Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Apparent WP:COI issues at West Ridge Academy

I encountered this edit on Talk:West Ridge Academy while reviewing recent edits using Huggle, in which User:Good Olfactory addressed an IP editor who had expressed frustration about edits removed from the article (see here). There are some genuine issues with the article, such as the repeated addition of spurious categories, which I agree are problematic. But the gist of the reason behind the page protection seems to be edits such as this one, which adds sourced material about allegations about the school. I do understand that there are legitimate issues about the tone, but I have far too often seen editors and admins demand that reliably sourced material be removed and discussed at a talk page as a means of suppressing unflattering material regardless of the quality of sources. This may or may not be happening here, and I understand the frustration of the IP editors involved.

While it may be appropriate to semi-protect the article, it appears that User:Good Olfactory has a rather clear conflict of interest issue here. Good Olfactory has edited the article on no fewer than 45 occasions and has been actively involved in content disputes on this article. On the User:Good Olfactory page, he describes himself as "typically active in the areas of categorization and my mainspace edits primarily relate to religious topics (especially the Latter Day Saint movement)...".

As many of the contested edits involve efforts to connect the school to Mormonism, as User:Good Olfactory has expressed a strong interest in LDS-related subjects and as his edit history shows a deep and continuing interest in the subject, as Good Olfactory has edited this particular article a few dozen times and has been actively involved in content disputes in the article in question, it would appear that he has a WP:COI issue with this article and should not have unilaterally stepped in to protect the article. There are well over a thousand admins, and any one of the other 1,659 Wikipedia admins, most of whom are untainted by this conflict, could have been approached and been asked to attempt to address this issue with some measure of remove from this dispute.

Appropriate action should be taken to ensure that User:Good Olfactory steps away from using administrative powers while involved in what appears to be a rather clear conflict of interest violation and to ensure that further measures are taken in the event that any further such WP:COI violations take place. Alansohn (talk) 02:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Protection of the page was instituted to stop ongoing edit-warring (not involving me). If the perception of bias troubles Alansohn, I've no problem with lifting the protection and letting another admin decide to reinstate or not reinstate the protection. (In fact, I'm trying to gain assurances that the edit warring will stop, so I'll probably be lifting it shortly anyway.) This complaint could have easily been dealt with by a note on my talk page; I'm not sure why it needs to go to ANI. (Though it may have something to do with the fact that I've blocked Alansohn in the past. This is not the first time since I blocked him that relatively minor issues have been brought up here by Alansohn instead of with me personally.) (Incidentally, I was asked via email by another user to intervene, so my intervention wasn't "unilateral" and I was simply making an effort to assist a user who asked for help.) Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:04, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I understand that a personal attack is an effective means to attempt to deflect the issue, but the problem of abuse of administrative powers despite clear edit warring by admin has still not been addressed. Sadly, this is far from the first time that Good Olfactory has abused administrative powers to further his own agenda despite clear conflicts of interest. If only these perceived problems could have been addressed by contacting any of the hundreds upon hundreds of admins not directly involved in edit warring here, there would be no issue. Abuse of administrative privileges in this manner directly undercuts the legitimacy of these powers. Admins need to be held to an appropriately high standard in this regard, and this hardly passes the smell test. An appropriate warning to refrain from use of administrative powers in this article, accompanied by escalating action in the event of further problems, will likely address the problem here. Alansohn (talk) 04:34, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

As I said, it would have been both easier and appropriate to just let me know on my talk page that you were troubled by it. Not a big deal. I haven't personally attacked you, just expressed surprise at your reluctance to approach me about a concern through any forum except ANI. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks like a big deal to me. I agree with Alansohn. You're admin'ing with a COI, and need to desist. ThuranX (talk) 04:45, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I meant it would not have been a big deal to just ask me about this, where I could have easily responded to the concern by lifting the protection. I've done so now anyway as we're trying to make progress on the talk page. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

To be fair to Good Olfactory, I also suggested semi-protection as a result of some edits that appeared to be coming from the school, essentially replacing content with something that looked like it was ripped straight from an advertisement brochure. TallNapoleon (talk) 05:16, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

A big part of the problem with User:Good Olfactory's actions here and elsewhere is a "the ends justify the means" approach in which blatant abuses of administrative powers can be covered up and dismissed by claiming that it's simply "not a big deal" and by cleaning up the problems created by his disruptive points after the damage has already been done and the users involved have been thoroughly intimidated. And this is not the first time. While actively in the middle of an edit war, Good Olfactory protected the same article back in March (see here), and also failed to see the clear conflict of interest then. As someone who is clearly invested in LDS issues and articles with strong opinions on the matter and as someone who has previously been actively edit warring in this article, the question is not if some action was necessary to protect the article. The issues are why would an admin with the clearest possible conflict of interest abuse his administrative powers for the second time in the same article to reflect his personal bias on the subject? Why impose this disruption himself when it would have been "no big deal" to ask any one of hundreds upon hundreds of admins who wouldn't know a Mormon from a foreman who could have been approached on their talk page and asked to intervene without imposing User:Good Olfactory's biases on the entire community? All that was needed in response to a request for intervention from User:TallNapoleon was a response from Good Olfactory that there was no way he could properly get involved here and that a third-party with a small measure of neutrality should be approached. Alansohn (talk) 12:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so "there are some genuine issues with the article", and "it may be appropriate to semi-protect the article", the issue is with the person who applied the protection, even though that admin wasn't involved in the edit warring, and hadn't edited the article since March? --Kbdank71 14:10, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, this is the kind of baldersdash that makes editing Wikipedia so discouraging. Good's action of protecting the page was not an abuse of Administrative authority; there was edit warring and appropriate action was taken; end of story. The facts are: 1) there was edit warring, 2) Good was not involved, 3) Good semi-protected the page, 4) silly accusations through a misapplication of policies are made here, 5) Good has now removed the semi-protect, 6) edit warring has returned. I don't care what you Admins do, but get your act together collectively, cast aside these type of silly accusations that don't apply, and semi-protect the page again. Based upon this type of allegation no admin with expertise in a given topic could act as an admin on those topics...let's try not to be silly. Of course admins should act as an admin in their areas of expertise. A COI only exists if the admin herself/himself is involved.

Alan, my advice is to stop stalking Good; it shows up very poorly on you. Just to be clear, I conflict with Good on almost all editing of religious articles; but this type of complaint has done nothing to protect Wikipedia, improve it, or improve the actions of admins.--^StormRider 15:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm no apologist for admin abuse, but frankly there ISN'T ANY on this occasion. If Good had been actively involved in the ongoing edit war you might have a case but he wasn't and you don't. Commendation for Good for responding with positivity to this report - I can't fault their actions at all. Exxolon (talk) 16:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

As a collective reply to all those who support this abuse: There are a million circumstances under which administrative action may be appropriate. None of them involve circumstances in which the admin has a clear conflict of interest. While he had refrained from editing the article all the way since March 2009, he was actively involved in an edit war in this same article over a similar set of issues just ten weeks ago, providing no evidence that he has the appropriate distance or neutrality to take administrative action in this article. That the edit warring has restarted after the improper page protect was removed only demonstrates that the problem could have been resolved if any of Good Olfactory's admin supporters here, some who might have some neutrality in this particular edit war, might have been able to address the matter on their own without violation of Wikipedia policy in a matter in which Good Olfactory has been directly involved just weeks ago. As to the shameless personal attack from User:Storm Rider in an effort to distract from the violations here that have also been noted by User:ThuranX, I applaud your support for an admin who has taken abusive administrative action in direct support of your edit warring, but you can hardly be neutral in this matter. It reflects rather poorly on any editor for supporting such abuse that benefits your own edit warring and that could have been addressed as no big deal by any admin other than User:Good Olfactory without the clear bias and prior edit warring of his own in the article in question. Alansohn (talk) 16:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You're just not getting it. THIS WAS NOT ABUSE. Admin abuse can be several things - if he'd blocked someone he was in dispute with, if he'd locked the article in his 'preferred' version. If he'd semi'd the article while in dispute with IP editors - then there'd be a case to answer. He might have a point of view about this article but his actions had nothing to do with his personal pov regarding this article - they were a perfectly correct attempt to stop the edit war which he was not involved with and encourage proper dispute resolution. Step away from the dead horse please Alan. Exxolon (talk) 18:01, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

It must be because it wasn't put in BOLD LETTERS before. As an admin you have a choice: You can edit war in an article or you can take administrative action in support of one side and call yourself objective. But you can't do both in the same article. Good Olfactory was actively edit warring just severl weeks ago, and then protected the article once he had imposed his position on the article. While he is not actively edit warring now, he has taken the same action to impose what is essentially the same version he pushed when he was edit warring. You can do one or the other, but not both. I look at this article and I clearly see Good Olfactory as an ardent edit warrior in this article. This horse is very much alive. If you want it dead, any neutral and objective admin would be able to readily deal with the article. It would be no big deal for Good Olfactory to ask any one of the more than 1,600 other admins, preferably one who hasn't been actively involved in removing sourced content from this particular article, to take a look and deal with whatever problems that may exists in the appropriately neutral fashion required by Wikipedia policy. P.S. Incidentally, you're also falling into the edit warring trap on this same article. Alansohn (talk) 19:22, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

We disagree on Good's actions - that's okay, I wasn't expecting to convince you. However your accusation that I'm "falling into the edit warring trap" is totally bogus. I'm reverting blatant NPOV violations - this counts as vandalism and isn't subject to edit warring rules or the 3RR rules. No reasonable editor would consider my 2 reversions of blatant POV insertion as "edit warring" as you do. Exxolon (talk) 21:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You are not working together to address an issue. You are blindly reverting to the ame version over and over again. That is the definition of edit warring. Alansohn (talk) 21:34, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

OKAY guys, this goes to far. Instead of stopping this silliness you have encouraged it. User:Alansohn has now taken to carry on his tirade on the West Ridge Academy article. This is what happens when silliness is not stopped immediately and you guys allow this caliber of editor loose with the impression s/he is right. I have warned him to focus on improving the article and I expect you to stop him from continued harassment to Good or to me now given it appears he now wants to follow me around. Geez, I hate Wikipedia when things like this develop. --^StormRider 19:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• CORRECT guys. This does go too far. After detecting administrative abuse by Good Olfactory I reported the abuse here and added the page to my watchlist in case any further problems arise. As well as seeing more edit warring by Storm Rider and other editors, I see a shamelessly uncivil personal attack from Storm Rider himself on the talk page. I responded. Now we have more incivility and personal attacks from Storm Rider himself. I hate when edit warriors attack others and see something wrong when those they attack respond with requests for some basic decency. While the edit warring for several days on this one article is bad enough, the personal attacks from User:Storm Rider are utterly unneeded. Alansohn (talk) 21:34, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Your repeated usage of the term "abuse" is also bordering on a personal attack. You disagree with Good's actions? Okay. Not okay to repeatedly slam them as "abuse", "abusive" etc. That's not a civil way to categorise his actions. You'd probably get more positive responses if you got down off your high horse about this. Exxolon (talk) 22:46, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I have blocked for 31 hours the IP registered to the Academy which keeps adding advertising copy. It's difficult to determine if additional action is needed. —EncMstr (talk) 20:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment from outside observer: It's not just blatant advertsising. In the last 24 hours they have reverted the page 9 times, each time re-adding [1] a blatant copy vio from here - Voceditenore (talk) 20:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Protection policy is rather clear in indicating that "Administrators should not protect or unprotect a page to further their own position in a content dispute." While the argument has been made that Good Olfactory may not be actively edit warring in the article at the moment, he was involved in depth in pushing one side of the argument in an edit war just ten weeks ago. At that time, Good Olfactory made more than 40 separate edits to the article on March 18 alone, edit warring back and forth, culminating with this edit in which he protected the article in direct violation of his clear conflict of interest, locking the article at his preferred version. If this article protection were Good Olfactory's only violation of WP:COI he might have a shred of an argument to wiggle out of administrative measures. What triggered this report here, and the urgent call for appropriate action to deal with this problem, is that this is the second time in the same article that Good Olfactory has refused to respect the need for separating his personal biases on this article from his administrative powers in this one article alone. Alansohn (talk) 16:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yesterday, GO unprotected the article, and has stated he won't step in administratively further on it. Consensus would appear to show that he was stopping an edit war, nothing more. So, what "appropriate action" are you requesting? --Kbdank71 18:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

If his protection earlier this week were his first and only action in the article, there would be no issue. The protect he made in March is indefensible and even you have not addressed it let alone offered a rationalization to justify it. This is the second time he has inappropriately stepped in to protect this article, one in which he has been edit warring. That he undid his policy violation after being caught and brought to ANI does not undo the apparent conflict of interest violation. I would back any appropriate remedies by neutral admins to prevent further violations of Wikipedia:Protection policy on the part of Good Olfactory. Alansohn (talk) 20:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I honestly can't see a reason that you're still going on about this. How many people saying "this is not problematic" would you require to decide that perhaps you're over-reacting? It has been suggested and Good Olfactory has agreed that it can't hurt to have another admin take a look. If that's not enough, what exactly do you expect to be done here? At present your continuation of this affair is simply reflecting poorly on your ability to handle disputes. Shell ^babelfish 23:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Let's see if I understand. Gol'f semi-protected a page that was the subject of an edit war. Alansohh, with whom Gol'f has had repeated negative interactions just happens to stumble across the situation and, rather than simply ask Gol'f about it, his first step is to run to ANI to tell on Gol'f. When other editors and admins don't immediately flock to his side, Alansohn digs back several weeks into the edit history to find a questionable act by the same admin to complain about. Was Gol'f first semi-protect a mistake given his involvement? Yeah, I would say it was; he should have asked another admin to look at the situation. Was his second semi-protect a mistake given his past involvement? Maybe, maybe not, but again it probably would have been better for him to have another admin look at it. Does any aspect of this situation rise to the level of an abuse of power that requires intervention? Absolutely not. This complaint is without merit and constitutes an abject failure on Alansohn's part to assume good faith. Were I given to histrionics, I might even suggest that this complaint itself is an abuse of process that warrants administrative action, but instead I'll prescribe a troutslap and express my hope that this gets closed down post-haste. Otto4711 (talk) 22:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • That seems to be about the size of it. None of us are perfect, me included. I admit I have made mistakes in the past—we all have and a fishing expedition can be mounted for exposition of any editor or administrator's past errors. But on a positive note, in the older incident cited, I made an effort to quickly reverse the mistake and discuss my improper actions with those involved. In this case, I completely recused myself from the situation and lifted the page protection—not because I necessarily agreed with the complaint, but to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. (The page protection was quickly re-applied by another admin.) Those editors directly affected don't seem to have a lingering problem with me as the result of the months-old actions or this immediate one, so I think the real motivation of this ANI becomes more and more apparent. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman and David Boothroyd censorship

User:Jehochman is preventing editors from working on David Boothroyd (aka former arb Sam Blacketer) in userspace (on my user page and most recently at User:JoshuaZ/David Boothroyd) despite the existence of multiple reliable sources from the British press addressing the controversy. He has suggested he will block anyone who includes the material and will only allow selectively restored versions of the Boothroyd article that do not mention his Wikipedia controversy. Coverage in the British national press includes:

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191474/Labour-councillor-David-Boothroyd-caught-altering-David-Camerons-Wikipedia-entry.html
• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/wikipedia-sentinel-quits-after-using-alias-to-alter-entries-1698762.html
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/26/wikipedia_westminster_councillor/

Jehochman is now clearly dedicated to preventing any development or discussion in spite of reliable sources. This censorship must end. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TAway (talk • contribs) 21:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• This has already been through three AFDs (1, 2, 3 with 2 and 3 closed as delete), one very lengthy DRV (Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 May 27#David Boothroyd). All have been rooted in extreme BLP concerns, which has led to its recent deletions, salting, and DRV. Please do not throw the word "censorship" around, especially when the intent is to prevent and negative unsourced information from being added to the userfied copy. MuZemike 21:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
  • With 2 and 3 both having been closed after almost no discussion by Jehochman. This is not about preventing unsourced information -- all the information is sources -- but protecting a former Arb and Wikipedia's credibility. The media has covered him on other issues, they are now covering his Wikipedia activities, and we even use Boothroyd's election guide as a reliable source in over 700 Wikipedia articles. The media coverage is there, and this is censorship. TAway (talk) 22:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
    • The problem is that there is at least the appearance that what's being protecting isn't BLP concerns, but Wikipedia's rep. The story is out, in reliable sources, the only question is about notability, not verifiability. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 22:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Yes - and isn't it odd how long we had an article on David Boothroyd BEFORE this controversy broke? The article survived the first AfD, then was bought two more times in rapid succession in violation of WP:NOTAGAIN. "Censorship" isn't quite the right word - but it closely resembles a whitewash. Snarfies (talk) 22:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
        • August 2005 to May 2009 is not most people's idea of "rapid succession". Uncle G (talk) 12:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• Jayron32 has userified the article to User:JoshuaZ/David Boothroyd. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
  • After userification, Jehochman selectively re-deleted any versions noting the Wikipedia controversy. He also threatened that any re-creation that included the Wikipedia controversy was a "potentially a blockable action." TAway (talk) 22:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Correct - repeatedly re-creating deleted material is blockable, especially when it involves BLP concerns. I'm unsure what the problem is here. Black Kite 22:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
      • How is it restoring "deleted material" when the new sources are appearing after Jehochman's inappropriate speedy deletions? Why is it that the article was immediately speedied after Boothroyd resigned from ArbCom after years of existing, then deletion is accepted as the "status quo" when the media picks up on the scandal? He has salted an article and blacklisted an entire issue under threat of ban regardless of how it develops and continues to appear in the media. That is censorship. TAway (talk) 23:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
  • as the references accumulate, the material is no longer deleteable. I have respect for Sam for his work here, but neither he nor anyone is actually helped by censorship. That he was an admin here is relevant to his possible outside notability. Jehochman is operating beyond the limits of consensus here. DGG (talk) 23:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Is it true that there was an article on David Boothroyd before the controversy? If so, for how long? ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:28, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Yes. And David Boothroyd effectively wrote it.

  The article that was created in article space was a simple copy and paste, by an editor without an account, of the autobiography that User:Dbiv had had on xyr user page since 2004-03-31. M. Boothroyd didn't write xyr autobiography in article space, and nominated the copy and paste for deletion in the article's second ever edit. The only significant subsequent expansion of the article came from an IP address assigned to Westminster City Council. If that wasn't M. Boothroyd himself, it was someone who was using M. Boothroyd's autobiography as xyr source, because it gave that autobiography as an external link in the edit. Uncle G (talk) 02:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• The article would be deletable with or without the Wikipedia scandal - it isn't censorship to say someone isn't notable, nor is it censorship to argue that involvement in one significant event (related to Wikipedia or not) doesn't change that essential fact. He wasn't notable at all before, and the scandal qualifies as his 1BE. I don't think it is Jehochman that is overly focused on the scandal element here; its the folks who insist on recreating this article only to focus on the scandal element of it who need to find other work to do. Nathan ^T 00:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• There shouldn't be an article on Boothroyd or any other marginally notable living person until Wikipedia implements an effective mechanism for protecting such articles from malicious editing. Cla68 (talk) 00:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • So consensus was that he was notable enough for an article until there was substantial coverage of his getting caught sock puppeteering and violating Wikipedia's integrity by engaging in conflict of interest edits? This is fascinating. I move that anyone encouraging this kind of policy violating behavior should be put up for recall. We can't have this kind of censorship and bias on Wikipedia especially not from Admins and ARbcom member. It fosters rot right at the core of our trustworthiness and undermines the integrity of Wikipedia as a quality information source. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
    • That of course presupposes that there isn't already rot right at the core. --WebHamster 01:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Actually, it pressupposes something rather different. See below. Uncle G (talk) 02:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
    • No, that was not the consensus. The first AFD discussion really didn't apply our primary notability criterion at all. No rationale for keeping makes any mention of reliable sources. We kept the article because it satisfied one of the other, secondary, notability criteria that we had at the time: an arbitrary number related to book readership.

      I suggested a complete rewrite from reliable sources, but that didn't happen. In retrospect, that could well have been because there weren't actually any to be had. The source of all of the content was, indirectly, M. Boothroyd documenting himself, throughout the entire life of the article, and the second AFD discussion can well be regarded as doing the right thing, in accordance with Wikipedia policy and guidelines on reliability and independence of sources, albeit four years after the subject himself first requested the right thing to be done. Uncle G (talk) 02:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

      • That's interesting because I'm finding lots of sources that discuss his political activities before his indiscretions were covered very substantially. I'm also finding he was VERY active in working on political subject including some that are very negative in tone about Conservative politicians. Where is the accountability? Where is the investigation and clean up that needs to be done? Do we know all the sock accounts he used? Have we asked if there are more? Who knew what when? Are we to believe that Arbcom was completely in the dark about his true identity? Stop trying to sweep this under the rug and let's root the rot out. If we spend half the time trying to make things right that we do trying to cover up the impropriety, maybe we wouldn't have this problem all the time. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
        • It doesn't look good to make wild and foolish accusations of sweeping things under a rug when people are doing nothing more than straightforwardly answering your questions. If we'd spent the effort to make things right, by the way, the copy of the autobiography wouldn't have stood in article space for four years, based upon nothing except what the subject claimed about himself. That is what would have been right. Uncle G (talk) 02:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• TAway appears to be a sock puppet account or somebody with an axe to grind. The matter of deletion was dealt with at WP:DRV. It is not proper to continue badgering to get one's way against consensus. I hope that TAway stops disrupting Wikipedia to make a point before somebody else blocks them. They did not notify me of this thread. Apparently. Their goal is to stir up drama, not to resolve a problem. Jehochman ^Talk 00:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• I'm not a sock puppet and I have no axe to grind. I simply stumbled upon this mess when commenting upon a different mess after finding this board recently. It appears to ME anyways that this is not about protecting a BLP, but is a CYA for Wikipedia. From what I can gather, Boothroyd's article had existed for several years before this last bit of trouble. How does it become deleteable only after it's discovered that Boothroyd had managed to somehow attain a position of trust and power on the project, and then abused that power using sock puppets? The situation -- and Boothroyd -- have been dealt with in reliable sources. Why is this even an issue? It seems obvious that the article belongs on the project. Unitanode 02:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • To be clear, the above regarding my not being a sock puppet was in regards to Jehochman's apparent ad hominem against the originator of this thread. Unitanode 02:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • The reality is that it was deletable right from the start, had we applied our sourcing policy properly at the time of the first AFD discussion. But we didn't. We applied a notability criterion that we no longer have, and the existence of what was effectively an unsourced autobiography in article space for four years is an example of why that criterion, and others like it, were and are bad ideas. Uncle G (talk) 02:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Whatever the reality of the policy issues, this bears the distinct odor of a coverup. I'm not well-versed in the ins-and-outs of policy here, so I'm commenting simply on the appearance of things. Unitanode 02:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Then you are creating confusion, and are not being helpful to the process of writing an encyclopaedia. Wikipedia editors, at least, should be capable of getting the facts straight in this affair. Look what happens when one doesn't. TAway has created an entire house of cards in this section predicated upon false information about when M. Boothroyd nominated the article for deletion and what it was that Jenochman deleted from the userfied article. The consequence is that xyr repeated protestations and accusations here look rather silly when compared to the actual MediaWiki logs and edit histories. Uncle G (talk) 12:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
        • You're being something of a bully with your accusations of "not being helpful to the encyclopedia." My contention is that the continued removal of any reference to Boothroyd, when he has been prominently featured in several reliable sources now, has whiffs of a CYA by those with much more power on this project. Your accusations notwithstanding, all I care about is whether or not the encyclopedia is comprehensive and accurate. Unitanode 12:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
          • No-one is bullying you, and that mischaracterization isn't helpful, either. The fact remains that "commenting simply on the appearance of things" is not helpful to the process of writing an encyclopaedia. Stick to the facts, to what the edit histories and logs actually say, and to the policies. Don't build and encourage fantasies based upon "appearance", such as the one that you put forward above based upon the false notion that the article "became deletable". They waste an awful lot of everyone's time. If anything, entirely the reverse of your notion is true: The article, being based upon nothing but autobiography, was deletable for almost four years, and it is only now that it is possibly, as DGG points out above, becoming not deletable. Uncle G (talk) 16:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
            • Appearances are important, whatever you may think. And your characterizing people as being "not helpful to the encyclopedia" appears to be bullying, whatever you may intend it to be. Boothroyd is now notable, and deleting and salting the target page appears untoward, and looks like a CYA move. My saying so is not unhelpful in any way. People disagreeing with your take doesn't make them unhelpful, by the way. It just means we disagree about the importance of the appearance of things. I think that the appearance of things is quite important. Interestingly, and tangentially, the Supreme Court of the United States seems to agree with that view as well. Not that what SCOTUS thinks really matters here, I just found it interesting that they don't simply discard the appearance of impropriety. Unitanode 17:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• Just for the sake of comparison.. the political office held by Boothroyd in the UK is on par with a US "city councilman" - Apart from the bad press for getting caught with "wiki-fingers" (pardon the bad pun).. I don't see how he qualifies for an article. The fact that it was here before just means we have a huge problem with borderline BLPs that noone bothers to read. - and we already knew that. If we had an article for every US city councilman caught in a compromising position - we'd really be screwed. --Versageek 02:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Actually, the problem of the article existing before is that AFD didn't come to the right conclusion the first time around, because we applied a bad notability criterion. It has been partially addressed by the fact that we don't have that particular criterion any more, but constant vigilance is required to ensure that we don't slip back into applying such faulty notability criteria at AFD, and don't formulate such criteria. Uncle G (talk) 02:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• The article clearly passes the GNG guidelines based on very substantial coverage in numerous reliable sources. It was borderline before this incident, but there's no question now. There's coverage of his activities as a politician, coverage of his activities in private enterprise it look like, and there's now quite a bit of coverage of his subterfuge in editing under aliases against our policies as he sat on our highest administrative body. We are a major information source, we aren't censored, and we shouldn't pretend that he's non-notable now to hide the truth. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Before this incident it was not borderline. It was an unsourced autobiography, and should really have been deleted alongside the other unsourced autobiographies that we delete all of the time here. The subject even asked us to delete it. Uncle G (talk) 12:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
    • As per precedent, and possibly a guideline (can't find one at the moment, but I think one does cover this issue), the wish of a subject of an article for the article to be kept or deleted is irrelevant. AdmiralKolchak (talk) 13:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
      • That's certainly true, because an editor is not allowed to own an article. The real question is whether the article should have existed in the first place, regardless of who wrote it. What I'm seeing here among some of those pushing for keeping it, is as coatracking for criticism of wikipedia. There's already an article on criticism of wikipedia, and that's where this situation belongs, if anywhere. It's likely nothing more than a blip in the real life of the subject. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 14:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
        • Without making comment as to this article, this can depend on the level of notability. We now and then do delete BLPs whose topics are at the very edge of notability if the subject asks for this to be done in a verifiable way. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
          • Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. AdmiralKolchak (talk) 14:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Nonetheless, it was autobiography, without independent and reliable sources, and the subject asked us to do what, in accordance with our content and deletion policies, we should really have done at the time. AFD came to the wrong result, and that wrong result stood for four years. The arguments being made by two editors, that that wrong result somehow proves notability, when there was no evidence presented either at that first AFD discussion or in the intervening three and a bit years that multiple reliable and independent sources covering this subject in depth exist (because, as can be seen if one actually reads what is cited below, they did not exist), which is the definition of notability, are clearly fallacious arguments. The existence of an unsourced (in effect) autobiography for four years only demonstrates that AFD went wrong. It doesn't demonstrate notability during that time, and both that thesis, and the further thesis (also propounded) that the subject was notable and now is not notable, are predicated upon a falsehood. (As DGG points out above, if anything entirely the reverse is true.) Uncle G (talk) 16:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
        • For those of us too lazy to look up what actually happened, but not lazy enough to refrain from repeating misinformation:
          • WP:Articles for deletion/David Boothroyd "I am nominating this article about myself for deletion as I don't think I make the notability criteria (although possibly verging on them). However I reserve the right to become notable in the future. David | Talk 22:02, 8 August 2005 (UTC)" KEEP
          • WP:Articles for deletion/David Boothroyd (2nd nomination) "Non-notable, lack of sourcing. Does not meet our present notability standards for inclusion as a WP:BLP. Last AFD was nearly four years ago. rootology/equality 19:34, 23 May 2009 (UTC)" DELETE
          • WP:Articles for deletion/David Boothroyd (3rd nomination) "The individual does not meet our criteria for inclusion. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)" DELETE

--Hans Adler (talk) 16:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Administrative action v. outcome

Actually there are two separate questions: whether the article was deleted correctly and whether Jehochman's post-deletion actions were appropriate. The complaint regarded Jehochman's actions, not the deletion itself. So let's break this down:

1. The poster lists three sources and calls them reliable: The Register, Daily Mail, and The Independent. Would an editor who knows British periodicals please weigh in?
2. What is our general practice on userspace recreations of courtesy deleted biographies?
3. The poster asserts He has suggested he will block anyone who includes the material and will only allow selectively restored versions of the Boothroyd article that do not mention his Wikipedia controversy. Yet no the poster provides no diff of this assertion. If Jehochman actually did suggest that blocks would be forthcoming, we need clear answers to the first two questions.
4. If at least one of those three sources is reliable, and if userspace recreations are allowable in this situation, and if Jehochman selectively deleted that news and threatened blocks--then a problem exists. Otherwise there's probably little problem, except for one thing:

This issue is developing news, and arguably a reputation management issue. Jehochman is a reputation management professional who appears to have acted boldly without requesting the review and assistance of fellow administrators at the admin boards. It wouldn't be good to see this spin out of control with claims of 'coverup', and if mud gets thrown it might possibly stick. So respectfully requesting that Jehochman seek community consensus before taking further action. Durova^Charge! 03:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There is absolutely no doubt that the Mail, the Register and the Independent qualify as reliable sources. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 04:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh? Had thought there was doubt about citing the Register. Anyway if at least one of them is then question 1 is answered. How about the userfication question? Is it permissible to develop BLPs in user space after deletion and DRV? Durova^Charge! 04:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You make some good points, but let's be clear. This is NOT just developing news. This is a subject we've long had an article on, who has been covered in the media for years. There has recently been a major surge in coverage due to policy violating behaviors that are also unethical for a politician. So he's under fire. Not only are we subject to allegations of a cover-up, so far we are guilty of one. All of a sudden the subject was no longer notable right when lots of coverage was occuring that wasn't favorable? This is the worst kind of censorship and it puts us in a very bad light. It also comes at a time when Arbcom is already involved in coddling POV pushers, bias and NPOV violations. So we have a major problem that needs to be fixed. So instead of attacking anyone who questions those trying to sweep things under the rug, we need to take a step back, take a deep breath, restore the article, put in a few sentences about the issues involved, and see what happens. We have this rush to action any time there's a controversy, but cooler, more rational, and more reasonable heads should prevail. Let's do the right thing instead of engaging in subterfuge to cover up for those violating our policies. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

As the person who had the article usefied, I'm currently thinking about this with both the Mail and Indepdent as reliable and the Register as a source only as a matter of last resort for uncontroversial details. The Mail and Indepdent are pretty clearly WP:RS. Regarding the matter of development in userspace, there's a variety of conflicting precedents about that. Given that the closer of the DRV made the decision that userfication in this case was ok that seems ok. He's given one week to work on it as a time limit. Given that, I see it as very hard to see a problem with working on a userfied version. I haven't seen Jehochman claim that he will delete/issue blocks for any mention of the controversy in question although I've already asked him to clarify what precisely he considers to be a BLP problem. It might help matters if Jehochman would have other arbs or admins take a look at this in more detail since a variety of users seem to be upset with his handling of the matter. In any event, it would be appreciated if users would help contribute to a draft rather than attacking Jehochman or stirring up further drama. (Oh, and the next time something in my userspace is the center of an ANI thread could someone please do me the courtesy of letting me know?) JoshuaZ (talk) 04:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually Jehochman wrote in an edit summary to your user talk page: "(WP:BLP1E enforcement -- blocks will be issued if same old problems are reinstated.)"[2] Durova^Charge! 04:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but I don't know what he meant by that. Is the problem using The Reg as a source? Is the problem the Wikipedia matter as a whole. Is the problem some of the unsourceable details about his career that were in the earlier version? Needs clarification. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It's one in the morning in Jehochman's time zone. So he probably isn't available to answer that right now. Was it only a citation to The Register that he removed? It's a long page to scour and you're more familiar with it. Durova^Charge! 04:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

If the recreated page is turned into an attack page, I predict the editors who are responsible will be blocked by somebody else. It won't be me doing the blocking, but I am pretty confident that an uninvolved administrator can be found to review the evidence if a block is called for. Jehochman ^Talk 11:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, it is 1 AM here too... :). Anyways, I can't tell since he deleted the offending edits [3]. But I believe that was the only material in question. I do of course understand the late hour and don't have any issue waiting for his clarification. (Indeed, I sent him a note. I still see this ANI thread as unnecessary). JoshuaZ (talk) 05:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually this is developing news. That's not the only thing it is, but it certainly is that. Do you have an analysis of the numbered questions, please? Durova^Charge! 04:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not just developing news. Here are a few of the sources that Google News search comes up wit (the first 10 or so predating the latest controversy):

• 1) [4] Fox News
• 2) [5] The Guardian
• 3) Time/CNN [6]
• 4) [7] The Independent
• 5)The Argus [8]
• 6) Wood and Vale [9]
• 7)Westminster’s Icelandic folly - PressDisplay.com - Oct 13, 2008 has a story on him.
• 8) Westminster affordable housing row

PlanningResource - PlanningResource (subscription) - Oct 23, 2008 Labour member of the committee Cllr David Boothroyd, has branded the move as “a smash and grab raid”. He said: "So many people are waiting for transfer to a ...

• 9) Local elections good for gay Labour

PinkNews.co.uk - May 5, 2006 Gay councillors, Matt Cooke and Alan Dobbie held seats in Labour controlled Haringey and David Boothroyd held his in Westminster.

• 10) And then of course there's the very substantial coverage AFTER his latest controversy [10], [11] Daily Mail
• 11) The Register [12]

And then there are other stories that I'm not sure are related. There are several tech stories. Is he David Boothroyd, Contributing Editor to Vision Systems Design? Does he write on wireless standards?

And I understand he's also an author. So there's more notability based on his book and writings and presumably more sources available on Google Books.

And to answer your other questions, Jehochman needs to stop acting unilaterally and in haste. And other veteran editors need to stop covering this up and maintain what's left of our integrity by doing what's right. There's no need for userspace recreations, because the article should be recreated in main space and protected with a couple sentences covering the latest issues so we can all get back to editing and expanding the encyclopedia. ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Childofmidnight, those are all very interesting sources. Would you move them out of this subsection to the previous subsection please? For purposes of this subthread, all we really need to determine is that at least one of the new sources is reliable. We're already there. The second question is whether it's ok for users to recreate BLPs in user space after they've been deleted. And looking into this a little more, there's also a subquestion: if it's ok to do this in userspace, are editors prohibited from starting work before DRV? Durova^Charge! 04:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I can answer questions 1 and 3, Durova. Question 1, yes, the Daily Mail (second most-circulated paper in the nation) and Independent (a past top British Press Awards recipient) are both ironclad reliable sources. We use the Register as a source in the Essjay controversy article so I am assuming it is fine. TAway (talk) 04:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Question 3: I was incorrectly blocked by Jehochman for "WP:POINT violations" for having the article (entirely sourced) in my userspace (it was in my user space prior to his inappropriate speedy deletion, but he claimed I had restored it post-deletion), and only unblocked if "you will not restore this content anywhere on Wikipedia." When the article was userfied to JoshuaZ's userspace, Jehochman appeared and re-deleted, then selectively restored revisions without the Sam Blacketer controversy material saying, "Attack page or negative unsourced BLP: Deleted revisions were improperly restored" (it was not unsourced, and only "negative" in that it certainly reflects poorly) and "blocks will be issued if same old problems are reinstated." He then left a message on the userfied article's talk page making clear what he had done: "there were a bunch of WP:BLP problems in the deleted history. These were accidentally restored. I have deleted and selectively restored revisions I think may be acceptable."

Let's face it, had the evenly split post-speedy-deletion discussion at the Boothroyd deletion review been allowed to take place as a normal 7-day Article for Deletion it would have been a clear "no consensus" outcome. He has used his ability to speedy-delete and thus force DRV discussion instead of AfD discussion to claim that the book on this issue is now closed. He completely ignored administrator User:SoWhy's attempt to approach him on the matter and instead dismissively pointed to the DRV. By my count, three sysops (SoWhy, Sandstein, and now DGG) have commented with concerns about his protective and anti-consensus behavior during the developing Boothroyd situation.

Jehochman has openly stated "our website with its search-ranking-fu does not need to be made available to those who wish to amplify his (David Boothroyd's) problems" (assuming bad faith of those who hold the story with its coverage to be verifiable and notable). It is my contention that Jehochman is a search engine optimization expert who wants to keep the story out of the search engine results for the sake of Wikipedia and Boothroyd's reputations both. He is obviously about as far from a neutral broker of the Boothroyd situation as one can get right now and is in fact editing with a declared agenda: to minimize the search engine imprint of this story. His actions during AfD (speedying a deletion and denying a full AfD despite substantial new media coverage of a new development) and actions to suppress development of the issue's media coverage on-wiki via blocks and block threats are censorship. TAway (talk) 04:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Well, let's not rush to conclusions here. Or at least please excuse the ignorance of an editor who doesn't spend much time at AFD. In good faith, Jehochman might have been thinking of the editors David Boothroyd had voted to ban during his time as an arbitrator, who might add frivolous accusations to the substantial material. A portion of editors believe in being generous with courtesy deletions upon the subject's request. Regarding the block of May 27, could people who are familiar with AfD standards comment on the practice of recreating a BLP in userspace before DRV gets underway? Is that an ok thing to do? Durova^Charge! 05:04, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Not enough in the way of precedent. If it were an unambiguous attack page then recreation in userspace would have clearly been blockable. However, the deletion reason seems to be primarily BLP1E which is not sufficient reason generally to argue against a userspace recreation. I'm not aware of any similar block occasions for such more or less borderline situations such as BLP1E, or courtesy deletion requests. (There may have also been a GFDL violation in TAQway's actions but I'm not sure). JoshuaZ (talk) 05:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm leaving a whole mess of things to the side here and just offering my own view on Durova's second question. As a matter of commonsense, if we in fact do courtesy deletions of not-well-known BLPs (as has happened here) then it strikes me as the acme of foolishness to turn around and allow recreation of said BLP - even in a different form - in userspace. Leaving the specifics of this case to the side, let's think of this from the perspective of the subject of a theoretical article similar to the one we are discussing. The article subject comes to us and says, "Hey, I'm a local politician in Topeka, KS who is barely notable and I don't want a Wiki bio because I'm worried about defamation and having an article about me is not important for Wikipedia/the world, so can you delete it?" We say yes and then do so, but then we allow an editor to develop a new article in user space, presumably for the purpose of one day importing it into article space (otherwise why would would it be there?). At a basic level that strikes me as illogical, and I think the BLP subject in question would be understandably agog that we deleted it and then let it be created again in some other part of Wikipedia for it to be worked on and then maybe moved back into article space later. The particulars of this case are more complex (and I'm intentionally ignoring them to make a general point), but personally I feel "our general practice on userspace recreations of courtesy deleted biographies" has to be "we don't do that." If not then courtesy deletion is effectively meaningless. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Well, couldn't userspace be noindexed? The DRV closer in this instance specifically allowed userspace drafts with a time limit. So the post-DRV recreation seems ok. Not sure about the other one. Striking for now. Need to reverify: thought that was written, but having trouble finding it. Durova^Charge! 05:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
        • I suppose that helps, to the extent that average people know what "noindexed" means and/or are comforted by some techie's explanation of it (I barely know what it means, to be honest). Again I'm just thinking about this from the perspective of a the subject of the BLP who asks for deletion—presumably (most of the time) a person who is not familiar with Wikipedia or even maybe the workings of the series of tubes in which this web site lives. If we say, "Sure, we'll delete that!" and then in following up the person in question somehow sees (maybe on the talk page of the admin who did the deletion) that the article we just deleted has been recreated at some random user's user page....well let's just say it probably wouldn't be fun to respond to that OTRS ticket. The moral component of our BLP policy is (or should be) as much about perceived harm as actual harm—i.e. if a BLP subject says "I'm an unimportant person and this article has done and/or might do me harm" we probably are not going to fight with them about that but rather will largely take their word. Similarly I would not want to get in a conversation/argument with such a person about how they don't have to worry because it's in userspace which is "different," something something something "noindexing," etc. etc. And it still doesn't deal with the fact that an article in userspace is, by definition, something that is being worked on to be put in article space, otherwise we wouldn't have it there in userspace.

          Like I said there are different aspects to this particular discussion that might complicate matters, but in general I really cannot imagine a compelling argument for saying we can delete a BLP based on a real life request from an article subject and then turn around and put it in user space to work on it so we can later re-create the article we just deleted. In all seriousness I might be missing something but that strikes me as the rub of the matter. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

          • What you are missing: that almost immediately after Boothroyd's deletion request he became the subject of national media attention. National media attention in multiple sources completely changes the ballgame. TAway (talk) 06:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
            • Like I said above, "Like I said there are different aspects to this particular discussion that might complicate matters..." This case might be slightly different for the reason you suggest (though this supposed "national media attention" seems, at a glance, to be quite minimal). My two previous comments gave my view on Durova's general question about userfying BLP articles that have been courtesy deleted rather than engaging with the specifics of this situation. I think it's obvious that userfying BLP articles that have been courtesy deleted is, as a rule, a definite bad idea. Perhaps this is an exception or perhaps not, but if it's the former I think it would be a very rare one. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
            • 3 years 9 months is not "almost immediately". M. Boothroyd asked for the article to be deleted on the 8th of August 2005. This is one of the errors of fact upon which you have built your house of cards. Uncle G (talk) 12:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The content related to the recent scandal can be added to Criticism of Wikipedia, as there are reliable sources. My concern about the biography is that it was, and would be if recreated, a serious WP:BLP1E violation. We cannot write a biography based on a person being involved in one event when there is very thin coverage of the rest of their life. Unless there is enough substance to the rest of the person's life, the scandal would have undue weight. That's the problem. A public figure, like Chris Dodd can have some scandal content in their biography because there is enough substance to provide balance.

I'd very much like an answer to the question of whether it is kosher to userify a deleted WP:BLP. My initial feeling was against undeletion, but I did not outright delete the article again because I wanted more input, and did not want to generate more shrill comments about coverup. I did delete selected revisions which either 1/ I recalled having been previously deleted by other administrators before I ever set eyes on the article, or 2/ represented WP:BLP1E violations that had been discussed, and the deletion of which had been sustained at WP:DRV. Basically, I think the undeleting administrator was not fully aware of those circumstances and would not disagree with what I did. Jehochman ^Talk 10:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

On a side note: Jehochman involved admin?

Another problem to ponder, which I have so far not considered, but which strikes me now is this: If Jehochman closed the second AFD as delete (very quickly without the usual 24h SNOW waiting period that admins usually apply), doesn't this mean he is now involved? Imho SNOW, unlike consensus judging, requires an admin to decide that deletion is the correct thing to do. SNOW is an interpretation of WP:IAR as we all know and IAR requires a decision by the one applying it, i.e. one should only ignore the rules if they think it's best for the project. But if SNOW/IAR requires such a decision, it means the person ignoring the rules (here the SNOWing admin) has effectively taken a stance on the issue. But if they have taken a stance on the issue by doing so, they are now to be considered an involved administrator and should not take administrator actions regarding the same subject again, especially not closing a new AFD (like the third one) or selectively deleting revisions of the userfied article) based on said close. Opinions? Regards SoWhy 07:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Trying to solve a difficult problem does not disqualify somebody from continuing to try to solve that problem. You can't just scream "involved!" to get rid of an administrator who disagrees with your point of view. Most of the revisions I deleted had been previously deleted (as best I can remember) before I was ever aware of the article. When the article was userified, I don't think it was the administrators intention to restore those revisions. They included some edits by the HAGGER vandal, for example. I also removed the WP:BLP1E violation that was the immediate cause of the article being deleted (which was upheld at WP:DRV). Jehochman ^Talk 09:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I understand that you probably do not view yourself as an involved administrator while I think in the spirit of the reasons you cited on your first close that you were from then on, now having an opinion about what should stay and what should be deleted. A deletion by an involved administrator can be upheld, so pointing at DRV is not really an argument. But my posting was a question to those not involved in the issue at all (unlike you and me) whether my interpretation of IAR/SNOW leading to a seperate decision and thus more than just being judgment of consensus is correct, so I'd like to invite those people to consider this thought/problem (regardless of the issue at hand if possible).

    From you I'd like to request that you recuse yourself from taking any further administrative action towards this article (userfied or not) and allow an administrator previously not involved in the issue at hand to decide the further fate of the article (you can tag it for speedy deletion as G4 for example and someone will make a decision). It would serve both you and the project as a whole if any rumors of whitewashing can be avoided and not having the same admin repeatedly deleting an article is imho a way to achieve this. Regards SoWhy 10:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

    • I'd be happy to have nothing else to do with this stinking mess if an uninvolved administrator would step forward and promise to keep an eye on it. Whatever leads to the smoothest operation of the project is fine with me. Jehochman ^Talk 10:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• My opinion is that this side-issue that you have created only serves to confuse, not to enlighten. The specifics of the case at hand are that the userfied edits that were deleted, as you can see for yourself, with the sole exception of TAway's contributions were all BLP vandalism making various libellous statements about the subject's sex life and sexual orientation. Abstract notions of "involvement" are irrelevant to that, and only serve to further muddy waters already muddied quite a lot above. If an abstract notion prevents someone from reversing/removing an edit where a BLP has been replaced with the word "cunt" (the one piece of vandalism here that I think to be safe to explicitly describe) then the abstract notion is directly enabling the existence of damage to the project. Uncle G (talk) 12:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Applying some simple logic here from my simple mind: (1) If this guy Boothroyd is notable, then he could qualify for a bio article. If not, then delete it. (2) If his own life and career are affected by his abuse of wikipedia, then it could merit a sentence or two. If not, then it doesn't belong in his article. That's not to say it might not belong elsewhere, such as the Criticism of Wikipedia article, as it illustrates some of the flaws in wikipedia's premise, which have been exploited by many, not just that one guy. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Is Jehochman involved 'now'?

It's a simple test.

The level of involvement is simple to determine: is there consensus that Jehochman is involved now? If so, he is, and can't use the tools again without risk of the usual risks that come with that. If there isn't consensus he's involved, he's not. If it is gray or borderline, you probably are. It's fairly simple, everyone. Make your case either way with evidence, or stop alluding to it. rootology (C)(T) 13:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• My case is above. It's an irrelevant side-issue given the actual specifics here, and extra section headings don't change that. Uncle G (talk) 16:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Yeah, I know, I was just emphasizing that if someone thinks he's involved to just spit it out already with a valid reasoning or evidence, rather than us wasting time more on that bit. I'm actually with you on this. rootology (C)(T) 17:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Notability of the event in the context of the rest of him and BLP

This is getting pointless in particular. If he's notable, he's notable. If he's not, he's not. You either are, or you aren't. The sourcing IMHO is beginning to look like he is. I will say again what I said before: the fact Boothroyd is or isn't a Wikipedia user is 100% irrelevant in anything. The fact he screwed up here has zero value in any decisions we make. If the Wikipedia Event he caused gets coverage, there is no BLP violation at the least a one-sentence mention of it, relative to what has been reported so far. None. To totally suppress it from David Boothroyd, should it be created, is laughable and not a defense of anything under BLP, but a defense of a Wikipedia user. Given that it's a single notable event in the life of an apparently notable person's diverse biography (and yes, it looks like as a politician he is notable) a one-sentence mention is not harmful. If the news and the event is harmful as an event to the person, that's not our fault; like any other embarrassing event, he regrettably brougnt it upon himself and it's in the press already. rootology (C)(T) 13:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

What is the process for restoring an article after it has been to deletion review and the deletion was sustained? WP:DRVRV seems to be a redlink. Jehochman ^Talk 13:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no process, as far as I am aware. An article on Boothroyd can be recreated, but like a case involving just an AFD, it must not fall foul of the reasons why the original article was deleted, otherwise it can be speedily deleted. AdmiralKolchak (talk) 13:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Typically, someone does a noindex userpage draft, gets a working model that would 'pass' AFD trivially, and brings it back to DRV. If When DRV signs off, someone kicks it back live, and sometimes the old history is merged in (if old content is used) otherwise, new history. Since the draft in Josh's side is used, the history needs to be merged in fully I think when it goes live eventually. Given Boothroyd is a notable politician in the UK that is apparently even getting all over the news for events unrelated to Wikipedia after that mess, I think it's inevitable. rootology (C)(T) 13:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

As rootology says. Although, if one thinks the closing admin of the DRV made a mistake in judging consensus, DRV should be the right avenue to contest this as well, although it usually is brought to AN or ANI. Regards SoWhy 13:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Tweaked from if>when DRV, any article that would trivially pass AFD can't under policy fail DRV (politics, social reasons, sure, but we can't judge content inclusion based on such factors outside of policy). 0:) rootology (C)(T) 13:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yea, I don't think this was a request to overrule the DRV. Rather a comment about how BLP is being used here as a means to suppress unfavorable information. For example, this threat to block over the reintroduction of the WP controversy is completely inappropriate. This is not a BLP issue, and citing BLP where it doesn't apply does the project no favors. لennavecia 13:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I said, Recreation in the same form is potentially a blockable action, or perhaps the article will just be deleted again. I really hope it does not get to that point. Not sure I'm seeing a threat there as much as a statement of fact or a warning. I'm not going to block anybody or delete anything further, as this issue is now on the radar of multiple administrators. At the moment I am digging through the deleted edits and some other history where I've found multiple accounts and IPs that appear to be connected to an infamous banned editor. Jehochman ^Talk 14:25, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether David Boothroyd should be a red or blue link, but it's odd to suggest that there are not BLP issues here. Leave all of the Wikipedia stuff to the side for a minute. The subject of the article requested deletion—once four years ago (I think before we did that kind of thing, i.e. courtesy deletions) and once more recently. Regardless of how big of a deal this recent controversy is (and I think it's not nearly as big of a deal as some suggest—as of now there are a whopping seven news articles on the issue that I can find, few of which seem to contain any original reporting), Boothroyd is most definitely "relatively unknown" in my view. I'm not sure what the current thinking on deleting BLPs at the request of such subjects is at this point, but in the past my understanding was that this was something that is acceptable and somewhat up to admin discussion per various ArbCom rulings. Maybe the consensus now on this particular case is that there is too much coverage now to not have an article on Boothroyd, but let's not lose sight of the fact that: A) the subject has repeatedly requested deletion; B) the key subject matter can easily be covered elsewhere (since the key subject matter is the Wiki controversy, not the fact that he is a local politician, of whom there are hundreds of thousand across the world); C) BLP is something we all obviously care about—even when it comes to Wikipedians who have articles. To suggest that there is no BLP issue here at all is just bizarre in my view, and I think it would be easier to see that were there not concerns about a coverup of information relating to Wikipedia. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 15:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I already commented in the MfD of the userspace draft, which didn't look at all like a NOINDEX draft to work on a better article, but a parking place for the article because it had been deleted at AfD against his own opinion. I already commented on the MfD about how the sources before the wikipedia "incident" only quote him to show the opinion of a member of the Westminster Council, and how he didn't take any of those controversial decisions himself, it was the council that made them. TAway can make as many claims of censorship in his user page as he wants, but those are not supported by evidence, since both the MfD and the DRV were closed by uninvolved admins. Sooo, I'd suggest that is marked as resolved and that TAway heads to WP:DRV to contest the DRV close, and that trying other noticeboards should be considered forum-shopping (and give him +1 kudos of unnecessary drama for every claim of censorship that he makes, please). --Enric Naval (talk) 15:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe another Essjay-type scandal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Resolved

 – Not going anywhere productive, no administrative actions are required here, and this is not an "incident" ╟─TreasuryTag►sundries─╢ 16:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

With the already existing coverage of the Sam Blacketer controversy in the media, and on Wikipedia in the form of the relevant article and various discussions such as a large one currently going on above, the apparent news that The Times is preparing a new piece on what's happened and with ABC having caught wind of the story, I'm concerned this controversy may escalate into something, whilst probably not as grand as what happened with Essjay, rather bad. What should we do if this happens? OpenSeven (talk) 15:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a new and weak project anymore. It needs not shake over any possible negative mention in media.

Just do as instructed in Yes Minister, and everything will be fine. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 15:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it's great if the media wants to cover sock puppetry. This sort of problem is a big issue for many websites, not just Wikipedia. Jehochman ^Talk 15:25, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

As a criticism of wikipedia, all it proves is that being totally open to the public can bite you, and that wikipedia might need to become more restrictive, maybe not as restrictive as citizendium, but maybe some steps in that direction. This so-called "scandal" only shames the sockpuppet, not wikipedia. But it should be a wakeup call to tighten the reins a bit, somehow. I wonder what Wales' take is on all this? Has anyone asked him? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm shocked... shocked to hear that sockpuppets have been editing en.Wikipedia. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

We could rename it "shockpuppetry". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

And every time we see it happen, it's a case of shock and 'Aw, damn...' HalfShadow 16:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems that the politicos and mainstream media have taken a fancy to this controversy. The Daily Mail report a few breathtaking inaccuracies, but this goes a long way toward making this situation a lot more complicated. Jehochman ^Talk 16:13, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, they're lambasting Boothroyd (fancy the newspapers chastising Labour party members...) much, much more than they are Wikipedia. ╟─TreasuryTag►Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster─╢ 16:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

As if he's the only one to have done it. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Still, at least they're aiming at the right target; this is the fault of the editor, not the site. HalfShadow 16:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

If he's suffering slings and arrows in real life, it's a fitting punishment, although it still doesn't make him notable enough for his own page. It could be a footnote in the Criticism article. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 16:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Fitting punishment? Gross. Who elected you, or indeed any of us, judge and jury? The user known as Sam Blacketer clearly erred here, but it was hardly the most dastardly thing we've ever seen on Wikipedia, and now the real-life person might be facing very real-life consequences based in part on some unsurprisingly sloppy reporting by a British tabloid. I hardly think that's something to celebrate, and a bit more sympathy for the actual living person affected by this - regardless of mistakes they made - would be appropriate (and I say this as someone who has never interacted with the person in question on Wikipedia or anywhere else). This isn't a goddamn video game, and this discussion is rapidly moving in an unseemly direction with little regard for real-world consequences. If there is continuing coverage then presumably Sam Blacketer controversy or something similar will stay an article and we'll talk about this situation there. All I see here right now is unhelpful, and not very thoughtful, speculation. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 16:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Sam is going to initiate an admin recall of himself on June 15. Do people think his adminship should go? OpenSeven (talk) 16:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

This is not an 'Incident' and it doesn't require administrators' technical action. Closing, there are other venues for this, if it must go on at all. ╟─TreasuryTag►sundries─╢ 16:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

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

David Boothroyd deletion - do we have a process or not?

One of the most annoying things about the Wikipedia community is the desire to have instant outcomes when we are supposed to be deliberating thoughtfully. We can see this at Articles for Deletion, where the guideline says:

When an article is nominated for deletion, the Wikipedia community may discuss its merits for a period usually no less than seven days, in order to come to a public rough consensus about whether the article is unsuited to Wikipedia. Following seven days of discussion, an experienced Wikipedian will determine if a consensus was reached and will "close" the discussion accordingly.

This rarely comes into practice. The idea that we discuss whether to delete an article for a length of seven days is pretty much non-existent. Case-in-point: the recent AFD for David Boothroyd. There were three for this article as follows:

1. First AFD on August 8-August 14, 2005 - 7 days, KEEP - 10 votes total
2. Second AFD on May 23-May 23, 2009 - not even one day. DELETE - 6 votes total
3. Third AFD on May 27-May27, 2009 - not even one day. DELETE - 7 votes total

There is no way--no way--those last two deletion discussions should have been closed on the same days that they were opened. The third one was open for an hour and a half. The second one for less than that! The admins closing and deleting under these circumstances are derelict in the guidelines that this community has set up. If there were problems with the articles, they could be addressed. This is a very problematic trend for people to enact WP:SNOW, often not even citing it, to close off debate. Censorship, indeed. -->David Shankbone 17:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes it should have run the full period, and yes it was, in my view at least, a mistake to cut it off after one day, and yes it is annoying when we don't deliberate thoughtfully. Jehochman could have handled this better. But crying "censorship" is a major failure to assume good faith and is not really borne out by the facts. In both AFDs Jehochman cited BLP enforcement as his rationale and I see no reason to not take him at his word on that (i.e. I think he had good intentions here), particularly as the article subject requested deletion (twice actually, counting four years ago). We do do, or at least have done, deletions of marginal BLPs when subjects request them, and I think the real issue here is whether or not that was appropriate in this case. If you want thoughtful deliberation, let's stick to that rather than making unfounded accusations of censorship.

Also, there's a very related AfD still running and I have a feeling the Boothroyd issue will be resolved over there eventually. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 17:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The article was userfied to User:JoshuaZ/David Boothroyd. —EncMstr (talk) 17:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Nobody cares that Boothroyd asked for his article to be deleted, just like we don't care that Don Murphy wants his deleted (also for BLP concerns). It's irrelevant. As far as I'm concerned, this is Wikipedia self-censorship, removing articles about incidents that cause us embarrassment. The article existed for four years after a seven-day long deletion discussion. The last two AFDs are completely illegitimate. They weren't open for one day. They were open for less than two hours. There is no possible way that we gained any consensus in that time frame, especially given that there was consensus reached to KEEP when the process was done properly. Admins have to follow the guidelines we set up, and not go around deleting articles based upon their own judgment. I take extreme issue with Jehochman over how he has conducted himself with these AFDs. There is no AGF when our governing policies and guidelines are shirked so heinously. -->David Shankbone 17:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• I concur that the two last AFDs were closed too soon. AdmiralKolchak (talk) 17:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Deletion Review is that way. I don't think getting worked up about "censorship" issues is very constructive at this point; if these closures were outside of process or otherwise erroneous, then they should be reviewed by the normal process, not at this noticeboard. Shereth 17:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Wrong - this is an admin issue about not following guidelines, procedures and policies. DRV is separate. -->David Shankbone 17:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the larger issue of percieved malfeasance by one editor is a seperate issue from the deletions themselves, but the above statements seem to be conflating them. The closure of these discussions has already been mentioned in the deliberation about the larger issue at hand; I'm not sure what this new subsection is adding to the argument. It reads more like a request to review the closures rather than contribute to the discussion about a user's behavior. Shereth 17:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Like you David I don't agree with the last two AFDs, as I already said. But also bear in mind that Boothroyd asked that the article be deleted back in 2005 in the first AFD, well before any of this stuff went down. At the very least, there is a split in the community about whether we do courtesy deletions of BLPs when the subject requests it, and when the subject is of marginal notability. Don Murphy is not marginal because he produced a massively successful Hollywood film and someone wrote a book significantly about him, Boothroyd is marginal because he is a local politician who has recently achieved some (at this point) minor notoriety for one incident. We can debate about whether we should take the subject's wishes into account in the latter circumstance or not, and we can agree that Jehochman did not handle the AFDs well (though I'm less concerned by that than you are apparently), but don't pretend that "nobody cares that Boothroyd asked for his article to be deleted" because some people clearly do, and because we have done subject-requested deletions before (though I don't have an example at hand). There is a larger BLP debate here which remains unresolved, but things like WP:BLPBAN and the Badlydrawnjeff ArbCom suggest that Jehochman's actions were not completely off-the-wall. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 17:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There was a lengthy discussion at WP:DRV, at least a week, and the deletion was sustained. How many more discussions are needed? Why don't we just let the matter lie for a few weeks and then see if there are enough sources to write a proper article? What's the rush? Wikipedia is not news, and if you want to write news, try WikiNews. Jehochman ^Talk 17:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Why are WP:SNOW closures even permitted? What is the point of establishing policy if nobody is required to follow them, or even remarked on when they don't? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 17:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• I've tried Wikinews; an article that was around for four years after a KEEP AFD, and whose subject only became more notable recently, is a problem for you to delete in under two hours, Jehochman. I don't see how you could possibly defend your actions here. It's a slap in the face to the community that has given you trust to follow how we write how things will happen. -->David Shankbone 18:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

If you feel that way than take this to another level of dispute resolution, but please have a bit of respect for the BLP issue, which is clearly present, and by which these actions are at least somewhat defensible. You seem to be plowing right past that (along with some others). This is a fairly complex situation (particularly as its literally still unfolding in the news and in an active AfD), and I'm skeptical of anyone who tries to make it sound simple. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Bigtime, I see no BLP issues mentioned in this thread that would excuse this behavior. If I want to discuss article content, I will do so at DRV or on the article Talk page. Yes, I think it's irrelevant that the subject wants their article deleted (or doesn't want the New York Times to write that story about them, etc.), and I always have (but I also think FlaggedRevs is long overdue). Here, the issue is with Jehochman deleting, twice, in under two hours, an article that was previously kept--strongly--by consensus. This is not the way we do things. -->David Shankbone 18:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

That first RfD, 4 years ago, was hardly a ringing endorsement. Notability questions arose even then. After that, the article skated mostly under the radar for nearly 4 years, with only about 80 or 85 edits during that interval. Once the user got himself in trouble and that became public knowledge, then there was a revived move to delete it. You can claim wikipedia is protecting itself, but it's actually that guy who is shamed, not wikipedia, and making a big thing out of it in his article raises questions of BLP violations; undue weight; coatracking; and, frankly, wikipedian narcissim. Unfortunately, the quick closure of the RfD's looks fishy. But the DRV was open for a week, so there was ample opportunity to defend the article. It did not, and does not, belong here. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There are several highly problematic deleted edits to that article by Grawp. The situation here is more complex than meets the eye. I've got a checkuser working on this. Jehochman ^Talk 18:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman has asked me to inform the community that he and I have had prior conflict. That said, questions about the above comment: were the edits to that article substantially more problematic than edits to other borderline notability BLPs that get a spurt of negative attention in the press? Durova^Charge! 18:28, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There are edits in the history that are as problematic as edits can get. As in, worst I've seen on Wikipedia. This article is a very high risk of doing serious harm to the subject. You've seen the sloppy reporting at The Register and the Daily Mail. Do you want to pick up one of those papers tomorrow and see them repeating an unsubstantiated allegation of pedophilia or bestiality? I know for absolute certainty that Grawp has edited this article at least twice, and there are a bunch of other edits that appear to be coming from his sock puppets or friends. Jehochman ^Talk 18:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• The normal way of handling AFD vandalism is semiprotect, watchlist, and ask for assistance at ANI to deal with remaining vandalism. Isn't that true? BTW there's a question at my user talk also. Durova^Charge! 19:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• So...you close two AFDs when they've barely been opened instead of asking for oversight? -->David Shankbone 19:13, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

By the way, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sam Blacketer controversy is ongoing in case people want to debate whether the content should be in Wikipedia and where it should go. I don't think WP:ANI is the correct venue to resolve content disputes. Thank you. Jehochman ^Talk 18:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

JE, even if there were BLP problems, you could have removed those problems and allowed the AFDs to proceed. Do you or do you not see why your closing two AFDs, in the midst of recent news events, is a problem that violated your responsibilities as an admin, when you should have followed the guidelines and just removed problematic material from the article? -->David Shankbone 18:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the whole point of closing the third AFD according the WP:STEAM was done to force a DRV which by default deletes where an AFD keeps. On a whole this is a matter of admin conduct and not anymore about if DB should have an article or not. Agathoclea (talk) 18:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Agathoclea has hit the nail on the head with this comment. A 50-50 no consensus AfD defaults to keep, but the same at DRV defers to the deleting administrator. Why can we not have a normal, 7-day AfD discussion on a public figure who has and continues to be covered extensively in the press? TAway (talk) 20:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

This is not about a content dispute, Jehochman. This is about your involvement in manipulating the encyclopedia via

1. speedily deleting out of process twice in a row
2. incorrectly blocking with false rationale
3. threatening editors with blocks
4. selectively restoring versions without certain reliably sourced content
5. wiki-lawyering editors out of a real AfD by throwing DRV in their faces
6. trying to change the BLP and Speedy deletion policies to accommodate and validate your actions

to (by our own admission as a search engine optimization expert) obscure search engine results. You were approached by other uninvolved editors (including another sysop) over these past several days and ignored them, so it is now here where it cannot be ignored. TAway (talk) 20:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of this thread needs to be clarified. Expressions of concern about Hockman's conduct belong at certain forums, and debate over the articles' existence or non-existence belongs at certain other forums. As of now, this discussion is an unproductive amalgamation of the two. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 09:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

No, they belong together. Because if there was no debate over the article's existence, there would be no debate over its allegedly too-rapid deletion. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 09:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

No, I still disagree. We have AfD for a reason. And we have <a large number of abuse forums> for allegations of administrator abuse (not that I'm asserting this has happened here, but it's the fact of the matter). To assert there should be unnecessary and encouraged cross-over is not tackling the situation properly. Of course, the problems with Jehockman's response to the content might be referenced in some discussion about Jehockman's conduct, but we should separate talk of the content itself where possible. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 15:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreeing with Anonymous Dissident. The opening poster raised admin conduct issues, and it was necessary to ask questions about process and policy in order to explore that. Was a bit hard to keep that on-focus. Durova^Charge! 18:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Durova has a longstanding grudge against me. I'd really appreciate if she stopped engaging in dispute intensification. Durova, how about you stop commenting on me. There are plenty of other editors who can provide useful feedback, when needed. Jehochman ^Talk 19:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

A reminder

While it may be fun to devote time to drama about Jehochman's actions, editors who wish there to be a Boothroyd article are better served trying to work on actually improving the draft. I'm not at all convinced there should be an article but every pair of hands helps make it better. There are now roughly 6 days remaining until this is going to go to the community for some form of decision. Effort should be made into allowing the community to make that decision with the best possible version of an article on Boothroyd, not in bickering. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd be happy to, but I've been told by Jehochman that he will block me again if I "restore this content anywhere on Wikipedia." It is not "drama" when a user has been blocked for developing content and told they will be blocked again for continuing anywhere else on the project. Will he rescind his threat and agree to recuse himself from taking actions against editors working on the Boothroyd article? TAway (talk) 20:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I've already said that I'm not going to involve myself further in this matter. I am happy to let others deal with it. Please mind WP:BLP and other relevant policies. Before moving that article into mainspace, get some sort of community consensus to do so. Jehochman ^Talk 20:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Your recusal is too late. The damage is already done. The draft you thought could not possibly exist won't now get the same attention in obscure user-space for improvement as a proper AFD'd article would have, and due to the massive amounts of half-truths and smoke and mirrors already put out there over this article and its previous histories and 'precedents' at AFD/DRV, any future attempt at resurrection (presumably at DRV?), is just going to resemble nothing more than a procession, fed by ignorance. Too late. Far too late. The job is well and truly done and dusted. MickMacNee (talk) 21:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Stalking and Harrassment of Nassim Taleb by Ulner

I am a connected to the Taleb family (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) whose living biography wikipedia is handling; I only act to correct distortions and harrassment and do not add new material. I would like to report userUlner as obsessed with Taleb and making every single change possible on every item and bickering, in a way that exhibits web stalking of a living person, causing much DISTRESS to Taleb's family. I would like to seek Ulner refrain from further harassment of Taleb. —Preceding unsigned comment added by IbnAmioun (talk • contribs) 21:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC) IbnAmioun (talk) 21:43, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried discussing this with User:Ulner? I don't see any messages on their talk page, but I may be missing something. -- Darth Mike ^(talk) 23:08, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered that you might have a WP:COI conflict of interest and that maybe you shouldn't be involved with the Taleb articles? Who cares about minor misrepresentations on wikipedia? They hardly matter but having someone so dedicated to observe your articles sorta raises the suspicions of users that there really might be something unwritten worth knowing regarding the matter. Anyway I'll be keeping a closer eye on Taleb related articles from now on.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 23:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

194x144, that wasn't entirely helpful. Please WP:AGF

IbnAmioun - Also, please assume good faith about other contributors. You seem to be reacting very defensively to other editors who want to help improve the article. I've reviewed a dozen or so changes and none of them seem to be abusive or vandalism. If you have specific examples that you're concerned about, either on the article or the talk pages, please provide them here.

Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the help. My problem with User:Ulner is that he seems obsessed (to make 50 entries in such a short span betrays obsession) and he bickers over the smallest thing as he is doing now --any small detail seems to be a stumble to him. There is no problem if you have editors going back and forth on a point but you should realize that someone FROM THE QUANTITATIVE FINANCE INDUSTRY (of which Taleb is extremely critical) making 50 edits on a living person without others intervening can be extremely distorting. IbnAmioun (talk) 23:58, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

This basically seems to be a content dispute at Nassim Nicholas Taleb. That article seems over-written, and might be trimmed down a bit. It is a bit laudatory; the guy tanked two hedge funds with his strategy, but that's not mentioned. (His basic concept was kind of cute - buy options on both sides that are way out of the money, on the theory that the market underprices options far from the current price. This pays off when something drastic happens, and bleeds money when markets are relatively stable. Hence his paper "Bleed or Blowup", and his "Black Swan" book.) This needs attention from someone who understands derivative strategies. Is there a laid-off quant in the house? --John Nagle (talk) 06:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The trading strategies are marginal to Taleb thought books and papers. While Taleb published a cherished book about options 12 years ago, his later two books (Fooled by randomness and The Black Swan) are about knowledge, science and making decisions in life. He is mostly known for his books. His sceintific works are also much about knowledge extremem events and risk, and rarely touches the hedge fund strategy. Yechezkel Zilber (talk) 00:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The situation is far more serious than you think. Taleb and the Taleb family has been getting threats by unemployed finance people who have been stalking them both PHYSICALLY and on the WEB. These threats have been reported in the WSJ journal. <ref.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457658749086809.html?mod=rss_topics_davos#articleTabs%3Darticle</ref> —Preceding unsigned comment added by IbnAmioun (talk • contribs) 08:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I find the following text from the talk page of Taleb to be a personal attack in violation of Wikipedia policy: "The harassment situation is far more serious than you think, which is why we worry about such obsessive users as Ulner . Taleb and the Taleb family has been getting threats by unemployed finance people who have been stalking them both PHYSICALLY and on the WEB. These threats have been reported in the WSJ journal.". Ulner (talk) 11:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Legal threat

IbnAmioun seems to be making legal threats on the Nassim Nicholas Taleb talk page: "You should look at the consequences of obsessive stalking a character" [13], and "When someone like Ulner spends his ENTIRE time obsessed with a subject, this raises issues of stalking that may play a role in a COURT of LAW". [14] He's also accusing the other user of mental disorders. --Anderssl (talk) 21:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Discussed above somewhere.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:04, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• "Legal threats on talk page of Taleb" and "Stalking and Harrassment of Nassim Taleb by Ulner" are the two I see at the moment.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, sorry, my bad. There was no notice of this at the talk page of the article, so I didn't realize this was already being discussed here. --Anderssl (talk) 21:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Repeated unprofessional administrator conduct.

Recently I was banned for 24 hours for incorrectly posting to the wrong notice board personal attacks on me and edit warring on the Talk:Ayn Rand. At least two other high level administrators pointed out that the action of me being banned was questionable. It pissed me off enough to believe that wikipedia is corrupt. Enough to get me to retire. Now when a Professor whom I am an fan of and have no connection with in my personal life gets another set of Axe to Grind harrassing Editors on his article when I comment on the inappropriateness of their conduct. Not they, but me get a singled out of the blue with a completely erronious comment posted on my talkpage. 1.[15]

For the comment above and as a by product of my past banning, I have went and attempted to address this with the administrator on his talkpage. Rather then note their oversight and actually reign in other editors who are attacking the Taleb estate rep and are incorrectly using Wikipedia policy to do it. This administrator blamed me and has and obviously will do nothing to address the inappropriate behavior even as it appears to continue. If the administrator was concerned as they claim why no more involvement in Taleb's issue? Say on the talkpage? Why was the issue allowed to be escalated to an WP:Office? Well I think that no administrator cared to stop the behavior and would rather comment at the time on mine.
I would like an apology from the administrator in question. Do not bother to blame me or attack me with for this nonsense. I have no control over administrators here in wiki. Their short sightedness and knee jerk and incorrect reactions do not belong to me as I did not have control over them and make them screw up. I would like an apology first for being blocked arrogantly and unjustifably. Also an apology in relation to the Nassim Taleb article for being separated out from pack for direct and very public criticism, for comments that where completely restrained and appropriate. Comments in hindsight that most definitely were within reason in light of recent information posted to the article.

LoveMonkey (talk) 15:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Since I don't know how to defend myself against a statement that telling him to comment on the content, not the contributors, is a threat, I'll just sit this out for now.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
  • It's just bizarre. There are serious problems at Nassim Nicholas Taleb and its talk page that might use some more Admin eyes, but no apology is required here from you. Dougweller (talk) 16:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• LoveMonkey, you need to provide evidence and links and diffs. I honestly can't understand the point that you are trying to make. Jehochman ^Talk 16:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Why has SarekOfVulcan singled me out and make no attempt to stop the harassment on the Taleb talkpage? LoveMonkey (talk) 16:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Taleb has already contacted the Wikipedia office. And yet nothing is being done to stop the harassment. Look at the ANI on this page where the editor is reporting Taleb's legal representive for Wikipedia Policy violations. LoveMonkey (talk) 16:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Why was I singled out? Taleb has a WSJ article about potential death threats. I post a defense that inappropriate behavior is going on by other editors on the article and I am the only one getting comments posted on their talkpage. Why? LoveMonkey (talk) 16:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Why has SarekOfVulcan not addressed the other editors misuse of Wiki policy to frustrate and discourage Taleb representative from posting to address their percieved harassment? LoveMonkey (talk) 17:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
    • SarekOfVulcan's note to you seems quite mild and entirely appropriate to me. Even if there were other issues with the page, if it was yours that he saw, he was right to remind you of Wikipedia behavioral expectations: WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA are standards which every editor is requested to follow, even if he or she feels others are not. Perhaps you did not intend it that way, but the statement that he pointed out to you seems like a very loaded one that could perhaps be paraphrased as "You must be deliberately subversive, because you can't be that stupid." Wikipedia requests that we point out the errors in somebody's reasoning, not suggest that either they have (a) deficient understanding or (b) are faking it so they can get away with something (unless we have very strong evidence, it's best to assume good faith in conversations). If Sarek had blocked you for incivility without investigating or noticing if others also needed to be addressed, that would be one thing, but a mild reminder seems well within reason. If you feel that others are harassing you, you have the same recourse to remedy as any other contributor, as set out at WP:DR. Administrators, too, are human and not all-seeing. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
      • I am requesting an explaination on how a talkpage can prompt the living breathing human being it is about to pick up the phone and call the foundation. And the only person who get commented on isn't even the target of the living persons complaint.[16] I have every right and justification to complain.LoveMonkey (talk) 17:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
        • SarekOfVulcan has done nothing to clean up the mess. Why are opposing editors allowed to misuse WP policies to attempt and silence someone's restate representative? Where is SarekOfVulcan at? Making remarks about me on my talkpage. One of the editors had already filed an ANI on here as can be seen above. Where is SarekOfVulcan's involvement. Where is his comments to them? Nowhere. LoveMonkey (talk) 17:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
          • I do not know what drew SarekOfVulcan to the conversation, but unless SarekOfVulcan is the individual who received that phone call and unless he responded to an investigation only by singling out your edit specifically, I'm not sure that the two situations are related. If he has not accepted responsibility for investigating and addressing any global issues, then he is not solely responsible for addressing the BLP concerns in the article. Such concerns should be taken very seriously and investigated with due diligence, but if Sarek may be approaching your comment as a separate issue. I have read his note to you, and, again, it seems mild; it even says that your comment "is probably on the wrong side" of the proper approach in conversations instead of flatly accusing you of incivility or a personal attack. Certainly, if no other attention is paid to BLP concerns, I would see why you might be upset, but demanding it of this administrator in particular may be misguided. Perhaps if the whole situation were less emotional and you had not recently been blocked by another administrator in a way you felt unfair, Sarek's behavior here might not seem so extreme and objectionable to you? If the BLP concerns are not being addressed, they should certainly be pursued, but you might find it more productive to focus on that rather than Sarek's concerns with this one statement. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
          • (Your repeatedly asking your question may be preventing responses. I got three consecutive edit conflicts in my attempts to answer you and would have given up if I had gotten a fourth. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC))
            • OK now that is exactly the reasonable and respectable response I have been seeking. I am not OK with getting called out and then having my grievences ignored or sarcastically rebuffed. THANK YOU. LoveMonkey (talk) 17:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
            • I apologize about the edit conflicts I have been getting them too and they have really made me frustrated. You are an angel. LoveMonkey (talk) 17:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Sarekofvulcan seems to be the spotlight of many unsatisfied editors and complaints, Please see this for other examples of Sareks misconduct here on wikipedia. It is my honest opinion that this user should indeed not have access to any admin tools and I am going to have to file a review of conduct regarding this admin at a later time but in the meantime I'd ask you LoveMonkey Please to discontinue posting messages here for the time being and to let uninvolved administrators review your complaint in peace.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 17:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Who is this editor. Who are you to speak to the process and the policies here? Are you still keeping an eye on Taleb's representive? Are you still pursuing getting him blocked from the article or banned. For WP:Policy vios? LoveMonkey (talk) 17:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
  • It's a little difficult to figure out from the above exactly where things are. If somebody has physically called the Wikimedia Foundation and a Wikimedia Foundation representative has indicated that they will investigate and/or deal with this, then this matter is out of the community's hands and even administrators should leave it to our legal representatives to address. Almost everyone you encounter on this page, administrator or not, is going to be a volunteer, and few of us are empowered to address concerns at that level. If, however, there has not been contact made to the Wikimedia Foundation or a Wikimedia Foundation representative has advised that the community must resolve this, it would probably be best to open a section at a forum established to address these situations, like the biographies of living persons noticeboard, if the material being introduced to the article is libelous. I have to admit that reading the notes above doesn't help me see the core issue here. If the problem is simply that a contributor is editing the article too much, I can't think of any policy we have that would forbid it, as long as (a) material meets the core policies of WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:OR, (b) the content is consistent with WP:BLP, and (c) the editor works within behavioral guidelines to build a consensus with other contributors consistent with those policies. If an editor is not meeting these three points, but is exhibiting ownership of an article, dispute resolution may be necessary (though unless material is poorly sourced contentious text, immediate admin intervention may not be). If there are concerns that material being added is libelous, it may be very helpful to point out a specific problem so that other contributors who do not know who the subject of this article is (like me) would better be able to see why there are concerns. Not knowing anything about him, I mean no disrespect when I say that even if material is negative, it's not a violation of policy if it is (a) verifiable and (b) not overly emphasized. I am very sorry if the subject of this article and his friends and family are feeling unsafe, and I hope that your concerns about the situation can be swiftly resolved. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Since diffs have been requested, here are some that a quick review turns up:

• "Please stop making the unneccessary attacks on Ulner, he is not a stalker but working hard, in good faith, on a wikipedia article […] If you do want to contribute, please do so in a positive way - you are more than capable - and use reliable third party sources to bakc your arguments. Thank you."
• "Your pedantic wrangling is nothing but a ruse you are here to defame."
• "Do you agree with Ulner on all points there? Why are you defending him?"
• "You know what you are doing, you are all grown up and your motivations can not be masked by your seemingly deficient understanding. I bet your probably abit more then just someone with a passing interest. "
• "Please clarify why you are responding to my comments as such. It appears as if the very devil himself has materialized."
• "Please clarify why you are responding to my comments as such. It appears as if the very devil himself has materialized."
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SarekOfVulcan&oldid=295584044#Your_comment_on_my_Talkpage
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SarekOfVulcan&oldid=295584044#Wall_Street_Journals_comments_on_Death_Threats_to_Nassim_Taleb

This may shed some more light, here.

The actual dispute at hand in the article itself? Apparently it's over whether this person is a "writer" or "literary essayist", and whether he is a "scholar". SarekOfVulcan has no involvement in the dispute whatsoever that I can find. Uncle G (talk) 18:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Nassim Taleb picked up the phone and called the foundation (or had legal rep do it) because of the dispute over him being a "writer" or "literary essayist". Gee could someone wonder why I might be frustrated at the handling of this? How does that address why Sarekofvulcan just addressed me? Did nothing before or after until I raised caine?

Anybody? This above appears to diminish the gravity of the situation? And also grossly mispresent it.LoveMonkey (talk) 18:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm still not sure what your question is here. It seems to be, "Why was the issue allowed to be escalated to an (sic) WP:Office?" Which, we have no control over. If Taleb called the Office, that's beyond our control. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Darkfrog24: Tendentious contravention of MoS

Tell me again how vitally important the issue of comma placement is.

Resolved

 – Darkfrog24 said he'll stop.

Darkfrog24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user has been deliberately converting correctly-styled material to incorrect style. The matter has already been discussed here, where there is a brief history and a samping of pertinent diffs. The user erroneously claimed that his position was backed by MoS protocol, but refused to elaborate to any degree. Since that discussion, he has continued to make the same kind of changes. Ilkali (talk) 00:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi, everyone. In this case, Ilkali and I are both talking about the placement of periods and commas with regard to adjacent quotation marks. I found a few articles that already used the American style of punctuation (in which periods and commas are placed inside the quote marks) and I moved a few strays commas and periods, usually while making other edits anyway. I do not go around randomly changing styles in willy-nilly. It is my understanding that Wikipedia promotes internal consistency within articles and that there is a policy or at least a tradition of, "When in doubt, follow the original editor's lead."

I have never made secret of the fact that I would support a change in Wikipedia's punctuation policy to permit American punctuation where appropriate, as we do with American vs. British spelling. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

As I covered in the MoS talk page, there is nothing in any policy or guideline that sanctions changing to an explicitly dispreferred style. Internal consistency is applied in situations where multiple contrasting styles are permitted. It is not there to justify changing from correct to incorrect style. Ilkali (talk) 14:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Looking forward from the diff you supply above, I find that I agree with each of his edits. There may be earlier examples that demonstate your point better, but those definitely weren't problematic changes.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

To be clear: The issue is changing from logical quotation (which is prescribed by the MoS) to typesetters' quotation (which is proscribed by the MoS). The diffs in question sometimes contain other changes that might obscure that point. Can we agree that tendentious editing against the MoS is problematic? Ilkali (talk) 15:04, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, now I see the edit you mean. I agree that moving the comma into the quoted name of an encyclopedia article was against the MOS -- I just lost it among all the good changes in that diff and the later ones.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's probably not the best diff to illustrate the problem - it's just the only one since the issue was brought up on MoS talk. I had hoped that that discussion would realign the user's editing habits, and I include the recent diff as proof that it has not. Ilkali (talk) 16:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

More evidence. Here are the diffs from the MOS talk page: [17], [18], [19], [20]

As background, in mid-May, User:Mchavez and User:Darkfrog24 proposed on MOS Talk to change MOS's very long-standing guideline that requires the so-called logical quotation style, which prohibits placing punctuaion in a direct quotation unless that punctuation is in the quoted text (most style guides, especially in the US, prescribe placing commas and periods before rather than after a closing quotation mark, even if it is not part of the quoted text, based on typographical considerations). Although a very substantial majority of editors opposed this on the Talk page, Mchavez and Darkfrog24 made edits to the MOS guideline against consensus. Admin User:Rootology has full protected the MOS page twice over their edit warring on this point (Darkfrog24 insists that he did not engage in edit warring, although Rootology put an edit war warning on Darkfrog24's talk page; Mchavez insists the the edit warriors are the ones who revert his and Darkfrog24's counter-consensus changes to the MOS). Darkfrog24 and Mchavez have argued this issue at length under several headings on MOS Talk, but without support from other editors. Mchavez has not been active for the past few days. Darkfrog24 continues to argue, argue, and argue, but finally conceded that there is no consensus for his proposals [21].

Now, Darkfrog24 has evidently decided that having failed in his attempt to change the MOS, he will edit articles to his preferred punctuation style, against the MOS guideline. His pretext is the guideline to follow the style of the original author "when in doubt". But there is no doubt here because the MOS guideline is, and always has been, clear. This is not merely wikilawyering, but bad wikilawyering (wikilawyering malpractice?). The illogic of Darkfrog24's argument was made clear at MOS Talk, but he repeats it here.

This user's deliberate flouting of the MOS in article space to make a point and his disruptive conduct at WP:MOS both warrant some corrective action. Finell (Talk) 17:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

This is not the case. I am not working with MChavez. Your discussion with MChavez was already going on when I arrived at the MoS page in late May. There's no conspiracy. I was not involved in the second edit war. Yes, I made one reversion during that time, but it had nothing to do with the issue about which the war was conducted. Duke of Waltham had reversed some changes I'd made--and for which I'd gotten approval on the talk page--and I put them back. I found out later that my "undo" had also restored some of MChavez's things, but I didn't notice this at the time.

I'm not making changes to prove a point. If I were trying to pull a WP: Point, then I'd have deleted existing explanation and waited for the talk page to be inundated by confused editors, not proposed that more explnanation be added. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

As for "denying the logic of your arguments," and engaging in disruptive conduct, I simply don't agree with you. We haven't come to the same conclusion about whether the MoS is clear or not in its current form. That's not a bannable offense. Asking questions and taking part in debate on a talk page even when other people don't agree isn't disruptive conduct; it's Wikipedia.

The issue at hand is whether or not it is okay to take an article that already uses American punctuation and change the stray periods and commas so that they match the article's prevailing style, making the article internally consistent. And just to be clear, I've been doing it for years. It has nothing to do with you, Ilkali, MChavez, or any of our discussions on the MoS talk page. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm "involved", so I wouldn't take any admin action here, but I want to opine that Darkfrog24 is deliberately editing against the MoS guideline after he failed to get his changes pushed through. He has been asked to stop, as noted above, and he continues to do so under the guise of "making the article consistent", even if it's consistently wrong, apparently. I consider this a form of disruption since he knows what he is doing and he knows it's against consensus. This needs to stop. The damage is far more subtle than overt vandalism, but it also takes more work and expertise to clean up. --Laser brain (talk) 19:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Then the question is what's more important, American vs. British vs. technical or internal consistency. And I don't recall that anyone here actually asked me to stop. There were plenty of attacks, but no requests. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Please stop making punctuation changes against the MOS. Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I take it you interpret this to be against MoS, then? Oh well. Okay. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Darkfrog24, please stop with the games! You know perfectly well that the MOS is agaisnt you; that's why you tried to change it. The MOS guideline is clear, and others at MOS Talk told you that your article edits were against MOS. When you persisted, you were brought here. So of course Laser brain and SarekOfVulcan interpret the MOS as against you, just as everyone else has. When you were unable to change the guideline, you went out and made POINTy edits in at least 5 articles that you had no prior involvement in to move punctuation and quotation marks based on what you personally think the guideline should be, but isn't (you also made a few good edits on some of those pages while you were there). Six hours ago you acknowledged that the MOS has been interpreted against your edits, and you said, "Oh well. Okay." But you still haven't fixed the article edits that you made against the MOS. Please go back and re-wikify the punctuation that you unwikified. Also, no one said that you and Mchavez were in conspiracy, only that you two have been advocating and editing MOS against consensus for the same position. Finell (Talk) 02:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Finell, I'm not playing games. As I've repeatedly tried to explain to you, I'm perfectly serious about improving the Wikipedia user experience. We just don't agree about the best way to accomplish that. We have an honest difference of opinion about how the MoS should be interpreted with regard to articles that already use American punctuation--and now a neutral third party has given us his. I'm not sneaking around, subverting the system or trying to annoy you personally. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Comma placement is important because even though most people don't know all the ins and outs of proper punctuation, they still notice the overall effect. A person who reads a sloppily punctuated document will get a general impression that it is low-quality or amateurish even if they cannot pinpoint exactly why they feel this way.

Comma placement is an issue on Wikipedia because Wikipedia's official MoS expresses a preference for what's called logical style, which differs significantly from both standard American and standard British punctuation, though many American Wikipedians have mistaken it for British. Every few months, someone shows up on the MoS talk page asking, "Why are we using British punctuation?" or "Um, guys? Why is the MoS wrong?" Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Banned user Hayden5650 re-editing

Resolved

 – Hayden4258 (talk · contribs) blocked indef. -download ׀ sign! 04:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that Hayden4258 (talk · contribs) might be the same as Hayden5650 (talk · contribs) based on the similarity of name, apparently coming from the same country, and some similarity of editing patterns, such as the interest in articles on human races. Since 5650 was banned in 2007, I don't believe a checkuser will be useful. Hayden5650 engaged in extensive sockpuppeting.-gadfium 04:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I come from New Zealand. Don't know how I can prove it. --Hayden4258 (talk) 04:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I am aware that you are from New Zealand. So was 5650, or at least he was interested in New Zealand articles. See for example his edits of late July 2007 to Rotorua Boys' High School, Jonah Lomu and David Bain.-gadfium 04:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Without any judgment on whether or not the 4258 version should be blocked, a comprehensive look through both user's contribs pretty much quacks. I'd bet a paycheck these accounts are the same user. Tan | 39 04:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I have blocked Hayden4258, between the editing behavior, the nick & the IP range - there was far too much duck like activity. --Versageek 04:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.-gadfium 05:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

clone of Portal:Buddhism legal or not?

fyi i found the portal Portal:Buddhism (including edit button) here surrounded with ads and including a paypal donation button (though it seems unclear whom the donation will go to), but without the wikipedia logo and navigation bar on the left, using a php script called wikipedia reflection script. but since ianal can anyone help: is this particular case in accordance with the law and fully compliant with the GFDL requirements, it makes me wonder? oscar (talk) 09:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC) originally posted at [22]

It's legal to reproduce Wikipedia content elsewhere, although that particular site may be a live mirror. Stifle (talk) 09:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

meaning it's (il)legal? oscar (talk) 09:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

If it's a live mirror, it should be reported to m:live mirrors. It probably isn't illegal, but the WMF doesn't like it. Stifle (talk) 11:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

What does that mean, in practical terms? If it "isn't illegal but the WMF doesn't like it", can WMF do anything? LadyofShalott 16:25, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Content is GFDL, so the copy is perfectly legal. The issue with the live mirror is separate. It means they aren't hosting their own copy of the articles, but instead using the live wikipedia page where our servers get hit for the pageloads on their site. Thats against our terms of use, but not a copyright issue. We just politely ask for them to host a local copy (they can have it autoupdate once a day or the like to keep it current) and if they don't, we can fiddle around with technical stuff to make it harder for them to use the live page. --M^ask? 18:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the input folks. :) Cirt (talk) 22:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• now reported to meta. thx for the feedback! oscar (talk) 11:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

User Gillea2k8 - Moved talk pages into main space

Gillea2k8 (talk · contribs) has moved a couple of user talk pages into article space. See here and here.

Can somebody put these pages back where they belong? William Avery (talk) 09:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

This edit could possibly require oversight as well. -download ׀ sign! 04:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Concerns regarding removal of info on Sathya Sai Baba

Sathya Sai Baba is a very controversial topic in India. Here, the media remains largely silent about it. All coverage of the individual in reputable western media has been strongly critical. In Sai Baba related pages on wikipedia we are facing some major issues, which I attempt to outline below.

• Continual blanking of critical and well sourced information by IPs, newly registered editors and people who apparently consider sai baba their god ( which can be evidenced by several comments to the effect on the article's talk). This blanking happens completely in violation of wikipedia policies. Some of the recent edit comments include: "I know that the changes I made where right"[23], "I add \ed thta because I know what to do"[24], "I changed it because this is offensive to a lot of people, and it isn't even true"[25], "My dad was in Puttaparthi his whole life and this never happened"[26]- just to point out a few. It is quite difficult, if not completely impossible, to engage in rational arguments with people making changes with "rationale" like these.
• Section blanking, deletion of clips revealing cheating in purported miracles( which can be seen in this version: [27])- the article is continually subject to such attacks. And the way the people who want the info out work make it impossible to fix these without getting quickly reverted and attacked.
• "Info", self-advertisement by any standard, sourced directly to the controversial sai baba organization cover entire sections now. All this material is completely in violation of WP:RS.
• Slander and attack against neutral editors. Almost 100% of info from respectable sources on this person is critical in nature - be it The BBC, The Guardian, The Times or The DTV. Editors adding well sourced material are targeted by and slandered by the Sai Baba group on their websites and blogs. Which makes many editors scared to contribute to the article and just stay away from it.[28]. Even people like Robert Priddy have had their character assassinated by the group's lies and propaganda. I had personally used an alternate account, of which I had informed the arbcom, to edit the article. Mainly because it is an extremely controversial topic in India and there have been attempts at life on many critics including elderly people[29]. People related to the sai baba organization had an SPI slyly raised against me to ascertain my identity. The admin, initially confused my alternate account for a sock and ended up revealing my details. Later investigations revealed that my alternate account was just a legitimate alternate account and was never used in an abusive manner - and thus my account was unblocked. I was further attacked by editors who wanted me not contributing to the namespace - which led to me deciding to stop contributing to the article. Recently I was taken aback by how all well sourced information was being removed and replaced with self-sourced praise and attempted to point out the issue on talk and fix it - with little effect. Even if I try to re-add the well sourced info - it would just be quickly blanked again. Further attempts could only result in an unconstructive edit-war, which, obviously, I want to avoid by all means.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 09:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this has happened before, see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sathya Sai Baba 2 among other pages. I'm not sure ANI is going to be able to help you much, although if you tell us what you want us to do, we might be able to help. Otherwise, WP:DR is where you need to be. Stifle (talk) 10:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I dont see any straight forward solution to the problem. If this fails, I'll try WP:DR. I had attempted to restore the June 2nd version of the article - where the images were intact and there was little much less self sourced material. Perhaps, I'll make another attempt to restore the content. Most of the recent onslaught has been by User:Awesome108 ( whose edit summaries I point out above) and User:Sbs108. It might help to inform these editors that wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and the article's content must be based on Reliable Sources. And also that primary sources should be used sparingly - especially when the primary source is considered very controversial nature.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 13:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:AE might be able to help, insomuch as your enforcement requests fall into the previous arbitration cases. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 15:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Explanations:

• User:Dilip Rajeev using the pseudo account User:White_Adept - now an inactivated account added several unreliable sources and banned material to the Sathya Sai Baba article and made it an NPOV nightmare. He was warned not to add questionable sources in the earlier arbitration enforcement case here - [30]. This edit effort by other editors is part of the improvement effort to clean up the mess in the article left by User:Dilip Rajeev. He had also removed several reliably sourced positive information from the article with out explanation. Inspite of the above warning he created another sub-article adding the same material banned by Second Arbitration commitee and several other unreliable sources.
• I will request you to look at the discussions regarding the improvement edits by involved editors and Admin in the Sathya Sai talk page. [31] and [32] Thanks Radiantenergy (talk) 04:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I would like to make a few comments on this. Dilip, under the name (sockpuppet was also used) "white_adept", now "Inactive user account 001" made well over 150 edits to the Sathya Sai Baba page in a 12 day period. [33] [34] In that time, he peppered the article with criticism, greatly expanding the sections by adding information that cast Sai Baba in a negative light, while removing a lot of information that was not critical of Sai Baba. In total, he made some 317 edits to the page in a four month period. [35] In the last week, several editors (including user:Andries, who is a critic of SSB, and is actually banned from editing the article, per the decisions of the second arbitration) have joined together to begin working on the article, replacing info that Dilip removed without explanation, and trying to bring the criticism in the article to a more reasonable level. There were at length discussions here and here that reflect this. After a week of work, Dilip returns to the article and reverts it without discussing these radical changes on the talk page first. [36].

Our justification for removing a large part of the info that Dilip mentions can be found here. And on "I know that the changes I made where right"[37], "I add \ed thta because I know what to do"[38], "I changed it because this is offensive to a lot of people, and it isn't even true"[39], "My dad was in Puttaparthi his whole life and this never happened"[40]

I left a response to Dilip on the SSB talk page, however I dont believe he saw it. None of the edits that that one user made remained on the page. In fact, each and every one of those edits were reverted. There was no "onslaught" (his word) by new editors, all the edits he is trying to revert were made by myself, Radiantenergy, and Sbs108. The editor he is trying to use as an excuse for his reverts has been banned indefinitely.

It is my personal belief that several editors of this page have a CoI in relation to Sathya Sai Baba (It could be argued that I do, although I am not a follower, nor am I a critic. In fact, before a few months ago, I had never heard of SSB.) I became involved in this article because of the shock I felt when reading the page. Not that SSB would do these things, but because of the criticism that dripped from every paragraph. Never had I saw a page with a greater POV slanted against the page topic. I truly hope that Dilip will be willing to join in our discussions about where to go from here with the page, instead of reverting the page back to one that he all but wrote himself, that has an abundance of criticism, but a lack of most everything else. Thanks, Onopearls ^(t/c) 04:42, 10 June 20(UTC)

The article as it stands does not conform to wikipedia's policy regarding the biography of a living person. BLP states 1) "Criticism and praise of the subject should be represented if it is relevant to the subjects notability and can be sourced to reliable sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to take sides." Although better now, criticism still overwhelms the article as anyone with a neutral viewpoint can see. 2) BLP states, "Be careful not to give a disproprtionate amount of space to particular viewpoints, to avoid the effect of representing a minority view as if it were the majority one, The views of a tiny minority have no place in the article." Sai Baba undisputedly has millions of followers in India and abroad, there are critics but they are extremely minute compared to those who have a favorable view of Sai Baba. Just because certain reputable news organizations like the BBC picked up on a smear campaign by a few ex-followers hardly means its a majority viewpoint. Not only that, most of the basis for the criticism was Alay Rahm's failed lawsuit as he had no basis for his claims. Currently the article gives a disproportiate amount of space to a dissenting or critical view. Not to mention that Sai Baba remains completely innocent of allegations as they have never been proven nor is there any pending case against Sai Baba. Given the circumstances, criticism should be limited to 10% of the article based on the above mentioned reasons.Sbs108 (talk) 16:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I would also like to not that the "self sourced" information that Dilip wants removed is mainly sourced to the "response to criticism" section of the article. This is most certainly one of the exceptions listed for allowing self sourced material, no? For there is no more of a reliable source to cite than the organization that is being criticized. Thanks, Onopearls ^(t/c) 19:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Matt Giwer

Resolved

 – Indef blocked by EyeSerene. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Matt Giwer (talk · contribs) is known on Usenet as a kook and anti-Semite, this editor is trying here what he knows he can't get away with -- in Cyrus (Bible) his edit [41] says "Look folks this is such total bullshit I cannot imagine Wikipedia ever let it be posted. I realize this is not a proper edit and I invite the wrath of the wiki gods upon me for entering this. And they know who I am as I am logged in. I hope this will be eliminated as soon as I figure out how to start a discussion group with addresses all of the bible based religion nonsense" (since reverted of course). I'd appreciate it if other Admins stepped in so he doesn't just think it's me against him. I won't link to his website but it's easily found, as are comments about him on Nizkor.org. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 09:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Reverted as completely inappropriate. After reviewing his recent edits, I'm tempted toward a block of undetermined length since he's obviously not performing any constructive edits. Thoughts? — Huntster (t • @ • c) 10:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes reverting was the right thing to do, I have to say I am not sure that this anti-Semite claim is appropriate considering the circumstances, after all we are supposed to assume good faith WP:AGF and such here on wikipedia and then there is this no personal attacks thingy WP:NPA so lets just try to be polite here and work in the spirit of wikipedia and such. I took a quick look at this guys edit history 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and while these don't seem to be the most productive edits made to wikipedia they don't seem to be bad faith edits either, you speak of performing a block of undetermined length on this user and I have to say that I would disapprove of such action at this point since I do believe that every user should be given the opportunity to become a positive contributor to wikipedia. Also an indefinite block at this time would sorta have the feel of admin abuse of power so please lets just handle this in a calm and clear headed way.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 11:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes I also informed this user of the ANI discussion taking place regarding him here, lets see if we'll get to hear what he has to say about these matters.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 11:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I meant to do that but real life today has been hectic, constant interruptions. Having seen his posts for 15 years (according to his edit on my talk page that's how long he's been at it), GF, etc. give way to experience I'm afraid. Googling on his name might give some context to my comments and show his website, etc so others can see where I am coming from, as they say. Dougweller (talk) 11:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Considering that vandalism-only accounts are routinely indef blocked, I don't see how it could be construed as abuse of power. Personally, I see these edits as intentional disruption, but as I rarely perform blocks, I prefer uninvolved persons to voice opinions. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 12:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Is this your everyday vandalism? It's not like all this user is doing is blanking pages and performing pranks here. I must say that I actually do believe that I am "beating a dead horse" here in a way since I don't really believe that this will end in any other way than a rightful indefinite block but I don't think that this is the time for such a block to be made and I do think that we should give this editor every opportunity to change his behavior before such a block comes along.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 12:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

And keep on cleaning up after edits such as this? He's pathological. Has been obsessed with his antisemitic ideas for a long time, without any indications of getting better. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 15:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

As I said in a long form post which did not appear here, I have mostly explained why there are no references as noted in the top header. There is no possible references but the bible. Nothing of interest found in the bible appears in real history or in archaeology in Israel.

The first appearance of the OT stories is in the Septuagint. Nothing older is in evidence. The Jews first appear in history in Roman times. This is also a fact.

As most of my edits have been little more than pointing out those facts, why is there a problem?

Now if these articles are to be simply bible study recitations fine with me. I suggest they should say so. But they do not. AND the top header says they do not because they have no references.

As it stands the OT is no different from the Book of Mormon as it discusses fanciful events which are without the least historical or archaeological evidence.

Why do people have a problem with that being identified as the reason there are no references? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt Giwer (talk • contribs) 12:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• In the face of the diffs, edit history, and the above comment, I don't think that we need to extend good faith to the point of absurdity with an obvious POV SPA. I've indefblocked the account (review welcome as always). EyeSerene^talk 13:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Endorse indefinite block. (Full disclosure: I remember him from Usenet, a hundred or so moons ago, when grass was greener, men were real men, and the best of the trolls could take on an Arcturan Mega-Donkey -- and lose with full dignity and honour.) Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 15:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Endorse permaban edits like this constitute vandalism in addition to shameless POV pushing. --Miacek (t) 15:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The editor in question has a point, though. The article generally discusses biblical references to events without endorsing their accuracy. But "the Mosaic era" is referenced as if a known historical era, like the reign of Ramses II. It's an open question as to whether Moses existed or was an allegorical figure; scholars disagree on this. Writing about "the Mosaic era" is "in-universe writing" in Wikipedia terms, and we generally discourage that. A bit of rewording there would solve the problem. It just needs a lighter touch than the editor in question is applying. --John Nagle (talk) 17:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

That's an argument to fix the article, not an argument to keep Giwer around. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Even the most provocative of POV pusher would struggle to come up with something as lopsided as that particular edit. It looks designed to provoke to me, and I find it hard to AGF given the other edits and comments from users in good standing. --Dweller (talk) 22:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

EyeSerene just indef blocked him. I Support this action, and am marking this resolved. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Again, needing an uninvolved Administrator

Resolved

Recent activities make me very wary about dealing with something where I've even put a reference. Eye2Eye35 (talk · contribs), also editing from their IP address (they signed it once, as well as Quack test) as 125.196.5.232 (talk · contribs) has been repeatedly deleting text from Talk:Jabal al-Lawz - thankfully I haven't been the only one putting it back. Also, in the article itself, the editor has been changing referenced text from 'almonds', which is what the reference says, to 'laws'. Dougweller (talk) 11:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll help you keep an eye on that nut case. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

User(s) blocked.. The only contributions by the account were vandalism and they continued even after their final warning. Clear-cut case imho. Regards SoWhy 12:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Kudos. The IP is only blocked for 24 hours, but the behavior pattern is obvious enough to ring a bell the next time. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It was clear cut, but as I said, I'd edited the article, so I didn't want to do the block. Dougweller (talk) 12:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The simple approach is to report the vandal(s) to WP:AIV. That nearly always produces good and quick results in a clear-cut case such as this one. I have taken the liberty of marking this as "resolved". It it comes back, take it straight to AIV. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Methinks that one takes original research to a whole new level, so to speak. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It would certainly be etymologically interesting if the Arabic word transliterated as "lawz" turned out to be from the same root as "laws". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Law is Anglo Saxon (very old) by way of northern Europe. French loi strikes me as an oddly old cognate. Any link these may have with Latin lex (English legal) seems hazy at most, some of these root words do link up way back with ancient Sanskrit. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Not here though, I think: اللوز means almond and the transliteration to lawz is not all that meaningful or even wonted. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The user is trying to make some karmic connection between Mount of "Laws" and the Ten Commandments. He's basically trying to impose a religious viewpoint of some kind. Hence his attempts to switch BCE to BC, and CD to AD. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

In New England liars is pronounced rather closely to laws (cue spooky music and FX, fade to black). Gwen Gale (talk) 15:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

No, in New England liars and lawyers are pronounced the roughly the same, that is "LIE-yuz". Laws is pronounced like "lahz". --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Suicide threat

Resolved

 – Declined and moved templated suicide response to block decline notice.  Frank  |  talk  18:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Could an independent admin look at User talk:TheChosenEditor please. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 18:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Also reblocked to disallow talk page priveleges. –xeno^talk 18:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Kingturtle and addresses

Resolved

 – Disputed edits undone and discussion in progress.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Kingturtle decided that school addresses were not encyclopedic, so he's deleting as many as he can find -- despite the address field in {{Infobox school}} and his not having discussed it there at any point. In the middle of the run, he changed WP:NOT to support his changes. When I challenged him, he stated that he had posted to talk pages with no response -- but Infobox school wasn't one of those places. He has continued the removal run despite my challenge without further discussion.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

(ecx3)Correction -- he only did one more, then responded again.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Run continuing -- unstruck comment above.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I support the removal. This is not a directory. In fact, he could probably do it more quickly by just modifying the template to ignore the address parameter, right? Wknight94 ^talk 18:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Old WP:NOT phrasing: Directories, directory entries, electronic program guide, or a resource for conducting business. For example, an article on a radio station generally should not list upcoming events, current promotions, phone numbers, current schedules, et cetera, although mention of major events, promotions or historically significant programme lists and schedules (such as the annual United States network television schedules) may be acceptable. Furthermore, the Talk pages associated with an article are for talking about the article, not for conducting the business of the topic of the article. Wikipedia is not the yellow pages.

Kingturtle's new phrasing: The White or Yellow Pages. Street addresses of stores, schools, fire departments, parlors, etc. are not encyclopedic, unless the building or lot has particular historic significance (such as 10 Downing Street, Raffles Hotel or Palacio Barolo). Contact information (such as phone numbers, fax numbers and email addresses) is (almost) never encyclopedic.

Changing WP:NOT to support the edits you want to make worries me.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with his change. BTW, I also support the removal of the names of all the faculty and principal, etc. Who really thinks that an encyclopedia would contain such name-dropping trivia? Wknight94 ^talk 19:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

"Principles" and faculty, particularly "principles", can be notable. Many headmasters of say, Eton, are notable people before they become headmasters. Noting who the head is can sometimes be useful. Ironholds (talk) 19:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that King has a point in that addresses aren't really important and may run afoul of WP:DIRECTORY, but changing the wording yourself is presumptuous. Mayhaps King can start a thread on the talkpage to garner support or opposition to the change. Otherwise such radical rewording should be reverted. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 19:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Policies and guidelines are generally descriptive rather than prescriptive. The change that Kingturtle seems consistent with the usual standards at Wikipedia. However that discussion belongs on the relevant talk page.   Will Beback  talk  19:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Correct, but when I posted here, he was still actively removing addresses, and I have no reason to think he won't resume later, as he hasn't added to any discussions since I brought it up here.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Discussion started at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#School street addresses.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

My "run" was not {{Infobox school}}-specific, nor was it directed specifically at street addresses. My main target yesterday was fax numbers. My article selection was based on results from a search of "fax number." While I was removing phone numbers and fax numbers from articles, I decided to also remove email addresses and street addresses. I did not think street addresses would be a big deal because I broached the issue last year at Infobox_University and Infobox_Restaurant with nary a response, and at Infobox Education in Canada with a single response (which was supportive). I see from yesterday's thread Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#School street addresses that there is sufficient support to keep street addresses. I will go back and re-add the street addresses I removed yesterday.

I did not change WP:NOT to support my changes; I merged existing parts of two separate WP:NOTs into one and provided particular details. My edits have since been ironed out by other editors - and I think it looks pretty good now.

I do apologize for the street address removal. It was not meant to be malicious, and I will fix the edits later today. Sincerely, Kingturtle (talk) 08:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I have now re-added all the street addresses that I removed from school articles. Kingturtle (talk) 13:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I apologize for any lack of WP:AGF you may see in my statement that you were changing WP:NOT to support your changes -- at the time, it seemed the clearest way to describe what I saw as the problem. Thanks for the cleanup! --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I completely understand how you saw it. Thank you for dealing with it tactfully and allowing me to explain myself, allowing a discussion to take place, and allowing me to adjust my edits. Cheers, Kingturtle (talk) 13:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Would it make sense to somehow modify the coordinates that appear in the upper right corner to also include the address? It seems like the same sort of metadata. --NE2 15:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I think "No", but you could go over to the {{coord}} or {{Infobox School}} talkpages and ask the people who have been working on it for a while... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Wuhwuzdat

Resolved

 – Biaswarrior blocked as a sockpuppet. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Wuhwuzdat is reverting all my prod removals. Can someone inform him anyone is allowed to remove prods if they want? -- Biaswarrior (talk) 19:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Can somebody please notify Biaswarrior that his war isn't welcome here, as Wikipedia is NOT a battleground? Wuhwuzdat (talk) 19:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Being an inclusionist isn't a battleground. If you don't like it, list all the articles for AFD. After following WP:BEFORE, of course. -- Biaswarrior (talk) 19:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Same problem with User:Jimbo online. You shouldn't get to list articles for proposed deletion and then edit war anyone who disagrees. -- Biaswarrior (talk) 19:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see what admin action is required here, but FWIW, I do agree that WP:BEFORE only applies to AfD'd articles and not prodded articles. However, WP:CONTESTED would appear to side with Biaswarrior, particularly the phrase "If the edit is not obviously vandalism, do not restore the [prod] tag, even if the tag was apparently removed in bad faith." KuyaBriBri^Talk 19:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Amusing that biaswarrior has brought themselves here before anyone else could. Clear single purpose account, probably a sock judging by their acquaintance (if you can call it that) with procedures. Would an admin please have a look at the rest of their contributions in the half hour they have been here. Quantpole (talk) 19:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I smell a sock of User:Biasprotector. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:28, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Biaswarrior: read the messages above. Wikipedia isn't a battleground nor is it a place for you to disrupt to make a point. Looking over your contributions it looks like that's what you are here to do and if you continue to do so you will be blocked. Also Biaswarrior's edits so far indicate he's probably a sock of somebody. ThemFromSpace 19:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

(after ec) A brand new account called "biaswarrior". Hmm... First edit was to create userpage saying he was an ARS member. Second edit was to jump into some kind of policy debate at the ARS talk page arguing that "we should require that people listen to WP:BEFORE before listing articles at AFD."[42]. He then goes on his de-prodding spree/keep voting at AFD's including an argument of "Failure to follow WP:BEFORE should be considered a violation of WP:CIVIL and against WP:CONSENSUS. A discussion among the people who happen to come here is inadequate. Use the talk page and give it an adequate period of time before deletion"[43] in favor of retaining this article, whose text i will repeat in its entirety: A figure of speech by which the last word of one sentence becomes the first word of the next. For example: "We don't like idiots. Idiots are useless."It is more usually called anadiplosis." To be blunt, Biaswarrior (talk · contribs) is either a sockpuppet of a banned user, or a sockpuppet of a user in good standing who wants to grind their particular axe without the attendant scrutiny that comes with it, and we should not tolerate this kind of nonesense for long.Bali ultimate (talk) 19:34, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

To Biaswarrior (talk · contribs), I note that you have been removing PROD's and !voting "Keep" at AfD's at a rate of several per minute. This suggests to me that you have not looked at the rationale for either the PROD or the AfD and are making WP:POINTy edits in referring to WP:BEFORE - this is disruptive. If you do not cease you are liable to be blocked for the disruption to the encyclopedia. For the sake of clarity, this is an official level3 warning - continue and you will be blocked from editing the encyclopedia. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

If it helps, this is clearly Hilary T again. Uncle G (talk) 17:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

User:JdeJ

This started when I updated the map and left a comment on the article Algeria, showing the different professional styles of the Algeria maps and previously added on the article where's a administrator allowed it after my edit. But JdeJ was reverting all my contributions....

Article Conflicts;

JdeJ saying "here have been long discussions on which maps to use" here, but I read all the historial before, and there's nothing about, but yes with some european articles maps, so I reverted it saying "In this country not, Africa has not European countries consensus" here, but JdeJ again reverted me saying "Your edits start to look increasingly like vandalism" here. So I reverted saying "don't accuse me of vandalism, there's a consensus about the map" here, and finally an admin came there here, and the user JdeJ didn't revert again.

Article's Talk Page Conflicts;

As I said I wrote about the map here but JdeJ insult my english and accused me to convince others about quality of my maps or dragging in other contributors' nationalities here, then I told him don't accuses me because can be reported here.

Warnings deleted;

Now JdeJ deleted my warnings that I wrote him when he's accusing me of vandalism and dragging in other contributors' nationalities or even of personal attacks as unfounded warnings here, JdeJ is of course well-meaning, but has repeatedly brought in unrelated or personal opinions to a discussion about article content or subject notability.--TownDown ^{How's it going?} 19:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, apologies that it's taken a while to address your post. Secondly, irregardless of the content dispute (which is outside ANI's remit), you've both been edit-warring on the article. Please take a moment to familiarise yourself with WP:3RR and WP:BRD. Wikipedia recommends that if you make an edit and that edit is then reverted, don't revert it back. Instead, discuss the edit on the article talk-page (edit summaries don't count). If there's opposition to your edit, you need to convince other editors why it should be in the article, especially if you're seeking to overturn a previously-established consensus. I appreciate that you did open a talk-page discussion, but you were edit-warring at the same time. The three-revert rule will be applied by admins to all reverting editors and the spirit is as important as the letter, so even if you don't cross the three-revert line you may still be blocked.

I can't see anything impolite in JdeJ's post that you've linked. You however made an unwarranted assumption about the motives of other editors based on their nationality, and it was this that JdeJ was pointing out (see WP:NPA). You have also plastered templated warnings over their talk-page, which is considered poor form when dealing with established editors (see WP:DTTR). JdeJ is quite within their rights to remove anything from their talk-page - in fact, removing a warning is taken as evidence that the warning has been seen and understood.

In summary:

• Both JdeJ and TownDown have been edit warring.
• TownDown has over-reacted to the difference of opinion, has misunderstood WP:NPA, and left JdeJ unnecessary warnings as a result.

The edit warring seems to have stopped, so I won't be handing out any sanctions. However, please read through the policies and advice I've linked above, and try not to take differences of opinion personally. If you feel yourself becoming over-involved in a content dispute, step away from the article and find something else to edit for a while. Our dispute resolution advice might also be helpful. EyeSerene^talk 08:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Got it, thank you!. --TownDown ^{How's it going?} 08:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

This user was pestering Hayden120 ‎ (talk · contribs) with inappropriate templates and reverting the user on his own talk page. Please note that I have warned this user he will be blocked if he resumes such behaviour. [44] Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

No argument with that. Thanks, EyeSerene^talk 18:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Paid Editing

This is overdue, probably: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Paid Editing. Given that this (and related WP:COI issues) seem to be coming up more and more, I've launched this basic RFC. We've never had an actual community discussion or mandate about this. Please review the statements, leave yours, endorse as you see fit. Should make for an interesting and enlightening discussion. rootology (C)(T) 19:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Request for block of user 173.32.21.102 on Seven Sisters (law firms) entry

On the wikipedia page for Seven Sisters (law firms) an anonymous user keeps incorrectly altering the list. There is a reference posted on the page (1) that links to a Macleans article which lists the "seven sisters" law firms. This list includes Torys LLP, and does not include Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP.

Contributor (173.32.21.102) has repeatedly changed this list, leaving incorrect information on the wikipedia page.

I have changed it, leaving a note, but it has been changed back by this same user.

As a representative of Torys LLP, we feel that the deletion of our firm name from this prestigious list (the "seven sisters" are the law firms in Canada involved in many of the largest deals" and are often considered the "elite" law firms of Canada) is unfair, and we would like assistance to prevent this annonymous contributor from posting inaccurate information the unfairly punishes our firm (by removing it from the list).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(law_firms)

My apologies if this is not the correct place to post this request for a block. (My user name: Canmark) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.220.57.173 (talk) 19:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The IP hasn't quite done anything bad enough to get a block for any useful length, and the changes have been few enough and slow enough to make protection a bit notional. I'll watchlist (others should too, please) to make sure that nothing worse happens in the next few days. Independent, third-party references are your friend here: if you can supply them (and I've noted how to request changes on your talk page when reminding you that you have an inherent conflict of interest on the subject) it makes working out who's right and who's wrong a lot easier. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris} 20:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Edit war on Roger Federer

Multiple 3RR violations, edit war going on for several days over the phrase "widely considered to be" the greatest tennis player ever. Zohair9034 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and TheTennisObserver (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) are the worst. Lots of redlinked accounts and SPAs, probable mass sockpuppetry. I made an edit or two so someone else needs to purge this mess. Thatcher 19:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I've protected it for a week - on a version I don't agree with (I'm such a hero) - to allow others to sort the sheep from the goats at their leisure without the edit war. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris} 20:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Could the set of navboxes at the bottom of the page possibly be any uglier? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The whole article is a car crash, designwise. But such things are not an admin's job to police. Alas, alas. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris} 20:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Isn't there a template for collapsing navboxes that works a little like {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} does on talk pages? – ukexpat (talk) 20:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

On the assumption that R's comments above are an invitation for someone to sort this out, I've blocked Z and T under AN3 and unprotected the page William M. Connolley (talk) 22:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Rotational, again

Note, this user was last bought up here in May, due to MOS conflicts Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive539#Rotational.

This user has taken to creating articles in his userspace, which I feel go beyond using it as a sandbox, I feel that it is being used to create his preferred versions of articles, as he does not wish others to edit them. He creates articles in his userspace every few days, edits them for a while, and rarely goes back to them later, this suggests that it isn't just a sandbox.

On 10 May, he created redirects from the mainspace to his userspace articles, which were speedily deleted by User:Rkitko and he was warned about this. Three of his original pages were originally categorised, which I commented out per WP:BADCATS.

WP:USERSPACE states: "While userpages and subpages can be used as a development ground for generating new content, this space is not intended to indefinitely archive your preferred version of disputed or previously deleted content or indefinitely archive permanent content that is meant to be part of the encyclopedia. In other words, Wikipedia is not a free web host. Private copies of pages that are being used solely for long-term archival purposes may be subject to deletion."

This discussion on his talk page suggests this, though he refuses to give a definitive answer. Note these are all in his preferred format, which is not MOS compliant.

This is a list of the offending articles, in order of when they were created

• User:Rotational/Berthe Hoola van Nooten - Created 29 April, last edited 1 May
• User:Rotational/Charles Telfair - Created 3 May, last edited 23 May
• User:Rotational/Benjamin Maund - Created 4 May, last edited 5 May
• User:Rotational/William Clarke Wontner - Created 13 May, last edited 13 May
• User:Rotational/Ambroise Tardieu - Created 5 May, last edited 12 May
• User:Rotational/Alan Cunningham - Created 17 May, last edited 17 May
• User:Rotational/Agnes Goodsir - Created 18 May, last edited 21 May
• User:Rotational/Henri Meunier - Created 21 May, last edited 2 June
• User:Rotational/Henri Gabriel Ibels - Created 22 May, last edited 27 May
• User:Rotational/Felix Pfeifer - Created 26 May, last edited 26 May
• User:Rotational/Jeremiah Gurney - Created 29 May, last edited 29 May
• User:Rotational/Loÿs Delteil - Created 5 June, last edited 6 June
• User:Rotational/Louisa Anne, Marchioness of Waterford - Created 6 June, last edited 9 June
• User:Rotational/Lady Trevelyan - Created 9 June, last edited 9 June

I haven't nominated for MfD as they are useful articles, and its about time most of them were moved to the main article space so that they are useful to everyone. Jenuk1985 | Talk 20:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, s/he doesn't seem happy about having them in the mainspace. But they seem good articles. How awkward. I'd be inclined to suggest someone - you? - be bold and move them to the mainspace and wikify them. S/he can then show her/his hand by moving them back or unwikifying them. Either would thus provoke a community response. S/he should be trying to get the MoS changed rather than creating a shadow 'pedia in userspace. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris} 20:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it would be appropriate for me to move them, as I have been involved with the issues with Rotational for a while. However, if a few people here are happy for me to go ahead and do it, on that basis, I will Jenuk1985 | Talk 20:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

My view, which is taken from the "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed for profit by others, do not submit it" message in the edit page, is that the content can be placed in article space - and modified to suit the current MoS. Providing that the origin of the content is acknowledged then it is license compliant. It may be that this scenario may be mentioned to Rotational in the hope of more co-operation, but if there is no such interaction forthcoming we might consider using this editors use of WP space for the benefit of the project regardless of their wishes. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Around about the same time that Jenuk posted this thread (and whilst I was unaware of it) I began moving these into the mainspace. I didn't (and don't) see any need for discussion on this. Rotational has made it clear that he retains them in his mainspace for reasons that are a violation of our ownership of articles policy,[45] so ignoring his wishes on this point is hardly controversial. Hesperian 00:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Of the articles you have moved, I have now bought them up to the MOS guidelines as much as possible. Now we wait for the proverbial to hit the fan ;-) Jenuk1985 | Talk 01:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

When I consider the options before Rotational at this point, I can see little prospect for anything hitting the fan. His editing restriction prevents him from reverting your edits; reverting my page moves will achieve nothing, as his editing restriction still prevents him from reverting your edits, and I don't imagine he fancies hosting MOS-conformant material in his userspace. All we can really expect is a talk page rant; and whilst I welcome scrutiny and discussion of my edits, and I'm sure you do the same, we're under no obligation to respond to him if all he has to say is the same old stuff with a few new insults. Hesperian 02:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Rotational has now moved them all back into his userspace. I think it is time an uninvolved administrator had a close look at this. Hesperian 06:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I am uninvolved and made a polite request there. --John (talk) 07:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Heh. User is making conspiracy charges.--M^ask? 07:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, since it'll have to be cleaned up, the editors reversion of the move left an absurd number of cross namespace redirects. --M^ask? 07:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Oi, this has definitely moved into the area of WP:OWN. While I applaud the work that has gone into creating these articles, user *must* understand that he can't retain indefinite and unquestioned control over content here. If they are good enough to be mainspace articles, and most appear to be so, that is the appropriate place for them. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 10:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The fact the user has made no attempt to make any comment on his actions anywhere other than on a random users talk page, says it all really! Jenuk1985 | Talk 12:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I've moved the articles back into the mainspace and protected them from being moved again until Rotational comments on the matter on their talk page or here. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris} 14:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I support this action. --John (talk) 18:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Tag-team vandalism

• Tag-team vandalism by 142.25.175.224 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 142.25.175.227 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 142.25.175.223 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) has been going on for several days now on Polystichum munitum. 223 just got blocked, but 227 and 224 should also be blocked. The article has been semi-protected due to a long-term vandalism spree by school kids from British Columbia and Washington state over the last several months. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

142.25.175.0-255 softblocked for 72 hours. Tan | 39 21:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:28, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Unable to let go of a deleted article

Resolved

 – Article deleted and protected while draft is worked on in userspace; discussion is ongoing there but no further need for intervention here. Shereth 17:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Cdogsimmons (talk · contribs)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Estonia–Luxembourg relations
• Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 May 20
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Estonia–Luxembourg relations (2nd nomination)

Admin intervention requested to delete this page and probably salt it, given the refusal of some to accept the results found at the links above. 1st AfD was closed as a keep by an involved admin...a decision that was overturned at DRV. Admin then went to another admin with GFDL concerns (which seem to have been alleviated after discussion here, who restored the page as a sort-of disambig/redirect hybrid. This was deleted via the 2nd AfD, but now we have yet another recreation by one of the more ardent "keep" proponents in thew above discussions. Tarc (talk) 21:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems very clear to me upon reading the pair of AfD discussions and the DRV discussion that the recreation of any version of this was a bad idea. I have temporarily protected the page against recreation; if User:Cdogsimmons (or any other user) believes a new version can be made, substantially different from either version discussed at AfD, I suggest they demonstrate it in user space and engage in some discussion before jumping the gun and plopping a recreation into mainspace. Shereth 22:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Is it the same version or a totally new one? If it is a totally new version, then okay, but if not, then the attribution history would need to be public, or alternatively, a userfied version could be placed in the editor's userspace for now. In any event, it is getting out of hand that we keep having discussions over the same articles. Docu's keep closure probably should not have been followed by a DRV. We would have been better off just letting things be, but we are see a disturbing trend of both 'sides' of these bilateral relations disputes trying again and again with the same articles. Consider this disruptive and pointed renomination for an article closed a mere month ago by a neutral admin as a fairly unambiguous "keep." Can editors move on? In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chile–Estonia relations, we had a clear "keep" close by as far as I can tell a fair admin and yet, two months later we have Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chile–Estonia relations (2nd nomination), just as happened after Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cyprus–Pakistan relations. These renominations are turning AfD into a WP:BATTLEGROUND and we are seeing more and more hyperbole, frustration, etc. in these deletion discussions that is taking us right to an RfC or ArbCom. We are already at a point, where it needs to be a blockable offense to renominate one that closed as keep a mere month or two later, because editors are getting annoyed having to repeat the same discussions and it is plainly disruptive and a drain on our time and server's to have to do so. As I said elsewhere, are we here to build an encyclopedia or play games? Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

By the way, should I have been notified of this discussion? (I wasn't).--Cdogsimmons (talk) 22:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

This action is very disturbing and needs to be addressed. I think it speaks for itself as deliberately disruptive. Drawn Some (talk) 22:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

If so, then your renomination of an article previously closed as keep a mere month ago also should be addressed as deliberately disruptive. These renominations et al need to stop already, period, that goes for all of us as clearly the discussions in them are only escalating things. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You most certainly should have been notified, yes. Shereth 22:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I provided notification on the article's talk page, which I judged to be a clearer and more visible place for the note than on individual's own talk pages. Tarc (talk) 01:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• The original article closed as Keep. Some didn't like that, and piled on the votes at deletion review, and got it overturned. The article was then replaced with something totally useless, a stub that just links to two other pages, with reverts made to any who tried to change it back. And this useless link stub went to AFD. The page was locked in that useless link stub mode. New people joining the discussion said "delete" based on what was there now, not what was there originally. There should've been an AFD for the original page over again, if there was a reason to undo what the closing editor said. And the page that criticized the closing editor was closed the same day they brought it up, preventing there from being any real discussions [46], and they decided he shouldn't close these articles again, since he twiced said Keep instead of deleting articles they didn't like. Dream Focus 22:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Er, no. The original article's closure was fraudulent, and that admin is now barred from closing AfDs in the subject area. Characterizing this as a mob rules DRV to overturn a fair AfD result is rather disingenuous. Tarc (talk) 13:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Long-time editor suddenly vandalizing

Resolved

 – Indef blocked. — Aitias // discussion 00:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

R.I.P. Makaveli (talk · contribs) has been here for over a year, all of a sudden he's making vandalistic edits. The fact that he knows enough to fix the mistake I made on his Talk page and that he knows how to Undo shows that this doesn't appear to be a compromised account. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 23:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, for the time being I have blocked him for being a possible compromised account. Tiptoety ^talk 23:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Given that the user in question has vandalised back in 2008 I don't believe this account is compromised. Though, as they received a final warning back then, I support a block — nevertheless, the reason for the block should be changed. — Aitias // discussion 23:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

That is fine. I had not really looked that far back yet. Do as you wish with the block summary. Tiptoety ^talk 00:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay then,  Done. — Aitias // discussion 00:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Bobak's block messages

Bobak (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has designed some custom-made block templates that he uses after blocking vandals, and I believe they are not constructive. Here are some examples: [47][48][49][50] These sorts of templates go against our guideline of RBI and not feeding the trolls—everyone knows that a large number of vandals do it because they like to see if they can get us Wikipedia nerds riled up, and responding to them in this fashion just encourages more disruption. Furthermore, they reflect badly on Wikipedia, giving people the impression that Wikipedia is ruled by all-powerful admins who are rude and dismissive like this.

A couple weeks ago User:GnarlyLikeWhoa raised this concern with Bobak (see the discussion here), and Bobak was not very receptive. I also chimed in just today, and Bobak responded by archiving the talk page. Is there any way the community can ask him not to use these kinds of block templates and messages? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi there. I use the more humorous blocks in two cases: specific (not range) IP blocks and blatant vandals. I keep all my blocked pages on my watchlist, and I have not seen any uptick in post-ban problems --at least no different than when I used the sterile templates: I receive the same number of personal email insults and talk page vandals (if not a little less). GnarlyLikeWhoa was slightly different, and claimed that I was out of place to note that the IP address of a military base shouldn't be used to vandalize wikipedia (which is wasting tax payer dollars... gee I wonder how he found out the IP was blocked?), and included a veiled e-thug threat (which I tend to see in web forums, not here). It is not the responsibility of an admin to please everyone they ban --as WP:RBI notes, there are opposing views to Rjanag's. As such, there are fans of my templates (Rjanag isn't one of them, but I respect that). Honestly, an ANI like this reflects badly on how Wikipedia can be used to punish creativity and put undue pressure where it is not required. To think, this was all started because I nominated an article for DYK! :-) --Bobak (talk) 00:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

aside I didn't notice this before, but particularly disturbing is this block, which happened 5 days after the user had last edited and the user had never been warned. Because the user's offense was spamming, rather than vandalism, it's also possible that the user just didn't understand Wikipedia's spam and EL guidelines, and Bobak's block message may well have driven away a potentially constructive user. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Did you look at his contribution history? The ability to request an unblock is still available. I haven't seen an attempt yet. Or perhaps I could've used the also-popular method of simply not notifying him of the block or doing massive collateral damage with sloppy IP-range blocks (which I think is are much greater problems). I make a lot of blocks, so if this one is so terrible, you're an Admin, go ahead and unblock --I'm not saying I'm the ultimate authority on that. Will this negatively affect my DYK nomination? :-p --Bobak (talk) 00:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of the user's contribution history, there's no reason for blocking him with a message like this. Yes, he's a commercial spammer who will probably never make any constructive edits, but the sarcasm is still unnecessary. That goes for your blocking templates, too...I think they're funny, but I doubt the blocked users do, and blocking and joking don't mix very well. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Neither does lawyering and humor, but god knows we try. I can see how the block on Matthewkbaldwin was perhaps too much, so I've lifted it (hurray? Is that a victory?). I got curious so I checked myself: I've instituted somewhere in the range of 700+ blocks, and about half were with the funny templates, and half weren't. I can say, without hesitation (and a user page history to back it) that I have seen no extra uptick in anything since I started letting vandals know that we have the ability to block now and often. Honestly, I can respect that some of you, like Rjanag, can find this stuff not to your own particular style, but that doesn't mean that those of use who are a bit WP:ROUGE are causing any serious harm to the project --especially without any serious evidence. As for the blocked users not finding the templates funny... did they before? Here's an aside: Rjanag, I noticed you've blocked 29 times since you joined the project 9 months ago. Did you know that if you block 1000 people you get a free toaster? Get cracking. --Bobak (talk) 00:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey, no fair. Non-admins can't get free toasters? The Toaster Cabal must be stopped! --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Non-admin view? This is clearly inappropriate. What is the policy basis for a block on the grounds of idiocy? Look, I fight this stuff every day too, and I think a lot of it is pretty funny - but that's an inside joke, not something a professional organisation presents as its outward face. Laughing at misguided fools should only be done behind the curtain - lord knows we could all make the exact same comments in orange boxes on quite a few admin talk pages...

Blocking is srs biznes - please keep it that way and use proper templates. Adminship is not a platform for dispensation of ridicule, it's a crappy job. Save the humour for the lunch-room. And idiotic editors need even more love than the normal ones. :) Franamax (talk) 01:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I understand the sentiment here by Bobak, but I would caution against continuing this level of sarcastic commenting at blocks. Sarcasm is a skill that is hard to pull off well when speaking; it is impossible to do so when typing. In the course of blocking users, there is no need to be rude and insulting. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Endorse the above comments. Think it if you must - most of us have - but Wikipedia is a highly public site closely watched by the press (amongst others). If you feel tempted in future, I'd recommend a spot of self-flagellation ;) EyeSerene^talk 08:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I would have to agree that Bobak's block messages are highly inappropriate. To me they don't come across as sarcastic, but rather as simple childishness. Wikipedia already has somewhat of a reputation as a place run by kids, and if hundreds of people are being blocked with Bobak's messages, that bad reputation is just being reinforced. We need mature admins, not apparently childish ones. Deli nk (talk) 10:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

One thing should be beyond dispute here, I think, is that these messages should never be used on IP talk pages, where an innocent user may be on the receiving end. Personally I feel that they're also inappropriate for registered users. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 13:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The community have said plainly more than once that block log entries and user talk notifications of blocks should, except under special circumstances (which don't seem to apply here), be serious, and especially should not mock affected users. One may think that injunction to be unnecessarily rigid, but it is plain that it is one for which a consensus exists, and inasmuch as no encyclopedic purpose is served by the jocularity, there is no reason to act in a fashion inconsistent with it. Joe 17:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

tampering with other peoples words

Resolved

 – No admin action necessary, and TruHeir has withdrawn his concern. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Catiline63 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

There was a dispute between myself and this editor about an image. I requested for validation on the image and for admins to comment on it. Then this editor goes and change my words in the request I submitted, I reverted it back but I am appauld that this editor can just go on the noticeboard and switch up what I have written and signed. Something needs to be done about this sort of behavior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/History_and_geography&diff=295442005&oldid=295388639 TruHeir (talk) 00:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The change has been reverted and Catiline63 got a warning, I don't believe any other action needs to be taken. If the editor continues to alter comments that's another issue, but for just this one edit the revert and talkpage notice is plenty; Catiline63 will probably not do it again. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

CSI Crystal ball????

Resolved

 – Future articles deleted, author told to use userspace until references available.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Tv12 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) after repeated warnings, is creating pages of the next season(s) of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and NCIS (please see Tv12's contribs). Unless they work for the studios (and that's a different hairy issue), there is no way this stuff can be accurate. And apparently the requests for deletion have not helped, and this user has just replaced some of these deleted episodes. There is an entire list of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation season 10 episodes with synopses at least 4 months before they even begin airing! Please help. Thank you!! TristaBella (cannot log in at work).

I just did an IAR speedy delete of these pages, as they all were unreferenced and referred to future dates in the past tense.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Endorse deletion. Toddst1 (talk) 01:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

166.217.40.141 (talk · contribs) has added alleged plots until May 2010 to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Season 10). PrimeHunter (talk) 01:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

And those plots/titles don't agree with a couple of articles I see that I missed. *grr* Toddst1's endorsement above was for the first four episodes of the season. Got some more cleanup to do...--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I also think some investigation of all the IPs who contributed to the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation season 10 list are going to show there are some socks in there. Some of the same IPs are responsible for changing Lindsay Monroe in CSI: New York to Lindsay Messer 50 or 60 times and uncited information about Khandi Alexander returning as Alexx Woods on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in Season 10. Sorry to be a witch, but this is getting really bad. I reported the possible socks before, and never got any response as to whether it was looked at or not - it was only archived. Trista 24.176.191.234 (talk) 19:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

IP Block Request.

Resolved

 – In the future, please use WP:AIV to report vandalism. — Aitias // discussion 01:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

User:199.185.67.200 has recently had an IP block lifted up, and is back to vandalism, including clearing pages, and inserting irrelevant, and unnecessary comments into articles. All of these have been reverted, and the user has been warned. This is a school IP address, and many students vandalize. An IP block would be smart to help rid this problem. Thank you. Connormah (talk) 01:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Insufficient recent activity to warrant a block. — Aitias // discussion 01:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That sorta message would be appropriate at WP:AIV, but anyways. Before I saw it I blocked the IP for one day. Cirt (talk) 01:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Kasaalan on RFA, approaching disruption

Kasaalan (talk · contribs) apparently is trying to take some odd ownership of an RFA as seen here, apparently to derail it. Full RFA edit history here; his WP space edits here; his WP:TALK edits here. Evula, a crat, refactored some excessive formatting by him at one point, and he's now apparently edit warring a bit to keep it in, and keeps expanding his Oppose... quite dramatically. Might need some extra uninvolved eyes here. I have no idea why he has such a bee in his bonnet. Talk page chats asking him to please calm down and a vandalism warning on the RFA are here. I'll leave him a note pointing him back to here. rootology (C)(T) 06:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• I concur with Rootology's brief summary. I have also recently left a warning on his page and tried to discuss this with the editor as amicably as possible.--VS ^talk 06:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't have any edits to the page any further, yet I don't have any objections to ANI either, if the nominated users' behaviour will also be investigated as I discussed in talk page "excessively" [51] based on mentioned users' May 2009 edits and actions. I will just note both parties supportive of the user, while VS is "excessively" involved in previous discussions. Also I will note, I added last comment on user's page, because I don't feel his answer is anywhere accurate. He claimed he didn't recall any recent edit conflict, while we actually had a serious one in May. An independent admin who can read a lot for an investigation will do fine. Kasaalan (talk) 07:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I seriously reject vandalism claims. But I do state I made an extensive research (which I spent a about 3 hours cumulatively) for nominated users' integrity and recent behaviour of May 2009, because my religious based edit bias claim, his 3 days long wikihounding and I seriouly claim he doesn't answer 2 of the adminship questions accurately. [52] Kasaalan (talk) 07:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
    • If we have a real discussion I can make detailed a defense, if accusations detailed, and my reply needed. Kasaalan (talk) 08:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

It appears to me that Kasaalan reverted once to re-add bold formatting to his own comment, and has been quite loquacious (not to say irritating) in his comments at this RFA. But I don't see anything that requires administrator oversight. I don't see vandalism, major edit-warring, or comments in bad faith. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I haven't looked in on the details too closely, but if I had the time, I would closely examine this user's editing history, just as they have tried to do so with Enigma, but I've spotted issues with this user that are obvious to the eye, so Kasalaan should remove the log from their eye before they remove the splinter from Enigmas. Steve Crossin ^Talk/_{Help us mediate!} 19:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

"Fred Bauder" vandal

There's a vandal that has been attacking Fred Bauder, typically by replacing pages with defamatory text. This fellow appears to hit pages at random. Unfortunately, it's past midnight where I live, and I have to go to bed soon, so I can't really keep up with this person.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. --Ixfd64 (talk) 07:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

This vandal seems to have stopped, but some extra RC patrolling probably wouldn't hurt. --Ixfd64 (talk) 07:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Saw him/her earlier, you got there first, but I'm on it :) - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 07:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Still at it, using 75.23.228.92 - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 07:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Reporting straight to AIV now, they seem to be getting blocked there. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 07:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

So far about 10 blocked, can't you do some fancy range block thingy? Or are they not in the same range? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 07:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Fancy range blocks are not a thing I can do or even really understand, but the various IPs doing this seem to be all over the place so I don't think a range block would work. If it continues just keep reporting at AIV for now. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Yup, thought they seemed a bit to different. Ixfd64 is back on again now, and good work by the admins at AIV, so we should be able to manage - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

This is forum vandalism. One numbnuts posts a message telling others to copy, paste, and save, and a bunch of other numbnuts do it. A range block won't help, but this might be a job for the abuse filter, if anyone knows how to work that crazy contraption (I don't). --Bongwarrior (talk) 08:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Done. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 08:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If there is a discernible pattern, then a filter could be written if it continues. Fred seems to be a low-key kind of guy who probably isn't bothered by such childish behavior. Meanwhile, vandalizing a checkuser is probably not the wisest approach, but your typical "numbnut" is not known for wisdom. I was wondering if it's really a bunch of characters from different countries, or could it be just one guy using an open proxy? I don't know much about open proxies, but maybe someone who does, could answer? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Filter is already done, about 60 hits (not all the hits are this Fred Bauder stuff, but a few from the ones I looked at) - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Ice Cold Beer

Can an admin just call another editor a dunce in an edit summary here and here where they exlained and not be sanctioned all because an editor doesn't agree with the blatant POV they have shown. BigDunc^Talk 08:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Not very nice for an admin or any editor to behave but nothing that requires immediate admin actions. I suggest you take it to WP:WQA. Regards SoWhy 08:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Why is there a POV tag on the article? What is the specific issue? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

See here possible BLP issue. BigDunc^Talk 08:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I see. This is not a POV issue, it's a wording issue due to the fact that the sources are in conflict with each other. As regards the "BigDunc(e)" issue, yeh, that was tacky, and WQA is the right place to take it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes is the wording POV or not, I did not add the tag to begin with I reverted it's removal on spurious grounds IMO. BigDunc^Talk 08:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Some users will add a POV tag just because they don't agree with the consensus in the article. I assumed it had to do with someone claiming that not enough (or too much) weight was being given to the conspiracy theorists. If it's just about whether that one guy was "alleged" or "admitted", that's not a POV issue, it's a conflict among reliable sources. And if the guy admits it (whether he's telling the truth or not), then it's not a BLP issue either. What's he going to do, sue somebody? All they have to do is say, "Well, here's where you said you did it," and that would be the end of it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

As far as I understand user removed NPOV tag against 2 other users will. And replied kindly for a question for comment about notability of the article. If any more "wrongdoing" than that, can you possibly refer more clearly. Kasaalan (talk) 09:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

It is not about the removal of the tag it is the personal attack from an admin. BigDunc^Talk 09:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If so might not be so cool, but I am not a native English speaker so can you possibly explain what "you're missing an 'e'" means as a personal attack. Kasaalan (talk) 09:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Dunc + e = Dunce, which is a word for a stupid person. So BigDunc + e = Big Dunce - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

This is spelled out by Ice Cold Beer here. Unomi (talk) 09:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

(EC) I would say that the edit warring over removal of the npov tag warrants a bit of looking at as well. Removing an npov tag with what could be construed as a personal attack as the only ES is unbecoming of any editor, an admin who has previously brought this very sphere of articles to arbcom should be especially careful to live up to arbcoms admonitions regarding maintaining an editwar free and collegial atmosphere. In this case it seems (I haven't been following this closely) that there is a conflict between what various RS state. The correct solution, in my mind, would be to state that there is such a conflict or to choose the more careful wording available. The version that Ice Cold Beer is editwarring to keep is in conflict with text carried by BBC, Reuters, navytimes, fox news, washington post and others. This is silly in the extreme. Unomi (talk) 09:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) I took the liberty of informing User:Ice Cold Beer about this ANI topic. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 10:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't know what that means, thanks for the explanation. The word is not cool on the other hand their personal or page based conflict history should also be well investigated. Saying "someone not getting it" in an indirect way definately not nice, and possibly a priviledged user should care better in conflict like this, but not sure if it should result "depowering". Being nice is nice, but wikipedia is not a kindergarten either. Sometimes voicing conflicts openly is better. Kasaalan (talk) 10:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Excirial I had informed Ice Cold Beer in my last post on their page. BigDunc^Talk 10:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The posting of the tag was, itself, a form of POV-pushing. There is no POV issue with the article, nor any BLP issue. It's just a couple of editors trying to prove a point. And trying to get an editor blocked for making a childish play on your name is, itself, childish. "Mommy! He called me a dunce!" Gimme a break. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure how you are reaching your conclusion regardin POV, feel free to explain your reasoning. Furthermore consider what you stated as the first lesson from your previous rfa Spend less time on ANI and more time on other work. Telling an editor that it is 'ok' for an admin to call someone a dunce as the sole message in an ES in the middle of an edit war is just plain wrong. Ice Cold Beer seems to be an experienced editor who is deeply involved in the 9/11 articles both now and while it was under arbitration, indeed he seemed to be one of the parties bringing it to arbcom. Arbcom explicitly stated that these articles should be free from edit warring, respect NPOV and attempt to be as non adversarial as possible. You yourself state that there seems to be a conflict in RS', so surely edit warring to keep in a particular wording which does not respect the sources and is objected to by multiple editors signifies a departure from NPOV. Best, Unomi (talk) 13:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The POV tag was used inappropriately, and your comments about by RfA are of no importance, since I did not seek that job in the first place. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

To start off: should I have used that edit summary? Of course not. Was it childish? Sure. Do I feel bad for BigDunc? Not at all. BigDunc is one of a number of users who, when unable to gain consensus for their nonsense, edit war to add a NPOV tag. This is not the first time BigDunc has done this and I'm sure it won't be the last. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 17:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

What are the claims you are talking about and what is the nonsense? It appears at least 4 editors have reservation about the neutrallity of the article, so again you just appear and throw accusations around as some sort of justification for you actions. BigDunc^Talk 18:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Their is no "neutrality" issue. It's bogus. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Not speaking for editors but it appears TheFourFreedoms , Wayne, John, Unomi and myself have some kind of concern. BigDunc^Talk 19:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Block review requested

Re: CORNELIUSSEON (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I've just blocked the above editor indefinitely pending a review of their edits. It seems that they may have been engaged in long-term cut & paste copyright violations (since 2005 according to the first message on their talk-page). From reading the editor's posts on their talk-page, they defend their actions by claiming that all the materials they post are in the public domain.

The most recent example is here (source here). The source website, history.army.mil, states on its Security and Privacy page "Unless otherwise noted, information presented on CMH Online is considered public information and may be distributed or copied for non-commerical purposes. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested. If copyrighted or permission restricted materials are posted on CMH Online, the appropriate credit is given. Visitors wishing to repost or use such materials for their own projects should make separate arrangements for permission with the owner." ([53]). The potential problem is the and may be distributed or copied for non-commerical purposes caveat - I'm not familiar enough with the nuances of copyright law to determine whether this is compatible with the GFDL, though from reading around this area in the past I have the feeling that it isn't.

I'd greatly appreciate other input on this, as if the material is copyvio it'll need a significant amount of cleanup and the sooner I can let WP:MILHIST know the better :P I won't provide other diffs (though can if they're needed; googling the text from much of the editor's work throws up many other examples). I've left CORNELIUSSEON a message on their talk-page, and while I'm around will try to cross-post any responses they make. EyeSerene^talk 09:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Addendum: Though I don't believe my actions fall under the admin COI guidlines, in the interests of full disclosure I spotted the problematic edit above because I'm copyediting the article in question. EyeSerene^talk 11:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Anything for non-commercial use only would not be compatible with the GFDL. I'm not certain that its indiscriminate copying though - it seems that some of the prior complaints were resolved when it turned out the information was in the public domain. CORNELIUSSEON seems to be trying to stick to PD US government sources - its easy to get confused about what government/military works are actually PD and which fall under a more restrictive license. Still, its up to him to verify that sort of thing first. Shell ^babelfish 10:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Did he fully copy paste the paragraph or did he used any parasphrasing or editorial work but wikilinking. [54] [55]

Did you block him from US military related pages, mentioned page, or all of wikipedia.

I didn't investigate the user fully, but it appears he might be a long time member of US Army, so he could thought he has the right to post such content to a US military base article. For the license part the copyright warnings except rare cases only put against commercial "work". But taking credit to yourself as an editor without mentioning source is not cool. He should strictly be warned for posting the actual source. Yet blocking should be the last case resort.

This is somewhat US Military POV "advertising", and I really suspect if US Army will ever have any concern about copyright. But other issues like NPOV non sourced copy paste without providing reference might be an issue. Kasaalan (talk) 10:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughts. Addressing both the above posters:

• Some of the plagiarised text added by this editor may have been released under a completely unrestricted license, but some (like the example above) clearly isn't.
• The example is a word-for-word copy/paste with minor formatting tweaks.
• My block, which was enacted to prevent edits that could put WP in legal difficulties, is site-wide (there's no other type).
• I agree that there are additional ethical issues, and the content is often unsuitable, but this is strictly about the potential copyvio. I wouldn't have issued an indefblock without warning for anything less.

EyeSerene^talk 10:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

It should be noted that the editor seems to edit primarily articles on US military formations, and many of his edits seem to be copy-pastes without any citation - perhaps Moonriddengirl (hopefully that's the user's correct name) should be informed? Skinny87 (talk) 11:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, I've dropped Moonriddengirl a note. EyeSerene^talk 11:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to drop a note, I've came into contact with Corneliusseon before, as seen on his talkpage, as he's done this kind of thing before; he doesn't seem to communicate very well and he was kinda patronising the one time we debated the matter. But I think he's a good editor who just needs pointing in the right direction over copy-vios. I've offered to help him out on his talkpage if he wants that. Skinny87 (talk) 10:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

←Hi. The question is whether the sites that publish the text are the true origin or if they are originally from public domain sources. For example, [56] states that it is originally taken from The Army Almanac: A Book of Facts Concerning the Army of the United States, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950, pp. 510-592. Since official Army publications are PD via the US Government's choice to opt out of copyright protection for its works, that one is okay. The website that reproduced it can't impose additional restrictions unless they've added new copyrightable elements. Not everything at that website is PD, as it indicates that "If copyrighted or permission restricted materials are posted on CMH Online, the appropriate credit is given. Visitors wishing to repost or use such materials for their own projects should make separate arrangements for permission with the owner." In this case, a proper attribution template should be used. I'll look at some of the other contribs to see if they are likewise PD. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to note that I'm looking, but this is a slow-going process, particularly without edit summaries. If it proves that this contributor is copying from public domain sources without fully indicating that, he should be advised of proper attribution ala Wikipedia:Plagiarism. Current consensus is that even if a source is PD, indication needs to be made that it has been copied. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I have not yet found any indication that this is public domain, placed here, though I have been looking. (adding: It seems to have been previously published here, but there's no indication that's free for use. It is a private website.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

After investigation, I don't believe that that page is PD. I believe it's a copyvio, and should be reverted. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The book is Thunder from Heaven. It appears to have been originally published by Boots Press of Birmingham, Michigan, as here. I see absolutely no reason to suppose it public domain. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Nothing untowards about pasting PD content into an article so long as a footnote cites where it came from since a) PD text must be verifiable as such (free of CR worries) and b) all content must be attributed to a reliable source either way. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

True enough, and addressed in the note I was composing immediately below. :) But I'm still not able to verify that the text immediately above is PD, although it may be. Since this contributor doesn't say where things come from, it's hard to tell. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This may or may not be PD, duplicated from [57]. While they indicate their material is free for duplication, they don't explicitly release it into PD, and they don't mention modification, which is required for Wikipedia's license. Public record is not automatically synonymous with public domain. We would need to verify that it is in New Jersey to use this text. Note that whether it is copyright violation or not (which depends on NJ's interpretation of "public record"), it was again placed without credit, which Wikipedia defines as "plagiarism", a problem in itself. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) If the text is not straightforwardly PD and verifiable as such it can't be picked up word-for-word by en.Wikipedia under GFDL. Instead, the information it carries must be rewritten and the source attributed. Wikipedia:Plagiarism is only a guideline. Ethical worries aside, copy-pasting copyrighted text is a copyvio, which is already verbotten. Pasting it in without a citation is yet another worry, since content must be sourced anyway. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) This one is more complicated than that. (And this would be why this is a time-consuming process.) It seems to have come with other material in that edit from [58]. The question: is it reproducing the statutes, which would be free, or describing the statutes, which would not? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That looks like a rewritten summary to me and hence (from what you've said about the restrictions) non-GFDL compatible. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That's correct. Although laws are PD in the U.S., courts have ruled that summaries of laws may not be, even if they are written by state legislatures. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec x 3) This assistance is massively appreciated. It looks so far like there may be some concerns with copyright (though not to the extent I had feared), and that plagiarism is a significant issue. Like Skinny I believe the editor is contributing in good faith and has made many useful edits, but apparently has difficulty in following our guidance on attributing the work they've made use of. This could be genuine incomprehension or simple unwillingness; I'm reluctant to unblock just yet without some assurance from the editor that they understand the difficulties that adding plagiarised material to articles, failing to thoroughly check the copyright status of such material, and failing to communicate causes. Skinny's offer of mentorship may be the ideal solution, but I'm open to suggestions (and won't regard any undoing of my block as untoward if another admin thinks it's warranted). EyeSerene^talk 12:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd say there must be some straightforward acknowledgement from the editor that there are meaningful worries and that all content contribs (other than cleanups and rewrites of existing article text) will be attributed to a source. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I think you're probably right, EyeSerene, and I'm with Gwen. (Note: New Jersey has the most unuserfriendly statutes online of any state I've ever checked, but I believe these are probably descriptions and not taken from the statutes themselves.) I don't have time to help out with addressing him extensively myself at this point (I'm barely on top of what I've already got. :)), but I think we have issues here with WP:V and Wikipedia:Plagiarism as well as probably a misunderstanding of our licensing. Even if it is a "public record", we can't copy it unless it's public domain (or we're quoting, as with WP:NFC). I wonder if the military history project can help out with an overview of his contributions? We're currently a bit strained in that department at WP:COPYCLEAN. (Join! </ad>)) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

You've done more than enough already Moonriddengirl, and have my undying gratitude for taking time away from stuff you'd rather be doing to look at this ;) I think Gwen's suggestion is reasonable too, and I'll leave the editor a note to that effect. I'll also let milhist know. Thank you to all who've commented. EyeSerene^talk 13:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Very good. Let the user know that (1) to avoid plagiarism, any cut-and-paste contributions must specify the source, and (2) we may not cut-and-paste from any sources that we aren't certain are in the public domain. I'd recommend unblocking him, but with an unambiguous block warning, and we ought to watch his contributions to block if it happens again. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I've left a summary on their talk page per the above; if you want to look it over and make any adjustments, feel free. As Gwen suggested though, in the light of their recent non-communication when other editors have attempted to engage with them, I think it would be helpful to get some kind of positive response before we unblock. Besides the above issues, some of the recent edits have been unhelpful (the one I saw on the article I'm copyediting was a text dump near the top of the page; the editor obviously hadn't read the article as all the information they'd added was already covered - with cites - further down). EyeSerene^talk 13:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Update: Dialogue is underway between Corneliusseon and other editors on his talk-page. As the blocking admin I'm staying out of it for the present (and will likely be going off-line soon), though I'd like to reiterate that bearing in mind the consensus here and on his talk-page about our need for some assurances regarding future behaviour, I have no problem with another admin unblocking if they feel it's justified. All the best, EyeSerene^talk 17:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I support EyeSerene's proposal that we wait for an assurance from Cornelius about his future behavior before doing an unblock. If we don't, we should expect to see continued cut-and-paste additions from unattributed sources that others will have to clean up. He doesn't seem to understand WP:COPYRIGHT and he sees no problem with his edits. EdJohnston (talk) 18:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Socks

• Bambooowns24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Mapleowns23 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I have a few sockpuppets- Bambooowns24 and Mapleowns23 are the same guy- I'm sure. Please do something, it seems that they are creating accounts with similar names. Andrewrp^Tally-ho! 14:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Normally requests for help with sock puppets are filed at WP:SPI. Perhaps an experienced user here will step in and help you. I will take a quick look to see if these qualify as obvious socks. (Links at top added by me.) Jehochman ^Talk 14:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

They appear to be the same, and J.delanoy has blocked at least one of them. What about Cesarqed (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Bob250 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? Perhaps a checkuser could help us gather all the related accounts. Would somebody please move or copy this thread to SPI and format it properly? Jehochman ^Talk 14:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Done, moved to here Andrewrp^Tally-ho! 14:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Bamboo = Bambi? MuZemike 16:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

? No, I did not make a mistake typing the username, it is bamboo, as in the plant, NOT bambi, as in the deer in the disney movie. Andrewrp^Tally-ho! 16:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking of the Bambifan vandal, but from looking at the contribs there doesn't seem to be a connection. MuZemike 17:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Disruptive editing and violation of WP:NPA by User:Sampsonite5

• Sampsonite5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This account has engaged in disruptive editing, adding unsourced info to articles, vandalized my user talk page, and finally blatantly violated WP:NPA. Requesting another administrator to look into this matter and take action here.

---

Disruptive editing by the account, repeatedly adding unsourced information to articles about television episodes (example [59]). When this was pointed out to the user, he blanked the warnings from his talk page [60] [61], and changed course, disruptively adding and re-adding information about UK airdates of television programs to articles (example [62]). After this changed was removed from a WP:GA article, the user chose to vandalize my talk page: [63]. I posted to the user's talk page in a new subsection entitled Please stop adding UK airdates. The user's response was simply to violate WP:NPA, with this comment [64]. Note: the user had already received multiple level-3 and level-4 warnings, prior to my getting involved [65].

Thank you for your time, Cirt (talk) 16:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Blocked for 72 hours, which is lenient (indef probably would've been fine too). Any repeat of this behaviour will result in an indef block. PeterSymonds (talk) 16:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

COI issues at ODF being discussed in other media

COI problems at ODF are being discussed on Slashdot[66] and Groklaw [67]. See Talk:ODF#Groklawed and slashdotted!. Groklaw (which has a good reputation) argues that Microsoft is behind some edits intended to make ODF look inferior to their OOXML product. This needs more eyes on it. --John Nagle (talk) 16:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Pokista02

• Pokista02 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User:Pokista02 has been quite disruptive in the articles the user edits. For example, in Michelle Williams (singer), this user continuously uploads non-free images to BLPs where replaceable free image exists or can be created, adds images with no license tags, adds non-free images to biographies of living persons and adds unsourced content ([68], [69], [70]), despite being reverted—and that's just in one article. This user has a history of this disruptive editing, even after receiving multiple warnings and even a 72 hour block. User:Pokista02 has yet to change their behavior and is only making it hard to keep articles in good condition with their type of editing pattern, even if it is done in good faith. — Σxplicit 16:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Blocked for two weeks. Next block could be indef. Cirt (talk) 16:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Cirt, you're too fast for your own good. Thank you. — Σxplicit 16:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. Cirt (talk) 16:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

User:James von Brunn

At Talk:United States Holocaust Memorial Museum the following complaint appeared:[71]

Request that page of User:James_von_Brunn be locked ASAP Billbrock (talk) 18:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Although obviously not something for that talk page, the complaint does appear to have merit, so I've moved it here. Rami R 18:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

This user's page is on my watchlist (because I reverted his only article edit and issued a warning), so I am aware of the huge amount of edit activity there related to the Holocaust Museum shooting. I full-protected the user page for 24 hours due to the massive interest in editing the user page. There's no reason for anyone to edit the page. The talk page is not protected. --Orlady (talk) 19:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Why was the page blanked before locking? There was no activity on the page for a month (hmmm, curious, perhaps?), since the day it was created, ostensibly by the user himself... Then today Billbrock requested that his (Billbrock's) edit be removed and the page locked. After 3.4 zillion anon edits, Hipocrite shows up and blanks the page and Orlady blocks it. Why? Tomer^talk 19:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, the blanking has been undone. I withdraw my inquiry. Tomer^talk 19:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The blanking has been redone. The page was a violation of WP:USER or, failing that, good sense and propriety, which are covered under the auspices of WP:IAR. —Animum (talk) 19:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Because the insane neo-nazi guy behind the username just shot up a memorial and we're hosting his autobio. It should be reblanked, preferably deleted, post haste. Hipocrite (talk) 19:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Here is the story. Hiberniantears (talk) 19:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I have blanked the talk page, and Bjweeks has protected. The same has been done to the userpage. I recommend contacting comcom. Tiptoety ^talk 19:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if an abuse filter could be created that caught the phrase "international banker" and warned the editor that they were an "insane neo-nazi"...?! This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 19:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Both user and user talk have been blanked and fully protected. BJ^Talk 19:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I've e-mailed the Communications committee. They should be apprised of the situation. Valley2city^‽ 19:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I should say so! The Times, according to 2009 U.S. Holocaust Museum shooting, has already reported that he maintains a user page on Wikipedia, which (and wait until the howls of censorship start over this one) is even linked to in the article...of course his user page is now blanked and locked, in what appears to be a misbegotten effort by some here to conceal the fact and probably soon to sweep it under the rug. Given the philosophy that supposedly governs the Project, this activity is rather shameful. Tomer^talk 19:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Good call contacting COMCOM, the fact that this guy (apparently) had a Wikipedia user page has obviously already made it into the press. Presumably law enforcement folks will be contacting the Wikimedia Foundation at some point since they'll necessarily chase down every piece of information about their suspect. The situation is well beyond anything that can be taking care of at ANI and I'm guessing we've probably done about all we can now (I don't see anything wrong with deleting the user page - the information from it can easily be recovered, and there's no need whatsoever to continue hosting that hateful garbage, and many reasons to get rid of it), unless there is someone else who should be contacted other than the Communications committee. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd support undeletion, but keeping it blanked and protected. Martinp23 20:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

User: Katari Devi repeated vandalism

I've been attempting in good faith to repair the articles, and issue several notices in the edit regions of watched pages for this user that their info is incorrect, and have corrected on many occasions grossly incorrect info, as well as unneeded, extraneous, and just plain unfounded information. I've viewed their references provided, and those too are incorrect. The pages in question are opioid-related articles: Fentanyl and Sufentanil, which I am attempting to repair now, and have begun an earnest effort to begin rewriting from encyclopedic and well-versed references starting today as well. The pages in question definitely don't need any editing protections, as the vandalism and blanket-rewriting has been perpetrated repeatedly by a single user by the name of "Katari Devi", who has also ignored warnings, suggestions, and repeated advice on their improper references and blanket revisioning of genuine info. I'd recommend either somehow disabling the user's ability to edit the pages in question, or issuing prompt warnings to discontinue vandalism. Thanks so much for your consideration! -TAz69x (talk) 19:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Careful on this one: Taz insists that Sublimaze is not Fentanyl, but this and this says it is. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

TAz, I see no edits from you on any talk page trying to discuss this matter with User:Katari Devi. Perhaps, in the future, you should try to discuss things before bringing them here. Also, I have notified Katari Devi about this thread. -- Darth Mike ^(talk) 20:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)