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Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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User:Asgardian

The members of WikiProject Comics have a thorn in our side and his name is Asgardian. Most recently, he has taken to haranguing [1] an editor who tried to step in to mediate a dispute over the article Whizzer. If this were the first incident, it might be worth trying to mediate. However, he has been reported to the Administrators' noticeboard before. Since that time, he has been blocked twice, [2] once for violating 3RR and once for edit warring. Moreover, he has engaged in edit wars over several articles: Absorbing Man, Avengers (comics), Basilisk (comics) [3], Black Bolt [4], Celestial (comics) [5], Dark Gods (Marvel Comics) [6], Eternity (comics) [7], Gladiator (Shi'ar) [8], Hyperion (comics) [9], Living Tribunal (as 203.46.189.91) [10], Man Beast [11], Mephisto (comics) [12], Mjolnir (Marvel Comics) [13], Odin (Marvel Comics) [14], Perrikus [15], Quicksilver (comics) (once as 211.29.188.167) [16], Speed Demon [17], Thanos [18], Wonder Man (as 203.46.189.91) [19], and Wrecker (comics) [20].

Asgardian seems not to understand Wikipedia's concept of article ownership [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28], even while telling other editors that they don't own the articles. [29] [30] He frequently claims that his work is superior [31] [32] [33] [34] and denigrates the work of others. [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] He often tells other editors that they need to "read the books" [45] [46] [47] [48] and that their edits are "non-thinking". [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] He asks others to be civil [54], but can't abide by that rule himself. [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] He is fond of calling posters with whom he does not agree by the derogatory term "fanboy". [65] [66] Another time, he accused someone whom he couldn't get along with of having a "cosmic fetish". [67] When he doesn't agree with choices made by other editors, he accuses them of vandalism. [68] [69] [70] More often than not, he prefers to blank his talk page, rather than respond to criticism there. [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] He is willing to carry on an edit war just "for the sake of it". [76] When action is taken against him, he accuses his critics of "jumping the gun". [77] [78] [79] In truth, this has been ongoing since his first arrival here in September 2006; I don't see anything expedient or hurried in the handling of this situation. Ultimately, I do not believe that his contributions outweigh his unwillingness to build consensus and work collaboratively. He's had four months to change his behaviour since the last time this was brought to this noticeboard, but I don't see a substantial improvement. --GentlemanGhost 00:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This might be more appropriate for user conduct RFC than this noticeboard. At least, I think it's more likely that you'll get responses there. I have no comment on the merit of this request, as I have not read the the links posted above. · j e r s y k o talk · 03:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Thank you. I was not familiar with the user conduct RFC. This is where the issue was reported last time, so I followed suit. Would it be better to move it there now or to let things play out? --GentlemanGhost 11:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Jersyko. Some edits aren't bad, (some edits to Odin were actually RVs of vandalism, and Galactus), some are, his summaries and talk page behavior should be addressed. IT'd be far better to tlak to him first, then go from there. (IANAnAdmin.)ThuranX 03:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for injecting some common sense into what appears to be an out-of-left-field argument based on assumptions and massive generalisations. The opening statement:

• The members of WikiProject Comics have a thorn in our side and his name is Asgardian.

is dramatic, emotive and immediately indicates that the poster cannot be objective. - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Most recently, he has taken to haranguing [80] an editor who tried to step in to mediate a dispute over the article Whizzer.

Not true at all. If GG had actually looked at the History, he would see we have been working to better the article. What I objected to - and still object to - is the condescending language Tenebrae has been using. Talking of improving my writing skills when I have rewritten many, many articles full of POV, spelling mistakes and other Wikipedia faux pas is of course going to nettle. Tenebrae needs to work on how he delivers the message. Admittedly, in electronic form it can be hard to read the "tone" but in general it has been condescending. This he needs to work on. Not what he says but how it is said. - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• If this were the first incident, it might be worth trying to mediate. However, he has been reported to the Administrators' noticeboard before. Since that time, he has been blocked twice, [81] once for violating 3RR and once for edit warring.

Two of those incidents - one occurring just recently and questioned by another poster - were erroneous. Another was inexperience. Look at the learning curve and how many articles have been improved since. - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Moreover, he has engaged in edit wars over several articles: Absorbing Man, Avengers (comics), Basilisk (comics) [82], Black Bolt [83], Celestial (comics) [84], Dark Gods (Marvel Comics) [85], Eternity (comics) [86], Gladiator (Shi'ar) [87], Hyperion (comics) [88], Living Tribunal (as 203.46.189.91) [89], Man Beast [90], Mephisto (comics) [91], Mjolnir (Marvel Comics) [92], Odin (Marvel Comics) [93], Perrikus [94], Quicksilver (comics) (once as 211.29.188.167) [95], Speed Demon [96], Thanos [97], Wonder Man (as 203.46.189.91) [98], and Wrecker (comics) [99].

What is the point of this? GG and many other posters have also engaged in these so-called "edit wars". If GG took the time to check the Histories, he would see that many of these articles have been polished and left as is for MONTHS, with only the smallest of correctional edits. MONTHS. Further to this, the articles have ALL been improved substantially since the time of editing. I don't expect everyone to be a comic buff, but articles such as Odin, Thanos etc. were truly terrible. I spent DAYS sourcing and then citing and referecing histories for characters that simply wasn't there. No one else came forward to do this.

I also note that GG has included a sock puppet claim, which was proven to be unfounded. Given the length of time I worked on some of these articles, the computer timed out. Again, an unnecessary mention. - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Asgardian seems not to understand Wikipedia's concept of article ownership [100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] [107], even while telling other editors that they don't own the articles. [108] [109] He frequently claims that his work is superior [110] [111] [112] [113] and denigrates the work of others. [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] [120] [121] [122] [123] He often tells other editors that they need to "read the books" [124] [125] [126] [127] and that their edits are "non-thinking". [128] [129] [130] [131] [132] He asks others to be civil [133], but can't abide by that rule himself. [134] [135] [136] [137] [138] [139] [140] [141] [142] [143]

The flaw in the logic is that once again GG has not checked Histories. Thanos is a good example. I do not own the article, but I believe it fair to try and stop someone flooding it with inappropriate images. This is the same thing that I was working on GG WITH on the article for the character Zzzax before he decided to report this. - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• He is fond of calling posters with whom he does not agree by the derogatory term "fanboy". [144] [145]

Over a year ago. Doczilla and I now have a good relationship. He INVITED me to participate in a discussion recently... - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Another time, he accused someone whom he couldn't get along with of having a "cosmic fetish". [146]

Hardly earth-shaking. His Edit History would seem to suggest this anyway, as the poster focuses on almost nothing else. That's odd. - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• When he doesn't agree with choices made by other editors, he accuses them of vandalism. [147] [148] [149]

It is only GG's opinion that it was not. - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• More often than not, he prefers to blank his talk page, rather than respond to criticism there. [150] [151] [152] [153] [154]

Once again, there is NO official mandate that a Talk Page be archived or kept. If it changes, so be it. Frankly, that's none of GG's business. - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• He is willing to carry on an edit war just "for the sake of it". [155] When action is taken against him, he accuses his critics of "jumping the gun". [156] [157] [158]

Has GG even read the Talk Page for Galactus and the consensus reached? - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• In truth, this has been ongoing since his first arrival here in September 2006; I don't see anything expedient or hurried in the handling of this situation. Ultimately, I do not believe that his contributions outweigh his unwillingness to build consensus and work collaboratively. He's had four months to change his behaviour since the last time this was brought to this noticeboard, but I don't see a substantial improvement. --GentlemanGhost 00:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Some massive and condescending generalisations. I suspect that GG and other parties may feel a tad intimidated by my level of comic knowledge, as once again it is true that I have brought many sub-standard articles with POV, spelling mistakes and missing/incorrect information (eg. Odin, Thanos, Hyperion) up to an acceptable standard. I've yet to see another poster perform accruate rewrites on this scale. As for working with others, if GG had again thought to check, many of Tenebrae and others edits have been incorporated. Not everything, as there is still a degree of POV etc that has to be ironed out, but articles such as the Whizzer hardly reflect an edit war. - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

To conclude, this is unnecessary and frankly, baffling. - Asgardian 10:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Further to this, having just checked some of GG's supposed "proof", he is reaching at straws. In the case of the Absorbing Man, it is perfectly reasonble to remove an assertion that the character appears in the film when they do not. The Avengers is the same -there was no "warring" and a resolution was reached. All in all, this is a very flawed argument. - Asgardian 10:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Since Asgardian brought my name up with certain claims, I'm going to comment briefly.

Many WikiComics Project editors have difficulty working with Asgardian. His response is that people are "jealous" of his comics knowledge. This is highly debatable, and it's certainly not true my case.

It would be helpful if Asgardian acknowledged and took some responsibility for the fact that so many editors revert his edits and so many editors have lodged complaints about him. To hear, "I'm right and these dozen people are all wrong" as his response to virtually any complaint ... that's neither right not realistic.--Tenebrae 22:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I never said I was right all the time, and have apologised before now. Others, however, ALSO need to take responsibility for their actions. That said, GG's argument is weak and flawed. I'll chat with you further on Whizzer at that page, which is all that was ever necessary. - Asgardian 00:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Is this a record for number of diffs in a single post? --Random832 00:14, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Probably not (I've seen some interesting Arbcom postings : ) - but it's definitely "up there". - jc37 08:54, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible solutions

I'd like to point out that this discussion is nothing new, and has been going on for a rather long period of time. The last time this came up, User:Steve block suggested that perhaps the way to go with this would be Community probation. It's clear that User:Asgardian has made good edits, it's just that along with those come the issues such as linked to above by GG. Hence the community probation suggestion. AFAIK, it never came to fruition, merely due to the state of "busy-ness" of the time. (The WikiProject templates ratings system had just started for articles immediately after that, and Steve block very nearly single-handedly updated the entire comics WikiProject - If others were involved, I was/am unaware of it - and so he became too busy to pursue the probation AFAIK.)

I think at this point, I'd like to avoid seeing this escalate much further. It's starting to wear on all involved, perhaps creating an environment in which one of those involved may inadvertantly "cross-the-line" out of frustration.

I think that we have several possible solutions (besides people quitting Wikipedia, making new accounts, or blocking someone). The main issues with User:Asgardian would seem to be an inability to "back-down" from a WP:BOLD action and WP:EQ/WP:CIVIL issues. Both seem to stem from a sense of pride, and the self-assurance of being "right". This is not to say that others have not, or do not, bait him, as well. Not all have, but I've seen that it's rather easy for someone who disagrees with him to "pull his chain" as it were, and thus claim his incivility in order to "win" their POV in the discussion.

So here're a few possible solutions:

1.) Community probation for User:Asgardian - move this discussion to some part of the WP:CN, and discuss what the probation would entail, what criteria would have to be achieved to move off from probation, and what penalties would be enacted should the probation be violated.

2.) Mentorship for User:Asgardian - find a mediator or someone "third-party"-minded to become a mentor. Focus should be on the 5 pillars, and the MoS, and a thorough knowledge of the WikiProject guidelines for comics articles (since that's where the user does most of their editing). The goal is to not ever presume the user knows, since, of course he'll claim he does. But to presume he doesn't and "start from scratch", in the hopes of developing someone who has the potential to become a great editor.

3.) A short term ban from editing comics-related articles for User:Asgardian. Perhaps spending some time working on other tasks could help the user to see and understand the whys of the guidelines better.

4.) 1RR for User:Asgardian - To help suggest that "taking it to talk" is a better option than quick, off-the-cuff, edit summaries.

Any of these, a few of these combined, or perhaps all, are options that the community could discuss.

All that said, there are divergent opinions in the WikiProject about certain things (as I presume is found in any WikiProject), and I don't want to just single User:Asgardian out, to where he has little to no recourse than dispute resolution. If he runs into such situations, I think the more eyes, the better, so perhaps he should make more use of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics.

I'd like to hear others' thoughts and comments on this. - jc37 08:54, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree with 1 and 2 as written; 3 and 4 are more troubleome. I'd suggest a 48 hour block at most, or perhaps a 'ride-along' style ban, in which he and another editor review soem articles for ways to fix them in tandem. A short, intense mentorship, so to speak, and as for 4, I'd say that a note to him that any time he finds himself wanting to hit 2RR, he should open a talk page section when doing t, and never hit 3RR, using the talk page. I know things like 'never' are tough on WIki, but I think that instead of just putting up a brick wall, we should open a door as well. ThuranX 00:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. I still feel the whole business has been a massive overreaction, and close examination reveals the many holes in GG's argument, which on some levels is very petty. As for my edits...the last fortnight or so should be telling enough. I've been touching up where needed and even reworked an article with - oddly - GG's support. I only revert largish amounts of text where the writing is poor, and usually full of POV (a major Wikipedia issue), spelling mistakes, past tense etc. I think when I point this out to other users (eg. JGreb) it may sting a little. That said, it's not personal. I'm just trying to help make these articles the best they can be. A quick look at the "then and now" versions of entries for characters such as Odin, Thanos and this week Zzzax should be testimony to this (on a side note, there seem to be very few other researchers, who will sit there for hours and source the right material and then present it in a coherent fashion - it takes a LOT of work). As I also said on the Talk page for Galactus, if people took the time to actually look at the edits, they would realise that 90% of the work is still there, and the rest can be settled on the relevant Talk page (Whizzer being a good example - the article is much improved and I've taken on board some of Tenebrae's suggestions).

For what it is worth, I have been working in tandem with others (and like Tenebrae's idea of a side bar for the whole multiple universes concept).

Asgardian 00:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Galactus is a perfect example of where the page had to be protected to stop an edit war and THEN progress was made. --GentlemanGhost 18:48, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect. Several weak edits were made that jarred with the rest of the article. Simply check the user profiles for types like TheBalance and HalfShadow. Very telling. That said, this is not the place to nitpick given your weak argument. Take it to a Talk Page.

Asgardian 21:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Disruptive editing with rage

I request that some admin stop User:Sarvagnya from going on a disruption spree. I don't want to take admin action as I'm a complainant myself. This person has been nitpicking in numerous Tamil language-related articles despite being warned several times and blocked a few times for disruption and sockpuppetry. He unilaterally removes cited content claiming the authors have an "investment" in writing those. At the same time, he adds things supported by older citations that have been subsequently rebutted. He often adds/deletes/modifies prose just adding an author's name as a citation. In short, he plays the citation game to suit him. His edit summaries and talk page comments are almost always provocative. One fine editor who has produced a bunch of FAs has gone into semi-retirement unable to tolerate the nitpicking by him and his gang. More users including me are stressed to the point of leaving. Attempts at reconciliation have not worked.

Most recently, his eyes fell on History of Tamil Nadu which is scheduled to be featured on May 5 on the main page. He started "defacing" the article with tags quickly reverting himself perhaps with the realisation that his intent would be too obvious. He took the next worst choice -- going on a rampage with anything that's linked from there. The latest is the article Tamil people, a featured article and also one which has undergone FA review recently. His tagging spree includes images that are already licensed under {{gfdl-self}}. I'm too tired to collect and summarise evidence in this case, but request someone to look into his history of disruption and take action. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 09:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I told you guys to seek mediation, and I still think that's best for everyone. This seems to me to be a complex dispute and a two-way street. I nominated Tamil language for featured article review, and it was closed as a "keep", just as the article was being locked and having its neutrality disputed. This has quickly spiraled out of control, but I still would suggest something better than running to admins all the time during your disputes. Grandmasterka 09:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, Sarvagnya seems to have been cleared of being a sockpuppeteer. Grandmasterka 09:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Have the same opinion about this as Grandmasterka... DR should be used for disputes, with ANI used when things spiral out of control, and admin intervention is necessary to sort things out. --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 09:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Grandmasterka, I requested him to suggest a draft himself and he, having bought some time, started his disruptive edits with other related articles. Reg him being a sock, I just notice that the clerks asuumed good faith and revised the decision as meatpuppetry.

Kzrulzuall, I know that DR is generally a better choice. But, we've been through this earlier too. That time, I was a lot more patient, but still we lost or almost lost another editor. I am no longer willing to play this game of pacifying him. I'm going to go away rather than stressing myself with another DR with him. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 10:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I could tag the article for OR. But then Mr. Sundar and his stooge Parthi will come and immediately revert it. If you throw in two inline citations in a 10000 word article or names of two books under ==Refs==, the article becomes 'sourced'! Right? Yeah right. Sarvagnya 10:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

"Assumed good faith and revised as meatuppetry"?!! - Thats misleading people here with malicious intent. Sarvagnya 10:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The very accusations of sockpuppetry were infact in bad faith and I proved it. There was no sockpuppetry. There was no meatpuppetry. Nonsense! Sarvagnya 10:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

This person has been nitpicking in numerous Tamil language-related articles despite being warned several times and blocked a few times for disruption and sockpuppetry. - Evidence please. Sarvagnya 10:20, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

He unilaterally removes cited content claiming the authors have an "investment" in writing those. At the same time, he adds things supported by older citations that have been subsequently rebutted. He often adds/deletes/modifies prose just adding an author's name as a citation. In short, he plays the citation game to suit him. - Shameless and malicious misrepresentation of facts. Does not befit an admin. Not in the least. Sarvagnya 10:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Grandmasterka, I requested him to suggest a draft himself - You didnt suggest that we write drafts. I did. Sarvagnya 10:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Most recently, his eyes fell on History of Tamil Nadu which is scheduled to be featured on May 5 on the main page. He started "defacing" the article with tags quickly reverting himself perhaps with the realisation that his intent would be too obvious. - Bullshit! Sarvagnya 10:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

His tagging spree includes images that are already licensed under {{gfdl-self}}. - I perhaps tagged only one such image. And didnt resist once it got reverted. Sarvagnya 10:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Please revise your tone, Sarvagnya, as you are not acting very civil. If you have comments, please address them properly. Accusing users of having "Malicious intent" does not help. --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 10:27, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Accusing established and regular editors of disruption and nitpicking just because you're having a content issue with them on some article doesnt help either nor is it very civil. Sarvagnya 10:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

And since when is tagging copyvio and asking for citations disruption?! Does this admin in question who openly told me that he cannot assume good faith with me even know what disruption is? Sarvagnya 10:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll tell you what I'd have done if I was editing with rage. I'd have moved Tamil language back into FAR. Whoever had heard of an article thats protected and with POV and disputed tags being closed as FAs. That too with no semblance of a voting exercise on the FAR page. Sarvagnya 10:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm too tired to collect and summarise evidence in this case... - I'm tired too. Or I could present several diffs.. even one of the admin in question biting a new user who just happened to be on the other side of the POV divide. Shameful indeed. I could also present a diff where the admin in question attributes malicious intent to me. And many more. Sarvagnya 10:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Sundar wouldn't be an admin if he doesn't know what "disruption" is. If someone is behaving uncivilly with you, it is not an excuse to behave uncivilly back. Please calm down before you start making more accusations to respected users editing in good faith.--Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 10:43, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Editing in "good faith"? Dont you see how he lies about my block record in a bid to sway opinion of some admin in the hope that some admin would block me? He says I've been blocked several times for disruption and sockpuppetry while one quick look at my block log will reveal that I have been blocked ONLY ONCE and that too for 'fighting' with another user who the concerned admins will testify was a rank bad troll. He and all his accomplices were subsequently blocked for using abusive sockpuppets against me or other users. I could go on.. every single word that Sundar has written is a lie. L-I-E. LIE. Sarvagnya 10:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

...unable to tolerate the nitpicking by him and his gang.... - me and my gang? would you elaborate please? Last I remember, I was waging a lone battle against a tag team of reverters on Tamil language and Talk:Tamil language. Sarvagnya 10:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Signing off for now. If any admin has any questions, I will answer each one of them. For now, suffice to say that all of Sundar's charges are baseless and nonsense. He is trying to use his admin weight to bully me into submission in the content issue he and his friends are having with me on Tamil language. Sarvagnya 11:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Since evidence is being asked, I will provide them.

Evidence of removing cited content:

He removes the following cited content unilaterally here.

"On the other hand a number of scholars believe that the influence of Tamil and Dravidian had a far greater influence, including grammar, syntax, poetics and meter on Sanskrit and other Indo-Aryan languages."

He then proceeds to remove following cited fact here.

"Unlike in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh where early inscriptions were written in Sanskrit, the early inscriptions in Tamil nadu used Tamil exclusively."

This is not the first time where he removes cited facts from Tamil nadu related articles. Previous cited content removal with offending edit summaries are here, here, here, & here. It is particularly notable that in one edit summary he indulges in OR & attacks the Tamil epic's content as disco-dance (a slang in south India for cabaret [159]).

Possible defamation of eminent Tamil researcher & other Tamil organizations (sangams) here where he compares their work to 'squat'.

"...Hart's campaign and sundry Tamil sangams' 'campaigns' would have counted for squat minus Karunanidhi's arm twisting of the Congress govt.,.)..."

Then he indulges in personal attack on all other editors in the talk page of Tamil language article without proof here where he accuses other editors of trolling.

"If only you guys would have spent less time trolling on Halmidi and Rashtrakuta FAC and Kannada and Bharatanatya and Carnatic music, we could have had more time to thrash out several issues on this page."

I warned about this personal attack here.

Can he provide evidence for the claim that he was exonerated from meat-puppetry charges? The restrictions on him were removed on account of subsequent contributions by him & his confirmed meat puppet. Not that his confirmed case was changed to unconfirmed.

He accuses admin Sundar of bullying him (again without any proof). Please make a stop to all these. Thanks. Praveen 14:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm being accused of being a stooge to Sundar. Brushing aside this personal attack, which I have to come to expect from Sarvagna, let me point out a few recent examples of unreasonable behaviour from Sarvagna.

1. He tagged dozens of Tamil History related articles with {{citation neede}} tags with the edit summary inline citations (book, year, author, p#, publisher, quote, isbn) for all the cruft here please. [160] While asking for inline citation is ok, does he have to insult the integrity of the author?
2. He tagged dozens of Tamil literature related articles as OR [161], [162], [163], etc with no justification or discussion.
3. He maliciously tagged images with explicit license information: [164], [165], [166], [167], etc, almost all pertaining to the soon to be featured History of Tamil Nadu or Tamil people articles. He also accused the uploader of one image of 'pompously' releasing it as {{PD}} [168].This is the image chosen to appear on the Main page on the 5th.

These are just a few example of the disruptive editing habits of this user. I request stern admin action to address this. 'Pompous' Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 20:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

To emphasise my point, let me give you an excerpt from a post from Arvind [169]:

“ This isn't an easy problem to deal with. It's hard to fault individual acts by these editors. They use "cite" tags and "NPOV" tags and tags you've probably never heard of strictly in accordance with Wikipedia regulations, but in a manner that makes normal editing next to impossible (for instance, a cite tag after nearly every sentence). They dig up dozens of references and insist on their inclusion - even though the scholarship they represent has long since been superseded or has been seriously questioned - and one then has to waste endless hours trying to demonstrate why those sources aren't credible. After a while of dealing with this, one just gets burned out, gives up on those articles, or walks away from Wikipedia altogether. ”

- 'Pompous' Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 22:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Sarvagnya has a rather blunt way of putting things, however characterizing his editing pattern as a disruption spree seems like a large stretch. As for WP:BLP, he called the work squat, not Professor Hart (who is a respected expert on the Tamil language. Seeing the larger picture, this ANI post has been transformed into another of ethnolinguistic conflicts of India being played on the web. It centers in this context over the Kaveri water dispute and other issued dividing Kannada people (sarvagnya, KNM, and others) and Tamil people (parthi, praveen, etc.)Bakaman 01:14, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It's nothing to do with Kaveri, in this case. It's just some sort of "parity complex" that a few people hold. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 13:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

So how much 'bluntness' you suggest the community to tolerate? Calling other editors trolls is according you is just 'blunt' way of putting things. Thanks for the insight.

If putting fact tags for every sentence (in some cases for every word) in an article [170], adding frivolous no-license tags for images with clear license information, calling all other editors as trolls, adding offending edit summaries are not being disruptive, what is being disruptive?

BTW: its nice to see Sarvagnya supporting your cause in Arbcom. Praveen 15:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I initiated the checkuser on sarvagnya, I helped thwart an RFC he filed back when Marathi vs. Kannada was the vogue ethnic conflict. I also had a huge disagreemtn with him over anton Balasingham. Sundar in fact, was asked by sarvagnya to attack me in hkelkar's arbcom, which he declined. Back to the subject of "friendliness", you seem to misunderstand POV pushing, and other negative terms, so you using them does not really have the effect of a good editor like sundar using them, though he is incorrect in this case.Bakaman 23:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

First things first. Saying that I defamed Hart or anybody else is nonsense. Neither have I defamed Hart nor have I resisted them using him in their citations. When I said that Hart's campaign for Tamil's classical status would have counted for squat in the absence of Karunanidhi's arm twisting of the Congress government, I was speaking with a citation in hand. I was not just ORing.

This is all that I'll respond to right now as I dont know if anybody here is even interested/listening nor do I see any point in discussing content issues pertaining to Tamil language on ANI. But if any admin wants me to answer any of those baseless allegations they've thrown at me, point out the accusation and I will respond to it. Otherwise, I am done here. And before I sign off, I am still waiting to hear how tagging an article asking for citations is disruption. Or tagging(asking for source info) pictures that have been.. yes.. 'pompously' released on GFDL when there is zero evidence regarding the source or the original copyright holder. Sarvagnya 02:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

When I said that Hart's campaign for Tamil's classical status would have counted for squat in the absence of Karunanidhi's arm twisting of the Congress government, I was speaking with a citation in hand.

Could you please show us the portion where Hart's (and other Tamil organizations') work is compared to squat from your citation? Thanks. Praveen 15:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Praveen and Parthi have presented enough evidence here. Moreover, he has himself shown a sample of his attitude with his above comments. I leave it to the admins. Back to content issues, with his relentless and systematic pushing across-the-board, I doubt if we can work out consensus without third party mediation at the least or even arbitration. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 13:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Praveen and Parthi have not presented any evidence whatsoever. All their so called 'evidence' is full of red herrings. For example, Praveen says I've removed cited content somewhere. If people take a closer look at the history, you will find that it would have been one in a series of consecutive edits by me(with no intervening edits from any other editors) and that I would have brought back the "cited content" myself in mostly the very next edit(the one about tamil inscriptions being in tamil and Kannada& Telugu being in Sanskrit, for example). If I have not brought back any content that I removed, then it means that the content has been disputed. In such cases, look at the talk page and you will find that I would have explained myself at length. In such cases you will also see that, instead of addressing my concerns, these people have tag team reverted me. And when they've reverted, they have infact removed "cited content" that I might have added(and in those cases, you'd hardly see any semblance of them discussing it on talk pages). Just because some content is cited, doesnt mean it is NPOV, undisputed or even relevant to the article.

I dont know who Sundar is referring to when he says that he's quit because of me. I presume he's talking of User:Vadakkan. If anybody takes a look at Vadakkan's user page and talk pages, you will see that he has been away since many months now. His going away has nothing to do with me and as his own edits(the few intermittent ones) will testify, he's been away because he's been busy in "Real life". Even as recently as a couple of weeks ago, he claimed that he was in Europe and busy in real life and would only be able to participate intermittently. How very convenient of Sundar to now claim that I drove him away!!

Parthi says I've tagged dozens of articles as OR. If he be asked to show the evidence, people here will come to know of the gross exaggeration in his statement. Exaggeration which is no doubt filled with malice(to try and sway emotions here and may be get me blocked). And even the ones I tagged for OR(and didnt resist once I was reverted), people can see how badly they're written. Zero inline referencing in fairly long articles but conveniently marked as "stubs".

As for the pictures he claims I've maliciously tagged, since when is asking for proper information of source for a pic that has been released on GFDL malicous?! Its not upto editors here to simply download pictures they like from somewhere and release it on wikipedia under GFDL. In some cases, there are pics where they've scanned it from some calendar and released it on a free license claiming that the copyright holder had "irrevocably released" all rights. When the fact of the matter is, they dont even know who the original copyright holder is!! In another case, a pic(on en.wiki) has a link to a "description page" on commons which directs you to fr.wiki and the fr.wiki sends you back to commons! And there is no source info. And it has been released under GFDL!

As for the mischevous insinuations about my sockpuppetry, [[171] here] is the evidence disproving that. It has testimonies and acknowledgements exonerating me of any such wrongdoing. The acknowledgements are not just by multiple admins who were involved, but also by the user who initiated the RFCU in the first place. can somebody please make me a banner out of this link and drop it off on my talk page. I'll be grateful to you. Thanks in advance.

As a humble and constructive editor who is not an admin, I submit that this is belligerence and not so veiled intimidation by an admin who is directly involved in a content issue with me. He is trying to browbeat me from even attempting to edit his favourite article while at the same time trying to present himself as some wronged martyr. Talking about things like an Arbcom(!!) to decide this content issue is in my view an attempt to intimidate and browbeat me into submission.

Calling my edits disruption is just slander. If people investigate any content issue I may have been involved in, they will notice that I always take part extensively in discussing the issues on the talk page. Even in this case(Tamil language) you will see that I have been discussing issues on the talk page for nearly a month(and intermittently in related articles since the past one year). I could have tagged the article as disputed long back. I didnt because I assumed good faith. But when their "tag team belligerence" became too much to handle, I was forced to tag it as they had demonstrated no inclination to address the issues. Also btw, if I had a sockpuppet or a meatpuppet, I'd like to know where he/she was when these people were tag team reverting me.

If anybody is concerned about any of my "content issue" edits that these people have mischevously presented as "disruption"(!!), I invite you to the concerned article talk page and I will be glad to explain it to you. But I absolutely see no point in discussing content issues pertaining to some article, here on ANI. Sarvagnya 18:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

In short, to summarize the arguments above and a good view on it. This is a content dispute', nothing else. Sarvagnya has worked well among a wide spectra of nationalities and ethnicities including Tamil users (of which I am one). He has had a real hardknock conflict with a grand total (I have not seen sundar lately on wikipedia) of two Tamil users: Parthi and Praveen pillay.Bakaman 23:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Nice! Two former enemies lawyering for each other!--Deepak D'Souza (talk • contribs) 07:02, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Accusing established and regular editors of disruption and nitpicking just because you're having a content issue with them sarvagnya should stop assuming that he is an established editor,on contrary he is an established troll. He is always behind other language articles be it Hindi, Marathi or Tamil. His extraordinary love for his language is to be blamed. I request a strict action against him. He is responsible for the exits of Mahawiki, Arya and sarvabhaum and fancy sockpuppet' allegations which led an admin to block whole range of IP.

Gerry Adams

Can an unbiased administrator please look at this article as soon as possible please? An administrator with a Sinn Féin image on their userpage has taken exception to content that is fully sourced from reliable sources, claiming WP:BLP. Practically every single book ever written on the Troubles or the IRA names Adams as an IRA member in the 1970s, and I've recently cited four of them in the article along with other sources which were there already. Betacommand has then jumped in threatening to block anyone who adds the material back without proper sourcing and multiple reliable sources, totally ignoring the fact it is sourced exactly like that. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 14:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The above statement regarding the use of "reliable sources" is patently false. I've recently learned that Sean O'Callaghan is being used as a Wikipedia reference to make spurious claims about Irish politicians being involved in criminal activities. Sean O'Callaghan is a former IRA member who became an informant for the Garda (Irish police). He has an inherent and evident bias against the fellows who he turned against and cannot be considered a reliable source. I've tried to explain this numerous times that the section in question does not comply to WP:BLP. [[User talk:Gaillimh|<:::::::::No distortion was intended. My point was, if you concede that the Foundation does not consider this to be a violation of Florida law, then it seems clear that WP:NOT#CENSORED does not apply. Therefore (unless another relevant policy exists that hasn't been mentioned here) preventing edits of the hexadecimal chain in question is unsupported by any Wikipedia policy and is in violation of several Wikipedia policies that do exist. Konekoniku 22:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)span style="cursor: w-resize">gaillimh]]^{Conas tá tú?} 14:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

That's disputable, but the section doesn't even say that he was an IRA member, it just says that various people have stated that he was. The very first sentence in the section was that he denied it. -Amarkov moo! 14:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The simple answer (if you object to O'Callaghan) would be to remove the O'Callaghan part, and leave all the other sources in. Objecting to O'Callaghan does not give you carte blanche to remove every other source. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 14:52, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but as I've mentioned to you in the past, Adams has directly refuted and dismissed Ed Moloney's claims. In addition, you sourced Michael McDowell, the PD leader. I wouldn't consider that at all reliable either. Using Wikipedia to advance your goals of attempting to associate a politician with a criminal organisation is inappropriate. In addition, there's not been any proof of this, and again, Adams has denied all of these claims. You've been edit warring with me on numerous articles about this particular point, and while I've attempted to reach a compromise with you on List of IRA Chiefs of Staff, you keep insisting on interjecting your POV gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 14:57, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I insist on maintaining a neutral point of view, as do several other editors who've tried to add the Adams content back. It's quite ironic that by one group of editors I get accused of having a pro-republican bias, now I'm being accused of having an anti-republican bias. The presence of a SF logo on your userpage clearly shows your POV on this. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 15:00, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

My having a SF logo on my userpage equates to a POV that I eschew the IRA? Haha, now I've heard it all. This conversation might be a bit confusing to those outside of Ireland, and perhaps Britain, but SF has long since maintained direct ties to the IRA, so I'm not sure how removing biased information about an SF member incorrectly being labeled an IRA member equates to a POV (as I realise that I've mentioned they've direct ties, it should be noted that the IRA is completely decommissioned now, off of the US list of terrorist organisations, and plenty of SF members have never been a part of the IRA, Adams included). gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 15:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Whether you consider McDowell or O'Callaghan a reliable source is irrelevant. If they made these claims and the claim has been reported on in a reliable source then there is no issue including it in an article here. In these cases all the information is referenced from reliable sources. On the Adams article, as ONiH states multiple sources have been given. Stu ^{’Bout ye!} 15:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

You're correct, it doesn't matter if I consider them to be reliable. Apologies for the confusion. I don't consider them reliable based on Wikipedia's policy regarding reliable sources. gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 15:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

In fact I specifically added four additional sources before adding it back the first time. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 15:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Gaillimh, you misunderstand. McDowell is an Irish politician and lawyer, O'Callaghan is a former IRA member. So their opinions or claims are relevant. Any of our own opinions on them are irrelevant. We might think they are wrong, but that's irrelevant. They made these claims and they were reported on in reliable, independant sources which are used in the articles. Stu ^{’Bout ye!} 15:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Without the alleged IRA membership, the article fails WP:NPOV. The significant view (among journalists, authors, politicians etc) is that Adams is a former member of the IRA, that Adams denies it does not affect this. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 15:30, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there is significant opinion that Adams has been an IRA member in the past. In an attempt at a compromise, I suggest that we find reliable sources to present both claims, while obviously giving precedence to Adam's own refutations and the lack of any hard evidence to the contrary. Sean O'Callaghan and Malcolm McDowell clearly fail WP:RS. I am still a bit unsold that this compromise will adhere to WP:BLP, so I would like another administrator or someone well-versed in this policy to take a look at it gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 15:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, I recommend this article stay protected until such a compromise is worked out gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 15:40, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

We already have all the sources we need. There's plenty of sources already in the article saying Adams was an IRA member, but Adams denies it. That's there already, and I honestly don't see what more needs to be said. There is no WP:BLP violation, the page should not have been protected in the first place. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 15:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Betacommand was correct and judicious in protecting the page, given the stated WP:BLP concerns above. Again, Sean O'Callaghan and Michael McDowell are not reliable sources. gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 15:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

So that would be why Betacommand describes the sources as "anti-adams POV/slander sites"? Any administrator is welcome to check the sources being used, and they will clearly see they are nothing of the sort. This is just another example of poor judgement by Betacommand. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 15:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Please dont quote me unless you get it right because that is also making my statement false, I also cited BLP and RS for removal so please shut up with trying to smear the admin who took the action and get to the meat of the issue. Wikipedia is not here to spread speculation, have a reliable 3rd party source the data. IE a fox news, the guardian or some other non-biased reliable third party confirm it and there will be no problems. but using confirmed POV sources that lean toward what you are trying to state is not a good Idea get a third party to source it. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 16:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm assuming you missed the four books by respected authors, some of which have won awards for their reporting on Northern Ireland? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 16:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Is there a particular reason this conversation is being held here instead of the article's Talk page? --ElKevbo 15:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Again, Betacommand was quite correct in protecting the page, and it's always best to err on the side of caution when dealing with BLP concerms. The anti-Adams POV evidently refers to Sean O'Callaghan and the slander-sites is probably a bit of confusion with regards to the McDowell silliness in The Guardian. As a related aside, I can't see how one would ever think Sean O'Callaghan could possibly be appropriate for citing in an encyclopedia (other than, perhaps, in his own article when sourcing biographical information) gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 16:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• Sigh. I've been asked along to venture my two penn'orth, but I don't think it will help much. For what it's worth: the statement that several people accused Adams of being an IRA member is both factually accurate, correctly attributed, and significant in context. The fact that he rejects the claim, and that no credible evidence exists to support it, is also accurate and significant. It's not massively important, but it is highly significant and still believed, as far as I can tell, by a significant proportion of the militant Protestant population. WP:BLP does certainly provide for the inclusion of validly attributed, significant, but almost certainly wrong material, provided it is stated neutrally and tied to those who say it. Guy (Help!) 21:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with your estimation of BLP, and have several times suggested a compromise to this effect, despite this significant opinion being wrong. My issue is with attempting to pass off Michael McDowell and Sean O'Callaghan as reliable sources, when they are the epitomisation of what Wikipedia should strive to remove from biographical articles gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 22:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• The problem being that you didn't remove those sources and the information they sourced, you removed an entire section including information sourced by reliable sources, and have repeatedly refused to discuss this despite requests from myself and another editor. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 23:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

One Night In Hackney, I'm sorry to hear that you've used my absence to give a skewed account of the events. The truth is that I've tried to approach this fellow numerous times in an attempt at resolution and he's reponded in the snarky manner he's demonstrated directly above. Again, I'm disappointed in you, mate, and you've lost a bit of respect from me given your blatant lying in my short absence gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 08:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• I don't see any of this personalising of the dispute helps much. Are we all agreed on how to proceed? Guy (Help!) 09:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• True enough. I put forth quite a few attempts to compromise with the fellow and am eagerly awaiting a response. Cheers gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 12:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Purgatory Fubar

Please examine the history of User talk:Purgatory Fubar. I am a long time anon editor seeimingly being "harassed" by the above user (User:Purgatory Fubar). I attempted to engage in conversation, specifically about WP:RED policy (see [172] which was reverted) but find my edits constantly reverted and marked as "vandalism", on his talk page, without even a token attempt to engage further.

This has progressed onto my user talk page (see the history, I have removed what I consider to be "bad faith" templates placed on the page by the above user), and now onto any other articles I have ever edited - such as Halloween (film) ([173] claimed to be "reverting vandalism" but in fact nothing of the sort).

here is the user attempting to "block" me as a vandal: [174]

here is the user again removing warnings claiming it is "unwarranted": [175]

here is the user attempting to engage another user (in barely grammatical language) in the war: [176] - claiming "trollery"

here is the user reverting yet another page without any expln other than I was the last editor: [177]

another one: removing notability tag [178]

removal of all red links from Hong Kong action cinema: [179]

removal of valid "do not claim vandalism when it is not vandalism" warnings from userpage: [180] and [181] (using vandalism tools to revert the messages without any expln.)

I note the user claims to "hate anonymous editors" which may be an underlying cause of his issue, or perhaps he is unhappy with me that some of his college clubs were marked as non-notable as they failed to assert the importance of their subject. I would have preferred his anger to spill out as discussion rather than using "vandalism" warnings and reversions where they do not apply. I hope somebody can have a word... 86.31.156.253 15:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

According to your contribs, you just started editing today. And your edits are somewhat to be desired. See 86.31.156.253 Talk for more insite. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 15:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Some of 86.31.156.253's edits do leave a bit to be desired, but many are constructive and the ones that are not are simply because they don't follow the style guidelines. As you point out, this user has only begun editing today and so cannot be expected to know all of the style guidelines. I don't see anything (point it out if I'm wrong) that indicates vandalism. Please remember not to bite the newcomers. --Selket ^Talk 16:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Right then, so as far as I can see, both of you are attempting to make good faith edits, but reverting each other as vandalism. Purgatory Fubar, I'm a little disapointed in you reporting the IP to WP:AIV in an attempt to get them blocked, I would also suggest you let the red links stand, they allow users to see what articles they can create. Both of you I suggest take a short break from the computer, and come back with a clearer head. Ryan Postlethwaite 16:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The report was submitted due to the annon page blanking. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 00:17, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Except it wasn't page blanking it was a content dispute. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:23, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Page blanking from annon. Blanking out reversions by said annon using multiple IP's (happing now) on User talk:86.31.156.253

User:(aeropagitica) Got blanked User:Savant13 Got blanked User:Upholder Got blanked As well as me. This has nothing more to do with content dispute. not since I reported it to AIV. User:Savant13 also reported the page blanking. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 00:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Three points: 86.31.156.253 posted a comment [182] which he signed as being from me. I was the user that removed the speedy delete from Fightin' Texas Aggie Band that the IP editor placed. As far as I can tell from here, the IP editor was reported to WP:AIV by User:Savant13 ([183]). -- Upholder 17:27, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

see ryan postlethwaite removing false AIV notice by purgatory fubar and| aeropagitica removing incorrectly restored false AIV notice. User:Purgatory Fubar using AIV as a tool to win edit-wars is a strict no-no. Be very careful from now on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.31.144.47 (talk • contribs)

Any comment on why you signed a message left on Purgatory Fubar's talk page as if you were Upholder? Many of your other edits can be easily excused by assuming good faith, but that one is troubling. --OnoremDil 18:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

didnt know i did... but checking my history, it seems when i copy&pasted someone else's template i copy&pasted their username accidentally as well! oops ;)

i should also mention Upholder became very upset when i *dared* to put a notability tag on his apparently non-notable band's page, claiming the addition of the tag to be "bad faith" and "vandalism" ([184]) and angrily started issuing me vandalism warnings as a result [185] (claiming vandalism) [186] (again claiming vandalism), [187] - several more vandalism warnings. is this user simply unware of what constitutes vandalism, or is it a deliberate bad faith attack by a user angered about the question of notability of their favorite band?

I have no connection to Texas A&M University nor the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band. The notability of the band is covered by the entire first paragraph of the article and in addition the band has been awarded the Sudler Trophy, as I noted on the talk page for the article. I noticed the speedy delete because I have edited the article before, but I did not create it. Concerning your allegations that my warnings were placed in bad faith, adminsitrator (aeropagitica) noted that removing valid vandalism notices on your user talk page is in violation of Wikipedia policy [188]. -- Upholder 19:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Without commenting on the other issues, removing warnings has had community consensus for a number of months now. It is in line with our current policy and considered a sign that you read it. -M^ask?

20:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I would like to see where this community consensus is located. It has been my uderstanding that blanking warning templets was a blockable offense. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 21:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I would also note that I have not made any personal attacks but the IP editor in question has made personal attacks against me here in the comment this is in response to as well as on his talk page. -- Upholder 16:10, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• The same goes for me as well,The only one who has madepersonal attacks is the annon. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 00:07, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Impersonating User:Upholder time left on my talk page 15:53 [189] but signed it 15:44, not very smart [190] and know editing under another IP? Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 19:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The annon has resorted to Trolling via Sock puppetry to give the impression of more support for a viewpoint.

86.27.68.151 (talk · contribs) WHOIS report [191]

86.31.159.179 (talk · contribs)WHOIS report [192] 86.31.156.253 (talk · contribs) WHOIS report [193]

86.31.144.47 (talk · contribs)WHOIS report[194] 86.27.130.242 (talk · contribs) WHOIS report [[195]] All have had their hand in this. Not trying to assume bad faith here but my guess is that this annon is a banned user. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 18:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Having a non-static IP address doesn't equate to sockpuppetry. - Bobet 18:36, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It does when each IP is talking in the third person. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 18:47, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Let's take a walk. This was left by the annon (talking in the third voice fashion) at AmiDaniel VP Abuse.

• [196] - no explanation of random revert with vp given

VP does not allow for personal comment in the summary At least not that I am aware of.This delinking by annon is what started this. PF

you have failed to explain what the revert was for. vandalproof is for vandalism. can we assume, therefore, that you treated this edit ([197] my edit summary "undo some unnecessary linking") as vandalism ([198] your edit summary "Reverted edits by 86.31.156.253 (talk) to last revision (127941606) by LionheartX using VP") ? yes or no?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.3.64.139 (talk) 21:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

Vandalproof is not just for reverting vandalism but test edits and GFE that are not considered helpful. P.F

comment: actually it was these edits ([199] [200]) you seemed to take objection to. a merge on the "Texas A&M University Corps of Cadets" page from the "Senior boots" page based on the merge discussion at Talk:Senior boots. i had no objection to your edits there, though your reverts were later undone by other users, but after that, you began to stalk the address that dared to merge something (from somebody else's request), and began reverting legitimate edits. regarding "delinking legit links", as i explained in the edit summary, the links were unnecessary as the were already linked several lines above. i dont think i need to point out Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Overlinking and underlinking: what's the best ratio?. pleas explain why, therefore, you treated it as vandalism?

See this edit summary page to explain. P.F

• [201] user warning given with vp, despite no vandalism having occurred anywhere.

Test1 not vandal1 was given due to the delinking of legit link (wuxia) and (Hong Kong). At that point I was assuming good faith. PF

please expain how issuing a vandalism warning, using a vandalism tool, is assuming good faith. have you read WP:VPRF#Abuse? regarding "delinking legit links", as i explained in the edit summary, the links were unnecessary as they were already linked several lines above. i dont think i need to point out Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Overlinking and underlinking: what's the best ratio?.

Test1 templet is NOT a vandalism warning. P.F

• [202] attempt to discuss issue on user's talk page ignored and reverted using vp

User being civil went out the door with this "attempt to discuss issue". PF

did i read that right? WP:CIVIL NEVER "goes out the door". if you have been ignoring it, i seriously doubt your judgement. See WP:KETTLE. and please explain what you found so offensive about the comment on your user talkpage that you decided to revert it without acknowledgement or reply?

If any one else read that in conjuction with your edit they would know that you are the one who I was talking about. P.F

• [203] same

again

Removing 3RR notice as there was no 3RR, I simply reverted delinking of valid links as per above. PF

• [204] again removing attempted user talk page discussion using vp

Removed personal attacks. PF

• [205] using vandalism reversion with vp to revert non-vandalism edit on another article

Rollback edit by annon no test or warning was given, and later Nishkid64 (talk · contribs) did the same. (revert speedy tag from notable article) P.F

• [206] when the other user clears *their* user talk page suddenly its vandalism and he uses vp to revert

See user page link below. P.F

• [207] he issues a "last warning" to the user with vp

to be fair let's see he whole user page F.P

• [208] another article - vp revert to non-vandalism edit

Rollback annon removal of a disambiguation. No warning was given. P.F

• [209] another article - vp revert to non-vandalism edit

Revert unexplained removal of image with false edit summary. P.F (Vandalism) and user page blanking Final warning given. P.F

• [210] attempt to "block" the user as a vandal (subsequently removed by administrators [211] and given warning by User:Ryan Postlethwaite [212])

No warning was given to me by Ryan Postlethwaite (talk · contribs) See my above comment. P.F

• [213] removing valid warnings (abuse of vandalism templates) from user talkpage without expln, using vp revert

Revert Trollery P.F

• [214] - removing valid warnings from somebody else's talkpage without expln, using vp revert

Revert Trollery P.F

Update, annon is now moving my comment out of order of conversation. Even knowing full well that the comment was directed to another user as see here

Edit summary

Follow the evidence. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 19:08, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Disruptive editor Purgatory still not explaining his actions

Dear User:Purgatory Fubar,

making edits like this [215] while your edits are still being investigated for abuse is not wise given your current situation. your vandalproof privileges have already been revoked, and given that much of your current predicament is caused by unexplained reversions on the user talk page, doing so again seems mighty foolish. it seems you have still not learned any lessons from this episode about WP:CIVIL or WP:DICK or WP:AGF.

You have still not explained the reasons you made the edits that have caused this case to be raised:

1. why you used vandalproof reversion tools in an edit dispute [216]
2. why you assumed bad faith and claimed vandalism (a personal attack) [217]
3. why you used vandalproof to ignore and revert an attempt to discuss the edit issue on your user talk page [218]
4. why you then claimed that the attempt to discuss with you was "vandalism" and issued another warning[219]
5. why you again used vandalproof to revert your usertalk page in a renewed attempt to start a conversation [220]
6. but when someone other than yourself makes a reversion on their usertalk page, then its not ok [221]
7. despite the fact that removing warning has had community consensus for months now, as i'm sure you're aware, you chose to treat it as vandalism again [222]
8. again using vandalproof tool in an apparent edit dispute - here not even explaining what the edit dispute is [223]
9. and another throughly unexplained revert with vp [224]
10. here using AIV to attempt to win the edit war [225] (thankfully removed by diligent admins) - already received ryan's "slap on the wrist", yet i have still seen no explanation from Purgatory about why this was done ?
11. abusing vandalproof to revert usertalk warnings about "claiming vandalism when there is none" [226]
12. claiming "edits are somewhat to be desired" yet presenting no evidence of any vandalism [227]
13. snide insinuations [228], accusations being a troll [229], later claiming to have made "no personal attacks"
14. why did you choose to begin reverting the usertalk page AGAIN, despite all the comments in this ANI? [230]

its probably in your better interests to defend your actions here, rather than attempt to "shoot the messenger" (by the way, do you know what dynamic IP is? dont you think it would be prudent to understand such concepts to deal with vandalism?), this will reflect better on you in the long run. i honestly can't see any legitimate reason for the above, other than a complete screw-up, or maliciousness. if you can explain the rationale behind each of the above edits, which you have so far completely refused to do, i'd like to see it. if its a complete screw-up, then, hey, people make mistakes - in that case you should apologise and keep cool. but refusing to accept you have been incompetent, and have broken wikipolicy left, right and centre, has probably already blown your chances in any future adminship bid i'm sorry to say.

The following comment was moved here in an attempt to keep the chronological order of comments in sequence. The comment was not indented, so I assume it was no a direct reply to anybody, in which case it belongs here chronologically. User:Purgatory Fubar, I as you not to move it again. Thankyou.82.3.64.139 20:46, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

And the comments has again been moved by User:Purgatory Fubar (with edit summary "RVV"). I shall restore it as per my comment above. 82.3.64.139 21:21, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

And again Purgatory uses RVV in an edit dispute. Please read the italicised expln here before angrily screaming RVV and making edit summaries like this [231]. keep cool. 82.3.64.139 22:02, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Purgatory has now moved the text above this one for the fourth time. He has also failed to respond at all to the 15 specific points questioned above, and continues to protest that he has done absolutely nothing wrong. He appears to be grudgingly admitting treating an edit dispute as vandalism, using vandalproof inappropriately, using vandalism warnings inappropriately to intimidate an anon user, attempting to block a user as a vandal that he has been edit-warring with, breaking WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF, reverting and ignoring userpage discussion, but he refuses to accept any responsibility for his actions or offer any kind of apology. The question of whether his actions were mere incompetence, or maliciousness, remains open. The user has already been stripped of vandalprood privileges, has been warned about misuse of AIV, about removing redlinks, about issuing vandalism warnings for usertalk page edits, by other editors. Any future adminship bid has presumably also been scuppered by his actions here. His bitter comments here speak for themselves. I will now defer to administrators to take the appropriate course of action. Thankyou. 86.31.103.208 11:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Purgatory Fubar, Here's the guideline about removing warnings. See also full (=huge) discussion here. Hope this helps. Bishonen | talk 21:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

My bad, thanks for the heads up Bishonen. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 21:50, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Comment, that means [this] was for nothing? Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 21:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Ex-Admin Denying Users Placing Appropriate 'Sock Puppet' Tag on His Page

FYI, Chris Griswold and a "friend" (meat puppet?) Ned Scott have taken to deleting any comments/tags on his page that discuss his 'puppet master' past. I realize he did step down, but I am baffled why someone who claims to want to 'come clean' is making an effort to have any tags that acknowledge what he's done removed. Admins and others know of his past, but most casual users won't know or understand where to look. I believe a tag needs to be placed so most anyone else can see what's happened and why. Additionally, the user has claimed that he would 'come clean' about his past... But by denying the placement of an appropriate tag—and enlisting in the aid of 'meat puppets'—he's proving to not fully grasp the depth of what he has done. Please have the tag reverted and placed on his page. —SpyMagician 08:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I placed the template, Ned Scott removed it twice without giving any real justification. He was probabbly relying in the fact that most users are afraid to revert if he acts like he knows what he is doing (going against the policies in this case). Then Chris Griswold wisely told Ned not to defend him... aaand took the tamplate off for a third time. I think that's cynical and sad. I don't refuse to wear the tag he imposed on me, he shouldn't refuse to wear his. I was blocked regular user when I did certain meat and sockpuppetry... he was a admin who already blocked several users for doing the same when he created the accounts in question. CheckUser confirmed his identity. He should have known better and he has to face consequences just like I did. Even more as a former admin. Wikipedia trusted him!! that's how he pays?!! this is propostrous I'm ofended by his cynism and I demand justice!!! (or whatever the appropiate equivalent in wikipedia is)!!--T-man, the wise 08:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I think 'justice' is very simple in this case. Chris Griswold has been proven to be the 'puppet master' of three editors: Truth in Comedy, Superburgh and 24.3.194.217. All of these sock puppets were created while—and only while—the user was a sysop on Wikipedia. Now, T-man, the wise engaged in sock puppetr himself as a plain old 'editor' and is forced to wear the tag of 'puppet master'. Why then should an admin who abused power and had multiple sock puppets allowed to exist on Wikipedia without a 'puppet master' tag? It's clearly a higher offense when a trusted admin/sysop does something like that? So why is he—and his 'friend'—deleting tags or comments like this? Someone else needs to step up and say something about this. Despite being stripped of 'admin' status, Chris Griswold is still showing all the signs of an abusive admin ego. And it needs to stop. —SpyMagician 08:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Generally users who aren't blocked don't have the {{SockpuppeteerProven}} template on their userpage. Especially not for experienced, long-term editors (20,000 edits) who are still in good standing. Your edit-warring is unacceptable, and I have protected the page from your edit warring regardless, until further input is gathered here. But don't be surprised if your behaviour is characterised as 'dickish' and possibly even harassment. Daniel Bryant 08:27, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and we wouldn't want to get too rich on the meat-puppetry allegations, now, would we? Daniel Bryant 08:28, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Leave SpyMagician alone! the punishment should be twice as hard with admins. Wikipedia trusted them, admins are more aware of the repercutions of sockpuppetry, therefore they should be harder on cases like Chris!

And now they protected his page!! Whitout the template!!!!!! Is this the image of corruption whe want for wikipedia?! --T-man, the wise 08:41, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Daniel. What will hounding the guy achieve? He's no longer a sysop and his reputation here is severely tarnished. He's chosen to walk away for a bit and lick his wounds. I think it would say much better things about those who were in dispute with him if they let him have some dignity and stopped pestering him. Chris' actions were wrong but the matter is closed. Please leave him alone. WjBscribe 08:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Quite amazing that you would say that my behavior is 'dickish'. What then is the behavior of an abusive admin who used sock puppets to destroy and harass hundreds of users who contributed to comedy articles? This is kind of amazing. The guy was an admin and abused power, people point it out and someone calls their behavior 'dickish'. So I assume sock puppetry is okay as long as your an admin? Quite amazing inequity here. 'Dickish' behavior to some on Wikipedia is considered 'fair' in the real world. What would be achieved is those of us who are not 'hard core' users would see this user's past for what he is. In the admin world his rep is tarnished, but in the regular world people barely know what happened. And his user page shows barely anything to indicate the sock puppetry. All anyone is asking is the tag be added so that regular people/editors know that he engaged in abusive sock puppetry. —SpyMagician 08:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

There's no useful purpose to be served by that - we don't engage in tarring and feathering around here. The tag isn't needed and shouldn't be added. And how does someone manage to "destroy" hundreds of users? -- ChrisO 08:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Where did I ever say I thought your behaviour was 'dickish'? I merely suggested that some may consider it so. Daniel Bryant 08:38, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Random passer-by comments: I don't understand this. I saw something related to this come up in an RfA last month too and had the same reaction. The question posed in summary form was "What if a long-standing and well-liked Wikipedian were caught sock-handed?" The RfA candidate responded with a lot of reputation-protectiveness: Would talk with the problem admin first, try to convince them to stop, and so on. I say to hell with that. I may not be everyone's favorite editor around here - I know I can be abrasive - but come on. If I ever betrayed community trust to that extent I would expect to be strung up by the sensitive parts for it, and if I were an admin at the time, I'd expect to lose community trust damned near forever. "The tag isn't needed"? You must be kidding. It's desperately needed. This isn't the Wikipedia of 2005 any longer. It's fairly trivial for previously bad-acting people to "make friends" hither and yon and seek adminship again after the furor dies down. There are so many RfAs these days it's hard to keep track of them, and with an order of magnitude more editors in today's Wikipedia it's increasingly hard to remember transgressions. I guess that's it really. It just bowls me over that people are leaping to the defense of someone who torqued the system in a grossly treacherous manner and go caught. To me, this sends the message "It's okay to stuff the ballot box as long as you've at least once been enumerated among the poll workers", by way of analogy. PS: Please actually read WP:DICK. It is pretty clear that citation to WP:DICK is a WP:DICKish thing to do. Pretending that you were just referring to it for, well, interesting reading purposes or whatever is just WP:BALLS (while we're being metaphorically genital about everything). You were in fact being a WP:DICK yourself in citing that essay and were darned right to be called on it. And yes, I am both well aware and quite comfortable with fact that I am hereby being a WP:DICK myself in turn, because I think the point is worth making even at my own expense. PPS: There's a difference between tarring and feathering and presenting the facts. T&Fing is well thwarted by WP:NPA to my mind. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:10, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

No, no justification. If I have to wear my template he has to wear his! I also want to report something else: --T-man, the wise 08:41, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, in the spirit of 'some may consider it so', I say that by allowing an ex-admin who has clearly abused power to NOT have a tag placed on their user page indicating their past, well... some may consider it to be 'nepotistic' or 'favoritism' that he can get away with doing that based on the number of edits he made, while others exist on Wiki with these tags and dare not ever remove them lest an admin will chastize them. Sorry, but if the user DID engage in 20,000+ edits then it makes even MORE sense to have the tag added to their user page. How does one begin to contact or add comments to the THOUSANDS of pages this user edited this way? Does it not make more sense to just have one tag placed on the user page so if anyone has been edited by them, they can then see this user's history and then make a judgement based on it? It all wreaks of double-standards. Plain and simple. And if this user wants to make ammends to others, IDing himself as a puppet master—which is what he is—is a good way of honestly coming clean. I truly don't understand why some would consider it 'dickish' for that to happen or be discussed. —SpyMagician 08:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Because it's been discussed and it's been resolved. End of story. -- ChrisO 08:47, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The issue has indeed been discussed in admin and other circles which average users will not seek out. The issue now at hand is how to communicate this to the average user/editor who comes across this user's page. Simply placing the puppet master tag on it will end the issue. People will see what he did and understand the scope of it. Why is it he is being defended against that tag being placed when there's overwhelming evidence that he deserves it. And beyond that he has only 'reappeared' on Wikipedia to delete ANYTHING negative specifically on his talk page and his talk page only. If what I'm saying is so wrong, then why isn't there a reversion of all comments? There is a very clear double-standard here and that is the root of the issues I'm having and others are commenting on. —SpyMagician 08:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's pretty clear, SpyMagician, that you found out? The Arbcom already dealt with the situation. They were aware the tag was removed. If they were adamant about the tag staying, I don't think they're too stupid to say "The sock tags must be left alone." We don't use those as brands or scarlet letters, we use them to help us track unrepentant, banned or soon to be sockpuppeteers who are an ongoing problem. Chris Griswold is not blocked or banned, you've presented nothing to indicate his puppetry is continuing, and he is not required to display any "badge of shame". And this conversation, for some reason, seems awfully familiar to me. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 09:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with McCandlish. Anchoress 09:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Generally, {{sockpuppeteer}} is left for users who are

1. Indefinitely blocked
2. Banned
3. Someone who extensively abused said sockpuppets (say in the dozens)

Chris Griswold does not meet any of these "criteria"—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Ryulong and Seraphimblade on this. The tag is used to identify disruptive or banned sockpuppeteers and to identify their socks. It is not to be used as punishment. --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 09:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I also agree. There is no need to identify him as a sockpuppet if he has stopped doing it and he has not been blocked or banned. Use of the tag should not be punitive, which is what it would be here. Will (aka Wimt) 09:40, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem I have with it is the circular reference. It's kind of like a case in my home town where the teachers' union defended the information about a teacher who had committed serious offences being kept secret because, in their words, 'he wasn't kicked out of the union, and we don't make the information public if the teacher isn't kicked out of the union.' Anchoress 09:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, then can someone explain then why discussion on this user's talk page that points out his behavior is continutally reverted? It's clear there's a double standard here. On the one hand he claims that he wants to make good. But on the other, he's avoiding ANY public mention of it outside of the 'deeper' circles of Wikipedia. And while I understand the tags are not 'badges of shame' let's face facts. They are not designed because people want them. Much in the same way people put cute tags on their homepage to explain who they are, such badges can also educate others. I'm sorry but I don't appreciate the level of defense being made to defend someone who grossly abused their position. And the most disturbing aspect of this is the admins whose way of engaging in discussion is to basically imply banning or blocking if the discussion still happens. There's clearly an air of protection surrounding this ex-admin and it's simply quite disturbing. And as I said before, it's impractical for ANYONE to go to the thousands of pages that have been edited and say "Hey, this guy abused power..." It's simply more practical for public acknowledgement on his page. If he was proud enough to place badges on his page delcaring his likes/interests and even links to articles about his own past, why deny this? And why the eagerness to delete ANY discussion on this users page? Wikipedia and Wikinepotism is baffling. —SpyMagician 09:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Because he is not punished for having done so any more than having had his sysop bit removed. There is no need to put a big red A on his page for one (or two) lapses of judgement.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:45, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Chris isn't denying anything, he's resigned his adminship and that should be the end of it, no-one is going to forget what he's done. Using the pupetteer tag is way out of line, as people have said, thats reserved for blocked or banned users. Continued addition of the tag, and constant abuse on his talk page ammounts to harrassment in my eyes, I suggest you let this drop. Ryan Postlethwaite 09:47, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

And there is a user, User:Giovanni33, who has been proven to have used sockpuppets in the past, but he doesn't have {{SockpuppeteerProven}} on his userpage. Why? Because he, for all intents and purposes, said that he was sorry, and we don't hound him over it. He's not an administrator. Not every user who is a proven sockpuppeteer needs that tag on their page, nor does it anywhere on Wikipedia that they do. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 09:52, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• Ahem. In case it wasn't obvious, it is perfectly acceptable to have and use an alternate account. Several of us have them, for use when we just want a quiet afternoon's editing without being hounded about admin actions and when we don't wantr the little yellow bar lighting up every ten seconds. A sockpuppet account is not the same thing; sockpuppetry is use of alternate accounts to avoid a block or ban, or to give the apperaance of greater support than really exists in community debates. Is there any evidence that Chris used these accounts for proscribed purposes? Or was he just using an alternate account for purposes of a quiet life? Guy (Help!) 10:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
  • @Guy: If you read the links in the very first post, you'll see that he did. The most relevant section. Anchoress 10:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Additionally, here is the discussion on the request for arbitration page about this. There's no doubt there was a conscious effort to use multiple accounts to avoid responsibility and abuse power. But the fact you were confused about this, Guy is an example of what I have been arguing. A clear message should be placed on his page so anyone who comes across an edit knows what happened. —SpyMagician 10:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
      • I absolutely agree. If an active admin doesn't know what happened, and without common knowledge of CG's self-serving sockpuppetry, his '20,000 good edits', as noted above, weigh too heavily in the direction of trustworthiness. Anchoress 10:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• No, all it means is that I miseed the discussions on that. I am not omniscient and I do have things to do in RL. It all looks a bit WP:POINTy to me, to be honest. Guy (Help!) 10:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• • Guy: That was my intention: To edit without the burden of adminship and to separate my watchlist into smaller segments for easier editing. Unfortunately, use of alternate accounts turned out to be a slippery slope. I didn't mean to stay logged in as Superburgh when I edited the Taylor Allderdice article; I intended to make those edits with my main account, which is why I set the account up. Unfortunately, those edits appeared to be in the interest of evading a mediation attempt I hadn't actually noticed because I was just kind of mechanically going through the Superburgh watchlist and hadn't checked the talk page. After I saw that I had edited as Superburgh, I didn't think much of it because I hadn't edited the article in months and so did not feel like I was influencing a consensus, and so I just moved on. With Truth in Comedy, the error was in misrepresenting the dependence of the accounts when speaking to SpyMagician, who was haranguing me and possibly even stalking that account. It was incredibly frustrating, and I questioned him about it as ChrisGriswold as if I weren't also the other account. When I first decided to start an additional account, I didn't want to advertise that they were me, but I had a rule that if anyone ever questioned it, I would confirm that that was my account; the ethical area was a little grey there, but regardless, it was still misrepresentation. None of these edits were ones I wouldn't necessarily makes with this account; with regard to the comedy articles, these have been problematic in terms of the inclusion of a great many vanity articles for a long time, and it even prompted me to create a notability guideline for them months ago. In fact, these were edits I began to make as ChrisGriswold but later continued with the Truth in Comedy account. I have worked mainly on articles about fiction, and more than anything, I felt guilty about making the edits I felt needed to be made to articles that people had put a lot of work into about things they really cared about. I knew that some of these articles needed a lot of work or deletion, but I related to the people who had written them, and I felt that in order to do these edits, I needed to distance myself a little personally so I could feel more comfortable in performing them. The road to where I am now was paved with good intentions; I thought WP:SOCK justified the creation of these accounts, but it was incredibly easy to get into the quandary I found myself in, partially because it's easy to suspect alternate accounts of being sockpuppets. You know, I actually thought I might be able to come out somewhat clean in the arbitration case if I explained my reasoning, but after considering giving up adminship, I felt a sense of relief that now I could walk away for a while and not feel burdened by the duty I feel to Wikipedia or as if I were shirking that responsibility. I still plan to go into this fall from grace in a little more detail, but I'd like to let things die down a little first. I'm looking forward to my break, but I am checking in in case I am needed for any of these further discussions. I have plans for when I return, projects I hope will prevent other well-meaning admins from finding reading conversations about themselves like this one. But that's for later, and now it's time for me to go away for a while. I appreciate everyone who has been working to prevent the dogpiling. T-Man and SpyMagician: Please understand that what these other editors are doing in terms of protecting me is the same thing they would do for you or any other editor. They are not in any way defending what I have done; rather, they are conscious of personal attacks and how constructive behavior is in a touchy situation like this. Thanks for your time. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:41, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

You said I didn't want to advertise that they were me, but I had a rule that if anyone ever questioned it, I would confirm that that was my account if that is the case, why did you blatantly lie here when you stated Additionally, I edit with my own name, so I am upfront about any such conflicts of interest. and here when you pretend you don't know TIC by writing I have seen the way you follow Future Whatever around from article to article. Obviously, you weren't shooting for any level of transparency but in fact were willfully using two account to back each other up when edit warring. IrishGuy ^talk 18:13, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that contradicts what I said above. I have edited articles wherein I have a conflict of interest, but I have always been up front about them and have used my real name when editing them. And no, with SpyMagician I wasn't really trying to be transparent because I had become concerned with his stalking and harassment. I contacted him as ChrisGriswold because of this but never used the account for any edit warring on behalf of the other account. His stalking and harassment then extended to this account as well. I think that the content of the multiple threads SpyMagician has created or been part of that are devoted to this situation might give a taste of his behavior and attitude toward admins in general. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 20:49, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

You said that if questioned, you would have come clean. Why would anyone question anything when you pretend to not know the name of one of your socks and further claims that you only edit under your own name (which was a blatant lie as you had two other socks)? If you felt that SpyMagician was stalking one of your socks, you definitely shouldn't have confronted him using your admin account. You were protecting yourself, not some poor abused editor. How you still don't seem to think you did anything wrong is beyond my comprehension. IrishGuy ^talk 20:56, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

This thread is pointless. We do not kick people while they are down; doing so is absurd, immoral, and useless. Nor do we beat dead horses. —²¹⁰physicq (c) 00:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Apparently we do. SpyMagician has reinserted the puppet tags on Superburgh, Truth in Comedy, and 24.3.194.217 by revert warring [232] [233] [234] with two admins who are reluctant to revert war in turn (Newyorkbrad and myself). Kicking wins. :-( See Brad's talkpage and mine for discussion. Bishonen | talk 10:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC).

I've removed the tags and protected the user pages to put an end to the revert warring. The matter has been discussed at length and resolved. SpyMagician has received no support for his position - he should take the hint and move on. -- ChrisO 10:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

A quiet aside

Totally aside from the concern of this discussion (which seems a waste of space imho. I think User:Daniel.Bryant et al have things well in hand), and just thinking about Chris, for a moment. I wonder if, at this point, it wouldn't be better if he just allowed all three accounts to be indef blocked, the user pages deleted, (even perhaps have the ChrisGriswold account renamed to add obscurity) and he just started over from scratch with another username. I see he has concerns about being tied to his real name, and perhaps a bit of anonymity would be the answer? I think an email discussion with someone appropriate (bureaucrat? steward?) may be the order of the day. Just a suggestion, in the hopes it may help. - jc37 09:50, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think he ever had any real concerns over the privacy of his username; he was likely saying that to attempt to get out of the arbitration case. If he was concerned for his privacy he could have got the account renamed a long time ago. The idea of him starting a new account is possibly a good one, however. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 09:54, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I'd be happy for that to occur. Daniel Bryant 09:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Why afford an ex-admin a way to wipe their past like this? Why would this even be considered? Is this done for other users as well? It's patently ridiculous that someone who abused power as a Wiki admin be 'rewarded' by wiping the slate clean? Also, why is the discussion of how an ex-admin is treated a waste of space? It's simply ridiculous that this much effort is being made to 'protect' a user/ex-admin who abused priledge/power and seems to avoid taking any public responsibilty to those he damaged. What about the thousands of edits he made to damage others? What efforts are made or thought of to revert the ill-will and headaches caused by them? Or is that discussion a 'waste of space'. Ultimately it seems that you can break/bend Wiki rules if you (1) have a disturbingly high amount of edits and (2) are an ex-admin. Quite disturbing that attitude exists. —SpyMagician 09:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Everyone is allowed to abandon their accounts and start afresh- see Wikipedia:Right to vanish. WjBscribe 10:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that a clean slate might be good idea, although the choice is up to him. However I would comment that someone (steward, 'crat) is advised of his new name in the small chance that he does decide to engage in disruptive activities. --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 10:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Good to know there are ways one can duck their own personal responsibility and come back as a new 'handle' but with the same person behind the keyboard. How exactly is it 'good' for someone who ducked responsibility in the first place to be given the right to make the ultimate 'duck' by dumping their record? It's been proven that he can't control himself. And despite claims that he should have stepped aside a few months ago, he continued to edit. And he only stopped when he was busted by a user who had to fight hard to get the point made. Yes, there is a Wikipedia:Right to vanish, but it seems that it would just give him a new way to come back and engage in the same behavior again. Kzrulzuall's suggestion makes sense, and I would agree with it. But can't shake the fact that a lot of energy is being spent defending someone who abused the concept of good faith. —SpyMagician 10:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

If somebody comes back under a new name and then engages in the same "bad behaviour" they generally get found out pretty quickly and indef blocked for their troubles. If somebody manages to come back and keep a clean slate (and I'm sure that happens often) how can that not be good for the encyclopedia? It looks to me, as a new pair of eyes on this case, that you want "blood". It might be time to let this go: the guy was caught, and it's been quite humiliating for him; the community has (it would seem) decided to leave it at that, so let's move on. If you continue to make a song and dance about what is essentially a spent issue you'll likely find your own conduct coming under more scrutiny. --kingboyk 11:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I think a squeaky-clean new account is a great idea. But his choice, of course. Anchoress 10:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

To recapitulate, I believe that the issue here is that Chris Griswold is this user's real name. He obviously behaved inappropriately, but at the same time does not want the fact that he used an alternative account on Wikipedia to be the most important fact about his life that appears on Internet searches, and he is concerned that these tags will make that happen. I am not sure that the tags are a material part of the problem, but I concur with those who have urged that there is no legitimate reason to make a further issue of the tags on the blocked accounts. Of course, if the fact that two accounts belonged to the same user is relevant in discussion on a particular article talkpage, that can be mentioned. Otherwise, there is no need for further publicity of the matter. Newyorkbrad 15:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I have made the connection clear on one talk page and will continue to do so if advised; SpyMagician has been removing discussions between him and me (as Truth in Comedy) from talk pages. I would appreciate some guidance on this. Thanks, Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thought from another random person passing by: I love jc37's idea. If the people who have been harmed want restitution, I understand that. Think of something that positive that Chris can do for you or the world, even if it's making a donation to a charity, and ask him to consider doing it. Kla'quot 17:09, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I was mostly focused on removing NN/vanity comedy-related material from Wikipedia with the Turth in Comedy account. One plan I have for my return is to expand and re-work some articles. For instance, I am re-reading the book Something Wonderful Right Away to later work on improvisational comedy. Perhaps this sort of thing will alleviate some editors' concerns. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Matrixism

The oft-deleted Matrixism was reposted a couple of days after the WP:SALT was removed. It was taken to AfD, I closed it as a repost (DRV is the right place, in my view). Neil reverted that, restoring the article, and then removed the AfD notice as "closed". So: AfD notice removed because AfD closed, at the same time reversing the closurew of the AfD. Which pisses me off just a tiny bit. In the mean time we have rewarded the wankers who have been bleating about this crap-off-teh-Internets non-religion with its Geocities homepage since forever by giving them what they want. Way to go, team.

But it's worse:

• Neil created the current article
• Neil moved it to mainspace without deletion review, depspite presumably knowing that dleeiton had been endorse drecently
• Neil undeleted it after another admin (me) speedied it as G4, rather than taking it to DRV
• Neil then removed the deletion tag because the debate had been "closed" - but it was closed as delete, so he unilaterally reverted closure in favour of deletion of an article he himself had created, and which he surely knew to have been the suject of multiple deletions.
• Neil did not at any time that I can see declare that he was the creator when doing the above

That does not look too good, does it? Guy (Help!) 12:13, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• 11:38, May 4, 2007 Neil (Talk | contribs | block) restored "Matrixism" (39 revisions restored: Utterly invalid application of CSD)
• 21:15, May 3, 2007 JzG (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (CSD G4: Recreation of Deleted Material, re-created very shortly after removal of WP:SALT. No.) (Restore)
• 21:27, April 17, 2007 Cbrown1023 (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (content was: '{{deletedpage||July 2006}} <!--Excess long comment to prevent listing on Special:Shortpages.........................................................') (Restore)
• 01:15, July 25, 2006 Philwelch (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (nonsensical redirect) (Restore)
• 21:57, May 10, 2006 UtherSRG (Talk | contribs | block) restored "Matrixism" (4 revisions restored)
• 18:48, May 10, 2006 UtherSRG (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (Restore)
• 03:10, November 22, 2005 Sherool (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (WP:CSD#G4 recreation) (Restore)
• 07:18, November 20, 2005 Pamri (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (it is reposted content that was removed in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy. It may have undergone a vote for deletion here. See also this page's entry in the deletion log.) (Restore)
• 18:15, October 3, 2005 UtherSRG (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (deleted per (old) VFD) (Restore)
• 15:09, August 26, 2005 Ahoerstemeier (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (content was: 'what is matrix....nobody knows' (and the only contributor was '202.88.159.172')) (Restore)
• 22:11, August 6, 2005 SimonP (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (protected blank two months ago to prevent recreation) (Restore)
• 22:59, May 6, 2005 Texture (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (deleted VfD'd content reposted again) (Restore)
• 20:16, May 6, 2005 Texture (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (deleted VfD'd content reposted again) (Restore)
• 19:51, May 6, 2005 Academic Challenger (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (Restore)
• 19:48, May 6, 2005 Academic Challenger (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" ((deleted content reposted again)) (Restore)
• 19:45, May 6, 2005 UtherSRG (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (restored to protect, deleting again.) (Restore)
• 19:44, May 6, 2005 UtherSRG (Talk | contribs | block) restored "Matrixism" (1 revisions restored)
• 19:41, May 6, 2005 Postdlf (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (recreated vfd'd article) (Restore)
• 19:05, May 6, 2005 Xezbeth (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (redeleting) (Restore)
• 19:03, May 6, 2005 Xezbeth (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (recreation) (Restore)
• 18:49, May 6, 2005 UtherSRG (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (redeleting again) (Restore)
• 12:06, May 6, 2005 UtherSRG (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (speedy deleting previously deleted article) (Restore)
• 18:20, May 5, 2005 Jnc (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Matrixism" (pr request, redir) (Restore)

Someone is playing pitch-till-ya-win here. Guy (Help!) 12:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• Yep. User:71.112.17.109 is joining in the fray, too. >Radiant< 12:27, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Well you know what they say about shit-off-teh-internets. Cleaning the toilet bowl of the internet is like trying to scrape fish crap from the ocean. I'd say G4 applies since it was VFDed, SALTed, deleted a whole lot, and all that other stuff. Luigi30 (Taλk) 12:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Guy, I don't think calling other editors "wankers" is very productive. The speedy criterion only applies if the versions were "substantially identical", which they weren't. Neil corrected your error, which was a completely reasonable judgement call. Addhoc 13:05, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

You want tact and diplomacy? Ask someone else. This is a nonsense "religion" with 300 adherents which has been relentlessly spammed on Wikipedia pretty much since its inception. The sources evaporate under any kind of light. The homepage of the purported religion is a Geocities page. We deleted it several times, and reviewed the deletion and endorsed it several times. And very shortly after the WP:SALT was removed, it was re-created yet again. Like I say, someone is playing pitch-till-ya-win. Guy (Help!) 13:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Considering there was one valid AfD and no valid speedy deletions, I'm not sure what the pasting of the log is supposed to accomplish. The DRV result was, incorrectly, "Deletions endorsed; if the sources contain encyclopedic material, a new article should be started in userspace." The second part was done. What's the problem here? --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:22, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that admin Neil restored the article deleted by Guy that editor Neil had written; an obvious conflict of interest. Neil should have gone to DRV. If the article is really as different as he says, the result at DRV would have been to either undelete or list at AfD (which is happening now, but without the conflicted and possible misuse of admin tools. Thatcher131 13:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps so (not that I'm convinced he did anything wrong at this point, although I probably would have preferred him to go the {{editprotected}} route), but he was also right in line with the DRV closing. Considering how often DRV gets it wrong (including the last Matrixism discussion), and how many people seem to be missing the boat, who can blame him? --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Jeff, you're not advocating ignoring the rules, are you? In any case, an article which has been repeatedly deleted should be subject to discussion before recreation in mainspace. If someone wants to create a userspace draft and take it to DRV saying "Hey, guys, I think I've actually got a decent article on this, could we allow recreation?" I have no problem with that. But you don't just recreate, and you certainly don't wheel war when someone properly G4's it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:13, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Not at all, I'd never do such a thing. There's no inherent need given the DRV closure. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Stating that "DRV gets it wrong a lot" is not a reason to ignore it. JuJube 10:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Bogus MfD closure, and then some

I hereby award this giant noisy machine that does nothing to enhance the encyclopaedia to everyone who even tries to suggest that "anti-barnstars", as proposed by freakofnurture here, are useful in any capacity whatsoever to... well, I guess I had a point here, but I kind of got a caffeine lapse. Sorry. I guess I failed at an attempt at the humour. But is this image offensive? I sure hope not. It's philosophical. Gears are the most philosophical of the mechanical things. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 17:52, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Before I even get into this one, I confess that I was annoying in this particular MfD debate, as I admit at User talk:SMcCandlish#Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Fromowner, and as amended at this diff with a broad self-revert. Despite no further issues being expressed by anyone, Freakofnurture (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) closed the debate while still ongoing, supporting a "consensus" of keep and adding an "admonishment" to me for having proposed the MfD in the first place. I have four issues with this (and if this is really a WP:DRV issue, then say so and I'll take it there): 1) A party to the debate shouldn't close it; it's a conflict of interest. 2) An admonishment is called for in a case of bad faith, but not simply because one disagrees with the XfD nomination or doesn't like the nomintator's debate style. 3) More importantly, the "keep" decision strikes me as faulty; the only conclusion to draw (as much as I would like it to be otherwise) appears to be "no consensus" - a number of ediors raised substantive issues, in detail, that were never addressed by the more numerous but largely "me to" keep commentors, few of whom seemed to understand that the actual gist of the MfD was userspacing (or even another form of compromise) not deletion. And lastly, 4): Of over 30 commentors, only two suggested in any terms that I be admonished for bringing this XfD, and one made it very clear he was kidding, so a finding of consensus that I be so admonished is clearly nonsensical. That said, the fact that one seriously meant it and I got user talk comments about the matter was enough for me to re-examine my participation and change it, to the point of self-reverting much of my own text. I'm not sure what better sign of good-faith could be given. Still, the almost immediate "result of the debate was: keep and admonish nominator" followed by the strangest message I've ever gotten yet on WP, and I've been around since late '05. I don't think I've ever seen an Anti-Barnstar before. From an admin closing a debate he was party to.

This doesn't seem to be an appropriate way to close an XfD, even if you are irritated with the nominator. And I don't like seeing this sitting around in the archives "admonishing" me for having dared to challege something that I thought was (and still think is) ultimately detrimental to the project. That view may be debatable, but it is neither insane nor malicious.

PS: The personal attack message aside, I am being reverted by the same personage at the MfD page in my effort to resolve an edit conflict and add my final comment to that page, which has no effect whatsoever on the closure decision, but simply provides my response to a direct challenge for one. Judging from the edit summaries, he reversions are based on assumptions of bad faith on my part that are not justified (i.e. 'lol "edit conflict". I don't believe you, reverting.')

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:28, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Apart from any other issue, what you believe would have been the proper result of "No consensus" would still default to "keep," so precisely how the closer characterized the close is not critical. The "admonition" is one user's view; it's not a formal ruling as part of the XfD process, so I don't think you need to worry overmuch about that. I suppose you can seek a deletion review if you want to, but my recommendation would be to drop the matter and see how this new idea works. If it has as negative an impact as you seem to anticipate, the matter can be revisited in due course. Newyorkbrad 15:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

To interject: Yes, I know that it would be kept as a result of "no consensus", and I have no intentions to going to DRv about it; there is certainly no consensus to detele or userspace the stuff in question. But there was no "keep" consensus either, and a closure of "keep" gives the impression that ther was one, which is misleading. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Newyorkbrad, closing admins need to understand that what they say in a closing has implications, and the "ruling" to admonish the nominator is clearly listed at the top of the delete debate for everyone to see. There is no question that it may be interpreted as an "official" part of the closing and should not have been included. The closer should keep his purely personal opinions, especially when of a negative nature, to private conversation with the nominator. Lexicon (talk) 15:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I certainly agree that it would have been better not to include that comment at that location. Perhaps the closing administrator, on seeing this thread, will refactor the wording. Newyorkbrad 15:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

(EC) Regardless of anything else, the "middle-finger barnstar" [235] is a bit much. That really doesn't seem appropriate, whether or not the admonition is. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, I missed that, having only looked at the MfD discussion itself rather than the talk. I have to agree that that was grossly inappropriate coming from any editor and especially from an administrator. I would urge, though, that the closing admin be given notice of this thread (if he hasn't already) before this discussion continues. Newyorkbrad 16:10, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Lexicon (talk) 16:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Grossly inappropriate, but funny nonetheless. I can't fault him too much for his anti-barnstar. --Cyde Weys 16:52, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

One of the funniest (also grossest) things I've ever seen on WP was an image that Freak used to accompany his answer to one of my questions during his ArbCom candidacy. (He subsequently changed his answer, so anyone curious has to check the page history there.) Sorry, but this image was not in that league and seems to have offended a contributor. Newyorkbrad 18:26, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

As an F-U Barnstar giver, ([236], [237]), I must say his use of it is fine. --Ali'i 18:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

An "F-U Barnstar" in the way Freakofnurture used it is no different from saying "fuck you" outright, and is therefore undoubtedly a significant violation of WP:CIV. How could it possibly be defended as "fine"? Lexicon (talk) 19:22, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

IMO the barnstar was given in good humor, if it were me I wouldn't consider it a personal attack. Roll with the punches and have fun. hombre de haha 19:42, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Just for the record, I'm not dreadfully offended, crying my eyes out in the corner or anything. I'm an old Usenet hand with a pretty thick skin, and the image actually is pretty funny. What concerns me about this is more precedential. If it becomes "okay" or "fine" to do this in Wikipedia, then where does it stop? How many editors will we lose who make great contributions, tick someone off once in a while, and don't have thick skins? Will the pictures start becoming disgusting? Threatening? That's where I'm going with this half of the issue (the other half being that I think the MfD is simply wrong as "Keep" instead of "No consensus", shouldn't be attacking the nominator - again a bad precedent - and shouldn't be closed by a party to the debate. I care about that stuff more than the "anti-barnstar".) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm relieved to hear that you personally were not offended by this. Such an image, as used, is a personal attack, and in general I would not hesitate to deliver a 24 hour block if an editor did not remove such an image and apologize (although I am not threatening a block against Freakofnurture, as this appears to be an isolated incident). This is an encyclopedia, not a cage match. We aren't here to see who can withstand more torment and abuse, whether overt or passive-aggressive. I am concerned by Freakofnurture's action, but this can be a lapse of judgment. I am much more concerned by the attitude of those who think this isn't a big deal. If Wikipedia is supposed to be a playground only for people who don't mind being cursed at and insulted, then there's really no possibility of a viable community or a quality product as the result. If we're going to scrap CIVIL and NPA, there's really no incentive for most people to stick around. ··coelacan 07:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

<personal attack removed>. —freak(talk) 18:30, May. 5, 2007 (UTC)

Where? The anti-barnstar is still present on my talk page (I really don't care), and the MfD closure still bears the "admonish nominator" in the closing statement (I really do care). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:31, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

"<personal attack removed>" was just Freakofnurture's response to me. It's another clever retort. I'll go refactor the MfD. ··coelacan 08:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a non-apology. You could use the good ol' stand-by "I'm sorry". But whatever. Lexicon (talk) 21:03, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

New accounts might deny terms of site

Resolved

 – Multiple admins have explained that they have to open new, separate accounts. Yamla undone the autoblock only, so no worries John Reaves (talk) 20:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned about a couple of recently created accounts, Pi-group (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Henry Gage (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). The text of both of their front pages is virtually the same:

Pi-group: "I am an agent constituted by philosophers, logicians and scientists interested in the philosophy of information. My constituting members prefer to remain anonymous not because they wish to hide their identities behind mine, but because they believe in non-individual agents and do not care about claiming authorship of particular wiki-contents or wiki-contributions."

Henry Gage: "Welcome. My name is Henry Gage (soldier). I am the collective allonym under which a group of philosophers, logicians and scientists interested in the philosophy of information operate. My constituting members prefer to remain anonymous not because they wish to hide their identities behind mine, but because they believe in non-individual agents and do not care about claiming authorship of particular wiki-contents or wiki-contributions."

At minimum, it sounds like they're fundamentally denying this site's TOS. At worst, they appear to be shared accounts. Can someone have a look?Blueboy96 17:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Interesting stuff at Special:Contributions/Pi-group. Either way, shared accounts are blockable, right? x42bn6 Talk 17:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, role accounts are expressly forbidden. Natalie 17:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

And they're denying the terms of use of the site as well--users are individually responsible for their contributions.Blueboy96 18:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Something else I thought about--can contributions by shared accounts be reverted on sight? My thinking is that shared accounts are not part of the Wikipedia community, and therefore 3RR doesn't apply.Blueboy96 18:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked them both, see meta:Role account for more information. John Reaves (talk) 19:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Pi-group made Henry Gage's front page any way, so you know the two are related. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 19:16, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I have had extensive email conversations with the owner of the account. The person now understands exactly why role accounts are bad and has promised not to do this in the future. As a result of this email conversation, I am assuming good faith and unblocking. --Yamla 20:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest reblocking. If the accounts had previously edited, then the GFDL has already been violated and no clear line of authorship can be drawn. They really ought to start over of they would like to continue editing. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 09:39, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Yamla, reblock these accounts. I explained to them in response an e-mail I received and the unblock-en-l request that they can't do this and that can and need to establish separate accounts. As their accounts are already established a role accounts, it would be best to leave them blocked and let them simply create new accounts. As far a GFDL goes, all edits were reverted. John Reaves (talk) 10:31, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Limboot (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log)

This user has been involved in rampant WP:OR and WP:POV pushing, and has been blocked more than once for 3RR violations on related articles. This current edit, where he refers to me as You stupid judaist (believer in the jewish ,religion' is now outright antagonism. Is an RfC required, or can he be kindly informed of WP:NPA rules. I think I'd be within rights to do it myself, but I'd prefer to get fellow admin feedback. Thank you. -- Avi 19:42, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I am very close to indefinitely blocking Limboot. – Steel 19:47, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I've repeatedly tried to engage with this user (as have others), but have been met with absolute failure. It's becoming clear that he's only here to disrupt. - Merzbow 21:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Steel, if you don't want to, I will. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 23:47, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The indef block is overboard here. Yes, he did make one incivil attack since the expiration of his block. However, for the most part the only thing he is guilty of is having an unpopular opinion and bad grammar. As far as I know, we do not block for either. Certainly the attack should not be ignored, but I'd recommend a wait-and-see approach before heading for an indefinite block. -- tariqabjotu 01:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Guilty of those, in addition to assuming bad faith, violating WP:ATT, edit warring, PoV pushing, etc - hardly a model editor. Next time Limboot does any of those s/he's gone. – Steel 01:50, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Having perused contributions, I support an indefinite block pending Limboot's recognition of and engagement with the community's concerns, at which point the block can and should be commuted.Proabivouac 09:06, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Jacob Peters redux

Our old friend is back yet again with 68.126.7.209 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). So far all he's done is respond to me telling him to go away, but if he starts editing actual articles in the slightest fashion, or do anything else harmful/disruptive, block the bastard. Moreschi ^Talk 21:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I've watchlisted Orange Revolution, since that seems to be the article he's interested in now. Will block if I see anything that needs a block. Heimstern Läufer 21:38, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I wrote a good deal of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution article as well as of the Ukrainian famine article and these topics seem to heavily interest JP. I have seen JP's "contributions" to several UA related articles and I must say that despite their being disruptive, I was able to use a small minority of the sources he added by integrating the info from them in the appropriate form (he usually lies on what sources actually say.) What I mean is that as long as someone immediately goes over his edits, there may even be some net positive of his intrusions and integrating a small faction of his info weeding out nonsense would be much more useful that reverting him on the spot (while the letter is less time consuming.) That said, I do not advocate unblocking, of course. If he decides to change his ways, he may ask the Arbcom to lift his ban under the conditions of the supervision and sockpuppetry probation. I just thought I add this here for the full context. --Irpen 21:54, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, seeing as you're the one editing the article, and I'm not. Elsewhere, though, Jacob's "contributions" have been pure junk, usually involving the removal of references to nasty Western historians who Jacob doesn't like. Of course, he can appeal to the ArbCom if he wants, though he also seems to have a nasty little sideline in flinging personal attacks at people. We'll see. Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 08:44, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Abusing of references

User:Tankred deleted a section from the 2006 Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs article, under this: "A source added by a later banned user proved not to be accurate. Caplovic was not a deputy prime minister in 2002."

The incriminated section:

"Dusan Čaplovič, the vice-president of the Smer party, has called for the banning of singing the Hungarian national anthem in Catholic Churches, claiming that this is disloyal to Slovakia. Even Robert Fico, current prime minister and leader of the Smer party, has made controversial statements in this regard as well."

In reality, the references, as the whole section was NOT added by User:VinceB, whom the "banned user" refers to.

It was just moved from Anti-Hungarian sentiment to this article, by infed banned User:VinceB. Into Anti-hungarian sentiment article, indef banned (for two month - LOL) User:Juro moved [238] from Slovakization article.

So in fact, this section was added into Slovakization article, as well as the refences, by User:Alphysikist [239].

The fisrt parto of deleting reason (A source added by a later banned user proved not to be accurate. Caplovic was not a deputy prime minister in 2002.) is obviously wrong then. About inaccuracy: as you see, the deleted section does not claim, what Tankred states. Section says, Caplovic was "vice-president of the Smer party". No "Caplovic was deputy minister" is written in that, nor dates, so "Caplovic was not a deputy prime minister in 2002." part of the deleting reason is an obvious misleading for the recent changes patrollers.

All in all

• It was fully added by another user, User:Alphysikist, not a banned one.
• The section does not claim that Caplovic was prime minister (or any similar). Nor mentioning 2002 or any date, and nor in that kind of a context, so it is, as deleting reason is an obvious misleading.
• Tankred claimed many times before, that he's not speaking Hungarian, but here, claimes the sources are inaccurate. Well, they're not. http://www.stars21.com/ - a good page or text translator. for en-hu-en.

Please, block him, this was the 7th time, he abused references. --195.56.28.249 00:18, 44 May 2007 (UTC)

Need quick de-escalation

Hello. I need help on my talk page. Per a suggestion, I archived my talk to start afresh after several accusations of being a sockpuppet. One of the first persons to accuse me of being a sockpuppet is repeatedly wanting answers now.[240]

This other user has been asked politely to stop posting to my account several times in the past, and I can post diffs if necessary, or you can see the archives.

The remedy I seek is to have an admin ask this user to desist from communicating with me on my talk page until I contact him at a later time. Others and myself have asked him to desist from communicating with me in the past, both politely, and rudely--(see archives). I have requested a mentor but the request is still outstanding.

Thanks. Infinite Improbability Drive 04:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Others? Who? Who recommended you wipe your talk clean? Why did you archive information that 6-8 other established editors think you are being disruptive and are a sock? Then added a "welcome" template, which you yourself signed?Arbustoo 04:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Again, this is very disconcerting. He was warned by one other here. The block was over turned, the admin who overturned may or may not think I am a sockpuppet of yet another user, but Arbustoo is on a mission, and this needs to stop pending the mentor request I have made. Thanks. The only remedy I want at this time is for a third party to ask this user to desist from communicating with me on my talk page until I contact him at a later time. Infinite Improbability Drive 04:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

You should quote that in full because in the context you were banned, and he said there was no need to me to ask you anymore questions about your behavior.

That editor you are quoting also said to me "Arbustoo, I sympathize with what you're going through with this editor. I noticed that your questions went unanswered on ImprobabilityDrive's talk page"[241] Arbustoo 04:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Arbustoo has accused me of being two other sockpuppets here.[242] You'll just have to trust me that as a result of the unblock it was requested that I seek a mentor, and I have done so. You could also check the archives but this is a very complicated case. Meanwhile, please just ask the user to desisit from following me around. It was suggested that my talk page be archived to avoid this sort of explosive situation, and I did it. If the suggesting admin wants me to undo the archive I will. Meanwhile, this pestering needs to stop. Infinite Improbability Drive 04:50, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Indirectly, I raised the idea of Infinite Improbability Drive archiving the user page, which I understand to be acceptable when a talk page has warnings. Arbustoo has evidently had past experiences leading to quick suspicion of possible socks, but in my opinion assuming good faith and giving IID a chance to act in a constructive way will be more productive. I've noticed several anons editing in an accomplished way, and have advised them to get an account. It now seems that can lead to others thinking they're a sock because they start out knowing how to sign posts. Deescalation is a good idea, mediation by a third party might be useful ... dave souza, talk 05:10, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify. There are about 4 other users who think this account may be a sock not including the admin who blocked this user. This user has engaged in edit warring, WP:TE, WP:DE, paranoia, and personal attacks.

I do not think that learning to sign is a reason for thinking this user might have had another account. It is a variety of factors: advanced use of policy, requests, usage of AN/I, tags, OR, treatment of vandalism, and so on. Dave, do not paint this as a single issue. There are a variety of factors with several other editors. Arbustoo 06:05, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Arbustoo, what is you goal? You seem to demand answers which IID is not in any way obligated to answer, yet you seem to insist. If you have issues with IID, discuss those issues with him; don't hammer on questions that are irrelevant. Yes, he may have been an editor, either as an IP or with another account. You should read up on Right to vanish. Again, IID is in no way obligated to answer you questions, and you hammering on about it borders on Harassment. --Edokter (Talk) 12:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

This isn't the first time Arbustoo has been brought to ANI for this exact same thing. See [243] and [244]. He got it in his head last month that I was a sockpuppet, and took to edit warring with me on my own talk page and posting spurious block requests on ANI. He finally left me alone after JzG had a word with him and NewYorkBrad removed his non-stop harassing questions from my talk page. I have no opinion on IID's alleged sockpuppetness, but this crap needs to stop. Frise 12:55, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/ImprobabilityDrive for Arbustoo's accusations, with another user certifying the basis for this dispute. I've not looked at all of the case in detail, but in part of it Arbustoo seemed to aggressively WP:OWN an article. As shown at User talk:ImprobabilityDrive, ImprobabilityDrive has been adopted by a mentor and myself and another user are encouraging this as a way forward with an end to misbehaving.. dave souza, talk 13:43, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

And on a mostly unrelated note, Arbustoo's user page is looks like a BLP violation. Statements like that about a living person (even if we think he's a total ass) aren't tolerated on any Wikipedia page. Very similar to the situation with MantanMoreland [245] which was rightfully removed (and he didn't object to).Frise 13:05, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh joy. Time to bust out the WP:OFFICE? --Kim Bruning 13:10, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Following the links, he's vilifying someone who has been POV-pushing at wikipedia. :-/ Still not supposed to do that though! --Kim Bruning 13:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Banned for leetspeak?

What the fuck. Since when do we ban people for using "leetspeak" in their names? [246] I find it hard to believe that this is acceptable. RFerreira 06:01, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:USERNAME#Random. {{usernameblock}} gives instructions on how to change the username. They're not banned; account creation was not disabled so they can just make a new account if they'd rather not bother to change the name. ··coelacan 06:30, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I've unblocked. There's nothing in the policy against leetspeak. --Carnildo 06:32, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

No, using numbers in place of letters is not "random". In fact, it is rather commonplace, especially when you are competing for a unique username and over 1,000,000 of them are already taken. Thanks Carnildo for your assistance with this -- hopefully we haven't lost a valuable contributor as a result of this mix up. RFerreira 06:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Just "over 1,000,000"? Try "over 4,000,000": Wikipedia has 48,195,501 usernames defined. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 08:03, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

:I would guess that the block was based not on leet but on the apparent reference to religious figures, not just "God" but "1llah" (why the final h?).Proabivouac 09:02, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[sardonically] It's probably because the final "h" changes the vowel sound preceding it, changing the leet translation from "Godzillu" to "Godzilluh," a homophone for "Godzilla." Good morning, Wikipedia. =)--Dynaflow 09:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I thought so. I don't think this is religious reference, more like one to a monster trashing Tokyo...Moreschi ^Talk 09:12, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Hell, I'd worship something like that. Raptor Jesus and the Flying Spaghetti Monster haven't been returning my calls lately anyway. --Dynaflow 09:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Raptor Jesus is displeased. Where is your god now????⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 10:41, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I stand immensely corrected, and ashamed of my unfamiliarity with the conventions of leet.Proabivouac 17:37, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The Smithsonian, I presume. The FSM might still be in the back of my fridge, though in what condition, I could not tell you. --Dynaflow 10:54, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Username policy states that using characters that look like the intended character but aren't is discouraged, given its abuse in the past. Another page disputes this. However, I could be wrong, as I read both a long time ago. – AstroHurricane001^{(Talk+Contribs+Ubx)(+sign here+How's my editing?)} 18:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

This is the first paragraph under Inappropriate usernames.

"Wikipedia does not allow usernames that are misleading, harassing, or offensive - both in English and in other languages, as well as misspellings and substitutions thereof such as through Leetspeak. In borderline cases, you will be asked to choose a new username; in egregious cases, your account will simply be permanently blocked" Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 19:23, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but this wasn't offensive even when translated out of Leetspeak. Unless you dislike bad monster films. Moreschi ^Talk 19:29, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Could be misleading. There is a user with the name Godzilla spelled normal Godzilla. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 19:43, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that's stretching it a bit. They haven't exactly titled themselves M0reschi or something. Moreschi ^Talk 19:49, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it could be misleading and or confusing if you were to address one or the other. Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 19:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Bonaparte socks

Resolved

Transnistria (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is currently under attack by single-purpose socks of banned user Bonaparte (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), namely Gândacul (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Fat frumos (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Cel care e destept (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Also, one of them created Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Alaexis. Any help will be appreciated. MaxSem 07:30, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Dmcdevit has been taking care of them. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:44, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

DRV for closure

WP:DRV#Bob_Dobbs, please, before User:Eep² wastes any more time over his insistence of having a direct link with editorialising in the current {{delrev}} page. Been over 5 days. For my money the overturns amount to WP:ILIKEIT and do not challenge the original AfD result but I am a notorious evil deletionist, and that's irrelevant anyway; I suspect external canvassing has probably had the effect they want. Guy (Help!) 09:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Closed. --pgk 12:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Xob12xobxom and the editor's love of the word "cunt"

In the twenty minutes since Xob12xobxom (talk · contribs · count · logs · email) registered, the editor appears to started an axe grinding campaign against American Evangelists. The time line so far is as follows:

• 6:41 - registered
• 6:49 - uploaded the shockingly-amateurish image Image:Benhinn.jpg
• 6:51 - added [247] above image to the Benny Hinn article and inserted various insightful bits of text such as "fraudulent" and "Then he became a cunt and has remained one to this day."
• 6:52 - added "He's a cunt at the moment. He's always been a fucking cunt." to Peter Popoff
• 6:52 - edited Peter Popoff again, this time changing Mr. Popoff's country of birth, current location, and occupation to "cunt"
• 6:55 - added "Thank fuck for that!" to John Wimber
• 6:57 - creatively changed Oral Roberts University from saying "Prohibited activities include lying, cursing" to "Prohibited activities include lying (so obviously evangelism is out of the question), cursing."
• 6:58 - added "He's most famous for being a total and utter fucking cunt." to Oral Roberts
• 7:00 - in a final edit, added "Basically he's a fucking cunt." to Benny Hinn

Currently I am in the process of reverting these edits, but if an admin could enact a more permanent solution ... --Kralizec! (talk) 12:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

User permablocked; image deleted; crap reverted.  REDVERS ↔ SЯEVDEЯ  12:38, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your speedy assistance! --Kralizec! (talk) 12:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

User:BetacommandBot

Resolved

Given the recent arbcom ruling, why is BetacommandBot running? Nardman1 13:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see it now Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval#User:BetacommandBot. It's tagging fair use images as orfud, and adding a tag that says to use {{not orphan}} to indicate it's not an orphan. But it's missing images that use redirects to it, such as template:notorphan, such as here. Nardman1 13:49, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I've left Betacommand a message on his talk page. I do not think him using a bot after the arbcom ruled he misused bot abilities is appropriate. Nardman1 14:01, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If it has approval, why not let it? I don't think he'll make the same mistake of running an unapproved bot again. --Cyde Weys 14:15, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If ArbCom wanted to prohibit the user from running any bots it would have said so (compare, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Marudubshinki). It didn't, so the bot is allowed to run if properly approved. If anything, I think Betacommand is to be commended for remaining active after what had to be a painful decision for him (we lost Maru as a contributor altogether when his case ended :( ). However, I really would urge him to be extra careful that the bot is performing accurately. Newyorkbrad 14:29, 5 May 2007 (UTC) Note: I fixed the link to RFAR - Gavia immer (talk) 16:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Newyorkbrad. In fact I think the ArbCom in that case considered a ban on Betacommand runnign bots, but failed to pass one. That arbcom case did inclulude as a Principle the statemetn that " Generally, scripts require manual confirmation of each edit. Unsupervised and supervised automatic bots require approval of the BAG. Manually assisted bots and scripts may require approval if the editor anticipates making high-speed edits." (See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand). I don't see a problem with such a bot running, however any user runnign a both that effectively tags pages for deletion should be careful toa void false positives, and Betacommand in particualr should be extra careful, given the history cited above. DES ^(talk) 14:37, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a point of info: When the problems with Betacommand first arose, he was removed from the Bot Approvals Group and had all bot approvals and his bot flag withdrawn. This happened prior to and, for a while, concurrent with the Arbcom case. He has his bot flag back and several specific tasks approved (see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot and subsequent task applications); the Arbcom obviously chose not to take any further action.

Opinion: I also congratulate Betacommand on his steadfastness and hope he will carry on as a useful Wikipedian but, of course, he needs to be more careful than the average editor and bot operator now. Also, I routinely support blocking a bot which isn't behaving as described; unlike blocking a human it's no big deal. --kingboyk 15:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

• • Per my link above, this bot was approved for 100 edits. It now has over 371 edits today by my count. It is also mistagging some images marked as not orphan, even though the tag it's putting on the page says that images marked not orphan should not be tagged with that tag. Could someone shut it off? Nardman1 15:02, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Also, bot is supposed to shut off when a talk page message is left per User:BetacommandBot but it is still running despite the fact I left a message. Bot is misbehaving. Nardman1 15:13, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I've just blocked the bot on the basis that it has been reported (above) that the bot is not correctly avoiding false positives. Any comments to the BRFA would be helpful. Martinp23 15:17, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Martin for stopping the bot, It should have stopped after 100 edits (there must me a bug). But as with any new bot task there will always errors regardless of the bot operator. as for the template {{notorphan}} how does that affect the fact that the image is not used in the mainspace? if its not orphaned it should be clear. just because someone adds a template doesnt change the fact of the status of the Image. (per the FU policy images need to be used in the mainspace) Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 22:25, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

No problem - indeed. It is my understanding that sometimes our {{notorphan}} images may be used on other projects, though I'd think that they should be uploaded there in their own right. Perhaps there's some other reason? Martinp23 22:39, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

the {{notorphan}} is a violation of the FU policy. FU images MUST be used properly or deleted. I was looking at Image:Meyer Lansky.jpg where it is used improperly. that page is not linked to from the mainspace and isnt really used at all, see [248] just a link to a user talkpage and another image page. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 23:04, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to agree with that, I don't see the justification or the ability of us to use that tag if its not being used to build the encyclopedia. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 23:27, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with this also, Wikipedia should only be holding fair use images that are actually used in articles, everything else must be tagged for deletion and promptly deleted. -- Nick ^t 23:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

So what happens when a vandal removes a fair-use image from an article? Delete the fair-use image because a vandal turned it into an orphaned fair-use image? I've heard of images being deleted merely because a vandal orphaned the images and no-one was watching the pages in question. Carcharoth 00:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

But there is a proper use for {{notorphan}}. Not all images used in the mainspace are linked directly as images: They are, instead, text-linked—and these links can be found on the "What links here" page but don't show up in the image-page section "File links", which makes the image appear to be orphaned. The proper use of {{notorphan}} is to mark these images. The bot tagged seven images I uploaded, all of which are text-linked in a mainspace article (Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern) and contribute to the value of the article. Yes, the template {{notorphan}} may be misused by some to attempt to protect improperly used images, but the presence of the template means that you should at least check how the image is being used before deleting it or nominating it for deletion. --ShelfSkewed talk 03:18, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

That might be true but per US copyright law, and WP:NONFREE the use of such images is very restrictive, just because they add value doesnt mean we should/are allowed to use the images. see the family guy episode guide issue. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 03:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The tag your bot is adding to the pages says to use notorphan to prevent their deletion. You are arguing against your own position. Nardman1 03:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a seven day period between tagging and deletion, and there is always the undelete button if needed. but our WP:NONFREE says either use them or delete them. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 00:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

This post has been resolved. It started off with a user asking why a bot by Betacommand was running after the ArbCom ruling, he had a misunderstanding of the ruling which was quickly fixed. There is nothing wrong with his bot, it is working fine, the only problem was it did too much. :) Send further questions about the bot's purpose to the user's talk page and any concerns to a BAG member or the RFBA page. I am marking this issue as Resolved. Cbrown1023 talk 03:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I am offically extremist

A person says me extremist and a wikipedia administrator agreed with him [249] instead of warning him per WP:NPA. Only because I do not support minority tradition to be presented as majority tradition per WP:Undue weight. I wish to know that is that align with wikipedia policies to give names to someone not agree with you? --- A. L. M. 14:08, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Have a thicker skin. Saying one's views are extreme is not an attack, it is simply an opinion. You don't need to agree.--Doc^g 14:11, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I think we were just trying to say that your point of view is extreme. I for one did not mean in imply you were an extremist by nature, just that your "don't depict Muhammad at all" point of view is rather extreme for Wikipedia. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:12, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Based on that link, you asked them to call you a terrorist instead of an extremist. That soounds like baiting to me. Edward321 14:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

It is different to call extreme opinion of view or "THE EXTREMIST". No I not have thick skin when an admin involved, who had file tomorrow a 3RR report against me under my user space[250]. --- A. L. M. 14:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, you did remove my comments from an essay's talk page more than 3 times. Has it occured to you that your removal of any dissenting opinion to yours may be part of what is making your position appear so extreme? By the way, no need for bolding or all caps, I can read what you are saying just fine in regular text. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:16, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If they all think you are right. Then it okay. I am THE EXTREMIST (time to apply for user name change) and I commit WP:3RR violation while working in my user-space. Thanks. --- A. L. M. 14:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

You can be anyone you choose to be. Please try to do it in a manner consistent with the community and its policies. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:23, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I posted it here to get other admins opinions instead of yours. I know that you think you are right. Can someone other than HighInBC look at this? --- A. L. M. 14:47, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Can someone also please make ALM remove this hugely visually annoying petition that he has in his signature? He is ignoring my requests to do so.--Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 14:48, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I've refactored this page.--Doc^g 15:04, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, that sig was really hard to look at. And yes, someone other than HighInBC please look at this and the surrounding issues, I am just being ignored. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:06, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I wish that someone give you warning of supporting a clear personal attack. Can you block yourself? --- A. L. M. 16:17, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you have diffs illustrating the personal attacks that have been directed toward you, or are you just making empty accusations and/or obfuscating this already muddled issue? --Kralizec! (talk) 19:17, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I can only assume that it was personal attack towards me because there was three people talking against their suggestion and other two were only saying per me. However, we cannot warn anyone based on assumption. Hence here I wish to discuss this admin, instead of the person making personal attack. This admin (HighInBC) I am sure talking to me here. He think it okay to call anyone the extremist. I wish if someone tell him that it is not okay. --- A. L. M. 19:22, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If I do not agree with him then he files 3RR against me working in my user-space here [251] and restore comments I remove from my talk page[252]. I wish he stop following me everywhere and let me leave on others . --- A. L. M. 19:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Would you stop bolding "the extremest" already? We get it. The bolding is a little extreme. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 20:07, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

These days calling terrorist and extremist to a Muslim is worst thing you could call him. Anyway, I am out of here. I do not care anymore. Doc time to refactored my singaures and I do not know why you need to do that. Bye. --- A. L. M. Can you help? 20:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Your signatures were refactored because they were distracting. If you want to raise your point here you don't need to do it with large, bright and frankly annoying signatures. On your first point, the only thing that anyone ever said to you was that you had extreme views on whether or not a particular picture should be included. It was certainly not a reference to you or your religious beliefs. Will (aka Wimt) 20:42, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Whosda1man (talk · contribs)

This user has left incivil comments on his talk page towards both Ellbeecee and myself saying "fuck y'all" and still insists that The Man (chicken) should not have been deleted by referring my to myspace blogs and photobucket pages which contained "The Man" allusions. What should I do (i.e. open a RFC or something like that)? ~ Magnus animum ∵ ∫ φ γ 14:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

User warned. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:25, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Not to be rude, but I could have done that. Should I open a RFC? ~ Magnus animum ∵ ∫ φ γ 14:31, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't bother. I'd wait and see if the warning works. If they persist in creating inappropriate pages or making personal attacks then they will be blocked anyway. Will (aka Wimt) 14:46, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I've never really had this big of a problem before, so I didn't know when an RFC was, is, or will be necessary. ~ Magnus animum ∵ ∫ φ γ 14:55, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If the warning works, great, if it does not then further action can be taken. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:12, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

HeadMouse

Over on User talk:HeadMouse, we've been having a discussion about the correct redirect for the page. I've tried to keep it calm, but this user appears to be trying to escalate the discussion. There was a reference to (who I can only assume is me) a "monkey" on their back in the edit summary for Mark VI monorail, and there also appears to be the thinking that this user owns any page they create. The original discussion was about the redirect of Monorail System to Monorail rather than Walt Disney World Monorail System.

I'm going to take a step back because I can feel my temper coming up a little, but would appreciate any input offered - even if it's that I'm felt to be in the wrong. Ellbeecee 14:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Woah, this [253] edit summary looks like a civility issue. --Kralizec! (talk) 16:13, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

While I am not an administrator, I did step in as an impartial outside observer and point HeadMouse (talk · contribs) toward the relevant sections of WP:3RR, WP:CIVIL, and WP:OWN. I also fixed [254] the HTML monstrosity that was the editor's first article and answered [255] his/her questions on WP:OR, WP:VERIFY, and WP:CITE. --Kralizec! (talk) 19:07, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I was worried that if I let my temper get in the way, I was going to escalate things, and I didn't want that, so I appreciate you stepping in and helping out. Ellbeecee 20:39, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I simply don't have the time to deal with this.

With Picaroon9288's unprotection of Wikipedia:Esperanza, refusal to reprotect, and threat to block me for trying to stop Ed changing it against the community will, I am faced with a straight choice between studying for my exams and continuing to uphold consensus. Unsurprisingly, my exams, and future, win out, and so I am forced to give up on this. Let the Esperanza essay stand as an beacon of light to all who try to subvert consensus through sheer bloody-minded persistance. Shame on you all who let them. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If there is a consensus then others who support that view will be helping out, if you find you are the only one upholding the consensus, chances are the consensus doesn't exist. --pgk 15:26, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I just went and looked at that page, and holy crap... You've been edit warring on a dead page for months now? Why? That page has been protected multiple times and each time the protection comes off you go right back to reverting each other. That's ridiculous. Frise 15:56, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps that is, in and of itself, a good indicator as to why the project ultimately disbanded. --Kralizec! (talk) 16:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

It's interesting that the mediation fo the page backed Dev. I reviewed the last few months of work, as well as most of the mediation, and the vast majority of comments supported Dev/Moreschi's version, and NOT Ed's. While Dev is probably the only one actively working to preserve the page's status, Ed's changes are substantively the same exact ones discussed in the mediation, the very same changes previously argued against and consensus'd against in the mediation. Ed should leave the page, and move on. There's no value in persisting in an edit war that already went to Mediation, and was decided against his choices, edits, version whatever you choose to call it. (standard IANAnAd) ThuranX 17:27, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Mediation decides consensus? I thought mediation was those in dispute working out their issues and reaching a mutually acceptable outcome. If this has been through mediation and a dispute still exists, then that is indicative of the mediation failing to resolve the issue, further dispute resolution steps may then be in order. I certainly can't support the notion that mediation decides a binding consensus (Consensus can change) and certainly isn't enforceable using admin tools. --pgk 19:13, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Topic/page ban for some people seems necessary here. —²¹⁰physicq (c) 18:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the page is hopeless. Each time it is unprotected, Dev and Ed go at it again. Mediation hasn't produced useful results. There isn't a consensus on anything. Indefinite protection is the only viable solution I see. Picaroon (Talk) 20:08, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

That or outright deletion. Frise 20:21, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I warned you, Picaroon, that Ed would add his utterly rejected version again, but you refused to listen. Someone protect the page at the consensus version and let's all forget about it. This isn't so much about the essay, it's about the right of one person to get away with ignoring community consensus and forcing his own way. If the consensus is to delete the essay altogether (and I wonder if it occurred to anyone that I argued against "the Messedrocker solution" on the MfD because I thought something like this would happen), then it should be deleted. But until then, I'd appreciate it if everyone could stop moaning about how old this discussion is and focus on the fact that Ed is trying to use that fact to put what he wants into the essay and not what the community originally decided on. Yes, this is an old discussion over a long dead organisation, and I am as sick of it as everyone who has to read these AN/I reports. But the basic principle is "consensus rules", not "consensus rules as long as the discussion is current". And is my fault that admin after admin keeps unprotecting the bloody page because "edit warring seems to have stopped"? Funny that, what with it being protected and all... Look, protect the page so Ed can't "improve" it anymore, and the issue stops. No-one supports his edits, and he is the only one driving this; the rest of us are all thinking "OH GOD, when will this END?!!!". Indef protection gives us all respite. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 21:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

So why not just let him make his edits? What great travesty will befall Wikipedia if [sic]s and footnotes are in the essay? Picaroon (Talk) 21:47, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Just delete it, it's a worthless page (yes, I know this isn't going to happen). John Reaves (talk) 21:05, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

It's been indef protected now, so problem solved. Spare us the "wrong version" stuff. Frise 21:46, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The "wrong version" philosophy actually only applies to temporarily protected pages, not indefinitely protected pages. What is really needed here is for other editors less passionate about the issues to get involved. It is obvious that Dev920 (as the original nominator) and Ed (as someone who was involved with Esperanza) are not the right people to be deciding what that page says. If more than those two editors got involved, and made it less a one-on-one issue, then some progress might be made. Carcharoth 00:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I put up another proposed essay at Wikipedia talk:Esperanza/Mediation#2nd proposal by Kyoko, which I hope will be acceptable to everyone who still feels strongly about the issue. I'm not entirely pleased with the text, but I'm rarely 100% pleased by anything I write anyway. --Kyoko 06:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

12-year-old user?

While on vandal/username patrol, I spotted this on the talk page of new user Mooshka28 (talk · contribs):

She shouldn't be using this site; she's too young as of yet--can someone take a look? Blueboy96 15:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Unless there's user-conduct problems, users of all ages are welcome on Wikipedia. 75.62.7.22 15:39, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I can name quite a few users in good standing who are "underage" as you call it. All users are welcome to edit wikipedia, regardless of their age. ~ Magnus animum ∵ ∫ φ γ 15:55, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Users of all ages are welcome on Wikipedia as long as they can edit responsibly. That this particular user is not, by reason of age, automatically too young is reflected in the fact that I recently nominated an editor of the same age for administrator status. However, it is also clear that this particular young editor is revealing far too much personal identifying information online (see generally, WP:CHILD and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy). I have removed the information and counseled her accordingly. Newyorkbrad 16:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Young users should not be banned from Wikipedia. If they were, I wouldn't be typing this now. However, this user is disclosing personal information which is a violation of WP:CHILD, as Brad said. --TeckWiz is now R ^ParlateContribs_@(Let's go Yankees!) 16:39, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Young users should not be banned from Wikipedia because sometimes they have a lot of knowledge to give out to Wikipedia and can edit responsibly. On the other case, if one person has created an account to impersonate an underage person solely to harass Wikipedians, then that one person should be immediately banned. Probably this user is nieve about Wikipedia (like many other newcomers) and we should assume good faith because who knows if she could learn from her mistakes or not?--PrestonH^{(Review Me!) • (Sign Here!)} 17:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

NO one seemed to be calling for a ban, but for attention, which NYB has taken care of. Nothing more to see here. ThuranX 17:13, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

"She shouldn't be using this site; she's too young as of yet" would suggest more than attention. Also does someone want to remove the personal information above? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 17:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I blanked the quote. I think that should be sufficient unless anyone wants to oversight it. Wouldn't recommend anyone trying to delete and restore ANI without those revisions. Wikipedia might just stop. Will (aka Wimt) 17:17, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Oppose bannage. According to my innacurate estimates, there are about 100 000 regular editors younger than she is that edit constructively and do not violate policy and do not vandalise wikipedia and therefore should not be banned. I also estimate, innacurately of course, that among those 100 000 editors, about 200 of those are administrators. (Cute 1 4 u was banned because she did not regularly make good edits, I am assuming, so she is not within the 100 000 I mentioned) I also estimate that, innacurately of course, that there are about 150 000 constructive editors 13 and under, 350 000 constructive editors 18 and under, 500 000 constructive editors 25 and under, 1 000 000 constructive editors 50 and under, and about 1 500 000 constructive editors total, out of about 5 000 000 users (including editless and anons). Also I estimate 75 000 constructive editors 10 and under, 20 000 constructive editors 7 and under, and 800 constructive editors 3 and under, innaccurate of course. Also, WP:CHILD did not reach consensus. Thanks. – AstroHurricane001^{(Talk+Contribs+Ubx)(+sign here+How's my editing?)} 17:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Chill mate - I don't think anyone here would be in favour of banning this user or any other minor on account of their age. What is sensible though is to remove excess personal details as has been done here. No point taking unnecessary risks in that regard. Will (aka Wimt) 18:02, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I have a feeling Blueboy thought that COPPA applied on Wikipedia (if it did then we would probably have to disable anon editing and make new users give their birthdate and deny registration to those under 13). "Most of the terms of COPPA apply only to websites and organizations operated for commercial purposes and usually exempt recognized non-profit organizations." (taken from the article). But administrators do remove personal information made public. Funpika 18:25, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

@TekWiz/R: Just to clarify, WP:CHILD is an essay, not a guideline or policy. Anchoress 00:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The ArbCom ruling upon which the essay is based is an official ruling and must be followed. ~ Magnus animum ∵ ∫ φ γ 02:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Is that actually true? Anchoress 02:27, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The arbcom ruling, yes, but not WP:CHILD or any other formulation of the proposal yet written. The arbcom ruling says that issues are to be dealt with case-by-case (common practice being to tell them to take down the information) and that it would be nice if we actually could write a policy on the matter, but that is about it. --tjstrf talk 02:44, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

That is absolutely true, but we should also bear in mind that the portion of the proposal suggesting deletion of personal identifying information posted by under-13 users has pretty widespread support, and was endorsed to an extent by the ArbCom decision I cited. Newyorkbrad 00:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Were you replying to me NYB? If so, I agree, but so what? Anchoress 02:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Contrary to popular belief, I am not an expert on 12-year-old girls, but I'd guess this is more likely a prank than autobiographical revelation. Whether it was intended at our expense or that of the named adolescent, who knows/cares... —freak(talk) 18:20, May. 5, 2007 (UTC)

Edit to protected template

I hate to sound impatient, but this template is used by a few hundred pages, and it's been broken for about three hours now: Template talk:Episode list#Broken template. -- Ned Scott 19:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible sockpuppet vandalism

All of my recent edits were mysteriously undone by the same user. [256] None of these reverts were explained. While he undid almost whatever I edited, majority of these reverts exhibits what SchmuckyTheCat frequently opposes. Is some kind of vandalism by way of sockpuppet taking place? Michael G. Davis 19:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Knowledgable editors wanted

Rodeo (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - Mary Lou LeCompte - Mllecompte1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - has made a large number of edits, almost all cited to her own books, and has added narrative style and what looks very much like opinion rather than analytical coverage. Anyone with interest / expertise of this field is encouraged to have a look. Guy (Help!) 19:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If she's an expert in the field (or even a relative expert) an extensive rewrite should be fine, though she should not be citing herself as a source, but instead use the sources from which she originally gleaned her information. If she's a scholar of any caliber, she'll understand immediately when called to task. I would inform her of the WP:STYLE guidelines, though. No sense in putting together such a big contribution only to have it hacked to pieces because it didn't adhere to the manual of style. --Dynaflow 19:39, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I've worked with her before, if I recall correctly. Or rather, I have done some considerable work on the formatting of the article and have had some correspondence with her. I remember that working with her and her material was time consuming, but not unpleasant, so let's do what we can to not drive her away. --JoanneB 20:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I've read the article and it definitely needs some work, yes, it reads like an essay. Especially someone who's good in rewriting POV into NPOV en an overall suitable tone would be very welcome! I got the impression earlier, but also on the talk page, that she sees it as 'her' article, so I've left her a note about that. --JoanneB 20:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Backlog at RFPP

Resolved

 – — Michaelas¹⁰ 22:23, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Could someone clear this. Thanks a lot. 20:55, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Ongoing issue that needs to be resolved

It started here: Talk:List of Virtual Console games (North America)#Wii Points doesn't need to be listed, a month ago. A short-lived poll by some users solved nothing (plus Wikipedia isn't a democracy, polls don't control content in articles). A few days ago I made this: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games#Wii_Points:_to_list_or_to_not_list.3F. To sum it up (if people don't want to read all of those mass discussions): two video game systems (Xbox 360 and Wii) have download services for games. The download prices are listed on several articles. Myself and others are against listing the prices, while another group of editors are for the prices staying in the articles. I really don't think Wikipedia should be used as a price guide, as there is plenty of other sites around that are used for that. RobJ1981 21:08, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The articles the prices are listed on: List of PlayStation Network games, Xbox Live Arcade, Wii Points, Virtual Console and List of Virtual Console games (all 4 regions listed on that page). Wikipedia shouldn't be turned into a price guide, due to prices for games being different. Prices are different for lots of things! It doesn't mean an online encyclopedia should be used for this content. RobJ1981 22:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Prices change over time, this smacks of recentism. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 22:22, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Lose the prices and add guidance to what Wikipedia is not. Carcharoth 23:41, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I would just remove the prices right now, but I know people would just revert my edits. Can an admin resolve this and determine a solution? RobJ1981 03:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a content dispute, so the editors involved need to sort it out. Admins only need to get involved when bad-faith editing is going on and an edit war is in progress. I've removed the prices on some of those articles and added my voice to those calling for the prices to be removed, so let's see what happens next. If discussion ensues and consensus is reached, fine. If not, well, then things will be a bit clearer. I left the Microsoft Points and Wii Points stuff alone, as though those are effectively prices as well, the articles on the credit systems are interesting. Still, quoting prices in 'points' is still recentism. Ultimately, they could all be removed as unsourced material. Ask those adding the prices to find reliable, stable references for the prices. My guess is there are none, because prices change. Carcharoth 12:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Admin GWH indef. blocking of IPs

See this, and his block log. Someone please revert, because these IPs aren't even open proxies. Real96 21:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, see this. Real96 21:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

(ec)You appear to have reported this whilst Georgewilliamherbert was reviewing it and whilst it was under discussion with him. You also have told him you will report it here, but not that you have done so. All told, this doesn't seem to be quite ready for ANI yet and, since he's being reasonable about it with you, I'm likely to wave WP:AGF at you at this point. Just my two eurocent. ⋐⋑ REDVEЯS 21:26, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I know that this is under review. However, he still shouldn't be blocking IP addresses indef. He is downgrading the indef. blocks (which is good), but I am reporting it here, to see what other people think. Yes, I am displaying WP:AGF, but for the first vandal offense made by an IP gets an indef. block? Real96 21:31, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

On his talk page, he has explained that he - rightly - takes many factors into account. Yes, indef blocks on IPs are discouraged and yes, indef blocking for a first offence isn't something we often do. But it's better to discuss this with him first and drag it here (the court of admin opinion, if you like, and thus the first step down the road of RfC, RfAr etc) if those discussions prove fruitless. Dragging it here now is premature. And, since you want to know what people think... well, I think bringing it here is premature and I'd be interested in the results of your discussion with him if they are anything beyond the current "you're right, I'll review it" that you've got from him already. Again, just my 2c mate - no censure of you (or him) is implied.  ⋐⋑ REDVEЯS 21:43, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

We have actually stopped blocking open proxies indef at WP:OP, since even those will be reassigned. I strongly discourage indef blocking an IP for any reason. Prodego ^talk 21:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

So do I. I think that a year is a long time on the internet and the longest time we ever need to block for. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 21:56, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Some one might want to have a look at this on blocking open proxies. WP:IP#Open_proxies Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 22:05, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The idea is that at some point they will stop being open proxies, so indefinite blocks should not be used. Prodego ^talk 23:38, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree, but policy should state this as it states "will be blocked on site". Current ways of handling the open proxies should be uniform and documented (i.e do one thing when policy says another can be confusing). Purgatory Fubar ^Converse or Snafu 02:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright, done. Prodego ^talk 02:07, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

JB196 problems

For any admins not familiar with this situation by now, please see his long term abuse report. After systematically stripping the Nick Gulas article down to one sentence with a series of throwaway sockpuppets he succeeded in getting it speedy deleted while I was trying to fix the article, and was generously undeleted by the deleting admin. He's now harassing me on my talk page with a new sockpuppet, and also threatening further spamming on Tommy Dreamer which is currently fully protected due to his non-stop vanity spamming. Other articles which will also be targeted are Xtreme Pro Wrestling, Extreme Associates, Rob Zicari and Janet Romano. Any ideas on how this permanent problem can be dealt with? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 22:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a bit hard to effect a permanent solution on a long-term vandal who uses open proxies. The LTA report recommends blocking on site, which is what I've done for the harrassing account who posted to your userpage. (aeropagitica) 23:07, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If these are open proxies we should be going to CheckUser to get them blocked. Guy (Help!) 23:32, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The checkusers seem to have left the building. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 23:34, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Put that one almost two weeks ago, and no response. Same happened with the last set of open proxies that JB was using (although that was a regular check user as well). Utterly frustrating that we're letting vandals get free reign for weeks at a time on proxies. (Yes, I know the Checkuser folks are very busy, but if they're THAT overwhelmed, get more folks to do it). SirFozzie 00:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks ONIH for the correction on Coogan. Wikipedia is plain darn stupid. Firstly it's packed with hostile editors, who believe that they own some of the articles. Then it tolerates IP addresses to edit articles, and then it cries about vandals. Some editors spend a lot of their time counteracting vandalism, which is just a waste of resources. Many articles should get the perm status of "no IP edits". I have seen so many good editors go, really nice people, and admins too, WP will fail unless it changes. 86.42.159.119 03:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. Sure, by allowing anon edits we are dooming the project to eternal mediocrity, langushging at the bottom of the top ten websites worldwide and we'll never knock Wikipedia off the no. 1 slot in the rankings of online reference sites. Oh, wait... Guy (Help!) 11:05, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Gatorgalen 3RR & SPA

User reverts an article written by cult expert Larry Pile from listed articles based on his dislike for the website the article is posted at and not the author's authority. It should be pointed out that this is possibly a single purpose account for the purpose of pushing PoV in favor of Great Commission Association. Diffs: [257] [258] [259]

User contributions: [260]

Thanks for your attention to the matter. ClaudeReigns 23:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Also asking for notice to be paid to user's conflict of interest as a fundraiser, missionary, and staff member for Great Commission Ministries. ClaudeReigns 02:45, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I suppose I'll defend myself. The 3RR claim doesn't belong here; it doesn't really matter, because it's frivolous anyway. For some reason ClaudeReigns has become unwilling to discuss things on talk pages. As for SPA; I only have a certain amount of time. If it weren't for the POV editing by ClaudeReigns, I would be editing other things. As it is, I spend all of my available editing time tryin to make the GCA article NPOV. It's a very tiring task. For whoever looks at this, I would also like to ask you to review ClaudeReigns's edit history as well; though he apparently has much more time than me, he is focused on GCA issues as well, generally as I said in a POV manner. I have been upfront from the very beginning about my involvement with the topic and have tried my bestto remain objective. ClaudeReigns is an ex-GCA member who hates GCA; he is not upfront with this. I would also ask the administrator to investigate possible long-term sockpuppetery between ClaudeReigns and User:Xanthius. They apparently know each other in real life but refuse to discuss their involvement in opposing GCA. They do frequently back up each other's edits. Thanks for your time, I apologize that this frivolous report. Gatorgalen 03:12, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

These are interesting points which Gatorgalen makes, but I can make it quite clear why Gatorgalen's own actions and discussion necessitated my involvement in Wikipedia. He himself mentioned my real name in Wikipedia talk pages. These remarks were since deleted by administrators. Since coming here under an explicit understanding with User:Xanthius that I don't have to agree with him, I find that I enjoy it, and have been attempting to branch out from the core subject of Great Commission Association by developing second and third degree articles as well as get involved in other interests here. I do not always agree with User:Xanthius though it is true that he is a good friend and we often do see eye to eye on the subject of Great Commission Association. We also do share an I.P. address for half of the day. However, since both of our real names have been mentioned by GCA staff members and deleted by Wikipedia administrators, it is only fitting, in my opinion, that we both be allowed to edit. I can also clearly establish how my anonymity has been made necessary by present and former staff members within Great Commission Association. I think you'll find that nearly every addition I make to Wikipedia includes an immediately verifiable source and that until recently I have striven to reach out to current members of Great Commission Association to make them feel especially welcome. All of this stands in direct contrast to User:Gatorgalen's record as editor--and even User:Xanthius'. The administration is welcome to seek any information they would like about my involvement in the topic or relationship to User:Xanthius--my anonymity is only to prevent misuse of personal information by said current and former staff members. I know the administrators will make a good decision in this matter as they have done in the past. ClaudeReigns 09:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Quick note - Claude's memory appears to be fuzzy, it was someone else who outed his real identity, I have no idea who he really is. Just a note. Gatorgalen 12:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Redirects left from deleted article

Resolved

I believe an admin needs to remove these two entries: Gilson-De Lemos Michael Gilson-De Lemos--Fahrenheit451 23:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Picaroon (Talk) 23:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Trouble with User:Jonghyunchung

Recently, I've warned an IP about vandalism, and User:Jonghyunchung goes in and refactors it. I then revert that edit and post a warning to Jonghyunchung about refactoring talk comments but I see that he reverted it off just now. I think Jonghyunchung might be hard to handle. --Addict 2006 23:49, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Repeated vandalism in M113 Armored Personnel Carrier by anon user

The article M113 Armored Personnel Carrier oftens gets vandalized by an anon user whom I have reason to believe is the same person due to the nature of content that is added. Most recently, this user has used the IP address 24.214.146.99. Would it be possible to only allow edits on that page by registered users to make the process a little more difficult for the vandal? --Edward Sandstig 00:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

They haven't made any more edits for some time now. If they come back, you might want to request a block on the IP or a semi-protect on the page. bibliomaniac15 00:58, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

This also looks a lot like a content dispute--VectorPotential^Talk 01:19, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Isn't there a separate board to report vandals? AlexanderPar 08:38, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I Agree with Vector Potential -- to an outsider, this looks more like a content dispute than vandalism. The three revert rule prohibits multiple back-and-forth changes, but that doesn't seem to have happened here either. Try asking the individual to supply sources for the statement. Best, --Shirahadasha 13:54, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced material/vandalism, 3rr/edit warring, ownership of articles and personal attack problems with Gon4z

Gon4z continues to revert any updates to the following articles: Military of Albania, Albanian Land Forces Command, Albanian Air Force, Albanian Naval Defense Forces. Also his information is outdated, unsourced and he has done about 15 reverts in the three last days. He doesn't read any discussion post: here, here, here, here and here, but resorts to threats, insults and user page vandalism here. Some of his remarks to other editors:

on my (noclador) talkpage:

• "I will take further actions" Gon4z 23:16, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
• "you did not citise anything its all crap you stright out deleted everything just because you are an anti Albanian dont mean you ahve to go around spreading propaganda you so called contribution of deeting articles are not wealcomed" Gon4z 19:54, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
• "ok I suggest that unless you have a real contribution you should not edit the article.... tahnk you" (unsigned)
• "you are delusional" Gon4z 15:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

on user MrMacMan talkpage:

• "I don’t know if you hate Albanians or what but pls do not edit that article unless you have sources from 2006 or 2007 I have been trying to work hard and fix that article I don’t need some one coming to ruin and spread propaganda just because they have a problem with Albanians" Gon4z 20:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
• "Las time I checked it was you vandalising the Albanian military articles using racist anti albanian websites as source i have cetise my figures." Gon4z 02:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
• "I not sure what you are considering an attack, I ahve not attacked you once I have just simplly replied to your comment, it is not nice to play the victim take it like a man you sources are not correct and are ruining the article." (unsigned, but once gain by Gon4z)

in the edit summary of Albanian Land Forces Command

• "I am clearly the only one here providing proof from my figures unlike you two whore are spreading bate propaganda"

My information is based on the following sources:

• The World Defence Almanac 2006, page 95, Mönch Publishing Group; Bonn 2006;
• The IISS Military Balance Report 2006- 2007, page 80, Routledge Publishing; 106 edition (May 24, 2006)
• SIPRI Yearbook 2006, Oxford University Press, June 2006.
• Centre for SouthEast European Studies: Albania’s Armed Forces- 2002 Data]
• Bonn International Center for Conversion
• Albanian Land Forces Command

All this is ignored by Gon4z, who bases his information on the same homepage he criticizes as "Greek anti Albanian website". Also the same kind of edit war and personal attacks is waged by him at the article Serbian Air Force, where he keeps reducing the number of active Serbian airplanes, substitutes the correct grammatical tense with the present tense, vandalises the syntax and tells a fellow editor: "this is the last time i will warn you get a profile because if not then your IP address will be suspended from editing any article" Gon4z 23:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC) Furthermore, according to user MacGyverMagic Gon4z is a “editor who has a history of vandalism, POV and unsourced edits.” comment can be found here.

As Gon4z in continuous violation and a repeat offender of the following Wikipedia rules:

• Unsourced material
• Vandalism
• Three revert rule
• Edit warring and
• Personal attacks against at least three fellow editors

I strongly urge to block him for an extended period of time. noclador 03:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I can't say that I am not involved in this issue with this user and today I reported the editor to the Admin 3RR board Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RR#User:Gon4z_reported_by_User:MrMacMan_.28Result:24h.29 which resulted in his/her 24 hour block. I have really tried to get this editor to explain his reverts and his rational for using his older sources and his actual, apparent lack of sources. I think that this user has disregarded the newer and better sources put before him and has completely ignored all information not coming from his own older sources. When bringing up this newer information he ignores us and makes accusations that I'm biased or using other information that he says is biased (which I wasn't using anyway). I don't understand why he insists without explaining his reasoning so I have to conclude he is not acting in good faith. If this user was explaining his rational for reverting the changes this would be a content dispute but his disregard on this dispute and instead he's been very unresponsive to any comments that have been made to him. I would also say that his blocking period be expanded. MrMacMan ^Talk 07:43, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Reckless Copyright Infringement

User B7rent has persistently uploaded images that do not belong on Wikipedia for Copyright reasons. The user has also replaced free images from Flickr with images from the Associated Press or other sources. The user has ignored three warnings, and has continued the aforementioned actions, including after being given a final warnings. See User Talk] and [User Contributions] --  ShadowJester07  ►Talk  03:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you reporting a new issue or an old one? According to the upload logs for B7rent (talk · contribs · logs), this editor has not uploaded any images since April, and even those were marked as {{untagged}} by OrphanBot and/or deleted already. --Kralizec! (talk) 04:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Please look at the User's contributions. He keeps on adding images that have been tagged as copy violations despite warnings. For example, the user uploaded Image:CHester Bennington 2007.jpg on 4/27. It was tagged for deletion because of its false licensing and lack of source. After removing the image, and asking the user to stop adding it, the user has persisted on adding to to an article. He has even attemepted re-adding the image today. --  ShadowJester07  ►Talk  13:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Newbie redirects userpage to main page

Lledd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), a new user, has redirected his userpage to the main page. Can someone fix this?Blueboy96 03:55, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

We have a rule against that? News to me. Picaroon (Talk) 03:58, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if its a rule but I fixed it. I also posted a welcome to him. -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 03:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Cross space redirect is a valid reason for deletion of a redirect, so I'd assume it's not allowed. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 04:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Cross namespace redirects from the mainspace to userspace is a ground for speedy deletion. Other cross namespace redirects should be nominated at WP:RFD. WjBscribe 04:02, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think deletion is the issue, as all that needs to be done is edit his userpage. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 04:05, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it seems an excellent idea, a way of removing the distraction that some people see their user page as. I may do it myself unless someone here can give a reason not to? Notinasnaid 10:30, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Redirects to the main page do not show the "Redirected" from text at the top of the page. Without that navigating to a page relevant to you by clicking the link in your signature would not be possible to all but experienced users. As such, that would disrupt effective communication with you. If you want to your userpage to be a redirect, target at your user talk.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:54, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Legal threats by User:NYScholar ?

Hi all. Another editor just asked me to comment on an Arbitration case involving the above user. I agreed to comment about 20 minutes ago and signed up. As a result, it would appear that the editor in question made a strong legal threat against WP on the RFAr here. Normally, had I seen something as blatant as that, I'd block the editor immediately for legal threats but as I'm involved, I'd rather not.

Can someone uninvolved in the Arbitration case review, please? Thanks - Alison ☺ 04:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

• My response [261], and theirs [262] confirming their intent to do just that - Alison ☺ 04:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a blatant threat to me and I've blocked accordingly. John Reaves (talk) 04:44, 6 May 2007 (UTC)bl

What is there to say? There is nothing that could be done in this situation but indefinitely block. It was a blatant legal threat.--Jersey Devil 04:49, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. I thought I was seeing things - someone makes a strong legal threat in their own Arb case. Incredible! - Alison ☺ 05:06, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

• I believe he now realises his error and has rescinded the legal threats and requests unblock. Can someone take a look here? - Alison ☺ 06:12, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I unblocked him. I suggested that he retract his comments on the RfAr page and keep a cooler head, especially now that he has been apprised of WP:LEGAL. -- Samir 06:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Great! Thanks for that - Alison ☺ 06:37, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I would have unblocked someone who looked directly one of the more important policies of Wikipedia in the face and said "I know, and I'm not going to follow it, and I'm going to do something indef-blockworthy anyway because I don't give a shit what the rules are." and persisted to threaten an editor even further. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 08:36, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I unblocked him because he claimed to be unfamiliar with WP:LEGAL and retracted his statements, and because he should be unblocked during the course of the RfAr against him. -- Samir 08:57, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

User:TyrusThomas4lyf

This user was recently blocked twice for 3RR on Michael Jordan in two days, I'm wondering if the block can be reviewed or extended (his current block is only 24 hours) given his history of personal attacks. He's been warned 6-7 times and made several more today. Here's a list of some of his personal attacks and uncivil behavior:Wikipedia:Requests for comment/TyrusThomas4lyf#Evidence of disputed behavior. See the explanation at the beginning of the RFC for proof that the IP is his. It's somewhat confusing as he more than one account. But the uncivil bahvior heading lists some of his personal attacks. Aaron Bowen 04:22, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Note: He blanked his talk page so he has more warnings than it would appear. Aaron Bowen 05:07, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevant editing of the article Serializability

By 90.192.141.116 on 5 May, 2007

Sentence added:

This is a hand note from zahid. can you see that?

Comps 04:52, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

• The vandalism was already reverted by User:Comps. I've warned the IP with {{uw-v1}} Flyguy649^talk_contribs 04:57, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

User:RMc update

See my archived report. He just removed my last notice from his talk page. This is not the action of someone committed to getting along with others. Daniel Case 05:58, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Jeffrey Vernon Merkey

When reverting what appeared to be simple trolling/etc, I came upon Jeffrey Vernon Merkey (talk · contribs) and his strange edits. I have already had to perform a deletion on an AfD of a redirect that he did a copy-page move for which I may have to move back to its original placement because I had to history merge. I do not know of the original reasons for his block/ban/whatever, but I have left a message that relates to what little actions I could find of his errors in editting on Wikipedia.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 07:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Ryulong, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive85#Jeff Merkey wishes to return to en:wp. --bainer (talk) 07:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Whatever he did in the past, I hope he's careful in the future. He's recently deleted quite a lot from Cherokee; see my question (and I hope soon his answer) at or near the foot of Talk:Cherokee. -- Hoary 07:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

These edits are also problematic (odd stuff about the sex industry and stock fraud): ChurchOfTheOtherGods 08:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind my slight reformatting of your immediately preceding comment, COTOG.

Yes, they are indeed strange, not least the addition of one paragraph ending with "{{fact}}": If an editor thinks something needs evidence, I don't understand why he'd add that something. -- Hoary 08:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think all of these concerns have been addressed to the relevant parties now. If there are any other questions or concerns, please visit my talk page and we can certainly air them in the open. "Strange" does sound like me, BTW. Jeffrey Vernon Merkey 09:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

User:ParthianShot

I came across ParthianShot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) when I had blocked him some time back. After going through his contributions I saw that he had uploaded many images from a website called cais-soas.com. cais-soas.com is the website of the "Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies" at "School of Oriental and African Studies" at the University of London. All the images were properly linked to the site and the site had the appropriated GFDL message at the bottom of the page. So far so good.

But digging a bit deeper, it looks like ParthianShot may have knowingly uploaded copyrighted images and inserted copyvios in wikipedia articles. The CAIS is nothing but a forum or group at the SOAS. By their own admission the website is no longer related to the school. [263]. In fact, the website is run by a person called Shapour Suren-Pahlav.

This site has repeatedly been identified as hosting copyvio and plagiarised material, as well as some pseudo-scholarly fringe stuff written by its owner. Much of its content is articles mirrored from "Encyclopedia Iranica" (a respectable scholarly resource, but copyrighted). Others have apparently been plagiarised from other sources. Here's a complaint on the web: [264], [265], [266], [267]. Here's another fishy case, about an image that was first stolen by Wikipedia from a third-party site, then stolen from Wikipedia together with its article by CAIS, then borrowed back into Wikipedia as allegedly copyrighted and released by CAIS.

The way the images are uploaded is identical. ParthianShot claims to have corresponded with Shapour Suren-Pahlav. The webpage adds a note about the correspondence at the bottom of the page. See bottom of [268]. ParthianShot claims to be Khodayar Bahrami and has vigorously denied being Shapour Suren Pahlav, the owner of the CAIS site. He has also vigorously defended its value as a source and external link.

But ParthianShot is not his original account name. He was earlier called Surena and got his name changed. Surena was an identified sockpuppeteer. See the case at RfCU here. There is more. One of his sock accounts, oddly, was named User:Shapour SP, i.e. obviously "Shapour Suren Pahlav". The website has been linked to as an EL or source, or a source of images, in a huge lot of Wikipedia articles: [269]. Most of these links have been inserted by User:ParthianShot/Surena. Both accounts also made many edits to the article "Suren-Pahlav Clan" [270]. Surena/ParthianShot has also on some occasions uploaded images described as authored by "Shapour Suren-Pahlav" and simultaneously as "pd-self" or "gfdl-self", and later "corrected" that license description. See for example Image:Suren-Pahlav.JPG Uploaded 25 December 2006 by User:Zoroastrian, one of the confirmed socks of Surena/ParthianShot. The licensing disclaimer notes User:Zoroastrian as author of the work.

In light of all this evidence I conclude that ParthianShot is none other than Shapour Suren-Pahlav who runs the website cais. The website has committed copyvios which are being subtely inserted into wikipedia through bogus emails exchanged being the "two" people. So I propose that we delete all the images uploaded by the user and possibly blacklist the external link to the website so that no more copyright violations are inserted into wikipedia. Action must also be taken against ParthianShot a.k.a. Shapour SP. Maybe a long block for trying to deceive wikipedia and violating out image upload rules is in order. - Aksi_great (talk) 07:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, it may be suspicious, and yet I see no conclusive evidence that connects the two. Bear in mind that Shapour is common name in Persian speaking countries, Suren Pahlav is the name of historic clan, and Shapour Suren Pahlav is a historic figure that walked on this earth about 2000 years ago. Many people pick their usernames based on their heroes' names. AlexanderPar 08:51, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

  Yes. I do understand that people do use usernames based on heroes, but in this case the evidence is too strong. A user who has used a sock called Shapour SP inserting links, using images and corresponding regularly with the owner of a website also called Shapour SP. Also consider that there are 507 (!) links to the CAIS website from wikipedia. Most of them added by PS. Surely the evidence is too strong. - Aksi_great (talk) 09:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

  Aksi is citing as evidence of wrong-doing by CAIS, and as we can see CAIS had corrected the error a long time ago [271]. ← ← Parthian Shot (Talk) 13:20, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Regardless of the names involved, it looks like Aksi_great has uncovered enough evidence to call into question any copyright claimed by CAIS. The safest thing to do, in my opinion, would be to delete the lot of the CAIS images -- Samir 09:06, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

• It is obvious that Aksi have taken this matter quite personally [272], [273], [274]! Aksi has banned me unfairly [275] for only "ONE RV" - then he went further and falsely accused me of sockpuppetry [276] – his accusation confirmed to be false [277] and the extension was overturned [278]. It is quite evident that Aksi is being influenced by his compatriots Fullstop as was observed by MediaLady [279], [280]. It is quite sad to experience an Admin has taken resolute to these kind of childish behaviours. However, I am not the SSP as he falsely claims, and as I have advised Aksi before if he has any concerns regarding CAIS he should take it to them directly [281]! Nonetheless, after studying Aksi’s contributions, apparently he is also in direct contact with Behnam! Behnam who is also perusing my presence here [282] had discussion with Aksi in past about me [283], [ ], has recently deleted my contributions, interestingly Aksi has also left a tag [284] on one the images in question that Behnam has already objected [285] – however there no record of any discussion about this between these two in any of the discussion pages – but all of sudden Aksi places a tag there similar to Behnam's concern! This demonstrates that Aksi and Behnam are also in direct contact with each other outside Wikipedia! In any case, in CAIS defence, it is a respectable website, and contrary to Aksi claim of they “stealing” articles from other sources, in this case Wikipedia is guilty as charged too! However, how do we know that they have published their “mirrored articles” as Aksi put it without permission from the poriginal source – and also at the bottom of their WebPages all the source is being mentioned, or by clicking on the name of the authors! Number of contributors here such as those Islamic Fundamentalists namely “Behnam” as well as well as Zoroastrian orthodox namely “Fullstop” are opposing CAIS because, it exposes the destruction of pre-Islamic sites by the Islamic Regime [286], [287], [288], [289], etc, and also advocates conversion to Zoroastrianism [290] – and unfortunate Aksi blindly has fallen to their tarp, and his naivety got the worst in him! Nonetheless, I believe Aksi should be investigated for breaching the Wikipedia rules and regulations – he is obviously having private email exchanges with other users namely Fullstop, The Behnam and possibly more. ← ← Parthian Shot (Talk) 09:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure whether you understand the issue, ParthianShot. Despite your claim that CAIS is a respectable website, Aksi has uncovered evidence that some of the material on this website is of questionable copyright. This really calls into question the copyright of CAIS images that are uploaded onto Wikipedia under GFDL, as one cannot trust CAIS's assertion that these images are licensed under GFDL. -- Samir 09:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I do appreciate your concerns, but how do we know that the images from CAIS are copyvio as being claimed by "Aksi, Fullstop and Behnam triangle"? ← ← Parthian Shot (Talk) 09:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Aksi identified 3 separate issues with cais-soas.com and copyright: mirroring Encyclopedia Iranica, the plagiarism of the article as mentioned on public.kubsu.ru, and the Babak image. In my opinion, that is enough to call into question the copyright of anything uploaded onto Wikipedia from cais-soas.com. We do not assume good faith on issues of image copyright; if there is a question that an image claimed to be GFDL licensed is not free use, it needs to be deleted -- Samir 10:19, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

        This is the problem with ParthianShot. Whenever I try to engage him in a discussion about the images he has uploaded he either tells me to write to he website or comes up with silly conspiracy theories. I have already said that I was reviewing the images uploaded by you. That is why I came across that image without a source. Now he is saying that just because the bottom of their website mentions source, they are not violating copyrights. Also, please do not call wikipedia editors Islamic Fundamentalists. Please see WP:NPA. You will be blocked the next time you say something like that. - Aksi_great (talk) 10:05, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

        • Please spare me playing innocent card here - You have never tried to engage in any discussion with me; only thing that you have done so far were false accusations and unfair block which was later overturned! ← ← Parthian Shot (Talk) 12:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

          I don't know what you call this then. - Aksi_great (talk) 15:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

PS. Aksi claims that after a painstaking investigation and studying my contributions, he concluded that me and SSP are the same people – interesting to recall the same claim by Aksi’s friend, Fullstop who accused of the same in past [291]. This is another evidence for private contact between these two, and Aksi receiving instruction form his compatriot friend! ← ← Parthian Shot (Talk) 10:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a final warning to you. Please do not bring my nationality into question. If you cannot reply to my accusations without bringing my nationality and others religions into question then please don't write anything. - Aksi_great (talk) 10:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Aksi: Please do not evade the observation regarding your breach of Admin rights by manoeuvring and redirecting the dispute to different matters and showing yourself as a victim here – however, your nationality is NOT under question, BUT your evidential-affiliation with FullStop outside Wikipedia as well as your personal attacks on me and false accusations! ← ← Parthian Shot (Talk) 12:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Siân Rees-Cleland

Could someone take a look at this article? The page is practically empty, it doesn't look like an encyclopedia entry. AlexanderPar 09:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the tag you are looking for is {{db-nocontext}} ··coelacan 09:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. AlexanderPar 09:19, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Certified.Gangsta violating Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram

User:Certified.Gangsta's Arbitration case has closed and the Certified.Gangsta (talk · contribs) is now placed on revert parole. Certified.Gangsta is now forbidden to revert-war by arbitration case. See Certified.Gangsta's contributions, Certified.Gangsta's contributions since his ArbCom case ended were mass reverts and and personal attacks. Certified.Gangsta has now blatantly violated the ArbCom's final decision on many articles which, according to his ArbCom case "shall be enforced by blocks". Certified.Gangsta has violated his ArbCom restriction on over four articles. See here, here, here, and here. His latest ArbCom violation here. An administrator should enforce this flagrant violation of the Arbitration Committee's Final decision. Thanks. LionheartX 09:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I see that you are baiting him by blindly reverting his edits.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:29, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not baiting him. He is forbidden to revert-war by ArbCom. See his latest ArbCom violation here where a different editor reverted him. Anyways, the evidence is in the ArbCom case. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram. Thanks, LionheartX 09:31, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you both deserve to be blocked, certified.gangsta for revert warring and you for revert warring, disrupting the Wiki by spamming this report on every talk page you can find, and flagrant wikilawyering. Arbcom sanctions do not justify your actions in the slightest, since EVERYONE is forbidden to edit war by default. --tjstrf talk 09:36, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not "baiting him", Certified.Gangsta reverted my edits before I reverted them back. This is a blatant violation of ArbCom decisions and sets a dangerous precedent if not enforced. The fact is this: Certified.Gangsta is forbidden to revert war per his Arbitration case. I am not spamming this report, I am trying to find out the procedure for reporting a violation of ArbCom decisions. This is a flagrant violation of ArbCom Final decisions and should be enforced. All of the evidence of Certified.Gangsta's behavior is here: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram. Please enforce this ArbCom violation. Thanks. LionheartX 09:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[[292]] YOu recruited him. Sumple is also a Ideogram fanclub-guy in my arbCom case. His opinion is hardly neutral.--Certified.Gangsta 09:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Certified.Gangsta is clearly misrepresenting the facts. This user reverted Certified.Gangsta's edit before that post was even made. In fact, the evidence at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram speaks for itself. This is a flagrant violation of ArbCom decision. LionheartX 09:35, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Link to the actual diffs not the history, in the future. Regardless of who is under arbitration restrictions or not, you should not be inducing edit warring or edit warring yourself. Just because Certified.Gangsta is restricted by that ArbCom case does not give you free reign in reverting him because you two are in a dispute. You should be lucky that you are actually unblocked, as you had proclaimed that you were a sockpuppet, as Certified.Gangsta points out below. Right now, I agree with tjstrf that you should both be blocked; Certified.Gangsta for violating his arbitration restrictions, and yourself, LionheartX for generally being a dick to him and trying your best to drive him off of Wikipedia.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:41, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

LionheartX blocked for 48 hours for reasons stated above.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:45, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

This is getting a bit ridiculous. LionheartX almost obsessive activity here has been, for months and under many usernames, to bait and edit war with Certified.Gangsta. He was previously blocked indefinitely by me after the umpteenth reincarnation, then allowed to use this account later after discussion on ANI (which I did not notice in time to comment). I would advise you to read this comment from the discussion [293] ("Any further disruptive behavior on his part (and massive spamming of admins' talk pages, which he did just now, is very close to being disruptive) will be the last straw."). His talk page discussion then, from [294] down, is also instructive. It's time to ban him for good. Dmcdevit·t 10:06, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Considering that the "last chance" message was from the one guy willing to let Lionheart back after his previous indef, and he's now engaged in the exact behaviour he was warned would lead to a re-ban, I would think that he's certainly hit the point of exhausting the community's patience. And his latest correspondence at User talk:LionheartX shows that he is either totally clueless as to why his behaviour is unacceptable (which I doubt is even humanly possible) or is simply refusing to acknowledge that he was wrong, hiding behind the wikilawyering "but arbcom!" diversionary tactic. So I agree with Dmcdevit that it's time we rectify the error of unbanning him. (In case anybody wishes to claim bias in this statement, I have no reason to support Certified.Gangsta whatsoever.) --tjstrf talk 10:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Provoking someone to violate ArbCom ruling, in order to get them blocked? That looks like plain disruption to me, and the fact that he doesn't eve know that what he's doing is wrong, just makes it worse. I'm leaning towards Dmcdevit's suggestion of a ban. --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 10:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the ban. Full disclosure: I'm on friendly and somewhat mentoring terms with Certified.Gangsta, so I'm not entirely neutral here. On the other hand, I've had a good view of Lionheart's activities. I do think his last chances have all been spent. Bishonen | talk 11:02, 6 May 2007 (UTC).

Would you prescribe a similar ban for Certified? Because I can't work out which of them started it, and I've been more involved with both of them than most people. They've both been blocked for 48 hours. I suggest leaving it at that for now. If either of them repeats the behaviour, a 96 hour block will be applied and so on. It only takes a little longer than us "assuming" they won't learn and skipping straight to banning them, and it gives them the chance to learn. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:16, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be useful here to invoke the "Tu Quoque" principle of the recently closed arbitration:

Wikipedia editors are expected to adhere to policy regardless of the behavior of those they are in disputes with; inappropriate behavior by others does not legitimize one's own.

Passed 7 to 0, 20:38, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

This would tend to support the idea of an even-handed approach. --Tony Sidaway 11:29, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

LionheartX poor behaviors

I reported this user on the community noticeboard, receivng little feedbacks. So I need admins opinions on this. User:LionheartX, a ban-evading sockpuppet of User:RevolverOcelotX User:RaGnaRoK+SepHír0tH User:Guardian_Tiger User:Apocalyptic_Destroyer and User:ApocalypticDestroyer's was previously community banned (or indef. blocked)[295] per this thread on AN/I for being an abusive, disruptive sockpuppet. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive177#Guardian_Tiger_and_the_unblock_template Here's what arbitrator and admin User:Dmcdevit had to say about one of the socks. [[296]] After multiple attempts to wikilawyer and as well as abuse of the unblock template on User talk:RaGnaRoK+SepHír0tH User talk:Guardian_Tiger, his talkpages were protected by admins, [297] [298] [299] which resulted in more sockpuppetry and evasion. Admin User:Nlu was lenient and agreed to give LionheartX another chance despite all of these violations, disruption, and sockpuppetry (ban-evasion). [300] But also made it clear that LionheartX is on a very short leash and that other admins are not bound by his decision. User:BenAveling, the main advocate who campaigned for Lion's unblock also made it clear that Lion is on a very short leash [301] After more disruptions followed, admin User:Durova indef. blocked the sock account User:LionheartX per [302] [303] The block was overturned one week under cloudy and controversial circumstances. Nevertheless, Lion was advised to stay out of trouble [304]. I have always been a victim of Lion (and his previously socks) tendency to stalk, spam, and harass. Several harassment campaign has been launched by LionheartX to drive me out of wikipedia. The newest one started couple of weeks ago even though he was advised to stay away from me and to stop harssing me. [305] This didn't stop him to orchestrate an anti-Certified.Gangsta campaign by proxy. (spamming usertalkpages to campaign to ban me)[306] [307] [308] [309] [310] [311] [312] [313] [314] [315] [316]. Spamming in my arbCom case with User:Ideogram [[317]] (there are way too many diffs so just glance through his contributions and you'll see it) and stalk my contributions and POV pushing . [[318]] [[319]] [[320]] [[321]], disrupt Wikipedia:Changing username [[322]] [[323]] [[324]], wikilawyering, and spamming/canvassing [[325]] [[326]] [[327]]. Now he's stalking, spamming to campaign to ban me, and POV pushing. Somebody please stop me. PLEASE--Certified.Gangsta 09:27, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Please refer to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram. Certified.Gangsta has violated his ArbCom restrictions. LionheartX 09:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Which has no impact whatsoever on the utter unacceptability of your own behaviour. --tjstrf talk 09:38, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

C&S Wholesale Grocers

Hello, I'd seriously appreciate some help in this. I originally came across this article while looking at "Recent Changes" for anything suspicious. I saw an anonymous edit that removed a large chunk of text. The text was totally disputed, and I added it back with a note that totally disputed sections should not be removed without discussion on the talk page. A little while later, the my changes were reverted saying that "all discussion in the talk page agrees it should be removed". I checked the talk page and found two comments. When I checked the contributions for those comments, I found them to have only edited this article. It seemed very sockpuppet-like. I went ahead and added citations to the article and also added some more information to balance out the article ([328]). However, now I am having a problem with an anonymous editor who insists on removing the "ongoing lawsuit" tag. I don't know if that tag is only supposed to be used for articles describing lawsuits. I thought of using "current", but I thought that "ongoing lawsuit" seemed more specific; I don't know if it is correct though. I am assuming it is (because the article does document one). This anonymous user has also threatened to keep deleting the tag (as can be seen on the talk page). Am I wrong in using the tag? Is there another tag? Any help would be appreciated! The edits are coming from the following IP's:

• 68.237.142.241
• 198.185.64.201
• 128.84.153.15

Possible sockpuppets:

• Intel836
• Expat73
• Moot28

--vi5in^[talk] 10:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

User Wikipediatrix and user Tilman are conspiring and actively sabotaging by deleting links that are found on Scientology related pages

The pages that so far have been sabotaged: Golden Age of Tech, Patter drill, Scientology controversy, Rundown (Scientology), Fair Game (Scientology), Study Tech, Mary Sue Hubbard, Hubbard Association of Scientologists International, Altered texts in Scientology doctrine, Scientology: A History of Man, Xenu, Disconnection. The history pages of these will fold out that which is deleted and will also tell the reason they give for removing them. For the first 4 pages listed in the above the argument has been forwarded that these discuss New World Order theories, which is an erroneous and absurd claim when one consults these pages where these external links lead to. On his talkpage user Tilman writes: "I see the words "new world order" on the page, THAT is enough to put this in a fringe corner."

On user Tilman's talkpage one can read that both user Wikipediatrix and user Tilman are conspiring to remove a variety of external links and referencing from Scientology pages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Tilman#Reverting_valid_links A few quotations: "These Snoeck pages should be pulled from other articles' link sections as well. wikipediatrix 17:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)" & "I know there's a script for this somewhere. I want to run for the "Debernification Project Force" (getting rid of links to the anonymous "Bernie" page) --Tilman 18:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)" (please consult the supplied link for various data about their position on this)

Noted is that both these persons are antagonistic towards Scientology and intend and are removing links that directs to information that may oppose to their personal ideas and convictions, or sites that provide for objective studies. It can be clearly seen on various of these altered pages that socalled critical 'personal' sites are left intact. See for example page Fair Game (Scientology), section 'Critical sites' is left intact. Section 'Other studies' is however deleted. On page Altered texts in Scientology doctrine we see that user Wikipediatrix left various external links to personal sites intact, why were these not deleted together with the others? The same we can see on page Xenu that lists a long list to critical 'personal' sites that is left fully intact. In particular the links and the referencing that lead to Bernie's site, and Michael Snoeck's site have ALL been systematically removed from these pages. Both these sites represent independent studies attempting to be fair and objective about matters. These are about the only sites around that attempt to view matters from various angles and give an abundance of referencing. Neither of these sites make in particular a case in favour or against the Church of Scientology. They represent studies. The argumentation from user Wikipediatrix that they are blogs is erroneous as they are studies (see definition of Blog). Both these sites (esp. the Snoeck site) provide for unique material and research not found or available anywhere else. Is this a personal vendetta of Wikipediatrix against in particular these 2 sites? Wikipediatrix is highly invalidative in particular to the Snoeck site.

The Wiki rule for these is Wikipedia:External links: "When assessing external links you need to simply ask yourself the question: Why is the link not used as a source for the article? If the answer is "because it is not a reliable source," then don't link. If the answer is, "that link is a great resource that complies with the verifiability policy,", then you can link and hopefully someone else would add material from the source to the article."

Please can any administrator have a look into this rather serious matter! I also would propose an investigation into these 2 users as to their intent and approach, and to establish if these oppose the aims of Wikipedia. --Olberon 10:46, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

To make it easier for the administrators would you please post the external links in question here? Anynobody 11:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Both the Bernie's as well as the Snoeck's site are fairly large. The main index of these sites are respectively found here http://bernie.cncfamily.com/sc/sitemap.htm & http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/INTRO.html#popup. From there you can find the various pages that have been linked to from the respective Wiki pages (all listed at top of report). --Olberon 11:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Patsy Moore

Recently the article, Patsy Moore, suffered libel from two editors. Boofbaby (blocked indefinitely, account creation blocked). However, another contributor, 71.123.18.83, participated, also. The victim, Patsy Moore, has created an account at PatsyMoore, and has sent "cease and desist" messages to both parties. A request for oversight assistance has been sent, so the revisions may or may not currently appear to all users at the time. The reason why a report is being filed here is because 71.123.18.83 still hasn't been punished for libel. Boofbaby has, but 71.123.18.83 hasn't. This is more than just simple vandalism, this is libel, in which we were lucky that Patsy Moore's friend caught it and told her, or this could have ended less quieter. For some reason, 71.123.18.83 hasn't been blocked. Cool Blue^{talk to me} 11:49, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

• Libel #1
• Libel #2
• Libel #3

Other users and I have taken action because PatsyMoore got involved in the incident. Cool Blue^{talk to me} 11:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The anon's only contribution seems to be describing Patsy Moore's company Patchouli Grove Publishers as "self-pay for publishing book releases", which I take to mean that they are being described as vanity press. You've labeled that as libel 2. A quick google search doesn't seem to turn up anything they've done, other than her book(s). Am I correct on all those points? Are you saying that they aren't a vanity press, or something else? Regards, Ben Aveling 12:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, she seemed upset with that user too, so I'd try to get a hold of User:PatsyMoore. Cool Blue^{talk to me} 13:46, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, how do you know PatsyMoore (talk · contribs) is actually Patsy Moore?--VectorPotential^Talk 14:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I was the user who caught and reverted the libel, and requested semi-protection. I don't think blocking that IP will do much good--it's a DSL IP from Verizon. There's too much risk of collateral damage, I think. I have, however, emailed Verizon to let them know what happened--their AUP forbids damaging the reputation of third parties, so I don't think it'll be too much trouble to nuke the responsible party.Blueboy96 14:23, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Well that seems extremely inappropriate, their actions aren't even blockable, let alone enough for their ISP to terminate service--VectorPotential^Talk 14:29, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I think it's enough for Verizon to nuke the person who was using that IP at the time. Verizon's AUP forbids using its service for any action that "might be legally actionable for any reason" or, more importantly, would "damage the name or reputation of Verizon, its parent, affiliates and subsidiaries, or any third parties." I've already sent an email to Verizon's abuse department--if this isn't a nukable offense, what is?Blueboy96 14:35, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Community ban proposal on User:Boofbaby

Whether User:PatsyMoore is really Patsy Moore or not is irrelevant. The fact is, some pretty egregious libel took place. This sort of behavior can't be tolerated on Wikipedia, even from a newbie. I therefore propose a community ban on Boofbaby (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), at least until and if he publicly apologizes to Ms. Moore for his behavior. If you guys feel he should be banned even after that, I won't mind.Blueboy96 14:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Indian Valley High School

Resolved

 – Try the Help Desk--VectorPotential^Talk 13:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I am looking to have the Page for Indian Valley High School in Lewistown, PA re-established. Could you please help? "Bannerville 13:53, 6 May 2007 (UTC)"

• Try the Help Desk, which is for questions about wikipedia--VectorPotential^Talk 13:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible sockpuppet--but of whom?

Seosaimh Mac Domhnaill (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) created the article Camillus McElhinney, which I nominated for speedy deletion. He requested that the speedy deletion be delayed in favor of a normal AfD discussion to give the rest of the community time to respond.

I was just about to open the debate when I noticed he was already using in-universe lingo here, despite having only been created at 10:35 am Eastern. Moreover, his user page contains a message that seems to be directed at User:Alison (it's in Gaelic) and the original version claimed that someone had accused him of being a sock. I don't know whether I'm being too overzealous here, but something about this stinks like a fish decaying in the moonlight--can someone check this out?Blueboy96 15:22, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

There's no rule against creating more than one account, as long as they don't try and use their previous account to vote in their AfD, I don't really see what the problem is--VectorPotential^Talk 15:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Strange comment on my talkpage

Hi. If someone would check out this diff, some anon placed a comment on my talkpage. He/she thanked me for supposedly placing a comment of their talkpage, when in fact that talkpage is empty. Just a few days earlier, another anon placed a comment on my talkpage, but another user recognised it as personal attack and trolling, and removed it. Also, this new anon called me a transsexual for no apparent reason, so would that be a personal attack? If so, my talkpage is repeatedly being attacked by anons, and if so, it should be semi-protected. What do you think? Should the comment be removed? It makes no sense anyway, just like the previous comment that was also removed. I am going to check these user's contributions, talkpage links, etc, to see if they have any connection. Thanks. – AstroHurricane001^{(Talk+Contribs+Ubx)(+sign here+How's my editing?)} 15:22, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Unless you really proclaimed yourself to be a transsexual, then I would say this is trolling. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:27, 6 May 2007 (UTC)