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• Refining the administrator elections process
• AI-generated images depicting living people
• Blocks for promotional activity outside of mainspace
• Voluntary RfAs after resignation
• Proposed rewrite of WP:BITE
• LLM/chatbot comments in discussions

obstruction of ref clean-up

• User talk:Gimmetoo#Asinine actions
  (I section I did not start;)

Gimmetoo (talk · contribs), who claims to be Gimmetrow (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), has been disruptively reverting edits related to the reflinks tool, and citation templates. See Halle Berry, Sean Combs, and Jennifer Lopez, and likely moar. Contrary to some of their edits summaries, most of what I did was done manually, not directly with tools. The referencing edits I and others have been reverted on are all good and progressive. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:12, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

User Jack Merridew is 1) edit warring, 2) with automated tools (reflinks), 3) to impose a change of style to an article, 4) to impose cite templates and 5) to impose some "list-defined" referencing scheme. User Jack Merridew is acting in violation of multiple Misplaced Pages policies. If User Jack Merridew wishes to "clean up" refs on a fairly well-developed article (a GA even), then User Jack Merridew should do that while respecting the existing style of the article. Gimmetoo (talk) 20:14, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

This is appropriate clean-up and you've gotten push-back from others about this. What's your point? You want poor referencing and untagged dead links? Bare URLs? I don't respect that, sorry. Hope you enjoyed teh fish ;) Jack Merridew 20:31, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Again, if you wanted to fill in some "bare URLs", you could have done that without changing the article to a different style. But you decided to change the entire article in multiple ways, which is inherently disruptive and also obstructive to other editors of the article. You not only added list-defined refs (which some editors find confusing), but actually renamed a number of named references. You also accused an editor of "vandalism" for undoing your undiscussed changes. Gimmetoo (talk) 20:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

They're improvements. This is all-good. Folks will look at our versions and agree. You cut good stuff, not just the cite templates, removed {{dead link}}s, restored bare URLs. If that's not vandalism, it sure is pointy. And others have been objecting to your stance re cite templates and reflinks. Consensus is against you on this, and you know it. Better referencing is a core goal of this project. Jack Merridew 20:44, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Fine, then restore the established style of the article and incorporate that part of your edits which were "improvements", and not arbitrary style changes, and do not obstruct other editors from making those improvements in the established style of the article. Gimmetoo (talk) 20:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

It is *all* improvement. Jack Merridew 20:51, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to hear two things from Gimmetoo:

1. Can you explain why you would revert these changes? It's not like they were incomplete and made the article inconsistent or anything: the reference cleanup was done consistently throughout, and brought the articles up to current practices.
2. Can you please log on as Gimmetrow and confirm that you and he are the same editor? The question of your identity has been asked a few times, and I would like to see confirmation. Behaviourally, it appears that you are the same person (see this for example), but I would like to see explicit confirmation.—Kww(talk) 21:17, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

At Halle Berry I count exactly 3 reverts from both of you. I'm guessing that the both of you can count and stopped right before the bright line and I'm glad you're talking about this but consider this a reminder and a warning. Otherwise I'm waiting for answers to Kww's questions. -- Atama頭 21:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I see, now, that this kicked-up more than three months ago: vs ; w/Pablo, a few days later: / vs . I didn't notice I'd been reverted, at the time. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:47, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• Gimmetoo blocked indef until he can prove that hu is actually an alt account of Gimmetrow. If it's the latter, I do apologize, but the edit warring and disruptive behavior combined with the lack of confirmation makes me suspicious. NW (Talk) 23:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

  I'll leave the articles be, 'til tomorrow. If Gimmetrow claims this account, we'll continue this; if not, I think a CU is in order. FWIW, I don't know Gimmetrow at all and have no idea why they've not edited in months. Someone familiar with them might drop an email. Cheers, Jack Merridew 00:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

  I dug lightly into the dual identity before, and came to the conclusion that the accounts are the same editor. Note that the resistance by Gimmetoo was begun by Gimmetrow, for example. The articles of interest overlap, as well. Another user got tangled in an autoblock when Gimmetoo was blocked on July 30, though, and that means a CU wouldn't hurt if Gimmetrow doesn't reclaim the account.—Kww(talk) 00:20, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

  I saw that the rvs began with 'trow. Also saw that 'too responded to NW's block within a minute. Yet, 'trow has not edited. This could easily be moar mimicry. We'll see... Cheers, Jack Merridew 00:41, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• I have come to this process as an interested observer, I am not fully informed on these actions as this is my first such interaction. Let me preface by saying it was I, who created the thread here. I was taken aback at the undoing of a WP:REFLINKS fix. User Gimmetoo has the distinction of receiving my first and only trout slap to date, as I felt compelled to at least comment. I have been watching Gimmetoos' talkpage and this is where I learned of these developments. I commend Jack Merridew for his resolve to accommodate such an unusual notion as to require and editor to perform a reference fix manually. And then to defend against an unjustifable edit war simply to improve an article. I concur with the administrative actions I have observed in conjunction with these discussions. I would like to articulate that I believe the block against gimmetoo is proper, it is, however, for reasons not explicitly related to this ANI. I hope to see clarification as to consensus that Gimmetoos' actions were inappropriate in reverting the contributions shown. Further more, expressed, as such where this incident can serve as a reference itself that WP:REFLINKS or other citation styles are acceptable, if not preferred, opposed to raw urls'. Thanks for considering these as well. My76Strat 02:42, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Gimme has a very valid complaint. The new method of including all the references in one section, rather than interspersing the actual references throughout the article, is controversial. Many, many editors (including a large proportion of those who deal with FAs), dislike this method. Long-standing consensus has been that if a referencing system is in place on an article, the system should not change. Jack Merridew acted incorrectly in converting articles to list-style references when they were already using a different method. Although individual references improvements are, of course, welcome, the referencing style should not be changed for an article without prior consensus on the talk page. Karanacs (talk) 14:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Karanacs is correct here. WP:CITE explictly says "You should follow the style already established in an article, if it has one; where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected.". That language is intended to discourage converting articles from one formatting method to another; it's the same principle as WP:ENGVAR. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:20, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

It is one thing to follow one style only, but it's something completely different if you start blanking references only because a different style was used. See this edit, for example. Note the references under "Early life." That's called disruptive editing. Nymf _hideliho! 14:36, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any <ref> tag removed there, just citation templates. I agree that the more detailed information is nice, but presumably Jack Merridew could have re-inserted the citation information without the templates. As soon as someone pointed out to Jack that templates were opposed, he should have stopped adding them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I was referring to blank as in plain <ref>the url with no other information here</ref> rather than detailed ones. Nymf _hideliho! 14:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Sure, but the reference was like that back on July 27 (cumulative diff), so the article is really just back to where it was before reflinks tool. Adding reference details is great, but editors who do so need to follow the style established by the article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:06, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Instead of improving the page, it was reverted to an inferior version with even less information. "Do not remove information just because it is poorly presented." It is why I reacted when seeing the reverts in the first place. "Reword rather than revert." Nymf _hideliho! 15:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

If the change to list-style references had been undone, I wouldn't have much of a problem with that. Undoing a change from manual reference citations to properly templated ones is extremely counterproductive. The "changing of citation style" is intended to prevent mixing Harvard citations with other citations, or similar mish-mashing. Here the citation style is consistent, it's just the method of getting there that changed.—Kww(talk) 16:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

You are correct, Kww. I hadn't even looked at it from that angle. That means there is nothing wrong with Jack's edits at all. Nymf _hideliho! 16:51, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, WP:CITE was clarified a few moths ago to be more clear that the "citation style" refers both to the displayed appearance and the underlying wikicode. But the principle "do not convert to or from templates once a style is set" has been established for a very long time. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree there's a precedent not to convert from templates, but not to convert to templates? That seems extremely strange. What are the arguments against converting from a manual citation format that cannot be easily adapted to MOS changes to a templated one that enables rapid sitewide changes? What would be the motivation for resisting that?—Kww(talk) 17:17, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I have been following WP:CITE long enough to give a summary (it's not my personal opinion, but I think it's faithful to those who hold it). (1) Templates make the wiki source hard to read and edit, particularly if there are many footnotes. (2) Templates have their own idiosyncratic formatting which may not be the same as the formatting already used and doesn't agree with any fixed style guide. (3) It's easier and faster to type citations by hand without having to look up parameter names for the template. (4) If there are a lot of footnotes (say over 100), citation templates can significantly increase page loading time.

In any case, there are enough editors who dislike citation templates that we treat them somewhat like ENGVAR. It's a perennial issue that is unlikely to be resolved one way or another. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:30, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

First-off, I had not noticed that these pages had no cite templates at all in them. Look around; most pages do, and this is good. WP:CITE#List-defined references are good, and are fairly common, too. I will have to go read whatever talk presumably occurred on WT:CITE, but it got it *wrong*. We have 3,377,334 articles, as I write this. We're supposed to cite sources and do so in ways that are verifiable. Links rot, any ref-style can have information omitted at the time of initial entry. Templates are *appropriate*, automated tools are *helpful*. References belong in the *references* section; click to edit and maintain them. When I edit pages, I look for recent missed-vandalism; I also look for stuff done poorly, or that can be improved. I am, as Dave Shea cleverly put it, a structurist. I fix stuff under the hood.

I will not add references or tidy them in an inappropriate style, using regressive mechanisms that date from years ago. It's wrong. We can, and do, do better. Locking an article into an old style is against the notions of anyone editing, of consensus can change, and being bold. It's ownership, it's disruptive. This issue has come up with multiple editors seeking to appropriately improve these pages and the reverts were unhelpful, disruptive and, I feel, edging into vandalism. The 'too account may be some troll, or it may be an alt of 'trow; tbd, at what's turning into quite the SPI mess.

I'm familiar with the concerns Carl has summarized above, and have rebuttals: (1) list-defined references make the prose clearer by removing the cites from inline; some day wp:template folding/usability:Citron Designs#Templates will help here, too (see code folding for the core idea). List defined references also serve to structure the references as a block where they can be considered as a discrete aspect of an article. (2) The cite templates strive to implement, in a consistent manner, the appropriate styling of each field. Used appropriately, they will get this right far more often than editors will and they encapsulate the styling where a changed consensus can tweak vast numbers of pages. They can even get right what an MOS page has wrong: Template talk:Cite web#"Work" vs "Publisher" parameters. (3) Sloth; use automated tools to help; let someone get it right, at least. (4) I've spent years in places with extremely poor internet connections, and page load time is not much of an issue with articles, really. It's pages like ANI or AC/Workshop pages from hell that get balky.

This view towards excluding citation templates and tools like Reflinks simply does not fit with widespread practice; it's absurd to edit a ref section and get a mere <references /> or {{reflist}}. Surely this has resulted in many WTF-moments for n00bz. If this view needs challenging, fine. Let's get to it, RfC it. Or we could be wise, and just get on with properly referencing the sea of content on this site. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 00:38, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You're free to bring up the issue at WT:CITE. But our present (and well-established) policy is that you should not change the referencing style of an article once it has been established. So your argument misses the point, because like ENGVAR the goal here is to avoid the argument by simply leaving the established style.

Like everyone else, you need to follow our community norms in this regard. If you prefer not to add reference information because you cannot change the style, that's up to you; it's a volunteer project. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not a good response. Bare urls are not a style choice, they are a part of the article which is incomplete, as all our articles are. Protonk (talk) 03:18, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Nope. WP:CITE is not a policy, it is a guideline, and a flawed one at that. WP:IAR *is* fuckin' policy, and I improved the article. I would prefer that guidance be correct and will support efforts to correct it. I will also seek to improve most any article I happen upon. We have an article on kick the can? Yup, although it's not quite what I was thinkin'. That's my approach to a lot of things; nudge things in the right direction. Incremental improvement; progressive enhancement. Get in my way in an unreasonable manner, and I'll kick you in the... shins... every time. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 05:59, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Just confirming that CITE (and best practice) says editors should not add citation templates where a style has already been established, or over objections. They are contentious, they add to citation clutter, several of them use citation styles that don't exist outside WP and look ugly, and when there are lots of them they slow down load time considerably. Templates apart, CITE is clear that we shouldn't change from one citation style to another. SlimVirgin 20:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I've opened a checkuser request on Gimmetoo at WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Jamiecocopops.—Kww(talk) 16:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC) —Kww(talk) 16:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

The existing style of most Misplaced Pages articles is to use accepted correct spelling. When a contributor introduces useful information to an article, sometimes misspelled, we don't revert the content, we correct the spelling. If I introduce information to a reference, but otherwise metaphorically misspell it, applying the same courtesy should be intuitive. To suggest otherwise, in my opinion, as previously stated, is asinine. My76Strat 04:23, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the biggest problem with Gimmetoo's revert was that it reverted everything, not just the change in citations that was supposedly the thing being objected to. I realize what I'm about to say belongs at WP:Cite, but it seems counterproductive to me that an attempt to improve an article - whether correct or incorrect - can be reverted with nothing more than "this is how we always do it", "I don't like it" or just a plain "no". It also means that an editor can make changes to as many articles as they like as long as nobody notices or nobody objects, but one editor can stop them from from changing the citation style on one article, even while ignoring every edit to any article that doesn't interest them. Doesn't this empower one editor to decide they "own" the citation style for an article such as Halle Berry based only on the fact that a style (any style) is already in place? If the argument was to use a style that is most accessible, most easily used or is standard to the project, I'd be happy with whatever it was, but the citation style seems to be determined by the personal preference of whichever editor got there first, regardless of merit. I also don't understand how this can be beneficial to editors who may wish to edit across a range of articles which use different styles. It means that they have to either learn and understand how to use all of them, or they stumble along and do their best in the hope that eventually someone will fix whatever they've done. Then if they use something like reflinks to update citations, they run the risk of someone telling them not to rock the boat. It seems to me that of all the reasons for using a particular style, "because it's there" is the weakest. Rossrs (talk) 04:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Furthur; I've not looked, but I'm betting that Halle Berry's article is years old, not a recent one. She's a WP:HOTTIE and is quite notable ;) So, someone set a style years ago, before much changed. So what? We can do better; I pushed it along, and got kicked in the teeth for my efforts. I think I've been quite restrained the last day or so, because I could have fixed another dozen refs to nice, modern cite templates had this shite not kicked-up. I'm pausing for a user who is currently indef'd, in case anyone is not following that detail. Someone who is not responding appropriately to reasonable inquiries. Mebbe I should be looking at what has gone on in the last few hours; I've been watching Billy Budd (film), which I recommend, although s:Billy Budd, is teh source. Anysways, my last revert, calling 'too a vandal has stood for much of two days. Terima kasih; someone go furthur, so I can pitch-in tomorrow? We fix things one article at a time and my last effort was disrupted. Jack Merridew 05:59, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

2002 ;) The first reference was added to the article in 2006. By Gimmetrow. It's quite the non-standard ref, containing no less than seven external links. This ref has survived to this day, although it's down to five links, with one tagged as dead (and two more are, too). And what's it about? A WP:SYN regarding her date of birth. Is this the standard we're to be held to? Jack Merridew 08:14, 14 August 2010 (UTC) (and ya, I saw Risker; 'too is 'trow)

Wiki guideline is that you do not change styles in articles. Previous editors have explained the reasons. Rossrs seem to be concerned that this guideline lets one editor "own" the citation style of an article. Do you not see that Merridew's approach would allow a single editor to "own" the citation styles of hundreds of articles? So who should get to "choose"? An editor who doesn't contribute content and spends a few seconds completely changing an article with some script, or an editor who maintains the article, reverting vandalism and fixing up things for years, and who has to actually deal with the article text? I've been around long enough to know that the cause célèbre du jour in style changes is likely to be undone by a later cause célèbre. Remember linking dates on every article you edited? Yep, people went around doing that on thousands of articles. And a few years later, people went around undoing it. Gimmetoo (talk) 10:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I expressed more concern than merely that point. "So who should get to "choose"?" Whatever the correct answer may be, I read your answer as "Gimmetoo". You've expressed your view that your opinion is worth more to the Halle Berry article than anyone else's because you've been dealing with article content and maintaining it for years. That's a terrible reason, and it reads like ownership. A lot of people expend a lot of energy fighting vandalism and bad edits out of numerous articles - that's something we are all supposed to do - but it doesn't give them any greater claim over those articles. Changing the citation style is not "completely changing an article". It doesn't take as much as a comma out of the content you've contributed or maintained. You ask, "Do you not see that Merridew's approach would allow a single editor to "own" the citation styles of hundreds of articles?" No, I don't. Because if there was no opposition to it, that would imply consent or acceptance on the part of any editors who have seen the changes, and if the style remained in place it would be because collectively the community either accepted it or did not oppose it. That shared "ownership" is within the expectations of Misplaced Pages culture. Jack Merridew wouldn't own the style, nobody would and everybody would. A single editor never has that large a voice. Their voice is entirely dependent on the rest of the community. You're not bound to abide by the guidelines, it even has a disclaimer to that effect, but if you choose to uphold it "because the guideline says" instead of "because it's the best option", you do own that, not the community, because you've made the decision for everyone. There is a difference and although Misplaced Pages is not a democracy, Jack Merridew's edits allow for the whole community to comment upon them, and that does allow for a more democratic process than just shutting him down, which would result in essentially zero comment. You make a good point about the delinking of dates. It's possible that next "delinking of dates" could be "updating of citations". I've also been around long enough to see one cause célèbre du jour made obsolete by the next, and that is precisely how best practices evolve, not only in the real world, but here too. Rossrs (talk) 16:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Teh owner's back. The tool, Checklinks in the last instance, fussed with "Accessed" vs 'Retrieved' a bunch of times; that's about consistency. It also tagged some links that have rotted and mebbe we should be getting back to that. There are other worthless links in there, too: , . I did not do most of my edits in 'a few seconds'. See the history, this span of edits that took nearly two hours; that was manually done work to the referencing, which is a part of the 'content'. You don't like that my focus is on structure, do you? That's a big piece of this, methinks.

I don't know what the deal with your admin account is. I don't care about all that noise. FWIW, when I first posted @you, it was on User talk:Gimmetrow, not User talk:Gimmetoo. This was per your claim of being an alternate; and I noted that it was of an admin account, but didn't notice that 'trow had not edited in months. An hour later, I'd looked further and posted to the talk page with the recent other block and the trout on it.

FWIW, I supported unlinking most dates; seven million links to 2006 is dumb. Regards, Jack Merridew 17:40, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:OWN. Kindzmarauli (talk) 14:46, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

it continues

This is inappropriate. I believe we've one user who wants to lock it down their way and a fair number of people who are fine with a new style, as I've begun. Cheers, well, sorta, Jack Merridew 07:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• I've posted an RfC at: Talk:Halle Berry#citation style. Jack Merridew 05:27, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

NuclearWarfare's involvement

For reasons that should be obvious, I find NW's participation in this incident to be particularly wrong. The block was wrong. The talk page lock was wrong. The threats of global block was wrong. I am a little concerned that NW locked the talk page right after I claimed misconduct, which could be viewed as an attempted coverup. I suspect at some point that NW started to become aware that NW might have screwed up, but NW did not remove the block. NW, in the capacity as SPI clerk, approved an SPI involving an editor NW had inappropriately blocked; this could also be interpreted as a coverup, hoping to find some dirt so NW's critic would stay silenced.

NW is currently an arb clerk "trainee". The first quality listed of an arb clerk is that he be competent/clueful. I claim this incident demonstrates NW's incompetence. I think NW should be removed from the arb clerk position. Also from the SPI clerk position. Shouldn't screwups of this magnitude have some consequences?

And trouts all around for the other admins (Fastily, WJBscribe, Kww) who supported NW. If there were such a thing as wiki sensitivity training, I would think they need it. Seriously, "forcing" an editor to edit with a different account can have real life consequences. If the account hasn't been used in a few months, maybe there is a reason. Gimmetoo (talk) 10:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

It appears that Risker has said you are exactly you who said you were. I would guess this seems clear. Fine.

I am still totally lost why you went through no effort to prove anything about your identity. As a long-term sysop and editor, you must have been aware that there have been issues with impersonation before. You are correct that at some point I felt uneasy about the block I made. That is why I reenabled talk page access, hoping you would provide a reasonable explanation for your actions. I approved the checkuser to doublecheck my block, not to find any dirt. But had a checkuser report not come back, I would have stuck with my block. While you might have been editing in some of the same areas, your writing style in some areas didn't seem to resonate with what I had seen you write before, although of course I am not am expert on these matters and have only seen you in passing when reading GA and FA-related pages. WikiChecker showed you editing from likely another time zone entirely. Not once were you (and still, might I add) willing to provide any sort of proof for who you were.

And as for real life consequences, I considered that and dismissed it. You had not invoked a right to vanish or left no message to indicate that you were retiring in early May. Your new account was clearly identified as the old one, hardly the usual work of someone looking to vanish.

I do apologize for the block, as it was mistaken, but it would be nice if you could provide any sort of explanation.

As for the ArbClerk and SPIclerk business: Someone has noticed your request on WT:AC/C, and has forwarded it to the mailing list. I shall not be participating unless directly asked to. You can do the same at WT:SPICLERK, while there is no mailing list discussion there, I would not participate onwiki unless the other clerks asked me to. NW (Talk) 12:28, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Adding a trout for Kirill . Suffice to say that Kirill no longer has my confidence, and will probably not be supported at the next arbcom elections. This also confirms my decision not to email the arbcom. Can none of you see that there might be a legitimate reason why someone with access to a second account would not be at liberty to login to it or edit from it? Perhaps I should have done some edit from the 'trow account to connect the accounts before May. Perhaps I did and none of you have noticed it. But once I am not longer at liberty to use the 'trow account, then using it to satisfy some random admin is simply not an option. Do we need some sort of policy provision to handle this situation? I really wonder why so many admins can't get it. Are most of you teenagers without enough job or life experience to even imagine what might be at play? Gimmetoo (talk) 14:52, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm crossposting Kirill's statement so people don't have to click on the above.

It was certainly appropriate to treat Gimmetoo's claim of being Gimmetrow with a healthy level of suspicion; impersonation of administrators is not uncommon, and it is quite feasible that someone may have wanted to harm Gimmetrow's reputation by getting involved in a heated conflict while pretending to be him. Whether this suspicion needed to be handled with an immediate block, or whether the appropriate investigations could have been carried out while the Gimmetoo account continued to edit, is a question to which different answers might be argued; but, even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that the block was not a correct response, the Committee is not so fickle as to judge someone on the basis of a mistake made in a good faith attempt to protect the project. NuclearWarfare retains the Committee's confidence, and will continue in his current role. Kirill 14:25, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

(Clerks, as there appear to be multiple venues for this discussion, please feel free to cross-post my comment above to any other venue where NW's role is being discussed.) Kirill 14:27, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Dougweller (talk) 15:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure why I didn't see an edit conflict, as I saw Kirill's post below after I hit save. Dougweller (talk) 15:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you should consider that editing from multiple accounts is a privilege, not a right, and that someone cannot simply claim to have an administrator account without providing any evidence thereof? If we have no way to verify that you are who you say you are, then we are unfortunately forced to take measures to ensure that we protect existing accounts in good standing from being harmed by your actions. That is unfortunate, and not a reflection on you personally; but we could have a difficult time explaining to Gimmetrow why we failed to do so had it turned out that you were, in fact, an impersonator. Kirill  15:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Obviously, you do have a way to verify the claim that the accounts are linked, and it's a way that doesn't require someone to edit from the second account. There was, indeed, plenty of evidence that this was an alternate account. I would question whether, in this case, there is a simple claim to "have an administrator account" - yes, 'trow is an admin account, but it's not like either 'too or 'trow identify as an admin on the user page. Nor have I been claiming admin "authority". Nor have I tried to have the admin bit transferred from the account, which I would expect requires some verification, and probably wouldn't happen without making the request from the admin account. The identity or non-identity of the two accounts was, as far as I can tell, pretty much irrelevant to the issue that started this. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:27, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

As you may have seen in the SPI discussion, I thought it was nearly impossible for this to not be you, simply using common sense. But in defense of those who were suspicious, common sense should have suggested that you place the declaration of this being an alternate account by using your main account. I had a temporary alternate account that was retired a long time ago, and I marked it with my main account so that there'd be no ambiguity. At least it is cleared up now. I apologize for the inconvenience it caused you, but please remember that all of this scrutiny started when you choosed to engage in an edit war at an article, something that has given you two blocks in the past. Maybe in the future, for your own sake, you might consider a voluntary 1RR? I chose to abide by 1RR myself long ago and I've never regretted it. -- Atama頭 17:20, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I would like to make one extremely obvious statement here: Gimmetoo's behaviour is problematic. No plausible explanation has been offered that would explain why posting as Gimmetoo and loudly proclaiming oneself to be Gimmetrow would be safe, and making a single, simple edit as Gimmetrow to either unblock Gimmetoo or claim the account would not be. In addition, per Gimmetoo's request on Commons, I e-mailed Gimmetrow some codewords for Gimmetoo to use and verify his identity. I haven't seen them from Gimmetoo. I think the most likely explanation is the Gimmetrow and Gimmetoo are the same editor and that he believes himself to be defending some point of principle, but I'm at a loss as to what that principle is. I asked politely above for him to link the accounts with no threat of blocking, and that was ignored. His response to his block was immediate (within 60 seconds), so it was apparent that he on-wiki and presumably aware of the request. Once blocked, he could have cleared the situation in seconds, but instead he chose to escalate it. Why?—Kww(talk) 17:15, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Ik ben Gimmetrow. Ik heb geen flauw idee waarom jullie heb mij geblokkeerd. I'm not inclined to provide any reasons - the time for that is long gone. But you might want to review Misplaced Pages:SOCK#LEGIT, security, as one example. Assuming admin accounts on Wiki have any value, someone might not want to have an admin account compromised in a keylogging environment. Not saying this is what's going on, but it is one scenario where even a login wouldn't be possible. Gimmetoo (talk) 17:45, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

That is indeed what Gimmetoo was asked to say in an e-mail to Gimmetrow.—Kww(talk) 17:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Indeed, that would be a perfectly legitimate reason to operate a secondary account; nobody is suggesting that you may not have one. The concern is that, if you are faced with circumstances where confirming ownership of the account may be impossible at the time you are questioned, then the onus is on you to make the necessary arrangements for it to be confirmed in a manner and at a time convenient to you. That may, in a case like this, mean that you will lose access to the secondary account until you are able to take whatever steps you feel are necessary to safeguard access to the primary one; but, at the same time, other administrators cannot be expected to let a potential impersonation continue merely because the potential impersonator claims such circumstances, as that claim is just as easily made by a real impersonator as it is by the owner of the account. Kirill  17:58, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:SOCK policy says: "Such accounts should be publicly connected to the main account or use an easily identified name." It did both. If any other "confirmation" were actually expected, it became pretty difficult to draw anyone's attention to any other "arrangements" that had been made once the alt account was talk page and email blocked. Indeed, at that point someone was dictating terms without reference to policy. I would be curious, if someone suddenly indef blocked you and removed all email access, what prior arrangements you have made to confirm ownership of your account? But it really doesn't matter, since nobody has really established a good reason why any confirmation was necessary. If anyone had any genuine doubt, and treated the accounts as separate, what difference would it make? Gimmetoo (talk) 21:04, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The most obvious way of confirming ownership would have simply been for the primary account to make an edit "claiming" the secondary one; this is really something that could (and should) have been done when the account was first created. In the scenario where you had not done so (and could not do so at the time of the block for security or other reasons), there are any number of alternative methods for confirming that the same individual is operating both accounts, such as using email or another form of off-wiki contact, having a trusted user vouch for you, and so forth.

As for your second question, the main reason why this situation was of concern was because if the "Gimmetoo" account were not, in fact, operated by the same individual operating the "Gimmetrow" account, then it would be (a) falsely claiming to be Gimmetrow and (b) likely doing so maliciously in order to harm Gimmetrow's reputation, and would thus need to be blocked in any case. (I think it is reasonable to assume that the average administrator would take exception to an impersonator falsely painting them as involved in a dispute in which they had no part; perhaps you are not troubled by such a scenario affecting you, but I believe that would make you the exception rather than the rule.) Kirill  21:27, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

This is rather ridiculous. NW was straight forward when he said why he blocked the account:

Gimmetoo blocked indef until he can prove that hu is actually an alt account of Gimmetrow. If it's the latter, I do apologize, but the edit warring and disruptive behavior combined with the lack of confirmation makes me suspicious.

— NW (Talk) 23:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at the beginning of this incident, just under the level 2 heading. It was a reasonable request, in my humble opinion, to ask for verification, given the circumstances. The complaint was of an edit war. Why would an admin knowingly and willingly get involved? That is just plain suspicious if you ask me. What I see here is an unnecessary bit of drama. NW did NOTHING unreasonable in blocking an account that was in question, after noticing it claimed to be Gimmetrow. All the owner had to do, was post from trow "that's my account", unblock it, and move on. Instead, there's paragraphs and paragraphs of drama, because someone blew this whole situation out of proportion. It was, in my opinion, the right move. What if this account WERE an impersonation of an admin? Then everyone would be happy. But because the account was legitimate, everyone is freaking out.

You say "trouts all around for the admins who support NW," because he did what an admin would do. I've not seen anything particularly "wrong" in his handling of this situation. He blocked a suspicious (and from what I can tell, disruptive) account pending verification that he was who he said he was.

So drop the drama, get off this witch hunt, and go do something constructive for Misplaced Pages. Cut the drama. Thank you.

My opinion probably means jack shit to you guys, but, I figured an outsider's point of view might be nice for this situation. --ANowlin: talk 21:14, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

This response illustrates another problem. Apparently NW did "nothing unreasonable" in blocking an account without any query or attempt at contact. I have yet to see any policy cited which authorizes admins indef blocking on unlikely doubts. I don't think many editors would really want to find themselves blocked because some teenager has a slight uncertainly. Yet my actions were considered "suspicious". Put those two together and the message I'm getting is: admins should shoot first and ask questions later. Is that what you're saying? Do you think I should have just immediately blocked Merridew for disruptive editing? Gimmetoo (talk) 22:54, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

There are good reasons why a user may have a second account and refuse to confirm it from their primary account. For example, they may not trust the login would be secure (for whatever reason). That's built into WP:SOCK and is a commonsense reason - and maybe not one that Gimmetrow wants to make public (as is his right).

When there is an impersonation concern and the alleged alternate is an admin or experienced user, the request for confirmation of the claim is sensible and commendable. If none is forthcoming escalation is predictable. Many bad faith users "play the game" quite well so a claim to be someone else's alt account is not always enough, nor is subjectively similar style always evidence. Sometimes the user could be concerned about the two being identified as alts, but in this case it appears not.

Those who acted did so in good faith. At worst a "brief lapse" now fixed, not a major drama or the end of the world. This happened to me years back - I got blocked once before my RFA because of a lapse and it took time for the admin error to be agreed and the block undone, I don't remember posting on ANI about how bad it was or pointing out people I wouldn't trust any more. I remember respecting the admin was acting in good faith, that he'd had a lapse, requesting unblock, and appreciating that we have a community where one can ask for review of admin actions.

All concerned here are experienced users who will surely try to learn from it. Those on both sides remain good Wikipedians - let's head back to fun. FT2  22:57, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

To second FT2 and third Kirill and others - administrator impersonation accounts are a real and active ongoing problem (though not in our top 10). The way this played out was unfortunate in this case, but there's a difference between "unfortunate" and "neglegent".

Gtoo - I think the community owes you an apology, but NW didn't do anything wrong. There was insufficient evidence that you were legit and not an impersonator at the time he made the judgement. He operated under policy, administrator behavior standards, and what the community has come to expect from us in terms of balancing protecting users and admins from impersonation. That the standards we have here ended up biting you is unfortunate. But don't make it personal against him or the others. They didn't act wrongly. We can't ask that you not be upset about it, but personalizing it isn't helpful. NW doesn't deserve that.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Although I absolutely agree that NW doesn't deserve this, I'd vouch for his competence/clue/integrity, and have never had reason to doubt him, I don't think some people truly appreciate situations like this. Accordingly I'd note that people aren't going to handle things in the same (calm) way. Clearly the user is venting, but at this time, comparing how you'd personally approach a similar situation (even in the past) is unlikely to produce the desired results - it may just add fuel. What is needed is to go beyond the rules and sympathise, or actually...empathise with the frustration of a (good faith) user who feels they weren't treated correctly, and especially when it involved actual sanctions or threats of the same. Sure, perfection is not expected, but that doesn't mean a situation can never be improved, and although a blocker may feel something at some point, it can never compare to that which the blocked user feels, even after block has been lifted. Especially when users are in placed a position of trust that is higher than the other user in a particular situation (let alone most other users in general), the expectations are obviously going to be higher, and the handling of the aftermath is even more critical to reducing any damage that may have been inadvertantly caused. I believe NW has appreciated whatever it is I am trying to convey, earlier if not much earlier, and I see evidence of this on Gtoo's talk. I'd recommend something similar again at some point, but only after letting time do what it does. That's my 2 cents, and I hope that others learn from it. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Restrictions

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Jack Merridew ban review motion#Motion to amend User:Jack Merridew's 2008 unban motion

Unless I am mistaken, Jack Merridew's editing restrictions were last modified near the end of 2009. One of the restrictions apparently currently in place is: "...follow dispute resolution processes to resolve editing conflicts with the understanding that misconduct could result in blocks or Community editing restrictions." Do others think that Merridew has "followed dispute resolution processes" appropriately in this case? Merridew has stated that WP:CITE "got it wrong", but has never apparently discussed the issue at WP:CITE. Merridew is acting in opposition to WP:CITE, and has left the article in an inconsistent style. He claims to invoke WP:IAR to reject WP:CITE, and has said "Get in my way in an unreasonable manner, and I'll kick you in the... shins... every time." WP:IAR is a double-edged sword; you can cut yourself when you invoke it. Merridew doesn't seem to care about the the usability of articles for other editors after his makes his edits. Note that, before the 2009 modification, Merridew's editing restrictions included "avoiding all disruptive editing" and "may be blocked for one year by any uninvolved administrator". Comments? Gimmetoo (talk) 16:55, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Hmm if there are still any restrictions on Jack the committee should probably remove them now. If you want a comment from an admin, you both behaved badly but as an admin I would have expected much better of you then Jack. *trout* Happy now? Spartaz 17:34, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Teeninvestor violating voluntary restriction

Two days ago I blocked Teeninvestor (talk · contribs) for continued hounding of Gun Powder Ma (talk · contribs). See ANI discussion. I offered TI unblocking if he agreed to a voluntary restriction - an interaction ban, pretty clearly spelled out and agreed to here on Aug 11 and recorded at User:Teeninvestor/Restriction. Since then the editor has violated the ban by editing Great Divergence, Economic history of China (pre-1911) and Chinese economic reform within 1 month of GPM. I've blocked TI for violating the restriction, but would like a broader review of the situation. Note that there is already a RFCU open for TI about different issues. Toddst1 (talk) 17:49, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's particularly reasonable to restrict someone in this way. He now has to look through history to see which articles he's allowed to edit? There must be some way of reformulating the restriction in a way that makes more sense. If Teeninvestor is editing reasonably, he should be able to edit any page. If he's not editing reasonably, he should be blocked. I see no purpose to such a restriction. Friday (talk) 18:06, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Not commenting on the merit of this particular incident, such a restriction is difficult to respect for the restricted user and very easy to game, if the other party wants to keep them from editing a particular article or a group of articles. Salvio 18:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

He seems to have misparsed the restriction as a 1-month ban on editing articles recently edited by GPM. But in any case this was a comment on GPM (who had started the GAR). Kanguole 18:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• The whole condition detail seems a bit severe to me and he only had a 48 hour original block and got these conditions imposed for an early unblocking, and the conditions appear to be easy to violate and of course he has and now he has a three week block, it seems a bit much to me, the condition should be removed as it is nothing but trouble. Allow him to finish off his original 48 hour block and remove the condition. This will also allow him to defend himself at the RFCU. Off2riorob (talk) 18:19, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with the others that this restriction seems to be the type that can easily be used to game the user into getting a longer ban. I deem "interaction" to be talking with the other user in non-mainspace directly (or being involved in a discussion that features the other user in a major way) or directly reverting or being involved within only a few edits on an article in mainspace with the other user. Saying that GPM edited the article a month ago and TI editing it now is interacting with him/her is ridiculous and impossibly restrictive. And, as Off2riorob stated, the restriction is impossibly harsh for just an early unblocking of a 48 hour block. In short, I do not consider this incident "interaction" and feel that TI should be unblocked immediately. Silverseren 18:39, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Teeninvestor knew full well before the block which articles were contentious between him and others users including me because we were interacting on these for several weeks now and they are actually closely related in terms of contents, many relying on the same set of scholarly references. The disputed articles were no more and no less than seven:

1. List of regions by past GDP (PPP) per capita
2. List of regions by past GDP (PPP)
3. Military history of China (pre-1911)
4. Economic history of China (pre-1911)
5. Chinese economic reform
6. Great Divergence and
7. Roman metallurgy

On all articles (or their talk pages) has been a lot of action in the recent past and a lot of users were involved. Particularly, Teeninvestor's edit behaviour on these articles was dealt with at length on his RFC/U. In this light, I find it hard to believe that Teeninvestor who writes about economic history and historical statistics had over night lost his ability to count up to 7. It were only those seven articles out of 2.5 mio and Teeninvestor happened to edit three of them within 24 h of the agreement. Moreover, he indirectly violated the agreement, as I see it, by trying to get another user on board for Economic history of China (pre-1911). Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:51, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

PS: Those who claim that there is a time gap of one month between my last edit and Teeninvestor's should please provide evidence for that, because is actually no such large time gap. Most importantly, my editing stopped only because Teenivestor relentlessly reverted me and others, not because I, as others, agreed to his version in any way. The editing only moved to other pages where the contentious questions were much the same. In other words: The whole dispute ran across the seven articles in circles and to pick out a single example where there may be a time lag of one than one week is missing the full picture of the dispute. Regards. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Recent incidents and notifications

I begin to hate this reporting, but Teeninvestor just does not seem to find the stop button: Since the lifting of his second block, he has been trying to mobilize other users to confront my edits, speaking lowly (and falsely) of my contributions and also those of User:Kanguole and User:Gnip in the process and denouncing other users as a "little clique" who wants to oust him from WP):

Notifications:

• Asking indirectly Soap to interact with me ("little clique")
• Requesting Patar knight directly to interact with me on 1RR basis
• Speaking lowly of the edits of us three here and here

His notifications of other users are very much a continuation of his 'policy' to draw the attention of other users to my edits, which he has already attempted with Nev1 after the restrictions were first imposed on him.(For clarification: I'd be happy to discuss my edits, but the users have to come on their own accord) His disregard for the interaction ban vis-a-vis admins has also its precedence in this attempt which also occurred after the first block was lifted.

Editing of restricted articles:

• undoing of my actions at Chinese economic reforms
• undoing of my actions at Chinese economic reforms

Both sets of actions are against the voluntary restriction agreement agreed upon with Toddst1, reconfirmed by Patar knight and recorded here, which explicitly stipulates that Teeninvestor should refrain from talking about me and from editing any of the seven articles above, among them explicitly Chinese economic reform. I have notified Patar knight of this. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:55, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Postscript: This post (first sentence) reveals to me that Teeninvestor has not understood in the least what the voluntary restriction agreement and all this is about; he doesn't even seem to be really aware that such a restriction exists. I am at loss of words and have nothing more to say. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:23, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

May I ask where Teeninvestor badmouthed me? I was only recently aware of the fight btw GPM and Teen, but I don't believe I was involved in it. Gnip (talk) 20:20, 15 August 2010

Check out Speaking lowly of the edits of us three here and here, the last diff including in both cases your edit at Military history of China (pre-1911) (which I checked btw and which is correct). Gun Powder Ma (talk) 09:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe I never referred to your edits, as you were correcting a grammar error.Teeninvestor (talk) 13:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Not correct. Gnip made a change to contents. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:55, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Teen was referring to me, considering I was changing Gun's edits. It was only a slight change anyway. I was just making sure the claims fit with the sources. There's nothing more to it than that. Gnip (talk) 11:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Interaction ban proposal

I was going to make this earlier but discovered Teeninvestor had been blocked and had agreed to a voluntary interaction ban.

I am now going ahead and proposing the following interaction ban:

Editors User:Teeninvestor and User:Gun Powder Ma are banned from interacting with each other. This editing restriction shall include a complete prohibition from comments on the respective user talk pages, filing reports on admin noticeboards, reverting edits on articles, commenting in other venues about the other party, or directly responding to each other's comments on article talk pages. This restriction by itself does not prohibit mutual participation on articles, as long as the editors stay away from each other. The restriction is to be interpreted broadly. If either party feels that the other party has violated this ban or other Misplaced Pages policy, and no uninvolved administrator responds to the violation within a reasonable amount of time, they may notify 1 uninvolved administrator of the incident on that administrators' talk page 12 hours after the original perceived infraction, and if that first administrator does not respond by at least acknowledging seeing the report within 24 hrs they may notify a second uninvolved administrator in the same manner, but in no case more than 2 notifications on-wiki. Repeated spurious reports to administrators using this mechanism shall be grounds for blocking for disruption.

This would be logged at the edit restrictions page if enacted by community etc. It would not have a fixed duration, ie it would last until repealed by the community.Dougweller (talk) 18:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Wow, you're good at this. Silverseren 19:04, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Withdrawing I've been convinced that this is not necessary nor a good idea. Sorry if I've created any unnecessary drama (there is such a thing as necessary drama I think). Dougweller (talk) 16:25, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Strong oppose: Teeninvestor has also been banned from interacting with another user, Tenmei. And, frankly, I don't see why several users should be banned from articles Teeninvestors edits when it is obviously him who creates the stir. I don't like the idea of creating an exclusive lane for problematic users at the cost of other users. I don't like it even less since he is the subject of an RFC/U, not me. Have you taken a look on how many users find Teeninvestor's edit pattern problematic? More than half a dozen, in fact. On how many more users do you want an interaction ban to be imposed so that this one user can go his way? I don't see the least reason why I should be singled out to pay for Teeninvestor's aggressive edit pattern.

I have edited for four years on military, economic and technological history and I don't see a reason why I should suddenly give up a good part of it because of one problematic user. I am frankly disappointed by your one-sided approach. Teeninvestors breaks the agreement and you shift 50% of the blame (or rather its consequences) on me. Real neutrality does not lie in simplistically distributing the blame equally on all shoulders as you well know, but to judge everyone according to one's actions. So forget it. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

"should be banned from articles Teeninvestors edits " Perhaps you may want to re-read the exact language: a complete prohibition from comments on the respective user talk pages, filing reports on admin noticeboards, reverting edits on articles, commenting in other venues about the other party, or directly responding to each other's comments on article talk pages. You cant revert each others edits, or directly respond to each other on talk pages, but there is nothing saying that you cannot edit the same articles. --Active Banana | Talk 19:39, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Not reverting? This is unworkable. Not that I am fond of reverting (a waste of time), but it is impossible to work on an article effectively if there are sacrosant statements which cannot be changed. Effectively, this would mean that there would be two separate articles created on one page. I can agree to the whole ANI stuff, but I want my right to edit and revert to remain intact. If I overstep the 3rr or whatever, block me, but don't take it away from me. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:53, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that editing under such conditions would probably not be easy, but perhaps would not be completely impossible - working by gaining prior consensus of edits on the talk page etc. --Active Banana | bananaphone 15:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support: This conflict has got to stop. If this passes, we should unblock TI. Toddst1 (talk) 19:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Support. One-way interaction bans never work and the current editing restriction appears to be overly harsh. Interaction bans are not a way of allotting blame, but only to stop conflicts and disruption; therefore, you shouldn't construe one imposed on you as a way of saying you're wrong or disruptive or whatnot. Salvio 19:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Support. Doug's proposal seems a reasonable and balanced measure, intended to keep the peace; it limits the interactions of users who've been engaged in a long-running series of disputes. It offers no judgment or prejudice against any party. An interim measure, pending further and future decisions. This might have worked, but: Haploidavey (talk) 19:30, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Oppose: Teeninvestor's self-justifications further down the page worry me; sorry, don't know how to do diffs, but see under "Topic ban for Teeninvestor proposal"). After all that's been said, he still justifies his misunderstanding of what's required and relevant to topic. Gun Powder Ma has no such difficulties. I'm now in favour of limiting Teeninvestor's editing rights. I'm opposed to any editing restictions on Gun Powder Ma. Haploidavey (talk) 15:50, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Notified users of RFC/U, since they are most knowledgable about the whole thing. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:32, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support - seems fair to both sides. I also support the unblocking of User Teeninvestor. Off2riorob (talk) 19:39, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Most of the disruption seems to come from Teeninvestor, particularly his high degree of incivility and wikihounding of GPM. This is the reason he was banned from interacting with GPM in the first place. It seems unfair to impose restrictions on the victim as well. The stipulation that This restriction by itself does not prohibit mutual participation on articles, as long as the editors stay away from each other. is also problematic and seems unworkable, and can potentially lead to all kinds of problems and misunderstandings. Athenean (talk) 19:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose It's a neat, balanced solution, but this is not a balanced situation. The trigger for this was Teeninvestor's behaviour at Roman metallurgy, where he has been edit warring to remove a well-referenced figure for Roman iron production, not because he has a different figure, but because he finds it out of line with what he knows about China (I am not making this up). It's also unworkable, both for them and other editors on these articles (not that the one-sided version was much better). Kanguole 20:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Gun Power Ma, I was going to propose just this before I even knew there was any agreement. I also agree that it is Teeninvestor who is the main problem. However, I'm not convinced that a one way ban is a good idea and I know that both above and elsewhere I've seen them opposed. We'll see what others think, I'm flexible if we can find a solution that brings this conflict to an end and stops other editors from wasting time on it. Dougweller (talk) 20:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Really, Dougweller, this is not only unfair to me, it strikes me as completely unworkable and could probably lead very quickly to a confusing situation which would rather increase the risk of blocks for both of us. With such a ill-conceived and ill-defined framework, neither Teen nor me would be able to assess the consequences of our actions properly and risk involuntarily massive (and unjustified) blocks. In other words, the situation would rather escalate and not even necessarily because of bad intentions on either side but because the whole arrangements has massive shortcomings, loop-holes and grey areas. Yesterday, I promised to stick to the interaction ban for four weeks and that's what I still intend to do.

There are these seven articles above which are contentious and which are edited by both of us. Other than that, Teen and me have had in the past not seen much overlap. If Teen keeps out of them for the next month and does not follow me I don't see any particular problem. So my proposal is let's wait for the four weeks and the outcome of the RFC/U. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment If there is some way to insure that, I'm happy with it. I certainly do not want to hinder your editing. Dougweller (talk) 06:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Procedural remark: I noticed that nowhere do we describe what a topic or interaction ban actually is, hence the need to draw up detailed rules for every case. I've attempted to describe our usual practice on the relevant policy page, Misplaced Pages:Banning policy#Types of ban.  Sandstein  21:26, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - the blocking administrator has added wikibreak templates. Off2riorob (talk) 22:23, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not quite gone yet but on my way out. For the record, any administrator is free to modify the existing block on TI, unblock or modify the voluntary restriction in place. Toddst1 (talk) 22:37, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Right, thanks for that. Off2riorob (talk) 22:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose restriction on GPM Teeninvestor seems to be the aggressor here. And its not the first time either. They need to learn to edit collegiately or go somewhere else. Spartaz 22:46, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose this would not improve content, and would likely harm it. As I've said elsewhere, if there are problems with GPMs content contributions, they're subtle and hard to detect (i.e. i haven't found any). Teeninvestors, on the other hand, are nationalistic, rely on weak sourcing, and are skewing content.Bali ultimate (talk) 22:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• • Comment Having seen quite a number of the edits of both of these editors, I can't disagree with your comments about their editing. Dougweller (talk) 06:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose restricting Gun Powder Ma. (Comment placed out of order because it pertains to preceding.) I have confidence in Dougweller's view, but if GPM's contributions to article content aren't at issue, he should not be placed under restrictions that inhibit his efforts to create high-quality articles. That's what we're here for, and from what I've seen, his work is good. WP is an encyclopedia anyone can edit, not a Safe Place for people lacking competence to edit. This business of cowing productive editors because they aren't nice to CPUSHers has to stop; send them to WP:CHARM SCHOOL instead. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:58, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• OPPOSE -- Dougweller's proposal needlessly undercuts the significant investments of time and thought which mark Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Teeninvestor.

A. This gambit is bad for Misplaced Pages going-forward; and in the context of the RfC/U, it becomes a little like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (转胜为败).

B. This thread arises from a number of factors which aren't captured by this proposal. It is both untimely and short-sighted.

C. The understandable frustration of Dougweller and others is justified. This puts a spotlight on problems which Coren identified in 2008, including the need for

• More awareness of a growing issue that is poisoning the very essence of collaborative editing that makes Misplaced Pages possible: real-world factions that vie for control over articles, turning them into polemical battlegrounds where surface civility is used to cover bias, tendentiousness and even harassment. All of us need to take a strong stance against that sort of "polite disruption" and those who use our rules of civility as weapons, recognize that long-term warriors are toxic, not vested, and investigate beyond surface behavior issues -- see here
• Less timidity in addressing issues related to contents (POV warring, tag teams, academic dishonesty). All of us should be more active at curtailing content disputes. Academic integrity should become a priority; unlike "simple" incivility, the damage caused by editors misquoting, plagiarizing and editorializing destroys the credibility of our encyclopedia -- see here
• Increased transparency -- see here

Summary restatement. This approach moves us towards throwing out the baby with the bath water. --Tenmei (talk) 23:14, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• oppose, sorta. I don't have a strong objection to the interaction ban being put in place, but I don't think it will solve the problem. While both parties' behavior is objectionable I think this is a case where we shouldn't say that both parties are equally at fault—Teeninvestor is more responsible for this situation than Gun Powder Ma, and sanctions should fall more heavily on the party who's more responsible. I'd rather see a topic ban for Teeninvestor, or perhaps a site ban. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:11, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support at this point, an outright interaction ban would be best, since both sides are at least partially responsible for this drama through their stubbornness. This would formalize what Teeninvestor has already agreed to do in his unblock request through e-mail to myself. However, recognizing that the consensus is that GPM has (perhaps arguably) had a lesser role, I would not be opposed to a weaker sanction on GPM. --Patar knight - /_{contributions} 03:25, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Comment: Please allow me to summarize briefly the Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Teeninvestor. Opened by User:Nev1, this has been running for almost a month now. In this period:

• 2 users apart from me have certified to the basis of the dispute
• 4 users have endorsed Nev1's summary of TI's problematic behaviour
• 6 users apart from Toddst1 have provided outside views on TI's problematic behaviour which were endorsed by altogether
• 12 users User:Nev1, User:Kanguole, User:GregJackP, User:Athenean, User:2over0, User:Badger Drink, User:Tenmei, User:Haploidavey, User:N5iln, User:Bali ultimate, User:BigK HeX, User:Akhilleus, while only one user, User:FeydHuxtable, took a position more in favour of TI.

Now sit back and think a minute. How much clearer can get the picture? How much clearer can get consensus? I won't object to your observation that I have behaved stubborn at times, too, and this has been pointed out to me by other users (and I will work on that), but your notion that "I am also at least partially responsible" is at complete odds with how the drama around Teeninvestor actually evolved and what the community believes. I bet you won't find a single user from above who believes that Teeninvestor's edit pattern would not have been problematic if I had not opposed some of his edits. I fully accept that my actions are placed under close admin scrutinity and that I am liable to strong admin reaction if they are deemed improper which is only fair. But I will object to any simplistic portrayal which reduces the said user's problematic overall edit pattern to a sort of Western stand-off between him and me. This was never the case. In fact, Teeninvestor has edit-warred against multiple users on multiple pages over an extended time span, and that's exactly what the current RFC/U shows. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:12, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support I proposed a similar proposal to User:Toddst1 before. I won't comment except to say that if anyone's interested in my side of the story, I presented an overview here 1 before I was blocked (and that BigK HeX didn't participate in my RFC).Teeninvestor (talk) 13:47, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose sanctioning Gun Powder Ma: The proposal is based on the premise that the parties are equally at fault, yet the discussion so far and the RfCU do not back up this assumption. To the contrary, it seems that Gun Powder Ma has spent a lot of their spare time to prevent damage to the project. A simplifying "it takes two to tango"-approach is likely to cause harm in the long run - we need editors who dispute problematic edits, and not let those wo introduce them have their way as everyone shys away in fear of sanctions just for that. If someone is disputing problematic edits and/or challenges problematic behavior, it is not the dispute (symptom) that needs to be remedied, but the problematic edits/behavior (cause). Skäpperöd (talk) 15:50, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. Perhap in order for an admin to better gauge consensus, it would be better for everyone who's expressed their opinion to also state if they're involved in the underlying content dispute. As far as I'm concerned, I'm entirely uninvolved. Salvio 15:07, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Unblocked

I've unblocked Teeninvestor per an e-mail he sent me through the Misplaced Pages e-mail system nearly half an hour ago. For transparency, text was as follows:

Since if he follows those provisions, incidents like these will not arise, I've unblocked him with caveats that he follow what he's agreed to do in this e-mail to avoid further drama. If those provisions are held, there is no reason why he cannot be unblocked to constructively work on non-controversial articles. --Patar knight - /_{contributions} 03:21, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Teeninvestor's promise to "address the issues" at RfC

In order evade a restriction here which explicitly preserved Teeninvestor's participation in the RfC, Teeninvestor crafted a sentence in the section above here:

"I promise to respect this proposal, stop interacting with GPM, and to address the issues involved in my RFC such as use of sources, NPOV, etc."

The edit history for the RfC here shows that Teeninvestor has indeed invested time in adding to the RfC. However, there is no evidence of fulfilling a promise to address issues which were made clear in July. In the absence of specific diffs, the so-called "promise" is a sham.

This becomes a significant factor in decision-making about potential remedies. If Teeninvestor made good on a modest promise, it would be seen as a good step in a constructive direction. --Tenmei (talk) 02:02, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Topic ban for Teeninvestor proposal

I want to put up a proposal for discussion which predates the failed interaction ban. This I still find a impossible and unpractical scheme. I propose a topic ban for Teeninvestor on military and economic history. I firmly believe only a solution where there is a clear red line would be helpful in easing the dispute and not having the opposite effect of unintentionally aggravating it. From my experience as an editor, a sufficiently clear red line can only be one which stipulates that certain articles and section are taboo to interaction. The above proposal that users can edit one and the same article but only on the condition of not interacting with one another in any way I find thoroughly unworkable and a sure receipt for disaster. This would almost certainly lead to the destruction of our accounts in a cloud of confusion and allegations and counter-allegations, if we start editing the same articles.

Moreover, a majority of users, particularly those with past experience of TI's behaviour, agrees with me that a ban which would place the same restrictions on me as on Teeninvestor would be unbalanced and unjust to me given his aggressive edit pattern. Obviously, the topic scope can and should be better/more narrowly defined, but our disagreement has been practically confined to questions relating to military and economic history (particularly with what I regard Teeninvestor's continual efforts to subsume European and Western history under China by making strained and unnecessary synthetical comparisons as someone else fittingly observed), so I am positive we could work something out if the majority of users believes a ban of some sort is necessary. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 07:55, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

But you are his main opponent, your suggesting restrictions for him is clearly better avoided, also, teeninvestors restriction that was imposed by Todd has no value and should be removed and forgotten about. What you guys need to work on is getting on, you have what looks to me as a content dispute and you both seem to be intelligent just with opposite views, try to meet in the middle and add both sides to the articles. For the duration of the RFC simply avoid any further fall outs. Off2riorob (talk) 08:35, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Disagree. I am not his "main opponent" or what you make of it for the reasons given above. Perhaps you would like to read the RFC/U on Teeninvestor first to get more background info. I won't comment any further on TI, but I don't see a reason why this proposal should be less seriously discussed than the one above. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:17, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Comment: I think it likely that the RfC will settle these matters anyway, and sooner rather than later. Interim, I don't characterise this as the failure of two sides to settle their differences in a content dispute. Just some thoughts here; on the one hand, cited content based on scholarly sources. On the other, generalised appeals. Coming in from left field, "civility" issues (yes, scare quotes; it's possible to edit and discuss tendentiously and destructively, all with the most winning good manners). Maybe a couple of own-goals, one or two fouls worth a penalty. But should all this be lumped together and redistributed evenly between both "sides"? I'm beginning to wonder about the usefulness and justice of a judiciously even-handed ban in these circumstances, even if temporary. Haploidavey (talk) 13:55, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

This link proves that I never cite my sources. Same here and here. I wonder if any of the editors above who claim I have weak sourcing has accumulated more numerous and reliable sources than this?Teeninvestor (talk) 14:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I may well have, and I'm certainly someone who has said before that you've used sources improperly - you must recall discussions about WP:SYNTH. I don't want to rehash old arguments, just point out that I am speaking out of experience. It may well be that you no longer do that, I haven't looked at discussions involving you for a while. Dougweller (talk) 15:30, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Apologies, Teen. Your link compels me to clarify my position. My comments here apply to editing at Roman metallurgy. My contribution as an outsider at the RfC is limited to the same. Haploidavey (talk) 14:10, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

For the record I also cited several of the sources there such as Wagner 2001 and Needham 1986 for the dispute on Roman meatllurgy, but apparently no one wanted to look.Teeninvestor (talk) 14:17, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

This is not about the content, which you should take to the relevant page, where it has been stated repeatedly that sinologists are not experts on ancient Rome. Arnoutf (talk) 14:31, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

In my view Teeninvestor should stay away from any historial China-Europe comparison, either on Chinese history, or on Europe History pages, as in both cases he seems to promote a "China was the best" non neutral POV. How this would be captured in a topic ban is beyond me, as it involves all European and far east articles but those only on comparative history. Arnoutf (talk) 20:56, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I have one thing to say: The speed at which the quality and balance of the articles involved have declined is truly astounding. I intend to respect my editing restriction and refrain from editing these articles or topics related to this in ancient Chinese history, but these diffs speak for themselves 12 3.Teeninvestor (talk) 02:01, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid they do not speak for themselves, unless you intend to show that Gun Powder Ma is encouraging restraint in the making of sweeping "best of" and "first to" claims. My involvement is limited to Talk:Roman metallurgy (where I tried to put myself in Teeninvestor's shoes and see his grounds for questioning information) and previous exposure here and there to GPM's work in areas pertaining to ancient Rome. My concern as I review these proceedings is that Teeninvestor mistakes criticism of his methodology for personal attack, and equates "balance" or "neutrality" with the need to make truth claims more appropriate to the Guinness Book of World Records than to an encyclopedia. Report information, and leave it at that; what good are claims of national superiority, and always debatable "originality"? This raises questions of POV pushing, fairly or not. Also, at Talk:Roman metallurgy, Teen argued insistently while asserting factual information that was point-blank wrong and easily corrected, if he had bothered to conduct neutral research; he deleted material that was properly sourced, without offering sources that directly contradicted GPM's valid sources. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:42, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Those edits by GPM et. al. are hardly examples of "encouraging restraint". It seems that they are doing exactly what they were complaining of Teeninvestor in his RFC/U. Specifically, they all made sweeping and controversial changes—apparently taking advantage of Teeninvestor's ban to settle their every content dispute with him and then some—with misleading edit summaries. It is difficult to evaluate the enormity of the edits without being involved with the articles for a long time (for example, the dispute over citing Robert Temple for uncontroversial facts is not resolved to the satisfaction to anyone except GPM), but some of the changes are no less nakedly partisan than Teeninvestor's.

Among other things, Kanguole's edits in the Great Divergence replaced all images of Chinese industry, opulence, etc. with European equivalents. Gun Powder Ma introduces his own superlatives, gloating that the Song dynasty was "completely" conquered, and adding an obscure Tang defeat at the hands of the Arabs to the economic history of China. While I must give Gnip Gun Powder Ma some credit for contrastedly not marking his mega-edit as a minor edit, Gun Powder Ma tried to subtly explain away a Ming defeat of the Dutch East India Company as simple numerical superiority. All of the edits are riddled with unexplained removal of sourced content, which if done by an IP or new user, would be immediately reverted as blanking. Some of the memes like "Sinologists are not experts on ancient Rome" are indeed reasonable for articles like Roman Metallurgy. But especially because it's the Greek and Roman specialists that chased Teeninvestor out of their articles and followed him into history of China articles, removing any mention of comparative weaponry/economy there with this rationale, instead of refuting them with their own sources, is scoring political points; not helping to build a better encyclopedia. Quigley (talk) 14:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

First, ANI is not about contents, about which, secondly, you seem to be clearly not well-informed: The Song dynasty and the whole of China was completely conquered by the Mongols in 1279, the Battle of Talas between Arabs and Chinese has significance for Chinese history in that it marked the beginning of the Tang decline and twelve users to two have voted Robert K. G. Temple here to be an unreliable fringe author which must not be used with regard to Chinese and world history. If you disagree, take it to the talk page, but please do not try to confound the issue here by making unqualified statements with regard to contents. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The focus of my comment was behavior, not content. In other words, you have portrayed yourself as an unbiased editor who has encountered a problematic chauvinist who doesn't follow the rules, and are now saving the encyclopedia from him with just the facts and restraint. This well-argued denial of the "it takes two to tango" maxim has saved you from sanctions imposed on Teeninvestor, which is unusual (it has been noted by others) in a dispute like this.

But to reiterate, you and the other named editors are using the same weapons that you objected to in Teeninvestor: sweeping changes with misleading edit summaries, edit-warring to support an imagined consensus, and removal of sourced content that contradicts what you know to be The Truth. For Teeninvestor, that's Chinese superiority in a certain time period, and for you, that's European superiority in the same. This is not to suggest that you deserve equal sanction, or that the diffs I just looked at are representative of your whole history with Teeninvestor, however, I think this behavior does explain some of Teeninvestor's recent aggravation. Quigley (talk) 15:42, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

There is no denial, rather you seem to be totally unaware of the Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Teeninvestor which contradicts the general thrust of your tango argument. It should also be pointed out that only yesterday you came to know of this dispute, yet today you have already formed a strong opinion. Perhaps you spend the night sifting the countless diffs on TI's problematic behaviour, allowing you to give a balanced and informed view, but this does not appear to be the case. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:42, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I have been aware of the disputes between you two in the various forums since 7 August, when I corrected one of Teeninvestor's overzealous interpretations of sources in this diff. I have read Teeninvestor's RFC/U (and ironically enough, reviewed it last night) and referenced it in my original comment, but being unfamiliar with the RFC process, I did not (yet) add my own assessment. I don't hold "strong" opinions on this dispute as you imply, but it also should be noted that that hasn't stopped the coterie of editors from Roman Metallurgy from strongly endorsing your views based on their short experience with Teeninvestor. The reason I commented on your behavior and not Teeninvestor's is because I don't believe I have any unique insights to offer on the latter, not out of partiality to him. Quigley (talk) 17:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

WTF? I didn't make those edits. In fact that link you provided looks like editing done by Gun Powder Ma, yet for some reason my name is in there instead of his. I do admit that I did make an edit over a battle between the Dutch East India Company and the Ming in the battle of LiaoLuo Bay. But it was not my intention to "subtely explain away the defeat as simple numerical superiority". In fact if you looked at my edits there is no mention of numerical superiority at all. In fact I decreased the number of ships on the Ming side and increased it on the Dutch side. If there was a fault it would be for not providing sources, but then again the page never had any sources to begin with, and all my sources for that article is in Chinese. Gnip(talk) 11:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Quigley, you appear to have missed that each of the diffs Teeninvestor gave and you repeated spans a sequence of edits. You may wish to examine the individual edits and adjust your accusations (e.g. regarding edit summaries and minor edits). Kanguole 17:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Gnip! I looked at it again and the diff Teeninvestor provided was between three of Gun Powder Ma's revisions, intended to show the sum of the changes. Your edit was just the one after them, so the software displayed your username. Indeed your own change was small and uncontroversial, and I have revised my comment to reflect that the controversial edits were GPM's. Kanguole, I struck out the portions of my comments referring to the edit summaries/minor edits. Quigley (talk) 17:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you could explain which of my 14 edits to that article constitutes "edit-warring to support an imagined consensus" or "removal of sourced content that contradicts what you know to be The Truth". Unless you have specific concerns about my edits, I do not see why I am required to stop editing that article. Kanguole 17:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

As I said in my correction message, the most aggressive edits were GPM's alone. The "imagined consensus" I was referring to was that Robert Temple was an unreliable source for everything related to Chinese and world history, which GPM promotes by making reference to a majority vote on the RSN (which is not what consensus is), repeatedly labeling him a "fringe source", and mentioning Temple's unrelated thoughts on extraterrestrials whenever his name is mentioned, so as to discredit him to editors who aren't willing to investigate Temple more.

Removing (even common, corroboratable) information sourced to Temple seems to account for most of GPM's content removal, but there are others: in this edit alone on iron vs. wooden ploughs (apparently offended by the implication that the Romans did not use iron ploughs, which the text did not say), removing information on the sprouts of capitalism and proto-industrialization from Myers and Wang and others, and labor productivity statistics sourced to Allen that he could not personally verify. There were further removals relating to disputes that he and Teeninvestor had not resolved on the talkpage, such as of Chinese iron production numbers. I postface this by emphasizing that I am not bringing the content of GPM's edits into dispute, but am responding to a query by Kanguole about what I considered to be nontransparent and uncongenial "removals of sourced content". Quigley (talk) 18:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It's ok, Quigley. Now that I read over it again it's obvious that the mistake wasn't intentional. I admit I overreacted, due to the sheer surprise that wiki could actually show edits not done by me but under my name. Gnip 13:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

As you say, Quigley, most of my removals are due to the community decision to not use Temple. But even here I left many claims in place with a citation tag. As for the wooden and iron plows, Pericles and me have already been for days in an intensive exchange of sources here where Pericles confirms that, while Chinese agriculture was advanced, its technological level in comparison to other world regions was exaggerated by Temple. The iron production numbers have been extensively discussed now and the issue was considered solved by everyone bar TI. This will be my last post on the matter which has run its course here. You, as everyone else, are invited to participate at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for comment/Teeninvestor#End of RFC/U. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:42, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I was contesting a source that stated that the Roman Empire had a higher iron production per capita than Europe in 1700, Han or Song China. That statement is the ancient equivalent of claiming that Brazil has a higher computer per capita production than the United States, considering that Romans did not have cast iron, steelmaking technology, or any other advanced iron smelting technology. All the sources I have on Chinese and European iron production per capita contradict this. Above editors claim to want "reliability" but I wonder what will the expert think when he goes to wikipedia and it claims that movable type was insignificant or that Rome had more advanced iron technology than 1700 Europe.Teeninvestor (talk) 23:49, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Please re-examine what Cynwolfe has tried to explain; and consider the outstretched hand her words represent. --Tenmei (talk) 02:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

"Topic" conflates wrong issues

The mis-directed focus on "topic ban" conceptually conflates the wrong issues.

The core problems are summarized succinctly in one paragraph by N5iln -- see here.

Even a cursory review of page histories and diffs as shown above appears to demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that User:Teeninvestor intends to continue to push an irrefutably WP:NPOV and WP:OR edit cycle, with the apparent intent of outlasting the attention spans of the other involved editors. That said, I cannot make unbiased judgments about intent...I can only make observations regarding actions. The actions in question, in this editor's opinion, demonstrate a blatant disregard for WP:DUE, WP:V and WP:RS which, especially as demonstrated, combine to place Teeninvestor in an untenable position. Add to those the material that can be found in the Talk pages involved, wherein Teeninvestor displays an additional disregard for WP:WAR and WP:OWN, and I must concur with the certifying editors vis-à-vis both the description of the dispute and the most desirable outcome.

The straw man of a "topic ban" is misconceived. It fails because of its underlying assumptions. If Teeninvestor were not "investing" skewed diffs in a "topic" related to China or Europe or who-knows-what, who believes there be no problems?

There is a similar flaw in Offriorob's straw man "logic" above. It is unhelpful when Offriorob characterizes Gun Powder Ma as the "main opponent" of Teeninvestor.

Gun Powder Ma is not the opponent, nor am I, nor is Cynwolfe ... nor is N5iln.

FACT: Teeninvestor learns from experience.

QUESTION: What has been learned in the just one month? What has been adduced from Teeninvestor's participation at:

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Teeninvestor??? +
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive editing and other issues during RFC/U by User:Teeninvestor??? +
• Wikiquette alert against me??? + etc.???

I have learned the hard way that framing a discussion of "topic ban" creates the wrong questions. --Tenmei (talk) 13:02, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

You are right in that a topic ban won't necessarily change the user's overall behaviour; he will be barred from a certain topic range, but could simply continue his ways everywhere else, as long as he still lacks understanding of what behaviour the community would like to see from him (which is unfortunately what the majority of users here and on RFC/U believes of him).

On the other hand, the last couple of days have shown that the voluntary restriction ban is even less effective and has become actually something of a farce: Even though the core of the agreement refers to no more than merely seven articles, each time after his apology it took no more than 48 h before he was back in his old vein, displaying a kind of Karma circle of attacking then apologizing then moving into attack mode again. I feel further admin activity is necessary, this extremely disruptive spiral has to be broken, and Teeninvestor has to be taken at his word now.

For the longer term, we could ask Nev1 to bring the RFC/U to an end; I believe there have been now enough voices heard, the collected material is abundant and we need to move to a permanent solution instead of the current ANI patchwork approach of which I am sure all parties are fed up by now. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I plan to follow the leadership of others. For absolute clarity, my comments are as much addressed directly to Teeninvestor as anyone else. Who knows what spark might become the catalyst which makes a difference? --Tenmei (talk) 15:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection to closing the RfC, and I don't think it will serve any further purpose to keep it open. Even the "olive branch petition", the only solid outcome of the RfC, did not last long. However, according to the RfC instructions "A request for comment on a user, however, needs to be closed manually. This should be done by an uninvolved editor." Nev1 (talk) 18:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there anyone here who is uninvolved and willing to close the RfC? Nev1 (talk) 20:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

For the RFC to have any credibility, it must be closed by an uninvolved editor, preferably someone with lots of experience. I'll make a request on the IRC channel if no one is found. --Patar knight - /_{contributions} 00:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

User:IainUK

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

Both users have indicated they wish to drop the topic, and the real issue is being handled at Articles for Deletion, thus this mess of "He did this" and "They did that" can stop, as it has no further purpose. Before raising this topic again, actually try to disengage as both of you agreed to, and see what happens. --Taelus (Talk) 12:30, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'm at the end of my rope here. This morning has been a challenge with User:IainUK who fails to read policies pointed out to him, and although asked multiple times to keep his conversation regarding the deletion of an article on the AFD page - with a previous notification about WP:HARASS - the editor continues to delete and add things to my talkpage contrary to requests. He has been warned by multiple users.

The overall genesis of the situation is:

• On 12-AUG, User:RHaworth tagged Andrew_Stone_(Pineapple_Dance_Studios) for CSD under A7
• About 10 hours later, User:Phantomsteve declined the A7 as notability was at least stated
• On 14-AUG, the main editor (User:IainUK of the above article left a message at User talk:Accounting4Taste – a talkpage that I have on my watchlist. In that specific message, IainUK had a rather mistaken belief of what WP:CSD being decline actually means.
• As Accounting4Taste is “retired”, I looked further into the article.
• The article at that time was completely unreferenced, and notability was weak as per WP:MUSN, WP:GNG and others. As WP:PROD was inappropriate for a challenged CSD, I brought it to discussion at the WP:AFD.
• IainUK left a message on my talkpage that showed that he continued to misunderstand what a declined CSD meant, and still believed that this meant it was a permanent article.
• I replied on my talkpage about what CSD meant, and directed him to read WP:DELETE.
• I removed a {{hangon}} tag from the article that had been mistakenly placed by IainUK, and advised on the article talkpage as to how to discuss the deletion at WP:AFD.
• IainUK began to comment on the AFD – again, mistaken about what a declined CSD meant. Editor then added some other text, which I properly formatted on his behalf. I recommended that he read WP:AFD to better understand the process, and how to reply.
• IainUK begins to attribute the AFD nomination to malice on my part both on my talkpage, and in the AfD.
• I advised the user that the nomination was in good faith, based on policy, including WP:BLP. I ask if he has read the policies that he has been pointed to.
• The editor becomes more aggressive, attributing further bad faith, and violates WP:NPA.
• As such, I ask the editor to refrain from further posting on my talkpage, and keep the discussion about the article on WP:AFD
• The editor begins to edit-war on my talkpage.
• I specifically emphasize the on the editor’s talkpage my request to stay off my talkpage, and then write a gentle notification about WP:3RR on my talkpage, plus my ability to remove offensive posts
• Contrary to my multiple requests, the editor continues to add/remove portions of my talkpage - based on the clear requests to stop WP:HARASSing me, I have undone them as vandalism
• At this point, I engaged another admin, and disengaged from the situation, although I was forced to remove additional edits to my talkpage
• User began to delete portions of my talkpage, which I restored.

I have disengaged, but the user doesn't get it. I'm always up for discussion, but after the violation of NPA and edit-warring on my talkpage, another Admin has recommend that I bring additional eyes. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 15:02, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• Note: editor and other admin have been notified of this discussion (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 15:07, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I would be t'other admin, however I'd add that IainUK was also advised by Taelus (talk) two minutes before their most recent revert on Bwilkin's talkpage.

IainUK seems to have WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT as regards deletion, as Bwilkins notes above. They've also tried to suggest by removing IainUK's post from Bwlkins' talkpage, Bwilkins was "bordering on slander". I advised them about WP:NLT and was met with a barrage of wikilawyering. Eventually I, too, disengaged, with a suggestion that IainUK bring the matter here if they remained unsatisfied with Bwilkins' and my handling of the matter. Instead they have continued the earlier edit-warring on Bwilkins' talkpage. TFOWR 15:10, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• • Already attempting to persuade user to disengage, I begun to do so prior to this ANI listing (got edit conflicted). Hopefully they will disengage, as the only real problem now is that they won't drop the topic. I think the problem is though that IainUK is assuming bad faith of Bwilkins AfD nomination, as they began by accusing him of not doing research/wanting to improve the article. They seem to have convinced themselves now that Bwilkins is biased, when really it is just an AfD discussion which should focus on content, not contributors. --Taelus (Talk) 15:14, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Whatever it takes to add a WP:CLUE at this point, I don't care. This has been a distinct waste of editing time. Thick skin or not, short of saying "look, would you just fuck off, the nomination was based on a lack of WP:RS and WP:GNG, so go away" (which might have been considered a tad uncivil, although WP:SPADE might apply), this has been an absolute waste, and past WP:HARASS (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 15:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

These two images probably need an experienced eye. The permission box reads "This is a "free image with no copyright restrictions".".. hardly compelling evidence. Rehevkor ✉ 18:24, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The first is reproduced from the group's official website, from their gallery here. The site says "© Click Records Entertainment Ltd"; there is no indication that the image has been placed in the public domain. The image is used in a variety of other sites, generally by way of promoting the group's appearances, but this doesn't place it into the PD either. The second image is a crop of the first. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Since these would not pass WP:NFC#UUI if non-free, I'll F11 them unless someone can think of a reason not to; or a better speedy criteria. Rehevkor ✉ 20:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

NOTE: I just wanted to point out that a declined CSD does not in any way make an article ineligible for proposed deletion. As a matter of fact, it's extremely common for an article to be marked for PROD following a CSD decline, I see it all the time. When an article is declined for CSD, all that means is that the article doesn't merit speedy deletion under that particular criteria. It doesn't mean that anyone objects to the article's deletion as a whole, and deletion is still uncontroversial. See here for details on what is and isn't eligible for proposed deletion. -- Atama頭 17:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Pineapple Dance Studios (TV series)

BWilkins nominated this related article for deletion which seems a little odd. Primetime TV shows on major channels are pretty much a shoe-in as far as notability is concerned. What gives Bwilkins? Exxolon (talk) 21:34, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Why is this at ANI? While I agree with the sentiment, Bwilkins' talk page is a much better place to start this conversation. Jclemens (talk) 21:51, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I noted my error about an hour ago and withdrew the nom. With the crap surrounding the above editor and a related article, I admit I got a bit kerfuffled, understandably I'm sure. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 00:13, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I think User:Bwilkins has been very unreasonable and the account he gives here is mostly exaggerated or biased. He has said himself that he only nominated the article for deletion to teach me a lesson that articles which pass a speedy deletion request can still be deleted. I accept I misunderstood that, but he could have just put a note on my talk page. Instead he nominated the article for deletion and made immature personal attacks, questioning my ability to read. When I have tried to delete those comments, citing WP:NPA he has reverted the edits. However, in the same conversation Bwilkins said he had researched the subject and found nothing, to which I replied that from the UK a standard search on google.com for the subject's name resulted in the first three pages being directly related to the subject. He deleted that reply (citing WP:NPA, despite his actual personal attacks on me) and marked the conversation as locked (or similar) and not to be edited. I asked him politely to either delete all the conversation, or put it back to its original form, but he constantly ignored me and deleted my attempts to talk to him calling it vandalism. It is my view that he is working the rules to his own personal advantage and it gives an unfair and false representation of the conversation. I can't see why he won't just be reasonable and delete it and forget about it. Even by the way he continues to talk about me, it is clear he has an issue with me, and whilst I always assume good faith, Bwilkins has made it obvious that the benefit of the project and community is not his top focus in this case. He is clearly a well experienced editor, and I have no doubt he has done great good for the community - but on this occasion he has clearly acted inappropriately.

All I can say about User:TFOWR is that they basically supported Bwilkins position, and so obviously we were in disagreement.

User:Taelus rightly advised, from a neutral point of view, that I just forget about it. This is good advice and what I would like to do - and I would like Bwilkins to do the same and show the reasonable gesture of removing or restoring the conversation.

I am an inexperienced editor - but I do my best. Bwilkins clearly has an issue with me, and I don't understand why. I have made mistakes, but we all do when we are new and I believe Misplaced Pages should be open and welcoming to new editors who are keen to do well. I regret that, on this occasion at least, I feel Bwilkins has abused his position as a long and respected editor to work around the rules to suit his own ends, while forgetting what is best for Misplaced Pages.

User:Rehevkor - I am not sure what the images have to do with this discussion - they have been tagged and I have responded accordingly.

That is all I have to say about this. I hope User:Bwilkins will agree that keeping the conversation as it is now is unfair to me, and not beneficial to the project or community in any way, and show that he is decent enough to do the reasonable thing and delete it. Other than that, I personally have no issues and am happy to continue editing and creating articles for the benefit of Misplaced Pages. IainUK (talk) 15:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

"He has said himself that he only nominated the article for deletion to teach me a lesson that articles which pass a speedy deletion request can still be deleted"?? WTF? I don't teach lessons in childish manners such as that, and I have never said such a thing.

Let me say it clearly and carefully: at the time I nominated it, it was a new WP:BLP. It had ZERO references. The notability was therefore sketchy at first, and without ANY references, it was more than questionable. This is the SOLE reason that the article was AfD'd. Full stop. I don't give 2 shits about the topic, and I'm too old to play games and have something "against" an editor.

The editor unfortunately decided to go off on me on what appears to be a pet article, no matter how politely I did attempt to assist. The description I provided above is accurate: it was checked by another participant in the situation as accurate.

Accusations of "bias" and "abuse" simply because he did not like the fact that his article was nominated for deletion is pretty sad. Asking the editor "can't you read (the policies you have been linked to)" is not an attack, it's asking them to actually read the damned policy. God, this is childish. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:15, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• Note as the user has multiple times made stuff up about what actually wrote, I have made one final request to them to stop it. I have also in the same post advised the editor again why the article went to AfD (anyone can see that it was an unref'd BLP at the time of nomination), and also clarified how the situation escalated when it should not have, and how to avoid it in the future. Truly, as my philosophy is that everyone has something to add to Misplaced Pages, I wish this editor the best. By now, he has had a hard lesson on how important it is to actually read the policies that someone gives them before they go off half-cocked. As they seem to have finally been given a WP:CLUE (although only partly, according to their above statement), I'm willing to consider this resolved, for now ...as of this point, they have finally stayed off of my talkpage for over a day - if they return, I will be asking for additional action. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I only wrote on your talkpage to ask you civilly to either keep the conversation as it was, or remove it all. You deleted it and called it "vandalism" and brought it here. I'd say that was just a tad on the overreacting side. I am just glad now that it is on record that the conversation was edited and archived - so at least people know you are someone who does things like that. Everyone can see in your history the comment which was removed, and know that it is nowhere near as bad as the way you spoke to me - which makes your real motives for removing it obvious. And I am glad that is publicly exposed so that people can make up their own minds. I don't think there is any need to talk about this any more. IainUK talk 09:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Then based on the above, and your actions on your talkpage, I'll take it back: clearly this issue is not resolved, and the editor has absolutely no WP:CLUE. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 20:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what more I'm supposed to say - I'm obviously annoyed that you wouldn't just leave the conversation as it was, but you have made it clear you aren't budging there. And although I feel it is wrong, in the grand scheme of things it is pretty insignificant. I do sincerely feel like you have treated me unfairly, but I'd rather just forget about it. And if an (other) administrator wants to talk with me, I am of course ready and willing for that conversation. Cheers IainUK talk 21:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I hoped not to post in this ANI again, but I would like to note that I have just come across a discussion about me on TFOWR's talk page which I think is relevant here. Bwilkins has made his case against me, and I have stated my defence - there shouldn't need to be any further dialogue on this - especially not on another user's talk page. IainUK talk 08:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Yup, and the editor has finally admitted that the article was unsourced when it was nom'd. He still thinks the WP:BLP policy does not count - insisting that the article should have remained, but tagged as "unref'd", instead of my nicety of AfDing it and giving him the 7 days to fix it in lieu of deleting the unref'd BLP instead. That, mes amis is the genesis of something worthy of WP:LAME. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 08:59, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Important Note I never once denied the article was unsourced when it was nominated - please see here where I agreed references needed to be added at the top of the AfD. I regret that Bwilkins is wrong to say I did not admit the article was unsourced right from the start, as it is completely untrue. IainUK talk 11:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this is either an "important note", nor how it demonstrates that you acknowledged that the article was unsourced when the Afd was filed: the comment in that diff says that you agree that the article needs improved sourcing, not recognising that it had no sources at the time. GiftigerWunsch 11:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

If you are saying it is correct and truthful for Bwilkins to say the editor has finally admitted that the article was unsourced when it was nom'd then I am sorry but I seriously disagree. It is an important note because it provides proof that the previous post is factually incorrect - also giving context to Bwilkins's other posts on this topic. IainUK talk 11:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The "offending post" on my talkpage was made at 20:07 - three minutes after Bwilkins' post here saying substantially the same thing. I regard IainUK's latest post here as frivolous, and indicative of precisely Bwilkins' complaint: a lack of WP:CLUE. I'd strongly recommend dropping it - and not just saying "I'd rather forget about it" but actually, you know, moving on. We all have more important things to do than justifying routine actions and comments. TFOWR 09:07, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I would like to make it clear, to avoid confusion, that I had considered this matter over at 15:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC) when I responded to Bwilkins' statement on this page, until Bwilkins posted on my talk page again. I again had considered it over until I noticed TFOWR and Bwilkins discussing me on TFOWR's talk page again. I am becoming frustrated at having to keep coming back to answer this ANI, or to find Bwilkins still talking about me on TFOWR's talk page. I believe that Bwilkins attitude, manner and tone is not appropriate for someone with admin status, especially as I have been civil throughout, and I think TFOWR has chosen sticking up for Bwilkins over being impartial and helpful. Perhaps a Bureaucrat will look into that. I just wanted to give clear evidence to show that I am not the one who keeps bringing this back up, like TFOWR falsely implies. IainUK talk 09:31, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Remember, your talkpage history is clearly open to everyone before you say that you considered it "over", as you chose to openly continued to not consider it over. Cheers. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes Bwilkins I am fully aware of that, infact I have included links to previous versions in my comment above. I encourage people to check these so as to confirm that after making my ANI response at 15:43 on 15 August 2010 (UTC), you then commented on my talk page again. After replying and again saying I appreciate the (partly) good intention in your post and would like to forget about it, you proceeded again to discuss me and this case on TFOWR's talk page, to which I asked you to stop as it is simply not nice to talk about another user, particularly in those terms, on another user's talk page. I did not make the point that you keep bringing this back up, I was happy to forget it - it was TFOWR who chose to bring that up, and I simply wanted to clarify the facts. Please, no more. IainUK talk 10:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

And Bwilkins, I would be grateful if you could stop following me around citing policies. I might have a way to go, but I'm getting there - and this is not helpful. IainUK talk 10:55, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Just a question from an uninvolved observer - does this "discussion" have any point? Like is there anything that anyone actually wants an admin to do about it? If so, I'd suggest people just state what they want to happen, calmly and unemotionally, and stop this utterly pointless "He said...", "No, he said..", "No..." argument. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

It has no purpose whatsoever. As both editors have stated that they want to move on, I am going to help them by boldly archiving the open discussions on the topic, and hope that this actually does end the argument. As said before, the AfD will handle the real issue here, the after-argument began from a misunderstanding and has snowballed into this mess which has nothing to do with building an encyclopedia. --Taelus (Talk) 12:27, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Talk:United States Senate: World Greatest Deliberative Body

I am referring this to the Admin notice board as the debate has got way out of hand and one user is continuing to engage in wikilawyering and personal attacks against myself. A third opinion was asked for in this case, which has resulted in the user expanding their personal attacks. Please can this be sorted out as this kind of behaviour towards myself is unacceptable and removed the ability to debate the issues at hand. I have though also made a claim that this user is acting as the article owner which I believe to be a true statement but may be taken as unhelpful. This is due to the nature and continued personal attacks and attempted character assassination of myself. --Lucy-marie (talk) 08:52, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I am, presumably, the editor in question. If this is indeed the appropriate forum for LucyMarie to direct her concerns (my own opinions notwithstanding, a legitimate issue about personal attacks would presumably be better dealt with first on the user's talk page, and then at WQA, and then at an RfC on user conduct), and an administrator wishes to investigate this 'situation' (no death threats, racist attacks, or legal threats are involved), I advise them to read the talk page of the United States Senate article. The Rhymesmith (talk) 09:30, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect, Lucy-marie, I don't see it as a personal attack for one editor to say that another is completely misinterpreting policy. If we couldn't say another editor misunderstands policy, we'd have no way to conduct consensus building discussions. Furthermore, while I admit to skimming parts of that quite long debate, I didn't see either side "wikilawyering"--you were both looking closely at policy to solve a content dispute. Can you point to a specific diff which you think is a personal attack, that meets the definitions in WP:NPA? I do think the debate spiraled out of hand, but I am hard-pressed to say that the blame for that lies with The Rhymesmith. Qwyrxian (talk) 09:44, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

The comments I take issue with are comments after towards the end of the third opinion which are in bold and are only there to attempt to create an impression of me a bad faith editor. Rhymesmith has trawled through my history and dug up some poor editing I did when I first started. The comments had absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand and were only there to try and discredit me as an editor. If Ryhmesmith is allowed to get away that level of personal commenting which only designed to diminish another editor as opposed to actually commenting on the content of the article then no serious discussions’ purely on the issues can be had.--Lucy-marie (talk) 11:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

The following are a selection of diffs which I consider to ammount to personal attacks diff 1 diff 2 diff 3 diff 4 diff 5 this diff states Rhymesmith is deliberatly not assuming good faith 6

Please take a look at the above as I consider the above to ammount to personal attacks.--Lucy-marie (talk) 11:40, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, I am not mandated to assume good faith under circumstances where I have explicit grounds for not doing so. My grounds are articulated alongside the actual statement of not assuming good faith, and stem from Lucy Marie's behavior. Good grief. Now, from WP:NPA - a partial definition of a personal attack.

I am perfectly happy to defend each of my remarks, if requested, by showing how I am commenting on explicit instances of unhelpful behavior by LucyMarie in the course of the discussion, as opposed to merely my attempting to disparage her. My accusations of alogia, for example, are not intended to belittle her, but to simply establish that she has "repeatedly and unrepentantly refused to debate in a logical fashion", just as my remarks about her history of disruptive and POV editing are perfectly apposite to her approach to the US Senate article, and just as my remark about her either having no grasp of Misplaced Pages policy or deliberately "slinging bull" to support her viewpoint is something which can easily be established as true in the context of the debate. I don't see the need for a humiliating proof of this, but I will provide one, if necessary. The Rhymesmith (talk) 12:03, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

The above diffs I have provided are in my opinion attacks as they comment directly on me and not on the content being discussed. Also claiming you are going to provdide proof of something that will be for humilation only is again in my opinion a personal attack.

--Lucy-marie (talk) 12:08, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Commenting on you as a direct function of your conduct is not a personal attack, as far as I'm concerned, just as calling an actual vandal a vandal is not a personal attack (as Qwryxian has analogously pointed out, above). Nevertheless, I am not going to clog up this page with another extended "argument". If someone wishes to read the whole discussion at the Senate talk page and then wishes to do something, I will be happy to defend each of my remarks as a function of your behavior. The Rhymesmith (talk) 12:12, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

The whole purpose of having the no personal attacks policy has been blatantly missed. The nutshell clealy states.

It appears as if you have inverted that by commenting on the contributor and not the content.--Lucy-marie (talk) 14:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I've reviewed all 6 diffs above. I do see a lack of civility, but it's mild and seems born of frustration. I'm not taking The Rhymesmith's side here, as I haven't reviewed the entire conversation (nor do I feel compelled to) but all of those comments were observations on behavior, not personal attacks against you. There's a difference between stating that a person has said something stupid, and calling someone stupid. Sometimes people do try to game the system by insulting people in a round-about way by following the letter if not the spirit of the no personal attacks policy, but I don't see that here. We don't censor people, and if a person finds another person objectionable they are free to express this, our "call a spade a spade" essay illustrates that well. I will say that "incoherent and opinionated blathering" seems unduly harsh and while not a personal attack, seems less civil than it can be. Lucy-marie, if you feel that The Rhymesmith is overly rude to you, we do have a noticeboard for that, although it's unlikely that action beyond a reprimand would result. This mostly seems like an issue for dispute resolution, and as a third opinion was recently sought it seems like that dispute resolution process is underway. You might want to seek more help with a request for comment to bring in more people to the debate if the discussion is stalled or otherwise not progressing. -- Atama頭 21:38, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

User:90.200.240.178

The above IP address has a persistent history of adding poorly sourced controversial material to BLPs (eg1). He has instigated and continued edit wars at several articles, antagonising several users (eg2). This appears to fit a pattern of behaviour that led to other IP addresses being blocked (eg3). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 22:11, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Point of order: those IPs were not blocked but (the ones which are actually me) changed periodically. I'm told this is due to my ISP assigning "dynamic IP addresses". I would like the allegation that I am evading blocks to be struck out. 90.200.240.178 (talk) 23:20, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

This user has edited from several IP addresses and at each of them has persisted on adding negative, controversial and dubious material to BLP’s, and other articles resulting in a great deal of disruption, and has attempted to evade blocks by using a changing IP. From IP addresses User talk:90.194.100.16, User talk:194.80.49.252, User talk:155.136.80.35, User talk:90.197.236.12,User talk:90.207.105.117, User talk:90.197.224.58 edit warring with multiple users including pages;

this article, here here here here here here.

Again at This article here, here, here, here, here.

Again at This article here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (after several discussions and warnings discussion, warning, warning, BLP noticeboard discussion. Again

this article here, here, here, here, here, here, here. BLP noticeboard discussion.

This Article here, here, here, here, here.

This one, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

This Article here, here, here. Amongst a lot of other reverts of similar disputed content dating back to 6th July 2010.

Serious BLP issues Here dating back to 29 june 2010 . Numerous reverts and disputed inclusions up until August 5, including tagging blatant vandalism as factual here, including ridiculous images here. History of taking sources out of context and misquoting sources for example here, here, here, here, again after ref had been cross checked here. Personal attacks example, example Blatant vandalism example, here Monkeymanman (talk) 18:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

British Isles (I'm so sorry, really I am...)

I realise you're all sick of this, and I really do apologise.

I've been trying to cut down on the vitriol at WT:BISE, and as of today, and following warnings yesterday, I've been removing comments about other editors' alleged points of view. And warning the editors making such comments.

Earlier today I removed one such comment, and warned the editor responsible. I have just removed another, more general, comment as off-topic, and warned the editor. Who has now reverted me.

I'm inclined to block the editor responsible, and apply a topic ban on editing the WT:BISE page (and, by implication, adding or removing "British Isles" from any article, etc etc, though I don't think that's an issue here). I'm obviously annoyed that I've just been reverted, and I don't feel competent to make a rational decision at the end of a long and, frankly, tedious day. Accordingly I'm looking for a community mandate to do what needs done. TFOWR 22:44, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, those barbs & such would be best kept on the sparring editors talkpages. GoodDay (talk) 22:49, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

So you would remove me 100% from anything to do with British Isles atfer just two days back on the issue following 10 months off editing? Hell, HighKing's been at this for three or four years and he carries on! What gives? LemonMonday Talk 22:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Apply a topic ban on editing the WT:BISE page ?? Such a thing was considered during the debate on Highkings future and we were told it would be wrong to not let people discuss edits on talk pages. LemonMonday should be given another chance to follow the rules, if he refuses or can not then that is a different matter. But he should have another chance. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:55, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd support a topic ban, we don't need new editors throwing petrol on the flames. p.s. LemonMonday, that sig is unreadable. Fences&Windows 23:13, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you on the sig, but topic banning someone whos been back for less than 48 hours seems a little quick. He should promise to follow the rules on WT:BISE and not undo admins removal of text to be given a second chance.(unsigned comment from User:BritishWatcher - Off2riorob (talk) 00:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC))

Woops thanks for that lol BritishWatcher (talk) 00:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Just had a quick look and lemonMonday seems to have come back and dived in to a disputed area in a quite disruptive manner, if he hasn't earned himself one of the quickest topic bans in wiki history has will consider himself lucky, the area has been disruptive and TFOWR has calmed things down a lot and the users involved appear to me to have begun a decent discussion, this is a lot better, and anyone diving in and making big splashes will likely quickly deserve some editing restrictions. Off2riorob (talk) 00:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It should also be noted that it seems LemonMonday is a single purpose account, of his edits 90+% of them are to insert British Isles or to revert the removal of the name. A topic ban is pretty much the same as an indef block on the account as that is all the editor is interested in editing. Canterbury Tail talk 02:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

This editor's previous involvement ended in Oct 09 when they were given a warning by Black Kite in respect of this issue. At this stage I think the community should simply back up TFOWR who is showing the willingness and patience to deal with behavioral issues here. --Snowded 04:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It was not that long ago we were on this page debating HighKing. It was proposed he would get a topic ban to stop him from removing British Isles again. The clear majority voted in favour of the topic ban for him, and yet at the end of the day no sanctions were imposed on him. He was let off the hook, then shortly afterwards he removed British Isles from another article and again nothing happened. Such leniency if he is prepared to follow the rules in future must be shown to both sides in this dispute. I agree that Lemon shouldnt continue his disruptive actions on WT:BISE, but i consider it just as disruptive as certain editors removal of British Isles from articles. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sick and tired of the constant misrepresentation of facts, and the wiki-libel used by a very small number of editors. It's not funny when personal comments are banned from WP:BISE they immediately spread to other pages. And I consider this constant sniping to be in breach of WP:AGF and just as disruptive as edit warring. --HighKing (talk) 14:38, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you are making a mistake in doing so. Any deletion is only going to be interpreted as favoritism to one side or another. In truth, it is all very mild with no direct personal insults being made. Adults generally don't take well to be nannied about and it should be avoided.

Rather than have "alleged points of views" it would be far better --- and more adult --- just to keep a list of users and actual points of view. To discuss editor's motivation is relevant and a simple list would help others understand what was going on.

Unfortunately, without it you are going to go through the same user learning curve --- and justified reactions --- time and time again. It is unfair to pick on and scapegoat newcomers --- and, again, it appears very one sided --- just because some admins is tired.

You ought to realise that it takes two to tango. There are other ways to cause offence that may be more subtle, and more insidious, than calling a spade a spade. It is obviously clear that some editors are motivated on an immature nationalist level and using the Misplaced Pages to play out a territorial game that they could not in real life.

In general, all the critical view boil down to the same suggestion and that is this "Task Force" is one man's insidious campaign to remove the term from the Misplaced Pages. Perhaps it would be healthier for all to remove the "Task Force" as being divisive and a waste of time and energy instead?

BTW, how would one propose the disbanding of WT:BISE?

I recently raised the impossible of "discussing" each and every topic. Amongst flora and fauna of the British Isle alone, that would equate to 30 - 40,000 topics. This is not humanly possible and this is why bona fide publications make and stick to prior blanket editorial guidelines.

Perhaps it is only individuals with some expertise or understanding that can understand how frustrating dealing with individuals are blind to such obvious problems --- or are blinded by their agendas. --Triton Rocker (talk) 02:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted LemonMonday's revert. I've not blocked, and in the cold light of day I'm happy to see how things pan out first. I'd like to see more support for a topic ban before enacting it, though both non-involved editors who have commented (Off2riorob, Fences and windows) appear to support the idea. Any other non-involved views? TFOWR 08:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Has this debate been to ArbCom? I see it so much on this board, and elsewhere. At this point it feels like an issue that the community is unable to solve. If it has, disregard. If it hasn't consider bringing it there because of what I just said. elektrikSHOOS 08:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It has not been to ArbCom and i think attempts to go down that route would be counter productive. We have a process in place, editors do need to just follow the rules and we need to agree on a limit of the cases editors can bring forward at a time to stop us all being overwhelmed. BritishWatcher (talk) 08:25, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It's been a lot recently, true, but I think ArbCom is premature. The community mandated sanctions, and appears to support the process at WT:BISE. Since then it's been brought up here either because the regular admins (Black Kite and myself) were absent, or, in this case, because I'm seeking community guidance as to the scope of possible sanctions. That said, as always, more eyes at WT:BISE are welcome - particular editors with no involvement in "British Isles". The process considers subjects that non-involved editors may well have considerable experience with, and that kind of experience is extremely useful. TFOWR 08:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

This guy came from nowhere straight into the BI debate, is a SPA and doesn't assume good faith and attacks other editors. If he never edited again on WP would we be worse off? It's also funny the people who support the removal of BI as seen as the baddies and POV pushers but it's people from the other camp the seem to attack other editors. LemonMonday is not alone in doing this nor his he alone in being a SPA. Bjmullan (talk) 10:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I would support a topic ban of User:LemonMonday from WT:BISE based on the above data, if TFOWR thinks it necessary. Per the header of WT:BISE, it appears that any uninvolved admin can issue such a ban. There doesn't need to be a formal discussion here at ANI to ratify the ban (though consultation never hurts). EdJohnston (talk) 12:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Topic Ban!!! For what, pray? Making a few remarks about some POV pushing on the British Isles issue. Have you seen the so called BISE page and all the comments there have been over the last few months, and some of you .... (expletive deleted) .... people have the audacity to suggest I should be topic banned after virtually no input for months, leaving all the other hardened warriors to continue merrily on their way. It beggars belief. Why don't you try getting to the nub of the real issue here. LemonMonday Talk 13:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

If from now on you follow the rules on that page you may not get topic banned. Getting yourself blocked will not resolve anything, attempting to clean up some of the mess from the crusades would be far more productive. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you BW. I'm going to put a number of suggestions forward in the coming days. LemonMonday Talk 14:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Currently, we have "TB01" which allows for editors to be topic banned from adding or removing the term "British Isles", but allows for participation at WT:BISE. I'd like to see a "TB02" that deals with disruption at WT:BISE itself, but I gather that this may have been discussed in the past with some objections? Anyway, with a bit of luck LemonMonday now realises their posts will be removed if they choose to discuss other editors. If not, I suppose a block for disruption would be in order, which would render a topic ban moot - at least until the block expires. Uncle G (talk) mentioned 1:1:1:1 block durations the last time this came up - and I'm rapidly coming round to that idea: 1 day, 1 week, 1 month... you get the picture. TFOWR 14:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Just let me be clear on this, having read into it over the last couple of days. The current status is a de-facto topic ban on everyone anyway, is it not? Anyone wanting to remove or add British Isles now has to ask for permission to do so. So if the above suggestion would come to fruition you would really just be placing a gag on me but on no-one else. When I say "ask for permission" I suppose it's a case of getting agreement (broad) at that silly page? And that really means no progress. Am I right about the de-facto universal topic ban? LemonMonday Talk 14:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

No, you're not correct. A topic ban means "no input allowed at all." Under the current system, people are allowed to suggest changes, those changes are discussed and then implemented or not based on the merits. Basically, the normal WP:BRD cycle has been abused so badly, we're going straight to the Discuss step on this matter before changes are made. So, there's no de-facto universal topic ban, as you put it, nor are you gagged. The whole situation has simply become such a powder keg that we need to proceed cautiously. — The Hand That Feeds You: 12:10, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with sanctions for disruption at WT:BISE provided the rules are clear, the previous debate was focused on a rule about initiating lots of discussions to add or remove the term, rather than clear rule breaking. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Blocks would probably work better for this type of disruption (should it recur in the future). Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Themastertree

I'm concerned here primarily with the volume of edits to ethnically controversial topics. Some of them clearly appear to be copyediting, but others are content changes that might be sensitive. I'm honestly not familiar enough with the region to judge the changes on their merits, but I'm troubled by the pattern and the lack of edit summaries in a controversial area. Triona (talk) 23:27, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• Could someone familiar with the areas this user is editing in please take a close look at the contributions. Also, there has been no response to attempts to communicate via the user's talk page, including several warnings left by RC patrollers. Triona (talk) 23:30, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• Islamism (conspiracy theory) (AfD discussion)
• Suppression towards Islam (AfD discussion)

The above two articles, created by this editor, have been nominated for deletion. Greater Afghanistan requires some serious work to provide it with much-needed context. Whose idea, exactly? Those who didn't accept the Durand Line? Uncle G (talk) 00:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

They are continuing to create loads of spurious OR articles. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 23:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

As well as Islamism (conspiracy theory) (AfD discussion) and Transitional Ethnic groups (AfD discussion). Everard Proudfoot (talk) 00:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Bot creating 100s or 1000s of potentially bad species articles

An automated bot, Ganeshbot, is creating gastropod species articles. The bot's owner asked for approval to create about 650 Conus species articles. Conus is a popular and well-studied gastropod species. The bot owner took this approval to mean blanket approval to create articles about species from other gastropod familes suggested by project gastropod members.

I spotted some of the articles on a list of new articles after I created a Misplaced Pages article. I was surprised by some of the names for the articles, as I thought the names were no longer used. I checked 6 articles. One is about a species only mentioned in 3 on-line sources, WoRMS (where it is attributed to its original 18th century single source and to an out-of-print book by an amature shell collector), the out-of-print book by the amature shell collector, and Misplaced Pages. Another is an incorrect species that is very well known as its subspecies. Another article had a strange false fact about the species listed in it.

I think this bot should be stopped from creating articles for the time being. The bot owner continued working on articles after I alerted them of some problmes, and the owner says the gastropod project is approving the families to create articles, but has not provided me with a link to this approval, so I may point out problematic genera to Misplaced Pages editors. I posted this at the bot board as directed, but, for now, I think the bot should be stopped, and the articles with bad information and bad taxonomy should be removed from Misplaced Pages.

JaRoad (talk) 23:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

With the best will in the world, it makes it very difficult to begin to look at this without any account or WP:BAG links, and we don't even know that you've notified the bot operator of this thread. Some protocols are basic, and although we don't need to be spoonfed, there is a minimum level of information to be provided. Rodhullandemu 23:59, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

What do you need from me? Excuse me, of course, for thinking creating bad articles would be more important than my getting all the details correct. I posted a note to the bot operator. I only have sokme 20 edits in my history, so some bare sleuthing on your part might be quickest. What WP:BAG link? --JaRoad (talk) 00:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by JaRoad (talk • contribs) 00:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think is "zero information is preferred to misleading or false information" Misplaced Pages should be fast to remove false information. Not only that someone should want to remove the false information rather than hindering people who point it out.

The bot owner looked at a web page that showed pictures of snail shells and translated that, somehow, into the shells being transparent and the snail looking like a sea slug. Here's the bot operator's edit. Here's the web page where the bot operator got the information about the invisible snail shell: with pictures of the non-invisible snail shell.

Can someone just err on the side of caution, stop the bot, then discuss the issue? —Preceding unsigned comment added by JaRoad (talk • contribs) 00:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I am the bot owner. The bot is stopped now and is not going to do anything more until this discussion is complete. — Ganeshk (talk) 00:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. But it would have been nice to stop the bot when I first brought the problem to your attention instead of using it to continue to add lines to articles about shelled gastropods that supposedly look like sea slugs. Can you remove that line or revert by hand all of those additions? You misread the first page, or your bot did, and created something that isn't that is. JaRoad (talk) 00:33, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The numbers: the bot owner asked if he could create some 650 Conus articles. This was approved. To date, the operator has created over 14,000 articles on gastropods with this bot approved for 650 articles . I would like a link to the discussions by gastropod editors about creating these 14,000 articles. JaRoad (talk) 01:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Here is the BRFA under discussion. The bot is operating under the guidance of the Gastropods WikiProject. The bot creates species articles for approved families. It is currently creating species articles under the clade Littorinimorpha. Please see project discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Gastropods#Littorinimorpha_.284190_species.29. The text that JaRoad wants to remove was suggested by a project member (link). The bot is running under the full supervision of the Gastropods WikiProject, any discussion about it must happen at the project talk page and not here. I had requested JaRoad to discuss the issue at the project talk page. Instead, the user is posting threads at multiple locations (ANI, BRFA and BAG) before the project members had a chance to respond to his/her concerns. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks. — Ganeshk (talk) 01:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I posted here to get the bot stopped because I was surprised you started the bot up again after I raised my initial concerns. It seems the response would be to hold off until more discussion is had. However, you just started the bot up again, adding lines that are not verified by the source you attribute them to.

The link you give says, "Neogastropoda is done. So Littorinimorpha is next" Wheres the discussion that says the bot will be used to add over 14,000 species articles under the guideance of project gastropod? You say in your request for approval that you'll be adding 650 articles, not 14,000 or 15,000 as you keep upping your tally.

Where does that editor attribute his source for the transparent shells that are clearly seen in the picture you link to? The gastropod editors can't just assign text to the articles, unsourced, then you source it to WoRMS, particularly when WoRMS doesn't agree with what you said.

So, all you had to do was stop editing, then discuss it. But you ddin't. Someone above mentioined WP:BAG, so I posted a link there.

When you're creating inaccurate articles, no article would be better. You don't appear to have the approval to creat 15,000 articles, only 650, and the gastropod people also don't care that they don't have approval and the articles are inaccurate. JaRoad (talk) 02:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The bot stopped running like 4 hours ago. It's last edit was 6:26 PM EST . I am editing with my own account, Ganeshk. Do you want me to stop editing? — Ganeshk (talk) 02:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Then the notice on your bot board is wrong. It says that by posting there my message will stop the bot, and the bot continued posting for another 26 minutes after it was supposed to have been stopped. Would you fix the notice so it doesn't say a message will stop the bot if that is inaccurate? JaRoad (talk) 02:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The bot did not create any new articles after raised your concerns. I was completing the task that it was doing (ie. only making updates to existing articles). The articles will be incorrect if they were left partially done. — Ganeshk (talk) 02:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

So you're editing as your bot, then taking me to task for not knowing that? Well, EXCUSE me! JaRoad (talk) 02:33, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I was responding to this point you just made, "However, you just started the bot up again, adding lines that are not verified by the source you attribute them to." I thought you were wondering about my recent edits. I had already explained why the bot was editing after you raised your concerns. — Ganeshk (talk) 02:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Section break

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it looks to me as though the approval for these semi-automated edits was (1) for ~600 such edits and (2) explicitly restricted to no more than 100 edits per month. In both these respects, Ganeshk appears to have far overstepped what the approval allowed. Deor (talk) 04:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The bot approval was for the task, to create species using the WoRMS as reference. I don't see myself getting approval for each mollusk family. As for the 100 edit restriction, they were lifted at this discussion. — Ganeshk (talk) 04:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

But the bot has still created way more than 580 articles. IMO all articles created by your bot should be deleted, and this should be done over from scratch. Next time ask for permission to create as many articles as you actually intend to create. --OpenFuture (talk) 09:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

But you say the task is for 580 bot articles, nothing more, after someone brings up other problem bots:

Yes, but it has also been done before with disastrous results. I still have nightmares about Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Anybot's algae articles. Not that this will be anything like that, of course, but when you say "this has been done before", you don't settle my concerns about this task. I oppose all automated stub creation by bots. If over five hundred pages are simple enough and repetitive enough to be created by bots, I'm not entirely sure they should be on Misplaced Pages in the first place. What's the point of having 500+ articles that are essentially the same? — The Earwig 01:33, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

This task is no way close to what AnyBot did. I had clearly mentioned that about 580 stubs will be created (nothing more). The list of articles that will be created are already listed in the data page (first column). The point of creating these articles is so that the Gastro team can come in and expand them. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 01:45, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I added the bold marks to Ganeshk's text, they are not in the original.

You make certain the others know you are only asking for the approval of 580 stub "nothing more" to quote you, then you ask in a different, unofficial, place about lifting the timing restriction, then take the lifting to mean you are allowed to create as many stubs as you want.

Maybe there is some communication gap with what is being discussed and what you are doing. I think you should stop running all tasks on all bots, as you appear to be purposefully deceptive in asking for approval for one task then marching forward with a huge task that others had real concerns about. The Anybot links show that what you are doing is exactly what The Earwig expressed concerns about. JaRoad (talk) 05:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Request approval for bot creating 1000s of species stubs be revoked

I have requested the bot approval for 1000s of species stubs be revoked. A bot creating species stubs had its approval revoked for similar reasons, creating bad articles with poor knowledge and no oversight on the part of the bot operator. The operator asked to create 580 Conus stubs with a bot and took approval for that single task to mean approval for creating 15,000 gastropod stubs without community input. The request to revoke the approval of the bot can be discussed on that page:

Request for approval to be revoked]

JaRoad (talk) 05:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

You need to calm down, stop taking offense, and let other editors handle this. You've made the report, now let them review it.— Dædαlus 09:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not hysterical. I'm not offended, after all, I didn't find a sneaky way to put up 15,000 bad species stubs. And, I am letting other editors dicuss this, which has earned me the accusation that I am not discussing this. Thanks for accusing me of over-dicussing it and being hysterical, shades of Freud. Please tell the bot owner that you told me to shut up so he can stop accusing me of shutting up. With that said, I'm done. I saw what Misplaced Pages does to editors who point out bots creating bad articles. JaRoad (talk) 02:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Per the above, you clearly are taking this personal. I have never told you to 'shut up', and I have not accused you of over-discussing anything. You used all caps when responding to a post of his that was not in the least bit uncivil towards you. Please calm down and let others handle this. If you keep reacting in a hostile manner other editors are not going to be sympathetic towards you. Pushing away those trying to help you isn't going to solve anything.— Dædαlus 09:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, you might want to consider switching to decaf. Daedalus is right, you should just take a step back, have some WP:TEA and let the community take a look at the situation. — The Hand That Feeds You: 12:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

2-3 questionable sockpuppet accounts

Hi - I bring to your attention the following 3 user accounts:

• Theempirestate (talk · contribs)
• Freedom2010 (talk · contribs)
• Empirestate10 (talk · contribs)

Each were created over a few months, had edited the same article Maurice Esposito-Morgan (which has been nominated for speedy deletion). These accounts are most likely sockpuppets and they have categorized themselves within what is a category only for articles Category:Dominican Republic boxers. My first instinct is to remove the category from the userpages, but I request the attention of a more knowledgeable administrator.

Another question is what becomes of these accounts if the article is deleted based on CSD. Obviously they are single-purpose accounts.

Thank you, Shiva (Visnu) 00:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Not commenting on the sock issue, per WP:USERNOCAT, user pages, not being articles, do not belong in content categories... Salvio 00:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I removed the cats per WP:USERNOCAT. The third user has been blocked indefinitely. I would call the first the puppetmaster, and possibly the autobiographer. I PRODded the article because the WP:CSD#A7 tagging was rightly declined, as there is an assertion of notability.   — Jeff G.  ツ 00:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The second in the list predates the first: a better candidate for the master. They all look pretty obviously related... Doc9871 (talk) 00:51, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi, based on this discussion I've opened a case at WP:SPI which you can find here. Feel free to comment there if I've missed anything. elektrikSHOOS 09:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

You also need to notify any user you discuss here. I'll be notifying them now. elektrikSHOOS 09:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Excellent call on the notification (missed that one). As far as the SPI: again, by chronology, Freemdom2010 (20 Jan 2010) -> Theempirestate (19 Feb 2010) -> Empirestate10 (15 Aug 2010). So the "master" should be Freedom2010, not Theempirestate. Ahh - who cares? It's all the same editor anyway. Cheers :> Doc9871 (talk) 10:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Renomination of images for deletion and failure to notify me.

Approximately six weeks ago, two images I uploaded were nominated for deletion by User:TreasuryTag. After a lot of back and forth both nominations were closed as "No consensus" to delete so they were kept. Unknown to me, TreasuryTag challenged one result at WP:DRV - the result was an endorsement of the "No consensus to delete" result. TreasuryTag renominated both images on the same grounds as the original FFDs on the 9th August and failed to inform me. Six weeks is insufficient time to cause any significant change that would suggest a different result from new FFDs - this looks like an attempt to game the system or disrupt wikipedia to make a point. It's not appropiate to repeatedly nominate something for deletion until you get your own way. Failure to notify me of the renominations given the contentious nature of the first FFDs is simply not on - this looks like an attempt to "win" by stealth - wikipedia is not a battleground. TreasuryTag displays ownership issues in Doctor Who related areas anyway and this latest stunt is typical of his MO.

Relevant links :-

• Misplaced Pages:Files_for_deletion/2010_June_25#File:Vampire-queen.jpg - Original FFD 1
• Misplaced Pages:Files_for_deletion/2010_June_28#File:Eknodine.png - Original FFD 2
• Misplaced Pages:Deletion_review/Log/2010_July_5#2010_June_25 - DRV on FFD 1
• Misplaced Pages:Files_for_deletion/2010_August_9#File:Vampire-queen.jpg - New FFD 1
• Misplaced Pages:Files_for_deletion/2010_August_9#File:Eknodine.png - New FFD 2

I'm not very happy with his actions at all - can someone weigh in? Exxolon (talk) 02:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - The instructions (Point #3: Give due notice) are clear concerning notification. I would guess this goes for re-nominations as well. No comments concerning WP:OWN. Cheers :> Doc9871 (talk) 03:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• If at first you don't succeed, try try again. TreasuryTag seems convinced that he is right, and that means he's not willing to drop the stick. Not alerting the uploader is poor behaviour, and TT is familiar enough with the process for this to be a deliberate omission. I think TT should be blocked the next time he nominates anything to XfD and fails to nominate the creator. Fences&Windows 15:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

  Yeah, because it's really block-worthy... OK, an innocent oversight in which I mis-checked a checkbox. It is nothing but foolishness to take this issue to ANI, and nothing but extreme foolishness to suggest that a block would be in any way acceptable and/or constructive. ╟─TreasuryTag►co-prince─╢ 17:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

  Perhaps you shouldn't use TW then. I don't - all my edits are manual. Exxolon (talk) 18:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

  It is interesting to note that in all the how-tos for listing XfDs, only in FfDs and MfDs (only for userspace files) is the notification mandatory, while all the others are of a "you should consider..." sentiment. But anyways, this sort of thing isn't block-worthy unless it becomes repeated behavior, IMO. Closing a discussion as no consensus is pretty much an invite to re-nominate at some point down the road. Tarc (talk) 17:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

  "Down the road" - perhaps. Six weeks is too soon in my opinion to rehash the exact same arguments. Three or six months would be more reasonable. Exxolon (talk) 18:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

  Just speculation on my part, but pages in MfD and FfD are probably less-trafficked and less likely to be watchlisted than other kinds of pages, which would be one reason to make notification mandatory, as it's easier to delete such pages "under the radar". -- Atama頭 22:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

  Probably true but I suspect the real reason is that files are uploaded by one editor and userspace pages are (usually) created and edited by one editor. Therefore, there is no reason not to notify that one editor. An article is (usually) edited by a lot of editors and who created it is not important unless the article is new. Also, for an article that has been around for years, it's more important to notify current editors then it is the creator who may not even be active anymore. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - I've currently got an image I uploaded slated for deletion for the third time; each nomination by different editors. I was notified each time. If the same editor nominated the image for a second time and didn't notify me; I'd be "irritated". Jus' sayin'... Doc9871 (talk) 02:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Paddock Wood

I'm only posting this here as I could be seen as having a conflict of interest as this is where I live. Marksairey (talk · contribs) has been editing the Paddock Wood article, particularly in relation to various proposed developments around the village, including the addition of links to his own website. I'm not looking to get Marksairey sanctioned over his editing, but would appreciate another experienced editor looking over his contribs and explaining why they do not meet various policies, and possibly pointing to methods of overcoming these problems whilst still conforming to policy. I will notify Marksairey of this post. Mjroots (talk) 09:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Notified Mjroots (talk) 09:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Your COI would be weak in this case, but advocacy from Marksairey isn't welcome. I find troubling this statement, "I would urge Wiki to be part of the drive to increase the number of people contributing by placing information and fact on the process." That's not Misplaced Pages's purpose. -- Atama頭 22:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Atama. I just want it to be transparent that my actions are wholly based on keeping the article encyclopedic and not because I hold any views for or against the proposed developments. Mjroots (talk) 06:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Wetman trying to frame me, starting edit wars and engaging in personal attacks

On the 6th of August, I was reading about Zoroastrianism and noticed that there were instances of CE/BCE in the article, which were obviously conflicting with the introduction etc, which had BC/AD. In the spirit of helpfulness, I fixed the consistency issue. A few days later, I discovered that User:Wetman had changed the entire article to CE/BCE and tried to justify it by falsely accusing me of doing the reverse. He then started a discussion on the talk page, which was primarily a personal attack against me and an attempt to intimidate all the other editors out of reverting his vandalism. See here.

In the meantime, I was reading about the Epic Cycle and noticed exactly the same kind of issues here. I fixed the BC/BCE inconsistency in the article Epic Cycle and added "AD" to "tenth century" in the article about Venetus A. Venetus A is a little-known work, written in the 10th century AD about something that happened in the 12th century BC (i.e. the Trojan War), so it would seem logical to specify that Venetus A came from the 10th century AD and not the 10th century BC, as might be assumed.

As it turned out, User:Wetman followed me to those pages and undid my helpful contributions, again with personal attacks and false accusations of breaking the WP:ERA rule. See: 1st disruption in Epic Cycle 2nd disruption in Epic Cycle] 3rd disruption in Epic Cycle 4th disruption of Epic Cycle 1st disruption of Venetus A 2nd disruption of Venetus A

Back on Talk:Zoroastrianism, I responded to User:Wetman's personal attack but was followed by User:Warrior4321 falsely accusing me of starting the trouble and even repeating it on my talk page.

I know it's only a minor detail, but while writing this summary, I noticed that I was mistaken about the number of inconsistencies that I fixed in the article Zoroastrianism. It was a genuine mistake; I had forgotten how many there were since the week before last, when I fixed the article.

I am absolutely disgusted and appalled that User:Wetman and User:Warrior4321 would break the rules to frame an innocent, helpful contributor like myself, all for a pathetic attempt at hijacking a few obscure articles. I normally only make the odd contribution to the encyclopaedia when I'm not busy, but this bullying by two established users has been very stressful and disheartening. (Huey45 (talk) 10:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC))

One of those "BC/AD" warriors: Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers); see also Misplaced Pages:Eras #BC/AD versus BCE/CE reading list. This tiresome cultural bullying generally seems to push changes to BC/AD not the other way: nevertheless, simply put, either is offensive, and I keep an eye out for such infractions of courtesy and collegiality. As for "spirit of helpfulness": a repeat offender: see Zoroastrianism edit "so that now the newer sections match the introduction etc", this Epic Cycle edit "to match the rest of the article", this Little Iliad edit "Date: spelling" These are articles on my watchlist: I detected the consistent program on the part of this user and repaired the damage.

Anyone interested should read User talk:Wetman#Disruptive edits in the last few days for this user's insults, intentional mischaracterizations and threats, unlike anything else on my talkpage— to which I have not responded, as they carry no information only bad attitude. What more can I say? --Wetman (talk) 11:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• I find that if one doesn't want the boomerang to return and smack one hard on the forehead, one has to throw it less powerfully than you are throwing it here. Uncle G (talk) 12:02, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Thank you, Uncle G. I hadn't read those, or I would have been even crosser.--Wetman (talk) 13:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
    • I also note several articles where Huey45 entered AD at least once where there had been nothing before. Given his other edits, this may have been to keep them on the AD side of WP:ERA. Not against our guidelines, but still not exactly being impartial. Dougweller (talk) 12:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
      • By the way, I've just noticed this repeated revert at Epic Cycle, with the intentionally inflammatory and factual incorrect edit summary "Undid vandalism 378999651 by Wetman (talk) which re-introduced inconsistencies and is in direct violation of WP:ERA" I will not characterize this behavior, but many of you can imagine...--Wetman (talk) 13:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Uncle G, what is your point? I already said that User:Wetman started the personal attacks. I see you looked through a lot of material; you should have noticed this straight away. Am I suddenly an evil trouble-maker just for having self respect? User talk:Preciseaccuracy is entirely irrelevant anyway; User:Preciseaccuracy started a dispute related to an article about dodgy art salesmen.

The facts are simply:

• The article Zoroastrianism had conflicting occurrences of both BC/AD and CE/BCE when I read it for the first time.
• I made it consistent by replacing the CE/BCE terms with AD/BC.
• A few days later, User:Wetman felt like changing the entire article to CE/BCE (which is in direct violation of WP:ERA) then abused me and falsely accused me of starting trouble.
• The exact same thing happened in the article Epic Cycle.
• I responded to the personal attacks.
• User:Wetman kept going.
• I came here.

End of story. (Huey45 (talk) 13:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC))

Yes, reading the diffs, it is easy to see what actually happened.--Wetman (talk) 13:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to save everyone some work, looking at the article before Huey45 came in, there was only one instance of BC (because the title of the 6th century article says 6th century BC), no instances of AD, and EVERYTHING else was BCE/CE. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Huey45 accuses me of asking him to cross out his personal attacks, claiming I am "just as bad as this disgraceful liar" (note the personal attack in that quote as well), when he has blatantly made personal attacks against another editor. I don't see why he's so disgusted by my actions, I only asked him to stop the personal attacks. It's also ironic how he asks me to read everything before getting involved and "shooting my mouth off", when he replaced a few BCE/CE with BC/AD by just seeing one inconsistency. warrior4321 16:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Is there any reason why Huey45 should not receive a substantial block for his disruptive behaviour? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.195 (talk) 17:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

yes, Blocks are preventive not punitive. And Huey45 is a new editor who should be helped not punished.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The account Huey45 was registered on 5 October 2006 and has 954 edits. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Not new, and doesn't respond well when warned, eg see the section on copyvio here . But maybe just a topic ban for 3 months on adding or changing BC/AD/BCE/CE? The business about trying to make an article consistent by making several changes instead of just one isn't acceptable (and an excuse I've seen before), Dougweller (talk) 17:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I second that. That would have the preventative effect. Heiro 17:53, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Or maybe a short block after all, then a ban. We've got which isn't exactly civil, where he reverts 2 edits from 2 editors from his talk page, calling them vandalism, where he accuses an editor of trying to sneak something through.

And ironically, after accusing someone of trying to sneak something through by not leaving an edit summary, we have where his edit summary is "Undid grammatical error 378892865 by Wetman". Now Huery5 did indeed change an and' to a 'so', but he also changed a BCE to BC.. That's not as bad as which has the edit summary 'spelling' - and changes BCE to BC. Dougweller (talk) 17:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

And an anti-American attack here with the edit summary " Verification needed for dubious claim that serial commas are standard practice. Perhaps it is in the U.S., along with dumbed-down spelling, but not elsewhere." (I always say Americans removed the Frenchification of words and went back to an earlier spelling..l.)Dougweller (talk) 18:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

View the posts at Template talk:Trojan War which record the discussion of a group of responsible editors who came up with a template that would not "appear" to impose a BC/AD convention on established texts. The posts also demonstrate the characteristic behavior of User:Huey45 that falls under the category of a deliberate and intentional attempt to disrupt the usability of Misplaced Pages for its editors, administrators, developers, and other people who work to create content for and help run Misplaced Pages. This is the same user who accused me of "trolling" Misplaced Pages!--Wetman (talk) 21:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe someone should take a look at the rest of Huey45's contributions. Harassing other users appears to be a main interest of his... -- Imladros (talk) 21:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I am not interested in harassing anyone; I'm an innocent victim of circumstance and of User:Wetman. The article Zoroastrianism was indeed inconsistent and you admitted that yourselves. Maybe there was only one BC/AD, maybe there were more; I don't even know. BC/AD is what I saw in the introduction, so it should be fairly safe to assume that's how the rest should be. After all, the introduction would have more attention paid to it than any other section.

If User:Wetman's previous insistence that I started the trouble wasn't a clear enough indication of his lying, deceitful style, now all of you can see that he's dragging up old, unrelated non-issues, which are only a small fraction of my nearly 1,000 helpful contributions to the encyclopaedia. You all admitted that the article was inconsistent and that I made it consistent; I've done nothing wrong. It was User:Wetman who hijacked the articles Zoroastrianism, Epic Cycle and Venetus A and User:Wetman again who started the personal attacks. He is trying to squirm his way out of trouble yet again in exactly the same manner as before; by accusing me. (Huey45 (talk) 06:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC))

I just noticed that now User:Paul_August is also falsely accusing me of starting the dispute and even re-instated User:Wetman's controversial changes to the article, despite knowing and admitting that the issue remained unresolved. Isn't this against the rules? User:Wetman has been continuing the personal attacks, including here, where he calls me a "troublesome user probably on his way out". It is absolutely outrageous to see this trouble-maker trying to use personal attacks, intimidation, bullying and even ganging up with other users to subvert the proper rules and processes. I am the only one doing the right thing, yet all of User:Wetman's buddies are insistent on framing me as the starter of trouble. (Huey45 (talk) 07:25, 17 August 2010 (UTC))

I haven't made any accusations. Why do you say that? Let me quote what I said on the talk page: "I've restored the article to a consistent (I hope) usage of the BCE/CE date era convention, which as far as I've been able to determine has been the norm for most of the history of this article, for the last few years (that's also, by the way, how the article started out). Let's please not make any further changes to this until we can establish a consensus here on the talk page, thanks." And now you have undone my edit and a third editor has undone yours. I'm willing to assume that your original edit which took an article with 20 uses of the BCE/CE date era convention and one use of the BC/AD and made it "consistent" by changing the 20 uses of BCE/CE to BC/AC, was made in good faith. But now you are editing against the consensus of at least four other editors, I ask you please to stop. Paul August ☎ 12:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Every one of those old, unrelated examples dragged up by User:Wetman and his friends are nonsense anyway; I did nothing wrong in any of those circumstances. The claim about commas did need verification; the guy who emptied out the Metamorphoses article did leave an incomprehensible edit summary and was rude to me; the guy in the Privateer article left no edit summary and I couldn't even find what he changed (so I didn't know whether it was legit); and User:Preciseaccuracy has even been banned for her sock-puppet edit war over an anti-Israli conspiracy theory. (Huey45 (talk) 07:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC))

Just so everyone knows, Huey45 is continuing to outright lie in his edit summaries. Huey45 is the only one actively favoring CE/BCE, he knows there are at least 4 editors in the article actively favoring BCE/CE, he knows the article favored BCE/CE before except in one link to another article, he knows that we're watching him for disruptive editing and dishonest edit summaries, but he continues to do it. Considering this, and per WP:SPADE, I'm going to state my belief now that he is editing in bad faith. If someone wants me to assume good faith here, please show me where he has been giving us any reason to. Ian.thomson (talk) 12:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe that Huey45 first edit to Zoroastrianism was made innocently enough. But I think now he feels under attack and is reacting defensively. However that may be though, to continue to now insist on his version of the article is wholly inappropriate. Paul August ☎ 12:29, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Let me repeat what I said on my talk page just now. Whether there are 4 of them, 5 of them or more should make no difference; Misplaced Pages works on consensus, not majority. Besides, those people are ganging up against me for no legitimate reason and claiming they want to restore the article to its former state when really they're reinstating the controversial edit by User:Wetman that started the whole dispute.

I don't know how many instances of CE/BCE there were or how many there were of AD/BC; it was a long article and I noticed the inconsistency in the first 30 seconds or so. I just pressed Ctrl + F and quickly went through the article, making them match up. I was certainly not out to cause trouble, as those unscrupulous editors would suggest. I am a victim of circumstance and a victim of bullying.(Huey45 (talk) 12:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC))

And now you've reverted to your version of the article again. No, a simple majority does not necessarily constitute consensus, but neither does a consensus need to be unanimous. In this case there is the previous apparent consensus which can be inferred from the status quo of the article over it's history (which as I've stated above has, so far as I can tell, been for using the BCE/CE date era convention, as well as the current opposition of at least four other editors — with no one in support – for your version of the article. Your first edit may have been innocent, and perhaps you've been, to some extent, ill-treated. But that is no justification for your now continuing to insist on your version of the article against apparent editorial consensus. You may not, as you say, have been "out to cause trouble", but you are making trouble now. I ask you again to please stop. Further I'd advise you to read WP:EDITWAR, if you persist in insisting you may end up being blocked. Paul August ☎ 13:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mention it earlier, but User:Wetman's insistence that I'm determined to push a POV is a complete fabrication as well. I only like to make small edits these days, after a string of annoying disputes. This involves spelling, grammar and correct abbreviations. Almost all of my recent edits fall into those 3 categories. If anyone is trying to push a POV with CE/BCE, it's the editor who tried to sneak his changes through by framing me.(Huey45 (talk) 12:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC))

You got the ball rolling here, you're the only one that's objecting to Wetman's edit, everyone has been able to point out where your edit is going against the grain and is disruptive, it is your edit that was controversial. Honestly, calling Wetman's edit controverstial is like saying "he started it when he hit me back!" And while consensus isn't majority determined, it's not determined by edit-warring and filibustering, it is not voided by you disagreeing with everyone else. That you are the only one pushing for BC/AD means that consensus is still BCE/CE.

Also, saying you didn't see what the consensus appeared to be before changing everything is an admission of incompetence, which is a sign you need to back down.

Wetman was restoring the article to what it was before, and making the 1 change necessary to make the article consistant. 1 change. You changed the entire article except for 1 instance. You made the more drastic change, you are the one that has been outright lying in your edit summaries, you are the one that's sneaking around. Quit it, you're only making yourself look bad. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I never once lied and I never did anything else wrong either. You are a lying scumbag and you are totally misrepresenting the facts. You are a complete disgrace. You don't even know what "consensus" means. Your only involvement in this issue consists of your repeated attempts to ram through the changes in violation of WP:3RR without even reading the talk page the first time, let alone reaching consensus (again, you should find out what this word means), yet now you act high and mighty here, starting a personal attack right in front of the administrators, for all to see. Who is making himself look bad?(Huey45 (talk) 13:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC))

Huey, take some advice from a disinterested party - no matter how valid your edits may be, you're only hurting yourself with your consistent engagement in personal attacks. "Lying scumbag"? Really? If you want your opinions to be respected, please try showing some respect for the opinions of others. Doniago (talk) 13:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Removing other users' comments from the article Talk page isn't especially going to help your case either, not in the least because it's against policy unless you have very good reason for doing so. Doniago (talk) 13:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Ian.thomson has now made in excess of eight (yes, 8) personal attacks;

here here here here here here here and the one above. He's even worse than User:Wetman. I would hope that the administrators would act upon such a disgusting and appalling disregard for civility, politeness, truth and of course the rules. (Huey45 (talk) 13:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC))

You've never lied? That's another lie, along with false accusations (I've only reverted you twice today so I haven't violated 3rr, my revert does not go against the MoS, pointing out a sham edit summary is not a personal attack per WP:SPADE, I never edited your user page), Lying edit summary (your edit is what started the dispute, your edit was the first mass change), more lies (Wetman's edit did not go against WP:ERA) (another example of misrepresenting WP:ERA, and another, which also lies about personal attacks you made, and another lie about personal attacks you made when you say that Warrior4321 falsely accused you of personal attacks), lying about making personal attacks (you did make them, and then continued to make them against those who pointed them out), further lying about personal attacks you made, more lying about personal attacks you made, and another lying edit summary. Honestly, how stupid do you think we are? Or are you just incapable of examining your own behavior? If so, you leave until you get help, man. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I merely responded to personal attacks and false accusations from the troublemakers, including yourself. I started no personal attacks against anyone; wherever I was even slightly rude to anyone, it was after they had done worse to me. That's just a simple matter of self respect. What you said about the 3RR rule is totally wrong anyway; the level 1 and 2 templates are both for circumstances where the user is engaging in an edit war but hasn't reached 3 reversions. Therefore the level 2 template was indeed correct. Similarly, I was right and User:Doniago was wrong about the personal attack on the page Talk:Zoroastrianism; the rules specifically say in WP:NPA "Derogatory comments about another contributor may be removed by any editor.". Both of you keep insisting that you know the rules when clearly you don't. (Huey45 (talk) 14:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC))

I have been following this discussion since it was started by User:Huey45 and it has become clear that the same user is editing in a very disruptive manner. Huey45, consider this the only warning you will receive from me: You are violating a number of policies and guidelines, particularly WP:NPA, WP:EW and WP:DE. If you can not or will not understand that and do not cease such behavior forthwith, you will be blocked without further warning. —DoRD (talk) 14:04, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I didn't see this message before I blocked Huey45 for 12 hours. Sorry. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

No worries, you just ran out of rope before I did. Good block. —DoRD (talk) 14:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

While the apology is welcome, I doubt anyone will argue that it was necessary. Thanks! Doniago (talk) 14:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Due to the continued personal attacks on his talk page, I have extended Huey45's block to indefinite and have warned him that continued personal attacks will cause his talk page privileges to be revoked. —DoRD (talk) 14:45, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Given not just his personal attacks, but his - misleading is really almost to mild a word -- edit summaries, I still think a topic ban from adding, removing, or moving BC/BCE/AD/BC in articles should be imposed if he is unblocked. Dougweller (talk) 17:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Upcoming Checkuser and Oversight appointments

Following the call for applicants, the Arbitration Committee has reviewed applications and is now actively considering the following candidates for Checkuser and Oversight permissions. Unless otherwise stated below, any appointments will come into effect on 1 September 2010.

Checkuser:

• Template:User3-small
• Template:User3-small
• Template:User3-small
• Template:User3-small

Oversight:

• Template:User3-small From December 2010, when he leaves the Wikimedia Foundation's staff.
• Template:User3-small
• Template:User3-small
• Template:User3-small From 10 November 2010, when his term on the Audit Subcommittee ends.
• Template:User3-small

Between now and 23:59 on 25 August 2010 (UTC), the community is invited to comment on the suitability of the candidates. As the primary area of concern is confidence in the candidate's ability to operate within the Wikimedia policy, comments of this nature are best directed to the Committee's mailing list (arbcom-llists.wikimedia.org).

For the Arbitration Committee,  Roger Davies 12:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Discuss this

Hmph :P S.G. _ping! 12:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Excellent candidates. I foresee the majority being promoted. -- œ 21:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm gathering the comments made for review by ArbCom, so if the comments could be centralised at the location linked to, that would be appreciated. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 00:30, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with OlEnglish, great candidates all around. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:32, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone have a very, very small trout that could slap the above comments in the right direction? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 00:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I do that sometimes. My goof. :) I take my trout with a side of popcorn shrimp, please. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Extreme POV pusher

I find User:Chrono1084 as an extreme POV pusher who is twisting information in the Prostitution in Afghanistan article. For example he starts the article with "Prostitution in Afghanistan seems to flourish, as the traffic in women for it did under the Talibans, in the country although it is one of the world's most conservative." and uses this as as a source to support his POV. That source only contains 1 sentence which states "Under the Taliban in Afghanistan, the traffic in women for prostitution thrived." The fact is under the Taliban prostitution was very strict and less people were involved. This is what the article itself says and is backed by so many official reports. Chrono1084 also keeps adding "some kids being sold into it by their family" which is poorly sourced and is irrelevant in the article because prostitution generally includes people who may have many different kinds of family problems and we shouldn't point out a specific one. Chrono1084 may be the same person as User:Nuwewsco, who also edits the same articles with very similar styles. He keeps reverting my edits and I don't know how to stop him, please help. Thanks.--Jrkso (talk) 12:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Who are you kidding? Unlike me, you keep on deleting sourced info that doesn't pleases you or you interpret it the way you want. I would like to know what this book contradicts except for your POV. Also I'm willing to do a user check to prove to you I'm not Nuwesco.--Chrono1084 (talk) 13:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

To admins, I reported the user here just so you know.--Jrkso (talk) 13:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

"Prostitution in Afghanistan seems to flourish, as the traffic in women for it did under the Talibans, in the country although it is one of the world's most conservative" hardly seems like a neutral or suitable way to start an introduction. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The whole article is a complete mess. I've tried to do a bit of work on it - but it might need a complete rewrite --Errant Tmorton166 13:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

You've done a good job, I agree the intro and the article should be rewritten.--Chrono1084 (talk) 13:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Just as a remark on style and syntax - that first sentence is horrific, and should be charged with war crimes against the English language. The Rhymesmith (talk) 14:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Both Jrkso and Chrono1084 have been given 24 hour blocks for edit warring (not by me, I hasten to add). Dougweller (talk) 14:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't going to add this, but looking again at the sentence he seems to have added to the beginning of the lead, I changed my mind. I don't know about this article, but there is a bit of a dispute at Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi over what a couple of us see as an NPOV problem with his edits, which are emphasising the 'luxuriousness' of his villa (while not mentioning his house arrest inside it). On its own this is not a very major dispute, and some editors won't see this as an NPOV issue, but if it is part of a pattern...Dougweller (talk) 14:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I rewrote the lead because it made me cross-eyed; but I agree the material needs a good look into. For anyone interested in the content issues I also left a talk page comment. --Errant Tmorton166 14:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I've struck my comment above after being told this was being discussed on his talk page (there's no discussion with him on the article talk page, which is where I looked, but the subject was discussed a few weeks ago there). Dougweller (talk) 16:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Removing off-topic, insulting commentary from an AfD

• Mbz1 (talk · contribs)
• Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Art student scam

Mbz1 apparently does not like the way this AfD is trending, posting a comment denigrating those in favor of keeping it by labeling this and other articles as "Misplaced Pages's hall of shame of smearing Israel". This is trolling, and I called it as such in my attempt to remove it. It had nothing to do with the discussion of the article at hand, all it serves is to incite other editors in Israeli-Palestinian topic area, and this is an area that certainly doesn't need more fanning of the flames. Another editor attempted to remove this was well, but was reverted yet again.

I'd also note the reference to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, which effectively turns Mbz1's screed into a thinly-veiled charge of antisemitism against other editors as well.

This needs a more authoritative hand to step in and remove the offending passage and caution this user against using AfDs for personal soapboxes and attacking other editors. Tarc (talk) 17:50, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Mbz1's comment on AfD

Mbz1 first made this comment on the AfD for Art student scam, which is clearly not appropriate and is skimming the line of NPA, as it can easily be construed as an attack on anyone who voted Keep in the AfD. Tarc then reverted the comment, with the edit summary of "rv: trolling. AfDs are to discuss whether or not to keep/delete/etc the article in question, not to make general, critical commentary of the subject area, or to disparage other editors".

Mbz1 then reverted it back, with the edit summary of "reverted vandalism, bring it to an/i, but do not touch other people comments", calling Tarc's revert vandalism, when NPA is quite clear in a user's capability to revert things that can be considered a personal attack.

Tarc reverted it back, edit summary of "re-read WP:NPA at your leisure".

Again, Mbz1 reverted it back, with the edit summary of "reverted vandalism", again calling something vandalism that clearly wasn't.

I then stepped in to revert it, with the edit summary of "This is definitely NPA".

Then, Mbz1 reverted it back again, for the third time, but re-phrased the comment this time, removing some of the NPA, but still keeping a comment that shouldn't have been made in the first place.

Mbz1 then left this comment on my talk page. I'm not quite sure on what he means about trying to "hide the unwanted truth".

I will now go inform the other involved users about this discussion and leave this up to the community to discuss. Silverseren 17:50, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Heh, we made it at the same time. I'm changing mine to a level 3 header under Tarc's. Silverseren 17:51, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Note: Mbz1 removed our notification of this ANI discussion on his talk page, with the edit summary "who cares". So, we did notify him. Silverseren 17:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The number of Ad Hominems and accusations of smearing and conspiracy theory at that AfD is really disrupting the discussion, I believe. It seems a significant number of people who have made very reasoned explanations for voting "keep" have been denigrated as supporting conspiracy theories and it seems a group of editors are attempting to sway the AfD by now implying antisemitism and cabalistic smear. This very much has a chiling effect on the discussion as nobody wants to be accused of antisemitism. These Ad Hominems need to stop and the discussion must be allowed to continue on the merits of the article itself, with WP:V, WP:NOTCENSORED, and WP:NPOV in mind. I strongly believe that this will end up at ArbCom at some point, and probably the sooner the better. Kindzmarauli (talk) 18:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

What i'm worried about is what the state of the article will fall into after the AfD, as that group of editors still has strict control of the talk page. Silverseren 18:21, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• comment I do not believe that the comment I made falls under any definition of of a personal attack, but even, if it did, according to this the complete removal of the comment was unwarranted and that's why I called the removal of it vandalism. Although I still do not believe my comment was a PA I rephrased it.--Mbz1 (talk) 18:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
  • It was correctly removed regardless of NPA, because it was utterly irrelevant to the deletion discussion whilst attempting to influence other editors. The AfD is not there for you to attack other editors or soapbox about Misplaced Pages content. Black Kite (t) (c) 18:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course it was not " attempting to influence other editors". The deletion request is going to be closed today or tomorrow, kind of to late to influence something. It was rather my conclusion (for the record only) about deletion request for an attacking and insulting article. --Mbz1 (talk) 18:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• I just found this on RomaC's talkpage, who is one of the users involved in trying to make the Art student scam article better. Silverseren 18:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Now I understand why you voted to keep the article.--Mbz1 (talk) 18:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

?? Care to detail your understanding of why Silver seren voted to keep? Unomi (talk) 18:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• As best I can tell, Mbz1 (talk · contribs) is under a 1RR restriction placed by Lar (talk · contribs) here. The restriction applies to all pages, not just articles, and Mbz1's last unblock was apparently contingent upon a promise not to edit-war anymore. That promise, and the 1RR, appear to have been broken in this case. I don't think this falls under a "blatant vandalism" exception. That said, if the AfD has more or less run its course and Mbz1 has edited their comment into a slightly more acceptable form, then a block would probably be punitive rather than preventative. MastCell  18:47, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

@MastCell, as I explained, I did consider removal of my comment to be a blatant vandalism. If you believe otherwise, please do block me. I should not have violated my 1RR not under any circumstances. except vandalism. The block will not be punitive it will be deserved, but once again I believe the comment was not PA, and removal of it was vandalism. --Mbz1 (talk) 18:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I am missing something, bit is there a substantive difference between version 1 and version 2? I don't see how the slight rewording changed the tone or intent. Tarc (talk) 19:12, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposal topic ban Mbz1 for Art student scam

Proposal to topic ban Mbz1 from articles relating to Israel

Recently the editor in question came out of a 3 month topic ban largely for the same reasons that the ANI thread started, persistent allegations and/or allusions to antisemitic bents of other editors. Original topic ban, her first unsuccessful appeal, and second unsuccessful appeal. She is a valuable contributor on other fronts but I really don't think that her involvement in this particular topic area does the project or herself much good, at this point the editor seems to have established an inability to refrain from charging that other editors are anti-semitic when operating in this general topic area.

• Support as proposer. Unomi (talk) 19:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Info Four days ago while being blocked Unomi, the user, who proposed the ban called me "psychotic bitch".--Mbz1 (talk) 20:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Info : Just in the last few weeks I wrote those articles: The Holocaust's Arab Heroes Ali Bushnaq, Dudu Yifrah and Micha Yaniv Yoni Jesner and Ahmed Khatib The Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship all with the only purpose to promote the peace in Middle East. Do you really want to ban me on those articles?--Mbz1 (talk) 19:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Info Except the articles I counted, and that were started by me I hardly, practically never, edit any articles concerning Israel and/or I/P conflict.--Mbz1 (talk) 19:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose, as Mbz1 has been one of the most prolific content creators on Israel related topics, which clearly outweigh any of this nonsense. However, support banning certain editors who spend a disproportionate time on ANI.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 19:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• A rather large amount of her edits to the area would fall under POV pushing, she consistently manages to downplay information that she holds personal disagreements with. And a number of the articles that she did create started off as coatracks, see fx Maimonides Synagogue and Robert Kennedy in Palestine along with the accompanying hook. On the Yoni Jesner and Ahmed Khatib she went as far as trying to filibuster the DYK by removing it from the queue, due to a pertinent quote by the leader of Al-Aqsa stating that they blessed the organ donation to Israelis - an incredibly poignant quote imo and one which was in there during the AfD and scrutiny by a number of editors. Unomi (talk) 20:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I wonder why now, after few months of knowing how unfair, and how biased unomi is I am still getting surprised by every unfair and biased comment by him, like the one above for example. Here are the articles I started. 3/4 of them have absolutely nothing to do with I/P conflict, yet unomi selects three from those 50+ articles, and greatly misrepresents the stories even about those ones. Unbelievable!--Mbz1 (talk) 21:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know who you are trying to kid here Mbz1. Yes, you have created a number of articles that are not in the I/P area, and I think that you do your most constructive work under those conditions. However look at where you spend your time - 8 out of your top 10 edited talkpages relate directly to the Israel - Arab conflict. I am not misrepresenting anything that I am aware, if you feel differently please point to specifics. I think it is great that you contribute to wikipedia outside of I/P - I am just concerned with your engagement within the I/P area. Unomi (talk) 21:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

OMG. I write articles in my sandboxes, and then transfer them to main space User:Mbz1/article3 ; User:Mbz1/article ; User:Mbz1/article2 (see history for all of those). Of course how whould you know. You've never written an article yourself. Besides when was the last time I edit the articles you're talking about? Could you please just try to be fair, just once in a while. I am getting more and more convinced that Wikipeia will be much better off without you--Mbz1 (talk) 22:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think both of you need to calm down and stop it with the personal attacks and incivility, and discuss specific grievances objectively, and with diffs. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'd just like to point out that being "prolific" is meaningless, if they are prolifically arguing with other users and trashing articles. Calling what is happening here "nonsense" doesn't make it so. And as far as users who "spend a disproportionate time on ANI", that's to be expected on a topic where advocacy groups are running a deliberate campaign to rewrite history with a pro-Israel bias, on top of the already high level of insanity that nationalism and religious zealotry are associated with. I think that, for this topic, editors working through ANI should not be banned, but commended for working through the appropriate channels, rather than getting into edit wars and arguments. This is not to say that I support or oppose a ban on Mbz1 -- I don't know enough about the issue. I'm just saying that, being "prolific" is irrelevant, that calling something nonsense doesn't mean anything, and that ANI seems like a better option than most other solutions for this particular topic. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 21:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose, per Brewcrewer. A long-term valuable contributor, and the problems raised are not sufficient to justify a topic ban. Nsk92 (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Weak oppose Mbz1 is a productive editor, but I think she she needs to control her emotions better. I oppose a topic ban at this time, with the hope she cuts back on the disruptive comments, which may sometimes border on personal attacks. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 19:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• Comment, but probable support - I note this user's strenuous efforts to get another user topic-banned, so perhaps "what's good for the goose...", as they say. Users who cannot conduct themselves maturely when dealing with a sensitive/controversial topic should find a new area of interest, and no amount of productive editing should be allowed to mitigate bad behavior. Tarc (talk) 20:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I sure made "strenuous efforts" to topic ban a single article account, whose "contributions" are listed here (not by me BTW).Comparing my contributions to her contributions only show how biased you really are. BTW not only you are biased here. I am 100% sure, that, if I did only 20% of what "the other user" have done, I would have been banned from wikipedia for good.--Mbz1 (talk) 20:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Info here's an example of the extremely civil Tarc's language in response to my comment on his talk page: "Srsly, grow the fuck up. You're a POV-warring, partisan hack."--Mbz1 (talk) 20:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

  And I stand by that comment 100%. You came to my page whining, and I told you, your wiki-buddies and your wiki-opponents off. The I-P topic area is a poisoned cesspool, created and perpetuated by people like you with your comment in the AfD today. As long as the battleground is populated with warriors, it will continue to be a cesspool. Tarc (talk) 00:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. For the reasons stated by the above opposers, who are the broad majority at the moment. This may well be worth closing early, as it clearly doesn't have support (other than Tarc's "probable" support based on his suggestion that raising consideration of a topic ban qualifies one for a topic ban ... which I for one don't find very convincing).--Epeefleche (talk) 20:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Mbz1 is a productive content contributor in this area of articles. A topic ban in this case will cause harm only to the encyclopedia, which must come first, unless in the most extreme circumstances. This were not proven, and aren't even close. However, maybe a ban on Unomi from suggesting various bans being inflicted upon Mbz1 is in order. Broccoli (talk) 20:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

And then suggest one for you for suggesting one on him for suggesting one on her? Ect, ect. Silverseren 20:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'm glad I stayed away from that AfD after I commented. Mbz1 takes content that might reflect negatively on Israel extremely personally - she even had the gall to imply on my talk page that I'm a conspiracy theorist who thinks that the Israelis had foreknowledge of 9/11 - but even that doesn't make me think we should ban her from all Israel-related articles. I do think she needs to calm down and stop suspecting everyone of being raging anti-semites. Fences&Windows 20:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

" I do think she needs to calm down..." Agreed. I also think it is more than(edit: not necessarily) "suspecting everyone of being raging anti-semites". There is some harsh language. This is both sometimes a response to and sometimes mirrored by other editors. Regardless of who started it and who is worse it is clear that some chilling out is needed. Not saying there needs to be any ban, it is all MbZ1s fault, or that some level of discord is unfortunately expected. Just try to tone it down, Mbz1.Cptnono (talk) 22:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

@Cptnono, I am afraid I cannot "tone it down" at "suspecting everyone of being raging anti-semites" simply because I have never ever, never ever, never ever said something that was even close to that. So I hope you'd agree that I really cannot tone down something that I have never said.--Mbz1 (talk) 22:18, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for not being clear. I meant the other language that is some time a little pointed such as the recent message to RomaC. Although I agree with the sentiment, it could have been worded more tactfully. It is hypocritical for me to say anything because I have been a raging dickhead to people but since there is so much scruitiny it would be best if we tried a little harder.Cptnono (talk) 22:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

•  Done .--Mbz1 (talk) 22:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

You're the best. Thank you.Cptnono (talk) 22:50, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose per above, although toned down responses on both sides would be a fresh and desirable outcome...Modernist (talk) 20:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - Just because someone doesn't like the way an AFD goes, and makes a comment to that effect, doesn't a problem editor make. Now lets close and move on please.--Jojhutton (talk) 22:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• Comment - I don't have time to research the details of recent incidents. But I can relate that I've had two interactions with mbz1 on Israel-related issues, and in both cases, mbz1 was very irrational, incivil, and disruptive. I recall that, eventually, I was able to get the well-sourced, neutral material inserted into the articles, but it took way too much effort. I can't really say "support" at the moment, but I would say that if mbz1 continues what appears to be a long-term, combative approach to editing, then a block/ban may be appropriate. --Noleander (talk) 22:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose: Of all the looney ANIs I've seen, I think this one tops the cake. The ANI is baseless and without merit. The person who should be sanctioned is the proposer of this rediculous ANI. Also, Unomi's reference to mbz1 as a "psychotic bitch" is a horrible personal attack and there should be no place in Misplaced Pages for that sort of abuse.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 22:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Request I am tired from responding to ungrounded, no differences provided accusations (I forgot, when last time I had a "pleasure" to be "irrational, incivil, and disruptive" to a single purpose account Noleander, who right now concentrates his efforts on such article as Racism in Israel )I will not respond those accusations any more. But here's my request to a closing admin: I hope I am not topic banned (it will be more than unfair, if I am), but if I am I need a few more hours (maybe a day or two) to finish an article I am working on now.I believe that delay will not make a big difference. That article is not going to create any problems. Let's say it is my last wish before being executed ☺☺☺ Please do allow me to finish the article. Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 22:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Reading through this, I can't escape the impression that this is little more than a personal grudge. -- Ed (Edgar181) 22:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It seems unlikely that this proposal will pass, nonetheless, please note that in April the user was topic banned for 3 months due to her calling other editors antisemitic when faced with opposition, and now she indulges in the same behavior. Yes, me and Mbz1 are unlikely to be Best Friends Forever, but that shouldn't detract from the issues at hand. Unomi (talk) 23:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Reading through this I can't help but feel that Mbz1 has some serious civility and drama issues and the net benefit is extremely questionable.--Crossmr (talk) 23:02, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose I see some of the same names I have come across in other discussions related to Israel/Jews and in each discussion those editors have always been with opinions and positions that add content of a variety that is most definitely POV against Israel/Jews. I am trying my best to give AGF about their motives, sure maybe they do it to "balance" articles. But the point is this AN/I thread from the beginning and now this topic ban is a typical attempt to ban an editor who is pro-Israel/Jews. It was attempted against me at one time with the comment made against me "you are Jewish so you have a COI and shouldnt edit Jewish articles". Anytime someone rightly points out that certain editors are constantly only interested in putting in anti-Jewish material to an extreme and keeping out anything "good" then they are hounded and pushed until they slip up and then accused just like Mbz1 is right now. Lets stand up and say no more.Camelbinky (talk) 23:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Should I consider myself morally stung by your indirect comment that only I would know is directed at me? Silverseren 23:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose The edit to the AfD was ill-considered, and Mbz1 needs to be aware that making (however vague) accusations of anti-semitism against other editors (per the reference to Resolution 3379) is a particularly bad idea, but a topic ban isn't needed purely for this error. (Edit: Changing to "weak" because I didn't realise Mbz1 had been topic banned before for similar antics.) Black Kite (t) (c) 23:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I've just re-read my initial comment and I could not find anything that even remotely looks as accusation of "anti-semitism", not even anything that looks close to it. I said the article has a stong anti-Israeli bias, and it is. Maybe I used a strong language, but there was nothing about antisemitism in my comment. So, I will appreciate if you either clarify your comment, or remove it. Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 00:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Your comment insinuates that people who voted "Keep" on this AfD had the same motivations as those who voted for Res.3379 - which was widely seen as anti-Semitic. If that's not what you meant, you should have redacted it when you were called on it; since you haven't I can only assume that was your meaning. So no, I won't be removing that comment. Black Kite (t) (c) 00:25, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for you clarification. When I linked to the resolution I considered it to be an Anti-Israeli resolution, but not anti-Semitic. Now I see where you're coming from, and I believe that resolution could be called an anti-Semitic resolution. I assure you I was far from accusing all users, who voted to keep the article of being anti-Semites. I would have redacted that link now, but AfD is closed. --Mbz1 (talk) 00:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, that's fair enough; however in future I'd still recommend not making comments in AfDs that comment on the contributor rather than the content. Black Kite (t) (c) 01:03, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree. You are right on that one. I just realized an interesting point you made about the the resolution being anti-Semitic (and once again, when I linked to it I considered it to be an Anti-Israeli only). That resolution "determine that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination". Misplaced Pages has articles Racism in Israel, and Israel and the apartheid analogy that apparently is going to be renamed to Israel and apartheid (who needs that stupid "analogy" anyway? Right?)So? No,I'd better stop here. Once again you are right about commenting on the contributions versus contributors. --Mbz1 (talk) 01:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose topic ban, support blocking Unomi for WP:NPA and disruption. Basket of Puppies
• Oppose When I looked at it, admittedly quite some time ago, the student art scam article had problems, to the say the least. Maybe some temporary disengagement from all concerned would be the best at the moment. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:22, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Mbz1 is a valuable contributor to this encyclopedia and should continue her good work. User:Tarc should be sanctioned for both removing her comment from the AfD page, and for filing this ridiculous report, along with User:Unomi who suggests here to ban his colleague with no good reason. There was no accusation of Antisemitism in Mbz's comment, and it represents her legitimate opinion on an article that, IMO, will finally be deleted or dramatically rewritten. This distasteful technique to use the admin boards to get rid of opponents or contributors you don't like, or to gain the upper hand in disputes, shouldn't continue without appropriate admin reaction. We are not at war here, and the combative conduct of some people here is highly disruptive to the goals of this project. Noon (talk) 01:28, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
  • So you don't want people to use the admin boards to get rid of people that you don't like, yet in your previous sentence you use the admin board to suggest sanctions on people? That's not contradictory at all, then. Meanwhile, the conversation between myself and Mbz1 above explains why their comments at the AfD might have been seen as accusing people of Anti-Semitism. I think this probably needs to be closed now, as Mbz1 seems aware of the problem, and it's generating more heat than light now. Black Kite (t) (c) 12:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. User:Mbz1 has been putting a lot of effort into cleaning up the article Art Student Scam. It sounds like a bunch of other users was misbehaving. (Huey45 (talk) 08:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC))
• Comment So far I have not commented here, since Mbz reacts to my edits like a bull to a red rag. However, having just deleted part of this edit, I must add that Mbz appears to be seeking martyrdom. Egregious personal attacks (some of which have been directed at me) are bad enough; but linking these attacks to extra-Misplaced Pages material in order to speculate about the identity and motivations of an editor is absolutely unacceptable. For this edit alone, even if she escapes sanction for the other allegations here, Mbz deserves a serious sanction. RolandR (talk) 13:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Well as usually user:RolandR misrepresented the facts. He just removed the part of my comment with the edit summary " Removing "outing" comments". The so called "outing comment" was copied from the user's talk page. It has been present there for quite some time. More than that: so called outing was discussed here, and user:Sandstein gave user:JRHammond advise what to do about this. The user never followed up on the admin's advise, but I'm going to AGF, and say you,rolandr, did not know about all of that. Of course there was neither outing not attack in my comment at AE. @rolandr, I assure you I do not react at your edits "like a bull to a red rag". I have absolutely different feeling towards your edits, remember I told you about that somewhere in April I guess. Nothing has changed ever since. --Mbz1 (talk) 13:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

It has indeed been on the user's talk page for some time, and he lodged a complaint about this outing. Sandstein, while declining to take action on this, did describe it as "probably in violation of WP:OUTING". I was not aware of this until a few minutes ago; but Mbz was involved in the discussion about this, and clearly was aware. So she confirms that, despite the protests of the editor involved, and despite a caution by an admin, she continues to post a link to an article allegedly by JRHammond. There is no excuse for this; it is both outing and harassment. RolandR (talk) 15:45, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Just drop it, do not misrepresent Sandstein's comments. The "outing" has been displayed at the user:JRHammond talk page for quite some time. The user never bothered to ask to oversight it. It is still there, at least it was a few hours ago. I consider your continuing postings here as harassment. Stop it, and stop it now!--Mbz1 (talk) 16:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is a waste of everyone's time and Unomi should be sanctioned for this frivolous report instead. --Shuki (talk) 18:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Unblock request review: User:Mario1987

Mario1987 (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfas · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · socks confirmed)

This user was blocked for being a serial creator of copyright violations back in October of last year. It seems there were also some sockpuppetry issues. They are asking to be unblocked, and as they were blocked as a result of a discussion here I am bringing their request here for discussion: Their full unblock request reasoning follows. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

First of all i would like to say hello to eveyone and i would like to congratulate you for doing a very good job with this project. In these past 10 months since i've been blocked i realised that i was a jerk and what i did was wrong and such behaviour is considered offensive to other contributors and is not tolerable. Yes i've been foolish and many times desperate regarding my contributions, and more specifically the amount of my contributions, trying to impress god knows who with many good/bad articles and DYK nominations. I don't know maybe it was a personal ambition to be as high as possible in the lists regarding user by edit count or by DYK nominations or was it simply madness!? Nonetheless i believe that during this time when i was inactive (with a few hickups at the beginning of the year) i was able to put my thoughts in order and release my mind from these "ambitions" and personal faults. I know that my previous block was lifted as a friendly gesture and a sign of good faith but i blew it and i would like to appologise to all those people that believed in me and got dissappointed by my actions. So in conclusion i would like to ask you for another chance to be a contributor to this wonderful project and i hope that your decision will be favorable for everyone. Thank you very much for your time. Mario1987 20:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The "good article" comment reminds me of what the banned user "ItsLassieTime" supposedly used as a self-motivator for creating endless socks and contentiousness. You could try unblocking this guy, but be ready to bring the hammer down swiftly if he returns to his old ways. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• I could probably see a case here for a limited return under strict mentorship...perhaps sandboxing changes and having them checked for copyright-propriety and approved by a mentor before being put into mainspace. Something like the conditional unblock of MisterWiki (of course, this really hinges upon a willing mentor stepping forward). –xeno 21:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support unblock. It's been almost a year. I say we give them a 2nd chance, but keep a close eye on them for the first month or two. -- œ 21:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

  Please note I have just re-targeted that redirect from WP:Standard offer to Template:2nd chance since it didn't make sense (standard offer is usually more like a 6th or 7th chance =). Feel free to revise your comment accordingly. –xeno 21:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I agree with xeno here; the user's request was polite enough and they have accepted fault, but since copyright violations are pretty serious, I would only endorse an unblock with some sort of probation/mentorship like the measures proposed by xeno. GiftigerWunsch 21:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• Provided this is not ItsLassieTime, I support giving another chance to Mario1987. –MuZemike 21:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• I would be happy to go for an unrestricted unblock with close observation. To me this is a fairly textbook WP:OFFER unblock from a user who acted, to a degree, in good faith but in an extremely misguided and disruptive way. I would personally lean towards giving another chance here. ~ mazca 21:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• I don't see a problem with it, if they start being disruptive then it shouldn't be hard to show them the door again. -- Atama頭 22:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
• Question. Has this user edited on other projects in the meantime? Salvio 22:53, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• I saw that one users want to know if i made contributions to other projects and i would like to say that i have a few on the Romanian Wiki here. Mario1987 08:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC) Note this response to the question was placed on their talk page with a {{helpme}}, asking for it to be copied over, which I've done.  Chzz  ►  08:59, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'd like to thank you both. However, almost all of their 'tribs ere made before the block here on en.wiki; before supporting this unblock, I'd like to see that this user understands the reasons why they were blocked and that they have learnt from their errors. Therefore, I'll be glad to support after this user can show us a good track record on a sister project. Salvio 12:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Unsure - Whilst the user seems genuinely sorry for having been disruptive, and whilst a very long time has passed since he was blocked, I am wary of the prospect that he may unintentionally (through incompetence) again violate our copyright policies if unblocked. Has some kind of re-education taken place, or were the violations that led to the block committed knowingly?

  I too would like to see the user enter into mentorship, with the understanding being that his freedom to edit would be withdrawn if problems again arose. On balance, I cannot support nor oppose without further thought—which renders this comment useless, I guess, but there may be food for thought in here somewhere. Also, I would thank Mario1987 for expressing an interest in returning to the project; we are always looking for more editors. AGK 23:33, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose the user was not only blocked but community banned for massive copyright violations. If there's some evidence he edited productively at a sister project and will agree to mentorship then I may be willing to change my mind. Burpelson AFB (talk) 00:29, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose until he demonstrates understanding of the copyright policy. This is his second ban for copyvios, I don't think much will change if he is given a third chance. MER-C 01:25, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• Weak support. This seems to be a case where "forgive and forget" should apply. I think close mentoring is in order, including making sure they understand copyright policy. Triona (talk) 05:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• As blocking admin, I'm not really confident that an unblock is wise. The unblock request does not address in any way the reason for the block, i.e., serial copyright violations. But if an admin wants to closely monitor and thereby take responsibility for Mario1987's contributions, I'm fine with an unblock.  Sandstein  05:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose As well as trying to get out of the block or a ban he needs to at least understand the policies on not only copyvios but sockpuppetry too. Minimac (talk) 06:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose As everyone above has already said, the unblock request doesn't directly address the issues for which he is banned (copyvios and potential sockpuppetry) and they need to demonstrate a solid understanding of these two policies. elektrikSHOOS 07:23, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support- This user seems to be sincere, remorseful over the way they've behaved, and says they're more than happy to be mentored, so I think letting them return would be a good idea. If Mario acts up again he can be blocked again. Reyk _YO! 10:19, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support I am always for giving the editors a second chance. If the offense will repeat, the user always could be blocked again. Maybe the user will benefit from having a mentor, and of course there should not be any socks--Mbz1 (talk) 14:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - User has not addressed the actual issues which led to his original block, are there has been socking. Off2riorob (talk) 16:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support giving another chance, to be monitored by mentor, with the full understanding that a ban doesn't have to be that far away, if he screws up. Cheers, Lindsay 18:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Signature of User:Sennen goroshi

Signature of User:Sennen goroshi contains offensive word in Korean, so Chugun requested him to remove the word. The problematic word is "또라이", which is often used to humble ones who are crazy/mad or who are intellectually retarded. He is avoiding the point in reply to Chugun's request.

WP:SIG#Purpose_of_signatures says that "Having an uncivil signature is strongly discouraged." I thik he is complete going against the guideline. Approptiate sanction is needed to make him remove the offensive word. Best regards. Kwj2772 (talk) 05:04, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• This discussion has apparently moved to his talk page. elektrikSHOOS 07:28, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• (edit conflict)Given that the user's reason for wanting the word in his signature is simply that it "looks cool" to have Japanese and Korean there, I would suggest he simply replaces the offending word with a more innocuous one. I don't understand Korean so I can't assess how "uncivil" the word might be, but clearly if another user has sufficient concerns with it to take it to AN/I, it's not appropriate to be used in a signature, especially not as it could be easily replaced with another Korean word. GiftigerWunsch 07:32, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
  • The literal translation is, unsurprisingly, "crazy". My grasp of Korean is tenuous at best, so I can't say whether this can be used in a context like the English "go crazy" (as in, "you want to talk? Go crazy") or not. Generally though, this seems to be a rather... superficial "teacher, teacher, look what Billy did!" complaint. Honestly now, are there not more pressing matters to attend to? Badger Drink (talk) 07:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Crazy is a pretty big insult in Korean compared to how it can be casually said in English. In English we might say "You're crazy" just as a playful casual comment. Saying the same thing in Korean can be quite insulting and even saying it to one of them in English will often offend them until you explain it's used differently in English. However, this is hardly an isolated incident. This user has been reported here for being disruptive in one form or another several times. You can see some extensive inappropriate behaviour from him here Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive510#Sennen_goroshi_Caspian_Blue including some inappropriate jokes along the lines of this. and more here Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive628#Request_for_block_of_Sennen_Goroshi. I renew my suggestion that this user should be blocked because he's obviously here to disrupt and not build a community. I would also take Chugun at his word. He's a native Korean. If he says it is insulting, it probably is.--Crossmr (talk) 08:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
  • There is no reason to be even a little bit insulting in the signature, and using other languages than English to get around it should not be accepted. --OpenFuture (talk) 08:25, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
    • If someone is signing xyrself as "Sennen goroshi, raving nutter", who, exactly, is being insulted? Uncle G (talk) 11:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
      • The issue isn't with an individual being the target of the insult, Uncle G, it's that clearly some individuals find the word to be inherently disruptive as it is an offensive word in korean. While we don't have a specific policy against using profanity as long as it's not used to attack editors, we do have a policy preventing profanity or other disruptive content being placed in a username or signature. The signature, then, isn't so close to "Sennen goroshi, raving nutter", as it is to "Sennen goroshi, fuck". GiftigerWunsch 11:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
        • The issue is the insult as far as OpenFuture is concerned, above. Hence the question. And it's the same question as would be if xe were signing xyrself "Sennen goroshi, fucking nutter". Uncle G (talk) 12:07, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
          • I'm not sure what the problem would be with that signature, either. All said, the problem is that being called crazy is offensive to Koreans. Calling oneself crazy is voluntary, and if someone else takes offense, I'm afraid that's their problem. That said, given the issues with translation, it's easy to misinterpret the .sig as calling the reader crazy, which is a problem. I'd hope SG would be willing to change that voluntarily, given the misunderstandings that can cause. — The Hand That Feeds You: 12:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
            • Yes it is, especially since Korean doesn't require a subject or even an object, and often adjectives just thrown out there are assumed to be about the person most likely to be said to. For example simply saying "Smart" would mean that you think the other person is smart since it would be rather conceited of you to just call yourself smart (unless there was a contextual reason for it). Simply tossing out "Crazy Fucker" (which is roughly close to what this might translate to) with no other context might indicate he's calling someone that, since it would be unlikely that he'd refer to himself as such. But Sennen Goroshi obviously knows this. This isn't a word you just pick at random to add to your signature and it just more in a long history of disruption by this user. If he doesn't change it, I'd suggest an admin change it and give him a long block to review our policies and think about things.--Crossmr (talk) 13:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• (outdent) Actually, while we're at it, you should probably change the Japanese, too--for those not familiar, it is pronounced kancho, which, while not offensive (in that it's not a bad word you call someone), it is about a practice that many might consider, um, unpleasant, and thus not appropriate for a signature. I'm not exactly clear how strict WP:USERNAME is, though, so I'm willing to be overruled on this.Qwyrxian (talk) 13:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I have to disagree with the sentiments above, that having "fucking nutter" in a signature would not be disruptive; whether self-referential or otherwise, it's unnecessary and inappropriate to have profanity in a signature since it has clear potential to cause disruption; it's fairly clear that this word wasn't just randomly chosen because it "looks cool", it was designed to be provocative. Well, fun's over. Misplaced Pages is a serious project and using foreign languages to circumvent disruptive username/signature policies isn't acceptable. GiftigerWunsch 13:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
    • If it was an explicit term, or directed at anyone (on or off wikipedia) then I might be tempted to remove it. As for the Japanese in my sig, it refers directly to my username. I don't see anything wrong with my sig, I just see some editors getting annoyed with my contribution to an AFD http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Pure_blood_theory_in_Korea カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! 또라이 (talk) 17:22, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
      • Multiple users fluent in korean appear to have stated that it is a korean profanity. As such, it should be disallowed. GiftigerWunsch 18:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
  • No, it has been translated as "crazy" I have also seen it translated (by a native speaker) as "nuts" - while I am unlikely to turn up at work tomorrow and call my boss "crazy", I don't consider it to be profanity. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! 또라이 (talk) 19:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Again, read the above. Calling someone crazy in English is a playful jab and rarely harmful, but in Korea it's highly insulting. Therefore, your signature is considered disruptive. I don't really see a need to bang in this point any further. elektrikSHOOS 19:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
  • As I have previously stated, if the term was directed at someone, I might see the problem - it isn't and I don't. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! 또라이 (talk) 19:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Direct translations do not capture the meaning of a word or phrase, and the direct translation of a korean profanity being relatively innocuous in english is completely irrelevant; the fact that your only reason for wanting the word in your signature is that it "looks cool" and you are refusing to change it to any other word despite the fact that multiple individuals have stated that it is profanity and against signature policy speaks volumes. It has become clear that the word is a profanity in korean, you have refused to change it regardless, and personally I would therefore support a block until you reconsider. GiftigerWunsch 19:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
    • You have one question to answer. Think carefully about your answer, because people with the ability to revoke your editing privileges are reading. It has been pointed out to you that your signature, to native speakers, reads the equivalent of "Sennen Goroshi, up the arse fucking nutter!". Any person signing xyrself as this in all innocence, because the words "looked cool", would change xyr signature in a flash once xe became aware of how it actually read. Now that you are aware of how your signature reads, are you going to continue to use this as your signature? Uncle G (talk) 19:30, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
      • On principal, no I won't change my signature. It isn't directed at anyone, and it is not profanity. I also question the motives of those who have complained about it, seeing that the complaints followed an AFD relating to a controversial Korean related article. hmmmmm "up the arse fucking nutter!" would be an amazing signature, but I assume that would result in another ANI discussion. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! 또라이 (talk) 19:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Epeefleche

User:Epeefleche created the page Soho Properties. I, and other users, have removed some attacks he included in the page, including an attempt to slander one of the company's executives by saying that his uncle, leader of the Arab League of nations, supported Hamas, as well as linking to Jihad Watch, a notorious anti-Islam site. He has reverted on sight, and now accused me of vandalism and threatened me with blocking, even though it is clearly not vandalism but a content dispute. He has almade no attempt to address the issues, despite the notice at the top of my talk page 'that I will remove standardised warning templates, feel free however to discuss the underlying issues with me.'.

His is aggressive, destructive behaviour. Could someone please address? Sumbuddi (talk) 12:59, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I concur that the external link and attempt to smear-by-association removed in this are clearly in violation of the biographies of living persons policy. Consequently their removal is not subject to the three-revert-rule and restoration ought to draw preventative sanctions. CIreland (talk) 13:07, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Concur with the concur; probably should have taken it to the BLP noticeboard. I watch listed the article & will post an entry there for more input on the content issues. --Errant Tmorton166 13:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Epeefleche didn't appear to have been notified of this discussion - so I went ahead and told him --Errant Tmorton166 13:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

he was:

User Epeefleche,s personal POV is so strong that he should not be allowed to add any content about living Muslims. Off2riorob (talk) 13:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Scanning Epeefleche's recent edits they do appear to be pushing a certain POV. --Errant Tmorton166 13:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Just a thought, but I'm wondering if the "Nour Mousa" link to "Amr Moussa" (also in the Park 51 article) is even accurate. The surnames are not the same, and while the claim has been propagated across numerous anti-Park 51 blogs, it seems to stem from this article , which has been noted as a desperate hatchet job. Is this in fact a reliable source? Sumbuddi (talk) 13:28, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The edits linked to here concern me greatly, I don't know the editor in question but there is no question even from a cursory glance that the intend is to create a POV. --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Curious that nobody notified me until a friendly non-involved editor. About to head to a meeting shortly. Shall we discuss here or on the BLPN? As to Off2, I imagine people here are familiar enough with him and his block history that I don't have to detail my personal experiences with him.--Epeefleche (talk) 13:28, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

  Apart from me having to defend BLP articles from some of your previous POV attacks you have no history with me at all. You will also notice that this thread is about you not me, this pattern of POV is an issue and has been at other articles previously. Off2riorob (talk) 13:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

  Uh, Epeefleche, you were notified within a minute of this being posted here, by the same editor who initiated this thread. TFOWR 13:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, I completely missed that (because of the subsequent section header). Entirely my fault :) WP:TROUT as required. --Errant Tmorton166 13:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to clear up the confusion on the notification issue, so everyone understands it. Tmorton left me notice of this ANI, helpfully, saying he did not know why I had not been notified. He and I were not aware I was notified--because my "notification" was embedded as an unsigned stray sentence within a DYK notice that I had been given ... making it somewhat easy to miss.--Epeefleche (talk) 14:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

This isn't just a BLPN issue, I posted here primarily because you are assuming bad faith in a content dispute and accusing me of vandalism, which was clearly inappropriate. We might have different opinions, but that doesn't make me - or you - a vandal, and it's not constructive for you to say so, as you did here.Sumbuddi (talk) 13:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

What do you call it when you use procedural means like this ANI page to try to stop editors from editing? Look at this comment: "User Epeefleche,s personal POV is so strong that he should not be allowed to add any content about living Muslims." Okay, I say Epeefleche should no longer "add any content about any living Muslims." Then those seeking to use Misplaced Pages to WP:SOAPBOX can write glowing articles about any topic they wish and we all can stop wasting our time on the ANI page to shut people up. Epeefleche, these people or people like them don't stop coming after you, I have observed over time. I had a group promoting MMfA come after me recently, on the ANI too, so I can understand what you are going through. My point involves the tactic being used to silence Epeefleche, not the underlying content being whatever it is. Folks, if Epeefleche is not perfect or is making POV edits, then improve Misplaced Pages by making better edits or using the Talk page, don't just use the ANI to try to escalate to get others to stop someone from making edits you do not like and have not properly addressed in Talk. This page is not to be used as a means to pressure others. This is Misplaced Pages, not OneViewPointOpedia. Someone please close this ANI and everyone please get back to work. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 14:03, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree, it should be closed.--Mbz1 (talk) 14:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Your point that Epeefleche should be allowed to continue attacking living people because if he didn't others would write glowing articles is amusing indeed. No one is trying to silence, let him write good articles about french town and cities but stop him attacking living people that he has a strong POV against and that he repeatedly inserts into wikipedia articles, this then creates edit wars as people remove the BLP violations and then user Epeefleche throws warnings at them and calls them vandals and threatens them with blocks, this is what the report here is about. Off2riorob (talk) 14:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I haven't seen enough evidence of repeated POV-pushing or personal attacks to warrant a topic ban, but I do agree that the examples discussed in this thread are unacceptable. Opening a thread to prevent a user editing disruptively, making potentially libellous attacks in mainspace, and pushing their point of view is not the same as trying to "silence" a user because of WP:IDON'TLIKEIT. GiftigerWunsch 14:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

"User Epeefleche,s personal POV is so strong that he should not be allowed to add any content about living Muslims." Sounds like an attempt to silence someone to me. I know, I recently lived through such an effort that went on for weeks. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk)

No, you have this wrong. Epeefleeche was using this article as his soapbox, which I don't have a problem with of itself, because other users can edit and remove his biases.

What is unacceptable is trying to silence me by threatening a block and accusing me of vandalism for repeating edits already made by two different other users with edit summaries explaining exactly what the objection was. That is not vandalism, and it's bizarre to be defending him on a 'free speech' basis, when 'free speech' is exactly what he was trying to deny me. Other users might be silenced by similar tactics, I'm addressing this here, not so much because I'm concerned about his content biases, but because I don't think his edit war tactics are acceptable. Sumbuddi (talk) 14:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Sumbuddi, I'm not trying to be trouble. It's just that the edit you gave as evidence of being called a vandal, I just don't see how that edit evidences your being called a vandal, neither do I see it in the history comment. To me it looks like a standard warning used repeatedly on the Talk pages of a multitude of editors. What am I missing? --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 14:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

LegitimateAndEvenCompelling, you seemed to be suggesting that several of us are trying to "silence" this user; as I said above, I don't see enough evidence of POV-pushing and disruptive editing in this topic to warrant a topic ban, and unless I've overlooked someone, Off2riorob is the only user in support of such action. I understand what you're getting at and agree that a topic ban is too extreme unless the user proves that he is unable to edit constructively to this topic, but effectively suggesting that the community is witch-hunting when we're actually responding to some fairly serious policy violations, isn't especially constructive. GiftigerWunsch 14:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I understand. Standing back and looking at the big picture, however, this editor has procedural action after procedural action brought against him. At some point it's time to notice a pattern. I was merely noting a pattern. Sure, on an individual page, it's no biggie. But in general, there is a clear pattern. While this AN/I has been going on, Epeefleche got another warning on his page for, get this, violating a 1RR, and I noticed no notice of the unusual 1RR on that page. Why didn't someone just give him a heads up instead of giving him another warning on his talk page? The effort to topic ban Epeefleche in the immediate effort was merely what set in motion in my mind that Epeefleche is someone who is challenged constantly for essentially being an effective editor. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 15:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, four issues:

• Epeefleche, please don't refer to good faith edits as vandalism.
• There was a misunderstanding about ANI notification. It happens, we all realise that, that's a non-issue.
• If there's an ongoing problem in terms of Epeefleche and POV - no one's offered any evidence beyond this one incident.
• This particular incident should probably be punted to WP:BLPN.

TFOWR 14:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree. This discussion can serve as a warning to Epeefleche not to refer to others' edits as vandalism when they are actually a matter of content dispute. The content dispute itself can be handled on the BLP noticeboard. GiftigerWunsch 14:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'm a big fan of BLP, and if I erred I'm happy to understand precisely how I did so and to certainly make every effort to not do so in the future. Perhaps it will be helpful if I analyse, ignoring the noise and the ad hominem attacks, what I understand to be the main issue. And what my thinking was.

The primary focus of editors who see an issue here appears to be on the bolded language in the following edit: "Mousa is the nephew of Amr Moussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League, who was the first major Arab leader to go to Gaza and affirm support for Hamas, in mid-June 2010, after the Gaza blockade-running incident. That language was properly referenced to a RS. It appeared in a paragraph in an RS article about the subject of the article -- Soho House -- which said

... an Egyptian property developer, Sharif El-Gamal... is chief executive officer of Soho Properties, Inc., a commercial real estate investment firm he founded in 2003. His partner is Nour Mousa, another guiding figure in the Ground Zero mosque effort and the nephew of Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League. Amr Moussa was the first major Arab leader to go to Gaza and affirm support for Hamas, in mid-June, after the recent blockade-running assault.

I didn't see this as a BLP violation. Let me explain why.

1. it was sourced to an RS.
2. it accurately represented what the RS said.
3. the subject of the discussion in the RS article itself was SoHo House.
4. while I gather some here view the Gaza matter as negative (and a "tarring"), it is by no means clear that that connection is negative. To the contrary, much of the world would certainly view that connection as a positive (there was definitely an outpouring of positive response in favor of Gaza after the incident).
5. even if it were negative, we do routinely report even negative information on wikipedia.
6. it is one thing if an editor himself makes a connection relating to Soho House--it is quite another if an RS does so, and we simply reflect it. Which is what I sought to do here. Nothing more.
7. as to whether it is notable, or relevant, enough to reflect (is that even proper fodder for an AN/I discussion?), I take as a guide what the RSs think is notable. This is likewise our objective guiding light in our article notability discussions. It allows us to avoid personal subjective POV. Otherwise, an editor could simply be driven by his personal subject POV, and claim that anything he doesn't like is not notable, even if the RSs report it.
8. the article and the reference relate to SoHo House and its connections. Soho House is not a BLP, so I'm not even clear that this is a BLP issue. But that is beside the point, given my above comments.
9. I didn't see there as being a need to report who specifically the source was of the statement, but if it were felt that that would have improved matters, I would certainly have had no objection.

I don't know if that helps understand my thinking. But I was simply trying to reflect what an RS said when discussing the company, sought to do so accurately, and didn't apprehend a violation of any sort. I do find it somewhat surprising that someone would think this editing dispute ANI-worthy.--Epeefleche (talk) 14:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

My understanding of what could be considered BLP violation is inserting unsourced and/or poorly sourced info about living person. It is clearly not the case here. I believe the thread ought to be closed. --Mbz1 (talk) 14:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd greatly prefer WP:BLPN to look at it - even if it's just to close it. Not so much to consider Epeefleche and possible BLP-vios, but to consider the article. I think the mention of Hamas is WP:UNDUE, but I'm by no means a BLP person. This is about protecting a living person, not about assigning blame. TFOWR 14:59, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Ah, sorry. I have actually posted it over there. It looks like myself, Off2riorob and maybe one or two other names I recognise from the BLP noticeboard pretty much concur it is undue/non-notable per various BLP policy (and wider article criteria). There is also discussion on the users talk page - support closing this and moving any further needed discussion to BLP/N and article talk --Errant Tmorton166 15:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

@TFOWR--That's fine; personally, I don't think anything significant is lost -- even though what was said in the article is precisely supported by the RS -- if we were to trim out the words "for Hamas". The content is still substantively the same.--Epeefleche (talk) 15:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I note this accusation: …an attempt to slander one of the company's executives by saying that his uncle, leader of the Arab League of nations, supported Hamas, as well as linking to Jihad Watch, a notorious anti-Islam site. It is impossible to slander the executive (malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report) by stating what is believed to be true about a relative of the executive. I’m quite sure Misplaced Pages does not have a policy to burry information like 9/11 on notorious individuals like Osama bin Laden just because Osama might be a second-cousin three-times-removed to the ex-sister-in-law of Jimbo. If Epeefleche is incorrect that the Arab League leader supported Hamas, then challenge him to produce a proper citation buttressing the information. If he has truly edit warred, warn him. If both editors have truly edit warred, warn them both. If this is just another edit dispute, mark it resolved and tell the editors to stay away from each other for 48 hours. Greg L (talk) 15:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Well it's not really worth arguing it out; but it could be slander by association. i.e. raising an undue point unrelated to the article to associate the company/individuals with those views. What the uncle did is not related to the company or owners (it is related to the uncles biography) and, so, raising it becomes problematic --Errant Tmorton166 15:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

You appear to be engaging in an exercise in semantics. The sentence is designed to link Soho Properties, which hitherto has dealt in uncontroversial office buildings, to Hamas, and specifically one of its living executives, to a US-desginated terrorist organisation. Whether or not that should properly be called 'slander', 'slur' or something else is irrelevant to the fact that it's an attack sentence.

Also I'm not quite sure why you are comparing Amr Moussa, a regular old Egyptian politician with Osama Bin Laden, the world's most notorious Islamist mass murderer and international terrorist. It is reasonable to describe Osama Bin Laden, if you had to in one sentence, 'as the perpetrator of 9/11', but it's not reasonable to describe Moussa simply as 'a Hamas supporter' on the basis of an official visit to Gaza. Clearly that description is grossly distorted and only someone who feels 'bin Laden' is the most apt comparator with a moderate senior Arab diplomat could feel otherwise.

Nobody wants to delete the fact (if it is true, and I'm not convinced, given that the names aren't even spelled the same) that Mousa is nephew of Moussa, but describing him as a Hamas supporter is bizarre; you might as well say 'Mousa is nephew of Moussa, a popular Egyptian politician, who in 2005 was petitioned to run for president.'Sumbuddi (talk) 15:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

File:John howard.jpg

I moved File:John howard.jpg (log) from en.wikipedia to Commons some years ago. It has now been tagged as "no source". Could an administrator check if the original file page here contained more information about its source? Thanks, --Kjetil_r 13:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Original source was given as http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Jul1997/970627-D-2987S-028.jpg CIreland (talk) 13:45, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Tracked down the current location of the photo and added it to the commons image.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:55, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Hugo Chávez again

As documented at User:SandyGeorgia/Venezuela articles, we've still got long-term, ongoing behavioral problems by multiple editors at Hugo Chávez, unresolved by previous dispute resolution, and not likely to be resolved via dispute resolution because of the ever-changing cast of new characters, who don't learn policy or guidelines but fill up the talk page with debate, not typically based on reliable sources. In the last go-round, I supplied a long (and unfinished) set of high quality sources that had been routinely cleansed from the article, with repeat claims of "corporate media bias" on the article talk page.

We have edit warring, POV edits, deletion of tags, personal attacks, personalizing disputes on talk, removal of well-cited text, battleground, ownership-- the works. In particular, see personal attacks and others at User:SandyGeorgia/Venezuela articles#Other.

I do not believe further dispute resolution is likely to resolve the recurring issues at that article, as the cast of characters defending the POV article constantly changes (with the exception of a few regular, long-term contributors, who have improved somewhat). I am hopeful that independent admins will weigh in and oversee the article and the personalization, and suggest that 1RR be instated to encourage talk page collaboration and help stabilize the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Disagree 1RR is usually unhelpful in my experience. TFD (talk) 15:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
• 1RR? No way. That too easily becomes just a tricksy way for people to catch each other out. And the page hasn't even been protected recently, which is a far more likely step to encourage collaboration and thoughtful rewriting. Rd232 15:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Protection would be an alternative, but then I couldn't continue cleaning up citations that were just messed up :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:59, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Sure you can, if a subpage draft is used to re-develop the article. Rd232 16:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
      • In the current battleground, it's unlikely sandbox will get anywhere. Also, article protection prevents all editors from improving the article, while 1RR targets disruptive editors, which might help stop the bleeding. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Am I involved here? (User:Wittsun)

Wittsun (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) This user is under a topic ban covering all race, politics or religious subject. The ban was tweaked to include all Misplaced Pages namespaces on 22 July (see his talkpage). However, an article that he created is under AfD, and so of course he received the standard template inviting his comments on the AfD.

Whilst I am sure he is aware that this was a violation of his topic ban, he did go ahead and comment on the AfD (whilst making an attack on other editors). Given the auto-AfD message, however, I have not imposed a block on this occasion. However, it's now occurred to me that I previously !voted on the AfD, and with an opposing view to Wittsun's. Therefore, it could be suggested that I am involved, and any admin is welcome to unstrike, remove, edit or otherwise revert my edits, and my message to Wittsun on his talkpage. Black Kite (t) (c) 15:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• Any editor could have taken the same action you did and it would have been OK - I would have probably taken the alternative action of removing his comment as: (1) there were no responses to it, (2) it's not going to be a fully enforced vio (by blocking), and (3) the edit should not have been made in the discussion (that is, it was prompted by a couple of mistakes, from a generous good faith perspective anyway, so that might be the best step in reversing the effect of those mistakes). But that's just my view, and obviously, I can understand why a more cautious approach could be adopted. As for any involvement, I'd say it does not extend beyond this particular AfD. (There would have been a concern if you imposed a block in this situation, but that's not an issue here.) Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:22, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to place a permanent block on certain IP ranges

As a lot of users might know, I was the target of a particularly nasty vandal attack on Saturday by User:BoxingWear among other socks. This individual was previously banned by Jimbo under the username "George Reeves Person" or something like that.

This individual has engaged in serial attacks against a number of editors, including Jimbo, for several years. The little bit of information gleaned on him suggests that he is either homeless or partially so; he almost certainly suffers from mental illness. He edits out of a public library system and on occasion, box stores and two colleges in his general area. It is my understanding that he's engaged in harassment via telephone; he neglected to turn off the caller ID on one call and the number rendered back to a church in the same area. A call to the church confirmed the man's illness and the fact they try and protect him.

I've blocked four of his ranges for one year here at WP and for five years on Eflightwiki.com. All of these ranges have a long history of abuse, almost certainly from this same person.

The ranges are:

• 64.44.24.0/24
• 66.2.70.0/24
• 66.99.2.0/24
• 66.99.1.0/24

This person is now following me to other wikis on which I use the same username. He was particularly nasty at Eflightwiki.com until I was granted sysop rights. He's now attacked me at Simple English; I have no sysop rights there, but an admin here who does is closely monitoring my pages there.

Under these rather unusual circumstances, I wish to propose that all of these ranges and any subsequent range be blocked permanently for the personal safety of this site's users. This person is likely to be criminally insane and we owe it to our volunteers to insure their safety while editing Misplaced Pages and other wiki sites. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 15:46, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

If the person is editing from public terminals, it would be in Misplaced Pages's not best interest not to range-block as that would also negatively affect a lot of potential positive contributors. I can understand your nasty feud with a sockmaster (I've had a few run-ins myself) but a rangeblock of publicly accessible computers is not the solution. elektrikSHOOS 15:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Elektrik; permanently blocking several IP ranges is likely to cause more harm than good. GiftigerWunsch 15:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Though there's practically no recent activity on the first three ranges that isn't vandalism or non-useful, and not a huge amount on the fourth either. Black Kite (t) (c) 15:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, thought of this later. A better solution might be to contact the owners of the IP addresses in question and see if these places can bar access to this individual, as it appears that xe is not using the computers productively. elektrikSHOOS 16:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Yea, that kind of approach generally hasn't worked out so well in the past, although it is worth a try. We routinely block ips that are causing disruption despite the fact that other productive users might be using them. I think what is scaring folks here is the word "permanent." How about we start off with a year or two and see if that curbs the problem, if this guy comes back even once from any of these ranges we can re-instate the block for another year or two. I fully support the idea that harsher measures need to be taken against the most unhinged and obsessed trolls, they suck way too much time away from the various projects. Given the dearth of positive contribs from these ranges the potential collateral damage is minimal, and the potential of diverting this troll is worth it. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:38, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Considering the severe abuse that the editor in question has engaged in here and elsewhere, I'd strongly agree with Beeblebrox - a long rangeblock makes a lot of sense here to cut the damage substantially. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:49, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd support such a proposal, but I'd prefer it if the block was anon-only, so as not to block well-meaning contributors who might wish to use those computers to edit Misplaced Pages (and, if an anon needs an account, they can ask one to WP:ACC). Salvio 16:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

More background for PMDrive1061's complaint may be seen at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/BoxingWear/Archive. I notice that PMDrive has renewed the rangeblock (anon-only) on all four addresses for one year. I support this, except for the first address, which I suggest that he should double-check. The address he listed above is not the one that he blocked. (The 24 and 44 are reversed). He actually blocked 64.24.44.0/24 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) whose contributions seem rather innocuous. The matter appears serious to me, and there is reason to take strong action. There is nothing magic about public terminals that should prevent them from being blocked anon-only if serious abuse is coming from them. EdJohnston (talk) 16:55, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Ed. I'll correct that right away. I now have a list of all his known IPs and I'm going to take the initiative nd block all for one year. Anon-only might not do any good since he actually creates sockpuppet accounts more often than not. This individual impersonated me with a YouTube account...and I'm told that was nothing compared to stunts he's pulled. He has engaged in e-mail bombing, incessant crank telephone calls and has managed to create bogus death threats from his victim to himself. Apparently, he's done this pretty well since users have lost IP access as a result. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 17:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a delightful individual who lives a rich and rewarding life. I support the block for a year given the circumstances; I was concerned that it may cause a deal of harm discouraging other users from editing, but it struck me that when I first started editing, I was in a large IP range which had been blocked because of some ISPs blocking the Virgin killer article, but I wasn't discouraged from creating an account by e-mailing the foundation. If we can afford to block entire ISPs on such an issue, I think this user's actions more than warrant the proposed action. GiftigerWunsch 19:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Abuse

I'm a volunteer at a church outreach center. We have computers available for the public to use. We try to be careful about how they're used. We've installed filtering software so users can't use the computers for abusive purposes. Three weeks ago one of our computer users told me that someone (Centpacrr) had placed an abusive notice on our Misplaced Pages page. I tried to remove it and restore what was there before, but Centpacrr kept putting it back

He kept insisting that we were placing a "false tag" on our page and said we were "identifying it as belonging to an unspecified organization. There is no proof whatosever that this is true." I didn't understand why he was doing that. We ARE an organization. I read the Misplaced Pages help page on vandalism and it said if someone is vandalizing your page to put this: { {SharedIP|Name of owner} } on it. I did that and Centpacrr only got more abusive.

He said that "The ONLY edits on Misplaced Pages made from this IP were made by otherwise blocked multiple sock puppet user." I didn't understand what he was talking about. All we tried to do was fix our page. We didn't make any edits at all. We've never been blocked that I know of. The vandalism help page said that if nothing else worked to file a vandalism report. So I did. Then this other Misplaced Pages person (Jamie) comes along and accuses me of filing "spurious "vandalism" reports on the noticeboard." I tried to explain to Jamie that Centpacrr kept putting lies on our page, saying that we aree not an organization, when we are.

It seems to me that posting lies on someone's page is vandalism, and I didn't understand why WE were the ones being accused of vandalism. Jamie's response was some computer gobbledygook that I didn't understand, and he insisted that we prove that we were an organization. Well, I have no idea how to do that. All I can say is that we ARE a church. We provide a service to the community with our outreach center, and it has computers for teens to use for homework and for adults to use for job hunting and other things. If one of our users abuses the computers they are no longer welcome at our center.

So far we've been very lucky. Things only went from bad to worse. When I tried to explain things to Jamie, he brusquely responded that "there's nothing further to discuss." He refused to explain to me what I could do to stop Centpacrr from posting lies on our page. So I continued to erase Centpacrr's vandalism. Then he wrote "Unless you can IDENTIFY AND PROVE what "organization" you claim to be, this will be reported to AN." I had no idea what AN was, so I had no idea how to respond. I just removed his lies again. Finally, I just posted the Beatitudes on our page. It's a beautiful piece with advice that I thought might be helpful in the situation. Centpacrr posted again, this time accusing us of all sorts of things.

Even worse, he posted it right above the Beatitudes and wrote that "the text immediately below which is not mine either." Well of course not. The Beatitudes are the Word of the Lord. And Centpacrr's comment was placed so that it desecrated those words. The next thing I know Jamie posts a notice on our page that accuses us of "vandalism (including page blanking or addition of random text), spam, deliberate misinformation, privacy violations, personal attacks; and repeated, blatant violations of our policies concerning neutral point of view and biographies of living persons." AND he removed the Beatitudes. There was no way for me to put them back because Jamie had blocked us from editing Misplaced Pages. Well, our two weeks is up now. I talked with one of our young people here about the situation and he told me I should file a complaint. So that's what I'm doing.

This whole thing has been a nightmare. We've been accused of doing things that we don't understand and know nothing about. It seems like anyone on Misplaced Pages can just post lies about anyone else and they're automatically believed. We have done nothing wrong. We have not vandalized anything. We've only tried to tell the truth on our page. And when we tried to get someone to explain to us what was going on, we only got gruff, insulting replies. We want an apology from Centpacrr for his untruthful accusations and his obnoxious attitude. we also want an apology from Jamie for his rude behavior and all the awful accusations he made. By now there are probably places all over Misplaced Pages where nasty things have been said about us. We want those all removed too.

Thank you for listening. 64.252.140.128 (talk) 16:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, we were 64.252.0.159. I guess someone has changed our identity somehow. 64.252.140.128 (talk) 16:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The fact that your IP address has changed should tell you something; you don't have a fixed IP. You are assigned an IP from a pool that is shared by other subscribers who use the same service. You don't own the talk page for whatever IP address you happen to be using. We tag IP talk pages when vandalism arises from them and in some cases mark who the IP is registered to (which in this case is obviously not a single entity, but an ISP. If you want a fixed identify on Misplaced Pages, you need to create an account. OhNoitsJamie 16:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

You're not listening. We never engaged in any vandalism. There was no reason for you to block us. There is also no reason for us to create an account because many different people use our computers. If any of those people want to create an account, they can. 64.252.140.128 (talk) 16:22, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

No one is saying that you specifically are vandalizing Misplaced Pages. Your IP address is not fixed which means that the numbers will periodically change, which means other individuals will be using an IP address you have used or will use. If there is too much vandalism on that one IP address it may be blocked. This is the downside of editing as an IP rather than a logged-in user. If I choose to edit without logging in I am using any number of IP addresses that are being used by others using the same internet service. If I happen to being using an IP address that is currently blocked, even though it has nothing to do with me, I may not be able to edit Misplaced Pages at that time. So people using your computers may at times be unable to edit Misplaced Pages unless they create an account. But the vandalism warnings don't address your organization directly but an IP address that you sometimes are assigned. I don't know of any way around this. But the talk page of an IP address that you sometimes have really doesn't belong to you and the warnings placed there should be left in place to let potential editors know of any blocks and how to edit using a blocked IP. freshacconci talktalk 16:32, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining that. I can see why you would want to block an IP address that engaged in vandalism, but I clicked on the "contribs" link for 64.252.0.159 below, and looked at the contributions, and I didn't see any vandalism.64.252.140.128 (talk) 16:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't have time to look into this at the moment, but for the next person: —DoRD (talk) 16:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• 64.252.0.159 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 64.252.140.128 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

Hi 64.252. This looks like a simple case of miscommunication. The fact is, you are coming to us via an internet address that isn't owned by you or your association, but by SBC Communications (aka AT&T). Many of our editors are overworked, and it's easy to throw around the acronyms and "wikispeak" we're used to without thinking that new users may not be familiar with it. This can be easily resolved, however: which church are you from and where is it located? – ClockworkSoul 16:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm a volunteer at this church-sponsored outreach center, but I'm not a member of the church or an administrator in the center. I'm just a volunteer who comes in every now and then. The church has all sorts of rules and regulations about running this center that are kept in a bookcase full of binders that I'm not privy to. I don't know if it's OK to reveal information about our center or the church on Misplaced Pages. I'm not trying to be difficult, I just want to respect the church's authority here and not get into trouble with the church or the center (which is why I tried to remove Centpacrr's abusive comments in the first place). I think you're right about this being a case of miscommunication. Centpacrr and Jamie both seemed to have a mindset that couldn't be changed, no matter what I said. And I certainly didn't understand the thing about the "fixed IP." (I still don't.) The notice about the IP address that Jamie put on the page seems OK - it seems like some sort of standardized notice. The one by Centpacrr was downright abusive. The block really threw me for a loop, though, and I still don't understand it. I still think an apology from both of those people is in order because they didn't even try to understand the situation. 64.252.140.128 (talk) 16:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused. As far as I can tell, the IP has never edited any church page - can you tell us what page it is that you were editing? --Smashville 16:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The dispute started when the person who was assigned to the IP at the time put up a notice saying that the IP was registered to a single organization. Centpacrr removed the notice as the WHOIS record made it clear that the IP was from a pool and not registered to an "organization." The user would not accept this explanation and became disruptive (attempting to assert false ownership over the talk page, leading to a temporary block on that IP. OhNoitsJamie 16:41, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Jamie, did you consider the possibility that the person you were talking to didn't understand the explanation you were giving them?Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• My take is that this was an absolutely pointless edit war over a tag on a talk page. I don't see a right and and a wrong here. However, the folks at the church do need to understand that they are in an ip pool, they might get messages or be blocked because of something someone else using one of the same ips did, and they do not own and cannot lay claim to the addresses or talk pages. That being said I'm still looking for the vandalism that led to the block in the history of these two ips. Where is it exactly? Beeblebrox (talk) 16:49, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

They still don't understand it, so I give up. OhNoitsJamie 16:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Jamie blocked them for 'edit warring' over the page template. I think he's right, they still don't understand.Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

As we all know, the only exception to WP:EDITWAR is the reversion of vandalism. WHOIS and ISP tags are not al listed exception to WP:BLANKING. As this was an edit war I don't see why both users weren't blocked. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:04, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I think because Centerparc was removing the tag as incorrect, not re-adding it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:10, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

This is the diff that caused the problem. While I can't see what's wrong with the edit (it just seems to exchange two paras), Centerparcc was convinced it was a sock of User:Filmcracker. He must have put a notice on the talkpage, because the next edit is the church volunteer trying to add an organisation template to the page . After that it was all downhill - Centerparc thinks he's dealing with an obnoxious sock, Jamie thinks he's dealing with an edit warrior sock, and the church volunteer can't work out what's happening, unwisely keeps going, and gets blocked for two weeks.Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:03, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think that explains it well. (Except that Centpacrr didn't put a standardized notice on the page, he repeatedly put his own: "This IP resolves as being a Dynamic IP registered to SBC Internet Services in New Britain, CT, not a static IP registered to an organization. DO NOT place a false tag on this page identifying it as belonging to an unspecified organization. There is no proof whatosever that this is true. The ONLY edits on Misplaced Pages made from this IP were made by otherwise blocked multiple sock puppet user. Unless you can IDENTIFY AND PROVE what "organization" you claim to be, this will be reported to AN.") 64.252.140.128 (talk) 17:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Seems like it. I suppose that leaves everyone with the question of "what now, and where do we go from here?" Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

• A two week block for a first-time edit warrior, where the more experienced User:Centpacrr who behaved at least as badly, gets away scot free, and the ip is left a very generic block message that does not clearly explain why they were blocked. Nobody acted particularly well in this incident. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

  I see no evidence of the OP doing anything that can't be explained by confusion and/or exasperation (@64.252.140.12 - OP stands for "original poster", in this case you), and no attempt seems to have been made to alleviate this. The experienced editors should have known better than to assume bad faith. I don't think the OP was at fault in any way, and that a simple apology isn't too much to ask for. – ClockworkSoul 17:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

  If the experienced editors had evidence/were convinced they were dealing with a sock, should they be WP:AGF? I am not sure what they were basing their "sock" conclusions on. Active Banana ( bananaphone 18:04, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

0.159 made only one edit that led to the sock accusation. The edit does not appear to be vandalism so I don't know what prompted the allegation. I presume Centpacrr was being beset by Filmcracker, so just assumed the next edit was a sock of his. Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I can speak from experience that this is an easy mistake to make. Nonetheless, the core of our assume good faith policy is to ensure that due diligence be taken before such accusations are made, and hopefully dampen the very human tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. – ClockworkSoul 18:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The user that started this thread, 64.252.140.128, is an IP sockpuppet of a known Long-term Abuser, wikistalker, and disruptive editor who was banned from editing by the community as Techwriter2B for his/her misconduct on Misplaced Pages going back more than three years. He/she has been stalking me personally since early May. He/she also DID NOT advise me of the existance of this thread which is another violation of WP policy. Centpacrr (talk) 19:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Slow down there, Centpacrr. Let's take a step back and assume for a moment that 64.252 really is an innocent bystander caught in anti-vandalism crossfire. Would you expect them to know the intricacies of WP policies and procedures? Also, I'm not certain, but I think this practice is just good etiquette. Please correct me if I'm wrong. – ClockworkSoul 19:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Promotional editing for US government agency

User Wikiproject1400 (talk · contribs) appears to be editing solely to promoting the US Agricultural Research Service. This editor's initial edits were mostly additions of links to ARS education pages and press releases , but after being warned about the WP promotional link policy the editor switched to adding full prose to the article body . A few of these additions seem reasonable to me, but the informational value of many of them is questionable, and most appear to have been for the sole purpose of adding links to ARS press releases. I posted a caution to the editor's talk page , but given the likelihood that this is self-promotion by a governmental agency, I thought it might be wise to raise the issue here. – ClockworkSoul 16:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I checked the more recent diffs, and they don't seem to be overly promotional. I don't think there is any need for admin action at this time. As long as they are not misrepresenting the information in their sources there certainly isn't any need for a block or anything like that. If you see such problems developing you might want to post at WP:COIN. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that there's nothing actionable at this time (I wasn't looking for anything like that), but it seems to me like something worth keeping an eye on. – ClockworkSoul 17:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I think this is one of those cases where there might very likely be COI involved (extremely probably at least), but the COI in question is actually improving the project. Thus, I don't think this is a major problem. Even if it is adding only info found by the ARS, it is legitimate info and seems extremely helpful and useful for the articles themselves. Silverseren 18:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the project is being improved: many of the additions describe research that's very preliminary and/or trivial, such that it's difficult to justify its inclusion in a general interest article on a subject. – ClockworkSoul 18:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Slippery slope - WP policy is that any "paid editing" is to be strongly discouraged. Were we to say "well, the US government is exempt" where will the final line get drawn? In the past, edits from government workers have been found to be intrinsically COI. I suggest the existing policy has not been altered on this. Next we may have Saudi government employees, or Russian employees, or others editing on what they have issued press releases on. WP is not an agency of the US, and must, perforce, avoid any perception otherwise. Collect (talk) 19:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Possible COI editor? Making personal attacks.

Yesterday I sent the Michael W. Dean article to AfD, after which the person who started the article posted complaints at the AfD that the article had already been through AfD multiple times (it had been through once and been deleted as a vanity piece as a result ). On a hunch, I began looking at the edit history of this account and noted that many of the account's edits were to this same article as well as other articles related to this Michael Dean person. For example, the account also created $30 Film School and Bomb_(band), both apparently non-notable topics I have also AfDed. The account also has a history of adding spam links to articles unrelated to this guy but which link to Dean's homepage , , , , and to his blog , . Her first note to the AfD denigrated me as a "youngin", implied that since the article existed here before I opened my account that I didn't know what I was doing, and posted a screed about the "failure of Misplaced Pages". Today, the author of the articles I sent to AfD has acknowledged that she assumes bad faith of me, says I'm "destroying her work", claims I'm biased (mentions an article I improved with references and voted to keep), accuses me of drunkenness and lack of judgement, and finally compares my sending of her articles to AfD to the controversial Arizona immigration law. I left a note at her talk page about making personal attacks. Other edits made by this account have been to topics apparently related to Michael Dean, such as Open carry in the united states (Dean has pictures all over his website of himself open carrying a gun in stores and elsewhere) and to some other gun-related articles. The author's unique interest in this Dean person and a number of things directly or indirectly related to him makes me suspect that this account may actually be closely related to the subject, perhaps even the subject himself or his wife. I've also noted that the account has made no effort to vote KEEP in any of the AfDs or provide any third-party referencing to establish notability, implying to me that these topics are actually not notable. In any case, I will be away from the computer for part of the day so I will be unable to respond to any further queries for a few hours. Kindzmarauli (talk) 18:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Just an observation for right now, but it seems like a rather significant case of article ownership to me, to the point of launching attacks at others. The warnings are certainly substantiated; I'd wait and see how this develops more before recommending any blocks be made. –MuZemike 18:22, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

User:A3RO

A3RO (talk · contribs) who was a user trusted enough to be granted reviewing and rollback privileges has recently started trolling at RFA — see here, here, here (oppose #3 and here; his talk page's edit notice looks like this —.
I think he should be blocked for disruptive editing. Salvio 19:30, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree; it's clear that he's not taking the project seriously, in fact it appears that in most of the cases you've linked to, he has simply been trolling, opposing just to be contrary, producing provocative responses to queries, and generally attempting to hinder the process. I think a short block is in order. GiftigerWunsch 19:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Here's a few examples of the problem behavior (all from the past month):

Incivility:

, , , , ,

Trolling:

, ,

Disruption of RFA:

, ,

This is unacceptable editing behavior. I support an indefinite block for this disruption.--William S. Saturn (talk) 19:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

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