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Possible ethnic block voting in ArbCom elections?

Discussion moved to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Possible ethnic block voting in ArbCom elections. archiving comment, discussion seems to be over. Fram (talk) 09:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Can someone counsel User:Mooretwin?

This is similar to the "end of my rope" topic here. We have a user (the one above) who's gotten five blocks for editwarring (one later overturned when it was found out that he was editwarring with a banned user), who has a thing about changing articles that use uppercase as an official designation (for example, Special Protection Area) and trying to switch them to lower case. He's been quite persistent on it, even in some cases breaking category names by switching out the uppercase letters for lowercase. He's not gone over the line in any one thing to require a block at the moment, just persistent infringement in various ways. The latest is proposing a series of Requested Moves to lower case titles, and then a canvassing violation at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Capitals.

So requesting moves - having been advised to do so as the proper course of action by another editor - is now an "infringement"? Mooretwin (talk) 20:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The above, combined with an almost aggressive clueless-ness at times (I had to point him at the right area three or four times (an ongoing ArbCom case) for his accusations of tag team editing by some of the people opposing him in these battles).. it's become quite vexing for myself, and User:Ddstretch, and due to Mooretwin's contention that he or I have a "vendetta" against him now (see his talk page, my talk page and Mooretwin's talk page for the gory details), I want to see if a previously uninvolved administrator could look at this and try to break through in discussion. Thanks. SirFozzie (talk) 17:36, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with this summary and the reasons for this request, which I could equally well have made and which I therefore support.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:45, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Me too. I was directed by both of the above editors to , and then accused of being obstructive because I couldn't read the comments, which were actually . DDStretch has also been following me around and hassling me and made unfounded accusations against me , and didn't have the courtesy to explain them. Mooretwin (talk) 20:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I would have to agree with both SirFozzie and User:ddstretch. The issue of civility and personal attacks will also have to be addressed. -- Domer48_'fenian' 14:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Mooretwin has repeated allegations that suggest that I am engaging in a personal vendetta against him for merely pointing out a canvassing violation, mentioned above by SirFozzie. SheffieldSteel advised him that what I wrote was based on ambiguity in Mooretwin's message, and he has once again demanded an apology, which I have given being careful not to apologise for the legitimate warnings he has been given for disruptive behaviour. I urgently ask for any different administrators to counsel him further, as myserlf and SirFozzie are too involved. He continues to post messages on my talk page despite me asking him not to, and I ask that appropriate action be taken to prevent him doing this.  DDStretch  (talk) 10:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

He is also continuing to reinsert a message on Talk:Sinn Féin which runs counter to WP:TALK in that it is largely a personal attack upon another editor, and which has been removed on at least two previous occasions. It is action taken to counter disruption like this which prompted him to make the allegations of personal vendetta aginst myself when I warned im about them. I think that action by some other editor to stop this kind of behaviour from Mooretwin is clearly required, since the messages on Talk:Sinn Féin are inflammatory in an area that has been subject to restrictions because of prior disruption by editors.  DDStretch  (talk) 10:32, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I've blocked this editor for a week. Edit warring to remove personal attacks is one thing, but doing so to reintroduce them, on the talk page of an article under probation, after being blocked five/six times for edit warring, is too much. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 14:18, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

CSD automatic dropdown broken

The script in Sysop.js that automatically selects the correct CSD reason appears to have been broken by a revision to the MediaWiki software. It appears that the wpReason field is no longer automatically filled out with a clip of the article to be deleted, so the automatic detection doesn't work. Can somebody more familiar with the MediaWiki releases confirm that something changed? And then perhaps fix it/file a bug report? -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 08:11, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I was just going to comment on this - there was a discussion earlier about changing the field to default to "blank" when deleting an article to avoid article text such as copyvio or BLP violations ending up in the deletion log. Perhaps that change has inadvertently overridden the CSD script? --Philosopher  09:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd be happy to have the automatic summary back. After getting used to it I find it time consuming to choose the correct option each time. --Tone 13:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to look up the discussion later when I have some time (or if someone knows where it is....). The immediate question is what was changed to allow for the "blank" - was it something requiring the filing of a bug or merely a change in something in the Mediawiki: namespace? --Philosopher  13:57, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I too would prefer to keep the default deletion reason. There are quite a few previous discussions, the main ones being Misplaced Pages:VPR#Remove_default_.27content_was:....27_and_.27only_contributor_was:....27_from_deletion_summary and MediaWiki_talk:Sysop.js/Admin_opinion. The relevant pages are MediaWiki:Excontent and MediaWiki:Excontentauthor. Any current bugs are likely to be in MediaWiki:Sysop.js. -- zzuuzz 14:14, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

That was not supposed to prevent the automatic csd selection, only the 'content was' and 'only contributor was'. We had to request a bug to allow a message to be blanked with '-'. Cenarium (Talk) 14:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

You know that if you click on "deletion" from the line "check links, history and logs before deletion" you get a prefilled deletion summary and always have? Perhaps we should make that link more prominent. Or someone could rewrite the sysop.js code to look for that link on a page and replace the link in the "delete" tab with it if it exists? Happy‑melon 18:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I very much liked having the automatic reason filled in (U1, A7, G9, etc.), and would like to see it back as well. --Elonka 18:33, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I've been using that link so much these days I didn't notice the prefill broke. But anyways, I much prefer Happymelon's suggestion of changing Sysop.js instead of simply readding in the prefilled summaries. Often the "deletion" link in the templates contains more information in the summary than the tab, especially for CSD tags which require parameters (I1, G12, etc.). Of course, standardizing the wording between the text from the link and from the dropdown menu would also be nice, but that's neither here nor there. Cheers. lifebaka++ 19:17, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I didn't even notice there was a link in the template, so obviously I've never used it. My usual method for deleting is to read the article, check the history to see if something wasn't overwritten or another CSD applies instead of the listed one, and then click the delete tab, so I miss the automatic selection. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 21:07, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I never noticed that link either. My general routine is to check the page history, then use Popups to quickly scan the contribs of the page creator to see if there's some other trail of messes to cleanup, and then I click the "Delete" tab. Also, in case it's useful to anyone, I obtain my list of articles to delete from User:Elonka/Watchlist, which shows me several candidates sorted by category, so I can choose if I want to do "hard" deletions that day, or easy ones. It also gives me a quick indication of whether there are other admin backlogs which might need more attention than CSD. I'm curious though about what kinds of systems that other admins use, to work through CSD? --Elonka 21:42, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

This is quite useful, I suppose. My usual sequence of clicks is something like opening several articles in question in tabs, chech each (click to history...), and then delete all that are to be deleted in a row. So the summary directly from the delete button not from the template, does come handy since it means less clicking. Besides, the prod templates do not have such link and this is really unpractical with the auto text missing now. --Tone 22:57, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, {{dated prod}} does have a "delete" link on the template once the five day time limit is up - it's at the end of the suggested deletion summary (following the timestamp notice) and will automatically use that summary. I agree with the others that having the deletion available from the "delete" button would be quite useful - I also usually delete the article when viewing the article history. --Philosopher  16:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• What is holding up the restoration of automatic dropdown? Isn't there a consensus to bring it back? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:14, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that we have consensus here. Perhaps people aren't sure how to bring it back? I've been looking at MediaWiki:Sysop.js and while I'm sure I can figure it out eventually, I don't really know enough about javascript to even tell if the problem is there - let alone how to fix it - without looking at it for a while. I've dropped a note over at User talk:Random832 since he's listed as a maintainer of Sysop.js. --Philosopher  08:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Encyclopedia77 & User:Encyclopedia76

• Main account - Encyclopedia77 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Alternate account - Encyclopedia76 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user has become (or more likely always was) a serial pest. He first came to my attention when he attempted to bulldoze edits into Windows XP. These edits were opposed by two other editors and me. Rather than discuss the edits, as he was invited to do, by way of edit summaries and invitations on his talk page, he chose to edit war to the point where it was necessary to give him a 3RR warning. Since then, there has been no improvement in his editing style. In fact, there seems to have been a decline. He even listed me at WP:AN but it backfired, as can be seen by the comments in that entry by other editors, when his editing style, which shows a history of questionable activity including harrassment, incivility, deletion of content, creation of inappropriate articles, revenge nominations at WP:TfD, placing inappropriate warnings on user pages and so on, was questioned and criticised. Many of the edits made by this editor have been made incorrectly, resulting in the necessity to follow him around to fix up his inevitable errors but I'm not entirely convinced that these errors are accidental. His edits to various chemistry and other articles show a reasonable level of intelligence making me suspect that the "errors" that he makes are subtle vandalism rather than straight errors, which is one reason I have listed this editor here. Some notable examples of his questionable and inappropriate edits are listed in the WP:AN entry. I will not relist them here for the sake of brevity. Other notable examples are:

• 19 November 2008 - By his own admission, Encyclopedia77 was a vandal for some time and was blocked twice. Ironically, his claim to be a vandal fighter occurred 5 days before his second vandal block. This vandalism was perpetrated after his epiphany.
• 25 November 2008 - Asking an administrator to ban me for 5 hours for not allowing his edits into Windows XP. Also asked admin to delete his request, I assume so I wouldn't know who made the request. Naturally, the admin's response was in the negative.
• 4 December 2008 - Placed a warning on an anonymous IP's talk page that was not completely valid. There is no indication that North Carolina Research and Education Network ever made the request indicated in the template.
• 4 December 2008 - Incorrect addition (see {{WPAuto}}) that resulted in a minor corruption of the page that needed to be fixed. I'm not even convinced that E77 is aware of the requirements for a B-class article and I note he hasn't returned to the page to fix his error. That aside, he clearly didn't bother checking his edit after making it.
• 4 December 2008 - This warning was the first and only entry on an anonymous IP's talk page. It is "strange" because the warning was for an edit made 6 weeks prior to the warning. The reversion of that edit wasn't even made by Encyclopedia77 and that was the only edit ever made by the IP. It was a pointless edit.
• 8 December 2008 - Revenge nomination at TfD. After things started looking bad for the templates he'd created (all were eventually deleted) he nominated Template:Repeat vandal, a high use template used on over 4,000 pages, for deletion. That it was a revenge nomination wasn't lost on editors.
• 9 December 2008 - Votestacking. Using an alternate account he created Template:VandalNoticeSmall, which had questionable wording that seemed to misrepresent policy. He also created two redirects to the template, one of which ({{PlzIndef}}) was an improbable title. I listed all 3 at WP:TFD, along with another ({{ImageCopyrightVandal}}) that was redundant, as its fuctionality is already covered by existing templates. After he created {{VNS}} he actually asked the admin he'd previously contacted to protect the template so only he and admins could edit it, which was clearly against policy. When things were looking bad for his tempates he contacted the same admin and asked the admin to vote to keep his template. The admin voted to delete.
• 9 December 2008 - Creation of inappropriate page that was deleted as vandalism.
• 13 December 2008 - Blatant vandalism by alternate account. Replaced article content with "Pretty pink ponys rock"
• 13 December 2008 - Editing warning made by another editor. He has previously been warned about editing comments made by other editors.
• 14 December 2008 - As revenge for my TfD nominations of his templates he nominated {{Suburbs of Port Stephens}}, a template that I had created, for the reasons "Does not seem to be useful. I mean, c'mon! Suburbs? Every template like this i've seen has been deleted." The listing was closed as a disruptive nomination.

Encyclopedia77 has made a number of other edits that, while trivial, paint a picture of a rather peculiar editing style. A short time after he requested that I be banned for 5 hours, he made a mysterious post to another user's talk page. This appears to have been made in response to this warning for one of his deletions of Talk:Windows XP#Recent edits by User:Encyclopedia77 (). This post, made to the talk page of the admin he's been talking at apparently confused the owner of the talk page, which he thought was funny.

I'm not sure what the appropriate resolution is for this problem. I'm a big boy and can tolerate the posts on my talk page but this is a high maintenance editor with an unacceptable editing style. The creation of an inappropriate page on 9 December 2008 and the blatant vandalism by the alternate account on 13 December clearly demonstrate that he has not left his vandal days behind. It's ironic that on the same day he removed the claim from his user page about now being a vandal fighter. Something needs to be done about this editor. He's wasting a lot of other editors' time. --AussieLegend (talk) 10:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Checking out... at least one of those diffs was legit, jfyi ;-) Xavexgoem (talk) 11:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye on him. Xavexgoem (talk) 11:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC) Part of me thinks we shouldn't rush to judgment, so if y'all don't mind... I think 77 has zero clue, but not necessarily zero good intentions ;-)

Message to Aussie: The vandalism from Encyclopedia76 was to see how newcomers get treated for vandalism, and also to prove to a visiting friend that vandalism gets reverted quickly. I had labeled the warning as "to see how newcomer vandals get treated"() (check timing of edit). Thank you for your time. _{Aussie, please do not continue to revert any edit I make, you are lucky that I haven't created a report for you.}The Ununoctium warning was because someone forgot to warn the vandal, as it was clearly vandalism.

I used to like Misplaced Pages until the big bad wolf came along. Because of the windows XP thing, she/he has been stalking everything I do. Misplaced Pages has a NPOV? I wonder why other editors think she is acceptable and I am not. It was not a disrupted nomination, nor was meant to be (TfD). And, please ask Aussie to STOP STALKING ME. Anything I do is undone by her. D***it! I'm just trying to have a fun time writing an encyclopedia! I ask Aussie to stop, but no. For some reason, he/she has to follow everything I do.

All I see in your reply are excuses for unacceptable behaviour and unsupported accusations. Vandalism is not acceptable under any circumstances. As for being lucky that you haven't reported me, perhaps you forgot that you already have, although not with the results that you'd hoped for. You were challenged then about your accusation that I reverted every edit you made but you were unable to support the claim. As I've already told you, I will continue to repair the faulty edits that you make, like this and this, as any responsible editor should. If you don't want your errors repaired, don't make errors. You really need to start accepting responsibility for your mistakes and stop blaming others. --AussieLegend (talk) 22:13, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

It seems that this matter may be at an end for now. The user has conveniently requested a temporary block from one admin, who refused. However, another editor has generously granted his request. I expect we'll be back in three weeks, unless he returns using the Encyclopedia76 account. --AussieLegend (talk) 01:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

We can talk about it then. My opinion is that Encyclopedia77 is very enthusiastic, probably too much, but it hasn't gone beyond the point of no return. I hope he'll come back in 2009 with a fresh mind and be a bit more careful before stepping on every toe in sight :) -- lucasbfr 13:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Bbcody

Bbcody was blocked by Ryulong after only two warnings. I had talked to Bbcody about his vandalism (we had a long discussion), he had promised to me to not vandalize anymore. Since our discussion he has not vandalized again. I believe that the block was unfair and that he did not receive fair warning. Could someone please help. Mygerardromance (talk) 22:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Um, let's see. He's tried to get an autoblock lifted and was denied by User:FisherQueen. He then tried unblock again, saying that he had been blocked a year ago for vandalism, and was denied by User:Kevin. I'm sorry but I agree with Ryulong. Have him write an unblock request that doesn't play the "yes, I vandalized on 10 articles in 20 minutes but you only gave me two warnings" game. Two other admins have ratified Ryulong's decisions. He can try again but I would really really suggest he wait a while and try an better request. Also, the whining to you on his talk page in general, combined with your drama of "if he isn't here, I don't see the point of staying", is not helping the situation. He can appeal directly to the unblock email list if he wants. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry I was going to take this down after the first appeal had been denied, but was too busy. So you can just ignore this now. Sorry Mygerardromance (talk) 01:31, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Kmweber community ban proposal (3rd)

// roux   03:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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

In the just-concluded ArbCom elections, Kmweber (talk · contribs) (hereafter, "Kurt" or "Kurt Weber"), set a new record for votes in opposition to an ArbCom candidate and, indeed, in opposition to any specific editor for any position of trust within the community. As the oppose votes mounted quickly, it was reported that he had been contacting his opposers on IRC, if they were there, and asking them his catch phrase question: "Why do you hate Misplaced Pages"?

Having read this, I appended to my oppose vote a suggestion that he be banned due to the continuing disruption he causes here. Two other usersSecret and Mike.lifeguard, made the same suggestion (the latter amending a previous oppose to include it, as I had), and Sceptre, Sandstein, CComMack and Angr all expressed surprise that this hadn't happened yet.

Misplaced Pages hates Kurt. Or enough of it does that I think, per my own comment, that we cannot not have this discussion (One was opened up two days after the vote began, but closed quickly on the grounds that it was not good timing to start that discussion while the vote was open and Kurt had not withdrawn). Rereading the oppose votes, I cannot help but conclude from them that the community has lost its patience with Kurt Weber.

I have not followed this long-running drama closely, but I am certainly aware of it from a distance. I have no personal stake in this: I was not a self-nommed RFA and Kurt did not vote in mine. Other than a fleeting recent exchange between us(him, me), we have no personal contact.

But I can nevertheless think of several reasons to ban Kurt:

• Chronic failure to assume good faith and personal attacks. Every single oppose vote to a self-nommed admin candidate that stated that self-nomination was prima facie evidence of power hunger was a bad-faith personal attack (if it was purely about principle, he could have just voted neutral, or not voted at all) violated both policies. Every single "Why do you hate Misplaced Pages?" to someone he disagreed with was an assumption of bad faith. And this has gone on for a very long time.

• Chronic disruption of Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point. All the RfA votes, which I was told by a bureaucrat at a meetup were routinely discounted, and this recently-concluded ArbCom candidacy.

• Explicit statement of intent to disrupt Misplaced Pages in the past, and the future. The past part of this is the WR thread (I can't find the link right now) where Kurt offers to help Karmafist sock Misplaced Pages. There is absolutely no defense to this. The future is his very recent declaration that a civil war is the "only way to save Misplaced Pages at this point".

• Duplicity Admitting that "an honest answer would get me banned" means all good faith is forfeited. And to have that as your edit summary and a sole response to a set of very pointed and personal questions from a well-respected current ArbCom member when you blank those questions is the height of incivility, as well.

• Off-wiki harassment. The aforementioned IRC trolling.

Ask yourself, if you were a manager and you had an employee who had, despite progressive discipline, carried on and continued to carry on the way Kurt has, would you not fire him? How would you explain yourself to your superiors or the company's lawyers if you didn't?

Yes, I respect that Kurt has his virtues. He isn't a vandal, doesn't sockpuppet as far as I know and has respected at least the letter of past sanctions. And he has a great sense of humor. Yes, especially that, he does (But do consider this shining morsel of Weber wit, cited by no less than three oppose voters).

But I think that's the most telling symptom of the problem. Kurt has a great sense of humor because, deep down, he doesn't take Misplaced Pages seriously. Durova was spot on here, and his response on her blog suggests someone seriously out of touch with the messy but ultimately beautiful business of creating quality content (This followup isn't encouraging, either).

Kurt's disruptive effect is, ironically, best illustrated by a discussion in which he himself took a negligible part: the Plasticup RfA. Here a self-nommed candidate immediately begins with a joke relating to Kurt's oppose votes, resulting in a discussion about the propriety of such jokes and oppose votes on that basis that might not otherwise have been cast, an "It is not all that funny" essay with the shortcut "WP:KURT" and an MfD. Amidst this sideshow, the nomination fails (though partly for other reasons; see my oppose vote among others). All this in an RfA where Kurt only posted his usual oppose along with a complaint that people should lighten up.

Shortly afterwards, it was agreed mutually between Kurt and the community where he accepted a ban from project space. I would like to think that was enough, but as we now know it wasn't. Kurt's not an asset to Misplaced Pages.

This discussion should not be seen as a referendum on Kurt's views on the RfA process or the ArbCom. The place to make a statement on that basis was the vote just closed, and that's done. This discussion is about Kurt's chronically disruptive presence, and whether we will allow it to continue, particularly given his recent statement of intent to continue such disruption for his own ends. Daniel Case (talk) 00:47, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support indef ban - Misplaced Pages is not therapy. Raul654 (talk) 00:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support. In addition to this impeccably presented evidence, Kurt's last 50 mainspace contributions as of this post go back to September 25. This is not someone we need to keep around, and this would be far overdue. RyanGerbil10(Four more years!) 01:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Nice canvassing, Daniel. This seems to be an attempt to capitalise on Weber's lack of support in ACE 2008 to banish him, despite the fact that little has changed since the last time you tried. Skomorokh 01:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Weak support--I don't like seeing people banned unless they're just straight-up vandals, but this gave me pause. If the math in that diff is solid, it's really something to think about. Furthermore, this still makes me want to vomit every time I see it. GJC 01:07, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support. Kurt does not have the best interests of the encyclopedia in mind. At best he's an annoyance, and at his worst he seems to be actively working to bring disruption and drama to the project, merely for its own sake. None of his actions show any desire at all to improve the encyclopedia, indeed every word he utters here shows utter contempt for the project and for all its members. As he doesn't seem that interested in working with us to build an encyclopedia, it may be time to show him the door. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 01:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support - Kurt's entire AC run was predicated on disrupting the entire AC process if he were elected. He also claims that references 'aren't necessary', which is more or less completely missing the point of WP. // roux   01:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• support strongly. He was foolishly given a last chance. He's wasted it. For all the harassment, trolling, and disruption, lets rid Misplaced Pages of him. Sceptre 01:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Just a point: the harassment has been going back months. I sent ArbCom some evidence while I was blocked, as he kept continuing. Another admin affected, who I won't name unless he/she comes forward, separately forward evidence to them back in August. Sceptre 01:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support - he clearly does not belong here and should have been shown the door some time ago. -MBK₀₀₄ 01:15, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Opposewikipedia is about content. I checked a few of his contributions to real articles in the last few weeks. They were all good.Mccready (talk) 01:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Kurt? Contributing? I'm sorry, but Misplaced Pages isn't a comedy club. Sceptre 01:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you show me a content edit of his which wasn't good?Mccready (talk) 01:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not so much that his contributions are bad, it's the fact they're so sparse compared to his trolling... Sceptre 01:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support - strongly. Enough is enough. ayematthew ✡ 01:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Propose block of Daniel Case for abusing the arbcom voting process to find people to canvass. DuncanHill (talk) 01:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support Strongly. Sam 01:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• He still makes constructive edits. He still collaborates on talk pages. However, there's a clear and persistent social incompetence that is demonstrated repeatedly and, unfortunately, to the detriment of Misplaced Pages's collaborative environment and community cohesion. It's very unfortunate - Kurt is clearly a bright man - but if he refuses to change despite enormous pressure to do so, he needs to go elsewhere. If not by choice, by community judgment. Unrelated - Duncan, puh-leeze. If you're going to do that, do it in a formal manner, not as a backhanded "fuck you" in this debate. Tan | 39 01:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  I have asked Daniel to withdraw his proposal because of the unethical way in which he canvased it. DuncanHill (talk) 01:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Canvassing is not the big issue here. This issue has been discussed before so it's not something that's suprisingly new and WP:AN is a page where a lot of people have on their watchlist that canvassing won't even make much of a difference. What matters is the big picture really. Y. Ichiro (talk) 01:29, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  I believe that such canvassing shews bad-faith on the part of the person making the proposal. DuncanHill (talk) 01:31, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  but if he refuses to change despite enormous pressure to do so — I don't think that's true. For example, someone made this exact same proposal a few months ago. To settle it, a set of conditions were delineated--not all of which I was totally happy with, but which I accepted, and have abided by since. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 02:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Except, when asked for the elections whether you were bound by sanctions or the like, you said "none that I consider legitimate". Nice try. Stop bullshitting. Sceptre 02:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Has the user done anything productive in the past 15 days? That is the date when voting started. -- Cat 01:22, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

yes, like I say. check his content edits. Those who oppose by saying he should have more content edits also miss the point. Can anyone show a content edit that wasn't good? Mccready (talk)

• Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You want to ban me because of my opposes on RfA, even though I was repeatedly told that they were fine, and I haven't even done it in several months anyway? That's absurd.
• Posing a single question to some people constitutes harassment? That's absurd.
• The mailing list post was over a year and a half ago, was a one-time thing, and is the one thing I've done that I truly regret and was totally out of character--something I have expressed many, many times. There's a reason nothing like that has happened since.
• I've done everything that was asked of me the last time this came up, except for one minor digression that was quickly and cleanly handled, and nothing new has come up since.
• Seriously, this is patently absurd. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 01:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• To add to that: I realize that people can change their minds on what is and is not acceptable behavior. But when I'm told what I'm doing is fine, then to say "We've decided it's not fine anymore; goodbye" is ridiculous. The proper course of action is to see if I actually stop first. Everytime a situation like that has come up in the past, that's what's happened, and with positive results. If the general consensus is that what I've been doing and have been told is not a problem, is now a problem, then fine, I'll stop. But it's absurd to hold it against me for doing it during the time I've been repeatedly told it was not a problem. Nothing new has come up since the last time this was brought up; when it comes to light that there is a consensus against what I'm doing, I always stop doing it. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 01:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Kurt, instead of going on a sort of a ranting defense, perhaps you could give diff links to show some ways in which you have significantly helped Misplaced Pages, like a good-quality, referenced, and sizable article or article expansion; or perhaps some discussion in which you actually helped the community to reach a productive consensus.--MrFish 01:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Because I had figured my contributions spoke for themselves. I don't typically reference articles for several reasons: I don't think it's necessary—other encyclopedias don't provide references, after all; a lot of times what I write is stuff I know off the top of my head, so I don't have references readily available; and there are others who are better at that sort of work than I, understand the system more thorougly, and seem to enjoy it—so I let them do it and I continue doing what I do; it's specialization at its best. And I don't have a lot of experience reaching consensus on controversial articles because the subjects I work on just typically aren't terribly controversial (although recent discussion on Talk:List of NCIS characters may be relevant here). But if you want significantly-sized articles, Princeton, Indiana, Head gasket, Gibson County Courthouse, Indiana Marching Band State Finals, Testor Corporation, and Russell G. Lloyd, Sr. come to mind off the top of my head. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 01:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. Perhaps I'm missing something, but WP:BAN#Community_ban says "If a user has exhausted the community's patience to the point where an administrator has blocked the user long term or even indefinitely, and where no uninvolved administrator is willing to unblock him or her, the user is considered to be community-banned. In some cases the community may have discussed the block on a relevant noticeboard, and reached a consensus not to unblock the user. Users who remain indefinitely blocked after due consideration by the community are considered "banned by the Misplaced Pages community" and listed on Misplaced Pages:List of banned users.". Call me a process wonk, but since Kurt isn't currently actually blocked/banned, isn't this discussion out of process? Black Kite 01:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  He's not banned for several reasons. For one, he's a "critic" and blocking him would be "censorship". Secondly, I've talked to several administrators, who agreed he should be banned, but they couldn't (Coren because he was an opponent in the ArbCom elections, Ryan Postlethwaite because he was involved, some because they couldn't act on the evidence as it was confidential)... as I've said, ArbCom are aware of the problem, but they haven't made any decision yet. Sceptre 01:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  There's an arbcom case? DuncanHill (talk) 01:46, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  ArbCom have been given the evidence and they're considering it, last I heard. Sceptre 01:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Has Kurt been told about this and given the opportunity to question the "evidence" and make a defence? DuncanHill (talk) 01:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  I haven't heard anything other than that they're considering it. Sceptre 02:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Did the person or persons who presented this "evidence" to arbcom have the courtesy to inform Kurt about it? Or has the memory of a recent arbcomfubar slipped everyone's minds? DuncanHill (talk) 02:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  I refused to deign to informing him. And I really didn't want to give AC more fuel than neccesarry. Sceptre 02:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Well I hope you get treated with more decency than you choose to extend to those you are trying to get banned. DuncanHill (talk) 02:23, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  I only extend decency to those who deserve it. And incidentally, I didn't. Sceptre 02:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support Overdue. Eusebeus (talk) 01:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose this is absolute nonsense.--Gen. Bedford 01:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support- Kmweber is not here to build an encyclopedia but to cause drama and ill-feeling wherever he goes. Reyk _YO! 01:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Ahhh....I feel like echoing BK here. Kurt isn't blocked indefinitely. He was previously and he was unblocked upon request. I understand that people are fed up w/ his BS, but I'd prefer that we not tally a vote to see if we want to see him gone. That's not a community process I want to be a part of. Also, making a stunt candidacy for Arbcom isn't a disruptive act. We don't have mechanisms to keep candidates like Kurt and RMHED (neither of whom will win) off the "ballot" but it also doesn't disrupt any other candidate (people can vote for as many or as few candidates as they like). I would much prefer we just give the message "There are loads of people who aren't pleased with you and so very few of us will stick our necks out to help you if you are blocked again. Don't get blocked again." rather than banning him in this discussion outright. Protonk (talk) 02:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  No. He was unblocked on the proviso he kept out of trouble. He didn't. Coren regretted unblocking him after he was aware of the level of harassment and disruption he still continues to this day. Sceptre 02:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• I honestly don't see why he shouldn't be banned, so make that a "support", I suppose. And since when aren't we allowed to have community ban discussions prior to the ban, anyhow? --Conti|✉ 02:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• I've been told that, from Misplaced Pages Review, Kurt Maxwell Weber has repeatedly teased, taunted, and mocked me with his (other) catch phrase: "You lose. I win." - This is not a man who cares about Misplaced Pages. He cares about winning his sick little battles against people he hates. He also composed a list of people he thinks should be blocked (he posted on WR, I don't care to find it). On that list are good, kind people (excluding myself, I wouldn't want to be egotistical, I'll leave that to himself) who have always looked out for Misplaced Pages. And, yet, he still wants them gone because they disagree with him and his beliefs. His comments on Durova's blog should seal the deal: You can't say those things and expect good, honest, hardworking community members to support you. It demeans the community when you say those sorts of things. You've disrupted the community for a long, long time and they have been so LENIENT with you, but you just kept on pushing your luck. You need to go, Kurt. Support complete and permanent ban. Scarian 02:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. He is a benefit to the namespace. Malinaccier (talk) 02:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Being good articlt writers didn't stop people blocking me or Giano. Sceptre 02:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  I never had a chance to advocate for you and I would have voted the same. And I want to see Kurt's next April Fool's prank :P. Malinaccier (talk) 02:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support an indefinite block. I can't speak for the community, but my own patience was exhausted some time ago. Some useful edits do not make it worth the chronic incivility. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 02:23, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support ban for the reasons already cited and his attempt to create list of every person that ever lived (which got up to 50MB before it was deleted) in his userspace even though it was obvious that such a thing is blatantly innapropriate. Kurt is either a bad faith troll or just fundamentally incompatible with Misplaced Pages. Icewedge (talk) 02:23, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose ban. Kurt's defense of himself is convincing. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 02:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  I'd hate to see you vote in an election, if you believe bullshit so readily. Sceptre 02:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• So in short, nothing changed from the last series of sanctions, he's apparently respected them...the only thing that's happened is that people don't trust him for ArbCom. So if Sceptre or Betacommand were to reapply for adminship, could we ban them if they were rejected? I am sorry, this is just patently ridiculous. Oppose --Toffile (talk) 02:29, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  No. He wilfully ignored the parole. November 20 Sceptre 02:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Sceptre, please accept the advice previously given to you and avoid commenting further in this discussion. You may take it as a given that your views are well-known and will be considered. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support indefinite site-wide ban - Seriously, why hasn't this already happened. :/ If we don't completely ban him (topic ban will fail), he will just go back to current ways after a couple months and we will be right back to where we stand now. FunPika 02:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support ban. This falls far short of outweighing the massive amounts of disruption this guy has caused. As to the idea that he has tried his best to change, I just don't buy it. He gets community banned from the project space in an attempt to make him focus on the mainspace...and he decides it would be a good opportunity to run for ArbCom? Sorry, I've had enough. AlexiusHoratius 02:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Let's see... disruptive activity, off-wiki harassment, persistent annoyances and point violations, modest contributions... we've banned people for less than Kurt's pulled over the years. Wizardman 02:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: Please do not use ArbCom election results to make your case - behavior during the elections maybe - but not the election results themselves. Under no circumstances should any user ever feel they are risking administrative wrath for participating as a candidate in an election. To be blunt: don't ever misuse election results again, it is reprehensible. I make no comment at this time to the merits of the proposed banning.--Tznkai (talk) 03:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is an extremely dangerous precedent. I disapprove with what Kurt says, but I will defend his right to say it within acceptable guidelines. I support a topic ban for any problematic areas, and escalating blocks for every infraction from here on out. It is legitimate to use humor and contrarian positions to communicate, whether we agree or disagree with it. First they came... Viriditas (talk) 03:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Godwin; we're done here. Per Special:Contributions/Kmweber, user is leaving anyway. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  I think it's going past Voltairian ethics. For example: marching on a Prop 8 protest is fine and dandy, but beating up Mormons on the way isn't. Sceptre 03:07, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• What? Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 03:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

It was a reply to Viriditas. Moved it upwards Sceptre 03:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support: And good riddens. We've banned for less. Thanks for bringing this up Daniel. seicer | talk | contribs 03:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

More limited topic ban

Perhaps a community-wide total site ban is over the top. It is clear (to me) that Kurt has exhausted community patience, but it is also clear that several people have noted that Kurt's article edits are on-the-balance beneficial. Would it be better to simply ask Kurt to continue his positive work on articles by removing his distractions? What if we make this a ban into an editing restriction, whereby:

1. Kurt is restricted to editing articles and article talk pages for the sole purpose of improving content.
2. Kurt should be proscribed from editing the Misplaced Pages namespace, except where he is directly involved, for example, where he is called to account for his actions in content editing (i.e. edit warring, etc.)

Kurt's disruption is solely tied to his interaction with the community, especially such processes as RFA and ACE and the like. Since these parts of Misplaced Pages are the sole source of Kurt's problems, and not his content work, this would allow for Kurt to have more time for content work, and us to have less time discussing his behavior. A win-win by all! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 01:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

We tried that exact parole three months ago. It didn't work. Sceptre 01:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support. With enforcement this time. Malinaccier (talk) 02:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• If the community has a massive brainfart and doesn't ban him, support. A whiff of trouble, even one edit to the Misplaced Pages mainspace... he's gone. And for god's sake, enforce it this time. Sceptre 02:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support, so long as it is enforced. –Juliancolton 02:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Comment. I've never interacted with this user, that I recall. From the links here he does seem to have engaged in intentionally disruptive behavior. Regarding his positive contributions, he has made only 500 article contributions in the last 12 months. At least a third of them are adding templates. A number have been the creation of unsourced stubs, like here. In short, I don't see his article contributions as sufficient to outweigh a record of disruption. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Questions for Kurt Weber

I will not take a position in this debate, and would have to recuse if this came to ArbCom again, but I would like Kurt to answer the following questions:

1. How much of what you have said both on-wiki and about Misplaced Pages elsewhere lately (e.g., that everyone who voted against you hates Misplaced Pages, that I myself hate Misplaced Pages, that I was part of a plot to rig the election against you by Oversighting your support votes, that you are the best content contributor on Misplaced Pages today, that there should be a community ban of Jimbo Wales, etc.) do you genuinely believe, and how much is just playing games and seeking reactions (intended to be a nicer wording than "trolling")?
2. To the extent it is playing games, will you stop? Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

   I think when it gets into the realm of actual harassment, it stops being a game. But I'll let Kurt answer regardless. Sceptre 01:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

   Sceptre, may I politely suggest that you recuse yourself from further discussion? I think the reasons are obvious. Let people with less history handle this maybe? // roux   02:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

   The bit about "me being the best content contributor" was a joke; I do happen to believe I do better work than most, but no, I don't seriously believe I'm the best. You will also notice that that comment (as well as the bit about the election plot, you hating Misplaced Pages) were made off of Misplaced Pages. There's a reason for that. I'm serious about Misplaced Pages, and so I try to keep a lot of the less-serious stuff off Misplaced Pages where it's less likely to do any serious damage. It's mostly just blowing off steam and generally being a goofball; I do some of that on Misplaced Pages too, but in forms where it won't actually hurt anything. The sillier stuff that might actually hurt something, but I can't resist doing, I keep off Misplaced Pages. As for Jimbo...no, I don't think an actual ban is necessary. That'd just be way too acrimonious. I do think his time has come, and the community should just start ignoring him and blazing its own path. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 02:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

   I don't think you realize how hurtful some of your "blowing off steam" and "goofball stuff" can be. For example, it's not particularly fun for me to have, say, put a couple of hours into writing up an ArbCom decision, and then to be confronted on IRC by you asking why I hate Misplaced Pages over and over again. And there are a lot of other people who have less resiliency than I do. I like to think I have a good sense of humor, and frankly you have made me laugh a number of times, but you have also made a lot more people upset and angry than you have made smile. People have been begging you for months to stop this kind of behavior, and you refuse to do it, and now we will see where this discussion leads to. Except that merely by having another endless discussion, we are validating precisely the same sort of behavior, so I suppose you win and we lose again. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

   Would bringing it up to me directly, and individually, not have been a better course of action? Near as I can tell, no such attempt was ever seriously made. My remarks about people "hating Misplaced Pages," or the AC election being rigged, etc., were so patently ludicrous that I can't possibly see how anyone would take them seriously. No one made any serious attempt to resolve them amicably; when people had a problem with it they went straight to block/ban proposals, so forgive me if I get defensive when that happens. Every time someone has had an issue with how I expressed something and tried to resolve it peacefully, it's worked. Problems have only come about when people have insisted that I renounce those ideas altogether, or have tried to resolve the situation with threats and strongarming rather than calm discussion. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 02:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I have some questions, Kurt: 1) The bit about not citing your work: Why are you any different from the rest of us who do actually cite our stuff? What gives you the right to go and do that while the rest of us have to dig hard for sources? The Victor article you created was nearly deleted because your belief that citing is completely irrelevant. Hard working people had to cite it to save it. Have you even thanked them for it?! And why have you never explained that you think citations aren't needed because paper encyclopaedia's don't have them? Why does it take a ban proposal to get that piece of information out of you? Misplaced Pages isn't a paper encyclopaedia, so that "excuse" falls through. 2) If you're just being a "goofball" off-Wiki, then why is everything you say written in an incredibly serious fashion? You offend an awful lot of people with the things you say, do you have no empathy? Are people automatically expected to have a thick skin like you? Do you not care about the feelings of your fellow human beings? Scarian 02:29, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support. For every bit of good he's done, he seems to be blatantly refusing to go with any of our policies, insisting that he doesn't have the time to learn such simple things as categorization, and thinks that such concepts as "notability" and "references" are total crocks, which completely goes against what we do here. He seems to think that he's different from everyone else, that he's invulnerable to our policies, and at times is prone to flat out trolling (see IRC, plus his run for Arbcom). Every time he trolls he seems to act as if he's "just joking" when his tone just doesn't suggest that. He was given another try and, decent article-space contribs notwithstanding, he's long since exhausted just about everyone's patience. Even if he's apparently leaving anyway, this could just be yet another stunt he's doing to attract attention. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 02:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• In a rare case of good faith towards him, I'm going to offer this alternate explanation which I'm thinking of: playing Internet Psychiatrist™, I think he might have some psychiatric disorder (dare I say it, something like Aspie's) which prevents him from realising he's hurting people. It would kind of fit in; I often joke that every contributor is a "clinically depressed Canadian bisexual female-to-male transexual teenage girl". Sceptre 03:07, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose as no reason whatsoever to impose ban, this is ban-madness thinking. Thanks, SqueakBox 03:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• On his retirement, I'll be honest: I'm convinced he's faking it to win sympathy, and he'll be back in a couple days after we forget about this thread. Maybe it's the cynic in me, or the complete exhaustion of WP:AGF.. Wizardman 03:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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

KMWeber thread post-archive discussion

Um... IS this resolved? If Kurt changes his mind next week and comes back (I know, I know... no one EVER says they're leaving and then comes back!!!! that NEVER happens, but bear with me here... ) then what? It may be better to get to some resolution here. Per Wizardman... we should come to a decision. Suggest unarchiving this and resolving it. ++Lar: t/c 04:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

My reason for archiving is that on the face of it, Kurt seems to be gone, and therefore any further pileon--note that I am definitely in favour of a community ban--is both unnecessary in terms of any resolution it seeks to achieve as well as unnecessary from the point of view of needless haranguing of someone who has apparently chosen to leave, not to mention needless proliferation of drama and equine sadism. If Kurt changes his mind, it is trivial to unarchive this discussion and resume where it left off. If he doesn't, no purpose is served by continuing it.

My reserves of AGF are as depleted as anyone else's when it comes to Kurt, but it's not unreasonable to allow even someone so divisive as him to retain a few shreds of dignity if he has chosen to leave. The community has effectively already said "...and stay out!" to him; to continue the pileon appears to move the discussion from a reasonable--if heated--conversation on how to benefit the project into vindictiveness. Moreover, the continued discussion turns Kurt's potential return into a self-fulfilling prophecy; he's unlikely to stay away if people keep going on about it. The intent behind WP:RBI seems applicable here.

Nevertheless, if consensus is that the discussion must continue, by all means unarchive it. I just don't see the utility in continuing it when it appears as though any possible resolution this discussion could achieve would be moot either because he's gone (in the case of a ban decision), or because he's back (in the case of deadlock or consensus against ban). Should he return, and I agree it's likely, the discussion can be restarted. It's possible that he'll take time away and come back with a new perspective which would render the whole discussion moot in any case. // roux   05:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

We have a basic tradition/norm that if a user elects to leave this project, or stops editing, then whatever discussion concerning the user (whether it's a RFC/U or a community discussion like this one) ceases - the reason is because the dispute becomes resolved; an editor cannot continue to be a party to or the subject of a dispute if he is no longer editing. In any case, if a retirement turns into a temporary or long wikibreak, then on that user's return to the project, the discussion can either restart (or in certain circumstances, can continue from the point at which it was stopped). Kurt is no exception to our norms. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:07, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

My view here is that while it might be a tradition, it's not always a useful tradition. This is one of those cases... we have a consensus, or thereabouts, already on what to do... his leaving is just a way to duck facing the music, if you ask me (WP:AGF notwithstanding)... and his coming back later would be a way for us all to waste community time having essentially the same discussion all over again. Meh. If he comes back and returns to the same antics I'm just going to block him, refer to this thread, and post to AN/I and see if anyone says boo. ++Lar: t/c 17:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I would support a block if Kurt does return, Lar. In fact, you'd probably have to beat me to it. GlassCobra 17:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• It's a flame-out. Kurt has obviously burned out, and banning him would be vindictive at this point. We should hope that he goes away for a bit and then comes back under a new name to resume the good things he used to do before he got mired in Wikipolitics. Guy (Help!) 16:31, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I second Guy. I actually feel this outcome is better for everyone, Kurt included. Should he return under his account and resume his previous behavior, we can reopen this discussion. But only then. Daniel Case (talk) 16:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I third. In this thread Kurt has received very clear feedback about how his style of humour is received. Should he have understood this earlier? Probably, especially after so many took his RFA on 1 April seriously. On the other hand he is probably used to everybody realising when he isn't serious, e.g. because of nonverbal cues. I think now he has understood the problem, and intelligent as he is I am very hopeful that he will be more careful in the future. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Guy, Dan and Hans. Let's all just move on. Verbal chat 16:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

If this were the first time Kurt was nearly banned, I might agree, but it isn't. This is what? The second? Third? "Should he return under his account and resume his previous behavior, we can reopen this discussion" - So we can have yet another drama-laden discussion about whether or not he should be sitebanned? I agree with Lar, I see no reason to waste more community time if he decides to come back, DFTT. (FWIW I support a ban) Mr.Z-man 17:23, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I doubt kurt will return for the simple reason that he didn't leave a huge essay on his userpage about how crappy wikipedia is. Those people always return. He just wrote that he's left. Sensible if you ask me, he was a net liability. If he returns and doesn't act so political in future I say welcome back though.--Patton123 17:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• I also agree with Lar and Mr.Z-man, Kurt was a liability to the project since '2005. But because people have mixed feelings about this, I think it should go to WP:ARBCOM instead and let them decide. Secret 17:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Since we evidently can’t resist the thrill of beating a dead horse, and votes for banning are still taking place even after Kurt has left and an attempt to archive the thread didn’t take, I’ll go ahead and register my objection to a site ban, to make it slightly harder (if Kurt ever does come back) for someone to point to this thread in the future and call it "overwhelming consensus for a ban". The whole Kmweber saga has been handled poorly on all sides, not least of all Kurt’s, but... I was all set to write more, but I won’t, since (a) it probably wouldn’t have been civil, (b) it sounded really holier-than-thou as I starting writing it, and (c) I think by now everyone’s opinion on Kurt is so hardened that no one is going to change anyone’s mind about anything. But for posterity, put this one down in the "don't push off a cliff quite yet" column. --barneca (talk) 18:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

You can cite mine and the supports to it as opposition to a ban - I'll not dispute what Secret says because I don't have much past interaction with Kurt (albeit that much of what I've seen is clearly vexatious) but the recent behaviour follows a familiar pattern from which some recover and some do not. Most of Kurt's problem behaviour is in project space, so there is no pressing need to banninate right now, let's just wait and see what happens. Guy (Help!) 20:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Shared IP templates nominated for deletion

This message is being made as a matter of courtesy to inform you that the shared IP templates {{ISP}}, {{MobileIP}}, {{SharedIP US military}}, {{SharedIPCERT}}, {{SharedIPEDU}}, {{SharedIPPublic}}, {{SingNet}}, and {{AberWebcacheIPAddress}} have all be nominated for deletion via TfD. Please see Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 December 14#Template:Shared IP Templates for the discussion. Please also note that I am not the nominator for deletion, and I have not weighed in on either side of the discussion; this is purely an informational message. --Kralizec! (talk) 02:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Probably not malware, but how do we handle this?

The first external link at article Kanpur Dehat district brings up a page that seems to launch a lot of popups. (I say "seems to" because I'm using a popup blocker and just get a lot of notices that popups have been blocked. I have not seen the actual popups, nor do I care to.) The second external link is to the same domain, but doesn't have this problem.

Should this link just be removed, should the external page be blacklisted, is it OK to leave it as it is, or what? The article does need other work, but I wanted to get some guidance on this first. Thanks. Auntof6 (talk) 07:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I would say it should be removed. I left the link there, but removed some junk which had found its way in. Enigma 07:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

What about warning it contains pop-ups? It seems to be the best link for the subject. Many people block pop-ups anyway. ChildofMidnight (talk) 07:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The link opens 162 popups to kanpurdehat.nic.in/present.htm (visit at own risk). That page contains the text; "Click to View Presentation On Kanpur Dehat" which is a link to a .exe file. Doesn't look good. --TheIntersect (talk) 08:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

179, actually. Look, any site that has 179 pop-ups that link to an executable file has to be either bad news, or hacked. We should remove the link immediately, blacklist it, and contact the sysadmin responsible for the site. Anyone speak Hindi? l'aquatique || talk 08:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

More... I can't run a whois on the domain because the tld .nic.in isn't supported, but according to Misplaced Pages .nic.in is reserved for National Informatics Centre web addresses, ergo this is a government site. I still recommend the above course of action, it's possible they've been hacked or there's a bug. That number of popups on a browser without pop-up protection could easily crash a computer, there must be something wrong. l'aquatique || talk 08:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Taking a look at the page source, this actually appears to be a case of incompetence, not malice. The .exe file is in fact a short slideshow created using the ArcSoft VideoImpression tool, and the large number of (attempted) popups is probably the result of a botched edit to the site's Javascript. (The window.open call was mistakenly inserted inside a routine that is called on a timer.) Zetawoof_(ζ) 10:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Nichalp can help us here, I'll drop a note on his page. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Not sure how I can help. The site is the official site. It's true that several Indian government sites are poorly coded, the best example is the site where one files one's taxes online -- Google marked it as a malware page! So I suggest we leave in a link with a warning that the page opens 100+ popups. It appears safe to navigate with Firefox. =Nichalp «Talk»= 11:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

As suggested by Zetawoof the problem appears to be with the code rather than the site itself. Considering that the is site hosted by Government of India, I doubt presence of a malware. The popups direct to an .exe file which contains a small video presentation. The number of popups also seem to vary with browsers for me: Firefox had 133, Chrome one, Safari zero. Not sure about IE but less than 10. Sleaves _talk 11:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Jeez....179 popups? That's about 180 too many for me. Could we perhaps no-wiki the link, seeing as how people don't always read warning messages BEFORE clicking? At least if we no-wiki it, the user will have to copy-paste it instead of just clicking; the extra step will slow them down enough to (I hope!) read the warning. Just a thought, anyhoo. GJC 13:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and nowiki'd it. Enigma 16:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Just one pop-up for me (Safari on WinXP). DuncanHill (talk) 13:22, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

179 for me in firefox under Ubunutu.

I added a quick warning underneath the links instructing readers not to visit the sites without popup blocker enabled. I also added a commented message not to remove the nowiki tags. Think we can call this one resolved? l'aquatique || talk 19:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• That site sucks to a truly incredible degree, but it seems to be all there is. Since the article is a one-sentence stub and there seem to be virtually no other sources than that site why not upmerge to Kanpur? Guy (Help!) 21:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, we've got bigger problems. The article is a copyvio from here: . I'm going to have to delete it, but some of the information, paraphrased, might be able to be upmerged. l'aquatique || talk 22:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Isn't nationmaster.com a crib from Misplaced Pages? And it's GFDL anyway. I suspect they copied us. DuncanHill (talk) 22:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the nationmaster.com admits it's a crib from us "The Misplaced Pages article included on this page is licensed under the GFDL." right down at the bottom of the page, in small-print. DuncanHill (talk) 22:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

And... I feel stupid. I really should get my horribly cracked monitor fixed... Also I should wear my glasses while editing! In any case, the article has been restored, but we still need to figure out whether we want to merge it. l'aquatique || talk 22:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:SSP backlog

SSP backlog is at what I think is an all time high. Several cases have been there for weeks. Any help is appreciated. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

File:Kyoko Okazaki.jpg

This image was placed at WP:IFD on 30 November 2008 . A significant debate regarding the suitability of the image with respect to our policies of fair use images of living people in biographies has taken place. See Misplaced Pages:Images_and_media_for_deletion/2008_November_30#Image:Kyoko_Okazaki.jpg. The IfD page has been archived with all other IfDs on that page being closed, and this one remaining open.

An administrator familiar with our fair use policies needs to review and decide. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 15:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done —Angr 16:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Speedy Delete or not

I have got to go and I can not watch this page. I would like to draw attention to this userpage. I have marked it for speedy as an advertisement. The speedy template has been removed once and as I will not be here I can't ensure it stays by the time an admin takes a look. So, do what you need to. Happy editing. Rgoodermote  17:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Deleted as copy vio of this page---Balloonman 17:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I've unmarked this done, per Krista's comment here. It looks as if her recording label, broken bow, might be going around creating user pages for it's recording artist in the user talk area. That way it gets around our notability requirements. I don't have time to investigate this further, but thought I'd drop a line here if anybody else wanted to look into it.---Balloonman 19:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I had honestly not seen that on my userpage. How odd. Hm, well I would assume that this means we have to do some hunting. I will get on that. Rgoodermote  21:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

If anyone is interested in assisting. Look for artists from this website. Rgoodermote  21:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

(undent)I am perfectly fine with Krista continuing to edit. I have left a rather large note on her talk page informing her of the violations, what she can do to not violate them and asking her to tell everyone to stop what they are doing and made sure I was not mistaken for an admin. If anyone wants to comment what I said, please do. (I am leaving notes here just in case). Rgoodermote  22:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

For fear of being made a fool, can some one make sure that that website is the one? Rgoodermote  22:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Reverting others posts and revising posts after they have been responded to

An RfC is ongoing here at Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Proposal_on_international_date_format. An editor User talk:2008Olympian, is changing his posts so substantially after I respond to them, that my responses are being orphaned since the original text to which I am referring is no longer there. Note these two posts (him at 02:03, 15 December 2008 and me at 02:34, 15 December 2008). Then, he changed his post to what you see here. Note how the text I was referring to Earth, Telescope, and Butterfly was deleted.

Then, another problem from another editor. This happened after I had complained about the above-mentioned violations of Misplaced Pages policy on posts, as you can see here. I had added The proposal has absolutely nothing whatsoever with trying to “determine what the predominant audience is,” which you stated here (difference) and then revised after I posted this rebuttal (in violation of Misplaced Pages policy and is exceedingly rude). Then, User:Locke Cole hand-deleted my complaint (not a wholesale reversion; a surgical deletion) difference here. Note also his edit summary: rm shortcut. His edit summary was written to hide what he had actually done. Both these editors have emotional, strident positions on this RfC so the possibility that this behavior is accidental and innocent doesn’t really pass the *grin test* here. I ask that these two editors have their behavior corrected. Greg L (talk) 20:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I did not remove that text, that's the way it was when I edited it. Strangely it didn't edit conflict (even though I'd been getting edit conflicts all night and hand resolving them). Please assume good faith in the future. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• What you say you did and what the objective evidence based on the edit history says you did are two different things. Does this happen often to other editors on Misplaced Pages? Greg L (talk) 20:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, it does. It's easy for a comment to get lost in a flurry of editing. Edit conflicts don't always get raised (which might have something to do with the database not being in perfect sync down to a resolution of seconds). --Cyde Weys 20:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• I’m not talking about an edit comment being left off; I’m talking about someone removing text that others have posted and the database says that this edit was done by a certain someone. Very well. I will have to assume that text that someone deleted was falsely attributed to Lock Cole by an error in the database. If this passes the *grin test* because it not a rare occurrence, then that’s fine.

  That leaves the first part of my complaint against 2008Olympian as remaining quite valid. He has engaged in repeated, wholesale revisions of his posts—going back and deleting the *inconvenient* text from his original post(s) that I quoted in my rebuttal. Methinks I am right to cry “foul.” Greg L (talk) 21:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• You're misunderstanding me. I'm not talking about edit summaries; I'm talking about comments made in a discussion (like this one). The edit conflict detection code is not perfect, and in particular, I believe it relies on the databases being in sync. It has nothing to do with a deletion being falsely attributed to someone and everything to do with two edits based on the same prior revision being committed in separate database servers before synchronization has occurred such that each database server learns from the other that a conflicting edit has been made. In other words, Locke Cole was right to tell you to assume good faith, though I know that sometimes it's hard to do so when the person telling you to do so is the one you're in a conflict with. --Cyde Weys 21:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• I have an idea. Let's block, for one month, any account that tries to solicit admin action against someone else when the parties are engaged in well-past-lame MoS wars. It seems to me that the less important the issue, the more hysterical and deeply entrenched the partisans become. I personally find date linking intrusive in some places and not in others, and the consensus looks to me to be no consensus, take it on a case by case basis (aka the good old-fashioned Misplaced Pages fudge). I have never seen an example of anyone trying to enforce a MoS guideline across all articles that did not end up being ludicrous in at least some, and leading to a shitstorm and accompanying farce. I would not mind betting that the average reader does not give a flying fuck on a rolling doughnut whether we link dates or not, and I am seriously contemplating requesting arbitration on the entire bunch of MoS warriors just because of the prodigious amount of time, bandwidth and server resources their foolish squabbling causes. Oh dear, I think that might have been one of my old-style unreconstructed rants. Guy (Help!) 21:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Guy, you put the entire MoS up for XfD and I'll second you. DuncanHill (talk) 21:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Ha! You don't know how tempting that is. Guy (Help!) 21:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• “Rant?” Ya think?? But this is not the place for that. The RfC is a legitimate one on an issue of perceived importance to editors. Whereas you clearly worked that “I’m a *high-road kinda person*-angle really hard in your above post, the RfC’s perceived importance is precisely why editors get so emotional about it when they post their opinions on the RfC and debate others. Further, your protestations as to what you think is or is not important doesn’t diminish the fact that RfCs are difficult enough without editors ignoring Misplaced Pages policies. Greg L (talk) 21:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• And you want to us "correct their behaviours"? By blocking? Lol no. And you knew that, so why start this thread? Moreschi (talk) 23:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

As tempting as it is to chime in here and just agree with Guy, let's just address Greg's 2 complaints and slap a resolved tag on it.

1. Greg, it appears you brought 2008Olympian's conduct to ANI without trying to discuss it with him first; did I miss a discussion somewhere? In any case, while his late revision of his own post like that isn't best practice, if you notice it happening, and it's important to you, you can add your own note after your post saying something along the lines of this post was in response to the orginal post by 2008Olympian, located and since changed by 2008Olympian. Or, better yet, ignore it. Not a realistic option in an RfC. Greg L (talk) 22:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
2. Despite your insinuations to the contrary, an edit conflict that isn't flagged happens all the time. There is absolutely no reason to disbelieve Locke's statement of what happened, and quite a bit of reason to believe it. If you'd like me to explain how that happened here, I'll be happy to explain further, but won't waste my time if you're disinterested.

Is anything still unresolved? --barneca (talk) 21:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Very well. Nicely handled. Well, yes, of course I tried to “discuss it” by adding to my post that what he did was against policy and rude. But when I saw that my addition had seemingly been surgically removed by a like-minded compatriot, I felt this was the proper step (rather than even begin to editwar in an RfC I was trying to neutrally host). Technology conspiring to add confusion and misdirection to the mix. I’d be quite surprised if 2008Oly keeps at the violations now. Please mark as resolved. Greg L (talk) 21:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available here. Pcarbonn (talk · contribs) is banned from editing Cold fusion and related articles and pages for the duration of one year.

--Tznkai (talk), on behalf of the Arbitration Committee 21:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Two apparent SPAs starting an edit war

Please could an admin or two have a look at the last few edits to Duchy of Cornwall, and the contributions of the two editors involved. They appear to me to be two SPAs here to have an argument. I have already interacted with one of them, and would be happy to be tolds if I could have done better. DuncanHill (talk) 23:15, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Help please, one of the editors has been inserting material which is not supported by the reference he gives, and has managed to get me into an edit-war with him. It is a blatant spa editing to promote a POV position. DuncanHill (talk) 23:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• User:Sprogeeet is a blatant POV-pushing single purpose account, and is currently inserting speculation, unjustified synthesis and undue weight into articles. DuncanHill (talk) 00:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks to me as though User:Jenks77 is pushing the POV, repeatedly adding a WP:FRINGE external link. // roux   00:50, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Have you even bothered to look at the other editor too? DuncanHill (talk) 00:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll choose to ignore that little tidbit of incivility. I looked at the article you mentioned, and the edits of the people involved. User:Jenks77 is trying to insert material that is WP:FRINGE at best, and User:Sprogeeet is removing it, which is entirely appropriate. If there are other problems with that user, then by all means bring them up. But the problem you brought here is not a problem, or if it is a problem, it's a problem with a different user. Yes, the edit summaries are problematic, but the actual removal of such fringe/crank information is--or should be--non-controversial. // roux   00:56, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, the more active of the two has now been blocked. DuncanHill (talk) 01:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I need an answer

I need an answer as to why, within a couple days of posting my first article, does my user name seem to have been disabled? My article was placed on a copyright infringement notice and while attempting to rectify this situation my user name has been disabled. I want to contribute to this encyclopedia but it is becoming very frustrating and need an answer please. Thank you. - ConcreteCuring 15:47, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Not an admin, but I checked your logs and it doesn't seem you are under and form of block or have been ever. Plus, you posted the above under your unsername. Perhaps a little more information on how your username was "disabled" would be necessary. - NeutralHomer • Talk • December 16, 2008 @ 00:10

I am 100% sure the user is referring to the deletion of his uerpage. Which the logs say were deleted under G11 by NawlinWiki or it could be that this user is referring to another account and expects us to know about it (and in that case would get him in trouble) I am going with the former though. Rgoodermote  02:10, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

That one I didn't see in the logs, so I agree with you, that is probably it. Should we call this resolved? - NeutralHomer • Talk • December 16, 2008 @ 02:39

I assume he's referring to Concrete curing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). CIreland (talk) 02:43, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Never thought about looking there. User page deleted, this page in copyvio protection. Interesting. - NeutralHomer • Talk • December 16, 2008 @ 03:29

Well, I can see why he would think he is not allowed to edit. That does seem to make you think that if you are from a new user's perspective. This issue has way too many layers and possibilities. I'm marking as resolved and calling it a new user's error. Rgoodermote  06:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Works for me. - NeutralHomer • Talk • December 16, 2008 @ 06:07

Giano II

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

Perhaps I'm missing something, but Giano seems to be on this board or Arbcom every month, and I don't think I've ever seen a discussion of his behaviour as a whole - only of the incident du jour. Now, admittedly, I'm obviously getting a biased view - I only see him when he appears here, or at Arbcom, but I'm not sure I understand the situation, as, normally, people who cause as much disruption as he evidently causes have not been treated so leniently. Can we have a quick primer for those of us who have merely seen it play out from the sidelines? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 01:34, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you start digging, or speak with people privately to gain a history. The insane drama that will ensue from this is.. bad. I suggest this thread be closed. // roux   01:45, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

If this thread must be closed, that is fine, but I object to having my statements be being deleted like a vandal's. I have reverted the deletion of this thread. I am an editor in good standing, and have produced large quantities of featured content.

Whether it causes drama or not, this situation has gone on for a long time, and I see no benefit in putting mere discussion of what appears to be a long-term disruption off-limits. If there are strong mitigating factors, I think we should hear them, but it does appear that we have a situation that has gone on a very long time, and which has never actually been discussed to try and figure out a way forwards, or to mitigate the problems being caused on a regular basis. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 02:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Per Roux I am closing this. You have every right to reopen it. But please keep in mind that drama may ensue. Rgoodermote  02:15, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Matthew Hoffman request to vacate

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

The Matthew Hoffman case (Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman) is usually cited as one of the worst-handled cases of the 2008 Arbcom, though it began with the 2007. I believe that I need not rehash the points that can be made about the case, it's enough to say that, at this moment, half the arbcom have voted to vacate it. (Motion 1.3)

...And there it has stood for three weeks. Christmas is coming up, and the new Arbcom comes in in two weeks, sending any unfinished business into chaos. Ncmvocalist (without my knowledge) polled the new Arbcom candidates on it, the vast majority said that it should be vacated, and most agreed that 1.3 would do.

This case is beginning to drag on far too long. As the person who was at the centre of the case - so stressful and badly handled that it sent me into a nervous breakdown that forced me to drop out of University for the last year (I'm finally restarting in January) - I just want this to be over.

I'm not sure what can be done, but the request was made over a month ago,a nd the arbcom seem unable to get the last few people to either abstain or vote, to move above 50% in favour. The case in question contains direct factual errors about me, for instance, finding of fact #4:

I want this situation to be over. I'm not sure of the best way to go about this, but after a month, it does seem that my best recourse is to appeal to the community to put pressure onto Arbcom to finish up the motion,or something. If anyone can advise, I am open to hearing it, but would like to finish up this case, which has hung over my head and Arbcom's for a year.

Thank you,

Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 05:18, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I understand your frustration and the delaying by some arbitrators is unacceptable - I would go so far as to call it unethical, given that they have the option to mark themselves inactive. However, I think the trouble you may have in appealing to the community (and this may also be the cause of the delays by ArbCom) is that not everybody will agree with you that Finding of Fact 4 is incorrect. CIreland (talk) 05:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

hold fire chaps - motion 1.3 seems to be passing now, following jp's vote :-) Merry christmas! Privatemusings (talk) 05:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank god. A long, frustrating three weeks, but it's all over now.

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman motion passed

The Arbitration Committee have passed a motion with regards to the final decision in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman, decided in February 2008. In light of all the circumstances presented, the findings and remedies contained in this decision are withdrawn insofar as they reflect adversely on the editor identified as "Vanished user." A notation to this effect has be made on the case pages, which had already been courtesy blanked.

This action is based on the cumulative circumstances, and does not constitute a precedent for the routine withdrawal or vacating of arbitration decisions based on later disagreement with the decisions reached. The Committee notes that after receiving feedback about the use of his administrator tools, Shoemaker's Holiday voluntarily agreed to give up his tools and to consult with the Arbitration Committee should he wish to become an administrator in the future.

For the Arbitration Committee,
Daniel (talk) 06:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

At long last. :) Durova 02:51, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Damn. I had February 31st in the pool. --barneca (talk) 02:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Request to create Everette Brown

I went to create the article Everette Brown today and it says that creation of the article has been blacklisted for some reason. I don't know why this is the case. In any event, Everette Brown is a college football defensive end at Florida State and is regarded as the top underclassmen prospect in the 2009 NFL Draft. Can someone help me get creation of this article unblocked?►Chris Nelson 07:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

With my leet admin powers, I just have. Article Rescue Squandron, go! hbdragon88 (talk) 07:54, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Haha thanks. Wonder what it was blacklisted for, haha.►Chris Nelson 08:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't remember the details, but there was (is?) a case on ANI yesterday about a similar article, and there it was said that "Everett" was blacklisted due to G10 harassment (people making all kinds of attack pages or something similar with the name "everett" in the title). The blacklisting obviously causes some problems for genuine everett articles... Fram (talk) 09:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

That is true, it was blacklisted due to significant real world harassment of a highly respected user. So articles with Everett/Everette etc will need such assistance. Sumoeagle179 (talk) 10:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's hoping our next big vandal calls himself Baby Bathwater. --NE2 11:20, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Manhattan Samurai and his edit warring

Earlier today Manhattan Samurai reverted a merge of the article List of problems solved by MacGyver into the article List of problems solved by MacGyver#Influence on culture. This merge was done as the result of an AfD debate settled a few weeks ago. I reverted his action and left him a note on his talk page explaining that he was overriding consensus. He then engaged me in a discussion on my talk page where he practically volunteered to fight in the front line of the edit war army. He asked "how can I continue the edit war going on at the "List of problems solved by MacGyver" article?" After telling him that I considered his actions to be vandalism and pointing him towards DRV (at that time I didn't know the DRV already took place for that article). He responded asking "Is there a way to gather together enough users so that we can circumvent the 3R rule and continually revert the article to its proper state?" What's the proper action to be done towards an editor who so blatantly seeks to override consensus? Themfromspace (talk) 10:04, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I think at this point, he needs to be watched. Should we see any further evidence of canvasing or the like, we can block him for disruption. I will leave a friendly warning at his talk page to cease and desist. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:43, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I have warned the user to NOT pursue the course of action he lays out in the link you provided. If we see any evidence of disruption, blocks and article protections can be used to contain it. Please keep us apprised of the situation, should the user actually go through with his threats to disrupt. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Are my actions immoral? This seems like a tad bit overdone here, don't ya think? I was simply asking whether or not I could amass a crack group of Wikipedians who will each in turn revert the MacGyver-list article to its proper state? (NOTE: Anyone reading this please contact me if you are interested in this idea of mine) Since when are we not allowed to discuss future edit warring? I'm highly amused over here on my side of the screen.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 22:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

NOTE: There is tons of interesting information at WP:CANVASS. There are some useful guidelines about how to go about doing this.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 22:39, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Because you're not allowed to edit-war. So planning an edit-war is obviously not allowed. Gaming the system is likewise frowned upon. Recommend block to prevent future disruption; user has clearly indicated they plan on serious disruption to the project. // roux   22:42, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Haha, very funny Roux. Yes, it would be quite something if we were barred from even contemplating a future action of this sort. But seriously Roux, if we get enough of us I wonder if we could not simply revert the MacGyver-list to its proper state in perpetuity and eventually use the roster garnered in our little scheme to overturn the deletion even. That would be really something, huh?Manhattan Samurai (talk) 22:47, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

^^^ Exhibit B, Your Honour. Other than that, MS, the correct place to challenge a deletion decision is WP:DRV. // roux   22:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I think for the moment AfD and DRV have been exhausted as options. Am I able to create a Misplaced Pages:article from which to organize my edit war army for restoring the MacGyver-list article to its proper state? That way everyone could openly view who the soldiers are and maybe everyone will be a little less jumpy about it all?Manhattan Samurai (talk) 22:56, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

No. I suggest you drop this. // roux   22:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Really? Is that a real 'No' or are you simply saying that? I'm very serious about forming an edit war army (it would be my first) to restore the MacGyver-list article to its proper state. Our rallying cry will be 'For the Good of Misplaced Pages'! Join me.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 23:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if MS is a troll or just has a backwards interpretation of Misplaced Pages policies such as canvassing but I for one do not think his actions are welcome here and think a block is in due order. Also note his civility at the DRV for the article in question. Themfromspace (talk) 23:04, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I've just been personally attacked by Themfromspace, "I'm not sure if MS is a troll," which I find insulting as I look nothing like one. Perhaps Themfromspace has thusly named himself because he, in fact, is an ugly person and has self esteem problems. ANyhow, I have done nothing to deserve being compared to a troll.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 23:23, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Since you become fixiated on starting some rally against wikipedia, you're a troll. And secondly: your idea is crazy and will never work. And third, keep this up and you will blocked, edit war army boy. Elbutler (talk) 23:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

But this is insane! I am not rallying against Misplaced Pages, which means what btw? I was talking about forming an edit war army for the purposes of reviving the MacGyver-list article. You can compare my actions to those of Batman when he wiretapped all of Gotham's cellphones to one end: to find Joker. After he was successful he had his operation dismantled. I really will disband the edit war army after our victory.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 23:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

This is not some fictional movie, this is reality. I pretty much don't have to say anything else, i've made my point (crazy idea). Elbutler (talk) 23:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

You won't think this is some fictional movie when my edit war army is continually reverting the "List of problems solved by MacGyver" article to its proper state.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 23:55, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Please move a page

I need Evrett Railroad moved to Everett Railroad, since the title blacklist has a silly entry forbidding the latter. Thank you. --NE2 15:39, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. I left Evrett Railroad as a redirect, as I figured it was a plausible misspelling. If others feel differently, delete at your heart's desire. - auburnpilot talk 15:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I think I know why this line was added but I won't go into detail:

.*Everett.* # Used for harassment username and page creation - remove end Dec 2008

This is a common surname which is clearly going to generate more false positives. It would be better to remove it and put this person's full name on some kind of non-public blacklist. — CharlotteWebb 16:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Unblocked vandal

Hi everyone, I unblocked a vandal Mazfired (talk · contribs) a few hours ago, he requested an unblock saying he'd abide by the rules, and his vandalism was half a year ago (what can I say, I'm a softy). I figured he'd vandalise, I'd block him again, and that'd be that. But he hasn't shown up since then and I need to go afk in a bit, so could you keep an eye on him? Thanks. --fvw* 16:40, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

No problem. That was a pretty big assumption of good faith there though--Jac16888 (talk) 16:43, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Many of our best contributors began with a few shabby edits. Be kind to newbies.--Patton123 19:53, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah but if they had any sense they'd restart from scratch . — CharlotteWebb 20:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

That's actually a bit controversial. Some folks think it's better for a blocked person to quietly create a new account and go about editing without a fuss; other see that as block-evasion, and would block the new account if the connection was discovered. — The Hand That Feeds You: 22:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

However if they're good and don't break the rules it is unlikely that the connection will be discovered --Chris 09:47, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry fvw, trust your guts in such instances. If he misbehaves he'll be blocked in a flash, and if he wanted to misbehave he'd have created a fresh account. Good call IMO. -- lucasbfr 12:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Unblock needed

User:U1234u

User:U1234u seems to exist only to spam the name of a band, The Display Team, all over wikipedia. See Special:Contributions/U1234u Zazaban (talk) 23:42, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't seem proper to place this here or even on AIV. Maybe you should try to talk to the person a little more first. Yanksox (talk) 00:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Celebrity girl15

Mostly disruptive user who constantly edits FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman. She repeatly adds the constants last names, even though we're suppose to respect their privacy. And i recently caught her removing a edit summary. A lot her edits are disruptive, but some aren't, i don't know what to do about this situation, which is why i came here. Elbutler (talk) 23:45, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Correct username is Celebrity girl15 (talk · contribs). And, without having looked at the user's actual contribs, I see she's only got one thing on her talk page, which is a warning from November. Have you considered talking to her? Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 00:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

There needs to be some effort shown towards communication and resolution before an admin intervenes. Yanksox (talk) 00:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(proposals)#Community_feedback_on_ArbCom_Members

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

Administrators may wish to be aware of Misplaced Pages:Village pump/ACFeedback. DepartedUser (talk) 01:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

No. No No NONONONONONONO!. We just voted in a fresh 1/3'd of the ArbCom in two weeks filled with more drama then you can shake a stick at, and you want to throw motions of confidence/no confidence on the other 2/3???? Please. PLEASE.. let's let the new ArbCom members come in, get a bit of time to get into the situation, and see what change occurs come in before we create any more drama on this (and this is speaking as someone who could possibly benefit if more people were put in, although it would take a large leap to get to me.) SirFozzie (talk) 02:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Concur with Sir F.--Scott Mac (Doc) 02:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

(ec) SirFozzie, I commend you on your restraint. What I'd say is: NO, HELL NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO, WHY DO WE NEED MORE FUCKING DRAMA EVERY DAY, NO, THIS IS A HORRENDOUSLY BAD IDEA, NO NO NO HELL ASS NO.

Ahem. // roux   02:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

If you don't like drama, I suggest you unwatch this, and the other drama pages, and start writing some articles. Majorly 02:23, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

And I suggest you correct your attitude. I'm allowed to participate how I want and where I want, and the fact that I'm taking a bit of a break from serious article building is my concern. Furthermore, for such a--I'll be polite--suggestion to come from such a... shall we say, afficionado of projectspace, is a bit much. Kindly refactor your comments here and your silly accusation of trolling at VP. // roux   02:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Hence why it's only a suggestion. It seems odd that you shout in capital letters about "WHY DO WE NEED MORE DRAMA", yet you're adding to it as we speak. As for me, I've written many articles, and have several DYKs, and a GA, but that's besides the point. Majorly 02:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

There's not liking drama, and there's wanting to have a functional last step of dispute resolution. You can have one with the other, Majorly. SirFozzie (talk) 02:25, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Wanting to have a functional last step of dispute resolution in no way implies having confidence in the current arbcom. DuncanHill (talk) 02:27, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The "last" step is currently not functional, hence the need for a poll. It's a shame people insist on shooting things down from the get-go without really understanding their purpose. But it's OK, we'll just have to live with our crappy arbitrators. Majorly 02:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• I've been disgusted (and a bit disillusioned) with this whole Giano mess the AC has inflamed, but this is premature and over-the-top. I completely understand the sentiment, but please, no. SDJ 02:33, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

As general food for thought, it's fascinating to see the incredibly strong correlation between "People who did something bad and got caught by ArbCom and appropriately sanctioned" and "People who hate ArbCom." It's very nearly 1:1. Huh. // roux   02:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that that is true. DuncanHill (talk) 02:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Wildly inaccurate. Majorly 02:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I hate arbcom, they never did anything to me -- 87.194.147.203 (talk) 02:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

If you say so, dear. // roux   02:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

More trolling from the "vanished" user and sockpuppeteer Hipocrite, aka DepartedUser (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). krimpet✽ 02:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

This is the wrong way to do this. The correct way would to be to impose on arbitrators the understanding that their status could be removed in the event that the community decides they are unsuited to it, and then to start discussion on an individual if and when the need arises -- which would likely be in very rare cases. Given that you don't actually have control over any part of arbcom's structure or operation, though (even the election results are technically only advisory) this probably won't happen any time soon -- 87.194.147.203 (talk) 02:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Fvw

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

User:Fvw deleted open afd nomination without any explanation, contrary to WP:Deletion policy. This is WP:Disruptive editing at least, if not WP:Vandalism.DonaldDuck (talk) 05:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the AFD nomination he removed doesn't exist. The article hasn't been deleted. \ / (⁂ | ※) 05:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The afd nomination itself was also deleted by User:Fvw.DonaldDuck (talk) 06:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, the AFD nomination seemed beyond reason, since the article seems to in no way meet any known deletion criteria at all. This was a WP:SNOW-keep before it even started... I see no disruption OR vandalism on fvw's part. A tad bit of WP:IAR, but I can't say that letting the AFD run would have resulted in any chance of this article being deleted. As such, there was no point to leaving the AFD around. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The nomination, as made, is problematic - it seems to imply that books not published in English are inherently non-notable. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why the AFD page should be deleted, as opposed to closing it as speedy keep. Stifle (talk) 12:56, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Who do I notify? If anyone?

Is there anything that can be done about things like this: http://books.google.com/books?id=mmub0CO1ZOEC. This book is just wikipedia articles copied by an author and published under his own name. DrKiernan (talk) 08:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• Lulu.com is a vanity press, so there is no publisher to "fire" the author. If the book doesn't list the source (Misplaced Pages) you can retain a lawyer and ask them nicely to acknowledge the source (I mean that literally, not euphemistically) per the GFDL. If they don't do that you can sue them (well, I'm not sure who would have standing, IANAL). Not sure where the midpoint is. Protonk (talk) 08:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• There is. Violating our license agreement also means they violate Lulu's rules on copyright. If the author gets reported his account can get suspended and perhaps any money earned can be reclaimed. - Mgm| 10:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oh, and I'm not sure if there is a "circular references" blacklist somewhere, but if there is this should go on it. Maybe try the Village Pump? Protonk (talk) 08:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Mirror#Non-compliance_process for some guidance. John Reaves 09:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• A vanity press makes the author shell out thousands of dollars before they ever see a book in print. Lulu only asks a part of the sales revenue on each sale unless you choose to buy additional services (which are entirely optional), so it's self-publishing rather than vanity publishing; there's an important difference that make experts like Writer Beware and real literary agents recommend the place (disclosure, I've been attached to Lulu as a volunteer in the past, but I still have contacts even though my activity there has gone down). I'll drop them a note. - Mgm| 09:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
• I've sent them a copyright violation notice. I should be informed of their investigation results soon. - Mgm| 10:08, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Fix front page

Can an admin please fix the problem with the banner on the Main Page? See Talk:Main Page#Donation banner causing problem for details. -93.96.212.203 (talk) 13:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed ban of User:Ariobarza

I am proposing a community ban of Ariobarza (talk · contribs) from the entire project, due to her apparent inhability to understand or unwillingness to comply with our editorial policies on verifiability and original research, and the detrimental effect that her general attitude, approach, perceptions and choice of vocabulary have in the editing environment.

The first thing that you notice in Ariobarza is her enthusiasm, and everything indicates that she means well, but (even putting all conduct issues aside) by demanding that some knowledgeable editors spend time double-checking her every edit for personal interpretations she clearly is a net detriment to the project. - In my opinion, using the process of writing Misplaced Pages articles for teaching basic concepts of research to persons who lack such education/habilities would be too much of a drain on our already very limited resources (particularly in areas like Persian history, where making articles comply with our policies is already time-consuming). Our aim is creating an encyclopedia, not running a school.

A topic ban covering Near Eastern and classical history was proposed by ChrisO in October 2008, and was gathering a general consensus in favour, but ended in an indefinite block for block evasion & disruption (subsequently lifted after a search for a mentor & e-mail exchange -link- that finally resulted in AniMate volunteering as an unofficial mentor -link-). However, a mere 9 days later AniMate himself mentioned that " offer accepted and then completely ignored."

As basically nothing has changed since then, I invite everyone to read the previous ban proposal (with details & diffs.) & subsequent comments by users who have interacted with Ariobarza. It's not short, but it gives a good idea of the general situation.

Examples since the October 2008 topic ban proposal:

• Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Tigris (November 2008):
  A clear example of original research based on Ancient primary sources, previously discussed at Talk:Battle of Opis, and now gestating at User:Ariobarza/Battle of the Tigris (permanent link).
• Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Siege of Gordium (November 2008):
  Instead of looking for sources, Ariobarza took the mention that "the Macedonian commander Parmenion captured the city " from our Misplaced Pages article on Gordium (copied verbatim from livius.org, but without inline citation) and the unsourced mention of a "Siege of Gordium" from a Misplaced Pages template, and combined both fragments into a novel, entirely imaginary "Parmenion captured the city in a little known siege", which even includes his own opinion that lack of sources equals "little known".

  Later during the discussion Ariobarza interpreted the book snippet "Alexander conquered... Phrygia (there he took a strong Persian fortress Gordion)" as confirmation of the siege taking place: "And according to the most recent comments, I think someone has found this siege to be true, am I right?"

• Talk:Battle of Thermopylae (February - November 2008): Personal interpretations of Ancient primary sources.
• Talk:Siege of Sardis (547 BC) (February - December 2008): More of the same.

Deleted entries in Ariobarza's userspace:

• User:Ariobarza/Battle of Pasargadae — (AfD: redirect to Pasargadae)
• User:Ariobarza/Battle of the Marsyas — (AfD: delete)
• User:Ariobarza/Battle of the Median Fort
• User:Ariobarza/Battle of the Tigris — (AfD: delete)
• User:Ariobarza/Siege of Doriskos — (AfD: delete)
• User:Ariobarza/Siege of Kapisa — (AfD: delete)
• User:Ariobarza/Siege of Pasargadae Hill — (AfD: delete)
• And the possibility of much more of the same.

Although directly related to me & this ban proposal, these comments illustrate Ariobarza's general approach, perceptions of other editors & choice of vocabulary: diff. & link

Based on all this, I fear that a topic ban covering Near Eastern and classical history would not be enough, for the inhability or unwillingness to comply with our core policies would be detrimental to any article on any topic.

I also fear that a ban from articles (main namespace) & templates only (allowing Ariobarza to participate in discussions) would still result in a drain on the time and patience of our volunteers, who would still have to cope with Ariobarza's general attitude and original research-based proposals.

Thus, I propose a community ban from the entire project. - Ev (talk) 13:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• I reluctantly support this proposal, based on my interaction with the user at my talk page and at Talk:Battle of Thermopylae. User is clearly very intelligent, but combative beyond belief, cannot work within the bounds of intrinsic policies and guidelines such as NOR, OWN and CONSENSUS, (let alone WP:PLEASEDON'TSHOUT, we must get round to writing that one). Article ended in being protected because, in line with WP:POLE, another combative user came along with different POV. A huge shame, because someone with such strong grasp of primary sources is a rarity here, and very useful, but not if the sources will be used selectively, in line with POV and, worst, as a battering ram. --Dweller (talk) 13:56, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
  • NB This user and this thread have inspired me to create WP:PLEASEDON'TSHOUT. Constructive comment and edits welcome. --Dweller (talk) 14:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

'Response; Ariobarza's topic ban'

Please read the entire message with an open mind, so Ariobarza does not have to repeat it.

Hi Ev, talk about deconstructive comments. This is uncalled for, I thought we had put this issue behind us. Since November 2008, I have quietly gathered sources, and minded my own business. And now you want to propose a topic ban on me? This is dissapointing. First of all, for the Siege of Gordium I have giving up, and no longer care if it happpened, because overall consensus of the users here determined probably nothing happened, and I have even agreed with them, so Siege of Gordium is over (I was not the originater of the idea, like I said a thousand times, I copy pasted the info, added 1 sentence from the Gordium article itself). And at the end of the deletion debate, I agreed to delete Siege of Gordium.

You forgot to include the full meaning of my last message which I said at the deletion debate;
And here it is, others edited this article too, (while) your accusing me of the wrong things here, . Why don't you contact this fellow, the actual creator of this red link, which I made blue, User:Brandmeister, he named it "Siege of Gordium", I read history, and I have never heard of a siege there, except Alexander cutting the Gordian Knot. And according to the most recent comments, I think someone has found this siege to be true, am I right? Don't worry I am improving, this is a old forgotten article.--Ariobarza (talk) 23:39, 17 November 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

And this too, the last official sentence;
Feel free to delete, it would have been interesting if there was a siege, but guess not, nothing happened at Gordium. Bye.--Ariobarza (talk) 07:48, 15 November 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk'

For Battle of the Tigris, this issue was between me and ChrisO (which I now Do Not have anything against or any problems with that user ), it is not your business, I suggest not to involve yourself in this highly sensitive article which I am sure you know nothing about. I NOW have damning evidence of what I said before as the mostly the truth, yet now that I am so close to presenting the evidence, you come up with a topic ban for me, nice job.

I consider your proposal to be highly rude and disheartening at this time. You are attempting to waste my time and others for the next month over a topic ban debate on me. I am tired of waisting my time on quite frankly stupid (I don't care anymore, I said the word stupid, big deal, I am guilty as charged) and endless debates with revisionists with no lives, other than to waist others time.

Misrepresenting the issue, and presenting false information is not helpful here. I {suggest} if you have a personal grudge against me to say it to my face on my talk page. And not spread "Off with Ariobarza's head" pamphlets around the town. You stalking my movements on Misplaced Pages to see if I am breaking the rules has itself inspired me to leave Misplaced Pages. Coordinated group personal attacks on me shows how much Misplaced Pages is in danger of developing close nit gangs within its topics.

Of course its not Misplaced Pages's fault, its the fault of users that don't know squat on a subject, then when they see something they ThinK is OR SYN, they jump on that user without looking or researching the evidence for it. So when Ev assumes its OR SYN, and later gets proven wrong (this time by another user who presents the evidence), Ev develops a grudge, and revenge sets in when out of nowhere a topic ban on Ariobarza pops up! A coincedence?

If you do not stop (what I consider a personal attack from you), I will never stop until your true intentions are exposed, possibly an RFC for your other menions too. You spending months on this issue to get me banned from the topic shows how determined you are to get rid of me, actions speak louder than words.

Me being not in contact with my Unofficial mentor or continueing making deleted articles in my userspace is not a violation of any law here. So with the little good faith I still have in me, I ask you to abandon this inapropriate proposal, you must either present the ancient crimes I commited here (which everybody got over) or present new evidence, which does not exist.

I am not saying you have a grudge against me, though it is a possibility. Anyways, I urge you to please stop this, and if you have any concerns with me, to come to my talk page so we can work something out, can we agree? Thank you.

Further comments on conclusion, by Ariobarza; It is not my fault that certian users think I am doing original research, they lack knowledge in the area, and think every claim is unbelievable, history is history, sometimes the sources are old, but if it is not contested by new sources and its reliable then its okay to include them, this was part of another point that I want to make about history articles, citing old sources, we cite Herodotus, his source is 2,500 years old, but a 100 year book of modern history then should be of no problem, and that if (refer to what I said above). I have not done OR for almost 3 months now. I put information there so I could later back it up with references. I know mistake has caused others trouble (not the trouble you saw in Battle of Opis, but deletion articles), and I already said I was sorry and have made some improvements. But now, I HAVE the missing evidence that will shouw WhateveR I said about Battle of the Tigris was true. The end (for Battle of Thermoplyae, Dougweller locked it in mistake, there was no dispute, maybe over Helots, but I came to an agreement with the other user before the lock ended. So the end. I cannot allow you to take this chance from me, no matter how nice you try to act, and say your intentions are good, I can see through your real intentions. I have just a tiny winy bit of good faith left in me for your actions, so I ask you stop. Your only going to waist more of all the users time here. You need to get a life, you have too much free time. YouR NoT HelpinG WikipediA. Bye! And no thanks.

(Ariobarza considers himself the real Operation Enduring Freedom, he has endured annialation attempts by users for months now, and is still standing strong, hopefully a coalition of the willing (whoever reading this) can give an helping hand, so he can survive for the sake of Misplaced Pages. I will not go quietly into the night, I'm going to survive, I going to prosper... Last stand here I come.)

"Go tell the Wikipedians, passerby; That here, by Persian law, User:Ariobarza; actually Ariobarzan RIP."

--Ariobarza (talk) 14:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

I strongly object to this ban as Ariobarza has been working on articles in her own userspace as she was instructed to do. She has honored her ban by working quietly and not initiating arguments or being disruptive in the mainspace. Since when do we check peoples' userspace for working edits? This sort of ban would set a very bad precedent. Tundrabuggy (talk) 16:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Badlisted image.....

I'm not sure that this is the right place to report this, but here goes....

Why is Image:Post-and-Grant-Avenue.-Look.jpg on the Bad Image List? It doesn't seem offencive or inappropriate in any way. Actually, it appears there are quite a few un-inappropriate images on the blacklist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anikin3 (talk • contribs) 14:55, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• A lot of those images have been used for vandalism and this was a simple if relatively kludgy way to stop that. The reasons should be noted on the image talk page or the bad image list talk page. Some are there for a set period of time and may not have been removed at the end of that time. Barring some heretofore unknown reason we can probably take post and grant off there. Protonk (talk) 15:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I remember this one was being used for vandalism in the infobox for another city. That can't be a reason to disallow it though, especially since it's on a stub template! --NE2 15:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• Relevant discussion is here. Protonk (talk) 16:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

More eyes would be useful

For any admin looking for something else to add to their watchlist, please check out User:3RRBot/bot reported disruption and 3RR violations. This is a bot generated report of possible edit wars and 3RR violations. Each report needs careful examination, as the bot is dumb and makes lots of false positives. But even so, it's a good place to catch revert/edit wars as they are happening. There do not appear to be a lot of admins currently watching the report, and many reports are being archived without admin response, so more eyes there would be helpful. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:33, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Big Boy (eLDee album)

Hi. I don't believe this meets the album criteria outlined in WP:MUSIC - the artist seems to be notable, but there is no indication that there is anything notable about this particular album. I've redirected the article to the artists article several times, but each time, the author has changed the page back. To avoid edit warring issues, is there something else I should be doing at this point ? CultureDrone (talk) 15:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I should say, in their defense, the author has changed the page each time, so it's not just an undo - they seem to be trying to improve the article.... CultureDrone (talk) 15:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Since you haven't left any messages on the author's talk page, and he hasn't really had time to respond to your comment on the article talk page, I think a WP:AN notice is a little premature. He just created the article yesterday, give him some time to improve it, or at least to respond to your messages. There is no deadline.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 16:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

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