Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems. Before posting: Read these tips for dealing with incivility If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page Try dispute resolution Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight. When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. You are not autoconfirmed, meaning you cannot currently edit this page. Instead, use /Non-autoconfirmed posts. Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)
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Wikistalkers by erstwhile administrators deserve severe sanctions

Note - copied from User_talk:Bkonrad#Wikistalkers_by_erstwhile_administrators_deserve_severe_sanction.. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I have been wikistalked by an administrator Hu12 and his coconspirator, Barek. The dispute arose because I had put in a link to a Central Michigan University timeline on lighthouses in Michigan in an article on Marquette, Michigan the link was perfectly appropriate, and was not a commercial site or spam. I received a note from Barek saying he had deleted the link on the Discussion page. I told him it was a perfectly fine link and that his action was ill-advised. The next thing I knew, Hu12 intervened. The two of them started Wikistalking me together, removing not just the link, but removing the link from every page where I had put it. Additionally, they started doing blind "Undos" and obliterating large portions of articles that I had contributed. There was no reason for any of this. When I protested their course of action, they suspended my editing privileges. This was done precipitously. BK Conrad has investigated this matter, and deems the blind edits to be 'unfortunate.'

I complained to BK Conrad, an administrator. He undid the suspension, but did not deal with my substantive complaint about this administrator. He suggested that I could contact you.

I would also add that Hu12 deleted my complaints to him from his talk page (I put them back), and has now (conveniently) archived the pages.

Additionally, one of my correspondents, Asher196, had noted in the history section of an article that the deletion was unwarranted. I contacted him and reported the Wikistalking.

Indeed, what you will uncover, should you choose to look, is that Hu12 and Barker were engaged in wholesale eradication of my contribution from articles, sometimes to the point where the article virtually disappeared. There was no excuse for this. It is the very definition of Wikistalking.

As I said, when I protested this, I was suspended.

I have done a whole lot of editing here. -- Many thousands of edits. I have never before been accused of spamming the system. I wasn't doing this here, either.

While I agree with BK that it would be best if I could just avoid these bullies, the matter is not so easily resolved. They sought me out. They attacked me. They abused their administrative privileges.

While I could turn a blind eye to this, it will only encourage this untoward behavior. When Czeckoslovakia falls, Poland can't be far behind. Someone needs to report this and stop this untoward and unspeakable behavior. Based on my reading of Hu12's talk page (before it disappeared), the man has attitude problems that have surfaced before.

Wikistalking by administrators will frustrate the contributors, and cause them to quit Wikipedia. They've already done that to me. Let there not be a repetition. The very lifeblood of your organization is at stake.

I have attacked copies of my correspondence to and from BK Conrad and Asher196.

If you need further information, please advise.

I will send this to Asher196 and BKConrad, so they are informed of my complaint. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 17:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

BK:

Thank you.

However, this has soured me, and I will cure myself of my wikiaholic behavior. I quit. They've achieved their victory, and Wiki will lose my modest contributions.

That being said, I think you should look close at what they edited, and come to your own conclusion. They gutted whole articles. This was WIKISTALKING and they went FAR beyond what they complained about. This was search and destroy, pure, simple and unvarnished. It was a clear abuse of power. I will not abide an abuse of power, and will not let this rest without their being brought to justice -- they are bullies, and this was wrong.

I for one would not stand silently and idly by while the Wehrmacht makes the Jews disappear into the railroad cars.

Moreover, their actions showed an intent (and attempt) to bully me into silence about their misconduct. It was a cover up.

Accountability in this system is important. Those who abuse their powers do not deserve to be trusted to hold the reins. They deserve the severest sanctions, and should be stripped of administrative privileges.

What they did here was very destructive of the goals of an organization that depends on the good will and volunteer efforts of contributors.

7&6=thirteen (talk) 10:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

Coincidentally, Hu12‎ chose this interregnum of completely delete (archive) his user talk. This is after he was unmaking history and deleting my accusations of misconduct, which I put back on his page This is a Watergate style cover up. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 10:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

I would just like to make a stand with 7&6=thirteen. I can't believe these "admins" treated him this way. He is a dedicated and prolific Wikipedia editor, and has done tremendous work on many articles. Trying to add a link which provides valuable information, he is labeled a spammer. Trying to defend his actions, he is blocked. What are we doing here if this is how the good guys are treated?----Asher196 (talk) 11:17, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I'm sorry about the situation. If you'd like to file a complaint about Hu12, the place to do that is Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Hu12's block of you was precipitous and the blind reverts unwarranted. However you did accuse him of being a sock puppet and make what could be interpreted as a vague threat. I might note that Hu12 consistently archives talk page messages -- although this is an annoying practice, it is not prohibited and it is not necessarily evidence that the user was trying to cover up anything. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, including editors with limited social skills. Unless their behavior clearly crosses the line and becomes disruptive, it is best to simply avoid engaging with such persons. older ≠ wiser 12:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

<---Outdent. I think the rollback performed by hu12 was a bit much. Especially since the link added was in reference to the lighthouses (and most of the articles the link was added to were Michigan Lighthouses). The bigger issue to me was the rollback wiped out a hell of a lot of information from Charity Island Lighthouse. Blind reverts should not be used period. Especially since 7&6 is a good editor that adds information to esoteric topics. I don't condone the wording used by 7&6 but for someone who doesn't interact with others much as they edit in very low traffic topics, seeing all their worked wiped out by two people that appear to be tag teaming would not provoke a positive reaction in most cases. spryde | talk 17:53, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Please Is this supposed to be reasoned discussion? Corvus cornix_talk 18:40, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

No it is not. However hu12 wiping it off the page without talking to him (and templating someone with more than a 6000 edits) is not a reasoned course either. spryde | talk 19:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Hu12 seems to make a habit of this sort of thing; I've butted heads with him over the same thing before (and the block I collected over it is one of the proudest moments of my WP career). I think the problem is one of instruction-creep: the people over at the Spam-fighting project seem to have made up their own definition of spam, which doesn't match any reasonable criteria, and go about enforcing it as if it were Divine Law. It seems to me that they've taken some signs which are indeed good indicators that something might be spam, and should be looked at closely, and have turned them into definitions of spam, so that when they find something that matches the pattern they feel no need to investigate any further, because by their definition it is spam, and the editor who added it is by their definition a spammer, all of whose edits are to be presumed invalid, and who is to be templated and hounded off Wikipedia, for the good of the project. That certainly saves the spam-hunters valuable time and effort, but it isn't right. They're not doing this with any malice in their hearts; they've just let their enthusiasm run away with them, and they've turned spam-hunting from a necessary chore in maintaining an encyclopaedia into an end in itself. But, malice or not, valuable contributions are being lost to WP, and people are getting their feelings hurt, and sooner or later something needs to be done about it. -- Zsero (talk) 19:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with User:Zsero's observations. The definition of "spam" seems to be drifting in the direction of being entirely disconnected from the content of the links in question - whereas content should be the criteria by which links are evaluated. If a link is to a site that is a quality site which is relevant to the subject of the article the link is posted on, then it's irrelevant who placed the link, and under what circumstances, because the link adds value to the encyclopedia, and that's supposedly what we're here for. If a good link is removed for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of the link, then the encyclopedia is poorer for that, and that action has harmed the project.

Spam fighters can certainly use the kinds of tools you're referring to, but they really must pay primary attention to the content of the links, and not disrupt the project by elevating technical means over our ultimate ends. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 10:57, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

List of the articles where improper editing is alleged

Lest you think it was only the Charity Island Light, here is a more complete list.

Extended content

This is from my Watchlist. * (diff) (hist) . . Manistee County, Michigan‎; 19:07 . . (+6) . . 24.231.235.202 (Talk) (→Townships) * (diff) (hist) . . User talk:Hu12‎; 18:50 . . (+302) . . Corvus cornix (Talk | contribs) ({{ANI-notice}}) * (diff) (hist) . . Paul Bunyan‎; 18:41 . . (+2) . . 74.75.55.40 (Talk) (→Tourist attractions) * (diff) (hist) . . Lumber‎; 18:25 . . (+431) . . Pradtke (Talk | contribs) (expanded "timber" definition) * (diff) (hist) . . Jackson, Michigan‎; 18:11 . . (0) . . 76.20.155.1 (Talk) (→External links) * (diff) (hist) . . User talk:Asher196‎; 17:39 . . (+6,011) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (complaint about wikistalkers) * (diff) (hist) . . User talk:Bkonrad‎; 17:38 . . (+6,011) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Wikistalkers complaint) * (diff) (hist) . . Yankee Air Museum‎; 17:36 . . (+5) . . 209.212.28.50 (Talk) (→Collection) * (diff) (hist) . . m User:Barek‎; 17:14 . . (+37) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (add link to edit counters) * (diff) (hist) . . Flint, Michigan‎; 17:08 . . (+4) . . 68.188.254.50 (Talk) (→Track and Field) * (diff) (hist) . . Michigan‎; 17:04 . . (0) . . Thomas Paine1776 (Talk | contribs) (→Important cities and townships) * (diff) (hist) . . m Charity Island Light‎; 17:03 . . (-29) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (add ref and cleanup text) * (diff) (hist) . . Talk:Huron Lightship‎; 16:22 . . (+50) . . Rodw (Talk | contribs) ({{WikiProject Museums}}) * (diff) (hist) . . N Talk:Carnegie Center -- Port Huron Museum‎; 16:22 . . (+49) . . Rodw (Talk | contribs) ({{WikiProject Museums}}) * (diff) (hist) . . m User talk:Barek‎; 15:59 . . (-5) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (fix link) * (diff) (hist) . . Battle Creek, Michigan‎; 15:08 . . (-44) . . Vertigo315 (Talk | contribs) (→High schools (private): removed bad links) * (diff) (hist) . . mb Flint/Tri-Cities‎; 14:22 . . (+52) . . DumZiBoT (Talk | contribs) (Bot: Converting bare references, see FAQ) * (diff) (hist) . . m Osceola County, Michigan‎; 12:59 . . (+32) . . Bkonrad (Talk | contribs) (update) * (diff) (hist) . . Port Huron, Michigan‎; 12:43 . . (-108) . . 76.112.80.246 (Talk) * (diff) (hist) . . b User talk:Carptrash‎; 12:28 . . (+1,423) . . BJBot (Talk | contribs) (BJBot, Image:SDG2.jpg is going to be deleted) * (diff) (hist) . . Talk:M (1931 film)‎; 10:14 . . (+716) . . Ex con87 (Talk | contribs) (→Film noir) * (diff) (hist) . . Latrine‎; 07:33 . . (+41) . . Debu ce buet (Talk | contribs) (add - →Reed Odourless Earth Closet (ROEC)) * (diff) (hist) . . m Escanaba, Michigan‎; 03:48 . . (-161) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (→External links: remove EL that's only marginally related to subject article) * (diff) (hist) . . m The Thumb‎; 03:47 . . (-161) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (→External links: link already exists in individual lighthouse articles, which is more appropriate location) * (diff) (hist) . . Talk:Clarence Darrow‎; 01:57 . . (+2) . . 75.75.104.223 (Talk) (→Intro Revision) * (diff) (hist) . . Salt‎; 01:41 . . (-25) . . 76.215.200.217 (Talk) (→Health effects) * (diff) (hist) . . Warren, Michigan‎; 00:41 . . (0) . . Machine24 (Talk | contribs) (→Demographics) * (diff) (hist) . . User:Hu12‎; 00:39 . . (0) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) * (diff) (hist) . . m Harbor Beach Light‎; 00:37 . . (+160) . . Asher196 (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408791 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . m Forty Mile Point Light‎; 00:32 . . (+161) . . Asher196 (Talk | contribs) (There is nothing wrong with this link. Why was it removed?) 27 March 2008 * (diff) (hist) . . Northern Michigan‎; 23:12 . . (+229) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201409711 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . Saginaw River Light‎; 23:11 . . (+1,851) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408810 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . Old Presque Isle Light‎; 23:09 . . (+550) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408862 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . Upper Peninsula of Michigan‎; 23:09 . . (+161) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201409722 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . South Manitou Island Light‎; 23:07 . . (+187) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408834 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . Nb Talk:Joseph H. Albers‎; 23:05 . . (+33) . . SoxBot (Talk | contribs) (Tagging (Plugin++) Added {{OH-Project}}. using AWB) * (diff) (hist) . . Point Betsie Light‎; 23:02 . . (-283) . . Beetstra (Talk | contribs) (no need for address .. WP:SOAPBOX) * (diff) (hist) . . Port Austin Lighthouse‎; 23:00 . . (+883) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408798 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . m Alpena, Michigan‎; 22:56 . . (-313) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201437354 by 7&6=thirteen (talk) linkspam) * (diff) (hist) . . Tawas Point Light‎; 22:55 . . (+1,258) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408850 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . Fort Gratiot Light‎; 22:54 . . (+1,109) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201408785 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . b Talk:Toledo War‎; 22:54 . . (+34) . . SoxBot (Talk | contribs) (Tagging (Plugin++) Added {{OH-Project}}. using AWB) * (diff) (hist) . . Lighthouses in the United States‎; 22:52 . . (+792) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201409692 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . List of museums in Michigan‎; 22:51 . . (+412) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201409918 by Hu12 (talk)) * (diff) (hist) . . New Presque Isle Light‎; 22:48 . . (+392) . . 7&6=thirteen (Talk | contribs) * (diff) (hist) . . m Talk:Charity Island Light‎; 22:36 . . (-482) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (add project tag) * (diff) (hist) . . Leelanau County, Michigan‎; 21:40 . . (+50) . . 24.247.132.68 (Talk) * (diff) (hist) . . m Lake Huron‎; 21:12 . . (-20) . . VoABot II (Talk | contribs) (BOT - Reverted edits by 216.113.43.109 {possible vandalism} to last version by VoABot II.) * (diff) (hist) . . m Sturgeon Point Light Station‎; 20:59 . . (+161) . . Barek (Talk | contribs) (Undid revision 201412860 by Barek (talk) rv my own edit on this one) * (diff) (hist) . . m Southeast Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-232) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Cgord) * (diff) (hist) . . m Western Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-197) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Cgord) * (diff) (hist) . . m Grosse Ile Township, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Bkonrad) * (diff) (hist) . . m Monroe, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Les woodland) * (diff) (hist) . . m Traverse City, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Iulus Ascanius) * (diff) (hist) . . m Ludington, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Bkonrad) * (diff) (hist) . . m Muskegon, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-162) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Broadbot) * (diff) (hist) . . m Cheboygan, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-316) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Trekphiler) * (diff) (hist) . . m Rogers City, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by 216.216.101.146) * (diff) (hist) . . m Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by 199.67.140.154) * (diff) (hist) . . m Lower Peninsula of Michigan‎; 20:45 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Cgord) * (diff) (hist) . . m Manistee, Michigan‎; 20:44 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by DumZiBoT) * (diff) (hist) . . m Charlevoix, Michigan‎; 20:44 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by 216.216.101.146) * (diff) (hist) . . m Frankfort, Michigan‎; 20:44 . . (-161) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by 216.216.101.146) * (diff) (hist) . . m Pentwater, Michigan‎; 20:43 . . (-847) . . Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by 7&6=thirteen (talk) to last version by Zeagler) * (diff) (hist) . . m Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore‎; 20:41 . . (-161) . . Hu12

If there is a big number put in by me, it is because these gentlemen had taken it out. You can go to the article histories and see for yourselves. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 19:51, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

7&6, temper your language. I know you are upset but calling them 'goons' does not help anyone out here. The lighthouse articles was an appropriate place for them and possibly a few others. If there is a content dispute, you need to talk to them instead of reverting and readding. spryde | talk 20:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Luckilly, I have this page on my watchlist or I wouldn't have known I was being discussed. One thing that I would like to clarify; the initial complaint implies that I am an admin, which is incorrect. I am not an admin, nor have I ever claimed to be one on Wikipedia.

I would like to add a few facts to the discussion. I encountered 7&6=thirteen on the Marquette, Michigan article, where he had added a link documenting the years that lighthouses throughout the state of Michigan had been built or rebuilt; as I stated on that article's talk page, it's a valuable link in appropriate articles; I just didn't see where a brief mention of various cities justified linkspamming it to what appeared to me to be roughly 100 city/township articles (note: as I explained to 7&6=thirteen on that talk page, my use of the term "spam" refered to the behavior of inserting it to a large number of only marginally related articles, not that the link itself is spam). I informed him that I was reporting it to WP:WPSPAM (here's the link, this appears to be where Hu12 became involved) I also asked 7&6=thirteen to look at WP:NOT#REPOSITORY and WP:NOT#DIRECTORY to understand why I saw the link as inapropriate on city and township articles.

I was aware that Hu12 had removed the links from a large number of articles - although I did not know until now that he had used a blanket revert that appears to have reverted multiple edits by 7&6=thirteen on articles beyond just the link addition; nor did I know until now that 7&6=thirteen had been banned. As I was not involved in either of those actions, I will not comment other than to say that Hu12 likely should have asked for a 3rd party admin to get involved rather than applying the ban himself.

Afterwards, I also removed the link from a handful of additional city/township articles which I spotted via Special:Linksearch. Via that same tool, I also stumbled accross the Charity Island Light article that someone commented on above. I found it in a bit of a mess, and cleaned it up to its current state. I would like to point out that the link which initially started this chain of events still exists within that article, only I used it within a ref tag rather than listed as an EL.

If you have any additional questions or concerns on my actions in this issue, please let me know. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Personally, the only action I would fault you with is the report to the spam project. If it is a new contributor and the link is of dubious origin, I would have reported it. However, in the context used (all MI stuff, mostly coastal lighthouse areas) and the contributor has a extensive history of MI lighthouse/history work, I would have discussed it with him first. 7&6 can be interesting to work with to say the least. He does a lot of good things but personal interaction is not in his top ten :) spryde | talk 20:34, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Some good advice to people coming to this page to complain about other editors: Avoid over-labelling your adversaries and their behaviour. The more you refer to "goons" and "wikistalking", the less seriously people will take you. Comparing them to Nazis ("When Czeckoslovakia falls, Poland can't be far behind.") is right out. Bovlb (talk)

I added a collapsing box above for usability, and made this section a sub-section of the original. Bovlb (talk) 20:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Barek's explanation does not hold up. This is from the List of Museums in Michigan, which was deleted.

Go take a look for yourselves. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 20:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

Another collapsing box, and another fix to heading level. Bovlb (talk) 20:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

This is the first I've ever looked at that article, the edit history shows that I have never been involved with editing it. My comments above were to explain my actions, not those of yourself, Hu12, or anyone else for that matter. There is no contradiction to the explaination of my actions that I provided. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:39, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

• I'd say that list needs serious pruning. Wikipedia isn't a directory, it's fine to have redlinks for notable museums that don't yet have articles, but almost everything in that list is a redlink and the weblinks smell strongly to me of the fine comestibles purveyed by Messrs. Hormel Foods. Guy (Help!) 22:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

First, adding hundreds of links, without discussion fails WP:NOT#REPOSITORY, and Wikipedia isn't a directory. But it seems the multiple attemps at reasoned discussion by others to communicate this fact, resulted in some serious wholsale violations of WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, WP:NPA and WP:HARASS by 7&6=thirteen.

• "Wikistalker and sock puppet, Lay off. I will have recourse. You are not immune. "
• "Wikistalkers, I'm being wikistalked by Barek and HU12."
• "Hu12‎ and Barek engaged in a deliberate and willful concerted and personal attack on me"
• "Wikistalker and sock puppet, Lay off. I will have recourse. You are not immune"
• "Wikistalkers by erstwhile administrators deserve severe sanction"
• "I for one would not stand silently and idly by while the Wehrmacht makes the Jews disappear into the railroad cars."
• "...will not let this rest without their being brought to justice -- they are bullies..."
• "This was WIKISTALKING "
• "he was unmaking history and deleting my accusations of misconduct, which I put back on his page This is a Watergate style cover up."

• Its called removing WP:HARASSment, "Wikistalker and sock puppet, Lay off. I will have recourse. You are not immune. ", "Wikistalker and sock puppet, Lay off. I will have recourse. You are not immune"

• "I want these peoples' administrative privileges removed "
• " have been wikistalked by an administrator Hu12 and his coconspirator, Barek"
• "It is the very definition of Wikistalking"
• "When Czeckoslovakia falls, Poland can't be far behind"
• "Here is a list of the articles these goons hatcheted"

...Wikistalking, ...sockpupptry, ...Watergate, ..."Goons", ...Nazis, ..."Jews disappearing into the railroad cars"?? is this reasoned discussion? --Hu12 (talk) 23:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh cry me a river. All that and all you can do is complain that he called you semi-uncivil names? Your actions are not justified by what he called you afterwards, and they're completely inexcusable. I'm losing faith in this place daily, how on Earth could such an editor become an admin to begin with? Krawndawg (talk) 00:08, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

You've been here less than a month (20 days ^[1]), perhaps reading WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, WP:NPA and WP:HARASS would familiarize you with how wikipedia operates. Hateful anti-semetic comments about nazi war crimes, and making baseless arguments and threats against other wikipedians is compleately unacceptaple and completely inexcusable. you should pay particular attention to WP:CIVIL. Also see What wikipedia is not--Hu12 (talk) 00:55, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I see you blocked for harassment and personal attacks, yet make no attempt to distinguish pre-block comments (the first four two) from post-block comments (the rest) in your diffs. That's pretty lame. You're obviously from the "attack is the best form of defense, so come out swinging" school, rather than the "let's get this sorted out on its merits" one. 86.44.23.66 (talk) 01:23, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Judge them for what they did

The accusation is wikistalking. There is no contrary evidence. There being none, judgment should be entered against the Defendants. Their argument ad hominem is not evidence. They have not answered the charges. They have not offered an explanation. Period. The hearsay of Barek does not establish the facts asserted by Hu12. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 23:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Stan

Guy, the "contrary evidence" has already been listed above, and all that's happened is that a greater light has been shone on your own behavior. You've dug yourself a hole, and the First Law of Holes is that if you find yourself in one, stop digging. --Calton | Talk 23:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Fix yet another header. When adding to a section, please don't add new level-two headers. Consider not adding a new header at all, especially if it's going to be snarky. Bovlb (talk) 00:27, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not a trial. No one is a "defendant" of any sort. We're not here to pass "judgment" of any sort. I find your accusations of their posts being ad hominem attacks to be rather ironic if this is how you're treating the issue. In any case, please continue the discussion in a civil manner. Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 01:07, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia is not a courtroom, and the only judgement we recognise is the one where everybody tries in good faith to get along. This is all getting a bit silly. Orderinchaos 08:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Administrator Hu12 acted wrongly in posting this to my page: Removing warnings, whether for vandalism or other forms of prohibited/discouraged behavior, from one's talk page is considered vandalism WP:VAND --Hu12 22:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC) The above appears to be deliberate disinformation by Hu12 about Wikipedia policy. It was also a failure by Hu12 to WP:AGF when he chose to enter (why?) a discussion concerning inter alia WP:RPA.

Administrator Hu12 acted wrongly in editing Straw man see [[2]] This minor change of a heading "Examples" from singular to plural was meaningless at the time. That suggests a bad careless attitude to editing a Wikipedia article. (The mistake was handled after it was mentioned on both the Talk page and Hu12's own page, without any "help" from Hu12.) Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:30, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Cuddlyyable3 is right. It is not against any policy to remove warnings from one's talk page. Jtrainor (talk) 03:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Not if you're trying to hide evidence of misbehavior, as common sense ought to tell you. --Calton | Talk 04:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not against policy regardless of reason for removing 'em. Removing them does constitute evidence that the user has read the warnings in question, however. Jtrainor (talk) 06:26, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Really? Regardless of reason? An important exception is when an unblock request is declined. The decline notice should not be removed while the block is active, to prevent abuse of the unblock request system by continually re-adding new unblock requests. Another exception is suspected or confirmed sockpuppetry notices. That would be a "no". --Calton | Talk 12:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

And neither of those are warnings, so you're still wrong. Jtrainor (talk) 14:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Really? Neither of those count as warnings? My, you draw your distinctions very, very finely. --Calton | Talk 20:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with both Jtrainor and Calton, as common sense tells me that an ordinary editor cannot hide anything. A warning may be prompted by an editing action and it is the record of the action that is the source of evidence, not the warning.

Hu12 described his actions on my talk page as follows.

• 22:22, 21 August 2007 Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (13,610 bytes) (?Blocked: please stop attempting to hide warnings)

• 07:33, 23 August 2007 Hu12 (Talk | contribs) (7,640 bytes) (archiving obvious attempts to hide warnings)

I found the second accusation by Hu12 quite offensive. I state my policy at the top of my talk page.

Administrator Pascal Tesson has expressed a request which contains some logic(?). I should like to hear whether it represents policy:

• 18:56, 29 August 2007 Pascal.Tesson (Talk | contribs) (8,861 bytes) (revert. Please leave the block notice visible until the block has expired. This is valuable info for others.)

Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:00, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

August was a bad month for you. Chock full of harassment and Disruptive editing. You were activley removing fresh warnings durring blocks and in tandum durring ongoing disruptive behavior and edit warring. see your talk page history and your conflict with User:WikipedianProlific at Fuel injection, which spilled over as harassment on his unsuccessful RFA. This would indicate trying to hide evidence of misbehavior. I'll AGF but you wouldn't be attempting to suggest you were blocked because of those removals? (?Blocked: please stop attempting to hide warnings)^[3]. Altering the User talk summary history from [(→Blocked: please stop attempting to hide warnings) ] makes it appear to be so. Also not sure why you are brining up some non-issue, eight months later.--Hu12 (talk) 03:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hu12 please be aware that User:WikipedianProlific and I agreed to a mediation about a diagram for Fuel_injection, however you were not invited to the mediation. You are correct that WP's RfA was ruled Final(68/23/8)...No consensus to promote although you Hu12 voted Support.

I assume a block makes editing impossible by an ordinary user. I am therefore confused by Hu12's latest accusation "You were activley[sic] removing fresh warnings durring[sic] blocks...".Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:24, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

You disrupted User:WikipedianProlifics RFA and exploited it as a platform to harass him, and to push your adjenda... not to disimilar to what your attempting here. Wikipedia is not a place to import your eight month old grudge. Making personal battles out of Wikipedia discussions goes directly against our policies and goals. AN/I is not the Wikipedia complaints department.--Hu12 (talk) 16:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hu12, in that RfA 23 Wikipedians voted against your favoured candidate. He is free to apply again. Now please get over it.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 07:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• I was asked by Cuddlyable3 to comment here. I have to admit I don't understand what exactly the issue is. But I'll say this about my revert on the talk page: I do think it's a good idea to leave a block template for the duration of the block. Of course, that's not because it's a good way to humiliate the user and make sure he learns his lesson. But it does have the advantage of explaining how long the block is, for what reason, by which admin. Sure, all that info you can get by looking at a block log, looking at the contribs just prior to the block, looking at the talk page history and so on. But it's important to realize that only a small fraction of users know how to look up that information. As for the details of this particular block, it was back in August and I have no idea of the particular circumstances regarding that case. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 15:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit warring, disruptive editing, and personal attacks from previously blocked user.

User:Shabiha has once again consistently made personal attacks on myself in liue of an open discussion over a simple editing dispute. She has already recently been warned by site admins about edit warring, and was previously issued a temporary block for blatantly insulting me with religious slurs on my talk page without provocation.

Most recently, this user is again engaging in disruptive editing on the Barelwi article, which is a religious sect within Islam that this user subscribes to. It's a simple editing dispute that normally wouldn't belong here, however after consistent warnings from myself regarding personal attacks and insults in Shabiha's edit summaries and talk pages comments, and after being reverted by several other users due to his/her consistent disruptive edit warring, I feel that there is nothing more I can do. I would suggest this user is dealt with a little more sternly this time, as the same edit warring, personal attacks and disregard for user consensus is what led to his/her block last time. I would like to call User:Scythian1, User:Xe Cahzytr Ryz, and User:Abureem as witnesses to the same disruptions and edit warring I speak of. MezzoMezzo (talk) 16:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• I Shabiha replies that User Mezzo is Salafi or more particulalry Wahabi in belief and is editing Wikipedia Just either to Show Other Movements in bad Light or just to prove that Salafi Doctrine in bestt Light see Salafi article receives a tag of Non Neutrality and by his editing Deobandi Article got a large Section for Criticism section[4].He has habits of writing and Inserting Offensive words in other's Movement here.He has tried hard to get delete almost all the Articles of Scholars on the Barelwi page See [5] but was failed badly when Other Editors removed them. one recent Example when his Prod's were removed are here[6] ,[7],[8],[9].In all the discussion he accuse me not following site policies When I revert any of his POV and disruptive editing on any Article. The Article belonging to barelwi Sunni Movement are facing real threat from him see also history and Discussion of Dawat-e-Islami where Several Users have Complained his behaviour and accuse him of editing with Malafide Intention See here.The Intention is Clear by his actions .The Continous recent Insertion of Non Neutral Biased material must be dealt with stern action.All the editors in his List are either salafi or have pro Wahabi attitude by their edits.The User:Hassanfarooqi, User:Msoamu , User:AA ,User:MuhammadYusufAttari, User:Saq_mso are witness to his Inappropriate actions.Please Stop him .Shabiha ^(t 10:58, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm a Wahhabi? You realize that calling me that was what got you blocked in the first place? I really don't think I need to say any more, I come here to report personal attacks and she literally just did it again right here. And then called to witness users I have gotten along just fine with in the past...that's just confusing, but regardless, something needs to be done. MezzoMezzo (talk) 15:13, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

'Wahhabi' is considered by most to be a derogatory term and not one that should be used in a collaborative environment. This guy appears to have been given a final warning a few days ago about his edit warring. Contribution history is full of him accusing people of being liars. -- Naerii 15:20, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

• Derogatory term? wahab is the name of Allah in Islam and the terminology Wahabi was Popularized after the name of founder of this Movement Mohammad bin Abdul Wahab in Saudi Arabia.The Modern follower of him recognize themselves more with Salafi but How Wahabi became derogatory and When ,we dont know and I think most of the scholars on the Earth uses this terminology for Saudi Islam.what is wrong with that?
• You changed your name yourself and trying to Start accuse Others.You still have Same Ideology and Movements are recognized by their Ideologies and by the name of its Founders Which are same.
• Moreover Wikipedia has Page Over it .It is a faith this is fact and I wrote nothing new but by my experiences I told that either You are Salafi or ....

If You are Correct then I must accuse you of Personal attack by saying that AhleSunnah of South asia never Used this terminology Barelwi Which was Used by You in Your arguments .Traditional Sunnis Who follow Sufism in South asia dont Like this term Barelwi but People like You Uses it.

• The editing dispute is due to the Insertion of POV and Biased Content sourced to Unverifiable Sites which are Non Neutral .

I am always ready to accept all form of Criticism and editing but It must be from Neutral Sources .Am I wrong? Shabiha ^(t 17:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

This isn't about the edit dispute, edit disputes don't belong here. This is about your constant stream of abuse to myself and others via name calling and accusations. You literally just did it again here and are even trying to defend it now, despite another user taking notice of what i've been talking about. Thank you for the input by the way, Naerii. I've never seen a user been reported for personal attacks and instead of making a relevant defense, launching that same personal attack again on the incidents noticeboard. This is beyond ridiculous, something needs to be done. MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:29, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

• If Wahabi is abusive then It is again POV because It is a well Organized Movement in the World and has large followers.Your Claim is disputed and debatable.Moreover If a Person have beliefs according to this Movement then What should Neutral person Say about that Person?the answer would be Obviously that he has Wahabi faith.

Here and there Your all claims are Just Claims not facts supported by Neutral person.

• DON'T You Know that almost all the Scholars of western world and third World Calls this Movement as Wahabi Movement and recognizes Individual Person as wahabi.
• Additionaly the dispute was all about your POV edits which are Supported by Unverified Non Neutral Sources.

• Is this is not Your personal attack on me ,

This is about your constant stream of abuse to myself and others via name calling and accusations. and This is beyond ridiculous

Really Something needs to be done to Stop this User who is Constantly attacking me personally and damaging neutral pages.Shabiha ^(t) 09:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

You're seriously copy pasting my own comments to you verbatim again? Even after me telling you two or three times that this is trolling? Seriously, we have usage of what is acknowledged by everyone but this user of a derogatory term, which they were blocked for before, and now even trolling, right here in the incidents board. I think I can rest my case at this point. MezzoMezzo (talk) 14:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it's pretty obvious to most. Shabiha, my suggestion is, give up while you're ahead - your above behaviour is heading straight for block territory if you continue. The harassment and no personal attacks guidelines are instructive here. Orderinchaos 02:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Banning SPA RTFA from Don Murphy

I've no particular interest in this article. But whilst there's been disagreement on whether to keep this article or not, we should all agree what has to happen as long as we have it. With any BLP, and especially one where we know the subject is (rightly or wrongly) unhappy, we need to make sure our WP:BLP policy is enforced in letter and spirit and the article is at all times neutral and fair. We need our best writers collaboratively on it, and not people with agendas and obsessions.

RTFA (talk · contribs) is a self-admitted two-week old single purpose account (and probable sock) with an obsession with this article (all his edits are to it). He's continually been inserting negative content [10] [11] etc. This is exactly the type of user we don't need near an article like this. Earlier today, he restored a pile of his edits that had been challenged by other users under the BLP policy. (See here for edit summary). His mentality was he saw no harm in them, he thought they were neutral, and so it was for others to show him what was not. Looking at his other contributions, he's perhaps not an overt trouble maker, but he's certainly not helping us keeping things neutral.

I propose a topic ban for this SPA. Indeed, as this is the only topic he ever edits, perhaps we should simply block this account and leave the user free to resume editing with whatever main account he uses to edit elsewhere.--Doc^g 22:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• Strong support. Topic bans for obsessive editors of problematic articles are a good idea and supported by numerous arbitration cases. It seems to be the emergent standard for dealing with tendentious editors; they can then either redeem their reputation through good work or wander off - and we win either way. Guy (Help!) 22:37, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• Absolutely. Viridae^Talk 22:38, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• Totally support. We do not need this sort of problem user messing around with BLPs for whatever personal reasons. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:40, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• Seems prudent to me. Just as we would similarly ban those intent on editing in the other direction. ++Lar: t/c 22:42, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• (ec)Sock stirring up trouble. Obsessive focus on controversial BLP. The Hand says "block". Relata refero (talk) 22:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• This is a little strong, don't you think? He's edited the article once since the DRV, to implement a version of the article he felt was well-sourced and not in contravention of our guidelines. When he was reverted, instead of throwing a hissy fit and embarking upon an edit war, he brought it to the talk pages of the involved editors, the BLP noticeboard, and the talk page of the article itself, and has not touched the article itself since. Classic WP:BRD. Please, no knee-jerk reactions. Steve ^{T • C} 22:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

1)BRD does NOT apply to material he was aware was already disputed under the BLP. 2) This isn't a question of what's "fair" this is a question of "is this user's presence helping us keep this bio dispassionate and NPOV". This is about what's best for the article, not the rights of an anonymous user who's editing from a sock with nothing to lose.--Doc^g 22:50, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• • Would such a ban include the Murphy talk page or not? I would point out that the article has been locked again after erupting again after RTFA editing again. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The request for protection I put up was due to edits like this and not the content dispute of RTFA. The protection is unrelated.

I would encourage the talk page be banned as well. This is becoming problematic, so if this editor wants to contribute, and I encourage good contributions, it won't be in the very most sensitive area of this BLP, at least not in the near future. Support topic ban. NonvocalScream (talk) 22:53, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• • • I'll only point out that before RTFA's edit, numerous meatpuppets from the DM messageboard have been editing the article in an attempt to remove as much as can be got away with. See the messageboard itself for proof of this. RTFA appears to be acting in good faith. In his own words, "I am only an SPA because DM has harassed editors in the past when it comes to editing his article." I don't think anyone can disagree with that. Steve ^{T • C} 22:56, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• • • Absolutely.--Doc^g 22:51, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• I support this move - SPA socks with self-admitted agendas should not be editing BLPs. FCYTravis (talk) 22:52, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• In the past, veteran editors have been harassed by Don Murphy and people that he recruits from his website. You can see this taking place here. As I explained to Rjd0060, who questioned my use of a SPA, I disclosed the reasons at Talk:Don Murphy/Archive2 as well as at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Don Murphy and Wikipedia talk:Deletion review/Don Murphy. I do not wish to be harassed on my veteran account because I have personal information in my page histories. Per Doc glasgow's recommendation, I brought up my revision on the film producer's talk page to discuss what elements can be included. Discussion is underway to determine how to implement my revision, and I do not appreciate the lack of good faith by Doc glasgow. The content I added was how it was reported, and Don Murphy has acknowledged his own reputation. I tried to substantiate this by quoting him twice. I have not caused any trouble -- I reverted a sockpuppet that had reverted my expansion (and the sockpuppet was eventually blocked). I participated in the deletion review to inform editors about the film producer's notability. I followed WP:BRD, though in retrospect, this approach was not compatible with WP:BLP. If anything, would be permitted to participate in discussion on the talk page? RTFA (talk) 22:56, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with your using a sockpuppet per se in this case because of the reasons you outline, it seems it is the way you are editing the article that is, well probl;ematic enough to see you discussed here (and as a fellow editor on the article I am going to opine myself on the rightness of wrongness of a topic ban but will fully respect what is decided here). Thanks, SqueakBox 23:00, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

But he's not editing the article. Since that one edit, he's brought this up purely in talkspace. Why would that be problematic? Steve ^{T • C} 23:02, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

strong supporthe made changes to a highly explosive topic TODAY- reverting to his own writing that caused one DRV and one AFD. He is a probably enemy IRL of the topic's. He is pushing a non NPOV agenda.TheUnknownCitizen (talk) 23:04, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The DM meatpuppets have been strongly advised to insert as much nonsense as possible into the article (as per the messageboard). Why are they not the subject of an AN/I thread? Steve ^{T • C} 23:07, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

They were not considered worth a thread here and were just indef blocked. RTFA is actually being treated with far more respect. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Good answer; thanks for the clarification. Steve ^{T • C} 23:13, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

••indeed said puppets are deleted as they appear. Fact is Steve YOU left the project supposedly because of Murphy, going so far as to post the F Murphy expletive on your talk page. Then you show up supporting this attack account. Methinks thou doth protest too much.TheUnknownCitizen (talk) 23:11, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• If everyone wants, I can keep my hands off the article itself and solely participate in the ongoing discussion on the talk page. I just wanted to make others aware of additional content to shape the article. RTFA (talk) 23:06, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
  • You shouldn't have to make that offer; you've already refrained from editing the article in order to engage other editors in talkspace, all in the interests of improving the article. Steve ^{T • C} 23:15, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

a bit late IMO- you showed up today a week after things quieted down and started again. We don't know who you are and all you do is obsess about Murphy. You tried to insert a REPUTATION section in a BLP article as if you were qualified to assess such a thing. I think you should go back to your real account and if you want to attack Murphy do so as a man.TheUnknownCitizen (talk) 23:09, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I only added the "Reputation" heading in addition with the "Transformers involvement" heading because both were major subtopics under the overall topic of his career. If there is a different way to separate the information, then we can structure it differently. The content under both headings is valid. My revision of Murphy was not purposely negative -- I wrote about how his foresight and his drive were considered admirable. RTFA (talk) 23:13, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

you have tried for two weeks on multiple talk pages (including the discussion page for the AFD) to get someone to post YOUR version of Murphy with whom you are obsessed. Today a week after you failed you posted it anyway. TheUnknownCitizen (talk) 23:17, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, during the deletion review, I could not post my revision because the admin had deleted the article and its page history. The AFD was withdrawn because of overwhelming consensus that Don Murphy was notable. Unfortunately, after the brief gatherings at the deletion review and the AFD, editors went elsewhere. Discussion wasn't able to continue, but at the present, it seems to be going on. We can see what progress will be made. RTFA (talk) 23:22, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

WILL be made? I repeat Doc's question from your talk page- what is your obsession with Murphy? Why must YOUR version of the article be included?TheUnknownCitizen (talk) 23:27, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Note that "TheUnknownCitizen" is another probable SPA sent to aid Murphy's agenda. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:40, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

There isn't an obsession with Don Murphy. All my edits have been focused on the film producer because Murphy's supporters have frequently harassed editors that get involved with this article. Doesn't mean I don't work on articles about other people. I was aware of the harassment and used a SPA to be able to add content without fear. I'm not trying to push for my entire version of the article. The version consisted of verifiable information from reliable sources, and I asked editors in the past and today to evaluate what content can be included to give readers a better idea of the personal life and professional career of this public figure. RTFA (talk) 23:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I assume you mean notable figure since public figure is a legal term and would definitely not apply to Murphy. I also note that since you have come along there have been renewed attacks on the article, DRVs and AfDs and now this. If you ARE not obsessed I would hate to see what you do obsess about.TheUnknownCitizen (talk) 23:39, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The "renewed attacks" are as a result of incitements here to vandalise the page in order to have it "locked" in a state of permanent blandness. Steve ^{T • C} 23:42, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Ummm, Steve that link goes no where. Nice try.TheUnknownCitizen (talk) 23:56, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Deleted by MB admin. Luckily, I have a copy of the page saved, should it be required. Steve ^{T • C} 23:58, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The thread has been moved by Murphy; check the same forum, it's still there but under a different name. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

My apologies, I meant "notable figure". In addition, I have no involvement with any acts of vandalism on the article. Why would I vandalize the article? It would encourage more of a lockdown and not enable me to share content about the film producer. In addition, the DRV was the result of the admin being convinced at Wikipedia-Review.com to delete the article unilaterally after there was traffic on it. I never intended for any deletion processes to happen. The ensuing AFD was not my intent, either. I actually obsess about fly-fishing and Robert Jordan's books, but that's beside the point. RTFA (talk) 23:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose topic ban per Steve. Looking at his contrib history, the only problematic edit he made to the article was his last one on March 29, in which he reverted to a pre-DRV version without discussing it first. In light of this, a topic ban seems overwrought. Blueboy96 23:19, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• Totally support this. The situation was sparked off by this editor and will continue to be an issue as long as this editor and SPA are active on the topic. Powwowjoe (talk) 23:22, 29 March 2008 (UTC) — Powwowjoe (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Interesting, a little SPA sent by Murphy no doubt wants a productive editor banned from a topic. Can we just get Murphy's "stooges" to go away? JoshuaZ (talk) 23:40, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Josh, it was Doc glasgow who made this proposal not an SPA or Murphy stooge. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
• oppose per Steve and Blueboy. RTFA has been established to be an editor in good standing who is legitmately afraid of harassment. We need to allow such users to be able to do good work without being subject to attacks. No edit by this user has been problematic and I see no good reason to topicban this editor. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:40, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
  • • ignoring the incivility of sockpuppet user JoshuaZ, he states RTFA has been established to be an editor in good standing. IS THIS TRUE? Just because he says so don't make it so. And no Joshua, I neither know nor like Mr. Murphy especially. I just see this RTFA thing as something wrong and bad for the project. As do several admins I see.TheUnknownCitizen (talk) 23:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
      • I didn't engage in uncivil behavior but if you want me to I'll say simply that your accusations demonstrate that you have no idea what the bloody clusterfuck you're talking about. And given your above miraculously finding this issue as a new editor demonstrates that you are not only another Murphy but a liar also. Go away. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
        • I guess I would have to resort to profanity if youtube had videos that looked like that too. Personal attacks aside, I would like an answer to the question WHO said that RTFA was actually an established user except RTFA himself?TheUnknownCitizen (talk) 23:58, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
          • He has confirmed his identity to a number of trusted editors including a checkuser. Now go away. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
• Support. BLP requires that the content adder needs to prove the validity, not the content remover, as this account should know. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:42, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Incredibly irrelevant. All his additions were sourced. And he has made only one edit to which any serious objection was made. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Everything added was cited to reliabe sources, as far as I can see. Since the reversion, the user has taken this up purely in talkspace; as such, a topic ban is surely a knee-jerk reaction. Steve ^{T • C} 23:48, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• Doc glasgow has instructed me to discuss before editing, so I have done so. I was unwise to follow WP:BRD in this instance. RTFA (talk) 23:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• support, considering he helped trigger the whole drv mess in the first place. if you're too scared to edit the article from your main account, please don't edit it at all. -- Naerii 23:44, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• Excuse me, but the admin who unilaterally deleted the article triggered this. Don't pin the blame on me, and editors like H have suffered because of their involvement with this article. RTFA (talk) 23:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Well suffered relatively, don't confuse Murphy with the GNAA, I am another victim of the Murphy forum, believe me. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:56, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• Indeed, WP:SOCK#LEGIT reckons RTFA's usage of a sock account to be perfectly legitimate. Steve ^{T • C} 23:51, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• If he were an abusive sock he would have been blocked banned indefinitely without this tread, the SPA isn't the problem but it is a description of the circumstances. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:57, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. As RTFA has pointed out above, reinserting the controversial material wasn't a very wise thing to do, and he stated that he won't do so again. His edits to the Don Murphy talk page seem rather sane to me, too, so I see no real need for a topic ban yet. --Conti|✉ 00:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose per FT2's findings that this is "an alternate account used by a legitimate Wikipedian in apparent good standing, who is separating their edits in relation to this article from their other edits." In the circumstances, I can understand why someone might not wish to edit from their main account. No evidence has been provided that this accounts constitutes an abuse of multiple accounts or is otherwise editing in bad faith. WjBscribe 01:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't doubt any of that. The faith of the editor isn't my problem, my problem is that it simply is not helpful to allow a wikipedian who's obsessed with this article on a living person, and not editing neutrally, to continue to do so. It isn't fair to allow an anonymous SPA to target an article and use his position to fight against the subject's wishes. If someone isn't even willing to stake their wiki-reputation on their edits, they should not be editing an article that the subject is concerned with. It is cowardly. (And before anyone accuses me of hypocrisy since I'm anonymous - I don't insert critical material into BLPs and certainly never work against the wishes of the subject.) Editors who choose (and no-once forces them) to work on BLPs should be open and accountable for their edits and biases. He says he fears Murphy? Understandable perhaps. But in that case, how neutral is he? Editing in fear? And what's motivating him in this obsession? I'm not about to guess or assume the motive for any of it, but I am going to assume (on the evidence) that this isn't good for the article.--Doc^g 01:56, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
    • "Obsession" - I'm not seeing where you get this from. That someone (a) wants to edit the Murphy article and (b) would rather not use their regular account does not mean they are obsessed. His edits related to the topic are fairly light if he has an account that makes a "considerable number" (to quote Thatcher below) of edits to other topics. You seem to actually be arguing that those who edit BLPs (at least if they are adding rather than removing material) should not be able to do so anonymously at all - that's going pretty far against the current grain and I don't think you'd find much support for such a policy. I do actually think that if someone deliberately inserts defamatory material into a BLP, they should be deemed to have waived their rights to anonymity and it should be appropriate for the Foundation to assist the defamed subject in identifying them. This is a long way from that scenario though as the material added by RTFAs is sourced and appears accurate - its addition may not constitute balanced coverage, but I see nothing defamatory there. WjBscribe 16:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

SPA Blocked

Despite strong objections from a minority, I am reading a clear consensus to end RTFAs editing of the Murphy article. Since that's the only purpose of the SPA, I have blocked the account, but not the IP. The user can return to editing whatever other articles from his main account. There's a sockfest of other SPAs here, and I'd support blocking the lot (on both sides). If consensus overturn my block later, so be it. But right now I see clear consensus support. I do this without prejudice to the intentions or civility of RTFA who seems a reasonable person, over-obsessed with the wrong article. And let's ban all SPAs from it too. --Doc^g 23:58, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

This is strongly against what SOCK says. You are a highly involved editor given your previous reverting of his edits. I strongly object to both this block and your blocking. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe we have any grounds for criticising Doc glasgiow for his involvement in this articvle. Thanks, SqueakBox

I support a topic ban and I don't see a consensus at all. Especially not for blocking. -- Naerii 00:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Nope sorry, unless I am missing something very obvious I do not see any consensus for a topic ban, let alone a block. Please overturn. Viridae^Talk 00:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I have no interest in the contents of this article. I have never reviewed them. I reverted once when the edit summary indicated that RTFA was aware that he was inserting material that others had challenged under the BLP. I regard myself as a wholly neutral party here, I sought and obtained consensus before acting.--Doc^g 00:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

You have strong opinions about BLP-penumbra issues which is precisely what this discussion and block has to do with. This discussion was only here for a few hours. This is a SOCK compliant account we are talking about. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:11, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

As do you. So what? If having strong views on BLPs in general stopped admins taking BLP related action, we'd really be sunk.--Doc^g 00:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I support Doc's judgment here. This is a sensitive BLP, and past arbitration precedent supports being sensitive towards BLP subjects when socks are involved. Regards, NonvocalScream (talk) 00:14, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for being an uninvolved admin, Doc. As an editor to the article really all I am interested in is content, and you seem to have acted in an exemplary admin fashion (I am not saying you are right or wrong per se, but that's another matter, your actions in themselves are right). Thanks, SqueakBox 00:17, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

"Sensitivity" is being adhered to; RTFA has not edited the article since the revert, preferring instead to take it up in talkspace. There is no ill-behaviour to prevent; therefore a block is unnecessary. Steve ^{T • C} 00:22, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course we all know what the RTFA Stands for and as such it should be banned anyway as an inappropriate usernameTheUnknownCitizen (talk) 00:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

RTFA says this. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:26, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Er, RTFA is a redirect to RTFM which is within Wikipedia guidelines for acceptable user names. Now, if we want to talk about someone who should be blocked how about the edit right above SqueakBox who is a clear SPA from the Murphy boards. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Well if you support blocking people just for being sockpuppets I expect you also support the block on RTFA then? You can't have it both ways. -- Naerii 00:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

The block was carried out way too fast, IMHO. 1,5 hours just isn't enough to form a real consensus. There was no real need to be quick, either, since User:RTFA stated he won't edit the article anymore for now. --Conti|✉ 00:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

RTFA unblocked, no consensus for a block in this very short discussion. No continuing rverts of controversial material - he engaged on the talk page after the initial one, legitimate and understandable use of a sock per the sockpuppetry policy as long as he sticks to the talk page. Viridae^Talk 00:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

An alternate proposal

I honestly think that this action by Doc was overwrought. As I mentioned earlier, we're looking at an editor who has made only ONE problematic edit so far to this article. I looked at his contribs, and it seemed that most of them were reverting edits by Murphy's meatpuppet army. In light of this, I propose that RTFA be restricted to suggesting any changes he wants to make on Talk:Don Murphy for two weeks. Thoughts? Blueboy96 00:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

An obsessed editor is still precisely what this article does not need.--Doc^g 00:53, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Doc, I can't see how you've concluded that this editor is "obsessed" about the article. They weren't involved in editing the article for several days after the DRV closed. Unless you know what volume of edits this person's main account is making and to what articles, I have trouble following your conclusions on this matter. WjBscribe 01:45, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

That is not the point. I thought a block would be OK, but given the number of people who disagree, going ahead and blocking is the worst idea possible. Doc has been really, really cavalier recently, and I think he should reconsider his approach. Relata refero (talk) 08:13, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

If there's a consensus for the talkpage restriction instead, I suppose it could work. Relata refero (talk) 08:13, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not a good idea. This article is at current, a sensitive one. NonvocalScream (talk) 01:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

•  Note: The main account of RTFA (talk · contribs) has never edited Don Murphy and has a clean block log and a considerable number of edits. User TheUnknownCitizen (talk · contribs) is a sockpuppet of HydeDoctor (talk · contribs). Thatcher 12:53, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for that. If RTFA is a good faith user who has decided not to tie his main account to Don Murphy (something with which I can readily sympathise), that does put a slightly different complexion on it, but only slightly. I don't think that article needs SPAs, and trying to work out which ones are sleeper socks and which are editors avoiding the shitstorm Murphy tends ot unleash on anyone whose edits he dislikes is probably going to give us a weakness that will be ruthlessly exploited. Guy (Help!) 13:37, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly why I checkuser'ed him as soon as he became a concern, early on. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:00, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

To confirm information cited above, and comment: as stated on the original DRV, user:RTFA is a second account of a user with a wide range of reputable contributions on many topics, and whose past editing history makes it very likely this is a legitimate routine interest in the Don Murphy dispute and article, rather than an "obsession". To comment on Doc's original concern, if a user who edits on many articles and project pages related to related themes creates an alternate account for one topic where harassment may occur, that account will have edits to that one topic and possibly no others. Checkuser results confirmed as far back as the DRV that this user has an apparent good reputation and active editorial involvement in his main account, which edits on a great many topics, and that in the context of his wider editing (which is separated from RTFA's editing for legitimate reasons) his editorial interest in Don Murphy seems completely unexceptional from here. As a personal view, he probably has equal right to edit the article as any other experienced competent editor, as best I can see, until and unless he were to actually visibly edit badly. He should not be treated with suspicion merely for segregating his Don Murphy related edits from his other edits, which is permitted in any event, and very understandable in this area. He is not editing anything Don Murphy related with his usual account. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:56, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe it's appropriate to block someone for merely being "obsessed" with an article. You could say that about any FA author, too. Whatever the appropriate solution to the Murphy issue is, it's certainly not to block someone who is actively seeking to improve his article. There may be a problem with allowing this contentious article to be freely edited in general, but I cannot see a problem with allowing one interested editor to work on the article as long as it is freely editable, as long as he respects consensus and NPOV in the process. Everyking (talk) 01:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm aware of an editor who has over 1,000 edits on an article they managed to get to GA. Most definitely a good faith editor, if not a particularly efficient one at that time in their development :) I agree with the unblocking, and with FT2's rationale above. Orderinchaos 02:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Urgent action requested

According to Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Erkusukes, the anon IP 149.68.31.146 (talk · contribs) belongs to the banned User:Azad chai, which is the same as banned User:Azerbaboon. I posted this info at WP:AE, but my report has not been reviewed yet. However urgent action is needed right now, as the IP continues edit warring in defiance of the ban. In addition, a couple of new SPA IPs emerged that follow me and undo my edits. These are 85.211.2.204 (talk · contribs) and 85.211.4.163 (talk · contribs). Also according to the same cu, User:Erkusukes is the same as User:Merjanov and User:Cn111, and all 3 are likely to be socks of banned User:Verjakette. However, Erkusukes continues edit warring in violation of wiki rules, since no action is taken as result of the cu. I remind that Armenia - Azerbaijan related articles are covered by the latest ruling of the arbcom, see [12] Urgent action is requested to stop disruption by banned users. Thanks. Grandmaster (talk) 04:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Tagged and bagged the accounts/IPs listed in the Checkuser report ... can someone keep a watch on the IPs? Blueboy96 05:19, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much. The only ones that are left are SPA IPs 85.211.2.204 (talk · contribs) and 85.211.4.163 (talk · contribs). I believe they are open proxies. What could be done about them? Grandmaster (talk) 05:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Report it to Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I added both IPs to the same cu, waiting for the results. Grandmaster (talk) 07:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I added both to WP:OP as well. Grandmaster (talk) 07:17, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Another one: 85.211.4.116 (talk · contribs). 3 rvs, no comment or edit summary. Looks like someone tries to bait users restricted by the arbcom parole, as most of editors editing Armenia - Azerbaijan area are restricted to 1 rv per week parole. Grandmaster (talk) 10:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Blocked and edits rolled back. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:45, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt action. Grandmaster (talk) 10:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

The anon is back, reverting pages, please check contribs of 85.211.2.190 (talk · contribs). Grandmaster (talk) 10:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It's been dealt with, thanks. Grandmaster (talk) 10:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This is continuing to occur, see history of Caucasian_Albania; IPs in the range 85.211.2-4.*, but there are useful contribs coming from there. I recommend putting these articles on semi-protect for a few days, as they all contain the images that are the source of the dispute:

• Image:Noble-shushavian1.jpg
• Shusha‎
• Nagorno-Karabakh‎
• History of Nagorno-Karabakh
• Shusha (rayon)
• Azerbaijani people

There are more pages being involved in this silly game (see 85.211.2.190), but I think those are retaliation and protection on those wont be beneficial.

Note that 70.21.139.214 has the appearance of being a reasonably static IP, and it has previously been working together with the IPs that are currently causing a problem ^(evidence), but 70.21.139.214 has yet to play up again. John Vandenberg (talk) 13:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Another IP vandal: 85.211.3.239 (talk · contribs). I think it is time to semiprotect some articles. Grandmaster (talk) 19:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Hanvanloon

User:Hanvanloon is a self-proclaimed expert published author in the field of Quality Management. Since joining Wikipedia two months ago he has been a major contributor to Quality management, PDCA, ISO 15504, Process capability. He has almost tripled the Quality management article [13], increased PDCA by almost 50% [14], ISO 15504 by about 50% [15], and Process capability by about 20% [16]. These diffs include some edits by other users, but most of the changes are by Hanvanloon.

As a relatively new user he has made mistakes, including lack of references, which gave the appearance of OR. I've been showing him how to add inline citations. One mistake he made was to add links to a product that he created. It is clear from context that this was not an attempt to promote his product, but because he thought it would be a useful addition to the article. Nonetheless it was an apparent conflict of interest and that is the reason he is in trouble today.

Hanvanloon is under an indef block for a username violation. There is, in fact, no problem with his username per se, and he has offered to change to a different username. Ordinarily with a username block, changing name would be the cure and he would be unblocked quickly. But the block is not due to a username problem, despite the message block on his talk page that says username is the problem. The real reason for the block is COI.

My connection is through WP:EAR. He asked for help and I've been trying to teach him our ways. I asked the blocking admin User:Rudget what action Hanvanloon might take to be unblocked. Rudget suggested that I take it to ANI.

I submit that Hanvanloon has made useful contributions, that his few edits that might have been COI were not efforts to promote his product, but were simply good faith attempts to improve the articles by adding what he thought was relevant information. It was a beginner mistake and he should not be bitten with an undef block.

Especially with beginning editors, I think we should make an attempt to clearly explain problems and cures on the user's talk page. The message that he was blocked for a username violation was misleading to me and I assume especially to him, a beginner. Because the real problem was COI, there was no explanation of what action he should take to be unblocked. Also for beginners we should start with short blocks, escalating if needed, not start out with an indef block.

I request that Hanvanloon be unblocked. I will continue as a semi-mentor to him. Sbowers3 (talk) 12:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, he's a self-proclaimed expert. Anyone else proclaiming him such? (genuine question, I don't know the guy). He also created an article on his methodology, STARS methodology (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Who's watching for insidious POV? Guy (Help!) 13:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

  Okay, he is a published author on the subject.

  More to the point - look at his edits. They are not promotional. And the STARS article he created was a typical newbie mistake. Sbowers3 (talk) 14:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I've just done a quick review of the contrib history... yours, not Hanvanloon - and if you are prepared to semi-mentor the editor I see no reason why the block should not be lifted; I'm certain you will be a good influence. I would raise a couple of points - NPOV is core to the building of the encyclopedia and COI is not something that fades during a block duration. The understanding of the risks of COI effecting POV and undertaking to minimise that risk is the requirement for the lifting of any block, and therefore an indef block (although seemingly harsh) was appropriate. I would also suggest that Hanvanloon does change their username, as there was obviously some concern in that regard. I would hope that Hanvanloon recognises the need for the actions taken and required. That said;

• Support unblock on basis of Sbowers3 (semi)mentoring editor. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:33, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
• Support unblock at this time. I am little inclined to endorse the above request by Sbowers3 (talk · contribs) to 'mentor him' as surely one contributor is better than none. Just make sure (to Sbowers3) to watch out for COI and NPOV violations as per the reasoning mentioned above by LHvU. I'd also suggest an extended period of time for the mentoring to take place, due to the limited understanding of the encyclopedia by Hanvanloon. I'd also ask him (if that is desired) to, before reposting the STARS methodology page, edit a sub-section at User:Rudget/STARS methodology to remove any promotional material and to fix the various grammar mistakes etc. Rudget. 17:27, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
• OK, unblocked then, taking all the above at face value. Guy (Help!) 18:53, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. I hope I don't regret taking on the extra workload. Sbowers3 (talk) 19:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Important facts that have been overlooked

One of the major weaknesses of Wikipedia is that editors rarely look beyond the last one or two edits before drawing conclusions. One really ought to carefully examine User:Hanvanloon's sustained behavior before making administrative decisions.

In particular, the claim that this is an inexperienced user who simply "made some mistakes" is not supported by User:Hanvanloon's editing history.

The claim	What the record shows
"As a relatively new user he has made mistakes"	Van Loon is in fact a long-time anonymous editor: The first edit that I can identify is a spamlink of his consulting company, http://www.lc-stars.com, into ISO 15504 in August of 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=next&oldid=20837043 ...despite his claim that "I only ever did that on pages in my initial editing 3 months ago."
"One mistake he made was to add links to a product that he created."	Van Loon is a consultant who runs the Switzerland-based LC Consulting. What User:Sbowers3 calls his "mistake" is really a three-year effort to promote his consulting business, as follows: Anonymously spamlinking his consulting company's website into various articles (note: this is only a subset and extends back as far as 2005 and 2006): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=21646211 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=57344960 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=107050644 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=107051909 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=125436108 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=153384237 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=prev&oldid=181853039 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=186646817 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=186644212&oldid=177106240 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=187784140&oldid=186648459 Continued spamlinking using User:Hanvanloon: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quality_management&diff=prev&oldid=190881834 Employing a shill or sockpuppet, User:Isabel de pablo, to create a sham articles (Stars methodology and STARS methodology) in an attempt to promote consulting and training services for his "STARS methodology" Within days of the purportedly "independent" actions by the shill, van Loon spamlinked the sham articles http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=189460958 (anonymously to hide WP:COI) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quality_management&diff=prev&oldid=190887717 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quality_management&diff=prev&oldid=196840624 (two links for greater visibility) And "corrected" the sham article (now deleted): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Hanvanloon&diff=next&oldid=201979342 Promoting his books for purchase: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=next&oldid=51243660 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_15504&diff=prev&oldid=107051400 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quality_management&diff=prev&oldid=186644367 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Process_capability&diff=prev&oldid=192023030
"It is clear from context that this was not an attempt to promote his product, but because he thought it would be a useful addition to the article."	On the contrary, the edit in question, to PDCA, was lifted nearly intact from the sales pitch at http://www.lc-stars.com/problemswithpdca.html (note the web page <TITLE> became the title of the section added to the article). Van Loon then re-worded the sales pitch to avoid the WP:COPYVIO objection and to hide the deletion of the WP:OR objection.
"I submit that Hanvanloon has made useful contributions, that his few edits that might have been COI were not efforts to promote his product, but were simply good faith attempts to improve the articles by adding what he thought was relevant information."	The fact that he actively vandalizes legitimate content, to which he has admitted, should be proof enough that he is up to no good: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=187540759 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=187918407 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=187948561 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=188171693 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PDCA&diff=next&oldid=188178812 Similarly, his changing stories as to why he felt obligated to "edit" anonymously: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:PDCA&diff=prev&oldid=189093738 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Hanvanloon&diff=prev&oldid=201979342 His persistent claims that publication in the American Society for Quality's (ASQ) Quality Progress somehow makes his efforts to inject his books for sale and "methodology" into Wikipedia non-commercial: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AHanvanloon&diff=189458913&oldid=189256600 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Helixweb&diff=next&oldid=199176772 ...despite having cited the not-for-profit professional association American Society for Quality's "selling services, courses, consultancy" as his justification for blanking legitimate links to the ASQ website (Note also that they do not sell consulting services as claimed: http://www.asq.org/store/index.html and that the link (http://www.asq.org/learn-about-quality/project-planning-tools/overview/pdsa-cycle.html) in the content he blanked does not sell anything at all) Finally, his continuing efforts to whitewash his past misdeeds: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Helixweb&diff=prev&oldid=199182930 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Helixweb&diff=prev&oldid=199203189 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Hanvanloon&diff=prev&oldid=191834708 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Hanvanloon&diff=next&oldid=198461671 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AHanvanloon&diff=199833671&oldid=199655789

-- DanielPenfield (talk) 22:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I will monitor every one of Hanvanloon's edits (and I suspect so will DanielPenfield). I will make clear to him (if it isn't already) what he may not do. I will teach him how to do things correctly. He is quite apparently knowledgable in these areas and can be a valuable contributor. If you want to assume bad faith, then the above show that he is a demented psychopath - or simply that he didn't know better. If you want to assume good faith, then the above are simply innocent mistakes. In any case, I will closely monitor his edits to ensure that he does not violate any of our policies or guidelines. And if he lets me down, I won't hesitate to call for a reblock. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

What SBowers3 said. I would add that it is far easier to remove COI/POV material, and block an account, than it is to conjure content out of nothing. By allowing the account to contribute we can then determine the legitimacy of the content. It is better than not having the content in the first place. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

1. You are confusing quantity for quality.
2. He has reverted removal of COI/POV material repeatedly despite repeated warnings.
3. His actions are not consistent with his claims of having read and understood Wikipedia policy.
4. It is beyond me how you can still assume "good faith" after his repeated vandalism, his concerted attempts to conceal COI, and his years of using Wikipedia as a free platform to promote his consulting business.

           -- DanielPenfield (talk) 12:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

"It is beyond me how you can still assume "good faith"..." - I simply adhere to the WP:5 pillars and ethos of Wikipedia. I sometimes practice in assuming good faith regarding six different things before breakfast. I am always reminding myself that there is a real human being, a person with emotionss and the ability to feel both elation and sadness, behind each computer screen. I try to act toward other contributors as I would prefer they act toward me - and sadly recognise that I often fail. I do not regard Wikipedia as a MMORG (or whatever the acronym is... I don't play MMORG's).

You will find all the guidelines you need among the very many excellent Wikipedia:xxx pages - including one about indenting responses for the benefit of other readers. Cheers. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

• You've completely changed my outlook. Spammers have feelings too, so therefore, I will join you in helping them promote their businesses and products! I will also do "whatever it takes" (viz., vandalism, concealment of COI via anonymous edits) to ensure those promotions stay in place--the spammers' feelings would be hurt otherwise! And that would be a terrible thing.

-- DanielPenfield (talk) 15:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

SPEEDY and USER-FICATION

This says it all about Electro-magnetic therapeutic system‎. I am the sole contributor and wish to userfy the page. However Arthur Robin doesn't agree and Thinks the AfD should runs it's course. --CyclePat (talk) 22:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Nothing to argue about here. Arthur is right that you may not move an existing article to your userspace. However, if you wish to copy the article to your userspace to work on it, for a valid reason, that is a different story. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking perhaps that articles should be move-protected as a matter of course while under AfD discussion. This is the first AfD I've been involved with where there was an attempt to make the AfD unworkable, although there was one where the article was moved twice during the AfD.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:53, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like it's rarely a problem, and therefore doesn't require another whole step in the process (getting an admin to move-protect every article on AfD) which is backlogged enough already. If this becomes a more common problem then we can reevaluate. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:55, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I am still worried. Yes I tried moving the page not once but twice and am having a disagreement. Thank you for addressing part of the issue, in that it should be addressed in AfD. There is still one important thing to consider. I am the primary author. There where I believe some other contributions however they where administrative, in the sence that they added PROD, SPEEDY, and DEL templates.... (simply administrative Wikipedia things). Again, In my view that means I am the author of this article. Which means I should be able to userfy and have it deleted by blanking the page and requesting Speedy under clause G7. I've noted this in the AFD and I hope this concept of userfying will not be underminded by future edits. Therefore I too, as with Arthur Robin, ask that the article be protected until further notice (or until we determine who the primary author is). --CyclePat (talk) 23:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

If the decision is to userfy, you'll have the full edit history to work with. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

You know, I'm just speaking for myself here - and this is not a fully formed thought, but a working theory and I'd like to hear what others think - but I personally don't have a problem with a Speedy (Author's Request) and userfy, even while it's in AfD. Can someone tell me why that would be a bad idea? - Philippe 00:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

← Wikipedia isn't a free web host. If the consensus is that the device is not notable, Pat can keep a copy of the source on his own server. And Pat? Calm down. You've gone off the deep end again. Guy (Help!) 16:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know how to download the page history and every edit and upload to your own server? --CyclePat (talk) 18:56, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

As he/she has now merged some of the article into a related article, we have further problems with deletion or userfication. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:59, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This is typical of Pat, I'm afraid. Some people get carried away very easily. I suspect Pat starts at carried away and runs on from there. Guy (Help!) 11:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've just closed this AfD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Electro-magnetic therapeutic system). As per the author's request, I'll userify to User:CyclePat/Rhumart. — Scientizzle 16:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Jd2718 is obviously really the banned Jamiechef2

Resolved

 – Vexatious request, IP blocked for disruption. Guy (Help!) 14:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

seeing contributions history, the anti-Jewish POV pusher Jd2718 is obviously a sockpuppet or the original account of Jamiechef2.

diff1 diff2 diff3

Edit summary from this sockpuppetteer: "we don't automatically delete the comments of banned users; this had merit" when the edits were from "Michael-mike1", who is obviously a return of Jd2718's sockpuppet Jamiechef2.

Jd2718 has obviously been using these sockpuppets to subvert discussion, commit personal attacks on other users, evade the 3 revert rule, and own articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.205.23 (talk) 00:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Assume good faith, please. I'm not clued up on what to expect from Jamiechef2, but nothing in the edits provided looked sinister to me. Certainly, blind reversion of edits by banned users should be reverted, IMO, if the edits are productive, as those were (though I would advise Jd2718 to be careful doing that, after what happened recently to Majorly). dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 01:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

An administrator needs to remind this IP user who made this report not to attack other editors in his/her edit summaries. I issued a warning about this with all the usual links to our policies, etc. After my words of advice the IP decided it was still OK to leave edit summaries like this: "undo neo-nazi", "undo CAIR propogandist", and "undo obvious racist socking".PelleSmith (talk) 02:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Please read Jamiechef2's sockpuppet page. These are almost EXACTLY the same type of edits Jamiechef2 does, he's a racist anti-semite whose goal is to POV articles on food by removing any israeli mentions. You can read the contributions of any of Jd2718's numerous sockpuppets to see what he does.

In this case, Jd2718 is obviously using a sockpuppet to try to push POV and fake support for his own racist views. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.205.23 (talk) 02:15, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

You've linked to Jamiechef2's RFCU, I still see no evidence that Jamiechef2==Jd2718. Unless hard evidence is brought forward (perhaps I've missed it?), calling the accounts listed at the RFCU Jd2718's is simply not true, and should not be done. His sockpuppetry isn't obvious to anyone but you, and I don't think you're going to convince anyone by making these repeated assertions without backing them up with hard evidence. And please, ease up on the racism comments. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 02:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Look at where Jd2718 edits. Look at his constant edit-warring along with the jamiechef2 sockpuppet farm, reverting to its racist edits. Look at his adding back of comments by his own (banned!) sockpuppet as linked above. He's either running it directly or he's got a meatpuppet making those for him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.205.23 (talk) 02:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I have looked at where he edits. I'm not convinced that editing the same articles as a banned user makes you their sockpuppet. I'm not aware of him edit warring to restore racist edits on the whole, and I certainly haven't seen it so blatant that it's aroused my suspicions. And I will say again that simply calling it his banned meatpuppet, and then using him restoring the edits as "proof", doesn't actually prove any sock/meatputtpetry. At least, that's my opinion. Maybe you should create an suspected sockpuppets report or request a checkuser if you're certain. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 02:50, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

reply by jd2718

The reporter, 76.30.205.23 talk, also with edits as user:M1rth, has been warned several times about WP:AGF, WP:Civil, and edit warring. The IP started editing last week, M1rth last month.

The IP and M1rth share: narrow focus on editing a few aspects of the Arab Israeli conflict, preoccupation with Middle Eastern food, frequent failure to sign talk page posts, preoccupation with sockpuppets of user:Jamiechef2, and now, preoccupation with me. The user never links my name, calls me racist, saves his most offensive language (ill-considered accusations, mostly) for edit summaries, and uses the word "undo" in summaries, whether the edit is a real "undo" or just a normal revert.

List of warnings he has received, as M1rth:
[17] by user:Aitias
[18] by user:Chetblong
[19] by user:SirFozzie (for Canvassing, relatively minor)
[20] by user:JzG (a relatively minor "tread lightly") [21] but then blocked by same (for attacking user:Alison)
[22] by Anthony
[23] by me (I guess that's not so interesting) [24] and again by me with an agf3 template
[25] by user:Gwen Gale "please calm down"
[26] by Anthony "final warning"
[27] me again, on Civility, with a warning that next time I would ask for him to be blocked
[28] echo by user:Tiamut
[29] block by Anthony for edit warring followed by [30] a final warning by Anthony. user:Jayron32 declines to unblock user:Martinp23 declines to unblock
[31] and by user:Tiamut

Warning he has received, as this IP:
[32] by user:PelleSmith

This is just 6 or 7 weeks. It does not seem that he has made any progress on AGF, on Civility, on editing norms.

The accusation that I am either a puppet or a puppeteer is absolutely baseless. Jd2718 (talk) 03:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This IP user is quite obviously User:M1rth. User:AGK had promised to file a user RfC on this subject,[33] but got sidetracked I guess. Could someone else please look into M1rth's history and his relationship to this IP editor? And can something finally be done to stop his disruptions and false accusations? Thanks. Tiamut^talk 12:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, somebody needs to block this guy

I'd post individual diffs, but honestly, you can pick pretty much anything from 76.30.205.23's contribution history. Everyone who disagrees with him is a "neo-nazi," "propagandist," "racist," "boob." We're all sock puppet apologists and we all need to be blocked. That's going from edit summaries alone. Will an admin please put a stop to this disruption? <eleland/talkedits> 13:28, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

• Blocked 1 month. Guy (Help!) 14:15, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Also please have a look at 129.7.75.22 (and one or two others in the 129.7- IP range). Gwen Gale (talk) 17:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Note, this seems to have been a banned user and has been resolved by User:Thatcher. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:35, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

That blocked user, FFF, has himself been identified by myself and ChrisO as a sockpuppet of banned User:CltFn. And of course he's doing exactly the same sock-puppet hunting crusade that User:M1rth was, related to the same people, on the same pages. Who wants to bet they're all socks of CltFn?

Two weeks ago I hinted at my thoughts it might be something like that. Many of these alleged socks have seemed so linked with the users who've been "finding" and reporting them. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Wait - you mean that FFF might be socking against his own POV, then using the puppeteering to justify getting his way?! How convoluted. It is odd that he kept insisting that well-established, respectable editors like Tiamat were sock-puppets; I had it down to paranoia alone, but now you make me wonder. <eleland/talkedits> 19:05, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I never would have thought of it on my own, if I hadn't seen something like it here before (long ago and unrelated to this). Gwen Gale (talk) 19:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

What?

Resolved

I am correcting a poorly constructed article about Marine bacteriophages. I have attracted the notice of someone who thinks I am vandalizing the article. Please see the article yourself and his version of what should be a Wikipedia article on the topic versus mine. I asked him, after he reverted my edit accusing me of vandalism, what he was talking about (because my edit is and was clearly not vandalism considering the state of the article). He then accused me of vandalism for talking to him. Can someone speak to him and nip this in the bud so I can work on the article? Thank you. --Blechnic (talk) 01:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

That last one was me. Sorry. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 01:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, so, I just realized. This article is about an important major scientific discovery. It is surprising Wikipedia does not have a general article on marine bacteriophages. Someone just created one. I am trying to make it encyclopedia worthy and useful to the general reader. Please contribute in like manner or allow me to do so without interference. Thank you. --Blechnic (talk) 01:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears that CWii just made a mistake. Tiptoety ^talk 01:22, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you tiptoety :). And I didn't revert on the article. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 01:23, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Assume good faith? I'm still being accused of vandalism by the person Compwhizii was protecting.[34] What is going on? The virus articles need major work on Wikipedia. Can I edit them? Or not? --Blechnic (talk) 01:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC) Can this just stop? --Blechnic (talk) 01:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I think what happened is that your last edit deleted two references. That looked like vandalism, so he rolled back all of your edits without even looking at the other edits. That's one reason I don't use rollback; I always do a multiple-edit comparison, then undo if appropriate - which it was not, in your case. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but this [35] certainly is not vandalism. It's a talk page message regarding the warnings. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 01:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The article was trashed by reverting it. It may be uncivil, but content that nowhere resembles an encyclopedia should not be the order of the day for Wikipedia articles. --Blechnic (talk) 01:41, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't exactly civil sounding, but still. The user still needs to be careful about what they label as vandalism. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 01:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears that I may have made a mistake in the classification of your edit. Simply undo the changes I made. And, you were put in my blacklist. When you edited my talk page, it was immediately reverted. Please accept my apoligies. Mistakes do happen.DougsTech (talk) 01:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Are users allowed to maintain "blacklists" that automatically revert edits to their talk page? —Random832 (contribs) 15:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I accept your apologies if I can now return to editing the article without inteference. Will this be okay? --Blechnic (talk) 01:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

NPDougsTech (talk) 01:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, resolution. I'm going to mark this one. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 01:41, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Almost. This is snowballing.[36][37] What is going on here? --Blechnic (talk) 01:49, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I put resolved on mine and Doug's user talk pages. Maybe this will be sufficient, but I think I have been listed somewhere as a vandal. Can this be fixed? I'd still like to edit the marine bacteriophages article. --Blechnic (talk) 01:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe you've been listed as a vandal - the reference to the black-list above was most likely regarding a personalized user script like [Vandal Proof], which will automatically undo edits by listed users. It's not a pervasive stigma or anything. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 02:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that when Blechnic erased some warnings from his own User Talk, that may have set off some people as well. Though the unjustified warnings are annoying, it would be better to leave the warnings in place and post an answer below them. That would enlighten other people as to the true situation. EdJohnston (talk) 02:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, Blechnic has every right to erased said warnings per WP:TALK if he/she has acknowledged them, or, in this case, they were erroneous. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 02:22, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This is out of control. I'm a nerdy researcher, not someone looking to make friends or enemies. If you knew anything about Marine bacteriophages you could see how a plant pathogens researcher could get sidetracked into rewriting this article. But if you know nothing about them, your eyes will soon glaze over and you will beg for mercy from the boredom of what I do for a living, and you will not want to be my friend out of the danger that I may bring up the topic over the dinner table. I will assume good faith that this whole matter will be resolved and disappear entirely in the next 24 hours. Plus, the check box is cute. --Blechnic (talk) 02:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Genre dispute and incivility on Talk:Flyleaf

I have been unsuccessfully trying to mediate a dispute over the genre of Flyleaf. The problem is over whether Christian rock applies to this band, and properly sourcing such a claim. I have opened up an RfC, but another problem lingers from the incivility on both sides of the dispute, which I am bringing here for help. User:Hoponpop69 is in favor of adding the Christian rock tag to the article, and has been slinging personal attacks (see here); this is apparently a standard MO for him. On the other side, User:Dwrayosfour is against adding this tag. This is more of a personal dispute; he's accused me several times of being impartial and siding with Hoponpop (see here/here); while I've tried to stay civil, it is getting challenging. I would greatly appreciate an admin that is more experienced in dealing with the ill-defined music genre field to step in and help out. The article is currently fully protected; I would like to deal with this issue quickly so that editing may resume. Thank you very much. GlassCobra 02:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Anyone tried dispute resolution? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Because several editors are involved, WP:3O is not applicable, multiple requests for mediation have been turned down, and there is a current RfC open, as I mentioned. GlassCobra 10:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Blatant lies of English836

English836 (talk · contribs), formerly known as NightRider63 (talk · contribs) and Mgarnes2 (talk · contribs), has taken up the pattern of his former accounts in blatantly lying about information for articles. A past example can be found here where he tried to convince everyone his corporation traded on the stock exchange and a heapful of other lies (also see the related AFDs in that post). There's also User talk:Nationalparks#AHS where he, as Mgarnes2, tried denying an obvious COI where he was using his own blog as a reference on numerous pages.

This brings us to the present where English836 has been trying to explain how a Fire District is notable based on several factors. It starts off with being about the only US district to win this award. There's also a note about a malfunction of a fire truck. I dispute this. I get called a child, told to go back to Global Studies, and one changes to "few". The award is now give by region according to English836. I dispute; he gives an "explanation". I ask for a source; he gives these. I refute again with evidence. And that's where it stands now.

We also had an issue at Image:2007.11.29 - Joesph Saia and Patrick Quigley-AHS.jpg a while back with his lies again. He kept claiming that it should be tagged as US gov't property because the FBI was handling the case. This was false as I stated at his talk page.

What can be done about this? This is very frustrating and time consuming to have to deal with. His blatant lies are disruptive and need to be stopped. He's racking up a lot of issues with the conflicts of interest (linking to his own blog, creating articles about his own ventures, creating articles about his grandfather), these blatant lies, and the personal attacks (referring to yours truly as a fop, saying I need to go back to Global Studies, and saying I was a child). What should be done to stop this? Metros (talk) 03:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

From my (admittedly cursory) inspection, I'd say liberal kinetic application of salmonidae. At this point, an RfC might be indicated, at least. — Coren ^(talk) 04:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, so far I've been the only one dealing with these situations really. So I don't know who else could certify an RFC. Any other suggestions? Metros (talk) 19:18, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Block review: Concerned anon

I blocked Concerned anon (talk · contribs) in the heat of a 4chan attack on Gavin collins. Concerned anon posted here and I reverted, then, eventually blocked. As a lot of adninistrators know, it's very, very hard to AGF with anything associated with 4chan attacks, so this stood out as just part of the whole when I saw it.

Could others review this situation and his points at his talk page? I have to get out of here for awhile, so I won't be able to discuss this further, but I'll accept whatever consensus is reached. If others feel I was blatantly in the wrong here, then I apologize, but like I said, anything 4chan related is usually a bad sign. Metros (talk) 05:04, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I fully understand why you blocked; we typically respond to SPA trolling with great speed. I'd support an unblock though. The "concerned anon" makes a good point -- not wanting retribution from 4chan, he made a sockpuppet so he wouldn't have to post his username here. Because of his post I finally know how they organize their trolling campaigns (and after reading a lot of those posts, I feel like I need to wash my brain with a wire brush, but that's another matter.) Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 05:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I was bold and went ahead and unblocked. Hope that was the right thing to do, but I didn't want to leave it dangling, and I'm about to sign off for the night. Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 05:30, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Can see why you blocked; I might have done the same. Given the user's responses, though, unblocking to wait and see (as Antandrus has done) makes sense. No harm assuming good faith, and it's easy enough to deal with any problems as/if they come up. – Luna Santin (talk) 05:35, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Also everyone, please feel free to review the protections I've been issuing tonight relating to this matter. Due to the volume of the different IP addresses I've mostly protecting rather than giving out blocks. Feel free to lessen or remove ones that seemed hasty. But let me assure you, my "wire brush"-ed brain had some reasons for them as well...¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 05:41, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This came up before - an anon posted here that J Milburn was due to come under attack. Personally, if it were me, I'd block all the IPs attacking the page for one week AO for harassment - I can guarantee you almost all the IPs involved in these attacks are one-offs. I agree with the unblock of Concerned anon; he's not the kind of person we want to drive away, especially given the fact that he's actually ratting 4chan out rather than joining in the attacks.

Having said that, I recommend that all the edits associated with tards on User talk:Gavin.collins be deleted and/or oversighted immediately - this style of attack has generally depended on past revisions to work, so removing the versions from anon access takes the wind out of this attack type's sails. I have done so and restored both the good edits and the semi-pro. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Detarder)} 06:23, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm curious whether oversight would be an acceptable solution in these cases -- swiftly removing the one oldid would render all later attempts to edit that oldid producing error messages. Granted that I doubt that's within a strict interpretation of oversight policy, and the response time might be too slow to make it worth it, anyway, but the idea still comes to mind... – Luna Santin (talk) 06:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I tried when Milburn was attacked; I got a faster response telling Milburn to selectively nuke edits myself. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Detarder)} 06:41, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Behavior by User:Nyannrunning at Talk:Johnnie Ray#Question

We have been trying for a very long time to work out disputes over this article with User:Dooyar, who disappeared after mediation was opened, and now, User:Nyannrunning, who also has posted contentiously using other usernames, one of which we suspect is User:Dooyar again. User:Dooyar was blocked last fall for similar attacks (see User_talk:Dooyar#Blocked_.282.29). Our sock puppet report was denied, mostly because it was filed the week of Thanksgiving and this user wasn't online that week. After that, she basically backed away from major editing until recently again, and is now using another name (the Nyannrunning) that wasn't in the report or registered until after the sock report was filed, as well as another username registered the same day (User talk:Debbiesvoucher, to see the same "get help" commentary). Tonight, this user has posted personal information about my visual disability diff, which was only ever mentioned once on Wikipedia, in a now long archived dispute resolution some months ago with the Dooyar name diff. Now once again, she has told me to get help diff, which is one of the specifics for which she was blocked before. As this diff shows, she also has been quite rude, accusing me of running off our admin mediator, calling my comments "nonsense" and general incivility. Wildhartlivie (talk) 05:28, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

• Poor old Johnny Ray. Add them to the SSP report, and if necessary ask WP:RFCU, abusive / block-evading sockpuppetry will normally be investigated if it's disrupting articles. Guy (Help!) 13:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Funny, we've used that lyric as our email subject. Pinkadelica instituted a RFCU and posted a note about incivility at the Talk:Johnnie Ray page, after which Nyannrunning left a legal threat. Wildhartlivie (talk) 17:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:ERRORS

When I try and edit the WP:ERRORS page I get a message saying the page is protected, and I can't enter any text into the page. And yet admins told me last night the page was not protected, only protected from moving. That doesn't seem to be the case for me. Is this some sort of bug, or has someone got the story wrong? Gatoclass (talk) 05:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Only Move protected, try WP:VPT. However I will fiddle. come back in 10 mins.Viridae^Talk 05:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, figured it out, it's because I was clicking on the "edit" link for the DYK time template on the ERRORS page, which apparently is transcluded so it takes you to that page instead of the WP:ERRORS page. Sorry for the misunderstanding :) Gatoclass (talk) 08:50, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Review of block on User:Suciindia

User:Suciindia was blocked per Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Suciindia. They certainly violated WP:SOCK, but I think that the account was controlled by the party office and it is very much possible that the party office has one single IP. Can the block on the main account User:Suciindia be reviewed? Thanks. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 08:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that this was an isolated case of using a sock to get around 3RR. If the user acknowledges that what they did is wrong, and agrees not to do so in future, then I think a second chance should be OK. Discount this if there are other circumstances that could be relevant to my decision making. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 08:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

At least the users concerned should be given the opportunity to explain their point of view on the accusation of sockpuppetering. Suciindia claimed to be a collective account, I had proposed that they rather form individual accounts for wikiediting. I think it would be unfortunate if that advice (i.e. complying with wiki guidelines) would result in their block. Moreover, one fact that is perhaps not widely known to most wiki users is that SUCI cadres live in communes. Thus the sharing of a single IP is quite probable. One way out would be to unblock User:Sekharlk (which claimed an individual identity), and leave the rest blocked. --Soman (talk) 08:56, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

We need to ensure that this does not develop into a large-scale problem, which could easily happen if we treat a bunch of political activists with what they perceive as high-handedness. They appear willing to edit within our norms - see the previous discussion on AN/I - and I think blocking all the accounts is overkill. Someone should unblock now. Relata refero (talk) 09:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I concur that an unblock is in order, if they intend to edit within our norms... but we shouldn't unblock until they acknowledge their understanding of those norms and explicity state their intent to abide by them. If they have done that to an admin's satisfaction, then by all means. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 12:03, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's the diff of the account's last statement. Someone direct it to WP:SOCK, WP:GAME and WP:RS, on its talkpage, get its consent to those guidelines, and unblock. Relata refero (talk) 12:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I have posted to the user's talk page as you suggest, noting this discussion, highlighting those policies, and asking the user to review and accept them. If there are novel technical issues here (a community with one IP, for example), then those should probably be discussed here as well. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 17:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The statement, "any edits on it from our side needs to be recognized as by the party and not as of any individual" means that User:Suciindia is a Role account, which is not permitted on the English wikipedia (with exactly 2 current exceptions). Abecedare (talk) 19:05, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The user(s) has returned and taken to blanking the sock report and leaving personal attacks (calling other editors a "menace" and "hooligans"). IrishGuy ^talk 19:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The same notice was left at User:Suciindia's talk page here, and I have no idea how to parse it. There is a conference to discuss this incident? The blanking of the sock report is odious, granted. I acknowledge that role accounts are not permitted, which is precisely what the user is supposed to take away from their reading of WP:SOCK. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 19:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

IP blocked 31 hours. I think we're done here. Blueboy96 19:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

IP block?

User:Runtshit is now up in 450 sockpuppets, all edits with a clearly disruptive agenda. Just today we came across at least two new ones. Several of the usernames chosen constitute direct threats. Has his IP numbers been blocked? Isn't there any action possible to take, beyond just blocking the accounts? --Soman (talk) 10:29, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

We can try WP:CHECK to have his IP address blocked. Hopefully it's not used by innocent users... עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I've openned a request for checkuser for Runshit. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

See this archived discussion - apparently a checkuser has been done in the past without any success. пﮟოьεԻ 57 13:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be good to see if there could be a new checkuser, to see if it is still several IPs used (are these IP from the same server?). --Soman (talk) 14:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Ming Dynasty

Two editors have come to me, asking for my intervention, regarding the Ming Dynasty article. I advised both to discuss edits on the talk page, establish a consensus, and pursue dispute resolution. They also mistook me for an admin, something which I am not. The discussion on my talk page started here. I've done informal mediation before, both on article talk pages, and for the Mediation Cabal, but I'm slightly unsure what to do here. What do admins think of this? Possibly, have the article full protected for 24 hours, so the dispute can be resolved on the talk page, rather than reverting/restoring without discussion. Thoughts? Steve Crossin (talk to me) 14:00, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

As a non-admin myself, I'll just give you my opinion. Fully protecting a page should probably be pursued after both users have been warned about edit warring/WP:3RR, but continue using the edit summaries for heated talking in lieu of the talk page. This is when it becomes massively disruptive. So, my advice would be to warn both users of that and then inform them that you wish to pursue a WP:RFC on the talk page. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 15:03, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Dbachmann 2

The user is continueing to abuse his admin powers. I first want to ask you to look at the recent [first complaint], and specifically what I wrote. I want you to see what nasty words this user has used previously, a clear violoation of WP:NPA that left me personaly very sad and almost made me leave Wikipedia. He continues to break WP:CON in Assyria (Persian province) by moving the page despite other users are discussing it in the talk page. The Admin moves it for the 3rd time under the summary of no meaningful argument is being presented on talk. I ask you to look at the talk page and decide if you think my and other user's arguement is so weak in that it doesn't need a discussion. This is a clear violation of WP:CON. He is also continueing to break WP:OWN on the Assyrian people page by creating his own rules in the talk page. In the talk page, he declares that the page is ought to be about all Neo-Aramaic speakers. What right does it give him to decide this? That article is an ethnic article and I have suggested that we should try to follow the guidelines we are given by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups, but he continues to not back down. I ask you, is this how an Admin should be acting? I am looking at Wikipedia:Administrators, and it states Admins in general are expected to act as role models within the community, and a good general standard of civility, fairness, and general conduct both to users and in content matters, is expected. Dab does not show any of the mentioned. My issue is just a single issue with him. He has created numerious other problems, and then asks users to leave Wikipedia (User Tubesship being the latest.) Notice the strong language he uses. It would be one thing if indeed people were breaking Wikipedia's policies like he accuses many, but its the other way around. In the last ANI, no action was taken, no reply to my complaint. I ask you to at least look into the issue of Dab's overabusing his powers. Chaldean (talk) 15:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Dispute resolution is that way. — Coren ^(talk) 16:04, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can see he basically said "follow wikipedia's policies or leave", which is perfectly okaym and never used any strong language.--Phoenix-wiki 17:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

• This parses as "I am RIGHT! How DARE this admin insist I follow policy and guidelines - I am RIGHT!!!!!!". My first instinct, resisted only through heroic efforts, was to block Chaldean for being remarkably tiresome. The article is a mess with multiple redirects all over the place, and I don't think that's Dbachmann's fault. Dispute resolution, please, and be really careful with the language you use to describe the other editors involved. Guy (Help!) 17:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Phoenix, that is the problem; he turns the table and says follow Wiki's policies or leave when I haven't broken a policy. And in fact, it is him who has broken the policies as I showed. It is not ok to accuse someone of something they never did. What policy have I broken? In asking that the page should not be moved until we have reached consent in the talk page?

JzG, how have I demonstarted what you said? I am more then happy of following guidelines and policies, but it is him who doesn't believe in them. These multiple redirects isn't anything new. He does this with different articles where he ultimatly leaves the articles in a mess. Chaldean (talk) 18:03, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know anything about this apart from the links I looked through from your post, leading me to believe that this has something to do with the npov policy. And you havne't shown that he has broken any policies, you've just complained because the admin in question is not agreeing with you. Nowit might be better for you to just not reply to this and got call an RFC or something before someone accuses you of trolling.--Phoenix-wiki 19:08, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I asked for you to show me how I have broken any rules (like you said I did) and you came up with nothing. Thats fine, Lets start with WP:CON; explain to me how he has not broken this rule in Assyria (Persian province). He has moved the page on repeatly when there is discussion going on in the talk page. Chaldean (talk) 04:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

"Delete this page"

Resolved

Some apparent vandal has moved Parvathi Menon article to Delete this page. Can some admin move this page back to the original one? Thanks - KNM ^Talk 15:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

An important Information was wiped out voluntarily

Resolved

 – Simple content dispute, no admin intervention required.

Sorry molesting you, I'm not quite shure if I'm right here, but I urgently need your help, please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Informationsdienst_gegen_Rechtsextremismus&action=history Thank you in advance, Pitohui (talk) 16:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous IP removing warnings

I'm sure that policy is that an anonymous IP can't remove warnings from their talk page, even though I can't find it. Apparently, a lot of other editors agree, because this edit war is getting ridiculous.Kww (talk) 16:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, everyone is allowed to remove warnings from their talk page. In any case, it's certainly not worth edit warring over. I do agree with not allowing them to remove the ISP template, but I don't see why the warnings themselves should be forced to remain. --Onorem♠Dil 16:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is what WP:USERPAGE states, but does an IP fall under WP:USERPAGE, it is not theirs, as they do not have an account. Tiptoety ^talk 16:49, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Why wouldn't they be able to remove warnings just like anyone else? If the IP is static, then they should be treated like a registered account, in that they are allowed to remove warnings after they've been read. If the IP isn't static, then the warnings are being forced to remain so that uninvolved editors have to see them. I don't see the point. --Onorem♠Dil 16:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that it is to make it easier for vandal fighters to address the appropriate warning level.Kww (talk) 16:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I remember reading somewhere, probably on this page, that IP editors are not allowed to blank talk pages because they do not own them. Of course, that calls into the question the wisdom of putting warnings on IP talk pages in the first place, but oh well. Redrocket (talk) 16:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

If the reason is based on making vandal fighting easier, then why can registered accounts remove current warnings? (Not questioning whether or not that's the reason...just asking because that would make even less sense to me.) --Onorem♠Dil 17:00, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The theory there is that a registered user is a single, discrete individual, and their removal of the warning constitutes their acknowledgement that they read (or at least became aware of) the warning. In the case of an IP, it is possible that one user was warned for shenanigans, and then a subsequent user was assigned that IP and removed the warnings. The warnings are supposed to remain as an indication of vandalism from an account for whom the user cannot be determined (the IP). In all cases, however, the warnings remain in the history - which is why my edit summaries when warning usually read something like "uw-blank1" or "vandalism warning (3)" or some such, so that - even if the warnings are removed - it's still clear when and how severely the ip or user was warned. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 17:06, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

IP's don't fall under Wikipedia:User page. While there is a person editing behind the IP and he/she deserves all the consideration and respect as any other user, however IP's are not given the same latitude under WP:USER. Blanking or trolling of a shared/dynamic/proxy/TOR/ect IP talk page is vandalism. A users page is devoted to exactly one person. An IP page refers to anyone using that IP, which may well be many people. Wikipedia offers wide latitude to "registered users" to manage their user space as they see fit such as delete warnings. However, even pages in user space still belong to the community, IP's are not considered userpages.--Hu12 (talk) 17:29, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Hu12. It's okay to blatantly harass IP editors, because they're not real people. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Um, I didn't think Hu12 was advocating blatantly harassing anyone. Or did I misunderstand the discussion? -- Why Not A Duck 21:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Brought this up at Village pump (policy), seems clarification may be needed - Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Wikipedia:User_page_and_IP.27s --Hu12 (talk) 17:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

1. Treat IPs with the same courtesy as other editors and let them remove warnings.
2. Review the page history before giving a vandalism warning.
3. When giving a vandalism warning leave a discriptive edit summary for the next person to see.
4. Stop bringing up the removal of IPs removing warnings.

Saves a whole lot of time and effort. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 17:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hate to do this, but flaws have to be pointed out

Copied from village pump

I do not think an IP should be allowed to remove warnings unless they are static and at the same time not shared (I.E. Company, School etc). This is because when a user warns an IP it is seen by all users on the network. When a user warns the IP, everyone on the network or who gets the IP sees the warning. The potential for another person other than the vandal to remove the warning is high so in the end the vandal could not get the chance to read the warning and think it a fluke. So the next time they receive a "You Have a Message" bar they will think it a fluke and ignore it. Those warnings are designed to stop the vandal in his/her tracks. So if they are not receiving the warnings because some one else removed it the warnings fail in their purpose. It really does not matter if they are remove after a block has been placed or the vandalism stops after a long period. Because you can check the history. But how long a period really depends. I think 3 days.Rgoodermote  18:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Rgoodermote  18:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Right, but if someone else on the same IP reads it, then the user who vandalised won't see the new messages bar at all. —Random832 (contribs) 18:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess I just do not really see the need for making a big deal out if it. If the user gets reported to AIV for actual vandalism (not removal of warnings) then hopefuly the admin knows what they are doing (they did pass RfA and all) and will check the talk page history. If they see they have been properly warned.....then what is the issue. And for recent change patrol guys, one thing I used to do is notice that if the talk page was a blue link there was something there before, and it was probably a warning, I would check the page history and give them the appropriate level of warning. Just takes a few extra seconds of time.... Tiptoety ^talk 18:49, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

That it is not a problem. We know the warning was there but the vandal won't also. Also they will get, a lot of vandals go to other pages afterwords thinking they got off scotch free. As soon as they go to another page and yellow bar appears they double back to see what it said. This is an observation I made when watching a group of kids vandalizing (while I reverted their edits and gave them the warning). Another thing is that the vandal at the same as the person who blanks the page gets the bar. Rgoodermote  22:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I am going to step away from this conversation. The same for the one at Village Pump. Just before some one tells me to get some tea. See Ya guys. Happy Editing. Rgoodermote  01:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hibernation?

Are the administrators in hibernation? Will anyone care to the discussion above Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Review_of_block_on_User:Suciindia. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 17:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing else for any admins to do; the ball is in Suciindia's court to accept the policies as recently explained. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Jtrainor

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

This persons seems convinced of his right to be as rude as he wants. If I behaved the way he is behaving, I'd be blocked for 72 hours. See:

• [38]
• [39]
• [40]

He also persists in not assuming the assumption of good faith.

• [41]
• [42]
• [43]
• [44]

He also appears to be bizarrely white-supremacist:

• [45]
• [46]

He also has included personal attacks on his user page:

• [47]

He also added a category to his userpage that looks suspiciously similar to User:Willy on Wheels:

• [48]

And generally is a very unpleasant character.

I think he needs a stern talking to by someone.

ScienceApologist (talk) 19:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

No comment on the merits, but some of those diffs look quite old, esp. this one, from December 2007. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 19:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, some of these are from months ago. This user seems to have established a pattern here of being very combative and it's not just a recent pattern. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:44, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the first few diffs. I'm sorry but they don't look that bad to me. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Admins are really only supposed to block for serious emergent problems. A user conduct RFC would be the route to take to address long term behavioral problems. Thatcher 20:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I used my non-admin eyes to look...the first, he told people to grow a thicker skin if they are offended that seems to be white, the second and third, he told you to go away after you posted on his talk page that he needs to assume good faith because he stated that an MFD nomination was bad faith (and since it was closed as a bad faith nom, he was right) and he told you to leave his talk page again after you told him to be civil. Your next four examples of him "not assuming good faith" are: voting in an MfD that closed as a bad faith nom that the nom was "bad faith" and 3 diffs showing him telling people to assume good faith. Telling people to assume good faith is bad faith? The next two diffs, he made an addition to a page 2 weeks ago that is still there, and he identified himself as a white male in what was most likely a joke category. The last 2 diffs are 4 months old. Unless there's more than what's here, it looks like you're peeved that he didn't respond nicely to you essentially telling him to assume good faith when he was actually correct. --Smashville^BONK! 20:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see much point in commenting on diffs everyone else has already commented on, but in regards to that last one, we generally don't block users for having a sense of humor. (even if it's not funny, which is certainly open to interpretation, it's incredibly weak reasoning for a block) EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll agree with everyone else on the edits. I do find this [49] by ScienceApologist to be interesting. Edward321 (talk) 02:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll be blunt: ScienceApologist is mad because I told him to "go away" when he posted on my user page, . If he's seriously offended by that, he needs to grow some thicker skin, to reuse something I've said before. No apology of any sort will be forthcoming now or ever. I don't think I need to point out the irony of accusing ME of bad faith, while in the same breath accusing me of being a racist and dragging crap up from months ago. Jtrainor (talk) 03:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Hoponpop69

This user is very disruptive, and slings out WP:PA's like they are candy, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here. He also is using his, or a IP to harass the editors responding to the RFC, including myself. He carries out more personal attacks, see here, here, ok then here he reprimands his IP from his IP thinking he was logged in I'm assuming. He appears to be the main and only problem involving the Flyleaf genre dispute. All other users have reached a consensus. I just wanted to add some of his recent disruptive actions. As you can see this is only what he has done on talk Flyleaf. If you digg back further you will see he has a long history of this type of thing. He has been blocked and warned for all of these things, including sock puppettry multiple times. He appears to have a strong agenda for adding 'Christian Rock' to any band that is even remotely associated with Christianity, or even when the artists themselves are Christians he tries sticking that genre in there. He doesn't simply try adding it to the mix, he puts it above the sourced content, and makes the introduction to the article "Blank is a Christian" He always does this without adding sources, and causes disruption in serial succession. Landon1980 (talk) 21:29, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed this kind of thing with Hoponpop69 before, notably on Anberlin, where his activity ended up with a [case]; he's adamant that if there are some sources that relate the band to Christian that the genre be listed prominently in the article, even if the band has tried to distance themselves from the genre in published sources. While that's a content issue and not really an admin problem, there are definitely some issues with his communications, as noted above - calling people "retarded" and an "ignoramus" in a discussion is not on at all. I'm predisposed towards taking a side on this issue so won't pursue anything, but it might be a good idea for an admin or two to weigh in with him to try and moderate his discussion style, perhaps. Tony Fox (arf!) 21:41, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked Hoponpop69 for 72 hours as a result of these incidents. Additionally, they have filled a suspected sock puppet report that appears to be an attempt to gain the upper hand in an editing conflict. This sort of disruption is not allowed. Jehochman ^❤ 00:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

IZAK not assuming good faith

Earlier today in an AfD IZAK left a post which very clearly violated WP:AGF and turned the AfD into a battleground in the most inappropriate place possible. He specifically wrote, "and it is upsetting to see that he does not wish to do things that will enhance contributions on Wikipedia rather than disgruntle editors."[50] I respectfully request that administrators review his behavior and intervene appropriately. Bstone (talk) 00:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Hi. No "battleground" of any kind was created at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Subconscious (band) and the hyperbole used here is ridiculous. Nothing that I stated or did goes against assuming good faith. The only thing that I have been consistently requesting of Bstone that I wish he would get instead of resisting, and he does not like it, see User talk:Bstone/Archives/03/2008#REQUEST x 3, again. and User talk:IZAK#Re: REQUEST x 3, again., is that when nominating articles for deletion that he please notify the appropriate deletion notice boards which would be a common courtesy that can only help Wikipedia and all Wikipedians. Anyone is free to read the discussions cited by Bstone above at [51] and see for themselves. Bstone is requested to kindly not read every request that is made of him as some sort of "violation" of AGF rules. His request to "administrators review his behavior and intervene appropriately" is totally out of proportion and is hard to fathom at this time. Administrators are requested to please see to it that he work to assume the same WP:AGF that he expects of others. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 04:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I await for the admins to review IZAK's uncivil and lack of AGF behavior and respond. Bstone (talk) 06:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

IZAK is using exterme GF in his editing. To level such an accuastion against IZAK is a good comic relief... Zeq (talk) 16:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

administrator is abusen

The administrator User:ChrisO is abuse and covering his friends and there opinion to the Serbia article. He is gone so far to go in edit war.--Hipi Zhdripi (talk) 23:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a messy situation, Chris restored the map with the UN recognized borders while other users want to use Kosovo's declaration of independence as a source for another map, I would say this was RFC material but seeing the ammount of controversy that the declaration itself has produced AN/I is probably a better place for commnity consensus. - Caribbean~H.Q. 00:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo is no longer a part of Serbia. I favor the map that Hipi Zhdripi included in the article.--Uga Man (talk) UGA MAN FOR PRESIDENT 2008 00:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I wish it was as simple as that. The situation as it stands is that about 30 countries recognise Kosovo as an independent state, while the UN and the other 160 member states (including, of course, Serbia itself) regard it as still being part of Serbia. There is no agreement in the world at large about how to represent Kosovo's current status on a map - indeed, if you were to look at it as a matter of pure numbers, the great majority of states and international organisations would endorse the Serbian POV. This presents a difficult issue for us, obviously. I don't personally endorse either side's perspective but it's certainly not a good idea to make such a provocative change without any discussion. Hipi Zhdripi unfortunately doesn't discuss his edits and constantly accuses others of bad faith, which is a major reason why he got topic-banned in the first place. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

This seems like a fair summary of the situation, which I agree with. Orderinchaos 01:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Not commenting on Servia vs. Kosovo, but I’m not seeing abuse of the tools there. Semi-protecting the page against anonymous POV pushing (note: you can still edit, though I advise you to be careful – chances are if you say he’s edit warring, you’re probably doing the same) and reverting to a reliable source seems perfectly valid. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 00:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think I should point out that Hipi Zhdripi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a long-time problem user who was topic-banned from Kosovo-related articles for a year following Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kosovo. He's recently returned to Wikipedia following a long period of inactivity. Although he has been somewhat disruptive again, I've not taken any action against him on this occasion but I've left a reminder on his talk page concerning the general sanctions applied in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia. Separately, the article that he has been editing recently, Serbia, has been the subject of very frequent edit-warring and nationalist vandalism following the independence of Kosovo - I've just semi-protected it to cut down on the disruption. (This doesn't affect Hipi, as he's a long-established editor.) It would be helpful if other editors could watchlist the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that currently the article is in a badly vandalized state. In the first paragraph it links to the "Sucker River" and other inaccurate geographical features, this should be fixed but I don't know the name of the actual river or the other geographical features.--Uga Man (talk) UGA MAN FOR PRESIDENT 2008 00:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Now you see why I semi-protected it... Thanks for the heads-up; restored to a pre-vandalised version. I thought I'd caught it but evidently not. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The discussion over the map has been pretty light, so I don't see a particular need to jump past dispute resolution for the time being. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

If you look at Hipi's edits, he hasn't discussed it at all. Using article talk pages would seem to be a good start... -- ChrisO (talk) 00:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry ChrisO, but this is not the firs time that you are covering the group of Serbs and presenting me as "war maker". You have blocked me yes? I didnt have experience with Wikipedia rules. Every time wen it was edit war in Kosovo article you have protected the page in Serbian version. I'm my self administrator, and I know how it is. My friend you are covering a group of user´s. And I know that you are going to be involved in this problem.--Hipi Zhdripi (talk) 00:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've never blocked you (check your log) and I'm certainly not "covering" for anyone. The fact that I've been accused of being pro-Serbian by Albanians and pro-Albanian by Serbs suggests I must be getting something right. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You can come as new user in sq.Wiki I don´t have to block you, I need only to provoked you. The rest are going to do the other administrators.--Hipi Zhdripi (talk) 00:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There are 36 Stats that don´t accept this map. There are all English spooked countries that don´t accept this map. ChrisO, thanks your covering the Wikipedia in English is saying something else the government witch speak English as official language. You have a embassy (USA, GB etc) in Kosovo, and the people have right to know if they need VISA for traveling in Serbia and Kosovo. With that map you are given wrong information!!! --Hipi Zhdripi (talk) 00:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hallo Chris O. Who say A mos say B- to. You didn´t give me answer and you didn´t help me to find out the rules of English Wikipedia, only you have Warning me! Your job is to help people not only to Warn them. My question is: Wat should I do? And please not it, that I have asked how are the rules and right of user in keys of a conflict with administrator.--Hipi Zhdripi (talk) 01:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hipi Zhdripi and everybody else to whom it applies, keep your nationalist squabbles the hell out of Wikipedia. You've made these articles effectively uneditable for anyone who doesn't have the stomach for vicious partisan bickering. I realize this is blunt but I don't care. Something needs to be done about this crap, because it's turned a wide swath of Wikipedia into a war zone and has alienated too editors who could be making useful contributions there. Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Raymond. There are getting to be more and more articles where the well is just poisoned again and again. Maybe I'm just dumb but why doesn't someone just put both maps in the article? Sort of a "UN + these think this, these guys think this"? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, the controversy over these articles merely reflects the wider controversy in the world at large. We can't expect Wikipedia to solve the world's political disputes. All we can do is keep a lid on the POV-pushing, edit warring and general disruption that the disputes cause here. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The best is probably a 'Kashmiri' solution for the map, having one map which shows Kosovo borders with dotted line. Explaining the UN position vs 36 countries recognition in the image caption. --Soman (talk) 08:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Can't a compromise be reached and both maps be used. As the article is meant to be neutral doesn't it make sense for both sides of the issue to be given the same level of consideration? Does using both maps and labelling them appropriately violate some policy on here that I am not currently aware of? Jasynnash2 (talk) 08:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

---

Teh? --PaxEquilibrium (talk) 15:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User using rollback tool to edit war

In particular, I'm worried about [52]. It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't edit warring against everyone else, but the fact that he used the tool in such a situation causes worry for me. The Evil Spartan (talk) 00:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

who? -- Naerii 00:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Only use of rollback I see is [53] by Giano II. Do you have other instances of him improperly using rollback? --Infophile ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Spartan, Giano reverted this edit, that while not really disruptive featured a edit summary that taunted the blocked user, we don't taunt blocked users, I have seen at least one crat issue warnings to editors in good standing for doing that. - Caribbean~H.Q. 00:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have typed this up more quickly. I wanted to type this text:

In particular, I'm worried about [54]. It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't edit warring against everyone else, but the fact that he used the tool in such a situation causes worry for me. He has also abused it at [55] [56] [57] and used it questionably elsewhere: [58] [59] [60] [61]. In short, a look through his contributions shows that he is using the tool incorrectly almost half of the time. In short, I hate dramaz as much as anyone, but Wikipedia:Rollback feature is quite clear, and I find it more than irritating when someone abuses a feature. The Evil Spartan (talk) 00:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this warrants removal of the rollback feature. Tiptoety ^talk 00:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I must say, rollback isn't meant for reverts like these. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this discussion could continue in approximately six hours when the editor involved is back online, it now being the wee hours of the morning in the UK, and Giano not having edited for several hours? Or perhaps, given that the example used is a week old, this could have been discussed with the user involved before a post at AN/I, so that those who "hate dramaz" might be able to avoid them in the first place? Or possibly the admin who issued rollback might have been contacted? (I believe that was Doc Glasgow, but I could be wrong - someone else can check the logs.) Risker (talk) 01:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone notice that accounts that make it their business to go after Giano are either the same old or the new never heard of? --Irpen 01:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

As for myself, I don't think that's true. I only wondered why Giano has been using rollback for non-vandal edits. Gwen Gale (talk) 01:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's now in the past but Giano should at least be warned not to do this in future or face rollback being removed. It doesn't matter who brounght this to ANI, just look at the diffs and they're clearly inappropriate uses of rollback to remove the comments of other respected editors, some on pages which are not his own. special, random, Merkinsmum 02:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I am looking through these edits and not seeing the problem. The first diff is a user blanking someone else's userpage. The edit summary lends weight to the very reasonable assumption that the edit being reverted was not in good faith. The talk page edits seem a perfectly good use of rollback since no edit summary is required in these cases; it is unclear to me what value is added by manually reverting these edits. For the rest, the edits being reverted included an edit making the first sentence of an article ungrammatical, and other generally unhelpful changes. It is common and widely accepted for edits, including good faith edits, to be reverted using automatic tools if the reversion is uncontroversial, and I do not believe any of the edits raised here could have been expected to be controversial. I don't see a problematic pattern here even if a couple of the edits are questionable. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Christopher, Irpen, Risker et al - very wise and perceptive comments. Have the rest of you nothing more productive to do with your time? Giano (talk) 07:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I see absolutely no problems here. The problem with rollback is that it leaves no comment. One is entitle to remove posts from one's own user page without comment. One of the edits rolled back is mine, and whilst it shows Giano's annoyance with my post, so what? One of the other edits cited has a clear good faith rationale (is that even rollback?), and another seems to be a frustrated response to someone else's poor use of rollback. This looks like a "Let's get Giano" thread. Now, Giano has plenty faults and may well get legitimate blocks under his civility parole, but the purpose of the parole is to allow him to edit normally whilst discouraging heat and drama. What is this thread doing, but poking a stick to cause drama? I'm finding it very hard to assume good faith here. Now, go back to work and let this be. I gave Giano rollback, I do not regret it, and if he abuses it I will have a quiet word with him (probably by e-mail) which is far more likely to be effective and undramatic than opening up a heated producing and disruptive thread on ANI. Enough.--Doc^g 07:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Excessive cabals

Take a look at User:Diligent Terrier/Cabals. These cabals are beginning to look like the start of yet another social networking, hangout. Users vote each other into the cabals and it appears to, essentially, be just a handful of users joining all of the cabals. A lot of the users here appear to be borderline unproductive as well, focusing on hanging out and having wikifriends rather than helping the project. Any thoughts on these? Metros (talk) 02:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There were some recent thoughts here... — Scientizzle 02:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hadn't seen that. I just stumbled upon these today so I wasn't aware of that discussion. Metros (talk) 03:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Metros - if you look at user contribs of this user and one or two related they seem to do very little else when here (although he has started and scoped a WikiProject on which development appears to have now ceased.) Orderinchaos 03:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll note one of the feelings at MfD seemed to be that cabals (and other myspace-y things) are ok, so long as their not an editors primary focus. Looking at RyRy5 (talk · contribs), out of his 3990 edits, 503 are to the mainspace and 420 to wikipedia, most are talk and user edits. Nothing444 (talk · contribs) has 369 mainspace out of 2313 and 252 wikipedia. Since both these users have declared an intent to become admins, someone might want to let them know that a 1 to 8 ratio of articles to comments will probably hurt their odds at rfa. MBisanz ^talk 03:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I had noticed that most of the users involved are speculating on future runs at adminship. Orderinchaos 03:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There's also Misscutie27 (talk · contribs) with just over 150 edits, and only about a dozen in the article space and everything else to the user space. Metros (talk) 03:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I did a quick check of contribs through wannabekate for a bunch of accounts, most of the users in question have 50% or more of their edits in user space or user talk space, with two approaching 75% (RyRy5 - 72.88, Einsteinewton - 75.46). Orderinchaos 03:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Does someone want to close the related now 10-day-old redirects for discussion debate re WP namespace redirects to the cabals? Orderinchaos 03:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There have been a few thoughts shed here also. Basketball110  Talk  03:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

One thing to keep in mind is that there are some groups who either do constructive things (e.g. this) or whose members are constructive and need some downtime (e.g. this.) That being said, if neither of those things are occurring, the members should be gently reminded to work on the encyclopedia (which I should be doing instead of posting here...) at the very least. We all need a break from writing/admining, but it can go too far, especially when one does very little writing or adminning. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 03:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

One of the issues here is that there is a huge level of bureaucracy with these projects which we've seen brought down in the past in other userspace cliques such as the codeshops/marts that were all deleted a little while back. Users have to have a particular template added to their pages, there are cabal clerks, only particular users can approve membership, etc. I don't see how that's allowable in light of previous decisions about this. Metros (talk) 03:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I have spoken - ad nauseum - with RyRy about moving his primary focus out of User and User talk space and into mainspace. Although I !voted "Keep" on some of the cabals at MfD recently, I'm beginning to change my mind, due to what I believe to be an exclusionary nature of them. In a couple of cases they require that you get "voted in", and without sufficient support you can't be allowed "in", etc. I really am concerned by that. - Philippe 03:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

All of the cabals linked at User:Diligent Terrier/Cabals are by vote-in only (private). There's a voting process, clerks, and a person who can grant membership. Metros (talk) 03:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Erm, would a hefty application of IAR be a good idea here? (In deleting the pages) Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 03:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe after a check with Master of Puppets, since he did close the MfD. But yes, another example one could cite was the whole Motto of the Day hierarchy situation. MBisanz ^talk 03:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've left a note at his talk page asking if he'd care to weigh in here. Metros (talk) 03:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You must have been denied membership then. I'm still waiting for the Wikipedia Clans, like in MMORPG's. seicer | talk | contribs 03:31, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Oy vey. I've deleted them all, basically because they're a massive timesink. Feel free to reverse the deletion, DRV it, whatever, but this is ridiculous. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 03:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Note there are others related, such as User:Einsteinewton/Cabals and links therein. Orderinchaos 03:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems like only days ago that even bringing up this issue would get you blocked indefinitely as a troll... --Onorem♠Dil 03:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone have strong opinions on User:RyRy5/Adoption Program/Classroom/Teachers, looks a lot like a cabal. MBisanz ^talk 03:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Meh, they're duplicating WP:AAU. If no one has any serious objections to keeping the Adoption thing and the deletion of all the other junk, then we can tag this resolved and encyclopedia get on with the important stuff. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 03:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting that feeling again... Daniel (talk) 04:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully they'll get the message. I've marked as resolved. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 04:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Removed the resolved tag, 'cuz this isn't really fully resolved (rather, editors are still unsure from the looks of it).

In my opinion, I agree that as long as editors don't focus on the cabals/groups and turn them into MySpace-like cliques/hierarchies, it should all be good. Anyway, on to my personal thoughts on the existence of these cabals; I think we'd all agree that Wikipedia can be intimidating. New editors are very often overwhelmed by the complexity of the gears that move here. I think cabals are one way to get away from the feeling of helplessness; you know, form a sort of meetingplace where people like themselves can meet up, figure out where they are in the community. Yes, that's a step towards social networking, but different people deal with the same situation in different ways.

Now, I think the approach should be more gentle than just plain flat-out deleting them. To put it honestly, there are quite a bit of people here who take things a tad too seriously from time to time, and that sometimes can negatively impact events here. I say, instead of deleting a blue streak across Wikipedia, we take a different approach and instead try to make this a learning experience. I'd appreciate getting some opinions on this before someone marks this as resolved again. ;) Cheers, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :)} 05:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

For the most part we're not dealing with newbies here. This had gotten to a point where something needed to be done, it was starting to expand and become a little empire in userspace and its existence was encouraging others to do likewise. We have blocked editors in the past for this sort of stuff once it gets beyond a certain point (I'm thinking of the Gp75 case). I say this not suggesting as a remedy for the present case but to address the "this is being taken too seriously" argument. Orderinchaos 05:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Am I being thick? Is this an April fool? It was only a few days ago it was decided these would be kept, wasn't it? They also have on most of those cabal's pages a challenge to bring a random article up to GA status or something, which could encourage editors in their work. At most- merge it into one cabal rather than several, as it's mostly the same people.special, random, Merkinsmum 12:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There was no substantial debate earlier (it got piled on then closed rather rapidly) and the information available to those considering the situation was not sufficient basis to make a decision. With the exception of one editor who clearly was both a regular editor and a minor participant in the cabals, only two of the users had more than 50% of their contributions outside user/user talk space despite some having several months of history, and only one had contributed significantly to any mainspace article - and certainly not to any potential GAs - in the past four days. It appeared that these cabals had become their sole focus of editing attention, and were not only becoming self-perpetuating but were expanding into other userspaces. Orderinchaos 13:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I want to know why someone took the initiative to go ahead and delete all of the cabals. Just a few days ago there was an anti-cabals post here that was shot down very quickly, and a nomination at MfD, which closed very quickly in a matter of hours with a snowball keep result. Especially when the cabals have been improving articles, as in their random article contest, I think it is very inappropriate for an admin to act against the consensus and delete the cabals without any giving anyone a chance to comment. Please restore the cabals pages until a consensus is reached. Thank you. - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 15:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I for one had issues with the "cabals" as those in them didn't appear to know what a "cabal" was. For example, the "Doggy Cabal" was created to improve the dog article, even though the Dog Wikiproject already exists. A cabal is not a wikiproject. As well as that issue, the groups were not open membership based, there were votes, and that goes against what wikipedia stands for. George The Dragon (talk) 15:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think I'll weigh in on this one. But first let me get this straight: First, an admin deletes the cabals after there was a consensus to keep a few days ago. Second, Orderinchaos, there was a consensus to keep and the deletion discussion was closed with a consensus to keep. Also, I would be very interested in knowing who that user that was, "only one had contributed significantly to any mainspace article - and certainly not to any potential GAs - in the past four days."? Mind telling me that one, as I am a heavy RC patroller, and I know that basketball110 and DT are as well. RC-0722 ^247.5/1 15:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

With respect, reverting vandalism does not count as significantly contributing to mainspace articles. George The Dragon (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggest to prefixindex the userpages and usertalkpages of all users involved in these cabals. Others may have been created since, for example User:Nothing444/Secreteaters Cabal. Cenarium^Talk 17:31, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyvio allegations by new editor unsubstantiated?

Thabizzness (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is a new editor whose first three edits were on persistent vegetative state blanking three large sections of the article including interwiki links claiming 23:27 "violates copyright", 23:29 "violates copyright", 23:46 "violates copyright".

I searched the web for copyvio evidence, but all I could find was similar content at one blog [62] when searching for the phrase "misdiagnosis of PVS is not uncommon" However, the blog was created in May 2007, which is after the phrase first appeared in the article in this edit in Nov 2006. I am very familiar with the article's content and what seems to be a normal pattern of development with a good spread of edits from a large number of different editors and some admins such as Neil and The Anome. In view of this, I would be extremely surprised if whole sections are copyvios.

I restored the content 23:46 "no evidence of copyvio", and asked Thabizzness on his/her talk page for clarification of the copyvio evidence.[23:54]. Thabizzness again blanked the content including the interwiki links, 23:48 "Misdiagnoses" violates copyright, 23:54 References: "has some errors with copyright", but without replying to the question on his/her talk page.

Assuming good faith in Thabizzness' complaint, I propose to give Thabizzness more time to respond to the question, and if there is still no response, to restore the content. I will leave the article in its current truncated state while the matter is unresolved. I would be grateful for any comments. I can take it to WT:CP next. - Neparis (talk) 02:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

How, exactly, can a reference section 'violate copyright'? HalfShadow (talk) 02:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I know. I'm extending good faith to the maximum here, just in case the editor has valid evidence. - Neparis (talk) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I had the same question and went ahead and restored that section, but added a {{Nofootnotes}} tag to it. If someone can figure out how a list of references is a copyvio, then I apologize for restoring it - but it honestly didn't make any sense to me for it to be removed. I did not restore the "Misdiagnoses" section yet, so that's still left for someone to sort out. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Incivility by Redthoreau

Redthoreau (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been repeatedly incivil to Mattisse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). Both have been involved long-term in editing Che Guevara (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (Redthoreau since Dec. 2006(?) and Mattisse for considerably longer than that.) Mattisse seems at the point of being driven away from editing the article due to the incivilities. (Mattisse has from time to time stated an intention to stop editing the article due to the problematic atmosphere but so far has not actually stopped.) There may be WP:OWN issues. Mattisse seems intimidated and afraid to edit the article recently. Mattisse also felt intimidated by a message I posted to the user's talk page, for which I've apologized, and apparently didn't edit the article for a week because of that (although continued to participate on the talk page).

I became involved at Che Guevara on March 20 via the 3RR noticeboard where I was just starting to help. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive68#User:Redthoreau reported by User:Mattisse (Result: page protected). Since then I've been primarily in a mediator-like role attempting to keep things calm between Mattisse and Redthoreau, the only other editors who participate there much. The article is currently under featured article review.

Redthoreau has posted uncivil comments to Mattisse 20 March "he then from that impugns that I am attacking his mental state (which is not necessary, as the facts speak for themselves).", and "and in response to him calling me a sock puppet I called him “Insane”. An insult? Possibly, but also a medical diagnosis I believe (as I am not sure what else to call it)." and other uncivil comments in the same message. Redthoreau subsequently stated an intention to not discuss editors' behaviour and to work towards an amicable atmosphere.

However, Redthoreau more recently (06:26, 30 March 2008 UTC) said this (Note first sentence of the diff) to Mattisse. I suggested to Redthoreau that the user strike out some of the words, and subsequently the user deleted those words, though I don't remember seeing an apology, and Mattisse was not happy about the words being deleted rather than struck out, making Mattisse' reply seem out of context.

And then just in the past few hours, Redthoreau over-reacted to a good-faith edit to the article by Mattisse, calling it "sarcastic quasi-vandalism", "vandalism" and a "sarcastic tantrum". Mattisse, who remained commendably calm, asked me for help. I posted to Redthoreau's talk page in an attempt to persuade the user to calm down, apologize etc.

Redthoreau then responded to Mattisse on my talk page with this and this. Redthoreau is over-reacting to Mattisse' O.K. you can revert and put the incorrect material back in the article; Redthoreau apparently sees this as a libelous attack on the user's integrity. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with the title of this section, as I do with most of the summary. Me and Mattisse have been entangled in a month + long "feud" over a myriad of issues, which is not accurately encapsulated in this very brief summary of a few (out of context) post snippets. I believe that I have acted in good faith, and done my best to deal with him civilly, despite numerous attacks, and an overall combative tone, which I find nearly impossible to work with collaboratively. He has been seeking "higher ups" to attempt to silence me for some time now (and all have rightfully refused, sending him out to seek new "converts"). Recently in the last few days ironically, he was accusing Coppertwig of "taking my side" or being impartial to my viewpoint, until recently when he obviously saw that his arguments contained little merit, and thus he pretended to all of the sudden "want to behave in good faith", ... after rebuking the dozens of olive branches I have extended him in the past month. In my opinion his behavior is also an example of "crying wolf" as he has stated over 5 times that he is "leaving for good and not to speak to him", usually only to return (sometimes an hour later) and begin furiously editing again. There has never been justifiable reason for him to feel intimidated, or leave the article ... he simply uses this "threat to take his ball and go home" repeatedly to engender sympathy from any willing editor who will provide him an outlet for the ability to act as a defacto admin. This situation becomes more intractable by the day because of Mattisse’s peculiar penchant to either (accidentally or deliberately) misconstrue everything that happens and reframe the situation into some course of events that bears very little resemblance to reality. He has discovered that by doing this repeatedly and without repute, that it will occasionally frustrate me to the point of commenting on his sanity or penchant for lying, which he then holds up as justification for all of his previous harassment. Other editors have warned him of following me around Wikipedia and placing tags on the articles I am working on (to cause annoyance), just as other editors have warned him of falsely templating my page with false accusations of “attacking him” (which in reality is in anytime one disagrees with, or demands that he back up his declarations with actual sources). I am willing to work with anyone collaboratively and respectfully, but unfortunately Mattisse does not allow the formation of a situation in where this is possible. Redthoreau (talk TR 04:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

What admin action is needed here? I agree with your summary of this user's edits, but don't see anything for us to do here. It seems more like something for request for comment or even WP:RFC/U. Orderinchaos 04:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm disappointed to see this, as Redthoreau had behaved better for a couple of weeks, after a promise to do so, unfortunately slipping in the last couple of days. Any action taken should bear in mind that he has shown the ability to be civil, he's not a dead loss to be indef blocked or anything. special, random, Merkinsmum 11:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Orderinchaos and Merkinsmum, for your opinions and advice, which may be sufficient, although if anyone has any additional opinions/advice/help to add I would welcome it. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Tony1

Tony1 (talk · contribs) specializes in being rude on WT:MOS. He has made remarks over the last two months about And PS, you might like me sometimes, as you imply, but I don't ever like you (he took time for a spelling correction but not for second thoughts), poor, deluded fool, sabotage, dirty hands, andI treat your entries with contempt; all these are to different users. He has now declared, after saying Well, please don't use your own ignorance as a new benchmark for WP, that I have no compunction about being rude to you, Anderson.

Could someone supply him with some? It will have to be fairly strong compunction: the last time someone asked him to examine his behaviour, he responded: Dear Finell, I do examine my behaviour, every day — as I do my stools. Both are fine, thanks for asking. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeowch. That's nasty. Orderinchaos 05:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Who changed my punctuation in the last quote to a spaced em dash? It's not permitted by MOS. TONY (talk) 05:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's what's in the diff, Tony; pity you didn't catch it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't have anything particularly intelligent to say about Sept or Tony, per se, but I think it's useful to add that Sept's words and Tony's words can't be understood in isolation; they are a reflection of arguments that go on constantly, and loudly, in many contexts. There are ongoing efforts to attack the larger problem at WT:MoS, and that might (or might not) reduce tensions among the participants. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to determine if PMA is displaying an April Fools sense of humor, or if he honestly doesn't realize that his own needling of Tony1 and disruption and edit warring on the MoS pages, along with FAR and FAC pages, goes too far. I'll opt for the April Fools' joke for now. Joke or not, it's most unfortunate that PMA's extreme dislike of Wikipedia's manual of style is a constant issue at FAC, FAR and MOS. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I am as bemused by this as La Georgia and will, like her, assume good faith (or at least good humour). That said, the discussions at MOS are often a disgrace and I wouldn't like to point the finger of responsibility at any particular editor... --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

"Secret" pages

Looking up at #Excessive cabals got me thinking about "secret" pages. I will not discuss how truly horrible, immature and idiotic I find these - that's personal opinion. I'm just worried about the amount of time and energy spent on these pages, with valuable editing hours lost to going on easter egg hunts. It's fine for people who make encyclopedic contributions to kick back in userspace once in a while. However a vast majority of users who contribute to these pages are people who think this place is something of a social network, to be utilised for making friends and showing off fancy signatures.

I'll make a list of pros and cons:

Pros

1. Good for new users learning about markup
2. Good for new users wanting to make friends
3. Good for new users learning about things like Special:Prefixindex or parsing Special:Contributions

Cons

1. Waste of time
2. WP:NOT#MYSPACE
3. Waste of server resources
4. No encyclopedic merit
5. Encourages cliquish behaviour
6. Waste of donor money
7. Encourages waste-of-time ANI posts like these

There's a list of these here. Barring objections, I plan to get rid of these within the next 24 hours. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse This idea. MBisanz ^talk 05:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse: Great idea. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I hereby object. I see no good reason to remove these. The tax on server space/resources, donor money, and even editing time is negligible. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:30, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

Riana, the combined time you've spent formatting your userspace equals more of a drain on resources and editing time than any secret page ever could, if that can be considered a drain. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:33, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

It's cute, but I didn't do it. A vandal made it for me on another site. :) ~ Riana ⁂ 05:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Combined time. Its present state notwithstanding. This isn't the way it's always been... far from it. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:39, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

True. I have about 50000 other actions though. Few of these users do. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

So it's not a waste of resources, donor money, or editing time for you, but it is for them? That doesn't sound too convincing to me. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:49, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

It absolutely is, if that's all they're doing. Don't bother trying to make out that I'm wasting anyone's time here. My own, yes. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Riana, I think Equazcion's point was that server resources are server resources - the server doesn't care if a user page edit is made by a Stewart or a fresh account, it's the same amount of processor churn in the end. Heck, one could even make the argument that editors like you actually cause more server load, since a good portion of your edits attract readers to the articles. =P I actually agree that userspace should be edited sparingly (on an ideal Wiki, all the userpages would look exactly like mine), but the longer we keep trying to avoid calling a spade a spade (or a useless page a useless page), the sillier we all look. "Waste of server resources"? Yeah, I'm sure the farm is really being run down to its knees by Jimmy Junior's SsSsEeEcCcRrReEeTtT page. "Waste of time"? And who, exactly, are we to be telling people what they can and can not do on their free time? All of these "cons" could just as easily be applied to half of essay-space - the difference being that essay-space is funny to those who edit the encyclopedia, whereas pages like these are rather tedious. Since the goal of an encyclopedia is to further and spread human knowledge, it seems rather counter-productive to hide the Truth behind coy, flirtatious hand-waving. So, the only con with these experiments is that they're not particularly funny to those of us serious about the encyclopedia-side of things. If that were the argument offered for deletion, I would argue on the "delete" side, but this lack of transparancy is rather disheartening, and counter to a central value preached by this project. --Badger Drink (talk) 06:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... So you're entitled to waste your own time, and others aren't? Equazcion •✗/C • 07:03, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

And PS, good points all around, Badger. I don't think we need to be telling people what they should spend their time on, nor can we make the assumption that time not spent on finding/creating secret pages would otherwise be spent on editing. And yes, there's no way 160 "secret" pages is a drain on the servers. 1,000 pages wouldn't be either. Equazcion •✗/C • 07:17, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse Deletion. I should know I use to have one of these pages. They are a complete waste of time. --Chetblong (talk) 05:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse: The drain on resources is a minor point to me, my reason for agreeing is this is one of those things that leads people to not take the project seriously. Redrocket (talk) 05:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse: For most of the above reasons, including the original rationale. Orderinchaos 05:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I hold no particular POV over these pages since I have never spent my time trying to find one, but nevertheless can you clarify what is being defined as "cliquish behaviour" here? - Caribbean~H.Q. 05:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure. There's a sizeable group of newish editors who band together hunting for these pages, and doing little else. I could name names but it should be obvious enough to anyone having a look. ~ Riana ⁂ 05:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

By the way, if you want to hold a delete discussion, it should be done at MfD. ANI doesn't attract the best cross-section of editors for a discussion like this. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:42, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

Actually, MfD's attract MfD watchers, AN/I attracts a much wider cross-sample of the community. AN/I is indeed the place to resolve policy or management issues. Orderinchaos 05:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:Village pump (policy). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I should have worded that better. We're not trying to develop new policy here. I wouldn't even favour changing policy to ban secret pages. I think it's a bit of silliness which has gotten way out of hand, needs to be checked, and once it has been, whatever happens after that can be regarded separately to this. Orderinchaos 05:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec) K, personal opinions aside, this is a discussion to decide if a group of pages should be deleted. Ergo it is a deletion discussion. We have a place for that. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:46, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

WP:BURO. Orderinchaos 05:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: (edit conflict) These probably should be considered individually (that's what MfD is for, and they're usually happy to delete cruft). For example, User:The stuart/The Secret History of Wikipedia is harmless: three cuts-and-pastes of talkpage conversations. (Some of us would have used intermal links, but that's the learning aspect.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

  I would agree that filtering of the list linked above is needed to ensure pages that fall outside the parameters we are discussing do not get accidentally deleted - there's quite a few in the list. Orderinchaos 05:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, PMA, don't worry, I'm going to actually read the pages in the list (unhappy task though that seems!) ;) ~ Riana ⁂ 05:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• We're dealing with thousands of pages here, so it would be an undue strain on MFD to knock them off one by one. Plus, that page you linked to is completely harmless and is not being discussed here. :-) east.718 at 05:49, April 1, 2008

  Yes I have to agree, putting them through MFD would be a complete waste of time and a pain as everyone who had one would come out and say they are good, when in fact they are nothing but social networking. The only way to go about it is to bot delete them all. --Chetblong (talk) 05:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• I endorse this propsal. We are in the business of writing an encyclopedia here; camaraderie is important but it is always secondary. A disproportionate number of the editors who maintain these pages do little except play their petty userspace games complete with barnstars for finding pages, invite-only cabals and so on, wasting their own time and the time of the volunteers who have to clean up after them. These useless pages are anathema to our mission, and must go. I plan on bot-deleting thousands of these pages if a consensus to remove them is attained. east.718 at 05:49, April 1, 2008
• Endorse We are here to create an encyclopedia, not play games. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) 05:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Strong endorse → I was planning on expand MZ's list and mass MfD them, but no problem in deleting them right now. Absolutely. Also, I'd like to use this decision to delete pages not listed there in case we come across them. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 05:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• oppose It seems like the only difference between these "secret" pages and sub-user pages, is that they are named "secret page". The content of these pages are nothing you wouldn't find on a user page. Bytebear (talk) 05:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

No the difference is you have to spend sometimes an hour or more just to look for somewhere to sign your name, therefore reducing edits done by these users to actual articles. --Chetblong (talk) 06:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You don't have to do anything. People will either contribute or waste their time. many would say contributing is wasting time. Who are we to judge what one does with their time. Bytebear (talk) 06:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia was not meant to have a way to be able to waste your time, as in looking for secret pages, so if they weren't there then people would have to contribute instead of losing focus and messing around. --Chetblong (talk) 06:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Meh.. Does it matter one way or the other? --Carnildo (talk) 06:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Copied Riana's nomination to Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion#"Secret" pages. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:56, 1 Apr 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose – However a vast majority of users who contribute to these pages are people who think this place is something of a social network ... {{fact}}. The most important issue here is that while we're not myspace, the reality is that de facto we're actually a hybrid of an encyclopedia and MySpace, and it's one of the primary reasons why we've achieved so much success. Unlike MySpace, Facebook, Britannica, and basically every Wiki out there not run by wm, we have our content totally open for people to steal and start their own site. However, it's obvious that that's not enough— especially given the various competing sites that pay experts to edit them, they still lack the success we enjoy.

That's because we have a community. We've got silly stuff like "Secret Pages" (which aren't at all secret due to Special:PrefixIndex), we've got pointless userboxes, categories, templates, essays, and all sorts of really extraneous stuff. Why? Because people like it, and because pointless barnstars are gateway drugs to actual barnstars. Personally, I learned how to find secret pages by wondering "how do you find secret pages" and then discovering Special:PrefixIndex.

If something needs to be deleted because it's abusive, inflammatory, disharmonious to editing, or is overly resource consumptive, then mfd it. Otherwise, I'm of the belief that we should simply leave people to their own devices, instead of saying that we simply "don't like it because it's silly, so delete it." Of course, I could just be crazy, so feel free to ignore me :P --slakr^\ talk / 06:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Some of the user subpages are fantastic. They're clever and are done by hardworking editors who contribute productively the (Main) namespace. However, these "secret" pages fall far outside that category. People can claim, and they'd be right, that the server space and resources are negligible. However, the principle should stand. People donate to the Wikimedia Foundation because they feel that our goal of creating a free online encyclopedia is a noble one. If these editors were spending an equal amount of time contributing the article namespace as they were creating barnstars and signatures for themselves and one another, I'd have no issue. But that's not the reality.

The web is a very big place with literally thousands of venues for this kind of thing. A sense of community is great, and should be encouraged. On the other hand, there are entire sites devoted to social networking. Have some fun? Sure, absolutely. Waste time, energy, and resources for crap like this? No way. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There's also the element of mission creep. I have a long-standing problem with people whose primary contribution to the project is to play games in the sandbox or to play hide and seek with user pages; this seems to me to be straying a long way from the intended focus of the project. Guy (Help!) 10:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Everyone's aware of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Secret pages correct?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 07:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Delete, Wikipedia is not Bebo. With the proviso that individual pages can perhaps be exempted if a case for retaining them is justified. Elfits FOR GREAT JUSTICE (klat) 10:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

keep these pages, they're just a bit of fun. Wikipedians have a reputation for being anal, we don't have to conform to that stereotype at all times.:) special, random, Merkinsmum 12:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Pfft - back in the day we learnt markup by being beaten until syntax bled from our wounds and made friends by being one of the last few alive. This new generation is nothing but slackers. Really though there is a policy that says they should go (WP:NOT#MYSPACE). Unless the page is being used for effective collaboration with the aim of improving the encyclopedia I think it should go. Note I italicised "aim" because I doubt anyone made a secret page with the goal in mind that they could educate noobs on how to use the prefix lists. You! - Crank dat Soulja 12:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Don't care about "secret pages", oppose deleting all pages on the list above. Please make sure you don't delete pages that just happen to have the string "secret" in the title, for example as a substring of "secretary". If you want to delete the pages, I would suggest writing a nice explanatory note, give owners some time to complain and then delete them. Try to cause as little unnecessary tears over useless subpages as possible. Thank you, Kusma (talk) 12:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Advice to everyone who regularly edits this page

Stop engaging in wikidrama and start writing GAs. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 05:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

lolno Nakon 05:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

ilu bffz 4eva <333 Mike H. Fierce! 09:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• GAs are debased currency. Write XAs (the next level up form FAs). Guy (Help!) 09:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
  • What about a new, super FA? That's never off the main page? '''[[User:WBOSITG|<font color="darkblue">weburiedoursecrets</font>]][[User talk:WBOSITG|<font color="navy">inthegarden</font>]]''' (talk) 09:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Revocation of GNU License

An editor Ldemery (talk · contribs) has issued a revocation of the GNU license on the discussion page Talk:List_of_town_tramway_systems_in_Japan. As I understand it, such comments are considered to be legal threats and Disruptive editing.

Background

• List of town tramway systems in Japan is one of several articles which were forked from List of town tramway systems.
• The forked articles were not individually sourced but readers were direct to the old List of town tramway systems should they need to find the sources.
• An editor DAJF (talk · contribs) add "requires source" tags to the forked articles.
• Ldemery removed the tags on his understanding that the articles were not really forks but "sub-lists".

I have not been involved in the editing of the articles, I bring it here because it was raised as a problem in WP:EAR and I think that any chance of an amicable resolution while editors are so vexed is unlikely. -- BpEps - t@lk 05:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The conniption fit continues: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of town tramway systems in Japan. --Calton | Talk 06:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hooray, a vexatious editor. Elfits FOR GREAT JUSTICE (klat) 10:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Users BoyDavey73-7 and Peaweahooman

Could I impress upon someone to block and revert these two. They there are nearly certainly yet 2 more vandal sock puppets of JJonz Derekloffin (talk) 06:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I was about to make this request myself ;) Yes, they are likely sockpuppets of User:JJonz and the banned User:PWeeHurman. Can the blocking sysop(s) please rollback all of their edits? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 06:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia, the free Pokémon encyclopedia

Someone must have hacked some main template. All pages seem to say: From Wikipedia, the free Pokémon encyclopedia just beneath the title.

Perhaps it is fixed already but I can see it everywhere.

(Hope this is the right place to notify someone)

/PER9000 (talk) 06:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

- See below. Elfits FOR GREAT JUSTICE (klat) 11:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Pokémon it is

MediaWiki:Tagline just got interesting. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Yeah, I just noticed that too! If I can figure out how to change that, I'd like to put The Free Encyclopedia anyone can vandalize in instead! The Pokemon change just makes my point a bit too obvious, but certainly emphasizes that it's true! - BillCJ (talk) 06:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Dude! "Wikipedia, the free Pokemon encyclopedia"!

Yep, I see it too! This is a BIG hack - a really BIG one. It must have happened sometime between 2 AM and 2:16 AM EST (US) because I was in the middle of browsing pages and was like, what the heck, the free POKEMON encyclopedia?! --Wykypydya (talk) 06:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Tagline&diff=202486744&oldid=202485919

Fixed it. Also, seems there was two other notices about it above as well. Lets keep the tomfoolery out of the mainspace guys :P. Use up the spirit on userspace or something...¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 06:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Damn, I was about to put "the free Klingon encyclopedia"... -^{(Doofallslya v^_^v)} Ékséj 06:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you one of the WP techs? Why "tomfoolery"? It was just my reaction. --Wykypydya (talk) 06:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Persian Poet Gal was referring to the Administrators messing around with the MediaWiki interface. They don't have to be developers to do so (unfortunately?). x42bn6 Talk Mess 06:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, the MediaWiki namespace contains quite of bit of content that's really a matter of local project needs and preferences. It would be kind of impossible for developers to maintain it in every project in every language. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I liked it. It's not so accurate any more though, since we only have several scores of Pokemon articles these days, as opposed to our previous myriad myriad. --erachima formerly tjstrf 06:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it was funny, and it didn't really hurt anything. Thanks to whomever, for brightening our days! :) SQL^{Query me!} 06:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Spambot, currently active

User:123.116.225.244. Reported on AIV - should the links be blacklisted? There's also probably related IP addresses like 123.115.151.72. x42bn6 Talk Mess 06:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Check other projects and list at either the enWP blacklist (mediawiki talk:spam-blacklist) or, if it's cross-wiki, the meta blacklist (m:talk:Spam blacklist). Guy (Help!) 09:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Though only for mainspace, here are some linkwatcher reports to aid (see the COIBot link):

• bjhjtc-tm.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• lanzhixiang.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• puda.com.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• cnviolin.com.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• hahfcf.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bjlingzhi.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• pxtkj.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• packing66.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bestepoxy.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• lanzhixiang.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bangongjiaju.net.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bjhfly.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bjkuya.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• dfmq68.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

I will crosspost to WT:WPSPAM. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

More 123.116.225.244 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

• lrda.com.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• fcfbi.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• ptgejianqiang.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• u-magnet.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• zhule.net: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• ciicbiz.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bestepoxy.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bjyszd.cn: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• lcndt.net: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• china-cots.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• bjklwd.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• mhdjsz.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• gwdnz.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• jinma388.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• cncesuo.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• xiaoxiaoxianhua.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• qkgd.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• shengdajh.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• fzqwl.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• zhongyuanlx.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• mhdjsz.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• kaili388.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

--Hu12 (talk) 12:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Problems between users with threats and possible uncivility

Clementguardian (talk · message · contribs · count · logs · email)

Megistias (talk · message · contribs · count · logs · email)

Okay, admittedly I have a big nose and don't know much about the main underlying issues but, User:Megistias and User:Clementguardian seem to be going at each other quite profusely. This includes "threats" of legal action, etc by User:Clementguardian. Is this something that can be looked at by others. I was going to step directly into the conversation and try to help resolve but, am truly at a loss for words and unsure how to approach. Was going to RfC but, apparently that policy would be difficult to follow as no other user has brought it up previously that I can see. Thanks for any comments in advance. Jasynnash2 (talk) 10:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked Clementguardian for making legal threats. Megistias has been generally unpleasant (and I have just warned him about civility) but in the absence of a prior warning or anything worth an immediate block, there's nothing else for me to do for now. Elfits FOR GREAT JUSTICE (klat) 11:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked SlimVirgin and Crum375 as sockpuppets

Evidence that has been provided on proving completely conclusively that SlimVirgin and Crum375 are sockpuppets and I have blocked both for 14 hours accordingly. The community can decide where to go with this one from here on. Evidence: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=17078 Viridae^Talk 11:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Not funny. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 11:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh go on it was quite funny! It had me going for about 30 seconds. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 11:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah why don't we Block Jimbo next for being a sock of Larry Sanger ..hehe..--Cometstyles 11:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. -- @#$! ^*#!@ 11:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User:SteveBaker

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

---

Resolved

Since it is the April Fools' Day, I issued a false vandalism warning to User:SteveBaker to see what is his response [63], but I later removed the notice and explained the message [64]. He told me that I have done "horrible wrong". There are other processes going on to celebrate the day Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kmweber 2 which involve vital administrative process. Leaving someone a joke message is quote funny when I explain the cause behind the message. Will anyone care to this. Thanks. What are the best ways to celebrate the day. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 11:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You can't force people to have the same humour than you do... I fail to see what we are supposed to do here? -- @#$! ^*#!@ 11:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You are right here. I did not understand this. I apologize for this. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 12:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

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

I don't know why this is tagged as archived and resolved without there being ANY discussion or account of my side of the story. I can only assume this is User:Otolemur crassicaudatus's attempt to head off a possible complaint from me. I do not consider this matter resolved until I get an apology for this user's ridiculous behavior in which at least a couple of Wikipedia policies were violated.

Sometime this morning User:Otolemur crassicaudatus (someone with whom I do not believe I've had any prior contact) dumps a vandal-4 template on my talk page. No explanation - nothing. The only thing I'd edited that might possibly warrant such a thing was a couple of comments on the front page discussion page - and after I checked to be sure I didn't accidentally do something horrible there (I hadn't) - I asked politely on his/her talk page to either explain the vandalism accusation or remove it if it's in error. I note from earlier remarks on his/her talk page that this person has misused the vandal-4 template at least once in the past.

I get a reply saying it's an April Fool joke...WTF? I complain in vigorous terms that these templates are not there for playing jokes and that someone's good standing could be seriously harmed by such a thing. Since removing vandalism tags from one's own talk page is frowned upon - I again request that it be removed - and this time I ask for an apology (in order that in future someone who finds a vandalism template in my talk history will understand what happened). After a second protest, this user does indeed remove the template - leaving behind an edit summary: "I have never seen such humourless person before". I certanly do not find being accused of vandalism (with a -4 tag no less) funny - particularly because it comes from someone with whom I have no prior history - friendly or otherwise. I've had several people award me barnstars specifically because of my widely appreciated humor (cite: My user page) - so this too in an unwarranted and insulting bite. Reputation is everything on Wikipedia - and as an editor in good standing with 10,000+ edits and two FA's to my name - I don't appreciate being accused of vandalism and then of having a lack of humor - on this or any other day. I have still not received an apology. User:Otolemur crassicaudatus should be sanctioned for two instances of WP:NPA (once for the vandal-4 tag and again for his bite in the final edit remark) and should arguably take a WP:VANDAL tag of his own because misuse of tags is itself considered vandalism. To quote from WP:NPA: "Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done."

This user needs to be made aware (in the strongest possible terms) that Vandal tags are not playthings.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

A new coaching program

There is a group of users out there who are Wikipedia legends. They make loads of edits, yet all get reverted shortly. And they sometimes get blocked, banned, or listed as a long term abuser.

We need to WP:AGF with this kind of user. Can you imagine how many edits we could get if we could teach these users properly?

I've started a coaching program to help this kind of user succeed on Wikipedia, and I'm looking for admins willing to coach. If you're interested, please take a look. Thanks! Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 11:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Unhelpful. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 11:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

What a noble endeavour. I'm happy to be the first to sign up to offer to share my limited experience. _{The public face of GB}^T/C 12:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Semi protection problem?

Can someone reconcile this and this - NSFW? Did I do something wrongly, or is the protection not working? Black Kite 12:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You deleted your talk page the day after, which unfortunately removes protection from it. (That's pretty nasty vandalism by the way...) Majorly (talk) 12:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There's got to be a barnstar for the impressive amount of irony inherent in calling that 'pretty nasty vandalism' whilst simultaneously deleting 99% of the contents of this page! ;-) _{The public face of GB}^T/C —Preceding comment was added at 12:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

My talk page awaits ;p It was an accident. Majorly (talk) 12:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Aaaah ... of course. I deleted it to remove diffs very much like those (per WP:DENY) - which I'm about to do again, so let's see if I remember this time :) Black Kite 12:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

MFD

I'm not sure if it was an actual nomination or not, but I've closed the MFD on MFD. Sanity check me. :) Regards, NonvocalScream (talk) 12:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've sent it to DRV. Black Kite 12:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Attempts to push nationalist agenda on Dmitry Bortniansky

Someone constantly changes the name of the composer to it's Ukrainian way. I remind you that Dmitry Bortiansky lived mostly in Saint Petersburg, where he also died, and spoke mostly Russian. Not only that, but when his music was released in the Germanic-language countries, his name was spelled in the Russian way, Dmitri. I dont see any logic to the attempts to change his name into the Ukrainian formulation but pushing nationalistic agenda. I was offered a "concensus", but i didnt seem to see what concensus could come here. Shpakovich (talk) 12:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I rarely comment on content disputes on ANI, but -- seriously now -- Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartók, Rachmaninoff, to name a few, lived, worked, and died in the United States, and no one in their right mind would call them "American" composers. There is a nationalist agenda being pushed on this article, Shpakovich, but it's not the one you think; Bortniansky was a Ukrainian composer: probably the most famous one who ever lived. I'll put this on the talk page too. Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 13:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Tagline edit warring

Edit warring is taking place at MediaWiki:Tagline to insert and remove April Fools jokes. MediWiki is only editable by admins, and I don't think the page can be protected. User:David Levy has blocked two admins (User:Viridae and User:Omegatron) over this (and they have since been unblocked). I support David's actions, and am repeating here my post at his talk page: "The only other way to stop the edit warring at MediaWiki:Tagline (or any other MediaWiki page) is to seek emergency desysopping and/or an arbitration case. If someone gets desysopped over using admin tools to play April Fools jokes, then that should put an end to it next year. David, I would make a statement like this at arbitration if you chose to take it there." But before things get out of hand, let's try an ANI thread and see what the wider admin community think. Carcharoth (talk) 13:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The only people who are forcing this situation out of hand is you and David. Jokes got made, people got blocked and unblocked and it's over now - just move on from it. There's no need to start discussing emergency desysoppings and arbcom. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's see what people think, shall we? Are you prepared to defend Viridae's edits to the watchlist notice and the tagline? Enough is enough. This happens every year and David is right. We can do humourous things without being irresponsible. Carcharoth (talk) 13:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

One more thing. I had noticed, but forgot at the time of writing the above reply, that Ryan engaged in a joke himself. Namely a change to MediaWiki:Deletedtext, resulting in this version. Relatively harmless, but Ryan should have stated this when giving his opinion above, as he has an obvious interest in brushing off complaints about April Fools jokes when he has done one himself. Carcharoth (talk) 15:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC) Oops. That's terribly embarassing. That was RyanGerbil, not RyanPostlethwaite. I didn't notice until he (RyanP) pointed it out. Many apologies! Carcharoth (talk) 15:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Ryan, I don't mind a few pranks in project space, but main space is a bit more sensitive, and this edit was not only Viridae's third "prank" of the day but it is pretty inappropriate. Agreed that we can leave Arbcom and desysopping out of it but a time out was clearly in order. Thatcher 13:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh a time out was probably in order. The mediawiki edits were a little off I've got to admit. I just don't like the fact that Carcharoth started talking about desysoppings over this - it's uneeded escalation. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I like humour, and I like organizations that can take a lighter view. If it's good enough for Google, why not? I'm glad we now can have some fun with the Main Page within bounds (I note David Levy used to not have much levity in this regard, but I think he's seen the light about lightness) However, the third edit to the tagline by Viridae probably was going a bit too far, so color me undecided about the block. But an emergency desysopping? Seems like a definite overreaction to me. ++Lar: t/c 14:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. Or, if you can't not worry about it, then follow John Reaves's advice here. Mike R (talk) 13:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Please note that John Reaves has apologized to me for misunderstanding the situation. —David Levy 14:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a joke, folks. Deal with it maturely :( Elfits FOR GREAT JUSTICE (klat) 14:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Let it slide for a day, this is the one day we get to have some fun. Then it is back to business as usual. Rgoodermote  14:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Please direct my attention to the policy that designates 1 April as "the one day we get to have some fun" [via nonsensical and vulgar alterations to millions of pages]. —David Levy 14:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that we shouldn't go too far, Ryan, and I'd be interested in reading your advice for how to address this repeated vandalism of millions of pages. To me, blocking seems like the correct solution, but it's rendered ineffective by administrators who believe that a particular date on the calendar grants unconditional immunity and the right to violate policy by unilaterally unblocking without discussion.

I will note, however, that the sysop who unblocked Omegatron has apologized to me for misunderstanding the situation. —David Levy 14:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(unindent, responding to Rgoodermote, but addressing other points as well) "this is the one day we get to have some fun" What? Like changing the "delete" tab that admins can see to "nuke this page"? That is a no harm, no foul example of April Foolsry (as only admins can see it). Similarly, Stifle reversing his sig is confusing, but funny once you have worked it out. But changing a tagline that appears in mainspace is far less acceptable (I would say just plain unacceptable). Or it should be. And to respond to what others have said about emergency desysoppings, I only suggested that because it seems the only way to stop edit warring (and partly as a way to bring some people to their senses). Imagine a situation where the tagline changed every five minutes as people thought up new jokes. How would you stop that? I would suggest protecting the page in question, but obviously administrators have been mature enough (mostly) to avoid the need to protect pages from admins editing them. Need I remind people that many people probably read, in the minute it was up there, "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia administer by people with a stick up their lavender passageway" - now whether you think that is true or not, or funny or not, is not the point. It should never have been up there in the first place. Carcharoth (talk) 14:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I noticed this comment elsewhere: "Given the users who acted up this time also did so last year, I certainly saw basis in your blocks." This does happen every year, and every year people go over the line that should be drawn between relatively harmless jokes in project/other namespaces, and the irresponsible editing of mainspace or pages that affect mainspace. Have we reached the stage where we need to actually write up a page saying what is off-limits, or would that only encourage the acceptable (but annoying to some) tomfoolry that currently takes place mostly "out-of-sight"? There may be a bit of the repressed vandal in all of us, but if you allow a free-for-all, people will try and outdo each other and/or do things in poor taste. Can the community handle this? I'm not so sure, as things will go quiet and then we will have the same arguments again next year. Carcharoth (talk) 14:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

He has a point. How many printouts of articles with that tag line were made, I wonder? Now, if it were altered to add something clearly, well, goofy, that no one could really reasonably take exception to (wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit - only $4999.95 at your nearest bookstore), that would be different. But that particular line could be seen as a bit of an attack on the rest of us, which would be unacceptable. I'm not sure it would require permanent sanction, but I could see maybe potentially desysopping someone for the day in question if it were to happen again. John Carter (talk) 14:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd just like to underline something, putting up "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia administer by people with a stick up their lavender passageway" is wildly wildly unacceptable. I wouldn't spend a minute in regret if a desysop came of it. Unbelievable. RxS (talk) 14:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

My bad for not reading the diff, lack of sleep makes a lack of common sense. But the lavender joke is kind of funny. Though is defiantly inappropriate. Though I think some lighting up would be necessary. That again could be the lack of sleep and increase input of caffeine. Rgoodermote  15:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

In addition to being inappropriate, I don't see any humor in Viridae's vulgar personal attack against sysops who reverted vandalism. Note that Viridae also retaliated by vandalising one of their user pages. —David Levy 15:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

And yet, my block of Viridae for the remainder of the day (which amounted to only twelve hours) was lifted without discussion (in violation of policy) by Riana, who deemed it "baseless" and said that it was "discourteous" of me to apply the block after Viridae had been warned only once (as though an administrator needs to be warned against vandalising millions of pages with a vulgar personal attack). —David Levy 15:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The limit, in my view should be kept for internal processes, such as RfA, MfD etc. Anything that affects articles, or general system messages that our readers see should not be fiddled with. Additional block reasons, such as "per IRC" that Krimpet added are perfectly fine also as only admins can see them. We're allowed a bit of fun... just not too much fun so that our encyclopedia's reputation is worsened because of silly jokes to articles - which are, after all, what our readers and most people care about. Majorly (talk) 15:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you're right, Majorly, that (nothing that the readership in general will see) seems a good line to me, with the singular exception of the main page itself (the page itself only, not the things around it like messages, the side bar, disclaimer links, etc). It's at least a 3 year tradition now that the main page gets stuff on it that is 100% within our guidelines but which has been deliberately presented to seem untrue at first read (the Queen of England was an ambulance driver? Patented flying saucers? Spoo? ... all true). Doing this is actually pretty hard work and takes weeks or months of pre-planning (Ima Hogg made FA in 3 weeks not by bending the rules, but by dint of a lot of concerted effort by a lot folk who are among our best contributors. And it's really a great article!)... We used to have out and out vandalism of the main page, but I think this channeled is far better. It is also far cleverer to write a whole page this way than to tweak a system message to be insulting. See my blog for more. ++Lar: t/c 15:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I stepped into this late and messed up so I am sorry. Have a good one and happy editing. Rgoodermote  15:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Please take whatever steps are necessary to put a halt to this tomfoolery. Chastisement, blocks, permanent bannination, public beatings, etc. There is no punishment too extreme for this irresponsible and reckless horseplay. Wikipedia is Serious Business, and I won't stand for this.

Just because some childish low-visibility sites like Google, YouTube, and ESPN think it appropriate to make jokes at the expense of their readers, that doesn't mean we should abandon our academic credibility by polluting our project with self-deprecating, harmless jokes that in no way affect the accuracy of our educational content. Internet users perceive Wikipedia editors as angry, uptight, humorless, bureaucratic snobs, and we should do all that we can to keep it that way. — Omegatron 15:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

We can all agree that it's perfectly acceptable in the english-speaking world for a respectable website to make April Fools jokes with fake stories, etc. However, since Wikipedia is not a respectable website, we shouldn't be doing so. —Random832 (contribs) 16:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Heh! I thought that tagline was absofu**inglutley hysterical. No one needs to be de-sysoped for it. It's April Fools - have a sense of humor!! KoshVorlon....Straight outta Vorlon Space !!!! ' 16:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The distinction being made here is between stories on the front page that are April Fools day themed (which take work as Lar has pointed out, and are funny) or other, hidden metastuff, and a single editor putting up a statement that admins have sticks up their ass on the front page. One is acceptable and done by many web sites, the other is a vulgar joke that not one of the web sites listed above would tolerate. We can have fun without making Wikipedia like a (bad) high school newsletter. Perhaps that's too much to ask though. RxS (talk) 16:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

As is pointed out every year, those sites lack credibility issues. When people see their April Fools' Day pranks, they perceive them as isolated aberrations (which they are). No one, for example, wonders whether they can trust Google's search results for this reason.

This is not so with Wikipedia. People already question our reliability. They know that unlike those other sites, we have no employees by whom all changes must be approved. They realize that this is a site that "anyone can edit" and perceive administrators as the people responsible for keeping the process in check when all else fails. When these administrators turn their backs on this duty by perpetrating nonsense themselves, it leads the public to believe that none of our content—not even that which can be edited only by administrators—can be trusted. And the saddest part is that they're absolutely right. —David Levy 16:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Nod. Which is why I love the main page work! People come to WP today expecting something silly, something untrue, some prank... and they are presented with a page that superficially actually fits their expectations! But it's not untrue at all, and thus the joke is on them, but in a good way... because it reminds them, if they think about it, that we have a cadre of hard working, yet fun loving, editors at work writing good or even great articles. ++Lar: t/c 16:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Guys vandalizing the tagline is equivalent to being abusive with the Main Page as an administrator. The blocks seem a bit harsh to me but at the same time, if admins are unwilling to behave themselves they leave themselves open to suffer the consequences. Admins at the end of the day, cannot receive preferential treatment when they are editing disruptively despite being cautioned not to.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 17:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

new rule: block for anything that isn't funny enoughDGG (talk) 17:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Some dev pullling a prank?

Resolved

The the THE teh The TEH the.... — Edokter • Talk • 14:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Care to add some context? What are you talking about? --Onorem♠Dil 14:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Check the date. Rgoodermote  14:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Just search this page for "teh"... there are an awfull lot of them. — Edokter • Talk • 14:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Is you maken fin of thoze of uz woo can't smell too gud? John Carter (talk) 14:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but how's that funny? Or an April Fool? '''[[User:WBOSITG|<font color="darkblue">weburiedoursecrets</font>]][[User talk:WBOSITG|<font color="navy">inthegarden</font>]]''' (talk) 14:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[65] - Rjd0060 (talk) 14:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Now fixed by David Levy. Thank goodness for the "undo" feature! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 15:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

"Nuke this page"

Ha ha, April fool and all that, but it wouldn't take long to think of people that might find the "Nuke this page" tab (that's replaced "Delete") not altogether hilarious. --Dweller (talk) 14:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Nuked. Ryan Postlethwaite 14:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I liked "Baleete" better :) — Edokter • Talk • 14:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Ryan. --Dweller (talk) 14:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Grr. I really wanted to click "nuke this page." I'll just have to JavaScript it in for the day >:-( … Nihiltres^{t.l} 14:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I have some JS on my monobook.js that'll do the trick for anyone with a sense of humour ;) Nihiltres^{t.l} 14:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User:NewAtThis at AfD

NewAtThis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has had a rather rough run at AfD lately with a number of his nominations attracting some attention because they're clearly notable:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel J. Terra
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beanie Buddy
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Homer Ezzell: speedy closed, nom rationale worth reading
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Taourirt
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jason Wishnow

or due to his choice of words in the nom: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jovan Smith This one has some interesting history with a number of *socks.

There are also some dubious page moves. I don't think it's bad faith on the user's part, or I'd like to hope so, but messages on his/her talk haven't had much effect. Perhaps needs to be taken under someone's wing before it gets even more out of hand? TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 14:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

no bad faith at all. i'm just very frustrated by how i keep getting told what to do. oftentimes it contradicts itself. i only nominated articles that i thought should be deleted since they were not sources and they were on topics that weren't of enough note. a few of them have been deleted. and when it's been pointed out to me that something was indeed notable but it was just not at all sourced, i stepped back and took down the deletion.NewAtThis (talk) 15:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to get into semantics, but "a few of them have been deleted"? The results have been: speedy keep as you claimed it to be a hoax when it wasn't, undecided, but leaning towards keep since you claimed it as a hoax, this one may be deleted, but again you implied it was a hoax when it wasn't, still in progress, nom withdrawn after again claiming a hoax, still in progress but again claiming a hoax, still in progress but leaning towards keep, still in progress but leaning towards keep, still in progress leaning towards speedy keep after false claim of original research, still in progress without leaning either way, but you did make a somewhat uncivil response to someone trying to tell you the proper process, still in progress leaning towards keep with another false claim of original research, still in progress leaning towards keep with yet another false claim of OR, another still in progress with more false hoax claims and OR claims, and another still in progress with another claim of OR. --Smashville^BONK! 15:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Also note that these are all in the last 5 days for a user who registered 13 days ago. --Smashville^BONK! 15:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention wholly odd Afd!votes such as this, in which he cites his own tenuous article (at AfD itself) TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 16:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Note: User:NewAtThis seems to have gotten upset by the Afd Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gayelle (lesbian), and seems to be losing her cool a bit [66], [67]. The AfDs mentioned above may be a WP:POINT reaction to the Gayelle AfD. I'm not sure what the best tack is to calm her down, but if someone does... Pete.Hurd (talk) 16:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've speedily closed the J Stalin nomination as being redundant and in bad faith. If the editor persists in abusing AfD process they should be blocked. This is also suspiciously sock-puppetish, and reminds me of the User:Boomgaylove fiasco. Wikidemo (talk) 16:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, that's why I linked the check user since once I saw CA rapper, something rang a bell. Not saying he is, and it's not enough for a check user but something smells fishy, albeit not quite ducky TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 17:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You don't think a new user who's first (and almost only edits to date) are commenting in or nominating articles for deletion isn't weird enough to warrant a checkuser? HalfShadow (talk) 17:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I've seen some turned down as fishing for far less, and it's only the one that's super suspicious, others are just, questionable. I'm willing to try if it's not going to be a pointless listing. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 17:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not fishing - it has all the hallmarks of a boomgaylove sockpuppet. Incivility, accuses others of harassment and stalking, quick (and often imperfectly formed) nomination of articles for deletion, article moves, interest in Bay Area and gay articles, obsession (yet again) with the J Stalin article. Someone has already claimed this is the same editor as an anonymous IP. A he claiming to be a she. But no hurry. If he/she has decided to launch a new round of sockpuppets we'll have plenty of time to find and clean them up - just block if they become abusive.Wikidemo (talk) 17:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

ETA, he was notified of this dicussion but it appears to have been removed, albeit not by him. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 17:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• I have been canvassed by User:NewAtThis on my talk page to reconsider my deletion endorsement of Gayelle. The replies in the AfD to deletion endorsements have progressively gotten more shrill and uncivil, to the point of calling other editors witch hunters. The tone of the AfD noms subsequently made make it difficult in light of the evidence to assume good faith. DarkAudit (talk) 17:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Block Evasion, Moved from WP:AIV (where it belonged), to here (where it doesn't), on request

• 70.108.103.64 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)Evading block on 70.108.82.109. Whether the particular edits are vandalism or not is immaterial ... he's evading a block.Kww (talk) 16:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
• Note: User is in the category: Shared IP addresses. HBC AIV helperbot5 (talk) 16:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

User has been incorrectly or insufficiently warned. Re-report if the user resumes vandalising after being warned sufficiently. Steve Crossin (talk to me) 16:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

This noticeboard is for obvious vandals and spammers only. Consider taking this report to Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. does appear to be a block-evading IP. Toddst1 (talk) 16:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Note: A WHOIS shows the IP is from a rather large range, an IP range block here may be impractical. Just my opinion here, its up to an admin here, but seems a large range to block. Steve Crossin (talk to me) 17:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Note: A range block here would not be permissible, CIDR suffix of 70.104.0.0/13, rangeblocking would whack out 524,288 addresses. Steve Crossin (talk to me) 17:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Fresh comment: this is clear block evasion, carrying on the edit war that the original anonymous IP was blocked for. To my knowledge, one does not warn a block-evader ... one simply extends and expands the block.Kww (talk) 17:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Except all of his edits are to talk pages... Isn't the idea to use a talk page? That IP is not actually currently edit warring... He has not edited the article the other IP was blocked for, so what is the need to currently block, since blocks aren't to punish a person, only to stop behavior, and the mainspace edit war HAS stopped...--Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Look more closely ... the edit war is actually over a Talk:Cassie (singer). One editor has redacted a number of BLP violations in comments, and the IP is putting the originals back in, in the name of being against "sensorship". Aside from that, isn't block evasion a bright-line offense? No excuses?Kww (talk) 17:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There may be some blatant things that are being correctly removed, but at quick glance...this is probably the most strict enforcement of BLP I've seen outside DM's page. Some of these comments clearly don't need to be blanked. --Onorem♠Dil 17:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure I just declined this user's unblock request at User_talk:70.108.82.109. Does smell a LOT like block evasion. SQL^{Query me!} 17:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree that Mdsummersw was pretty stringent in her application of BLP ... perhaps overly so. That doesn't justify edit warring and block evasion.Kww (talk) 17:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm willing to re-block, but, there's really only 20 mins left in the original block right now. SQL^{Query me!} 17:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

NM, looks like they were re-blocked for 48h for disruption. [68] SQL^{Query me!} 17:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There was a report on RFPP to protect a page this user was editing - another IP was doing the same thing yesterday, so I'm quite certain this was block evasion. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 17:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)