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User:David Tombe is being abused by me

I'd like to report myself for losing my ability to not respond nastily to David Tombe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Can't we arrange for another year of two of physics topic ban for this guy? Dicklyon (talk) 05:46, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Um -- this is a backhanded way of making a complaint, indeed. If you lose your own temper, have a cup of tea. Collect (talk) 08:54, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it's magnificent actually. At one stroke Dicklyon admits his shortcomings and accepts any consequences for them, while at the same time focussing our attention upon the real villian, Mr. Tombe, who from a brief glance does look rather a nuisance. In fact it's so good I'm going to see what barnstar I can award the former. Egg Centric (talk) 17:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for understanding my mixed feelings, and for your cool barnstar. I have numerous times advised others to simply ignore David's nonsense, yet I seem to be unable to take my own advice. Dicklyon (talk) 18:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you gave that advice on the cf page and I ignored it. I was wrong but I have now heeded it, you should too. Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:16, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

David is still under general probation, as listed at WP:Arbitration/Active sanctions. I've not been following the discussion at Talk:Centrifugal force but it looks like he exceeded the terms of that sanction a long time ago.--JohnBlackburne_deeds 18:56, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

If you would like admin action, e.g. a ban from Talk:Centrifugal force, then please present evidence that User:David Tombe has "repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, any normal editorial process or any expected standards of behavior and decorum". Fences&Windows 20:33, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

He two weeks ago posted some clearly incorrect physics (it's at the top of the talk page), was told by three different editors he was wrong, reminded of previous warnings on pushing his fringe ideas, and stopped. Only since then he's joined and started further discussions pushing the same incorrect physics, , , , , , ,..., undeterred by further editors pointing out his errors. --JohnBlackburne_deeds 21:42, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The simplest approach might be for any editor who thinks David Tombe is not adhering to proper standards to open a complaint at WP:Arbitration enforcement and ask for an appropriate sanction under his general probation, which was made indefinite by Arbcom. See Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light#Remedies, item 6.2. EdJohnston (talk) 22:19, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

For those not familiar with the case that involved David Tombe (the Speed of light case, though centrifugal force was mentioned in the scope statement), the final decision is here. My reading (as a former arbitrator) of the general probation (which I voted for at the time as an arbitrator active on that case) is that this was intended to cover the uncivil behaviour mentioned in the other finding related to him. The fringe advocacy finding was dealt with by the physics topic ban remedy (which expired in October 2010). Reimposing the topic ban is something that might be simpler and quicker to take this straight to an amendment request (it depends on whether those active at arbitration enforcement think it is within their remit to renew an expired topic ban under the provisions of the still-existing general probation). My view is that it looks like David Tombe has returned to his previous ways, and that a topic ban should be reimposed, but that it should be ArbCom that is asked to rule on this, at an amendment request. David Tombe would have to demonstrate whether his behaviour has changed or not. Carcharoth (talk) 23:56, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

This can go straight under the general probation, which does not seem to be limited to civility problems. Arbcom knows full well how to write a civility restriction, and the general probation here isn't one. It's more like a discretionary sanctions regime, and AE has routinely reimposed under those regimes arbcom-imposed topic bans that have since expired in cases of renewed misconduct, as far as I know.

Turning to the merits, it seems obvious to me that David Tombe is engaging in exactly the same type of behavior that got him sanctioned in the first place, in the same set of pages, no less. Therefore, in accordance with Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Speed of light#David Tombe restricted, David Tombe (talk · contribs) is hereby banned indefinitely from all articles, discussions, and other content related to physics, broadly construed across all namespaces. T. Canens (talk) 02:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. Fences&Windows 03:29, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

It also seems to directly contradict Carcharoth's words: My view is that it looks like David Tombe has returned to his previous ways, and that a topic ban should be reimposed, but that it should be ArbCom that is asked to rule on this, at an amendment request. David Tombe would have to demonstrate whether his behaviour has changed or not. Dr.K.  03:37, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I take note of Carcharoth's comment, but the language of the Speed of light case explicitly allows admins to impose additional sanctions on David Tombe. (The remedies regarding Tombe were more strict than those applied to Brews ohare, since Brews' probation was for just one year, while Tombe's probation was made indefinite). Their decision states:

David Tombe (talk · contribs) is placed under a general probation indefinitely. Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions if, despite being warned, David Tombe repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, any normal editorial process or any expected standards of behavior and decorum.

Arbcom used the phrase 'discretionary sanctions' a number of times in their decision. In fact, the log shows that Tznkai took an enforcement action in November, 2009 which imposed a further restriction on David Tombe. If David objects to this new topic ban from physics articles, the usual appeal process is open to him. He can take the matter to WP:AE, and if not satisfied with the response there, he can go to Arbcom. EdJohnston (talk) 04:21, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Ed for clarifying. I would have preferred if Carcharoth was allowed to proceed on the plan to involve the Arbcom further before any action was taken. Dr.K.  04:53, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I did look at Carcharoth's comment. That's why I specifically discussed the probation's difference from civility restrictions - arbcom has a fixed formula for those as well: "X is subject to an editing restriction for Y. Should he make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith, he may be briefly blocked...". This is not one of them. T. Canens (talk) 06:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

In Talk:Centrifugal force, David is defending an alternative idea that there really is an actual force of separation between adjacent members of a centrifugally rotating material system and that the system can then be made to transfer angular momentum and associated kinetic energy away from the system due to the existence and occurrence of this Centrifugal force property. The other editors in this matter seem to want to be "left alone" from discussions concerning this aspect of the subject matter. Since the utility of the use of the subject matter is better understand the correct functioning of same, it seems reasonable that such a discussion should be a reasonable topic of discussion in a talk section.WFPM (talk) 17:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I think 2+ years without a source that supports his POV was more than enough discussion, to justify some of us wanting to be "left alone" as you put it; and he never advanced the position that you just described; that must be your own POV. Actually, I don't think I've ever heard of a "centrifugally rotating material system", so don't know what you're referring to even. Dicklyon (talk) 06:15, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

There is a difference between debating alternative physics and theories (that is better done on various forums that are available around the internet, rather than on Misplaced Pages) and using talk pages to improve the associated article. From what I can see, there is far too much discussion of the physics rather than discussing the writing and improvement of the article. This is what was a problem before, hence the action taken here. Carcharoth (talk) 02:18, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• Noting here that this is also being discussed at User talk:Timotheus Canens and User talk:David Tombe. It may be worth keeping an eye on those pages in case things get out of hand. I will be leaving a comment at the former page advising on what should be done here, but as an arbitration enforcement action has been taken, there is no need (yet) to discuss the matter here, so this thread can probably be closed. Carcharoth (talk) 02:15, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Charcharoth, With all due respect, I think we need to distinguish between the concept of 'alternative physics' on the one hand, and the fact that two alternative concepts of centrifugal force were being discussed on the talk page at centrifugal force. Alternative physics was not being discussed. David Tombe (talk) 14:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Charcharoth, Thanks for opening the debate surrounding the evidence which was presented. You have claimed that I was using the talk page to discuss physics, rather than for the purpose of discussing how to improve the article. And you hold up the diffs provided by John Blackburne as being evidence that I was promoting fringe ideas. Let's look at the very first diff provided by John Blackburne. It is this . I was responding to an anonymous who had asked a question. I don't see where I have promoted any fringe ideas. I began by referring the anonymous to an excellent source which actually clarified some of the confusion surrounding the issue. Here is the source, . It explains how Leibniz had deduced that centrifugal force is an outward inverse cube law force. But as is well known, there was an intense rivalry between Newton and Leibniz and when Newton saw Leibniz's equation, he criticized it and claimed that centrifugal force is the equal and opposite reaction to the centripetal force. The sources which the anonymous was producing were sources which related to the Newtonian viewpoint. But the Newtonian viewpoint is no longer the foremost viewpoint being taught nowadays at university. I don't see any misconduct on my part. It was a talk page discussion aimed at trying to improve the article, and that involved trying to establish some kind of understanding of the subject matter. In my opinion, dicklyon was being obstructive and on his own admission, he was being uncivil. The truth is that T. Canens engaged in a knee jerk reaction, and as we all know very well, those kind of knee jerk reactions, which are all too common, are never reversed. David Tombe (talk) 12:07, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I am not really familiar with WP procedures but I was contributing to talk:centrifugal force and the subject "abuse of David Tombe" cropped up. It seems that another editor reported himself for an abuse and it ends with this David Tombe permanently banned from physics articles. Can this be right? I have now checked back and this is about contributions to a talk page. Do you approve of free speech in a talk page? This was all about merging articles on centrifugal force into one, and got mixed up with interpretations. David Tombe's contributions were all "polite" were they not? The only heated comments came from Dicklyon and they were really minor but he admitted he had lost his temper. What is going on? I also checked back about the earlier fracas and it seems to me the ban was then to close down discussion rather than because of a single immoderate or insulting remark. OK there is disagreement here echoing Newton and Leibniz, actually very interesting stuff and as I said in the talk page, we do not understand the cause of inertia so we must be humble rather than fixed in our views of what is a real force. Is gravity a real force? We don't understand that either . I for one feel that we are seeing an injustice here where one editor (dicklyon) gets annoyed and has another banned - indefinitely.Profstandwellback (talk) 19:18, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

The fundamental misunderstanding here is the idea that Misplaced Pages talk pages are somehow a place to debate what centrifugal force is, or is not (or whatever the topic of the page is). There is often a need for limited discussion of that nature, but it is important to bear in mind the need to keep such discussions limited and to focus discussions onto what edits need to be made to the page and what sources are appropriate. This doesn't mean discussing in depth the science behind what the sources say, but rather the talk page should be for discussing whether and how to present what the sources say. That might seem like the same thing, but there is a subtle and fundamental difference. In other words, Misplaced Pages article talk pages are not areas of free speech where opinions about the topic should be debated (though that does happen sometimes). This misunderstanding is clearly seen in the comment made by David Tombe here: "the topic is a centuries old controversy which was argued about by great masters such as Newton and Leibniz, and it would be a mistake to think that John Blackburne has the last word as regards what is correct and what is not correct in relation to centrifugal force". The aim of collaborating on a Misplaced Pages page on centrifugal force is not to come up with the last word on what is correct and what is not correct. The aim is to document what reliable sources say, and to cover some of the history, and put the rest of the history on the page about the history (see History of centrifugal and centripetal forces), and even there, the aim would be to summarise what historians of science have concluded, not to draw our own conclusions. It is very, very easy to cross the line and end up discussing the content (as you would in a forum), rather than discussing the article and what it should look like. There is even {{Not a forum}} that is put on talk pages explicitly to remind readers to avoid this conduct. For more on the community attitude to Misplaced Pages being treated as a forum, see the recent Village pump thread here. See also here and here. Carcharoth (talk) 23:42, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Carcharoth, You should have read the discussion before making a recommendation for a topic ban. Then you would have seen that it was indeed about how to reduce the content of five articles into one article. And if you think that the problem was that I was expressing my opinions on the topic, then so was everybody else in the discussion. As for John Blackburne, he wasn't even involved in the discussion. What is important here is that this thread has illustrated everything that is bad about wikipedia. Tim Song has acted arbitrarily on the back of rumour, without any investigation whatsoever, and he has summarily convicted without even giving the defendant a chance to defend himself. And it's not the fact that he has acted beyond his remit which is the problem here. It's the fact that the system has defended his actions and tried to argue that his actions were correct, even though everybody knows that his actions were badly wrong. Since when has it been acceptable to claim that a warning for one kind of behaviour is relevant to a warning for another kind of 'alleged' misbehaviour 15 months later? And there has been no evidence of misbehaviour presented. John Blackburne's opinions do not count as evidence. Ideally Tim Song should be de-sysoped for his actions. But experience shows that no such good fortune ever happens, and as such I have absolutely no intention whatsoever of appealing against this monumental farce. It is like England's goal against Germany at the world cup last summer. The whole world saw that it was a goal but the referee disallowed it. The decision was not overturned and England went into the second half demoralized. And so it is here. The priority is making sure that Tim Song doesn't lose face. And so be it. Let's end the pretence that there was even the remotest grain of legitimacy in his actions. David Tombe (talk) 12:07, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, it is polite to use people's current usernames. Secondly, since you have stated you have no intention of appealing, I suggest this thread is closed. I've explained why I think WP:NOT#FORUM applies here (the template is on that article talk page), and it applies to you more than others due to the previous arbitration case. I won't say more on that here, as that will just means things are going round in circles. Carcharoth (talk) 00:31, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Going around in circles is what Tombe does best. How many hours of pointless, endless discussion with and about him are going to go by before we finally decide enough is enough? I came to that decision about two years ago myself, over pretty much these same issues. ArbCom tried one of their "middle road" solutions and, surprise surprise, it failed. David, don't feel any need to reply to this as I will not be reading it. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:14, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is great at being sanctimonious to the point that it believes that proper process is not required. You would think a permanent ban would be an instance where you would want to get it right. Even if the believe is that wikipedia is right to act, you might just go that extra mile to be certain.--scuro (talk) 00:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, which is why I said David Tombe should appeal to ArbCom, rather than go round in circles here (and elsewhere). That would be the proper process here. To respond to Beeblebrox, have a look at the voting in the proposed decision on the case. It is one of the few times I voted to support a year-long site ban and was in the minority (the topic ban was passed instead). In general, I wish administrators would enforce "not a forum" more than they do. Discussion on talk pages should be focused on improving the article, and other stuff should go to user talk pages or to off-wiki venues. Unfortunately, some editors dress up their discussion and opinion on a topic under the guise of claiming to be improving the article, claiming that in order to show why the article should be written such-and-such-a-way, they need to give a mini-lecture on the topic first. And the mini-lecture then devolves into an acrimonious debate and lots of hand-waving. But this should be discussed elsewhere. I think we really are done here now. Carcharoth (talk) 01:14, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Let me get this straight, we can only be certain of his guilt by imposing a permanent ban so that it can sorted out in an appeal to arbcom?!?????!! Are not appeals of arbcom an opaque process not viewable to all?! I do not understand at all why this shortcut to proper justice is being imposed.--scuro (talk) 13:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

You may want to make yourself familiar with this situation, then. Tombe was originally topic-banned from this subject ~2 years ago, and the entire physics category is under general sanctions per ArbCom. Tombe's ban dropped, and he went right back into arguing his alternative hypothesis, exactly the same thing that got him banned before. Per ArbCom's general sanctions, admins may impose a topic ban on those who are violating the sanction rules. And Tombe is clearly doing that. Process has been followed. — The Hand That Feeds You: 13:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

There is a huge difference between what wikipedia can do and what wikipedia should do. An appeal to close the thread right now does nothing to bolster the impression that this has NOT been done too quickly. Another contributor has mentioned his breadth of knowledge that DT has on this topic and that his viewpoint is not fringe viewpoint. Has this situtation been misrepresented in anyway? As a bare minimum you would to know that wikipedia got it right before you impose a permanant ban.--scuro (talk) 14:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

• When the case was being heard, I'd proposed a full site ban because I expected the issues to continue like a never ending story. The proposal moved forward to the PD but the majority wanted to give other sanctions a chance to work (which was fine at the time). However, this is no longer a first-timer; we're seeing repeats of the same problems by the same user which the case already dealt with. There isn't any reason for the Community to overturn what has been noted here so if an appeal is wanted, it'll need to go to AC...which brings me to my point...why is this still open? Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:04, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Because of the possibility of injustice.--scuro (talk) 14:06, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes we reviewed that. No ban is permanent, and frankly, this restriction isn't even a site ban (perhaps unfortunately)...so if the AC remedy needs to be overturned, take it to AC so they can decide if the way in which their restriction was enforced was 'unjust'. It may not have been perfect, but if they subsequently find that this remedy was too generous, then they can fix that as well. As far as I can see, there isn't any private evidence in this case. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:11, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes Ncmvocalist, but I objected to that course of action. There are two characterizations of DT by different contributors and they do not at all mesh. It disturbs me that we are so quick to bury this thread and "live" with the permanent ban. Where is the fire? Why factor in the possibility of "fixing" something later? Especially since, as far as I understand this, the appeal process is not a transparent process?!?? Any possible injustice should see the light of day now.

Do you not trust that DT is speaking truthfully or that he is not acting in good faith on this thread? I for one would like to hear him explain things more and I would like to hear more from the character witness.--scuro (talk) 17:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I honestly don't see your point here, nor why you're objecting, save for some sort of "white knight" impulse. Toombe has a history of this behavior, and returned to it after a topic ban had dropped. Reinstating the topic ban isn't a stretch, nor necessarily permanent. — The Hand That Feeds You: 15:56, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The 'fire' is here: WP:ARBSL. No-one I think is being quick to bury this, but are respecting the wisdom of the arbitrators who put in place the sanctions, after a long and drawn out process that took all circumstances into account, which now see this ban imposed. The recent behaviour is a return to exactly the same behaviour on the same topic that resulted in a year long physics ban. It's difficult to see where else it could go after that but an indefinite topic ban, indefinite rather than permanent as all such bans can be appealed.--JohnBlackburne_deeds 16:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

We have had two calls to bury this and it would have been done without objections. So again I ask, where is the fire? Had every contributor to this thread all stated the same point, then yes, I would have also agreed to bury the thread.

User WFPM saw nothing wrong with DT posts and he spoke to this in an intelligent and straightforward manner. Explain to me how this is so? Did WFPM misrepresent the situation?

While all bans can be appealed what is wrong in taking some more time here to be certain that this facts have not been misconstrued. We can actually be saving wikipedia time by doing it right the first time.

Allow DT or WFPM to speak to the issues without pressure...give them perhaps a day or two more. ANI is a very stressful place. Give him time to collect himself and respond in a reasonable manner. If he chooses not to respond shortly I am all for closing the thread.--scuro (talk) 22:11, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Two points: 1) David certainly has had time, because he contacted me via the email feature to claim I was "misled" by others (despite forming my opinion on my own), and then claiming he wasn't doing anything wrong... he was just arguing with other editors on the talk page about the definition of centrifugal force. Which is what got him banned in the first place, and banned this time. 2) Further debate here is moot, because lifting the ban would have to be done by ArbCom, not us. Doesn't matter how long we go around in circles here, it won't accomplish anything further. — The Hand That Feeds You: 17:16, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I've simply made a request and the request is to do this with dignity. Personally I believe that this is not a lot to ask. If we as an entity give little creedence to the bureaucracy of justice then at least we should be empathetic in our certainty. Is another day too much to bear?--scuro (talk) 17:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Editnotice required, apparently...

Per this Misplaced Pages:Hardcore images needs an Editnotice created to let us know that we're not allowed to edit that essay without Herostratus' permission. I was going to create one myself but it seems one needs to be an admin to do it; no doubt he would have himself had he not been desysopped.

Oh, and yes the above may contain a *hint* of sarcasm. Egg Centric (talk) 09:58, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Account creators may also edit edit notices. --Kudpung (talk) 13:18, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I can make one if he wants it. Otherwise, I'd ignore him. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 18:51, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar on its way Egg Centric (talk) 19:00, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Although I think the sarcasm is funny, this is actually a situation where some input from others would be great. Months ago I asked HS to userfy this essay. The request was refused and I took it to a deletion discussion. Editors assumed it was an attempt to censor an essay and overwhelmingly !voted to keep. Since then, HS has locked the page down. Reverts (not my changes) here and here. These on top of the gaul to say anyone can edit but me 'is not only completely out of line, it is against WP:ESSAYS. "Essays that the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace.". Time to userfy this essay and I believe HS needs a reminder of protocol if they can dictate who can and cannot edit.Cptnono (talk) 20:38, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

• Userfied to User:Herostratus/Hardcore images. If anyone wants to WP:OWN an essay, time to move it out of project space. Fences&Windows 00:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, this is troubling, Fences. The essay was up for MfD this fall and the decision was "Keep" (the headcount FWIW was 11-3, and one of the "Strong Keep" voters was Jimbo, for whatever that is worth.) So just deciding on one's own say-so to ignore that is troubling, and since you also deleted the shortcut (not called for, since many shortcuts point into userspace) this is an administrative rather than just an editorial action, so this is doubly troubling. (actually, a bot did this, sorry)

Now, as to "owning", this is an interesting question, and it involves the question of "hostile edits" to essays in Wikispace. Of course what constitutes a "hostile edit" can be debatable in some cases. But not here. An editor (who has repeatedly, vociferously, and at great length expressed his opposition to and rejection of the entire thrust and thesis of the essay) was gutting the essay, essentially a slow-motion page blanking. This was no good-faith effort to improve the essay or make it stronger and clearer, but rather a hostile attempt to destroy it, disingenuous protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. All this is discussed on the essay's talk page, which Fences should probably have read before taking this mistaken action.

In my opinion, edits to an essay that are clearly hostile shouldn't be allowed (instead, editors are encouraged to create refuting essays of their own and link to them on the original essay's "See also" section). I think if the principle of hostile edits to essays is to be allowed, that lead to a lot chaos and basically the potential destruction of the concept of essays, at least for those which are not necessarily popular and well-protected.

But who knows, maybe it would be a good thing. But it would be a major change, and there should be some quite considerable discussion before this is accepted, I think.

So if someone could please undo Fences' action and sort this all out, that would be good idea, I think. As always, I'm open to RfC, mediation, or whatever other good solutions are available. Another MfD would certainly be permissible. But not just, you know, one editor deciding he doesn't like the page. Herostratus (talk) 02:45, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

It wasn't one editor not liking it. You reverted two other editors trying to make changes so at least three of us were raising concerns. You are able to make it say so much more in your user space so have fun with it and make your point. If you feel it is sufficient to change policy (which is an ongoing discussion over at Commons which you have been absent from) then please submit it at the Village Pump's policy page. F&W did act a little more boldly than I expected but any admin applying the policy fixes the issue and is exactly the outcome I expected sooner or later.Cptnono (talk) 07:52, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't see that in the article history, I see only User:Atomaton, not counting this one edit by Egg Centric, unless one wants to go back to November or earlier.

Well, anyway, Fences, there you have it: if you acted a little more boldly than Cptnono expected (!) then I think it's safe to say you've gone quite a bit off the edge of the board.

OK, well, this looks like a good case for mediation, I think. I'll file a request with the Cabal, and if mediation works OK we'll take it from there. In the meantime, the essay should be moved back into main essay space, and I would prefer if someone do this, but this is not critical, we can do that later on. I am restoring the shortcut, though, as this will make the page easier to point to.

Also, ould it be asking too much if, in future, participants at ANI could suggest dispute resolution or something before taking precipitate action? We do have a whole dispute resolution process, and it would a good thing if admins in particular familiarize themselves with it, I think. Herostratus (talk) 16:20, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

• Per WP:ESSAYS, the idea of an essay is to put forward a point of view. These may range from personal to minority views, to views that enjoy wide consensus. If an essay sets out to make the case for a particular point of view, it is legitimate for the author to ensure that it stays true to that point of view. Improvements should be focused on clarifying the presentation of that point of view, but not to change the point of view. Editors who do not agree with the point of view put forward are free to write an alternative essay. Sorry, Fences, the deletion and userification without an XfD was improper, and should be undone. --JN466 16:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

• • Reread it, please: Misplaced Pages:ESSAYS clearly says, "Essays that the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace." Do you see this occurring here? Because I certainly do. The issue is not the viewpoint, it's the refusal to let others edit it. The MfD was about the content, not the actions of the author. None of the content is being changed in userfication. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 17:32, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
    • Here are some of the changes Herostratus reverted: , , .
    • For reference, the previous MfD for the essay at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Hardcore images was a clear Keep. --JN466 17:39, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Of course, if you look at the edit history, and detailed discussions in the talk page you would see that no editor has tried to change the point of view being made in the essay. If it is in main space, then the essay is subject to the same consensus rules and BRD rules as any other article. No editor may wp:OWN the essay in mainspace. Clearly the originating editor of this essay wished for no one to modify the article without his approval, and explicitly expressed that he owned the article. Hence, he should be able to do that, but only if it is in user space. having said that -- see my earlier comment below about due process, that Herostratus should have had a chance to express his view before any action was made. Atom (talk) 21:32, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Another point is that the essay could be broken into sections allowing expression of all major points of views on the general topic. An exclusionist perspective of only allowing one editor to make changes and expressly prohibiting edits of any kind from editors that are viewed as hostile is not functional. Atom (talk) 21:32, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

• Note: I've dropped a post about this to the Gendergap list. I would like a few more eyes on this, in particular female eyes. --JN466 17:48, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Of course I think that it is clear that a personal essay should be in user space, and community work to develop policies or guidelines should allow opinions and expressions from the spectrum of Misplaced Pages editors. In this case I was bothered by the lack of due process. I would have at least liked to see editor Herostratus express his viewpoint on why his essay should not be in user space before any decision or action was taken. Atom (talk) 21:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Atom, you have indicated that you will not accept mediation. I leave it as exercise to the reader to determine why this might be so. This now leaves us with the question, what to do next? RfC is not designed to handle this type of situation, and I don't know of any other dispute resolution steps that would apply here.

One solution would be for another editor or editors besides me to agree to watchlist the page and defend the page's integrity. However, we're all busy and have full watchlists, so I'm not sure if anyone is willing to do this.

Another solution would be to move the page back to main space and initiate an MfD.

A third solution would be to clarify the operative policy, by suggesting something like the following change be made to WP:ESSAY (additions show in italics, and if anyone could suggest better wording that would be fine) and submitting it to an RfC:

"Essays that the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace. If an essay is subject to hostile or destructive edits (such as section or page blanking), and only a single editor objects, that editor may be assumed to be in violation of WP:OWN and the essay may be summarily moved to userspace by any editor; no WP:MFD or other procedure is required

I wouldn't support this, but it's arguable - a case could be made that if only one editor is watchlisting and defending an essay this if prima facie evidence that it doesn't have consensus to be in main space, and if the community wants to adopt this change to WP:ESSAY I'd go along with it. This is the de facto standard that is being applied by Fetchcomms and Fence, but I think it would be a good idea to have it clarified by community decision before we apply it across the board.

So which of these three solutions would be best, or does anyone have another suggestion? Since mediation has been rejected, I would seek advice. Herostratus (talk) 05:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, first, I agreed to assist you if you thought mediating something would help. I'm not sure what iy is I said was a "rejection". Secondly, while it was in your user space, it was your essay. What did we have to mediate? Third is, what do we have to mediate? I have just as much right as any other editos to improve Misplaced Pages. We went through a very normal BRD cycle and discussed viewpoints in a ehalthy way. Should all articles be mediated when that happens? Atom (talk) 22:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• Move back to Misplaced Pages namespace because there was an extended deletion debate with the result Keep. The essay which was considered for deletion was the one written by Herostratus, not a denatured version. The extent and manner such an essay can be changed is a question that needs to be addressed. I think edits which substantially change the meaning of the essay as opposed to refining it or elaborating on it are properly reverted. User:Fred Bauder Talk 21:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The deletion discussion was before the ownership issue. HS proved that others were not welcome to contribute after the deletion discussion so this was a great decision. Faster than I thought but same result that should have been expected. And note that I did not edit war, edit maliciously, or even open this ANI so I am not the bad guy as HS is asserting at the talk page.Cptnono (talk) 07:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I am more inclined to see what is happening here as a form of censorship. Essays should reflect a range of opinions, and there was plenty of support for having this as an essay in the MfD. This reminds me a little of happened to the WP:ACTIVIST essay a few weeks ago: it was overwhelmed by editors dicking around with it, making it say the opposite of what it used to say, inserting jokes, etc. In the end it was locked, the controversy has died down, and the essay now seems to be coming along nicely, judging by the WP:ACTIVIST talk page.

I am not saying behaviour at this essay rose to that level (although this comes close, but there was still an effort to change and water down the message of the essay. If you fundamentally disagree with the message of an essay, it is better to ignore it and work on a different one stating your position; both essays can and should then link to each other. That way we get fruitful debate; not by shutting positions out.

• Move back to Misplaced Pages namespace per previous MfD. --JN466 12:55, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Except that "shutting positions out" is exactly what HS was doing by WP:OWNing the article. If people cannot edit the essay, it doesn't belong in WP space. — The Hand That Feeds You: 16:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

This absolutely needs to be userfied. In addition to ownership issues, Herostratus apparently means for this to apply to a very contrived definition of "hardcore", that is almost just bukkake and nothing else. It's a pointy salvo in a content dispute that Jimbo has latched on to. To Jimbo: While an appeal to exercising editorial discretion when it comes to pornographic images would be a completely appropriate essay, this isn't it. Gigs (talk) 16:39, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

And "hardcore" has actual legal implications that the essay ignores. The essay also ignores that there are very few (if any) articles solely based on sex acts in adult films. The creator of the essay actually tried to change the scopes of articles so that this essay would be more inline with those articles which meant that any policy change would have removed those images. There is attempted gaming of the system and wheel warring now. But fine, I will play the game. Cptnono (talk) 07:23, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Can you give examples of those edits please?--Crossmr (talk) 22:52, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Bukkake is the perfect example

• The essay was created on Oct 28.
• A couple weeks earlier, Herostraus had changed the scope of Bukkake to being only about pornography.
• Then there was some edit warring with Herostratus against multiple editors.

Cptnono (talk) 04:07, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Snowballing is another one. Just a few minutes ago Herostratus put forth the argument that it is only in porn and no where else.. Similar discussion have taken place. I ill be happy to track them all down but it will take a bit since they all kind of blend together since they have happened multiple times.

C'mon, saying Dr Ruth is not RS when it means that an articles scope will be about sex acts and not just porn? I have to track that diff down still. Gaming. Complete and utter gaming.Cptnono (talk) 04:16, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That kind of editing is the kind of editing I usually see lead to a topic ban. There is a serious case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT combined with some attempts to game the system to try and drive their personal crusade. If they can't reign it in, then I'd recommend a topic ban be put into place immediately.--Crossmr (talk) 08:25, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

User Lawstubes is refusing to back down at Talk:Sun

• Lawstubes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• Talk:Sun (edit | history)

Lawstubes is disruptive editor with a history of pure pseudoscientific POV-pushing, and who has been blocked for that in the past. Right now, he's back after an absence of several months, doing exactly what he was doing before he got blocked.

In case you aren't sure that he's pushing pure garbage, he's claiming the sun does not emit light (amongst a long list of equally insane claims). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:00, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

That's a content issue. We have no concern for content. He would have to say a naughty word or otherwise breach a behavioral guideline in order for action to be warranted. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:46, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

He was previously blocked in September 2010 for edit warring. He has also been warned under his IP User:173.218.85.222 (which I understand he acknowledges is him). This particular issue involves huge interference with the talkpage which can be seen in the talkpage history. He removed his own and other editors posts, shifted things around, left responses hanging in the air and then briefly edit warred to keep it that way. He stopped when this ANI was filed. I have warned him on his talkpage that this is disruptive and referred him to the relevent guideline.Fainites scribs 19:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

If his edits are inappropriate, provide examples in the form of diffs. Otherwise, he's simply arguing for his (incorrect) views. if he abides by our rules, he's fine. If not, we need diffs. Throwaway85 (talk) 03:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree diffs should have been provided. A quick look at the talkpage history showed the situation though. After I warned him another admin blocked him for 31 hours. I have put a block notice on his page if he wants to appeal. Fainites scribs 15:33, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Yep, the history of the Talk page shows clear comment-refactoring and edit-warring - individual diffs surely aren't needed when it's so blatant. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

An observation about some of the comments regarding "ANI is not for content disputes" that have been made above. While this is certainly true, it is also a fundamental requirement that all content in WP be supported by reliable sources. Constant arguing for the inclusion/validity of content for which there are no reliable sources is NOT a content dispute, it is a behavioural issue, as it is disruptive. (Those "genuine" content disputes that are outside the remit of admins are the ones where there is a dispute concerning the relative weight of contradictory but otherwise reliable sources, or where there is a legitimate controversy at play in the subject itself). There does not seem to be any evidence of reliable sources for the viewpoint being repeatedly expressed by Lawstube, which does render this matter as a conduct issue. Manning (talk) 14:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, that is whu Grundle2600 (talk · contribs) was eventually kicked to the curb; at some point when a content dispute devolves into blatant "I didn't hear that" territory, it becomes behavioral. I have also taken the liberty of altering the topic title, as I think we can file complaints without resorting to the k-word. Tarc (talk) 14:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd assumed Boris was being sarcastic or making a point. Actually though he hasn't been blocked for disruption around content but if he does start pushing unsourced content into the articles against consensus as opposed to merely expressing a view on the talkpage (in a non-disruptive way) then bring it back here. If there is an issue about the quality of rival sources then try WP:RSN or WP:RFC. Fainites scribs 14:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

It looks like the editor's argument is based on some excruciatingly tedious technical point about physics. I can't say if he's right or not. But it's along the same lines as claiming that you never really "touch" anything, but rather that certain things happen at the molecular level that give the illusion of touch. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 14:42, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't matter if his argument is "right" or not. What matters is whether or not there are reliable sources to justify the argument, either as an "accepted position" or even as a "controversial position". AFAICT there are none. Manning (talk) 15:22, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

User:GutiLucian02

GutiLucian02 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been doing little more than playing with his User page since registering, and looks like he's just doing random things. That itself is pretty harmless (although he's been doing stuff there that's needed reverting), though he's also been making some bad changes to articles, which also get reverted. But now, he's just done this to my user page, after I asked him not to change the dates of tags on articles. I'm not sure I could go as far as to suggest it's a vandalism-only account, but does anyone think anything needs to be done? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I hadn't noticed he's already been indef blocked. Sorry to waste your time. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

...And now they've requested an unblock. I've asked them to explain where they screwed up, but have not declined outright - yet. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 20:09, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

As you can see from both their current talk page and its history, I tried multiple times to engage this user in dialogue about their editing pattern and what the purpose of Misplaced Pages is. I was roundly ignored, as were several other users who tried to talk to them. If they can explain specifically what they would do if unblocked I guess a second chance may be in order, but I think we have a serious WP:COMPETENCE issue here. Maybe decline with {{2ndchance}}? Beeblebrox (talk) 21:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Done. I'll keep an eye on his/her response. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 13:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like the best approach, thanks. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Profanity and homophobia

Sighs another day, another IP and another overzealous editor. This time its over at Talk:Raining Men (song), with 91.154.107.187 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) using profanity. In particular he/she has directed homophobic slurs at myself (even though I've not professed to being homosexual), not that I have an prejudices against anyone, and more importantly has made offensive comments such as "now i know your a ho-m-o.. thats explains it all.. your so fu*kin stupid" which imply that there is a correlation between homosexuality and intelligence. I would like to see such comments removed from the page. Additionally I think its evident that the IP is unable to respond to concerns about his/her view might be considered incorrect and fails to respect the nature of discussions. There could be a link to sock master User:Iluvrihanna24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who has previously clashed with all involved editors multiple times before being banned and marked as a sockmaster. also could be linked to Arky91 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who harrassed my talkpage not long ago. — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 01:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Homophobia and disrespect towards others should not be tolerated IMO — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 06:18, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I recommend that you delete the IP's dumb-headed comments, and also your own comment so it won't be left orphaned, on the grounds of "not feeding the troll". They're not likely to block the IP since he's only made the two entries. But you could start an SPI, if this becomes an epidemic. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:30, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• It is my experience that there is a correlation between homosexuality and intelligence; everyone I know who fears or hates it and its expression are morons. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Putting it slightly more charitably, I suspect that loud opponents of anything that has to do with "gay rights" (or any kind of "abnormal" sexual behavior) are either not sufficiently in touch with their own sexuality, or else believe that what's "right" for them is how it has to be for everyone else. Even at that, it's amazing the social progress that has been made in the last 50 years in America. Not just gay people, but the subject itself was "in the closet" when I was young. The AIDS epidemic, and Surgeon General Everett Koop's courageous insistence on dealing with it instead of hiding from it, brought the issue out of the closet for good. However, there are still a sufficient number of morons out there, on any number of subjects. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 14:10, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
    • Bugs, ANI is not a soapbox. NYyankees51 (talk) 21:58, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
      • I think most anyone who was around in 1970 would be amazed that, for example, "same sex marriage" would be approaching a level of acceptibility a mere 40 years hence. However, just as there are still racists around, there are also still sexists around. P.S. If you want to also lecture the admin LHvU for calling them "morons", feel free. :) ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a troll, plain and simple. I removed the trolling and warned the anon. With hope they've already moved on and no more action is necessary. If not, well, that's what blocks of increasing duration are for.--Cúchullain /c 14:31, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Guys, while I don't disagree, you're getting very close to attacking people for their religious beliefs. Just because I agree with you doesn't make it okay. Throwaway85 (talk) 19:51, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

It would be quite a stretch to consider this diff to be an expression of "religious belief". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:04, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

"everyone I know who fears or hates it and its expression are morons" -LHvU. Now I think homophobia is entirely unjustifiable, but between Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism, there's about 2 billion people who at least nominally believe it to be sinful, a good chunk of whom probably do hold the beliefs described. I'm not saying LHvU is wrong, but he's treading a dangerous line and sacrificing the moral high ground. Let's stick to the matter at hand. Throwaway85 (talk) 22:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Don't rule out the satirical element. And by the way, I know plenty of folks who were raised Christian (myself included) who are a lot more tolerant about these things than our religion theoretically dictates. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:43, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Don't include all Protestants - the Church of Sweden, for instance, doesn't even nominally believe that homosexuality is a sin. (Some of its members believe it is, of course, but the CoS teaches that it isn't.) Anyway, to bring this back on-topic, it would never have occured to me that LHvU's comment could have been interpreted as an attack on religious beliefs. Fear and hate of gay people isn't limited to religious people, and even those people who do believe homosexuality is a sin don't necessarily fear or hate it. Some do, vigorously - I don't know any such people personally though I wouldn't be surprised if I were to agree with LHvU about their intelligence if I did know them - but I'd guess an "oh I wish they wouldn't cos it's a sin, but it's nothing to do with me really" kind of attitude is much more common. --bonadea contributions talk 08:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

What Bonadea said; some religious inclined people seek understanding and compassion - even when not agreeing with the practice - when interacting with gay people and some atheist/agnostics are hostile toward same. My prejudices are in regard on how people respond to the issue, and not how they derive their misconceptions. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:48, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

A good example of tolerance is what Steve Martin said in his, "What I Believe" bit: "I believe in equality. Equality for everyone. No matter how stupid they are, or how much better I am than they are." ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 14:57, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Should such comments not have been removed from the edit history too? I believe its called RD2ing? — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 23:39, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

That would be the correct criterion for redaction, but I am not sure that this is sufficiently grossly offensive that revdel will be better than revert, block, ignore. "Not sufficiently grossly offensive" is a pretty low standard, so I would not complain were someone else to delete it. That is block-on-sight material, but there has been no activity from that IP for nearly two days now. A cursory scan does not present any suggestions for a potential range block, one of the above accounts is perma-blocked, and I do not see any contributions from the other (oversighted or typo?). If there is a regular pattern of harassment or of "new" accounts making similar statements, it may be worth asking for a sock puppet check. If you are being harassed at your user page, you can ask me or WP:RFPP to semi-protect the page temporarily; if you take this option, I would ask that you set up and monitor a parallel unprotected page so that non-autoconfirmed editors may contact you. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The troll's comments are unintentionally funny, being rife with both obscenities and horrendously bad spelling. And who censors the "F-word" by spelling it "fu*k"? Removing it might actually make the IP look "better" somehow. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Repeated religious attacks by WikiManOne

WikiManOne (talk · contribs) has repeatedly brought up others' religion during content disputes.

• Here, he brings up an editor's Catholicism.
• Here, he agrees with another editor who questions the credibility of an editor who has a Christian userbox on his page.
• Here, he questions my credibility (without naming me) and basically says any Christian should not be allowed to edit articles on controversial moral/religious subjects. He is rightfully called out for it.
• Here, he makes a completely uncalled, false, and irrelevant attack on Catholicism in a dispute over sources.
• Here, he is warned on his talk page but shows no remorse and denies everything.

I think I got them all.

There's a fine line between getting heated in a content dispute and making highly offensive and unwarranted personal attacks on someone's religion. This editor is the most uncivil and belligerent I have ever seen on here. NYyankees51 (talk) 02:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

This thread is going to do nothing whatsoever to cool the dispute and ease tensions. --B (talk) 02:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

NYyankees51 is hardly beyond reproach. DeCausa (talk) 02:17, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

This of course coming from the editor who claimed that I was pro-human death because of my pro-choice stance. _WM _{Please leave me a wb if you reply}

Yes, I admit without hesitation that I am guilty of making personal attacks. But I have never seen an editor go as far as to attack someone else's religion and question their credibility as an editor based on their religious beliefs. I am fully willing to be punished for what I said to WikiManOne. But I can't stand watching this sort of unabashed bigotry go unpunished. NYyankees51 (talk) 02:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Your perspective speaks of your own prejudices and bigotry. To you, a religious belief is sacrosanct, whereas any other belief isn't and can be denigrated. I think that's repugnant. DeCausa (talk) 02:28, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I can say that, in general terms, "Pro-Choice" is in fact an "anti-life" stance. But to accuse a specific user of literally being "anti-life" or "pro-death" is rather over the top. Meanwhile, implying that conservatives on this point shouldn't be allowed to edit, is also over the top. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:26, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say that if you look carefully. What I said was that any admin that closes the discussion on the move in question should not have any obvious positions on the move, I clarified that being Christian doesn't disqualify one in my mind from being uninvolved by citing Episcopalians. As for the NCRegister, I still do not consider it a reliable source because it is run by a Church. My general statements about Catholics there were not directed at any editor and furthermore what I said about abuse and disrespecting women, I'm sure I could find you reliable sources for, they've been widely criticized for those things. I'm not going to answer every accusation thrown on these threads (as I've learned that replies seem to only fuel the flame on ANI) so if an uninvolved/neutral admin has questions, I can be reached here

Bugs, that first comment was gratuitous and isn't going to do anything to cleanly and easily rectify this situation. I'd appreciate it if you'd strike it out. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:31, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

No, it wasn't. My conservative friends have pointed out to me on various occasions, the "anti-life" aspect of "pro-choice". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

And it does no good whatsoever to bring that sentiment here. Misplaced Pages is not a political discussion board. --B (talk) 02:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

You must have missed the recent dispute over whether to rename "Pro-Life" as "Anti-Abortion". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:47, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Still not relevant here. Calling pro-life "anti-life" or "pro-death" is a smear tactic, and flatly untrue. Your conservative friends have fed you a common POV talking point, that's all. — The Hand That Feeds You: 18:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Not so. There is a valid, logical basis for those terms, which I can explain for you if you would like. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:56, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to expound on my talk page. Though I'm fairly certain I've heard the argument before, in a few variations. — The Hand That Feeds You: 17:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

--B (talk) 02:28, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Why did you post a link to a comment that you made earlier in this section? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

It was to say "This thread is going to do nothing whatsoever to cool the dispute and ease tensions" in reference to your comment about anti-life. Of course, it loses something when other users jump in front of it and modify the comment order. --B (talk) 02:51, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it might have been clearer to just restate the original statement. Here we have users at opposite poles that are at war with each other and accusing each other of bad faith and bias, and they might both be right. Good luck to the admins trying to figure this one out. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:03, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Facepalm <-- Basically sums all of the discussions that have occurred over the last few weeks.

If you can tell what real life POV someone has, they are (probably) editing wrong. If people can tell that about you, then you're (probably) editing wrong. There are 3,558,998 other articles on the Wiki, and editing completely random ones is often far more fun. NW (Talk) 03:34, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The lot of them should be banned from AN/I.Griswaldo (talk) 13:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Their user pages pretty well summarize their personal stances, and the unfortunate consequence, rightly or wrongly, is that it tends to raise suspicions about their edits. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 04:19, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I still find it amusing that I somehow said "any Christian should not be allowed to edit articles on controversial moral/religious subjects." I find that very amusing considering that I am myself a Christian as my userpage says. :) _WM _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 05:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The citation claiming that you say, "any Christian should not edit", actually says that Christians who are part of the "Right to Life movement" are problematic; not all Christians. I don't see how any Christian could support abortion-as-contraception. Regardless of that, Yankee mischaracterized what you said in that one diff. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 05:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Bugs, please stop making every discussion a soapbox for your own political views. Talk:Pro-life was a bad place for it, and AN/I is worse. The issue at hand is WM1's comments and whether they were out of line. Unless you're arguing that being a Christian is indicative of bias on abortion-related articles, in which case you're implicated in this fiasco too, the comment you made is not a productive one. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

My political views are not as straightforward as you seem to think they are. Anyway, NYyankees51 significantly mischaracterized one of Wikiman's statements. Whether that was deliberate or a misreading, I couldn't say, but it does tend to undermine his argument. Yankees also makes it clear on his user page that he's conservative and a Roman Catholic. So raising questions about his neutrality seems fair. It's perfectly clear that Wikiman is politically opposite on that issue and in my opinion he's not neutral either. But while Wikiman's comments may be a bit pointed, they are not inherently unfair, as I see it. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I think if you look at my history, you will find that I don't let my personal views interfere with my editing. Besides, this is not about me or the abortion issue. This is about Wikiman repeatedly bringing others' religion into a content dispute. NYyankees51 (talk) 15:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

You need to do something about your mischaracterization about this quote, where in your initial post here you said, "... basically says any Christian should not be allowed to edit articles on controversial moral/religious subjects." That is plainly not the case. His issue is with churches that are actively involved with the right-to-life stance, which the Roman Catholic obviously is; and he names some other denominations that he considers to be more liberal on abortion rights. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 16:19, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

NuclearWarfare is totally correct, it can be so much more fun and rewarding editing topics you are not emotionally involved in - try this - if your emotionally involved in an issue then stay away from editing it. This issue pro life and abortion is clearly a train crash in the making and it is going to end in tears, or at least, blocks and bans and editing restrictions. Off2riorob (talk) 17:01, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, hence why I don't edit any articles (other than the occasional simple tidy up) concerned with my political/religious/lifestyle beliefs/choices. GiantSnowman 17:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Looking at WikiManOne's diff comments above personally I don't see anything presently actionable but he should be careful not to create a WP:BATTLEFIELD and does need to be aware as everyone else does there that the topic is emotive and all users discussing should attempt to be as respectful Misplaced Pages:RESPECT to the other position as possible. Off2riorob (talk) 17:23, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree, that being said, WikiManOne should focus on one's edit history, not user boxes when determining if a person can remain objective on a subject. Sharing where you stand does not mean that one can't be objective and can actually be helpful as it lets others know whether or not you are knowledgable on specific subjects.---Balloonman 19:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:NPA clearly states: "What is considered to be a personal attack? ... Using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views — regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream. An example could be 'you're a train spotter so what would you know about fashion?'" NYyankees51 (talk) 22:11, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to defend wikiman, as I said above, a person should be judged upon what he does/how he edits, not on his self-identification. I'd much rather deal with a rational thoughtful athiest/christian/hindu/Manchester United fan that has identified themselves as such via a user box, than deal with an irrational user who hasn't self-identified where they stand. Despite what some believe, a user box does not equate to lack of objectivity/integrity or the lack of the ability to measure consensus. Some people get too sensitive around the issue of NPA. We need thicker skins around here. That being said, if the rationale to discredit other points of view continues, then there are other grounds upon which the community could act. But 4 edits? He's not there yet.---Balloonman 22:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Should be noted that WikiManOne has been blocked for 48 hours for edit warring unrelated to this discussion, discussion below.---Balloonman 15:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Ban proposal Access Denied

Access Denied (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has created many socks and doesn't really seem to have any intention of stopping. I proposing a full site ban for Access Denied. Inka 03:12, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• Support As nom. Inka
• The user has been blocked since December. I doubt anyone is going to unblock him. --B (talk) 03:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• We've blocked so many AD socks that we've actually stopped marking them. I can't believe it actually needs to be stated, but yes, I support a ban. — HelloAnnyong 03:16, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support He had not been banned? Why wait. Tbhotch* 03:18, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Comment when was the most recent sock blocked? The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 03:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• • Support per Heironymous Rowe, Depressing I was shocked when he was blocked for Socking and I sent him an email encouraging him to help at another WMF project to get the block reconsidered. I remember him quite fondly and I hope one day he is another Jack Merridew and come back and get back to content creation. That day is not now in the mean time but it seem he has left us no choice.The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 03:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support-didn't his latest sock pop up on ANI last night to taunt and get blocked? I alrready assumed he was banned, but if not the situation should be remedied.Heiro 03:24, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• DFTT Kthx. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:25, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Btw, ban proposals usually go to AN, not AN/I. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:26, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment He's not the one who's been disrupting ANI? And is this the proper venue for this proposal?--Jojhutton (talk) 03:28, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• Support Serial sockpuppeteer ,wasting the time of other users, admins, CheckUsers. Hobartimus (talk) 07:01, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Fetchcomms's point is well-taken, and last time around I didn't see the point of a ban, but if he's still at it and a ban makes people less nervous about reverting his silly trolling, then sure. 28bytes (talk) 18:19, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Gloomy sad regretful upsetting...support Been hunting him down for more than a month, he's a 4chan troll now. --Perseus8235 18:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

  See also: Category:Suspected Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Access Denied. --Perseus8235 18:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• Can you put some AD socks on my talk page (ones that aren't tagged yet)? --Perseus8235 18:22, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Ban or not, all this sock-tagging is pretty pointless, IMO. He's not some wily supervillain who needs a team of forensic analysts on the case 24/7, he's just a bored former editor who occasionally drops by to troll. RBI is really the best thing to do here, ban or not. 28bytes (talk) 18:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Strong Support - AD has failed to behave in a collegiate manner and has used many sockpuppets. We've blocked so many of them (even though I am not an administrator). As far as I know, trolling and sockpuppetry are not tolerated, and therefore, they must be put in their place. He has crossed the line several times while he is blocked. So, enough is enough. Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 18:25, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support It's disappointing to know this guy once was a constructive editor... what a shame. Diego Grez (talk) 18:34, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

  WTH User:Kathryn NicDhàna/Admin Toolbox User:Pigman/Admin toolbox and ANI are in Category:Suspected Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Access Denied? --Perseus8235 18:40, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

  Perseus8235 what are you saying in above statement The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 19:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

  Perseus had accidentally tagged this page as a sockpuppet of AD. Since fixed. 28bytes (talk) 20:07, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• Support: It is a shame, but AD was, when he was here, a good editor. Why he took this path, I am not sure, but it is disappointing to say the least. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 18:58, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Very sad support. It doesn't appear to be stopping and it's gone on long enough. It is with much sadness that I !vote this way, but still. Ks0stm 19:23, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support through my tears. Access Denied was brilliant with the code and knew his way around the wiki like no one else. He helped me calculate range blocks. I have no idea why he turned to the Dark Side either. --Diannaa 20:16, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Endorse ban - I've been waffling on this one for a bit. I was originally going to oppose because obvious vandalism (like what Access has done) already falls under the list of exceptions to 3RR; site-banning another editor makes their contributions eligible for reversion on sight. He's effectively de facto banned already (to be perfectly blunt, no admin who isn't on crack will unblock him), but there is disruption which cannot be accurately categorized as exempted from 3RR (such as trolling, personal attacks, outing, and MoS violations); this renders a formal de jure community ban necessary. --Dylan620 20:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Comment I am Access Denied and I hate to ware a perfectly good ip to say this. I would like to return to new page patrol (I have only created one sock inthe last few weeks the Mexico ups were not me). My account is global locked which is only thing stopping me requesting unblOck to work on new page patrol again. Thanks for reading this 74.117.233.130 (talk) 21:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Have a new acct could we try WP:ROPE? Access Denied2 (talk) 21:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• Support Per above. →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 22:34, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support. This is really ridiculous at this point. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 23:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Anyone who socks this much is up to no good. --Rschen7754 00:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Enough is enough. If he's going to continue evading his block as he evidently did today, then we really have no other choice. --SoCalSuperEagle (talk) 01:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support. About time. It's funny how when I made a ban proposal, it was shut down as DNFTT. As if waiting a few weeks has made any difference. DNFTT is the most misunderstood guideline on Misplaced Pages and, therefore, utterly worthless. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
• Yay! If we must, but really? Mono (talk) 16:48, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

That is a bit uncivil. Alpha Quadrant 17:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

How? Mono (talk) 20:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose I really don't think that it should go as far as a ban yet. It appears to me that most of the accounts were created on or before January 11th. Only one was created after that date. All of the IP's are assumed to be him on very limited evidence. I do support the block though, but I believe that AD could come back and be a constructive editor. Alpha Quadrant 17:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support This user has changed since he abused that account when he retired. Don't know why he kept going by making sockpuppet accounts and he even ran for adminship at one point. WayneSlam 21:57, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Access Denied unblock appeal

Acct global locked so cannot request from there. Would likeunblock to be able to go back to NPP work thank you Access Denied2 (talk) 21:51, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The above user is either a sock or is pretending to be, and I've reported it to WP:AIV. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• Blocked. NawlinWiki (talk) 21:54, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
  • What is or was preventing AD from logging in from his main account and posting a proper unblock request to his talk page? I don't see "cannot edit own talk page" in the block log. 28bytes (talk) 22:01, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

    It's globally locked. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

He's welcome to email Arbcom arbcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org (that's a lower case L, not a 1) with a sensible proposal for a return to productive editing. He doesn't need access to Misplaced Pages email to do it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:44, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe an standard offer set six months from the last sock. Inka 23:46, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Not if they are banned... →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 23:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

He's not banned yet. I support a ban. I was saying if we choose not to ban him that is a possible road to take. Inka 23:54, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The standard offer still applies to banned users; though given the large number of socks (43 confirmed in addition to another 7 suspected), I doubt that the community would be willing to let him back in after just six months. --Dylan620 23:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

For the record, a ban is going to happen. There is unanimous support for the ban and AD's posts to the section just added more. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yeah, that's what I meant. It would probably take a lot longer than 6 months to get the community's trust back. →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 00:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Also, . →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 00:04, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Though as a general rule, ban discussions need to run for 24-48 hours before closing, perhaps we could invoke IAR on this one and close it early? HalfShadow's tagging is correct; Access was effectively banned already – this discussion is a mere formality, albeit a necessary one. In any event, it's becoming a blizzard out here. --Dylan620 00:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• AD, if you're reading this, the community is obviously not willing to let you back at the minute. That doesn't necessarily mean they never will (you can see why folks might be just a little bit pissed off), but you need to totally disengage, at least from this project for at least 6 months (under any account or IP) and let people start to forget how much disruption you caused and how much unnecessary work was created in cleaning up after you. If there's a WMF project on which you're not blocked, making yourself useful there wouldn't hurt your case. Misplaced Pages will still be here in 6 months or however long it takes for you to regain the community's trust, but for every sock you create, the slimmer your chances of ever being allowed back become. Nothing that is done on Misplaced Pages cannot be undone and no user who is blocked/banned cannot be unbanned, but it's not going to happen overnight. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:36, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Blake1960 engaging in personal attacks, repeated OR and NPOV violations and refusing to seek consensus

Despite having been recently blocked for 24 hours, Blake1960 (talk · contribs) continues his personal attacks, as well as his refusal to abide by Wikipedias rules against original research and editing from a biased point of view.

Personal attack diffs in reverse order:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AMiles_per_gallon_gasoline_equivalent&action=historysubmit&diff=414109310&oldid=414108175

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AMiles_per_gallon_gasoline_equivalent&action=historysubmit&diff=413929569&oldid=413637552

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AMiles_per_gallon_gasoline_equivalent&action=historysubmit&diff=413362992&oldid=413357637

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Miles_per_gallon_gasoline_equivalent&diff=prev&oldid=412867006

Note that the last diff above is the one he was blocked for -- the others are from after the block. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:31, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

One diff regarding OR and NPOV from Chevrolet Volt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Chevrolet_Volt&action=historysubmit&diff=412866446&oldid=412862181

I can provide other diffs on OR and NPOV edits if necessary.

Also, I suspect he was editing Chevrolet Volt anonymously here to avoid people recognizing his work:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Chevrolet_Volt&action=historysubmit&diff=413941500&oldid=413410804

Blake's focus on the EPA in other edits makes me suspicious that he is this anonymous editor as well. Is it possible for an administrator to check the IPs?

Note also that Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent was protected in order to stop Black1960's disruptive editing, but that, within two days of the end of the protection period, he/she made 17 edits which were not discussed on the article's talk page prior to insertion.Ebikeguy (talk) 21:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much. Ebikeguy (talk) 19:28, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I was not blocked for personal attacks. I was blocked for violating the 3-revert rule. An accident on my part, being new to editing on wikipedia. I did make one inflammatory comment against someone who deleted my entire contribution with no thoughtful explanation, my bad. Won't happen again.

You were blocked for both 3RR violation and "making personal attack" per the original block notice. Ebikeguy (talk) 21:52, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Personal attack was never my intent in any discussion. A few days ago, my contributions were being rudely deleted in their entirety; no attempt was made to help improve or edit them, just delete them. My contributions added new fully referenced information pertinent (I would say vital) to the balance, understanding, and completeness of the article. The excuses given for the wholesale deletion of my contributions included excessive POV, original authorship, or that they lacked references and citations. I reworked and tried to edit/reword as neutrally as possible, and I added multiple references, and citations. My contributions were still glibly deleted in entirety. What adds to my frustration is that most of the rest of the article is horribly lacking in citations and references. When I initially noted some of those cases, those contributions asking for citations were also deleted! Much of my contributions were mainly simply mathematical relations or unit conversions. The math which I presented was based only on the equations already cited and published in the article. That type of authorship is permitted according to wikipedia rules.

If you review the most recent examples of my commentary in the discussion, you'll see that my accuser has little basis for his complaint. You'll also find that he invariable turns to personal commentary rather than discussion of the issue, the subject matter of the article in question. I hate that! I'm only interested in contributing positively to the article. I am not the anonymous editor, whoever that may be, whom he is accusing me of being. I asked the Ebike person to stick to discussion of the issue or to hush. I don't think that is out of line given his history.

Thank you. Blake1960 (talk) 21:38, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Once again, Blake1960 is resorting to personal attacks and misrepresentation of actual events to justify his ongoing insertion of OR and NPOV language into the article. A review of my involvement in this matter will show that I have not only adhered to Misplaced Pages rules, but that my edits and comments have also been polite, based on facts, and that I have tried to be helpful in explaining the rules to this relatively new editor. Ebikeguy (talk) 21:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Deleting my entire contributions was beyond rude and insulting. A polite editor leaves the facts and edits the contribution to resolve what he views as problematic. I'm not interested in personal confrontation, just the best wikipedia article with all the pertinent and correct information presented in a clear, concise and easy to read form. That's it. You apparently want to get me kicked off wikipedia. Please provide a specific example why you are seeking that action. You are now accusing me of "misrepresentation of actual events". Gee should I feel insulted or attacked? Well, you misrepresented a valid reason for the wholesale deletion of my contributions. See how that works. Blake1960 (talk) 01:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Blake1960 has been blocked for 72 hours for 3RR violations, so I think that this ANI is now redundant. I request that an admin close this discussion when possible. Thanks. Ebikeguy (talk) 02:26, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Review of my administrator actions: block of WikiManOne

Note: WikiManOne is being discussed above for another issue, independent of this.---Balloonman 15:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I recently put down a block on WikiManOne (talk · contribs) after reading the situation at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:WikiManOne reported by User:Haymaker (Result: 48 hours). This was a difficult block to make, because I have expressed a very strong opinion on just this very subject, and it is diametrically opposed to {{user|WikiManOne's. Worse, after I made the block, I was already going to bring it to ANI, but I now actually notice that WikiManOne was the very same editor to whom I expressed this opinion! The result is that I've made a block that was out of the scope of what was appropriate for me. I don't want to completely undo it and as such give the editor a free pass if the block was justified (which I still believe it was, based simply on the structure of the edits, regardless of content). Can I have the community to take a review of it please? Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd say you're in the green. This is a textbook violation of 3RR - given that you're a great administrator, I won't hesitate to say that I trust your ability to make a neutral judgment based solely on offenses and not previous experience. m.o.p 22:38, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

It looks fine to me, good for you for bringing it up here. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:41, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

You are an admin, and thus your action is wrong. However, I am also an admin which makes my comment wrong. Any admin either agreeing with me or disagreeing me is also wrong (although it is wrong of me to say that). Are you sure you are an admin? LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Resp to Magog, below. I am supporting your action; although you may be somewhat involved (and thus are "wrong") you did the right thing - per my agentBaseball Bugs, every admin action or comment is "wrong" (including my own attempt at humour, apparently) so... don't fret. It's fine. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid your sarcasm is lost on me LHvU. I don't get it. Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:54, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

This is not unlike Jayron's recent self-directed comment that "everything he says is wrong". I expect LHvU is saying that any admin's actions are under review and in some sence "everything they do is wrong", at least in the eyes of some editors. Hope that helps. :) ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

simpl if you have doubts then revert it and bring it here. it shows great AGF (and even this admission does) een though there may ave been support for it. You may vry well be one of th ebetter admins i know, along with Number 57.--Lihaas (talk) 23:00, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I would hate to see either 1) the editor's block log unnecssarily plugged up with another block or 2) the editor not be blocked for behavior which the community agrees on. I would be glad to unblock otherwise. Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:08, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• - Two days is cheap enough for this report the user was only blocked a couple of days ago and has raced back in seemingly without listening to any advice - Magog's realized he was a bit involved and so brought it here, for opinions, and I support his actions completely. Off2riorob (talk) 23:04, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Some, though not all, of WikiMan's verbal attacks on other editors are unfair and unjustified. He needs to cool his jets a bit. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:16, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

This is an edit warring block after a similar one 48 hours ago. Off2riorob (talk) 23:31, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Personal attacks and edit warring. Not a good combination. No matter how well-meaning he may be, he's building up to a permanent place in the phantom zone. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• Good block I was considering it myself, and I tend to lean a bit more on WM1's side of the argument.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Agree with Sarek, might give you a swat with a Template:Minnow and say in the future watch how involved you are The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
    • I've taken ownership of the block, so he can't complain about Magog not being impartial. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
• The mistake was certainly understandable - when a user's name doesn't match their signature, it's possible to accidentally not realize the two are one in the same. Sure, it would have been better if someone else had done it, but it's not the end of the world. --B (talk) 00:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  Hmm, good point B. There may be a bit of climbing the Reichstag dressed as spiderman here. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:32, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  This is getting to be a bit ridiculous; the talk page is being used to soapbox, not to request unblock. I request another admin give him a final warning before locking his page for the remainder of the time. I have nothing against WikiManOne (or at least I didn't until a few minutes ago), but right now the discussion is counterproductive and taking away from other areas where we could be working. Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:06, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  Hmm. User:LegitimateAndEvenCompelling had his talk page access revoked for posting repeatedly on his talk page without requesting an unblock... Is that appropriate here? Jclemens (talk) 01:23, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  IMHO it would not be appropriate as long as people are engaging him in conversation. First step would be to request the unblocked editors to stop engaging in the back and forth. Give him the chance to settle down for his block without resorting to more button use.--Cube lurker (talk) 01:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  Good call. TBH the request probably shouldn't have come from me either, seeing as the editor now thinks I'm Satan incarnate, or right-wing religious man incarnate, or something along those likes. Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:30, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  (ec) I'm not a huge fan of removing talk page access for this. It's not disruption if everyone just ignores him. Let him rant, he'll tire himself out. And perhaps sometime in the next two days a friend of his will come along and talk some sense into him. I'd only suggest revoking his talk page if he starts posting serial unblock requests. Lest I come off as too much of a softy, though: I see his name associated with turmoil and conflict all the time; is he worth it? I'm too lazy to look into his contributions in more detail to see, but my first impression is that this is someone here for the thrill of the battle, and it might be best to show him the door if he doesn't change his attitude fairly quickly. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:32, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  I've had some interaction with him and I'm not involved in the content area. From what I've seen, I believe he's a good faith editor. But one who's editing controversial articles that he's passionate about. I don't believe that he's here just to battle, but rather his intense belief, including the belief that he's right in his edits have led to what we see. I wouldn't label him a irredeemable troublemaker. That said he does need to learn from this.--Cube lurker (talk) 01:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

  OK Cube, I will defer to the judgment of someone who has actually looked into this for more than the 90 seconds I gave it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:51, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Topic Block

I just became aware of this, so I am arriving late to this party...hell, damned thing is over...but WMO has a mentor (my previous in fact) User:Kubigula, who has been trying to work with WMO. WMO isn't responding to anything that Kubigula is saying, obviously. I have put this by Kubigula, but it being 7am here (as of this writing) he isn't up or responded, but I feel a topic block (NOT ban) is needed to get WMO back on the right track. If we get him out of the constant battleground that is the abortion articles, we might have a chance of keeping this user, a good one as said by Cube above, from an indef block.

I would recommend a 6 month block from any abortion related article, including creating them or even posting to their talk pages. He needs to be taken completely out of that arena and moved on to something else.

• First screw up, a one week block.
  • I was going to go with a final stern warning here, but he has had those to no avail.
• Second screw up, one month block.
• Strike three, he's out. Indef block.

I know it is harsh, but if he sees the writing is on the wall, maybe he will chill out and move on to something different. He can't keep battling on at the abortion articles or he will wind up in indef-land anyway.

What say you? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 12:04, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I think what you're asking for is a six month topic ban. Or, if that's not the case, can you clarify what you mean by "topic block"? Jclemens (talk) 15:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

2 or 3 months, anything abortion related might be helpful to the user as he is only struggling with the intensity in that area, talk page involvement allowed. Or a few weeks, 5 or 6, one revert condition and have someone clearly explain what a revert is might be helpful to him. Off2riorob (talk) 16:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not too sure what a topic block is, either. I also think that these are drastic measures. m.o.p 19:32, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Topic ban just seems permanent, so I went with "topic block". If you wish to use "ban", that's cool. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:04, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

reply to User:Master of Puppets - Some might say to allow the user to return to the same editing style without some assistance is certain to result in an indefinite restriction, so I don't see a minor restriction now as drastic, I see it as a benefit and helping the contributor. Off2riorob (talk) 22:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I have to say, I have been very taken aback by the user's whole response. He's exhibited some textbook-case MPOV problems (asserting the necessity to more than 3 reversions in a day, accusations of a cabal, assumptions of bad faith, referring to his version as the consensus version when he was the only consenter, etc.). I honestly can't understand how someone can go from being so reasonable (as he was on my talk page the other day), to so out in left-field (no pun intended... he claims to be opposite right-wing). He literally is claiming that I blocked him because I oppose his point of view (I blocked him only because I patrol WP:AN3), and that other editors with even the tiniest history of disagreeing with him are in an alliance to support me. I figure this can only be attributed to either 1) a lavishly paranoid personality, 2) youthful naivety, 3) naivety due to getting all his information from lavishly paranoid bloggers and talk show hosts or 4) a case of "takes one to know one", meaning this is what he would do in that situation (ever notice how sockpuppeteers are the most likely to throw around multiple false accusations of sockpuppetry?). IMHO it is much more likely than anything that this is a case of #2 or #3, which means that he is reformable, if open.

I think a several week topic ban would be best for him; whether enforced by the community, or self-enforced on his own part. If it comes from the community (and I am not necessarily supporting that option), then the dictum and enforcement should only come from someone who is completely on his side.

Lastly, I think we should torture him by mechanically prying his eyes open and making him watch some right-wing propaganda (just kidding). Or alternatively, maybe just politely suggest that he join a debate club so he can learn to argue for the other side and assume good faith.

I don't want to pile-on, but I want WMO to understand exactly what he's up against, and the reasons the community considers his actions disruptive. When you read this WMO, please understand: there is no cabal. Even people on your side have taken exception to your response. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:26, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Honestly - I believe WMO's heart is in the right place and a topic ban from abortion related articles would probably be the best thing for him. However, it is a drastic measure and I don't think it's fair to go there unless we imposed similar measures on the other POV and edit warriors who frequent those pages.--Kubigula (talk) 04:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Kubigula raises a very good point there. There are plenty of people who are pushing their own POV and should be under the same conditions. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:02, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

There are plenty of other editors whose conduct has not been as abrasive or disruptive. I would rather topic ban an editor and channel him into an area of the encyclopedia where he can actually contribute real content, vs. POV-warring, as it appears WMO has been doing for the past few weeks. Jclemens (talk) 05:49, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Tidal power

User 202.169.177.107 (talk · contribs) used an altered pseudonym for user Rehman here, with hints towards autism. -- Crowsnest (talk) 10:35, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

"Play the ball and not the man"? Nice irony. Karenjc 10:47, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

User 202.169.177.107 continues with personal attacks, see here. -- Crowsnest (talk) 23:46, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

IP is now cold. With some 16 hours since the last edit on it, blocking is likely pointless. Cheers. lifebaka++ 08:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Crowsnest (talk) 14:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

User Innab repeatedly restoring information without discussion

Innab (talk · contribs) has repeatedly restored a large amount of information to Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that was moved to and included in its entirety on a subpage Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder management: , , , , , . He has done this despite repeated requests by several editors for him to discuss on the talk page: User talk:Innab#Please see the talk page and discuss, User talk:Innab#Edit warring on ADHD, User talk:Innab#ADHD. The talk page discussion is at Talk:Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder#Moved content to subpage. Although Innab has not violated 3RR, I believe it should be considered edit warring because of repeated reverts and his absolute refusal to discuss. My personal opinion is that blocking him is the only thing that might put a stop to this. But if not, I hope at least that an administrator should discuss with him: (1) The information is already on a subpage, with a link to it on the main page; and (2) repeatedly reverting while refusing to discuss is entirely inappropriate. Thanks. Cresix (talk) 01:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I notified Innab about this discussion: User talk:Innab#ANI. Cresix (talk) 01:41, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

SarekOfVulcan, who is an admin, has commented on Innab's talkpage. If the editor repeats their edit without discussion or against consensus then I suggest letting SarekOfVulcan know, or me. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Gaming the system and canvassing

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

Deliciousgrapefruit (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
BlennGeck (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
LynnCityofsin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
24.61.171.248 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User:BlennGeck is an SPA who edits the Glenn Beck article, he was formerly another SPA named User talk:LynnCityofsin who soley edited the same article and had several warnings there for edit warring, he has edited as User talk:24.61.171.248 who has warnings for edit warring, and has now been loosely canvassing other users to post on his side at the Glenn Beck article.

• Him accidentally posting and removing his post there as an IP, and then reinserting it logged in as Blenn Geck.
• Changing his signature from said IP to LynnCity's sig here
• Him using the exact same IP to edit LynnCityofsin's post over a year ago.
• He seems to be creating an account to edit Glenn Beck, and then shedding that account's history of edit warring by taking on a new account and re-editing Glenn Beck in exactly the same way. WP:CLEANSTART clearly differentiates between making a new account, and acting differently, and making new account right before you are blocked, and then using this new account in a similar manner.

He has also clearly danced the on the line of canvassing in our discussion about whether to add some criticism of the subject from Kristol:

• by going to the talkpage of Redthoreau(a user who had disagreed with me in another section on the same page) and asking what can be done about me here
• and going to the talkpage of Kristol.

Per recommendation here are diffs to incivility:

• IP on Glenn Beck talking to editor Lyn fought with:

Keep telling yourself that. But one only has to look at your edit history to know your a partisan.24.61.171.248 (talk) 17:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Blenn's response to my very first post:

WP:NOTNEWS This seems like one of a great many spats that Glenn Beck gets in to. For comparison I do not see the Anthony Weiner dispute anywhere in this article; is there some reason you believe this is more notable than that one? In that dispute Beck made an entire website to attack Weiner, and there was far more coverage.AerobicFox (talk) 16:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Are you serious? I give up. This is most certainly a notable controversy. Enjoy your echo chamber. BlennGeck (talk) 18:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

This seems like an attempt to game the system by avoiding any potential bans by just shedding a user when he has a significant amount of warnings, and then just creating a new user with a clean slate and editing the same article in the same way. This is disruptive and not what WP:CLEANSTART is intended for.AerobicFox (talk) 01:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a retaliatory posting on Aerobics part in my opinion. He has been accusing me of being a sock puppet and of canvassing. He has posted unwanted accusations on my user page, and tried to out me as a previous user on the Glenn Beck talk page. I said I was seeking arbitration for harrasment, and immediately this came up.

I have been posting suggestions on the Glenn Beck page in good faith. Aerobic and I have not seen eye to eye on the material. But now he appears to be searching for clues to my identity, looking for other or previous accounts I may have, making personal attacks and accusation on the article talk pages, and following me into other talk pages.

This all should be noted in your evaluation of Aerboic's claim. It is not unimportant.

Also in my defense. I posted on the Kristol Page, because that is a related aritcle and I thought that the information should be included there as well. I never asked anyone to view or add to the Beck page. Nor was I canvassing in the other case. I was simply looking for advice from a likeminded user, on how to deal with an editor I believed wasn't editing in good faith, but removing content he simply didn't like. Never did I ask, or expect him to join in on the discussion page about egypt. BlennGeck (talk) 01:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

"Aerobic and I have not seen eye to eye on the material."

"It really seems like true believers have the discussion page stacked. I have to believe that is some kind of violation of wiki guidelines. I find myself going gray because as soon as I satisfy an editor's criticism or concern he/she mystifies me with a complete misreading of the source material or semantic attempts to invert the source material's meaning. "

Clearly...AerobicFox (talk) 02:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I wrote this before I noticed your threats for ANI, this is in no way reactive. You have made numerous personal attacks telling me to "Enjoy your echo chamber." after my very first post. You have accused editors of being partisan as an anonymous IP, and your previous account has been warned for personal attacks.AerobicFox (talk) 01:48, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The correct forum is WP:SPI. Recommend closing this discussion thread. TFD (talk) 01:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to bring this up...AerobicFox (talk) 02:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

None of my statements were intended as personal attacks. BlennGeck (talk) 01:52, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Why WP:SPI? Am I being accused of sockpuppetry now? BlennGeck (talk) 01:55, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• While it might look like sockpuppetry, the original user LynnCity was never blocked, so things might be a little murky. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm just hoping for some type of advice or guidance here.AerobicFox (talk) 02:31, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

There is little doubt that all 3 user ID's are operated by the same guy. However, none of them has ever been blocked, and LynnCity last edited 10 months ago. Like you, I'm wondering what the right course is here. SPI is not needed and in fact would likely be rejected due to it being obvious. So the focus needs to be on behavior in general, and maybe the admins can help with that. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Don't know (haven't looked) about sock puppetry, but there's no way in heck BlennGeck is an appropriate user name. --B (talk) 02:40, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Exactly what would be wrong with it? Its not as if he were purporting to be Beck. Heiro 02:43, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll not claim to be uninvolved (I've contributed to the Glenn Beck talk page too - and made a few edits to the article -though I think they were mostly reverting clear vandalism), but I can't see any evidence for sockpuppetry - the IP sems to have made one unreverted edit to the talk page (i.e. BlennGeck probably just forgot to log in, and reverted to use his/her user name to edit), and BlennGeck doesn't seem to have edited the article at all. There is no overlap between LynnCity's contribuitions to talk and BlennGeck's, as has already been noted. As for personal attacks, the talk page is perhaps not surprisingly a little edgy, but I'd suggest that AerobicFox needs to give us some diffs to indicate exactly where the problem is. I can't really see evidence for canvassing either - there were no !votes etc being discussed, and a comment on a single user's talk page during an ongoing debate hardly seems to be what is normally covered by WP:CANVASS. I think that maybe BlennGeck could have chosen a better user name, but that is about all I can see to complain about, really. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:45, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and provided two diffs, I can provide more. I have tried to be respectful, and I sincerely apologize for any condescension. If Blenn would do so similarly I do not think we would have a further problem.AerobicFox (talk) 02:59, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't appear that BlennGeck has edited any articles, just Talk pages. Corvus cornix_talk 02:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

He hasn't; that is correct.AerobicFox (talk) 02:59, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I take it then that you will withdraw the allegation of 'edit-warring' you made on the Glenn Beck talk page? AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I didnt see anything but some pointy comments in your diffs. And relatively mild at that. Heiro 03:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I didn't accuse him of edit warring with his account now, he accused me of accusing him of that. Mild, yes.AerobicFox (talk) 03:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Heiro, to answer your question, I would consider a name obviously intended to be a reference to a very controversial figure to be covered by "offensive usernames" and/or "disruptive usernames". Older versions of the policy used to elaborate that "offensive usernames" included "Usernames that promote a controversial or potentially inflammatory point of view", which clearly Glenn Back is. --B (talk) 02:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't find it offensive. And as you said , older versions. Heiro 02:58, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The name itself is not inherently offensive, but the user is a Glenn Beck "skeptic", let's say. There's hardly any question that all 3 accounts are this one guy. The issue is whether he's doing anything disruptive. That's what the focus should be on. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:14, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

So, we have a Glenn Beck supporter bringing a GB skeptic here on what it seems so far are at best frivolous charges? If you look at the Beck article talk page, these 2 have been going round and round for a few days now. Coming here isn't the way to win a discussion on a talkpage. Heiro 03:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Blenn actually claims he is the Glenn Beck supporter, as has Lyn. I'm leaving the Beck article now, and I apologize for wasting the time of people here and there. Let's just move on.AerobicFox (talk) 03:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Do we really need an admin to sort this one out? I suggest we give AerobicFox a few gentle slaps around the face with a virtual slightly-decayed kipper for making trivial complaints, give BlennGeck the same for being less-than-polite (but not much more) to AerobicFox, and for choosing a rather pointy username, and then get back to arguing about exactly how mad we can describe Beck as... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I second all of the above suggestions. Heiro 03:30, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to lie, I've thought before about the username being a problem. As someone whose POV at times has opposed that of Beck, the username could be seen as a mild form of mockery. Well, boo-hoo, get over it, right? Except our policy disallows that. Also, if it doesn't come off as mockery, then it may imply a relation to the real life man. BlennGeck - would you please consider changing usernames? You can go to WP:CHU. Magog the Ogre (talk) 03:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I could see it being hard to WP:AGF and assume he's trying for WP:NPOV when having a discussion with him on his choice of subjects to edit so far. Heiro 03:42, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

My name was never intended to be offensive. I enjoy watching Glenn Beck, but at the same time find I can be critical of him and can keep an open mind about how he is viewed by the larger public. On a website where people post their political views on their userpage, I don't see how having a user name that sounds like a political pundit's would impact other peoples' ability to trust my neutrality. I think if anything, the fact that I like Glenn Beck, but believe the article needs more critical material, demonstrates that I am an objective thinker and editor. \

Also, I want to point out, I believe this whole reporting me business had more to do with controlling the content of the GlennBeck talk page than any real concern about my identity, or previous history (again, something people are speculating about without having all the facts). For those who want to know, no I am not the user in question. Like I told Aerobic, there is a very good reason for me having the IP address I have and posting on the Glenn Beck talk page, but I don't feel I should have to get into my personal life in order to deflect such accusations. BlennGeck (talk) 03:58, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

This is all moot. I've left the Glenn Beck page, and am not pursuing this. An admin should feel free to close.AerobicFox (talk) 04:04, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay. SO then you are formally withdrawing your accusation here? BlennGeck (talk) 04:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

He is! (I can say that because I viewed his comment above this one as well). But I would like to kindly ask you to choose another username. Do it for me, for harmony on the site. Or you can do it for yourself, because every time a regular sees you henceforth with that username, it will elicit a groan of "uh-oh, another SPA with an agenda to push" (I know I haven't been around that long, but I'm sure that others pick up on the same patterns I do, which include a borderline username being associated with someone isn't a harmonious editor). Magog the Ogre (talk) 04:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Or he could go back to his original username, LynnCityofsin, as it's in good standing. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 05:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Blocked as a sockpuppet

I have run a checkuser on BlennGeck and their underlying IP address as a result of this discussion, and from the results I have blocked BlennGeck (talk · contribs) as a checkuser-confirmed sockpuppet of banned user Deliciousgrapefruit (talk · contribs). No other accounts were involved that I can see, but LynnCityofsin (talk · contribs) is stale, so I can't run checks against it. I think this closes the matter, but I want to take this opportunity to warn editors against engaging in a witch-hunt for more socks. We'll keep an eye out for problems, you guys concentrate on editing! The Cavalry (Message me) 11:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Editor with odd approach to images

Johnandmitchy (talk · contribs) is an editor who has worked on some film articles and has been especially prolific in uploading images for them. I first encountered the editor when he was trying to add this image to Out of Sight with the claim that the image was taken by an extra at the time and that it was in the public domain. (Image is since deleted; admins can review its history.) The same problem happened again at Shelley Long, when John claimed a CC license for this image (link to since-deleted image) and dated it as 1998. Another editor found that link, and the image is from a 2000 film festival and belongs to someone else. I kept track of the editor's contributions, and the editor does not use edit summaries very often at all. I confronted him about my problem with his use of images here, but he did not respond to me. Recently, I reviewed his newer contributions, and he uploaded the following poster images: 1, 2, 3, 4. The first, second, and fourth had false sourcing with fake IMP Awards URLs or Allmovie URLs with no images, where the third one links to Allmovie with a similar-but-not-quite image. I reviewed some of his older file contributions, and he appears to use the code from File:The Lincoln Lawyer Poster.jpg in his uploaded poster images' file descriptions, for example here and here. I could understand if an image upload was a rush job that had some sloppiness, but there was even a non-poster image that used the Lincoln Lawyer poster template here. It strikes me that the user does not particularly care about proper licensing or sourcing. What would be the best course of action here? Erik (talk | contribs) 02:04, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Persistent copyright violators usually go "bye-bye". Unless they cease and desist the persistent copyright violations. Doc talk 02:15, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

You could open a case at Misplaced Pages:Contributor copyright investigations. --Diannaa 03:36, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Its a bit early for CCI. There aren't that many images anyway. There is no problem with using a canned FUR as long as the images are correctly attributed - which hasn't been the case here. I have tagged all the film posters for not having the correct sourcing so hopefully johnandmitchy will fix them soon and we can remove those tags. One tagged for having two sources - neither of which check out. One more tagged as I suspect the attributable - its clearly a picture of a TV programme so whoever took it doesn't own the rights and another put down as a poster when its a screen cap... The problem is that the user needs to respond to our requests and talk page comments rather then just ignoring them. Its OK to make mistakes when you upload images - they are clearly trying to get it right but they do need to respond and learn from their errors. Spartaz 03:49, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Being accountable for your edits is what it's all about. If they talk, and understand why they can't violate copyright and demonstrate they won't do it again, that's the best solution. Doc talk 04:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm wary that it's just a problem of a canned FUR. The fact that their recent uploads use fake impawards.com links is suspect to me. I checked the domain for any possible images in case the URL was off for whatever reason, but John actually edited the URL to have the title and the year despite the URL going nowhere. I'll keep tracking the contributions. Erik (talk | contribs) 04:06, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Its clearly an issue with incorrect sourcing and that cannot continue but its right to give them a chance to fix things before reaching for the block stick. Said block stick will have to be applied if there is no improvement or evidence of trying to fix their problems. Just saying its a step below immediate blocking. Spartaz 04:20, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Some folks make honest mistakes. Lots of folks take time to learn how we do things here. Repeatedly uploading images and lying about the source doesn't qualify as an "honest mistake" or "learning" - it's fraud, and the user should be immediately and indefinitely blocked from editing. Rklawton (talk) 05:27, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• According to their message on my talk page they have fixed the sources and orphaned something they now see the error of. Please explain what a block at this stage would prevent. Grateful if someone can check the new sources pan out as I need to leave for work in a second or two. Spartaz 06:00, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I've had a root-around through the user's contributions. All of the images Spartaz tagged earlier have been either fixed, deleted, or orphaned, with the exception of File:HomeMoviesDePalma.jpg, which appears to have a dead link for the source. I believe the user is acting in good faith, and has done his/her best to fix the issue brought up here. I've brought the dead link to the user's attention on his/her talk page. I believe we have nothing further to do here. N419BH 06:41, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, all. I will keep monitoring regardless. Erik (talk | contribs) 12:51, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

User:V7-sport

V7-sport (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

V7-sport is WP:WIKIHOUNDING and attacking me on this page here and multiple other pages. With the justification i would be a supporter of jihad: ""This is made more disturbing by you exclusively intervening on behalf of anyone who has murdered the kuffar in the name of jihad." he said. What alone is already a reason to block him apart from shouting, disruptive editing, out of context quoting, ad hominem arguments and personal attacks. This is extremely disruptive and leaves no time to keep up with the real issues. Please help. IQinn (talk) 06:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Iqinn is currently engaged in an edit war over July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike. Since 13 February he has been engaged in tendentious editing, repeating the same thing ad nauseam on The articles talk page, the original research noticeboard and the reliable sources noticeboard. I have only interacted with this user 5 days so the charge that I am Wikihounding him is ludicrous. However I have noticed that he has engaged in the same pattern of disruptive editing with other users, indeed the section directly below on the Original research notice board was devoted to asking him to stop disruptive cite-tagging on another thread. That went to mediation. Looking at the articles talk pages, and here show someone who repeatedly engages in WP:IDHT in what can only be an effort to drive away contributors who wish to insert information into Misplaced Pages that he disagrees with.

Again, IQinn and I haven't been interacting long enough for me to be "Wikihounding him". I freely acknowledge that I looked at several of his previous edits and was brought into the conversation on the topic below us on the original research noticeboard. When I noticed he was deleting sourced material on another article without any explanation pointed out that this was a pattern I had observed. in answer to the charge of Wikihounding I responded with: "To be clear and honest with you; I am not wikihounding. I think your edits are borderline vandalism. That's not an ad hominem, it is regrettably what I have observed over the past few days". I stand by that statement.

I believe that IQinn is making as much of a stink as humanly possible just to make it as unpleasant as he can for any other editor who wishes to to make an alteration that he disagrees with, and this frivolous ANI is just a part of that strategy.V7-sport (talk) 07:45, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

"I stand by that statement". You are calling me a someone who supports Jihad again. I can not believe what i am hearing here. Get this guy out of here. He has broken every rule and all values we stand for here at Misplaced Pages. That is to much. Get this guy blocked now. This is unbelievable. IQinn (talk) 07:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Nope there are still more rules to break for him now he his also trying to get some involved Meatpuppets in. Get this guy out of here. IQinn (talk) 08:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Nice try, what I wrote was ""To be clear and honest with you; I am not wikihounding. I think your edits are borderline vandalism. That's not an ad hominem, it is regrettably what I have observed over the past few days". I stand by that statement." Again, mischaracterizing what I wrote to make as much of a stink as possible. And is there anything more ironic then you complaining that I am wikihounding you as you hang on my every post complain about "meat puppets"? This isn't a matter of consensus, bringing others in who you have pulled the same "stuff" on recently is not meat puppetry. V7-sport (talk) 08:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for admitting that you tried to get in "meat puppets".

Mischaracterizing and putting things and quotes out of context has been a frequent tactic by you and this is what happened here again. That's what you said: ""This is made more disturbing by you exclusively intervening on behalf of anyone who has murdered the kuffar in the name of jihad.". And the summary of your post above is hat you stand by that. Are you? IQinn (talk) 08:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

V7-sport, tone down the rhetoric a little. There's little point discussing anything but the content itself on talk pages. Even if you have suspicions, don't voice opinions about the motives of editors. Things get less heated that way.

IQinn, calm down, assume good faith, and stop misrepreseting what V7 is saying. Now. Or you'll be blocked.

Cheers to the both of you. lifebaka++ 08:29, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

He called me someone "exclusively intervening on behalf of anyone who has murdered the kuffar in the name of jihad.". There is nothing out of context. 08:32, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

That's incredible. I did not admit that "I tried to get in meat puppets". That's a complete mischaracterization of what I wrote. And yes, I find it disturbing that your disruptive edits seem exclusively devoted to cleansing the encyclopedia of what has been done by usually violent jihadists. Sorry, getting "disturbed" isn't something you can "boot me out" for. V7-sport (talk) 08:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Lifebaka. You are right of course. I regret my patience is finite. V7-sport (talk) 08:36, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

This here is incredible. You described me as someone "exclusively intervening on behalf of anyone who has murdered the kuffar in the name of jihad." what is an personal attack. and the more you used that as an justification to follow me around. That is WP:WIKIHOUNDING. Two questions. 1) Do you still believe that i am "exclusively intervening on behalf of anyone who has murdered the kuffar in the name of jihad." and secondly 2) Are you going to continue to follow me around because you believe that i am someone "exclusively intervening on behalf of anyone who has murdered the kuffar in the name of jihad."? Thank you IQinn (talk) 08:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

IQinn, drop it. Go do something else for the rest of the day. Cool off. Come back tomorrow. This is your last warning. lifebaka++ 08:52, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Lifebaka i am cool and i find it a just a bit disturbing that you threating me with a block because i am asking 2 questions in a friendly way. Two questions that clearly address the the issue and need to be answered, they are clearly meant to solve the conflict and to avoid similar incidents in the future. 09:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

IQinn - I've read through the discussions. What you have is a simple content dispute, you believe the names of the people should not be recorded in association with the safe house, and V7-sport believes it is relevant. This can/should be resolved via the BLP dispute procedure (which has already been initiated).

V7-sport - you've let your emotions get the better of you and you've mildly crossed the civility line on a couple of occasions during these exchanges. (You clearly already know this based on your above comments). Hence consider your wrist to have been lightly smacked as a consequence.

IQinn - I find your conduct to be largely unacceptable. I have read the exchanges and seen you repeatedly accuse V7-sport of Wikihounding, personal attacks, ad hominem attacks, and informing V7-sport he will be "banned forever". This kind of drama-queen behaviour is tedious and fools no-one, particularly admins. Every admin is highly knowledgable about what is and isn't acceptable conduct. V7-sport is guilty of nothing more than some mild incivility (as noted above), and to be fair there has been a healthy degree of provocation.

Lifebaka's threat of a block is fully reasonable, given your conduct thus far. So to avoid that unpleasantness, I recommend you take some time off and calm down, and come back when you feel capable of focussing solely on the content dispute and not the personal dispute. Also ask yourself how you feel about the possibility that the community consensus regarding this content might not agree with you. If that is unacceptable to you, then I recommend you leave off editing this article indefinitely. Manning (talk) 13:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't entirely know what to say here, but I've got to say something. Iquinn's WIKIHOUNDING charge is absurd. This entire exercise is absurd.

Iquinn has a history as a disruptive, one-sided editor. I say this not because we disagree politically or ideologically, which we do. He's extremely difficult to work with. The AGF rule becomes near impossible when he shows up. The audacity of Iquinn making a charge here is simply stunning.

Iquinn, you need to take a break for some introspection.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 18:08, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I have also experienced IQinn's disruptive editing: Misplaced Pages:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Mohamedou_Ould_Slahi Other examples upon request. His (could be a her, I guess) MO seems to be to slap tags on articles when he objects to something, which usually involves claiming WP violations to advance his POV, not any specific issues with content or sources. In fact, he usually cannot even articulate what his specific objection is, much less justify it. By orders of magnitude, his words on Discussion pages exceeds his contributions to articles. I could go on, but he is just going to claim this is ad hominem, incorrectly. Mnnlaxer (talk) 20:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, the charge of WIKIHOUNDING is ridiculous. Mnnlaxer (talk) 20:57, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

IQinn and I are rarely on the same side in this topic area, but I think that the statement made V7 highlighted in bold above is not just mildly unacceptable, but wholly unacceptable. Nothing whatever can justify that sort of language here, and nothing IQinn has edited gives a justification for the use of such language anywhere. DGG ( talk ) 21:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Kueller1

The user Kueller1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has made a lot of personal attacks as well as revealed private information about many well-established users. Although he has been blocked, much of his damage is still present. I have emailed User:Oversight to deal with it, so this is just sort of a notice. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 09:14, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• Working on it. It's User:JarlaxleArtemis, who should really know better than to threaten a US federal prosecutor with assassination, especially given that he's one of the most doxed Wikipedians on the planet. That sort of talk has led people to get locked up - for reals - Alison 09:46, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I am still waiting as to when we're going to turn off the "mark all edits as minor default"... –MuZemike 14:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

What if Grawp actually is a minor? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 14:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

All the more reason to have him locked up. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 15:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

If he's a minor, then mommy and daddy will have to pay a gigantic fine. When I was in middle school, someone sent a threatening e-mail to Bill Clinton, and his parents got fined 250,000 dollars. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:27, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Incident report against User: JoMontNW

There is disruptive editor by the user screen name JoMontNW (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who has been continuously and repeatedly putting false, unsourced, and unneutral information regarding a couple of American television news programs. The programs in question are The Today Show and Good Morning America. This editor is determined to make his edits stick no matter what the cost is. For The Today Show, he put the false information regarding the debut of two of their personalities, Matt Lauer & Natalie Morales. For Good Morning America, he put unsourced, as well as unneutral information regarding their success compared to The Today Show. There was even a moment yesterday where he even went to the extreme and delete nearly 75% of the information in GMA’s Misplaced Pages article. Various editors including myself have tried to revert his various disruptive edits. But he is determine to change them all back to the way he had it before, thus making all of us engage in a silent edit war. Just this morning, JoMontNW left me a not-so friendly comment on my talk page regarding all of this. I choose to take the high road and not reply, no matter what I might be thinking. He has already got various warning from a few administrators for disruptive edits on other articles. Enough is enough. I’m getting sick and tired of putting out all the fires caused by this editor. I would appreciate it if an administrator step in and sanction JoMontNW for his disruptive ways (if not completely silence him). Thank you for your time. Fourviz (talk) 15:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Your complaint is noted and being examined. You can greatly assist us by providing diffs of the specific actions you wish us to examine. Thanks Manning (talk) 15:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• Earlier, I reverted this action by him on the 2011 Iranian protests page. I also noticed that there were other warning on his talk page over the past few days, so I went ahead and gave a Level 4 vandalism warning. I also took the opportunity to look through his contributions. It does seem like he is adding bad information to articles and doesn't feel like stopping. Silverseren 15:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Regardless, he's at or over 3RR on Natalie Morales (including a few possibly pointy self reverts and self self reverts) Syrthiss (talk) 15:43, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

He may be a complete newbie so he is currently benefitting from the biggest dose of AGF I can muster. But it will run out soon. I also note that the user has not been notified about this ANI - I'll fix that, but it is poor form. Manning (talk) 15:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

(article content discussion removed) - JoMontNW (talk) 15:57, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

JoMontNW - Thanks for your input. I have removed your comment only because this page is for discussing the incident and ensuring all parties display proper conduct. If there is a dispute then discuss it at the relevant talk page for that article. This is also where the comment you placed on this page belongs. Manning (talk) 16:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Update: JoMontNW has gone quiet, but by a mysterious coincidence an IP (174.44.29.160) has appeared doing exactly the same edits. Said IP has been blocked for 24 hrs. I'm going to bed, so if someone can take over watching this I'd be grateful. Manning (talk) 16:30, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

You put a block on the IP sockpuppet that JoMontNW is operating under, but no block has been implemented on JoMontNW himself. As a result, he is still continuing to have his stubborn way here on Misplaced Pages. Until he is blocked, there is no stopping him, and truth be told, this might led to something on here that we'll regret down the road, like an edit war. I'm willing to help, but there is only so much I could do as a civil Wikipedian. Fourviz (talk) 17:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

In addition, going through his contributions and talk page, I noticed that he is making a mockery of Misplaced Pages and the great people who work endlessly to make it a great website. Of course, it is not my decision to say what to do with the disruptive JoMontNW. But I think it is evident as to what needs to be done with him. Fourviz (talk) 17:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• I think there's a bit too much good faith being assumed here. Any other user would have been blocked by now. Silverseren 17:32, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Then why isn't JoMontNW blocked yet. I surely do not want to be glued to my computer waiting to revert his next disruptive edit. I like Misplaced Pages, but I do have a life outside of it. My fear is that when I do decide to log off, JoMontNW will be free to put whatever nonsense he can pull out of his youknowwhere and onto various Misplaced Pages articles of his choosing. Fourviz (talk) 17:43, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

You'll be surprised to learn that WP survives quite well whenever people go to bed. JoMontNW is not yet blocked because he has yet to breach the final warning he just received. I am now going to bed, but other admins will watch the matter and take action if needed. Relax. Manning (talk) 17:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

And I'll be watching to see if Fourviz breaches the warning he just received. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Might I ask why you gave him a warning when he is engaged in an "edit war" with a user that is clearly not following the rules? Silverseren 18:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Because there's no exemption from WP:3RR for being correct -- only for reverting vandalism. Note that his later edit summaries claimed he was removed unsourced information, when JoMontNW (whom I just blocked for warring after final warning) had started supplying sources several reverts before. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

...and LakeSwan11 (talk · contribs) down the drain as well.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:15, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

And then NatalieMorales (talk · contribs). —Jeremy 20:08, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

All things considered now, I think it's pretty clear what kind of editor we are dealing with. Relentless in his ways, and not going to back down until he does get his way, no matter how unneutral and disruptive it may be. Look at all the sockpuppets he has created since being blocked. This is the type of nonsense I had to put up with for the last few days. I'm surprised nobody has extend JoMontNW's block beyond 48 hours for creating all these sockpuppets, and the unwanted inconvenience on adminstrators to clean up the miss he caused. Clearly this isn't a person who is going to follow the rules. And 48 hours from now when his block is lifted, he will be doing the extact same thing as he was doing before, being uncivil and disruptive. I hope all of you are ready for another drumming by JoMontNW come Friday afternoon. Fourviz (talk) 20:29, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• Shouldn't the master account of a confirmed sock-puppeteer be blocked for longer than a period of 48 hours? Silverseren 20:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
  • It will either recur or not. If it does, an indef block is in order. If not, it's over. DGG ( talk ) 21:00, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Anyone willing to delete this revision?

. Thanks, P. D. Cook 15:58, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

 Done. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 16:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I think we're really overdoing the requests for oversight for simple vandalism lately. Tarc (talk) 16:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Unless a revision gives away personal information, I don't see the point. Unless it has to do with denying recognition to a vandal? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 16:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

It was run-of-the-mill "go back to africa!" n-word slurs. Tarc (talk) 16:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

If racist obscenities are to be routinely rubbed out, maybe a bot program should be used. That might free up a good chunk of disk space. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 16:14, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the racist call to genocide tipped the scales on this one, which is why I deleted it. But I agree in general, we do overdo it a bit. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 16:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

What's the specific reasoning behind such a deletion? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 16:20, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Baseballbugs and Tarc on this. We are going a bit overboard on these requests.--Jojhutton (talk) 16:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The WP:CFRD #2 does seem to include this type of revision, ie "Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material that has little/no encyclopedic or project value and/or violates our Biographies of living people policy. This includes slurs, smears, and grossly offensive material of little or no encyclopedic value." I don't have much experience in this particular area, and was going by what was written on that policy page. So if folks think it was inappropriate to redact that revision, perhaps the policy page should be modified. Just my thoughts. P. D. Cook 16:27, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Could this be automated somehow? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 16:30, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The revdels don't save any disk space since the deleted revisions are still in the database. I generally would go easier on the revdels since the vandalism can become relevant to future dispute resolution involving the user, so the revdels reduce accountability. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 04:09, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

UltraExactZZ made a judgement call about whether OS was appropriate, based on the policy as written. I think it is best that we now spend many hours discussing whether or not this was an appropriate use of oversight, whether UltraExactZZ has correctly interpreted the policy, and hopefully can expand the discussion to include whether or not UltraExactZZ is even fit to attempt to interpret policy and also whether this is even the appropriate forum to discuss it. Meanwhile it would be a shame to fail to exhaustively examine whether PD Cook was motivated by his own political agendas in even raising the issue to begin with. Bonus points if someone can fit in an articulate and vehement indictment of my motives for posting this flippant comment. Manning (talk) 16:38, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is questioning UltraExact's motives, only the policy as a whole.--Jojhutton (talk) 16:40, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Because you like to build strawmen? No one is remotely suggesting anything like what you've suggested. Rather this is a continuation of the community discussing where the line should be drawn with this fairly new tool.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps my sarcasm was too subtle. "Please do not clutter this page with discussions within a discussion." AN/I should not be used to nitpick a decision made by a competent admin that was clearly within the bounds of the policy as written, there are other forums for discussing policy. Manning (talk) 16:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't dispute the removal as such. I just wonder why it's worth bothering with. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 16:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• From the top of the page - "To request permanent deletion of sensitive personal information, see requests for oversight. DO NOT make such requests here; reports here are visible to everyone." GiantSnowman 17:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The information was neither sensitive nor personal so no harm done.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

True enough, but why has it therefore been deleted? GiantSnowman 17:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

It was deleted because it fit the criteria of WP:CFRD. Since 2010 there has been a new tool called Revision Delete which is stronger than simple reversion but less dramatic than Oversight. There is some discussion underway over the fundamental merit of the policy, but hopefully no dispute over whether or not UltraExactZZ interpreted it correctly (as written). Manning (talk) 17:46, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

That question is why there are multiple posts to this thread.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Spammer alert

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Joseph_Martin_Kronheim_-_The_Sunday_at_Home_1880_-_Revelation_22-17.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=414267762

I've reverted all the spam from them I saw, but I have to ask: Is there ever a good reason to allow linking to ebay? Adam Cuerden 17:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I have notified 95.210.108.91 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) about this thread (per the very clear instructions above), and I have also sent them a note re:use of such links, as per WP:ADVERT. Regards, GiantSnowman 17:43, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Robert Benfer (Knox) - salted?

Tried to move this to Robert Benfer, while stub-sorting, but find that title is banned from creation. Could someone look into this? Thanks. PamD (talk) 19:32, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

There had previously been at least one article at Robert Benfer, which was deleted about 10 times at various incarnations because the subject didn't meet the WP:GNG. Its first deletion was so long ago it was actually a VFD not an AFD. Syrthiss (talk) 19:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any results in Google News, or anything besides imdb that isn't self-published. I don't think the subject is ready for an article, yet. Throwaway85 (talk) 21:58, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Pam, if you think this chap's notable, maybe create in userspace first? GiantSnowman 01:17, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I have no interest in him beyond trying to tidy up the article name while stub-sorting, but when I found that I couldn't move it to the base name title I thought I'd let you lot know! PamD (talk) 08:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Uncertainty about RfC/U certification

It would be helpful if a few uninvolved administrators could take a look at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for comment/Lihaas#Uncertified RfC. Users there are in disagreement about whether or not the RfC/U has been properly certified, and some fresh eyes would be helpful. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:42, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me this should have been settled back when it was "certified" on January 28th, rather than still being argued over 2 weeks later after significant participation in the RFC. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The time to question the factual accuracy of the certifications is in the 48 hours after the RFC was posted. No one seems to have questioned them at that time, and the RFC proceeded. Multiple editors have commented in the two weeks since. It seems clear that, whether it should or should not have been certified, it is indeed a certified RFC and must proceed accordingly. I should further note that, given this dispute, the RFC is absolutely ineligible for speedy deletion. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 20:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree with both of you. The reason that I brought it up here is that there seems to be an ongoing dispute about that CSD. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Please refrain from creating non-existent rules Ultraexactzz. Certification has been disputed some two weeks after a RfC/U has been allegedly certified in the past and they have been deleted without an issue; the only time a certification issue can be waived is after it has passed the 30 day period and the RfC has been closed. That editors have commented here (and comment in other uncertified RfCs) is in case administrators dismally fail to enforce the rules like in this case. Ncmvocalist (talk) 22:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Ultra for your cross post there. I hope that settles it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Just as a further comment: I know there are plenty of users who have both far more time for, and much more experience at, investigating problematic editors. I consider that the RFC was brought as part of a wikicampaign by User:O Fenian. I would just say to these editors if you investigate him you will see an awful lot of wrong doing. The current thing that worries me most is the counter on his talk page, which he has previously claimed he would be banned for were he to reveal its meaning. When one looks at his stated position on Irish Paramilitary activities this moves from suspect to sinister. Egg Centric 20:45, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

If the RFC is inappropriate for some reason, seeking a consensus to delete at MFD is always an option. But speedy deletions are only for non-controversial actions that don't need to be discussed, which clearly this was not. --B (talk) 22:23, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

You are right that there are many experienced editors (some with sysop flags) who recognise problematic editors - and editors whose opinions and stances are not in keeping with the general demographic also. There is a difference, centred around compliance with policies and guidelines. Can you provide examples of recent unactioned "wrong doing" by O Fenian, or where in policy that certain political or cultural allegiances are forbidden? LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:30, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a pattern of behaviour but the short answer is: no, I can't. Others may be able to though. Ask User:The C of E... or indeed User:Lihaas - they may be able to help. Egg Centric 10:21, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

• I will note on another point that the subject of this RfC/U, on 28 January 2011, did in fact ask for evidence from the certifier about what attempts they made to resolve the dispute. So this was never a matter of waiving the requirements either; it was a matter of administrators failing to do their job and other editors skipping right past the section. That more than 48 hours was granted does not mean that this editor cannot expect to be afforded the protections granted by the RfC/U rules - rules, which I might add, precisely exist to prevent such misuse. Ncmvocalist (talk) 23:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
  • If you believe deletion is the correct course of action, I can only suggest that you take it to MFD. Multiple admins (myself included) who don't know these people from Adam have declined to speedily delete it. I have a hard time imagining that changing (although I do have a very poor imagination). --B (talk) 23:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
    • And precisely how long does MFD take...oh yeah, that's right, practically the length of this RfC/U; that an RfC/U can be forced by administrators who happily hide behind red tape simply demonstrates how ridiculous this system has become and that the rules that have been used for years have now become unenforcible; WP:BURO should be deprecated because clearly it's false. Ncmvocalist (talk) 23:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
      • I have looked at that segment again - I heard it was added by one user and not consensus, in which case it should be looked at as it is in a section marked 'policy'. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Kumioko and AWB access

I have temporarily removed AWB access from Kumioko (talk · contribs) for persistent violations of the AWB rules of use, specifically rules 3 and 4. Kumioko has been on a campaign of making trivial edits to article talk pages, under the guise of "cleaning" them. I am involved in this in an administrative capacity.

There is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Council#WikiProject_banner_tagging about whether there is a requirement to avoid redirects for talk page banners. The first few comments in the thread show several responses that there is no such requirement. Someone even pointed out that when this was proposed as a requriement, it failed to reach consensus (Misplaced Pages:Banner standardisation). Kumioko recently posted a note in the discussion there that effectively says, "sod off, I'm gonna do it anyway".

Because that completely ignores the actual discussion in the thread, I intervened in an administrative capacity, pointing out on that page that there is no consensus for a bot to do that, and reminding Kumioko on his/her talk page to follow the AWB rules. Since then, Kumioko has continued to make the same sorts of edits wile giving various "IDIDNTHEARTHAT" explanation. For example, . I specifically warned Kumioko today that I would disable his/her AWB access if the same edits continued. Unfortunately, Kumioko has refused to stop and find consensus, which is an abuse of AWB.

This sort of editing has previously gone before ArbCom in the Date Delinking RFARB. ArbCom made this finding :

"Editors who collectively or individually make large numbers of similar edits, and who are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change."

Note that this is not about AWB in general. The problem is only Kumioko using AWB to make large-scale sequences of edits to enforce his/her personal opinion as a fait accompli while knowing there is not a general consensus behind it. Removing AWB access is a very mild, targeted remedy to pause the edits to allow discussion to take place. The best resolution here would be for Kumioko to agree to follow the AWB rules, at which point his/her AWB access should be restored promptly. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:38, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

There are several items identified above so I will attempt to answer each in turn.

• I want to state that I do not believe what I was doing was in violation of 3 or 4 and I believe CBM's actions of removing my AWB access is an abuse of his admin powers. Additionally his writeup above is totally POV and comepletely misrepresents what was actually said.
  • Rule 3 states "Don't do anything controversial with it. If there is a chance that the edits you are considering might be controversial, consider soliciting comment at the village pump or appropriate WikiProject before proceeding". There is noting controversial about removing deprecated or unused parameters. The projects themselves say they shouldnt be there if not being used. They are only there because some editor added them needlessly.
  • Rule 4 states "Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits such as only adding or removing some white space, moving a stub tag, converting some HTML to Unicode, removing underscores from links (unless they are bad links), bypassing a redirect, or something equally trivial. This is because it wastes resources and clogs up watch lists." Nothing in this covers the edits I was doing. Therefore no violation.
• I asked CBM repeatedly to tell me where I cannot use AWB to delete deprecated parameters and unneeded, unused and unwanted parameters from banners when the templates and the projects both state that if they are not used they should not be there. Removing these makes the banner parameters that are being used easier to read and identify, it reduces the page size (frequently more than 1000 bytes), it speeds rendering times, etc.
• I didn't tell CBM to "Sod off". After leaving threats on my talk page I said was 1 editor did not warrant a lack of consensus and if he had a problem with my edits he should open up a discussion at the village pump. I even told him that if the consensus was that removing these parameters was a minor edit that I would stop and we could update the AWB rules accordingly. I did tell him that I wasn't going to stop because one editor told me too.
• The ongoing discussions related to the standardization of Wikiproject banners and only loosely relates here. I only "standardize" the talk page banners when doing other things of more significance.
• CBM did not intervene in a an admin capacity in fact his comments were very POV relating to his personal feelings that these were minor edits.
• This action and the Date delinking action are completely unrelated and there is zero correlation to them.
• Large scale is defined as about ten today, only a few over the past week and in fact it has taken me more than a month to clean up about 1800 a few at a time. I am now down to 347.

I recommend restoring my AWB rights immediately and instructing CBM to next time open up a discussion if he disagrees with an editor over a personal feeling of what constitutes a minor edit. --Kumioko (talk) 20:57, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

There is an open discussion at the WikiProject Council, which you have decided to ignore by continuing to do the edits. The comment that can be summarized as "sod off, I'm gonna do it anyway"was in that thread, not to me. 1800 edits certainly seems like a large number to me; in this edit you said is was 2200 edits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:00, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

No the discussion is completely unrelated and as a seasoned editor you should be able to see that. Just because I did 4500 edits this month doesn't mean I have done anything wrong. In fact it means I have been doing something right. Contributing to WP. Honestly though I think you acted completely out of line but well see what everyone else thinks. --Kumioko (talk) 21:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm unclear on what the downside to bypassing the redirects is. I could understand there being no requirement that we bypass redirects in talk page headers, but what's the downside if someone wants to spend their time/energy doing it? "We are not required to do X" is not the same as "doing X is not permitted". --B (talk) 21:23, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

What's the practical value of this work, for the reader? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The idea of making these edits was proposed at Misplaced Pages:Banner standardisation and failed to become a guideline. Several people in the thread at the WikiProject Council again objected to the idea, but Kumioko seems to have decided to just ignore them and do it anyway. Using AWB to force your opinion onto articles is a violation of the AWB rules; it bypasses the consensus-building process. Also, the AWB rules generally prohibit making trivial edits, such as edits that have no effect on the rendered page. These edits are perceived as clogging watchlists with edits that don't actually change the pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Please let me understand. Kumioko's current work consists of 3 parts:

• Assessing in WPUS
• Bypassing redirects
• Cleaning parameters

First part is uncontroversial. The third seems to have some benefits as noted above. The discussion on Misplaced Pages Council is about the second part and not the third. Many bots do the second and third part while doing tasks similar to the first one. What is exactly the problem?

• The second part in general?
• That the second part is done without the first part? (This is my concern)

And a small comment: If we do more than 300 posts on this one then it's not worth. Kumioko was about to finish. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:41, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

In general, the second. It is a controversial change, evidenced by the opposition to Banner standardization from becoming a guideline. Titoxd 21:43, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Are we OK, if he keeps doing 1 and 3 till we end to some consensus with 2? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:48, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

If "cleaning parameters" means removing unused parameters that have no effect on the rendered output, that's not permitted by AWB rule #4, since it's a trivial edit. In particular, there's no need to clean out "nested=yes" with AWB. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:52, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Human editors using AWB are expected to manually review every edit and avoid saving the ones that only do (2). I reminded Kumioko about that yesterday, and he/she claimed at first that they were errors. But today it's the same pattern of trivial edits, which makes it clear that they are being intentionally saved. AWB is not a tool for imposing decisions on the community; it's useful for implementing things that do have consensus. The thing that made me think that some admin action is needed is the combination of the pattern of edits is combined with the posts to the WikiProject council where Kumioko essentially tells everyone he/she will ignore them and just keep making the edits. That sort of bad behavior is what led to the date delinking RFARB; the lesson from that is the people need to stop sooner, rather than later, when others object to large-scale edit patterns. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

That's not always correct. In Infobox character we made a tracking category to detect pages with many unused parameters because they slow down page rendering. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a bit of deja vu. There was some guy some weeks back who was making a bunch of edits that did nothing except take some spaces out of infoboxes. No benefit to anyone. How much would it be slowed down, assuming you're not on 2400 baud dialup or something? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:58, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

@M: You should really get a bot approval to do that sort of thing, because they otherwise that sort of trivial edit isn't permitted for AWB. The existence of AWB doesn't eliminate the need for many tasks to go through the bot approvals group, particularly when the tasks are meant to be large-scale and not require actual human discretion.

If there is actually a slow-down with unused parameters, it should be reported as a bug, so it can be fixed in Mediawiki. Many WikiProjects intentionally pre-include blank parameters to fill in later, and AWB users shouldn't go around removing those unless the specific WikiProject asks for it, since they were intentionally included. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. We have to ask WikiProject Aviation what exactly they want to be done with the unused parameters. I can only talk about WikiProject Biography on that matter. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Sure, if they want to get rid of them they they should get a bot or AWB op to do it, nobody can complain too much about that. The other change that Kukiomo seemed to be making was to remove the nested=yes parameter. But if it has no effect any more, there's no need to go through and remove it (since it already has no effect). — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree on the nested too. I wonder how many are left. I can't perform a database scan for talk pages. :( -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to be offline for a little while. Like I indicated originally, I have no objections to Kukiomo's AWB access being restored once the issue at hand is resolved, or even sooner if he/she agrees to stop these "cleanup" edits. I'll check on back this thread here in a few hours. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• Reply To B - Most of the opposition stems from 1) they don't think its necessary, 2) they believe it to be a waste of time or 3) they just prefer the other naming convention and dont really care if its harder for non-experienced editors and don't care that from a programming perspective it requires over 1000 lines of code to account for all the variations of wikiprojects (without the WikiProject X convention) rather than just one with all the banners saying WikiProject X.

• Reply To Baseball Bugs - From the readers point of view that question frankly depends on the edit. I have a list of about 2000 edits give or take a few plus whats in the Find and replace fields on my AWB. Basically though it falls into one of the following; It simplifies what the reader sees, it reduces the page size by eliminating uneeded items, I rearrange the order of things according to talk page layout rules, I fix broken parameter values such as - instead of =, clas instead of class, add equals between certain parameters and their value if its missing, etc. In my opinion the problem that CBM has is with standardizing the talk page banners and removing deprecated and uneeded parameters from talk page templates. He does not feel that removing 1000 characters of empty parameters constitutes a significant enough edit to use AWB. I think that is basically it but I don't want to speak for him and he clarified his comments above. Just to clarify another thing. I am not eliminating all empty parameters, just certain ones. is one example of the type of edit he is opposed too and shows what this is all about. Feel free to stroll through my contributions for more though.

• Reply to Magioloditis - I cannot do many of the edits from 1 and 3 because they assume that the naming convention is WikiProject X. Others rely on those so whats left may not work correctly.

• Reply to CBM - Yes you identified a couple of errors and I admitted I was not perfect and that I do occasionally make mistakes. My mistakes equate to trivial edits so no harm no foul. I am not harming the articles if I do 1 or 2 out of 4000 edits that are trivial. And I still maintain that most of the edits you mention are not trivial. Trivial are things like standardizing redirects, not deleting parameters. There was and is no need for admin action. I still maintain that it was inappropriate and you should have opened a discussion to see if there was more than 1 (you) editor who had a problem with it. I also want to clarify you comment about a large scale edit pattern. You make this sound as though I was doing massive numbers of inappropriate edits but you still IMO have not shown that deleting parameters is trivial other than vaguely written rules of AWB use. I DID NOT do anything that was mentioned as a violation of AWB.

• Regarding to the cleaning of parameters - {{MILHIST}} and {{WikiProject Aviation}} both state "To avoid needlessly cluttering up talk pages, it is usually appropriate to remove any unused parameters from the template." on the template documentation so IMO there is no need to "Get consensus" because consensus is implied by the statement from the projects. Additionally there is no need to have unneeded and deprecated parameters on the talk pages for the reasons already discussed above. Aside from claims that these edits are not allowed I disagree that these are minor edits (with the exception of standardizing the talk page banners). There is no need to force me to do these changes manually when I have a tool like AWB available to use. And as for these parameters not changing anything on the rendering of the page. Of course not they are garbage. Just like if I added a parameter to the template for | it would not display.

• regarding the bot comment - I tried that avenue but after about 6 weeks I withdrew it in frustration. In six weeks I was never even asked to run a test.

• AWB access - at this point I am not really concerned with AWB access. I may take a brake from WP for a while or I may continue editing. I haven't really decided. It seems lately that too many editors just want to debate every change rather than accept that people are trying to make WP better. I can't even make an edit without someone complaining about my edit summery, debating on whether its minor, drowning me in disucssions about why I would try and restart WikiProject United States and how dare I. All the drama is burning me out from wanting to contribute at all. --Kumioko (talk) 01:01, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Wait, let me get this straight. You were wise enough to know you needed BOT approval, you submitted a request, it was never even approved for testing, so you said "fukkit, I'm doing it anyway?" Can I get a "WTF"?(talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

So, let's solve first the "remove empty parameters" part where I think Kumioko is right. WPMILHIST, WikiProject Aviation and WikiProject Biography state explicitly that the values should be yes or not exist (exception is the |living= in WPBiography). Just in case I left a note in Template_talk:WPMILHIST#Unused.2Fempty_parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the milhist template, removing empty B-Class assessment parameters can be inconvenient for editors that come along later to assess the article. Our project how-to guide on using the template recommends including them as placeholders when articles are tagged for the project, and there are some additional commented instructions on how to assess included in the template that would be unhelpfully removed along with the blank parameters. I see no problem with removing other empty parameters though. EyeSerene 12:42, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Page move / lockout at Mathematics in medieval Islam

Can anyone help me reverse a page truncation that seems to be locked out using a technique I am unfamiliar with? I also need help protecting this (and probably other) articles while I wend my way through the system to try to get a more permanent remedy. It's a long story.

This is an ongoing content dispute, festering since last April, wherein a large number of editors became upset (perhaps not without some cause) with user Jagged85's edits. They have an RFC/U, Jagged agrees, the original intention is Jagged will help them clean up the content. Jagged doesn't help, but retires instead, complaining (perhaps with some cause) to have been railroaded.

Fast forward to the fall, a group of the unhappy editors becomes frustrated trying to clean up Science in medieval Islam and truncates the article. And there it is to this day, sitting there truncated.

This week, some of these editors, perhaps notably user:William_M._Connolley (and alternate id user:WMC) and user:Ruud Koot decide to have a go at cleaning up Mathematics in medieval Islam, work on it for a few days, get frustrated, truncate the article and move the truncated content into a work area for "renovation".

Today, having seen 700 years of Islamic science discarded, unwilling to see Islamic mathematics meet the same fate, unable to reverse the actions taken on the mathematics article by these other editors (clumsy as I am), I am here to ask for a guardian to maintain the peace while this issue receives a fair hearing with the visibility and consideration it deserves.

To wit, I request (an injunction) the assistance of an administrator to restore Mathematics in medieval Islam to its state prior to this week, and RE-protect it pending a discussion on the merits of the larger issue; an issue involving many articles which I can no longer idly stand by and watch go down the drain. There may very well be other articles on Islamic science, culture and history facing a similar dilemma as we speak. They all need protection, as this issue has gotten to the point where it requires attention at the highest levels of deliberation available to content on our encyclopedia.

Thanks in advance for your attention,

Aquib (talk) 23:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

For some background reading see: Misplaced Pages:Jagged 85 cleanup. —Ruud 00:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

For the material from Mathematics in medieval Islam see here. For the Science in medieval Islam this is the edit, from User:SteveMcCluskey/SMI, but this comment is not so good. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 00:21, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, as far as I can see, what appears to be a well-developed mainspace article has been moved to a user subpage as a result of a content dispute. Am I reading the situation correctly or am I missing something? Manning (talk) 00:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That what appears to be a well developed article was in fact a huge pile of factual inaccuracies, misrepresentation of sources and POV pushing written by a single editor as documented in great detail at Misplaced Pages:Jagged 85 cleanup. —Ruud 00:41, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Well from my own general knowledge, I am aware of the tremendous significance of the Islamic contribution to mathematics. Having said that, if there has been systemic insertion of bias into the article then that needs to be removed. Do you have a timeline for restoration of the older article in mind? I do find the current gap between the two versions to be a bit unsettling. Manning (talk) 00:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Your feeling of unsettlement is based on the false assumption that the gap between the current and the "older article" contained a factual account of the Islamic contributions to mathematics instead of a fabricated story. An assumption that would have been hard to make after reading Misplaced Pages:Jagged 85 cleanup and its associated pages. —Ruud 02:13, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

No, my unease it's based on the fact that the old article clearly contains at least some elements of truth (the Islamic contribution to mathematics during the 8th-13th century was clearly significant), and the new article is only a handful of lines. I've read the account at Misplaced Pages:Jagged 85 cleanup. It does not clearly prove that every entry ever made by this user is false, although it does demonstrate a clear pattern of bias, so I'm not challenging your actions overall. My question was: how long before you think that a reasonable version of the article will be restored?Manning (talk) 03:39, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Given that there has never been a satisfactory article on this subject, "restored" does not seem like the right word to use here. For a good article to be written, months to years would probably be a conservative estimate. —Ruud 10:02, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Without especially commenting on the current state of the article, I have to point out that this is one good reason to use inline citations. I've been in the same situation with badly written articles before, where I knew there was good material, and yet it wasn't easy to sieve it out because it wasn't clear what references were supporting what material. — Gavia immer (talk) 03:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

This is in essence a content dispute. There are no procedural issues at present. The context is Misplaced Pages:Jagged 85 cleanup, and the article talk page. The is no obvious reason why admins need to be involved. having seen 700 years of Islamic science discarded is absurd hyperbole. Was has happened is that an article with many many very dubious unchecked claims has been stubbed out, because it seemed easier than weeding out the bad stuff. There is nothing strange about that.

Please see the discussion on the article talk page - the one being unreasonable here is Aquib, with his If anyone stubs another article in this effort, I am going straight to the arbitration committee William M. Connolley (talk) 08:56, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and locked out using a technique I am unfamiliar with is meaningless, of course William M. Connolley (talk) 08:57, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

No comment about the content dispute, but the point about "locked out" is sort of valid: the material was not merely cut out from the article and copied over into the user space draft, but the whole article was moved there and replaced by a new stub with a new edit history in mainspace. Now, the move can't technically be reverted without admin tools, and the material can't be copied back in without breaking the attribution chain in the edit history. I would have preferred a "normal" stubbing back. Would you mind me merging the histories so the main page history is again where it belongs? Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Fine by me William M. Connolley (talk) 09:56, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That would actually make it significantly more difficult to find the content of the old article as opposed to making it available on a subpage. —Ruud 10:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, the old contents can still be copied into a subpage, but as I understand the subpage is going to be used mostly as a static archive, and the re-development of the article is going to take place in the mainspace version, the mainspace page is where the old history should be. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:30, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

It is not technically possible to copy an article, while retaining its revision history. Keeping the revision history together with the "static archive" seems more appropriate. —Ruud 10:39, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that can be solved by providing a clear link to the article state at the time of the stubbing on the talk page. FP has already copied the pre-stub to Talk:Mathematics in medieval Islam/Jagged 85 so the state is clearly visible William M. Connolley (talk) 11:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Future Perfect at Sunrise for your description of the technique used to truncate the article. My description of a "lock out" is accurate. I am not here to argue content, I am asking for an admin to help keep the peace while I get a fair hearing. As demonstrated by the end result on Science in Medieval Islam, and the technique used to truncate Mathematics in Medieval Islam, I am dealing with a group of editors whose approach leaves much to be desired.

Perhaps the other editors would be so kind as to furnish a list of articles they have applied these techniques to in the name of Jag cleanup.

Perhaps an admin would be prepared to enforce some order on this process while I get a hearing on the content. -Aquib (talk) 13:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to sanction IZAK

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

140.247.141.136 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
140.247.141.162 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
140.247.141.165 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Forgive me if this is the wrong place. I am green to this process. I see IZAK has been recently violating WP:FORUMSHOPPING, WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:NPA and WP:POINT. The discussion is above at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Stupid_question. I propose that IZAK be sanctioned, blocked, put on probation or whatever if takes to get him to begin to collaborate and play nice. I think his complaint above has turned into WP:BOOMERANG. 140.247.141.165 (talk) 00:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

This would likely be taken a bit more seriously if you filed with your real account. Tarc (talk) 00:49, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I do not have a "real" account. I wish to maintain my anonymity by editing only from IPs. Am I being forced to register? 140.247.141.165 (talk) 00:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Those issues were from earlier this week. Is he continuing that today, or has he backed off? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know there is a statue of limitations. Is there? 140.247.141.165 (talk) 00:57, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a dead letter. Drop the stick already. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 00:58, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't feel old. It hasn't even been archived yet. Is there a statute of limitations? 140.247.141.165 (talk) 01:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Not exactly, but if someone has been disruptive and then stops, there's really no issue. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:01, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

And as Tarc notes, you appear to be brand-new and are starting out with a sanction proposal. That tends to raise suspicions about your own good faith in the matter. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm green here but I regualrly edit from IPs. Watch this page a lot and I got pretty disgusted of IZAK's battleground mentality. 140.247.141.165 (talk) 01:09, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That's understandable, but the general approach is that if someone stops being contentious, they're not likely to be sanctioned. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I think he only stopped because the thread turned grey in color and it said not to modify it. He was going full speed up to the very end. He violated all of the policies I wrote above, so why does he get off scott free? 140.247.141.165 (talk) 01:15, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Even so, the admin said, "Stop or I'll block you", and he stopped. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:18, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

• 140.247.141.165, you've not made a single edit to mainspace - one edit a week ago to somebody's talk page, and now all this ANI. Who are you really? GiantSnowman 01:20, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
  • I edit from the computers that are available to me. I will not register as I fear for my anonymity. 140.247.141.165 (talk) 01:22, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
    • I understand, but it would make your case stronger if we could see your editing history/interactions with IZAK. GiantSnowman 01:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
  • What other IP's have you edited under recently? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:25, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
    • I found one. I forget the utility to find a range of them, but I've got it written down somewhere. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:39, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
      • Found the utility. I'll run it for the range 140.247.141.* and see what it comes up with. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→
        • The utility didn't work, but we know what range to look for if the OP here comes from out of left field again. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:35, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
          • A checkuser will do the trick.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
• I don't see a reason to invoke some preventative sanction except "don't do this particular thing". This doesn't need to be an albatross hanging from IZAK's neck, he just needs to drop the issue. So long as he does, then there is no problem. Don't contribute to drama by continuing to bang the drum. Protonk (talk) 01:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
• This is rich. With all the drama that typically attends this page, its a pleasure to have some comic relief every now and then. Am I the only one who is enjoying Mr. IP's humorously transparent effort to make himself appear "green"? Question for Mr. IP, btw, before we perform a checkuser -- Have you ever edited under a username on wikipedia? And if so, what names have you used? Many thanks, and happy editing. (BTW--since all editors in good standing who have commented here are in agreement, I would support a snow close of this string once Mr. IP has provided his answer, and without prejudice to any subsequent checkuser being performed on him).--Epeefleche (talk) 02:51, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Just logged on and saw this now. I have long dropped the very quick-moving issue. In particular I have thanked the final closing admin for his fairness at User talk:IZAK#AN/I: "The discussion at ANI is now closed. Your raising of the username was valid even if your motive for doing so was not good. The policy has been clarified. RMS is restricted to using that username as an unblocking condition, so it is not going to change without a) RMS wanting to change, and b) the approval of WP:ARBCOM or WP:AE or something similar. Mjroots (talk) 07:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC) --- Thanks Mjroots, I commend your even-handedness, level-headedness and sense of correctness. I was not aware of all the mitigating factors and the complexities as I bumped into them in the middle of the night so to speak. Much appreciated. IZAK (talk) 07:16, 16 February 2011 (UTC)" So I have nothing more to say on this matter. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 03:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

New User admits that his teacher assigned them a project to vandalize wikipedia

Blocked User:JNC offical fan 1998 admitted with this edit, that his teacher asked them to vandalize wikipedia. Is there some sort of check user or school block that we can do with this to block other possible accounts?--Jojhutton (talk) 02:09, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

• DNFTT? Protonk (talk) 02:15, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
• I have considerable doubt as to the veracity of the blocked editor's statement.  Cs32en Talk to me  02:28, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

He's lying. I confess to pretending to believe him for a little bit because I was bored and his lies made me laugh, which I realize is not entirely in the spirit of WP:RBI. I am sometimes terribly weak. But eventually he broke in the face of my terrifying interrogation and acknowledged that he was lying. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 02:31, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Can you be sure he isn't lying about having lied? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, given how confused he was about the name of his own school, he might also be confused about the assignment. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 02:46, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I hope you did not use any version of virtual waterboarding, given the absence of any official guideline on how to employ enhanced interrogation techniques on the project.  Cs32en Talk to me  02:49, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That's all in the past. No use looking back. Protonk (talk) 02:58, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Might be related to this. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 05:57, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

BLP violations? Anonymous sources in report of sexual assault.

I don't believe any of this material is appropriate: . There is a "discussion" in Talk. Go ahead and block me for saying "fucking" if you like. Mindbunny (talk) 02:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that the source is appropriate. If a reliable source chooses to trust an anonymous source, or a source that chooses to remain anonymous to the public, then we can take this as an indication that the information is reliable. Circumstances should be taken into account; for example, if a particular article appears to push a particular interpretation of an event, then we would probably treat the information more cautiously.  Cs32en Talk to me  02:26, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sorry, I disagree. It might be otherwise if our normally "reliable source" qualified their report by saying "according to ...", but in this case, I don't see that happening. Journalism can be largely self-referential, and occasionally irresponsible, but reliance upon a tertiary source as far as we are concerned should be unacceptable unless we are discussing journalistic responses from a third-party POV, which I don't see happening here. In particular, WP:BLP requires scrupulous and ultimately reliable sourcing, and as far as I'm concerned, this second-hand, unqualified, reporting, just doesn't cut it. We shouldn't just treat it cautiously; we should remove it, with extreme prejudice. Rodhullandemu 02:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

In a BLP, on a subject like a sexual assault? (And since when is the New York Post reliable?) The idea that an encyclopedia may rely on anonymous sources in discussing someone's sexual assault is pathetic. Mindbunny (talk) 02:39, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Whose BLP is being violated? Certainly not hers. Who is it then? Her captors? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:43, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) WP:RS and WP:V don't talk about where secondary sources get THEIR information from. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 02:45, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Here's USAToday's current report: ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

We should not be propagating sections of the press's weak titillating claims like we are a online volunteer Reuters- notnews is clear about this imo - Its not however a topic that requires administrative intervention or .. forum shopping at multi locations as is happening,. Off2riorob (talk) 02:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Unless they're trying to claim that she "asked to be attacked", I don't see how this qualifies as a BLP violation. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

While there may well be situations where repetition of anonymously sourced statements would be inappropriate, this doesn't look like one of them. The statements were published by major, reliable media and are not particularly intrusive. Even the Post statements build on Logan's own reliably reported comments that she'd reviously been accused of being an Israeli agent. I think the rather rancid "personal life" section is far more deserving of closer scrutiny. Why does an encyclopedia need multiple links to galleries of "swimsuit photos" of her, which I greatly doubt carry RS-verifiable identifications? Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 02:52, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That part would seem to be irrelevant and POV-pushing... because it implies that "she asked for it". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

First, I don't know why people keep referring to reliable sources. The sourcing in the questionable material is : 1) anonymous + New York Post (mob screamed "Jew"), 2) anonymous + New York Post (Logan was afraid of Egyptian hospitals & police), and 3) anonymous + Wall Street Journal (she wasn't raped). That's 1/6 on the reliability checklist. The violations of BLP, in my opinion, are just describing any aspect of a person's sexual assault when you don't really know what's true. Saying she was or was not raped based on an anonymous source, and saying she was afraid or not afraid of hospitals/police are direct comments about her. The incident happened 48 hours ago. WTF. Give it a rest. The accusations of anti-Semtism are part of the sexual assault and the sourcing is a tabloid. A BLP has a high standard, and a matter of a person's sexual assault should carry a doubly high standard. Leave out what isn't known. Mindbunny (talk) 02:57, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I would surmise that the Wall Street Journal knows about the identity of its source, but chose not to make the identity public.  Cs32en Talk to me  03:30, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree. This information is sourced quite adequately, and these details are all over the news, including Logan's employer, CBS News. Cresix (talk) 03:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

What are you talking about? CBS news didn't say she wasn't raped. Nor did it say anything about the mob screaming "Jew". Nor did it say anything about her reporting or non-reporting to Egyptian police/hospitals. Neither CBS, nor Logan, nor Logan's family are the sources for any of this. Misplaced Pages is essentially repeating anonymous comments about whether somebody was raped, when the victim has not chosen to make that information public. Mindbunny (talk) 03:45, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That User:Cresix should post his cites or stop posting uncited claims - I can't find anything from CBS reporting that, has he got a link for his claim? Off2riorob (talk) 03:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Why should we assume that the text published by CBS is the only information about this event that is available to reliable sources?  Cs32en Talk to me  04:52, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Assuming is actually what we are trying to avoid. CBS are the people closest to the source, she works for their media outlet, they would be a very strong source for any controversial claims... large sections of the press are also not reporting it either. the BBC and the Guardian neither are reporting a mob chanting jew jew jew as they sexually attacked her. It just seems to be coming from that new york post report with an unnamed source, as we don't have to sell anything, lets wait a day or two and get the clarified story.Off2riorob (talk) 05:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, you are obviously assuming (!) that CBS is the only possible source for any information about the event. Given that there were numerous journalists on Tahrir Square at the time the incident happened, this assumption appears to be implausible. Furthermore, the information is not anonymous. The New York Post does not say: "An anonymous caller to our news desk said", but refers to "a person familiar with the matter".  Cs32en Talk to me  05:18, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That user Cresix hadn't got any reliable citations, when I asked him he said he saw it on telly, its easy on noticebords to make keep I saw it on telly claims but we need to weed out such worthless supports. 05:52, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Mindbender, forum shopping is considered disruptive. You've raised this issue on at least two different pages now that I know of. First, BLP Notice Board and now here.---Balloonman 05:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we should have anything about her being sexually assaulted unless she comes out to ask for it to be reported. It can't help with the healing process to have sordid things like that all over the internet. This has nothing to do with whether there are WP:RS available. Egg Centric 09:52, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I know you are "new" here, but that is an editorial decision that goes far beyond our usual bounds. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 12:30, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The current version of that part of the article seems ok to me. The incident was widely reported by news media, though the WSJ is the only one I've seen that specifically used the R-word regarding what did or didn't happen. Maybe that's the anonymous sourcing Mindbunny is objecting to, that is still in the article. The "Jew" stuff and the part about being afraid of Egyptian hospitals is gone now, and those parts seemed more concern, with the hospital part making no sense at all. Yes IMO we do have to apply a bit more skepticism with such sourcing (the NYT acknowledges anonymous sourcing decreases credibility and the WSJ also took some heat) but I think that particular statement is not very contentious and is mentioned just briefly in the article, so it seems ok to me despite minor misgivings. The other info in the WP article is consistent with what I've seen in general news coverage, though I haven't followed the story in detail. Off2riorob's remark about our not being an online volunteer Reuters is well-put. Breaking news reports very often don't and can't have the reliability we aspire to as an encyclopedia. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 13:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Block request: Angel's flight

A checkuser has identified user:Angel's flight as editing from IP addresses registered to American System Publications, a company owned by the Lyndon LaRouche movement. This is the same company that user:Leatherstocking, a sock of banned user:Herschelkrustofsky, was editing from in 2009. He edited logged out several times, and the IP addresses resolved to American Systems Publications in Los Angeles. (See Leatherstocking and WP:LTA/HK.)

Angel's flight has been acting like Leatherstocking and Herschelkrustofsky too, pushing exactly the same text and POV on the same articles, as well as working on a new article, Death panels, an issue the LaRouche movement has an interest in. (See several threads on Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive670.) In addition to the CU evidence, there is other behavioral evidence, which I can email if necessary. Could an uninvolved admin please block the account for block evasion?   Will Beback  talk  07:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I too would welcome a block on this user for his actions at Independent Payment Advisory Board as well as Death panel. The account may be linked to other editors such as User:Intermittentgardener which it often backs up and User:Jesanj for the same reason. I made several complaints here previously about User:Intermittentgardener and User:Jesanj has contacted me by email with material that in my opinion was intended to somehow scare me (someone knows who you are but I am trying to protect you). Quite sinister really. Jesanj has also claimed that Action T4 is a death panel, and as I have discovered, this is something the Larouche organization connects to organizations and subjects in the health field such as IPAB and NICE. These are extremists views and I have accused all of thee editors of trying to politicize the encyclopedia content and push POV in recent times. User:Arzel has a similar editing pattern also and may be worth checking out.Hauskalainen (talk) 08:20, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea if his is sockpuppet or just one of that supporters of LaRouche who work in his companies or affiliated groups. But his edits in Independent Payment Advisory Board like this one are normal content dispute and I don´t see problem to include what notable politicians think about the topic. --Dezidor (talk) 09:41, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Block evasion by an anon

User:SingingZombie was indef blocked a little over a year ago for making death threats on abortion related articles.(). 207.237.243.185 is a confirmed, admitted sock and made two unsuccessful unblock requests. The ip was blocked for evasion () but that block wore off and the ip has been editing the same articles again. Shouldn't the indef block also apply to the ip pending a sucessful unblock request? - Haymaker (talk) 11:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

We generally do not indef IPs, due to the fact that most are not static and we wish to avoid collateral damage. Cheers. lifebaka++ 12:01, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Person has been editing from same IP address for almost a year -- sounds like a static IP. You've got /16 range blocks running for 6 months at a time causing massive collateral damage in big metro areas--a long block potentially causing collaterial damage to a single IP seems pretty trivial compared to that. I'd give it at least a few months. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 13:28, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I already did. :) (What I had initially written: Full agreement there. That said, we do apply lengthier timed blocks when disruptive behavior continues, so I've blocked the currently stable IP for six months and explained yet again that he needs to appeal the block under his named account.) --Moonriddengirl 13:31, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Wild inconsistency needing help

There is a serious (and arguably libelous) inaccuracy repeated in several articles where I have a COI. Notwithstanding the WP:COI guideline saying that the way I should handle this is to discuss on the talk page, when I tried to discuss the issue on a talk page, there was a huge fooforah from editors seeking to create a fuss over me to win editing disputes elsewhere on Misplaced Pages, and an administrator unilaterally stepped in and threatened to block me if I ever discussed the issue on-wiki. The administrator refused to get involved otherwise, and I was told that I should take the matter to OTRS. So I sent an email to OTRS, explicitly identifying the problem, noting that I'm not allowed to discuss the matter on-wiki, suggesting a fix, and providing a dozen sources backing up my position. It takes four weeks for someone to write back and say it's OTRS policy not to fix any such factual errors, and that I need to take it on-wiki. So now what do I do? I'm not blaming anyone; it's just a coordination problem. Happy to discuss this off-wiki, where I can be more specific: I don't want to run afoul of the block warning by discussing details. THF (talk) 11:20, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I am closing this thread because there is current and ongoing conversation between you and an OTRS representative. --Moonriddengirl 13:14, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Failure to acknowledge consensus and policy on Leo Prime\Lio Convoy

The Circle That Must Be Broken (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Je suis partout (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
New York Sun (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Questions Left Unanswered (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
200.175.3.99 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
A valid observation (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User:TriPredRavage and User:The Matrix Prime have decided to move the article Lio Convoy to the much less widely used name of Leo Prime. They have ignored consensus and policy, on the basis that the RM discussion in which the consensus was reached was started by a sockpuppet. They have misrepresented the results of discussions and sources to achieve their goals. This should not be tolerated any further, which is why I am filing this complaint. Questions Left Unanswered (talk) 12:02, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

This is your third edit, and you're obviously not a newbie. What other accounts have you edited under previously? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 12:14, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I feel no obligation to sacrifice my privacy for the sake of your curiosity. Questions Left Unanswered (talk) 12:17, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

It's OK, I think I've figured it out. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 12:20, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be one of 4 editors who appeared solely to "vote " on this issue. In addition to the 3 added above there is an IP at User:200.175.3.99. Fainites scribs 12:21, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

A friend of mine told me off-site of this dispute, and I chose to participate, especially since I had already started an account some time earlier. It's none of my business if he told others. Questions Left Unanswered (talk) 12:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, the old "a friend did it" tale. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 12:28, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Fuck you. If you don't want to believe go ahead, just don't act all-knowing. Questions Left Unanswered (talk) 12:30, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

It sucks to get caught red-handed, doesn't it? :) Regarding the "F.U." part... no, thanks, I gave at the office. :) ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 12:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The "I am everywhere" and "New York Sun" accounts were created within a minute of each other, an hour ago. However, QLU is a "sleeper" created in mid-January. If someone wants to run an SPI, they might want to look for other "sleepers". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 12:34, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The following accounts are  Confirmed as being the same editor

• Je suis partout (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• New York Sun (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Questions Left Unanswered (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• 200.175.3.99 (talk · tag · contribs · count · WHOIS · ip details · trace · RBLs • logs · block log · arb · rfc · lta · spi · checkuser · socks ) - it's an open proxy / misconfigured server

I've no idea if any of these are The Circle That Must Be Broken (talk · contribs) though, from the technical evidence alone - Alison 13:17, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if we should have a filter in place that automatically blocks accounts with 'truth' or 'facts' or 'questions' in the username. ;) Syrthiss (talk) 13:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Or "valid". Note the new one. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 13:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

a valid observation is now blocked. Syrthiss (talk) 13:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Violating of editing restrictions by Rich Farmbrough (again)

Noticing a few pages on my watchlist getting hit by AWB edits by Rich Farmbrough, I found that he again is violating his editing restrictions (basically, no AWB edits that don't change anything substantial on the pages edited). I notified him of this here, but he continued with the the exact same type of edits, e.g. this one.

The only effect that edit has is that Category:Articles with tags with unsupported types is no longer on that page. Sounds good, until you realise that that category was created last week by Rich Farmbrough, without much (any?) discussion apparently, and lists pages with template parameters he doesn't like, but which work without any problem and are, despite what the category proclaims, 100% supported. E.g. in the example I gave, "Biographies" is changed to "Biography", even though both have the same effect, and "Biographies" is the tag that is suggested by the documentation at Template:Notability.

As far as I can see, Rich Farmbrough has created a category to deprecate some tags from parameters, despite the fact that these work perfect and are the ones suggested by the template documentation, and he is then violating his editing restriction to implement his preferred version. Fram (talk) 12:49, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I hope other Admins will, as usual, ignore this regular harassment by Fram. I am not the only editor on Misplaced Pages who's life is made tedious by his doubtless well meant, but pettifogging and ill informed attempts to be the Policeman of Misplaced Pages. <sigh> Rich Farmbrough, 12:57, 17 February 2011 (UTC).

i'd hope you'd stop violating your editing restrictions and show some respect for the community. If you can't do that, you know where the door is. I'm getting a great sense of deja vu as this story is starting to sound like so many more that have come before it.--Crossmr (talk) 13:01, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

(ec, agree with Crossmr by the way) As usual? Previous discussions have resulted in two editing restrictions, and 3 blocks. Could you perhaps address the actual remarks being made, instead of focusing on the editor who makes them? Why are you imposing your preferred tags (and spacing of headers, and capitalization of persondata tags)? Fram (talk) 13:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC) (and is there any reason why, after I have twice shown you that you are adding an incorrect month to some tags, you still do this?) Fram (talk) 13:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Rich, this is really bad. I've only barely touched the previous discussions, but I see 3 non-controversial blocks in your history. I don't think I've ever seen an admin blocked for more than a few hours without being unblocked, so my (admittedly inexperienced) eye tells me you've probably done something wrong, over and over. You're going to end up being desysopped (this is a warning from a neutral party, not a threat). Can't you just quit making minor edits with AWB, or your fake AWB bot or whatever it is they're claiming you use? Also, your response employed nothing of substance to respond to the accusation whatsoever, but it did make a clear-cut use of the famous ad hominem logical fallacy. Magog the Ogre (talk) 13:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

This sort of random renaming of template parameters is one of R.F.'s habits, and it's also a violation of his editing restriction. Unilaterally declaring that "Biography" is a better parameter name than "Biographies", and then editing thousands of articles to make the change, is a clear example of a cosmetic change. How is that tracking category populated, by the way? Can't the template that populates it just have the category link removed?

Unfortunately, the only way to stop this is going to be an edit restriction that prevents R.F. from making large scale edits via AWB and bots. The present, limited edit restrictions would have been sufficient, but R.F. has persistently ignored them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:13, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of edit restrictions, is this not covered in the AWB rules (minor edits of no consequence) as something not to be done? --Errant 13:17, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

OK - I looked at the changed articles, and they were good edits, because the plural form was not placing the edits into the correct category (due to checks within the template), but the singular was. In essence, it corrected a user typing error. I would not call this a minor edit. Magog the Ogre (talk) 13:20, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The solution there would be to fix the template. If this went before a bot approval, they would point out that just changing the invocation of {{TDMCA}} would fix the issue without requiring any article edits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:25, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

(ec)...if not for tha fact that Rich Farmrbough first changed the template to only accept the singular, making the previously accepted and preferred parameter suddenly unwanted: a change which he only mentioned after the discussion here started. This was not proposed, not discussed. Because his implementation only supports one tag per type, and because he choose other ones than the ones so far supported, he has to make thousands of "minor" edits to articles that didn't have a problem before he started tinkering with the template... Fram (talk) 13:28, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

@Errant: Yes, but admins are automatically authenticated by AWB (and even if they weren't, one can compile a custom AWB that doesn't authenticate the user or reveal that it is AWB; or use some other bot framework). So it's not practical to just disable AWB access, which would otherwise be a useful way to address AWB abuse.

My opinion, based on the long-term pattern, is that the only way to dissuade R.F. from making such meaningless edits is going to be a strict edit restriction backed up by blocks. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:22, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Wait a moment, can somebody please explain what is actually going on technically? Through what template mechanism are those categories actually pulled into the articles, and what template code determines which parameter versions are matched to these categories and which aren't? Why is it that the template documentation actually prescribes the plural forms, but Rich is now exchanging plurals with singulars? Rich has recently been editing the notability template, but I can't make heads and tails of it technically. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:28, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Rich added a tracking category in the template's code. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

...and because the categories he created are called Category:Biography articles with topics of unclear notability (and parallel names), his solution needs the tag to be "Biography" (i.e. the exact word used in the category name), not some variation of it like bio, biographies, ... (yes, it took mes ome time as well to figure it out). Why he choose to change everything to fit his solution, instead of finding a solution that matches current practice (and the template documentation and so on) is not really clear. Why he didn't discuss this isn't clear either. Neither is it clear why he is still adding date=January 2011 to templates, even when we are closer to March than to January. Or why he is still changing the capitalization of Persondata parameters, despite clear opposition against this (not just from me). Fram (talk) 13:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)From what I can make out Rich added the new option of "Biography" to the template the other day, and is now changing some of the templates to that form. This then lets the template automatically put the article in Category:Biography articles with topics of unclear notability, that seems a reasonable and sensible change. But it would have been nice to see Rich explain that rather than the response he did make here... --Errant 13:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I left a message 3 days ago in Rich's talk page User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#Trying_to_populate_newly_introduced_parameters.3F on the new parameters which I find odd too and I got no answer. My comment there explains why I find plural better than singular. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Re: answers to me above. Now to be fair, it's kind of hard to handle plurals in wiki-code. Most especially when the plural is a y -> ies change. Maybe someone would volunteer to make this change (if technically possible), and avoid nuclear war for the rest of us? Magog the Ogre (talk) 13:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Trying to come up with a solution to that now (agreed, it would be the easiest solution) but I am not entirely certain there is one. --Errant 13:42, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

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