Misplaced Pages

Point me to a guideline that says one shouldn't remove a Prod if one has concerns that there should be a wider discussion about it. Point me to any damage done to the project by going to AFD rather than just a PROD. Point me to the evidence of excessive prod removals since I made the agreement to be more discerning on March 24. Nfitz (talk) 02:27, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm not even sure why this has been brought here. As far as I know this was all resolved in the original discussions that User:GiantSnowman referenced here and here. And also in the third discussion on this, that for some reason User:GiantSnowman failed to reference here. I've been open to discussion, I have made concessions, and I have tried to work constructively.

1. During the first discussion, I agreed on the 23rd of March to be more discerning about my prod removals, and provide a summary when I do so. Why then, has in this ANI has User:GiantSnowman chosen to cherry pick the prod removal stats, and only present the stats from before I agreed to this. If this is a case for ANI, shouldn't User:GiantSnowman be looking at the stats from after I made this commitment?
2. Since I made that commitment, the only article that User:GiantSnowman has identified in these discussions is Glen Kamara. This went to AFD at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Glen Kamara. Given that there is one reference that goes toward establishing notability at and that the article also exists in the Finnish-language Misplaced Pages at fi:Glen Kamara which also has references , , and , I didn't think it was unreasonable that before we deleted the article, that we shouldn't have had a more complete discussion at AFD.
3. Since I made the commitment to be more discerning, I haven't removed more than a handful of prods (as far as I recall); all in the topic area of Football. This despite there being well over 100 prods currently listed at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Football#Article alerts, and probably another 100 or more during the entire 3 weeks since March 23. It's being made out that I've been removing prods without discernment, and this has never been the case.
4. User:GiantSnowman is focussing on articles where I removed a prod that have subsequently been deleted. This ignores the articles which have not been deleted. While I admit that more articles where I have deleted the prod, have ended up being deleted, than not; surely raising debates about other articles, that were prodded in error, and then are not deleted, does have value to the project.
5. Much is made that I deleted several prods with the summary "No" (or something like that, I'm afraid I don't have access to the tools to see). I should have been more detailed, and I already admitted that, but my recollection is that this was just shorthand, and all the prod removals were of a very specific theme, and I felt it unnecessary to go into further detail. I believe the topic area was Irish footballers, who had long playing careers in the top-level of Irish football, some dating back nearly a 100 years. These were mostly articles that had been here for years. I was very uncomfortable seeing the work of so many people over so many years deleted without any discussion.
6. I don't think removing a few prods, does any particular harm. It's not like no one has ever failed to notice! I think a healthy discussion of an article before deletion is not a bad thing. It also eliminates a problem we do see, that articles get resurrected time and time again, with no documentation for users on why they were deleted in the first place.
7. My prod removals have been in very narrow areas. Long-standing articles with many edits over the years. Articles that are well referenced or exist in other wikis. Articles for players that have made the first team and are virtually assured of making a start soon (I've never created one of these articles, but I see little point in deleting them, only to recreate them days, or weeks, later). Yes, I've made some mistakes. Yes, at some point in February I removed some prods in error, as I was unclear on which policy was current; this caused no harm.
8. I've broken no policies. I've been discerning about my prod removals. I've generally documented the reasons for my prod removals (other than the removals of March 19th which we've discussed above, and I've agreed to document in the future). And I've tried to enhance and improve the project.
9. I'm concerned that there is a failure to WP:AGF by User talk:GiantSnowman and some other editors (some of whom have magically appeared here already), when I have only the best interest of the project at heart; it's starting to feel like WP:Harassment. I've been subjected to quite a few harsh and rude comments from several editors that fail to assume good faith.
10. My understanding (or lack of) understanding of GNG has been raised. Which is interesting, given I'm not sure the majority of my prod removals over the years have been on GNG grounds (but then I lack the stats).
11. We all have different understandings and interpretations of WP:GNG. I'll admit my understanding is more liberal than many. However I'm actually concerned that User:GiantSnowman's interpretation of WP:GNG is too narrow. The case I raised in the earlier discussions was the deletion of the article for Jack Wilshere where at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Jack Wilshere User talk:GiantSnowman supported deletion, and even recently says that was the right decision. This despite the argument I made at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2008 August 9#Jack Wilshere where I documented significant international media coverage and hundreds of media articles, with the examples (which noted "Premier League club Arsenal has included 16-year-old midfielder Jack Wilshere in its first-team squad for the new season", Canadian Press, Setana Sports "one of England’s most talked-about teenagers", the International Herald Tribune where Wegner is quoted as "He looks strong enough and he is not fazed by the big games", and the Daily Mail "rated highly by Sir Trevor Brooking, the FA's director of football development, and a first-team debutant in the Gunners' pre-season games.", the Malaysia Star. Some of these links now no longer function 6 years later. Quite frankly, if these references don't document notability, perhaps then I really don't understand WP:GNG; in this case though I believe that it is actually User:GiantSnowman (and perhaps the closing admin) who have missed the point.
12. I'm concerned that this is a bit of a Misplaced Pages:Witchhunt based on previous disagreements with some of the involved parties. I'd rather not go into details at this time, though some were discussed in the referenced discussions
13. As I've previously made User:GiantSnowman aware, my avaibility is very constrained on weekdays; I tend to make few, if any edits outside of weekends, these days. I may not be able to respond to any comments or queries until the weekend. Please don't take my silence as agreement, or a lack of interest.

Nfitz (talk) 02:13, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

That is largely WP:TLDR but to respond to a few of your points following a skim read - yes I have been AGFing; you have removed PRODs from articles that have been barely referenced (all those Irish players, for example); the Jack Wilshere deletion was endorsed at DRV (which means GNG was reviewed twice, and both times it was agreed the article did not meet it); stating your bogus removals "does no harm" is nonsense as it does nothing but create a lot of work for a lot of people. GiantSnowman 10:46, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't WP:TLDR refer to overly long unformatted blocks of text? I tried very hard to format the text for clarity, taking extra time to distill my thoughts into bite size pieces. The unnecessary use of the term 'bogus' is yet another example of User:GiantSnowman frequent violation of WP:FAITH; an examination of his talk page shows frequent complaints about this by many parties. Nfitz (talk) 11:15, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

You posted an overlong long response that serves no useful purpise (for me, at least) in what is intended to be a constructive discussion. GiantSnowman 11:35, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

My points were clear and concise. Why use a phrase like "overlong long"? I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. Why misprepresent what WP:TLDR says? Nfitz (talk) 01:56, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose given the statements above and the nature of prods. If BLPPRODs are being removed inappropriately on an even vaguely regular basis, that might be a real issue. But I'd prefer that be a different discussion. Hobit (talk) 03:39, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:WITCHHUNT Lugnuts 07:44, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
• Comment - accusations that this is harassment/a witchhunt are not only false but also extremely bad faith. I'd invite @Lugnuts: and Nfitz to rescind these accusations. Same goes for accusations that I have not been AGFing - given the fact there have been numerous discussions over 6 years, including three started by me, it has to be clear that AN has been a last resort. GiantSnowman 10:46, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Expressing concern that it's a bit WP:Witchhunt and it's starting to feel like WP:Harrassment is surely at worst a bit bad faith, not extremely. Isn't the use of the term extremely unnecessarily dramatic? The use of AN here was entirely unnecessary given that the subject had been discussed at length already, and you'd already obtained the change in my use of Prods as per my March 24th agreement. The sole case you've been highlighting since then based on ] is highly debatable given the existence of fi:Glen Kamara (which references , , , and ). While the quality and depth of sources might not meet GNG, there is no reason that a more complete discussion does any harm. This was hardly a last resort. Once again, I apologize that I'm not going to have a chance to respond to anything else here until ... well possibly Easter, but certainly not for another 15 hours or so. Nfitz (talk) 11:15, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

The fact that it has already been discussed elsewhere - a number of times, over a 6 year period, and with no real change in behaviour - shows that AN was necessary. If you do not listen to me (because you believe I have some kind of bad-faith agenda against you or whatever) then perhaps you will listen to the other editors who also express concerns about your behaviour. Also please do not ping me, there is no need as I am watching this discussion. GiantSnowman 11:35, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and you also removed a PROD recently at Andrew Stone (footballer) (now at AFD, likely to be deleted) knowingly violating WP:CRYSTAL. To say your behaviour has changed and you have stopped removing PRODs on genuinely notable articles is simply not true. GiantSnowman 11:42, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Yep, that AFD has also resulted in a delete... GiantSnowman 11:45, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

It might well have been deleted, but if you read the AFD it's not like I was the only person who thought that deleting it was a waste of time. How is this any different than the AFD for one of his teammatesMisplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Kyle Hyland which had a different outcome? I still feel deleting the article for a player, days before the start of the season, is an unnecessary waste of everyone's time. I'm also concerned that what actually happens in cases like this, is that another editor recreates the article, rather than restoring the deleted material, and the edit history is seldom ever restored. I don't believe that it is a WP:CRYSTAL violation, as WP:CRYSTAL doesn't say that something "has taken place", it says "almost certain to take place". And I believe this to be the case. Even if it wasn't, then I think WP:COMMONSENSE,WP:NORUSH, and WP:NORULES trump WP:CRYSTAL. There's no harm to to the project by leaving a harmless, factually correct article in place for a few weeks, rather than starting a deletion process. It doesn't improve Misplaced Pages. Leaving the article, does ultimately improve Misplaced Pages, as it almost certainly would be in existence in the future. Nfitz (talk) 01:11, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Invite to rescind politely declined (of course). Lugnuts 11:19, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

On what basis? GiantSnowman 11:35, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Per the lengthy post from Nfitz. Above. Lugnuts 12:16, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

• Support - Activity by the user in relation to PRODding and AfD has recently become very disruptive. I agree in principle with JOJ, but feel this is an example of a user gaming the system rather than deprodding to raise leginitimate concerns. One of the main points raised by Nfitz above is that he I think a healthy discussion of an article before deletion is not a bad thing. It also eliminates a problem we do see, that articles get resurrected time and time again, with no documentation for users on why they were deleted in the first place. Healthy debate is to be encouraged, and I do agree in principle that PRODs should be removed by anyone if they think there is a chance a !Keep consensus could be reached. However, one only has to look here to see that this user has clear problems understanding current notability consensus. To provide a few examples, beyond the regular dismissal of WP:CRYSTAL highlighted by Black Kite above, of instances where such fundamental WP:COMPETENCY issues have arisen recently:

1. Here a suggestion that it is biased to apply the same notability criteria to people in western and non-western countries, in addition to unfounded and unexplained distasteful accusations of racism.
2. Here the same copy and paste comments in a different article.
3. Here a suggestion that because WP:NFOOTY does not specifically cover semi-professional teams the article should be automatically kept despite not presenting any GNG support.
4. Here one of a number where Nfitz fails to grasp the notion that the fully professional league listing, as a current consensus on initial notability, is an inclusive list, so if a country is noton it the players from those leagues are automaticall deemed non-notable unless GNG can be shown specifically.
5. Here, here and here some of numerous instances where he admist that a player is currently non-notable, but essentially begs for it to be kept for a while to see if the person becomes notable.

Althought this discussion is around a PROD ban, the examples above to me highlight an editor who has significant problems understanding the current consensus around notability within football and continues to fight against this consensus in a manner which is disruptive. Fenix down (talk) 12:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

In point 1 and 2, I never made an accusation of racism. I made the comment that "To delete articles of top players in such non-western countries would show WP:BIAS and systemic racism." There's a world of difference between making an accusation of racism, and expressing concern about systemic racism. I made this clear whan you comented on the AFD, and you failed to respond. I'd like an apology from you on this. I've never accused anyone of racism. I'm disturbed that you would twist my words to make it look like this. Why would you drop the word "systemic" which completely changes the meaning of what I wrote?

In point 3, I was pointing out that the team plays at 4th tier of football, at a level that does compete in national cups. While this doesn't quite meet the working of WP:NFOOTY, it does meet the spirit. I don't think WP:NFOOTY was written to consider leagues that are international, or countries that are so geographically massive that national cups just don't exist (another example of WP:BIAS. No, I didn't offer any evidence for GNG for Penticton Pinnacles simply because I have never had the chance to look for any. Though looking quickly now, I do see some . Should we reconsider this?

In point 4, hinges on whether Costa Rica has a fully professional league. There's been no clear consensus on this at WP:FPL. You keep insisting that we shouldn't discuss things at AFD. Why not, I don't know ... surely that's the best place to discuss it, given that dicussions at WP:FPL seem to linger forever.

Point 5 - the first 2 examples are similar to Andrew Stone. The third ... what? I argued GNG, with several sources, and even you admitted that one "could form part of a GNG claim"; though that is the only example you have that does partially support the case here. Nfitz (talk) 02:22, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

No apology will be forthcoming whatsoever. Systemic racism, just means lots of people being rcist all the time. I find it inconvcievable that you cannot understand the connection between saying "if this article is deleted it suggests systemic racism" and editors feeling that if they are to suggest an opinion contrary to yours they might well be accused of partaking / supporting such a view, since systemic racism can only occur if individual editors share such opinions whether as a group or acting as individuals. Your Penticton points are irrelevant as you "GNG" is just WP:ROUTINE match reports and very localised news reporting. To be honest, did you even look at this link? I'm not sure what you are rying to achieve, but that link clearly shows you are failing. Fenix down (talk) 13:18, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Fenix, your statement that "Systemic racism, just means lots of people being rcist all the time" is wrong. Structural racism is about people not "being" racist, but still ending up with a racist effect anyway. The book Racism Without Racists (ISBN 9781442202184) is supposed to be a good explanation, but this simple example might give you the flavor of it: Imagine a world in which many racially disadvantaged people had last names that started with "Weird", because centuries ago, people thought their ancestors looked weird. So instead of "Smith" or "Jones", the descendants would be named "Weirdsmith" or "Weirdjones".

Now imagine that someone is giving away cupcakes to schoolkids. He doesn't know if he has enough to go around, but he'll give away as many as possible. He wants the kids to line up in an orderly way, with no pushing or shoving so he can make sure that nobody takes two. He doesn't know who arrived first. He's sensitive to issues of height and weight, so he doesn't want to ask them to line up according to size. In a panic, he looks around and sees an alphabet poster. This gives him the idea to ask the kids to line up in alphabetical order by last name. Is he being a racist? No, not really: He didn't say or think, "All of you kids with this race, go to the back of the line." It didn't even occur to him that what he chose had any connection to race. But is the outcome racist anyway? Yes, it is: some kids were—however indirectly and unintentionally—given advantages or disadvantages based on their race. Kids in the "advantaged" race, on average, had less anxiety about whether the cupcakes would be gone before they received one. Kids in the "disadvantaged" race, on average, had more anxiety about not getting a cupcake. That's what "systemic" or "structural" racism is about: applying seemingly neutral rules in ways that have strongly biased results. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:32, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

User:Fenix down says that No apology will be forthcoming whatsoever. Systemic racism, just means lots of people being rcist all the time. An example of systemic racism would be the British Monarchy. With nothing buy white skin as far down the line of succession that I've ever seen, despite the current racial makeup of the UK, and despite the number of recently arrived foreigners marrying in, then there's something odd going on. Does that make the Queen a racist? Not to my knowledge. If one accused the monarchy of being systemically racist, one would not be accusing any particular member of the monarchy of being racist (nor do I think the majority are). (to pick a random example that would surely not offend anyone here). I'm still waiting for the apology ... not so much because of what you said here, but because I've already clarified previously that I'm talking about systemic racism, and not thinking any individual here is racist. Nfitz (talk) 03:06, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

• Unfortunate support Do I believe they they're sincerely trying to improve the 'pedia? Yes, and their explanation above makes that clear. However, that same explanation shows that they have an understanding of the de-prodding process that is nearly wholesale against what the process is supposed to be about. We don't de-prod "because in my opinion it should stay". We don't de-prod because "a similar article exists in another language with far more lenient notability requirements". We don't de-prod for WP:CRYSTAL reasons. We don't de-prod and add inappropriate ref's/EL's. We de-prod because we're in the immediate process of completely and directly addressing the reasons behind the prod. Even if only 10% of their de-prodding ran afoul of this (which unfortunately it's a much higher percentage), such de-proddings are wholly disruptive in their nature. For at least the next 6 months, if they come across a PROD, they should a) attempt to fix the issues, b) discuss the changes since the PROD tag was attached on the article talkpage and how they improved it since the PRIOD, but c) leave the damn PROD tag alone ES&L 12:32, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Hoping between sock accounts on the same thread? Oh dear. Lugnuts 13:02, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Trying reading WP:SOCK#LEGIT before such accusations of bad faith. The fact that I'm not logged into my admin functions on a non-secure network is not rocket-science. Have I !voted twice? Are my two accounts properly linked according to policy ES&L 13:20, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Let's also remember that unsubstantiated accusations of sockpuppetry are considered personal attacks. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:31, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Who said anything about unsubstantiated? They're two accounts being run by the same person, but I just thought it was worth mentioning for the those not in the know. Pot, kettle, black about accusations of bad faith too. Lugnuts 10:19, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

"Two accounts being run by the same person" =/= "sockpuppets". Sorry if you didn't mean it that way, but if the S-word is tossed out it's automatically an accusation of nefarious doings, whether it's intended that way or not. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:08, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

"We de-prod because we're in the immediate process of completely and directly addressing the reasons behind the prod. " Can you point me to this guideline? Can you tell me what's wrong with deprodding a long-standing article because your uncomfortable with deleting it without having a fuller discussion at AFD? Can you tell me how I have harmed the project? I've only ever deprodded a fraction of articles on a very specific topic. Surely discussing 10 articles at AFD, and then deleting 9 of them, is a far better outcome than deleting a single article in error, at Prod, with little paper trail about what happened and why. Nfitz (talk) 05:00, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

• On the back of ES&L's suggestions about "discuss the changes" - I am more than happy to volunteer to be a 'mentor' of sorts, should Nfitz be in agreement i.e. if Nfitz wishes to challenge a PROD, I am happy to discuss the notability of the article and/or merits of the PROD tag and we can then decide on next best actions. GiantSnowman 12:42, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, it's not like he is always wrong in discussions and I do welcome dissenting opinion, however much I disagree with it in the main in this instance. However, I wonder whether it might be better idea to have someone outside WP:FOOTY to avoid and WP:INVOLVED issues. Fenix down (talk) 13:04, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

• That would complete the solution and offer the best chance of getting the topic ban lifted in a reasonable period of time. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 14:31, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

• If I am deemed too 'INVOLVED' to be a useful mentor in this situation - either by Nfitz or the wider community - then so be it. My offer, however, still stands. GiantSnowman 15:41, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

• Support. GiantSnowman's offer of a mentorship-type situation is the best outcome, but if that does not work out I feel that this situation has gone on too long to remain unresolved. Gamaliel (talk) 21:53, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
• If the only outcome is to have a mentor or ban from PRODs, I'd be willing to do the mentoring. Keep in mind, I'm pretty far on the inclusionist side of the spectrum... Hobit (talk) 17:36, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

• If we have an 'inclusionist' mentor then we should also have a 'deletionist' mentor. GiantSnowman 17:42, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

• No, all that is necessary to do is to see that he keeps within the spectrum of reasonable behavior, and Hobit's inclusiveness is not outside of it, certainly not to the degree he would be an inappropriate mentor. . I would be extremely reluctant to accept that a good faith but mistaken de-prodding is disruptive except in the most extreme of cases; forcing things into discussion at AfD is an inherently reasonable way of handling disputes. I point out that the proper relationship of the sports guidelines and the GNG is one of the most perennially disputed areas of WP, and there have been cases in the past of maneuvering people into a situation where they get blocked because of their differing view of notability . DGG ( talk ) 21:44, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Precisely. PROD is a relatively recent invention, after all, designed merely to lighten the load on AFD. AFD is the default venue for considering deletion of articles. I would counsel the user to explain de-prodding in more detail, to try to resolve the concerns more of the time, but in the end the entire process that set up PROD was designed around precisely this ability for any editor on any grounds, even pure whim, to remove the tag. If it becomes an issue beyond this one user then maybe policy might be revised but right now there is no problem to fix, other than a user who seems to be keener on keeping articles than on improving them. Guy (Help!) 22:45, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you DGG. Work kept me from finishing a reply for hours, but this is exactly what I wanted to say. It isn't about "inclusionist" or "deletionist", it is about reasonable standards of when to use PROD, when to dePROD, and when to dePROD and send to AFD. The problem that necessitates a topic ban isn't one of determining where the grey area is, it is about understanding the process on the whole. Unquestionably, I trust Hobit to act as a filter and mentor in that respect. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 23:09, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

• I completely disagree that a topic ban is necessary. I agreed to User:GiantSnowman on March 24th that I would be more discerning, and provide more complete information. And I believe I have done so. This is evidenced by User:GiantSnowman focussing on the pre-March 24th stats here. I don't think either the examples brought here of prod removals since that date are stellar examples of me removing prods for articles that should not be; one is a player who is deemed notable enough by another language Misplaced Pages to have a referenced article. And the second is I think a justified concern about deleting articles that will very likely be recreated justifiably in the near future - this has created great debate in other recent AFDs such as Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Kelechi Iheanacho (footballer born 1996) and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Kyle Hyland, so it's hardly an issue where there is a clear consensus. Finally, this entire discussion ignores examples of where I have removed a Prod, that has then got to AfD as keep (or not even gone to AFD at all). Some examples are Nfitz (talk) 02:36, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, we already know that you don't think there's a problem - and that's why the community was FORCED to consider such a topic ban. If you had taken 2 seconds and listened to complaints, we wouldn't have to do it. Now's waaaayyy too late to suggest there's no need for one - you proved that it's a necessity  the panda  ₯’ 00:36, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

• Hang on. That's my whole point. I did listen to complaints. I agreed on March 23rd to be more discerning. And I have done so. That's why the stats presented here precede that date. I've only deprodded or taken to DRV a prod I'd had removed 5 times since then (well, one a handful of edits before, but I'd already knew I was going to concede), despite there being over 200 prods in that period of time. Of those 5, 3 articles still stand, 1 had significant debate by others at AFD, and the 5th did have some sources that went towards establishing GNG. Also see my response to Giant Snowman below. Don't my actions since March 23rd mean that I had listened to complaints? It doesn't mean I'm infallible, but how am I deleting prods en masse? Nfitz (talk) 03:19, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

• Again, please don't ping me, there is no need. The examples you have stated are (unfortunately) in the minority and I have provided examples of very recent PROD removals that resulted in 'delete' at AFD - Glen Kamara and Andrew Stone (footballer). I cannot provide any more because you do not seem to have removed any more PRODs. So, as far as I can tell, 100% of the PRODs removed after 24 March have had articles deleted... GiantSnowman 07:49, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

• I didn't ping you. Hang on, so your case that I ignored our earlier discussion and am deleting prods on mass is entirely predicated on TWO prod removals? One of which at least had some debatable GNG content, and the other was subject to some debate by OTHERS at AFD? Though you are mistakened. You are mistaken though, I have removed other prods since then. I agreed to be a bit more discerning about my prod removals and provide a summary at 14:36 UTC on March 23rd. Shortly beforehand (5 edits) I did remove the prod for Woranat Thongkruea . And what about a week later when I removed the prod for Kelechi Iheanacho (footballer born 1996) which wasn't deleted at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Kelechi Iheanacho (footballer born 1996) where it was closed with the comment by {{ping|Tawker]] that Although CRYSTALBALL likely should apply, I do not see benefit the project to deleting now to re-create within months.. How come when an Admin says stuff like that, nothing happens, but when I say stuff like that, I'm treated like a pariah? I've been very careful and discerning since March 23rd. There have literally been hundreds (over 200 by my reckoning) articles in the topic of football that have been prodded, and I've removed a grand total of 4 prods. 2 of which are still here. 1 was subject to significant debate by others at AFD, and the 4th at least has some material supporting GNG (but probably not enough). I also did go to DRV for an article where I had restored the Prod, and it was restored. Reading through WP:PROD and the discussion behind it, there are no guidelines about this type of prod removal. There's some discussion that sanctions should be sought at WP:ANI for mass deletions of prods, but how is 4 (or 5) out of 200 mass deletions? I conceded the argument over 3 weeks ago. My prod removal since then shows that I took it seriously, and have changed how I am editing. So why are we here? Nfitz (talk) 02:57, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

• You did - every time you link to a username, it gives that editor a notification. It's annoying. Back on topic - the only 'debate' that was had was a few editor trying to justify speculation and WP:CRYSTALBALLERY, and myself and other editors trying to explain why you were wrong. Guess who the closing admin decided had the stronger argument? So of the 4 PRODs you have removed, 2 have been deleted. Have the other 2 been sent to AFD and kept? If not it's irrelevant, it doesn't necessarily mean they are notable and your PROD removal was correct, it just means someone hasn't noticed. GiantSnowman 09:10, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Andrew Stone (footballer) may have been a delete, but how is this any different than the debates for Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Kyle Hyland or Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Kelechi Iheanacho (footballer born 1996) which didn't end in delete? The admin's closing comment at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Kelechi Iheanacho (footballer born 1996) was that Although CRYSTALBALL likely should apply, I do not see benefit the project to deleting now to re-create within months. How is the admin's closing comment in that AFD different than my basis for deprodding Andrew Stone (footballer)? Nfitz (talk) 13:48, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

• Both of those were poor closes and would almost certainly have been reversed if anyone could have been bothered to take them to WP:DRV. WP:CRYSTAL is quite clear, and the closing admin should not have used WP:IAR to override consensus. Your point? Black Kite (talk) 14:15, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

• My point is that if I'm deprodding the occasional article on the same basis that Admin's and other editors are using, that while these handful of prod removals might disagree with some people, they are not that extreme. Your are correct. WP:CRYSTAL is quite clear; and when it's almost certain that we'll be recreating the article in relatively short order, then there's no requirement based on WP:CRYSTAL to delete it. Do you really not think that we'd have to be recreating Andrew Stone (footballer) and Kyle Hyland. I really think we need some new guidelines that meet WP:COMMONSENSE and WP:NORUSH on how to deal with such articles that frequently get created at the beginning of the season, as players that have never played professionally previously are signed to the first team. Nfitz (talk) 21:20, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

• Hyland is now notable - but the AFD close was still poor. However Iheanacho is not notable and the close was AWFUL - I will be taking to DRV. GiantSnowman 09:36, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose prod ban at present, could be convinced otherwise in the future. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:27, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

A dispute over whether to history-merge a user's sandbox to a main-space article

• I received a routine history merge request to histmerge User:Binksternet/BG to Black genocide, and routinely obeyed it. That caused an argument between two users at User talk:Anthony Appleyard#Black genocide and User talk:George Ho#My user space. I was going to let their discussion run a day or two, but as the argument has now escalated to a 4-letter word, I better get a ruling on it before the dispute gets any more acrimonious. The two sides seem to be:
  • Binksternet: "Edits made in my sandbox should stay there."
  • George Ho: "A cut-and-pasted edit history should be re-united."
    • Anthony Appleyard (talk) 07:51, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Binksternet is right. The rationale for merging histories is to give credit to every editor in the article's history. This does not necessitate showing every single edit by the same user resulting in a certain revision, whether it was made to a sandbox version or to a text file on the editor's hard drive at home. If a user prefers to work on an article in a sandbox, it should be their own choice if they want to include all of their little edits in the article history or if they prefer to cut and paste bits in larger chunks. As a user, I certainly prefer to see shorter histories with more substantial edits when possible (as it is when all, or most, edits come from a single user).

In my view, there would have been no need for a merge of histories even if Binksternet had cut and pasted a text with several contributors, as long as he had re-merged his final version of the text with the main article. But in this case, Binksternet is not only the creator of the article but its one and only author. There is nobody else to give credit to by merging the page histories. The end result of the merge was obstruction of Binksternet's work and an unnecessarily long and messy article history. --Hegvald (talk) 08:37, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Move the edits back to his sandbox. Since there is no policy against cut-and-paste moves from one's sandbox, Bink's right to control his own userspace wins out here. If George Ho has a problem with that, well, he can just deal with it. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:40, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

•  Done Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:20, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you, Anthony, Someguy1221 and Hegvald. Binksternet (talk) 15:07, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Bundy standoff

Multiple users with clear POV as expressed on talk page are missattributing claims to CNN that are not in there at the Bundy standoff page. Even when the language is quoted, they decided to undo it so they can add in their original research or make claims about a youtube video not backed up by any objective viewing of the video. 70.8.153.27 (talk) 16:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Page is protected after an edit war. Discussion on talk page is given a little more leeway so we'll see how it goes.--v/r - TP 20:09, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Full page protection over 10 ten days for IP revert war seems excessive for a current event. PP was done improperly without a template as well. This appears to be a dispute between two editors, not broad content. PP should be lifted (or at least reduced in time and scope) and editor sanctions meted out as appropriate. PP is more disruptive than the edit war. --DHeyward (talk) 22:36, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Three points: (1) Lack of a template is a technicality, and not a reason for removal of protection in itself. (2) Only one party involved in the content dispute was an IP. (3) As I have indicated at your queries at both my talk page and at you RFPP request to remove or reduce protection, I will happily remove page protection early if/when consensus is reached on the article talk page. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 02:35, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

And the reason you don't see consensus building is because this was a two party edit war who have no incentive to reach consensus or even address it. Thousands of other editors, however are locked out because a two party edit war, better addressed through 3RR and blocks. You really don't expect the "winner" of a 10 day hiatus to show up on the talk page or his antagonist to continue the edit war they failed to resolve with reverts, do you? What is the rest of the community supposed to do while these two editors stifle the entire page? --DHeyward (talk) 03:18, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I've already replied on my talk page. Please keep the discussion in only one place going forward; it's not productive to need to address the same issue in multiple threads. I'll use whichever forum you prefer; either here, my talk page, ANI, or any other of your choice - but please lets keep it to just one going forward. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:22, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

For all interested parties, there is now a discussion at WP:ANI#Page protection at Bundy standoff to address the page protections as well as accusations about my use of the page protection tools. Further discussion should be directed to that forum. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 04:46, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Anti-semitic editor

User_talk:Domeron has twice removed sourced material from the article American Freedom Party and now used the edit summary to describe the Southern Poverty Law Centre as a 'Jewish extremist source'. This user has a history of disruptive editing. https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=American_Freedom_Party&action=history These comments should not be made on Misplaced Pages. Can someone with more experience and knowledge advise what should be done? LordFixit (talk) 17:37, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Corrected spelling. BMK (talk) 19:49, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Interesting account. It seems it was created March 1st with 1 edit. Then March 6th, it made 9 nonsense edits to reach the confirmed editor userright. 1) Gaming the system, 2) Shows knowledge of the system. Many of it's edits are related to ethnicity/race. It made some edits relating to the crisis in Crimea, it argued over whether English were an ethnicity or a nationality, and then the edits you show above about whether the SPLC is a Jewish source (which I always imagined it was atheist). I'd say the account is WP:NOTHERE.--v/r - TP 20:17, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

By "atheist" do you mean "secular"? BMK (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes and no. I believe they are secular but I also personally believe they have an anti-religion bias (SPLC - ChristianPost.com controversy). But, yes, as a Misplaced Pages administrator I mean 'secular'.--v/r - TP 22:37, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Interesting is too weak a word. I really don't understand why more admins don't immediately block an account with obvious sock-tuning edits: you don't need to know who is wearing a sock to identify it as a sock. Domeron is now indefed, drama should be over.—Kww(talk) 22:42, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Because this isn't a 1-admin makes unilateral decisions sort of website. Which is why I left some comments and waited for the next admin.--v/r - TP 23:01, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Because some are insightful enough to realize a finite if small false positive rate is damaging to the encyclopedia, so getting a second opinion is sometimes appropriate. NE Ent 02:42, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Today's XKCD

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

http://xkcd.com/1357/ will bring a wry smile to many faces here... Guy (Help!) 17:39, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I recommend adding that image to Misplaced Pages:Free speech. It has a CC-BY 2.5 non-commercial license. We can use it. Jehochman 17:52, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

You are so right. And now it is done... Guy (Help!) 19:16, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

And it is now speedily deleted. 1) you tagged it with CC-BY, which the page clearly says CC-BY-NC. And 2) CC-BY-NC is non-free for our purposes, and thus cannot be used on non-mainspace pages per NFCC. --MASEM (t) 19:20, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

You beat me to it. Schoolboy error. The alphabet soup gets me every time... Guy (Help!) 19:26, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

The mouseover text is particularly apt:

I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.

I wish we could put this on the talk page of every fringe article. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:08, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

That's so appropriate for this site. (Then again, Munroe is quite familiar with Misplaced Pages, so...) 206.117.89.4 (talk) 18:24, 18 April 2014 (UTC) (ansh666)

As it's NC it's incompatible with our license and so we could only host the image under fair use, which isn't going to happen for a policy page. Thought I should point that out before anyone uploads it. Dpmuk (talk) 18:35, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, unfortunately the artist used to publish under CC-BY, but now uses CC-BY-NC, and thus while 100% appropriate, we can't use. --MASEM (t) 18:40, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I seriously wish I could use that in a custom template. If somebody decides to use the "omg ur suppresn ma fre spech" defense, bam, templated. Pretty sure that wouldn't be copyright-friendly though, as others have mentioned. Alternatively, we can just link to it when needed. Thekillerpenguin (talk) 19:01, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Mind you, if someone wants to approach the author about using that under a CC-BY license for Misplaced Pages's purposes... --MASEM (t) 19:28, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Why are we allowing Randall's license to restrict our free speech? Someguy1221 (talk) 19:30, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

ba-dum tish! - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:10, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Spam attack on Misplaced Pages

3 new, essay like, NPOV violating articles about discrimination against African American women have been created by multiple users in the last hour. Articles, in order of time created, located at Stereotypes of Black Women on the Internet, African American Women and Their Role in Interracial Dating and A Painful Reality: Misrepresentations of Black Women in Advertisements. I believe that this is a sustained attack against Misplaced Pages by either a team of vandals, or a single sock puppeteer. 123chess456 (talk) 18:39, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I think you actually mean single purpose account. Blackmane (talk) 18:57, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if this is some kind of high school project or college course where students upload their papers to Misplaced Pages?--v/r - TP 20:00, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Although I agree that these pages are not encyclopedia articles, they're certainly not spam or vandalism. They're misplaced, but the editors (who, I'm quite sure, are in the same class at university) are acting entirely in good faith. DS (talk) 00:20, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Considering that they were probably made in good faith as a part of a gender studies class, I guess you shouldn't rush to conclusions. Retracting my previous assumptions that they were vandals. 123chess456 (talk) 02:40, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Same guy again, new IP address, adding same category he shouldn't to dozens of articles

Special:Contributions/108.6.110.183 Once again, he ignores all attempts of communications, and all of his edits get reverted by one person or another. I went through and checked the infobox of all the articles I used rollback on, the Cartoon Network not the original broadcaster of the shows. Multiple times in the past an IP address appears, and does this exact same thing. Look at the edit history of ThunderCats (1985 TV series) for example, and you can see this guy just keeps coming back again. Temporarily blocking IP addresses doesn't help, he just coming back again, and editing again. If every single article he continues to edit war this nonsense in constantly over a long period of time, was just blocked permanently from IP addresses from editing it, that'd work. I think its necessary to get rid of this guy. Dream Focus 02:53, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Help With An Image

I need some admin help with this one. I am working on the WINC (AM) article, the station where Patsy Cline got her start. I have found an excellent photo of her standing next to a WINC microphone.

The website the image comes from is a fan page about Patsy Cline. It has alot of stories, old pictures and what not. At the bottom, it says the information is copyright "EllisNassour", but I'm wondering if this person really owns the copyright to that photo. The photo would be from after 1948, when Patsy first performed on WINC.

My question, since there isn't a confirmable copyright (and since anyone can snag a photo and put it on their fan page), is it possible for me to use this photo here on Misplaced Pages, specifically on the WINC (AM) article? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 10:44, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I found a cropped (and cleaned up) version of the same image on a Blogspot blog. In this case, no mention of a copyright is made, which further leads me to believe that "EllisNassour" does not own the copyright on the previously linked photo. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 11:19, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

• You want the WP:IMAGEHELP department. They're on the 4th floor. Rgrds. --64.85.216.69 (talk) 13:32, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Thank ya, kindly. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:21, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Martian lava tubes page move

Can an admin help sort out Martian lava tubes move to Martian lava tube? Two articles were created, and there's some clumsy editing going on which has lost the version of the article which has been worked on for the last week or so. — Brianhe (talk) 13:25, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

 Done The complete history of the article is now at Martian lava tube. — Scott • talk 14:56, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Great, now can the talk page be moved as well? This is especially important to preserve the DYK history. — Brianhe (talk) 22:08, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

 Done - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:32, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Whoops, sorry for missing that. Thanks Bushranger. — Scott • talk 22:37, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Edit war

There are mutiple reversions at Pono (digital music service). I can't tell who is wrong. Secondarywaltz (talk) 16:51, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't matter who is "wrong". This should have been taken to WP:AN3. However, I've blocked User:Joey192, a WP:SPA who apparently doesn't get it, for violating WP:3RR.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:56, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone!!—cyberpower _Online 01:31, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Happy Easter to you too. Calidum 01:46, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

How does this affect administrators? Lugnuts 08:39, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, they're not actually soulless, it just seems that way because of the job. NE Ent 12:57, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Though some do come without souls for easy installation. tutterMouse (talk) 07:49, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:Admins are people too! 206.117.89.4 (talk) 20:13, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Indef blocked editor using other accounts to remove block notices

This user constantly removes any block notices on their user & talk page using sock accounts, people have re=added them before only to be instantly and constantly reverted before being stalked & abused online, should. Are they allowed to do that? 109.79.7.144 (talk) 11:42, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi protected by Floquenbeam. However the template was blatantly wrong anyway and as it wasn't added by the blocking admin there isn't really a need for it. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:10, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually the template looks to be correct as if I'm reading the block log correct, that was what happened. Perhaps there's some confusion because talk page access was later removed by the blocking admin under their admin role only (but I'm pretty sure the disclaimer was only meant to apply to the new talk page removal not the earlier indef block). However I agree adding the template when not done by the blocking admin, arbcom, or by wider community consensus was unnecessary. While such a template would I guess technically fall under the active sanctions notice part of Misplaced Pages:User pages#Removal of comments, notices, and warnings, unlike with a sockpuppetry notice, it doesn't really seem that useful. Nil Einne (talk) 15:47, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

If the user just wants to leave the project, they should just be allowed to remove the block notice. Until a questionable change was made to the user page guideline a while back, this was permitted. –xeno 15:49, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

It's very important to protect the right to vanish: if we insist on leaving a stain on Misplaced Pages where a banned, blocked, vanished or otherwise disaffected user once was, then they have a stronger incentive to come back and engage in POINTy disruption. I am very strongly of the view that people who have left - voluntarily or otherwise - should be accorded the courtesy of blanking or renaming. Of course this is not a suicide pact, it only works the first time, but WP:VANISH implies that already. The default should be: "sorry it didn't work out, no hard feelings". I've requested renaming of several vanished users' accounts after email requests, I am not aware of any that have abused this, though of course there will be some. Guy (Help!) 17:00, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

(EC) BTW I'm guessing that the editor who started this thread is probably the same one who added it in the first place . P.S. Just realised these edits were last month and not a few days ago. Nil Einne (talk) 15:53, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I saw the discussion regarding my adoptee, Duxwing

Hi, unfortunately I didn't have the chance to respond to this discussion regarding one of my adoptees, Duxwing. I've glanced through the discussion and I understand what's happened and what's being done about it. I will follow all guidelines regarding Duxwing's ban from editing certain topics:

Duxwing is prohibited from making copyedits to math and science articles for period of 6 months. They are further prohibited from making copyedits on all other Misplaced Pages pages for a period of 3 months, except where the edit has been reviewed and approved by their mentor. The latter restriction may be appealed at any time provided that the appeal has the full support of their mentor. Should the current mentoring relationship end prior to a successful completion, a new mentor must be approved by the community via ANI discussion.

Pinging involved users so they know I'm aware: @Duxwing: @Hahc21: @Dicklyon: @Neotarf: @EatsShootsAndLeaves:

Should anyone have any more questions regarding this, please feel free to leave a message here or leave me a message on my talk page.

Thanks, Newyorkadam (talk) 22:01, 20 April 2014 (UTC)Newyorkadam

Thank you for your efforts with the adoption program, the learning curve here can be steep. And best of luck to Duxwing. —Neotarf (talk) 01:27, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for helping. Dicklyon (talk) 03:07, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• Your attempts are appreciated - let us know if something comes up that you find challenging the panda ɛˢˡ” 23:38, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Checkuser block of ColonelHenry and socks

This is to advise the community that I am about to block the following accounts indefinitely for sockpuppetry:

• ColonelHenry (talk · contribs)
• Hierophant443 (talk · contribs)
• Raebodep1962 (talk · contribs)

The accounts were brought to my attention by an experienced user with sufficient evidence to run a check and carry out additional investigations. The following findings should be reviewed more closely by the community:

• Five instances where the ColonelHenry and Hierophant443 accounts both participated in the same AFD; administrators encouraged to review the results and determine if consensus would have been altered.
• Edits by Raebodep1962 - a new account created only 4 days ago - required suppression due to severe BLP violations of poorly sourced libellous allegations
• Serious questions about the veracity of the article Order of the Bull's Blood
• ColonelHenry, on creating the account, confirms that he had a prior account. This account has been identified, and was associated in its earliest editing with another hoax article in 2004

Because of this, it is important to review at least all article creations by these editors, as well as edits to BLPs. This is a lot of editing to review, and the community's assistance is really needed here.

Note that I will be going offline shortly; however, my findings have been verified by another checkuser and shared with several others. Risker (talk) 07:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• Note: blocks now complete, I wanted to include the diff of this posting in the block log. The ColonelHenry and Hierophant443 accounts have been advised of the block and instructed to post any statement on their talk page; should they do so, it may be useful to transclude their comments to this section. Risker (talk) 07:46, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• I can confirm that there is an unambiguous match between the three accounts, and it is plain to see that ColonelHenry and Hierophant443 have been used contrary to policy. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 12:34, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I've just completed an examination of the article Order of the Bull's Blood. It was entirely composed of misrepresented or completely unverifiable sources. Now reduced to the only directly verifiable sourced information (check the article's history for a step-by-step record), it's only two sentences long and indicates that the "society" was demonstrably a hoax. — Scott • talk 14:27, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

P.S. I stopped short of taking the article to AfD as well, but I do think that it should be subject to a deletion discussion. — Scott • talk 16:48, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• I have reviewed all the AfDs and decided to restore The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in popular culture. Please see the AfD for a (brief) rationale, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in popular culture. (We'll wait for the next AfD nomination for this article--if you do, please have the courtesy of notifying DGG.) The rest look fine, as in, they'd be concluded the same without the socking. Drmies (talk) 00:24, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• While the FAC process involves oftentimes more than a dozen editors and it's unlikely that hoax material or bad sourcing or other issues would have slipped through, ColonelHenry was the nominator of seven FA's and I didn't count the number of GA's....great.--MONGO 16:07, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
• CH currently has another article posted at FAC, awaiting comments....unless someone wants to grab the helm here it should be withdrawn.--MONGO 16:24, 21 April 2014 (UTC) CH apparently self requested the article be removed from consideration.--MONGO 01:48, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't think that he necessarily mixed up hoaxing with article reviewing, but to be honest, I think he was a terrible reviewer, as Talk:Pedra da Gávea#Comments from others and the ANI discussion linked to therein would show. If that was representative of his work, I would certainly suggest that it's re-examined. — Scott • talk 16:43, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
    • There are a lot of self-nominations, articles created and substantively written by him, with many in the field of Rutgers University history (His user name is one of the founders of the university) This one is also open (again, almost solely written by him) and has an unfortunate comment about "promoting an inaccuracy--something I am loathe to do". __ E L A Q U E A T E 18:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• Risker and Scott I have emailed you both.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:11, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
• Question: Was the original, pre-ColonelHenry account already indef blocked? If not, should it be? BMK (talk) 16:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

IMO, if it is not blocked, it should be. JoeSperrazza (talk) 16:49, 21 April 2014 (UTC) Upon reflection, I don't think blocking the old account is necessary. JoeSperrazza (talk) 17:18, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I believe Risker did not mention it above because it was an account where RTV was exercised. I'm also not going to link to it directly because I'm uncertain of how to proceed in the case of user abuse following an earlier privacy request, but it's very quickly revealed by looking at the history of the hoax articles. Anyone reading this, remove my comment if you think I've gone too far, but I can't imagine that it's going to stay secret for long. — Scott • talk 16:54, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

An RTV is not legitimate when the editor returns. Returning to editing abrogates the non-vanished editor's right to privacy, so the vanished user name should be re-named back to what it was. There are also some obvious throw-away accounts connected to the editing of the hoax article. I assume they're all too old to connect to ColonelHenry via CU, unfortunately. BMK (talk) 17:50, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree, but I've dropped a note at WP:BN asking for some bureaucrat opinions on the topic here. — Scott • talk 18:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

It would nullify his courtesy vanishing. Any crat is welcome to reverse the vanishing. I won't be able to get to it for about 8 hours. (Nihonjoe using his public machine account). Joeatworknotsecure (talk) 19:41, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be highly appropriate for that to be done. What ColonelHenry did is, by far, the worst thing one can do to damage Misplaced Pages. Vandals add "penis" and "poop" to articles, and our readers will be annoyed, but they know it's not supposed to be there. However, a hoax article which looks well-documented is a direct stab at our credibility. If I can indulge in a bit of hyperbole, creating well-made hoax articles should be considered to be our equivalent of High treason, and the perpetrator deserves no sympathy or quarter from us. We don't do punishment, but we do protect the project from damage, and tracking what this person did and under what names will certainly help in protecting the project from him in the future. To me, he went away a little too easily to believe that there aren't still other accounts connected to him that are operational, which is good reason to indef block the throwaway accounts from the hoax:

• LoyalSon (talk · contribs · logs) - created 13 May 2007, first edit 13 May 2007, last edit 19 October 2007, all edits related to subject
• Lodge443 (talk · contribs · logs) - created 9 April 2007, first edit 9 April 2007, last edit 21 April 2010, all edits related to subject (in the Daily Princetonian article, "Lodge443" is given as an alias for the supposed secret society)
• ResearchRU (talk · contribs · logs) - created 11 April 2010, first edit 11 April 2010, last edit 14 April 2010, both edits to hoax article
• Anonymous1900 (talk · contribs · logs) - created 14 April 2010, first edit 14 April 2010, last edit 1 July 2010, all edits related

BMK (talk) 20:01, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree although I wouldn't use the words high treason. But I've believed for a while that there are well-established editors who have socks. It's just so easy to create faux accounts and if an editor with a particular reputation wants to edit without the accompanying baggage, it's likely they will get away with it unless it is editing a high profile or controversial article. Of course, creating hoax articles with false sources goes way beyond creating a sock and merits the highest rebuke.

But, this is not an accusation because CU requires demonstrable proof which I don't have and pursuing sock accounts is not how I want to spend my time here. But thanks to Risker and DoRD for a job well done. I hope you checked for sleeper accounts as well. Liz 20:50, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• I'd like to thank checkusers Risker and DoRD for the job they've done here, as well as Scott for cleaning up the "Bull's Blood" article. Is there any further investigative work that can be done to uncover the full extent of abuse over the past several years? Kurtis 16:41, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

ColonelHenry's previous account was ExplorerCDT (talk · contribs · logs) (currently known as Vanished user azby388723i8jfjh32 (talk · contribs · logs)). Examining its contributions, both extant and deleted, reveals the additional deleted hoax articles:

• Brotherhood of the Golden Dagger (2004, converted to redirect then deleted in 2005)
• Newcastle Group (2004, AfD 2005)
• Christopher D. Thieme (2005, AfD 2005)

and the probable sockpuppets:

• PtonJew06 (talk · contribs · logs)
• 4.188.213.114 (talk · contribs · logs)
• 66.171.124.70 (talk · contribs · logs)

— Scott • talk 20:37, 21 April 2014 (UTC) More:

• 174.57.57.45 (talk · contribs · logs)
• BlackBaron (talk · contribs · logs)
• CDThieme (talk · contribs · logs)

— Scott • talk 18:22, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• I think you can add 4.188.213.145 (talk · contribs · logs) who vouched for the existence of the Newcastle Group and Christopher D. Thieme in the AfDs. BMK (talk) 22:00, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
• Interestingly, changing a user's name does not change their sigs in previous comments, so in the AfD for Christopher D. Thieme, linked above, you'll find a comment from signed by "ExplorerCDT", who we know to be ColonelHenry, in which he claims to be Christopher D. Thieme, but he also claims that the 4.188 IPs are "stalkers". BMK (talk) 22:07, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• Yes - RTV will remove you from the gaze of search engines, but it provides no barrier to any human - even if the renaming log entries are deleted, prior talk page contributions (and file uploads) permanently record user names. If Flow ever becomes a reality, that'll no longer be the case for discussions; but there are definitely arguments for and against that being a good thing. — Scott • talk 11:25, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I am loathe to answer this because I really don't understand exactly how the rules about "outing" work. BMK (talk) 22:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I understand that. WP:RTV does say that it's not a method to reverse previously made confessions or assertions, or to avoid scrutiny. I thought the problem was only using a couple of sockpuppets to battleground decisions (bad), but if it's multiple hoaxes, multiple fraudulent additions, over multiple linked accounts... WP:RTV is for people who leave, not people who stick around to insert hoaxes.__ E L A Q U E A T E 23:02, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you, but I've been here a pretty long time, and I really, honestly do not understand at all what is and isn't permitted under the outing policy, or at least how it has been enforced. Given that, I've got to be reticent, as I have no desire to take a block for outing. BMK (talk) 23:18, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• Two things; I can confirm what the two checkusers above have already stated. Secondly, can we possibly set up a formal WP:SPI case to track this one. I suspect that rabbit hole goes very deep indeed, so to speak, and that this editor will likely be back again and again. It will be useful to collate and track this stuff, as it clearly goes back almost ten years - Alison 20:43, 21 April 2014 (UTC) (on my cell here)

(1) agree, (2) facepalm.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:54, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• I went to check, and found a previous CU request, since deleted. Restoring to Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/ColonelHenry for community review. I've not looked at it in detail yet, but there may be previous socks - Alison 21:36, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• I find it interesting (or ironic) that Colonel Henry was working on the article on Robert Clark Young. He noted on his User page that he had an article about himself on Misplaced Pages (written by others), maybe that could be checked as well although I don't know if that would be considered outing. Liz 21:43, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• Are you thinking that ColonelHenry is the return of Qworty? I would be surprised if that was true, since I don't see any connection between Robert Clark Young and Rutgers, which I would expect to be the case. So, "ironic" is probably correct. BMK (talk) 21:56, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  • It's not. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 21:58, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
• I have removed the parts of the Young biography that were of interest to ColonelHenry. I removed the bit about a documentary showing Young caring for his elderly parents, as the sources were all primary and failed to show the documentary was important. I also removed a bunch of arguments against Brad Vice, Young's nemesis, arguments that had nothing to do with Young. Binksternet (talk) 22:11, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• ColonelHenry appears to have been inserting references into articles to "unpublished works" by either an alias of himself, or a family member: Brau Kettle, Casper Shafer, Lake Owassa, Minisink. This is a continuation of similar behavior as ExplorerCDT, e.g. Sussex County, New Jersey. It seems to me that we're going to have to examine his edits in detail. — Scott • talk 22:04, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• I have removed those insertions from those articles. They may well be legitimate, but since they are all unpublished, there's no easy way to verify them, so removal would seem to be the best action. BMK (talk) 22:55, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

What does the community think about creating a Suspected hoax article tag. "Volunteers are checking it's veracity" type wording. At least it looks better and shows we are on the case as an issue to casual and first time users. There may be a significant number out there. Any work ever been done on hoax article durations before being discovered, frequency, etc? Irondome (talk) 23:09, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

There is some discussion in Reliability of Misplaced Pages and Misplaced Pages:List of hoaxes on Misplaced Pages. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps not exactly what you're envisioning, but there is a {{hoax}} template. Deor (talk) 23:43, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• There shall be no gravedancing and all, but isn't it nice that he gets to put "retired" on his talk page as if it were voluntary? Drmies (talk) 00:58, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  • The very first edit summary for ColonelHenry describes him as coming off of a "five-year hiatus", so it's probably well within thematic resonance.__ E L A Q U E A T E 01:19, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
    •  Like
• I also suspect Fran Hetzner. Drmies (talk) 01:10, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  • No surviving contributions of any substance from this account, so probably a moot point. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:16, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
• Since nobody else will mention it: it looks as if all this was started by a blog on an external site, which I will not name, or link to, in trembling fear for my wiki-life. ;P I will, however, give my thanks to the "March Hare" for a very interesting blog. Also, according to the comments on that blog, there are several more named socks/IPs. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 09:02, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

List of socks

I agree with Alison above that this likely goes deeper than we think, and so I have created Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of ColonelHenry and Category:Suspected Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of ColonelHenry to aid us. GiantSnowman 09:08, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I don´t think the Fran Hetzner-account is one of his socks. More likely to be some COI editor. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 09:20, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Feel free to remove, I only tagged following comments from @Drmies: above. GiantSnowman 10:56, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Huldra, so de-tagged it. — Scott • talk 13:46, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• @Scott: - see also Category:Suspected Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of CDThieme, seems to be a list of socks of a sock account from 2008... GiantSnowman 18:44, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I've just found these.

• Category:Suspected Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of CDThieme
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive56#CDThieme sockpuppetry

— Scott • talk 18:46, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not going to move any from this new (or old...) category to the ColonelHenry one, unless you think it's wise? But I've turned it into a subcat anyway, so it's still linked. GiantSnowman 18:53, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

That works for me, but I have virtually zilch experience of working in this particular admin area. I'm sure if anyone knows better they can fix it. — Scott • talk 19:08, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• ExplorerCDT (now Vanished user azby388723i8jfjh32) - from September 2004 to February 2007, who uploaded images as theirs using the RL name
• CDThieme - from April 2005 to October 2006
• (5 year gap - presumably while the RL person was otherwise engaged with the State of New Jersey)
• ColonelHenry - from May 2012 to April 2014

@GiantSnowman: My suggestion would be to do away with the secondary layer and list all the suspected sockpuppets under ColonelHenry. It seems confusing to me as I went through it just now. BMK (talk) 19:55, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

 Done GiantSnowman 20:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• See also Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive56#CDThieme sockpuppetry. GiantSnowman 20:02, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Community ban proposal

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

Please weigh in below, based on the behavioral evidence presented above, if you believe a community ban is appropriate for the person behind the ColonelHenry account and its socks: Cla68 (talk) 23:42, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• Support - certainly not as a "punishment", and not merely because it's appropriate for someone with a decade-long history of abusing this project with untruths, but because it will allow future actions against him to be undertaken with the full authority of a ban. For what it's worth, I believe that he's almost certainly now operating somewhere under another sockpuppet account, and probably reading this discussion as well. — Scott • talk 10:17, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
• Support a community ban, this person has lost the community's trust and can probably never get it back. They are not welcome here. GiantSnowman 10:58, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
• I was actually going to suggest that we just add the banned template to his userpage and forego the formal proposal. ColonelHenry is already de facto community banned; no administrator in their right mind would undo this block, nor allow any of his subsequent accounts to freely edit this site. Kurtis 11:22, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Community bans shouldn't be pushed through in a speedy manner. That would be a dangerous thing. There's no rush. Doc talk 11:38, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• In principle, I agree. I am very strongly opposed to foregoing discussion in most cases. But in this instance, I could not fathom a proposed site ban receiving anything less than the overwhelming support of the community. Kurtis 16:25, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• And with that said, I would have to Support based on the depth of deception and the probability that it will continue. There's no way this user can be trusted after this. Doc talk 11:50, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• I see you've reverted my addition to WP:LOBU, but to be honest I think your comment about "danger" is off the mark. This situation is totally unambiguous, and nobody's suggesting that going straight to a community ban is some kind of binding precedent. — Scott • talk 12:08, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
• Wow! Moved from where you put this on my talk page:

• Do not take it upon yourself to declare a user banned by the community. You have been reverted: and you will wait until it is officially closed by someone other than you. Thanks. Doc talk 12:08, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I will thank you not to take that tone with me, especially not on my talk page given that discussion is taking place here, in which I made it completely clear that I was open to discussion of the action. What the actual hell. — Scott • talk 12:12, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

You can't declare a community ban that quickly, even when the outcome may be obvious. This part isn't even archived, and you added him to the banned user list. I apologize for my tone, if it offends you. Doc talk 12:18, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Support per Scott to formalise the current situation (Kurtis' comment that this editor is currently de facto banned is obviously correct, but enacting a community ban will hopefully send a message and cut down on some paperwork). Nick-D (talk) 11:53, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
• Comment Based on Kurtis's suggestion above I've done it. If anyone thinks I've jumped the gun, please revert my addition of the banned user template to ColonelHenry; otherwise, as of this point the operator of that account and related sockpuppets is indefinitely community banned. — Scott • talk 11:56, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
• Support community ban / Endorse Scott's action - BMK (talk) 12:25, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Realistically, there's no chance he's not getting banned. But "Sanction discussions are normally kept open for at least 24 hours to allow time for comments from a broad selection of community members." We can forgo this for the most egregious criminals? There is no 24 hours, and that's the system. Doc talk 12:39, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• User:Doc9871,if "realistically, there's no chance he's not getting banned", doesn't carrying on with a ban discussion sound like a waste of resources to you? :/ This seems like a great case for WP:IAR to me. (And while "normally" probably means "sometimes they last longer", it can also mean shorter. The 24 hours is not carved in stone.) I support the ban, and I support implementing it now so that community time can be put to repairing any issues that may be identified instead of discussing a foregone conclusion. I appreciate your instinct not to want bans to be imposed too hastily and would be right there with you if I thought there was any shade of gray here, but I'm inclined to agree with you that "there's no chance" of any other outcome. --Moonriddengirl 12:52, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Hey, if y'all can't wait 24 hours for the death chamber: change the language of the policy. Some can be swept away in 12 hours, others get the benefit of 24. Who gets rushed in quicker? Case by case. Sounds good. Doc talk 12:57, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• That would be completely unnecessary, as we have a much older mechanism that allows this already. Also, please give the melodramatic language like "death chamber" a break, it doesn't contribute anything useful to this discussion. — Scott • talk 13:11, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• I don't care if you like my metaphors or not. Not one little bit. IAR close it in less than 24, and have fun with that. Doc talk 13:22, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• I already did. The only person that objected was you. I take it, then, that you won't revert me when I do it again. Or if anybody else restores my actions. Right? — Scott • talk 13:26, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I can't imagine why there's a "normal" 24 hour thing to begin with when it comes to community bans. 1 hour is even enough, in "special" cases. Hang 'em higher and quicker. Bravo! Eroding the process for IAR is admirable indeed. Cheers Doc talk 13:34, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

User:Doc9871, nobody is being hung; it's not a death policy. Being banned from Misplaced Pages is entirely non-lethal...and reversible. My question to you was sincere - if you have a reason why the conversation should continue in spite of what you even agree is a foregone conclusion, it would probably be a lot easier for others to join you. Otherwise, I really don't see any value at all to spreading this out so others can pile on. --Moonriddengirl 13:38, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

When I say "hung", it's just a metaphor. Here's what I'm saying: everybody gets their fair shake. How hard is it to wait 24 hours? How many cases, in theory, could be closed early because it was so sure that 24 hours weren't even needed? And who gets to decide that? Why not say "0" hours instead of "at least 24"? IAR is great and all. I'd run every stop sign when I drive my car if IAR translated to real life. No cop, no stop! Doc talk 13:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

The trouble is, the tone of at least some of your responses weren't very helpful to both the discussion, and in explaining/justifying the reversion of the closure of this discussion to other users. Even if some/all other users ultimately disagree(d) with your action or your reasons for it, I don't think the metaphors you used were appropriate either. It makes it seem as if you are taking the criticisms unnecessarily personally when defending your actions which were made in good faith. I think there are many (other) good reasons why a reversion may be appropriate in a number of cases. For example, it would give an opportunity to users in other timezones to oppose if they wish to do so (which is fair). Also, I can recall some occasions in the past where former arbcom members have expressed their disappointment or concerns that more time was needed for community ban discussions before they were archived (as the banned user would go running to them with an appeal). But, unless there was a genuine doubt that an administrator would be prepared to unblock the user in the absence of a formal ban (which there is certainly no evidence of at this point from what I've seen), it's unclear what else could be achieved by leaving this particular discussion open without enacting a formal ban. This is a case where a de facto ban was so recently imposed and following from recent CU blocks too which were reported to the community at large. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:39, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Support as common sense after the truly massive history of abuse. However, can we please avoid the references to capital punishment, as doing nothing to improve the tone of the discussion, or help to resolve the situation? Early closure of this discussion was the right decision, considering only one outcome was remotely plausible. Pakaran 13:49, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
• Comment There's no need to drag this out. Per the above, ban restored. — Scott • talk 14:38, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Brilliant - If 24 hours is not a period that should be waited before enacting any ban, change the danged policy language. This goes far beyond this case. How many hours is enough? 24 is too much, and should no longer be offered. Doc talk 14:53, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Doc, seriously, please just drop it. GiantSnowman 14:57, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• There's only about ~8 hours left to go so I don't really see a pressing need to add the user to the list amid objections. –xeno 15:20, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• And, conversely, no need not to just go ahead and do it. The ban was a foregone conclusion, we don't have to get all WP:BURO and wait while we watch the clock tick down to zero, we're not about that. BMK (talk) 18:17, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Too late. It's been re-added. I'll keep my mouth shut from now on ;P Doc talk 15:24, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Could someone please close this section? I would, but I'm probably going to get someone comparing me to Judge Dredd at this rate. — Scott • talk 19:02, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the RL identity of this user

Obviously the contributions of all the accounts need to be reviewed, but can we please avoid undue attention to the RL name of this editor. There are reasons that this would not be desirable. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:45, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Strongly support. I think whoever is behind this should be indeffed, but lets shift away from individuals to tracking any crap thats been laid. Thanks NYB and Deor for great feedback. Irondome (talk) 00:06, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

That's fine, but the RL identity is what brought to light the unpublished refs added by ColonelHenry by someone with the same last name - so it's impossible to avoid altogether (not witstanding that he ID'd himself under his previous account). Still, point taken. BMK (talk) 00:33, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I see a need for some thoughtfulness. So from what I've read so far, posted by others, this person admitted publicly who they are, on Misplaced Pages and in multiple places on Misplaced Pages; they asked for a WP:RTV (on the grounds they were leaving forever) while they were concurrently using an undisclosed account (one of multiple ones now directly linked); that fraudulent and project-harming behavior and additions happened in all accounts past and present, and that it took similar forms over a decade. If it's also true that the editor had publicly recorded concerns and interests in the public record, wouldn't it be easier for the community to review if there was vandalism on those articles? This editor, by what I've seen posted so far, had clear connections to other articles that exist now (including BLPs) that nobody's mentioned yet. If we avoid talking about this person's confessed identity, how do we discuss the possible impacts or undisclosed COI he had on those articles?__ E L A Q U E A T E 00:49, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

RTV seems like a really weak excuse to deal with this. Once it was proven that the community's trust was shattered, there now is all of a sudden an issue with outing? You reap what you sow. Busted. Doc talk 02:59, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I concur here: if they didn't want their (apparently self-admitted?) identity to become a concern again, they should have properly executed RTV. They didn't. Yes, we shouldn't grave-dance or excessively use it unnecessarily, but using it as part of the tools we have to fix the damage is, and should be, entirely appropriate. The common sense rule is simple: if you don't want to find yourself in a hole, don't grab a shovel and dig. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 10:50, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

This seems like a classic case of unnecessary handwringing. Our privacy policies do not extend to people that intentionally damage the site through the creation of hoaxes. Even the WMF privacy policy makes exceptions for people "where the user has been vandalizing articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way".—Kww(talk) 03:33, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

The technicalities of our policies are far from the point here. We can clean up the articles we need to without excessively splashing this individual's name around, and there are reasons to do it that way. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:39, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

And those reasons are ...?—Kww(talk) 03:41, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

... not well suited for discussion here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:42, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

And we should just take your word for that based on one very vague statement that doesn't even begin to explain why? Sorry, but that just doesn't wash. Dpmuk (talk) 03:50, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Always nice to see a cogent argument so carefully phrased and thoughtfully laid out, NYB.—Kww(talk) 03:52, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Those reasons are that every human being should be treated with dignity and respect, even when they have been found to have behaved outside of the acceptable conventions. The manner in which we treat the least amongst us is the manner in which we treat our community as a whole. And because there is not a single person editing this project who is perfect in every way, who has no chinks in their armour, who has made no mistakes here or elsewhere in life, or whose normal behaviour could not be exaggerated by someone with a different agenda to ridicule and bully us. We do it because schadenfreude is ugly. We do it because it's not about the editors, it's about the encyclopedia.

We have the right to be unhappy that we have been taken advantage of; however, we also could have stopped this years ago with the first account of the user, and even a couple of years ago with the second account(s). There were lots of warning signs along the way, but we ignored them. We must learn from them. What we don't need to learn is how to be bullies ourselves. Risker (talk) 03:59, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

And to a large extent I agree with those reasons. However Newyorkbrad has suggested there's other reasons since there is clearly no harm in discussing reasons like you give. That secrecy, is in my opinion, unacceptable, especially from a sitting arb as that makes it seem almost like a threat, regardless of whether that was the intention or not. Dpmuk (talk) 04:07, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

That's assuming that holding people responsible for their own behaviour is somehow stripping them of their dignity or being disrespectful. It's this warped view that people have the right to publicly misbehave while having their identities shielded that causes most of our problems: people don't misbehave to anywhere near the same degree when everyone knows who they are.—Kww(talk) 04:08, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Per WP:OUTING "If an editor has previously posted their own personal information but later redacted it, it should not be repeated on Misplaced Pages; although references to still-existing, self-disclosed information is not considered outing. If the previously posted information has been removed by oversight, then repeating it on Misplaced Pages is considered outing."

Were any oversights previously done here? Or is it now time to start, now that the shit has hit the fan? Since people failed to appreciate the "don't confirm or deny" aspects of outing in this very thread: it's time to start the oversighting. Right? Doc talk 04:39, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

@Kww: Well now, here's the issue. RTV has been used for years (at least back to 2008, and likely earlier) when users posted information that identified them, and they were allowed to abandon the account at that time, wipe it out to make outing them that much more difficult, hopefully decrease the harassment, etc. This was the way to "hide" that information, often given out at an early point in the editing career, in this case before outing and harassment had become commonplace. It was understood that the user might return under those circumstances. This is the norm, whether or not it's written down in policy. At the time that the account was RTV'd, there was no sanction on it in any way and the RTV was correctly carried out according to community norms. It's easy to say that someone shouldn't have said something in 2005, before anyone even bothered with Misplaced Pages editors, and must now pay the consequences in 2014, but it's also rather silly.

I suggest that the editor review proceed in a manner similar to how we do CCI; perhaps Wizardman or Moonriddengirl can give some pointers. That is how we hold people accountable; in the case of CCI, they're expected to help sort things out, but in this case all accounts are blocked, so that is not possible. This is an open project, the only difference between this and the POV-pushing and other poor editing we see on a daily basis is in the extent of the review needed. It's scut work, but it's scut work we do all the time. Risker (talk) 05:05, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

RTV has never permitted return. RTV has been abused in the past and likely will be again, but RTV has always been a right to vanish: to go completely away and never be heard from again. The lead in January 2009 read "If you wish to leave permanently, and to remove any association with your past edits, you may exercise your right to vanish." The very first version began with "Users who have stopped editing Misplaced Pages entirely...". —Kww(talk) 05:33, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Well then, there's another process that looks like RTV, involves exactly the same steps as RTV, and has been going on for years and years and years particularly when editors have let loose some personal information about themselves that they didn't realise at the time would have off-wiki implications. So let's call it anti-harassment account renaming and abandonment or something else. But it's been going on for as long as I can remember, it's often done in conjunction with a clean start, and many excellent longterm users have exercised it. There was no reason for the 'crats to say no. Risker (talk) 06:16, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Took me about ten minutes from a standing start (i.e., not having a clue who they were or their previous vanished usernames) to find posts still on Misplaced Pages by the person in question revealing their real name. DuncanHill (talk) 08:21, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Yikes! Can someone block the above editor for unambiguous outing, please? ;P This entire thread needs a complete oversight. Doc talk 08:31, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand how an editor, found to be fraudulently editing in a specific subject area, can be given more care about their identity than we afford any editor in any other COI editing case. If this person turns out to have had public Rutgers University-specific problems and connections in RL, then we have to talk about it if we're going to review all of their contributions on the subject. If we found out an editor was Donald Trump in real life, we'd talk about it, not bury it, so that the community could evaluate any connected page with some idea of where the problems could lie. If this person is who they said they were, then they have a connected status to a few extant articles. I think a fresh start should be afforded people who need it in good faith, but not to obscure fraud over multiple accounts and fraud in real life that could harm the project if it looks like we're covering it up for self-protection or to avoid embarrassment. I think when an editor demonstrates (even accidentally) that they have a negative connection to articles they've been editing, then we need to talk about that connection. We can't be "Shh, don't mention this new account is the same as the guy found to work for the Coca-Cola PR team, because he said he just wanted to be an unknown concerned citizen editing Coca-Cola articles." If he'd gone away I don't think his identity would be pertinent, but he didn't go away. Excessively obscuring his admitted identity obscures where the damage to the project is, and obscures scrutiny and protection by the community of related articles, including BLPs. __ E L A Q U E A T E 10:25, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I think what's being asked here isn't so much "Shh, don't talk about this" as it is "let's not exact retribution by googlebombing this person's name". It's one thing to have to cite an old account name, etc, in the context of "Oh, and we should also check these contribs"; it's another to say "John Doe did this bad thing. Did I mention JOHN DOE did this bad thing? Hey, everyone, the person who did this bad thing is JOHN DOE!" Even in cases where the TOS or privacy policy allow the release of information, that doesn't mean we should excessively publish and re-publish that information just for punishment's (or schadenfreude's) sake, even after the issue is handled. I think that's what NYB and Risker are (preemptively) asking us to make sure we avoid. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 13:58, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's a very fair assessment. I don't think there's any need to restore the user page from the old account, either, for the same reasoning, and because it wouldn't add anything useful to the cleanup effort. — Scott • talk 14:09, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

After thinking about this a bit overnight, I agree with Scott. The name is now "out there" for any good reason it may have to be utilized, and, as pointed out by DuncanHill, can easily be found by those who need it, so there's little purpose in being unnecessarily explicit about it in public at this point. BMK (talk) 16:34, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

And I would agree that a person's name shouldn't be linked to Misplaced Pages behavior or actions if the only purpose is shaming a person in RL. But that's clearly not the only reason to examine a discovered identity. If this person hadn't self-identified themselves and didn't have a public and publicly-documented reputation as a fraud and hoaxster outside of Misplaced Pages, with connections to articles we haven't examined yet, then I'd leave it right there too. As it stands, anyone looking at ColonelHenry's assertions about his interests and qualifications might assume he was an academic with general integrity who had misstepped somehow in a policy way, instead of someone having a jaw-droppingly bad relationship with the truth. I think knowing where he has misrepresented himself (and to be clear I mean publicly and publicly documented) off-Misplaced Pages would be essential to confirming he made no COI edits in those controversies he was publicly and notoriously involved with.__ E L A Q U E A T E 17:48, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, one of the offending diffs given above is this one. So one of the things we're possibly looking for are (unpublished?) books by people named Thieme--I can say that much, I believe, and if not Newyorkbrad can revdel this comment. We're also looking, I imagine, to check for glorification of Rutgers: this guy was a Rutgers man. That's something already. Drmies (talk) 18:07, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I've done a number of searches of the encyclopedia under the last name, with various versions of the first and middle initial, and I haven't found anything (yet) which hasn't been removed by now. (That's by no means definitive, so I don't want to inhibit anyone else from doing their own searches.) BMK (talk) 18:11, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

ThreeFour clicks from this page to a self-identification still visible to all. DuncanHill (talk) 18:31, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I was only talking about removing references under the real name or variations. Any self-ID should remain in place, IMO. BMK (talk) 19:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• In furtherance of Fluffernutter's light touch rationale to 'alias is real person', there is also the issue of believing a known hoaxer is who they say they are (when one should be skeptical, and rather non-committal, unless there is well reasoned and documented need). Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:27, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I thought of this too. There's no proof he necessarily is the person who he claimed to be, but if he is, I would hope we'd also do an integrity check for our articles related to the murder trial that name was connected to. It might turn up some socks.__ E L A Q U E A T E 18:57, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I've gone over the Melanie McGuire article, but I see no signs of it being tampered with. Others should double-check me. BMK (talk) 19:14, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Potential coordination of review/cleanup

• User:ColonelHenry/Cleanup

User:Risker pinged me above. What a horrible situation. :( I've created a list of articles edited by the two content-adding socks first named; it can be expanded as more are confirmed. I could add the original Vanished account, if there are likely to be outstanding concerns. This was done using the contribution survey tool () we use for conducting WP:CCI. It's been toggled to eliminate reverts & minor edits, but probably there's a long trail of these near the bottom that are less significant concern. The higher up, the more heavily edited the article. If this page isn't useful, I have no objections whatsoever to its deletion, but it could be a helpful way to coordinate "checks" for hoaxing, or even to bot flag the articles for review. (We've been talking recently about whether a bot flag for articles listed in the massive backlog at WP:CCI could facilitate community cleanup, although we haven't pursued it actively.) We did use bot blanking for one massive CCI, and it was helpful, although we found that rather than cleaning up the issues some people simply removed the tags without checking. Human follow-up on the list was necessary. --Moonriddengirl 11:57, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

FYI I have a tool that can be given a list of user names to generate contributions where successive edits by anyone in the list gives a single diff. In practice that can be unhelpful because the resulting diffs can be huge, but one big diff is sometimes easier to comprehend than several small diffs. Example here. If edits by sockpuppets overlap in time the tool might be helpful as it would lump all the edits into one diff. Johnuniq (talk) 12:21, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

While for CCI, the individual diffs may work better (since sometimes people modify content incrementally, and it's easier to find the source from the first diff), that sounds like it could be really beneficial in this case! Feel free to overwrite the content in that page, Johnuniq. :) --Moonriddengirl 12:45, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Moonriddengirl. Yes, I do think that the "old" account should be included in the review, if at all possible; it had a lot of edits and some of them have already been spotted as being problematic. Risker (talk) 13:43, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps reviewing them all would prove that hoax content doesn't extend to every entry he's produced. Why would he take articles to GA/FA if they were hoaxes?♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:27, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Who knows why he did any of this crazy shit? I don't understand him and I don't want to! Guy (Help!) 17:13, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• I looked at a half a dozen or more articles yesterday, though I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for--"hoax", sure. I guess I was looking for self-advertising (and found none on the ones I looked at) and (BLP) whitewashing, of which there was plenty in Robert E. Mulcahy III, but I can't pin that on he who shall not be named. I did not see anything that was obviously hoaxy, but in the next batch I look at I suppose I'll look more carefully at the references as well. Drmies (talk) 17:17, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Comment from ColonelHenry

Forwarding, from his talk page - Alison 16:59, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

"I'm entirely o.k. with being banned. I've already stated through email to some admins and other interested parties that I'd gladly help rectify matters, and have explained a few things there, since I will stand behind 99% of my work, and I am confident that work will stand up to the scrutiny. I don't remember much of what I did 10 years ago (who does?--seeing some of my callow-years work provokes a reaction of "I edited that? wow.") but in collaborating with my critics, I can identify or explain a small handful of articles that were problematic in the recent two years of my editing work. Most of the scrutiny has been focused on one article, with minor issues with a few others, but upon scrutiny, my errors are not a massive systemic problem and most of my work would pass muster. - ColonelHenry (talk · contribs)"

• I think we'll cope. — Scott • talk 17:04, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

  I'll be more serious. I strongly disagree with CDThieme/ExplorerCDT/ColonelHenry having any further involvement of any kind with this project, in any capacity. His history of abusing this community makes him persona non grata. — Scott • talk 18:57, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Comment If he is genuine about helping clear out any hoaxes I don't see the harm. If nothing more, it might help focus effort. Why cut your nose off to spite your face? WCM_email 17:08, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

"If he is genuine about helping clear out any hoaxes I don't see the harm." - Much like having a serial killer help you find the bodies of your family? Fuck Col. Henry and his token "I want to help" bullshit. Lugnuts 18:07, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Any hoaxes he wants to identify, well and good. The rest will get checked regardless, it will save some time. Guy (Help!) 17:14, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• He could also point to any socks that have been missed. BMK (talk) 18:08, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• If he has things to confess, that's fine. Everything still needs to be checked regardless. In no way should there be quid pro quo, or a belief that this is a gateway back.--Cube lurker (talk) 18:16, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I know well that you fight passionately for what you believe in, which is a good thing and I never fault that. But here, at Misplaced Pages, that gets you into trouble. Quite a few liberals and anti-American foreigners around here, in addition to the sensitive types who when they're losing a war of words (and principles) will always go retreat to regroup behind something that makes them feel safe and attack you in ways that even your being right won't work against. So if you go in as you are, you're bound to pick a fight and a fight you will ultimately lose...and a lot of the admins who would decide your fate fit in those categorizations above. I should know, I stirred the shitstorm several times here with my passionately-held beliefs and ways of doing things and almost got banned on several occasions. Remember, as someone whose seen this in the field...the cool and calculated always win...hot and heavy only (and often) get you dead. The only way to win is to think or act like your enemy.

• Phew, I'm glad he's "OK" with all this... :/ GiantSnowman 18:51, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Further comment from CH: "Under this account, I have almost 10,000 edits, under two previous accounts from years ago, another 15,000-20,000" (14 October 2013). -- GreenC 20:40, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Creating an article called D​.​A​.​I​.​S​.​Y. rage

I would like to create an article about the extended play D​.​A​.​I​.​S​.​Y. rage but Misplaced Pages naming conventions are keeping me from doing so and I was directed here. Littlecarmen (talk) 16:32, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I got a weird error when searching this term, but I was able to create the page (which I then deleted because I had no content for it). You should be able to create it by following this link D​.​A​.​I​.​S​.​Y. rage. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:07, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! it says I can't create the page. I made a draft for the article here: User:Littlecarmen/sandbox. Could you maybe create the page with that? Littlecarmen (talk) 20:23, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Sure, I dragged your most recent revision into the mainspace. Happy editing, –xeno 22:21, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much :) Littlecarmen (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: This problem was probably due to the title blacklist. Graham87 10:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Clarification request: Rich Farmbrough

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

In order to resolve the enforcement request referred to us, the committee resolves that:

1. Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) has violated his restriction against automated editing. That restriction clearly required he "make only completely manual edits" and hence the prohibition applies regardless of namespace.
2. Accordingly, Rich Farmbrough is warned that the committee is likely to take a severe view of further violations, and may consider replacing his automation restriction with a site ban.

For the Arbitration Committee, --S Philbrick(Talk) 16:50, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Discuss this

Need some intervention

Zackdichens12 (talk · contribs) just moved their user page, not sure whats up, or if they want renamed, but can someone lend a hand? Werieth (talk) 15:58, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• They've now also moved there talkpage now so was wondering if someone again could have a word?, Cheers -→Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 20:01, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Abuse by administrator

I realize that I'm an IP, and as an IP, I'll get no respect here. Nevertheless, Bearian's administrative actions have been so abusive that I felt the need to report them.

• Yesterday I prodded Oakhill Christian School because it's a tiny, unknown school with no notability. In response, Bearian deprodded, then slapped a vandalism template on my talk page. I warned Bearian about misusing templates, and he labeled that warning "vandalism". I asked him again to stop his false "vandalism" claims. He labeled that request "vandalism".
• Bearian added a source to the Oakhill article and I checked it out, only to find that it did not validate the assertion it was supposedly supporting. (It's merely the name of the school in a long list.) I added a tag, which Bearian deleted without fixing the problem.
• Bearian added a completely trivial sentence to the Oakhill article. I added an tag. Bearian immediately reverted, without addressing the issue.
• Bearian finally afd'd the Oakhill article, but his comment there was largely a digression about my "vandalism" and ignorance.

In sum, Bearian has summarily removed tags without addressing the underlying issues, and most importantly, repeatedly hurled the "vandalism" epithet at me for perfectly legitimate edits. This is an abusive violation of WP:AGF.
Please note: I am unable to notify Bearian about this discussion because his talk page is protected. 71.139.142.132 (talk) 16:29, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Here's your problem: while Misplaced Pages is not a directory, it is a directory of schools. This is well enough known that it's not too surprising that Bearian considered you are likely to be a user who has logged out in order to make a point. Guy (Help!) 16:41, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Could you please explain how any of the things you said above amount to "abuse of administrator privileges"? Basalisk ⁄_berate 16:42, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

He labeled me a "vandal" four? five? times. When I asked him to stop his attacks, he protected his talk page so I couldn't request that he stop his disruptive behavior again.71.139.142.132 (talk) 16:50, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've notified Bearian for you. Yeah, I'd say that Bearian was wrong to use a template to tell you that he declined your prod, but then again, the uw-test1 template is not usually thought of as an accusation of vandalism, so I think you might've initially overreacted a little bit; it wasn't an accusation of vandalism per se, though Bearian is guilty of not assuming good clue. Labeling your edits to his talk page as vandalism was worse, but it looks like both of y'all were kind of worked up about each other, so I'm not sure there's much else to do other than a troutslap to Bearian. Also, I'd note that it doesn't seem like Bearian used any administrator tools here (aside from semi-ing his talk page, which is not that big a deal and after the fact anyway), so calling this an "abuse of administrative privileges" isn't accurate. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:43, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

This may not technically be "abuse of administrative privileges", but it is abuse, and something that no administrator should be involved in. A slap on the wrists is all I was expecting, but I think that's warranted. 71.139.142.132 (talk) 16:50, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, I don't know if you mean that a slap on the wrists is all you were asking for or if that's all you could cynically expect, but I think that's really all that's called for here (and that it is called for, though I seem to be in a minority?). Anyway, if my opinion matters to anyone (it doesn't), Bearian can consider his wrists slapped. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:56, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• No admin tools or "power" were used in this series of transactions. Bearian was simply acting as an editor, and making some "educated guesses" the panda ɛˢˡ” 16:47, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

More evidence why a rule of "IP's are not people" should be applied. I find this ANI disruptive, it looks like the IP editor lacks an understanding of notability and this is attempting to attack Bearian on false grounds because of a standard edit conflict (Bearian is correct as well). Valoem 17:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

So Bearian is perfectly justified in repeatedly calling good faith edits "vandalism"? 71.139.142.132 (talk) 17:09, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Well, I have entered in a call for deletion at that AfD; based upon a little research it appears that this "Oakhill Christian School" shared the same physical address and even phone # as its affiliated church, and it does not appear to be an accredited institution by the state of Wisconsin. Add to that an enrollment of 68 spread across 13 grade levels, it looks like a glorified provate bible study for the churchgoers, thus it seems that this may pass none of our guidelines, not even the currently- (and possibly mis-) cited Misplaced Pages:Notability (high schools). And even so, that is just an essay, not something set in stone, so while I am generally disdainful of IP editors as a class, this particular one seems to have a better grasp on notability than you, Valoem, and others to boot. Tarc (talk) 17:15, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Schools are generally notable, Bearian had tagged his account once, probably because of the same reason regarding school notability. I do not see repeated tagging as the IP claims, on top of that an ANI for this is completely unnecessary. Since the AfD will probably default to keep, perhaps it is you who needs to read the guidelines again. Valoem 17:22, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Read the original post again. "The IP" did not claim repeated tagging. The aggrieved editor provided solid evidence of repeated labeling of "vandalism". Since when is a good faith edit "vandalism"? 71.139.142.132 (talk) 18:02, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

If you bothered to read what I actually rote, I rebutted the claim that this institution is actually an accredited or recognized school. If you're going to keep carping on a HS notability guide, it'd help if you actually read it first, y'know. Tarc (talk) 18:13, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

My response was to your bitey comment at the end. I did read your comment while we agree to disagree, you suggested my defense of this school is a sign of lacking understanding which is simply not true. The notability criteria of schools while not universal is widespread. I do not see repeated accusation of vandalism the first one was probably a misunderstanding, but repeatedly rewarning Bearian on his talk page is intrusive and it looks like that was the vandalism he was referring to. Valoem 18:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I did not use any admin tools in this process against the IP editor, nor did I use a bare template, nor did I initially call him/her a vandal, until he/she templated me. Please see WP:DUCK and WP:CHECKUSER. Bearian (talk) 18:46, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Not true. Bearian placed a level 1 vandalism warning on my page at 22:02, 21 April 2014. I didn't template him for misuse of a warning template until 14:11, 22 April 2014. 71.139.142.132 (talk) 20:47, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

P.S. for the record, I found it suspicious that this IP range supposedly never edited until this week, but cites policy. Bearian (talk) 19:20, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Why should we see WP:DUCK and WP:CHECKUSER, Bearian? I can understand that you're a bit frustrated that an unregistered editor has challenged your opinion here, and I do appreciate that you took the time to file an AFD for the article in question. But I'm lost at the implication that there is a sock involved here. I'm sorry, but I don't see anywhere that the editor who used these IPs claimed to have never edited before. Risker (talk) 19:24, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Romance languages article protection

User:JamesBWatson appears to have set up both semi-protection and pending changes l1 protection over at Romance languages. I guess he meant to do only one of the two? Am I missing something here? I'd post on his talk page, but it's fully protected. — lfdder 18:07, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

The semi-protection lasts two days, and pending changes will remain for two months. This is often a useful way to introduce an article back to open editing. -- zzuuzz 18:09, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Thanks! — lfdder 18:14, 22 April 2014 (UTC)