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Unprotected image on the Main Page Part X

Whacking with a wet trout or trouting is a common practice on Wikipedia when experienced editors slip up and make a silly mistake. It, along with sentencing to the village stocks, is used to resolve one-off instances of seemingly silly behavior amongst normally constructive community members, as opposed to long term patterns of disruptive edits, which earn warnings and blocks.

Example

Whack!

The above is a WikiTrout (Oncorhynchus macrowikipediensis), used to make subtle adjustments to the clue levels of experienced Wikipedians.

To whack a user with a wet trout, simply place {{trout}} on their talk page.

for letting File:Flag of Singapore.svg reach the main page unprotected. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 01:40, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No need. It's already protected, just not locally. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 01:55, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thats because it was left unprotected for 35 minutes before I found someone to protect it. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 01:57, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see it now. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 02:02, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone else but me feel like going for sushi all of a sudden? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 13:58, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trout makes lousy sushi. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 13:59, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd suggest a nice backyard grill-out but it's effing cold here

- Burpelson AFB ✈ 15:03, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Beta (or delta), your bot seems to be flawed; File:Royal Avenue Belfast2.jpg was unprotected on the Main Page for more than an hour. Also, why doesn't your script alert humans before the image hits the Main Page? Let's try to be proactive instead of reactive. Shubinator (talk) 15:53, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wish you would have pointed that out then, I cannot for the life of me figure out why the bot did not detect that. If your on IRC its easy to check, I run a IRC bot that alerts people. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 20:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that MPUploadBot did detect that it should be protected, and the log says it was. Yet for some unknown reason, it appears the upload failed. I'll have to look into this. (X! · talk) · @560 · 12:26, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Does cascading protection not effect files?— Dæ dαlus^{+ Contribs} 07:02, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not if thr file is on commons. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 12:11, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong, it does affect files, but only on Enwiki. It's cascade protected, but someone can edit it on Commons to the same effect. (X! · talk) · @197 · 03:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Beta, is your script using prop=images? If it is, that can be delayed by a few hours as Wikipedia's servers crunch through jobs. It's more accurate to parse file links themselves on the transcluded pages; granted it does make the code more brittle (see my implementation of DYKUpdateBot). Shubinator (talk) 06:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Open proxy

Resolved

– Reported to OP - Burpelson AFB ✈ 19:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently 208.87.234.190 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is a WebSense proxy (WHOIS resolves to SurfControl). Just saying. Guy (Help!) 09:22, 7 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not that someone who reads this wouldn't eventually fix this problem, but WP:OP is the better place to report these, in the future. --Jayron32 04:29, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've reported to OP [1]. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 19:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Request to delete duplicate images in Wikipedia

Hi, would someone please delete the following images. These images already have duplicates in Commons.

These were uploaded in both places by User:Konkani Manis, and have received OTRS tickets on Commons.

Check the following link for the list of images uploaded on Commons.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Konkani_Manis

These are their duplicates in Wikipedia:

Thanks. Joyson Noel ^{Holla at me} 07:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just change the template to {{NowCommons}} as I did here for example. Someone will delete it eventually after checking that it's been moved properly.--Misarxist 12:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Drudge work completed. FYI, most of them appear to be unlicensed derivatives. The description says they're property of some Hall of Fame in Mangalore and there's no indication of permission. Someone probably ought to delete them here and mention it to admins on Commons. Nevermind, I see the OTRS notices. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 19:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done I deleted the files. One NowCommons link was wrong so I fixed that and one file on en-wiki was larger than the one on Commons so I uploaded the larger version on Commons. --MGA73 (talk) 19:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rich Farmbrough

This post related to a specific problem, dispute, user, help request, or other narrow issue, and has been moved to the Administrators' noticeboard for incidents (ANI).

Please look for it on that page. Thank you.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bsherr (talk • contribs) 01:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Community ban for User:QuackGuru

Much as I hate to raise this kind of discussion, I think it's time we considered a community site ban for QuackGuru (talk · contribs · logs · block log). A ban would be based on the following reasons:

QuackGuru has an aggressive, tendentious editing style that numerous editors have complained about, with complaints including (but not restricted to):
- Page ownership issues
- Multiple reverts, up to (and sometimes exceeding) 3rr limits
- Making contentious edits without discussion
- Frequent broad accusations of policy violation against other editors
QuackGuru demonstrates an inability or unwillingness to communicate with other editors, with behaviors including (but not limited to):
- Consistent blanking of his talk page without response to items posted there
- An overwhelming towards towards edit-summary-only responses
- A refusal to participate in or even acknowledge dispute resolution processes which might ameliorate his behavior
QuackGuru demonstrates an inability or unwillingness to engage in consensus discussions, with behaviors including (but not limited to):
- Frequent, consistent, and intractable wp:IDHT behavior, such as endless repetition of the same point in discussions
- An overwhelming tendency towards simple declarative 'truth-statements' (sometimes posed as challenges in question form, à la Perry Mason)
- A broad failure to acknowledge other points made in discussion, even when made by multiple editors
- A seeming inability to compromise on any issue, no matter how trivial

QuackGuru has a reasonable sized block log (11 blocks, mostly for disruptive editing, since 2007). He has been the subject of three wikiquettes [2], [3], [4] and one RFC/U [5], but did not acknowledge or participate at any of them. he has been the subject of 20 Administrative threads (discounting a handful of 3rr violation reports and without evaluating the merits of the threads): the current ANI thread, [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], 2007 proposed community ban, [14], 2007 proposed article ban, [15], [16], proposed short topic ban, [17], [18], [19], proposed article probabtion, [20]. He does slightly better at responding to these, having added at least one comment in three or four of the threads.

The general problem can easily be exemplified by his recent behavior concerning edits to wp:NPOV. From June through October there was a discussion between a number of editors (Users Blueboar, Ocassi, Tryptofish, Kotniski, RexxS and myself, for the main list) on wt:NPOV that culminated in some revisions to the wording of the policy. The revisions were largely cosmetic (clarifications, tightening of language, etc), but involved to items - the removal of a video explaining NPOV and a reworking of the problematic 'A Simple Formulation' section - which QuackGuru objected to. QuackGuru engaged in a number of reverts to try to preserve sections, but the real problem of concern here was the style of discussion he used on the talk page. For instance, QuackGuru's contributions to the thread discussing the video were as follows:

You removed the video without any good reason. You never had consensus to delete it in the first place. What is the specific problem with the wording of the video. The video also helps blind people get interested in policy. QuackGuru (talk) 17:07, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

You have confirmed there is currently no consensus to delete when you have not given a specific reason about what is specifically the problem with the video. Again, what is the specific problem with the wording of the video. Are you going to remain silent and not answer my question again. Your silence equals consensus. QuackGuru (talk) 17:25, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The "main points" of the video works for me when you click on the video. I see you can't explain what is the problem with the wording of the video. It seems you just don't like having a video regardless of what it says. QuackGuru (talk) 18:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Open question that has been ignored. Again, what is the specific problem with the wording of the video. QuackGuru (talk) 18:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I suggested a compromise using a stronger disclaimer or your suggestion to move the video towards the bottome of the page could also work. The problem is that editors claim the video is a problem when no editor has explained what is actually problem over the 'specific wording' with the writing of the video. If there is no real problem then nothing needs to be fixed. QuackGuru (talk) 19:05, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

You have refused to explain what is the specific problem with the wording of the video. QuackGuru (talk) 19:17, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

There was a previous discussion about using the video here. I noticed have not answered my question again about what is actually the specific problem with the wording of the video. Should I take that as consensus to include the video. QuackGuru (talk) 19:30, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The responses he got to these various points made no difference whatsoever - he consistently returns to the same claim that 'no specific problem with the wording' has been offered. Likewise his comments in an earlier dispute about the use of a 'differing points of view' subheader ran as follows:

This edit was not the way to go about things. A subsection title should be kept or renamed. WP:YESPOV is about "Different points of views". QuackGuru (talk) 18:56, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I made this change to add a section heading. QuackGuru (talk) 18:47, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The section header was removed without explanation. So, I restored it. QuackGuru (talk) 19:31, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The section heading was removed again without explanation. QuackGuru (talk) 20:31, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I restored the "Different points of views" header again. I think it may have been accidentely removed. QuackGuru (talk) 03:32, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Numerous times the "Different points of views" header was removed. There never was any explanation. QuackGuru (talk) 17:14, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Editors are not explaining the reason for deleting the renamed section title. QuackGuru (talk) 18:57, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I have given other editors plenty of time to reply. The title "Different points of view" summarises the general framework of the section. QuackGuru (talk) 02:23, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I restored the section title "Different points of view". QuackGuru (talk) 00:19, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I restored the section title "Different points of view" but it was removed again without any reason. QuackGuru (talk) 19:07, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be consensus for renaming the section. I propose "Different points of view" again. QuackGuru (talk) 17:40, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I do see support for renaming the section and you have not suggested any other section name that would be better. You repeatedly removed it without discussion. What is your objection to it. Do you have a better name. QuackGuru (talk) 18:00, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Again, it's the repetitive, badgering style that is as (if not more) disruptive than the reverts. It is impossible to have anything like a normal consensus discussion with him since he simply doesn't respond to the arguments or comments people make - he simply steamrolls ahead with his original thought.

Normally these kinds of problems would be handled on talk page discussions or in dispute resolution procedures, but QuackGuru has not participated in any of the dispute resolution efforts (Wikiquette and RFC/U) that have named him. He rarely even responds when his name gets called up at ANI. As far as his talk page goes, QuackGuru rarely posts to his own talk page and deletes almost all comments posted there on sight, often without a meaningful edit summary response. Many of the more recent deleted comments were requests from editors working on NPOV, asking him to explain some point he made, participate in a discussion, refrain from reverting material without discussion, or (most currently) that he has been mentioned at ANI.

Now I would normally grant QuackGuru a certain amount of leeway, but I've come around to suggesting a site ban on the following considerations:

He has evidenced the same general kind of disruptive behavior since he began at the project 3 years ago.
He refuses to acknowledge that he has any problematic behavior, despite being called into numerous administrative threads.
He explicitly avoids every arena or mode of communication that might lead to him changing his behavior.

Wikipedia is ostensibly a consensus system: we cannot afford to indefinitely indulge an editor who simply does not (for whatever reason) engage the particular kinds of communication and interaction that a consensus system needs to function. I don't see any recourse other than a ban at this point, if only to preserve the sanity of the editors who un across him.

I've talked a bit to long, my apologies (though I'm sure others will have more to say on the matter). --Ludwigs2 02:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support Incredibly disruptive editor; huge net negative to the project. access_denied (talk) 02:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support - This time, QuackGuru has gone too far with his latest antics. His unwilling to respond to good faith community concerns and his disruptive editing at Wikipedia cannot be tolerated at this point and he has exhausted our patience with the community. So, with that said, enough is enough. Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 02:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose As ever, draconian solutions do not work. In the case at hand, the friction between two editors is quite insufficient to warrant such actions in any case. And in some cases the diffs provided reflect well on QG to be sure. As for broad statements, WP works better with diffs than with broad assertions about editors. Collect (talk) 02:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am someone who has been in quite a few conflicts with QG, found their manner exasperatingly difficult, their talkpage practices undesirable and the robustness of their tendency to edit-war dispiriting. However, major issues with this editor have only been raised on these boards in the past few days, and like any good faith contributor they deserve a chance to respond to concerns. IF that response is inadequate, then sanctions may be appropriate, but to jump straight from ANI to ban in the case of an editor who has contributed much to the project is unacceptable. Oppose as premature. Skomorokh 02:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So your objection is primarily, if not purely, procedural? That is, in your opinion, QG has probably earned a community ban, but you oppose imposing it here and now, on the grounds that the usual 24-hour discussion here won't be enough time for QG to respond (although it was apparently enough for other long-time contributors, like Gavin.collins, who had a very similar length of tenure and very similar number of total edits)?
Do you think that spending a month bickering about it at an RFC/U would actually help the community somehow? Or that a serious sit-down and talking-to would dramatically change QG's goals, social skills, and overall behavior? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, that has very little resemblance at all to what I wrote. Skomorokh

Well, tell me where the difference is. I see you calling QG's behavior "difficult", "undesirable", and "dispiriting". You acknowledge a serious and sustained level of edit warring. You don't say a single positive word about QG's behavior: no claims of mitigating circumstances and no assertions of good work done elsewhere. The closest you come to a positive statement is saying that he's a high-volume editor. Your sole stated reason for opposition is procedural—"jump straight from ANI to ban"—and you appear to believe that some sort of sanctions are "appropriate" (although you would naturally prefer reform).
I realize that you wrapped it up in much more pleasant language, but what's the substantive difference between your pretty version and my plain version? Do you secretly think QG is a really good editor and a clearly positive contributor to the community, but you just forgot to mention it here? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Skomorokh - I've pretty much outlined why I brought this to community ban, above. QuackGuru has had several opportunities to justify his actions, and has ostentatiously refused to do so. My current opinion is this: If QG comes to this discussion and participates properly and fully (either justifying his behavior or admitting that it is flawed) then I would be happy to see him get a short topic ban and some mentoring. If QG refuses to participate in this discussion (as he's refused to participate in RFC/U and Wikiquette) then to my mind a full site ban is the only possible remedy. If his respect for the community is that low, then he loses whatever benefit of the doubt we might be inclined to give him. would that be an acceptable criteria for you? --Ludwigs2 03:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral leaning to support There have been a lot of problems with QuackGuru and his editing of Jimmy Wales/Larry Sanger. Honestly, if the subjects weren't closely associated with Wikipedia he probably would have been blocked indefinitely for some of his actions there, but no one wants to be seen as silencing criticism of Wikipedia. If he's unable or unwilling to communicate with editors who have legitimate problems with him by deleting messages and not responding on boards in Wikipedia space, perhaps this isn't the project for him. Some sort of sanctions are necessary here, but I'm not sure a community ban is appropriate right now, but honestly... it will likely happen one day. He's fairly awful about working well with others. AniMate 02:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've been involved in numerous conversations with QG related to Chiropractic, Pseudoscience, NPOV, and MEDRS. I haven't found them pleasant, and sometimes he leans towards being badgering [21] [22], taunting [23] [24] [25], or even deceptive [26]. He's also sometimes right, but he makes it very difficult to see through everything else. I think that despite the frequent displeasure he causes, a community ban would be a step too far. He is already under scrutiny of past arbitration cases, but one solution could be a three to six month topic ban on anything related to Pseudoscience, Chiropractic, Stephen Barret, and perhaps Policy pages. Other solutions could include a 1rr condition, a 'no claiming consensus condition', a 'no accusing editors of violating policy' condition, a 'no clearing your talk page condition' or anything that might encourage more civil discussion. I regret that my interactions with him biased me considerably towards other scientific/skeptical editors, but I have found that even many of them don't appreciate his style. With that, it seems like QGs contributions to the important area of improving reliability at alt-med articles may be overstated. If even editors who generally share his concerns are avoiding discussions where he participates, I don't see how his efforts are being helpful. It's not the lack of civility that is a problem, though, it's the lack of discussion. By asserting his stance as correct and barreling ahead with it, battle lines are drawn where instead there could be discourse. If I've taken the bait on that, it's been mainly to stop him from just running roughshod over articles. I do think QG has sincere intentions to advance the status of science and deprecate the status of pseudoscience--yet he brings that conviction to a head as if other editors are enemies if they don't automatically agree; and this makes enemies. Those are my thoughts so far. I won't pile on, but I will suggest that something be done, because if it's not I can't see how a) things will stop or b) it won't lead to a community ban later. Ocaasi (talk) 02:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I will abstain from supporting the ban because I have been involved with so many disputes with QG. However, I do support some sort of action if it can lead to the cessation of the tactics that QG uses. I have no problem with not seeing eye-to-eye with other editors, but QG's editing style is clearly tendentious, and makes for a hostile editing environment. There IS an issue here that needs to be resolved. DigitalC (talk) 03:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support. From the list of sample responses and the threadstarter's case, I think QG's done his time as an editor. He is incapable of decently working with anybody and his ignorance of consensus plus those feigning-ignorance-cum-dumbness answers indicate defiance. I would probably be as incensed as the other editors here if he messed around in the article I work in. --Eaglestorm (talk) 04:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose as premature WP:Requests for comment/QuackGuru 2 is still a redlink (the last request was thee years ago). So too is WP:Requests for comment/Ludwigs2 despite almost daily instances of incivility. [27][28][29] (See also Necessary Evil.) Mathsci (talk) 04:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - I am concerned that Ludwigs2 may have been in repeated editorial conflicts with Quackguru. I would prefer that somebody with a more objective point of view consider decide whether such a proposal makes sense. I am worried that diffs have been cherry picked and do not provide a fair sampling of Quackguru's work. Also, the volume of evidence posted here is WP:TLDR, unlikely to get serious and thoughtful consideration in this venue, which tends to be better at dealing with clearcut issues. Quackguru seems to have taken my advice not to blank their talkpage. That is a sign that the editor might be willing to listen to reason. Jehochman ^Talk 05:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. No, it's not a sign of improvement. On the contrary. It just means he's being careful because he's under observation. That's typical of him and doesn't indicate any improvement, but rather sneakiness. Not long after the ruckus is over he'll be back at the same behaviors. That's his typical MO and there is nothing to indicate he's changed his MO. He isn't communicating, and that too is his typical MO. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support. He runs in circles on article talk pages with endless repetition and IDHT behavior. He's an expert at stonewalling. Discussion on article talk pages doesn't help because he just makes edits in spite of objections and then claims consensus where there is none and uses reverting all the time. Appeals and warnings on his talk page (since nothing works on article talk pages) are deleted with no visible change in his behavior. His block log is huge, but his methods of disruption are so complicated that it's often hard to pin him down to a particularly grossly blockable offense, but his behavior is still very disruptive and his lack of communication removes an important possibility for helping him and dealing with him. It's time to cut our losses. He's not worth it. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, very premature. I seem to be in perfect agreement with Jehochman and Mathsci, who have put it perfectly well. NW (Talk) 05:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per Jehochman & Mathsci. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (but a topic ban from "Jimbo Wales / Larry Sanger" could be good, to stop all those bitter recurrent fights about founder/co-founder). When I saw the section title, I inmediately knew that it had been done by Ludwigs, who has had many conflicts with QuackGuru. A user RfC on either QG or Ludwigs could clarify the situation. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I value QG editing in several lemmata I have on my watchlist. He keeps them in line with science and academia, removing promotional and bias additions. Chartinael (talk) 09:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I guess it's time for a user RfC on QG. I am not optimistic at all: In my opinion such an RfC can only end in a clarification of the situation and possibly some restrictions for QG, but is extremely unlikely to lead to any helpful change in his behaviour. That's why I don't oppose this ban proposal. But I am not sufficiently sure that my assessment is correct to support the proposal. Hans Adler 10:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I am in opposition to this ban since the conditions for behavioral improvement are not being discussed by the individuals clamoring for the ban. QG, in my opinion, has been battle-worn by a string of extremely contentious battles including some that have resulted in sanctions against myself. I have a lot of sympathy for his stand-offish-ness and his edits are all, in my opinion, sound. Contrary to the stated opinions of some, QG does engage in discussion, but he has a very low tolerance for the kind of TL;DR litanies that pass for discourse here at Wikipedia. It is also simply not true that he cannot be swayed by consensus or by discussion. It doesn't lend itself to diffs because QG indicates his agreement through WP:SILENCE more often than not. His style is markedly different from a lot of the other editors who are opposing him here, and I think that there is more of a cultural opposition being made here as a case for banning. We need to tease out what the problematic behaviors are precisely and indicate how many of them are behaviors that need modifying. To pick a relatively recent example, it's pretty clear there is no consensus for forcing QG to not blank his talkpage. I'd continue to analyze the evidence presented by Ludwigs, but I don't think this is the correct venue. A more structured place where community discussion can occur about these matters would be better. I think Wikipedia can tolerate and should tolerate editors with QG's style when their edits are of the caliber of QG's. This may place me in the minority, but we really need to present all sides of this ongoing issue fairly and completely before rushing for banhammers. jps (talk) 15:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- That's an interesting comment. It made me understand better what it is I don't like about the talk page blanking: When an editor simply removes my message without comment, I consider this rude in general and have to force myself to assume that it's just a very different communication style rather than intentional rudeness. (To make this explicit: Some people tend not to respond with words even in personal interactions. But there is always a non-verbal response that allows others to discern their mood. In a wiki this information is filtered out, and the lack of a verbal response tends to create aggression.) If the same user also has the obviously rude habit of keeping to untenable positions against a consensus for ages and never conceding a point explicitly, then I find it even harder to assume good faith when the user removes a message without a response. Such a user just looks like one of those losers who attack others but are incapable of thinking of themselves as anything but perfect. This type of ~~user~~ behaviour is poison to an environment that is built on consensus-seeking. Hans Adler 22:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Your disapproval of a particular style is understandable, but is it really something we should be basing a sanction on? Describing an editor as "poisonous" for letting matters drop and blanking their talkpage just seems a bit over-the-top to me. jps (talk) 23:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - I didn't !vote for a sanction. This was an open-ended contribution to an analysis of the problem. I have changed a word to make it clear that my comment was targeted at the behaviour. Obviously I would have no issues with QG if he managed to change that. Hans Adler 08:17, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, leaning toward support. I feel reluctant to support completely because I've had very little to do with QuackGuru. It's true that my every encounter with him has seen him serial reverting, insulting editors, engaging in IDHT, violating BLP, and trying to change the core content policies to aid him in his edit wars. Based on that behavior alone I do think he should be community banned. But I'm wondering if there's better behavior elsewhere that I'm not familiar with. If he's not banned, we should enforce the suggestion of the 2007 Wikipedia:Requests for comment/QuackGuru that he be topic banned from articles about Wikipedia, including its policies. His editing of Jimmy Wales has been problematic, and he has made more edits to it (385) than anyone else, which we shouldn't have allowed to happen. In addition, he should be topic banned from chiropractic, pseudoscience, medical articles, and anything related; required to leave posts on his talk page for a minimum period; placed on 1RR in general; and it should be made clear to him that this is his last chance. That is, if we can find admins willing to enforce these restrictions. If not, a community ban might be the only practical alternative. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 15:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I understand SlimVirgin here and tend to support this as an option if this ban proposal doesn't work. It would be a shame if this proposal were a total waste of time and we turned to a huge time waster, an RfC/U. We could solve this right now if we adopted SV's proposals, and one more thing - forced adoption by an experienced admin. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Agree with SlimVirgin. But it should be time-limited and a note defining the restrictions should be added to his user and talk page. Kittybrewster ☎ 17:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. It would be more convincing if evidence and views were supplied in dispute resolution (WP:Requests for comment/QuackGuru 2) in lieu of allegations and proposals being supplied here. Should the evidence support the allegations, and issues persist after comments to that effect, that's when it's time to come here looking for action - not now. Conduct dispute resolution is not normally absolutely necessary if there is tendentious editing involved, but (a) the user has been editing here since late 2006 and (b) if it has been an ongoing problem and it is continuing (as is being alleged), then we need to understand why the user was allowed to edit for this long. For that, we need evidence, responses and views. Accordingly, I think a better opportunity needs to be presented for the user to respond to the concerns and better attempts need to be made to resolve the current dispute. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have been involved with the project since 2007 and registered a username in early 2008. Since 2008 I first became aware of Quackguru, and have continued to come into editorial conflict with him since. I can tell you that while it has been an ongoing problem, it is also a problem that has gotten worse with time. If you look at his lengthy block log, you will see he has been blocked several times for disruptive editing. In my opinion, the behaviours that I have observed most recently that are problematic are IDHT violations (repeating himself over & over without taking any consideration to other editors input), problems with consensus, and attempting to edit policy to suit his editing style (see WP:NPOV/WP:ASF). On the other hand, I have not been very active in the project recently, so I'm sure others can better supply diffs of recent problematic behaviour. DigitalC (talk) 19:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support - as per SlimVirgin's comments. Off2riorob (talk) 16:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support with some caveats. I would have strongly preferred that this had gone from AN/I to RfC/U, rather than to here, as consensus at AN/I (and previously at WQA) had indicated. In some ways, this ban discussion is the "right" conclusion but jumping the gun. Perhaps we should institute topic bans and 1RR, as discussed above, pending an RfC/U. I've read Ludwigs' evidence at the top, and I believe it to be accurate, based on my own experiences at some of the policy pages involved. I think there has been some incorrect reading of bad faith into the opening post, when in fact it may have just been tl;dr. Yes, these are areas where editing has been contentious, but there are some real issues with QG's manner of editing. I think that it comes down to a matter of WP:COMPETENCE. It's not the talk page blanking. It's the apparent inability to engage usefully with other editors. There's a net minus to the project when an editor literally does not "hear that". --Tryptofish (talk) 19:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support There's been an RFC/U, a proposed article ban, a proposed topic ban from 2008, and a community ban proposal from 2007. 2007! He's been at this for more than four years with little to no interest in participation with other editors. This is way, way overdue. - Krakatoa Katie 22:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I don't believe we've reached the point where we can't tolerate editors expressing an opposing point of view. I have found myself at times disagreeing with QG (for example at WT:Neutral point of view/Archive 43#Definition of fact) and at other times agreeing with him. Looking at the archive I cited, you can see that he displayed the ability to accept points made to him, and to accept consensus on changes while still seeking to improve the text. I can understand (though I don't endorse) his frustration when faced with changes to text, effectively closing the debate, while discussions were still going on to establish consensus. In the same way, I found it frustrating to try to find consensus with Ludwigs in this (lengthy) debate where the WP:ASF was removed from NPOV against objections WT:Neutral point of view/Archive 43#'equal validity' section. It's not easy trying to make a case when Ludwigs is calling me "Dude" and pointing out what he calls his "pit bull attitude", while ignoring the points made. I'm not surprised therefore that QG and Ludwigs would have issues with each other. Sadly, an uninvolved observer would have to read through WT:Neutral point of view/Archive 43 and WT:Neutral point of view/Archive 44 to get a full picture of the problematical interactions that Ludwigs adduces as part of his initial statement. Nevertheless, I view all of this as robust debate and simply don't see the need for sanctioning either editor. I'm sure both of them would benefit from someone they respected "looking over their shoulder" to kerb any excesses, but I guess we'd all benefit from that. Finally, I'd like to express my disappointment (but nothing more) that Ludwigs failed to notify me of this thread, even though he named my in his initial statement. --RexxS (talk) 00:30, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ludwigs2 prior involvement with Quackguru

Ludwigs2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I am concerned that Ludwigs2 might have "a history" in their dealings with Quackguru.[30] Ludwigs2, would you please summarize when you first became aware of Quackguru, and list any specific instances where you've been in editorial conflict with them? Jehochman ^Talk 05:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would certainly hope that Ludwigs2 had prior involvement, otherwise he wouldn't know what's this is really about. It is the involved editors that are most qualified to speak on this matter. Those uninvolved don't really understand what's going on. The very existence of this subsection seems to be an improper poisoning of the well. I suggest you take it to Ludwigs2's talk page. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately this is the second recent campaign of this kind by Ludwigs2 against another user. The last one concerned Ronz (talk · contribs) across multiple noticeboards, notably Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Problem on BLP noticeboard. At that stage, the request also concerned QuackGuru at the start, but those commenting over quite a prolonged period concentrated all their attention on Ronz. Now QuackGuru is back on Ludwigs2's agenda for a whole set of different reasons. Note that I am not disagreeing that QuackGuru's editing is quirky and many times quite unhelpful, but it would be preferable to see nuanced critiques by a set of editors in a calmly conducted RfC/U. Mathsci (talk) 07:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I am forgetting something, the only other time I had any significant interaction with QuackGuru (outside of the issue with NPOV) was the last time I edited on QuackWatch back in late 2007, perhaps. I have occasionally passed him on this page or that (never a particularly joyful experience, but without any overt hostility that I remember). The last such time was a couple of brief comments he made on Weston Price, but that was mostly an outgrowth of the NPOV issue, not a separate incident.

I'll also point out that as the person who opened this request, I don't need to be uninvolved or neutral (any more than QG needed to be uninvolved or neutral when he made his far more specious ANI report about me here). I simply need to express the problem that I see as clearly as possible and leave it up for discussion by the community. If you'd like to try to make a case that I have some kind of 'history' with QuackGuru that makes this an inordinate request, please feel free. I'll be interested to see what you come up with.

That being said, I'll make the same observation I made to you over on QuackGuru's talk page. If you were to offer to mentor him and he were to publicly accept, that would satisfy me and I would withdraw this discussion. I think that would be a far more productive use of your time and effort than trying to dig up dirty diffs on me, and I think everyone recognizes that QG needs a good mentor if he's going to continue editing on project. Your choice, of course... --Ludwigs2 07:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

P.s. lol - Mathsci... You I have a prior involvement with, so we can hardly credit your perspective as neutral. --Ludwigs2 07:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You two keep editing in the same disputes: 3RR report from September 2008, March 2010 discussion, October 2010 discussion, and you reported him for etiquette in October 2010. Specially the November 2010 disagreement on WP:MEDRS where you bring up past disagreements at QuackWatch[31].

And everybody knows that you two are ~~like water and fire~~ like oxygen and fire. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, I've crossed paths with him here or there. what's your point? I don't know what 'everybody knows', and I don't really much care what the rumor mill has to say about me. is this your idea of a smoking gun? --Ludwigs2 14:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Politically, it wasn't a particularly good idea of Ludwigs2 to start this discussion: for some reason almost every discussion he starts on AN or ANI is quickly turned into a discussion about himself. But this does not change the fact that QuackGuru's activities do present a problem, and that it appears extremely unlikely that the problem can be solved by an RfC/U. (My impression is that QG is simply no capable of rational thought, but this may be just an impression, caused by language difficulties or similar issues.) By the way, this is not just a fringe issue. See Talk:Citizendium#editorializing? for a strange discussion completely unrelated to fringe. As far as I remember that one also made a big splash on noticeboards and led to conflicts between QG and others on some policy talk page. (Perhaps someone remembers the details?) Hans Adler 08:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This section is stupid. Of course Ludwigs2 has had past interactions with QuackGuru, otherwise he wouldn't be initiating this conversation. If someone wants to discuss Ludwigs2, by all means do so. AniMate 10:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That would be fine with me. However, if someone chooses to go that route, please close this thread and open a separate one. As of now this sub-thread could be interpreted as an effort to distract attention away from QG's well-known problematic behavior. it would be best to keep discussions of the two issues (his behavior and mine) distinct. --Ludwigs2 14:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

2007? Try March 2009 on Quackwatch talk page. Each appears more than ready to make uncivil comments about the other. Trout them both mercilessly. Collect (talk) 11:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

I think we have a situation where an editorial battle is now being fought via noticeboard complaints and a ban proposal. I don't see a clear consensus above. Perhaps this entire matter ought to be submitted to arbitration for a close review of the editing of Quackguru and Ludwigs2. Ludwigs2 has not been especially thorough about declaring their past conflicts with QG, instead minimizing and omitting relevant details such as the prior noticeboard complaints cited by Mathsci, 3RR report from September 2008, March 2010 discussion, October 2010 discussion, and etiquette in October 2010, and November 2010 disagreement on WP:MEDRS. Jehochman ^Talk 15:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see. so, instead of taking me up on my suggestion that you mentor QuackGuru (which you would be admirably suited for, and which would resolve the entire issue), you've decided it would be better to make this more contentious and more focused on me. That makes me believe that you're acting out on some 'history' that you have with respect to me rather than assessing the situation with the objectivity one expects of a sysop. Can you clarify why you're zeroing in on me with quite such a degree of prejudice? Again, if you'd like to start a separate thread on my behavior, please feel free - I am always open to valid critiques. But if you don't actually have a clear, specific complaint against me that we can discuss, I request that you stop polluting this thread with vapid insinuations. It will play out as it plays out, and the community can discuss the matter more easily without you trying to get in your licks for some perceived wrong that I don't even remember. Thanks. --Ludwigs2 16:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think there is a real issue here. If it were just a matter of QuackGuru coming into conflict with people who inappropriately promote fringe ideas or nonsense, then I'd be inclined to latitude, or at least sympathy. But I've seen QuackGuru wear out too many good editors, people who are solid, constructive, thoughtful editors who work to make this site a serious, respectable reference work. Basically, if you disagree with him on a content issue, however small, you will be in for a very frustrating ride.

The talk-page blanking is annoying but within the bounds of policy. To me, the most problematic behavior is edit-warring, and so I personally would advocate a 1RR restriction rather than topic- or site-bans at this point. But that's just me. I recognize that at present there does not seem to be consensus to impose any sort of restriction on QuackGuru, but I also think that the problem is bigger than just a fight between QuackGuru and Ludwigs2. MastCell ^Talk 17:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If possible, can you point to the good editors QG wore out? jps (talk) 17:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I had in mind Jfdwolff (talk · contribs) and Eubulides (talk · contribs) - arguably the two best medical writers we have, and both invaluable in the effort to produce high-quality, nonsense-free, useful medical content. I've seen both of them beat their heads against the wall dealing with QuackGuru (though I should stress that is my perspective as an observer, and not based on comments from them, as I don't want to put words or views in their mouths). I don't their cases are isolated, but they're the two examples that came to mind immediately. MastCell ^Talk 21:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was not aware of these issues. If you could get them to articulate their concerns, I'd appreciate it. jps (talk) 22:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, at Talk:Citizendium#Won't someone please think of the article? you can see how David Gerard and SlimVirgin were about to fix an article between them, and then gave up after QuackGuru made it clear that he is the owner. Hans Adler 21:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. A good, recent example of the type of stone-walling techniques employed by QG. I don't know how editors can read that talk page and not see problematic behaviour. DigitalC (talk) 22:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Count me as one of those editors who don't see problematic behavior there. It reads to me like QG is asking for SV and DG to make substantive suggestions for how to change things and criticized a questionable source. That's a pretty vanilla interaction and doesn't, to me, look sanctionable. Am I missing something? jps (talk) 22:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@jps - I'll point out the things I see wrong with this interaction (which I hadn't seen until now). both are typical forms of i nteraction with QG, which can be seen on many, many pages

First: QG makes generic policy claims without substantiating them. for example, in the first section of the linked thread (first indent-block), QG starts out with a claim that some of the sources don't satisfy wp:SPS and that secondary sources should be used. his language is a little confused, but in general that's a valid concern to be raised. however, over the next few posts, where SV tries to tries to find out in what way specifically SPS is violated, QG consistently responds tangentially and reasserts the generic policy claim:

Slim points out that self-published sources can be used in some cases, QG responds that 'Random comments on a board is (sic) not reliable' and reasserts the secondary source point
SV brings up a specific source (pointing out that it is a CZ council member making an official CZ announcement, and QG responds 'Did a CZ editor make a comment or was it self-published by CZ'
SV states again that it was a council member making an official announcement, and QG responds 'This is not an article on a CZ council member or a particular CZ person. So it's not reliable for this article".

Now clearly QG is trying to dismiss the source by casting it as an unreliable blog entry, but the frustrating elements of this are (1) that he never actually says that's what he's wanting to do (he simply waves his finger at policy in an authoritative way without much in the way of explanation), and (2) he refuses to engage the very reasonable point that this was an official statement by a CZ official. That's a bit like claiming the State of the Union address is not a reliable source for the current administration's policies because it's just television thing, and one would expect QG to put some effort into discussing the claim.

Second: Despite this vagueness of his own policy claims, QG's standard response to actions that he opposes is to claim that it is not specific enough, but then instead of asking for more specific clarification, he demands that it be undone or stopped. note his three comments in the second indent-block: "Vague comments about structure is really sensible?", "You have not given specific enough comments.", "It would be more productive if you tried to explain what you are proposing rather than continuing to make vague comments.". I've never myself seen him accept any explanation as sufficient, and I know he can go on like that for days on end.

The problem with this - aside from the double standard of demanding specific explanations while offering vague finger-waving - is that it is (intentionally or not) a tactic that frustrates other editors, rather than a productive form of discussion. I don't know if you have kids, but if you do you'll live (or will have lived) with this frustration for years: children often speaks in vague circularities, stubbornly refuse to discuss things that likely won't go their way, make excessively angry repetitive demands when they feel frustrated, break rules they don't like by using exasperatingly literal nitpicking. We put up with that kind of thing from children because we know that children don't know any better; when we have to put up with it from adults it's crazy-making. I assume that QG is older than 14 (though I could be wrong, you never know...); if so there's no real excuse for this impoverished form of communication, and it's just a hassle and a half.

In the long run we need to decide as a project whether we are going to aim for high-level interactions or allow discussions to fall to the lowest common denominator on any given article. It only takes one editor arguing at the level of an 8 year old to reduce an entire discussion to 8 year old standards, and that makes for crappy discussions and crappy articles. If we're going to aim high, it's important that we do something to encourage editors like QG to adopt a higher level of discourse. --Ludwigs2 01:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Having watched a significant amount of the conflicts here, I really don't think it's accurate to describe what is happening as "an editorial battle is now being fought via noticeboard complaints". I would have preferred an RfC/U over a ban discussion at this step, however. I'll elaborate on these points above, but wanted to note my concern about this "summary" here. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
After looking at the discussion linked by Hans, Talk:Citizendium#editorializing.3F I agree with Tryptofish's assessment of this so called "summary". How about changing the heading from "Summary" to "Comment" or something else that is more subjective in nature? Mentoring doesn't seem like a bad idea to me given the pedantic nature of QG edits in the above linked discussion.Griswaldo (talk) 20:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with MastCell's analysis and proposed remedy. Is it known why Eubulides, one of the most skilled medical editors, stopped editing wikipedia in March 2010? Mathsci (talk) 22:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My impression is that he invested far too much time and personal attachment into WP:ALT and pretty much burned out. Conflict and the effort to try to get/keep ALT adopted in the form he envisioned as a requirement for our best articles probably sealed it. --RexxS (talk) 23:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I know that Quackguru definitely wore me out during a discussion that happened on the Chiropractic talk page back in August. It starts here, but the main section where I got involved is here. And it didn't help when he followed me onto my talk page. Silverseren^C 03:36, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Steve Benson (cartoonist)

Resolved

– edits suppressed - Alison ^❤ 07:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oversight needed for long-term vandalism, several offensive edits exist in the history. The BLP was not in acceptable shape before it got cleaned up and semi-protected in response to an AFD today. I've added it to my watchlist, but so should some editors more active than me. THF (talk) 04:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't post oversight requests in public fora; WP:RFO. Skomorokh 04:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. Nothing in RFO says not to make a general request on WP:AN, and I specifically did not repeat any problematic information. If there's an additional unwritten rule that one isn't supposed to post to WP:AN, it should become a written rule somewhere so casual editors like me don't make the mistake of relying upon three-year-old procedures. THF (talk) 14:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Working on it. A complaint has been posted to OTRS and is being actively addressed - Alison ^❤ 07:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Community ban proposal: Benjiboi

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

Resolved

– Benjiboi is banned --

Propose community ban for Benjiboi (the person, not just the account), based on:

Cla68 (talk) 06:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Paid editor and pornography promoter who was enabled for far too long here by the guileless. What's really needed is periodic check users. I see ol benji was also seeking to confound the development of paid-editing guidelines via his socks. I wonder why that might be? At any rate, it rather drives home the point why they shouldn't be tolerated.Bali ultimate (talk) 11:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ya; needs to do the get-useful-on-non-en:wp-WMF-projects thing for at least six months per WP:OFFER. Jack Merridew 12:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support ban, a no-brainer. And no, no "standard offer", at least not such a simple one. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I did tweak it yesterday. I'm thinking on the order of 10,000 useful edits, elsewhere. That's the 'new' std offer. Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Now I understand more about some of the harm I've seen done through time to some of those topic areas. Hopefully a reminder to editors that the project is laced with this kind of sockpuppetry and that it does sway content in meaningful ways. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, makes sense. pablo 12:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Not that a ban will make him change his ways, but this is long overdue. AD 13:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - As one of the primary targets of attacks from Benjiboi's sockpuppets and IP edits, I support this community ban but have no expectation that the sockpuppetry will stop until a range block is put in place. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. as a mere editor. Disruptive behaviour. Kittybrewster ☎ 14:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - further, Jack Merridew is wrong (or I read him wrong). No standard offer in this case. Too disruptive, too unrepentant. We don't need any content from this contributor. ++Lar: t/c 15:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the 'ya' means I'm supporting banning Benjiboi. And see the tweak to OFFER; I believe it needs to shift to a solid expectation of significant work elsewhere. It worked for me, and should be available to others. Benjiboi certainly doesn't seem about to shift gears, so I won't be holding my breath; this is unimpressive: s:Special:Contributions/Benjiboi. Mebbe in six months; mebbe in sixteen months. Or we have a pattern of long-term abuse and and socking from the former King of the ARS. As you know, I have had significant concerns about Benjiboi's approach to gay porn BLP; I've not looked at the paid editing concerns (which are troubling). Fut.Perf.'s right that any return will not be at all simple; restrictions may apply ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 22:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I thought he was one already....has been abusing WP:RS and WP:COI for far too long. We don't need users like this.--Scott Mac 15:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Very reluctant Support: Benji and I always worked together well and I was glad to see someone working in a difficult area (LGBT articles), but this amount of sockpuppetry and unrepentance can't be overlooked. :( - Neutralhomer • Talk • 15:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. — $Jeff G. ツ$ 15:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Keeping in mind they were blocked indefinitely on December 8 for socking. Soundvisions1 (talk) 15:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support- as per User:Bali ultimate. - Off2riorob (talk) 16:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support- nuke from orbit. Syrthiss (talk) 16:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - very, very disappointing Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. -- Alexf^(talk) 21:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I took a very long break, came back, and he's still at this? Talk about a long-term problem in need of a solution. - Krakatoa Katie 21:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Agenda account with persistent WP:BLP problems. Should have been banned ages ago. Guy (Help!) 00:19, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is an example of why paid editing is incompatible with Wikipedia norms - it seems to lead inevitably to sock-puppetry. Will Beback talk 00:26, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, completely incompatible with the project. I couldn't support a return ever. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 00:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support per it "only took four years" for us to realize it. /ƒETCH COMMS / 01:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sadly but with the standard offer + tweaks in place. AniMate 03:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Far too interested in using Wikipedia to push their POV. Johnuniq (talk) 07:15, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support- long term sock puppeteer and POV-pusher. Good riddance. Reyk _YO! 09:24, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support; has been fairly problematic in the past and if it's reached this point, it's too late for him to change. Daniel Case (talk) 16:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I just read his comment on the archived SPI and I think he's trying to turn things around against Delicious Carbunkle, who made a strong case. MuzeMike, that's a lot of socks uncovered in one fell swoop! When an editor's created one sock too many, that's when you drop the banhammer. Benjiboi would probably be uncooperative off-wiki. Get him out of here. AND STAY OUT!--Eaglestorm (talk) 16:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 November 29#Category:Major League Baseball pinch hitters and Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 December 1#Category:Worst Picture Golden Raspberry Award winners

Would an admin (or admins) close Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 November 29#Category:Major League Baseball pinch hitters and Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 December 1#Category:Worst Picture Golden Raspberry Award winners? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 11:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WikiLeaks - should we have a hatnote clarifying there is no association between WikiLeaks and Wikipedia?

Just wondered if I could get some more people to weigh in on this discussion. Thanks. --Dorsal Axe 11:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's also Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Main_page_disclaimer. Can't see that happening in a month of Sundays, but there it is. Rd232 ^talk 12:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sitenotice might do the trick. It's not intrusive enough to violate guidelines/policies yet it clarifies any misinformed users. How does that sound? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We get maybe a few tens of emails about this per day. It is not actually that large a number. Guy (Help!) 00:18, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, this is the lower-end of the stats since some people won't be emailing us on this. If we follow the 80/20 rule, that means around 80% of the people are misinformed and didn't contact us for clarification. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki_talk:Sitenotice#Wikileaks. Rd232 ^talk 13:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rich Farmbrough

Note: this discussion was moved to ANI against the express wishes of its initiator, which didn't help its productiveness. Comments made at ANI addressing the substantive issue have been moved here. Rd232 ^talk 13:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Per User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#Smack_bot_complaint and much previous, it is apparent that enforcement of the Wikipedia:Editing restrictions placed on Rich (per this) are not working; even though I blocked him for 24 hours a couple of weeks ago for violating them, issues continue, and Rich appears increasingly resistant to taking them seriously. I have drifted unofficially into monitoring the restrictions, and at this point I feel it needs wider discussion (again). Obviously it is difficult to deal with an issue with such a prolific contributor - nobody wants to lose the vast stacks of very necessary edits made. But it's well established that good contributions don't excuse poor behaviour, and the plentiful slack Rich has had in sorting things out so that the restrictions are properly respected is surely exhausted; besides which he's now calling an editor a "troll".

So - what to do? Set a deadline for full compliance? Mentoring? Someone to look at his code? Adjust the restrictions (if Rich has a suggestion)? Give up on the restrictions and let him do what he thinks is best? Something else? Rd232 ^talk 00:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lets clarify that these were not so much errors as they were a difference of opinion. Whats in debate here I believe is Rich performing insignficant edits using his main account and his bot via AWB. These edits include removing spaces and changing some lower case characters to upper case. While these are unnecessary and insignificant they are not errors per say. Some editors feel that he and his bot should operate in a flawless manner and everytime he strays and does one of these there are 2 or three editors that bombard his talk page. Although I agree that some of his edits are not needed I also don't believe they are inherently harmful and the majority of the time his edits are ok. The editors also noted that they find it annoying when their watchlists fill up with these insignificant edits. As I mentioned to them, I can understand their logic on the difference of opinion edits but I am not concerned with the filling up of watchlists and this is not a good argument. --Kumioko (talk) 01:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

R.F. is certainly aware that he has an edit restriction about this. It's boggling why he hasn't addressed the problem given the huge amount of scrutiny the bot has been receiving. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I ran into the same problems before Rd232. For a time I tried informing R.F. and blocking the bot when it went awry. After a while I gave up (perhaps I am not so sharp, and it took me too long), because R.F. simply didn't make a visible effort to keep the bot bug-free. Problems that were "fixed" would reoccur regularly. I have no intention of being involved in any administrative capacity with the bot again. However, I can confirm the pattern that Rd232 is seeing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You know full well, or should do, that it is only because of your insistence, that I am using a hacked version of AWB, which impacts on the latest fixes - and of course exacerbates other minor problems. And this is because you have a fixation with ref numbering that has I believe been dealt with off in some talk page. Keeping things simple is an engineering principle that seems to have passed many by. Rich Farmbrough, 01:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]

The AWB devs have explained to you how to use customized general fixes with the newest versions of AWB. Also it is possible to disable general fixes entirely. But the reordering is only one issue. The CURRENTMONTHAME bug occured over and over, and the ongoing problems with minor edits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't feel there are any bugs; SmackBot and Rich's AWB code seems to be largely working as intended. There are just some edits that certain editors dislike, and they are pestering Rich to stop because they hate the 'pollution' on their watchlists. Somehow, they managed to have editing restrictions imposed, but much lies in the grey area of how one operates AWB without making any inconsequential edits at all. If general fixes were considered unnecessary, those complaining ought to take it up with the developers to have these removed outright. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The developers have already put in place a system to allow AWB bot operators to disable individual general fixes. R.F. has simply not made use of it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Well thats partially true. You can disable general fixes as a whole and several other things like typos but the only way I know of (and this may be wrong) is to build a custom module that calls the individual fix. This is extremely difficult (although Rich knows how to do it im sure) and is honestly more effort than its worth. Its better to live with the occassional minor edit. --Kumioko (talk) 03:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very sad case these days. It's a shame, I'm sure most users will agree (even those who supported the restrictions, such as myself), how things have turned out. The problem was that some community members didn't want pointless edits such as redirection bypassing, whitespace modification, and other cosmetic changes. Rich largely gave the impression of not caring enough, and after a year or so of this, we finally got fed up, and imposed the restriction. IT was my hope that this would be enough so the Rich would see how the community felt about the whole issue, and begin making changes to his AWB code. I even pointed out a few problems to him after the restriction were imposed, and they were quickly fixed in a friendly manner. Unfortunately some seem to treat the restrictions slightly different from me, and prefer to use them almost as an excuse to block Smackbot/Rich, without giving him a chance to fix the problems. In some cases of course he is given a chance, so fair enough. Most of the time however he's not. I think many users see this as an "easy" fix, which should be done in one go for all the cosmetic changes. However, that's not the case, since Rich's rule set is inevitably very long and complicated. Compliance with the restrictions is going to take a long time, and I think if we all except that, and allow Rich to get on with it, so long as when concerns are raised about specific violation of the restrictions, they are dealt with. All that said, there do seem to be some problems, such as violations made from his main account when he should be manually reviewing the edits for violations himself. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As the originator of the complaint at User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#Smack_bot_complaint, I wasn't expecting this sort of escalation. In Rich's defence, he answered my (rather terse) complaint politely and to the point, promising to look into the problem and sort it out. I've seen no evidence of the problem repeating, so I'm happy to assume he's solved it. I really can't see how he could have been more responsive and helpful. --RexxS (talk) 00:56, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Substantive questions

OK, I see two substantive questions arising:

(i) how common are the errors? User:Fram stated he looks at 20-30 edits at a time and finds a number of errors; that seems too high a proportion.
(ii) how hard is it to fix coding so that it respects the restrictions a rather higher proportion of the time, if not perfectly?

These questions will help us decide what we should do. Some options for resolving this situation: Set a deadline for full compliance; Mentoring; Someone to look at his code; Adjust the restrictions (if Rich has a suggestion); Give up on the restrictions and let him do what he thinks is best; Something else. Rd232 ^talk 13:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, I am confused by the whole discussion. Are we having a discussion about sanctioning someone because they have a bot which bypasses redirects and clears out extra spaces? It would seem to me to be largely insignificant what he is doing, but what seems more disturbing is to actually care this much about someone else doing something insignificant. I do not remember the initial discussions, so pardon me for being a bit behind, but I have serious doubts that anything disruptive is being done here. Can someone clearly and succintly express how fixing articles, no matter how small or insignficant the fixes, represents disruptive activity? I am willing to also hear evidence that he has done something else disruptive. I am just perplexed by the desire to sanction a user whose worst behavior is being somewhat trivial in the fixes he does. --Jayron32 15:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AWB Rule 4: "Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits such as only adding or removing some white space, moving a stub tag, converting some HTML to Unicode, removing underscores from links (unless they are bad links), bypassing a redirect, or something equally trivial. This is because it wastes resources and clogs up watch lists." The desire is obviously not to sanction or frustrate a prolific editor, but to get him to respect this rule, which the editing restrictions were materially supposed to achieve. But clearly it isn't working, hence the range of options I suggested just above. Rd232 ^talk 17:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Having never used AWB (or anything except IE and my own keyboard) to make an edit at Wikipedia, I was unaware of the details of the rules to use it. My understanding is that AWB makes a whole bunch of changes in a single edit; are his uses of AWB to do things like only remove whitespace, or is he using AWB to correct spelling mistakes and stuff like that, and then removing whitespace as part of that edit? --Jayron32 18:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rd232, is this another instance of a special wiki-definition, in which "avoid" that means "absolutely do not ever do this under any circumstances" rather than "normally don't do this"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would have thought Rich's comment below, which your question postdates, obviates it. The issue isn't errors yes or no, it's error rates. Rd232 ^talk 20:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I keep referring to what is being done with the best will by various people as "tampering" - let me explain what I mean, in general terms then move to the specific. Tampering is a term popularised by the wonderfully named W. Edwards Deming, and refers in particular to research done which showed that the variation of output of an industrial process was in the main due to either of two sets causes, which could be characterised as natural variation and systemic variation. For example wood will behave differently when cut depending on grain, humidity, knots etc, that can be considered natural variation, whereas a mis-alignment of a saw blade would be a systemic variation. Research showed that managers would have a machine re-calibrated when it was performing within the bounds of natural variation - imagine pieces of wood being cut within +/- 0.5% natural variation and coming out for a few hours at +0.3 average. Realigining the blade to -0.3% might seem sensible but regression to the mean results in cuts outside the -0.5% variation, and possibly out of spec.

So with SmackBot's edits and my edits, the edits I made on the 24th September might be considered "out of spec" due to the volume and/or the case changing of in-line Cite templates (systemic). Reverting the rule change (which had been running for about 3 weeks with no complaints -by they bye) fixes the systemic problem. In terms of the issue of making watchlist entries with no category fix, the status quo ante bellum was that there were few or none. If I ran SmackBot against 1000 articles approximately 4 or 5 would still be in an undated category after the run, an "error rate" of about 0.5%. If I then fixed these manually,of course, the error rate would drop to 0%. Having said that there are numerous reasons documented in my FAQ why SB might either appear to or actually make no substantive change. Readers should familiarize themselves with these if they wish to have a full understanding of what is happening.

The result of the previous imbroglio was that:

A big category move occurred without anyone taking care of the dated category creation. This is a massive out-of-spec that totally threw the workflow for the rest of the month.
SB was stopped from running repeatedly, extensively and to little benefit.
The backlog of hard cases which I cleared down in September (resulting in me having the time to look at the other projects, which in turn resulted in the issues above) started to form again.
Work on SB's rule-set was stopped dead.
A substantial amount of what SB does was transferred to core AWB functionality and number of other tag dating agents, human and bot, started running or were proposed. This has resulted in a massive increase in virtual edit conflicts - tags being dated after SB lists the articles and before it edits them.

Net result, "error rate" is now up from zero or 0.5%, depending how you count, to approximately 10%. This is why I refer to tampering, no-one, I hope and beleive, set out to make things worse but that is what has happened, as a result of misguided attempts to make things better.

Given time SB's rules will catch up with the actual state of the article-space, but time is limited, and while I make fixes on the fly to current rule-sets to comply with the editing restriction, I have not had time to change much in the ruleset generators. Fixing hard articles and adding new templates is higher priority. Furthermore common sense is needed in applying the edit restrictions, which has been forthcoming in abundance from Rd232, bit not so much from other quarters. Rich Farmbrough, 19:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]

OK, thanks Rich, that's very helpful. So where do we go from here? Would some collaboration on fixing the ruleset be possible? I also vaguely have the feeling (had it before) that the workload weight on your shoulders is a bit too high. Perhaps some of these tasks could given to someone else? Ideally (perhaps) someone not already deeply involved with AWB/bot work (so risking loss of work elsewhere), but with good general tech skills and willing to learn from you. I could do it, for example, except RL issues prohibit taking on this sort of responsibility. Rd232 ^talk 20:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree when Rich Farmrbough states that "adding new templates is higher priority", e.g. the 731 templates of Category:Dictionary of National Biography contributor templates he created in October 2010 in less than two hours time, and which are since totally unused. Or the repeated attempts at automatic redirect creation of the last two months, which had a considerable error rate as well. You have every right to spend your time on Wikipedia on whichever project you prefer, but please then don't come complaining about your limited time a sa reason why those improvements to things people have been complaining about for months (e.g. User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2010Sep#Could you not capitalize citation template in the future? are not yet made. Fram (talk) 07:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WRT to the mass creation of templates which are afterwards not used, apparently Rich Farmbrough also created several thousand unused ISO code templates earlier this year. When confronted this week about these, he removed the speedy delete from Template:ISO 3166 code Saint Kitts And Nevis, which is a violation of the speedy deletion policy (The creator of a page may not remove a Speedy Delete tag from it.: bold in original), even though the concern seems completely justified (an unused duplicate of an existing template). This is an episode where I was not involved at all, so neither the deletion nomination nor the reaction to it have anything to do with any history Rich Farmbrough and I may have. It is just another, rather typical example of his reaction to criticism of his work, it seems. Fram (talk) 08:51, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes, I think there are some errors of judgement there, including a violation of Wikipedia:Bot policy#Mass article creation. But that doesn't seem to be an ongoing issue, except perhaps in the broader sense of trying to do too much. Does anyone have any comments on how to proceed? Any volunteers to work with Rich, for instance? Rd232 ^talk 09:07, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It has been my opinion for some time now that we would be better off without Rich's bots. I don't believe there is any other bot on Wikipedia which has as high an error rate or receives as many complaints as SmackBot. Rich has had more than enough time to sort out these errors but has failed to do so. Personally I would have preferred the editing restriction to have been far stricter and prevented any kind of automated editing, because I knew back then that the problem would not be resolved and that we would be having this discussion again. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:51, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Smackbot working properly, with a low enough error rate, is clearly an asset. The question is, how do we get there? It surely can't be impossible. Rd232 ^talk 12:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I for one still don't think that what Smackbot was doing was an error. Some of the edits were minor and perhaps uneeded but they weren't "in error". That is a matter of opinion and part of the problem I beleive. Case in point my watchlist just filled up with VWbot reverted a bunch of articles because its "assumed" that every edit someone made was copyvio. After I just reviewed about 20 ( I reverted a couple but Ill do more later ( I didn't see one that had information I would classify as a copyvio. Assumptions like this are "errors" in my opinion not deleting a few blank spaces. Although I will admit that I wasn't familiar with the cases of creating a bunch of uneeded templates and categories. --Kumioko (talk) 12:33, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well Smackbot isn't supposed to do that sort of thing, so if it does, by definition it's an error. One option, of course, is to define the problem away by saying "it's a feature, not a bug". Rd232 ^talk 13:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Smackbot working properly is never going to happen as long as it is operated by this user. After how ever many kilobytes of discussion, that much should at least be clear. If you stop this user operating bots, it won't be long before someone else steps up the challenge of coding a similar bot, and hopefully with a lot more success. As things stand, Smackbot is a net negative to the project. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So, this is new

Someone at the help desk pointed out COTS Demo Flight 1, which has a sparkly new reader feedback survey at the bottom. Anyone know where this came from, when it was implemented, who discussed it, etc., etc.? TNXMan 17:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, appears there is more info at mw:Article feedback/Public Policy Pilot. TNXMan 17:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Something to do with Category:Article Feedback Additional Articles I guess. Haven't seen anything around these parts about the scheme... The Rambling Man (talk) 17:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a list of articles in this initiative? The survey template was added to India, but there's no notification on the talk page to alert the regular editors of the page. —SpacemanSpiff 17:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have been unable to find any substantial discussion on en. about this. A heads-up would have been nice. TNXMan 17:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Earlier info was at Category:Article Feedback Pilot. David Biddulph (talk) 18:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The links from the above cat are helpful. According to mw:Article feedback/Public Policy Pilot/Additional Pages, the page I was referring to isn't part of either the original or subsequent additions to the pilot, and was incorrectly added in. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 18:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

COTS Demo Flight 1 is a redirect from Dragon COTS Demo Flight 1, which is listed. David Biddulph (talk) 18:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was talking about India, the other one was from Tnxman307. —SpacemanSpiff 18:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Article Feedback Pilot may be added to pages which are expected to undergo substantial expansion in the near future, and it's OK to add the AFP to a few pages that meet this criteria if they are then listed at mw:Article feedback/Public Policy Pilot/Additional Pages too, which helps keep track. /ƒETCH COMMS / 01:45, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

General treatment of blocked users' pages

(Inspired by several current events, but not directly related to them, so this noticeboard seems a reasonable place)

I'd like to see if I can gain consensus for stopping two things that I've seen done recently, almost always applied inconsistently, and I feel are detrimental to the project. Also, they're needlessly mean.

Could we agree to back off a little bit as admins from the meme that a blocked user's talk page is only for requesting an unblock, and the user should be re-blocked with no talk page access if they aren't actively seeking an unblock but are instead discussing other things? If he's abusing the unblock template (wasting the reviewers' time), insulting people right and left, giving instructions on how to wreak further havoc to his minions, or using it as a blog, that's one thing. But I think it's counterproductive to close it down otherwise, particularly when discussion is going on with other editors, but even when it (currently) isn't and he's just complaining to no one in particular. Interactions with other editors are about the only way a blocked user is going to be convinced to change his approach; it's pretty unlikely that reading policy pages is going to do it. Suggestions and explanations can be made about changing behavior, discussion about conditions for an unblock, even responding to friends expressing disagreement: these are, at worse, harmless, and at best, will help improve things when the block expires. Only when active disruption is going on (and it is rare that editing one's own talk page is disruption, instead of the more common disrespecting a cop) should talk page access be removed. This is true whether the block is for a day, a week, or indefinitely.
Could we agree to back off from racing to blank their user page and user talk page and place the {{indefblocked}} template on one or both? Indeed, for users who are not sockpuppeting (where the template and its links are useful), can we back off from ever using it at all? It is of no practical benefit (adding a user to a category is not a benefit), and has the effect (and sometimes the intention) of rubbing the blocked user's nose in it. Generally, he's been blocked to protect the project, not so we can thumb our noses at him on his way out.

I wouldn't be surprised if actions like this can harden the attitudes of someone, and make them more likely to be a problem than they currently are. I'm not looking to gain consensus to change the wording of policy somewhere (not a masochist), but to just get an agreement, if possible, that these two actions are not automatic, and should only be done when active damage is still occurring, and there's reason to believe these actions can somehow help prevent it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Seems fair to me. As long as they aren't being insulting or hurting anything its their userpage IMO and they should be able to edit that. --Kumioko (talk) 19:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral, I'm no fan of locking the talk pages of blocked users unless some meaningful harm is being done, though I understand how editors might be nettled by the venting that happens now and then. Meanwhile, one might keep in mind, almost nobody likes to be blocked. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree in principle to these general concepts, but being involved in one of the obvious inspirations for this thread, I note that there will be cases where some admins genuinely feel that the user is being grossly disruptive at their user talk page, and another group of admins will hold a different opinion. I am not of the mind that these sort of general ideas are all that helpful in resolving problems, indeed even if #1 was in force before the situation I am involved in, I still believe it would have come out with the same result. If we want to discuss that situation in specifics, there is a thread ongoing at WP:ANI to do so. In the general, statement #1 by Floquenbeam above is nice, but I can't see where it would do much to change how situations are handled. There will be genuine disagreements between reasonable admins regarding what constitutes gross disruption. At some point, enough is enough. While I agree that we must provide some avenue towards rehabilitating a blocked user, eventually, after some time, it becomes clear that they aren't interested in being rehabilitated. We shouldn't allow for infinite disruption under the hope that some day, they will eventually come around. I am a strong advocate for rehabilitating blocked users, and have argued for it time and again, but even I recognize when enough is enough. If its the first time someone is blocked, then sure, of course, we should have a large amount of lenience regarding "venting" at ones talk page. But when someone had been blocked and unblocked almost monthly, for several years, at several different accounts, it cannot be argued any longer that they don't understand what is expected of them, or that people have not tried to rehabilitate them. Regarding #2, I am in 100% agreement. Unless the userpage is itself part of the disruption, there's no need to rush to blank it. Tagging it with the indefblocked or banned template may be useful for categorization purposes, but theirs no need to be vindictive, which is all that blanking the userpage looks like. --Jayron32 20:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is categorization useful? Assuming it is, for reasons I don't know, perhaps we can just add the category to his user page, without the template? That might be a good compromise. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think a quick cat is all that helpful. Meanwhile, TFM is not banned, only blocked, which is in itself but a techincal step. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support - indefblocked should only be used in cases where we're darned sure "indefinite" = "infinite" -- if then.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indef can be less than an hour, given a fit unblock req. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I meant to say that {{indefblocked}} should only be used, but left the brackets out because I thought it was obvious. Obviously not.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Concur that these should be the default situations. Per Jayron32, there will be editors whose past behaviours negate these courtesies — which rationale might be included in the edit summary of a page blanking/templating. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When it gets so bad, I can understand either outlook. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support Agree with Jayron32. -- Alexf^(talk) 21:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Concur This practice all too frequently assumes the appearance of unseemly grave-dancing. I would support any amendments to the relevant policies and guidelines that discouraged such hasty triumphalism. Talk page access should only be revoked for those intentionally abusing it, and page blanking ought only be applied to the incorrigible. Skomorokh 21:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support but I thought we were doing this anyway. I've seen plenty of blocked editors who were permitted to continue discussions on their talk pages, as long as they didn't get disruptive about it. Looie496 (talk) 22:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support I'm all for rehabbing blocked editors too. Rushing to stick an indef notice in someone's user space doesn't help at all. - Krakatoa Katie 23:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just here to note that I haven't seen any problems with admins blanking user's talk and user pages other than in circumstances where the account is for vandalism only, and I have not seen administrators protecting talk pages incorrectly. I also wonder whether this discussion is the best way to try to get whichever administrators are acting incorrectly. Not every admin checks WP:AN often enough to notice this. Malinaccier (talk) 01:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, which means using common sense and being courteous to all users, blocked or not. /ƒETCH COMMS / 01:47, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment from a non-admin: Blocked users should use their talk pages for proper unblock requests and civil discussion about their situation and about article edits. Anything beyond that is typically not good, but it's case-by-case. Being too eager to post an indef notice is kind of rubbing salt into the wound of an established editor. For obvious SPA trolls, though, it's totally appropriate. Maybe there needs to be an in-between template that says an established user is indef'd but that the case may not be "settled" yet or that there is still discussion going on? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support (mostly) — Locking talk is usually unwarranted and is about getting in a kick, when there are no attacks or other shite from the blocked user. {{indef}} tagging is useful later on as a notice to users who would otherwise miss noting that a user is blocked, but it would be appropriate to let pages be while things are in flux; call it a week, or at the close of some an/ani/rfar discussion. If the user page is uncontroversial and there's a reasonable possibility that the user will be back, a tag can be placed wo/blanking the rest. Of course, there will be full-on trolls that warrant all the kicks available, but that's not the sort I believe this thread is mostly about.
I've experience here; eight months of it. My pages were tagged and my talk locked against me and redirected. This was while I was talking to arbs and moving up to the wider WMF-space. The pages were even attacked by the usual trolls. But things mellowed and I had regular chats on my talk while I was off building a road back on other WMF projects; see it at User talk:Jack Merridew/Archive 2 (63kb).
Everyone seen my recent tweak to WP:OFFER? The new standard needs to be 10,000 useful and appreciated edits to other WMF-projects (less for Gabi, moar for Ottava;). We need to expect a large dollop of honest dialogue, too.
Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:16, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support We should always aim at taking the least drastic action that will solve a problem. there's a tendency here to first, ignore a problem, and then, once it becomes inescapable, to over-react to it. DGG ( talk ) 05:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support If a blocked user is using their talk page to ask questions or seek guidance etc then there is no need to restrict access to their talk page. Those using the talk page to spout off with a load of obscenities should have that privilege removed. Indefinite is not the same as permanent, although some seem to think it is. Mjroots (talk) 09:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Policies and rules exist for a reason. Treating "special people" differently does nothing but promote the concept that "some editors are more equal than others", and while a newbie who does something to get blocked gets their account tagged indef, special people with special friends here don't. The only objective way to deal with this is to treat everyone who engages in disruptive behavior exactly the same and xpect them to adhere to the policies just as everyone is expected to adhere. Let's not kid ourselves: this thread is about The Fat Man Who Never Came Back. If it was about tagging indefblocked accounts and sockpuppeteers with a template, then I suspect Floquenbeam would have submitted those templates to MfD, as the logic presented above implies they are redundant. This isn't an objective proposal, it's subjective because The Fat Man Who Never Came Back's friends are mad that he was blocked. He's currently indefinitely blocked and as such his account should be tagged. He's also an acknowledged suckpuppeteer, and thus his page should be tagged. If these templates are no longer needed and tagging accounts with them is considered "counterproductive", then perhaps the WP:DISRUPT and other policies should be revised to correspond to this new consensus and the various templates used to tag indefblocked accounts and sockpuppeteers should be sent to MfD. Treating people differently just because they're popular and you like them is, frankly, bullshit. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, this thread is not just about TFM, I believe I made that clear above. Not sure why you think I'm lying about that. Since you're reading my comments through the incorrect filter of thinking I'm trying to get TFM special treatment, you misinterpret a lot, and end of arguing with things I didn't say, and looking a bit like a fool. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The only one looking like a fool is you, speaking to me and everyone else as if we're idiots, as if you haven't already shown your hand here [32]. If you feel the block and sockpuppeteer templates are unnecessary why haven't you submitted them to MfD yet? What is "mean" about placing block templates on an account that is blocked? Or is it just mean because he's your friend? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 16:32, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support, although I would add blocked users being allowed to demonstrate that they can make productive edits. My general philosophy is that only disruptive use of the talk page while blocked warrants cutting it off. Daniel Case (talk) 15:59, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, but noting that user pages are often blanked and tagged by non-admins as well. —DoRD (talk) 16:03, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I agree that {{indefblocked}} is sometimes used too quickly and somewhat indiscriminately, and more caution should be taken before blanking and/or applying this template to blocked editors. WP:CIVIL applies all the time, even when dealing with disruptive editors. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 16:13, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Need a favour / Backlog

I've got a request in at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist#thebestof.co.uk. The spam-whitelist request page is backlogged. Would an admin kindly attend to my request, as I've nominated the Somerhill House article for GA status, and at the moment the fact has had to be marked as unreferenced (the ref is in place, ready to use, but commented out otherwise the page won't save). Mjroots (talk) 09:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 November 19#$ony and Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2010 November 25#File:Dale Robertson Racist Sign.jpg

Would an admin (or admins) close Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 November 19#$ony and Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2010 November 25#File:Dale Robertson Racist Sign.jpg? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 10:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

done the Dale Robertson one. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fut.Perf., thank you for the detailed closing statement. Cunard (talk) 11:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Attempts to out alleged victims of Julian Assange

I recently reviewed, and declined, an unblock request from a user who not only started a BLP-violating article outing one of Julian Assange's alleged victims (I am keeping diffs minimal to avoid increasing the exposure). The article has since been redirectified to Assange's, although I noticed neither woman's name is included there, and the redirected article was the first place I saw it, frankly.

My question: are the women's names formally protected from disclosure by Swedish law, or just not used in the media out of respect for their privacy? If the former, as I indicated in my decline, we should really oversight not only that user's edits but any mention of their names (and salt the articles). If the latter, should we do this neverthless as a broad application of our policy that merely being a victim of a crime, particularly a sexual assault, does not make one notable?

And if oversight is necessary, I would prefer that someone other than myself, another oversighter who does not edit under their real name at least, do it because I am concerned about the possibility of retaliation. Daniel Case (talk) 16:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The victims are protected by WP:BLP, more specifically WP:BLP1E. They are not notable for one unfortunate event. If their names are reported in the press, those facts go into an article if WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE can be maintained. Jehochman ^Talk 16:19, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not 100% up on the current situation (have been involved in editing Julian Assange where we also face this issue). BUT, I believe the victims names are now out in the media so it is not an outing per se (although clearly the block is correct and appropriate for that user). Consensus on the Assange page seems to revolve around our BLP policy of erring on the side of not naming parties such as this (rightly so). We have discussed AB, and she may qualify at some stage for an article (thinking on that is ongoing I believe). At this stage I do not think oversighting/revdel is needed; the names are out there and it is simply for editorial and BLP considerations we are not naming them. I would delete AB's article (esp as now it is a redirect) and leave it at that. From a practical perspective revdel'ing all of the mentions of the names is near impossible and would essentially require revdel of most of the Assange edit history for the last few days. I see the article is now deleted, thanks Jehochman --Errant ^(chat!) 16:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No oversight needed. Both names are widely known. One of the (ardin/benardin) has an active twitter feed, has spoken to the press in sweden, etc so there is no possible "outing"... Whether there should be an article on these ladies (probably shouldn't) should be decided by site policies. Bali ultimate (talk) 16:24, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anna Ardin should be deleted also. --Errant ^(chat!) 16:27, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 256: / Line 256: @@
 == Community ban proposal: Benjiboi ==
+{{discussion top|{{resolved|Benjiboi is banned --}}}}
 {{anchor|Community ban proposal}}
 *Propose community ban for [[User:Benjiboi|Benjiboi]] (the person, not just the account), based on:
@@ Line 290: / Line 291: @@
 *'''Support'''; has been fairly problematic in the past and if it's reached this point, it's too late for him to change. [[User:Daniel Case|Daniel Case]] ([[User talk:Daniel Case|talk]]) 16:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 *'''Support''' - I just read his comment on the archived SPI and I think he's trying to turn things around against Delicious Carbunkle, who made a strong case. MuzeMike, that's a lot of socks uncovered in one fell swoop! When an editor's created one sock too many, that's when you drop the banhammer. Benjiboi would probably be uncooperative off-wiki. Get him out of here. AND STAY OUT!--[[User:Eaglestorm|Eaglestorm]] ([[User talk:Eaglestorm|talk]]) 16:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
+{{discussion bottom}}
 == [[Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 November 29#Category:Major League Baseball pinch hitters]] and [[Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 December 1#Category:Worst Picture Golden Raspberry Award winners]] ==

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