Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Potential problem conerning episode articles

I am not certain if this is our expected behaviour or not however I am bringing this to admin attention anyways: [1]

User seems to be mass merge tagging articles and later redirectifying them. That seems to be the case for the past 5000 edits at least. Is this acceptable behaviour? Are episode articles banned?

-- Cat ^chi? 21:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Individual episode articles aren't banned, but they still have to meet WP:NOTE just like every other article. That is, they don't get a free pass on notability just because their parent show is, if you get my drift. There are currently vast numbers of individual episode articles which could never meet WP:NOTE and thus should be merged into their parent "season" article instead of on their own.
WP:EPISODE lays out the procedure pretty well. Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 21:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

They are not merged. They are blanked/redirectified. WP:EPISODE doesn't require mass merging. And I see no centralized discussion for such a thing anywhere. -- Cat ^chi? 21:19, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it kind of does...there's a logical progression here that has to be met. Series, then season, then individual episode. Each one must meet WP:NOTE. A lot of people assume that since multiple independent sources can be found for the series and the season, that means every individual episode deserves it's own page. This is, obviously, not the case. Merging (mass or otherwise) is the appropriate policy-approved way of dealing with a non-notable episode from a notable season (or notable series). Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 22:13, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I see no "policy"-approved procedure for this. Guidelines are there to help us write better articles. They are not licenses for deletion without discussion. -- Cat ^chi? 01:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm using merge tags, and waiting for discussion, so yes, it's fine. This has been up here many, many times for when I was being WP:BOLD in redirecting, so it has come down to that. To answer your question, by WP:EPISODE, most episodes have no chance of ever needing to exist. We have somewhere over five thousand episode articles (possibly way more) that need to be taken care of, so that is what I am doing. TTN 21:09, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Your idea of taking care of is removal of over "five thousand" articles without undergoing any deletion procedure. Such AFDs will most likely fail if my experience is any indication. -- Cat ^chi? 21:19, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you could try something constructive like coming up with a reason that these articles are notable? Otherwise, TNN is just engaging in cleanup. Shell ^babelfish 00:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I am uncertain what to say here. What is the metric for notability for episode articles? If all episode articles are to be deleted, I want to see a general discussion for it. Or else someone, if not me, will mass revert the mass merging. -- Cat ^chi? 01:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Under WP:BOLD, he can redirect as he pleases. If people push back, he needs to discuss. There is no special notability for episodes- just the standard form. He should, if people revert, discuss individual groups of articles on the List of Episode page. — i ^said 01:11, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

i disagree. TTN is editing way too fast on tagging and redirecting the episode articles. Being bold is one thing but redirecting an episode without checking if it has sustained its notability is another... TTN, please stop and gain consensus before redirecting any more articles. --D_arkF_alls ^talk 01:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

There is no way I or anyone can discuss at the rate of his tagging. I would think any show with the cultural impact as 24 to be notable. I do not know what reason is needed to establish notability... Why is Shakespeare's Hamlet notable? Why is any book or movie notable? The idea that a show itself is notable yet none of its episodes are worth a mention simply baffles me. If something is not notable, why is not AFD used? -- Cat ^chi? 01:23, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, the pages are not being merged. "Merge" implies that all or at least some of the content is being moved into the target article; this is not the case, they are just being redirected. For such a large list of articles, there should be some sort of centralized discussion, possibly one discussion per series as to: should they all be merged (some episodes may have notability for specific reasons that others in the same series do not), what content should be merged, etc. I think this is taking WP:BOLD a little too far and bordering on WP:POINT. Mr.Z-man 01:32, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that this behavior is quite disruptive. Particularly disturbing is the fact that AWB is being used to make controversial edits. IronGargoyle 01:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Re:Notability. There has been centralised discussion about the notability of episodes: WP:EPISODE arose out of one such discussion a couple of years ago, and has recently been rediscussed (see WT:EPISODE). The guidelines for establishing notability of fiction articles is undergoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction), and the actual necessity for separate guidelines for fiction is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Notability. As to centralised discussion about the appropriate action to undertake regarding articles which fail the above notability guidelines, then this can be found at the talk pages of WP:TVE and WP:TV-REVIEW, Wikipedia talk:Television article review process. If anyone has a concern about any issues about episode articles, regarding notability through to the processes surrounding such articles, then it's probably worth checking out any of those pages and contributing to constructive debate there. Gwinva 01:45, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:EPISODE does not say that this is what to do. It says how to determine if episodes should get articles. This is just mass redirection of episode articles with little or no review. WP:EPISODE does not say whether or not each of the episode articles redirected was notable or not, nor does it say that episodes should not get articles. Mr.Z-man 01:57, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Having just randomly reviewed ten of the most recent thousand edits made by TTN (talk · contribs), all the episode articles I saw generally had zero references and no real world context. Likewise they were chock full of things that WP:EPISODE says to avoid, including trivia sections, quotations, in-universe writing, and extremely detailed plot summary sections. Again, this was only a 1% spot-check, but I did not see any issues with TTN`s clean up work. --Kralizec! (talk) 01:50, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see why redirecting articles without checking the notability is considered "clean-up work". WP:EPISODE is a guideline on creating new articles, it is by no means a guideline set for deleting articles. WP:NN clearly states that discussion must be present, and that suitable consensus must emerge for the redirection of articles. --D_arkF_alls ^talk 02:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I missed something, so please bear with me. Lets take Indian Summer (Dawson's Creek episode), one of the articles in question that I reviewed during my spot-check of TTN`s clean-up work. On August 25th, TTN added [2] a {{mergeto}} tag on the article that included a discussion link to Talk:List of Dawson's Creek episodes#Episode notability. After 34 days, consensus was determined and two days later (36 days after the article was tagged) the episode was merged [3] into the episode list. Reviewing the final, pre-merger version of the article shows it to be a textbook example of what WP:EPISODE says to avoid: quotes, featured music, zero citations, no real world context, and a decorative fair-use image. Looks like a pretty clear cut case of cleanup to me. --Kralizec! (talk) 04:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

He also redirected all the episodes in List of 30 Rock episodes, and multiple reviews can be found for every episode. This was discussed and ignored on the talk page. Lots of shows episodes, especially older ones don't have second party information, but some do, and it doesn't seem to effect his redirecting them. - Peregrine Fisher 04:32, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Some of these articles were really bad before he redirected them. That said, regarding the discussion linked to above he closed the debate himself and claimed consensus despite two people disagreeing with him and only Ned Scott agreeing with him. That's not consensus to merge/redirect. As for articles containing trivia the correct approach is to merge that into the rest of the article and then delete the trivia section, not simply to merge/redirect. EconomicsGuy ^{Return the fire!} 04:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Reviews for episodes does not mean you will have real-world information to place in said articles. As for the reviews themselves, they were somewhat questionable, being from http://tvsquad.com and http://buddytv.com . A consensus does not just include the discussion on the immediate talk page, but also what the community at large had decided about excessive plot summary (WP:PLOT). -- Ned Scott 07:27, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

True but then what is the purpose of starting a debate if the outcome is predetermined per consensus on WP:PLOT? I'm neither jumping on his back nor am I disputing that most of these articles were bad. What I'm disputing is the way he did this. If he was going to be truly bold he could have redirected without wasting other editor's time with futile debates the outcome of which he was just going to ignore anyway. What is the purpose of tagging so many articles using AWB when the debates were futile and the obvious outcome was to redirect rather than merge? EconomicsGuy ^{Return the fire!} 07:52, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

When you have a group of artilces, of which say 10%, 20% or 50% can have their notability established, do we have any guidelines on how they should be dealt with. Is summary redirection based on BOLDness the correct way to deal with this? - Peregrine Fisher 03:14, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

And before more people jump on TTN's back, I'd like to point out that he has yielded to past requests, taking more time with these issues, giving fair notice, and starting discussion about these redirections before they happen. -- Ned Scott 07:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

• Has anyone asked the relevant TV-related wikiprojects what their opinion is on this issue? >Radiant< 11:55, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
  • That would be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Episode coverage, a Task Force in WikiProject Television. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:24, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Ignore me if someone else has said this, but TTN is not deleting anything, since the episode articles remain in the revision history. I don't believe s/he's an administrator, so s/he isn't actually capable of deleting anything. Merging is a completely acceptable action for anyone to perform on any article they feel it's appropriate, and is in fact suggested as an alternative for deletion (here and here). There is nothing about TV episode articles that makes this any different, and there is no special guideline regarding editing episode articles. WP:EPISODE is only concerned with notability, so beyond that they are subject to all the normal editing rules, including the deletion policy. So this discussion (which should take place somewhere else, since it requires no admin intervention) should take into account the fact that there is no reason episode articles are special or otherwise exempt from the normal rules and practices. Natalie 13:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

edit point

Let me reword my original argument since there seems to be a confusion. When an article is low on quality, you improve them. I do not mind several article improvement drives on episode articles. We do not have a deadline so in the course of several years this can lead to multiple good articles. If an article does not immediately have adequate sources, the recommended action as per community approved procedure is written here. In this case that was not attempted. In fact the last three steps were avoided all together. Process is important. There are many low quality articles on wikipedia. Each suffering from valorous problems. Unless an article suffers from an urgent problem such as WP:BLP it is almost never blanked. Blanking is a last resort not the first.

Usage of {{merge}} is entirely improper as nothing is ever merged as a result. I also observe that all these mass merging is preformed by a specific group of editors that impose their consensus to the "local" people working on the articles. An imposed consensus is no consensus by very nature. Some of these users have no other contribution.

The WP:EPISODE guideline was drafted to help guide editors to better write articles and was a decent resource if used for this purpose (I am not madly in love with it mind you). While the guideline was never community approved (no community wide discussion), I think it was adequately worded on the 16 April 2007 version. Between then and 26 September 2007 article underwent a major rewrite, based on what I do not know. It was originally a MOS guideline (and should have stayed that way) and now is been turned into a notability guideline [4]. I am uncertain if there was an extensive discussion by the community as a whole for this abrupt and extensive change. I see no evidence of it. Guidelines and policies are not written by an elite group of people but are derived out of a consensus from the entire Wikipedia community as a whole.

-- Cat ^chi? 18:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

When an article is low on quality, you improve it. When there are hundreds or thousands of articles on very similar subjects (like TV episodes), all with the same problems, all for a long time, you merge them. Nothing is lost, and we get a lot closer to following our content policies (WP:NOT, WP:V) and guidelines. I have redirected episode articles the day they were created, without discussion, as people felt the need to create articles for episodes that wouldn't be aired for two months...[5]. The problem here is not that these stub articles should get more time, but that less of these should be created in the first place. When someone is willing and able to make a better article, with out-of-universe content and reliable independent sources, then the merge can be very easily undone. Until then, these articles are only bad examples for new editors. Fram 19:48, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

From where are you getting the idea that merging is never appropriate? I note that the very page you linked suggests "if appropriate sources cannot be found, if possible, merge the article into a broader article providing context." The notability policy, which has been derived out of consensus by the community as a whole, is the policy by which these articles are being merged. I would also like to underscore Fram's point by noting that the sky is not falling and all of these articles can be retrieved by anyone, since they are not being deleted. Natalie 20:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

See, I think what we have here is a breakdown of communication all around. In my mind, at least, the problem isn't necessarily that these articles shouldn't be merged; it's that what TTN is doing is not merging them. Merging implies that information from the article being eliminated is incorporated into the article it's being merged into. TTN's standard practice seems to be to simply redirect articles en masse without any effort to incorporate the information into the article he redirects to. I've noted a similar modus operandi by other people who have been redirecting many articles while citing WP:FICTION as a reason, and think that there may be a need to clarify this point, since we end up with people angrily editing and creating lots of AN/I and AIV reports as a result. Rdfox 76 21:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that's the point exactly: it's only a merge when you actually retain some of the content in the article. Many of TTN's edits have not even vaguely been in line with that statement, and even then regardless of the merits of the actions themselves his (her?) handling of the situation has been "counter-harmonious" to say the least. I understand exactly where White Cat is coming from on this. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 11:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

And when there's nothing worth merging, we redirect.[6] So? Fram 15:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

TTN has merged over 5000 articles such that none of the content from the individual article was retained in the merged article. Statistically and logically it is impossible that none of those articles had content worth retaining. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 11:31, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

A large number of these articles contained identical or near identical summaries from the List of episodes article. Also, summary is easy to generate, and we have no shortage of editors willing to do it. -- Ned Scott 07:35, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

So what's your argument here? It's okay to completely blank an article because eventually someone else will perform the rest of the merge for you? That's wildly irresponsible, and a crap argument to boot. If TTN is so hard-pressed to merge that many articles then he needs to put in the time to do it properly. Right now he's just wiping out whole swaths of information and dragging the overall quality of Wikipedia down, regardless of how "easy" it is to find the original article content in the edit history. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 01:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I notice TTN has been noticeably absent from this discussion, yet he continues to redirect articles. I've asked him to comment here. Mr.Z-man 23:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

User:TTN has said on his talk page that he will not comment here. Mr.Z-man 00:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

There's not much more to say, he's not doing anything wrong. -- Ned Scott 07:35, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Mass removing article content is a problem. Some of these allegedly merged articles contained enough information that disqualifies them from being stubs. So they are "full articles" and not stubs. Altering a guideline and converting it from a "MOS guideline" to a "notability guideline" without adequate discussion is a problem. TTN isn't even willing to discuss the matter which is also a problem. There most certainly is a problem. -- Cat ^chi? 11:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

TTN is even revert waring over his "bold" action despite the lack of consensus. In this case a discussion was overwhelmingly against a merge or let alone a redirectification. [7] was redirectified anyways despite having enough content to disqualify even as stubs. Granted these articles are not featured they aren't stubs either. -- Cat ^chi? 11:40, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

His priorities--his choice of which articles to modify first--seem very shady for someone not doing anything wrong. In trying to determine what the actual, practiced standard for episode notability is, I looked over the television shows which have featured articles (as I take it those are supposed to set the example for other articles in the category). While I did not look at all of the shows, I looked at enough to realize that virtually every featured article for a television show on wikipedia has a full complement of individual episode articles that contradict TTN's interpretation of the guidelines for notability, but from skimming his extensive edit history, he doesn't seem to have even attempted to apply his modifications to shows with featured articles--other than his very recent (10/4/07) attempts to apply those modifications to The Wire, with its famously small audience--although he has applied many thousands of them to articles with lower traffic.

Although I can see how his interpretation may be valid, it contradicts the example set by most or all featured articles in this category, and I am inclined to respect their combined example over his individual objections. If his interpretation is widely acceptable by wiki standards, then it would be more honest for him to apply it to the featured articles first, and have it demonstrated as part of the standard for featured television articles. While I understand his stated objection that he can only modify so many articles at once, it looks like bad faith editing when he attempts to change the de facto standards for the entire category of wikipedia television episodes by altering all of the articles with low readership first, and intentionally flying under the radar of the featured articles with high traffic.

He has also stated explicity that he will sneak in "silly messages" on low-traffic talk pages to prove a point, something wikipedia seems to expressly discourage. Apparently it's an official wiki policy that the number of people interested in a subject does not in and of itself constitute noteworthiness, contrary to TTN's own guidelines for modifying or deleting these articles. The more I look at his history, the closer it seems to systemic vandalism and selective modification of articles where he believes he can get away with it (as shown by his "testing the waters" with silly messages to see if anyone will revert them), rather than trying to apply criteria uniformly across the entire category of articles. Wiki describes bad faith editing as "deliberate disruption just to prove a point, playing games with policies, and vandalism", and TTN's modifications seem to be edging very close to this precise description, although I have the impression that he believes these practices are constructive when he's doing them. --24.90.146.245 11:13, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed there certainly is a problem. -- Cat ^chi? 11:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

TTN has stated on his own talkpage in a discussion regarding WP:FICT that he doesn't see much chance of being able to pull off his redirection-without-merging and "discussion is unnecessary, consensus is unnecessary" tricks on high-traffic topics. He specifically says that he plans to mostly stick with "picking off smaller ones," because he feels that "once the weaklings are fully gone, it'll probably get easier to deal with the larger ones." The way I read it, it appears to me that he's trying to establish a precedent of eliminating episode and character articles by working "under the radar" on lower-traffic topics before attempting to do anything to the ones that would attract a lot of attention. Looking through his talkpage archives, I also see dozens of comments and complaints per month about his method of indiscriminately mass-redirecting episode and character articles to lists without any discussion or even an explanation in the edit summary, including ones from before WP:FICT went into effect. I don't know how often he's gotten warning templates put up as a result, because he has a habit of deleting them, and digging through the history to find them is enough of an annoyance that I didn't try it today. Rdfox 76 15:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm missing something... how exactly does TTN have special authority to decide how the standards will be applied, and enforce his decision over any and all objections? I understand that he thinks his application of the notability guidelines is valid, but it is obviously not accepted practice. He demonstrates his awareness of this by avoiding the most popular shows, for instance generously decreeing that all the Simpsons articles can stay, because "they have proven themselves with a few featured articles and around thirty good articles". I don't know how the notability of several articles in a category gives automatic notability to the others, but if anyone can see the hidden sense in that, I'd like to hear it. It sounds more like an excuse to avoid articles where he knows he won't be able to unilaterally enforce his own vision of what wiki should be. If he doesn't need consensus to enforce whatever interpretation he pleases, then does anyone else need consensus to revert his changes wholesale (much as he applies them wholesale to begin with)? And at what point can it be blocked as vandalism, since apparently he is engaging in revert wars in the process? --F.dolarhyde 15:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

After having looked further into the issue, there are several things I want to underline. I can see how TTN feels his interpretation is backed up by the guidelines, but it would be much less offensive, less destructive (fewer people would spend days and weeks typing up information that will only be discarded), and less devious, if: 1) TTN weren't taking it on as his sole responsibility and mission to bulldoze through thousands of lower-traffic articles, but was backed up by other notable contributors sharing this duty; and especially 2) it were applied to the highest profile articles FIRST, not after he's wiped out the pages for hundreds of less-popular series.

If I'm a new user, unfamiliar with TTN, and I want to create a set of articles for a new series; I'm going to read the guidelines, and then look at the featured, high-profile shows to see an example and confirmation of how to construct accepted articles for a television series. If I see that they avoid creating articles for most individual episodes, I'll think twice before doing that for a new show. But what I actually see now, is that they nearly ALL have articles for each individual episode, and that nobody is putting "merge for lack of notability" warnings on most of them. As a new user I'm not likely to go look up one of the several hundred obscure anime series that TTN has seen fit to reshape to his idea of the notability standards; I'll look at the highest-profile series for examples. I may then spend weeks typing up information for individual episodes, thinking that it's in line with the approved, featured, high-traffic show articles, and then have him come along with his back-door bulldozer and wipe most of it out.

This practice creates an unwelcoming (if not outright hostile) environment for new contributors, and without good cause. His talk page shows many dozens, possibly even hundreds, of users he's discouraged by his way of going about this--several who have entirely abandoned wikipedia as a consequence. If he's as sure of his version of the notability guidelines as he claims to be, and does not intend to harm the site in the process, then the high profile articles--which serve as role models for new articles--need to be retrofit first, before the countless deletions he's applying to lesser-known articles.

This would serve both as a good test of whether his reading of the guidelines is a sustainable practice, and serve to spare new contributors: from working hard at finding, creating and contributing content in good faith that will mostly be swept away by his interpretation of the guidelines. The only argument in favor of his doing the low-traffic shows first is that it's easier for him to get away with unpopular changes, even at the cost of substantially damaging the "good faith" of this subset of the wiki userbase. Rather than show any compromise or respect for the community that has created all of these pages, his talk pages show something close to an eagerness to spite most of those creators en masse. It may be a rewarding power trip for him to single-handedly reshape the face of WikiProject Television from underneath; it would be much less destructive for the contributors (and would generate much less destructive ill-will and mistrust in the community) if he joined with notable contributors who share his views on fiction guidelines, and together they approached these changes head-on, starting with the highest traffic articles, where everyone can be aware of the changes from the top down. --F.dolarhyde 17:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOT#PLOT is an official policy. WP:EPISODE is a derived guideline backed up by consensus. User:TTN enforces both. If he took all episdes that do not assert notability to AfD, fans would scream bloody murder for not following WP:FICT ("Non-notable information should be deleted only when other options have been exhausted"), and those AfDs usually end in no consensus or keep anyway because there are enough fans to outvote the PLOT policy. Tagging all nn episodes results in complaints about his behaviour at ANI. Going for the "small" shows first to evade major fan outcries (that would again outvote the policy) results in accuses of POINTy and biased behavior. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I'd say. Fans who really care about their TV shows should spend their time in establishing notability and create real world content, maybe write a good episode article, but not create excessive plot summaries. The redirects allow fan-editors to recreate articles with their notability asserted in the case they can. If I had more time and weren't that thin-skinned, I'd support the enforcement of WP:EPISODE much more than I already do. – sgeureka ^t•c 14:09, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

"when other options have been exhausted"... Which any other option is even attempted? Yes that is right none. Mass redirection is unhelpful. The more productive way to deal with poor quality articles are through article improvement drives. How many have been attempted on the episode articles before the merge (not merge in actuality mass-redirectification)? I find it hard to swallow that all of the episodes of the 24 TV series is automatically non-notable. All movies are automatically notable even if they haven't even been produced yet, why are episodes of TV shows that aired internationally for multiple seasons automatically "non-notable"? More people watched them than theater movies so they received a greater reception by simple logic. This mass redirectification based on how "lowly" fans are is disruptive. It is not in line with WP:FICT at all. -- Cat ^chi? 18:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Also with your approach we would not have any intermediate steps between a featured/good article and a stub. -- Cat ^chi? 12:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems you're confusing wiki-notability with real-world notability. Wiki-notability is established by reliable sources. As far as I can see, TNN gave fans several weeks to find third-party reliable sources for any episode. If they can't or won't do that for at least one episode, that's a pretty good sign that (1) no such sources exist, making the episodes non-notable by wiki-standards, or (2) no-one cares to improve the articles in the immediate future to establish notability. In both cases, "other options have been exhausted," allowing deletion. But the articles aren't deleted, they only get redirected. And you're right, movies (exactly like most TV shows and books) are notable, so they get an article. But not every act of a movie gets an article. Not every chapter of a book gets an article. And not every episode gets an article, unless wiki-notability has been established. – sgeureka ^t•c 01:09, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not confusing anything. Notability isn't temporary and if something is notable in real-world, it most certainly is notable here. Every article on wikipedia starts out as a stub. What you are doing is banning stub articles on fiction.

As for your point number one: how do you know weather or not they exist in all of the 5000+ articles that were mass removed. They might not exist right now but they might be added in an article improvement drive. We do not have a WP:DEADLINE.

As for your point number two: that attitude isn't how wikipedia articles are written. With that rationale all stub and start class articles would need to be removed.

Every chapter of a book and every TV episode is not the same thing. TV episodes also have acts and arts. A TV episode or two occupies the same time span as a movie. It is a series of movies. When you add up every episode of a TV show they almost always add up to something much much longer than an average movie.

Why should each individual harry potter book get an article? Because it is a series of books. Or how about Star Trek movies? Why should the episode articles be destroyed when there are eleven movie articles? Even Tribble gets an article. I see no requirement to mass merge TV episodes in general into one article.

Then you start asking the questions "What makes the list notable if the contents of the list is non-notable?" or "What makes the show notable if it's episodes aren't notable".

-- Cat ^chi? 10:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm (currently) not banning anything, especially where I see merits. Having dozens and hundreds of episode articles without established notability for long times however looks like "having no merrits". If I have the wrong impression in a case (we're all human), prove it by establishing notability and the case shall rest in your favor. The suggested improvement drives can only improve an article if there are sources to begin with, but those don't seem to exist. Again, if you think they exist, prove it.

TV episodes obviously have about the same consumption length as movies and books, but they are doled out in a much higher frequency. It takes about half a year to make a movie; it takes about a year to write a good book; it takes an average of about two or three weeks (1 year divided by 20 episodes, disregarding the pipeline time) to produce a TV episode. Remember, an encyclopedia focuses on the production of a piece of art, and there is obviously much more secondary information available for a work that took longer to produce. So comparing of TV episodes to acts of movies or chapters of books holds up much better than comparing them to movies and books directly.

Besides, (this may be a case of differing opinions, but Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) happens to agree), subjects should IMO grow from within. If there is enough (sourced!) material and encyclopedic treatment, info may be split out into subarticles. Creating dozens of stubby subarticles in the hope that reliable third-party sources exist somewhere is not the way (Top-down and bottom-up design) – summarizing the information in a list until it can be broken out is much better for encyclopedic coverage in the long term. – sgeureka ^t•c 22:46, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

As an example of the overzealous attempts at enforcing WP:EPISODE that TTN is carrying out, see the discussion of his recent merge-tagging of Category:Kim Possible Episodes in its entirety, with his immediately shooting down any attempt to justify any particular episode's existence. Note that some of these episodes first aired as recently as three weeks ago, yet he's claiming that the episodes will "never" manage to be able to demonstrate notability, regardless of how much work is put into them. Rdfox 76 13:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC) Edited to fix my screwup that resulted in no link to the category, and ANI being miscategorized at a KP episode. Whoopsie! Rdfox 76 13:40, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Randomly surveying twenty of the articles in that category:

• None of them had any third-party references (eighteen of them had no references whatsoever).
• None of them had any real-world information (barring trivia)
• All of them were composed of plot summary, trivia, quotations, or some combination thereof.

Forget merge tagging; If I had the time/effort/tools/patience to deal with inclusionists, I would have merged all of them on sight. If you want to help out, just type up paragraph summaries for each episode and stick them on the episode list, as is the step recommended before splitting into individual episode articles. That was half of the point of the merge tags. TTN is doing nothing wrong in terms of merge tagging and redirection. Just like Durin and his crusade against nonfree images, TTN is simply enforcing poorly-enacted Wikipedia policies and guidelines on a massive scale and getting loads of crap for it. There might be something to say about his unwillingness to discuss, but that's about it. You Can't See Me! 02:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

We do not immediately delete articles without sources. If that is an argument all stubs must be deleted right away. Also articles like James C. Jones should also go. As for the guidelines as demonstrated above, they never had any consensus for such an alteration to begin with (Sure I can alter any MOS guideline to a Notability guideline and butcher an entire topic of my choice). It is simply an article development procedure. Please do not complicate this exclusively for fiction related topics. -- Cat ^chi? 10:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You can't compare the deletion of images with the deletion of articles, You Can't See Me. With "Durin's crusade" against unfree images, these images will have severe copyright problems if they are left unattended by admins. With articles, the same implication doesn't apply and needs suitable consensus before deletion. TTN is redirecting articles without consensus. The process of finding lack of notability is illustrated at Wikipedia:Notability#Articles_not_satisfying_the_notability_guidelines, and TTN is not trying to find sources for the articles, merely redirecting. --D_arkF_alls ^talk 10:42, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't necessary agree with the approach and rate that TTN is tackling these articles, but there is fair-use concerns (among other issues) with excessive plot information; yes, it's not as strong as the need to protect WP from non-free images, but it does exist (see WP:WAF#Fair use). There is timeliness needed for non-free images as by April 2008, WP's board has stated they all must be tagged with rationale, or be deleted. There is no such timeliness for plot descriptions, but still, the less time they spend in such a state, the better. --MASEM 17:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

TTN is also failing to follow the rules set out in WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE for dealing with non-notable episode articles. He does not bother with the {{Notability|episode}} templates, nor does he actually merge the articles he tags for merging after asking one of his preferred admins to close the discussions, he merely redirects the articles en masse without any merging of information from the article or transwiki-ing the material to either the Annex or a specialty Wiki. He also asserts that the implementation of WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE constitutes a "larger consensus" that automatically overrules any objecting consensus that may be developed on article discussion pages, thus making it impossible to defend any article that may actually be a stub--or possibly passing the notability requirements--as inappropriate to merge or redirect, thus completely ignoring both WP:IAR and the facts that consensus can change and that contrary opinions need to be considered in building it. WP:CCC particularly applies; the first I had heard WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE came after they had already been implemented. I don't see any links in the current new-user welcome templates (or the policy articles to which they link!) to the locations where such policies are discussed and developed; I suspect that, like me, many Wiki editors don't even know where you would look to find out about impending policy changes, much less contribute to discussion about them. How can a true consensus on the issue be gained if most of the userbase doesn't know where to look to participate? Rdfox 76 15:43, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:EPISODE does not have a "large consensus" or any consensus behind it as a notability guideline. It should be reverted back in being a MOS guideline. If an episode notability guideline is necesary, that can be drafted separately and be put into use if it receives approval from the community (everybody, by that I don't mean a 'select' group of users). -- Cat ^chi? 16:46, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

No, TTN is not merging the articles, but he is not deleting them; he is redirecting them. Furthermore, he is not redirecting them on sight: he is slapping merge tags on them. That should give the regulars at those articles the following message: clean up or merge, because this article isn't looking too good. I don't believe any single person would have the time to strip down every episode article to its bare essentials; it takes a taskforce to do that. So rather than waiting, TTN just redirected the articles. Rather than complaining that he's not merging, merge them yourself. Also, if you think that WP:EPISODE does not have large consensus, then go change it. If it does not have consensus, you'll get away with it. If you get reverted quickly and repeatedly by different editors, then it does have large consensus. There's no point in saying, however, that it does not have large consensus without testing it. You Can't See Me! 21:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

A close look at TTN's redirects demonstrates that they are less "careful examination and assessment" and more "slap a tag on hundreds of articles, ignore any objections, and redirect anyways." As others have mentioned, there is no effort whatsoever to actually do any work to merge. None. Zero. Zip. If you question this, the automatic reply is that there is nothing of value, or that you're just a fan of the series who doesn't know any better. Talk pages get a boilerplate statement that demonstrates TTN hasn't actually read through the pages. There are also numerous examples of mistakes from the rapid-fire approach, including this tagging of an article about an entire series, and these incorrect redirects to a disambiguation page[8][9][10] - which then have to be fixed by other editors. In fact, the overall attitude seems to be "somebody else can clean up after me". --Ckatz^chat_spy 07:20, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to note, as the most recent example I've seen of this attitude of "I'll just zap 'em all, and someone else can handle tidying up all the problems it leaves behind later," his most recent comment on Talk:List of Kim Possible episodes. For those who don't want to check the link themselves, the short version is that, after several people spent a couple of days bashing their heads against the wall trying to get him to work with them, I found out that there actually is already a KP Wiki, and recommended, as WP:FICT suggests, transwiki-ing the disputed articles over there, redirecting only AFTER the transwiki process is completed. TTN's response was, "That can be done over time by the interested editors. It's easy to take information from redirects, so that won't be a problem." He has yet to respond to the questions posed about that reply--in particular, my asking why, when WP:FICT says to transwiki BEFORE redirecting, he feels that the articles should be redirected to the list page first, then transwikied. Rdfox 76 15:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

You expect any human being or the wikipedia community as a whole have the capability to deal with the speed of his tagging. Are you seriously suggesting that he has attempted improving all 5000+ of the articles before he has tagged them? How much effort do you think he spent per article? And mind you we are only looking at TTN's edits. There are others who are also mass tagging pages and later rectifying.

What is the rush? The WP:DEADLINE? If this is acceptable behaviour, why do we need TTN or others for all for this? A bot can mass redirectify pages more efficiently if there is a general ban on character and episode articles. His actions aren't even in line with the policies/guidelines he is allegedly enforcing.

-- Cat ^chi? 14:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

At least TTN has started to bother with merge-tagging articles before he mass-redirects them, even if he's not using the notability tags that are supposed to be used before a merge proposal. I've seen other users, such as User:The Prince of Darkness, who just do the mass redirect without any warning. I can understand the desire to reduce the amount of articles about fiction on Wikipedia, but I have serious problems with the methods being used to do so, including unwarned mass-redirects; changes of MOS guidelines to general guidelines with little fanfare; a liberal dose of Wikilawyering; and a general unwillingness, on the part of those carrying out the campaign, to discuss, compromise, form consensus, or even consider other points of view. Rdfox 76 15:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem I have with TTN is that he isn't merging anything, he is deleting these pages without placing any useful information into the List Of Episodes. Over in the List of My Name is Earl episodes, which he wants to "merge"/delete all, User:Magioladitis suggest keeping the episode pages around for a few days so they can be approved, while TTN says that they can just be reversed after the merge to be imrpoved. He "really doubts" the articles can be approved and he "doesn't care," and passed on my question on what he did to try to improve the articles. Instead of merge and re-direct, he should do what he is actually doing and go for Articles for Deletion. Notthegoatseguy 18:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

edit point

The problem seems to be spreading to character articles: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Group of users blanking Star Trek character articles... -- Cat ^chi? 09:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I found this comment in the Talk page of List of My Name Is Earl episodes quite revealing: ""Unless shown otherwise, it is better to assume that there is no chance [for episodes."— Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

You mean this diff also mind this diff which demonstrates that he isn't following WP:N#Articles not satisfying the notability guidelines. -- Cat ^chi? 13:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Then again, most of the articles in question aren't following WP:NOT#PLOT, and removing policy violations isn't a bad thing. I have been involved in only a few of these disputes on episode articles, and while I don't agree with everything TTN does, it's very one-sided how all the complaints are about his actions, and none about the experienced editors who create and/or defend articles which are nothing but (or in the best cases almost nothing but) plot summaries, and then are amazed that their policy bviolating articles are redirected (not deleted, despite what they often claim). We shouldn't be focusing solely on one editor trying to solve this problem (with errors in tagging and judgment, like most of us), but also and perhaps perhaps more on the editors creating the problem in the first place. I'll give an example: when DanTD creates The Misery Chick this month, he is creating an article which is basically one big violation of WP:NOT. The only good thing to do with this article in the short term is to redirect it to List of Daria episodes. It looks to me like you would then complain about my action (the redirection), but not about the initial creation of the article, which caused the problem in the first place. Not follwong a guideline is not so bad when you do it to get rid of something not following policies... Fram 14:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Timeshift9 trying to "out" User:Prester John

User:Timeshift9 is repeatedly trying to reveal or "out" what he believes is the real world identity of User:Prester John. The latest example is here.

This transgression and his repeated personal attacks such as this and this should earn him a long wikipedia vacation. Prester John ^{-(Talk to the Hand)} 00:49, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Politely but very firmly warned. For the sake of symmetry I'll keep an occasional eye on your own behavior as well, which a quick check suggests has been somewhat less than exemplary. Raymond Arritt 01:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

PJ has had a long history of firm trolling, and going by his userpage userboxes is totally here to troll. He advocates one position, then totally contradicts with another. I will not make the observations I made above again, but in the same token I make no apologies for having done so. Timeshift 01:28, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

How is this above comment acceptable? on the ANI no less! This user really needs to be blocked, his incivility is quite astounding. Prester John ^{-(Talk to the Hand)} 02:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

It's acceptable to me. Your own trolling behaviors have been the subject of previous AN/I threads. I see above a lack of particular repentance, but acknowledgement that futher behaviors will result in big trouble, and an agreement to stop. ThuranX 02:41, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Further, After commenting here and a few other edits, I went to Recent Changes to watch for vandals, and I found this: [[11]], wherein Prester John is engaged in that same sort of problematic editing referenced about. ThuranX 03:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing that, Thuranx. Can another editor politely remind this aggressive fellow Prester John that my talkpage is my talkpage (not his), that he has no right to persistently revert his trollish comments on my talkpage, that he can engage in content debates on the article talkpage, and if he wants people to be respectful to him as an editor that he needs to start behaving respectfully (for example, see this shocking pre-emptive strike against me personally). --Brendan Lloyd [ contribs ] 06:50, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, just look at that history. Prester John is well into harassment territory on your page, and I've given him a serious warning.[12] Bishonen | talk 09:08, 1 October 2007 (UTC).

And now, he's removing legitimate warnings from his talk page... Nwwaew2 (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me)(public computer) 11:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nwwaew2 (talk • contribs)

Some of the userboxes on his user page are downright problematic, too. Orderinchaos 16:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

More on Prester John

Prester John has a history of being an uncivil edit-warrior. Please see his block log, in which he was recently blocked. Also, "Leftist scum". I have tried several times to add that link to User:Prester_John/slideshow, but he has reverted me. Is that slideshow page appropriate, as its only purpose is to insult other users?--71.141.106.98 17:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Continued Incivility...I find it unusual that someone like 'Prester John' would complain about others' incivility, when he is continually uncivil and has himself previously been blocked for incivility and personal attacks. Prester is famous for leaving snide remarks on article talk pages. However, in recent days I was appalled to see Prester John using the Talk:David_Hicks#Satanic_symbols page to taunt another editor (User:Brendan.lloyd). The practice of taunting is listed as one of the more serious incivility issues, and in this case it has disrupted other editors' ability to use the talk page for legitimate purposes.

'Prester John' filed this ANI report at 00:49 1-October. Prester was warned on this page (that his behaviour is being watched), by admin Raymond Arritt at 01:22. Yet only an hour and a half after that warning, at 02:50, Prester John was clearly harassing User:Brendan.lloyd on Brendan.lloyd's talk page , which continued for some time afterwards.

I'd like the admins to consider the seriousness of taunting and harassment by User:Prester John (both on private and article talk pages), to consider the fact it has continued after an admin warning on behaviour, and also view it in light of the previous history of Prester John, Here and Here. --Lester2 23:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

His badgering of User:Brendan.lloyd was plainly over the top and I sincerely regret not having seen that. Checking in occasionally, I had only seen where he went around changing "Makkah" to "Mecca" and the like (which is entirely correct per MoS). I'm not going to block since the incident was a couple of days ago and blocking should be preventive rather than punitive. Since I can't watch this guy all day long, and he's given to serious incivility and badgering, would any other admins care to keep an eye out? Raymond Arritt 01:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone here consider [13] this to be a violation of WP:CIVIL? Does categorizing another user's good faith edits as a "drive by" constitute civil discussion? I have never met this user before, so I don't know what provoked such a thing. Can someone explain?--Mostargue 01:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, this guy has quite a history.--Mostargue 01:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Not being polite is not quite the same as being uncivil. Also being polite or being uncivil does not mean that he's wrong. ---- WebHamster 01:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what that has to do with anything. The actual discussion that I had with him is irrelevant, I only wanted a third opinion on his tone. Also, WP:CIVIL states "Our code of civility states plainly that people must act with civility toward one another.". I am wondering whether or not calling another user's good faith edits a "drive by" is considered civil. Because according to my interpretation of the term, it refers to a situation in which a person drives a car and shoots at people. That doesn't sound like a very nice analogy.--Mostargue 01:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I believe that using the term "drive-by edit" is not something that is inherently uncivil. It's actually quite a common expression and effectively describes a certain situation quite succinctly. From what I've seen from the discussion and what led up to it, I'd say his usage was contextually accurate. In this instance I don't believe his past (or future) behaviour has any relevance. He didn't call you names, he wasn't foul-mouthed. The worse that could be said was he was a little curt with you but WP:CIVIL doesn't say you have to be sickeningly sweet with everyone you talk to. ---- WebHamster 02:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it's not any one thing but all things taken in consideration. I hadn't seen much of his behaviour until recently, but his editing at John Howard and David Hicks (a reasonable representation since wannabekate says they're his two most edited) as well as a recent discussion at Talk:Family First Party, and together with the userboxes on his talk page and his edits to Islam-related topics, suggests someone who is not likely any time soon to be able to edit within Wikipedia policies and guidelines on a consistent or meaningful basis. He frequently calls for people to be banned, desysopped (eg this) etc merely for disagreeing with him - yet stridently defends those on his side of the POV fence (witness this one) when they inevitably cop a block for their actions. This and this are also interesting reads for sheer non-AGF. Orderinchaos 01:41, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I would have expected that after 3 days of discussing this, everyone would at least try to be civil, but incivility continues on the Talk:Bill_Heffernan#Climate_Change_.2F_Asian_remark page.--Lester2 03:54, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Sigh! I share the frustrations of Lester and others. Prester John and I recently came to an amicable accord over dissatisfaction with each other's language and edit actions. To see that he has gone to other articles and talkpages, continuing with exactly the same tone and language that he well knows, by now, is uncivil doesn't reassure me that his apology mean't anything other than to avoid collecting yet another critic of his aggressive negative behaviour. Closer scrutiny from admin users would be greatly appreciated. --Brendan Lloyd [ contribs ] 04:07, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Note: For OTRS respondants, see this ticket which relates to this discussion somewhat. Having been on the opposite side of content disputes with PJ, I'm not going to answer the ticket or take any action in this discussion, but if anyone wants to (and has access to OTRS) then that link may be of interest. Cheers, Daniel 05:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of PJ's attitude, outing another editor is unacceptable. This ANI is starting to turn into a bit of a witchhunt. I agree with the warning given to Timeshift. Outing any editor is just unacceptable. Just because PJ may have an attitude problem and/or edit wars, doesn't mean that he can be outed. If there are geniune problems with PJ, this should be start of a new AN/I or taken to a more appropriate forum. Shot info 06:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

This AN/I has moved on from the Timeshift issue - that was resolved 2 days ago when he received a warning. There is no indication that he has been "outed" - the allegations are old and have been repeated on other occasions over past months, although I'm not entirely sure from where they originated - i.e. whether PJ raised it himself somewhere or not. That being said, we're on Wikipedia, and the key issue here is on-wiki behaviour which is contrary to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Orderinchaos 11:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

In the 3 days since the warning, 'Prester John' has taunted on the David Hicks talk page, harassed on Brendan's talk page, and been generally uncivil in numerous places. Now he's launched some kind of Wikipedia campaign called 'FREE MATT'. He's made a new Userbox for it here-> User:Prester_John/Userbox/Free_Matt. It seems to me to be some kind of campaign to whip up dissent in support of a comrade who was recently blocked from Wikipedia. He's sent the Userbox to numerous peoples' talk pages. Judging by the reaction on User_talk:Prester_John#Please_stop, some other Wikipedians have objected to being sent these campaign messages. --Lester2 12:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

No, an admin has decided it is his business to interfere in that. No one has complained. Arrow740 01:20, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

What is the status of this section? ThuranX 03:55, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

It was closed. Orderinchaos then removed the "resolved tag" and ethically forgot to inform me, allowing all and sundry to have a nice little gripe about me without giving me the chance to respond. Not that there is much to respond to. Do I respond to the UserKirbytime ip sock that is upset I reverted his changes to my userpage? Do I respond to Orderinchaos who erred in not informing me of his unilateral decision to reopen this case? His misrepresentation that I called for the desyoping of Hesperian because I "disagreed" with him. (I in fact was calling for an apology for calling me a racist. There was no apology so I question his constitution for adminship). Do I address his absurd insinuation that because the "allegations" of my outing have been repeated over the past few months, that "I" somehow raised it myself? Do I address the nonsense of serial edit warmonger Lester2 who would do anything to get me blocked just so he could continue his BLP violating POV pushing slandering of current Australian politicians? Or shall I just wait to see how this hatchet job turns out? Prester John ^{-(Talk to the Hand)} 05:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

huh? you complain about someone not going out of their way to give you the opportunity to respond and then sarcastically outline that you are not going to respond... very odd PJ. You're editing across the board is becoming more and more counterproductive to the writing of a good encyclopaedia and the encouragement of people to contribute in good faith. WikiTownsvillian 11:16, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally I removed the resolved tag after most of the discussion above - merely because it seemed to no longer correctly describe the route that the discussion had taken. It was more an acknowledgement of events on the ground, as it would have been puzzling to some that an ongoing discussion had a "resolved" tag on it. Also, the "allegations" bit has been misunderstood - a claim was made about your real-world identity, and I had no wish to repeat the claim. My argument on that was only that one is only "outed" if the claim is true, and as the claim has not been established as either true nor false, it remains an allegation. (I would also argue that even if true, more info would have needed to be released to qualify.) That being said, I strongly agree with the warning - that is not the level at which we should be conducting debates on Wikipedia. Orderinchaos 03:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Orderinchaos, you have not addressed why you removed the resolved tag, and then failed to inform the party concerned. Does this sound like the actions of an ethical adminstrator? Also, what was the point of speculating where the origin of the outing allegations came from; "i.e. whether PJ raised it himself somewhere or not"? Did you have any evidence at all for this random slander, or were you just "throwing it out there". I would question whether that is admin behaviour as well. Prester John ^{-(Talk to the Hand)} 01:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

stop trying to distract the conversation with wordplay. You sound so offended anyone could have thought that you were a model wikicitizen! Cheers, WikiTownsvillian 07:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Free Matt userbox MfD

I saw that via the Jehochman RFA, and nominated it for deletion. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Prester John/Userbox/Free Matt. • Lawrence Cohen 23:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I added a notification of this MFD here to ANI, but it was removed here by User:CO. I am re-adding it here, as it is directly relevant to the harassment of Elonka and Jehochman. the Userbox appears to be a response to this old ANI thread where this user is blocked for harassment. Two other userboxes this person made before were deleted for being inflammatory: User:Prester John/Userbox/Hate & User:Prester John/Userbox/Moman. More are located at User:Prester John/Userbox. If it's significant, this happened a long time after I posted it and he left me note about that removal. • Lawrence Cohen 05:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Religious Hatred: Those prior Prester John userboxes that Admins deleted in May, were the cause of religious flamewars among Wikipedians. See this prior ANi for one case of a Wikipedian who tried to retaliate after being baited by Prester John. I see a disturbing pattern of religious intolerance from Prester John. Here's another ANi involving complaints about Prester John's anti-Muslim edits. Yet the anti-Muslim theme still continues with Prester John's Wikipedia activity. Just skim down Prester's edit history and you'll see that 95% of his edits involve articles about Muslims. You'll notice Prester John editing articles to cast Muslims in a poor light, or praise politicians who have taken a perceived anti-Muslim stance. Even as this current ANi has been taking place in the past few days, let me point out Prester's latest article, and the talk page will explain what's wrong with it. I ask the admins to look at whether this sort of slant is good for Wikipedia. --Lester2 13:26, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Please back up claims of "religious hatred" with specific evidence in the form of diffs. Your post borders on incivility and trolling. Arrow740 03:46, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Even though I voted to remove the user box (and, it was intended more as a "probably not the best idea" rather than "delete now, no matter what"), the "Free Matt57" box controversy is getting a whole lot more attention than it deserves. I say we move on. If there are other issues (which you seem to be talking about) then they need to be addressed properly - not here tacked on to the ultimately pointless "Free Matt" user box issue. The whole idea of user boxes is a joke anyway, hence i keep mine to an absolute minimum - just the projects, and no politics. --Merbabu 13:33, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it should get a lot more attention. It demonstrates that some admins think that admins' actions should not be disputed by non-admins. That is a very worrying attitude. Arrow740 03:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• Since I blocked Matt, I suppose I should record that I don't object to the userbox and I certainly don't feel offended in any way. Its fair comment imo. Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:53, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

edit point

I think the following quote is problematic. It is from User:Prester John.

“ The Great Seal of the United States. Note how the Eagle holds an olive branch and 13 arrows. This symbolises how the USA will give a choice between War or Peace. YOU do get to pick, but always remember, that whichever way you choose, it is going to be done OUR way ”

Of course I am not going to contradict the statement with examples from history and current events... Not because I can't but because that isn't the point of userpages or this page...

-- Cat ^chi? 21:24, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

If you're going to try to attack someone, you'll have to explain yourself a little better. How is it problematic, exactly? Arrow740 07:20, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is problematic about it? Yahel Guhan 04:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

This isn't an attack. For it to be an attack there needs to be war. I am merely exercising "If the community lets you know that they would rather you delete some content from your user space, you should consider doing so — such content is only permitted with the consent of the community" from Wikipedia:User page. How does that statement helps us write better articles? How is it in line with Wikipedia:User page#Inappropriate content? Isn't it provocative? -- Cat ^chi? 09:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I am still waiting for an answer. -- Cat ^chi? 13:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit Wars continue

I wish User:Prester John would stop conducting edit wars as his first option, and use the talk pages instead. Right now he is edit waring on the John Howard article. Currently up to 3 reverts:

• Previous version of article
• 06:26, 9 October 2007 added text: "As a result of prudent financial management"
• 14:20, 9 October 2007 added text: "The strength of the Australian economy"
• 00:58, 10 October 2007 subtracted text" "The Hawke/Keating government had inherited part of this debt" (from John Howard)

(All edits involve either adding glowing praise about the economics of John Howard, or removing criticism of John Howard economics)
Yes, 3 reverts fits within the general 3RR rule, but in Prester John's case, it breaks the spirit of previous blocks, and previous administrator warnings against edit waring:

• 05:47, 13 August 2007 Prester John was blocked for an edit war on the same John Howard article. (Block Log)
• 04:59, 16 September 2007, Prester John was blocked again for conducting an edit war on the David Hicks article. Link: Previous ANi report
• 02:38, 17 September 2007, Admin User:Eagle_101 issued Prester John this stern warning -> Talk:David_Hicks#Blocks, and told Prester John that "Being disruptive is being blockable, please discuss rather then revert."

Since then, Prester John has shown complete disregard for the previous Admin advice, and has been continuously reverting without discussing. In the current edit war over John Howard and the economy, there is an active community discussion about that very subject here -> Talk:John_Howard#Economic_Management_section. Despite Prester John's revert war, unfortunately he has refused to join the community discussion on the subject he is reverting.--Lester 02:14, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone see this dude making any sense? He constantly makes these long winded false accusations on this notice board about general editing procedures. Sure check out the diffs he is talking about. See the use of edit summaries. See how the discussion on the talk page he refers to is about a totally different issue. Check his recent edits and decide if he is stalking me or not. See if he didn't already post this a couple of paragraphs above. Prester John ^{-(Talk to the Hand)} 03:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Considering previous Admin warnings to Prester John to avoid edit wars (not just 3RR) it's surprising that Prester John considers this a false accusation that he is involved in an edit war. The (above) diffs all relate to reverts Prester John has been engaged in, and all are on the subject of John Howard's economics. This revert war has been going on since September (diff).

So that's at least 2 weeks of reverting others edits on that subject, while an active discussion was also ongoing for 2 weeks without Prester John's participation. This is completely disruptive editing, because the editors that have been involved in that discussion feel their time is wasted when Prester John romps in and reverts the content without bothering with the discussion page, despite being warned against this behaviour previously.

It's important that the administrators stop Prester John's edit war, as those who are engaged in discussion won't feel they need to join the edit war as the only means to counter Prester John. As Prester John pointed out, I mentioned this before, yes, but unfortunately the reverts just continue, and the diffs at the top of this section are only those from the last 24 hours.

I ask administrators to look at the previous ANi against Prester John for edit waring (linked above, 16 September). Read the comments from the other admins who warned Prester for edit waring on 'John Howard', 'David Hicks' and 'List of notable converts to Islam' articles. In the previous report, Administrators commented with despair that warnings and blocks were not enough to discourage Prester John from edit waring.--Lester 03:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, the particlar edit was OR with no cite and was reverted by myself and at least one other editor, other than PJ. I note that two other editors also reworded it to it's present state only to have Aussieboy revert it (twice). I think PJ isn't at fault with this particular example as he is doing what we should do here at Wikipedia. If there is an editor at fault, it is the one including uncited OR. Shot info 04:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

It's very gallant of User:Shot info to show support for Prester John's side of the edit war, however, it should be noted that Shot info's first edit to the John_Howard#Economic_management section was in the past few hours--Lester 05:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Not supporting PJ, just pointing out the facts rather than your take on it. And???????? So what if my first edit to this section was in the last few hours. That would just be similar to your edit history in John Howard, would it not? I note that you seem to be defending the recent addition of OR material with no cite, and using PJs removal of it as some sort of action against PJ. This is most odd, telling an editor not to do what we are supposed to do. Shot info 06:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not defending any side in this. But what we have is an edit war going on, and it renders the discussion page completely useless when other editors engage in a revert war without discussing. Regarding the issue of references, if you read my ongoing entries in the discussion page, you'd see that I considered none of the references added by either side to be satisfactory. So for either side to use references as an excuse to edit war is unsatisfactory. Follow Wiki rules about deleting content and stop edit waring! --Lester 06:38, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

<koff> "It's important that the administrators stop Prester John's edit war" versus "I'm not defending any side in this.". Uh-huh. So what is the purpose of this AN/I again...? If you are serious about the "edit war" you will stop the edit warrior. Who I note you have made mention on this discussion on his talk page...without asking him to stop his warring. So could you explain to the viewers here, why you are bringing PJ's edits to light, while condoning AussieBoy's? Surely you're not trying to make a mockery out of this noticeboard? Shot info 06:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I did ask Prester John to refrain from edit waring on the John Howard article in September (here's the diff) but he deleted my message and called me a troll, so I don't think he responds to warnings. This is why it requires admin help to shut the war down. Now we have new people being drawn into the edit war, some of whom haven't been known to engage in that before, so possibly some warnings may be appropriate for new-comers who revert without discussing. In Prester's case, apart from the numerous previous ANi's, blocks and warnings about edit wars, the community Talk page on Howard Economics was started in September specifically to discuss what he was reverting back then, and still is reverting.--Lester 09:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Group of users blanking Star Trek character articles

Administrators, there appears to be something strange going on with articles about Star trek characters. Worf and Geordi La Forge have been hit in the last couple of days by a group of users (or perhaps the same user with several different accounts) who are reverting the entire article to a version from months ago. The reason for this isn’t clear but the edit summaries contain phrases like “resetting article” and “returning to stub”. There was also a border line personal attack where one of the users called another “a lazy tagger”. Now, I don’t know a great deal about Star Trek, but this looks like vandalism. And even if there is some kind of justifiable reason to repair these article, or remove bad info, reverting to a months old version, wiping out everyone else’s changes since then, doesn’t appear to be the right way to do it. -OberRanks 04:16, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Deanna Troi and Data (Star Trek) also being hit by the same people. -OberRanks 04:23, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You could probably make a convincing argument for a checkuser case. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think they're socks. The only three I see doing this are Cromulent Kwyjibo, ShutterBugTrekker, and Anton Mravcek, all of whom have been around a while and have different editing interests. Perhaps they just agree. I see a note here, but brief notes to those three editors asking for discussion of the issue would be step one. They may not have even noticed the talk page thread.--chaser - t 06:14, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I repeatedly asked the user(s) to stop re-instating the bold changes, and there is a thread at Talk:Data (Star Trek) about it, although I don't think s/he responded. I'm disturbed by this "it's all the lazy taggers' fault" nonsense. The article can be cleaned up just as easily as it can be "rest and fixed." If anything it's just as lazy to gut the article - they're not taking the time to clean things up either. But seriously, why not have disorganized information than no information? These three people keep referring to some magical theory that a stub is better than an untidy article, but I don't see how that's necessarily true. Unless they have consensus support, they should stop making these bold edits and discuss the changes they want on the talk page. --Cheeser1 06:15, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I've actually seen this before. Basically, the issue is over the fact that the articles are primarily written with an "in-world" style. The 'vandals' are removing all the information that goes against this (like the entire fictional back story found in Geordi La Forge) and leaving a stub for a new article to be created. The "lazy taggers" comments are because I've seen those "in-world" notices for months, if not years and I guess it's one way to force the issue. No real opinion but hopefully just making it a little clear for all. It's basically another version of the WP:FICTION content disputes we see in other places. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:08, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Holy trapped in a box and can't get Out Of Universe, Batman!... seriously though, is there a WP:Star Trek to whose attention this can be brought? I'm gonna go look, and if so, let all know. ThuranX 18:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. I've notified the project regarding this thread, and the larger issues at hand, hopefully the three day weekend will yield a cleanup. ThuranX 18:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

They have responded to a discussion on the Worf article here. Just a notice. --FastLizard4 (Talk•Links•Sign) 05:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a serious problem. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Potential problem conerning episode articles. -- Cat ^chi? 09:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The same Anton fellow is at it again, and has left this acerbic comment on the one article's talk page. I generally am fine with stub-ifying articles as in-universe as most of the Star Trek character ones, but I take exception to his incivility toward other editors. In his partial defense, the folks reverting his quasi-blanking (myself included I think once) have commented about respect the consensus-building process, but no one's actually started up a section on any of these articles' talk pages to discuss what should go and what should stay. I imagine if Anton's edits were more piecemeal, and if he used a less-uncivil tone in talk-page comments and edit summaries, this wouldn't be that big a deal. --EEMeltonIV 02:54, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Recent editing by PalestineRemembered

A few days ago I noticed an editor, PalestineRemembered, on a few articles regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His edits concerned me, as they did not seemed make the articles more neutral or more informative, but instead more according to what appeared to be PalestineRemebered personal point of view regarding the conflict: [14]. Another thing that concerned me was that he was using the edit summaries for personal political comments and soapboxing: "Internationally recognised as Occupied - a status having significant daily effects on the life of all who live there."

Due to these concerns I decided to take a closer look at his efforts and found them to be very concerning. Many of his edits were in clear violation of Wikipedia's policies regarding neutrality:

• The Hebron Massacre refers to the death of sixty-seven Jews (who "died of natural causes" in a violent mob riot?).
• [15] - he removed information sourced by several reliable sources.

On the discussion pages he was soapboxing and made no secret of his personal opinions and intentions on the articles regarding the Israeli-palestinian conflict:

• "I think you're playing the propaganda game of the Israelis with this listing. They're proud to be so effective at whatever they turn their hand to, so your list is further evidence of that, but contributes little to understanding what was going on. In 1947, they could excuse all their actions because they were fighting the British for blocking immigration and not giving them a state. In April 1948 they had no real excuse for slaughtering predominantly women, children and the old."

• "You're taking the side of the bullies in this affair, the people who are ethnically cleansing the Palestinians, and want the massacre of 1929 in Hebron to be twisted to prove that Arabs are diseased. The fact that real practitioners of Judaism lived in peace with Arabs is poison to their way of thinking, and they apply heavy pressure to stop that evidence ever coming to light."

He also aggressively promoted the use of partisan websites such as jewsagainstzionism.com as sources on Wikipedia: "Defenders of Israel have huge problems with www.jewsagainstzionism.com because these folk are outraged that their faith is so horrendously abused. The fact they they're real practitioners of Judaism" [16]

Browsing some of his edits, I also noticed that PalestineRemembered has had a mentor for quite some time. However, as the above diffs makes it clear, this has failed to change his behavior into something that is even remotely acceptable. I therefore request that an admin now step in and ensure that PalestineRemembered do not continue his disruptive behavior and policy violations.

As it is obvious from his discussion page and his extensive block log, which include no less than eight block from this year, for disruption, 3RR etc, he has already been warned extensively about soapboxing and biased and confrontational editing. -- Karl Meier 09:12, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

This looks like stirring for the sake of it, PalestineRemembered is well aware that his editors come under heavy scrutiny, take it to the article talk pages. Catchpole —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 09:32, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Whilst I don't agree with everything PR has done, it's a little unfair to criticise him for removing references to www.hebron.org.il (a settler website) but also for adding references from www.jewsagainstzionism.com. Several Israeli contributors have insisted on (and got away with) using partisan sources such as CAMERA in the same way that PR has referenced jewsagainstzionism, i.e. in cases where it is directly quoting people/documents. пﮟოьεԻ 57 10:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what CAMERA or POV of other editors have anything to do with this ANI, I did however see this new article which makes me suggest that, together with all the rest of the evidence, perhaps this user should be topic banned. --Gilisa 14:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

'partisan websites such as jewsagainstzionism' refers to a Haredi website which posted a translation (not impugned) of a talk given by an eyewitness survivor of the 1929 Hebron massacre. It is not a hate site, but is excluded, because the survivor showed not enmity against Arabs, notwithstanding the horror he witnessed, but charity whereas the person who removed it posted a document (equally valid as a document) from a site run by people who, on that site, call virtually all Palestinian Arabs, MPs in the Knesset, Palestinian officials, 'terrorists', and even accuse Netanyahu of supplying superior weaponry to the eternal enemies of Eretz Israel. I think either both sources are acceptable, or neither. But, as has occurred to date, to have PR challenged for citing a Haredi source while allowing PR's adversary a free run with the mirror site's material is hardly an instance of neutrality. Nishidani 21:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually there's no evidence the jewsagainstzionism website is a Haredi website, please see Talk:Jews Against Zionism (disambiguation) for past discussion demonstrating that it is a personal anonymous website that has nothing verifiable to link it to any organization, Jewish or otherwise. It fails as a reliable source and should be removed if any editor is indeed trying to use it as a Wikipedia reference. --MPerel 03:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Please note that 2 Hareidi users have already declared it as a hareidy website and evidence to it is on its web page; they only quote from Hareidi Rabbis what else of evidence can persuade somebody that this is more Hareidi?--יודל 13:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

OKay. The contested site simply repastes what can be found on Neturei Karta International. Jews United against Zionism,' associated with Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, an Haredi Jew = http://www.nkusa.org/Historical_Documents/KaplanInterview.cfm. What's the problem now? PR has simply got the wrong site for the right cite.Nishidani 09:54, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Hated Google Test is a complete waste of space and I would hope that PR requests {{db-author}} asap. пﮟოьεԻ 57 15:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I have speedied the article as pov-pushing, an attempt to prove a point and a neologism with no assertion of notability. Aecis^Brievenbus 15:42, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

My apologies for having created something that appears not to exist anywhere other than the over-creative imagination of one Wikipedian editor. Perhaps I should recreate "Hated Google Test" as a significant part of WP:POLICY, along the lines of (but perhaps more important than) WP:IDONTLIKEIT or WP:BEANS. PR^talk 20:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you aware of the existence of WP:GOOGLE? Aecis^Brievenbus 20:23, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am (and was). WP:GOOGLE says "Raw hit count is a very crude measure of importance" and then some other stuff explaining why hit count must not be depended on. Maybe someone has a better example than I thought of, but it won't be easy to find any evidence this clear-cut that could go into an essay aspiring to become a guideline. PR^talk 14:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The above comment by Karl Meier is largely consistent with what was described at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/PalestineRemembered. That RfArb was closed early with no further actions taken, "as the dispute being arbitrated has been satisfactorily resolved by the major parties." It might not be such a bad idea to reopen the RfArb. Aecis^Brievenbus 14:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Where the allegations here are true, they are minor and not actionable, and where they are serious and actionable they are false. Going point-by-point:

• PR absolutely did not allege that the Hebron victims "died of natural causes"; indeed, in the very diff you have linked, PR stated that '"Killed in mob violence" or "died in riots" are correct, "mass-murder" is not.' His argument, which one can agree or disagree with, was apparently that "mass murder" implies a level of systematic intent which may not have existed in this case. Nothing to see here.

• • indent comment (by Jaakobou) - you were not involved on the 1929 Hebron Massacre article, and the sources linked clearly do show intent. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 08:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• The first reference is not in any way reliable; it is the website of the Hebron settlers, a tiny extremist group of radical Jews who occupy the center of Hebron along with a huge number of IDF soldiers and Israeli police. They are widely treated as such in world media, including centrist-conservative Israeli newspapers. See On tape: Palestinians harassed in Hebron ‘cage’, Yedioth Ahronoth, Hebron settlers filmed throwing rocks at Palestinians, Yedioth Ahronoth, Hebron Settlers Attack Palestinian Neighborhood, New York Times, Jewish settlers in Hebron claim they have history on their side, Sydney Morning Herald, etc etc etc. The second reference, while seemingly reliable, says that one Palestinian policeman joining in the melée, while the article contradicted it.

• • indent comment (by Jaakobou) - you were not involved on the 1929 Hebron Massacre article: the website represents the Jewish municipality of Hebron and it links to a History book requested by User:Nishidani (i made a phone call to validate the source). Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 08:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Jaakobou is an Unreliable Source for this, and his challenges to User:Eleland's good summary of the specific points contested are specious. I was there. Don't take my word for it though. There is a long discussion on this, and it is still under discussion, by those interested, on the talk page. Any attempt to deprive PR of a voice in that discussion will only stack the vote, not against PR, but against the problem raised. I support PR's continued presence here, as I do not oppose Jaakobou's though he demonstrably culls his material from a website run by a hate group (I can supply the evidence from their own website if required), that of Kiryat Arba, which is amply cited on pages not related to Kiryat Arba.Nishidani 10:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Nishidani, this assuming bad faith is exactly the reason i initially refused to translate the hebrew page for you. this and the lowering down the death toll (revert on 21:11, 18 July) from 67 to 59 even after i noted that the discrepancy (13:15, 16 July) is because 59 died immediately and 8 more died from their wounds in the hospital later. I was at first only a tad angered by your explanation that gilbert must be right because "Martin Gilbert is Jewish," (09:47, 19 July) and noted to you that (1) it doesn't matter that he's jewish, and (2) that this could be because of selective reading (something you denied at the time), but what clinched it for me was that you actually did later admit that it is a case of selectively reading the material. btw, i must thank you for that swift attempt at character assassination.

p.s. you've forgotten to address that you did in fact requested the book be inserted, and also assumed that i have not validated that the source is reliable. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 11:33, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Those are your serious actionable claims, which ring hollow. Your other claims are true but irrelevant; PR should try to keep his opinions to himself when they don't directly relate to improving the article, but such statements are hardly a serious disruption, let alone one worthy of administrator intervention. Furthermore, one of your examples is a semi-private discussion in his own user-space - who cares?

Finally, you report the blocks, but ignore the context. Three of those blocks were completely erroneous; PR was falsely accused of copying citations from a neo-Nazi group; he in fact cited a newspaper article which he hadn't read, instead of citing a credible scholarly book which he had read, and which cited the newspaper article accurately. Subsequently User:Jayjg called him out as a Nazi sympathizer without any evidence, and a "lynch mob" atmosphere almost prevailed until PR proved beyond any doubt that his source was not the neo-Nazis. Prior to that, Jayjg blocked him for making an on-topic editorial comment [17], to the effect that prominently labeling Israeli politicans by ethnic or sectarian identity was "harmful in society and ... damaging to the project." And most recently, we have a 3RR block which was overturned as an ambiguous situation, and a fifteen minute block "to think about which mentor you would be choosing. Anyone can unblock you if you come up w/ a name before the block is expired."

In summary, these charges are inflated beyond all reason, and the discussion here should be closed. Oh, except for the "Hated Google Test" thing, I don't know if he meant that to be in WP: namespace or what, but it's just weird. Maybe we could, you know ask him instead of handing out the pitchforks and torches, again. <eleland/talkedits> 16:24, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

PalestineRemembered is grateful not to be blocked with prejudice as has happened repeatedly before

I'm doing my best to act in a responsible and consistent fashion in articles and Talk. Edits such as this (the first one I'm being challenged on) strike me as entirely proper. If a particular notable commentator (or public relations spokesman - or even propaganda operative) has commentated on a particular incident in world affairs, we should use his terminology for the event. His terminology is likely to be POV - so what? To quote him in any other fashion raises all kinds of issues, perhaps including BLP. The encyclopedia should not be going there.

The second charge against me seems to relate to standard international useage of the term "occupied territory". It's hardly POV on my part to assert that we use the recognised term - in fact, it's more than a teensy-weensy bit disturbing I should be taken to AN/I for defending a standard useage.

I won't bother going through the rest of these accusations point by point, I think we can take it as read that they are trivial. (Has anyone, ever, been taken to AN/I for creating an article? Particularily one that most editors would probably like to see included as policy - the thing I've called the "Hated Google Test"?)

But I will comment on the CSN and subsequent ArbCom Workshop and ArbCom evidence on the case that bears my name. I pleaded that the Committee examine the case properly and arbitrate definitively on the accusations against me. Opinion for doing so swung in my favour, reaching 4-1 (my memory, anyway?), before swinging back and being defeated. I will continue to assert that if vile accusations of "taking views and references from Holocaust Deniers" are bandied around in a reckless and provably false fashion, then they should be unequivocably retracted and apologised for. Simple justice demands no less.

Lastly, I have a plea of my own - it is clear that there are editors around who damage the encyclopedia (I don't include my current accuser in this case, I'm not aware our paths have ever crossed). Such editors: (Have removed my listing cluttering page PR^talk 14:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC))

All in all, there are really serious problems, up to and including outright disruption, going on in the project. But I'm small fry indeed in the scale of things! PR^talk 18:56, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't see anything here but an adventitious act of prosecutorial wikilawyering bullying based on spurious evidence, and am ashamed that such trivial accusations should be raised to clutter up the machinery of arbitration, which is better dedicated to serious matters.

Worse. Karl Meier's factitious jeremiad includes two pieces of 'evidence' involving passages in which I was in conflict with User:Palestine Remembered. I have some tough and stubborn all-Israeli(i.e.'Hear no evil, see no evil' attitudes) adversaries in these controversial pages, as full of POV as a po (and no doubt they see my editorial work in a similar light). I have personally seen however no grounds for taking these adversaries to arbitration. One fights these things out on the talk page. It's the actual page that has to be free of POV, not the talk page.

Since I have just noted, and been amazed by, this snooping, dossier building and then 'denunciation' to the authorities, I haven't given this much thought, since I thought that went out sometime before the end of the first half of the last century. But if the frivolous character of the accusation requires close analysis, I'm ready to weigh in with one, starting with the fact that on long-standing pages, Great Britain was (until I noted it casually this morning) arraigned (in the most objective prose, NPOV) as being corresponsible for the Holocaust. I could multiply such examples by the hundreds, and with this absurd POVing in NPOV dress throughout wikipedia, anyone who undertakes to clean it up gets, while no doubt having a POV hidden or otherwise of his/her own, into huge edit battles by people more familiar with wikilawyering than the principles of forensic evidence and the rules of neutral historian writing. Nishidani 18:02, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Block him. Wikipedia is not a place for false propoganda, and that's the cause he wants to use it for. M.V.E.i. 19:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. So "true propaganda" is OK, then? -- ChrisO 19:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

It has become a Wikipedia tradition to drop in on one of these pages (AN/I, CSN, Arbcom) every month or so and try to get PR banned. Usually this involves some regular participant in the daily cafeteria foodfight of WP's Middle-East-related talk pages leaving the fray for a minute, wiping the applesauce and mayonnaise off his fingers and tucking in his shirt, then marching to the principle's office to announce in precocious adult-like tones that PR has been misbehaving again. What a load of balderdash. Again.--G-Dett 00:45, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

So says PR's "wiki-lawyer" and another chronic soapboxer. This is really boring. Despite the apologia, if PR himself can't see how his behaviour here is problematic, he's going to wind up the same way as M.V.E.i. below. <<-armon->> 02:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we ban all pro-Israeli editors instead, it's not as if the result would be any different save for the POV which gets across. The monthly whining about the existence of opposition is laughable. Letting the Wikipedia Jews (bad word?) have their way with the Middle East articles would be productive only in their own eyes. --Saber^Excalibur! 09:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

comment regarding PR (by User:Jaakobou)

Disclaimer:

1. I have an overly prolonging conflict with PalestineRememberd, but seeing that his friends decided to advocate for him, i've decided to list the recent issues i've had with him.

2. noting the advocacy situation, i will not list down anything that might be presented later as a content related COI - i think it would be difficult for anyone to follow up what is true and what is false and i'd be worried that the conversation could get distracted from the main issue.

1. evidence to support the old blocks.

Due to consistent harassments by PR, accusing me of, "a long history of disruptive behaviour on TalkPages", (sample) where he'd add a link to an old and complex ANI he was not even involved in, and after i repeatedly told him that his accusation is false and asked him to stop, i've decided in my anger to go back and inspect some of his history.

i went back 1500 edits and started going up - and stopped after a month and a half.

issues from November 5, 2006 to December 19, 2006. - in short, i think there's evidence to support the old blocks.

2. harassment regarding my rich history (according to PR)

As mentioned above, there's an issue of him following me around telling everyone how rich my history of harassing people on their user pages supposedly is. i've not only explained to him that he misunderstood this (quite old) issue (he was not involved in) and requested him to stop on many occasions, but also reached the point where i was forced to place warnings and even opened an ANI to this issue.

example exchange - (easy read link - start: 21:29, 26 Aug. 07)

this was his response to my note about a very disruptive edit.

This situation escalated to an ANI after he insisted on repeating the attack - The AVI - closed without any administrative involvement to either the issue of abuse, or his status as "Mentorship challenged" (after his CSN).

after he continued his abuse, i've opened a forth ANI (first two were about him repeatedly accusing me to be a war criminal) demanding at least the issue of the mentor be resolved - and it ended with me finding User:Geni to be his a mentor.

ANI - no. 4 - i note that in this ANI User:Carlossuarez46 has expressed clearly that, "Users are given latitude as to what comments to keep and delete from their own user talk. However, removal of material is recognized as having read it, and now s/he's been warned of the harrassment you claim. If s/he conducts further harrassment, please report it - and link back here so that whoever has to deal with it knows that this editor has been warned of it before."

well, this issue has not ceased and here are just a few recent links:

• his response to my note regarding a disruptive edit - (talk:palestineremembered).

• his response to me explaining something i discussed with his mentor - (talk:battle of jenin)

• jumping in to attack me for raising the issue of disruptive edits by Eleland. - (Wiki:Village pump, assistance)

3. regarding the issue of PalestineRemembered mentor.

I believe User:Geni has been a very reasonable and neutral. whenever i raised an issue i'd be challenged by her with proper questions and was forced to prove my case fully - to which she'd make (pending if my case was convincing) comments to PalestineRemembered requesting him to explain his edit or avoid making an obvious breach.

I've been recently getting a tad frustrated with Geni's lack of response to the accumulative and exauhstive nature of the problem, to which i recieved a response that she not only does not see a problem, but also that she never believed there was ever a problem to begin with.

I have great respect for Geni as a reasonable and logical editor, but considering the community did believe there was a problem, I questioned why she hadn't made her position clear when she volunteered to mentor PalestineRemembered. Obviously, i would not have approved a mentor who thinks there was never a problem to begin with.

In short, I believe she's been quite helpful as an outside WP:3O, but hasn't really fulfilled the mission she signed up to.

summary

personally, i feel PalestineRemembered

1. has been a major disruption to content disputes breaking policies whenever an opportunity presented itself. (despite advocacy by his friends)
2. has not learned that repeatedly attacking others with false assertions was wrong.
3. is not only still in breach of the post-CSN mandate he's been given but he's been doing it knowingly.

I hope that some steps be made to resolve the issue, be it a periodical ban, topic ban, a more constrictive mentor and editing mandate, or other. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 07:59, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Dispute resolution process and ANI

So. . .is this page part of the DR process now? It's a lot of material (and sub-headings!) for an 'incident'. R. Baley 10:10, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I vote we just delete any article having to do with Israel, Palestine, abortion, or pedophilia.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 10:13, 10/8/2007

Seconded! <<-armon->> 14:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment on Jaakobou's comment on PR

You called me a 'racist and a bigot' (and others 'antisemitic') for citing Sir Martin Gilbert's History of the Modern World on Hebron's massacre (59 slaughtered, as opposed to 67, the difference being that between immediate casualties and the final death toll), simply because I noted to you that he was Jewish, pro-Zionist and one of the most eminent historians of the modern world, i.e. several grounds for your not contesting him as a RS. You should sort your problems out with PR on the talk pages and not get involved with lobbying attempts to get rid of a person you find unwelcome because PR has in the past used language and accusations of a kind that you yourself have used. As I say, I don't worry about these accusations - water off a duck's back - we're supposed to be serious adults in here, not whingeing kids- and don't scurry to some legal mechanism to denounce the person who mouthes them. You needn't take my example, but all this interest on your part in getting PR banned is a matter of the pot calling the kettle black, and trying to make the task of getting your own pronounced POV over more easy.Nishidani 10:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

1. i replied to you above for the 59/67 issue and the accusation of unreliability.
2. i'm fairly certain i did not call you racist by that exact word, but rather called your comments and notes racist and bigoted. just to explain this, i note you that you declared that the Jewish Community of Hebron website is run by many people with criminal records.^[18]

-- Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 11:45, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Jaakobou have a history of calling people he disagrees with racists and simmilar. // Liftarn

Jaakobou posted a diff to illustrate his reasoning, so read it and respond accordingly instead of making a blanket statement like this.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 12:02, 10/8/2007

If anybody following this tedious exchange wishes to have documented why Jaakobou cannot be relied on as a reliable source to recount what happened in the discussions alluded to in here, take the last example.

Jaakobou writes:

(A).'i note you that you declared that the Jewish Community of Hebron website is run by many people with criminal records.[33]

(B). I orginally wrote: 'The book, itself a legitimate source for all sorts of details, is hosted by the Jewish Community of Hebron, which is, as I noted above, run by many people with criminal records, and (has) a meticulously documented history of hate, violence, theft and murder in that area.' (See your note 33)

I.e. I said the Jewish Community at Hebron is run by people with criminal records (check, to name but the most egregious of many examples:Moshe Levinger, Noam Federman, Baruch Marzel, and for the nonce, Baruch Goldstein, whose criminal record is posthumous but who is revered there for shooting 29 Arabs at prayer, mainly in the back, to celebrate Purim*.) I did not say their website is run by criminals, as Jaakobou cleverly twists those clear words to argue I did. Their website features David Wilder's articles, their spokesman, who accuses Netanyahu of all people of supplying Arab terrorists (Arafat) with guns with those superior in firepower to the ones in standard use in the IDF, Israel's past governments as regimes, all Arab members of the Knesset as 'terrorists', all Arabs in Eretz Israel as 'terrorists', and denounces the creeping AIDS (Arabs in Disguise Syndrome) threatening to destroy Zion with its terroristic infections. But that is another matter.

As I have said, the difficulty in editing pages with Jaakobou is that one has to persist over long stretches of Talk in explaining to him elementary aspects of English syntax, grammar and what is or is not implied by a standard sentence in that language

To anticipate and avoid a useless thread that may arise from my wording. Please don't jump at the phrase 'to celebrate Purim' here. If one is agitated, read before drafting a reply Ian Lustik's For the Land and the Lord American Council on Foreign Relations (1988) (1994) Preface. Nishidani 13:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

To get get back on topic. Can you explain how Jaakobou calling you a racist exonerates PR's behaviour? Also, I looked at the diff Jaakobou provided, and it looks like some pretty bigoted soapboxing and poor behaviour on your part. You didn't provide any diffs where where he calls you a racist, but I don't see how it's germane anyway. <<-armon->> 14:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Jaakobou's notorious unreliability in articles and now his apparent distorting evidence to an AN/I is highly relevant to the discussion. It's pretty rich of him to accuse others (not me, for some reason?!) of racism when he jeers at editors over their nationality. Here is his response to Alithein, a French speaking pro-Israeli who has stated that the equivalent article in the French Wikipedia (which Alithein wrote) uses better references: "best i'm aware, this is the english wikipedia, if the french version is unbalanced (what else is new), that is not my issue to solve" From an editor who repeatedly insists on putting non-English references into the encyclopedia (and is refusing to translate the texts) this is pretty astonishing behaviour. Also suggests he rates academics and scholarly work generally pretty low - as we see from his treatment of well-read and articulate editors in here. PR^talk 15:10, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

PS - Another example of Jaakobou's creative treatment of sources was elegantly dissected here this morning. PR^talk 16:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything in that diff that qualifies for the descriptions you're asserting. Furthermore none of it matters, even if everyone agreed with your assessments. You're forming a conclusion about a person to say whether not he's reliable based on your interpretations of his past statements, which is just not a tactic that has any place at ANI -- or anywhere else on Wikipedia. We don't generally make decisions about whether or not to trust a person based on a character assessment. Someone asked how Jaakobou calling you a racist exonerates your behavior, and you responded by citing more of Jaakobou's behavior. Rather than implying that the complainer is himself guilty and therefore somehow shouldn't be the one to complain, talk about yourself and the things people are complaining that you said instead.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 18:25, 10/8/2007

Role of the mentor

There is a serious problem here, if you don't mind my saying so, but I question whether it is entirely (if at all) PR's fault. Previously, the community imposed mandatory mentoring, but it failed to specify the conditions, timeframe or goals of such mentoring. So how can we evaluate the success of the mentor's role?! Perhaps PR and Geni (the mentor) bear some responsibility to come up with their definition of PR's shortcomings and their own goals for improvement. However, the burden should fall largely on the community.

Karl suggests that an admin intercede. Well, it's hard to say that PR is flawless, but I'm not sure if the community has done its part to ensure a good mentoring framework. What would you all think of the suggestion that an admin intercede in order to clarify and strengthen the mentoring arrangement? Maybe set clear and (somewhat) measurable goals? Only then can we give a fair assessment of PR's conduct within a mentoring set-up. (Or assess Geni, though I hear few complaints there.)

Alternatively, if the community is unwilling or unable to articulate what it wants out of mandatory mentoring, I recommend that the mentoring requirement be rescinded and that (hard as this may be) folks revisit the need for action due to PR's conduct.

I wish to avoid evaluating PR's conduct here myself. Instead, the community set up a process (mentoring), which it either needs to make work or abandon. As we say outside New England, fish or cut bait. My two cents. Good luck to all. HG | Talk 18:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all, I have to absolve you from the atrocious charge of being "a buddy" of mine - an accusation liable to cause you big problems (and very distorting anyway, however much respect I have and show for your judgements).

I have no great problem with being "mentored" by User:Geni - indeed there are big advantages to this arrangement. Between the 15th of September and the 7th of October (over 3 weeks!) it had protected me from repeated carpetings and kickings.

And this despite the fact it's moderately tiresome to be constantly defending myself from ludicrous allegations on the special UserPage I set up for this purpose. (Leastways, as best I can tell, most of the allegations have been wrong and the remainder have been trivial). However I sometimes wonder if Geni is getting more sick of the arrangement than I am and I have offered to let him off. PR^talk 12:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

What's going on here?

Karl Meier out of the blue notices an editor, PalestineRemembered, doing edits that worried him. 'They didn't make articles more neutral and informative' (i.e. he/she was behaving like half of the wiki community, and very much like Jaakobou, his/her adversary in these proceedings)

(1)Meier then charges PR with using edit summaries for soapboxing and cites:-

'Internationally recognised as Occupied - a status having significant daily effects on the life of all who live there.'

The first part is correct, since the International Court has established in a virtually unanimous opinion that the West Bank/Palestinian territories is 'Occupied Territory' despite the article in Wiki that messily endeavours to obfuscate the obvious.

The second part is waffly, and useless, it is hardly a threat to the integrity of Wikipedia editing. If anything, a word to PR to keep things brief and to the point, would be enough. Secondly, it is meaningless, so cannot be soapboxing.

Meier says he had the impression (1) PR's edits weren't making articles more neutral (neither are those of PR's opponents on the relevant controversial pages, so big deal). And a loose phrase in an edit summary is 'soapboxing'.

From this, he hits the panic button. Wikipedia is under threat, let's look closely at this PR chap, and, if my intuitions are right, get her banned (all this on the extremely loose and fragile basis of the original intuition, based on a general impression and one useless piece of pseudo evidence).

Meier then proceeds to a forensic examination.

(1)The edit putting 'death' for murdered or whatever on the 1929 Hebron Massacre Page.

This evidence is useless because Meier hasn't read the talk page there, as is evident from his comment that in writing 'death' PR was suggesting 67 Jews died of 'natural causes' in a violent mob riot. Actually, had Meier read the page, he would have known that 2-3 died of 'natural' causes, in so far as it is natural to have a heart-attack from shock on witnessing one act of carnage, or surviving some weeks to die of shock in the aftermath. The problem was that 64-5 were slaughtered, not 67, hence if you refer to 67, died doesn't create problems, whereas 'slaughtered/murdered' falsifies the record. Having followed my tussle with Jaakobou over this, PR knew that the key word is problematical, and suggested a change. I don't agree with it, but it is an innocuous suggestion that makes the verb in the sentence cohere with the facts of 67.

(2)Refers to two pieces of remonstration against two of my contributions to the Talk pages. PR here, in my view, completely misunderstood the purport of my evidence, but then so do many others (perhaps I don't explain myself well). It is no crime on a talk page to express your POV. Virtually everyone working on Israel/Palestinian articles has one, and to single out PR for this means you must then line up Jaakobou and several dozen others, myself included, for expressing POVs on the relevant talk pages. I object to PR's confusing bad partisan and irresponsible blindly Zionist editors, of which there are many, with 'Israelis', but we know where PR is coming from.

(3)PR's use of a partisan website jewsagainstzionism.com The evidence culled from that site is not contested, since, as I showed, it was copied and pasted from a respectable reliable source, namely Neturei karta Jews United against Zionism. You can get hysterical at 'Jewsagainstzionism' perhaps, but not against 'jewsunitedgainstzionism' since this is a legally qualified site. PR didn't search around sufficiently to get a good source, Okay, but the material she cited is acceptable as MPerel now notes, if sourced to Weiss's Haredi site.

True, on the talk page, PR adds 'these folk are outraged that their faith is so horrendously abused', a remark that, referring to a very small Haredi sect happens to be true. That Haredi sect is very small, but it carries on what was the majority opinion of Orthodox European Rabbis before the foundation of the State of Israel. The majority were horrified at Zionism for theological reasons, i.e. that secularists were doing the work delegated by Torah tradition to the Messiah, a blasphemy. So there's nothing wrong in PR reminding us of this forgotten fact.

(4) PR has a mentor, who has 'failed to change' PR's behaviour into something that is remotely acceptable.'

Excuse me but of the three issues raised, most editors whose work I am familiar with regularly fall into errors of this kind (a certain loss of patience, an intemperate outburst, a controversial edit. I am dealing myself with text and page disruptions by several anonymous or abusive posters (not reported, it's too time consuming). Nothing in (1) (2) (3) merits scapegoating PR, particularly since most of the evidence refers to conflict edits with me, Nishidani, and relates to comments of exasperation with me on a talk page, and I have found no reason to complain, unlike Karl Meier who, inexplicably, now rushes to my apparent, yet unrequested, need of assistance. I dislike someone jumping into our momentary conflict, and exploiting it for the purposes of banning the other person. I have found, in our exchanges, nothing that has troubled me, (since I have had similar conflicts with many other pro-Israeli editors and have not found it necessary to resort to arbitration) on the pages we both work on, and therefore am inclined to suspect this whole accusation is a , pretext for trying to get PR off Wikipedia, at least by adding another black mark on the record. I should be the person to complain not Meier, who has not worked on the pages cited in evidence against PR, were there 'disruptive behavior and policy violations'. In my view, there hasn't been anything serious of the sort.

(5)'he has already been warned extensively about soapboxing and biased and confrontational editing.'

Yes, and has visibly improved, though problems remain, but in the evidence presented by Karl Meier there is not a skerrick of material that would warrant more than a polite, stern rap over the knuckles for lapses of memory about the rules, of the kind many of us customarily receive here. This whole jeremiad is pretextual and embarrassingly POV.Nishidani 16:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

i don't appreciate the POV comparison and allegation. you have something note-worthy? open a proper ANI. otherwise, do me a favor. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 21:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

User:M.V.E.i.

Based on the number of blocks this user has received, I would like to propose a permanent ban. Block log:[19] Recent example of abuse: [20] Thoughts? Rklawton 20:07, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

When I saw this, I assumed it would be about his recent atrocious rant on this very page. It was a dense, all-bold paragraph with such gems as, "i will tell you something about those "Palestinians". They dont work, and live on the money of Israel ... there is no such people Palestinians. They are Syrian and Egtptian Arabs ... They were first refered to as Palastinians by Hittler ... from the age of zero they are tought they live to kill Jews and fight for the Jihad. Here in Israel they teach us noncense that we have to 'respect them and try to achieve peace with them'". Amusingly, it was in the context of a proposed topic-ban of someone for alleged anti-Israel soapboxing! <eleland/talkedits> 20:12, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Complicated; as someone who's had a fair share of run-ins with this editor recently (check the talk page), I wouldn't be in the least sorry to see an end to their racist trolling & extreme POV-pushing (this and its edit summary is pretty representative), but they do make some valid edits as well. — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:13, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

How about progressively escalating blocks. He's acquired a long list of 24 to 48 hour blocks, so those clearly are not having the intended effect. I'd recommend that his next block be one week, then after that two weeks, then four weeks, eight weeks, sixteen weeks, etc. Maybe at some point he'll get the message; if not, it will eventually become a de facto ban. Raymond Arritt 20:15, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not clear on what you mean. This user has a long list of blocks and an unambiguous history of abuse. Who is supposed to be getting the message, us or M.V.E.i.? Rklawton 20:24, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I think what Raymond's trying to say (correct me if I'm wrong) is that MVEI does make valid edits as well, so maybe a long block will encourage them to stick to those and stop trolling. A glance over the laundry-list of warnings on the talk page is not encouraging, though. — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:26, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes that's what I meant. I didn't notice the 48 day block, though (misread it as 48 hours). Raymond Arritt 21:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I've just protected his talk page due to continued abuse.[21] Rklawton 20:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

On further inspection of the block log, there's a 48 day block in there. If that didn't do the trick, I don't see what else will; maybe one final chance after this, then indefblock if any more foolishness — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The discussion for previous block is here. As the one, who initiated that discussion, I must say that until very recently it seemed M.V.E.i. had come to his senses and was well on his way to become a good editor, albeit with some strange ideas - and I am sad to see it did not go that way. -- Sander Säde 20:59, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Also discussion here after his indefinite block. -- Sander Säde 21:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

(EC) As an editor who went right to MVEi and warned him about that sort of provocation and it's futility, only to see him effectively repost the same trolling crapfest on his talk, I'd support an immediate TWO WEEK block. NOt punitively, but preventatively. It's clear he's so irate about this that after a revert he found another avenue for his hateful rant, and will likely do it again and again until he's really stopped long enough to think about whether or not to continue here. 24 and 48 hour blocks only let him stew and brew, 2 weeks will certainly give him time to cool off. ThuranX 21:02, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I thought it was amusing that he was complaining about "false propaganda". True propaganda is, of course, fine. Doubtless it's an unintentional slip but a revealing one nonetheless. -- ChrisO 21:15, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Meh... Might be, might not be. remember, there's a lot of propaganda from the APA, AMA, and the .gov regarding the dangers of smoking. it's all true, but the bombastic presentations make it propaganda...ThuranX 21:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You know, I hate the concept of voting on a permablock. I was devoting some soul-searching to the issue, until I hit on the idea of mentally replacing his comments about Arabs with equivalent remarks about Jews. After that, it was a wonder I'd ever thought about it at all:

• I dont even care if i'l get blocked. I'm tyred. Why those little shitty Hebrews just fuck all day and bring more shit to the world...the majority of Europe thinks of them as humans and wants to make peace with them. THEY ARE HORSE SHIT. Till all those Jews are shot-dead there wont be peace. They are the new Stallin, they even supported him at WW2![22]

The ban should obviously be extended indefinitely. <eleland/talkedits> 21:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

That rant is really quite inappropriate, and I can't imagine how he thought posting it would be anything but inflammatory. Looking over this issue, I am in favor of a longer block (longer than the current 31 hours) to give him time to cool off. I disagree, however, that it is time for an indefinite ban, but agree that these 1-2 day blocks are not having the desired effect. Would anyone object to me reblocking for 2 weeks? I'll implement it if there are no objections. If he comes back with renewed incivility after that, then I might support an indefinite block, but not yet. Picaroon (t) 21:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Object? hah, I explicitly support it! (let my support cancel out one no vote. lol) ThuranX 21:34, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for a year

This is unacceptable, see also his recent edit-summaries and given the long history of blocks for personal attacks, edit-warring and harassment, I've rewarded his bile with a really lengthy block. Raving like that is patent trolling and should not be permitted, and I hardly think his editing is POV-free either, if that's a specimen of his personal feelings. We would not permit anti-Semitism like this: nor should we allow Arabophobia, if that's a word. Moreschi ^Talk 21:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Xenophobia. HalfShadow 21:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Concur in the block. The more I dig into his edits, the worse it looks. Raymond Arritt 21:42, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Good call. I would have done this myself had I been following this discussion. -- John Reaves 21:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the long block as well. It seems like this kind of behavior is going to cause a lot more damage to the project than any positive edits will help. delldot talk 21:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Technically, isn't it still anti-Semitism, since Arabs are Semites too? Anyway, I agree with the block - that sort of conduct is beyond the pale. -- ChrisO 21:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

HalfShadow has already put some shadow over it and called it xenophobia instead. He is a wikipedian and he knows a lot. -- 41.251.64.174 19:05, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Just to note: the only reason I have not blocked indefinitely is because, apparently, this fella makes productive contributions. If in 12 months he's ready to come back and edit civilly and without POV-pushing/edit-warring, that's fine. If not, this is the final sanction before we ban him for good. Moreschi ^Talk 21:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree with the year block. So, see you lot in 13 months time for the perma-banned discussion? LessHeard vanU 21:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Endorse block. Battleground-like edits by far overshadow the productive ones. Frankly, I wouldn't have minded an indefinite block, but I suppose that we can revisit the issue in 2008. — TKD::Talk 22:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia may not be the place for this hate campaigns. I would block indef after all the warnings received and the time invested from many of the community to deal with his inappropriate behavior, 1 year block is second best. Neozoon 23:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

A year is a good warning, in 2008 when he comes back, we keep a high standard for the guy. Next block should be indef. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 22:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Long overdue. MastCell ^Talk 05:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe someone should remove his racist rants on his talk page and at least mention that he's been blocked for a year. Right now it says he's blocked for only 31 hours.--Atlan (talk) 10:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The user page notes the one-year block. I've blanked his talk page and denied his (e-mailed) unblock request. Rklawton 12:44, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I indef blocked this user back in June for similar editing, personal attacks, racism and sockpuppeting to avoid blocks. A few admins who should have known better all jumped in to defend him at the time and reduce his block. Thoroughly endorse, long overdue. Expect much sockpuppeting and IPs pleading for unblocks because we didn't understand his point, and see you all in 1 year and about a week for the indef block discussion (assuming he hasn't sockpuppeted his way to one before then. Neil ム 12:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

While it's shame that it came to this, I also endorse the block of the user. He is the only editor whose behavior I brought to administrator attention, and I received a lot of flak for posting on ANI about it a few months ago here. I'm just glad it's been resolved. ~Eliz81^(C) 01:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

From my crossing of paths, definitely not an editor interested in furthering Wikipedia. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Since the block, all they've done is repeatedly restore the material in question to their talk page. I've deleted the offending section (but not the rest of the talk page) and full-protected it; if anyone thinks that's too harsh, do feel free to unprotect it — iridescent (talk to me!) 14:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Editwarring on Western Sahara articles

Koavf (talk · contribs), Wikima (talk · contribs), and A Jalil (talk · contribs) are engaging in slow-moving editwarring (slow-moving largely due to the fact Koavf is on 1RR per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Koavf) on many Western Sahara-related articles. Koavf's revertwarring on these articles is what got him community banned in the first place (the arbitration case overturned it to give him another chance), and Jalil and Wikima spend a large proportion of their time undoing all of his changes.

As you can see in the edit histories of this article and this wikiproject, as well as the other pages in Wikima's recent contributions this is a long-term, continuing problem, and blocks aren't working (Koavf has been blocked a ton, while Wikima was blocked for 3RR this time last year). I'd like some suggestions on what should be done about this - blocks, paroles? (I'll say right off the bat that protection won't work, they'll just wait it out.) Picaroon (t) 23:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Defense You'll notice that I am posting on talk and not blind reverting, except in the case of vandalism (e.g.) I keep on trying to seek consensus on talk and have engaged an admin at Talk:Legal status of Western Sahara, who is apparently incapacitated; another admin agreed to assist and then never showed up on talk, despite several entreaties. Note that Jalil and Wikima are: redirecting Western Sahara articles to Morocco articles, deleting Western Sahara from relevant templates (and again), ruining the user templates at that same WikiProject they have been vandalizing, inserting irrelevant politicized asides in articles on flags and coats of arms, mass deleting relevant passages from articles (note that the latter deletes references to Moroccan human rights abuses), deleting criticism of Morocco from articles, taking out relevant stubs from articles, ignoring cogent logic from several users on some pages, and generally trolling my edits. I am trying to seek consensus on talk pages, and they are not. To presume that my editing is in the same class as theirs is simply false balance, and I have requested admin intervention on several occasions. In the one case where I got it (Legal status of Western Sahara), they simply ignored the admin's injunction and deleted scholarly source citations because it disagreed with their pro-Moroccan political agenda. That's to say nothing of the POV forks, copy-and-paste violations, reversion of comments on talk, controversial page moves, etc. that have been happening with these two users for over a year now. Will some admin please deal with their nonsense? -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 23:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I used to be part of this war; this is my understanding of those involved last time I checked:

• Wikima (talk · contribs) — fanatically biased towards all things pro-Morocco; I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he works for the Moroccan government.
• A Jalil (talk · contribs) — clearly biased towards Morocco, but can at least be communicated with (perhaps he just doesn't see the bias).
• Koavf (talk · contribs) — means well in his attempts to curb Wikima and A Jalil, but plays their game instead of trying to use Wikipedia's dispute resolution process (which, in his defense, has IMO utterly failed this issue so far - its appearance here is encouraging, however).

I don't think Wikima or A Jalil should ever be allowed to edit anything remotely related to Morocco or Western Sahara or the SADR ever again, but failing that I would at least hope their edits were reviewed closely for a good long while to ensure NPOV. Koavf's position, IMO, has not always necessarily been on the side of reason, but has been on the side against those who are against reason. I think you'll find he will appear to behave more once this issue is actually addressed by administrators, instead of being continually ignored. ¦ Reisio 00:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Reisio, you used to be part of the war defending Koavf's positions, and it is good to mention. Your input above follows the same path. You were less fanatic than Koavf is, but your talk page speaks for itself about your editing attitude, the discussions we had with you, and your brawls with others, that in the end led you to being blocked. Saying that you "think you'll find he [Koavf] will appear to behave more once this issue is actually addressed by administrators" is completely ridiculous. He was warned, short-blocked and long-blocked, and indef-blocked, and there is no change at all in his behaviour. Having other editors check my changes if they are pro-Morocco POV is more than welcome. Actually my action (and Wikima's) has almost always been a reaction to Koavf's POV editing, rather than the opposite contarely to what Reisio alledges above.--A Jalil 14:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't defend people's positions, I merely adhere to logic and Wikipedia guidelines & policy. ¦ Reisio 18:25, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I see what "logic" you mean: the logic of reverting that you share with Koavf. Your contributions are no more than reverts. Your talk page is full of complaints about that. Playing the third-party editor who throws his two-cents on this does not fit you Reisio, because you were very much in the middle of it.--A Jalil 14:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Explaining my relationship to this matter was the first information I presented here. ¦ Reisio 18:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Reisio, in my edits i am rather neutral and defend neutral pages (e.g. separtion of WS from "sadr")
• You think, like koavf, being neutral means pushing Polisario's interests in wikipedia (and possibly elsewhere)
• An possibly you think this way because you are payed by Polisario or the Algerian Governement.

wikima 19:32, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow "Actually my action (and Wikima's) has almost always been a reaction to Koavf's POV editing" this is an explicit admission that Wikima and Jalil exist on Wikipedia in order to revert my edits. That is what they do and that's it. They only want to instigate edit wars on Western Sahara-related articles. As for Wikima's paranoid allegation about spies from Algeria, is anyone taking him seriously at this point? Honestly, is anyone else even reading these ramblings? -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 20:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• If you read well, reisio is suggesting I am working for the Moroccan gov., an unacceptable allegation. I am merely showing him the mirror. But you were unable to see that. Why? Because unable to be neutral.
• I my view it is extremly important in wikipedia to get articles on Western Sahara as balanced as possible.
• Polisario activitsts like you and Arre have created a whole pro-polisario world that needs to be balanced. You excessive edit warring and pro-polisarian editing does not allow any constructive way.
• This is what I mean that there is almost no conflict when you are away (e.g blocked).

wikima 20:38, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Spying No, he didn't. And when I didn't edit the Western Sahara articles, virtually no one did. There was certainly no one who edited them with any regularity, and you definitely didn't take the initiative to add more content. Your main project on Wikipedia is deleting information and reverting me. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 21:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

NO I exist on Wikipedia to, among other things, remove POV edits (by you or Arre or else) to a subject I know very well. I don't touch your other edits if they are not POV. Needless to say, I have nothing to do with the troubles you had om R.E.M template nor on massive renaming or moving chaos you did elsewhere. --A Jalil 10:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

It has been clear to me for a while now that all three editors should be under the same parole. It seems that every block that Koavf has had has been a result of reciprocal edit warring, often in tandem, by A Jalil and Wikima. It's been going on across dozens of articles for months now. Dmcdevit·t 00:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Koavf has been on the 1RR parole and what is the result?, to revert every other day, or a couple of days?. I have taken this problem to your attention before. The admin who was intervening is on a wiki-break (car accident). What is needed is that an admin to step in and go through all the articles in conflict. The best example is that lately an admin has managed to settle a very disputed article, though not without problems with koavf. That is a good example to follow.--A Jalil 14:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Parole I would be fine with some kind of oversight (in point of fact, that is precisely what I have asked for on several occasions here at AN/I); would someone please step up to do that? Some kind of intervention or mediation on these pages? Again, I would like to point out that a strict equivalence between every edit they have made and I have made is false balance; I have made nowhere near as egregious edits as they have. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 01:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Judging by your behaviour under 1RR parole, I wonder if parole has any impact on edit-warring.--A Jalil 14:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The main issue here is the fact that the pro-Polisario activist Koavf (in addition to Arre), has loaded Wikipedia with pro-Polisario content to a great number of articles. Western Sahara has more space on Wikipedia than the vast majority of African nations. We (I, wikima, Juiced Lemon, and Collounsbury, ..) have been removing that POV content from different articles only to find he reverted back to his edit. He actually started the revert process immediately after being unblocked. The articles being the subject of trouble all have one of the following points:

• Koavf is using Western Sahara, the disputed territory, and the SADR, the govt-in-exile of the the Polisario Front, interchangeably and using the flag of the SADR to represent WS. That is the reason of trouble in these articles: WikiProject Western Sahara, Gallery of flags with crescents, Flags of Africa, and Pan-Arab colors.
• Western Sahara has no flag nor coats of arms, but Koavf insists on it having them, and imposing or redirecting to the Polisario/SADR flag and coa on WS. We suggested that the article of flag of Western Sahara makes mention that there is no such for the disputed territory, but there are two competing flags claiming to represent the territory and have them listed. He refused. An admin intervened to edit the article to a neutral approach and is actually what we suggested.
• Magnifying sporadic riots that happen once in a half year by a few stone throwing teanagers as an "ongoing campaign". Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations Committed by the Moroccan State, (what a title!!).
• Making the SADR, a government in exile of the Polisario Front, look as a sovereign state and Africa topic.
• Reverting some articles to nearly a two year old version, loaded with Pro-Polisario POV, in disregard of many editors contribution. Portal:Western Sahara/Intro.
• In addition to portraying WS as occupied instead of disputed, and calling the area to the east of the military berm as a free zone, a term used exclusively by the SADR organs. Needless to say that it goes well with what Koavf openly states in his user page that he is on Wikipedia to represent the interests of the SADR.

An admin, Zscout370, with better knowledge about flags has solved a couple of articles' troubles. What we need is another dedicated admin to tackle the other subjects. I am quite confident that an admin's intervention, looking from a neutral perspective, will solve most of these problems.

Unfortunately, after nearly half a year of block, the behaviour of Koavf is the same. The same pro-Polisario POV pushing, and the same disruptive behaviour. The WS related disruption by koavf is visible only because there are people to oppose it. What about the week-long block related to disruptive page moving?, shortened only due to the admin's kindness?, in addition to more complaints. For those who think Koavf only has trouble on WS related pages.--A Jalil 14:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Trolling More trolling about. The only thing that makes any sense in the post you just made is the injunction that a disinterested editor can see through this obfuscation. Your arguments are paltry at best, and your actions speak volumes - you and Wikima exist solely on Wikipedia to revert my edits to Western Sahara articles. Anyone who looks at your edits can see that literally 99% of them are reverts to push a Moroccan nationalist agenda. In the six months that I did not edit, can you point to one constructive addition that was made to these articles? One? The entire WikiProject laid fallow and my immediate concern on resumption of editing was getting started editing Western Sahara-related articles again and contributing to their breadth and scope. Silly statements about how Western Sahara is not occupied, there is no flag of Western Sahara, and how there is no Independence Intifada show how disconnected your ideology is with reality; the fact that you refuse to have any kind of coherent posts on talk reinforces this. In point of fact, your first allegation against me - which you and Wikima have repeated ad nauseum - is patently untrue. Never have I ever equated Western Sahara with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic or either with the Polisario Front. Ever. It also shows how you are more interested in trolling about your Moroccan nationalism on every page rather than discussing the merits of your actions - do you have any response to the allegations made above or do you only have these illogical arguments in favor of your POV? Again, will some admin please take accountability for this series of disputes? As much as I appreciate Fayssal's gestures, he's been ineffectual at stemming the tide of nonsense and is apparently incapacitated. I have posted at AN/I and RfCs several times and have sought mediation over and over again. Would someone please help me here? -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 19:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

You seem to not have read my edit (as usual), because I have put links to just a few from the many articles where you use the SADR flag and SADR coat of arms, and you use, SADR symbols to represent Western Sahara. In many occurences of Western Sahara youd add SADR in brackets -- Western Sahara(SADR)-- If that is not confusing the SADR with Western Sahara, then what is it?. At the same time you came here on the AN/I to claim without shame that "Never have I ever equated Western Sahara with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic or either with the Polisario Front. Ever.", 10 minutes later you created an article titled History of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and ... directed it to the History of Western Sahara. Is that lying or Schizophrenia?. Against an admin's intervention, you insist on adding the SADR to the template of African sovereign states, and at the same time calling it occupied. are not you putting yourself in a ridiculous situation?. The Moroccan POV, is that Western sahara is an undisputed integral part of the kingdom as the southern provinces, while I describe it as a disputed territory. Am I then pushing pro-Morocco POV?. After your unblock, on the 15th of June, you reverted many articles to the half year old versions you left, and in some cases to a nearly 2 years old version in dirsregard of the contributions of half a dozen editors. Is that what you call "resumption of editing", or is it resumption of reverting and edit-warring?. While Picaroon was putting this on AN/I you were reverting, and continued after that. My concern here on Wikipedia is to remove the POV that you have added with Arre. To change the situation where Wikipedia has become a repository for activism and POV pushing of the Polisario. If that is what you do, and in your own words, that is why you are for, then, of course I will remove your pro-Polisario POV, and I welcome anyone to remove Pro-Morocco POV also.--A Jalil 14:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Ridiculous So I guess you're just going to ignore the allegations above. That gives a tacit agreement to them (silence is approval.) I have in fact used the phrase "Western Sahara (SADR)" just like editors have used the phrases "Taiwan (ROC)" and "Republic of China (Taiwan)." They don't equate the two, simply show that there is some relationship between them, not that they are identical. A perfect example: the history of the SADR is pretty intimately related with the history of Western Sahara, isn't it? I would prefer that there were two articles, rich in sources and facts. Since there are not, one should redirect to the other, shouldn't it? In no small part the confusion is do to colloquially associating one with the other. As far as the flags go, you keep on calling it the "flag of SADR" whereas the most common name of it is the "flag of Western Sahara" and you know this, and the consensus is to leave the article name there, and you know that, and several sources refer to the flag as such, and you know that. I'm not getting into these ridiculous semantic games with you. As far as the Africa in topic template goes, your preference is apparently to remove Western Sahara from Africa altogether. Isn't that a bit of an extreme POV, to remove a country from a continent entirely? Then again, you apparently see no problem with that. I agree that it is ridiculous that the SADR is a sovereign state and its claimed territory is mostly under military occupation, but I had nothing to do with that; talk to Hassan II of Morocco. You push the Moroccan POV by claiming that Western Sahara is not occupied, when in fact and the eyes of international observers it is. As you admit yourself, your concern on Wikipedia is (just?) to revert my edits. I, on the other hand, contribute to the well-being of the project at large. This is not to say that every edit I have made is justified, nor is it to say that I am always dispassionately and objectively correct, but it is to point out the false balance and fallacious parity between your edits and mine. For some reason, you pretend like you right from no POV and you present sources as if they have no POV as well. Which is nonsense. I write my biases on my user page for the purpose of full disclosure and in the interests of neutrality. Meanwhile, your stealth edits, obfuscation, and outright lies (e.g. about the UN never calling Western Sahara occupied, which you know for a fact is not the case) hide your pro-Moroccan agenda, which is increasingly obvious to anyone that has looked at your contributions. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 18:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

POV. I am removing your POV edits not your edits. Western Sahara is a disputed territory not a country. the SADR is a government-in-exile based in Algeria, not a sovereign state. The Republic of china is Taiwan and Taiwan is the Republic of china. It is not they are related, they are the same thing. I think that was a desperate comparision. If you write "Western Sahara(SADR)" and claim you don't mean they are the same, you are in trouble. At worst, that is insulting the intelligence of the readers, among them the admins. They look by themselves and judge. I will say no more. --A Jalil 10:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

While I do admit I do not know much about the area, I am willing to work with all parties to resolve other issues. It was hard trying to get the flag issue right. Even some of the folks I work for, like Flags of the World, gives a confusing view about the flag. But, once everything was settled, the results were satisfying to me and some of the others. It would be best if I can get all editors involved in this dispute to tell me, on my talk page, to pledge to me to work with me. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Almost uninvolved editor tries to help

Obviously, I can't understand everything going on here, but I think I can detect who is attempting to bring scholarship to this article and who is not. There appears to be a book on the subject that is particularily valuable - and the scholarship of it is not at issue. In conditions like this, using the book must be far preferable to using web-sources, particularily those of parties that have multi-$billion financial interests and have been defying the UN. Removing references to the book (on simple factual matters, such as recognition of SADR by particular nations) looks very much like vandalism - meanwhile, other edits, such as Justin (koavf)'s edit here persuade me that there are editors capable of properly assessing sources, and their contributions are likely to produce a much better article.

Separate to the question of sources, some parties (perhaps only one individual) seem to be attempting to act cooperatively with the 'facilitator'/mediator, while other parties or individuals are refusing to cooperate and are 'personalising' the discussion in unhelpful ways. It looks increasingly to me as if this AN is an abuse of process, and Justin (koavf) should not have been put on trial in this fashion. I'm very tempted to endorse Reisio's suggestion above and state that Wikima and Jalil should be topic-blocked from anything related to Western Sahara or the SADR, and likely from articles on Morocco as well. There will undoubtedly be other factors I've not accounted for, the proper name for this article, whether certain information/images should be included here or elsewhere, etc, etc. PR^talk 15:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

PR (a.k.a PalestineRemembered), If you don't understand what is going on here, you do better switch off your detecting radar, or turn it to the case rised against you above. Your edits to a whole range of articles look obviousely biased, as is your intervention "to help" here. You picked one article out of dozens, and did not even understand what is the issue there, and used your mis-understanding of it as a basis to call for my (and Wikima's) block. the diff of Koavf's edit your refer to implies that when the Emir of Kuwait was on a visit to Morocco last year, and asked by journalists about his country's position in the Sahara conflict, and he answered that he supported the territorial integrity of Morocco, that implies he might be talking about the Canary Islands, that Morocco has never claimed. If your mind approves of this laughingly nonsense, then I do now understand why you trail such a long block record and why you are under mentoring and the subject of many complaints.--A Jalil 10:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• PR if you have been following on the topic you would have realised that koavf has broken by all records of edit warring
• For this he has been blocked on indefinite
• And when he was away, for months (can't remember how long), the topic was in rest. There was peace.
• As soons as he came backl edit warring began again.
• Your judgement shows that your position is simply unfair and irrealistic.

wikima 19:38, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Trolling about "The topic was in rest." In other words, we did nothing to contribute to the articles, and we had nothing to do since we couldn't revert Justin's edits. Since he has come back, we have been reverting his edits. Is anyone else reading this stuff? -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 20:06, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• No, that means that there was no edit warring when you were away.
• This is a fact that everyone can verify
• Edits continued and despite from some tension with Arre and Reisio there has never been an edit war like with yourself
• You are excessive in using wikipedia and in your edit war.
• Your blocks are incomparable. You have broken records.
• Any admins who wants to say anything here must first look at the block logs (PR obviousely did not)

wikima 20:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

No edit warring Of course there was no edit warring - you had your way and you did nothing on those pages. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 21:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion to resolve this, at least partly

• For those who have been following with the conflict, a main source for it is the confusion of Western Sahara with the "sahrawi republic"
• Koavf, pro-polsiario activist, is misusing wikipedia to make sure Western Sahara is exactly the same thing as the "sahrawi "republic"
• In fact it is not. Western Sahara is the disputed territory, while the "sahrawi republic" is the entity that claims the independence for this territory.
• If you (admins) really want to help resolving this then I suggest you look into this.
• I suggest that admins who have been involved in the topic get involved in this debate, otherwise it would not make sense

Thanks - wikima 20:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Look into this? Please do, admins. Please do. Just look at the diffs I've provided above and tell me if they are reasonable in any sense of the word. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 21:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the admins will look, and they will see that you were actually unblocked from the indef-block to have a second chance, and you are not supposed to engage anymore in edit-warring and disruptive behaviour, and not to be blocked 4 times within a short time from your unblock.--A Jalil 10:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Insistent reinsertion of gossip in Death of Marilyn Monroe

An IP and the two near-SPAs "Bobtoo" and "USA1812" have been curiously insistent about the insertion of some titillating tidbit about the death of Monroe. (A gossip columnist says that some obscure producer of a documentary that doesn't yet exist told him that an old and ill ex-cop told him blah blah blah. Gossip indeed!)

Monroe, her death and her links to the Kennedys are of infinitesimal interest to me. (She could have been Khruschev's mistress for all I care. Moreover, I tend to think articles like this should all be deleted.) However, I am interested in keeping gossip-column-"sourced" factoids out of WP. This of course means that IP-Bobtoo-USA1812 regards me as an adversary. And I'll admit that I haven't always been able to resist the temptation to treat his/their allegations that I must be in the pay of the Kennedys (etc etc) with a po face becoming to an administrator. (I think such allegations are hilarious. Sackloads of such talk appear in the article's talk page.) All in all I think I'm not the right person to remove this drivel yet again and to warn this user (or, conceivably, these users) that any reinsertion will lead to a block on the perp. Anyway, I'm bored by all of this. Some other administrator might step in, with a mop, bucket and truncheon. Good night! -- Hoary 11:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment:Bobtoo (talk · contribs) et al have also accused Hoary and I of being the same person (in addition to being government and/or Kennedy family operatives). Among the most recent participants is 68.175.71.240 (talk · contribs), with whom I've already had a particularly memorable encounter requiring Oversight-L's involvement, regarding this same article. Bobtoo has been previously challenged concerning (non-)verifiability (see Takashi Oyama). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 13:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

FYI I have blocked Bobtoo for 24 hours for 3RR. (It's actually 5RR if we stretch it to 25 hours.) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 13:36, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Misuse of popups by Martinphi in an edit war

This user - in spite of being the subject of an RfA - has just misused popups in an edit war. [23] This is not the first such misuse as is evident from this user's edit history. -- Fyslee / talk 14:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Martinpfi made one revert. Popups is just an editing tool that anyone can use; it does not give him any special powers. I see no abuse here. — Edokter • Talk • 14:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I reported one misuse, but use of popups in edit wars is a very poor practice and I've previously seen other users stripped of their right to use popups in such situations. POV warriors don't need technological help to enable them in their edit warring, which is itself an abusive situation that should not be aided and abetted by the use of popups. -- Fyslee / talk 15:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

You should focus on the content of his edits, not on how he made them. The fact that he uses Popups has no bearing on the validity of his edits. — Edokter • Talk • 19:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Straw man.... I am talking about edit warring regardless of content, and then automating the ability to edit war. If you think that's alright then I won't bother you anymore. (BTW, I am not an involved party to the named edit war. I would just like to see an even playing field without an escalation of the conflict by the use of stronger "weapons".) -- Fyslee / talk 23:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that you bring this up in the RfAr if it gets accepted if you want to make a general argument about Martinphi's behavior, but this seems by itself a bit minor for ANI. JoshuaZ 19:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if this was the wrong place to bring it up. I wouldn't even have been aware of it as a problem if I hadn't previously seen another edit warrior chastised by an administrator for the same behavior, including having their right to use popups revoked. It seemed that the combination of edit warring (which is itself problematic) and then automating it by the use of popups was the problem. People who are inclined to be trigger happy should not be armed with a machine gun. Instead they should be disarmed.

I don't intend to pursue this matter further here since edit warring seems to be considered of no consequence here. -- Fyslee / talk 23:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Umm ... he reverted a single edit and he used an edit summary. This is silly. --B 16:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

This is just a content dispute, you can expect to be reverted sometimes on Wikipedia. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 16:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Netmonger's incivil behavior

Netmonger (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been blocked once already for posting harassing messages to my talk page and sending a vulgar abusive e-mail to me. He has continued with his harassment against me and has recently made a personal attack against me here. This individual has also posted a couple of harassing messages to me here and here for filing an MfD for an inflamatory userbox here. Previously, there was one harassing message he posted on my talk page here. Fortunately, an administrator took that removed that off my page here. Just now, he has sent me another message here which I deem as a sarcastic post on my talk page. He is now trying to report me here for reporting him in regards to his vulgar harassing e-mail stating that I have made up the e-mail account and falsely reported him which his friends have flatly denied here. If there is a way for an administrator to confidentially check and confirm his e-mail to be the one sent to me by him it would be help. Also, if you would like for me to forward you the harassing e-mail he sent me for confirmation please let me know. Thank you. Wiki Raja 16:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, a Wikimedia Commons Admins confirms, that the harrasment email in question is from the confirmed email address of user Netmonger [24]. Sinhala freedom 18:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Blocked 72 hrs, email too. Rlevse 18:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

<rant>Yet when I blocked him for a similar thing a few days ago, nobody would believe me or Wiki Raja, assuming that Wiki Raja had faked the email, asking me to jump through hoops to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the email was legitimate.</rant> Mr.Z-man 18:52, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

(de-indent)Actually, we suggested someone in a dispute with Netmonger might be faking it, or even a vandal could have created the email. The reason it was brought up is that this sort of thing has happened before. Since a developer has now stated that Netmonger confirmed the email address the nasty emails are being sent from and there is continued incivility, a block for the more recent personal attacks is appropriate. Unfortunately, GMaxwell didn't comment on the old thread until a week after the block happened. Shell ^babelfish 04:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

All the stuff here was gone through on the old AN/I post and admin's deamed it not harassment. I have two questions to ask from you people;

1. Did Netmonger really used that email account or not?
2. You guys going to block him each time he reported to the ANI regarding this issue? --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie | tool box} 19:33, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Netmonger is suspected in a similar case months ago and escaped from the checkuser by nominating the Rajkumar Kanagasingam for deletion.Regentsstag 20:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, this is one editor's word against another's. E-mails can be faked very, very, very easily. I have no knowledge of either editor, I am completely uninvolved, I'm just pointing out that without further evidence, that's a pretty serious allegation and block. Can it be backed up? —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 03:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[25]Here it was confirmed that Netmonger did register the email in Wikipedia from which the email to Wiki Raja was sent.But here in talk he states that the concerned email is not his and he was unblocked by an admin assuming Good faith .[26].With due respect ,I find this surprising as to why Netmonger deny that it was not the email which he/she had registered with Wikipedia at one point.Why did user Nermonger deny his own email account?Pharaoh of the Wizards 10:41, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well Netmonger says that he/she wanted to protect his/her privacy. I think we should AGF that this was really the reason even if it seems suspicious. As I've told Netmonger, it would have been much better if he/she had simply refused to confirm or deny the e-mail rather then denying and even going so far as to say he/she used his/her real name for the e-mail Nil Einne 15:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

About the authenticity of the purported e-mail... I suspect the purported e-mail would have an IP in the header. It would be possible for a checkuser to compare this IP to the ones used by Netmonger. While headers can be forged, I don't see how Wiki Raja would know Netmonger's IP so he couldn't add an IP he didn't know (i.e. if the IP is there it's very likely that Netmonger or someone using his/her computer sent the e-mail). However, if the checkuser confirms the IP is the same, this will basically mean Netmonger's IP will be known by anyone who has access to the e-mail. So this would not be possible unless Netmonger consents and even then should probably be considered very carefully before hand. Nil Einne 15:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

With due respect Nil Einne.I am sorry I beg to differ. Even refusing to accept or refusing accept or deny is okay but going to extent of saying this My email address is my actual name, which I cannot reveal here. I mail only to users whom I know personally[27] Makes assuming Good Faith for 2nd time difficult or Netmonger could have privately emailed the Admin and told him so.Further if your email and chatname is the same and your email is from a Popular service like Gmail or Yahoo.It only offers semi privacy as it is easy to guess and has happened in many chatrooms. Pharaoh of the Wizards 21:40, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

If an email is sent through Wikipedia's "email this user" feature, it gives the IP of the Wikimedia server it was sent from. Mr.Z-man 21:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Further Netmonger [28] After this response I sent you an email requesting you confirm your email address ("Please send this email back to me.") and you did so, from yet a third email address unrelated to your Wikipedia username. Why did you use a different email address to respond to me?--chaser - t 00:52, 10 October 2007 (UTC) [29]

I find this very intriguing.Look username and email same from Yahoo or Google offers little privacy.But replying from an email which I do not know but unarguably offers greater privacy is intriguing.But refuse to accept an email account which the same as his Wikipedia name only makes it more suspicious and refuse to acknowledge his email account until it found out by Wikimedia Commons Admins [30] makes it tough to assume AGF .Pharaoh of the Wizards 01:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I feel User:Mr.Z-man and User:Wiki_Raja have been badly treated in all this [31]by the accuser who should have left Netmonger to defend himself. I really think the accuser should at the least give an unconditional apology to both users for such baseless accusations which contravene WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. Sinhala freedom 01:28, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

If the following lines are really coming out of his/her heart (on his/her talk page) - "And I posted a barnstar which I picked from Wikipedia barnstars here to cool things between us, they took it as a insult without even investigating whats it all about, this is really depressing", irrespective of all his bluff and vandalism in the past and present, the admin. could consider to unblock his account with the advice as Jimbo Wales himself said recently here in the eighth para to "excuse themselves from the project and find a new hobby", IMHO.Regentsstag 11:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Stalking and harassment by user:Profg

Profg (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), who has been blocked once already for stalking and harassing me[32][33], and was doing the same to user:Odd nature[34][35], is now targeting user:ScienceApologist[36][37][38], and I suspect user:JoshuaZ[39][40]. Can someone uninvolved please look into this matter and perhaps try to persuade ProfG that attempting to drive off other editors, isn't a terribly productive way to spend his time here.  – ornis⚙ 16:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to reason with this particular user on talkpage to no avail. Uninvolved administrator attention in this matter would be greatly appreciated. ScienceApologist 16:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I have attempted to negotiate with this editor and explain Wikipedia policies also to no avail. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 16:42, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Editor has stalked me over to Homeopathy, a field in which he showed no interest, and attempted to canvass editors into creating trouble here. Profg should be blocked or subject to a community ban. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 16:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

My experience with Profg has been that he has a history of advocacy via ignoring/twisting WP:NPOV on creationism and pseudoscience related articles, and when his changes are rejected, he turns it into a personal matter, following those who've most often rejected his edits to unrelated articles they edit and undoing their work there. This a pattern I've seen repeated time and again, and has landed him in hot water more than once. Beyond Wikistalking, Profg has also misused Wikipedia processes a number of times to intimidate and silence those he views as his opponents. For example, he's made what have turned out to be several baseless allegations at WP:WQA while striking the pose of a victim of incivility when all that has happened is his behavior pattern was identified per WP:SPADE. He seems addicted to conflict, now fanning the flames at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Comment by uninvolved User:Profg, and his participation at Wikipedia has contributed little other than strife. Wikipedia has never been a place for advocacy supported by vexatious litigation to drive off more responsible contributors and bullying by posing as a victim in order to dupe others and he's met all the criteria of a disruptive editor according to WP:DE. Profg should be dealt with quickly and firmly in order to lessen any further disruption to the project. Odd nature 16:59, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Response from Profg. I was blocked once for incivility; I admitted my mistake and corrected it. I was then blocked incorrectly by the same admin for what he thought was an "attempt to harass" another editor. I protested that block very strongly, because it was simply wrong. However, that admin refused to rescind it, despite the evidence put forth on my behalf.

Now, several POV-warriors such as ConfuciusOrnis, ScienceApologist, Orangemarlin, MastCell, Jim62sch, and Odd nature have apparently banded together against me, attempting to turn the facts around in accusing me of being what they, in fact, are.

This is no claim that there is a "cabal". This is a statement of fact, that several WP editors have taken it upon themselves to "rid Wikipedia" of all that does not fall within their (self-admittedly narrow) definition of "science," etc. They "tag-team" reverts of my (and others') legitimate edits, then pull "3RR" threats and AGF claims if they are challenged. They are very good at what they do, and they will probably succeed at this attack, also.

I have never "stalked" or "harassed" any editor. On the other hand, I have been stalked and harassed, but since I have no clique of Wiki-friends to back me up as these editors do, I have no recourse for it. It is editors like these and their friends who drive away other good editors, and will result in the demise of Wikipedia if they are not countered and corrected. It is why college instructors such as myself refuse to allow WP to be used as references or sources in any papers. This is unfortunate, because the WP project is actually a good idea.

This will be my only response to this superfluous "incident" charge. Thank you. --profg ^Talk 17:23, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I think what is needed here is for uninvolved admins/editors to review the above. I don't really qualify, since I've run across User:Profg in the past and share most of the above views regarding his generally confrontational and unhelpful approach. This "uninvolved" view is pretty clear Wikistalking; I'd block him myself, given his history of similar malfeasance, were I not somewhat involved. An interesting quote is here: Profg chastises another editor by stating (quite correctly, in fact) that: I have found that one of the signs of a POV-warrior is his tendency to resort to WP:AGF. He quickly closes the irony loop by noting: There are obvious exceptions; I have reminded others of AGF, as well. Indeed. Any uninvolved editors/admins willing to look this over? MastCell ^Talk 17:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, that certainly wouldn't be me: I find Profg to be among the lowest of the low of Wikipedia editors, bringing all of the oily, sneaky, dishonesty of backroom politics to Wikipedia. His "contributions" have in no wise been constructive, his disruption of the project immense, and his ill-will and noetic necropathy are manifest. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 17:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I second the above opinion. ScienceApologist commented on an AfD, for which Profg was the contributing editor. Profg then replied, asserting that ScienceApologist was claiming it was non-notable because he "didn't like the topic". Shortly afterwards, he then tracked ScienceApologist to his newly opened arbitration case against another user; beating even the other subject of the case to comment. His comments are pretty much the standard assertions of ScienceApologist being a "POV-warrior" and claiming incivility and bad faith; they show no actual knowledge of the dispute, nor are they really related to the arbitration case, beyond simple name-calling.

ScienceApologist then requested to know why he was being tracked. Profg replied, calling the request a "threat", accusing him of canvassing and baiting him for a "desired effect". The hostile response prompted a reply, which Profg then chastised him for not "assuming the assumption of good faith" — ironic, given the accusations leveled. I'm not going to block here, since although I've never been directly involved with blocking this editor, the fact that I've been following this little dispute is enough to render my judgement a little compromised. In my opinion, this was clearly stalking, and definitely deserves a block. Profg does not seem to understand that "seeing what another user was up to", and the following them around, is harassment. --Haemo 17:54, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

It isn't clear to me that Profg was stalking me, but this does look strongly like he was stalking SA. JoshuaZ 19:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• Question from someone completely uninvolved here... has there been any sort of dispute resolution attempted between any of the involved editors (user RFC, etc.)?--Isotope23 ^talk 19:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)--Isotope23 ^talk 19:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

  There are many different ways to resolve disputes according to WP:DR. Many of the informal steps listed there we have tried as documented above. If we went to Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts we are greeted with a notice that says if we need administrator intervention (which is what we are asking for) we are to go here. In other words, this is part of the dispute resolution process. ScienceApologist 19:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Apart from SA's attempt, user:Jéské Couriano has also tried to reason with him,[41][42] as has user:William M. Connolley[43],[44], and user:KillerChihuahua[45][46].  – ornis⚙ 14:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I have been an observer of Profg and I have seen very disturbing behavior with regards to the events above, and also in regards to User:Killerchihuahua and others. Stalking, canvassing, harassing, disruptive editing, POV warring and uncivil behavior seem to be his stock in trade.--Filll 19:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• several POV-warriors such as ConfuciusOrnis, ScienceApologist, Orangemarlin, MastCell, Jim62sch, and Odd nature have apparently banded together against me, as khaosworks said "When you start accusing everyone of being in on a conspiracy, you shouldn't be surprised if they decide to confirm your paranoia by banding together against you." Shot info 03:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, and all suspiciously sounding like we are dealing with a case of m:MPOV. Such attitudes have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies, ergo "If they're really out to get you, you aren't paranoid," or "Just because you're paranoid does not mean people aren't out to get you." -- Fyslee / talk 05:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, as far as JoshuaZ goes, I say "suspect", mostly due to this comment, then later turning up out of nowhere to comment on an RfAr that JoshuaZ was involved in[47], though looking again, I see that Odd nature was involved in that as well, and in any case, it was there that he turned his attention to scienceapologist[48], despite being warned against doing so[49]. As for Orangemarlin, it's pretty obvious that profg stalked him from California Biblical University and Seminary[50], to Homeopathy[51]. Again I ask, can someone not already involved, please take a look at this, his primary editing method appears to be to attack, stalk, harass and attempt to intimidate those he disagrees with.  – ornis⚙ 13:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Indef block is long overdue. After some reading of the edit history (which reveals interesting deletions of comments) of this user's talk page and blocklog, I am amazed that User:profg is still with us and see this as a case of the system failing to protect Wikipedia (and especially its editors) from disruptive and unsavory editors. Leniency has its limits. He should have been indef blocked along time ago. I have rarely seen such a negative learning curve. Even when multiple administrators have advised him and given him warnings, he then treats a highly respected admin like KillerChihuahua with extreme disrespect by deleting KC's helpful advice with this edit summary: "rm hypocritical troll". This is not the prison system where a criminal serves his time and gets out, even while clearly revealing no repentance or any intentions of reforming. Here we have a user who is rebellious and treats blocks and the advising and blocking admins with contempt. An uncivil editor with such a negative learning curve should be treated the way criminals who are not reformed should be treated - keep them in jail until they prove they are reformed, regardless of their original sentence. In this case an immediate indef block would be perfectly appropriate and is long overdue. That's the only way to make the streets safe around here. Keep this one out of circulation. -- Fyslee / talk 16:32, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Has this user gone through a RFC? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 16:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, no. But as the community voice is clearly in support of an indef ban, any RfC would simply delay the inevitable. As you are aware, the RfC process is used when there is some chance of remediation: there is no such chance here. In going over Profg's edits of the past month, his tendentiousness and intransigence has grown rather than abated (or even hovered at the status quo). He has become increasingly nonproductive and troll-like; has made unfounded accusations of persecution by an evil cabal, in the process assuring that those editors so accused have every right to suspend the extension of AGF in his case; has refused to listen to guidance offered him by respected editors; and has made a mockery of Wikipedia's tolerance for all ideas. Fyslee's assertion of Profg's MPOV is highly accurate, and thus indicative of an editor beyond hope or help.

I shall add, that in going over Profg's edits, I have yet to find one redeemable edit, assuring then that an RfC will be littered with his misdeeds, with nothing exculpatory capable of being offered. Bottom line here is that the community has suffered enough of Profg's disruption. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 17:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well there are generally procedures to go through. An attempt to solve the dispute personally (done several times), An RFC, and then an arbitration. An RFC could be used as evidence in an arbitration. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 17:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

While those procedures have their place, there is nothing preventing any admin from single-handedly indef blocking any user caught in gross violation of certain policies here, and it happens all the time, saving alot of wasted time. It has its corrollary in real life when a police officer catches a criminal in the act. While the court system is there and can be used, if necessary the officer may be justified in immediately acting to stop a crime by using lethal violence on the spot. This saves alot of wasted time in the court system. I am hoping an admin will be courageous enough to just indef block this user at any moment. No one will complain. -- Fyslee / talk 18:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Is there any evidence of a user:RfC ever being worth the time people put into it? I've started a number, commented on a number and they've all more or less ended up in arbitration or back here or at CSN or resolved through some other means eventually. Never has the User:RfC amounted to any action taking place. What's the point of User RfCs? ScienceApologist 17:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Not sure. Though this page here is essentially a RFC as so many editors are commenting. I don't think ProfG can simply be banned without some sort of arbitration though. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 18:05, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I started a proposal about this: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Let's get rid of the user conduct RfCs because they're inefficient stupid wastes of time. ScienceApologist 18:36, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

LOL, SA. Actually, WDM, he can be summarily banned, it's called a community ban. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 19:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The return of Amorrow

Some of you may have noticed a flurry of reversion and deletion in my recent changes and in the recent changes of others... some of you even asked me what was going on. Amorrow (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) is back. It has become increasingly apparent to larger and larger numbers of people that he has returned. His contributions are not wanted here and by policy, should be deleted on sight. In some cases that includes entire pages speedily deleted, or AfDs of pages (that he is the only significant contributor to) speedily closed and the page itself then deleted. Note that I am not the only person deleting things... you may expect corroboration from others. All the socks of SallyForth123 (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) are very likely him, because SallyForth123 is very likely him as well. Please be on the lookout for suspect behaviour. Please be on the lookout for potential socks, and seek assistance if you think you need it. There are always checkusers available on IRC and there are always admins available who are familiar with the edit patterns exhibited. We may make mistakes. If mistakes are made, bring them to the attention of the person you think made the mistake... let me apologise in advance on behalf of all, and I and others will work hard to correct them (restoring pages or comments caught in deletions by mistake, undoing tags, etc...) but this requires prompt, decisive action. ++Lar: t/c 18:30, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Give me a clue... what are we looking for? SallyForth123's edits to me look like a long string of dull-but-valid minor edits — what am I missing? — iridescent (talk to me!) 19:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the SallyForth123 account(s), but Amorrow's edits at the time he was banned are certainly rather distinctive. A lot of them have been deleted, but see e.g. this old version, as well as this revert by one of his socks from last year. See also Wikipedia:List of banned users#Amorrow, Template:Pinktulip and this old ANI discussion on the same subject. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who had to revert 1,597 of them, I'd seriously dispute they were valid - although they were minor. Orderinchaos 02:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Nod. I spotted the pattern in SallyForth and socks right away as soon as it was suggested... If you have seen his edits or those of his well known socks, after a while you will see the pattern too. A challenge here is if those of us that recognise the spotter characteristics get too detailed, he may possibly be able to avoid doing things which are dead giveaways now. Since he is so very corrosive to this site that he is "block on site, revert on site" by policy, we don't want to make it harder to catch him than we have to by giving things away. I'll say this though... if you see an editor that seems to have a misogynistic streak, if the very first few edits seem to show knowledge of our ways you wouldn't expect from a newbie, or if there's belligerence in tone to others at the slightest hint of questioning, if there are references you just don't get, or there are a lot of little edits to the same page, or an inability to stay away from certain subjects (successful women, for example, Bill of Attainder, and especially Wikipedia self referential topics like Essjay, Wikia, Angela, Jimbo, etc.), an inability to avoid taking cheap shots at established editors that new editors would not be expected to know well at all... ask someone whose been around a while what they think. Some of those are signs of puppets in general, true. But finding a tendentious trollish account by pattern and behaviour, blocking that account, and then determining it's the sock of another banned user rather than Amorrow ... that's not the end of the world, is it?. I hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 01:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

FYI, I blocked user:Hoplon due to the strong similarity between him and SallyForth, RidinHood25 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), etc. He's questioning the block. Perhaps someone else familiar with the user's pattern can review the block. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I made a stupid mistake. I'd been looking at Roomsmight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), but after I was called away from the computer I confused the account with that of Hoplon. I've unblocked and apologized to Hoplon, and will let more involved editors decide on what to do with or about Roomsmight. ·:· Will Beback ·:·

Yep, Roomsmight is a clear match, created in response to the last block. I've blocked it, reverted the TfD nominations, and applied some more IP blocks. Dmcdevit·t 10:03, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

If Amorrow is using multiple accounts, they should all be indefinitely banned. Is there a checkuser link?--MONGO 05:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The accounts are getting banned as they are discovered... that's why this thread is here, to ask all concerned to be on the lookout and bring things to the attention of checkusers or admins. I don't at this time, believe that there is a case on WP:RFCU for this. That's not uncommon. If someone wants to start one that would be fine, but hopefully sock tagging will be sufficient. Some of Roomsmight's changes still need rolling back. ++Lar: t/c 12:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

All reverted now. ++Lar: t/c 13:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Potential real life emergency

Resolved

[52] Please can an administrator deal with this accordingly and immediately. The phone number listed is in the Cincinnati area. Thank you ~Eliz81^(C) 19:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Meh. She knows how to ask a parent or teacher for help... just trolling, and probably not the phone number of the person who posted it. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 19:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

That was 100% weird/random. WAVY 10 Fan 19:05, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

(e/c)With all due respect, we have been treating such comments as serious and with immediate notification of the police (as per a recent mailing list discussion). We can in no way evaluate the seriousness of this threat, only the authorities can. ~Eliz81^(C) 19:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Elizabeth here. Perhaps this person can't ask people she knows in real life for help, or some other extenuating circumstances. I would err on the side of caution here, just in case she is serious. It is a possibility. Neranei (talk) 19:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Apologies about previous comment. But why is she asking here for help? WAVY 10 Fan 19:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

How emo =( Additionally I just sent an email to Wikipedia:Requests_for_oversight... just in case it IS a childish prank being played on some poor 12-yo girl. Hypothetically, she doesn't need her phone# published on Wikipedia.Factchecker atyourservice 19:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I am a member of the police bureau for the city of Portland Oregon, and would agree that notifying the proper Law Enforcement Authority is the most appropriate thing to do. You do not know if the user is serious. Tiptoety 19:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Appears to have been oversighted. Never got to see what it was, but I can't actually imagine why you'd need to post your phone number on Wikipedia so that someone else could call the police. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I see that the edit has been oversighted. I hope that this will not impede notification of the authorities (I have the # and the IP should still be known.) ~Eliz81^(C) 19:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I've also sent out word on the mailing list for users based in Cincinnati. Has anyone notified the police yet? ~Eliz81^(C) 19:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I sent an email to the organization the IP address belongs to, informing them of the situation. ~Eliz81^(C) 19:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• I don't have access to a phone atm, perhaps you do? Mercury 19:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

As a seasoned EMT with many, many psych patients whom I have treated, I highly suggest not to take anything lightly when it comes to a threat of life and limb (even your own). While I do not know what the message above is as the link says the page doesn't exist, I can assume it may be something serious. Call the local police and let them know what's going on. They can summon an ambulance which will transport a person to a psych hospital for treatment. Bstone 19:48, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• Eliz81, why is this an admin matter? Anyone who contacts the police about this should do so either as a concerned private individual (any Wikipedia reader or editor can do this, not just admins), or as an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation. Admins have no special authority or remit to deal with this kind of thing. They may be more likely to deal with it, but you will also get some admins and onlookers who will talk about it, rather than do anything (as shown by the above thread). In any case, there should be a proper place to report things like this. Things like this regularly crop up on this noticeboard, and the same discussions occur time and time again, and the actual action from case to case is likely wildly inconsistent. Carcharoth 19:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Well said, I'm tagging this with {{resolved}}. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
    • (very ironic edit conflict!) As an example, what would you do if a phone number or details were posted from some place a long way away from the USA? Move heaven and earth to notify the authorities in Outer Mongolia? (That's a place often used when wanting to name some remote region). Carcharoth 20:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Understood. I figured it certainly qualified as an 'incident' in any case. If I may request, where is an appropriate place to post such information in the future? ~Eliz81^(C) 20:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
    • AN/I. I have to disagree with Carcharoth: visibility is important in these kinds of situations. The only more proper thing I can think of is to notify the Foundation by emailing Bastique, but I do not see the harm in these discussions being posted here. Would you post them on the Village Pump? On the Help Desk? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Dito. If here is not the place, then where? --Ezeu 20:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
    • I must agree that this is the place for such a report. Things like this do not need to be shoved off in some obscure corner where nobody will see the comments. Bring it here. - auburnpilot talk 20:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Sure, post here saying that you have noticed something. But don't expect admins to deal with it. The advice may very well be: "this is what we think you should do" - in which case the original poster will then have the information necessary to go and do it, whether that be trying to contact other people in that area to make phone calls, or picking up the phone themselves. It shouldn't be a case of "please deal with this", but "please help me deal with this". Does that make sense. Carcharoth 20:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Responding to Eliz81, The correct response is to make phone calls yourself. In the past, people have (I think) called their own local law enforcement agencies. They are generally told to contact the law enforcement agencies in the area concerned, which is why you get people scrambling to find the right phone numbers on various webpages. Seriously, if you call your local authorities and explain things, they would be able to advise you much better than we can. Most people can't be bothered to do this (including me, mainly because I'm not in the US and I got here too late to see the now oversighted page). You may be told by the person on the other end of the phone line that they get 100s of such calls every week, and they need more information than you have providied. Carcharoth 20:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

It appears that the edits in question were removed from the page history. See here. Rather than oversighted. Though I can't tell for sure. Maybe someone should notify User:Mercury of this thread? I'll do that. Carcharoth 20:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Second suicide note?

Just noticed this while patrolling Lupin's IP recent edits tool: User talk:67.159.45.209. Edit needs to be deleted. Davnel03 20:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Given that this is the second time it has happened, I think it should be dealt with properly. I vaguely remember IRC being mentioned at one point as a way to get a really fast response. Let's sort out what should have happened later, and concentrate on getting this properly resolved. Carcharoth 20:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I emailed both the domain owner and the foundation about this. This is even more serious, since it is a direct threat. ~Eliz81^(C) 20:48, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP address for a year. Durova^Charge! 00:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

How often do these kind of incidents occur? Have any turned out to be legitimate? If they're pranks, they aren't funny (some stuff shouldn't be joked about) and if they're real, well, that's unfortunate too. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 00:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

This is the fourth since last December. Remember that there's an intermediate ground between suicide-in-progress and hoax. Some threats come from troubled individuals who need counseling and other social services. Durova^Charge! 00:55, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the fast reply! Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 01:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Please see this proposal. This needs to be addressed. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 01:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Was it resolved?

This doesn't seem to be resolved, only the link deleted. Reading the responses below, there isn't any messages that say "I will call the police". Breakdown in process can result in people dying, though there is no way to assess if this is such a case because the link to the page is broken.

Resolved

 – Potentially serious as this may be, it isn't an administrative matter. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Saying that this is not an administrative matter is incorrect. This page sees a lot of traffic so it is the place for time urgent matters. Administrators also have or should have a sense of commitment so I don't think it's ethical to say "it's not in my job description, matter ignored". There is no urgent Non-Administrators' noticeboard/incidents. I hope everything is ok in Cincinnati. Mrs.EasterBunny 20:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The reason it is not an admin matter is because it is an individual matter. Admins have no more moral, ethical or legal responsibility than you personally, to pick up the phone and call the Wikipedia office or some police authority somewhere. If the edits have been oversighted, then admins can't see them. If they've been deleted from the page history, then admins can help. The danger here is that people will feel encouraged to offload such things on WP:AN, which has a response time varying from fast to slow, and a track record varying from good to bad. It is more consistent to take responsibility yourself. And, yes, we should have a page to point people at to explain all this next time. Carcharoth 20:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems that the link has been deleted by an admin. If that admin did not follow through on the message, this could be as serious as if he/she let the person die. I propose:

1. Have the deleting admin state that they did or did not follow through with the message. Was someone notified? This is the most important of the 4 steps.
2. Indefin. block the poster of the cry for help if determined to be a hoax.
3. Revoke sysop privileges for the admin if he/she deleted it without either follow through to the authorities if no discussion was made with others.
4. Indef. block admin is they deleted the note, did nothing, and someone died. I hope no one died. My guess is that this is a hoax but there has been a few cases of people with real emergencies writing for help on the internet. After all, WP see a lot of traffic. Mrs.EasterBunny 20:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, admins can't delete edits, only oversighters can. As I said before on EVula's talk page, talk to the original posting user, get the phone number, and call the person to see if it's a hoax. I cannot do this due to the fact that I'm a minor. Thank you very much for your concern. Neranei (talk) 20:33, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

If I'm correct, and the edits were deleted by User:Mercury, then it wasn't oversight. Only a very limited number of people have oversight rights. See WP:OVERSIGHT. What admins can do is something called selective restoration of a page history. They delete the page and then restore all the revisions except the offending one. Hey presto! Edit gone from page history and diff no longer works. This is why it is incorrect to refer to ordinary editing of a page to remove information as "deletion". The difference between this and oversight (I think) is that only those with oversight rights can see what was oversighted. With page history deletion, any one of the 1000+ admins can pull up the deleted page and see the edit that was deleted from the page history. This is hopefully explained at Wikipedia:Page history. Carcharoth 20:44, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• Good Lord, you're grossly overreacting with #s 3 and 4. I'm sorry, but I'm not morally bound to hop every single time someone makes a cry for help. Am I bad person for it? Quite possibly. Should I have my sysop bit removed and be indefinitely blocked from the site? Hell no. Geez, I'm not sure how much more obvious a hoax this could be. Good job reacting exactly the way that the person likely wanted you to. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

EVula, I have to disagree with you about this being a hoax. It could be someone using this as a last-ditch cry for help, you never really know. I think Elizabeth was right to be concerned; it is wise to take life-threatening stuff like that seriously. Neranei (talk) 20:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Unlike other well known website like YouTube and MySpace, anyone can make comments and stuff on Wikipedia - we should never take these things like a hoax. For all we know, the person could be reading this topic right now. Davnel03 20:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Very well said, I agree. Neranei (talk) 20:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

...what? How does that prove your point? If anything, the "anyone can make comments" bit makes this just as likely as being a hoax. Heartless Bastard // talk // ☯ // 20:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Evula, it's fairly likely that most of these types of posts are hoaxes. But we, as non-police member editors, are absolutely unqualified to judge what counts as a hoax and as a credible threat. We are duty-bound to treat all threats as credible, and subsequently all proven hoax threats with great severity as well. I wish I could find the link, but please see the September 2007 Wikipedia-en-l mailing list for a discussion about this very problem. ~Eliz81^(C) 20:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Stuff like suicide notes shant be taken lightly, I should know because I've attempted it before..... † Tyler † ^{(talk/contribs)} 20:45, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Something needs to be done now. Davnel03 20:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Yup Mercury 20:48, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec)You're right, but I can't do anything; I don't have the number and I'm a minor. You know, the only way to figure out if this is really a hoax is to call the number. That would clear things up. There could be someone waiting beside the phone for someone to call. Neranei (talk) 20:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: I just saw what that person posted, I honestly think we should at least take a look. They could have killed themselves just because no one called them. Neranei (talk) 20:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, User:Mercury has blocked the IP address, but they are still posting suicide threats on their talk page. Whether this is trolling or real, this thread is no longer helping and may be inflaming the situation, and blanking the thread might be a good move after it has been resolved. I think more meta-commentary will be unhelpful. Enough people are seeing this that something should get done. Can I just ask that people who do e-mail/phone someone, make a note of what they do here. Carcharoth 20:59, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

My own view is that editors are for editing articles and administrators are for moderating standard Wikipedia activity and discussion/disputes among editors. This incident doesn't really fall under either category... it's more of an issue of ethical conduct and possible legal liability for Wikipedia as a corporate entity. In my opinion, either take it very seriously and have a fairly robust procedure for dealing with such issues (e.g. have it handled by a salaried employee or corporate liason, or at least someone whose real-life identity is known to the corporate entity) --- or don't deal with it at all, and accept the possibility that such a large body of mostly unmoderated content is going to be the scene of some nasty accidents, misunderstandings, and surprises.

For this particular case, since there seems to be no procedure for dealing with this type of issue, it would probably be good for individual editors to step in, although I will be the first to acknowledge my own indifference toward the situation: I plan to take no action other than discuss it here. But just as an admin above mentioned that it's not a good idea to EXPECT an administrator to do anything about this, it's an even worse idea to expect such initiative from the LOWER ranks of VOLUNTEERS. Again, as an entity, I think Wikipedia should either take this very seriously, and have a correspondingly serious procedure for dealing with it... or else have a policy that explicitly ignores this kind of stuff or advises users to take action on their own time and at their own risk. It seems this situation is not without potential legal ramifications. It may seem like a cheesy example, but a half-baked ambulance service could EASILY end up being worse than none at all, when people might depend on a perceived reliability that simply doesn't exist.

Of course I'm new to Wikipedia and have only read a small portion of the rules.Factchecker atyourservice 21:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that Foundation employees may take a long time to reach in situations where time is of the essence. If I send an email (which I've done) for a situation similar to this (not quite as time sensitive), I always just make sure that I make it explicitly clear I am not an official representative of the Foundation, just a concerned citizen. You bring up ethical/legal issues, I don't see how it could be an ethical/legal issue if we do react properly, only if we don't. As long as we only contact authorities and not the person involved or try to do the work of the authorities, we should be fine, the authorities can deal with whether it is credible or not. Mr.Z-man 21:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia has not responded to a phone call or email. One of the domain owners emailed me once, but the other hasn't gotten back to me. I'll see if I can phone the domain owners. ~Eliz81^(C) 21:22, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Why would Wikimedia want to get involved? If they did, it would become a full-time job. —Wknight94 (talk) 21:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• There was a similar incident posted to the mailing list a week ago. It was resolved in less time than this incident has been running, with the police being contacted from immediately. One important thing that was mentioned then, and seems to be being unconscionably ignored now, is that none of us is qualified to make the judgment between what is a hoax and what is a genuine threat. Only the police can do that, and can deal with hoaxers much more effectively than we can.

Also, it was a serious mistake to oversight the edit in question before confirmation that it has been resolved; it may be needed as evidence. —CComMack (t–c) 21:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The edits weren't oversighted, just deleted. The real point here is that people expect there to be a place to go to get a reliable response. Or even a page where a process to follow is described. There seems to be neither. In that other case, see the block log. Carcharoth 21:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and neither page history deletion plus selective restoration, nor oversighting, loses evidence. It just makes it less visible, but it is still there and can be restored or retrieved for evidentiary purposes. Carcharoth 22:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Local authorities notified

I spoke on the phone with the appropriate local police department regarding the first threat. I will be contacting the second department for the second, more explicit threat, and will update hear as soon as I hear anything definitive on this situation. ~Eliz81^(C) 21:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Changing subject slightly, I think someone above has also provided a link to the mailing list thread you were referring to earlier. Carcharoth 21:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Eliz81 pay no attention to any of the users who are stating that you are doing wrong by reporting and discussing this incident, like i said above, i am a Police Officer and threats like this one need to be taken seriously, and it does not hurt to call and make a report. I thank you for your efforts! Tiptoety 21:54, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the ideal process would be that when a user sees something like this, they are encouraged to find and contact the local police in that area, or ask others to help them do so, or do so in their stead. That let's the police deal with it if the threat is real, and as someone on the recent mailing list discussion said, trolls are not likely to do this sort of thing if they know that it will result in a visit from the police. Carcharoth 22:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

And, second police department contacted. Since both of them have the relevant IPs and information, I guess it's out of our hands now. Oh my god do I need to decompress. This has been one of the most stressful days I've had in a long time. And let's hope no one is hurt. ~Eliz81^(C) 22:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

We all appreciate your hard work! Good job! Tiptoety 22:23, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

God and Goddess bless, Elizabeth. Thank you for taking the initiative; I hope that you have made a difference. Love, Neranei (talk) 22:25, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

One of the police departments emailed me back! This was so kind of them. A little spooky, since I only ever gave my first name and not an email address, but anyway.... I'm so glad to hear they're following up with me and coordinating with the police department in Cincinnati where the number is registered. ~Eliz81^(C) 22:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The police know everything, anyways, i am glad to hear that, and once again Good Work! Tiptoety 22:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if this stresses you out, but that does sound spooky. Do the police know everything? I'd be more inclined to think that either you gave them enough information for them to work out your e-mail address (they should have asked you for some contact information), or someone following this thread has used Special:Emailuser and either they are from that police department or are pretending to be. Or maybe some of the e-mails you sent to ISPs got forwarded to the police? Rule of thumb - if it seems spooky, double-check the e-mail is really coming from who is says it is. Carcharoth 00:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Wait did you email the police or just call them? I can't say I have ever emailed an RP back, also contact calls for service by phone, or in person... sounds kind of weird to me, (I wish I knew everything, could clear this warrant backlog out :P, but CLETS, NLETS, and NCIC only do so much for me) I would check into that, mind you I work for a very small department, and we handle everything, I know some departments are more online then we are. Dureo 10:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Kudos to Eliz81. Just for the record, the way to handle this is notify the authorities promptly and put a yearlong block on an IP address or an indef with an e-mail block on a registered account. Then remove any personally identifiable information the individual has posted. Preferably with as little fanfare as possible. Let the professionals do their job; this type of matter is outside our scope. I've handled these matters this way since last December. Durova^Charge! 00:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Could this be documented somewhere, so people can point to it next time? Tips on who to contact and how to locate IP addresses, and when admin assistance is required (eg. if a registered account is posting the threats with no indication of location - wouldn't that require checkuser?). And where to post/e-mail to ensure rapid response times. And personal versus collective responsibility. Along with something clearly explaining the difference between an ordinary user removing information from a page, an admin removing edits from the page history, and an oversighter making stuff available to even fewer people? Oh, and the important point about people noting what they've done so others reading know that something has been done. I think that some of the removal of personal information was done without any indication that any contact with the authorities had been made - which is less than ideal. This sort of thing will happen if people half-know what to do and half-do the wrong bits... Hmm. This might turn out to be a long document. Carcharoth 00:41, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:DFTT, WP:BEANS. This has happened exactly four times in the last twelve months. But for the record, I'm willing to contact the police if it originates anywhere in the United States. I've done it before. Durova^Charge! 00:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I understand that, but the pattern is the same. Worried user rolls up at a noticeboard, or on the mailing list. If the right people are around it gets dealt with smoothly and efficiently. If not, things go a bit chaotic and pear-shaped and lots of headless chickens start squawking and running around. There must be a better way, surely? Carcharoth 00:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Some editors tried to write a guideline after last spring's incident. It went down in flames. The trouble is, anything in Wikipedia space that can be found will also be seen and acted upon by the wrong people, thus intensifying the problem. Durova^Charge! 00:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Off topic, but how does a headless chicken... squawk? ;) Mercury 03:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Mike the Headless Chicken: "His crowing, though, was less impressive and consisted of a gurgling sound made in his throat..." - nice. Carcharoth 13:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

User:MurderWatcher1 - Second (and third, fourth, fifth) opinions needed

Following the closing of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boitumelo McCallum, the original author of the article MurderWatcher1 (talk · contribs) has posted a message to the (not yet deleted) talk page. In this post, they mention three other articles of theirs (Jennifer Moore, Ramona Moore and Chanel Petro-Nixon), all of which appear to fail WP:NOT#MEMORIAL and WP:BIO (and - almost - WP:BLP1E); a look down their contribution history shows plenty more such as Imette St. Guillen, Jennifer Levin and Fountain Avenue which (aside possibly from Fountain Avenue) appear unsalvageable.

While I think these are all clear violations of policy and technically ought to be deleted, I am extremely reluctant to AfD them, as it seems very WP:BITEy for a good faith-editor to suddenly find their seven (at least) most substantial contributions to the encyclopedia all up for deletion; I would think that at the very least it would lead to a rerun of the Billy Hathorn incident, and quite possibly could lead to a legitimate & good faith editor leaving the project altogether in a huff. (If around 50% of my mainspace edits were simultaneously deleted, I could see myself doing the same.)

There doesn't seem to be any right answer here; does anyone have any thoughts as to what the least wrong answer is? — iridescent (talk to me!) 21:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

From my perspective it's easy. If the articles fail the rules in a way that can't be corrected via a rewrite or amendment then it's AfD. There's a difference between not biting a newbie and sitting them down, making them a cup of tea and a cookie. If nothing else it's a lesson to them about what does and doesn't make it into WP. At the moment the editor is learning nothing in that regard. ---- WebHamster 21:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Without looking too much at the articles and judging mainly on what is here, WP:BITE does not override other policies, if the articles are completely unsalvageable, there is only 1 solution. WP:BITE means that you shouldn't go to the editor's talk page, throw a bunch of policy abbreviations at them, and threaten to have them blocked if they continue. Mr.Z-man 21:48, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest AfD them, but leave a polite note on their talk page to explain why you're doing it (along the lines of "thanks for your contributions, sorry but I don't feel they quite fit in with WP policy"), and maybe try to steer them towards some places they can make contributions that are more likely to stick. Confusing Manifestation 01:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

If the Imette St. Guillen, Jennifer Moore, Ramona Moore and Chanel Petro-Nixon pages are deleted then I would, indeed. consider leaving Wikipedia as an editor. I put considerable research and work into these pages as, I know the materials that I am referring to. I'm not without my own, considerable skills as, I work as a legal secretary for a well-known law firm and, other than Wikipedia style and policy, I'm pretty knowledgeable about some law matters.

While I didn't create the Imette St. Guillen page, if you have read my user page then you know that I was personally involved with the case. User:ImmortalGoddezz started editing and putting this page into Wikipedia format from a tag from User:Garzo.

Perhaps WP policy should change or be amended as, these incidents were of unusual occurrence and circumstances and can apply to civilized people everywhere who enjoy nightlife in general.

Also, I've 'weighed-in' on some subjects that I'm very knowledgable of, two of which are Eschatology and Photography. I have and would consider making considerable edits and formatting to these pages but only if they are received positively. Now I have no feedback on how my edits were received, nor do I have any idea of how many people are viewing a particular page. Your Wikipedia Project does not provide "software counters" for the pages. I would assume that only an Administrator would know those numbers, and I have worked as a Computer Technician as well.

In response to User:WebHamster comment: "If nothing else it's a lesson to them about what does and doesn't make it into WP. At the moment the editor is learning nothing in that regard." well my response that that statement is, what 'kind' of lesson are you trying to teach? That 'the work ethic is false'? That would be the lesson I would learn if all of my work were destroyed on Wikipedia, so I would see no further reason to contribute to anything here. There comes a point where 'enough is enough' and I've learned to cut people off in that regard. That's a lesson that I give to you, from life as I've lived it, and the various experiences that I have lived. Have any of you worked at the World Trade Center in 2001? I have. Have any of you been a victim of a corrupt legal system? I have. This and many other things I have 'brought to the table' so understand that, in this respect, I will at least try to fight for my input and for what I believe in, but again, if my pages are deleted, then I'm done with Wikipedia. Are you going to be 'robots' to rules or clear thinkers? The decision rests with all of you.--MurderWatcher1 17:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

In general I consider the subjects of these articles notable, but the nature of the articles deplorable. The detailed recounting of crimes does not belong in WP, and, alas, I think it is fair to say that the ed. has made it clear in various ways that he writes in that fashion deliberately. I think the consensus that the deleted article was is not notable may have been affected by the article content to the extent that even the competent re-writing by another ed did not help. I did not !vote at the AfD--because of my conflict over these two factors. The analogy with BH is correct--an excellent writer whose style is not that of an encyclopedia, and seems determined to keep that style. I supported deletion of many of BH's articles--I doubt anyone would have even nominated them if the length had been proportional to the importance. I'd think the same here. I suggest a moratorium on further deletions of these articles in the hope that we can reconsider what makes a murder in a large city notable--and--even more important, try to find a way to have community binding decisions on content as we do on notability. We have only one tool, and all we can do is delete, or ask for improvements under the threat to delete. Iridiescent suggested I comment here as a representative inclusionist, but my intent at WP is not primarily inclusion, but upgrading of content--if we wrote more appropriately we could have a wider range of content without looking foolish. It is not the presence of articles on minor subjects that attracts unfavorable attention, but their length and elaboration. DGG (talk) 21:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Since I've been nominally involved with some of the things that this editor has edited and have interacted with him I thought I'd leave input, also I was notified of the AN/I. I don't think the user is a bad editor, unfortunately despite prodding on my part the articles that he writes continues to be POV. My efforts at this have been minimal, I don't have the time or the patience, so they might not have been effective as they could have been. I do believe his editing habits can be changed. I think the solution here would be to have somebody mentor the user; discuss whatever article he wants to create prior to creation, discuss whether it would be worthy of inclusion on wikipedia, guide his edits/tone, and whatnot. I do believe this has been done before, having a mentor, however whether it works or not is the question. I have told the editor that if he continues on as he has an independent wikia might be more to his style. As for the articles themselves I do believe that some of them have notability; Imette St. Guillen, Jennifer Levin and Fountain Avenue. However of the three I've listed the only article that he has had edits of any major proportions are St. Guillen, which I've totally rewritten and her notability, I believe, is established due to a NY law that was passed in her name and influenced because of her death. His edits on Levin are minimal (and actually have mostly been removed) and the Fountain Avenue can easily be formatted and cited; same with Levin (heck give me time and I can do both of them). The others I believe are questionable in their notability, unfortunately. I believe the articles for the time being could be moved over to the user's sandbox, and the original article AfD'ed. I mean articles can be recreated if notability is established. With the articles in the sandbox and a proper mentor the articles could be gone over with a mentor to see if they do in fact meet the notability guidelines and gives the user a chance to fix the articles and not loose all of the work, and reinserted if they meet guidelines. I think his intentions are to honor the people who have died however the user does not realize that wikipedia does not necessarily view the same things as being notable that he does. I think if he is mentored about wikipedia then that can possibly become a better wikipedia editor. --ImmortalGoddezz 22:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

MurderWatcher, you may want to keep in mind that you do not own Wikipedia articles that you create. You should be prepared to have your contributions thoroughly edited or even deleted. If you simply cannot tolerate that, then you are correct in coming to the conclusion that Wikipedia may not be for you (although you seem to be putting the blame in the wrong place). --Cheeser1 23:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I have neither said nor implied that I do 'own' an article! I put them up here, to use one administrator's term, in good faith that someone more skilled than I am would contribute to the stories, which I still continue to say are valid. They are valid, if you will read some of ImmortalGoddezz comments above. I watched and learned from her as she edited the articles and I decided to exercise patience. You don't really have any 'mentoring' program in place. Perhaps, since there are a lot of "Learning Annex" classes taught monthly in New York City, Wikipedia might consider actually setting up a class to explain your style, etc. FYI, there was an article in one of the 1977 issues of "New York Magazine" by an excellent writer, Gail Sheehy, which was titled "The Mentor Connection". —Preceding unsigned comment added by MurderWatcher1 (talk • contribs) 14:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Legal threats by someone determined to attack a BLP User:Abuse truth

Can someone warn and block this user, at least until he understands the legal threat policy, User:Abuse truth who is inserting unsourced material in the Elizabeth Loftus article (BLP), and using both this account and an account that appears to be his real name for this purpose? He made an edit to the article,[53] as User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), then commented about the edit he just made in his alter ego, User:Abuse truth.[[54]] He now threatening to report me (to God knows whom) for libel for removing idiotic ranting on the Elizabeth Loftus talk page which have simply been put on the talk page in an additional attempt to defame her. She's a fairly controversial person, and there are plenty of excellent mainstream sources about her than can be legitimately put in the article. But web blogs and unreported case settlements aren't part of BLP.

I can't warn him because I'm rather busy, and, guess what, the page about legal threats, does not include the warning to give, as is usually the case on Wikipedia policy pages. Thanks to whomever for looking into this matter. KP Botany 03:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I found the warning, and put it up. I don't think he's going to stop, but maybe he will. KP Botany 03:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

To be clear, then, the substantive issues of the underlying matter aside, you believe Abuse truth to be a sock of User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )? Joe 03:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The threat is kind of borderline, "I will report you for libel" could just mean to administrators here. I would suggest that if his next edit does not somehow address the threat that he be blocked. Mr.Z-man 03:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Joe, if you look at the diffs, you'll see that Richard Arthur Norton made the deletion of "famous" in the article, then Abuse truth discussed his deletion of "famous" from the article, so clearly it appears to be a sock puppet account.

Yes, Mr.Z-man, it is borderline, and it may have meant he would report me to AN/I as I have just done to him, so if it's not an issue with him, a legal threat that is, it's not an issue with me. The only reason I took it as one is his use of legal language, "libel," in the post. Thanks to both. KP Botany 03:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Inasmuch as Abuse truth has, it appears, edited disruptively from time to time, such that, were it a sock, its use would be disfavored, I have alerted Richard to this thread, although I recognize that, should there be no further issues with Abuse truth, this issue might be regarded as settled irrespective of sockpuppet issues. Joe 03:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Ha! Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) is me! I am not User:Abuse truth. I have even left messages to User:Abuse truth that made him/her angry. We just have a common interest in "allegations of Satanic abuse vs. actual Satanic abuse", and differ of which is which. We are opposite side of the same coin. I think you can look at my history and see my main interest is in aviation pioneers, and scientific topics, and biographies. An IP trace will show me in New Jersey. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 03:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

As an admin who has interacted with Richard, I find it a bit hard to believe sockpuppetry is involved here...I would suggest that unless someone wants to request a checkuser, focus should be on issues with Abuse truth. AKRadecki^Speaketh 03:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

That was, for what it's worth, essentially my thinking as well. Joe 03:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's fine. I remain confused about the sock puppetry, but wanted to post it also considering the nature of Abuse truth's edits in general. KP Botany 04:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• You can see here the two of us reversing edits, and sparring on the talk page. Her: [55] We have an adversarial relationship. I wrote this on their page: [56] and they then wrote this to me: [57]. Lesson learned for us all: editing good, paranoia bad. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 03:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • The fact remains that Richard Arthur Norton removed the word "famous" from the article, and Abuse truth discussed the edit as if he had made it on the talk page. However, I'm not really concerned about the sock puppetry, unless these user(s) use it to game the system in some way. The issue is the libelous content on the article's talk page being posted to get around posting it in the BLP, and the legal threat, and these are being handled. KP Botany 04:06, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • For what it is worth, I find Richard's argument persuasive and do not think he is using another account. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 04:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I've been involved in editing Satanic ritual abuse with R.A.N., and Abuse truth has showed up there as well. Their POV's are diametrically opposed and they sometimes revert each other. RAN is a solid, competent good faith editor and Abuse truth is an axe-grinding SPA with a poor grasp of policy. Whatever is going on here, I find it extremely hard to believe that RAN is Abuse truth. <eleland/talkedits> 05:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Maybe I am sleepwikiediting. Looking at it, its is oddly written. I thought I may have written it, and not signed it, then Abuse wrote under me, but the log shows I didn't. Then I thought Abuse may have taken my summary and cut and paste it in the talk page, but it looks like that isn't correct either, so I am at a loss. Either way, Abuse must be smiling because we are pitted against each other, and acting paranoid. [[--Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 05:38, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, see, it clearly shows you made the edit. What the heck, you say you didn't, I believe you, and this issue is not of concern. However, please, would people stop defending Richard as if he stands accused of something. I suggested repeatedly that the sock puppetry is not an issue, although it clearly shows by the edits that sock puppetry is worth suspicion. But, since I'm not accusing Richard of anything, the sock puppetry is not currently nefarious, and Abuse truth is the problematic editor, continuing to run in and defend Richard as if he's in need of defense is looking poorly. I'm not the least bit concerned about Richard's actions in any of this. I am wondering about the edit, now, because it certainly seems that Richard knows nothing about it. Very strange. KP Botany 03:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I also don't see any "legal" threat made by Abuse. The exact quote, since deleted by KP was "I will be reporting KP Botany for libel". There is no mention of courts or lawyers, just "reporting". I think tempers are getting put of control and maybe they should both take a vacation from editing the article they are fighting over. I don't want to be collateral damage. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 08:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you didn't sleep edit, you wouldn't be in any danger now, would you? No fear, I have no issues with you, and didn't have any. The only thing I have issues with is libelous statements in BLPs, and I can't back down from this. KP Botany 03:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Abuse Truth's reply: Please find below what I sent to the Elizabeth Loftus talk page yesterday. It has since been deleted.

threats and unfounded accusations

I recently received this at my talk page (of Abuse Truth):

Please stop adding unreferenced controversial biographical content to articles, as you did at talk:Elizabeth Loftus. Content of this nature could be regarded as defamatory and is in violation of Wikipedia policy. If you continue, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Don't put the unsourced material on the talk page to get it on Wikipedia instead of in the article--it's the same thing. And cut out the sock-puppetry also, use only one account, so I don't have to warn all your sock puppet accounts. KP Botany 22:25, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

To address point one:

I reverted the edit by KP Botany because I believed much of that information was sourced and valid. I stated "Talk pages are the place to hash these issues out. I believe that much of the information below is well sourced. I am requesting that this data stay on the talk page until a discussion takes place."

Instead of a discussion of the information, I was threatened with being blocked from editing Wikipedia. Most of the information in the edited section was from "TREATING ABUSE TODAY magazine."

One article was at owt.com page, a copy of a journal article from ETHICS & BEHAVIOR

The second url http://kspope.com/memory/index.php Memory & Abuse: The Recovered Memory Controversy, doesn't even mention Elizabeth Loftus.

Yet this whole section was edited out of this page without discussion.

The second point:

that this user is using "sock-puppetry," is false and defamatory. I only have one account and am unsure which other person KP Botany is even talking about. If this statement is not immediately retracted, both on my talk page and this page, I will be reporting KP Botany for libel. (Abuse Truth)

As you can from the above, I originally reverted KP Botany's edits because I believed that these journal articles and their urls should be included in the talk page. And as the reader can tell from the above, Richard Arthur Norton and I are totally different people with different IP addresses. This shows that the accusation of sock-puppetry is false.

And what R.A.N. stated above is true ("I also don't see any "legal" threat made by Abuse.") No legal threat of any sort was ever made. What I meant was that I would be reporting KP Botany to Wikipedia at info-en@wikipedia.org (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Libel "If you believe that you are the subject of a libellous statement on Wikipedia, please: E-mail us with details of the article and error.") I am willing to drop this issue entirely, if KP Botany retracts his statement on my talk page that I was involved in sock-puppetry.Abuse truth 02:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

KP Botany 03:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Swatjester's Attitude

I have been observing(not stalking) Swatjester's edits over the last few weeks. He started attacking the Article Rescue Squadron - ("Article Rescue Squadron is crap and doesn't work" (clearly it does)) after an article he listed for AfD was taged for rescue. He has attempted to disrupt the ARS's work and, as an admin, his general attitude to other users can be rather poor ("I'll be counting the days until you are banned", "I would admonish you to not be a fuckhead", "I don't know who you think you are") He also seems to have issues with centain types of articles ("kill all pop culture articles in the face)". It would seem he classifies his adminship/account/contributions/himself as a weapon. As a matter of full disclosure, he has taken out an Incident against me in the past ("I'm requesting an outside source come knock some good faith and clue back into Fosnez over this"). This is not a vendetta, but I believe he does need to be pulled back into line in regards to his attitude. I expect there will be a argument over this, but I don't think this is the kind of behaviour an admin should be displaying to the rest of the community. - Fosnez 03:40, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

You might try the dispute resolution area. To include RFC, and if the conduct includes administrative use of the tools, admin conduct rfc. Other than that, I'm not sure what intervention I could give? Mercury 03:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:RFC/U Viridae^Talk 03:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

This is not a vendetta? That's why I was on your Users to keep an eye on list? That's why you made no effort to attempt to contact me first? Riiiiight. Funny how you magically seem to show up at the last several AFD's that I have made, funny how you seem to have randomly taken my edits out of context in areas I would not typically expect to see you. In fact, I think a good argument could be made that this constitutes Wikistalking. For not towards people, the "don't be a fuckhead" edit comes from a dispute that two OTHER users than I were having about User:David Gerard's essay "Don't be a fuckhead." But, of course, that is taken out of context here, just as "my calling myself a weapon" comes from User:Radiant's page where he has admins voluntarily classify themselves humorously by what their name means (for instance an admin called Banana would go under fruit). I would argue that this IS a vendetta, that this IS wikistalking by Fosnez, and I'm quite sick of it. He snapped out of control at me the first time we met, causing an [WP:AN/I]] thread that many people agreed with my actions. And now he's pursuing a vendetta by Wikistalking me, taking my quotes out of context to try and make me look bad, without the common courtesy of trying to discuss it with me first. Wow, just wow.⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 03:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The first time I discussed anything with you, you lodged an Incident against me after two comments, and last time you refused to listen to me. Discussion with you is pointless. Your attitude towards me and the ARS in general stinks and thats all there is to say about it. - Fosnez 04:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Tend to agree with the above assessment. This sounds like Wikistalking to me, or at the very least an incredibly irritating vendetta. However, whatever it is, I don't think this is really the venue. Try some dispute resolution, maybe -- rather than posting out-of-context quotes in an effort to stir up trouble, without notifying the user in question. --Haemo 04:05, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll second the "Wow, just wow." Initially just reading the text I was thinking, "Hmm... there may be an issue here, which seems strange knowing what I know about Swat." Aaaand then I checked the links. Rofl. So much stalking, so much taking things out of context in a pretty clear attempt to malign Swatjester... I really recommend Fosnez move on quickly. Frivolous "reports" such as this aren't cool at all. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 04:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

So we want to encourage comments like "Article Rescue Squadron is crap and doesn't work" from administrators? Nice... Fosnez 04:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I know I'm not involved in this but I still can't stop from commenting. I think it is rather ironic that Swatjester is saying that his words are being taken out of context. When back in July he took information from my userpage "always on the victims side" and stated wikipedia is not. I never said it did. And that I was trying to push a POV for victims when I did no such and then he abused his administration power and blocked me for 48 hrs, while letting another user who argued with me scott-free. Irony you gotta love it. Fighting for Justice 04:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Except that's not in the slightest what happened there, other than that I did block you (for 3RR I believe it was, and a valid block I believe as well, my memory is a bit hazy), but once again, that's not the point here. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 04:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Having looked over the links that Fosnez gave us, I'd have to echo Bbatsell's assessment. I'd also recommend that Fosnez remove the Users to keep an eye on section from his user page; editors shouldn't be keeping enemies lists in their userspace. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the sections a requested, it was nice of you to ask me to do it, instead of just editing my page... like as been done before. - Fosnez 04:41, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for removing it. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

(EC)I too support a WTFBBQORLYKTHX attitude. the Fuckhead thing's probably not the highest order of civility, but in response to an editor who also mentions it, I can't see actual incivility. As to the weapon thing... just read the list. It organizes based on NAMES, not on any metaphysical self-identification, hence the moose and bull and ram in the ungulates category. Swatjester's a busy admin who takes a steaming pile of crap for it on a near daily basis. I applaud his efforts. Although i've been known to criticize admins in other cases, this time, swatjester's totally in the clear though. ThuranX 04:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

One suggestion I would like to offer does pertain to the removal of the rescue tags. If you believe they belong on the talk pages, then please do not just remove them from the article and not also place them on the talk page, which I subsequently did. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 04:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• WP:RFC, WP:RFM and WP:RFAr are → that way. Nothing really for us to do here. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 04:38, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

If someone is going to RFC Swatjester I'll be along for the laughs. He may have gotten a bit carried away before but this sure isn't one of those times. Also, told you so. There, I said it out loud ;) EconomicsGuy ^{Return the fire!} 17:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Sexual Harassment

65.247.55.12 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) has "signed" my autograph book twice, but each time has signed as Bwjs (talk · contribs)--(first time and second time). BWJS has removed the comment each time, and has claimed the user isn't him. However, Im not so sure, considering this comment he left me on my talkpage and this one to my autograph book. Sasha Callahan 05:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Those first two comments I sent Sasha were mistakes. I would never want to do anything to harm her. Bwjs 14:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

All of those comments are inappropriate, don't do it again. Mr.Z-man 14:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Would it be appropriate to request a checkuser to see if 65.247.55.12 (talk · contribs) and Bwjs (talk · contribs) are the person? Or should I file a request? Sasha Callahan 20:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  When did he deny it was him? It looks pretty obvious they're the same - probably too obvious for a checkuser request. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  I assumed that by removing the comment, he was saying "I didn't leave it". Sasha Callahan 20:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  This and this say otherwise. At best, it was some friend of his leaving a filthy comment and him removing it. Regardless, some very long blocks will be unleashed if any more of that nonsense recurs. Unacceptable. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  Agreed, I don't think BWJS should be blocked, but if he continues he should be. Given the block log of 65.247.55.12, a block may be in order for them.

  And while were on it, if an admin has a minute, could they delete the edits I listed in the first paragraph of this section? Sasha Callahan 20:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  I think I got them all. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  You didn't need to remove BWJS's legit signing, but if he wants he can re-sign the page. Thanks. And I love the summary you put in the page logs. Sasha Callahan 21:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The IP was hardblocked for a week earlier today, a block I endorse. Sometimes a hardblock is as good as a checkuser ;) -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

And I don't recommend Bwjs bother signing your page or contacting you in any way. He needs to play on a different side of the encyclopedia starting now. —Wknight94 (talk) 21:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Andyvphil - incivility, personal attacks, contentious POV edits

Andyvphil persists in uncivil behavior and personal attacks in connection with his POV/contentious editing of the John Stossel article.

The article has been the subject of BLP notices here and here, regarding building up an excessively long criticisms / controversies section repeating derogatory claims made by partisan "watchdog" groups. I came late to this article with no agenda or position, but did try to help out where I could.

In doing so I find myself attacked by Andyvphil, one of those edit warring on the page but whose position also seems to be that there was too much poorly sourced derogatory information. This editor has received five warnings on his talk page from four users (including me) over civility, 3RR, and pesonal attacks in connection with this article: [58], [59], [60], [61], and [62].

He has responded to the last civility warning by trying to impugn me and calling me and at least one other user a "troll." He shows no sign of acknowledging or trying to reduce his incivility. I don't want to have to build an arbitration case against this user or defend his tit-for-tat accusations just to come in as a neutral party to a BLP problem, just wish he would stop contentious editing and lashing out at people. Warnings don't seem to be working. Wikidemo 06:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, let's get it right: my last "attack" was "The worst I'm guilty of is feeding the trolls by not giving them the last word." Would it have helped if I'd blue-linked feeding the trolls to show that's it's a reference to the Wikipedia essay? And I think my first "attack" was informing Wikidemo that it was bad form to make an edit protection request as a way of achieving temporary victory in an edit war.[63]... Lessee... the first three "warnings" that he references on my page took place in July, and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, so let's look at the last two: the first is a "warning" for "3RR" by Maniwar. Actually, I made 4 edits to Stossel on 25 July, only two of which were (unrelated) reversions, so the "warning" was simply an act of incivility against me. And the last "warning" was "[f]or this series of edits", where I get sarcastic (I call his comment "brilliant", not meaning it) about Wikidemo upbraiding me without feeling it necessary to take notice of a considerable provocation (another act of incivility by Maniwar, as it happens... And he also uncivilly accuses me of "POV edits", but since he doesn't provide diffs I'll limit myself to noting that he doesn't seem to have a clue as to what my POV is. Certainly it hasn't been central "that there was too much poorly sourced derogatory information". I've generally been against his deleting things (and the argument has generally been over "balance", not sourcing). Andyvphil 14:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment: the above is typical of the problems with this user; instead of responding or trying to the notice of incivility he simply turns this into an attack on me and others. Blue-linking to calling me a troll does not help anything. Claiming (yet again) that I am playing games to protect my turf is an WP:AGF violation. In fact I have no position and no turf to protect. I am merely mediating, and asked for admin help (as I am doing again now) to deal with a disruptive and uncivil editor. I have done everything deliberately and don't see any need to defend myself against sarcastic jibes that I am clueless, don't read the record, etc. I have read the record. He is all wet in his claim that the other users were uncivil to him but that is beside the point. Even if they were that does not justify his playground-level taunts of other users as thinking they are tin gods, etc. I stand by this and all of my comments. Wikidemo 15:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Like Wikidemo, I too went to the page because of a BLP concerns and found myself being attacked by this user. What gets me the most is that he is unwilling to see that he is a lone offender and that many people have, in good faith, given him warnings rather than reporting him. I had no agenda accept to improve the article per the BLP call, and to see that Andyvphil is unwilling to be more civil and that he arbitrarily makes edits even after the discussion page shows that the editors all came up with compromises and other solutions clearly is disruptive. I would like to add another link that Wikidemo did not include to show yet, another warning issued [64]. The discussion page of the John Stossel article will clearly portray his offenses and the other editors trying to work with him, thus establishing that there is a pattern going back to July.--Maniwar (talk) 14:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

More recent evidence to show pattern of disruptive editing [65], [66]. --Maniwar (talk) 14:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Darkzamora

Resolved

See Special:Contributions/Darkzamora. The image of Monica Leigh that the user uploaded is copyrighted. It's owned by Playboy. I'd add the appropriate tags but I'm at work and I'd rather not risk another viewing of the image in order to do so. I barely got away with it the first time. My co-workers would most definitely find offense in the image. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 06:38, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I've tagged it. --Cheeser1 06:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 07:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

user:Rackabello

• This was newbie biting, and the statement on lack of context was nonsense (not that it couldn't have been made clearer by additional information).
• This edit asserted that the page was "unquestionably" a copyright violation. Nonsense; a terse statement on what positions a professor holds is not subject to copyright.
• This edit was irresponsible. The article clearly did not fail to assert notability. The fact that someone didn't understand the assertion of notability does not justify requesting speedy deletion; one should do that only if one KNOWS there is none. One of the world's most eminent scientists was the author of this Wikipedia entry and it was clear he was going to add more.

This user goes around tagging for speedy deletion all short new articles that, in his ignorance, he doesn't understand. In some cases just checking google scholar would clear up his benightedness. Michael Hardy 07:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• I can't speak about the last two, but the first one as is was a clear nocontext speedy. The author is responsible for providing his or her own references. JuJube 07:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Point 2 is a word for word copy of the first sentence of the externally linked bio, so technically that is indeed a copyvio and therefore the CSD is justifiable. It's then up to the deleting admin to decide on whether the technicality is enough. Point 3 again is borderline. Merely inventing a mathematical equation is not necessarily an assertion of notability. A New Page Patroller isn't a mindreader and can't know what the next edit is going to be so has no idea if references are going to be given. So again this is a borderline decision which would be caught by the deleting admin. Personally I can't see why an ANI was called for.WebHamster 10:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, giving someone the instruction to "back off" can hardly be described as being civil. May I ask why you didn't use your right to remove the CSD tags? ---- WebHamster 10:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Rackabello hasn't edited since getting talk page messages about this a few hours ago. I think this ANI thread is premature.--chaser - t 10:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The best course of action in these situations is to talk to the user first. Every person I have clarified CSD for or corrected on tag usage has taken it really well, and I've had some great conversations with people of the nuances of deletion. I see that you left Rackabello a message, but you were kind of mean to him. That message certainly wouldn't make me want to have a conversation with you. Natalie 13:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Without looking at the edits in question, in Rackabello's defense, one should not have to look up a topic elsewhere on the internet to know what the article is about. Wikipedia articles "go live" and should be ready for public consumption from the first time you click "Save page." If an average person (Wikipedia's target audience) cannot understand an article without doing a Google search in addition to reading it, the article probably does not have adequate context. If you can't provide enough info in the first save ("Show preview" is really helpful for this), you may want to consider starting it in a user subpage before moving it to articlespace. Mr.Z-man 14:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, the claim about "no context" is nonsense. Look at the article. Anyone can tell what the context is. It's about the anatomy of the brain, and a model of it. As for copyright violation: that is wrong. Such terse statements of fact are not copyrightable. Nobody said "merely inventing a mathematical equation" asserts notability. If you don't even know enough not to use the word "equation" in that way, then you shouldn't be judging such a thing, and if someone who doesn't know even such secondary-school things as what an equation is deletes such an article, that is abuse; it is vandalism. I don't ask for mindreaders; I ask those who ought to know they don't understand an article not to do such things. I can't believe some people don't find that obvious. Michael Hardy 18:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

One doesn't need to know the subject matter to be able to issue a CSD, one only needs to know the WP guidelines. Notability is not subjective. An article that doesn't assert notability is liable for deletion at anytime regardless of the subject matter. Words are copyrightable, all it took was to rearrange them. A quick cut and paste from another website is a copyvio whether you like it or not. When it all comes down to it a CSD is just another maintenance tag. It's up to an Admin to decide whether it's warranted or not. A non-bad faith CSD tagging is not vandalism regardless of your chagrin and upset sensibilities. Either way there is nothing to stop you from removing the CSD tags. Either way it's not an ANI matter. Rackabello is not out of order issuing these CSD notices, he hasn't breached the rules. It's as simple as that. Whereas you have with your uncivil berating of him on his own talk page. ---- WebHamster 19:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

"Anyone can tell"? I had no idea, but I guess that just makes me an idiot in your eyes. Your position makes it sound as though people shouldn't be chastized for writing patent nonsense because, after all, it makes sense to them. You're acting pretty smarmy right now. JuJube 20:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad it wasn't just me. The term "condescension" was what sprang to my mind, but smarmy works too :) ---- WebHamster 21:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I never said notability is subjective. But obviously you need some background knowledge to assess notability in some cases. Those who lack the knowledge of the subject needed to assess notability of an article should (obviously!) leave it alone. JuJube, are you saying you actually had no idea that the article titled visual feature array is about the anatomy of the brain? I am very very remote from that subject and even I understood that. The visual cortex is a part of the brain. As for "condescension": It is reasonable for me to require those who can't understand the word equation not to lecture me about judging notability in math articles. Michael Hardy 04:33, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like a video game console spec. JuJube 04:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Adanesne (talk · contribs)

I blocked Adanesne (talk · contribs) indefinitely based on the following: [67], [68], [69], [70], and [71]. As blocks are not punitive but preventive, I felt that allowing any chance of Adanesne (talk · contribs) continuing his/her actions would become a liability and disruption for the community. nat^tang 07:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Mmmmm. He doesn't seem to listen to prior warnings and is clearly set on putting his POV across. I'd support a block until such a time he can convince us that he is ready and willing to adhere to our policies and contribute constructively and civilly. Rockpocket 07:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the talk page should be salted, too, although User:Onorem is baiting him slightly. x42bn6 Talk Mess 12:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say baiting, although I suppose I am feeding the troll a bit. I've often found that responding to an insult with a little self-deprecation often ends the issue faster. If he knows it doesn't bother me, it won't be any fun for him to continue. --Onorem♠Dil 12:32, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Quick image question

Resolved

Aside from WP:IFD, is there anywhere to grab an admin who is experienced with image issues, to delete multiple images that violate copyrights? Giannis87gr has uploaded multiple copyrighted images downloaded from the web, to which he's adding graffiti, and then claiming he is the copyright holder. Some examples are Image:Sean combs 100807 05.jpg, Image:Nicole-kidman-breast-35 copy.jpg, Image:Gisele-bundchen-gq-italy-01 copy.jpg (copyrighted GQ cover), Image:Lindsay-lohan-dad-rehab-pose copy.jpg, and the list goes on and on. It seems to me that there is not a single image this editor has uploaded that is appropriate for Wikipedia use, and it would be proper to have an administrator delete them all, rather than going through the IfD process. If I'm wrong, that's fine, I freely admit my experience with image deletion is quite limited (I've reported several obvious copyrighted images, but I had the URLs they came from). This editor has not provided any source for the origin of the photographs, and yet obviously they were not taken by the editor in question. Any suggestions or help is much appreciated! Ariel♥Gold 13:22, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Ariel. If you haven't met him, After Midnight pretty much pwns everyone at image deleting. On IRC, he showed me his deletion log, and there were at least three pages of image deletes! I see the images above have been deleted, but I'd try him in the future. :) *Cremepuff222* 14:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Cremepuff! Thanks for the note, and a big thanks to DragonflySixtyseven who went ahead and took care of all of these silly images! I'll put AM on my watched list if I run across something like this in the future, thanks again! Ariel♥Gold 14:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Ha, no problem. :) *Cremepuff222* 14:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Attention needed- Vanadalism Of Malayalee Article By User:Vivin

A background abt the issue.

Its belived that Malayalam developed independently having more influence from Tamil. But it has not proved that Malayalam evolved out of Tamil. Malayalam language has similarities with other languages in South India. Malayalam has loaned words from Sanskrit and many foriegn languages. Script is more similar to Tulu(another Indian Language of South India) Script.

The First issue

The word Malayalee said to be derived from the words Mala and aali which are there are in many languages in south india and foreign languages like Sinhala. Its not duly asserted where these words come from any particular language. The editor User:Vivin could not varify with any reference in which it says the words came from Tamil Language. We have removed his claims. But he revrting our edits.

The second Issue

The artilce is flooded with numeral castes and races like ezhava, Nair etc. This has been cleaned by removing some unwanted content.(we should remember that all these castes like ezhava, Nair etc have article in Wiki itself). However User:Vivin is trying to add a lot of content from respective articles and it has become very tedious to maintain the article Malayalee. We have revrted his edits as Malayalee is not the article that you can list out all the customs and tradition of all Malayalee communities. You have separate articles where you can add details. However User:Vivin is not agreeing to that and continuously reverting the changes. please look into Malayalee article. Daya Anjali (talk / contribs) 13:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I have fully protected the page due to edit warring. Nishkid64 (talk) 15:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Edits by Mrtobacco

Resolved

 – directed towards WP:COIN east.718 at 22:24, 10/9/2007

Moved from WP:AIV Nishkid64 (talk) 15:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Mrtobacco (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)Hello, I would like to call to the Wiki community's attention, a user who has been using Wikipedia to stealth market his companies smoking products. The user MrTobacco has a history full of controversial edits and has clashed with several wikipedians who have called him out on his spamming. Each time he is accused, he uses a circular logic, calling his accusers the real stealth marketers. It is my strong belief that he is directly employeed by HBI, or gains some payment for his service here on wikipedia, and other online communities which he advertises. I have found him posting on the cannabisculture forums, with the same rhetoric, promoting HBI brand papers, and telling the users about the evil Bambu Rolling paper company (a competitor of HBI): [72] [73]

I do not work for Bambu or any tobacco company. I work freelance doing graphic design for a scale company which is in competition with HBI, I will admit. But we do not compete with them on tobacco products. I signed up for wikipedia firstly to remove the link on the Weighing Scales entry, which linked to digitalscale.com - a shill marketing site made by MyWeigh Scales (A division of HBI). The site is a fake review site, and used to create a false enthusiasm for their products. I removed it as advertising spam. After I discovered who added the link, I checked their history, which is when I discovered all the edits this HBI shill has been making over the years. My intentions have only been to stop MrTobacco from continuing his unethical marketing practices.

Once I began challenging MrTobacco, he made several sock-puppets such as "stredler" (Steve Redler - owner of digitalscale.com) which he used to harass me with on my talk page. I also believe that the user "joshmann" is another sock-puppet of his. He claims that this one is the real owner of HBI, and engages in fake arguments with him, which he has done to cause confusion, and make it seem like he (mrtobacco) is also against HBI advertising on wiki.

He now makes it an almost daily effort to bully people who remove his advertisements or slander. He constantly reports users for vandalism, even though they are merely removing his slander. He adds warning tags, improperly, to every users page who tried to remove his advertising. He is always trying to lock pages down which contain slander of competitors, or praise of HBI. He has been warned about advertising, but each time he claims that he is a retired ex-tobacco industry person who occasionally contributes to smoking publications. Below are a list of edits, starting with the initial one I came to remove as advertising.

Here he adds links to HBI International's electronic scale websites MyWeigh, JScale, and digitalscale.com (a fake review site). This is the edit that I signed up to remove: [74]

Here he creates a page for his employer HBI International: [75]

He added the Juicy Jay's (another HBI product) image without listing the source, because that would reveal that he obtained it through HBI International, his employer. Another wikipedian called him out on this in the discussion, and he pulled the same argument on them, saying that THEY must be working for some competitors company, and just trying to make HBI look bad. Later he claims that he emailed the webmaster at HBI and asked permission.: [76]

He created the RAW rolling papers page (another HBI product): [77] [78]

Here he writes that RAW Rolling papers are superior, and actually the healthiest papers to use. His reference link leads to a "health consultant's" report on bleached paper, but mentions no research data, nor does it mention anything about RAW rolling papers: [79]

Adding references to the HBI rolling paper Elements, on the Element page: [80]

Here the Elements Rolling Papers page is flagged for spam by another Wikipedian. Of course MrTobacco tries to fight this: [81]

Supposedly, smoking is good for you, according to MrTobacco. I just thought this one was funny: [82]

---

Slandering Competition-----

Here he begins to add negative information about his competitor Bambu Rolling Papers: [83]

-Here he is accusing Lostsociety of working for Bambu - he has been obsessed with this user since. He has even accused me of working for tobacco companies, whenever I try to call him out on his stealth marketing activities. [84]

Here is more fighing between MrTobacco (HBI International) and Lostsociety (maybe Bambu), obviously they don't have the best intentions here: [85]

Here he adds more slander against his competitor Bambu Rolling Papers, adding that their rolling papers contain carcinogenic materials. He now makes it a daily effort to make sure this info is kept on the Bambu Page. Anytime someone removes it, he threatens them with Wiki Warnings, saying that they will be banned if they make any edits to Wikipedia.: [86] [87]

[88] It is revealed that the Spanish article which MrTobacco links to refers to the Smoking brand rolling papers, and not Bambu. This of course doesn't matter to MrTobacco, because its not about informing people of products which may contain carcinogens, its about making Bambu look bad. Onyx86 15:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

To begin, I tagged HBI International for speedy deletion under CSD11-spam. I've also left MrTobacco a {{uw-coi}} message to advise him about our conflict of interest concerns. Hopefully he will get the message and won't cause further problems. - Jehochman ^Talk 16:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

---> The conflict of interest noticeboard is that way. east.718 at 16:31, 10/9/2007

And keep it brief and to the point, please. Noticeboards aren't the place for novellas. Raymond Arritt 16:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

New York Review of Books = gossip?

At Richard Roberts (evangelist) a user keeps reverting material added claiming that a book written by a person involved sourced with a citation from the New York Review of Books is "gossip" and "violates BLP". Can someone have a look? This person has repeatedly reverted my additions. C56C 15:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[89] seems to be the addition in question. While it may be referenced, C56C, I don't see how the content would greater aid the reader's understanding of Richard Roberts' life or his work. It may not be a BLP issue, as it's referenced, but it's definitely gossipy and non-neutral. Wikipedia:Undue weight may be of interest. Neil ム 17:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I agreem with Neil A, if this is encyclopedic it belongs in Oral's biography unless some effect on Richard can be shown - he did continue in the ministry (but no showing that Oral's alleged comments were the reason) and did conclude their divorce, so the relevance is minor in comparison to the overall biography. If a sourced comment that Richard stayed in the ministry because dad said what he allegedly said, then it becomes relevant because Richard's ministry is an important part of his bio and reasons for staying in it are relevant. Carlossuarez46 17:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Kwork

A source on the Alice Bailey page is under hot discussion as to whether or not it is reliable or represents a fringe element (see this).

I inserted a template on the source and User:Kwork has it three times this morning. Here are the diffs:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alice_Bailey&diff=prev&oldid=163346135
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alice_Bailey&diff=prev&oldid=163358204
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alice_Bailey&curid=425823&diff=163359948&oldid=163358811

Because Kwork has violated the 3RR rule, continually pushes a negative POV (here he states his goal for the page), and refuses to build consensus on the talk page and just unilaterally reverts, I ask that he be temporarily blocked from editing. His posts have been respected but he does not do the same for others. Renee 17:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

They were not reverts. The section of the article under dispute has a tag at the top of the section, so her source template is redundant; which an editor with her experience should have understood. However I have now explained that to her on the article's talk page. Renee has been very hostile to my editing, and is looking too hard to to find a way to get rid of me. She has three reverts within just a few hours, but I have no wish to see her blocked, and will not give the diffs. Kwork 17:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

correction -- I have one edit and two undos today. Just now he has added back in a quotation that several other editors have been working on and agreed there should not be a full quotation, see this and this and this discussion. Again, there is a complete lack of respect toward other editors. Renee 17:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I have also explained this on the article's talk page [90], as Renee already knows. If you guys do decide to block my editing, please make it permanent, not temporary; and from all Wikipedia, not just one article. It would be a great relief, after months of getting hassled by a group fanatical editors (including Renee) using wiki-lawering to block criticism of Alice Bailey who is their guru. Renee is correct about one thing, I have no respect for her....although I do try to remain civil. If you are looking for extra reasons to give me the boot, you might find something helpful here [91] Kwork 17:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment from third party. This is a routine content dispute, and Kwork (talk · contribs) is not any more disruptive than Reneeholle (talk · contribs). Also, there is no 3RR violation yet today, if there is one, Renee is just as close to crossing the line as Kwork. Also, there have been no 3RR warnings posted yet.

In addition to those two editors, there are two more experienced editors working on the article, and an administrator or two have checked in now and then. I do not believe this needs administrative action at this time, unless it escalates further.

Renee, who filed this report, should know that if she tries to use this noticeboard to get administrator intervention against her opponent in a content dispute, that her questionable behavior will be reviewed as well, and she might not get what she wants.

The RFC/U Kwork linked to above is another example, similar to this AN/I report, of trying to stop him from introducing valid information into the article. The RFC/U is still open (and I believe it should be closed as "no action needed"), but other than than the people who filed it, none of the outside views endorse the report, they all indicate that there is no significant problem with Kwork in particular.

I consider that both this AN/I report, and the RFC/U are a distraction and a waste of effort, in an attempt to stop an editor with valid concerns from including NPOV info in an article.

For disclosure: I do believe that Kwork has a good point about some of his ideas and that some of that information does belong in the article. But I am not in one "camp" or the other. I am a policy-based editor, and it bothers me seeing administrator procedures like this one being used to try and stop an editor from contributing.

I recommend this incident be closed. I recommend that both Renee and Kwork read WP:CONSENSUS, WP:BRD and WP:3RR. I think we can stop the situation from erupting into a full-on edit war using discussion on the talk page. If not and help is needed, we can post a new report. --Parsifal _Hello 18:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Parsifal is hardly an outside third party. She has repeated sided with the anti-Alice Bailey faction, has supported one-sided entry of templates and edits (yet ignores the other side's pleas for help), and she is incorrect about the disruption. She can be helpful on occasion but tends to support uncivil behavior by users like Kwork. (I can provide diffs if need be.)

Please, please examine the talk pages and the edits and you will see a long pattern of disruption by Kwork with a stated purpose to promote Alice Bailey in a negative view. He himself sites the RFC/User on him above so this problem is not isolated.

Finally, Kwork (again) is extremely uncivil toward me (see his post above, where he says, Renee is correct about one thing, I have no respect for her). He repeatedly says things like this on the talk page and has posted similar things on my user page. (and, he does this towards others who don't agree with him like Sethie, James, Sparklecplenty, Eaglizard).

Please grant Kwork's wish and ban him. Renee 19:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Clarification. I did not say I was an "outside party", I said "third party", which I am. Regarding the other editors Renee mentioned, both Jamesd1 (talk · contribs) and Sparklecplenty (talk · contribs) are SPA accounts, possibly COI in that they are devoted followers of their guru. There is evidence about those issues, but it's not necessary to go into it now, because those two editors have left the project, having become frustrated at not being able to WP:OWN the article.

I don't accept Renee's label for me of "Anti-Bailey" in any way. I want an NPOV article that includes both the light and dark aspects of this controversial author and teacher. The way I see it, Bailey wrote a lot of stuff. Some of it was inspiring and innocuous, but some of it was clearly anti-semitic and racist. That's where the intensity of the dispute is coming from. I have no desire to make a non-NPOV article that paints Bailey with a broad negative brush. But, I do feel the controversial aspects should not be buried or removed, which appears to be what Renee wants.

Aside from all of that, I still believe this is just a content dispute and there is no one user causing problems that should be blocked or banned. I don't believe this belongs on this noticeboard. If the disputes continue, then dispute resolution procedures should be used. --Parsifal _Hello 19:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment from another third party. User:Parsifal's characterization of User:Kwork as being "not any more" disruptive than User:Reneeholle is rather extraordinary. I believe Renee has been among the most polite and moderate editors on the article (far more so than I myself have been). Perhaps I am (as Kwork continually claims) biased, but I would challenge Parsifal to provide even a single diff to change my mind on this.

On the other hand, I must agree that, absent an actual violation of 3RR, no administrative intervention is necessary, and this is largely a content dispute (at this point). I also recommend this incident be closed. (Parenthetically, I would note that this page should probably be expecting to see us again very soon, based on current trends.) Eaglizard 20:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Eaglizard and Renee have disrupted progress editing the Alice Bailey article for months with wiki-lawering. Perhaps an RfC, to review the whole miserable situation for which they are responsible, would be helpful in clarifying that. Or, if they would prefer to go to mediation, that is certainly okay with me. Kwork 22:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree Kwork, it would be helpful. However, I've been trying to wait until such odious procedure becomes truly necessary. In any case, this is not the page for this discussion, we have several of those already. I encourage you (and Renee) to file any sort of community request you think is useful, in the proper place and format. Eaglizard 22:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Right, Eaglizard. Why would you want to use an "odious procedure" when you still have hope of getting rid if me by a simple, trouble free, procedure here? Kwork 00:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Removing pop trivia

Last night I removed large swaths of unsourced trivia from approximately 120 different articles. Most of them were located in a "in popular culture" section. Some messages were left on my talk page, most of them positive to the point of personally thanking me. [92] Today I'm being threatened with a block for vandalism for the same. If I felt I was being bold here, I might cite WP:BOLD for my actions. I'm not ignoring any rules, and I don't feel it's a bold measure to remove unsourced pop culture trivia which does nothing but shit on an article. Please review Burntsauce (talk · contribs) and you tell me if these sections belong. Burntsauce 17:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:TRIVIA says "This guideline does not suggest removing trivia sections, or moving them to the talk page" and WP:BOLD says "It is important not to be insulted if your changes are reverted or edited further". It's just your opinion, not backed up by current policy, that pop culture mentions are "shit on an article", blanking them en masse is disruptive anti-content behavior. --W.marsh 17:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

As much as I despise those "in popular culture" and trivia sections, it's not the best idea to delete them rapid-fire without prior discussion. Raymond Arritt 17:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Verifiability is all I need. That trivia guideline (WP:TRIVIA) page changes with the wind. Burntsauce 17:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:V requires the challenge to be in good faith... you've made it clear you object to the section headers more than the accuracy of the hundreds of claims you've removed. WP:V doesn't justify removing anything that doesn't have an inline citation, it only justifies removals of content that, in good faith, you do not believe are accurate. --W.marsh 17:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I completely disagree. Application of WP:V has NOTHING to do with what a particular editos happens to feel is accurate. WP:V exists to give a standard for inclusion that is not tied to the private opinions of Wikipedia editors. An editor's subjective judgment of truth has no importance in deciding whether unsourced material should be kept or deleted. Dybryd 01:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I agree with your intent -- I also hate that crap -- but being headstrong about it now will just make for unnecessary drama, so I suggest you stop and talk instead. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Jpgordon. Inital rapid-fire removal per "popculturectomy" wasn't a good way to go about this. Is this stuff unverifiable and trivial? Perhaps (most of the stuff I saw was, but I didn't review every article). Still, actually taking some time to explain the removal rationale on the talkpage would have been a good idea.--Isotope23 ^talk 17:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I added the complaint, below, before I saw this. The attitude expressed above is clearly part of the problem. "nothing but shit on the article" is a combative way to describe other people's work, as is the brush-off about verifiability. It's never good to mindlessly delete entire sections of an article, much less from 300 articles all at the same time. As I explain below, I have reviewed the deletions and many of them deleted good and important content. Trivia is a controversial subject here. We don't deal with controversial subjects by stiff-arming everyone and contentiously deleting their edits. That there are valid articles with unsourced statements isn't even controversial - we improve them and don't mass delete. It's one thing to edit war on a single page. This is edit warring on 300 pages simultaneously. Utterly uncalled for, and if the user keeps doing it and says he/she won't stop, definitely should be blocked. Wikidemo 17:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemo, please STOP mischaracterizing my actions. They were completely in good faith. Burntsauce 17:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Burntsauce indiscriminately deleted 300+ "pop culture" related sections in a 90-minute span. I've reviewed about 30 of these. Some are useless trivia; others are simply useful information in an inappropriate list format, or legitimate pop culture sections.

After being pointedly warned, and having all of his edits reversed (also see last few subjects on Wikipedia talk:Trivia sections), he (or she) re-did all of the deletions. I warned him again, and he responded with an uncivil "get your head checked, yo". His edits have now been reverted a second time. Please block before he deletes them yet again. This is horribly disruptive and upsetting to a lot of people. Wikidemo 17:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I've asked him to stop for the time being. Honestly, I don't think the undo (don't remember who did it off the top of my head) under the auspices of reverting vandalism was necessarily valid or well thought out either. At this point there are a lot of shenanigans from multiple editors in regards to this situation that need to be sorted out.--Isotope23 ^talk 17:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

They should all be restored without debate; the deletions were improper and WP:POINT. If people on the individual pages want to keep, delete, or integrate pop culture sections on those pages, they can do that page by page as they see fit. Wikidemo 17:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Bold, revert, discuss... the reverts were somewhat okay. But calling them "vandalism" while doing it was just as needlessly inflammatory as burntsauce's actions in the first place. --W.marsh 17:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I want to make it clear yet again that I don't necessarily consider Burntsauce's edits to be vandalism. I used the TW vandalism rollback function because it was the easiest way to roll back that many edits -- it only takes a single click. Burntsauce refused to participate in the discussions, where his edits were called disruptive by consensus, and instead performed his edits repeatedly across all the articles. He needs to participate in the discussions on his talk page and/or at WT:TRIVIA.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 17:25, 10/9/2007

Even if it was for technical reasons, you were still seen making the claim of vandalism... if the tool makes claims you don't mean, you should modify it or use some other technique. --W.marsh 17:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

That is patently false! I just logged on today. I am discussing my changes, as requested. To reiterate, when I made these edits yesterday I was being THANKED for them. Today we have this strange backlash of people who want to reinstate the trivia, despite the lack of sources and actual trivial nature of the material. Burntsauce 17:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Burntsauce, despite any characterization, if there is a discussion going on in which a consensus was reached that your edits were disruptive, you need to participate in that discussion before continuing to make those same edits. Please see WT:TRIVIA.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 17:28, 10/9/2007

I've commented on this and on WP:TRIVIA above. See that instead. Burntsauce 17:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. The consensus is that your edits were disruptive. If you feel that all pop culture sections need to be removed, WT:TRIVIA is the place to discuss that. Please do that first before performing such a categorical removal again. Thanks.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 17:32, 10/9/2007

I for one applaud Burntsauce's edits, unreferenced and useless trivia lists are a plague. When he was asked to stop and discuss, he probably should have sooner. Mindlessly reverting the edits with autotools, incorrect accusations of WP:POINT and threatening blocks was the notably poor conduct here. Neil ム 17:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I second that emotion, in spades (to mix metaphors). What's needed here goes far beyond "boldness" into the realm of insurrection, and I applaud the editor who crisped their crème. This flotsam and jetsam is making Wikipedia into even more of a gigantic bad joke than it already is. +ILike2BeAnonymous 18:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

If the matter is sources, then instead of removing, please look for and add sources. If it's a matter of content, then as long as some editors are willing to work on the material and the material is neither a copyvio or a hoax, we should keep it and improve it per the project's goal of making it so that "every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge." Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:22, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

TW by default has three rollback options for articles, two labeled "vandalism" and "good faith", and one without judgement. It would be hard not to notice this. If Equazcion has disabled these options, I would suggest they be restored so that rollbacks of edits performed in good faith are not all labeled "vandalism". / edg ☺ ★ 01:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Ten comments up:"I want to make it clear yet again that I don't necessarily consider Burntsauce's edits to be vandalism. I used the TW vandalism rollback function because it was the easiest way to roll back that many edits -- it only takes a single click. Burntsauce refused to participate in the discussions, where his edits were called disruptive by consensus, and instead performed his edits repeatedly across all the articles. He needs to participate in the discussions on his talk page and/or at WT:TRIVIA.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 17:25, 10/9/2007

".

Block

Could someone please block him temporarily?

Equazcion • argue/improves • 17:32, 10/9/2007

For what? Editing? Neil ム 17:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The block was requested before I saw that he stopped.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 17:40, 10/9/2007

Agreed - the user has agreed to stop and abide by a proper resolution. Wikidemo 18:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Trivial removals - going forward

If you read the heated exchange above, you will learn that I removed a large swath of unsourced pop culture and trivia sections from a number of articles. So where do we go from here? Is it right to "blind revert" back to the unsourced version?

Discussion is good and I understand that, but it can also be used as a method to stonewall the progress and improvement to an article. Let me get to the heart of my question:

1. Should articles that had no sources and the trivial section removed, remain with the trivia removed, and then discuss?
2. Or should those articles be reverted back to the UNSOURCED VERSION, and then discuss?

I've already done all the hard work yesterday. I'm going to take a Wikibreak for the remainder of the day, but would like to know what the consensus is on the articles I've made changes to. Burntsauce 17:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Until there's a consensus to change WP:TRIVIA to allow blanking of anything labelled "trivia/pop culture", I don't think running around blanking it on sight is a good idea at all. It's just flying in the face of lack of consensus. --W.marsh 17:37, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I hesitate to contribute to a flame war on someone's talk page, so did not add to the comments there. I have mixed feelings about wholesale trivia sections and laundry lists generally, but here a trivia section tag would have been more appropriate than wholesale blanking of articles. In the case of the articles on my watchlist that were hit, Burntsauce removed material that was actually relevant and interesting within the context of the article, and even if that is debatable, we were talking about very short lists containing at most 3-4 items, not things like massive lists of TV episodes or something. I consider Burntsauce's behavior to be Troll-like and for that reason, it needs to end. Montanabw^(talk) 17:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Why have unsourced sections just sit? I've tagged articles for a while (with trivia and fiction cruft tags, and so on): and seen no improvement. If no one cares to improve the sections, they just sit? People are entertained by trivia sections, yet they refuse to source them or even clean them up much. I think that's a bit of a problem. Wikipedia is volunteer work, so we can't force people to work. However, if the problem isn't solved... why not remove the section? Keeping the mess isn't the solution here. Mass blanking isn't the solution either, as people will complain of course. Perhaps, move the sections to the talk pages to be cleaned up? The content will still be visible, and the article wont suffer in my view. RobJ1981 17:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The guideline specifically discourages dealing with these sections by categorically removing them, and the consensus at WT:TRIVIA is that Burntsauce's removals were not appropriate, and supportive of the rollback. This is not about whether or not the sections belong, but the manner in which they were handled. Removing all sections of a specific title at a rate of 2 per minute with no more explanation than "popcultureectomy" is not constructive or respective of other editors who might disagree with you on this very controversial subject. PS If we're talking about what to generally do with pop culture sections this isn't a discussion for ANI anymore, but for WT:TRIVIA.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 17:40, 10/9/2007

At this point, it is probably most correct to leave the articles in whatever wrong version they are currently in. Burntsauce (talk · contribs) should be cautioned against wholesale removal of text with a summary of "popcultureectomy"; use more descriptive summaries and talkpages to explain removals of text, especially if it is a large section. To Equazcion I would simply say that if the tool you used to revert doesn't support some kind of customized summary message beyond "reverting vandalism", then you shouldn't use it in this sort of situation. If it does, you should utilize that functionality (I don't use twinkle, etc, so I have no idea what the capabilities are). I'd remind everyone involved to remember to assume good faith, particularly when it is clear everyone is trying to do what they think is best, even if your idea of what "best" is differs so greatly. I don't think at this point the situation is going to benefit from admin action. If I could offer advice though, I would say that for pop-culture/trivia sections it is probably best to tag them with WP:TRIV and a message on the talkpage that the section is going to be integrated/deleted in 1 week and invite any interested parties to boldly integrate verifiable information into the article. When that week is up, integrate anything that can be verified and is notable into the article narrative. Delete the rest.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed - While in some cases he was perhaps a bit too bold, I generally support these deletions. They were not vandalism, and should not be called such, even by auto-summaries. I commented supportively on Burntsauce (talk · contribs)'s page because I saw he had deleted sections that had been tagged for months, yet despite the tag had continued to grow endlessly crufty. True, he could have been better about WP:CIVIL in some of his summaries and responses, but he has been warned for that and seems amenable to proceeding in a civil manner. On the articles I work on I will be going back and re-integrating any relevant bits that were cut, but in sourced prose. The cruft is still there in the previous versions. It's easy enough to copy and edit it if some of the deleted facts truly merit inclusion. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 19:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay folks, if you are going to revert removal of unsourced data without finding a source first, fine, IAR and all that, but just remember that WP:V allows for the removal of such information. Burnt did not break any rules, nor is it evident he acted in bad faith. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 18:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not IAR. We have maintenance tags for a reason. WP:TRIVIA also specifically discourages wholesale removal of these sections as a remedy.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 18:22, 10/9/2007

Burntsauce broke plenty of rules. All of these deletions ought to be restored. The people who are editing these articles can deal with them in due course, not people who swoop in and try to reshape Wikipedia to suit their liking. It's not restoring unsourced material without finding a source, it's a roll back of improper deletions. Wikidemo 18:30, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll reiterate what I said above, I don't see any "rulebreaking" here by either of the editors who were primarily involved in the core content issue. Both of them seem to be exercising what they believe to be a correct implementation of guidelines and policy. The problem is how they both went about it. That said however, I don't see any good reason to stir the pot more by undoing either the deletions or the restores that stand as neither were at the core improper. I'll also add that waiting around for the people who primarily edit these articles to deal with them isn't probably the best tactic... they are the ones who let them get into this sorry state in the first place.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Just as an aside: Those of us who have expressed our distaste for cruft and trivia should drop by WP:TRIVIA and let it be known that the policy favoring retention of said cruft is not so "generally accepted" as stated there. Raymond Arritt 18:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've just clicked on a dozen of those articles at random, and I've yet to see a piece of information in the deleted sections that improved the article. Indeed, some of them are so ridiculously trivial and/or unsourced that if I'd stumbled over them myself I'd have deleted them on the spot as well. ELIMINATORJR 18:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I've looked at 30 and seen plenty of useful material that got deleted. Wikidemo 20:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

←Just another aside, User:Neil is now performing rollbacks to remove all the sections again. This is truly insane. I can't believe an ADMIN is doing this.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 19:00, 10/9/2007

• No - he's only removing unsourced material - see this diff [93] for example. ELIMINATORJR 19:05, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Was this before or after' blocking me for restoring the material he wanted to delete? Wikidemo 20:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd strongly suggest all revert warring on these articles be dropped now. This is going past WP:POINT into territory that I think is easily blockable.--Isotope23 ^talk 19:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm hereby removing myself from this. I am in shock that in such a controversial issue that's still under heated debate, an admin would do something to inflame it further. Settle this on your own. I just lost a lot of respect for the title of admin. I'm speechless.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 19:09, 10/9/2007

You lost respect for an admin because he was enforcing Wikipedia policy? Er, OK. We could've done without the edit-warring, but Neil certainly has policy behind him here. ELIMINATORJR 19:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:TRIVIA "This guideline does not suggest removing trivia sections" --W.marsh 19:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:V suggests removing unsourced trivia, though - Neil was leaving in anything sourced. ELIMINATORJR 19:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:V does not mention the word "trivia". Contrary to popular belief, WP:V is not carte blanche to remove any sentence without an inline citation after it... it speaks of challenging and removing claims that are actually in question, not just purging stuff you don't like. --W.marsh 19:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's a WP:IDONTLIKEIT issue; the question should always be "does this edit improve the article?". As Will points out below, a lot of the information removed is either original research, or just plain incorrect. ELIMINATORJR 19:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Then that can be removed as challenged, but unverifiable, information. The problem is, while some of that kind of stuff has been caught in the crossfire, the actual reason the purges happened was the stated desire to remove all sections labeled as trivia and pop culture, which is not backed up by policy, as you mistakingly claimed. --W.marsh 19:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) Ah, hang on; I didn't say it should be removed because it was trivia, in that I agree that the idea behind the original edits was probably erroneous. I do believe, though, that the rise of trivia sections is a problem; for example, someone tried to add one to The Holocaust the other day, which is in really bad taste. ELIMINATORJR 19:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

You said "WP:V suggests removing unsourced trivia" which is an incorrect statement. WP:V suggests removing challenged, unsourced statements... but doesn't deal with unchallenged trivia. --W.marsh 19:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes - that was badly phrased; I meant it as you say, just that in this case it was referring to trivia. ELIMINATORJR 19:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

In this particular instance, it behooves an admin, who is supposed to remain cool-headed and objective in the face of conflict, to refrain from making edits that are currently the subject of heated debate. Are these edits such an emergency that they couldn't wait until after all this discussion settled down a bit?

Equazcion • argue/improves • 19:19, 10/9/2007

As far as the above goes, WP:V says any unsourced content can be removed and restoration must be sourced (WP:BURDEN) - I haven't just purged the trivia (see [94] or [95] as examples). Neil ム 19:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

While I've been ec'd several times and my point already made, I would like to say there is no rulebreaking. In fact, I applaud Burntsauce for removal of trivia. Put simply, most IPC/CR/TRIVIA sections have no sources and are mostly WP:OR (which, like its sister WP:V) is non-negotionable. If not OR/!V, trivia, ninteynine times out of a hundred violates "Wikipedia is not a list of indiscriminate information" Out of ten random articles I picked up from Burntsauce's contribs:

• Superconductivity - it's a start. Still a bit of OR over the second paRagraph.
• GEICO Cavemen - Unsourced. But not much OR.
• Enoch Powell - Paragraph 2 is fine. The rest is either unsourced, or just media making fun of the man. Highly POV against him.
• Gravy - popular food in popular culture? Wow, that's new.
• Strained yoghurt - one item, wrong article. Not really IPC then.
• Naqada - redundant to disambiguation.
• Ugliness - most points refers to use of the word (even more ludicrous than what Stephen King in popular culture was redirected to), and the only thing I think should be there would be The Ugly Duckling.
• Kettle Foods - being parodied is no measure of popularity.
• Amphetamine psychosis - IPC on a medical disorder page is just wrong. Also the Requiem for a Dream point is classic OR.
• Animal cracker - Shirley Temple's song is fine and should be integrated. The rest is just based on passing mention.

Burntsauce, I once again applaud you and urge you to flush Wikipedia of this nonsense. Consensus cannot override key policy. Will ^(talk) 19:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree there was no rulebreaking re - content. WP:V trumps trivia. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 19:55, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

No, that's not how it works. You can argue almost any point by claiming policy is on your side. If your position requires arguing that an established guideline on the point is wrong, and most people disagree with it, you shouldn't be deleting hundreds of article sessions, engaging in edit wards, or blocking users, over the issue. Aggressive editing based on idiosyncratic interpretation of policy simply makes one a loose cannon. Wikidemo 20:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Argument ad Jimbo, but unverified information "should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced". Will ^(talk) 21:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

What I would do with excessive popular culture sections is either do the work needed to improve the article, or tag it. If it is really excessive, then I sometimes dump the material on the talk page and leave a note there requesting clean-up. That way the material is available for review on the talk page and there is no need to go digging around in the page history to find it if someone wants to work on sourcing and integrating the material into the article in a more resonable form. Note that only some articles are amenable to this. Some of the material needs to be marked on the talk page as unsuitable for the article. Sometimes a mention in another article is acceptable. One way of viewing such pop culture sections is that they are The Long Tail of the "what links here" web of connectivity. Take an article on a broad topic and browse the "what links here" list. Some of stuff linking to the article will be mentioned in the article (a backlink), some won't be. Sometimes just a one-way link is enough, as articles can't mention every last detail about a broad topic. As long as reader have other links and categories to allow them to head in the right direction, that should be enough. It's not really a case of verifiability, more a case of due balance. Minor stuff unbalances articles. Add more material and it might be OK to re-add the material as a footnote or small section. The really embarassing thing about pop culture sections is that it shows that Wikipedia is a good aggregator of information, but it isn't as good an editor of that information to decide what is relevant and what isn't. That is more to do with the standards and taste of editors, and can't (and shouldn't and needn't) be fixed while "anyone can edit". Sorry, got a bit distracted there. The key point is to consider putting material on the talk page, rather than just removing outright. Carcharoth 12:10, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Admin incivility

The user concerned has been notified of this discussion. —Random832 18:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't much like an admin calling me an idiot [96] and then erasing comments challenging that characterization [97]. This was a stupid (and minor) content dispute in an article about the inherently funny organ called the uvula. It's not worth a fight, there was no chance of my violating the 3-revert-rule on it, and I've stopped watching the page now, especially as he saw fit to protect it, which seems like an overreaction, but I'm not so concerned about that as I am about what I consider to be un-admin-like behavior. It's as though User:Tecmobowl had been reincarnated as an admin. A scary thought. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:52, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I had nothing to do with these incidents but I've just waded through this. The issue in question was Baseball Bugs restoring, and User:Alkivar (the admin) restoring and then protecting, the deletion of a pop culture section from one particular article, that was part of a now-reverted frenzy by User:Burntsauce (an unrelated editor) of indiscriminately deleting 300+ pop culture references in about 90 minutes. Baseball Bugs then complaints on Alkivar's user page - four times - but instead of responding or doing anything Alkivar simply deletes Basebal Bugs' comments from his talk page. This admin has a pattern of making non-consensus changes then indefinitely protecting his version of the article, an abuse of privilege. See his/her contribution history. Blanking requests and complaints is also wrong for an admin. Admins have a special duty to respond on their user page to people questioning their actions. Simply blanking complaints is un-admin behavior. I suggest someone counsel this admin formally or send him/her back to admin school. Wikidemo 16:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The protection is inappropriate and I will remove it. I despise these trivia sections with a passion and whole-heartedly agree with removing them anywhere and everywhere they are found, but the protection is obviously inappropriate. --B 16:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

To the talkpage removals, please see Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines. You are, in fact, not required in any way to respond to every message you receive. Also, according to that policy, removal of messages is allowed. To the trivia stuff, please see WP:TRIVIA. I agree, that calling people idiots, isn't very civil. SQL^{(Query Me!)} 16:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

One other word - as inappropriate as protecting the article may have been, it is equally inappropriate to accuse Alkivar - a dedicated admin who acts in good faith - of being a sock puppet. --B 16:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I do NOT accuse him of being a sockpuppet, nor do I even think he is one. I simply say that his uncivil behavior reminds me of Tecmobowl. I expect a higher standard of behavior from an admin than from an editor, especially an editor like Tecmobowl. And I expect a response to a fair question. His name-calling and stonewalling, refusal to respond, is what specifically reminded me of Tecmobowl. Admins should be better, much better, than Tecmobowl. Dropping to that level is disgraceful, especially on the part of an admin. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:41, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, your comparison has then certainly derailed your initial complaint because plenty of folks read that as a passive aggressive accusation of sock puppetry. So whatever the merits of your concern, they've been essentially erased by the enmity your choice of words caused. Something to consider for next time. I offer no opinion on the merits of this case, this is a drive by response to the Tecmobowl bit, which i think was an unfortunate decision on your part in the initial post. It certainly does nothing to advance the conversation, and as you see here, has pulled attention away from your concern and dropped your 'cred in this conversation. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I didn't read Baseball Bugs' post as accusing Alkivar of sockpuppetry, whatsoever. Sometimes a comparison is just a comparison. Newyorkbrad 16:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Precisely. I said "it was as if". That's a comparison, based on the false assumption that people would know who Tecmobowl was and understand the comparison. Nowhere did I say I thought he was a sockpuppet, nor did I think that, nor do I think that now. It was simply an analogy to a bad (and since banned) user. And I'm seeing that a number of users have issues with this admin, so comparing his behavior to that of a bad user still seems fair. And his continual refusal to respond speaks for itself. Maybe a short-term block would wake him up. I got blocked once for calling someone an idiot, so I don't do that anymore. Admins are not exempt from the civility rules, either. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

update - this user appears to have indefinitely and without warning blocked User:Equazcion, who was at the time engaged in rolling back the contentious edits discussed above. This was after the notice here, and after an admin had undone his edit protection of the articles mentioned here. Blocking users is supposed to be a last resort, and indefinite blocks without warning are an extreme remedy. For an administrator to do that in order to stop a good faith editor with whom he is having a content dispute is a picturebook example of abuse of administrator privileges. Another admin subsequently unblocked the user, but some damage was done - the rollback stopped halfway through. So we have 300 contentious edits made by a third party, half of which are reverted, and now everyone is afraid to do anything for fear of getting blocked or ending up in an edit war. I strongly suggest that this admin be considered for de-sysopping, or at least warned that this is no way for an admin to act. Wikidemo 18:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

As the user who was blocked, I support this motion. An admin who is engaged in a content dispute with a user shouldn't be blocking that user -- especially indefinitely, by IP, and without warning, which I feel was particularly extreme.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 18:18, 10/9/2007

Sorry to interrupt but holy shit. Indefblocking an established user for doing some reverts?! What the hell? Almost speechless... —Wknight94 (talk) 18:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

So predictable. I say watch him do the same to my comment in a minute though, and lo and behold... —Random832 18:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Acting like that, I don't understand why this person is still allowed to be an administrator...

Equazcion • argue/improves • 18:38, 10/9/2007

i think this should all go under one heading - we "pseudo-edit-conflicted" as i moved it. —Random832 18:40, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

discussion after move from above

Improper use of page protection in a content dispute, improper use of blocking in a content dispute. Use of rollback on user comments on his talk page. I think we have enough for a desysop, anyone want to try either arbitration or CSN (I think that a "community desysoping" is well within the bounds of "community sanctions" - or he could be banned from "in popular culture" sections - that's a topic ban, right?) —Random832 18:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Without commenting one way or another as to the matter in question, I don't think it can be done at CSN. The sanctions there are executed by admins, and admins can't de-sysop other admins. You'll need to go through Arbcom. Raymond Arritt 18:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Besides, CSN is currently at MfD and may very well not exist in a few more days. Raymond is right, you need to open an ARBCOM case if you wish to pursue this.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that arbitration and community sanctions would be a little to harsh and I also believe that it would be a step too fast if we want to get this right. Perhaps a WP:RfC/U would be a better course of action before we head ourselves into arbitration. That way we would have an addition backing if any case is accepted. nat^tang 18:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not involved at all in this situation, nor do I want to be, but the admin in question has already been the subject of an RFC/U. Skinwalker 18:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreeing with Skinwalker. Arbitration seems to be the only venue left. east.718 at 19:12, 10/9/2007

While I will not comment on the need for arbitration, I will admit that arbcom is the proper venue for this if the need is felt. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 19:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I haven't had direct dealings with Alkivar (that I can remember) but I seem to see his name often - and not in a good way. Has there been any communication with him or does he simply delete all talk page messages? I see he barely participated in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Alkivar and also that two RFAs failed more than two years ago citing similar behavior. I don't know what other recourse there is if he isn't explaining anything. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps Alkivar would respond to a admin conduct RFC? --Iamunknown 19:32, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Just continue the one that was recently in progress. Pile on if you want. This situation doesn't look good to me. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:36, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The fact that there have been several RFCs tends to make me agree with (1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go'); without making any comment on the need for arbitration I think that is the appropriate venue if someone wishes to pursue this.--Isotope23 ^talk 19:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The current RfC is mostly about incivility. The circumstances—mass tagging of images and mass notifications on Alkivar's talk page—however, are noteworthy, and I think most editors would become incivil. This is more about inappropriate page protections, inappropriate blocking, and also about being uncommunicative ... all more "admin conduct"-type things than incivility. (I say that "uncommunicative"ness is an admin conduct-type thing because of recent RFARBs where admins were admonished to be communicative.) --Iamunknown 19:53, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I want to throw in my two cents. I would like to know why Alkivar has done some of the things he's done. Unfortunately (it seems like), he is unwilling to make any comments. I say go to Request for Comment. The only other time when I got involved with Alkivar was when he indef blocked another user and protected their e-mail, despite being a good-faith editor. The user is unblocked now. Although it shouldn't be in this section, Burntsauce should of informed the related WikiProject that he was planning to remove a load of trivia sections from 300 articles. If it was something "controversial" (this to a certain extent is) he should of informed related WikiProjects before going ahead and doing it. Davnel03 20:53, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

An arbitration request has been filed: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Alkivar. nat^tang 21:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Is this the only time that he has used the admin tools in a questionable manner? He didn't revert the undoing of his administrative actions so unless he repeats any of them, this may be premature. --B 00:03, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I have looked through his logs and found several other questionable actions. I am now convinced this is the correct course of action. --B 00:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

How it should have gone, and how to repair the damage

Quite apart from he questionable actions of individual admins --the arb com case having been requested, and on arb already agreeing to accept it, is now the necessary way to go there. )

I come to this late, having been caught napping -- quite literally. But I noticed it early last morning, because a few of the articles affected were on my watchlist. I left a personal message asking Burntsauce to pause, and telling him forthrightly that i intended to go through the list of articles, restoring those parts of those articles that I thought defensible, while moving content into more appropriate places if practical--and also saying that i would in some cases revert the changes if there were so many items involved that they needed more extensive consideration. I said I'd go slowly, & it would take at least a day.
I also said that I considered what he had done technically justified per WP:BOLD, as the first step,and that revert would be the 2nd, followed by the third of discussion. But I also said that doing it in this dramatic fashion was not a good idea. At this point Equazcion lost patience, and said he would restore them all immediately (I didnt see this in time , or I would have asked him not to do that). Technically, he may have been justified, per the second step of the Bold-Revert-Discuss process. I could conceivably have used my administrative tools--and, believe me, I was tempted. A gross violation of the need for consensus, even if technically permitted is destructive behavior in a wiki. I could have reverted all the changes, protected, and blocked Burntsauce for perhaps 24 hours to prevent further destructive editing. But I knew that i was so involved in the effort to retain these sections that this would not have looked well. I might have survived arbcom, but my credit would have been greatly damaged, and I would have had difficulty in editing this material further. But I've never used anything other than persuasion to further my views in any topic; in fact, I very rarely use protection and blocking at all, except the most obvious spammers and vandals. I rely, just as I did before become an admin, upon persuasion. (I then went back to sleep to rest up for the extensive editing I thought I would do, after placing a request for help on the trivia project page. Later, upon seeing this, I decided not to complicate matters further.

My own position on this material has been expressed repeatedly at any AfDs, but I summarize here:

• Trivia can in practice mean relatively trivial, or utterly trivial. But unfortunately it has been widely used outside WP to mean "collection of miscellaneous curious facts about a person or thing, some of which may actually be important but some are just amusing" and the use of our trivia sections copies this. We're stuck with the word, because the rest of the world uses it, and because of the intrinsic meaning it has a negative connotation to many sensible people, which is not always reflected in the material.
• "in popular culture," however, is a respected academic term for a way of studying literature and society, and is to some extent the currently popular specialty, both in writing and in courses for students. There are some old-fashioned people who think it a diversion from serious analysis, but they are a small minority. Some seem to have gotten involved with Wikipedia and are trying to restrict us to their preferred limitations.
• Sourcing for this material in obvious cases can come directly from the primary source, as it can for plots. When Superman is mentioned in a movie, Superman is being referred to. How important this may be needs judgement, as always, and it is right to base this judgement by sources from reviews or other discussions of the movie. But in some cases merely the fact that magicians appear in every computer game is relevant collection of obvious material to show their importance as figures in the medium.

My position of editing unsourced material is that sources should be looked for. It takes considerable time and work to properly source a long and complicated article--even if I fully knew all the places to go for sources, I would allow at least a days work for each long popular culture section,and , even so, would hope for assistance. Destruction is quicker. Removing unsourced material, like deletion, is a last resort. It is easy for find hundred of articles on almost any type subject and say--they have been here for a year, obviously they couldn't be sourced, let us remove them. And easy to do this for thousands of sections in articles on almost any subject. (I just found such sections in 8 of 10 random articles.) I do not use not use bots, but even without one, I could do any hundreds in a day--destruction that would require much longer to properly even reverse, and years of work to correct all the actual problems and remove the truly unsourcable. Any WP process if carried to extremes can be harmful. Most mass anythings done here have not been good ideas. Working faster than people can discuss is not in the longer run productive. Those who use wikilawering to justify these need to learn better--to use common sense and consideration. This is not a competitive sport.

What we should do now is return patiently to sourcing popular culture material. There aren't that many people with the skill and time to do so--and removing them from impatience is not the way to do anything at WP. I will believe those who delete them want to improve WP when the first try to source them. To his credit, Burntsauce has made made a number of such edits. He is not usually thoughtless. I had previously on his page offered to work with him on this material, and I remain willing. On a practical basis let a few good people continue to selective restore--on the basis of what appear worth the effort to sourcing. To his credit, Equazcion usually edits judiciously. And then let the editors more generally who know about the material be encouraged to source it. and let us develop clearer agreed guidelines--like consensus generally, they will be compromises. There is no room in a cooperative project for people who are too dogmatic to accommodate their colleagues. DGG (talk) 12:33, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Persuasion is best. Policies and guidelines are best used to back up arguments, not replace them. I wish all admins would act as you do, relying on persuasion and co-operative editing, and only use the blocking and protecting admin tools in cases of bad-faith disruptions. Your point about the study of popular culture being an established (if sometimes controversial) academic area is a good one. There are several peer-reviewed journals specialising in this area. Of course people should use these as sources, but unfortunately most are not open access and a difficult to obtain. We have an article on the Journal of Popular Culture. Other such journals are The Journal of American Popular Culture, The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. Those are not quite as established at the JPC (founded 1967), but it gives you an idea of what is out there. Of course, the articles in these journals are a world away from the collections of trivia being discussed here, and it takes effort to bring the two together, but no-one ever said writing an encyclopedia was easy. Deletion, now that is easy. Carcharoth 14:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Cryptic and edits to Template:Deletiontools

Resolved

I added parameters to this template to enable it to be optionally condensed if the whole thing isn't needed. User:Cryptic isn't too keen on the class changes I added afterwards (labelling it as "exceedingly ugly") and reverted the whole lot to a week-old version. Five minutes later we're on 3RR and apparently "the onus is on me" to explain why at least the paramaters should be kept (with the old markup, so it's identical for any currently linked articles) even though (a) I've already done so and (b) Cryptic hasn't advanced any more arguments than "it's difficult to use", while making two edits without summaries.

The argument appears to be that because this template has fairly heavy use in userspace, messing with it amounts to scribbling on people's pages and messing with their workflow. I don't buy this, because it's not labelled as a userspace template and there's no reason that people happy with the current version can't maintain their own (it being used for their own workflow, you'd imagine they'd want to customise it). I've already suggested (to no avail) that this version at least keeps the parameters for those who want them while leaving the look of the article the same, but I don't want to rv to this version for fear of being smacked with a 3RR block. Input? Chris Cunningham 17:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The immediate dispute seems to have been resolved for now. Meanwhile, I've drafted what I'd consider a more flexible version of Chris's parametrization scheme in my user space and have proposed it on Template talk:Deletiontools. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

User:QuarterDimeNickel‎

Obvious sockpuppet of Burgz33 (talk · contribs) is now threatening another user with a lawsuit for placing a sockpuppet tag on his user page.[98]. I've warned the user, however based on the evidence I've gathered, this account should be blocked as a sockpuppet of a blocked user. See User talk:QuarterDimeNickel for details. Note that this is not the first instance of this user creating a sockpuppet user account that closely resembles my own user name. See Quartertet (talk · contribs). Thanks --Quartet 17:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Persistant harassment by Winky Bill (talk · contribs)

This user was blocked 3 days ago for harassment and disruptive editing. He has continued to harass me, and placed false AfD listings on articles I have either created or contributed to. Not to mention the fact that this user is a sockpuppet of an indefinitely blocked user Jetwave Dave (talk · contribs). Please take action on this obvious attempt to circumvent an indefinite blocking. This last bit (the circumvention of an indefinite block part) was apparently ignored the last time I posted here. Parsecboy 19:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I was the admin who blocked him last time. Winky started a series of AFDs all of which were immediately reverted (and stopped when I asked him to explain[99]). Other than that, I cannot clearly see any harassment that Parsecboy is pointing at. Is there some background I'm missing? All I see are some articles created and some page moves. Parsecboy, maybe you should consider asking for a checkuser. If it is in fact Jetwave Dave, then he will (plus any other socks) be blocked immediately and indefinitely. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Winky also saw fit to remove this thread [100] rather than comment on it. Just a passing observation. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Enough for me. Blocked indefinitely. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

For the record, that first diff cited (linky) was the addition of Parsecboy's name as a "sexual assault" victim. Combined with all the rest of the disruption to Parsecboy's page and articles that he started, as well as the probable sockpuppetry = plenty for an indef block. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 22:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The first diff was the earlier (in retrospect, way too light) block. Apologies, but I couldn't find any Jetwave Dave history to compare. All I had was a series of "please block him indefinitely" requests. I don't even know what was wrong with all the articles created. Is there some place where the background on Jetwave Dave could be found? It would help if I see him again. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Diff: 00:45, October 9, 2007

Block: 08:08, October 6, 2007

Your block was over Winky's edits to Parsecboy's userpage. He just didn't stop and stepped it up a notch. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 22:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Qestion about article name change

I was working on an article Zaojing (which was a DKY) as part of a group of specifically Chinese terminology for a group of architecture articles I am writing. Now another person took the contents out of the article, put the contents in his article and essentially deleted the article I wrote. He did this with no discussion and against my will. Is there a correct way of handling this situation, as his article is not the same as the purpose of my original article which is to build a library of Chinese architectural terms? His article uses classical greco/roman terms (and not even familar ones). --Mattisse 20:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I have contacted him multiple times but he will not discuss. He just informs me after the fact. Is this right? --Mattisse 20:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Not really. There is an implicit requirement to discuss edits, if edits are challenged. See WP:CONSENSUS. If the user does not engage in discussions, that is disruptive behavior. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

User:PalaceGuard008's account

I'm surprised that User:Mattisse has brought what seemed to be a simple merger and redirect of a duplicated article to ANI. However, I will try to give a detailed account of this episode. If I don't manage to finish it in one go, please allow me some time to finish this.

The incident arises from two articles, Zaojing and Caisson (Asian architecture). User:Mattisse later re-created an older version of Zaojing as Zaojing (Chinese). As a bit of introductory background, the two terms both refer to a sunken ceiling structure found in Chinese and East Asian architecture. Zaojing is the Chinese term. Caisson is a common English translation, deriving from a term used in Western architectural literature to describe similar structures in classical architecture. As disclosed by the references cited at both Zaojing and Caisson (Asian architecture), caisson is the commonly used term in English, although some (precisely one source cited in both articles) uses the term zaojing. The following is my account of what happaned:

1. On 9 March 2007, the page Caisson (Asian architecture) was created: this is the original version (warning: contains a large, erroneously placed graphic) See here for a better version from 9 March 2007. This article was first linked from Forbidden City, and appears to have been created for that purpose. Since then, I have edited this article, as has User:Mattisse.
2. On 5 September 2007, some six months later, Mattisse created Zaojing: this is the original version. From the beginning, this was better referenced than Caisson (Asian architecture). Notice, however, that most of the references cited use the term "Caisson" in preference to "Zaojing"
3. On 5 October 2007, I noticed that the two articles dealt with identical subjects, and raised a merger-and-redirect proposal with User:Mattisse, who seemed to be the major contributor on Zaojing: this diff.
4. User:Mattisse replied on the same day. On 9 October 2007, I made several replies to Talk:Matisse on this subject: see this cumulative diff.
5. In the intervening time, User:Mattisse made a series of edits to Caisson (Asian architecture) (see here), with the goal of differentiating Caisson (Asian architecture) from Zaojing, but with the effect of rendering parts of the article non-sensical.
6. Also in the intervening time, User:Mattisse edited the article Zaojing (this diff) and the titles of the sources cited at Zaojing (this diff) to remove any reference to the word "Caisson". Rather ingeniously, Mattisse disguises the latter edit with the edit summary of "removing irrelevant link" - indeed he did so, but he also changed the described title of this source from its correct title "Caisson Ceiling" to "Sunken coffer ceiling", which is not the term used by the source. He also changed the described title of this source from its correct title "Caisson Ceiling (Zaojing)" to "Zaojing".
7. On 9 October 2007, I corrected the titles of these two sources at Zaojing, then moved the content and incorporated it into Caisson (Asian architecture) ([101]), before redirecting Zaojing to Caisson (Asian architecture): [102].
8. On 9 October 2007, I made a series of replies to Mattisse's comments at Talk:Caisson (Asian architecture): [103] (one of which accused me of knowing nothing about Chinese architecture). User:Mattisse replied in one instance [104] entitled "Western bias in Chinese architecture articles", to which I replied: [105].
9. On 10 October 2007, User:Mattisse rather cynically re-created an earlier version of Zaojing (i.e. before I edited it) as Zaojing (Chinese), redirecting Zaojing to that article: see original version here.
10. User:Mattisse brought the matter to ANI and gave notice accordingly on my talk page: User talk:PalaceGuard008#I object to the redirect. Note that he had not replied to my final posts on User talk:Mattisse or Talk:Caisson (Asian architecture).

I hope the above presents a fair and complete account of our activities in respect of these two articles. If there is anything I have missed, please correct me.

Now to the merits of the dispute.

1. That Caisson in the context of Chinese architecture means exactly the same thing as zaojing is established by many sources. Of the sources cited at both articles, only one prefers using zaojing. Most of the others use Caisson as the English term. I posted an example list of references that use "Caisson" at User talk:Mattisse#Zaojing and Caisson (Asian architecture). It seems to me that this is a naming conflict, and that the more common and English term should prevail, as I pointed out to User:Mattisse on several occasions. Furthermore, the caisson is not only found in Chinese architecture, but also (derivatively) in Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other countries. It is more neutral to use an English term than a foreign (Chinese) term.
2. Zaojing was from the start better referenced than Caisson (Asian architecture). This I acknowledged from the beginning of the discussion.
3. User:Mattisse has taken a proprietary attitude towards the article zaojing. He claims it as part of his project to develop a library of Chinese architectural terms: User talk:PalaceGuard008#I object to the redirect. When I incorporated the (better written and referenced) contents from Zaojing into Caisson (Asian architecture), he accused me of "ripping off" "his" article into mine. Though he purports to "forgive" me for that transgression, I fear that this may be a misunderstanding of the nature of Wikipedia articles: while we all "adopt" articles and sometimes jealously guard them against others, the nature of wikipedia is collaborationist, and better contents from one article should be used in another where appropriate.
4. USer:Mattisse has argued against this merger-and-redirect on ideological grounds, as seen from his freqent repetition of the need to combat Western bias on Wikipedia. While I appreciate these sentiments, nevertheless Wikipedia should report the state of academic understanding of the subject, and not seek to change it, for better or worse. It is neologistic to use a foreign term (even though it is the native term in this case) in favour of a more commonly used English term.
5. User:Mattisse accuses me of acting arbitrarily. I admit I did not go through the detailed procedures of merging articles. In my defence, I would like to say that I had thought the matter very simple, as these are two articles, both short and stubby, dealing with the same matter; furthermore, after my incorporation, Caisson (Asian architecture) contains all the contents which Zaojing had included. However, seeing as User:Mattisse has now taken a strong objection, I will follow through with the proper procedures of a merger discussion.
6. User:Mattisse continues to accuse me of stealing content from "his" Dougong article. In addition to what I have said about his propreitary attitude to "his" articles above, this is going too far. The contents on Dougong in the Caisson (Asian architecture) article had been there long before User:Mattisse created "his" dougong article. Even if it were otherwise, I am finding these repeated claims of proprietary interest in article contents quite annoying.
7. User:Mattisse accuses me of not discussing/responding to his posts. As I pointed out above, he has not responded to my posts on talk pages. The only comments from him that I have not yet responded to are those on my own Talk page. However, as it was closely followed by this ANI post, I thought it best to reply here. Thanks, --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Just do the merge thing as requested. I did not know about your postings on your article page. Why would I look there? I did answer you extensively on my talk page and have sent several messages to your explaining my objection. Do the merge thing -- it is not just you (or me) who gets to decide. --Mattisse 21:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Editor's private info revealed

In this edit summary, Mccready (talk · contribs) has revealed the first name of an editor who has specifically alerted the community that his personal info is to remain private. Not sure of the intent here, but as I have been once blocked for a completely unintentional outting involving this same editor, I felt it best to make note of it here and allow this incident to go through the proper channels. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 20:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

No block needed, but he needs to be warned. Davnel03 20:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Diff oversighted.--chaser - t 00:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Much appreciated. -- Fyslee / talk 02:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Deletion Needed

I received a long email (it was also posted on my talk page) that I reverted a user when they were trying to protect their privacy (revert in question). I think it would be best if an admin could delete user talk:216.165.38.65 and User talk:216.165.38.65 to satisfy their request (the vandalism warnings are nearly a year old, we don't need to keep this logged for any particular reason). Thanks, Carbon Monoxide 21:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the talk page. I don't really see how that will help protect their privacy, but since it just comprised of outdated vandalism warnings I saw no harm in doing so. Will (aka Wimt) 22:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It appeared the user had a page created about them, and they didn't want their name on Wikipedia... that page has since been deleted. Carbon Monoxide 23:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Ryan West article

I don't know what's going on here, I can't make any sense of it, but there's a lot of vandalism of this page. The subject apparently wants it deleted. I reverted back to a "clean" article (I think), but I think something else should be done. I just don't know what. --UsaSatsui 21:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm almost tempted to AfD it. He seems to be borderline notable, I think some of the information in the article is puffed up. • Lawrence Cohen 21:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree - yes the google test's unreliable blah blah blah but I'd expect it to be fairly accurate for someone in a media industry in recent years - I see a lot of Myspace & similar and not a lot of anything else, other than mentions near the bottom of hundred-name laundry lists. I suspect it would survive an AfD, though, due to the grammy nomination. Reeks of a vanity page, though. — iridescent (talk to me!) 22:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I think User:Ryanwestmusic who made the article is in fact Ryan West. Either way, it's up here now: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ryan West. • Lawrence Cohen 22:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Steindavida, again

User:Steindavida has been blocked for gross incivility and repeated addition of himself to Wikipedia articles despite his article having been deleted because he does not meet Wikipedia's notability standards. Since the day he was blocked, he has come back with anon accounts to re-add himself to Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School (Vancouver)‎, and to edit war and vandalize The Amityville Curse, so much so that the latter article was semi-protected. So now, daily, he comes in with a new anon account, edits Talk:The Amityville Curse so as to make personal attacks on another editor and re-edits Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School (Vancouver)‎, and every day his new sock puppet is blocked and his edits reveted. User:Golden Wattle has gone out of his her way to try to present a fair representation of Mr. Stein on the Amityville Curse article, but Stein has gone so far as to vandalize not only my User page, but Golden Wattle's as well. And now he's making legal threats, along with yet again another personal attack: [106]. Is there anything that can be done short of blocking all of the Toronto Bell Canada IP addresses? Corvus cornix 22:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:NLT applies - an indef block should be handed down pending a retraction of the threat. Have you opened a suspected sockpuppets case or checkuser request yet? east.718 at 22:19, 10/9/2007

No, that was something I was hoping to avoid.  :) Corvus cornix 22:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I must say I am a bit over it. The insults are gratuitous. The legal threats are actually of course pathetic but against policy. We can't of course block such a major ISP with a range block. I guess ongoing assistance from fellow admins in watching Talk:The Amityville Curse which is where he tends to show up and reverting and blocking on sight would be much appreciated. He has been warned, spoken to nicely, ... is obsessive and rude. Relevant IP addresses to date include 74.12.73.115 (talk · contribs) 74.12.75.105 (talk · contribs) 70.53.129.174 (talk · contribs) 74.12.76.176 (talk · contribs) 74.12.74.156 (talk · contribs) 74.12.79.3 (talk · contribs) 74.12.74.12 (talk · contribs) 74.12.77.252 (talk · contribs) 74.12.83.176 (talk · contribs) 74.12.80.17 (talk · contribs) There is no need for check user or sock puppeting since he is using IP addresses and is absolutely clearly identifiable on content focus and language - there ino attempt at disguise - the disruption is straight forward.--Golden Wattle ^talk 22:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

also 74.12.83.202 (talk · contribs) - just blocked by me --Golden Wattle ^talk 22:40, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Has anybody tried contacting Bell Canada yet? Caknuck 01:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring and protection

An edit war recently took place between User:PBD55 and User:ChrisO on Vergina Sun as reported on WP:3RR [107]. The whole relevant edit history can be seen here. ChrisO is an administrator and, as can be seen from the edit history, he protected the page when he was involved in the dispute, and the reverted edits were not simple vandalism or related to libel issues against living people. I am inclined to block both users for the 3RR violation, although it is now 24 hours since the dispute. However the bigger issue, in my opinion, is ChrisO's apparent abuse of the protection facility. I would welcome further input, before taking any action. Cheers TigerShark 22:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I lost my temper, protected it, realised I shouldn't have done that and unprotected it 17 minutes later. Obviously it was an error of judgment and I regret that - however, please note that I did act promptly to put the matter right. -- ChrisO 22:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

ChrisO has acted promptly to put the matter right. I don't see any reason to prevent ChrisO from using the tools, or block his editing. Absent any pattern, I think we can call this resolved. Mercury 22:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the comments from ChrisO and Mercury, but I would like to get any further input so am removing the resolved tag for now. I take on board the fact that the decision was reversed 17 minutes later, but protection during a dispute is normally considered quite serious and it was not a action taken on the spur of the moment and then immediately reversed, in fact ChrisO reverted again during the protection - so I would encourage more community input. I do not have strong feelings on what the outcome of this should be, but I feel that it needs to be raised and possibly discussed further. Thanks TigerShark 23:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The fact that he immediately realised his error and unprotected it means there is no issue, save the 3RR which you say exists (I haven't looked). I have accidentally protected pages I edit in the past, but I immediately unprotected them because it was a good-faith mistake. The Arbitration Committee will laugh you all the way back out the door you came in if you suggest any action should be taken against Chris. Daniel 00:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I will try to ignore the tone of your comment, which seems designed to cause a confrontation or humiliate me (or intimidate others) into not discussing this issue. However, when you call this a mistake, I assume that you are not suggesting that he pressed the wrong button, but rather that he lost his temper (as he states above). As I mentioned above this was not a quick flash of temper, reversed the next minute. Rather than "immediately realising his error and unprotecting it" the page remained protected for 17 minutes, during which time he reverted again and then unprotected with the reasoning that there was "no further need" for the protection. TigerShark 00:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are looking for. Shall we block him for a few days? I do not think ChrisO will repeat this. Mercury 00:25, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I am looking to give the community a chance to review the action of an administrator that could be considered very contentious. Nothing else. TigerShark 00:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure its contentious. But I'm confident this review is unneeded. I see you feel strongly about this, so I won't replace the esolved tag. Mercury 00:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

After investigating, it appears that ChrisO violated WP:3RR just prior after unprotecting the page. As a newer admin, I'm not sure what to do in this case. If ChrisO were not an admin, I would probably block for 24 hours. Ronnotel 01:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I would hope that as an administrator, you'd realize that blocks are preventative, not punitive, the edit war ended 27 hours ago (and ChrisO has not continued reverting, and said such above) and the disputed page has been protected, so blocks would not be appropriate in this case. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. See "Block Unblock" section at the bottom of the page. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 01:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, the report at WP:3RR was submitted late and I off a day in my timing. I'll close it out. Ronnotel 01:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

user:216.130.110.166

Resolved

3RR and blatant spamming of Noise music with myspace links. Artlondon 22:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:AIV gets stuff like this done faster, but he's not active anymore. east.718 at 22:18, 10/9/2007

Personal information revealed, now in page history

Resolved

Please see this edit to Super Smash Bros. Melee. It was promptly removed, but it still remains in the page history. I think it would be safest to delete those two revisions of the page. You Can't See Me! 22:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Methinks WP:OVERSIGHT might be the best place to bring this up. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 00:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually it looks like it was already oversighted. Anchoress 00:26, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Much thanks! You Can't See Me! 00:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec) I deleted the two revisions, and killed my computer (and apparently caused a database lock) in the process. Sorry! Daniel 00:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Joel Beinin

I'm about to start pruning out a lot of personal attacks and name-calling in Talk:Joel Beinin, unless anybody objects. Corvus cornix 22:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't see any reason to keep it - I assume you're referring to the long bold text ramblings? — iridescent (talk to me!) 22:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Corvus cornix 23:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Tyler Warren (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Yesterday, I blocked Bushcarrot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) for three hours for this personal attack and a report at WP:AIV made by Tyler Warren. Upon reviewing the edits of Tyler Warren (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), however, I came across this victory dance, this taunt, and several other instances of incivility. I warned him about this behavior and encouraged him to work on the encyclopedia, since his last 100 or so edits only contained about one or two mainspace edits. He replied with this message saying, "Just remember.....there's nowhere to run to when death becomes you." I asked if it was a death threat, and he said he's just quoting 50 Cent. (And since when was I a "homie"?)

I'm tempted to give him another block for incivility, but I'm a little too close to the situation now. I'd like someone else to review his edits.

As an aside, I noticed he's been writing to Summerluvin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) a lot, and upon checking her contributions, I found one lone mainspace edit amidst a number of edits that look like Wikipedia is a social networking site. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 23:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

she only joined 2 weeks ago, perhaps some advice is appropriate.04:25, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Far more disturbing is the hive of similar editors abusign Wikipedia for a message board. Polarwolf, summerluvin, and all those others in the contribs list all seem to be more concerned with chatting each other up than editing the project. perhaps they should all be shown the door here, and sent across the street to the myspace/facebook supermall? ThuranX 04:38, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring on Pro-pedophile activism

Pro-pedophile activism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has been the subject of edit warring for an extended period of time. In an effort to help stop the edit war, I filed two 3RR reports regarding users on both sides. Both reports were incorrectly rejected, apparently based on a claim that although the three-revert rule, as written, does not require that each reversion concern the same material, it should be enforced as though it did -- see this report and this one. Since this article has been fully protected four times in as many months (and for one continuous period of nearly one and a half months), it is highly improbable that further page protections will resolve this issue. Also of concern is the fact that this article is being edited by a number of accounts which primarily or exclusively edit pedophilia-related related articles, and edit in a manner which favors pedophilia. See, for example, this edit, taking particular note of the edit summary, insofar as it indicates the editor's purpose. This problem is even more obvious on Human sexual behavior (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), where an "Adult-child sex" paragraph was created containing only information favorable to the practice -- which constitutes massive undue weight, since the practice is widely regarded as disgusting and immoral, and is additionally problematic because "Adult-child sex" is a neologism coined by pedophilia activists. However tolerant we might be of single purpose accounts in other contexts, operating a single purpose account to make Wikipedia articles more favorable to pedophilia is quite simply unacceptable, not only because such editing violates our neutral point of view policy, but also because articles biased towards pedophilia have a tendancy to bring Wikipedia into disrepute. Particularly in light of the latter consideration, it may be advisable to impose severe sanctions against problematic single-purpose accounts. John254 00:26, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

An article has now been created: Adult-child sex, and the edit-warring continues (redirects and so forth). Some truly novel, original approaches to this persistent conflict are needed. -Jmh123 01:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Where's NYB when you need him? east.718 at 02:05, 10/10/2007

I've removed that section from Human sexual behavior (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Not that it doesn't merit a paragraph, but certainly not in that 'whitewashed' format. ELIMINATORJR 06:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

This topic always needs the involvement of "uninterested" editors and admins to counteract and balance a group of editors who are "interested" in the pro-pedophile activism point of view. (That's PPA POV in shorthand). The PPA editors have discussed editing and gaming Wikipedia on forums, have used multiple accounts, and have persisted for years. Maintaining NPOV requires editors who can engage committed POV-pushers on an unpleasant topic. (No one ever said encyclopedia writing is fun.) I invite folks to help out by watchlisting some articles in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Pedophilia Article Watch#Articles, categories, and links list. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 09:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Block Unblock

Hello. I am considering unblocking this user as I have already protected the page and find the block unneeded. I've posted on the blockers talk, but the blocking sysop perhpas went AFK. Any suggestions? Regards, Mercury 00:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Yikes. 12-hour blocks for 3RR violations that happened over 24 hours ago, and, as you note, with the disputed page already protected. So much for blocks being preventative rather than punitive. I have no problem with undoing both blocks and encouraging both editors to continue their discussion on the article's talk page, which might prove fruitful. I wish I could help with the dispute, but I know nothing about the subject and do not speak the language necessary to review the sources. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 00:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Meh. ChrisO blocked himself again for the remaining 10 hours out of a sense of justice, because the other guy is also still blocked. I agree, both blocks should be lifted. Fut.Perf. ☼ 01:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, seems appropriate. Ronnotel 01:52, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I did not know the othe one was blocked, or I would have unblocked that one as well. Thanks for catching Fu Perf. Mercury 01:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Bobtoo redux: legal threat

I blocked Bobtoo (talk · contribs) on Oct. 9 (see earlier "Marilyn Monroe" section). He now claims on his talk page that he has been "been contacted by an individual who is collecting evidance [sic]" so as to sue me (diff). Is this a loophole in WP:NLT (or an attempt at finding a loophole), since Bobtoo isn't the one pursuing ostensible legal action? Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 03:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

That is definitely a legal threat. Mr.Z-man 03:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Block extended to indef and I also gave him a link to Wikipedia:Free speech. Mr.Z-man 03:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The block template says "temporarily". (Not that an indefinite block will have much effect: he already has enough socks [or friends with similar interests and similar spelling problems].) -- Hoary 03:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, that template really should default to indefinite. Mr.Z-man 03:54, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks for the quick response. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 03:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The Herbert Dingle Page

Please keep an eye on the Herbert Dingle Page. There is a vandal by the name of DVdm who won't leave this page alone. He is posing as a responsible and regular wikipedia editor but he has a specific purpose of removing any kind of contributions that might in any way cast a shadow of doubt over Einstein's theories.

Herbert Dingle was an established scientist in the 1960's who challenged Einstein's theories. DVdm wants to water down this piece of history by removing references to the controversy and beefing the article up with biographical details.

Keep an eye on DVdm. I suspect that he uses sockpupets, perhaps Denveron and other IP adresses.

DVdm is posing as the good guy and trying to make out that other editors that are trying to present a balanced article, are actually the vandals. ( Brigadier Armstrong 12:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC) )

Herbert Dingle, huh? Never heard of the guy. He somehow sounds like the sort of person who would be the subject of a Twilight Zone episode... Mr. Dingle is a shy, ordinary man in the early 1960s who works in a boring job and is yelled at by his boss, henpecked by his wife, and insulted by his acquaintances at the bar... until one day he has a "Eureka moment" and realizes that he has a better theory than Einstein's... and he can use it to get the better of everybody who's been abusing him! But he'll discover that what it really gets him is a one-way trip into... The Twilight Zone! (Sorry... a bunch of TZ DVDs have just come up to the top of my Netflix queue.) *Dan T.* 12:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Is this some oblique way of saying that you are sanctioning DVdm's ongoing vandalism on this article? (124.157.246.207 14:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC))

Block review

I only blocked one user User:Whig for disruption on Homeopathy. Please review this, I might have missed something in the revision history. Thanks, Mercury 12:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Request Protection of an Article

Please can The Islamic Schools Of Victoria be protected from editing by IP users? It has suffered a protracted attack of blanking and other vandalism from IP users over several days. Thank you. DuncanHill 13:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Protection of William Shakespeare (main page FA)

Additional admin input on how to handle to day's featured article would be helpful. William Shakespeare is an article that is usually semi-protected. However as it was todays' FA, I unprotected it. At 01:56, Alabamaboy reprotected the article citing excessive vandalism. Although I would have prefered to wait alittle longer, I didn't have any objection to that decision - the page had been vandalised over 30 times in less than 2 hours. Later today at 08:27 I decided to give unprotection another go as a different set of users would presumably be online. I thought this experiment reasonably successful, counting only a dozen instances of vandalism in the next 3 1/2 hours - comparable to the amount of vandalism the featured article normally receives. I was therefore surprised to find that Alabamaboy has reprotected the page. This seems unnecessary given present levels of vandalism and I think we should do our utmost to ensure the FA of the day is editable given it is the first page many come across of "the encyclopedia anyone can edit". Having had no reply from Alabamaboy, I raise the matter here - what do people think? WjBscribe 13:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• Well of course vandalism goes down while the US and Europe are mostly asleep... I don't support unprotecting, vandalism will almost certainly be ugly now that more english speakers are awake. But I've always said the supposed benefits of leaving the main page FA unprotected are not anything near what they're trumped up to be. --W.marsh 13:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• That's why I protected it again--the article had been hit hard in the last hour and a half before semi-protection was reinstated. As the admin who probably keeps the closest eye on this article, I can state that during the school year William Shakespeare is one of the most vandalized articles on Wikipedia. Anyway, this vandalism was well above what usually happens during a main page link and I feel it is justified. It's also worth noting that the vandalism continued after the semi-protection, just not from anonymous editors. Best,--Alabamaboy 13:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
  • In the last hour and a half before protection it was only vandalised 6 times! That's pretty low for a main page FA, speaking as someone who invariably watchlists the article of the day. WjBscribe 13:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, my count was 6 vandalisms in the last hour before I protected it. And in my opinion, that's not too low. And as I stated, the vandalism of this article will pick up big time as school comes into session in the USA. That happens every time the article in unprotected.--Alabamaboy 14:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

And if the vandalism picked up, I would support protecting the article but 6 edits in an hour (hour and a half was the timeframe used above) is not heavy vandalism for the article of the day. In my opinion any amount of time that we can leave this article open to editing is a good thing - even if its only a few windows of several hours. If we do not protect other such articles when they are vandalised at that level, there is no reason to make a special case for this only simply because it is semi-protected when not the main page FA. WjBscribe 14:03, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. As I stated, school is now open in the USA and vandalism will go crazy on the article if it is unprotected. I also totally disagree with this idea that the main page FA should be unprotected b/c there is only what some term a "moderate" amount of vandalism. That said, because there is concern about my actions I have now unprotected the article. Please note, though: I will semi-protect this article again when vandalism reaches yesterday's levels. Best,--Alabamaboy 14:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. WjBscribe 14:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

User:SmackBot

I left a message on the bot's talk page, and User:Rich Farmbrough is apparently ignoring the issue. The bot running two tasks right now. One task is changing the section title on all articles from "Reference" to "References", which is appropriate IMO despite being against its approval [108]. The second task is the problem. It is changing the section title on all articles from "External link" to "External links" sample diff The bot's approval does not allow this change {Approval). I left a message to stop the bot (diff), but Rich has restarted the bot. Royalbroil 13:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Belldandy

User:Jack Merridew has repeatedly included a non-free image on the non-mainspace AfD nomination page ([109], [110]). Please assist. -- Cat ^chi? 13:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the image. Use of unfree content outside the mainspace is not fair use. It is totally unnecessary in an AfD debate - people can view the images by looking at the articles themselves... WjBscribe 13:33, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Can you also warn the user not to include non-free images on non-mainspace pages. So we know for sure he is aware why the image was removed. -- Cat ^chi? 13:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Could some one please come and close this utterly pointy AfD? --Jack Merridew 13:38, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Why is it pointless? Only two people have commented so far... WjBscribe 13:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

See my first comment; this is a bit of pique by White Cat over my suggestion of a merge of the character articles; he is a fan, a defender of these articles. He surely does not truly want them deleted. --Jack Merridew 13:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I am first a Wikipedian and then a "fan". For me to "wage war on" or to "defend" articles I would need to have a combative mentality - which I do not. AFD isn't about what I want and instead about consensus. If something is truly non-notable, then it should be deleted. If it is notable, that is a different story. The community consensus as a whole will decide weather the articles are notable or not. This is the fundamental of the tipple C. -- Cat ^chi? 14:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, you took my use of the word defender as having a military connotation when I intended it in the sense of a protector; a usage that I think was obvious enough. --Jack Merridew 14:10, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

This is not the first time I made a nomination contradicting my personal veiws on a topic by the way. -- Cat ^chi? 14:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Possibly this an example of forum shopping — seeking a venue and outcome that will thwart the merge suggestion? --Jack Merridew 14:22, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Article Herbert Dingle disrupted (again)

Article Herbert Dingle is subject (again) to a disruptive edit war by a string of clearly special purpose accounts and probably suspected sock-puppets. See archived intervention request and article talk page. Can someone please run a check-user on this, and/or protect the page to version of 2-oct or Denveron's version of 10 oct and herhaps protect the acticle? Thanks. - DVdm 14:26, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Herbert Dingle, huh? Never heard of the guy. He somehow sounds like the sort of person who would be the subject of a Twilight Zone episode... Mr. Dingle is a shy, ordinary man in the early 1960s who works in a boring job and is yelled at by his boss, henpecked by his wife, and insulted by his acquaintances at the bar... until one day he has a "Eureka moment" and realizes that he has a better theory than Einstein's... and he can use it to get the better of everybody who's been abusing him! But he'll discover that what it really gets him is a one-way trip into... The Twilight Zone! (Sorry... a bunch of TZ DVDs have just come up to the top of my Netflix queue.) *Dan T.* 12:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.157.246.207 (talk)