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• Refining the administrator elections process
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Terra Novus

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.

Terra Novus topic banned. Further discussion should take place in a new thread. --Dougweller (talk) 19:11, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

{{resolved| See Topicban section --Dougweller (talk) 19:13, 28 December 2010 (UTC) Terra Novus is a creationist editor who has been topic banned form broadly defined "Young Earth Creationism topic ban" Terra Novus has recently created an WP:SYNTH/WP:NOR article called Interpretive science where the entire thesis is

"Though it (Interpretive science) originated in the field of Sociology, applications in the natural sciences can yield insight into the process of forming a scientific theory, and some of the fallacies that persist in consensus ideas. Interpretive science calls into question the ability of an individual to accurately assess all of the data that is processed, without first making a value judgement."

This pretty obviously once you see the context of his past editing in creationism its a pretty meant to be a round about attack on "Normal Scientific consensus of a 4.3 billion year earth."

Given his past ANI visits in topic area after a and misuse of retirement and Clean start. We need to have another talk The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 00:26, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

You have provided absolutely no connection with how Interpretive science is related to my Young Earth Creationism topic ban. When it comes to the WP:SYNTH issue with the above article I have actively requested and approved the proposals for merging and removing the problematic content. I believe that my recent editing history will show that I have complied with the topic ban while focusing my contributions on editing and improving the article in question.--Novus Orator 00:36, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

indeed even more explicit evidence of the article purpose from the FAQ on the talk page "Yes, Interpretive Science is the study of how preexisting philosophy influences the development of certain scientific models to the exclusion of alternatives." The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 00:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Let me add wikilinks to the statement to make it more clear what i am reading " "Yes, Interpretive Science is the study of how preexisting philosophy influences the development of certain scientific models to the exclusion of alternatives." The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 01:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I am afraid that you are extrapolating without sufficient data.--Novus Orator 02:35, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I am also surprised that ResidentAnthropologist instantly elevated this conflict to an ANI without going through the proper dispute resolution process. Perhaps his edit history would yield some insight into this odd behavior...--Novus Orator

This is not content issue its a violation of your topic ban. Please Specify an accusation rather than make vague statements The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 00:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

My original question remains unanswered.--Novus Orator 02:35, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Issues with Terra

(ec-od) I am not aware that a formal topic ban was ever enacted. There have been various agreements, all of which Terra Novus has not really adhered to. The discussion of the article Interpretive science started on WP:FTN; at present Terra Novus is disrupting the merge/deletion discussion on the talk page of that article. He is equally well being disruptive by not recognizing criticisms from multiple editors. Personalizing this as a dispute with ResidentAnthroplogist is a completely unhelpful strategy and just more disruption. There are several other issues. He declared himself a co-organiser of WP:WikiProject Cryptozoology. when he made a WP:CLEANSTART. Just recently he has been active with that WikiProject. And he has made several abortive attempts at starting Wikiproject Jupiter. He himself does not seem to have edited any articles related to Jupiter, so the many structures he has put in place for Taskforce Jupiter are perplexing. Mathsci (talk) 01:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I concur. I read the archived material, and I noted several supports for a topic ban, but no formal discussion of one was started (e.g., under that heading), nor did any administrator conclude that a topic ban proposal had reached consensus. Jclemens (talk) 01:04, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

He does not seem to have disengaged from the article Cryptozoology as this edit in support of an edit-warring IP shows . The IP 68.224.206.14 (talk · contribs) has broken 3RR on the article and the normal reaction would be a request for semiprotection and/or a report at WP:AN3. Instead he requested Dougweller to impose a sanctions template. Mathsci (talk) 01:18, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

In support? No, I merely requested that all of the editors involved seek a more collaborative solution.--Novus Orator 02:40, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Somewhat predictably, as on each other occasion when he's caused disruption, he has now diseppeared for a while, hoping that matters will settle. This is the fourth time this has happened. Isn't it time to say "enough is enough"? Mathsci (talk) 07:45, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Disappeared? I am right here if anyone wants to comment.--Novus Orator 02:40, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed that is frustrating, on a side note I have a hard time seeing how Speedy deletion under Blatant Hoax should not be used on Interpretive science. It seems pretty clear with the from my interpretation of his FAQ that its merely that... a WP:SYNTH Hoax to push a POV The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 15:35, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps because you have still not provided evidence for the original reason of this ANI.--Novus Orator 02:40, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

After an absence from the discussion, I looked into things again when I bumped into Terra Novus on other science-related pages, including Climate Change Denial. I had quite a history with his editing a few months ago (under User:Gniniv), but specifically chose not to participate in the ANI threads under this new account name. Having looked at the archives, particularly the one Jclemens alludes to, I've seen several instances where either a topic ban or outright block reached near-unanimous support, but nothing was enacted. Is there a reason for that which I've been unable to track down?

As I've mentioned before, I have no issues with the idea of Terra working collaboratively, or having a 2nd chance, but I've become fully convinced that's not possible after he blew through his 10th+ chance some time ago. Unfortunately, it is still the case that the overwhelming majority of his edits to mainspace are reverted for POV issues, and he seems to be increasingly encroaching on his self sanction by creating YEC wikiprojects and contributing to physics and pseudoscience articles. These issues have been going on for 7 1/2 months, and the only dent in WP I see that he's made is to frustrate and waste the time of other respectable editors. One of the reasons I took a wikibreak some months ago was due to frustration stemming from this issue. From the responses of other editors I've seen, I'm undoubtedly not alone. Is it appropriate that we lose editor time, or editors all-together, in order to salvage some hope Terra will finally turn around and work constructively despite mountains of evidence to the contrary? I know we all want to assume good faith - I did it working with him every day for months - but good faith or not I'm having a hard time finding value in this user's history.

This discussion is fully warranted, and I think it's about time we act on what appears to be consensus support. Jess_talk|_edits 20:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The above assessment seems reasonable. Terra Novus has been given umpteen second chances but despite that has shown little sign of changing his attitude to the project. He appears to be somebody not cut out for editing wikipedia. Mathsci (talk) 21:09, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Note that the problematic article he created, Interpretive science, is being discussed here, on WP:FTN, at its own AfD and at a merge discussion on its own talk page. I'm not sure that spreading round like discussions in this way was the best procedure. Mathsci (talk) 07:31, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Topic Ban

After the above discussion and past discussions on Giniv/Terra Novus and any future identities from editing articles or participating in discussions involving the topic of Creationism or Pseudoscience broadly defined.

• Support as proposer The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:11, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Unfortunately I think an indefinite community ban is more appropriate, considering his conduct and past attempts to impose topic bans of this kind. There seem to be hardly any redeeming features in his editing. Mathsci (talk) 21:17, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I dont blame you an indefinite community ban is jumping the gun. We have never formally given out a topic ban as the ANI threads have shown. Lets give him WP:ROPE, I hate to say but I think he will hang himself with the rope. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:26, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Requests of this type have been started before, as Jclemens correctly commented. If anybody can point to a body of useful edits, that might be helpful. Mathsci (talk) 21:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Thats why the community imposed ban rather than one he agrees to. bottom line he break the one we are imposing right now we will adress the next step.
• Support and Comment I think his long history of self-imposing topic bans and breaking them makes a strong case against another one being effective. I also think his history of editing other topics to include wording which relates to, but doesn't directly involve, creationism or pseudoscience makes the case for casting a wider net than those two topics alone. Therefore, I (very unfortunately) think a community ban is preferable to wasting more editor time reviewing contributions and inevitably discussing this again later. However, I would change my position if someone can find a string of useful edits he's made in the year he's been editing which we'd be remiss for losing. If they exist, I would encourage changing the topic ban to also include Science, generally. Jess_talk|_edits 21:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I thought of that but thats far too broad to be reasonable. His only issues in Science are when brings in Creationism or Pseudoscience into play... at least that I have observed The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 23:14, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
• Support expanded topic ban per Jess, at least. If a formally imposed ban is ineffective, as seems very possible, then a community ban would be appropriate to consider. This needs to be truly his or her last chance to contribute productively, though. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
• Support the original proposal, with a caveat that if Terra Novus is unable to abide by the topic ban and contribute to other areas of the encyclopedia, any further disruption will result in a full community ban. —Torchiest /_edits 22:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
• Support I thought I was abiding by a topic ban on the above subject already. I am surprised that Interpretive science is considered to be under that umbrella, but I will stop contributing to this area of Misplaced Pages if my behavior is viewed as disruptive. Taskforce Jupiter keeps me pretty busy anyways. I would leave with the note that perhaps some of the editors involved in this ANI are going on a wild goose chase without substance.--Novus Orator 02:31, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
  •  Note: since Terra Novus has added support for the ban would someone do the formality of offically closing this? As the last topic ban discussion went the archive with support but no formal topic ban was implementedThe Resident Anthropologist (talk) 15:23, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Query Can I close this although I've been involved in the past? Dougweller (talk) 13:25, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
      • I think so. (Note there is a duplicate earliet version in the archive, I'm not quite sure why.) Mathsci (talk) 13:47, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
        • I think so, Terra Novus added his support to his own topic ban so I dont think you could be grilled for being involved at this point The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 18:39, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Pmanderson and Byzantine names

• Could an admin willing to do so please review the above thread that was split to a subpage? It has received only a few comments over the past few days, likely due to a combination of the holiday season and being split off to a subpage (where the visibility is lower). Could I also suggest that when long threads that include some form of proposed sanction are split off, that the notice left here explicitly mentions that sanction (or that the urge to subpage is resisted), as it is important that threads like that get full visibility and are not just subpaged without ensuring that traffic to the thread does not drop off. If any admin feels that more discussion is needed before closing, then please unsubpage it. If anyone does review that subpage, could they leave a note here and on Pmanderson's talk page? Also, this subpage pointer will not archive before midnight on 31 December 2010 (I've used the process described at User:DoNotArchiveUntil), so hopefully someone will deal with this before then. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 17:17, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

If this is resolved as a sanction, I would appreciate a time limit on it, whether a month or a year; to do otherwise is an incentive to abuse. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:57, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

User:SqueakBox and paid editing (again)

Earlier this year, User:SqueakBox answered an advertisement on www.freelancer.com (advert & response) to create an article on an artist. The article was deemed non-notable and later deleted as an A7 speedy. There was an ANI thread on the matter at the time which can be seen here which was scathing of SqueakBox's activity.

Now, the same user has created Beber Silverstein Group in answer to an advert on the same website - advert & response. The article claims no real notability and was sourced to primary and non-RS sources and so I have redirected it back to the (possibly) notable owner.

Previously, SqueakBox said "I am happy to say I wont use this or other accounts to do work for payment now or in the future without being transparent about what I am doing." (here), which is clearly now a lie, because he's denied actually creating this article for money - see his responses at User_talk:SqueakBox#Beber_Silverstein_Group. Opening it up to the community - any action required? Black Kite (t) (c) 19:33, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

If he were being honest about it and following COI guidelines, I wouldn't think it is worth taking action. However, since he blatantly lied bout the clear evidence and demanded that the accusation be retracted, it seems that some sort of sanction is needed. I'm not sure exactly what would be effective,, but it should be more than a warning (or admonishment) and less than an indefnite siteban. Perhaps a community sanction prohibiting him from editing BLPs or articles related to corporations (broadly construed)? Also a restriction to one account seems prudent, though I do not believe he has socked. The Wordsmith 19:51, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

If it's generally agreed that User:SqueakBox (normally) contributes productively to the project, why beat around the bush and implement these sorts of topic bans? Why not simply bar him from editing the project for pay? jæs (talk) 21:30, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a big if; I've been unimpressed by my interactions with him. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:37, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I wouldn't say SqueakBox has a huge conflict of interest here, as he has no relation to the subject of the article; his main goal is to prevent it from getting deleted. I'd just say if any more articles that don't follow notability guidelines are created, just delete them. -download ׀ sign! 19:53, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Isn't that what we normally do to articles that are inherently not notable? In all honesty though, I think that he should be restricted from editing anything to do with paid editing and be restricted to one account (which is also something we kind of already do). I feel as though he should also alert us if he is approached to edit or create an article in a way that will involve reimbursement of some kind. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:01, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

BLPs and corporations are the most common types of paid articles. The Wordsmith 20:03, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

His conflict of interest is between his loyalty to Misplaced Pages and the $250 he seems to have been paid to write this article. $250 would be enough to pay my car insurance and gas for a month, so even if it wouldn't win out, even I would be tempted (and thus the interests would be conflicting). The Wordsmith 19:59, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I find the very concept of paid editing to be a bit of a terrifying Pandora's box, but the fact remains that the mere existence of a conflict ought not disqualify anyone from editing. If they can't balance that conflict and our policies and guidelines, then it becomes an issue requiring intervention. Does the repeated pattern of creating non-notable articles for pay qualify as such a problem? Seems so. jæs (talk) 20:11, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes - creating NN articles with useless sources (i.e. both the articles mentioned above) is a clear violation of COI - "A Misplaced Pages conflict of interest (COI) is an incompatibility between the aim of Misplaced Pages, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia, and the aims of an individual editor.". Black Kite (t) (c) 20:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Note here the contrast between Squeakbox's apparently successful $250 bid and the apparently-unsuccessful $250 from Sequoyah who made the contract explicitly conditional on the subject meeting WP:N and on declaring the contract at WP:COIN. I would have no objection at all the a contract like that which Sequoyah proposed, but am also unsurprised that Squeakbox's unconditional bid was preferred by the advertiser. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

This is not what I thought wikipedia was all about. I must say that I'm surprised and not a little disappointed that editors can be paid to write articles, of note or otherwise. Quite a business. Fred DeSoya (talk) 20:34, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, some people will do anything for a few dollars. Is that really the kind of editor we want on Misplaced Pages, knowing that future COI problems may not be as easily detected? Chester Markel (talk) 20:35, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem is not the money in itself; the problem is what Squeakbox did to try to get paid. The problems are that: a) Squeakbox suspended hir judgement on notability and primary sources used in the article zie created; and b) that Squeakbox did not declare the COI, which would have drawn the attention of other editors to scrutinise the article. If squeakbox had acted openly (by declaring the full terms of the contract) and had followed editing policies (by telling the client "sorry, I cannot find evidence that you meet WP:N"), then there would be nothing to discuss here. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:52, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Squeakbox's disruptive behavior is seeking financial compensation without any moral scruples. This suggests that the community cannot trust the user in the future. Chester Markel (talk) 21:02, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the problem is that Squeakbox ripped off his client by writing a crappy article. Beber Silverstein is notable. If Squeakbox had made any effort to create a good article that met Misplaced Pages standards, there wouldn't have been a problem. I don't know who the A7'd artist is. THF (talk) 21:48, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

"It's is a women owned Florida Certified Minority Business Enterprise,..." Ouch! I'd be pissed if I paid for that: he should have at least mentioned that it was notable for its time as a business owned by women, which is in the NYT reference. Since he is so open about who he is on the pay-for-edit site, and seeing the reaction from other WIkipedians generated by his writing-for hire projects, I would think that others would be less likely to hire him for this sort of thing in the future. You don't get the "bang for your buck", and others will seek reasons to delete it anyway. Caveat emptor Doc talk 22:21, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposed solution: three month block

A three month involuntary wikibreak may be sufficient to convince SqueakBox not to violate WP:COI and lie to us about it again. This certainly isn't the first time SqueakBox has caused trouble on Misplaced Pages. Chester Markel (talk) 20:20, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this is necessary; this would be very punitive and SqueakBox is known to be a solid content contributor elsewhere. See above for my proposal of an editing restriction preventing him from writing articles on living people or companies, which account for nearly all paid editing. The Wordsmith 21:13, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Support a lengthy block; I'd prefer one month, but would oppose anything less than that. Squeakbox has clearly breached COI, twice, despite a promise not to do so again after the first time, and has also lied about the second instance when specifically challenged on it. A month is long enough for Squeakbox to reflect on the nature of trust and the fragility of reputation, and to figure out to apologise to his client for making a fool of her.

I am aware that SqueakBox has made many other good contribs, so despite the seriousnes of this abuse I would have supported a warning if it wasn't for the lie. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:02, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I think perhaps a restriction on writing articles on "living people or organisations, or any edits for which SqueakBox has or has agreed to accept payment (or payment in kind) for". Reword as appropriate, IANAL. That way, it also covers any edits which aren't BLP or ORG-related, but which are still discovered as 'paid'. At present I don't have an opinion about blocks. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 23:18, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I support that restriction, and the wording looks fine by me. As above, I'd like to see a block as well. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:01, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I Support any restriction, the stronger the better, as I've always found him ... difficult. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Poll

Proposed restrictions

"SqueakBox is banned for an indefinite period from editing articles about living people or organisations, or any articles where there is a reasonable suspicion that SqueakBox has or has agreed to accept payment (or payment in kind) in exchange for editing. If an editor has concerns that this restriction has been broken, further sanctions, including a block, may be administered after a discussion at an appropriate noticeboard." - Sound good? No blocks just yet, but this is a good starting point. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 01:50, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Why put up with this at all? Permaban, and revert everything in sight that could possibly be affected by such COI. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 03:18, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Permaban on what grounds? He'll just make another account, and we'd lose someone who's otherwise a good editor. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 03:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Permaban on grounds of spamming and falsifying sources, with reasonable openness towards unbanning on appeal after 6 months (or 3 if you must) on the usual sorts of terms. 3 months and automatic unblock doesn't seem like enough. I don't see likely heavy COI in SqueakBox's top 35 edited articles by edit count: Cannabis (drug): 507 edits, Javier Solana: 480, Rastafari movement: 479, Honduras: 268, Pedophile movement: 253, Haile Selassie I: 240, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero: 188, Bob Marley: 168, Spanish language: 157, Fidel Castro: 140, List of Internet television providers: 139, 420 (cannabis culture): 134, Giovanni Di Stefano (businessman): 119, Manuel Zelaya: 116, Jimmy Wales: 108, Child pornography: 107, Ted Kaczynski: 106, Gary Glitter: 97, Pedophilia: 89, List of European television stations: 89, Deaths in 2008: 85, Augusto Pinochet: 84, Deaths in 2007: 82, Tony Blair: 80, La Ceiba: 73, Video clip: 73, Crack cocaine: 72, Hashish: 72, Child sexual abuse: 70, Hippie: 69, Saddam Hussein: 67, North American Man/Boy Love Association: 64, Cannabis smoking: 63, IP address: 63, Efraín Ríos Montt: 62. On the other hand they don't seem like really tasteful choices, and it continues in about the same way. "There's no point banning that person since s/he'll just sock anyway" is usually a really bad reason to not ban someone. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 06:24, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Support. Though given his previous deception, if he's determined to carry on his paid editing antics I suppose he could sock round the restriction as well. Still, it's a start. Black Kite (t) (c) 04:33, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Support Something needs to be done about this since nothing has changed since I first brought this issue up over half a year ago. I've uncovered several of these paid editing articles that have bit the dust through AfD and SqueakBox has always assured me that he would be more open about this pratice in the future. He has not been open about it, calling the suggestion that he wrote his latest piece a "rash lie" despite being totally open about his connection to the SqueakBox account on freelancer.com. This would be a feasible solution to this ethically problematic practice. ThemFromSpace 13:21, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

We should of course establish that the Freelancer account is not lying about being SqueakBox. Rich Farmbrough, 18:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC).

It isn't - SqueakBox admitted that the same account was him during the previous ANI (see link in my first post). Black Kite (t) (c) 19:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I also can't find any link which conforms this that squeakbox was the owner of the please-make-fake-sources account. It's kinda crucial, so please can you re-post the evidence? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

For background info, this particular incident was regarding the J-sKy article and was discussed on ANI here. I don't think SqueakBox was related to this case, although my memory might not be serving me correctly. ThemFromSpace 18:45, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

OK. Here's the link: squeakbox confirms that zie did bid on the fake-sources job, but says zie withdrew the bid. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Other articles

THF above is right - the two previous articles created early this year were fairly obviously non-notable at the time, which was bad enough, but this is almost worse - if this company is notable then he's clearly just tossing out any old crap in a few minutes to earn his cash. I looked at what he's created since March, and it includes Global listings (deleted as an A7), Diamond Ranch Academy (looks possibly notable), Pressure (reggae musician) (one line BLP stub with one source), and Alacan (probably notable). I have no idea whether any of these were paid for (and asking SqueakBox is pointless if he lied about the last one) but it does seem like an odd range of interests. Black Kite (t) (c) 00:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I can't speak for the others, but Reggae music is within Squeakbox's previous interests.   Will Beback  talk  02:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Solicitation of fake sources

Before we close this, we should take note of the fact that the last time SqueakBox created an article for money () he went to that freelancer site asking someone to create fake sources he could use in the article. Here is the AN/I thread on the subject, and here is the request he made for the fake sources, mentioning that he is writing an "artist biography". This is the bid he placed to write the Zampedroni article, which was accepted. So, to recap:
1. A little less than a year ago SqueakBox creates an article on a non-notable Italian artist for pay.
2. On 23 March 2010, in and effort to have the article kept, he openly solicits "fake sources" for the article on freelancer.com.
3. On 25 March, he promises never to create another article for pay without being completely transparent about what he's doing.
4. On 21 July, an AN/I thread appears when someone notices his solicitation of fake sources, a thread to which SqueakBox never sees fit to respond.
5. On 3 November he creates another paid article, violating his previous pledge.
6. On 20 December he is confronted about this on his talk page. His response? "Stop talking rubbish." When shown detailed evidence, he replies "that is complete rubbish and I advise you to withdraw your rash lie. I havent received a penny for doing that article or any edits in connection with this subject." All clearly false statements. Although he continues to edit, SqueakBox has not seen fit to reply further, either at his talk page or on this thread. Apparently he thinks if he just keeps quiet it will all blow over like it did before.
I will also note that SqueakBox accepted at least one other project on freelancer.com, the nature of which is not available to non-logged in users.
Conclusion: Nothing that SqueakBox says or does can be taken on trust. He should be banned. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 03:35, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• I see no insuperable reason against honest paid editing, or honest declared COI editing of any other sort: COI is inevitable, for few people would work on a subject they did not care about. The COI from payment is no worse than the multiple other forms of coi that are in escapable at Misplaced Pages, and is, arguably, not as disruptive as some sorts of ideological commitment. Since we cannot avoid it, better declared than undeclared, for it can be judged more visibly and openly. I think we have a right and a responsibility to insist upon such disclosure . I think that those who knowingly & repeatedly introduce bad articles for any reason need to be prevented from continuing, and have therefore agree with the earlier suggestion for a block; though there have been many blocks for edit warring, the earlier ones were for other matters, and there have been none since 2008. therefore, a month seems appropriate. I suggest that any attempt to evade this, or to again construct equally poor articles, will be met by a discussion about a permanent ban. Additionally, any further article writing for pay must be declared; if there is evidence otherwise, we should similarly proceed to a permanent ban. The only reason I do not do the block immediately, is that this discussion has lasted for only a few hours, and at the end of a major holiday weekend; there is a tendency here at AN/I to be over-precipitate; in the absence of major harm, we need some time for consideration . For fairness, we also need some time for a response. DGG ( talk ) 05:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • We are talking about flat-out spamming. There's a big progression between "I get paid to work with computers, and sometimes edit computer-related articles (e.g. about algorithm theory)" (not much of a COI), through "I sometimes edit about products that I have used at work" (arguable COI), to "I write advocacy/spam promoting the products of the company where I work" (seriously bad COI). 67.117.130.143 (talk) 05:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
    • i think the creation of fake newspapers and other fakedsources is as erious issues. i have seen many articles in my area of expersietise (science and medicine and health) where a "source" was a link to someones blog or to a Google search of random terms; i think that this is a serious issue which is being ignored in favor of teh sexier and more effervescent paid editing issue. are you allowed to solicit someone to create fake sources for you to cite, regardles of whether or not you are a paid editor or not? User:Smith Jones 05:53, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, obviously this is the real issue here, the open solicitation of fake sources and bald-faced mendacity about editing for pay after promising not to without full disclosure. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 06:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Thanks for explicitly noting this, Steven J. Anderson. Writing poorly sourced articles for financial gain is a problem; soliciting fraud to accomplish it is a problem of a different magnitude. I agree with DGG above both that some action should be taken and that we need due time to consider that action, the end goal of which should be both to prevent further misuse of Misplaced Pages and to impress upon the contributor the need to adjust his approach to the project. This can't continue. Deliberately attempting to insert fraudulent sources into the project undermines everything we stand for in the worst possible way. It is about as explicit a demonstration of "bad faith" as I can imagine. :/ --Moonriddengirl 12:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
• Banning isn't yet the answer since he still makes constructive contributions when acting as a volunteer. The articles he hasn't been paid to write are generally of high quality, as are his non-COI contributions. I think the proposal above by Moonriddengirl is good first step. Of course if he violates this things may escalate, but we shouldn't go this far this soon. ThemFromSpace 13:25, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Do we really know that "The articles he hasn't been paid to write are generally of high quality, as are his non-COI contributions"? In the absence of auditing every assertion and claim in SqueakBox's edits to ensure that the sources they purport to cite are legitimate, and fairly represented, a definitive assessment of his contributions would be quite difficult. While such matters are usually taken on faith, the assumption no longer applies when refuted by definitive evidence of malice. SqueakBox has shown himself to be a thoroughly dishonest and unscrupulous editor who would violate WP:COI, solicit fake sources for sneaky vandalism, and who knows what else, all for a few dollars. The only appropriate response to such an immoral user is to be rid of them. Chester Markel (talk) 14:20, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Why not take a look for yourself? His account has been registered on wikipedia for five and a half years. He has about 53,000 non-deleted edits of which 28,000 are to articles. Mathsci (talk) 14:43, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Because I would be looking for a needle in a haystack. I assume that he wouldn't have gotten away with editing for this long if he routinely misrepresented or faked sources. If any fraudulent sourcing occurred, it would have been camouflaged within legitimate edits, much like he hoped to conceal his WP:COI violations. SqueakBox knows full well that we can't audit everything he's contributed. Chester Markel (talk) 14:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I will say something heretical, but I think if it is a needle, then it is not such a big drama. It's not like the rest of Misplaced Pages is perfectly sourced or something. - BorisG (talk) 16:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I've looked at maybe 100 diffs by now, mostly in icky subjects (checking out a socking theory that didn't hold up). I see some mildly tendentious editing in distasteful subjects, some random gnoming (not always well-considered, e.g. bypasses a redirect but slightly changes the connotation of the source), some reasonable vandalism reversion, occasional addition of sourced info (TMI?), some well-meaning but clumsy removals, etc. All of his editing is in a somewhat inarticulate style (non-native English speaker? Spanish-language ref added: ). I haven't seen anything I'd consider to be a substantial contribution of quality content, but there's an awful lot of edits that I haven't looked at. I agree with Chester Merkel that evaluating a history this large is quite difficult. But my basic impression is we're dealing with (among other things) someone with a borderline WP:COMPETENCE problem everywhere he edits. Turning Misplaced Pages into a work-at-home scam for editors of this sort is the last thing we want. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 16:33, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Do we really know that "The articles he hasn't been paid to write are generally of high quality, as are his non-COI contributions"? I've edited around him for years, and I would disagree with that premise; he is a tendentious and contentious editor. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:51, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so maybe his edit history is more spotty than I first thought. Should anything be done about this? I for one still support moonriddengirl's proposal above. I think it's a good first step, although others may think its too lenient. ThemFromSpace 17:59, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not really qualified to answer that: Wiki seems to have an unhelpfully high tolerance for disruptive editors along with a tendency to indef the wrong editors, and our standards for indeffing, blocking and banning are increasingly unclear to me. I'm just adding background for others to decide how to handle the current dilemma. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comment My path has crossed SqueakBox's from time to time over the years, & while I wouldn't say I'm a friend of his -- just look at our interaction at Talk:Shashamane, which led me to take this article off my watch list (although I try to monitor all Ethiopia-related articles) & ignore any problems it might have -- I find his latest emphasis of activities not only troubling, but bewildering. SqueakBox is a self-described white Rastafarian, whose previous mentions on WP:AN/I involved his crusade against pedophiles/child molesters -- not the profile of someone I'd expect to decide one day to use his Misplaced Pages account to make money writing crappy articles. It would be just like, if I may make the analogy, finding THF brought before WP:AN/I for being paid to write deletion-fodder articles on Marijuana-related topics (e.g., "Joe Blow is an influential political consultant who was responsible for successful ballot referenda legalizing marijuana in 37 states.") IMHO, SqueakBox's recent freelancing is a cynical act to make some money from Misplaced Pages -- a symptom of WikiBurnout. And if I am correct about this, there really isn't anything we can do about him other than to indefinitely block him; he doesn't want to play nice with others here any more. But before we seriously consider this, I'd like to give him a chance to tell his side of the story; I've been known to make mistakes, but I don't want banning someone from Misplaced Pages to be one of them. -- llywrch (talk) 16:37, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

actually I had the same speculation about motivation as you, and for the same reasons. and, like you, I do not want to do an indefinite ban on speculation. Even if we are right, people have burnout, stay away a while ,either voluntarily or because we enforce it, and some return and do OK after the break. DGG ( talk ) 18:00, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Apart from very strange defence of Giovanni Di Stefano on the article's talk page - and this perhaps illustrates one of the downsides of paid editing, one naturally wonders if the defence was paid for - I remember SqueakBox as a positive contributor. Paid editing, as I have commented before, is far from the worst form of COI, and the comment that we should somehow be concerned from his customers' perspective if he produced sub-standard material is laughable. The only matters that need attention here are (minor) it would be good if paid contributors acknowledge their potential COI and (major) the request for fake sources - and unless these were actually used there is nothing we should be worrying about. Rich Farmbrough, 18:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC).

I'm not suggesting sanctions on Squeakbox based on "his customers' perspective." I'm pointing out that, even with a COI, nothing stopped Squeakbox from writing a decent article, and that had he done so, I don't think we would have anything to complain about, even if he never disclosed his payment: a gap in the encyclopedia would have been filled, and we'd all be better off. It's because Squeakbox wrote a bad stub that was indistinguishable from spam that there's now a lot of hullaballoo. (This is entirely separate from the new, and much more serious, allegation of attempting to falsify sources.) COI is only a reason to scrutinize edits closely for NPOV and new articles for N/V/RS. There's nothing inherently wrong with editing with a COI, or even an undisclosed COI, so long as the edits comply with Misplaced Pages policy--edits that don't comply with Misplaced Pages policy are problematic even when there is no COI. And if the consensus is otherwise, we need to modify what WP:COI says. THF (talk) 21:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

If we're doing speculation, I'll go for "economic necessity" rather than burnout. I can sympathize: the economy sucks, decent jobs are hard to find, and lots of people have to do what they can to make ends meet. For reasons similar to NOTTHERAPY, we should sympathize with anyone in such a plight, but at the same time we must not let them turn Misplaced Pages into a spam sewer that other people then have to clean up. Rich F: paid editing of the form "Professor So-and-So gets a grant to develop a series of FA's about astronomy or biology, announces it on wiki, and engages in discussion about what these articles should contain" is one thing; spammers should be banned. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 18:20, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Spamming is bad, however creating articles is not necessarily spamming. The subject may be notable but have insufficient wiki-clue to be able to create an article that lasts 5 minutes. If they pay for the article to be created, and we decide that it is notable then we have gained an article we otherwise wouldn't have. It needs, of course, to comply with VERIFIABLE, NPOV, COPYVIO etc. But this is true of any article. And indeed the discussion above shows a paid editor (or one who wanted to be) setting that out as a pre-condition of work - which is of course the ethical thing to do, as the community may (should) insist that that is the case. All Misplaced Pages articles are stuff "that other people have to clean up". Rich Farmbrough, 21:24, 27 December 2010 (UTC).

If he was doing this simply for the money, assuming good faith would lead me to expect SqueakBox to have written a far better article. He knows better than this. The article which triggered this latest thread was something any run-of-the-mill PR flack could have created -- which would have either been greatly rewritten or deleted, & the author banned from Misplaced Pages. And as The Wordsmith & others have pointed out, when this problem was brought to his attention his first response was to say "Stop talking rubbish" & demand the person retract "your rash lie"; it wasn't to come clean & discuss the matter constructively. One only acts like this if one doesn't give a fuck about Misplaced Pages -- which that is why I have suggested an indef block for SqueakBox. Because if he is that alienated from or disillusioned with Misplaced Pages, there is no imaginable editting restriction that will keep him from harming the project or wasting other editor's time. -- llywrch (talk) 23:25, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry if this has been addressed already, but how do we know Squeakbox wrote the fake sources post? SlimVirgin 17:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

  See here: squeakbox confirms that zie did bid on the fake-sources job, but says zie withdrew the bid. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:03, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

  thats fair then. if it wasn an honest mistake than it was an honest mistake. i see no reason to have him taken tou back and shot over this; the reason i reacted so vhemently aeanier was because i had noticed a spring of shoddy and obviously totted up or falsifeid sources in some of the articls I edited and I was concerned that certain editors might have been doing this on puprpose. it wasnt very likely but it was possible, and it wastes a lot of valuable time trying to read through sources again and again to make sure that they arent being misrepresented or faked. since squeakbox admitted his or her erroir, there is no problem between me nad him regarding this issue of paid fake sources. User:Smith Jones 21:01, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

  Okay, thanks. So if I've understood correctly SqueakBox wasn't sikkant, i.e. he did not write that. I'm glad, because that would have surprised me greatly. SlimVirgin 21:20, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Conservapedia copy and pasting

I have noticed over the past few months copy and pasting of text from Conservapedia. What seems to be happing is an editor is was editing Conservapedia articles in its American conservative Fundamentalist Christian point of view. Then simply pasting those edits here (copyvio?). Let me give you an example History of Newfoundland and Labrador (secure) and its counter part text from conservapedia (User:Rjensen) and User:RJJensen. Before i go on i am wondering if others see a problem here. Not sure what others think of Conservapedia, but its bias simply by its mandate. Moxy (talk) 23:16, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

• Personally, I don't care where it comes from, as long as it adheres to our guidelines and policies, especially NPOV and V. Of course, coming from Conservapedia, that's unlikely, but possible. Another question, which I'm not qualified to answer, is that of attribution: if it's wholesale copy/pasted from somewhere else, that may not be in accordance with our licensing policies. --Crusio (talk) 23:32, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

• Unless the source article was written entirely by the same person moving it over here, it is a copyvio and has to be removed. Prodego 23:35, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

• Per Prodego. I checked and there are a few names in the Conservapedia article edit history, and it is unlikely that such copy'n'pastes would therefore be the work of one individual. Per AGF, it may be that the copier, whether a substantive contributor to the Conservapedia article or not, is not familiar with the issues. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:48, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Question: how do you violate this copyright? BE——Critical_{__Talk} 23:58, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I think this has more to do with our licensing, which says that all writers must receive attribution. AniMate 00:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Unless the Conservapedia article is cited as the source, it is plagiarism: "...public domain content is plagiarized if used without acknowledging the source, even though there is no copyright issue". AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I see, thx BE——Critical_{__Talk} 01:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It says right there "This license is revocable". We can't use text under such a license on Misplaced Pages, so the only way we could use text from Conservapedia in Misplaced Pages is via a separate permission from the creator(s) of the material. — Gavia immer (talk) 00:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

So should someone revert this edits? The editors has been informed of this conversation, but continues editing.

Gava, that is somewhat cherry picked :) because it invokes a slightly more exclusive scenario (and entirely shoots itself in the foot with the wording). More importantly #3 invokes normal copyright which means we need to attribute source. However, given the idiotically bad wording of the license (it is stupid, and has been written by a grad law student without a doubt) we can't really make a solid judgement so I guess... kill it. --Errant 00:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

It is cherry-picking, and it's definitely a badly-written license, however noble the intent is - but the badly-written "this license is revocable" clause really does express a right to revoke the license. Even apart from the worries we would have about revocation of our own permission to use the material, we cannot redistribute material that might be subject to unilateral revocation of the permission to use it, because our own license conflicts with that clause. — Gavia immer (talk) 00:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

It's entirely unsurprising that CPs copyright policy is as contradictory and nonsensical as it's actual content, which we certainly do not want here. From their main page right now: "Barack Hussein Obama, the arrogant liberal elitist, may get off his high horse and mingle more with other US politicians in the near future" and the even more ignorant "Atlanta will see its "first white Christmas since the Chester Arthur administration" in 1882. Global warming???" Licensed properly or not, CP was not, is not, and in all likelihood never will be an appropriate source. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Just to confirm, on advice of counsel, we can't import content from Conservapedia. (I queried just to be sure in November, as I had frankly forgotten that we had prior conversations on the subject.) --Moonriddengirl 01:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a shame, we won't be able to have this gem of unbiased recording of just the hard facts. By the way, unicorns are real and you are all banned for five years for questioning anything CP does or says. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:07, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

AIR, Associate Counsel's reply also included a whiff of "And why would you want to?" about it. :) --Moonriddengirl 01:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

The big concern now is how many articles have been infected with this fantasy additions by this cross over editors from Conservapedia.Moxy (talk) 01:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages and Conservapedia have very different standards, and editors who contribute to both sites need to be very careful when editing Misplaced Pages, particularly regarding NPOV.   Will Beback  talk  01:25, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Completely unacceptable. I reverted it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 01:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Conservapedia has standards? There was something a few days ago about an SPA called "Scoobertjoo" who had copied-and-pasted a section from CP about the BC/BCE subject, complete with that site's spelling errors. I wonder if it's a group of users, or a single user? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

With 39,895 edits hope theres not to many more. Glad i am not a part of WP:USA looks like they have lots of clean up for there articles.Moxy (talk) 04:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• I really hope that RJensen's Misplaced Pages additions don't include gems like this Conservapedia "reversion of vandalism". I would be surprised if someone with views that wacky was able to edit Misplaced Pages neutrally (kudos to them if they have been, though). Black Kite (t) (c) 04:25, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • And the "vandal" was blocked afterward by RJJensen for five years!!!!! If blocking people for five years for little stuff like that is "Christian", then no peanut butter cookies for me tonight! :-( I guess they can be downright nasty sometimes. >:-( They really need a some whale-whacks for their behavior. >:-P 04:33, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
    • I actually looked through some of their other contribs but it started to scare me that someone educated could be so ignorant, so I stopped. I suppose I'm somewhat naive; over here in Europe we tend to only have a fraction of the number of right-wing fruitcakes that the US does. Black Kite (t) (c) 04:39, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
      • That looks familiar Ed  05:23, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

We should see if this problems are systemic. As i am the one that mentioned this user -I think its best a second part looks at the edits. Top 100 edits in the Mainspace namespace by Rjensen.Moxy (talk) 05:31, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

A quick look reveals that Rjensen is an established historian with conservative views, and a prolific Misplaced Pages contributer. As an example, he made many contribiutions to History of Scotland. History of Scotland at Conservapedia is entirely written by RJJensen but is very short. - BorisG (talk) 05:57, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I have come across Rjensen in many articles on U. S. politics and found his editing to be relatively neutral and he has always shown a willingness to discuss differences of opinion. I wish more editors were like that. The "History of Newfoundland" article in Conservapedia was substantially written by him and is informative and written in a neutral tone. The only issue for concern is copyright, which probably did not occur to him. TFD (talk) 06:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• As I said above, kudos to him if he has managed to resolve his obvious IRL biases with Misplaced Pages NPOV. If that's the case, we don't have a major issue here. Black Kite (t) (c) 06:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but that just isn't relevant. Regardless of the merits of the person who makes the copy and paste, there are still possibly issues of copyright, and definitely issues of plagiarism if the article has more than one author. There is also the more general issue of 'sourcing' from another Wiki. An editor writing an article on Misplaced Pages can be at least assumed (per WP:AGF) to have looked at the sources, but if something is copied wholesale, there is little reason to assume this will occur. For this reason alone, Conservapedia cannot be seen as WP:RS, and therefore cannot itself be used as a source. I'd also point out that Consevapedia may be using Misplaced Pages as a source, with the obvious hazards this implies. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has used Conservapedia as a source. If material is properly attributed to reliable sources, there is no way to check whether the author had actually read the source. - BorisG (talk) 06:34, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, sorry I was unclear there, there is obviously still a possible copyvio/plagiarism issue, I was referring more to the bias issue. Black Kite (t) (c) 07:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

The discussion is about my Wiki edits dealing with Newfoundland. I wrote those passages originally for Citizendium in March 2008. In summer 2009 I copied them over to Conservapedia (citing Citizendium on the Talk page http://conservapedia.com/Talk:Newfoundland) and added some new text. In 2010 I copied my own writing to Misplaced Pages. For the Citizendium history see http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Newfoundland_and_Labrador&limit=250&action=history For the Conservapedia history see In any case, I wrote the entire text myself under my name (RJensen, RJJensen, Richard Jensen). I also provided numerous specific footnotes and bibliographies to published books and articles for RS. There is no political POV in my Newfoundland material--it's straight political and economic history. Meanwhile, this month, I expanded the History of Newfoundland text with new material that was never on Conservapedia or Citizendium. Rjensen (talk) 13:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I just checked the Conservapedia history--I wrote every single word of the history section that got ported here (it was originally written by me at Citizendium). (that is, I did NOT carry over any text written by anyone else). see http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Newfoundland&action=history Rjensen (talk) 13:34, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

In that case - No objection from me. Good work, btw. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 15:33, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Good work?? Moxy (talk) 16:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

As has been noted, if the text is referenced and Neutral - yeah, good work. It seemed like the objection was to the source (Conservapedia), not the content - and that objection has been addressed, at least according to the diffs I'm reading here. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 18:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Lets be carefull here as to what we are saying. So you think its ok to add all the reverted text back? Is it ok for editors to do this - that is copy and past from many wikis to make articles if they are the original creator of the text. Moxy (talk) 19:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is. Due to the explanation above, I will restore it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 19:50, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Seb - We have identified the original author, who would retain copyright to the text in any case under any of the site licenses. They're the one who did the copying in here. If they do so, they have a complete right under their copyright on their work to submit it to WP under our CC licensing. Unless they sold or gave away the rights somewhere that has a more restrictive license, the situation as explained here is fine. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

With the spelling, format errors in citations and bibliographical notations, it should be clear that the editor has not copied from anyone else, since there are wholly made-up styles of referencing that are present, and probably do not exist in any other publication extant. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 20:46, 27 December 2010 (UTC) (excuse the snark).

Has this donation been verified? We need to confirm that RJensen there is RJensen here. An acknowledgment at the Conservapedia userpage by the logged-in Conservapedia account that the accounts belong to the same person ought to do it. --Moonriddengirl 01:22, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok then just needs a over all clean up and find sources for the huge amount of text added with no references (not a big deal as per Misplaced Pages:IMPERFECT nothing outrageous added dieing for references).Moxy (talk) 01:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

@MRG: I have little doubt that it's the same person. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't doubt it either. But if it's the same person, it should be little to no problem for him to verify that; we typically require verification. As WP:C says, "If the material, text or media, has been previously published and you wish to donate it to Misplaced Pages under appropriate license, you will need to verify copyright permission through one of our established procedures." In this case, the site can't be licensed, but he can easily enough verify that he is the copyright holder without even the need of going through OTRS. --Moonriddengirl 02:59, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Is he the copyright holder though? Even if he wrote it, by submitting it to Conservapedia, he may have handed over copyright to them? I can't say for sure (I'm no lawyer), but this may well be the case (it seems to be so with Misplaced Pages for example). AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:15, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

No; you maintain copyright to any content you add to Misplaced Pages. Quoting from the edit box license info - "You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL". That's a licensing agreement on your contribution, not in any way a copyright assignment. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:37, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Let me affirm that RJensen at Misplaced Pages = Richard Jensen at Citizendium = RJJensen at Conservapedia. it's me :) (as is clear from the user page at each encyclopedia). I wrote all of the text under discussion here and have the copyright; I made that acknowledgement at the time (17 June 2009) on the talk page of the Conservapedia article on Newfoundland. see Jensen statement of authorship June 17, 2009 Rjensen (talk) 03:49, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Could you just login to your Conservapedia account and add a note to your talk page indicating its you with perhaps a link to this page. See also Misplaced Pages:Donating copyrighted materials Moxy (talk) 06:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

At Citizendum, writers who contribute articles do not transfer or share their original copyright with them. TFD (talk) 17:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Outing by User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling

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.

LEAC indefinitely blocked, not permanent, but without expiration while the nuances of this are reviewed and a more final outcome resolved. Further discussion should take place in a new thread. unomi 10:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Is this outing of an WP editor, by User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling appropriate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.95.83.51 (talk) 16:12, 27 December 2010 (UTC) This template must be substituted.

Is there any evidence that this indeed LAEC's blog besides the self-assertion? NW (Talk) 16:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Links to it on his userpage (Blogger userbox), and in his conflict of interest notice. --208.95.83.51 (talk) 16:18, 27 December 2010 (UTC) This template must be substituted.

Ah, yes. That is true. On the other hand, he is "outing" three to five year old IP edits. I'll leave it up to the rest of you to determine whether or not that is sanctionable. NW (Talk) 16:35, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

It's also claimed in the blog post itself, so probably pretty certain. However, it's not done on Misplaced Pages. And, of course, this probably has drawn more attention to the blog post than it otherwise ever would have gotten. Ravensfire (talk) 18:08, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Does the policy Misplaced Pages:OUTING#Off-wiki_harassment apply here? "Harassment of other Wikipedians through the use of external links is considered equivalent to the posting of personal attacks on Misplaced Pages." 98.92.184.204 (talk) 18:57, 27 December 2010 (UTC) This template must be substituted.

Perhaps some admin would like to revert this thread, to reduce on-wiki outing? But it seems clear that a blog publicly claimed by User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling has attempted some major off-wiki harassment, and to quote policy, Misplaced Pages:OUTING#Off-wiki_harassment: "As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. Off-wiki privacy violations shall be dealt with particularly severely." betsythedevine (talk) 19:28, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I gather that the ALA leader in question owned up to the claims, so in essence she outed herself. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:34, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree, as hinted by Ravensfire, that the blog post is now getting a lot of attention it might not otherwise have gotten. And I agree, as stated by betsythedevine, that reducing this on-wiki outing (not by me but by an IP addy on his first edit ever) would be a great idea.

That said, I am in no way harassing an account that has not been used for about 2 1/2 years but for a single edit about 1/2 year ago. It has made only about 86 or so edits ever. Further, as NW said or as I inferred, is it even possible to out IP addys or to even care since they are years old?

In addition, even on the blog post itself, I admitted my one and only outing years ago was due to my inexperience: "I exposed her true identity on Misplaced Pages, something I learned later I should not have done...." There's no outing, neither will I be outing anyone now or in the future. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 19:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

is it even possible to out IP addys For what it's worth, WP:OUTING does not make a distinction between usernames and IP addresses, so I don't see why outing IP editors would be any more excusable. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 20:01, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Excuse is not the issue. The issue is IPs don't have identities. Is it possible to out IP addresses that have no identities to out? --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 20:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

If you don't feel its possible to link an IP address to an identity, then the entire premise of your blog post (that those IP addresses are an ALA employee) is nullified. You can't have it both ways. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.2.107.243 (talk) 20:08, 27 December 2010 (UTC) This template must be substituted.

Note well the person who first filed this complaint, the person who then added the off-wiki comment, and now this third person are all IP addresses, all making their first ever edits right here, all about me, and all seeking the same goal. Know that there has been a series of users who have created accounts solely to harass me and some have already been indefinitely blocked. Other editors harass me regularly as well. With 3 IPs making their first ever edits here as they did, consideration should be given to the possibility that Misplaced Pages is being used in a manner that violates Wiki policy and this outing claim may itself represent harassment. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 20:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

LAEC has shown a clear pattern of harassment and advocacy, both on-wiki and off. He always resorts to playing the victim card, lawyering policy, and/or manufacturing some ad hominem reason why it's not really his fault; I submit that none of these violations are helpful to Misplaced Pages or towards building a consensus-based encyclopedia. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 20:34, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Blaxthos is one of my harassers, and others have told him to stop it. He doesn't. The problems he raises here are not only untrue, but are irrelevant to the issue at hand or merely conclusory. And I am not "playing the victim card", the claim itself being a possible WP:AGF violation. After 3 IP addys have worked together to pursue this complaint, only then did I raise a concern. It is acceptable to advise the community of the history of various socks harassing me. They may not wish to be involved in such a case if indeed it is occurring again. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 20:43, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be an assertion here that this can't be outing if it's not against an active user; I don't see any support in policy or precedent for that assertion.

There seems to be a further assertion that outing a user in the real world as part of an external campaign shouldn't be an on-wiki violation, which seems to me to simply be ignorance of policy and its underlying goals and values, which are to protect Misplaced Pages contributors and encourage open discussion here.

There seems to be an additonal assertion that IPs cannot legitimately report abuse incidents and therefore some sort of untoward activity must be present in the complaint; I am somewhat suspicious of the IPs motivations, but what they have pointed out has been pointed out politely and with factual reference and seems legitimately to be a problem.

We have previously established policy extensively that Wikipedians using Misplaced Pages to fight external battles (WP:BATTLE) is an improper use of the encyclopedia and an abuse of the community. It appears that both the off-wiki harrassment and battle policies were violated here.

It would be legitimate to report such an identified COI to Arbcom for private review; it is not legitimate, under our policy, for a Wikipedian to do what LAEC has done elsewhere.

We have no control over Wikipedians' activities off-site. However, it is long established policy that we can take reasonable administrative, arbcom, or community action in response to off-wiki activity which specifically violates policy. Some off-wiki behavior is incompatible with ongoing on-wiki participation.

I am imposing an indefinite block on LAEC - not permanent, but without expiration while the nuances of this are reviewed and a more final outcome resolved. Any admin may overturn it based on your judgement or a community consensus. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I am concerned that we are now sanctioning LAEC for an incident that ocurred over two years ago. Are we sure that we are stopping disruption to the project going forward by this action? Has there been similar (or even dissimilar) disruption in the intervening period that indicates we must remove LAEC's editing privileges now? Would it not be less contentious to issue an only warning regarding such major violations in the future? I think a block is excessive and disallows LAEC from contributing to the discussion. (Disclaimer - I have suppressed the edit summary containing the outing content, and can only confirm that it was comprehensive.) LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:25, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

LAEC's blog post (still linked from OP) is from 7 days ago, so that is current. The recent FCC statement on Net Neutrality probably prompted this, and may serve as a disincentive for future edits related to that subject that might be contrary to LAEC's views. I think LAEC has a valid point that there is an undisclosed COI from those editors, but it's not like that doesn't happen anywhere else. Ravensfire (talk) 21:36, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

LAEC is an advocate. He operates a website and is quoted in newspapers advocating a position, and he also promotes that view here, using Misplaced Pages as his soapbox. In dealings with other editors he commonly fails to assume good faith and charges other users with hidden motives. Last month I began to prepare diffs to make a case for community sanction, but got distracted by the holidays and other projects. At a minimum, I believe LAEC should be topic banned from articles related to libraries and censorship, his primary areas of advocacy. However his behavioral problems are not limited to those topics and those are even more serious than his soapboxing.   Will Beback  talk  21:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Obviously, POV-pushing can be a problem. LAEC apparently does it openly. Can the same be said for the ALA folks? Or do they all hide behind random IP's? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:21, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict × ~400 billion)Alright, everyone, I am very familiar with the situation surrounding LAEC. Let me summarize:

• LAEC recently ran into trouble, so I've done a low-key sponsorship of him; nothing formal, but I've given him a lot of advice on how to edit Misplaced Pages in a way that a) is not obnoxious POV pushing, and b) isn't edit warring. He's been surprisingly amenable to my advice; most editors with troubled editing history don't just take advice sitting down. I note that he has not edit warred or been blocked since this began, rather he's done the right thing and used the talk page. Among other things, I've let LAEC know that if he sees non-neutral content, it is good to point that out and work to refine it, but it is not OK to brow-beat his own POV into articles.
• LAEC runs an external organization, SafeLibraries.org. One on hand, I've heard that it's an organization designed to make a profit via selling software to block inappropriate content in libraries; however, I'm not sure if this is its main purpose or even any function of it at all (it's hard to sort it out). What is clear is that it acts as an advocacy group encouraging the blocking and/or removal of controversial content (e.g., controls to block pornography). It is a Christian based organization, I believe.
• SafeLibraries campaigns vigorously against ALA. From what I can see, this may be the company's main purpose.
• LAEC either has at worst a lot of enemies, or at best one or two very prodigious sockpuppeteering enemies. There is no question whatsoever that there has been off-wiki coordination against LAEC. We know of at least one bad-cop sock whose only purpose is to discredit LAEC. Then we have another editor whose first contribution was to revert LAEC, and whose only edits have been pushing the opposite POV. There are other examples too. At least one of these editors has been blocked and at least one still remains in good standing. LAEC contends these people are an orchestrated campaign from ALA; I have no way of confirming or denying that. But the fact that another SPA editor has snuck up to post this on ANI without any prior contributions doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, it was quite predictable, and predicted.
• Recently, many editors have tried to "out" LAEC. Confusingly, he has been very sensitive about it; it's confusing because he makes his identity known on his external website, and has done so on his userpage in the past. My reading of the situation is that it's been an attempt to cut down on the harassment he's received. But I don't know.
• Given that LAEC is running an advocacy group, he's very much walking a fine line between conflict of interest and genuine interest in writing the encyclopedia. However, it is my contention that editors with an outside POV can edit Misplaced Pages, but they need to do so in a way that puts the encyclopedia first. To date, LAEC has improved, so I've had no problem with him. User:Westbender has borderline harassed LAEC on occasion , but has improved his behavior as well, so I've had no problem with him.
• Off-wiki behavior, of course, must conform to our standards. IMHO, LAEC's blog post runs the fine line between outing and keeping someone accountable. Much like Wikileaks, when is it whistleblowing, and when is it harassment? I'm not going to make that call (even if I could); it's not even appropriate for me to try. It seems like that this is yet another example of the tit-for-tat going on between these two sides. "You out me so I out you."

There, if you can read all that (good luck), you will surely have a better understanding of the history of the situation. Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:20, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't condone the activity of anti-LAEC editor(s). However when an editor comes to Misplaced Pages and treats it as a battleground to further his advocacy, it's not surprising that opponents will follow him.   Will Beback  talk  22:55, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Can we get a better, neutralish party review of the anti-LAEC anon editors behavior? I haven't seen good coverage of that aspect of it and would like to review that as well... Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:08, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I have tried to maintain my neutrality, although as someone who's both blocked and mentored LAEC, I have probably lost it (to clarify: I have one time I inappropriately blocked LAEC, I concede, and one time I inappropriately unblocked LAEC). I'll come up with more, but I will be away for a bit - real life and all. I have no opinion on a solution right now. Normally I'd be for a topic ban but I think he's actually been contributing well as of late. As such normally I'd be for a mentorship with another admin, but now we have this blog post complicating everything. Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Just a comment -- I never heard of LAEC before encountering this thread and I have no connection to the ALA either. I am an uninvolved non-admin. It seems to me that LAEC's blogpost needs to be looked at on its own merits. It looks like a serious attempt to harass somebody in connection with her Misplaced Pages work. The IP who started this thread may also deserve criticism. But I don't agree that people should be given a pass on serious infractions based on the defense that their critics are terrible people. betsythedevine (talk) 00:10, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

2007

• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive272#Mentors wanted
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Community sanction/Archive12#Proposal to ban User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling from library-related topics
  • Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive38#User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling reported by User:ElKevbo (Result: 8h)

2009

• Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 37#Banned Books Week
  • Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive93#User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling reported by TharsHammar (talk) (Result: both sides warned for edit warring)
  • Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive111#User:Bibliolover reported by User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (Result: 24h to submitter)

2010

• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive625#Is this linkspam?
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive626#Are IPs allowed to edit here?
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive629#Numerous systematic removal of Media Matters citations
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive645#LegitimateAndEvenCompelling pushing POV/COI
  • Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive129#User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling reported by User:Blaxthos (Result: Protected)
  • Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive132#User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling reported by User:North Shoreman (Result: Protected)
  • Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive144#User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling reported by TFD (talk) (Result:72 hours and protected )

Some relevant threads from the past concerning LAEC.   Will Beback  talk  07:45, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Note - He already blocked indefinitely. What next? "I say we stomp him! Then we tattoo him! Then we hang him! And then we kill him!" Doc talk 08:00, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

"Indefinite" means that any admin can unblock him at any time. I believe it's useful to have a clear record should an admin contemplate unblocking the user.   Will Beback  talk  08:13, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

"Can we get a better, neutralish party review of the anti-LAEC anon editors behavior? I haven't seen good coverage of that aspect of it and would like to review that as well..." - okay. I don't know squat about LAEC except that he's been harassed by a few editors that could be considered "SPA"s: PrBeacon and Westbender (I crossed paths with them all recently concerning a different editor). I have "admonished" both of them to stop harassing LAEC in this little POV-festival they are all warring over, and they will acknowledge that I did so. I could care less what their POVs are: creating SPA accounts to "focus" on an editor or group of editors is disruptive. LAEC is wrong and so are many of these accounts against him. Jus' sayin' Doc talk 08:32, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

1. Doc9871 is not neutral here. His involvement is indicated by his attempts to justify LAEC's poor behavior at a recent ANI and another as well as his attempt to weaken ideological opponents by falsely accusing us of socking . Doc did not 'admonish' me for any harassment. After his attempt to discredit my support of another editor, he continued to carelessly speculate that I was following LAEC around Misplaced Pages -- based on his incomplete, misleading tools and unqualified probabilities. He is misrepresenting my own involvement with LAEC, again. The truth is that I have seen LAEC's disruption escalate over the past few weeks since he was encouraged to "enjoy the battle" at the SPLC article by another tendentious editor. When it spilled over to two previous ANI threads about another editor, LAEC inappropriately piled on there -- so I called him out on his hounding and challenged his reporting of events.
2. I am no SPA. I have no history with ALA. I can only assume that Doc is jumping to that conclusion based on his hasty reading of LAEC's new list and cursory awareness of the underlying issues with LAEC. Until recently at the SPLC article and the two aforementioned ANIs, I've had limited contact with LAEC over content disputes at Media Matters (and possibly Fox News, I dont recall). -PrBeacon (talk) 09:51, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem with LAEC is larger than his interactions with supposed ALA members. He accuses all sorts of editors of harassing him, seeing conspiracies against him on all sides, and routinely fails to assume good faith.   Will Beback  talk  08:56, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I notified the two I mentioned here. Westbender (talk · contribs) is certainly a "harassment-of LAEC-only" account, and I have openly accused them as such before and told them to move away from this activity. There are two sides here: and as I have said both are guilty of "bad things". Doc talk 09:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that such a discussion is better suited for another thread, that evidence can then be brought for an unban discussion as potentially exculpatory of what seems to be an outing violation and perhaps wider issues. un☯mi 09:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree, which is why I pointed out the futility of this thread remaining open. "Unban discussion" is not there: is this a "ban discussion" evolving? He is indefinitely blocked for the outing violation, not banned. The thread is resolved for LAEC's punishment unless a new "banning" section is created. I think. And the SPAs will "dry up", I assume. Doc talk 09:33, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I miswrote, I was referring to what I imagine will be a discussion regarding lifting his block. un☯mi 09:50, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I hear ya! @PrBeacon: responded on your talk page. I never said I was neutral (or "neutralish"), but I do have some knowledge of the "anti-LAEC" editors. This thread should be closed or a new section started concerning a ban if that is what is sought. Or an RfC/U: the diffs provided above are for those purposes. He's indeffed for outing - end of thread. Doc talk 10:24, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Nah, that's not good enough. Since you brought it up here, I think you should either explain why you called me an SPA (which you didn't do at my talkpage, either) or retract it. -PrBeacon (talk) 10:32, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

IP 'flouride' conspiracy pusher on WikiLeaks talk page

We've been getting problems with an IP-hopping 'fluoride' conspiracy theorist here: Talk:WikiLeaks#WikiLeaks_Fluoride_Document. Can someone take a look, and also if possible confirm that it is ok to delete these comments, as of no relevence to the article without evidence that external WP:RS have shown an interest? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:47, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

We had someone just a day or two going on and on about water fluoridation. They were eventually blocked. I think it's safe to revert and block here. NW (Talk) 18:59, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not an administrator, so I can't block, though given the IP-hopping going on, I don't think this would do much anyway. It will be ok to revert/delete these edits though, will it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I presume it's the same person accusing Admins and experienced editors of being sock puppets, I've reverted at the SPI talk page and that IP was blocked. Go ahead and revert. Dougweller (talk) 19:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll cut the lot out. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:18, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

All these need semi-protection

.... permanently!

• Fluoride
• Water fluoridation
• Water purification
• Water fluoridation controversy
• WikiLeaks
• Fluoride Action Network
• Information published by WikiLeaks
• Water fluoridation in the United States
• Dean Burk

Brangifer (talk) 20:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

But you're one of the sock puppets editing there. Honest, an IP told me you were! :-) Dougweller (talk) 20:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

LOL! And they even added you. The list of socks is getting quite long and they're hitting many articles, but these are always the main targets. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:42, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Clearly this is all a Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:51, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Crusade initiated?

I have come across Rkononenko talk who appears to be on a crusade to right wrongs in reference to Ukrainian connections on Misplaced Pages. These changes are dramatic, arbitary and never explained, sourced or verified. See: list of previous contacts with other editors. The editor appears particularly concerned about spellings and useage:

1. warning about deliberate errors introduced,
2. major changes to article regarding loan words from Ukrainian
3. change to name of person Bzuk (talk) 19:12, 27 December 2010 (UTC).

Can you help me see which changes are incorrect? Thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:55, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Virtually all of the changes involve Russian to Ukrainian spellings, but in the case of Igor Sikorsky, he somehow becomes a Ukrainian, and the helicopter is changed to a Ukrainian invention. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 06:43, 28 December 2010 (UTC).

User:Tendstruth

Anybody know who this admitted sock is and whether they're evading a block? Tendstruth (talk · contribs) Their first edit was rather tendentious. Corvus cornix_talk 00:40, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, it's apparently blocked Sêmîazâz (talk · contribs) Corvus cornix_talk 00:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe it is a banned user. --Bsadowski1 00:45, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

See also Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/NoCal100  Ronhjones  00:53, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Guys - based on the dates that a lot of these accounts were created, as well as the edit pattern and the nasty racism, these are the latest incarnation of User:JarlaxleArtemis aka Grawp. Please block on sight with email and talk pages blocked as well. NawlinWiki (talk) 04:00, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you saying that this latest batch are not, as they have been tagged, puppets of NoCal, but rather of Grawp? In that case, is Grawp picking up on the edit patterns of unrelated sockmasters? There is some evidence (I would have to dig to find it) of Grawp mimicking Runtshit edits some time back. . RolandR (talk) 16:13, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. NawlinWiki (talk) 16:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Soft Block of 207.151.38.178?

Is it possible to get a permanent soft block on 207.151.38.178? Tons of vandalism and spam comes from this address all the time. - Doctorx0079 (talk) 04:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

207.151.38.178 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

The IP address is registered to an educational institution, so a soft block probably would be appropriate. 04:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Anyone? - Doctorx0079 (talk) 21:38, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I notified the IP of this discussion. And may I point out that if a soft block goes through, we might miss gems like: "If I had dime for everyone who said: 'If everyone would just give me $0.25, I wouldn't have to ask anyone for money anymore'; I'd be a well-respected millionaire by now." Well-respected indeed. Cheers, ClovisPt (talk) 22:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Go for it. No great loss. -- Brangifer (talk) 23:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Blocked for three months; registered users can still edit. An indef isn't appropriate, as we don't indef IPs except for proxy servers. Nyttend (talk) 23:49, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

User:TeleComNasSprVen

TeleComNasSprVen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

General lack of CLUE and misuse of the XfD process. His talk pages are riddled with declined PRODs and notes on how inappropriate his XfDs are by numerous editors; his XfD requests have become disruptive and a waste of community time. In addition, he has taken to removing other uses talk page comments on third-party pages here and here and then edit-warred with a sock accusation here and here; even though he has been warned in the past about such edits. Not to mention he's HOUNDed me on two different Wikipedias. I could go on Purplebackpack89 06:24, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• What are you looking for here? Nakon 06:25, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I think he perhaps needs editing restrictions regarding the deletion process (to prevent additional unnecessary XfDs), and/or a block of some kind Purplebackpack89 06:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • You might also want to look at this previous ANI thread involving him. It was suggested then that he be blocked if problems continued, IMO the problem of bad AFDs, CLUEless edits, and removal of other peoples' talkpage comments has continued Purplebackpack89 06:40, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
    • I think he is looking for a siteban, given that this is the "community forum", after all. –MuZemike 07:11, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
      • I've reverted the removals of those SPI notifications from other people's Talk pages. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
        • Mu, my proposal is below. Purplebackpack89 17:43, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Boing! said Zebedee and MuZemike (and indeed any other administrator reading this), you might want to go and see exactly whose user talk pages TeleComNasSprVen's edits to which Purplebackpack89 is fixating upon. Yes, that's right. TeleComNasSprVen is removing notices from Willy on Wheels' user talk page, where any sockpuppet investigation notice is, at this point some several years down the line and goodness knows how many "on wheels" accounts and copycats later, laughably silly. Remember Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels 2. We actually do deny recognition here. Uncle G (talk) 23:47, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Uncle G, my proposal is about a lot more than removal of talkpage comments (and note that he has done this on pages other than Wheels). It's also about the large number of bad XfDs, CSDs and PRODs he's made, some of which have been downright outrageous Purplebackpack89 05:58, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposal

This is somewhat based on what was discussed in the earlier thread here

• TeleComNasSprVen is forbidden from starting new XfDs, CSDs, or PRODs, but can still comment on existing ones
• Any failure to abide by that would result in a block
• Any additional removal of TP comments, or edit-warring involving TP comments, would result in a block

I'm not a one for making proposals, but you wanted one, so here it is Purplebackpack89 17:43, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• I don't really know at this point. Perhaps it's a CIR thing really, and I hate dealing with those, but I recommend writing articles, regardless of how bad a writer he/she may claim to be. Editing restrictions don't work well with the whole competence thing, IMO. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • It's not a competence issue. It's excessive literalism. I've noticed it for some time, now, and have tried to nudge TeleComNasSprVen at RFD and MFD several times. TeleComNasSprVen reads and applies the rules, but apparently doesn't (or at least didn't) understand why the rules are as they are. So the application doesn't actually achieve the desired result that the rules are only a best written approximation for. In fairness, my general impression, albeit formed without in depth scrutiny, is that TeleComNasSprVen has been getting better at this, as other people have pushed back against xyr deletion nominations and explained why they are wrong where they are wrong. But again, note exactly whose user talk page TeleComNasSprVen is removing a downright silly sockpuppet investigation notice from before buying into Purplebackpack89's rather superficial description of the edits and proposal. Uncle G (talk) 23:47, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Still inappropriate for him to edit-war, and this is hardly the first time he's removed TP comments Purplebackpack89 01:40, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Nope - I've seen that you have a grudge, but get over it. Rather odd timing, too; he hasn't done anything majorly wrong recently. Mono (talk) 21:40, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Um, his removal of talk page comments within the last 48 hrs. or so? Also see Betsy's point below; a restrictions proposal shouldn't be decided on the merits of the proposer. My "grudge" stems from his continual HOUNDing of me on multiple WPs, another thing to consider in his restrictions Purplebackpack89 22:40, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Stop citing those diffs. You have been told by Uncle G above in no uncertain terms that those removals are good; and I agree. Sockpuppet notices for User:Willy on Wheels and copycat? That's got to be one of the silliest things I've ever seen. T. Canens (talk) 04:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Um, I made that comment before Uncle G decided to evoke DENY. So, you're saying that Fr33kman's edit was silly? I respect him, and therefore doubt that. And the fact is, he still edit wars on removing TP comments and he still makes bad XfDs, PRODs and CSDs, and that's got to stop Purplebackpack89 05:55, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
• Support this proposal would ban his junk edits but allow good ones. Many ANI reports get filed by people who have some history with the person being reported; if we discarded all such reports I don't think it would benefit Misplaced Pages. betsythedevine (talk) 22:01, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

LouisPhilippeCharles avoiding block 3rd time

Despite still being under a one-month block during which time LouisPhilippeCharles has, at least twice, been brought to the attention of this board for editing articles by sockpuppet -- without any additional sanctions for disruptive behavior being applied yet (see here) -- he has yet again used one of his recently-unblocked sockpuppets to violate the block here. FactStraight (talk) 07:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

IP sockpuppet has been reblocked for 2 weeks. I would support a reset of the 1 month block on User:LouisPhilippeCharles for repeated block evasion, but don't want to act unilaterally on this. Trebor (talk) 17:24, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I would say that's the very least we can do in response to LPC's persistent demonstration of his disregard for the blocks and the community discussions. Favonian (talk) 17:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Soon after his block on the 8th, the user asked how he could do test edits, since he couldn't get to his sandbox page. I and another editor told him, in explicit detail, how he could create edits on his PC, "review" them for syntax within his talk page, and then back out of edit mode. His first step was to go ahead and save the edits in his talk page, which he had already been told not to do (by an admin). Then he took it upon himself to start using IP's to edit in defiance of the block. At this point, it's reasonable to conclude that the editor doesn't care one iota about sticking with the rules. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:08, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I have reset the block for one month, and have notified LPC of same. This is a standard penalty for block evasion. Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:36, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

If it happens again, what's the standard penalty? Dougweller (talk) 18:38, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

At that point I'd indeff him. Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:40, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Umm, why hasn't that happened already? Agree with you, Elen, that it should be an indef next time. Nyttend (talk) 23:45, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I was pretty much the only respondent who wasn't suggesting indef block the last time LPC was reported to ANI, but neither the indef block or the 1 month reset I suggested was taken up before the discussion was archived. Since EotR has reset I accept that action, but my reaction in reading this was "I was wrong then, and the others were right" - this person has no interest in abiding by project policies and guidelines, and I suspect that we will be removing editing privileges indefinitely in the near future. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Menikure

User:Menikure pulls out the image that i add on gallery section of Ankara article everytime and also reverts my edits on the talk page of same article and also writes on my talk page that i will be blocked if i put the gecekondu image once again. Have i done something wrong? 212.156.67.30 (talk) 09:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think that this IP user may have a point about Menikure. Check out this diff. The IP had posted on the talk page of the article for discussion on the image (as he was supposed to, see WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle), then Menikure reverts his comment without any edit summary, but did mark his edit as minor (as shown in the diff)! And Menikure did not even link to any possible relevant Misplaced Pages policies in his warning to the IP user. It may be that Menikure is trying to push his point-of-view on the image in question. 09:20, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. But, the image in question, File:Viewfromoldankara.jpg shows Annkara in somewhat of an impoverished light, so one can understand Menikure's POV, right or wrong. In any case, the gallery is too large and one wonders if it is really needed at all given the link to commons at the bottom. I had a similar discussion with User:I dream of horses a while back, and she said she removed galleries whenever she found them. I think there are reasons to use galleries, but this isn't one of them. Viriditas (talk) 09:27, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a requirement to inform editors when they are reported here, so I have now informed User:Menikure. I've also warned them not to remove other people's Talk page comments. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

See also Menikure's latest contributions: 1, 2, 3, and 4. 1 and 2 are where Menikure has warned IP users not to add the image, 3 is where Menikure posts on an editor's (User:Omulazimoglu) talk page claiming they were "engaging in disruptive activity" under the IP that started this thread here, and 4 is where he posts about this issue on User:Hersfold's talk page. 09:45, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

User:212.156.67.30 whom I suspect is the same user User:Omulazimoglu when he/she is not logged is engaging in edit warring in the picture gallery in the bottom of the Ankara page, by insisting of putting a particular photo of a slum in the city that is normally reserved for landmarks of that city. Picture galleries of city articles in Misplaced Pages ara usually reserved for landmarks rather than slums. Pictures of non-landmarks such as slums for example can be put separatly in other areas of the article. This user started the edit war when he/she was logged in as User:Omulazimoglu and continues it while being unlogged under the same I.P. number User:212.156.67.30. I have observed this edit warring and other anonymous users have joined the edit warring as well on this picture of a slum, but yesterday (27 December 2010) in exasperation I reverted his/her latest edit and personally warned him today about this, even though I am not an administrator nor have the authority and do not visit Misplaced Pages very frequqently.The administrators should issue a warning to this double user on his/her senseless and futile edit war. Menikure 15:25, 28 December 2010

Can you show us a policy, or a consensus, anywhere, that picture galleries are reserved for "landmarks" and must not include slums? If not, then you shouldn't be using it as a reason to remove photos and issue warnings to people. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:20, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

No pictures of slums are present in such other city articles such as Rio de Janeiro or Cape Town for example, even though they do have slums with their respective articles like the "Favelas" of Rio and the "Township (South Africa)" of Cape Town. There is already an article in English Misplaced Pages on Turkish slums which is called "Gecekondu" with that contientious photo already appropriately put there by the user User: 212.156.67.30 who seems to be the same User:Omulazimoglu who as uploaded his/her photos in Commons:User:Ozgurmulazimoglu. The user seems to advertise the photos he has taken and/or uploaded from My pictures on Flickr to Wikimedia Commons. There is nothing wrong with that, but his insistence and probable use of two identities and previous edit warrings is the problem. Menikure 16:47, 28 December 2010

Your personal observation of other articles does not constitute either a policy or a consensus, and you should not hand out warnings to people for violating a non-existent rule that you just made up yourself. If you disagree with the inclusion of the image, you should discuss it on the article Talk page in a civil manner and try to achieve a consensus. And, even though your other concerns should be addressed, that IS the topic of this report. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:52, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Menikure again pulled that image out. I am adding the image once again. Because there is no policy, or a consensus, anywhere, that picture galleries are reserved for "landmarks" and must not include slums. Pls help me against user:menikure. Thanks. MULAZIMOGLU (talk) 16:37, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Uninvolved (up until this point) but I disagree with the removal of the picture. For many of the reasons pointed out above - the slum is part of the article in question, and there's no policy stating that galleries should be all happy-happy and joyful - although it's nice to present soemthing in the best possible light, that's no reason to exclude the less salubrious parts of a city. The only defence to me is that the gallery is rather large, but if anything, I'd remove some of the other pictures, and keep the slum. There's plenty of landmark pictures, but only the one detrimental picture. a_man_alone (talk) 16:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Side note : Do we realy need 50+ pictures in this article?? This types of gallery section are somewhat discouraged as per --> Misplaced Pages:Image gallery?Moxy (talk) 17:05, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

No we don't - that's what interwiki links to Commons are for. Misplaced Pages is not Flickr... – ukexpat (talk) 19:25, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

AndresHerutJaim and fair use images again

AndresHerutJaim (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has previously been discussed at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive640#User:AndresHerutJaim and images and Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive650#AndresHerutJaim and repeated copyright violations, and it has been explained on his talk page at User talk:AndresHerutJaim#Using fair use images as icons and User talk:AndresHerutJaim#Images. This has been ignored again and we have this edit and this edit, both of which add a non-free image violation to an article. Thank you. O Fenian (talk) 09:18, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• I think that's enough - the user has never indicated that they understand the warnings they're being given (indeed they hardly ever use talkpages ) yet their standard of English, judging by edits and edit summaries, is fine. This is therefore a WP:COMPETENCE issue and I have blocked them indef until they indicate they understand the problem and won't repeat it. Black Kite (t) (c) 12:45, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • The user has emailed me and promised not to do this again. I don't see a problem with giving them another chance, so I have unblocked. Black Kite (t) (c) 01:11, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Mozart fanatic 77

Mozart fanatic has been tagging random people as sockpuppets. I'm an editor in good standing with no history of so much as a warning. Needless to say, getting pulled into this drama irks me a bit. I recently underwent a sockpuppet check, which cleared. I resent the accusation. But socking seems to be an endemic problem in the transformers area, so I understand where it comes from.

Mozart fanatic is being checked as a sockpuppet himself. But regardless... between the accusation and his sarcastic AFD comment, I doubt that account is going to be used for anything more than harassment. So I'd ask that he just be banned and be done with it.

Also, I'd kindly ask that a kind admin deletes the disruptive edit from my userpage history. I don't want people opening up my userpage history only to find that I've been tagged as a sock in the past. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, we cannot do anything to stop the sockpuppetry, they will continue to harass and attack the Transformers WikiProject and continue to disrupt Transformers-related AFDs indefinitely. As Wiki brah said here, he is probably right. If editors are that determined to edit Misplaced Pages, then they will, regardless of any technical restrictions we put in place. –MuZemike 18:38, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Misplaced priorities much? Sheesh... - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:43, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

It's very frustrating. Most of us just want to edit with no drama. I don't suppose it's possible to find a range of IPs and block them? Or even to find a range of IPs and put an editing restriction on new accounts? Shooterwalker (talk) 18:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not possible. –MuZemike 19:32, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Then I guess that's it... thanks for responding quickly. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:33, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Blocking an IP range is not technically impossible, but it's done very sparingly due to potential collateral damage. There are many of us and only one of the troll, and he'll eventually get tired of the constant revert-and-block game, and move on. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:51, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean he is IP-hopping all over the place (and abusing open proxies), making blocking IPs and ranges useless. –MuZemike 20:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Right. IP-hoppers can't be blocked effectively or range-blocked unless you shut down all internet access, which might be a tad extreme. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:03, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about it overly much, Shooter -- I've been tagged as a sock in the past. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Re-Creation of ISEKI Food Network

Under the name The ISEKI Food Network this article was speedily deleted on the 21 December 201 by User:NawlinWiki "because the page appeared to be blatant advertising which only promotes a company, product, group or service..." etc. It has apparently been re-created by Isekifood (talk · contribs). - 220.101 talk 18:41, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I tagged it G4. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict):Editor Isekifood advised of this post. - 220.101 talk 18:49, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

It is the same article, word for word, and the earlier one has been recreated as a redirect to the subsequent one. It is presently being requested for speedy deletion under G11 ("advertising") criteria rather than G4, I suppose because speedy deletes do not have a discussion? The question is, what do we do about an editor whose name indicates a COI and who is not prepared to accept that their article is not compliant with WP's criteria? LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Has anyone checked for copyvio - I suppose the editor may have simply kept the text on a word processor, but it may have come from the company's own literature...? LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC) Checked. Paraphrases but does not violate copyright. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:18, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was able to find most of the text word for word here; I've removed it for now as copyvio. It's possible the org has some grant of free use somewhere, but the home page indicates a clear claim of copyright. Let me know if you're not seeing it on that page and we can compare notes. Yes, G4 is only for xFDed material. Not sure what to do with the editor; let's see if he responds to his talk page. Kuru (talk) 20:24, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I only checked the ISEKI Food Network website after Google failed to find a good match for the first two sentences of the article - didn't find Worldfoodscience in my brief search. The choices, should there be further creations, are salting the article or blocking the account. Both are problematic in their own way, since I suspect that ISEKI may be notable - if written in an encyclopedic manner. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:11, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

(←) The Isekifood (talk · contribs) account has been indefinitely blocked by Alexf (talk · contribs) "because it appears to be mainly intended or used for publicity and/or promotional purposes", and, username policy violation. Thank you 'Burpelson', 'Less Heard' and 'AlexF' for your attention. I do agree with 'Less Heard' though that ISEKI may be notable, and worthy of an encylopaedic write up. - 220.101 talk 04:54, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

N23.4

N23.4 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I've already posted this at AIV, but maybe some other eyes are needed, especially for future reference. At the language ref desk, a German user sneakily spammed by posting a link and asking, "What language is this?", knowing full well it's his own website, and he's trying to increase the click-count. He had posted this same spam link out of the blue at the Help Desk on the 15th, which was quickly reverted, hence he tried this different tack. Worse, though, is that an editor said when he clicked on it, his PC started to act up. That suggests worse than spam, it suggests possible malware. And just now, when someone un-linked it at the ref desk, the user attempted to re-link it. I think the user needs to be given Das Boot. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:00, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

While posting a warning on his page, I noted that the user has been spamming almost from the beginning and was told not to, but has continued to do so. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Move It (Culcha Candela) has no assertion of notability and should be speedied. Culcha Candela itself seems somewhat spammy. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 19:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The editor created that spinoff article about the "Move It" number for the sole purpose of posting a spamlink. I recommend deleting that article stub. As for the group's article, that could be something to be discussed in more depth. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Try {{db-spam}} for the song article, noting the link, and AfD'ing the group, again noting it (also) being a vehicle for a spamlink? LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't AfD the band, they're clearly notable. Not sure about the single, but since it was a bare "was a single by ..." I've redirected it back to the band. Black Kite (t) (c) 20:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

"I think the user needs to be given Das Boot": You want to give him the boat? ;-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I indef'ed them a while back - I am now considering the content... LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:16, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

That was kind of a cross-language pun. :) In any case, his boat has now been sunk, and editors are working on rounding up the flotsam and jetsam. :) ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:18, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Hehe :-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:28, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I admit I'm coming to this a little late, but isn't this the sort of thing that an entry in the local Meta-Wiki spam blacklist? When this troublemaker finds that she/he can't link to this site, she/he will tire of this game very quickly. -- llywrch (talk) 20:39, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I suggested that on the ref desk page, though I wasn't sure where that blacklist was. There were two problems, at least. One was the spam link about that band. The other was a link on the ref desk pointed to some sort of German "one-hit wonder" page, or some such, that at least one editor thought was screwing up his PC, suggesting the possibility of malware. Both of the sites in question should be added to the blacklist. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

If it's only being added to the en wikipedia, then the local blacklist is where this should be added at WP:SBL ... but I'm suspecting this may be on multiple language sites, so blacklisting at meta:WM:SBL may be the better course of action. --- Barek (talk) - 21:06, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Page moves and subsequent abusive move protections by Ruud Koot

Ruud Koot (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has decided to unilaterally move many pages based on his own reasoning located at User:Ruud Koot/Biography of historical scientist, and subsequently protected them from being moved by non-administrators. For example Al-Kindi has been moved to Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī (a similar move was tried by the same editor in April 2007, and quickly reverted). A request to unprotect the pages was ignored, so bringing this abuse here to be dealt with please. Thank you. O Fenian (talk) 22:08, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Moving them and then protecting them in their preferred version? I would say this admin needs to explain themselves very quickly, and I have done so at their talkpage. If they do not undo the protections (the moves themselves are another issue), they need to be undone for them and I would guess an RFC/U started. Black Kite (t) (c) 22:17, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Further - I note he's also set pending changes on the articles, despite the fact they don't have any contentious histories. Black Kite (t) (c) 22:21, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Yes, I was extremely pleased with how my experiment at Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī turned out. Unfortunately these articles about relatively "boring" scientific topics often turn into some kind of nationalistic battle ground. Please see the revision history of the mentioned article to see how effective pending changes is to prevent this unproductive phenomena. —Ruud 22:32, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
      • There is no apparent move vandalism prior to your implementing move protection at Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, nor any rejected changes since you implemented pending changes protection at Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī. Are you referring to another article? jæs (talk) 22:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
        • No stance on the moves, but I've removed the move protection and pending changes as the activity on all of those pages (with the possible exception of Āryabhaṭa) does not come close to justifying either move protection or PC, which shouldn't be being applied to articles that weren't in the PC trial yet anyway. Prodego 22:51, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
          • For example . My observation over the past few years has been that these biographies are on far to few watchlists to have them degrade in quality. In my opinion pending changes is a very good solution to draw additional eyeballs to these articles. —Ruud 22:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
            • Moving articles? Not a problem. Move protecting them afterwards? Not cool - this breaks the BRD cycle completely. I would suggest the Ruud reverts himself and goes to Requested Moves to gain consensus to rename the articles to his preferred fashion rather than trying this kind of unilateral approach. Exxolon (talk) 22:54, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
              • We're discussing this now right? In my experience not enough people are interested in these articles to have a good discussion. So I'm throwing some oil on the fire to get it started. —Ruud 22:58, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
                • *cough* 12.234.39.130 (talk) 23:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand all that protection, lifting it was the helpful thing to do. Ruud Koot, whatever you had in mind, I think it would look to many editors like you were trying to heavily shield your own content edits with the bit. I would agree that in the aftermath you should also revert all those moves and gather consensus for them on the talk pages. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:59, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

That would be like shouting in an empty room. I'd rather like to hear arguments on why any of the renaming where incorrect instead of maintaining the status quo. —Ruud 23:13, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

As I said below, that has aught to do with policy. As for "arguments," you should gather consensus for moves like that. Please undo those moves and do that. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:16, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the page protection and pending changes. Regardless of the correctness or incorrectness of the moves, the pages have not had any activity that would justify this protection. Prodego 22:54, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

But that is part of the problem here. The are low-traffic articles, but with an even lower number of people watching them. Pending changes would be a great solution for the types of biographies which tend to lose quality over a long span of time. —Ruud 23:09, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Low traffic and however many editors watch those articles have nothing to do with this. I do think you should undo all those moves forthwith and try to get meaningful consensus for them. In the meantime, you can always setup redirects if you like but I think it's highly, highly unlikely readers will be searching for those articles on en.WP by typing in all those diacritics. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:13, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

But al-Kindi still takes you the article as it has always done. But it might just give another editor the incentive to write al-Kindī or Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī instead, and increase the quality of Misplaced Pages a little. —Ruud 23:16, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Wonderful. Gather consensus for it first. You should undo those moves in the meantime. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:19, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Why should I undo the moves in the mean times? Where should I try to gather consensus? —Ruud 23:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Meantime. You're an admin and you're asking that? More than ever, I think you should undo those moves now. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:25, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I honestly believe that reverting these renames would decrease the quality of the encyclopedia. I'm not going to do that. Clearly if someone else decides to rename them again I'm not going to revert war over this. —Ruud 23:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

It looks like you laid on all that protection because you were canny worried about reverts. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The move protection is only helpful against preventing very inexperienced users from renaming an article without much though. Any other user could have easily asked the nearest administrator. —Ruud 23:49, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Who? You? Gwen Gale (talk) 23:53, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Observing this from a lowly user's standpoint: The moves seem to have been harmless, other than possibly skirting "common names" guidelines. The pending changes are probably no big deal, especially if he's the only one watching them. The move-protection is absolutely un-kosher. As I understand it, the only circumstance when protections are supposed to be applied to anything is when there have been problems; not pre-emptively as the admin seems to be arguing for. This looks like an attempt at "ownership" by an admin. I don't know when he became an admin, but even if it was just 15 minutes ago, he should know better. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's hypothetically say I've been here for a few years and during that time observed that:

1. Many of these articles get renamed once a year by a relatively inexperienced user to a name that is not an improvement.
2. Very few users besides me have these article on their watchlist and access to source material to judge whether this renaming was good or bad.

Would it not make sense to ask of that user to discuss the renaming first and perhaps even enforce this using move protection? In the end nothing is ever absolutely permanent on Misplaced Pages including administrator actions. I think it is clear what my current position is on this issue (but would love to here good counter-arguments), but I would really like to spark a wider discussion about this issue. —Ruud 00:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Have you in fact observed improper moves with these articles? If not, then you've taken the wrong approach. You should have taken your attempt to "spark discussion" to a project page that's connected in some way with these articles. Ending up at ANI is not the way to do that, as you could start heading down the path to ruin on wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:13, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, for example scientist which are ethnically Persian but published in Arabic often have articles moved between a version which does contain the article "al-" and one which doesn't, presumably by editors belonging to one of the two groups. Now all this renaming and fighting in the lead sections of the articles really distracts from writing on there scientific achievements, which is the important part of the article.

Realistically speaking, as I'm well aware that my position on this issue is rather controversial, I don't think my actions would be accepted if not discussed here. —Ruud 00:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• I've looked at these articles now. For someone who has been on Misplaced Pages since 2005, and an admin since 2006, to violate WP:COMMONNAME ("Articles are normally titled using the name which is most commonly used to refer to the subject of the article in English-language reliable sources.") and then use admin rights to protect them as a name which is directly opposed to that policy, and then try to defend it with "I'm clearly well aware that I'm doing something wrong in the "legal" sense of the word. However I believe my actions are morally right", suggests a little bit of a problem. Black Kite (t) (c) 00:18, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • You must have missed where it says that wikipedia editing is required to follow The Ten Commandments. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:24, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Common name on Google, or common name in academic literature? I think the "reliable sources" part means we should look at the latter. —Ruud 00:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Well, in the Al-Kindi article, practically all the references call him just that - Al-Kindi. Are you saying they aren't reliable sources? Black Kite (t) (c) 00:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
      • See the discussion at my talk page. —Ruud 00:34, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

This is pretty out of line. Either you hoped this would go unnoticed (in which case, this is serious misuse of the tools), or you used it to try to get wider input on the issue (see WP:POINT). Neither is remotely appropriate. And despite unanimous disapproval here, you are still defending your actions. Do you seriously consider your judgement to be so perfect? Trebor (talk) 00:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I have some sympathy with Ruud, who has done a very good job contributing to those articles, and isn't always around to defend them, not only from vandals (and there do seem to have been some weird editing wars too). There was an incident at Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (an important article about the inventor of algebra) that I came across only because of some weird accident. In the #Geography section there an image of a reconstructed map, that Ruud in 2006 managed to find in an obscure academic book and upload, and write about in the article. This was some really superb, erudite editing on Ruud's part, the type of thing that Misplaced Pages's high reputation rests on. Earlier this year, someone MfD'd the picture saying just "copyvio", even though the file had a perfectly good fair-use rationale and was one of the better uses of a non-free image in the encyclopedia. Only one other person (besides me and the nominator) commented at the MfD and that was almost 2 weeks later, so I think we might have lost that image if I hadn't happened to be looking at the article for some weird reason at that particular moment. Ruud is perhaps showing some WP:OWN issues, and the move protection was certainly inappropriate, but I take it seriously when he says not enough other editors are monitoring the articles and they are getting messed up. Could some more editors please update their watchlists and keep an eye on them? That might help alleviate the issues Ruud has brought up. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 08:20, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Possible legal threat

According to the relevant policy, legal threats should be reported here. This case is borderline, so I think others ought to take a look. The relevant diff: . The page: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Endeology. --Danger (talk) 23:52, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see it as a legal threat. I suspect that what he's trying to say (though without providing verification) is that the FTC regulations allow wikipedia to set its own rules, and hence wikipedia is not subject to claims of "freedom of speech" and the like. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:03, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• Yeah, I don't see it as a legal threat either, but I've closed the AfD as a SNOW delete, so given that the editor is a SPA who only edited in that area, the issue is probably moot. Black Kite (t) (c) 00:05, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Actually, this one IS a legal threat. As you say, the editor is an SPA who will probably disappear. But if he doesn't, you may need to bring the gavel down. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:09, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Copyvio edits, among other things, by Neptunekh2.

I was hoping this user would go away, so I didn't report it earlier. There are a number of problems with this user (such as constant edits like this, this, this, unsourced edits, wrong categories, the use of underscores rather than spaces, etc...), but the main problem right now is the copyvio edits. I tried to talk to the user here back in November, but it was just blanked with no comment. The copyvio edits I have found from just looking through the edits of this user quickly are these, edit/source, edit/source, edit/source, edit/source, copyvio notice by bot on a now deleted article. There are no doubt more, as this user have been editing Misplaced Pages for almost 2 years. Nymf _hideliho! 00:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Those are blatant copyvios (including from BBC News) and should be deleted as such. I have notified Neptunekh2 of this thread. Doc talk 01:03, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I already notified Neptunekh2 of the thread. Nymf _hideliho! 01:12, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

So you did: I missed it between the TB template and the SD template. Removed my redundant notification... Doc talk 01:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I ran across this editor for the first time this week canvassing to use a non-RS to call a marginally notable actress a Scientologist. May just be a WP:COMPETENCE issue if he/she's been editing for two years. THF (talk) 01:44, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Contribution survey for this user:

• N Martyn Godfrey: (4 edits, 4 major, +1099) (+400)(+207)(+1099)(+209)
• Alexandra Powers: (5 edits, 5 major, +894) (+228)(+151)(+894)(+252)(+328)
• N Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre: (1 edits, 1 major, +670) (+670)
• 2043: (1 edits, 1 major, +623) (+623)
• Mummy Juanita: (1 edits, 1 major, +604) (+604)
• The Seventh Coin: (3 edits, 3 major, +536) (+536)(+196)(+227)
• The Mummy (franchise): (1 edits, 1 major, +379) (+379)
• Katharyn Powers: (2 edits, 2 major, +337) (+337)(+182)
• Eve (Xena): (1 edits, 1 major, +333) (+333)
• N Toby Proctor: (1 edits, 1 major, +309) (+309)
• Iqbal Theba: (1 edits, 1 major, +297) (+297)
• 26th century: (1 edits, 1 major, +261) (+261)
• List of fictional female robots and cyborgs: (1 edits, 1 major, +242) (+242)

(I removed edits to 13 articles, these were mostly non-constructive edits. You can see the diffs in the contribution survey link above.) This does not pick up non-mainspace edits. MER-C 02:53, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

The content I removed from the "Television in Botswana" category was cut-and-pasted from two different sources (one that he happily provided in the "Read more" section). Hopefully he will respond here to these issues soon. Doc talk 03:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

List of wordgirl characters, Emily

this is evidence of a dispute that has been going on for months. I have reverted a number of edits on the List of WordGirl Characters article about emily with no clothes, or her "going to the beach", and they just keep putting it back. I have told a few of these people that this has to end, but they insist on being annoying. Action needs to be taken, now, before this dispute gets editors blocked. N.I.M. (talk) 01:28, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been following this; I think the only solution is protection Purplebackpack89 01:41, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Could you please do that, i don't know how, pluss, i'm not an admin. thanks. N.I.M. (talk) 01:49, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

There is not sufficient vandalism to warrant protection at this time. If a particular IP or editor persists in vandalism, you may warn them, and if they still continue take them to AIV. Trebor (talk) 04:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Death threat on Tim Gay

Hello, I just came across an edit containing a death threat in the edit summary. The user is blocked, so does anything else need doing? I don't know what I'm am supposed to do in the case of death threats, so I brought it here. Reaper Eternal (talk) 01:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Get a CU to do a check and geolocate the IP and contact the local authorities? --Addihockey10 01:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Though i'm no admin, i agree, and i also say that blocking them was a vary smart move, good job! N.I.M. (talk) 01:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I didn't block (I am not an admin), but Soap (talk · contribs) did. Reaper Eternal (talk) 01:42, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks like more or less puerile vandalism. Just ignore it. –MuZemike 01:43, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I really didn't take the death threat seriously. As for the IP's, there were two of them posting the same thing, one from Colorado and one from Texas (if I remember right). There could be a proxy involved, but a CU probably won't tell us much since we already have the IP's.—Soap— 01:45, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

A quick look fails to show either as obvious proxies, although the editing pattern is suspicious. Sailsbystars (talk) 03:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Editor Science&HiTechReviewer

• Science&HiTechReviewer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (also editing as 96.247.28.120 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Ronz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Science&HiTechReviewer is a new SPA who says he's edited previously . He claims to be using this account as part of an experiment for a talk he's giving at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting next month . I've had discussions with him on my talk page here, here, and briefly here; on the talk page of Naveen Jain here; and on his talk page here.

My discussions with him have gotten to the point where I'm removing most of his comments on my talk because of AGF and TALK problems. I've tried to continue discussions with him, but I'd like some help in de-escalating his behavior, as well as opinions on if editors should be creating new accounts for use in experiments in editing controversial BLP articles. From my perspective, he has a minor WP:COI given his relationship with WEF, he's using Misplaced Pages as a battleground, and he's disrupting Misplaced Pages to make a WP:POINT.

He's written a EAR request basically attacking me for how I've handled past disputes with Naveen Jain and how I've not changed the article in response to his comments. --Ronz (talk) 02:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Searching through the contributions, there's nothing too egregious from him, just a tendency to focus on the editor as much as the content. I've left a brief note about it, and hopefully there should be no problem; of course, you can follow it up with me, or here, if there is. Trebor (talk) 03:11, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. He's tried my patience between the attacks and the inability to recognize a press release.

Let's see if there's any fallout from his email to his personal friend, Jimbo. --Ronz (talk) 04:11, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Weiterbewegung, Maurice J. Halton and revocation of licensing for posted text

Weiterbewegung (talk · contribs), a relatively recent editor, has recently contributed fairly substantial pastes of useful content to articles on engineering history in North West England.

• Dean, Smith & Grace (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Rothwell Cars (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• John Musgrave & Sons (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Churchill Machine Tool Company (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Unfortunately (but not unusually) their experience of the "Misplaced Pages editing experience" has been rather poor (Yes, we do still regularly WP:BITE the newbies) and this has prompted a change in their editing behaviour. They are now proceeding to tag these same articles for speedy deletion on the grounds of "mainly adevertisimg; lack of substance" — an article that they themselves had created, not a week beforehand. This has been followed by tagging articles as copyvios, see Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems#29 December 2010, on content that they added and also listing these same articles at AfD: AFD: Dean, Smith & Grace, AFD: Churchill Machine Tool Company. Several of these are accompanied by comments such as, "it is very unlikely that it will attract sufficient interest from historians capable of expanding it in any meaningful way. ", the clear implication being that no other editor is capable of carrying out the same work. We also find comments such as this and this, with a somewhat arrogant tone again implying that they are a proper academic whilst the rest of Misplaced Pages are incompetent amateurs. Sadly though, "Free lessons in historical research are not something I offer.", so we're unable to benefit from their vast experience.

A few edits are more specific, such as this removal of a reference, an MA Dissertation by Maurice J. Halton. There's also this, where Maurice J. Halton's website is described as "my website". This is relevant, because the claimed copyvios are from sources such as this, publications by Maurice J. Halton, previously added by this editor.

In comments at the Dean, Smith & Grace AFD, they (quite correctly) point out their right to anonymity and refuse to confirm or deny that they are Maurice J. Halton. A right we ought to support, but it does have some relevance here in relation to their recent attempts to undo their own contributions.

• If this isn't theirs, then it shouldn't have been used (and is indeed a copyvio). They've committed a number of significant copyvios, but are now acting as if it's nothing to do with them.
• If it is theirs, and they're the copyright holder, then they've (by posting it) licensed it to WP under GFDL. Such licensing has to be irrevocable, otherwise the whole project would be under permanent threat. This attempt to renege on it by denying their identity since is an even more serious and harmful action.

Their responses to such questions have taken the form of hiding behind anonymity and AGF. Andy Dingley (talk) 03:12, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

What happened to that poor guy is depressing. Could we please delete all those damn usertalk templates and stop using auto-editing scripts (huggle etc) on anything other than actual vandalism? That guy's page is so cluttered with templates that it's hard for any humans to maintain any continuity of communication with him. I understand how we have to monitor image licenses carefully, but it leads to huge hassles for new editors who make mistakes and get clobbered by officious and semi-threatening templates. I begin to think we should stop allowing new users to upload files: they should have to first request a permission flag (like rollback) from an admin, who would then be expected to mentor the user through their first few uploads to make sure they understood all the issues. Anyway, I left Weiterbewegung a talk message hoping he'd stay around, if that helps. It will probably get lost among the templates. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 04:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Stop letting new users or autoconfirmed users upload files? Because (in either case) that would mean that you... ahh, forget it. You're that San Francisco "IP-only" guy that no one is allowed to question for switching IPs all the time, right? My mistake... Doc talk 05:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Re your mistake: the pipelink you wanted is here. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 05:45, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, then it is you! Just wanted to be sure: it's often hard to keep track. Was it "new" or "autoconfirmed" was my main question. You put forth the proposition, not I... Doc talk 05:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

The suggestion/thought/idea was that file upload permission could be like rollback: you'd have to get a permission bit manually activated by an admin before you could upload files. This (like rollback) would normally not be granted until the user had enough editing experience to seem to know what they were doing. The admin would be expected to engage in some discussion with the user before granting the flag, to make sure the user understood WP's image license practices, and also to check on the user's first few uploads and give feedback and/or guidance. That would seem to be friendlier than what we do now, which is have bots bombard the person with obnoxious templates when the inevitable mistakes happen. I'm not saying this is necessarily a great idea, but just that what we currently do has enough problems that it's worth giving some thought to alternatives. More detailed discussion belongs at WP:VP or the appropriate policy development page if it seems worth pursuing. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 06:09, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Could be a "red tape" nightmare - but who knows. I've basically been told on my last few CU's "not to bother" because vandals and trolls won't stop doing their thing: even before the CU was conducted. One area of WP may lose the red tape... but it's gotta go somewhere! I was trying to point out the irony of your account asking for extra loopholes for "new" accounts to jump through: but it's a "tough crowd". Cheers, "SF67" (the "Summer of Love")... Doc talk 06:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I see the current process of expecting the user to read a mile of mind-numbing policy pages unassisted, then deal with a torrent of impersonal templates and biting, to be much worse as "red tape" than making it so that anyone wanting to contribute images gets some actual personalized handholding from an admin familiar with the various pitfalls before they upload. Did you look at User_talk:Weiterbewegung, the talkpage of the subject of this thread? That is a potentially good editor who has apparently been run off of the project by our current procedures. I hope we can get him back despite our screwups. Anyway, an encyclopedia is primarily a work of text. WP is not Flickr, and if we can gain more good text contributions by losing some image uploads, it's a good trade. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 06:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's an editor right out of the gate that I recently helped (along with another editor) "chase off". Potentially good? Who's to say. If they keep editing along those lines? Never. Will they "get it" and learn to edit here after reading a few rules? I truly hope so. He got "bit" hard with warning templates straight away, and hopefully he will heed them. We don't need to "coddle" editors here - the cream rises to the top. "Please stay and edit Misplaced Pages, you content-creating rascal!" sounds like an advert we don't need. He can "hack it" or he can't, and they come to us, remember... Doc talk 07:06, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

We (supposedly) don't do it that way here. See WP:BITE. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 07:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Seen it. Level 1 templates are worded specifically to "welcome" first-time offenders that are unfamiliar with policy/guidelines. Should we not template the "irregulars"? We'll keep this on the issue at hand to avoid "hijacking" by me (which I've been accused of more than once). I'll disengage and you can continue to discuss the editor "on the grill". Doc talk 07:45, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Templating vandals is fine, as I said at the outset. We should not template editors like Weiterbewegung, when they are obviously trying to contribute good content. Human-written messages go a long way to decreasing the hostility level like what drips off that page. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 08:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

"Humans" leave those warnings: are you saying "user-written" customized warnings should be used instead of the ones we have in place? Not in a "broad" sense. This is getting off-topic: and I don't think you want it to here. Doc talk 08:45, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

The thread is about Weiterbewegung and discussing the causes of the incident, such as him getting (possibly) too many templates, is on-topic. And yes, I believe he should have gotten individualized communication instead of templates. Your attitude of "e got 'bit' hard with warning templates straight away, and hopefully he will heed them. We don't need to 'coddle' editors here - the cream rises to the top" is not in keeping with our behavioral guideline WP:BITE, which in turn follows from #4 of our Founding principles, "The creation of a welcoming and collegial editorial environment." (Another principle listed there is the right to edit without an account, which you seem to also have a problem with).

As that page says, "People who strongly disagree with are nonetheless expected to respect them while collaborating on the site. Those unable or unwilling sometimes end up leaving the project." If you are having unresolvable difficulties respecting Misplaced Pages's basic principles, perhaps you should rethink your involvement with it. That, too, is on-topic, in that the problem we're discussing is caused in part by attitude problems such as yours. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 09:19, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

(Chuckle) We'll see you at my RfC/U (with bells on, I hope) :> Doc talk 09:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If we do adopt a policy that requires users to get permission to be able to upload media (which is not such a good idea, in my humble opinion), then it would be madness to have to make all experienced editors who know what they are doing suddenly have to request permission to upload media. Media that is freely licensed should go to Commons anyway. Personally, I do not see why we would need to put such a limitation on our community. Who said that the ratio of good versus bad media uploaders shows more bad than good? 07:09, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not very active on commons so I don't know if they have this problem as bad as we do. It seems to me that uploading non-free images can reasonably be treated as an "advanced" form of editing, so I don't see anything fundamentally unreasonable about requiring editors to get some experience before they can do it. But, I can see that the idea isn't getting any traction here, so it doesn't seem worth pursuing. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 08:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

With regards to his conduct, I do agree that he does sometimes come across as quite arrogant (see ). He doesn't seem to be capable of working in a collaborative enrivonment, where everybody works together and is on the same level, WIth regards to WP:Bite problems, I know that loads of generic template messages aren't nice for new editors, however he has received praise (), and advice on how to deal with image problems. I really hope Weiterbewegung can put this behind him, and continue to make productive edits. Thanks, Acather96 (talk) 07:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Lots of users get off to rough starts. Some don't get over it, but others do. I've had some successes with abrasive users from simply asking them nicely to tone it down. In Weiterbewegung's case, I tried steering him to some wikiprojects where he might be able to find editors he has more common ground with, than the ones with whom he's previously been interacting. I thought RedRose's advice that you linked was not very friendly, and the problem it addressed (the bot response to the image upload) could have been avoided in the first place. More generally, it seemed to me that the bot notices and templates overwhelmed the actual human dialogue on his talk page. That is a sign we are not doing something right. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 07:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

My mistake on the last diff, it was this one. Thanks, Acather96 (talk) 07:45, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I think ClemRutter's msg could also have been written a bit more reassuringly, but we can't always expect that. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 08:28, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• Whilst I do have great sympathy for his poor reception at the start (although I hadn't encountered him until recently) his editing behaviour at the moment in throwing around copyvios and deletion requests becomes a risk of losing other people's work too. As this is an editor who has presumably already achieved a PhD in the type of history we're setting out to record, then that's just the sort of editor we want to attract. However when it gets to this point, we have to act protectively, not just make the apologies and hope we can recover. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:31, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for inviting me to comment on this page. I am not an administrator and have no aspirations in that directions. I first met Maurice when he made a substantial edit to a page on my watchlist. For a new editor the quality was outstanding, and fully referenced- referring to to his thesis which I had had cause to refer to previously- this immediately indicated to me that this guy was top in his field. Like many people in the engineering field he co-operates by working on a task- perfecting it and presenting it. Nothing strange in that- I know that is not the way that people in the arts and media work. It also appears that Maurice has a vicious sense of humour- and that is what we seeing at the moment. At no point has he confirmed his identity: I hake that inference from the evidence available.

The way he has be treated has been appalling- though as Andy said not unusual. I just don't think Misplaced Pages is designed for cerebral contributions in the field of engineering history. These wretched bots seem to be designed to cope with deliberate copyvios- particularly in the field of media- PR, TV characters, manga, film and music, and cannot cope with with false positives.

Fair use images from catalogues of defunct companies- or ones that have been subsumed in parts in to multinationals- are of zero commercial interest, but essential to the list or article. Trying to get your head round some film buffs interpretation (backed no doubt by case law- in a province of a overseas jurisdiction) of a list of rules that are only referred to by numbers is nigh impossible- and totally impossible to do before said film buff zaps the file.

We who have been around for years appreciate the subtle nature of the argument- but a guy who comes on board with the intention creating missing articles wont. If we get back to basics, that is creating content, the system needs a drastic overhaul to encourage this type of editor. We need a system, where editors are helped to achieve their goals. If we could have less of these bot generated threats- and subsequent policy backed vandalism. For instance, all the bots that write abusive and patronising messages on the user page (usually started with the words- Welcome to Misplaced Pages...) could first do a checkon how long the guy had been editing (from the datafile) and if it was less than 3 months- abort. Especially irritating are the ones that point out a minor error which they would be perfectly capable of fixing-- like please sign your posts.

The tags and advice messages break every rule of UI design, cluttered, overworded, patronising and not targetted at the potential audience - the editor and imply guilt- they are amateur and not fit for purpose.

So because of all that harassment, Maurice has quickly learned the system, and made fools of a large number of people- particularly humorous was realising you could falsely accuse yourself of a copyvio. I realise that not everone understands or appreciates irony. We are now looking for a way forward, (or in German ein Weiterbewegung). Not easy- and I doubt if anyone will agree with me-

• A very big apology
• A group to get together to assist Maurice to upload and correctly document all the photos he needs
• Maurice to be invited to write a whitepaper on a better approach to using a new editor with top rate academic credential, listing the bots and gudelines that need to be overhauled.
• A wizard or whatever the term is that writes these fairuse statements

I leave you to your deliberations, but please try to find a solution where I end up with more articles on defunct engineering companies in Greater Manchester.--ClemRutter (talk) 12:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I would support efforts to get this editor to stay. He's clearly very clever and knowledgeable, and would be a great long-term contributor to his favoured areas of the project. It's very unfortunate that Misplaced Pages's strict copyright rules led to so many templated warnings which, individually, were perhaps ok, but together looked like a major assault against his efforts. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Note to admins: Please watch major templates for a potential vandal

This notice is being cross-posted to the major administrators noticeboard (incidents or alerts) style pages on all the major projects.

Earlier today, a User:Meepsheep2 was blocked here on English Misplaced Pages. Apparently in reprisal, he vandalized a major template on English Wiktionary with a fake fundraising banner that he photoshopped. Someone reported it on IRC, and we blocked him quite quickly for this time of night, but we want you to be on the lookout for future similar incidents. Please help keep an eye on major templates for vandalism specifically related to the fundraiser banners, and if they occur, globally lock their accounts (if you do not have that access, please block them locally on the wiki they vandalized, and then find someone on IRC who can globally lock the account). Stewards can assist with this. I know you guys all watch the high value templates anyway, and I'm not asking you to do anything different with those. I'm specifically referring to incidents that spoof the fundraising banners. Please keep an extra careful eye out for those, and take the extra step of globally locking the account to prevent future recurrences of this specific kind of vandalism. Please send any questions to drosenthal (at) wikimedia.org, or use my English Misplaced Pages User Talk page as I cannot respond locally on all projects. ⇒DanRosenthal 07:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I do echo Dan's concerns above. We have already blocked several of these accounts here on the English Misplaced Pages; this user is certain to be out for more. –MuZemike 10:05, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Sri Lankan Tamil people

There is an issue where an anon with multiple IP accounts is trying to insert a completely inaccurate but inflammatory statement into the lead of the article. He/She is also using a reference in an original research manner. For example see this diff. The ref from a online dictionary says that Eelam may mean 4 different things (as indicated by the Misplaced Pages article itself) and one of them is Sinhala, so the anon creates a sentence saying Sri Lankan Tamil people who are known in their native Tamil language as Ilat Tamilar (or Eelam Tamils in English) as "Sinhala Tamils". "Sinhala Tamils" has no real RS references and is never uesd to describe Sri Lankan Tamils. Given the political situation in Sri Lanka (Sri Lankan civil war) and the tenuous relationship between majority Sinhala people and minority Sri Lankan Tamils, this is potentially carrying the battle into Misplaced Pages. Also thsi is inflammatory and not directly from the source itself. We used to have a forum to sole these issues, WP:SLR but it is no longer active, hence I bring it here. Thanks. Kanatonian (talk) 08:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I also informed the anon's one of the IP accounts about this Ani notice.Kanatonian (talk) 08:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't even say that in the Dict. entry. (, n. < Pāli, Sīhala. < Siṃhala. 1. Ceylon; சிங்களம். (திவா.) 2. Gold; பொன். (இரகு. நகர. 68.) 3. Toddy, arrack; கள். (சூடா.) 4. Spurge, Euphorbia; கள்ளி. It merely suggests that ilam comes from sinhala. So misread source, I removed it. Later on, IP removed what I was about to remove anyhow as it was not needed. As you noticed after reverting IP ... :) Looks like you mistook IPs edits at that time for already disruptive. Good call on self-revert. Let's just watch that IP. I think it still as potential to become an encyclopaedic editor. After all, it did try to source the statement. छातीऀनाएल - chartinael (talk) 10:49, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Possible libel of Pakistan's president

This section added by User:76.184.139.231 may be referenced to unreliable sources and constitute libel against living persons, although I am not expert in the subject.--Charles (talk) 11:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Correct conclusion in my opinion. The paragraph was sourced to a blog and a probably not very NPOV book by a relative. Favonian (talk) 11:12, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

This edit by the IP is somewhat questionable too... Sean.hoyland - talk 11:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Correct revert as Section does not fulfill encyclopaedic standards. However, other, more reliable sources are not far off. Compare: Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of Global Jihad by Bruce Riedel Brookings Institution Press, 2011 - 200 Seiten. See page 44. So the allegations have been put in writing and can be used. छातीऀनाएल - chartinael (talk) 11:18, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Try WP:BLPN rather than here for further discussion. The edit looks mostly reasonable but has some dubious cites, so your revert was justified. Please try to get in a friendly discussion with the contributor about acceptable sourcing for BLP's. I think The News International (cited as "The News", one of the questioned sources) is ok, but others need more discussion. The book by Fatima Bhutto (the relative) ok as a POV source if its notability can be established. NPOV means all significant points of view are supposed to be represented, not that each cited source is supposed to be neutral in its own right. Fatima Bhutto's POV probably counts as significant. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 11:19, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I would imagine that it only counts as significant if the information being sourced from the book has significant coverage in secondary sources. Sean.hoyland - talk 11:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, better to take it to BLPN and let the specialists figure it out, but I'd say to the extent that the book is the author's interpretation of events reported elsewhere, it's already a secondary source, which is good enough for us. What we'd do next is assess it for due weight by checking published reviews and references by other sources and seeing what they say about its reliability as a whole. "Significant" means something straightforward in plain English, and the assessment process should try to implement that straighforward meaning in a reasonably faithful way, not use wikilawyerish contortions to make the word mean something completely different for the sake of removing controversy from WP articles. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 11:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Slakr Blocking of User:LSorin account with WP:EW but not further explanations

User:Lsorin was blocked for one week by the administrator User:Slakr without being explained the exact reason from the WP:EW. I suspect that the administrator blocked, my account with regard of content of the article in conflict of interest and against the Edit warring policy: Don't use edits to fight with other editors – disagreements should be resolved through discussion. and However, according to wp:administrators, "Administrators should not use their tools to advantage, or in a content dispute (or article) where they are a party (or significant editor), or where a significant conflict of interest is likely to exist. As well I must add that all my edits were have been commented in the "reason" section of the edit or an the very long discussions on the Coanda-1910 talk page and the other pages involved. Part of the articles content discussions leading to the blocking--Lsorin (talk) 12:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

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