is being blamed for something she didn't actually do. Gatoclass (talk) 09:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, there is a problem, and it does need fixing. I start very few articles, because there are very few subjects for whihc I have robust sources and which don't already exist. WW is creating articles which are, in many cases, complete nonsense, because she does not understand the sources. She is doing this to get personal credit and kudos, but we are not here to generate personal credit and kudos, we are here to generate accurate content. WW has shown that getting credit is more important to her than creating accurate content, and yes I do think that is a problem. It can be fixed by one of several methods, including mentoring, but she really needs to lose her focus on personal recognition before any meaningful progress can be made. Guy (Help!) 09:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
WW has shown that getting credit is more important to her than creating accurate content
Well in fact I haven't seen much evidence of that. And I still have my doubts that the accuracy of her articles is substantially worse than that of many other contributors. It also seems to me that provided she sticks to online references that can be thoroughly checked, there is little harm in allowing her to continue submitting articles to DYK - indeed, it may be a useful way of monitoring her contributions. But a mentor would certainly not go astray at this point.
My primary concern here is that people are already starting to talk about an outright site ban when not much evidence has been presented that this person represents a threat to the project, and when we have yet to determine whether she is capable of reform. Gatoclass (talk) 09:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
There is every reason to believe that she is a good faith user who is trying and improving. Please help her to improve and don't discourage her. It isn't some outrageous offense to get some facts wrong—she just needs to be more careful and edit things she clearly understands. There are other avenues for the kind of rewards-based work she enjoys; I'm sure someone can direct her to a WikiProject that dispenses a lot of barnstars or something. This talk of "proxying" through DYK nominations is overblown; she probably doesn't (or didn't) realize that this was frowned upon, and a friendly note cautioning her about it would probably suffice. I completely oppose a ban. Everyking (talk) 10:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Everyking. I've run across WW a few times and have always found her to be overenthusiastic, but perfectly willing to listen to advice when you explain what she's doing wrong and why. Hammering someone who's trying to ratchet up a high score in the WP MMORPG by contributing content but doesn't understand all our policies, whilst turning a blind eye to the huggle-racers and barnstar-cabals who make virtually no significant mainspace edits seems totally unfair. – iridescent10:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages is the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" and this includes youngsters whose reach exceeds their grasp. If there's a problem here, it seems to be that DYK accepts articles that have not been thoroughly vetted. If the DYK process does not discriminate then it fails WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
If these articles are on notable topics as it seems they are, then it's good that they're being created. However, people are right that Will should concentrate on articles whose content she knows something about. Some of her ideas for articles seem sound based on the discussion above- but what a strange idea to land on. She could suggest stubs for these articles to someone on wiki who knows about palentology etc or create them as very basic stubs, as much of the articles about similar subjects such as plant species or whatever are. Where is she getting this info? She simply needs a mentor, I'd volunteer but I have about 7 adoptees. Maybe Abd? StickyParkin10:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I can help her, if that's what she wants. But I think she simply needs some friends, some experienced editors whose advice she'd be inclined to hear. She's made mistakes, both in articles and in how she dealt with the situation. But I don't see anything in what I've seen so far that is worthy of a topic ban at DYK, much less a block or ban from editing Misplaced Pages. The project was built by people working to create large numbers of articles based on little more than a few trips to the library, as well as by countless others with varying levels of expertise, and the idea that articles should be fully "correct" from the beginning, lotus-born, is a very anti-Wikipedian one. I find the behavior of Blechnic to be utterly appalling, there was no excuse for this AN/I thread. If anyone did anything wrong, it was me, not WW. But what I suggested was simply pointing out that there would still be ways for her to do what was legitimate of what she wanted to do -- and there is nothing illegitimate about her goals, but only a few of the means she chose, not likely to repeat. I was telling her that a topic ban was probably temporary, very temporary, and that in the meantime, if she had nominations, someone, like myself, could review what she had done and make the nominations, so as to not disrespect the AN/I decision, as defective as it was. And apparently that enraged Blechnic, who saw this as her intending to evade a ban. But bans only exist to protect the project, and what was proposed covered the protection part, and this whole thing has taken on a punitive color, she must be punished, it would seem, for her ... what? Bad attitude? Wanting a medal?
Along these lines, since this discussion began I've had a look at two of the articles she created: Jamie Howarth and David Nichtern (they're the two most recent creations). Both are the sort of BLP article that almost anyone can write, and both are ok - there were small problems, which I've noted to take care of, but they are the usual problems with slightly misreading references ("is going to be released" used to support "was released", and so on), a reliance on questionable sources (the personal pages of the subjects), and insufficient references, but nothing factually wrong and no blatant evidence of copyvio. Perhaps if she was mentored while staying on these, instead of the more technical articles, things would be smoother? Certainly these two are perfectly reasonable additions. - Bilby (talk) 10:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
What strikes me as remarkable about this conversation is the fact that although a number of editors have commented that WW is a sweet, well-intentioned child who has made a few mistakes and just needs to learn how to do things, WW herself has not seen fit to grace us with any explanation of, or apology for her actions. Since so many of the comments here seem uninformed by the original reason for the editing restriction, I'll lay it out again.
WW was creating articles, by her own omission, to realize her "dream of 10,000 DYK articles". (perhaps not an accurate quote. I didn't look it up again.)
She was plagiarizing online journals to create them.
She, by her own admission, didn't understand what she was editing when she created the articles.
Because she didn't understand them she was putting inaccurate information in the articles.
She was adding and edit-warring pointless verbiage into the articles, which, by her own admission, she wanted in just for the sake of increasing the word count to bring it up to DYK standards.
She was creating highly uncivil, crudely insulting edit summaries and talk page comments in response to requests that she stop what she was doing and explain herself. For someone who spent two hours crying about recent events, she doesn't seem to have much regard for the feelings of others.
Her only response to the inquiry into her actions was complete, unqualified recalcitrance and insistence that she was perfectly right and her critics wrong.
These are the reasons the community decided upon an editing restriction. An editing restriction is, in my view, an extremely mild sanction. It doesn't take money out of anyone's pocket. It doesn't take away their time. It doesn't deprive them of income, friends or personal liberty. It just says "stop what you're doing until you understand how to do it properly". I was among many editors at the original discussion who said that the restriction could be lifted after WW communicates to the community that she understands where she went wrong and won't do it any more.
Unfortunately, the problem with editing restrictions is that they're only effective to the extent that they're respected by the restricted editor. WW has, to this day, not accepted responsibility or made an open undertaking to improve her editing. Instead she's fishing around for a way to circumvent the restriction. An indefblock would, if nothing else, force her to engage with the community on the subject of her edits. Remember, a block is not a death sentence. Not editing Misplaced Pages is hardly a terrible burden to impose on someone. My mother doesn't edit Misplaced Pages every day and it hasn't done her any harm at all. Again, the block can, and should, be lifted just as soon as WW shows some sign of "getting it".
I've seen a lot of kids get their feelings hurt over being told that they're not doing things the right way when they edit here. I feel the same way about it that WW's supporters do. But Misplaced Pages is not therapy, and it's not daycare either. We're not here to make teenage editors feel good about themselves. We're here to provide a complete and reliable encyclopedia to our readers.
However, at this point I don't think a block on her account is necessary. I think a better alternative would be if one of her many defenders could (1) persuade her to forget about DYK for the time being, and (2) come here, to this ANI thread and explain to us that she understands what the problem was and doesn't intend to repeat it. I say this because her apparent efforts to circumvent the restriction are still only being discussed, not acted upon.
I realize I haven't provided diffs to support my account. For those who are interested, they're all available at the original AN/I thread in the archive.
I remember well the previous AN/I discussion, and this seems like a good summary. I don't dispute any of your points other than the claim that she's fishing around to circumvent the restriction - while I too am concerned that she doesn't really seem to understand why she was restricted, the conversation referenced doesn't seem to me to support arguing that she was looking for a way to step around the rules. That aside, this discussion was started with a request to increase the restriction to a block, based not on her breaking of the restriction, but on a discussion in which it was suggested that she might ask other people to nominate articles (which seems to be what you're saying). Looking over her edits since the restriction, there doesn't seem to be anything apparent that is particularly problematic. I'm just inclined to give the restriction time, and to otherwise do as you suggest - make sure that she understands what it was that led to the restriction, why she is being restricted, and possibly have a mentor to help her to learn about referencing and make sure she works in areas where she can help. - Bilby (talk) 11:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I disagree that it's a "good summary", I'd be more inclined to call it the worst possible construction of her behaviour.
WW was creating articles, by her own omission, to realize her "dream of 10,000 DYK articles". (perhaps not an accurate quote. I didn't look it up again.)
So? That's precisely what the DYK awards exist for - to encourage the creation of new content.
She was plagiarizing online journals to create them.
I looked into the only article I have seen where she has been accused of plagiarism and what I saw was a genuine attempt to put limited information into her own words. I've seen far worse, in fact in only the last couple of days I've seen much more blatant examples of plagiarism submitted to DYK. However, my response was not to start half a dozen AN/I threads attacking the author, I just made it clear to the users in question that such submissions would not be accepted.
She, by her own admission, didn't understand what she was editing when she created the articles. Because she didn't understand them she was putting inaccurate information in the articles.
True, but then as I said before, lots of people make errors when they write articles. She just needs to stick to subjects she can understand.
She was adding and edit-warring pointless verbiage into the articles, which, by her own admission, she wanted in just for the sake of increasing the word count to bring it up to DYK standards.
She was trying to bloviate a bit to get the character count up to 1500 - something that plenty of other editors are wont to do when they are a few characters short. The problem is that she didn't really have a grasp of the subject matter, so it was a silly thing to do but people will sometimes do silly things in the heat of the moment.
She was creating highly uncivil, crudely insulting edit summaries and talk page comments in response to requests that she stop what she was doing and explain herself.
Well I saw one uncivil comment where she called an editor "revolting" in a crude and easily interpreted code. Given the amount of time that particular editor has spent pursuing her, quite frankly I wasn't suprised that she eventually resorted to a little incivility. However, we don't or shouldn't sanction people for the occasional cranky comment, but for a pattern of incivility to others, and I've seen no such pattern.
Her only response to the inquiry into her actions was complete, unqualified recalcitrance and insistence that she was perfectly right and her critics wrong.
I must have missed that too. I just saw someone who was angry and not ready to respond rationally. Perhaps if she'd been given a little more time she would have been able to say something in her defence, which would have been the rational thing to do in the circumstances. Gatoclass (talk) 13:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. I see Steven J. Anderson's point, though, as a summary of the arguments made against WW which led to the restriction. But I'm also happy to accept that there is still room to debate whether or not it is a fair and accurate depiction of her behaviour. - Bilby (talk) 14:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I can see why someone might be intimidated by AN/I so not feel comfortable responding here, and I can easily see why someone might be intimidated by all the threats of getting her banned etc. that she's received. StickyParkin14:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Pot calling the milk carton black
What was the occasion for this AN/I thread? As far as I can see, nothing but the determination of an editor or two to pursue and harass User:Wilhelmina Will, beyond all reason, beyond all necessity. That editor is young and made some mistakes. She appears to be in the process of recognizing them, and she seems happy to have help in this. This whole affair has been riddled with AGF failure and incivility, and it's about time it stop. I gave a few words of encouragement to User:Ottava Rima, on his Talk, and one editor pursued this to my Talk, attacking OR, suggesting I should investigate. So I did, and found that OR had not as claimed, been making totally baseless charges, that Blechnic had, indeed, been arguably uncivil to Wilhelmina Will. The matter is complex and investigating it all would probably be a waste of time, so I'm not asserting that his comments were unjustified, I'll leave that for an RfC if it must come to that. Then I gave, also, some encouraging words to User:Wilhelmina Will, and began discussing with her what she could do, within policy and guidelines and community practice. And, immediately, there appeared on my Talk page a post from User:Blechnic threatening that if WW suggested any DYKs, "proxied" by someone else -- as Blechnic termed it -- he would ask for WW to be blocked, and would remove the nominations, simply on the basis that she had been involved, with no regard to content or appropriateness. This is harassment, and, I'd suggest, this does create a reason for admin attention here. I'd rather it not be me to formally warn Blechnic, he has already stated, in advance, that he would simply remove them. Which is his right. Preferably, he should be warned by someone who has worked cooperatively with him in the past, he's more likely to hear it. But anyone could do it. --Abd (talk) 15:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I also see that User:Blechnic ignored my request that Blechnic not post to my Talk page (due to the harassment), and the user ignored it, not only to post a notice about this AN/I thread (which is arguably excusable), but also, previously, to continue to harass. Because this does indicate that Blechnic did read my warning there about harassment, it may be no longer necessary to warn Blechnic on the user's Talk before blocking. Blocks should never be punitive, but continuing harassment after warning may necessitate a block. --Abd (talk) 16:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
This user appears to be fond of accusing others of "harrassment" when none exists. At his talk page, he had the gall to accuse me of "harrassing" Ottava Rima, when it was that user who drug me through WQA simply for defending Blechnic from the ludicrous "personal attacks" accusations that he (Ottava Rima) had leveled at him. The relevant quote from Abd is, "Thus, I must see Jameson's comment here as part of carrying on some kind of harassment of this user ..." Thus, I would take Abd's accusations that Blechnic has "harrassed" him/her with a rather large grain of salt. It's apparently difficult for Abd to distinguish between a user defending oneself from baseless accusations, and "harrassing" someone. S.DeanJameson16:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Don't have any such difficulty, in a situation like this. This user extrapolates from his defective understanding of a single comment into a whole pattern of behavior. Jameson is free to take as much salt as he likes, in fact, the whole container is fine with me, take it home. It's harassment when a user follows another user around, interfering with independent conversations. Given what else happened between these users, the single incident on my Talk page, where Ottava Rima was gratuitously attacked, by Jameson, without any provocation, merely on the possibility that I might be starting to see things from OR's point of view, I'll stick with my conclusion that it was harassment. Hence I intend to start preparing an RfC on this user, AN/I isn't the best place to deal with what came down yesterday, it's about what is happening now. And what is hapening now, my conclusion, is that Blechnic is continuing to harass Wilhelmina Will, by raising a totally moot AN/I report, alleging no violation of guidelines or policies, showing no emergency, no reasonable possibility of significant damage to the project. What's going to happen, at worst? I might make some allegedly improper nominations at DYK? Is that a blockable offense? Is that even worth talking about here at this point? Jameson's involvement with Wilhelmina Will is less clear to me; he made some gestures that could be considered conciliatory or helpful. Or which could also be considered as traps. It's a little odd, I'll say, to suggest working together on an article, and then take a lack of response as if it were hostile or a sign of some offense. But not all that abnormal, and, for now, my assumption is that the offer on Dean's part was sincere. Coffee, Jameson. Smell it. Maybe drink some. There is a lot going on here that you don't yet understand, you may be in over your head. Be careful. Isn't that what you advised me? --Abd (talk) 21:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I'd encourage you to note that accusing others of personal attacks when they haven't made one is a gross breach of WP:CIV, and completely unacceptable. I have at no point during this strange milieu of accusations and innuendo personally attacked or "harassed" anyone. I'll thank you to stop saying that I have. S.DeanJameson21:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Also, for the record, starting an RfC on me would be disruptive, as I've done nothing wrong, except dignify Rima's attacks (and now yours) with a response. As such, I'll not be responding to you further in this thread, or at any bogus RfC you choose to open regarding me. S.DeanJameson21:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I consider Blechnic's incessant description- about four times in only one paragraph in one of his comments below- of a good-faith editors contributor's edits as 'crap'{...}'crap'{...}'crap' {...} and so on to be uncivil and not to foster a good environment for collaboration on wiki. StickyParkin23:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
You're right. I apologize, and I've stricken out my instances of use of the word "crap," and will, for now on, call it what it is usually called on Misplaced Pages: vandalism. --Blechnic (talk) 01:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
It would save us a great deal of trouble: Please block User:Blechnic, who shows every sign of continuing to harass and disrupt the project through various means, including the filing of this particular AN/I report. This user, who has been amply warned though previous blocks and various Talk page warnings, was blocked previously for one week, May 4, for harassment and other causes, and I just reviewed the AN/I report that caused his block log to be annotated and, frankly, it looks to me like a case of the community simply becoming exhausted and saying, well, if we give him a Newby Pass, it will shut him up. I.e., no conclusion was made that he hadn't harassed and been uncivil or the source of personal attacks, but that we could say that the blocks were a bit extreme since he was new. Given how energetic he's been at attempting to get User:Wilhelmina Will banned or blocked, given how he has refused to stop, has pursued Wilhelmina Will beyond all reason, given how clear all this is, do I need, at this point, to begin a Misplaced Pages:Request for comment on him? I think reading this report here, plus the prior report diff'd above, should be enough.
As to User:S. Dean Jameson, it remains possible for me to assume good faith on his part. I came to this topic, though, because he did post a personal attack on User:Ottava Rima, gratuitously, on my Talk page; I came to the conclusion that it was a personal attack and amounted to harassment after following up on his suggestion that I research the matter. He warned me not to take what I found to AN/I, and, one might note, I didn't. Rather it was Blechnic who opened up this can of worms and further disruption. Jameson's behavior is problematic, but does not show the vicious and tenacious pursuit that is displayed by Blechnic, and I hope that Jameson will be able to calm down and clam up.... My suggestion that Blechnic be blocked is the first time, ever, I've suggested such a remedy. (I never requested that User:Fredrick day or User:Allemandtando be blocked, for those with lack of detail in their memory, I simply exposed what had been happening and the community decided to block.)
Mentor
Before we get off on another tangent based upon incivility claims and counter-claims, can I bring up the issue of mentoring WW. It was mentioned as a condition for her getting off her DYK ban in the last AN/I thread and I think this needs to be seriously followed up. Mark t young (talk) 16:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I strongly support this, as WW does seem to be a genuinely good-hearted person, who has simply gotten off-track a bit. The recent Abd advice regarding how to get DYKs even when she's been topic-banned from there further reemphasizes the immediate need to find a mentor that can advise her how best to proceed in correcting the flaws that have surfaced in her style to date, and help her in setting some realistic goals for herself on the project. Good suggestion, Mark. S.DeanJameson16:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I've just left a message on her talkpage regarding helping out with an article that the FACC is trying to work up to featured status. Perhaps this might be a good solution for a user like WW with legitimate writing ability during her DYK topic ban. S.DeanJameson16:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Note. She just removed mine and Tim Vicker's notes to her as "weird messages." Neither was such. Perhaps there are some deeper issues that need addressed here. S.DeanJameson19:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I support a mentorship, or something along the lines of it. Possible writing articles and having them proofread by a mentor or two. I also request that when WW makes the slightest of mistake, that Blechnic does not make another huge AN/I thread like this. <3TinkleheimerTALK!!19:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
"Slightest mistake?" What's a slight mistake, purposefully putting crap in articles because she doesn't understand the sources and thinks they can be corrected after they've been on the main page and she's received glory for them? WW is responsible for this discussion about her. She has chosen time and again to not put any input into these threads and to take no initiative for being mentored. "But Misplaced Pages is not therapy, and it's not daycare either. We're not here to make teenage editors feel good about themselves. We're here to provide a complete and reliable encyclopedia to our readers." I agree with the poster above. This is an encyclopedia, whatever the DYK award chasers want it to be something else. If DYK spent more time checking articles and less time glorifying themselves with awards this issue would never have arisen after WW's 30th piece of paleontological crap, but would have been stopped with the first. Let WW decide whether there's anything to make an issue of by deleting all the crap she's contributed to Misplaced Pages and not giving me anything to say. --Blechnic (talk) 19:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Support only if Wilhelmina Will takes initiative for mentorship by coming here and assuring she understand all of the terms. If she's too young or too busy or too unwilling or not mature enough or doesn't have the capacity to come here, state her understanding of the terms and agree to them, then follow them, there's no way a third chance should be forced upon her. She ignored the first two AN/Is and continues to ignore them. That's enough. --Blechnic (talk) 19:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I think you mean this for User:Gatoclass who suggests we allow her to edit any way she wants or something along those lines because of her youth. There are plenty of excellent, young, and capable editors all over Misplaced Pages. I have no qualms about holding them all to the same standards I hold older editors to: produce accurate articles that you've written yourself from information you understand. You can find Gatoclass's post excusing her for her age above. Don't worry about me, I don't see her age as an excuse for vandalizing articles by inserting information into them that she knows is wrong but figures someone else can correct after she is rewarded for putting up the vandalism. --Blechnic (talk) 05:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Oppose mentorship - there seems to be a mentality brewing that "more editors = more better". This mentality is wrong. Spewing forth garbage articles damages the very notion of Misplaced Pages as an encyclopedia - to say nothing of the readibility/coherance problems that stem from an article being written by an author who knows very little - or even nothing at all - about the subject. The plagarism (nice-nice version: "dis-understanding of quotations") is merely the icing upon the cake. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia. It is not a web forum for people who kinda sorta know things to congregate and make buddies. If it were, I'd be more sympathetic. Given that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, however, and encylopedias and their readers both deserve - even require - a notion of quality control - and given that WW's shotgun approach to edits places an unfair burden upon those dedicated to said quality control, it's more than fair to say that both the encyclopedia and WW would be better off with WW focusing her energies elsewhere, for the time being at least. --Badger Drink (talk) 21:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Oppose any binding poll on this here AN/I is not designed for user RfC, that's WP:RFC/U. It's been claimed that Wilhelmina Will is under a topic ban at DYK, but the terms of the ban and its term are totally unclear, and that's because AN/I is a lousy place to come up with such sanctions, it's designed for emergencies, quick action, not careful consideration of options. The original DYK topic ban was the apparent outcome of a poll in which opinions expressed varied from "block" to "topic ban until she gets it," not to mention some opposing !votes. If there are questions about her ban and what the term is, or how a mentor would affect it, I'd suggest that the matter would be, pending some other outcome, in the hands of the administrator who effectively closed that discussion and who later took responsibility for communicating it,, User:Fritzpoll. And if WW wants to appeal her topic ban, she can do so at any time, either by raising the issue here or by discussing it with Fritzpoll (in addition to other possible paths she could take). None of this should be here at this time, it is pure harassment, demanding that she appear before what she may see as some kind of inquisition. Jameson has complained bitterly about being "dragged before WP:WQA," an informal, nonbinding forum, surely he could understand that a young, fairly inexperienced editor might not find the idea of defending her every action in AN/I, where some are calling for blocks and bans, to be ... fun? As to the comments from User:Badger Drink, the arguments would apply to a disruptive user, and whatever disruption WW has actually caused, it seems to be small compared to (1) what I see from many other users who aren't dragged before AN/I day after day, and (2) the disruption caused by those who seem to be determined to get her banned. The article that supposedly took such work to fix, mentioned prominently in the complaints against her, was probably a better article than the average on Misplaced Pages, quite a bit better, and not difficult to fix to make it even better. There is something very odd going on here.--Abd (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Stongly Support Mentorship - She clearly has writing ability and a desire to expand the encyclopedia. That desire just needs to be channeled more appropriately. I am not inclined to read any malice into her not responding on ANI - she is a teenage girl who is apparently very upset about the recent turn of events right now. She is probably right not to respond until she has had a chance to calm down, and hopefully her discussions with User:Abd will facilitate that. I would add that despite the recent drama around her she started a new article on Jillian Clare to the encyclopedia, presumably without expectation of DYK or other "awards", and while that article had some issues, they were minor issues, nothing like the issues with some of the technical topics she tried to tackle. Rlendog (talk) 21:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Whether they are good or bad articles, if she is creating them for awards she is creating them for the wrong reason. Mentorship or otherwise the topic ban for DYK should stay in place for a very long time to ensure there is no chance she is just trying to bide her time until she can start submitting to that again. As far as her being a teenager goes, I said above and I'll repeat here: If her maturity level is a problem she can come back when she is more mature. There are plenty of editors her age who handle themselves on wikipedia with a lot more maturity. There are also editors older than her who should leave for the same reason.--Crossmr (talk) 01:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
strongly support mentorship 100%. I'm concerned with how younger editors get treated on wiki in general, but that's beside the point. This user has potential and has created articles on legitimate topics. Without knowing how she will grow with adoption, we can't judge. It needs to be tried before we can assume any outcome. The only requirement, of course, is that she accepts this, or at least promises to change her ways; in some way shows willingness to change. StickyParkin23:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I'll encourage it, but I do not believe mentorship should be required. Like I said before, I don't care what the motivation is for an editor. If she wants to create articles for the sole purpose of getting praise, go for it. It's all fine and "noble" if you believe that's the wrong reason, but you can't actually stop it. Furthermore, this is the kind of thing that should self-regulate itself. If she creates bad articles, she'll get criticism. If she creates good articles, she'll get praise that's better than the generic kind she's been getting so far. With the more experience she gets here, with supportive and positive assistance from the community, things will only get better. We are far from seriously considering a community ban. -- Ned Scott02:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment: As WW has expressed her lack of understanding of palaeo-related literature (a trial for anyone, even some of us in the field), then mentoring could help her gain the confidence to tackle such challenges (e.g. assimilation of facts from technical papers). As other editors have commented, she has lots of potential; her writing style is good, and she has a genuine desire to create for the project. In addition, her palaeo references are valid, so she does have the ability to seek out good references. I believe if someone could mentor her she could become an asset for Misplaced Pages. I don't believe this is about "good" articles or "bad" articles, but empowering her to make the most accurate possible edits each time. Mark t young (talk) 02:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Support - but only in the sense that it might be useful her, not because it has been shown that it is needed. As far as I can tell she has behaved reasonably since being informed of the restrictions, has moved to editing in her sandbox, and hasn't edited outside of her expertise. The worst accusation is that she was involved in a discussion which she interpreted to mean that others could nominate articles for her, and was (perhaps insufficiently) corrected at the time. Thus I'm not convinced that any further sanctions are required. However, friendly mentoring would help improve her editing, as per Mark's comment above, which can't be a bad thing. - Bilby (talk) 02:36, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't depend on reports from Blechnic as to what happened. Anyone can nominate a DYK, and there are no rules that say that someone can't nominate one after another user suggests it, say, requesting that it be reviewed before submission. She didn't do anything even remotely improper in the discussion in question, if anyone did something improper it would be me, for suggesting such a thing -- but I don't think it was improper. There was nothing that could justify the filing of this AN/I report, which is why I've concluded it was a continuation of prior harassment by an editor who has been warned and blocked for harassment previously, see , and, then, above, a continued and defiant incivility.. See, as well, the AN/I report that resulted in a block log annotation giving Blechnic a Newbie Pass for prior harassment and disruption. It's quite enough. --Abd (talk) 03:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree in regard to WW - my understanding of the discussion on your talk page was that she had done nothing wrong, and the worst accusation is that she interpreted your perfectly reasonable advice of "someone else can nominate your articles", which seems valid, as you say, to be "are you saying I can ask someone else to nominate an article for me" (emphasis mine), which you then clarified. Why this warrants a discussion of indef blocks is unclear to me. I'm also not convinced that it warrants mentoring, but if she is interested I figure it would be helpful, if only to end this discussion and to help her improve as an editor - she seems good, but could do with some friendly suggestions on how to better use references. This, of course, is a separate issue to the problems raised last time, but I assumed that the restriction meant that the previous issue was resolved unless the restriction failed to work. - Bilby (talk) 04:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Oh for goodness sakes. Is there really a poll being taken, and on ANI of all places, as to whether an experienced contributor is to be permitted to mentor a new one? What is going to happen if the poll fails--we continue biting the newbie? How about if everyone who is tempted to vote here just does some improvement on an article instead, and we resolve this thread. Jonathunder (talk) 02:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
question Is Fritzpoll still willing to undertake it? From what I've seen its not a technical question of finding sources, but coming to a more reasonable way of writing articles in general, and its going to take empathy on one side and cooperation on the other. DGG (talk) 03:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
AN/I, quite simply, isn't the place to work it out. I think the editor will be responsive to support. This isn't a newbie, by the way, she's been extraordinarily active, but she's been editing since 16 June, 2007 when, I presume, she was 15 years old, and she has 8710 edits when I ran the toolserver. I don't think she needs a mentor, as such, but rather some friends, whom she trusts, who will advise her when things become doubtful. She ran into some editors who were, shall we say, less than supportive, and she made some mistakes. I don't see any sign that she will repeat those, but, if she's human like the rest of us, she'll probably make some more before she's done.
I think we should wait and see if her accuracy improves before assigning her a mentor. As pointed out above, she's been around a while and has a bunch of edits, and there's no reason to think she won't be responsive to people's concerns about accuracy. Everyking (talk) 04:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
There is a reason to believe she won't be responsive to people's concerns about accuracy, namely she hasn't corrected any of her articles. She's already unresponsive to people's concerns about accuracy. Also, she didn't say anything about being willing to change the first time she was discussed, nor the second time she was discussed. The third time she just has a different excuse: she's too young for accuracy. --Blechnic (talk) 04:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
To DGG - yes, I am still willing to undertake this, but she hasn't responded to any message I've placed n her talkpage, and given her comments to S. Dean Jameson on her talkpage (rapidly arhcived) I don't think she sees the need for collaboration yet, and likely regards me as a user that she cannot trust given that I have commented here. Fritzpoll (talk) 09:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Fritzpoll, give it some time. She's been pretty badly burned, and this page is a terrible place to work out how to proceed, what with the continued harassment by Blechnic, who takes everything she has said, or has done or hasn't done, and twists it into some terrible indicator of bad faith and corrupt motive. This is a better-than-average editor, doing a great deal of work, without a lot of sophistication in Misplaced Pages politics, and such an editor is going to make mistakes. I hope nobody ever puts such effort into scouring my record for errors! (Actually, it's been tried, but, fortunately, Misplaced Pages is pretty tolerant, normally, of what one did eight months ago; some flak passed by over a COI edit I made three years ago, before I had a clue.) It's taking me days just to figure out what happened with WW, and I've only begun to address it. Along the way I see, yes, she made some mistakes, did things that, if she were to repeat them, would be, indeed, a problem, but, so far, I haven't seen that kind of repetition. I will be encouraging her to not attempt to work around you, in particular, nor the prior AN/I consensus for some kind of topic ban at DYK, but rather to satisfy all legitimate concerns. And I'll repeat it: this report is not a legitimate place to develop a consensus over how to proceed, because it attracts editors who make snap judgments based on incorrect and biased analysis being presented here. If someone wants additional sanctions or conditions to be applied, the place would be through normal WP:DR process, and AN/I is not part of that process. It's 911 for administrators. Is there any emergency here? I have not seen it alleged. --Abd (talk) 13:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
A fair point. I concur with giving her some breathing space, and ending this near-inquisition. I'm still very willing to help, as I'm convinced she can be guided into productive collaboration with enough help and an open mind. I'll remind her of that after an appropriate breathing space has opened up. Cheers, Abd. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:12, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree. She doesn't seem to see any problem with the issues at DYK, nor (as Fritzpoll said) does she seem to even want to work collaboratively. If you guys want, I can find the diff that says that very thing. I don't hold out much hope that she'll respond to Fritz in that regard. S.DeanJameson12:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Her existing copy vios and vandalisms that need edited
Here's a line from the article: "The large format screen, designed by iWERKS, is composed of a proprietary reflective material and measures 45-by-60 feet, covering a 2,700-square-foot (250 m²) area."
Here's her putting it in Misplaced Pages.
Here's the web page she took it from.
And the line on that web page: "The large format screen, designed by iWERKS, is composed of a proprietary reflective material and measures 45-by-60 feet, covering a 2,700 square-foot area."
How many more copy vios from this one article will I find? How many more from all of her articles?
Is this what she wants, needs, someone to go through and find all of the copy vios she inserted into Misplaced Pages, all of the vandalisms with misinformation?
No problem, someone has to clean up after vandals. I'll keep a page with a running total. Or maybe a few pages when these get over the easy load limit.
PS I'll also mark where she uses personal blogs as her "reliable sources."
Thankyou. I fixed that one - it was clearly a copyvio. If you find any other problems it would be helpful to have them on hand for anyone (whether as a result of mentoring or just someone helping her develop as an editor) who talks to her about referencing. Given that the edit you found is over six months old, though, I'm not sure how it furthers the discussion here. - Bilby (talk) 08:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Excuse me, Mr. Blechnic, but did you just call WW a vandal? I do believe I am done listening to your unfounded attacks on WW. -- Ned Scott08:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
We still don't appear to have a consensus here about how exactly to proceed. Might I propose as a compromise between the various positions that WW be banned from submitting articles to DYK for a month, and that she may begin submitting articles to DYK again thereafter providing that she accepts a mentor in the meantime. Gatoclass (talk) 11:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
There is no consensus, and no basis, for a ban at all. There are grounds for caution, for the provision of guidance to this editor. Submission to DYK, however, is already subject to review by other editors, in any case, so if it happens that she submits inappropriate material, it's harmless, unless we have a much more serious problem at DYK than one editor allegedly submitting problematic articles. The damage done in this affair has been from massive and repeated incivility and tendentious argument, on the part of more than one editor, with her incivility being mostly avoidant, not aggressive. And to examine this and determine further sanctions involving her, if any, should not be done in AN/I, because it is far more appropriate for an RfC or other, calmer process, where evidence can be gathered and neutrally examined. AN/I is only appropriate for emergencies requiring administrative attention, and I only see one such here: the ongoing and persistent harassment of WW by Blechnic; sufficient evidence already exists in this incident report to justify a block of Blechnic, the report itself is quite a proof of harassment, and other factors have been described as well, including reference to Blechnic's history.--Abd (talk) 13:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Can we close this thread now- the whole thing seems cruel, and it is bullying. Nothing new's happened to justify a new thread discussing WW's future, this discussion has already been had in the past. This whole 'telling tales' and seeking to get her banned thread here was supposedly about the fact that she asked a question on someone's talk page. My personal 'consensus' is that someone appears to be a bully that has it in for someone else (that's not a personal attack, just my impression of what's happening). StickyParkin13:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Close. I'll create a separate report on the harassment, which is the only proper issue for AN/I here. I'll also disclose that I've started to take a look at WW's contributions. She has 28 successful DYKs, according to her Creations page. I'll be reviewing the balance, i.e., even though 28 DYKs is impressive, it's theoretically possible that the editor caused so much disruption that it wasn't worth it, though I've seen no evidence of this beyond Blechnic's claims. I saw that her last nomination to DYK -- when she was apparently unaware of the topic ban, she'd never been notified of it -- was reverted by Blechnic. I looked at the nomination, it seemed proper to me (other than the issue of the ban), so I just restored it, and we'll see how the DYK crew treat it. Since Blechnic seems to be inclined to incorrectly wikilawyer against assisting banned or blocked editors (the excuse for this whole AN/I section), I'll note that content issues are separate from ban issues. An edit by a banned editor may be reverted on sight by any editor, and normally this may be done without regard to content, but any editor in good standing may restore it on their own responsibility, this is not proxying, and would only be improper if it, in itself, is disruptive.--Abd (talk) 14:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Look, I'm not sure you guys understand what the situation is. There was a prior consensus reached that she be banned from DYK, but no time limit was agreed upon. If that ban is to be overturned, I think there will have to be a new consensus, we can hardly decide amongst ourselves that the ban is void. That is why I have come up with a specific proposal, so that everyone is on the same page on this issue. Gatoclass (talk) 14:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Just to make it clear, Gatoclass is basically correct. There is a ban, it should not simply be disregarded. Because the ban did not specify a time limit, the time limit is indef. Which doesn't mean any particular time at all, it is pending until a reversal or a separate process makes it permanent. However, until and unless the user either appeals the ban or asks for it to be lifted, it is all moot and wikidrama. She is banned from nominating DYKs. No other sanction was agreed upon. The ban could be lifted quickly, all it would take is, as Gatoclass suggests, a new consensus. There are two places that are the best to start, if anyone wants to try to lift the ban without WW's participation. One would be for Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know, which is where a first discussion should have been completed before the matter ever went to AN/I, and the other would be User talk:Fritzpoll, for my interpretation of the ban is that as the closer of the discussion at AN/I he is the effective administrator of the ban, he could unilaterally lift it just as any AfD closer can unilaterally reverse a decision. To address a possible misconception: AN/I is not a "superior forum" to a local talk consensus, especially one with as many editors likely to participate as at DYK. There is no need to return to AN/I to rescind the ban, and AN/I really should have, in the first place, simply sent the matter back to the editors at DYK, who were addressing it at the time. --Abd (talk) 17:03, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
A few people who were around that particular afternoon and agreed to ban this well intentioned young editor from Do You Know should not deprive Misplaced Pages of any new articles from her forever. If people are willing to mentor her, help improve those new articles she does, and benefit the encyclopedia, we should let them do that. Jonathunder (talk) 15:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
It was a lot more than "a few people who were around that particular afternoon" on 28 July - I count 17 support to one oppose for a DYK topic ban. And the proposal was not to "deprive Misplaced Pages of any new articles from her forever" - the actual "motion" being "DYK ban for Wilhelmina at least until she tells us she understands and is willing to abide by copyvio rules and stop treating DYK medals as an end in themselves". I don't think we should now just decide to forget that - it would reinforce her worrying tendency to behave as if criticism is something to be ignored. And if she were focused on (say) helping to get articles to GA status then her aims and the encyclopedia's aims would be more likely to point in the same direction. If Fritzpoll and Abd are willing to mentor that would be most valuable, and I don't think she should get a choice about that. Perhaps they can get her to understand (which will be useful to her in the real world, too) that you can't simply choose who you will listen to and which rules you will obey. Some acknowledgement by her - to a mentor, not in a public place like this - that she understands what the problem was and is willing to take advice, would be the single most valuable thing in restoring trust. JohnCD (talk) 16:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree. The ban - as I supported it - was intended to apply until WW provided evidence that she understands and respects the importance of insuring accuracy and avoiding copyvios. Various people had different views as to what form that evidence would take. I was willing to accept a statement from her to that effect and see the evidence from new articles she creates in the meantime. Someone else wanted to see 5 new articles created by WW nominated for DYK by other editors. But I don't think there was any consensus in that regard, and so the ban itself is ill defined. So those terms for ending the ban need to be defined. I agreed with an indefinite ban - until she provided the evidence of maturity described above. I certainly did not agree to a permanent ban. And I am not sure that too many others supported or believed they were supporting a permanent ban. Rlendog (talk) 15:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Ok Gato what I'm saying is nothing's changed since last time. But if people want the ban better defined, I would say that WW should accept a mentor who could help her in general on wiki and take a look at any submissions to DYK before she submits them. The mentor/adopter could go with her at first onto DYK talk to help her interact with the people there when she's ready to do so. The mentor or a few other community members who've been monitoring her edits could decide when the time for her to rejoin DYK is right, but shouldn't be too hasty about it. StickyParkin16:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Sigh. WW has not challenged the ban. I have not challenged the ban, though I've stated in various places that it was ill-considered, something that is par for the course for a sanction like that "negotiated" on AN/I. But it is all moot. The ban exists, it stands, until it is rescinded or otherwise found moot. She is not allowed to post DYK nominations. However, what seems to have been overlooked is that there has been no support for any sanction preventing her from creating or editing articles, the ban was very specific to DYK nominations. There have been allegations that she improperly created or edited articles, but, frankly, they aren't credible, beyond the obvious: a young editor, prolific, with 28 successful DYK nominations -- a measure of the respect the community has for her work -- has almost certainly made some mistakes. If people want to rescind the ban, I'd suggest that the appropriate venue for discussion, to start, would be Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know where people actually involved with DYK will participate. The original ban took place because discussion on that Talk page, which was mixed, was bypassed by Blechnic, and taken to AN/I; read the Talk discussion, where the participants are informed of the fait accompli from on high AN/I. This was backwards. There was no emergency. There was a single standing nomination by WW, for an article in which she had made a single possibly improper revert (that revert stood, by the way, though it became moot, later). This was absolutely not AN/I stuff. --Abd (talk) 16:48, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
This user has a history of stalking, harassing and disruptive editing. He has followed me around to several articles, reverting, deleting and leaving messages on my talk page. In particular, I point to the edit histories of Chris Barnes (actor) and the fact that the user then went on to nominate the article for deletion, presumably because I has worked on it extensively, and deleted the actor's name as a notable in the article about his hometown.
He received a warning about his abuse of Twinkle, which he used to revert edits I'd made as "vandalism."
I admit I lost my cool after a while and left an uncomplimentary message on his talk page, for which I was unfairly banned for two weeks. I don't think it's right that someone like this is allowed to prowl around here the way he does without any kind of rebuke from the community and that an administrator would know what was going on and penalize one of his targets instead. Cbsite (talk) 12:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I should point out that the user has a strong sense about the use of non-free images - he doesn't think they should be used at all. He nominates for deletion at his own whim, reverts as "vandalism" edits that offer a rationale for the image's presence and harasses just about anyone who tries to go up against him. Here's a sample of his "submit or die" editing from July 15 and 16: ,,,,,..
A dispute dropped itself on my talk page today, somewhat out of the blue, but it drew my attention to the fact that Template:Weasel has been edited multiple times beginning since July 14th in what looks to be a slow edit war. (Nowhere near 3RR.) I have fully protected the template, but only for four days, and left a note at the template's talk page. This is not my usual arena (I was in the middle of working on a copyright problem when the talk bar lit up), so I'm bringing this here for review & additional action, if necessary. --Moonriddengirl14:31, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
It should be protected anyways because it is shown on so many pages it is a target for shock image vandals. People can come to a consensus on the talk page and use {{editprotected}}. Though in the case of an edit war I think admins should also seek consensus on the talk page before editing it. Chillum14:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Please note that some of the edits in question consisted of another editor inserting an admitted "joke" that broke the template and me reverting this vandalism. —David Levy14:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Not known for my levity, I'm inclined to think jokes have no place in templates. :) Chillum, are you of the opinion, then, that the template ought to be permanently fully protected? The template is not as widely transcluded as, say, {{fact}}, but it is still pretty significantly represented. It seems to me that full protection is consistent with WP:PROT. --Moonriddengirl14:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I think that any template that is used throughout more than a few hundred articles should be fully protected to avoid a single act of vandalism effecting too many pages. This is my opinion and it also seems to be consistent with policy. I am sure other people will have an opinion about it too. Chillum15:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, that's two of us, anyway. :) 1,100 pages counts more as "very" significant than "pretty," I'd think. I've indefinitely fully protected it and templated it, barring consensus that WP:PROT doesn't apply. --Moonriddengirl16:20, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I think protection was an extreme measure. There was no disagreement on what the template was intended to mean. The only disagreement was on how emphatic to make it, how to do that without raising technical issues, and what policies it is rooted in. I've never come close to 3RR, because I drop my internet connection to get real work done on my computer. My first reversion was probably on 2008-07-14.
The point of protection is to prevent wording issues being worked out in template space, since every time you alter that template you are also altering all the articles which incorporate it. Consensus should be reached at the talk page, with potentially additional input from responders at an appropriate policy or guideline talk page. --Moonriddengirl23:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Moonriddengirl is absolutely right. Wording issues should be developed in talk space and could always be demonstrated using mocks up made in user-space pages. Also as I understand WP:PROT it should be fully protected permanently since it is so widely transcluded--Cailil00:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
The real reason the template needs to be protected is that if you vandalize it that vandalism ends up on 1,100 pages. People have taken advantage of that in the past to put up shock images. It is also a good idea for such widely used templates to have changes proposed on the talk page first. There is also the issue that 1,100 page's caches need to be purged for each change of the template, so it is helpful to figure out the final product before making a change. Chillum00:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Okay. The reason this discussion is here, is because I asked someone to weigh in on an argument about what was an improvement; IOW suggest a medium between what was becoming diametrically opposed. Now, we hav two people making suppositions about what wasn't done on the talk page or in the edit summary. Let's do this in pieces, like they would in a forum:
Levy Chillum Cailil MoonRiddenGirl BrewJay
Concrete Terms: N U U U Y
Notability N U U U Y
Neutrality Y U U U N
Audio N U U U Y
Suck or Draw U U U U D
Terse N U U U Y
This is not the place for this discussion. :) This discussion was merely related to whether or not protecting the template was appropriate within WP:PROT. If you want to discuss specific changes to the template, please do so at the template talk page. --Moonriddengirl01:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
This user User:Paul Barlow keeps inserting non-biblical content into the Mahound article. Mahound is based on the biblical literature that describes the Christian view and this user keeps inserting another text from another religon. This user was already informed and Paul Barlow keeps inserting non biblical text. --Alley30 (talk) 17:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
As an aside, the version Paul Barlow last reverted to seems far more neutral in tone, and added some useful (and cited) information. I've restored that version for now, though his lack of explanation is somewhat troubling. — The Hand That Feeds You:17:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Thats not even biblical literature. Go create your own Mahamada article and personal views. The Mahound is based on terms found in the biblical literature. --Alley30 (talk) 17:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Alley30 is a single-purpose account which is pushing a (frankly rather odd) POV in relation to the article . Quite bizarre. DuncanHill (talk) 17:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Thats not even biblical literature. Go create your own Mahamada article and personal views. The Mahound is based on terms found in the biblical literature. --Alley30 (talk) 17:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
(ec with above)Restricting the source of the article to "biblical literature" (OR?) seems to go against policy. The Paul Barlow version seemed to make good additions. Verbalchat17:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
This is truly strange. While no edit summary from Barlow is problematic, the behavior of Alley30 is far moreso. No article on this project (not even Bible itself) is limited to only being sourced to "the biblical literature." If Alley30 continues to revert everyone who tries to improve the article with sourced information, it will be Alley30 that finds trouble, not Barlow. S.DeanJameson17:31, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Theres already a Mahamada article. That belongs in the Mahamada article, not Mahound that defines a biblical term, further the Mahamada article does not even state that and the source the user provided for the text has no mention of Muhammad. --Alley30 (talk) 17:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
The ref has no information about Muhammad. Already done search on data base. Further the Mahamada article does not even state that, its pure non sense. If it was true it should belong in the Mahamada article. --Alley30 (talk) 17:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Theres already a Mahamada article and it cleraly says European Literature. Further the text this user Paul Barlow inserts is not even true. It shold belong in the Mahamada article with more sources for claim. Even the book this user provided does not even state Muhammad in it. --Alley30 (talk) 17:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
As I stated above, there is no article at Mahamada, it's just a redirect to a small portion of another article. Further, you state that the source is false because of a "database search." What database are you searching to determine this? — The Hand That Feeds You:17:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
On a quick review of some of the contribs of those sock accounts, Paul's suspicion appears quite reasonable. However, I need to leave, and can't put more time into it, and am not 100% convinced yet. Just want to kind of bump this thread and encourage other admins to take a look, as it seems likely to me he is correct. --barneca (talk) 18:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Potential sockpuppetry by Alley30
Just wanted to create a section-break, so that the allegations of potential sockpuppetry with regards to Alley30 could be hashed out in one place, as the thread above is getting rather disjointed. S.DeanJameson18:42, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Paul B, since you know him could you perhaps post some more details about why you suspect him of being a sock? It's much easier to check if we have something to go on. Theresa Knott | The otter sank20:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Resolved – Counselling Mynameisstanley on his tlak page
Mafia Expert is undoing all my posts out of spite.
We had an exit war over 1 subject, now he is going to all my contributions and starting to undo all of them for spite. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mynameisstanley (talk • contribs) 17:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I do not undo "all your contributions", only the ones that are disruptive. For example: you nominated the article on Sidney Korshak for deletion because - according to you - he is not notable. Someone who had an obituary written about him in the NYT, and a book by a notable investigative journalist, as well as indicated by the FBI as the "most powerful lawyer in the world". You consider that not notable. You must be kidding. I am not the only one who has serious problems with your editing, just read your talk and this. That should tell you something. As far as I am concerned I did not have an edit war with you, and the issue is resolved (see: here). I see you are quite new to WP, but that is no excuse to continuously ignore established WP policies. And, to start with, please have the courtesy to sign your messages with four tildes. - Mafia Expert (talk) 18:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I am on mafia expert's side here, start reading the rules, properly, and learn about the way things are done here. Chafford (talk) 19:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Resolved – User advised to repost at another board.
After a period of relative calm, recently Anna May Wong has received a series of vandal attacks, possibly from the same person under various guises. See: Anna May Wong History. FWiW, could there be a period of protection established for this article? Bzuk (talk) 19:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC).
This one may need it for a while as it was subjected to a succession of anon attacks; the page now has semi-protection until it clears the main page status. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 20:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC).
Bizarre case here. This individual is using his user and talk pages "to practice editing," as he puts it. He has violated WP:CIVIL on several occasions, but worse still, has continued to post userboxes which state him to be an administrator. No edits to the article space or sandbox and IMO it's clear he knows what he's doing. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 22:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Jeez, in Ryan's own words, just leave him alone until he actually disrupts something that affects the project. Toddst1 already warned the user for civility, and you're just poking him with a stick now. Tan ǀ 3922:05, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Maybe we should try giving him a {{welcome}} to make him feel able to contribute to the project rather than warn him? He's only been editing for a day, and I honestly doubt he knows what he's doing. Juliancolton22:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm about to cry! Just leave me along. So what If I put an admin userbox up for less than 6 seconds. I am taking them down cause I don't know how to use them yet! Just leave me alone! Stop watching what I'm doing and let me edit my pages and go back to fighting your vandalism! ;-( --Ryan Von (talk) 22:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
It's cause I have edited on wikipedia before, just with out an account!! Stop leaving me messages on my user page!! I did not come here to get harrased by you about the user boxes I put up!!! Please get this guy away from me!! You keep posting on my USER TALK PAGE AND WONT STOP BOTHERING ME!!! LEAVE ME BE!!
So we should block him because he knows how to edit? I mean, I don't exactly endorse his responses, but I see nothing wrong with his screwing around with user boxes. Why you care so much about this to file at AIV and ANI is strange. Tan ǀ 3922:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
And PMDrive knows exactly what he is doing - deliberately goading an editor in order to drive him off Misplaced Pages, and not for the first time either. DuncanHill (talk) 22:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
My friend, that was uncalled for. You have a problem? E-mail me and let's discuss it like gentlemen. For your information, I've been trying to leave word with this user in an attempt to try and set things straight but all I get are edit conflicts since he's actively editing the page and a locked database notice. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 22:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Duncan (which is sort of a minor miracle). Try to be a little - just a little - more friendly to the newbies, especially if what they're doing isn't "POOOPSIIEEE" vandalism. Don't get me wrong; I see you at AIV all the time and I appreciate your vandal-fighting efforts. I'd just let this one go. Resolving issue - Tan ǀ 3922:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
It's becuase you wont leave me alone after I said I am trying to learn to use those boxes!! I NEED ADMIN HELP! PLSSS I BEGG OF YOU MAKE HIM GO AWAY!! HE LEAVES ME MESSAGES OVER AND OVER AGAIN I KEEP DELETING THEM PLSS!! Where do i go to block someone??!!!! I am scared he will harm me plss admin personnn!! --Ryan Von (talk) 22:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Your very first communication with this editor was very bitey and made no attempt to engage constructively with him. You do have a history of biteing and attacking new editors rather than attempting to guide and support them to contribute constructively. I do not discuss on-wikipedia matters off-wikipedia, so it's here or talk-pages if you want, not email. DuncanHill (talk) 22:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
My first contact was based on the fact that it appeared as if he was impersonating an administrator. I do not harm anyone. Under my previous username, I took two of extremely problematic users under my wing. One turned out to be a genuine troll and has since returned to wreak havoc via sockpuppets. I refer to User:Wiki brah. The less fortunate soul was User:Maoririder who claimed to be autistic. I was saddened when the community finally banned him. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 22:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Enough is enough. I reverted Ryan Von's last contribution to this section and blocked him. He's just trolling. If someone else wants to spend the rest of the night dealing with him, feel free to unblock. NawlinWiki (talk) 22:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Would somebody mind over-viewing this issue for me. I've just blocked User:LisaLiel for 24hrs for a blatant breach of 3RR at Gender of God. But I'm concerned that other users may also be edit-warring and possibly gaming 3RR.
Users Teclontz & Alastair Haines may have gamed 3RR. I have warned all parties at the page to seek dispute resolution and stop edit-warring. But I am also aware that Alastair has been that subject of a recent user conduct RFC and hs received 2 blocks for edit-warring within the since June 2008. However I'm also concerned that there may be an ongoing issue between Teclontz/Tim and LisaLiel - Teclontz has alleged harassment and I am awaiting diffs to demonstrate this. I would be grateful for more sets of eyes on this issue.
Also considering the possible gaming of 3RR should further preventative action be taken? I was considering protecting the page but I'm hoping the warning will make that unnecessary--Cailil22:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
User:Alastair Haines is also edit warring at Why Men Rule. I tagged the article and explained my concerns on the talk page. He repeatedly removed my tags without a valid explanation. I requested a third opinion, which User:Jclemens provided. He suggested using inline tags with a rationale for each at the talk page. I did that and User:Alastair Haines removed my tags without responding to my concerns on the talk page. JCDenton2052 (talk) 22:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid that cuts both ways JC - you've both reverted each other twice on two separate issues on the same page - you both should stop and find consensus. Open an RFC for the page if after a WP:3O you are both still dead locked. Also please note that your warning is not helpful may escalate rather than a resolve this issue. I can see no evidence of Alastair vandalizing the page--Cailil22:52, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
His definition of consensus is his and only his opinion or something about "silence is consent". If removing tags without responding to the corresponding comments on an article's talk page or achieving Misplaced Pages's definition of consensus isn't vandalism, then what is it? JCDenton2052 (talk) 23:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I concur with JCDenton2052's assessment that Alastair places his own opinion before consensus. There have been three primary content disputes in the past few days:
Alastair reinserts text that was removed (per consensus) sometime before the RfC/U (saying that this is "per talk page" despite there having been no recent discussion of the material). I revert his edit. He reverts my reversion, telling me to "discuss on talk page".
LisaLiel makes a change. Alastair reverts itwithout discussion on talk page. When LisaLiel does exactly what Alastair has done twice, as documented above, and reverts his reversion, Alastair reverts her again, saying "Undo edit warring without use of talk page".
There is a clear double standard here. When someone disagrees with a change Alastair agrees with, they must argue against it on the talk page before the change can be reverted. When Alastair disagrees with a change someone else is making, they must argue for it on the talk page before the change can be made. In effect, the protocol at work seems to be that Alastair's preferred version of the article must remain until he is convinced that it is inferior. His delusion that he owns the article is even clearer in some of his talk page comments, such as this one, where, when facing disagreement over whether a subheader he inserted should be there, he declares "subhead stays until it can be demonstrated that ". This is not the language of respectful, collaborative editing.
Additionally, he is incivil and aggressive. He is quick to make threats (, ) and personal attacks (), even going so far as to do so on pages he has never edited before. These incidents are all since the closing of the RfC/U and are in addition to the evidence presented there. Neither the RfC/U nor the counsel offered to Alastair by User:Wizardman appear to have had an effect, and he still staunchly denies having (ever) done anything wrong ().
I'm not sure how this can be taken forward. Of the two attempts at mediation made so far, one was terminated by the mediator due to what he perceived as hostility against him from Alastair, and the other was rejected by Alastair on the grounds that it focused too much on content and not enough on attacking me. I believe that Alastair has a great deal to contribute to the project, but he will inevitably cause more and more conflict if he does not learn to deal with disputes in a civil and cooperative manner. Ilkali (talk) 00:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for providing diffs Ilkali but I'm going to ask you to withdraw your remark about double standards. This thread was opened specifically to ask what else should be done in relation to all parties in this issue. I will remind you once that this thread is for dispute resolution not escalation.
Just a question weren't all many of the issues regarding the above raised at Alastair's RFC/U?--Cailil00:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
"Thank you for providing diffs Ilkali but I'm going to ask you to withdraw your remark about double standards. This thread was opened specifically to ask what else should be done in relation to all parties in this issue". My intent isn't to attack Alastair, and I don't think I've been in any way gratuitous in how I've described his actions - I've said only what was needed to indicate the extent of the problem. If Alastair is practicing a double standard regarding edits, isn't that pertinent here?
In response to your struck-out question: All of the evidence I've given is for events occurring after the RfC concluded. Ilkali (talk) 15:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm glad to see that someone finally brought this to AN. I tried to mediate this case a while back with medcab, was unable to reach consensus. I attempted to get it moved over to the medcom, but Alastair made some comments that someone took as legal threads and immediately closed down the whole thing. When he redacted his comments, no one ever bothered to reinstate the case. I'm honestly not sure if it would have helped, but I didn't have the patience or strength of will to subject myself to more of the needless drama. Ilkali and Alastair seem to have some sort of vendetta against each other, and Lisa and Tim (Teclontz) will usually disagree on any given topic but I've found that they are slightly more willing to talk- in fact my interactions with Tim have been largely positive. Just my five or six cents... L'Aquatique07:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I am glad that this has been brought up. Too many editors are following one another into unsubstantiated claims regarding my actions and character. There is in fact not even a single example of me having done anything out of line with either common politeness, let alone Wiki policy, not only at this article, but in two years of editing.
Unfortunately, first Ilkali, then others like L'Aquatique have made not only unsubstatiated, but demonstrably false allegations, in addition to defamatory speculation. This is inappropriate behaviour and needs to be identified and addressed as such.
The result of this inappropriate behaviour has been uninvolved editors reverting text I've contributed, refusing discussion on various presumptions of my bad faith, citing the opinion of anonymous editors like some listed above. That's objective defamation and clearly something the community must address.
As a simple form of evidence of the point I'm making, please note how blatant edit warring by Lisa, opposed by two independent editors is being construed as "possible gaming of the system". The contrary is, of course, the case. Edit warrers have smoke-screened their behaviour with personal attacks, and parties that have attempted to take responsibility to investigate have been deceived by the misrepresentations of character.
As I've mentioned before, this is genuine slander in the legal sense, and while holding the community (and ultimately the foundation) accountable for it, I have confidence that the processes, convoluted though volunteer structures are, will ultimately remedy this situation.
I look forward to this finally being resolved. I also thank, in advance, those who patiently wade through all the misrepresentations in order to fact-check them. Alastair Haines (talk) 08:24, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I have asked Alastair to refactor some remarks made above in view of WP:NLT. I have also unblocked LisaLiel after she committed to not breaking WP:3RR again--Cailil11:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I really don't want to make this any more dramatic than it has to be, but the notion that Alastair is patently innocent is complete and utter... well, you know. Apparently, he never read his RFC/U, which was chock full of diffs that showed his edit warring and uncivil behavior. I rest my case... L'Aquatique18:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I actually agree with both of you. As far as I can see all four editors listed above are behaving improperly. And I have advised Alastair of NLT and of the problem with the post here. I do agree that there is perhaps a letter & spirit of the rules issue, but AFAIK he can't be blocked for this (the above) as he has made it clear he is not threatening anyone with action. (If I'm wrong do correct me.) I would prefer if he removed the remarks & I've advised him about changing the name of his account - he doesn't want to. So all I can do now is take that use of language and refusal to refactor into consideration. There is also a problem with all of these editors indulging in ad hominem remarks and there may also be a civil pov-pushing issue. None of the editors I've listed at the top are innocent in my view and I'm open to suggestions on ways to resolve the issues with all of their conduct, together at gender of god and separately between Alastair & Ilkali and LisaLeil and Tim--Cailil20:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm unwatching this page, I have very little interest in following speculations based on hearsay. When someone can present even one supposed allegation of even a minor infringement of anything on my part, I'll be happy to hear it and discuss it. Until that time, I'll get on with my usual flawless and constructive editing.
When the hoohah dies down, I will pursue having the defamation dealt with, unless someone does this on my behalf without prompting by me, which is the way it should be. The defamation is obvious, serious and someone needs to do something about it.
I'm hoping that this dispute cools down after the warnings from myself, Slrubenstein and L'Aquatique. However I'm not 'over the moon' about the way they've all reacted at the talk page or here. These are three measures that I am prepared to enforce to prevent further disruption. I'd like uninvolved editors and sysops to review these proposed measures (please see above and linked pages for case history):
Enforce a 1RR restriction on all four editors (for 3 months duration) at Gender of God and treat any "tag-team" reverting as a breach of the 1RR restriction.
Place Talk:Gender of God under heightened civility watch for 3 months duration.
Ask Alastair & Tim not to post in Ilkali & LisaLiel's user talk pages for an indefinite length of time. And ask Ilkali and LisaLiel not to post in Alastair and Tim's user talk pages for an indefinite length of time.
Any thoughts on these suggested measures?
A further measure would be a restriction on all four editors to 3 or less posts per day on Talk:Gender of God, but I'd hope that would not be necessary--Cailil22:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Dealing wiht disruptive editing - Ciudad Acuña article
This 189.175.241.138 (talk·contribs) IP address continues to delete useful information about the Ciudad Acuña article. There seems to be an ulterior motive. I left a message on the his/her talkpage mentioning external links are helpful for any individual interested in this particular subject: Ciudad Acuña. How to deal with this situation when we only have an IP address and not an actual registered user? --Gatox (talk) 00:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Two things. 1) If you look at the article, it is clear that the same person is using multiple IPs. 2) Their edit is actually fine. The website doesn't appear to have any redeeming qualities; it is essentially a low-quality commercial website masquerading as something "official". I would tend to agree with the annonymous user that the website doesn't really belong in the article. --Jayron32.talk.contribs00:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Concur. I've removed the link. While I've seen crappier city-sanctioned sites, this one is an anon-reg godaddy site with no apparent 'official' capacity and no real content. Kuru01:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Legitimate sockpuppets
Resolved – autoblock (hopefully) removed. looking into some possible civility issues I stumbled across while looking at this, but those might be better dealt with on user talk pages. --barneca (talk) 01:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Could I get a pair of admin eyes over to User_talk:Mumblejohnson, please? While preparing a detailed RfC aimed at addressing the poisonous editing atmosphere at Australian political articles in general, and the disruptive actions of User:Matilda in particular, I chose to create an alternate account for the purpose of editing in private, without the usual stalkers looking over my shoulder. Matilda sussed out my sock, so I created another one at User:Secondfellow which would be a little harder to track down. These alternate accounts weren't intended for public view or to make any public edits and I really don't mind if they are deleted immediately. I won't be using them again.
Instead of leaving well enough alone, Matilda blocked my socks indefinitely, which has the effect of tying up one of my IP addresses. Perhaps some kind admin could unblock these accounts and then delete them? --Pete (talk) 00:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Can I ask why you are running 2 IP addresses to access Misplaced Pages? If 2 IP addresses are not both intended for future editing of Misplaced Pages, why would you be concerned if one of your two IP addresses can no longer edit Misplaced Pages? --Lester00:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I have various different ISP accounts, due to my globetrotting lifestyle. BION, Misplaced Pages isn't the totality of my weblife. I would imagine that access to multiple internet accounts is hardly uncommon in this day and age, where just about every mobile phone comes with a web browser. --Pete (talk) 00:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
It's not a matter of "running 2 IP addresses to access Misplaced Pages" and there is absolutely no problem with people using multiple IP addresses. That question is truly the most bizarre question I have seen for a very long time. Lots of people use numerous IP addresses - work, home, coffee shop, library, public access, uni... Many, many people use more than two IP addresses on a permanent basis and it isn't called "running IPs" as though there is malicious behaviour in accessing Misplaced Pages from multiple IPs. Sarah11:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Given you don't intend to use the accounts, unblocking would be pointless (though I don't see actual sockpuppet abuse with either account either). Administrators cannot "delete" accounts. As long as you don't log into those two accounts, any autoblocks should be clear in 24 hours.--chaser - t00:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I've notified Matilda of the thread. Why not just unblock and reblock without autoblock enabled? I believe Matilda has talked with Skyring after she blocked the accounts, so I doubt her intention was to block his IP address. --barneca (talk) 00:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
All sorts of questions are floating around in my head, like "why, exactly, did you not want Matilda to see your RFC while you were creating it?", and "wouldn't someone with your history want to be super double extra careful about creating alternate accounts, legitimate or not?" Or "Is it nice to call someone a drama queen?" Or even "why didn't you ask Matilda to undo the autoblock? Why bring it up here first?"
But I suppose those questions are for another day. For now, Matilda has told me that the autoblock was unintentional, so I'll unblock and reblock with autoblock disabled. If that doesn't work, you can either post an unblock request on your IP, or as Chaser says, wait 24 hours. --barneca (talk) 00:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I won't pretend that I know all the answers on Misplaced Pages's tricksy technical bits, and ANI looked like the best way to get admintervention to sort out a problem. --Pete (talk) 01:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Skyring and I have a difference of opinion as to whether his use of socks is legitimate. I did not wish to inflame the situation by either reporting them (and thus finding an uninvolved admin) or in fact acting on them while he was preparing the RfC. I did however let him know I knew of them - certainly the first and FWIW I knew of the second too. Skyring has a history of sockpuppetry. I have raised the issue of policy and his breach on his talk page but will repeat here:
While you dismiss your actions as being justified with the comment: This account was created for the purpose of preparing an important submission in private, without the usual stalkers hovering over my contribution list diving in for half-baked comments. It also allows me to work within mediawiki rather than Word or something else that would reformat everything. Looking at WP:SOCK, I note that the list of legitimate exceptions is not exhaustive. You are well aware that sockpuppetry is against wikipedia guidelines and your protest that the legitimate use of sockpuppets is not exhaustive is not acceptable to me, but maybe to others. I am surprised at your indulgence in sockpuppets given you have been previously blocked and had your ban extended for sockpuppetry. Disposable socks are all very well but the policy is quite clear There are limited acceptable uses for alternative accounts, and a number of uses which are explicitly forbidden - in particular, using an alternative account to avoid scrutiny - this indicates two things - one the list of legitimate exceptions is seen as limited (contrary to your statement) and avoiding scrutiny which was your purpose is not a proper use. I have tagged the two socks you created thereby adding them to Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Skyring . I have also blocked them. I left them in place until you lodged your RfC to give you the benefit of the doubt and not to inflame the situation.
The IP block was unintentional. I am not sure if the inconvenience suffered warrants unblocking and reblocking. I am offended that Skyring is implying I am stalking him - I had a legitimate interest in knowing whether or not he was preparing an RfC - he took his time about it. That I discovered the drafting was accidental in the first instance. --Matilda01:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Matilda, can I suggest that perhaps it might be best to ask someone else to block the accounts in this sort of situation in future? You blocking an account being used to build an RFC against yourself could be seen to be a tremendous COI and thus a misuse of the tools. Sarah11:19, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Blocking or warning?
Resolved – Advice given
I've been an admin for some months, but I don't generally deal with resolving/stopping contentious editing, so I'd like advice. On 31 July, 69.76.161.36 (talk) left a personal attack at Talk:Canton, Kansas (still there as I type this), just four days after being blocked for 24 hours for "...making a threat to another user...", according to the block log. What is in order here: should it be a longer block for incivility, or just a stern warning? Nyttend (talk) 00:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I would say a warning mentioning a block. There is not guarantee this is the same person that was blocked before. Chillum00:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. If they do it a second time, then block away. There is no harm in issuing a warning. If the warning stops them, then the block is unneccesary... --Jayron32.talk.contribs00:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
(ec T-T) :Four days is too late for blocking an IP for vandalizing directly after release of a 24 hour block. I would give an escalated warning like a vandalism2 or 3. But blocking is not ok after 4 days. Especially when dealing with an IP. As you can not know if it is the same person. Rgoodermote00:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Lysy (talk·contribs) made manual copy/edit moves in order to revert the move to Kulmerland I had made before (sourced common name in English see talk):
01:39, 4 August 2008 Kulmerland (Manually undoing the frivolous rename. Please use WP:RM as advised before.)
01:39, 4 August 2008 Talk:Kulmerland (Manually undoing the frivolous rename. Please use WP:RM as advised before.)
01:39, 4 August 2008 Talk:Chełmno Land (Manually undoing the frivolous rename. Please use WP:RM as advised before.)
01:39, 4 August 2008 Chełmno Land (Manually undoing the frivolous rename. Please use WP:RM as advised before.)
It's not only about the page move but also your conduct. How do you explain this "technical" edit other than deliberately making a plain revert of your rename impossible ? And why had not you followed the proper WP:RM procedure as requested by another user before ? You were all right aware that the rename was a controversial one, yet you had chosen to move the article without WP:RM and use technical tricks to prevent a revert, followed by reporting this incident on me, which was a dirty trick indeed. --Lysy16:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
As said before, Piotrus pioneered this "dirty trick" (your words), and defended it as a legitimate categorization (with the move protection side effect, of course). Look up his contribs how often he did that. I had opposed it to no avail. And, as in Rome, now I did like the Roman. -- Matthead Discuß 16:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Matthead, I don't think that asking you to file a proper WP:RM request for a controversial rename is a "reckless POV pushing". Your suggestion to rename the article to the German name has been already contested by another editor before, and you've been advised to go for WP:RM instead. Why did not you do it but instead renamed the article yourself ? As to this edit of yours, I have no doubt that you did it on purpose to make a simple revert of your rename impossible. And now you are reporting me ???! :-) --Lysy13:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
As stated on Talk:Kulmerland#Name? and above, the old name "Chełmno Land" is unsourced and original research, it violated WP:V and WP:NOR in the first place, thus the move to the proper English name Kulmerland was and is uncontroversial, no matter how many editors lament it without being able to provide evidence. Misplaced Pages is not a democracy, just showing up in larger numbers at a Move Request is not the way to do things. Your manual copy&paste moves were reckless and POV pushing, do you want to deny this? As for adding a category to redirects, which equals move protection for regular users, this was and is done many times by User:Piotrus, despite others and I have asked him to stop. Yet he recently did so (twice) in a dispute about the Battle of Annaberg in which he even abused his admin powers by deleting to make way. Basically, both of you violated Misplaced Pages principles to make something disappear which you seem to dislike: that English use reflects the fact that German place names were used for centuries in what is since 1945 a part of Poland. I am convinced that this falls in the scope of the Arbcom case Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren, in which Piotrus had been edit restricted . -- Matthead Discuß 14:38, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
This is the incidents noticeboard, not the article's talk page. I do not dispute the article here, I dispute your conduct. So once again, please explain the purpose of this edit of yours. Do you know what WP:Gaming the system is ? --Lysy16:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Your conduct, Lysy, is the incident that is supposed to be under scrutineering here. You have not defended yourself yet, you only try to counterattack repeatedly with the same question that is answered already. -- Matthead Discuß 16:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Already ? Or finally now ? You have just admitted that you're deliberately gaming the system yet you do not see any problem and you hope to get away with that. --Lysy16:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
main entry languages at www.wikipedia.org
The languages seem to have changed when they were listed by number of entries per language. But now Spanish has been elevated, German moved down, while Russian and Mandarin have overtaken Italian. Maybe there is some logic to it, if so this can be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.51.75 (talk) 01:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I didn't really know; I'm a causal wikipedian and I saw Mandarin on the front page. I realized it was out of sync, but the solution makes sense! I'll go the other route next time! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.247.211.166 (talk) 04:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Please review 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, as well as my responses A, and B.
This user has repeatedly visted my talk page and asked things that I do not feel are relevant to the project. That part of the situation does not bother me as much as the willfull, repeated, violation of 3RR - which this user has been cautioned about several times previously - (now twice in three days), as well as what I consider to be harassment and/or Wiki-stalking. --Winger84 (talk) 02:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I have given a more formal warning to XxJoshuaxX here. I have told him to stop this kind of behavior, especially as it has no relation to Misplaced Pages and he had been requested by Winger84 not to post to his page. Hopefully this resolves it, Metros (talk) 02:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I suggest both of you move onto other topics. Winger84 has no obligation to provide you an answer as to why he "hates" you, and you do not have an obligation to press for one, either. seicer | talk | contribs02:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
(EC)If he doesn't want to answer you, he doesn't have to. Stop asking questions and edit warring on someone else's talk page. Also, your statement above about the situation not being resolved until you get a response from Winger is not exactly civil, I'd advise you to redact it so it sounds less like a threat. Bottom line, if he doesn't want to answer, leave him alone and go about your own business. Dayewalker (talk) 02:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
What?!? Why do I all of a sudden feel like I'm back in junior high school? *sigh* I had come back here to make a note of this, where I have made an attempt to diffuse the situation, but it appears that may be pointless, judging by the above statement.
You're going to leave Misplaced Pages because someone won't tell you why they "hate" you after you annoyed him by asking him (several times over) what the 84 in his user name means? I just want to make sure I understand this... Metros (talk) 02:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I have made my case. The user appears to be inclined to believe that I am mistreating him, for reasons unknown. I offered an explaination on an Administrator's talk page that should settle the situation. I am closing this now to avoid further confrontation that is very likely highly unnecessary. --Winger84 (talk) 02:38, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
HTTP 500 Internal Server Errors
Hi Guys, Over the last day or two i've been getting quite a few of the HTTP 500 Internal Server Errors, on different computers, conections and browsers. Im just wondering if its a known issue as of yet? «l| Ψrom3th3ăn ™|l» (talk)02:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
WP:VPT might be the better place to ask, but please do because the 500s are driving me goddam crazy! I'm on IE 7 which doesn't cache what you tried to submit, i.e. when I hit the back button, everything I had typed is gone! It's happened 10 times in the last couple days including once a few minutes ago. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
If you press f5 in IE while on an "internal server error" page, it will refresh the page and ask you if you want to resubmit the form. Answer yes and it will try to resubmit your edit again. Graham8707:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
You know, I've been getting a bunch of those lately too. I guess I figured because what with all my work clearing the speedy backlogs (holy cow, 125 deletes in 6 days!!) I was just making more edits and thus getting more error messages. Think we should submit a bug notice? L'Aquatique07:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Graham87, I know that's what usually happens - but it hasn't been lately. I hit F5 and it just brings me to the edit page without my edit. Then I hit back and I'm at the edit page for the section I edited, again without my edit. —Wknight94 (talk) 11:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Unresolved – content dispute, advised to seek mediation
Hi All -
I'm having problems with a user who refuses to discuss the changes he makes. He has been involved in several edit wars where he robotically makes the same change over and over again. His changes to Teleocichla for example are unverifiable and constitute his opinion (or original research). I've tried engaging this unregistered user in conversion and discussion but without success. This user is currently using User:71.136.15.211 but his IP address varies and he's also been active on Greg Bahnsen -- where he's been banned (numerous times) for much the same behaviour. I'd appreciate any assistance dealing with this user. MidgleyDJ (talk) 05:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
A) Which user? B) This is a content dispute, we cannot do anything about it until you have tried seeking mediation yourselves. Chafford (talk) 08:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Hi Chafford - Thanks for the reply. The user in question uses a range of IP addresses (currently it's ). Is this a content dispute? The number of undescribed species of any given genus is unquantifiable (and thus unverifiable). There could be 10, 2, 169 or 12,678 new undiscovered (and thus undescribed) species of a given genus. To my mind putting a number on this violates both WP:V and WP:OR. The only thing that we can say with that meets WP:V is that X number have been described. I've tried discussing this issue with the user in question (on his various talk pages) and on article talk pages -- but the user never responds and just continues to make the change without any discussion. I'd appreciate your advice on what to do next. MidgleyDJ (talk) 22:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Please look at this article, and list it for deletion
This article, Jackpack, is a blatant hoax. One of the references is even from a fictional character, "A Raines" refers to the character Audrey Raines. As an anonymous editor I cannot nominate this article for deletion myself. I do have an account myself but I avoid logging into it from my current location. I'd ask that an administrator nominate the article for deletion, and also look at theseimages, which are a blatant copyright violation. I'd like a link to the AFD as well. Thanks, 203.11.167.2 (talk) 05:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
(ec) I've taken care of the second image (deleted as a blatant copyvio per WP:CSD#I9), and a procedural AfD can be handled by any user. Ideally, I'd prefer it if you logged in and set this up yourself--after all, your privacy is more compromised by you editing under an IP address than it is by editing under a username--but if you'd really rather avoid that then I'd be happy to set up an AfD for you later on today. --jonny-mt06:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Please Help - Editor Benjiboi Edit-Warring: repeatedly Deleting Sourced NPOV sections of Harvey Milk article
A tiny section exists in the article Harvey Milk addressing Milk's support of Jim Jones during the investigation of the Peoples Temple just before the Jonestown tragedy. It includes, for example, a short 1 sentence mention of Milk's letter to President Jimmy Carter labeling those attempting to extricate relatives from Jonestown as making "bald-faced lies."
Editor Benjiboi has repeatedly deleted the entire section.
I have repeatedly attempted to work with him to craft this otherwise tiny section to meet his complaints. However, even after these several attempts to accomodate his complaints that can be seen in the history here at the Milk page history, he continued to delete the entire section wholesale. He continues to assert effectively that any mention, no matter how small, of Milk's support of the Peoples Temple or attacking of those attempting to extrictate relatives from Jonestown amounts to "undue weight."
Benjiboi then started an Rfc. In response to this Rfc, sevearl editors weighed in that the section should NOT be deleted, including:
“
"I've reviewed the Milk page, the Moscone page, and have worked on the various Jones pages. I disagree that this is being given undue weight. His involvement with, and defense of, Peoples Temple, during and just after their time in California, is relevant." Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:09, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
"I agree with this writer. Please do not delete. It is true there is no consensus to delete the section emerged." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caramia3403 (talk • contribs)
"Given the context and timing, the Peoples Temple section is far too important in this article to delete or merge. Especially the letter cited in the article attacking people calling for an investigation." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.23.197.82 (talk) 16:06, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
" This material seems perfectly fine and weighted ect. Please do not be put off by editors who appear to own articles as is the case here. Good luck, --" 72.209.9.165 (talk) 16:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
"The Jones section has to stay in a page like this. It's way too big if its true. I don't know why it would be cut. The part about Harvey being scared of him should be added to it." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.215.117.116 (talk) 13:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
"Finally, the entire Peoples Temple involvement, even with Jonestown literally dominating the Bay Area and Milk's key support, is only a tiny (6%) portion of the article, thus there is no undue weight issue. As well, included is only a tiny portion of Milk's involvement with the Temple." - obviously me.
”
After further discussion, the section has now been cut to only 3 sentences.
The editor's responses have also repeatedly focused upon the character of the subject of the article (Milk) and not the presentation of encycolpedic content:
--"While this all may true it's hardly that interesting and seems to only be useful in characterizing Milk in some way as a bad judge of character." (Benjiboi)
--"this is an encyclopedia not a smear piece. Milk got support from them, so what? So did other politicians and Milk got support from lots of groups." (Benjiboi)
--"I've seen nothing to convince me that this was anything but a minor blip in Milk's life, and as such, deserves little coverage." (Benjiboi)
--"Milk was afraid of Jones and his people so we can't infer why he wrote it and what may have been said in private elsewhere, or that anything ever was." (Benjiboi)
--The material only "seem to suggest he was showing support for someone he thought was working on humanitarian efforts and who supported LGBT people."(Benjiboi)
--"I'm sorry but this feels like mudslinging to me." (Benjiboi)
--"you're making a big deal out of these rather non-notable incidents"(Benjiboi)
After finally frankly being worn down by these repeated deletions and cutting the section down to three short sentences (a tiny portion of the Milk article), I'm not sure what to do in response to repeated deletions of the entire Peoples Temple investigation section.
Kurt does not have any special immunity here. Why not talk to Kurt first and make sure there isn't actually a reason behind his description? If not, then bring it to an appropriate forum, but it is not fair to start accusing anybody of things without talking to them about it first Fritzpoll (talk) 12:36, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Which Misplaced Pages are you editing? I've seen him get away with multiple personal attacks, disruption, incivility, and even off-wiki harassment, and nothing happens. Sceptre12:38, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Will Kurt respond?
Yes he has immunity, as Sceptre pointed out multiple times. He would've been blocked a long time ago if he didn't. And he called the person a troll because the person didn't like his opinion.
Come on. The IP's post that was in response to was equally dickish (calling him "too lazy"). If you're a dick to somebody, be a man and expect the same in return. - Merzbow (talk) 12:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, it's a fact that he does cut-and-paste his reasons in this type of thing. And just because he thinks someone was a dick doesnt mean he can be a dick back. Misplaced Pages is about being civil, not "being a man". Shapiros10My work12:42, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages is not about being civil, it's about creating an encyclopedia. Common sense toward that end trumps anything else, proof in point that super-contributors like Giano are allowed to be incivil as long as they continue to be super-productive, a practice which I didn't before but now agree with it. I don't know how productive kmweber is, but sanctioning an incivil response to an equally incivil bait is the kind of petty wikilawyering that aggravates to no end. - Merzbow (talk) 13:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Oh for Christ's sake. Someone called Kurt a troll, and you want Kurt's wrists slapped because he returned the favor? If you're lying in wait, ready to pounce when he makes a mistake, you should probably wait for something more serious than that. Frankly, some of the comments above have certain troll-like qualities themselves. The proper place to report Kurt, and me, for such shocking incivility is probably WP:WQA. --barneca (talk) 12:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
No.
He thought his behavior was disruptive. He did not straight on call him a troll
I know, I read it. But I also went to Kurt's page and saw no mention of this there. As to your question of whether he'll respond, being a scientist, I prefer experimental verification: why not try and see? And where are these disruptions? I ask genuinely, because apart from his RfA participation, very little about him appears to be brought up at AN/ANI. Same for personal attacks and incivility. I see an accusation of off-wiki harrassment on his talkpage, but the actual text of what he writes names no specific editor. Help me out here - I know people don't like Kurt for a lot of things, but some pointers would be helpful Fritzpoll (talk) 12:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
The ArbCom are in posession of evidence of off-wiki harassment. As far as disruption and incivility go, open up any RFA or AFD he's been active on. Sceptre12:48, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
(multiple ec) Barneca has it about right about right. What's appropriate is not worrying about silly little things like this unless they're actually a problem. Really, it sounds like some of the editors have some kind of grudge with Kmweber. They should probably just leave him alone, in this case. If he does something actually bad, someone else will notice it and do whatever's appropriate. Friday(talk)12:48, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I hold no such grudge.
The thing is, Kmweber gets away with more of this stuff than anyone else.
Hang on. The diff in question was on July 31st. It's now August 4th. I question why this has only been brought to ANI now and not when the actual thing occured on July 31st. Also, he's been a little inactive the past few days, so I doubt there will be a reply from him. D.M.N. (talk) 12:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm closing. Nobody will ever take any action against Kurt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shapiros10 (talk • contribs)
There is. On more than one occasion, he's harassed people off-wiki in the past two weeks alone. The arbcom are in posession of that evidence. Furthermore, his actions on WP:RFA and WP:AFD clearly show disruption to make a point and refusal to get the point. Just because he hasn't contributed in two days doesn't mean that he gets away with all of it. Enough is enough. Sceptre13:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
How is this relevant? If this is true, then it sounds like arbcom is already working on doing whatever needs done. AN/I is not the complaints department. Friday(talk)13:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Arbcom won't do anything regarding Kurt because they aren't "legitimate" in his eyes. Seriously, if I had a dime for every time he said "Arbitrary Committee", I'd be a rich man. Sceptre13:12, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Different situation. There, an editor was not notified of the existence of a case, so had no opportunity to defend themselves. If a defendent chooses not to offer evidence in their own defence, when they know a case exists, then that is their problem, not ArbCom's. 13:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
At the same time, ArbCom won't do anything. Their posession of the logs is more of a courtesy based on current practice. Sceptre13:34, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
This is not a forum. Either he breaks a rule or he doesn't and no rules have broken. This is only becoming unnecessary drama. Rgoodermote13:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Kmweber doesn't serve any purpose on the encyclopedia but to be a gadfly. Given he routinely disrupts Misplaced Pages, personally attacks, and is incivil, and with the evidence of off-wiki harassment (q.v. ArbCom, ANI archive 451), there is no reason not to ban him. He doesn't even do anything constructive. Therefore, I propose a ban on him editing Misplaced Pages. Sceptre13:34, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Your grudge is showing. Just let it drop. If arbcom has secret evidence, they'll act on it if/when they think it's appropriate. Friday(talk)13:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Even a 12 hour block would be inappropriate Sam. But I wouldn't deny that he does need a good long block. But a ban is too much. Rgoodermote13:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
No it doesn't, but it makes it hard to make clear decisions. The outcome here is unneeded drama over a 4 day edit. No blocks can be made and no bans either. This is resolved. Rgoodermote13:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
So, because he's not doing it at this exact second, he gets total absolution? No. This is a recurrent problem that is unlikely to stop. Sceptre13:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Off-wiki harassment, and continuation of disruption to make a point, incivility, and personal attacks. Sceptre14:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
So, why not file another RFC, no single thing Kurt's does appears bannable, and ANI is not a conducive forum to lengthy presentation of patterns of behavior. MBisanz14:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm opposed to RFCs because they never resolve anything - the only use of RFC is as a stepping stone to ArbCom. As any arbcom remedy on Kurt will be ignored, the use of RFAR and RFC is counterintuitive. Sceptre14:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Just file a report with Arbcom if you feel there is a serious need for a ban. But he has done nothing wrong to even warrant a block. Rgoodermote14:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
corect me if Im wrong, but didnt YOU say that the ArbCom was already investigating this editor? If that is true, and what you are saying re: his editing habits and civility and stlaking are true, then his uppance will come soon enoguh. REgardless, it seems to me that WP:ANI is an inappropriate place to have this debate since it is apparently a longterm dispute that reuqires more extensive intervention that the immediate administrative repsonse that this forum is designed with the capability of having in mind. I think that you should either forward this latest atrocity on the part of this user to ArbCom or file for a WP:WQA or a WP:RFC. Smith Jones (talk) 14:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
woah calm down there, mate. no one is saying that what he did id oksay. This is simply the wrong forum for this issue. warbcom or rfc or wqa would be much better. Smith Jones (talk) 14:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Sceptre, this: is an indication you need to take a break. This thread should be snow closed, archived, whatever. It is serving no useful purpose. Since we're proposing bans, I propose Sceptre be banned from this page for the rest of the day, or until he regains his composure, whichever comes first. --barneca (talk) 14:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Smith Jones, I was responding to Roger, actually. And WQA and RFC are useless. There's no point in using them. Sceptre14:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
(ec)(undent)I wish it was Roger. No my name is Robert Edward Goodermote Junior. Last name sounds how it is spelled. Good-er-mote. You aren't the first and will not be the last to call me Roger, so no worries. Sorry I said my response wrong. I am not in the best of shape to be thinking heavily with me missing 5 days of sleep straight and all. But really all I wanted to say was try Arbcom, nothing will come of this conversation here. Rgoodermote14:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
It looks like Ryan Postlethwaite made the decision that the certification was valid, but thebainer overruled him without, seemingly, engaging him in any way. If that is the case, I'd like to make it clear to thebainer that serving on the Committee (despite whatever incidents we've seen recently) is not a special, executive immunity from the rules — on the contrary, serve by example. El_C13:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
RFC rules are clear that it has to be the same dispute, not different disputes (if it was different disputes, half of the admins on Misplaced Pages would be at RFC). If Elonka is correct that Ned Scott did not resolve the same dispute as ChrisO, then the RFC would be uncertified and, as it's outside of the 48-hour grace period, deleted. Sceptre13:36, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
One admin ruled it was the same, and another overruled him, seemingly, without a word, was what I, at least, was referring to. El_C13:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
If you'll forgive me for pointing out the obvious, Elonka is not exactly a neutral party on whether an RfC on her is properly certified. Ryan's take on this is here, and Risker's insightful comments on Bishonen's user talk page are worth a read too in relation to the wider context. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Wikilawyering to get an RFC deleted is lame, and only suggests scrutiny is being avoided. If the subject (Elonka) has acted appropriately, then the RFC will bear that out. If she has not, then the RFC will also bear that out. Either way, the RFC needs to exist in the first place. Arbcom members (in this case, Thebainer) have no special jurisdiction over RFCs. RFCs are a community process, wholly seperated from Arbcom actions by design. Was the RFC certified correctly? Whether the dispute was the same dispute or two seperate disputes is a wholly subjective matter. I would say it related to the same root cause, and was therefore appropriately certified, and the RFC should be undeleted and allowed to proceed - preferably, it should be undeleted by Thebainer, but if he is unwilling to do so, or unresponsive, then the place to discuss potentially out of process deletions is Deletion Review. Neıl☄14:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Without checking the deleted revisions, striking a certification on your own RfC, unless clear vandalism, is grounds for blocking. I ask Elonka to immediately restore the RfC and (if the certifications are not on the same dispute) appeal the certification. — Arthur Rubin(talk)14:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't want you to get the wrong idea. Elonka has not struck anything, nor deleted anything. Thebainer deleted the page, apparently at Elonka's request. Jehochman14:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
This deletion was inappropriate. If thebainer does not undo his deletion, then the page should be undeleted. I'm neutral on whether that should go through DRV, or just happen. Nandesuka (talk) 14:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Note Bishzilla re-create RFC talkpage (deleted at Elonka request by Aaron Brenneman—ROARR!) so discussion can take place there. 'shonen written notes to Thebainer and Aaron, no replies. (Aussies! Probably asleep.) bishzillaROARR!!14:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC).
I leave RfC alone for 12 hours and look what happens... I wasn't too thrilled with the certification, but I didn't see anything wrong with it at the time. I'll take a closer look at everything. Wizardman14:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
(ec x6, to last comment of Jehochman, with a minor network failure at this end) That's what the RfC talk looking like, but after checking the deleted revisions, I came to that conclusion. As an uninvolved admin in regard that particular disputed area, I'm tempted to ban Elonka from the disputed page for the length of ChrisO's page ban, but that might be misconstrued, as Elonka has warned me for violating a 0RR she placed on yet another unrelated area (I think it's the one SA was attempting to certify, but I could be wrong.) As an aside, what is the next step if an admin is involved in multiple disputes with multiple editors, but no third party is attempting to resolve any of the disputes?
It's appropaching the same situation as BetaCommand; there may be no admins who haven't either had a dispute with Elonka or supported her in a dispute against a regular editor, both of which would make taking admin action against her questionable.
The Wikilawyer approach would be to restore the RfC, reset the clock to cover the time during which SAs certification was present, and try again. I suppose the Misplaced Pages approach would be to ignore this RfC and submit a new one, watching the certifications more carefully.... — Arthur Rubin(talk)14:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Personally I think the "Wikilawyer approach" is very disappointing. It's not as if people's concerns are magically going to disappear along with the RfC. One would have thought it would be better all round to resolve the issues, not ignore them. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
The main reason I objected to the certification of the RfC, is because no one (besides ChrisO) had objected to his most recent ban. No one had expressed good faith concerns, no one tried to work anything out. The RfC was just ChrisO's forum-shopping, since the last time that he objected to a ban, he went to ArbCom, and ArbCom supported the ban. Let's please keep things in perspective: I am not going rogue here, I asked one editor to avoid one article for one month, after he had been clearly disruptive and ignored multiple warnings at a highly contentious article, an article which was well within the scope of discretionary sanctions per Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles. There are steps for dealing with dispute resolutions, let's please follow them. --Elonka17:34, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Once again (I seem to keep repeating myself here), I'm not appealing the action you took against me. I believe it to be a symptom of a wider problem which is being manifested across multiple articles. Multiple editors and admins have attested the same concerns. The only place such concerns can be aired in a structured way, away from the AN/I dramafest, is RfC. That's not forum-shopping, that's simple common sense. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
There are steps for dealing with dispute resolutions, let's please follow them. -- Yeah, and RFC is one of the first steps. It was properly certified, as agreed upon by multiple admins. You accuse ChrisO of forum shopping yet you are the one who shopped for admin until you could find one reckless enough to ignore what other admins said and delete the RFC without discussion. The more you protest here the more you prove that you need to go through RFC and the rest of dispute resolution process.
On top of that, your promise during your campaigning for admin status was that you'd avoid controversy and immediately step down if a group of six editors got together and said you had not used your admin power wisely. Nine certified the main clause of RFC before it got deleted and others certified other parts that called your actions into question. Considering that you promised to willingly give up admin status in a situation like this and instead aren't even willing to allow an RFC to remain open, I think trying to point the finger at ChrisO here is a very misplaced tactic. From the look of things on the talk page of the deleted RFC, the DRV and here, many more people think you overstepped your boundaries on this one than just the ones who signed the RFC. DreamGuy (talk) 19:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I fail to see how strict textualism helps the community here. Many people raised concerns over the same behavior (whether good, bad, or otherwise is up to personal interpretation), though this took place on different pages. These cases can be seen as "the same" or "different" depending on your own personal views, making appropriate certification rather subjective, in my opinion. It is particularly unfortunate that many people (myself not included) contributed their thoughts to that page, only to see them get wiped shortly thereafter. These people are not to blame for the RfC possibly not meeting, to the letter, the guidelines for certification, but they do bear the burden of having essentially wasted their time making their contributions. Antelan17:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to jump to conclusions, but what 'd you think in this case?
Message by Kirker (talk·tag·contribs·deleted contribs·logs·filter log·block user·block log·CA·CheckUser(log) ·investigate·cuwiki): "I have sent a note to this snide arehole Kubura on his own talk page."
"Snide" and "areole"? The latter word reminds me too much on the word "ar*ehole" (the letter "s" is in the place of asterisk). It's hard to assume good faith here.
Such kinds of edits are below the basic level of communication on internet, and especially on Misplaced Pages.
This users has been on Misplaced Pages since 26 May 2007, he was supposed to know that by now. He's not "innocent uninformed newbie". Kubura (talk) 14:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Hello. I find the attitude of this anonymous poster (116.15.95.30) at Talk:List of Chinese inventions#Anachronism rather disruptive to both Pericles of Athens and me. He thinks he "considers to register an account", but I get the impression this is the last thing he actually wants. He has made wholesale reverts of my "fucking" additions and accuses me of "sinophobic slants" etc. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:03, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Topic ban for LotLE
Summary
I am respectfully requesting a topic ban for Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (talk·contribs·deleted contribs·page moves·block user·block log) (LotLE) from all articles and pages related to Barack Obama and the 2008 US presidential campaign. Starting on May 14, LotLE has been a tendentious, disruptivesingle purpose account devoted to articles and Talk pages related to Barack Obama, and ANI and AN3 discussions related to those pages. Apparently LotLE is waging a campaign to delete or reduce anything that casts Barack Obama, leading Democratic candidate for president, in a bad light — and obtain administrative sanctions against anyone who disagrees with him, in an effort to get rid of them. Over 60 percent of his edits have served this campaign in this period of 11 weeks. This includes organizations with which Obama has been associated, such as Project Vote and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).
As Kossack4Truth has observed, LotLE has developed a pattern of "low-level edit-warring coupled with low-level baiting," apparently believing that by staying a few millimeters under the radar, he would avoid community sanctions for his misconduct. As a veteran editor, he is well aware that compiling a comprehensive case against him for this misconduct would be very time-consuming. LotLE has been assisted in this campaign by Scjessey (talk·contribs·deleted contribs·page moves·block user·block log), who shares LotLE's style of low-level edit-warring and low-level baiting, and Wikidemo (talk·contribs·deleted contribs·page moves·block user·block log), who immediately reports here at WP:ANI any less than perfectly civil response from their opponents. Together, they seek to WP:OWN the article by getting rid of anyone who disagrees with them.
LotLE has also developed a habit of using edit summaries to make personal attacks, accusations of sockpuppetry and other rude remarks, not limited to articles related to Barack Obama, as evidenced by the diffs cited below and by these two in particular: Generally, if LotLE is involved in one of his many content disputes, and a fairly new account or IP account appears that disagrees with him, that new account is invariably branded as a sockpuppet and his more established adversary in the content dispute is branded as the puppet master. LotLE has been a champion of making these false accusations in article edit summaries and on the article's Talk page, even creating new sections with section headers to announce his false accusations. This is extremely corrosive to the collegial atmosphere on every Talk page where such events have occurred. The targets of LotLE's misconduct are not limited to WorkerBee74 and Kossack4Truth, but also include Noroton (repeatedly), Justmeherenow (repeatedly), Floridianed, Utahredrock and Floorsheim.
The overwhelming evidence
At first, LotLE appeared to simply be reverting whatever K4T did on the article: (another inflammatory edit summary)
However, here he declared his position: And started reverting such minor, innocuous K4T edits as a sub-header, "Early primaries and caucuses."
First incident of tag team edit warring, taking a tag from a teammate: Continued tag team edit-warring against K4T: Characterizing a fair comment as vandalism and reverting it: More accusations on the Talk page: Here, the tag team tactics reached their first fruition. LotLE reported K4T for a 3RR violation: Although K4T hadn't technically violated 3RR, he was blocked for edit warring, demonstrating LotLE's knowledge that users can and should be blocked for violating the spirit, not necessarily the letter, of WP:3RR: More low-level edit warring, often against completely innocuous sub-headers: Another accusation on the Talk page: More low-level edit-warring:
Here, LotLE momentarily agrees that including some Ayers material is good: More low-level edit-warring: Another declaration of his position, this time on his own Talk page — apparently any mention of Wright, Rezko or Ayers is "extraneous crap": More low-level edit-warring to pursue this agenda: Again describing material about Rezko, Wright and Ayers as "crap": Carefully cautioning Scjessey to conceal his own political prejudices: Continuing his relentless chopping away at the Wright material: A section header on Talk that explicitly says, "That Ayers crap":
More edit warring, all on May 25, and an obvious violation of WP:3RR: Within hours, he has the chutzpah to report Fovean Author for a 3RR violation: His frustration when it's declared to be stale: Another declaration of his agenda, notice the edit summary: Attempting to spin-doctor Ayers and Dohrn into a couple of ordinary, harmless, uncontroversial tenured professors: More edit-warring to protect Obama's image:
Here, LotLE begins to develop another facet of his signature style: pedantic nitpicking that calls for ironclad sourcing for every negative word about any person associated with Obama, demanding that such sourcing must be repeatedly cited every time such a word is used. In this example he admits that the cited source uses the word "militancy," but objects to the word "violent" because it wasn't sourced in this particular instance: Such a position, when LotLE has already seen more than adequate sourcing cited in previous discussions, and when his position is advocated by accusations such as "hatred of the bio subject" and mentioning "rules they find inconvenient" on the article's Talk page, only serves to increase tensions, further destroy collegiality, and wear down his opponents in his endless content disputes.
Further pressing of his pedantic WP:BLP argument: However, at this point LotLE still believed that some mention of Ayers in the Obama biography was appropriate: More low-level edit-warring: Notice the provocative edit summary here, "insanely long": Characterizing single paragraphs about Wright and Ayers as "huge, extraneous digressions": and accusing editors who disagree with him of "fantasizing," making "bloody endless soapbox speeches" and being "so far beyond absurd": Characterizing any significant treatment of Ayers, anywhere on Misplaced Pages, as a "100+ word monstrosity": Developing another facet of his signature style by claiming, whenever examples are shown from other Misplaced Pages articles, that all those other articles are bad, but this one is good: More examples of low-level edit-warring:
Advocacy on the Talk page for using existing sub-articles and creating more sub-articles, where any negative material can be hidden from view: and more advocacy for removing or reducing material about Wright and Ayers: More edit-warring, please note incendiary edit summaries such as "especially silly," and "anti-Obama edit flurry." Starting a new section on the article Talk page entitled "3RR and sockpupputs" (ibid.) to present his accusations (which turned out to be false), rather than in the appropriate venues WP:AN3 and WP:SSP: More low-level edit-warring, in this case to remove another mention of Jeremiah Wright even though the context was appropriate: Starting another new section on Talk to accuse K4T of a WP:OR violation:
Here, LotLE briefly kicks his edit-warring into high gear, violating WP:3RR: More Talk page advocacy of the elimination of negative material: Opposing merges of the related articles, Jeremiah Wright controversy and Obama–Ayers controversy, because they provide convenient places to hide negative material about Obama: Gloating over K4T's block, enlisting other editors to help him get K4T blocked again, and accusing Justmeherenow of "ranting falsely": Defining consensus in favor more criticism as "mob rule" and throwing in more false accusations about sockpuppetry and canvassing: More low-level edit-warring, notice edit summary false accusation about "another sockpuppet of blocked user":
Creating false WP:SSP report claiming Fovean Author was a sockpuppet of K4T: More gloating on the article Talk page and repeating his false accusations on Realist's Talk page: Falsely reporting (and gloating about) a block of K4T as resulting from a Checkuser: Here, his false claim is revealed as false because K4T was blocked for a 3RR violation: Adding WorkerBee74 and IP editors as more suspected socks, for no other reason than that they also opposed LotLE in the content dispute: Falsely reporting that WB74 is a "new account added June 1" (it's clear from WB74's User Talk page edit history that the account has existed since January): Continuing his false SSP accusations on the article Talk page:
More low-level edit-warring: Defining gratuitous XML comments as inappropriate while apparently believing his own gratuitous edit summary comments are not: Deleting another editor's vote in consensus, in an effort to win consensus: Discriminating against IP editors: Canvassing for support from Wikidemo: Accusing Noroton of lying in his continued pedantry about WP:BLP: Accusing those who disagree with him of being "radical anti-Obama partisans":
Here's a prime example of LotLE's disruptive presence on the article Talk page:
These endlessly repeated pseudo-arguments passes asinine a long time ago. No matter how many thousands of words a few sock-puppets write about how very much they hate Ayers, it has never been remotely relevant to this article... which is, try to remember, about Barack Obama. Yes there are a bunch of article about Ayers and things he in turn has some connection with. None of that even comes within a stone's throw of relevance here. ... they are welcome to all get their own MySpace pages, which would be relevant places for these rants. None of this has ever been anything other than dissimulation by rabidly anti-Obama partisans who want to pollute a WP article with irrelevant crap.
Accusing those who disagree with him of using the "Chewbacca defense" from South Park: "I was thinking about whether the bad arguments of the Obama loathers here fit better in Argumentum ad misericordiam or Argumentum ad nauseam ..." "It would be a lot easier not to presume bad faith if a few radical anti-Obama partisans wouldn't so obviously display it (even using multiple sock-puppets to do so in one case...)" More low-level edit-warring, the second with an edit summary containing "WTF?" Trying to cast doubt on reliable sources by saying, "I'm sure that some major news sources are either lying or doing really bad fact checking."
On June 7, LotLE became convinced (more by his own recalcitrance than anything anyone else had said) that no mention of Ayers would be appropriate, again describing anyone who disagreed with him as "anti-Obama partisans": Contemplating more sock reports against K4T: Getting completely ridiculous on the article Talk page: Trying to distance Obama from the controversial priest Michael Pfleger by removing Pfleger's name from the biography: (note edit summary) More discussion of SSP reports on the article Talk page: "A transparently stupid attempt to get even": More low-level edit-warring: An attempt to get WB74 blocked for the same tag-team edit-warring that LotLE and Scjessey are engaged in: "Puerile game by an actual sockpuppet": "My edits have all been constructive, but it's true I have a low tolerance for BS":
Jesus! A sockpuppet with more blocks in two weeks of having an account than I have in 5 years is accusing me of more BS. You're right, Noroton, I can't be "diplomatic" about that level of bad faith (not that I think your snide insult above is all that constructive either ...) ...I'm confident that the admins who are watching this will keep a close enough eye on the puppet brigades for the next weeks ... as long as K4T/WB74/Andyvphil are off the destruction for a while (with blocks or bans or whatever), I'm sure the article will remain sane.
Regarding a topic ban for WB74, "This is just a SPA and puppet of K4T. 2 months isn't anywhere close to sufficient as a topic ban. But at least it would be a start." Regarding a topic ban for K4T, "Actually, not nearly long enough time, but at least it would be a start. Having a sockpuppet vote 'oppose' just continues the bad faith." Regarding a topic ban for Fovean Author, "Longer would be better, but good start." "All the additions seem to amount to 'throw shuff at the wall and hope something sticks'." Further pursuit of his false SSP accusation against K4T:
Acknowledges negative results of one Checkuser against K4T, but keeps pushing for another one: Continues to push sockpuppet accusations at Talk:Barack Obama since the prescribed venues weren't providing sufficient disruption and humiliation to satisfy him: "Labored cherry-picking of negative spin": "hoards (ibid.) of socks that keep appearing at the Obama article": "WB74's version is still really thick with obnoxious spin, totally unacceptable!" Fluffing and buffing Obama's anti-war credentials:
Next came the series of extremely inflammatory comments that K4T was blocked for three days for warning LotLE about:
Two or three editors who want to get more anti-Obama language into the article for no purpose other than being explicitly anti-Obama. ... Workerbee74—who has happily been blocked for a few days (not long enough, but it's a start)—simply wants the article to be as negative, even slanderous, as possible, apparently out of a political antipathy to its subject. ... our only choice is to simply disregard and ignore any comments by him/her. Noroton seems primarily concerned with an avenue for his/her long political essays (probably 30k words on the topic by now, far in excess of every other editor; probably all others combined). ...... It's all moot though, however, since there are 2-1/2 editors who will never be satisfied that wording is long enough or condemnatory enough. Dont' feed the trolls.
"Commentary alleging contradiction in positions in unencyclopedic," apparently because it might put Obama in a negative light: Removing part of K4T's warning, calling it "absurdly confrontational": Advocating a longer term topic ban for K4T: Now that he has achieved his short-term goal, he issues a hollow apology for any disruption he might have caused with his constant baiting, and awaits his next opportunity: Anticipating arrival of a new editor who disagrees with him, and issues an anticipatory sockpuppet accusation: Recognizing and removing "hostile baiting" by another editor after months of failing to recognize and remove his own hostile baiting: Removing a National Journal ranking of Obama as "most liberal senator":
Please stop the attack language and belligerence, Noroton! Every single argument you have made have been addressed dozens, if not hundred, of times. At a certain point, it is true, other editors cannot be bothered to repeat the exact same obvious point in response to a hundredth repetition of the exact same argument by you. You don't "win" by writing more words than anyone else can possibly manage, especially when the last time anything even slightly new occurred in those words was weeks ago. There are only three categories of editors who have discussed this: (1) You; (2) Editors who want much, much more discussion of Rezko in this article, but who have been banned for edit warring, sock-puppetry, incivility, and so on; (3) Everyone else, all of whom want less material on Rezko, but who have mostly conceded to having as much as is there now. The train has left the station.
Attempting to distance Obama from ACORN because it might cast Obama in a negative light: Whitewashing the ACORN article despite reliable sourcing: More mockery and accusations at Talk:Barack Obama and elsewhere, this time directed at Bdell555: "The majority of Noroton's very long descriptions are simply examples of guilt-by-association, most of them reaching quite far to find the alleged association." Defiance about his "Guilt by association" section header: After successfully getting opponents blocked or making them so disgusted that they voluntarily withdrew, LotLE triumphantly reduced the Rezko material to one sentence: Removing a reliable source because it casts Obama in a negative light:
This edit looks like extremely bad faith to me. After a month of discussion in which virtually every editor strongly opposed such long and POV description, Justmeherenow inserts a brand new, long, contentious, and poorly written paragraph. Maximally oppose allowing this material.
Attempting to get WB74 blocked for sockpuppetry or topic banned, for actions which don't rise to the level of LotLE's own disruptive misconduct:
While it is true the WorkerBee74 has primarily edited the Obama talk page rather than the main article, the manner in which he does so is aimed solely at creating conflict and disruption. Nearly every edit he makes violates WP:CIVIL, and he games the system by, for example, proposing a "poll" on edit decisions, then voting with multiple socks. Those edits he does make to article space are essentially uniformly contentious additions of material rejected by other editors; these are sometimes accompanied by talk page comments that he has decided his arguments won on the talk page (not sure if putting something on the talk page for a contentions and WP:BLP-violating edit makes it better or worse). We have been through so many rounds of dealing with the disruption, then having it resume as soon as the latest block is over. I simply don't see that it is possible for discussion on the Obama talk page to function in a cooperative fashion while WorkerBee74 is permitted to edit there, a topic ban is long overdue.
To Admins: Please note that in this very ANI report, the same IP range that was previously identified as a sockpuppet of WorkerBee74 is used to defend WB (while claiming to be third party comment). Moreover, just above, Die4Dixie seems to be claiming that this ANI is against him/her, which suggests to me that this is another example when WB forgot which login s/he was posting under.
Scolding Floridianed for caustic comments in edit summaries — a practice LotLE himself engages in on a regular basis: "Let us just start ignoring the provocations and sophistry of the SPA who wants to stick in disparaging/libelous violations of WP:BLP.":
Another effort to remove any mention of Michael Pfleger — please note the edit summary referring to my "interesting edit focus" on gay rights articles, possibly gay bashing: Accusing me on my User Talk page of "largely restoring material added by WorkerBee74, who has been repeatedly banned for edit-warring, and has used frequent sock-puppet accounts over her/his edit career": (Floridianed was kind enough that I had restored WB74's reverted edits exactly once.) Note inflammatory edit summary here which I refuse to repeat: Repeating unproven sockpuppet accusations at ArbCom: Curious bystander (talk) 18:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
My conclusion and an invitation for your comments
At last, we reach LotLE's completely unsupportable, recently concluded WP:BLP complaint here at WP:ANI: Continuing to push for action on his WP:BLP complaint on July 31:
All of my comments had a foundation that was cast in reinforced concrete. I cited, quoted and linked the relevant section of the United States Code and the relevant United States Supreme Court controlling precedent. Noroton's sources were also ironclad, and since he had previously engaged in all of the Ayers discussions, LotLE had already seen them; so when he claimed that Noroton's statements had no sourcing, he was lying. This was a dishonest, deliberately misleading attempt to win a content dispute with the BLP hammer. Since K4T was topic banned for filing an ANI report and an AN3 report that resulted in no admin action, and for months of disruptive conduct, it set the precedent. LotLE should also be topic banned for committing essentially the same offenses.
I am particularly troubled by what may be a display of homophobia in LotLE's edit summary about my "interesting edit focus." Misplaced Pages cannot tolerate bigotry. Someone in a position like mine has developed a sharp eye for low-level baiting and tormenting, and LotLE's entire history of misconduct is a prime example. We have also seen that LotLE is a vigorous advocate of lengthy blocks and topic bans for disruptive accounts, but only if the disruptive account disagrees with him in a content dispute. "Live by the sword, die by the sword," they say. Finally, when the topic ban came for K4T, he protested that his last few days of edits had been completely innocuous and without incident. That only seemed to enrage the community against him even more.
It has taken four days of my spare time to assemble all these diffs, compare them with K4T's and reach the conclusion that LotLE has been at least as disruptive as K4T. Please do not dismiss this as "stale"; it takes that long just to compile the entire case against him. Other editors and admins are encouraged to invest the same amount of time if they doubt me, and topic ban LotLE from all articles related to Barack Obama or the 2008 presidential campaign for the next six months. I now await the inevitable volley of retaliatory false accusations, claiming that I am a sockpuppet of K4T, or WB74, or some other editor with whom LotLE has had a content dispute. Curious bystander (talk) 17:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Gee. Can you summarise this in 200 words or less, and include the most pertinent diffs only? Few people are going to read all the above and click through to check every one of the 230(!) diffs you have given. "Please make your comments concise. Administrators are less likely to pay attention to long diatribes." and so on. Neıl☄17:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm a newbie here and do not really trust my own judgment in determining which ones are the most pertinent. However, I've tried to put them in blockquotes — so look for those. In the alternative, you could just start at the top and read until you're tired of it, and click on diffs until you're tired of it, and allow that to make up your mind for you. The evidence supporting this topic ban is overwhelming, and it's important to clearly convey that fact. People are unlikely to take the word of a newbie like me for that when dealing with a five-year editor like LotLE, so I have presented all of the evidence. The community is completely unaware of the depth and duration of LotLE's misconduct because K4T, Noroton and WB74 haven't been nearly as diligent as Wikidemo in reporting the misconduct of people who disagree with them. Best regards — Curious bystander (talk) 18:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
"Practical entire edit history" includes roughly 60 percent edits on articles related to gay rights (and the history of oppression against sexually unorthodox people in the United States). Dispute resolution? WB74 offered mediation and it has been refused. Here are perhaps the most incendiary examples of LotLE's disruptive presence on the article Talk page:
These endlessly repeated pseudo-arguments passes asinine a long time ago. No matter how many thousands of words a few sock-puppets write about how very much they hate Ayers, it has never been remotely relevant to this article... which is, try to remember, about Barack Obama. Yes there are a bunch of article about Ayers and things he in turn has some connection with. None of that even comes within a stone's throw of relevance here. ... they are welcome to all get their own MySpace pages, which would be relevant places for these rants. None of this has ever been anything other than dissimulation by rabidly anti-Obama partisans who want to pollute a WP article with irrelevant crap.
Jesus! A sockpuppet with more blocks in two weeks of having an account than I have in 5 years is accusing me of more BS. You're right, Noroton, I can't be "diplomatic" about that level of bad faith (not that I think your snide insult above is all that constructive either ...) ...I'm confident that the admins who are watching this will keep a close enough eye on the puppet brigades for the next weeks ... as long as K4T/WB74/Andyvphil are off the destruction for a while (with blocks or bans or whatever), I'm sure the article will remain sane.
Two or three editors who want to get more anti-Obama language into the article for no purpose other than being explicitly anti-Obama. ... Workerbee74—who has happily been blocked for a few days (not long enough, but it's a start)—simply wants the article to be as negative, even slanderous, as possible, apparently out of a political antipathy to its subject. ... our only choice is to simply disregard and ignore any comments by him/her. Noroton seems primarily concerned with an avenue for his/her long political essays (probably 30k words on the topic by now, far in excess of every other editor; probably all others combined). ...... It's all moot though, however, since there are 2-1/2 editors who will never be satisfied that wording is long enough or condemnatory enough. Dont' feed the trolls.
Strong support. I couldn't agree more, and kudos to the newbie for doing such a tiresome and thankless job. Topic ban for LotLE for six months. On second thought, make it a year. WorkerBee74 (talk) 18:19, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
It's definitely a lot of work to go over the claims here, I stand in awe at the amount of labor involved in compiling the report. But AN/I isn't the place to handle such complex issues. This is like calling the police about your allegedly abusive spouse, and when the police ask, what's going on?, you hand them a fifty-page list of alleged offenses. The police can handle emergencies. And emergencies had better be clear and simple, or they aren't going to get proper attention. The place for such a massive compilation is probably RfC, which would lay a foundation for RfAr, later, if needed. Before RfC, of course, there must be documented attempts to resolve the issue, and some other requirements. What I can see above, though, is that it has the appearance of a laundry list. The editor did this terrible thing and that terrible thing and, besides, he has bad breath and is probably homophobic. The cop at the door would probably shake his head and walk away. "Call me if one of you starts hitting the other." My suggestion to this apparently new editor is that he or she read WP:DR, decide what disputes, if any, need resolution, and then pursue them, through normal DR process, one step at a time. It's not going to happen overnight. It is extraordinarily difficult, for starters, to get an editor blocked who knows the ropes and who doesn't insist upon a blockable offense. It can be done, but.... it better be good! Bring this kind of report here just irritates administrators no end, which isn't a great idea, if you are trying to get them to help you. Instead, focus on the encyclopedia, on content. If an editor is disruptively damaging content, deal with that. It's not easy, but that is precisely what is needed. If an editor is damaging content, with bad faith, it will come out when effective, civil, patient, and intelligent opposition appears and it starts to fall apart, unless the editor is very, very smart and knows when to cut his losses. Turn all that effort into content research and writing and patient, collaborative editing, not into trying to get rid of the "bad guys." That never works, anyway, more simply appear. --Abd (talk) 18:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Let me attest with great confidence, and with utmost respect to Abd, that if Abd has said that your post is "a massive compilation", it's too long. :-) All jesting aside, every single editor here is a volunteer, volunteering to do voluteer editing. You "volunteered" to whisteblow (for lack of a better term) another editor. All fine and well, and I can only assume that whatever pushed you to this amount of strenousness and, erm, completeness, was justified. All to say, it's too long for volunteers, in this forum. Keeper ǀ 7618:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Keeper76, are you implying that I'm too wordy? Them's fighting words, pardner! Seriously, as well, yes, I have a lot to say and will often say it, and I know that many don't want to read so much, but .... I would not file an AN/I report that wasn't seriously boiled down, it's disrespectful, in my opinion, not to mention ineffective. Later, in commentary, particularly as an incident is about to be wrapped up, I may write more extensively, where reading what I've written is far more optional. More below --Abd (talk) 20:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Then you should read the summary he provided at the start, or the most offensive examples he provided at the end. From someone who has been dealing for the past two months with LotLE, a disruptive, tendentious editor who has developed a finely tuned ability to stay "a few millimeters under the radar," as Cb puts it, please take my word for it: if K4T deserves a topic ban, then LotLE certainly does. WorkerBee74 (talk) 19:12, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I little process suggestion: don't tell administrators, volunteers as Keeper76 pointed out, what they should and should not do. You are theoretically correct, but, unfortunately, practically wrong. AN/I isn't the place where the kind of decision you are asking for can be worked out, unless the situation is simple enough -- or the planets properly aligned or misaligned as the case too often is -- so that some decision appears, as it may have with K4T. If there is an emergency that requires immediate block, then what you would need to do is focus on that, but what you are describing seems necessarily to be other than that. AN/I isn't the place to deal with what has been called "civil POV-pushing." It's the place to deal with edit warring, gross incivility, and other blockable offenses. Topic bans can result from such, but usually it comes through normal WP:DR process and it is really an abuse of AN/I to try to reach for that here.--Abd (talk) 20:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm currently trying to keep communications open with LotLE through both email and talk pages, and I'm going to stay neutral. Curious bystander, you may want to put a line through most of it, starting with the older stuff (you won't get consensus for action without a good number of admins reading it and commenting on it, and these Obama fights are boring a lot of admins). I've made supportive comments of LotLE at Arbcom and at the beginning of the last AN/I thread (on BLP), but I didn't find him unhelpful in resolving it, and I'm just staying out of this one. I'm tired, I'm sick of the fighting, I have material to add to articles, and I don't have the energy to look back. This is not a criticism of Curious bystander's post. I exercise my right not to have an opinion on it.
Curious bystander appears to me to be a serious editor who deserves to be treated with respect. I find it extremely irritating that a 17-year-old editor (Sceptre) and Ed Fitzgerald (in his 50s and also (old enough to know better) can't avoid WP:BITE. Nobody taunted Sceptre and Fitzgerald and Wheelchair Epidemic into making their comments. This is not how Wikipedians unfamiliar with making AN/I complaints should be treated. This is why every Wikipedian should loathe this page. It's like getting mugged in a police station lobby. Noroton (talk) 19:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC) ((-- crossed out a comment; I misunderstood Fitzgerald's "tt;cnr" comment. -- Noroton (talk) 20:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)))
I don't know this editor, and can only comment on his edit history. Total edits 107, of which only 29 are in articlespace, 23 are to User Talk, a further 17 are to this page, and 35 are to Talk:Barack Obama. Looks fairly straightforward to me. Wheelchair Epidemic (talk) 19:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Lots of reasons to be suspicious of this notice; however, I highly recommend ignoring it at this point. I will try to talk some sense into Curious bystander, assuming good faith and all that, and, if he or she listens, there may be a future report that will be far more to the point, or other process that is less disruptive and less irritating. I understand CB's perspective, I think, but I think that CB, as might be common with similar people, doesn't understand how the process here works. I'll make a brief comment above about that. --Abd (talk) 19:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Can we just topic ban everyone mentioned in War and Peace here from the Obama pages until after the election? Jesus. There's obviously two groups of POV pushers brawling there, and it ain't gonna be fixed by punting one or two people from the pages. Our new friend points out above that the diffs suggest LotLE has been "at least" as disruptive as K4T. That, my friends, is not something that's convincing - it says "everyone's screwing around and everyone should be removed from the situation."
I don't know about anyone else, but it's getting very tiresome to see these same names appearing on ANI over and over and over ad nauseaum over the same bloody topics. Either everyone start to play nice (ha!), the whole sordid mess get dumped in the lap of ArbCom (which we don't need so they might, y'know, finish the never-ending arbitration case one century), or we topic-ban the lot of them and let some editors who aren't carrying grudges the size of elephants get some signal through the noise. Tony Fox(arf!)19:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I note and appreciate your frustration; however, each Wikipedian is an individual (other than the sockpuppets) so please consider each as such. There are legitimate differences of opinion regarding the content of the Obama pages, and serious, legitimate editors being perfectly civil to one another. I won't bother for now refuting the allegations in this latest report. No reason to get worked up - just because somebody files an AN/I report does not mean there is any substance to it. Wikidemo (talk) 22:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
It is extremely rich to see Curious bystander, with fewer than 100 edits, call LotLE a WP:SPA in the second sentence of the missive above. About the rest of it: too long, didn't read. Jonathunder (talk) 20:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
"Mugged in a police station lobby" is about right. Please review WP:BITE. When he's adding material that even looks like it might have a remote possibility of contentious responses, he provides what I call the gold standard of sourcing. He's polite and cooperative. When he has a problem, rather than trying to resolve it with edit warring or personal attacks, he takes it to ANI; he already knows he shouldn't template the regulars. Way too early to call him an SPA but we could use more editors like him, not fewer. WorkerBee74 (talk) 20:34, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
So ... 230 troublesome diffs, including edit warring, incivility and personal attacks, and nobody wants to take action? WorkerBee74 (talk) 21:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
While I can agree with WB's sentiment, in a way, he's got it wrong. What one takes to AN/I isn't edit warring over content issues, normally, unless a consensus has been established, article protection hasn't worked, etc. Quite simply, AN/I is not part of the dispute resolution process. I had to laugh when I saw an RfC in which the certifying parties claimed that they had attempted to resolve the dispute by warning the editor and taking the matter to AN/I. And those were experienced administrators, supposedly! The warnings were uncivil and so was the AN/I report; those were not attempts to resolve the matter, they were part of the problem, greeting a new editor with a "fringe POV" as an enemy, right from the start, instead of seeing it as an opportunity to negotiate a broader consensus. (Which does not involve laying down and playing dead, letting fringe POV take over.)
As to WorkerBee's question, the answer is apparently Yes. I've seen much more blatant offenses, brought to light here on AN/I, result in ... nothing. And trivial offenses that resulted in indef blocks. It all depends on, apparently, the phase of the moon and whether or not the one complaining either knows how to push the necessary buttons of the necessary administrators, or gets lucky. AN/I is badly broken, in case you haven't noticed, and a lot of people know it, but fixing it isn't so easy, apparently. But there are some things we can do. First of all, don't bring disputes that could possibly be resolved without admin tools, here. And if you need article protection to deal with edit warring, go to Misplaced Pages:Requests for page protection, it's fairly easy. Note that you can't freeze the article in the state you want, but it stops the edit warring, and then those participating in Talk are more more or less forced to find consensus in order to get a change into the article. There is then a template which can be used to attract a neutral administrator to implement the change. And there are lots of tools available for finding consensus, including content RfCs, mediation, and user RfCs, and beyond, to ArbComm. Even before most of these is attempting to involve neutral editors as informal arbiters, or other means of directly negotiating consensus. If you assume that it's a lost cause, that everybody is going to be against you, well, you have lost, your attitude guarantees it.
I've written on CB's Talk page about how he could proceed, if he's willing to learn how to do it. AN/I is only a part of the process if a community consensus has first been established, that an editor then continues to violate, for there is then a basis for a report, and it could be pretty simple: the editor is warned, and, if the behavior continues, blocked. And, yes, adminstrators get blocked when they forget that they are ordinary editors like everyone else. Not often, though. While this is not the "real world," it's more like Wonderland, it certainly is not a utopia. Still, there is this amazing guideline that used to be policy and probably still should be: assume good faith. Try it. Sometimes, it works miracles. --Abd (talk) 22:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I rarely disagree with Abd, but I doubt ordinary procedures will work here, as there are too many articles and disputes going concurrently. We may possibly sift through it all, have some inconclusive RfCs, followed by the AC taking its customary 3 months, -- and then everything will be calmer anyway, because the election will have been decided. AN/I is supposed to be able to deal with preventing further disruption, and i think its clear that the contention about this has become disruptive. I support Tony's request for a topic ban for t he major editors involved on both sides. There will be no shortage of other people to deal with this issue. WP is fast becoming the Encyclopedia of the 2008 presidential campaign in the US. Maybe after all we can do it well, but the material above is not encouraging. DGG (talk) 01:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm bypassing the BLP noticeboard and taking this straight here for more immediate attention. We have a new article on the recent allegations about John Edwards here. Does having an entire article about this violate our policy on biographies' insistence that we're not a vehicle for spreading titillating claims about people's lives? What about the neutrality policy's clause about undue weight. The article is quite well and conservatively written, but this issue still merits some discussion here.--chaser - t17:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
The article name is not neutral (if it does survive, it needs to be moved). However, given three-quarters of the references are from either the Huffington Post (blog), the Slate (blog), The National Enquirer (rag), Gawker.com (blog), or (best) the Media Research Center (conspiracy theorists who believe the liberal media is out to destroy the world), what is left amounts to about three reliably-referenced paragraphs that could happily sit in the John Edwards article, which currently contains no mention whatsoever of the allegations, which have been widely reported, and really should. Suggest heavily stripping out the blog gossip, and merging. Neıl☄17:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
The article was written in response to concerns at the John Edwards article that to include details about media coverage of the controversy was a WP:COATRACK problem. The article is intended to discuss the allegations themselves. I don't really care for the title either, but a look at the press references will show that is how the allegations are being pretty much universally to in the mainstream press. Yes, there are blog references, but they are only intended to apply to a discussion of blog coverage of the allegations (a similar situation exists at Killian documents). Any controversial facts are referenced to the mainstream press. Kelly18:19, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
(multiple edit conflicts)I agree with Neil here. Cut out the chaff, to the point of stubbing it even, and merge it to the Edwards' article. There is not enough here for a standalone, per WP:COATRACK. I definitely do not believe this is a CSD candidate (currently tagged as "attack", also tagged with "hangon" as of this posting of mine). The Edwards article doesn't need a "section", it needs a sentence. Suggested sentence to add to the Edwards' article (with a source, of course), to give it the correct weight: Edwards has been accused of allegedly having an extra martial affair that resulted in the birth of a child in February 2008. He denies the allegations. Anything else is reactionary, trivial, nonencyclopedic, and overwrought. (ref, /ref) Keeper ǀ 7618:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it may be "quite well written" but as the article name and slant makes clear, along with the general history of the John Edwards article, it's a blatant POV fork and magnet for POV-pushing on this issue. I've speedily deleted it under criterion G10 ("attack page"), given the BLP concerns. If this is disputed, which it probably will be, I suggest taking it to DRV. I believe there is already a line in the Edwards article that alludes to the controversy. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:24, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I would disagree with the "POV fork" claim - I went to a lot of effort to ensure that the article was written from a neutral point of view, and to carefully source every potentially controversial fact. Shouldn't it at least have been taken to AfD? Kelly18:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
FYI, since the article is deleted, here is a link to an archived copy of the article as it appeared before deletion. I don't believe it was a speedy candidate. Kelly18:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate that you put some hard work into it and I'm sorry to have had to delete it. Considering the problems that the John Edwards article has had lately, I think it would have been advisable to obtain a consensus on that article's talk page that a fork was necessary and that the topic was encyclopedic. Bear in mind that not every issue in an individual's private life is encyclopedic - Misplaced Pages isn't a gossip column or a forum for documenting gossip. Something that's appropriate for Gawker or the National Enquirer isn't automatically suitable for a Misplaced Pages article. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I respect your opinion, I just believe you acted incorrectly in this case. The article included dozens of references to the mainstream press. Kelly18:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I can admit that its intrinsic attackness was not completely clearcut, but I share the concerns that the vast majority was not adequately sourced per both RS and BLP, as well as the problems maintaining a balanced unattacking tone would become for the article. That said, no harm has been done here by its deletion; what was both notable and reliably sourced from it fell essentially into the pattern "reliable source A said Edwards' VP considerations have been hurt by blogosphere material B and/or unreliably sourced allegation C". This can reasonably be merged into his main article. At one point, it was. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
For the avoidance of doubt, my tagging the talk page last night with {{BLP}} merely indicated that it was obvious that the BLP policy applies. I didn't have time then to actually read the article and review the sources in use. Nor do I now. I will not offer a meaningful opinion until I have that much time. GRBerry19:03, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
While the article may have references that may not have withstood full scrutiny under WP:BLP, I think pre-emptive deletion may have been premature. You don't often have CSD candidates with 80+ references - most from mainstream sources and the rest generally from the higher quality blogs (Slate, etc.). Ronnotel (talk) 19:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
There's a golden number of references for articles. Too little, it's unsourced. Too many, the article writer is desperate to prove their point and becomes a NPOV issue. Q.V. Scientology controversies, which had around 200 references but is a POV landmine. Sceptre19:42, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Look, I understand that everyone has an opinion, but it really bothers me that people here are saying that I write "attack articles" or "unsourced articles" or that I am "desperate to prove (a) point". The fact is that I have always worked hard to uphold neutrality and the BLP policy, and I challenge anyone to cite an example otherwise. With respect - Kelly19:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I think the speedy was unwarranted, as well. It had already been turned down for speedy once, and I'd have done the same - this was more suitable for an AFD discussion. As I am wholly uninvolved and in no way invested in the future of this article I won't bother with a DRV nomination, personally, but such may be warranted in this case. Shereth19:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Kelly, I've been meaning to compliment you on the excellent work you did in helping to form a consensus about this at Talk:John Edwards. The deleted article also looks very well put together, and I'm again impressed with that part of it. Sceptre, your point that the article writer is desperate to prove their point and becomes a NPOV issue is weak and a failure to assume good faith. Kelly knew this would be controversial: that's reason enough to provide a lot of sourcing. That said, I'm queasy about this:
Blogosphere claims of a media "blackout" extended even to the online reference site Misplaced Pages and its biographical article on Edwards. Several prominent sites criticized the omission of information about the allegations, most notably Gawker.com and the Media Research Center's NewsBusters blog. Another critic was Roger L. Simon of Pajamas Media, whose post was linked by Glenn Reynolds at the high-traffic weblog Instapundit. The Misplaced Pages biography was later changed to include a mention of the allegations' potential impact on Edwards' political career. The controversy over the Misplaced Pages page was covered by Wired magazine, and Kansas City Star columnist Aaron Barnhart opined that the addition of the information to the Misplaced Pages article influenced later media coverage of the allegations.
We need to think very hard about Misplaced Pages's role in spreading this information. I don't have the time to think through this now, but frankly, I don't feel Misplaced Pages is capable of handling that kind of responsibility. We need to be a bit more cautious than news organizations, not less. But that's just an initial thought -- more a feeling, maybe. And to a degree it's technical: John Edwards has the ability to stop this in its tracks if it's false. Noroton (talk) 20:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm not a stranger to controversial biographical articles (I was one of the primary authors of Ashley Alexandra Dupré). With controversies like this, it's important to ask first if it's notable (this controversy undoubtedly is, with coverage not only in the U.S. mass media, but the international press as well). I don't believe the Edwards article is the right place to discuss it, because the story is about much more than John Edwards - it involves other people, and much of the controversy is not over Edwards himself, but over the handling of the story by some portions of the American mainstream media. To try to include this information in the Edwards article would rightfully raise COATRACK concerns. There are two ways to handle this type of situation - either close our eyes to the event, while numerous POV-pushers show up here to stir up drama about it on- and off-wiki, or to get ahead of the power curve, write a neutral, reliably sourced article about the event, and defend it against POV-pushers. I have no doubt the information will wind up in the encyclopedia in some form; obviously I think it's better if responsible editors control the form that information will take. Regards - Kelly21:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
(e/c, rp to Noroton) To some extent, your concerns are why we have policies like NPOV, RS, and BLP. We follow the reliable sources, not lead them. In the cases where the coverage was impacted by our articles, that would be a symptom that some editing served to lead the story, not follow it. And, to be honest, in principle this also pertains to editing on the Talk pages.
I disagree strongly with your assessment of Edwards' power to stop this, however: Most (by volume; pun intended) of the blogosphere is no better than an infinite number of monkeys at a typewriter. Unlike those trying to type Shakespeare, most fictions that most of those monkeys wish to perpetuate are far less noble. He can only hope to not bait any of them to redouble their efforts. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 21:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree, we follow the reliable sources. Actually, we are doing that -- describing what reliable sources have said. I guess I was concerned because we've gotten ahead of much of the news media. But as I think about it, that's really not our concern, as long as we follow some reliable sources. As for Edwards being able to stop it -- I think I was getting off topic, so never mind. Noroton (talk) 00:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Somebody claiming that Gawker and Media Research Center are "prominent sites" makes me question their motives and their reliability. Corvus cornixtalk21:24, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I do want to emphasize that those sites were only included in a paragraph that discussed the Misplaced Pages portion of the controversy and were in no way used as references regarding the facts of the Edwards allegations. Maybe "prominent" wasn't the best word - by the time I got to that portion of the article, I was frankly sick of working on it and in a hurry to finish. But since my motives and reliability are now apparently in question, it's best I depart before I say something I regret. Kelly21:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Corvus, assume good faith, will ya? Gawker has been prominent for some time. Media Research Center is prominent as far as media criticism groups go. It's a strain to call that wording reason to "question their motives and their reliability." Please. Noroton (talk) 21:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
(outdent)I think a speedy deletion was hasty, considering the effort that went into the article and the number of reliable references (LA Times, etc) present. I do, however, object to the article title. I think John Edwards paternity allegations may be closer to the NPOV language we're looking for. caknuck° is back from his wikisiesta21:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
The title is pretty much the weakest thing about this. If it's not there yet, maybe DRV is the best place to handle this, as Chris O suggests. The people who watch that area are more familiar with this kind of question. Noroton (talk) 21:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the suggested title is much better. I went with what the mainstream press was calling it, but what's appropriate for a newspaper may not be appropriate for an encyclopedia. Kelly22:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
A standalone content fork here is the wrong thing to do. Speedying it was the right call, though I think it would be better logged as BLP special enforcement rather than G10 - but the paperwork is the least important aspect here. It's simple: there may or may not be a place for these allegations on Misplaced Pages. I have an opinion about that, as do many others. Those opinions need to be discussed at Talk:John Edwards. Creating a content fork is an end-run around having to actually reach consensus there, and it's not the way to go. If there's consensus for extensive, highly detailed coverage in the John Edwards article, then a content fork might be reasonable, but this is a pretty clear abuse of content forking. MastCell22:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Hi, MastCell - I don't know if you're aware of this, but I've been heavily involved in achieving consensus at the Edwards article, so please don't say that I'm trying to circumvent the consensus. As I mentioned above, the article was written specifically to address valid COATRACK concerns there. I'm not sure if you read the deleted article, but much of the content was not directly related to Edwards himself and does not belong in his biography - the majority of the content deals with other people, and with decisions and controversies regarding media coverage, as well as a history of reporting on the story. Examples included the Misplaced Pages controversy (admittedly a minor part), decisions by organizations like The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and CBS News on coverage, and the whole birth certificate issue. Those events are notable but not directly related to Edwards himself. Kelly22:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I have to echo what MastCell says above (btw, good point about BLP special enforcement - I'll bear that in mind, thanks). The basic point is that there needs to be some general agreement that the controversy is encyclopedic in the first place. Misplaced Pages is not journalism; if we include articles on current news stories, they have to be on topics of historical significance. Clearly there's no consensus that this topic is of "historical significance". I think WikiNews might be a more appropriate place for this; if you don't already have a copy of the deleted article, Kelly, I'd be happy to provide one if you'd like to knock it into shape as a WikiNews article. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
If the basic point is that there needs to be general agreement that it is encyclopedic, perhaps you could have brought that up for discussion prior to deleting. As it stands, bad delete. Arkon (talk) 23:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Not really. More harm is caused to us by having an article that is a BLP nightmare and a POV magnet than not having it until a consensus is reached. We're not in a hurry here, are we? -- ChrisO (talk) 00:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
This is not a clear case either way. As far as "historical significance" goes, many have said that this has sunk Edwards' chance to be the vice president. But yes, we are uncomfortably close in time to the news stories. On the one hand we're an encyclopedia, not journalism; on the other, we get updated fast, and we do cover events that happen immediately. Is Misplaced Pages coverage of the media coverage really encyclopedic? We do that in various articles covering controversies -- articles which have passed AfD. Noroton (talk) 00:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Quite independent of Edwards and his political fate, the subject is an important controversy in journalism that we cannot avoid covering. If by any chance these peculiar allegation have some truth behind them, then it will be a possibly unique example of the prototypical US tabloid -- tabloid in the pejorative sense--actually publishing against opposition something of national political importance. In the much more likely situation, it will be a spectacular example of that journal's incompetent/biased journalism , in this case adopted by political opportunists, with the added feature of showing the degeneration of the London Times, publishing on the authority of the Enquirer. We will have to cover this separately form our coverage of Edwards. I don't like the title: I would use "National Enquirer coverage of 2008 presidential campaign. " and leave his name out of the title. But I think the version of the article linked to above was acceptable, and I very decidedly would restore it to article space under a better title. I see no intrinsic reason why we cannot start the article now, describing what the E, the LA T, and the T have published, and the major blogs. As for its role in his bio, we should wait and see. I personally would have been reluctant to add that part now, because the difficulties in doing it at present with a NPOV using RSs. But the paragraph in the current locked version of the article is as fair as is possible at the present, and I see no real basis for removing it. On the more general question of our relationship of the press, we will hear exponentially more about it, but the only course is to follow our principles and let them try to follow theirs'. DGG (talk) 00:50, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
DGG makes a good point about an article on the coverage, and it's helped to clarify my thinking. Whenever these kinds of things come up in the public debate, I notice, the coverage that the media gave a similar situation is brought up (I'm talking about off-Misplaced Pages). In this case, the similarities and differences with the John McCain lobbyist controversy, February 2008 have come up. So it seems pretty clear that there is an encyclopedic reason for Misplaced Pages to describe how the media handled this. This is a separate subject from John Edwards. An article on the media coverage would downplay the birth certificate section quite a bit and would keep the description of Edwards' actions in the hotel rather brief, because it would be background information to the main subject of the article: the media coverage. I disagree that the focus should be largely on the Enquirer. I'd suggest: Media coverage of John Edwards paternity allegations. We have already established on the Talk:John Edwards page that the allegations are acceptable under WP:BLP. This solution avoids the content fork problem that MastCell brought up. Noroton (talk) 01:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I would like to complain about another user User talk:Dancefloor royalty who keeps changing the set list on Confessions Tour and other Madonna tour pages. This user keeps disrupting and using unreferenced information which in my opinion is speculation and opinion. I originally added a ref which outlines the official setlist from Madonna's official website. I keep reverting it back to the referenced setlist but Dancefloor Royalty keeps changing it. Can you help please. JWAD (talk)
This is something you should be discussing with each other on the article talk page. Incidentally based on my brief perusal this is a serious candidate for WP:LAME. Exxolon (talk) 19:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
That's slow edit war. Protected the page for a month. Please come to a consensus on the talk page and use {{editprotected}} to request a change, or use WP:RFPP to request early unprotection. Cheers. lifebaka++19:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Copyright Infringement of Misplaced Pages Material
I have contributed to the article Water-fuelled car. However, The Financial Daily, has copied our article, practically word for word without acknowledging our contributions. There are no references according to WP:COPYRIGHT. As an editor, I'm concerned that this copyright will become something of a common practice, whereas (WE) the editors or Misplaced Pages are no longer credited for our work. What is Misplaced Pages doing to help editors such as myself combat copyright infringements of our work? For more details, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Water-fuelled_car#Copyright_infringement. --CyclePat (talk) 19:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
"The editors are legally entitled to seek compensatory damages. Expect to hear from their lawyers." Let me get this right - you're going to sue a website in Pakistan because they didn't acknowledge the GFDL on this article? Good luck, then. Wheelchair Epidemic (talk) 19:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Wow. Just wow. Perhaps it would be wise to take a slightly less adversarial tone in your approach to the Financial Daily? Granted, it looks like they've nicked our stuff without giving proper credit, and they need to either take it down or post a GFDL notice and author info. But is it necessary to start right off with the legal threats? As far as I can gather, the only contact they've had from any Misplaced Pages editor so far is a "rude email" telling them they were "busted", sent on August 1. That's only three days ago, and a Friday. It's now only Monday; it may be that the guy who reads their 'Contact Us' messages was away from the office for the weekend (maybe even for a long weekend).
Now CyclePat has drafted a message in talk space that contains explicit legal threats ("The editors are legally entitled to seek compensatory damages. Expect to hear from their lawyers. This violation must be immediately corrected to conform to the terms of agreement stipulated in the use of Misplaced Pages's GFDL material and international copyright laws to prevent any further legal actions"). Not only is such a threat premature, it's also ridiculous. The company is located in Pakistan, and no doubt has the good sense to realize that such a legal threat is almost certain to be nothing more than hot air. I'm not a lawyer, but anyone with an iota of common sense recognizes that pursuing a copyright infringement suit in this circumstance would be expensive, time-consuming, and never recover even a fraction of what it cost to litigate.
Catch some flies with honey, guys; it works better than vinegar. Ask the editors of the publication politely to remove the material or credit it appropriately. They probably don't (or didn't) know that their writer is a plagiarist, and are likely to be embarrassed about the situation. The Financial Daily staff may know nothing about how Misplaced Pages works, how to read article histories, or what the GFDL means. They may also want to talk to their writer before taking action. They may need help navigating all of these things—without expert guidance, they may not understand how we know that their reporter copied us, and not the other way around. Right now, all they know for certain is that they have an article that looks like a Misplaced Pages article, and that there's some random guy from the Internet (sorry, SteveBaker) who's mad at them.
Thank you HandThatFeeds, this is in relation to WP:Copyrights and I will look into following our guidelines. Ten of All Trades, Since this matter deals with the article, the talk page is a perfectly acceptable location to talk about this. User JohnCD... I have no problem with the website republishing my comments under GFDL as per the requirements of GFDL. In this case, this website fail to comply with the requirements as stipulated at WP:Copyrights and the GFDL licence. Thank you to Dmack who has provided us with an excellent example letter from http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Standard_GFDL_violation_letter. Finally, I see nothing wrong with a legal threats. As you and wikipedia indicates, this is our content and we own the rights. Failure to comply to our copyright is a violation. Again, there is some form of assistance being provided by Misplaced Pages for this type of infringement. However, it's difficult to find. That is why, I've proposed a change to WP:Copyrights. Please see Misplaced Pages talk:Copyrights#Please add the following Copyright Infringement criteria. Thank you again, everyone, for your assistance in this matter. --CyclePat (talk) 20:42, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
P.s.: The website, if you didn't notice is hosted in the United States of America and therefore, the internet provider can be held responsible if no action is taken to removed the copyrighted material. --CyclePat (talk) 20:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Incidentally, what's up with including a link to a satellite view of the company's offices in your threat letter? Are you planning an aerial bombing campaign? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Hi TenOdAllTrades. :) ROFL. LOL. (You litterally, I believe just gave me 1 extra year to my life from the excellent laughter. You had me crying here from the humour. Honestly. :D I'm all smiles)... who could of though how funny that is? satellite bombing campaign. Oh! So many inferences... Specially if you knew what I was just trying to find out as a quote. I was actually looking back for a quote in 2003 : The Iraq Invasion. I remember some news reports indicating that within 3 days, the US had invaded most of Iraq. They stormed through with some 300 thousands troops! Unfortunately I couldn't find a reference for that. That wiki article also indicates that Bush started bombing 1 day early. But I was going to say, if they can invade Iraq so fast, surelly you can take down a webpage within 3 days. Anyways, I did eventually find a quote. So I leave you with this Hungarian Proverb, from Wikiquotes, by Minden csoda három napig tart.... "All miracles last 3 days." Meaning: Novelty always wears off eventually. . --CyclePat (talk) 21:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
CyclePat, I spotted some plagiarised Misplaced Pages content on a BBC.co.uk article once. I sent a polite email to the editor (at the time, a nice chap called Steve Hermann) asking him to either remove the content or credit Misplaced Pages. In his reply, he told me he was unaware the writer, who was new, had copied the content. He removed it quickly, dressed down the writer, and thanked me for letting them know. That approach works far better than an angry and strident "IT FIXES IT OR IT GETS SUED". Neıl☄21:03, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
CyclePat, what's wrong with "We're glad you've used our content . . . but you haven't given us credit . . . so please have a look at our GFDL . . ."? If you still don't get any luck then go with a "rude" message. I mean we don't want them to stop using WP, all we want is credit for our work so I'm not sure rudeness is necessary. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 21:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I must concede with Ebrahim. I'm sure a few of you will agree with me that I do have a tendency of sometimes being abrupt. Thank you. And I'll see what waiting a few days does to help this out. --CyclePat (talk) 21:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
The probation above links to where according to the above page, the community agreed to place the article on probation. Looking at the discussion, there was some support and notexplicit opposition to the proposal (although at least two editors expressed concerns). But the discussion appears to have died fairly quickly. While I personally support the idea of probation, I (and apparently so do other editors Talk:Barack Obama#Warning: This article is on "probation") am not sure whether the limited discussion can really be considered community consensus on the matter. I'm raising this now because I think we need to be clear on whether the article is on probation before any sanctions start which could lead to a right royal mess, and to ensure admins have confidence in enforcing the probation. Nil Einne (talk) 19:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Support/endorse probation Given that we are referring to an article on one of the two likely US Presidential candidates for the next 4 years, an article that is surely going to be a hotbed of controversy for the next 3 months and the problems that are already occuring I think it's a necessary step. Nil Einne (talk) 20:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
(EC) Good point although there are some issues which aren't be covered under the enforcement measures but will be under article probation. (Examples I can think of offhand is personal attacks between editors. Or if an editor insists on starting offtopic discussions such US vs. World or race relations in the US or whatever that don't really raise BLP issues but is disruptive.) (Another example I just thought of, if editors start edit warring over specific wording or other issues that don't raise BLP concerns.) Nil Einne (talk) 20:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm probably should have left the 'probably' in there since I have no direct experience with enforcement of either :-P Although from my reading of the probation policy and from my existing detailed understanding of BLP, I'm pretty sure I'm right Nil Einne (talk) 23:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment - Most editors on the article appear to support probation. We would like a clear ruling on whether the article is, in fact, under probation (as suggested by Misplaced Pages:Article probation, and if so, an appropriate template such as {{Article probation}} placed on the page so all editors, including new ones, are properly on notice. Thanks, --Clubjuggle /C20:19, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment. The Talmudic nuances of "special BLP" versus "article probation" are probably way beyond my understanding. However, I definitely agree that if a few more administrators (maybe slightly irritable ones even :-)) were to keep a the article on their watchlists, everything would be happier. An occasional nudge, warning editors to be on best behavior, couldn't hurt discipline and order. LotLE×talk21:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Support patient administrative attention in any form. Well-conceived article probation is welcome, but needs the efforts of experienced, willing administrators. We can't force anyone to help - perhaps bribe with barnstars? I have a few nits with the exact form as proposed - given the history it should be clearer that derogatory comments about other editors, their motivations, abilities, sincerity, behavior, etc., should be kept out of the edit summaries and talk pages, and that good faith concerns should instead be taken to appropriate administrative pages. I also suggest setting up a special page for handling such things so they don't immediately escalate to AN/I, and formalizing that we're on 1RR and expectations of best behavior and not just bare minimum of civility - but that editors new to the article will be counseled and cautioned first rather than bitten. This isn't a perfect test case for applying the new ArbCom ruling on BLP - first, that ruling is controversial, untested, and of uncertain precedent. Second, it is narrower than the problems we have here, which go beyond BLP concerns (we have wikigaming, incivility, socking, meatpuppeting, edit warring, and general tendentiousness, and some like me argue have little to do with BLP because of WP:WELLKNOWN. Wikidemo (talk) 23:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Not sure if this is the correct place. However, this AfD discussion is being spammed by a number of IP's and SPA's who are voting to keep the article but not substantiating their arguments, and accusing others of "marginalising a small nation" or even racism. Could do with someone to take a look and perhaps intervene. PC78 (talk) 20:38, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I certainly don't mind them having their say; it's the disruptive nature of some of the comments that's the problem. Thanks for looking into it, though. Hopefully it will calm down a bit. PC78 (talk) 21:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
As you say, they can have their say - once per AfD. !Voting many times, and from several IP addresses isn't right. Somebody is trying to disrupt the AfD Mayalld (talk) 22:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
In light of the previous discussion and continued disruptive editing I've told this user that I'm going to require them to use edit summaries from now on link. So far they have refused to communicate at all with other editors, and their editing style is becoming very disruptive, so this seems the very minimum necessary. Does this seem reasonable to other people? Tim Vickers (talk) 21:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
This editor, whose first edit was only on 26 July, has been quite busy removing warnings from his Talk page, so you can't get a complete picture from the current version. His edits may be well-intentioned but they require others to clean up after him. In about 80 edits thus far, he has never posted to a Talk page. Four different editors have so far left him warnings or queried his lack of discussion. An editing restriction is more logical for a basically productive editor who just goes astray in one particular area. I would suggest a one-week block that would be lifted if he agrees to leave edit summaries and respond to Talk comments. If there is still no response or no change in his practices after one week, an indef is appropriate. EdJohnston (talk) 21:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I'd also be OK with that approach, I suppose it would have the same effect without me having to follow them around reverting their non-consensual edits. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Khoikhoi block of G-Dett
I'd like to raise here a discussion currently at User:G-Dett's talk page about Khoikhoi's decision to block her for incivility. For background: on another board, a proposal to block User:PalestineRemembered has been under discussion. G-Dett has long been involved in this issue. Most specifically, G-Dett was instrumental in challenging a previous series of allegations from User:Jayjg against PR in which Jayjg had proposed that PR be permanently banned, claiming that PR had copied material from a Holocaust Denial site. This resulted in an arbitration case in which G-Dett's evidence can be seen here, showing that the material could not have come from that site. As shown by the workshop page, the case was eventually closed despite PR's objections and despite other requests that ArbCom evaluate Jayjg's actions in the incident, including his refusal to apologize for or further support his claims.
This could have ended the issue, but in fact it was raised again recently when Jayjg claimed to Ryan Postlethwaite that PR had a "history" with this issue, and was duly called out on it by G-Dett.
Come yesterday, Ryan made his own proposal that PR be banned, citing Jayjg's claims which have in fact been thoroughly challenged without response. G-Dett responded with this comment, beginning "Oh, fucking please." After several additional comments and significant further discussion, User:Khoikhoi arrived and issued a 24 hour block due to the reasoning here. Considering the history, the fact that this was specifically a ban proposal in which Jayjg's actions were very much at issue, the fact that the discussion had gone on, and Khoikhoi's failure to discuss the issue with G-Dett, this strikes me as entirely wrong-headed. I raised the issue to Khoikhoi though he hasn't yet responded. Mackan79 (talk) 21:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
As I've basically stated on G-Dett's talk page, whatever was going on with PR, the fact that Jayjg commented on it did not give G-Dett the right to violate WP:CIVIL (specifically in this diff that Mackan79 has cited). She has been warned multiple times not to do this and been blocked for it. G-Dett was not blocked for opposing the ban of PR or any of her other objections, it was they way she went about it that caused this block. Khoikhoi21:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
As I responded, the issue here is not just opposing PR's block, but the fact that the primary evidence has been repeatedly been dismantled with no response, and yet continues to be repeated by Jayjg, recently to Ryan who had now himself repeated it in this discussion. Besides that, what is the invicility? You seem to claim on G-Dett's talk page that it was to say that Jayjg lied about this incident. Do we immediately, without question or warning, block people for that? If not, this is exactly the discussion, if any, where it needed to be raised. Mackan79 (talk) 22:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
← Ah. OK. Accusing an admin of dishonesty, bias, and rogueness, without ironclad proof, is grounds for a block under the terms of WP:CIVIL and the Israel-Palestine ArbCom case. I'll keep that in mind, having been targeted in the past for much worse than this by some of the players in this particular battleground. Or we could just stop trying to "enforce" WP:CIVIL with demonstrably counterproductive blocks, but I've been beating that drum for awhile now without success. MastCell21:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Would calling this block a fucking joke be considered grounds for blocking in turn? Just checking. Hypothetical question. Whatever, I think I'm resuming my wikibreak, there's far too much random blocking and topic-banning of good-faith editors happening these days. --Relata refero (disp.) 22:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
G-Dett has a long, long history of incivility towards other editors. She should consider herself fortunate that she has only been blocked for it twice, and for only 24 hours each time. Jayjg has managed to become one of G-Dett's favorite targets, and I think it is long past time she was compelled to stop it. As for Mackan's comments, they raise a series of events from more than a year ago, which G-Dett has used to whack Jayjg over the head every time PalestineRemembered's name is mentioned. In one post alone, G-Dett calls Jay "a full-time propagandist" who makes "deliberately deceptive posts" and "disguises his politics in a high-concept, even baroque form of WP:GAMEsmanship..." In any event, these long-ago events are not the basis for Ryan P.'s proposed ban of PR; his proposal is based on much more recent and ongoing events, as discussed at WP:AN. Mackan's and G-Dett's comments should not be permitted to confuse the issues, to justify continuing attacks on Jayjg, or to obscure the real issue here, which is PR's intractable misconduct as described by Ryan P. 6SJ7 (talk) 22:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I would hope that Khoikhoi reconsiders the block. The point is, there are situations that call for discussion and situations that call for blocks. I see no reason why Khoikhoi couldn't have addressed any problems with G-Dett's comment to her, and they could have discussed it. If Khoikhoi was supported and any claimed violations became more clear, that is where you block. To jump straight into a complex situation where one editor calls another "rogue" or says that the other "lied," particularly in an AN discussion proposing a ban of all places, isn't. This should be true whether you're pro-civility enforcement or not. Mackan79 (talk) 22:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
After a discussion with G-Dett, I've unblocked her on the condition that she not make any more incivil comments and/or personal attacks. Hopefully this specific issue is resolved and we can all move on. Khoikhoi22:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I think that's fair. With all due respect for G-Dett (and I do have a lot of respect for her, as she's one of the most eloquent editors I know of), I can understand why you blocked her. I winced when I read her comments on WP:AN. I thought at the time "that's going to earn a block" and I'm not surprised it did. I understand her indignation at the way Jayjg's previous misconceived attempt to ban PR was being dredged up again - I was one of the editors who spoke out against it at the time after I realised something had gone badly wrong. I don't believe Jayjg was acting maliciously ("cock-up before conspiracy"). In the absence of clear proof to the contrary, it's not appropriate to accuse him of misconduct, and God knows we need to lower the temperature on these debates. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
If Jayjg's actions and allegations concerning PR and others haven't been fully examined and commented on by the community, that probably should be done sometime in the appropriate forum. Cla68 (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Old history, frankly. There's no need to rake it up again against either Jay or PR. I think (or at least I hope) that the discussion at the time reminded everyone of the need to be on firm ground when proposing editing bans. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:04, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
(ec) I agree this is fair, and think Khoikhoi has responded reasonably. What I object to is that he started by blocking, considering the forum and the nature of the discussion, in which G-Dett was specifically responding to a proposal to ban an editor. On an article talk page, fine, but if you propose to ban someone I think you should expect your actions toward that editor to be discussed frankly, particularly with the kinds of accusations involved here. That isn't the place to just start blocking people unless they really fly of the handle, which the continuing discussion showed had not at all happened here. Mackan79 (talk) 00:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Uncivil and bias actions from a admin Dreadstar
The administrator Dreadstar posted on my talk page that I was being disruptive for not indenting on talk pages, in a edit war with multipl users where he only focused on actions i have taken, and threatened me unjustly. I told him that my indentations or lack of on talk pages is not a concern though he continued to focus on it. I also said that the admin that they should not be focusing on me especially when one of the users involved in the "Edit war" stated he wished to block my edits. When I felt that he was not acting as a admin should, i asked that he not contact me anymore. He contacted me yet again and became very uncivil. Yami (talk) 22:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Editor behavior is very much my business. I'm not ignoring the other editor's behavior, they seem to be editing civilly and in good faith. I recommend that you put together some very compelling evidence if you plan on making any sockpuppetry accusations against the other editors, and that you retract your unsupported bad faith allegations in the meantime. Right now, you are the one violating Misplaced Pages policies and Guidelines by edit warring, making accusations, assumptions and showing bias. If you feel I'm biased, then by all means take it up the chain. Dreadstar†21:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm not seeing any gross incivility on either side, really. I suggest you two just leave each other alone, in order to avoid escalating the conflict. Cheers. lifebaka++22:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Improper use of NPOV/POV tag on Female Genital Cutting
I need some assistance on the Female Genital Cutting article. Some time back I removed the POV tag from the article, explaining my reasoning on the talk page. There seemed to be no active discussions on the talk page about the content of the article. I was reverted fairly quickly. The person reverting, editor Garycompugeek, stated that he disputed the article title as being non neutral. This despite a previous discussion (now in the archives) about the very topic. The standing consensus has been, for some time, Female Genital Cutting, rather than the other two terms used Female Circumcision and Female Genital Mutilation. The other term point to the same article, and all terms are desribed and part of the history of the terms, in the article as well. All in all very neutral. The most neutral term was used as the article title, and the two terms considered to be represented by extremists on either end of the spectrum use the other two terms.
Well, So GaryComputerGeek said he added the POV tag because of the article title. He submitted a change request to rename the article "Female Circumcision". He started a survey, and there was a number of people who responded and gave their views (10-12 depending on the way you look at it.) I left the POV tag to stand, based on waiting for the results of the survey. Well, after a few weeks, the name change failed, and GaryComputerGeek, and cohort, editor Blackworm failed to generate a consensus for renaming the article. They had neither a majority, nor a consensus for their view that the article be changed to "Female Circumcision". Read the talk page for the reasoning of various people who offered opinions, should you be interested Requested move and Survey.
So, satisified that the issue of the title had been resolved, I removed the POV tag again, since there is/was no active discussion or dispute on the talk pages, the issue of the article title gaining closure.
The removal of the tag was reverted by editor Blackworm, no explanation given. I discussed on the talk page my reasoning and explained my view on the proper use of the WP:NPOV and the tag. I removed the POV tag again. This time I was reverted by editor Garycomputergeek. I explained again why there should be no tag, and asked if there was any open dispute regarding the neutrality of the article. Garycomputergeek basically said that because he and Blackworm both disputed the article title (still, even though their consensus change failed) that the POV tag should remain. Maybe they do not perceive that there was a standing consensus already, as they did not participate in that (see archives).
I explained that putting the POV tag only because one or more editors disagreed in unspecified ways (that they weren't willing to work through) was not appropriate use of the tag, and that I felt that they were trying to be disruptive.
As I have been reverted twice on the POV tag, I am not going to get in an edit war about it. It is not like it is that important of an issue. I would just like the WP:NPOV policy properly applied. Anyonewho can explain to those editors (and perhaps to me, should I be mistaken) the appopriate use, would be welcome.
Enforcing the POV tag as a form of protest because you didn't get your way doesn't seem like appropriate use to me.
Atom (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
What a horrible edit. Inexcusable. I blocked the IP for a week, which I'm pretty sure is the longest I've ever blocked an IP. The IP will probably be reassigned before then, but that was a ridiculous post. To answer your question, I'm not sure what else could be done (off-wiki anyway), as we really have no way of knowing who posted that offensive message. Have you checked WHOIS? Keeper ǀ 7623:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Even better. Aitias, let me (or Reedy, or ANI) know if that IP returns or "recontributes" such garbage in the future, or if you feel further resolution is needed? Keeper ǀ 7600:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
As an FYI, apparently I was much too lenient. The block was extended from (my) 1 week to (East718's) 6 months. Either way, very blockable, and good riddance. Keeper ǀ 7600:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
FYI, it was on Template:Sisterlinks-author. I went ahead and semi-protected every unprotected template that is transcluded into John McCain. Considering the visibility of this page, and the proximity of the election, I do not think we can afford to have this kind of crap going on. If anyone disagrees, feel free to unprotect. J.delanoyadds01:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Completed - Alison 09:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Unresolved – Both users instructed to leave one another alone
Resolved – That would actually be a resolution. NonvocalScream (talk) 04:05, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
