Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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

I've had a problem with a couple of editors whilst doing a minor clean-up on the Jason Orange article. Recently, an over-zealous fan has included a discography table to the article which is not appropriate. Jason Orange is a member of the boyband Take That and does not have a solo discography. The only record that has been placed into the table on his page is the Helping Haiti charity record on which all of Take That appeared (along with dozens of other artists). When I removed the table, I added a comment in the edit summary making the reason clear ([1]), but my edit was reverted by User:Staffwaterboy using the IGLOO software along with a level 1 warning from him on my talk page. As a lot of non-admin users tend to use such software incorrectly, I deleted the discography table again, reiterating the reason why ([2]). Staffwaterboy then reverted my edit again (with no explanation in the summary). I deleted the table again, and I then left a message on Staffwaterboy's talk page politely asking him to refrain from reverting my edits and explained to him why the table should not be included in an article ([3]). I received no reply to my message, but he then proceeded to revert my edit yet again. Thinking this was surely vandalism, I deleted the table again, and left a stern warning in the edit summary about such conduct. I still receive no response to my message, but a few moments later, an admin (User:Hersfold) reverted my edit on behalf of Staffwaterboy, claiming that my edits were "vandalism". I didn't want to get into an edit war about the matter, so I then opened a dialogue with Hersfold on his talk page to explain the situation. This was initially met with an uncivil threat to block me ([[4]]). Later, Hersfold claimed that Staffwaterboy had come to him for advice about the matter. When I asked where such a discussion took place (there was no edit history), he said they had chatted via IRC. Whilst I am not about to start throwing accusations of sock/meat-puppetry around, I am not entirely convinced of this. Regardless, in the interests of transparency and professionalism, I believe that any such conversation should have taken place on Wikipedia itself where it can be held up to scrutiny and accountability. Administrators are placed in positions of responsibility and must deal with matters in a totally objective and professional manner - after they have made themselves aware of all of the facts. Hersfold completely failed to do this. Judging by his edit history, Staffwaterboy has gone somewhat trigger-happy with the IGLOO software and has been allowed to run riot on Wikipedia, and the worse thing is he has an administrator who is letting him do it. Accordingly, both Staffwaterboy and Hersfold have abused the trust placed in them. 88.104.23.155 (talk) 07:33, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I've notified Staffwaterboy & Hersfold on the IPs behalf. Exxolon (talk) 11:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

As per WP:VAND, "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism" - Hersfold reverted the IP here [5] with the edit summary "(Undid revision 382618905 by 88.104.30.28 (talk) knock it off. this is vandalism.)" - also both the IP and Staffwaterboy were at 3 reverts - threatening to block the IP without doing the same to Staffwaterboy smacks of prejudice against the IP editor. Poor show. Exxolon (talk) 11:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

This doesn't look good. The IP clearly explained why they were removing the section [6]. Staffwaterboy then reverted this as vandalism, with no explanation [7]. The IP then undid it, again with explanation [8], which was again reverted Staffwaterboy. They then edit warred, until Staffwaterboy ran off to IRC and got Hersfold to revert on their behalf [9], with Hersfold just saying that it 'appears' to be vandalism and that section blanking is a 'red flag' [10]. Hersfold and Staffwaterboy say that the IP hasn't discussed the issue despite the explanation in edit summary and trying to discuss it directly with Staffwaterboy [11] to which they didn't receive a response. As they were both edit warring Hersfold should have told them both to stop, and advised both of them that they are liable to be blocked if they continue. He certainly shouldn't have reverted to Staffwaterboy's preferred state and then only warned the IP. I also don't like running off to IRC to complain about someone without them knowing. Quantpole (talk) 11:49, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Further to the above, a quick look through Staffwaterboys contributions shows that they seem to be misusing rollback pretty regularly. These are all in their last few contributions: [12], [13], [14] - note that they did revert themselves after the last on e[15], but really, reverting to a reversion where the person was being called a rapist is particularly poor use of the tool. I don't know whether this is a regular occurrence or if they were just having a bad day, but either way it needs to be sorted out. Quantpole (talk) 11:58, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Agreed; the IP made a clear edit summary. He maybe should have used WP:BRD after the first revert but that revert was bitey and incorrect anyway. I think a reminder to Hersfold & Staffwaterboy and a request to strike the warnings on IP's talk page is appropriate. (Quantpole - that looks like a common ec mistake, happens a lot.) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 12:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I realise that that wasn't their intention but it still isn't good. I've never used igloo but in huggle that doesn't happen (or I can't remember it happening to me). If the tool doesn't work, don't use it as you are responsible for the edits you make with it. Quantpole (talk) 12:09, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Further - I don't see that any of these are clear vandalism: [16], [17], [18]. Looks like some re-education is needed over rollback use. Quantpole (talk) 12:14, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

(ec) The removal of the discography was correct as the addition, 3 edits prior to the first removal, was unsourced. All the sources provided were for some other artist, so it looks like it was simply copy-pasted from the other artist's article. The IP could have gone to Staffwaterboy's talk sooner, but it doesn't appear that Staffwaterboy tried to respond to any of the edit summaries or the message on his talk. As we have no idea what he communicated to Hersfold, I don't have any conclusions there. —DoRD (talk) 12:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

About the IRC issue. I was on #wikipedia-en (but asleep) when Staffwaterboy was asking for help on this issue. I don't post IRC conversations on-wiki but I can say this. The only thing I see from the backlog is Staffwaterboy being clearly told that the IP's edits were not vandalism. I see no evidence of any admin agreeing to intervene. (could have been done by PM but that wouldn't be on the public channel log) From the history of the article in question I would have to agree. Edit summaries were being used from jumpstreet so there's no way this was vandalism. This was just your plain garden variety edit war. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:32, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

When I saw the edit, it looked like simple section-blanking vandalism and/or edit warring. When I attempted to explain the situation to the IP editor, I was met with more hostility and bad faith. The IP didn't make any attempt to discuss the edit and explain to us why it wasn't vandalism, he simply went straight here. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 15:28, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Did you read the edit summaries? On the surrface that just seems incorrect.--Cube lurker (talk) 15:30, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I have tons of respect for you Hersfold but you really seemed to goof on this one. The IP continuously explained their edits in edit summaries, so I don't see how you could interpret that as "simple section-blanking". Your attempt to explain the situation was initially "what you're doing is vandalism, stop" without listening to the substance of what the IP was trying to explain. Also, I'm dumbfounded why you had told the IP, "If you show a willingness to civilly discuss this, rather than threatening to report people, you might get a constructive reply in return." Yet the IP tried to explain in three places; edit summaries, Staffwaterboy's talk page, and your talk page, and was responded to with threats. The ideal reaction from the IP would have been to take matters to the article talk page after the first time they were reverted, but while their edit warring was against policy it was still more constructive than the response it received. I have to totally side with the IP on this one. -- Atama頭 16:30, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I was more then willing to open a conversation with this person as i did respond to them on Hersfolds page asking were if they were able to show the source in which they believe for the information being removed . And as per [19] I ended up removing that paragraph since it was witting in a opinionated manner. If you would like to see the revert i did make please see my contribution page you will also see that some of them were rolled backed after a notice of mistake was made. I do feel that it was possible that the 3RR did apply in this situation and for that reason seeked help with this situation, Please feel free to contact me for anything further is needed Cheers -- Staffwaterboy ^{Critique Me} 16:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you copied from the wrong page, but the diff above has nothing to do with the article and edits in question. Also, you're asking the IP to provide a source for something that they claim doesn't exist rather than looking at the unsourced material they were removing. —DoRD (talk) 16:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

A) You can't prove a negative with a source. That's asinine. B) If you were more than willing to have a conversation with them, then why didn't you respond when they messaged you on your talk page? --Smashville^talk 16:53, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Smashville, I didn't respond right away because i was seeking help to see what should have been done. I feel i made the correct choice of doing this so there was any further editwar .And the link that i provided was in response to a above post Staffwaterboy ^{Critique Me}

The comment on Hersfold's talk page from you is confusing, you ask for sources but the IP is quite explicit in explaining this is a content removal because the information is unsourced and incorrect - which is a reasonable point for discussion. More importantly you understand why the original edit you reverted is not vandalism? Reverting is purely for bad faith vandalism - good faith additions, even if wrong, are not vandalism and should not be dealt with in that way. There was a very detailed edit summary which should have flagged this as not vandalism - maybe take it a bit slower in future and double check that you are reverting the right things :) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 17:39, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I admitted to the IP, as can be seen on my talk page, that I am more than willing to admit myself in error here should that be the case. When I was shown a diff, it was one of the later ones where the edit summary was something along the lines of "stop or I'll report you", so yes, it looked like vandalism. I rollbacked it. I'm a little curious why it's myself and SWB under fire here as well; the IP was clearly edit warring, and their conduct is deserving of review as well. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 17:46, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

As an admin and expierienced user you're expected to understand what vandalism is not as well as WP:BITE. The whole incident began with clear non vandalism being reverted as vandalism, followed by biting and poor showing by two who should have known better.--Cube lurker (talk) 18:11, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes the IP shouldn't have edit warred. However, SWB shouldn't have accused them of vandalism, shouldn't have used rollback, should have replied to the IP on their talkpage instead of going off to IRC, shouldn't have edit warred. You should have looked at the whole situation not just one edit, you certainly shouldn't have only threatened to block the IP when you didn't warn SWB at all, you kept on telling the IP that they needed to discuss the issue when they had already tried to in edit summaries and on both of your talk pages. To top it all both you and SWB are coming on here making excuses rather than just holding your hands up to say you messed up. You say that if you are in the wrong then you would apologise. You are in the wrong, so I suggest you do exactly that. Quantpole (talk) 20:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

The responses from you on your talk page are extremely bad, and it's apparent Staffwaterboy doesn't seem to know how to properly use rollback. Rollback privileges should be removed and if you're going to run around threatening to block IPs for trying to discuss something, your conduct as an admin should be heavily examined. you claimed above that your discussion with the IP resulted in more hostility and bad faith, and yet the only thing I can see from your talk page is increasing hostility and bad faith from you, not from the IP. I can see a brand new IP trying to rationally explain what they were doing and you increasing the threats and accusations without understanding the situation. Stillwater's comments make absolutely no sense given the situation. And given those comments, and the fact that he's linking to diffs from the entirely wrong page, it seems he has some serious trouble keeping track of what is going on with his edits. Maybe he needs to take a bit of a break and reevaluate what he's doing. if you can't keep your edits straight that's a sign of a problem.--Crossmr (talk) 23:30, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm willing to stand up for Hersfold's capabilities as an administrator. I don't at all question his overall conduct. I just think he screwed up this time, like any admin does (I do sometimes). My intention was to give him a nudge, saying be more careful next time. I'll also address Hersfold's statement before, that the IP's conduct is deserving of review as well. The IP did edit war, but didn't break 3RR, and seemed more willing to communicate and do so early (from the very beginning, actually, if you count the edit summaries). It's not often that I'll defend an IP against an established editor and a respected administrator but I'll definitely do so right now. -- Atama頭 07:29, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

1 mistake, I might brush off, the second mistake of coming here and trying to justify treating an IP like dirt by doing a poor job of handling the situation on top of that, no. Its a single incident, but it now involves multiple mistakes. The IP was all over themselves trying to communicate and getting shut out by a couple of users who were so busy the only thing they had time to do was revert and threaten the IP rather than properly handle the situation. The IPs conduct was quite clear. They were more than happy to provide full explanations for what they were doing, they started conversations on both users talk pages and you saw what they were met with.--Crossmr (talk) 08:22, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Igloo

Out of curiosity, I fired up igloo to see how it works. Basically it's "huggle lite" but one thing it does is "give its opinion" on whether or not an edit is vandalism and most of its "red flags" are for section blanking. A lot of the ones I noticed such as this one which igloo flagged as "possible vandalism" were most likely good faith edits. The use of such tools should always be in conjunction with the Gray Cray.

A few years ago when using huggle I noticed a very large section of text being removed from an article. IP user, no edit summary, must have been vandalism so I hit the big red button. Turns out what the IP was repeatedly trying to remove was a blatant BLP violation. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Users are responsible for the tools they use. And even if it is limited, it doesn't excuse the repeated bad faith revisions, nominations, escalating hostility on the part of an admin who didn't bother to properly look at a situation before threatening block, and then 2 users who are tripping over themselves trying to excuse away their behaviour rather than take responsibility for what they've done.--Crossmr (talk) 05:28, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I strongly agree with the comment of personal responsibility. However, even as a user of these tools, I think the situation of various antivandalism tools is escalating to the point where the tools themselves are ALSO to blame, just as much as the users are to blame. Triona (talk) 07:10, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Then the tools need to be dropped. And the tools don't excuse the behaviour after the fact. If users are not in control of the tools and what they're doing they can't be using them, which is why I made my request before. I've never seen an editor so out of touch with a disruptive situation before, and I've been kicking around here a few years. Even if we believe staffwaterboy made a mistake with his tool once, it doesn't excuse the repeated mistakes, nor does it excuse how Hersfold reacted, nor how both experienced users failed to engage in an IP desperate for communication. They should both be ashamed, and the fact that neither one can offer a satisfactory explanation for their behaviour and seemingly have walked away from the discussion leaves me little hope that this won't be repeated. As such I think they should both be blocked to prevent any further disruption.--Crossmr (talk) 10:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Wait, wait, so now we're going from simply removing the tools to an outright request for a ban? Perhaps it's me, but it seems you are getting angrier and angrier personally by every post. Why don't you take a step back and settle down a little bit? –MuZemike 00:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Request Removal of any automated tools from Staffwaterboy

given the responses on hersfold's talk page, and up above it is very apparent that he can't even keep track of this situation. His responses make it seem like he's talking about an entirely different situation, and even above the diff he linked to had absolutely nothing to do with what we were discussing. Since he's continued to edit, I guess it's safe to assume that he's going to offer no further explanation for his edits, or even what it was he was talking about. As such, I think it's apparent that this user is in over his head and should be back to editing the old fashion way sans any kind of automated tools until he can demonstrate that he can properly keep track of what he's editing and with whom.--Crossmr (talk) 12:52, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I've left a comment on Staffwaterboy's talk echoing this point. I've asked him to cool off his tool use for a while, with a note that if it happens again his tool use might be revoked. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 11:59, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

You mean like this series of edits [20] I don't even know exactly what was going on there?--Crossmr (talk) 12:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

That looks like a standard speedy-prod-AfD cycle, with the complication that for some reason SWB started the AfD manually before the prod. "Was told", I am assuming, means "was told on IRC". One could argue that it's further evidence that SWB isn't experienced enough to be using Twinkle for deletions, but it's fairly innocuous compared to rollbacking good edits. We'll see what happens. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 13:12, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

If i may add i was told to remove the Prod tag since a AFD was already open on the article, i would think it would have better to use Prod in this situation however i didn't and i choose to go with a AFD. Please keep in mind if you check that articles deleteion log it has been deleted before and was recreated.-- Staffwaterboy ^{Critique Me} 16:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that doesn't really answer the questions that still exist from above. This little confusion on the article is nothing compared to that. You still haven't explained your edits, and you still have a diff up above pointing to a completely different article and you haven't explained why that is even there.--Crossmr (talk) 23:00, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Disruptive edits & inserting problematic material into a BLP at Linda McMahon

User Screwball23 is persistently reintroducing large blocks of material that several other editors have agreed should be removed. He has done this at least 8 times in the past 4 days. The material is particularly problematic as this is a BLP, and the content attempts to tie the subject to acts such as the sexual abuse of minors and illegal steroid drug sales in an extremely tangential manner.

UPDATED: Adding latest reversions

Direct revisions in the last 24 hours alone, at Linda McMahon, and Linda McMahon, 2010 Senate Campaign:

• [21]
• [22] (five reversions in series)
• [23] (two reversions in series)
• [24] (two reversions in series)
• [25]

Other reversions in last few days, again at Linda McMahon:

• [26] (Reverted user Discospinster)
• [27] (Reverted user Collect)
• [28] (Reverted user Off2RioRob)
• [29]
• [30]

Several of these reversions were done immediately after Screwball23 was given a 3RR/edit warring warning by Admin Everard Proudfoot. The editor is also making abusive remarks on the article's talk page.

Latest example of reinserting unsourced contentious material into the BLP:

• [31]

Note: Screwball attached a source link to the content -- but nowhere in that source is the claim actually supported. This is a common theme.

Besides myself, editors Collect, Off2riorob, and Nikki311 have either attempted to remove this material or posted objections to talk. User has also been warned repeatedly at his talk page about 3RR and overriding consensus:

• [32]

Fell Gleaming^talk 16:55, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

On the talk page, I lay my position very clear. It is not tangential, and her involvement in the tipoff memo is well-documented, as is her interaction with Tom Cole during the Ring Boy Affair. It is unfair to say that there is consensus when the only arguments that have been leveled against the material is that it might not be good for her image. It want to remind you that Wikipedia is not censored, and Fell Gleaming's accusations that I am tying the subject, Linda McMahon, to abuse of minors or steroid sales is absurd. She was an executive in the company who took positions on handling these issues within her company. They are very notable, are well-referenced, and have been repeatedly been raised during the last year. Also, please keep in mind that the subject, Linda McMahon, is currently in a Senate campaign, and there are multiple editors who are eager to whitewash this article for political motives.--Screwball23 talk 17:07, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Screwball23 seems intent on acting when the consensus on the talk page is clear - it is not proper per WP:BLP and per JW [33]. The accusation of "whitewash" is untrue, and poisons discussions. [34] demonstrates that the sole reason for the scurrilous material is political " I know this article is being searched by people who are more familiar with her political run than her WWE career, and I believe it is short-sighted and a bit narrow-minded to assume people will know what the Monday Night Wars or the Ring boy affair are." is quite clear as to Screwball's motivation. The accusation that this is all bout deletionism is raised "Again, to engage in a productive discussion, avoid personal attacks, please cite the individual paragraph you wish to discuss, and above all else, remember that deletionists are always the last people to learn things on Wikipedia." by the same editor. Also "This is complete BS, the editor in question is blatantly whitewashing the article, and this is damaging to any future readers of the page. Remember that Linda's senate campaign article has links to the Tip-off memo, and if it can't be posted here, no one will be able to read about it." making even more clear that the motives are not to include material, but to specifically include political campaign charges. I submit that such is an intrinsic misue of the project. Collect (talk) 18:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I did have a look and thought the content tangential and undue as to her part in the issue, I also thought his insistence on inserting a picture of an off shore oil rig was excessive, just because the huffington post and some opinionated CBS blog and tpmdc whoever they are say she supports it is a bit undue, are we to have a picture of all the things she supports or just the off shore oil rig. User has also contributed most of this article Linda McMahon U.S. Senate campaign, 2010which also seems a bit of a negative portrayal. Repeatedly inserting content disputed by multiple users is never going to be a long term solution. Off2riorob (talk) 18:05, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Neither User:Screwball23 nor User:FellGleaming has been editing appropriately here, the former reinserting material going against consensus, and the latter claiming consensus by attributing his own beliefs to other editors, myself included. For example, with the "ring boy" material, I and other editors thought the material should be trimmed to focus on Linda's clear involvement, and I produced an edited version which saw no immediate objection when run on the Talk page, including a basic approval from Screwball23 (he wanted a fine-tune). The entire section was then deleted without consensus, then restored to its former extended state without consensus; the closest I came to approving either was undoing a restoration of the extended version at a time when I didn't have the time to go back and dig out the shortened version. McMahon's involvement in the ring boy situation speaks to what sort of actions she took as WWE President; the steroid situation speaks to the situation which surrounded her rise to president. That the WWE can be lurid in various ways is not irrelevant to her life and her position in it; the luridness of the organization has been a factor in her entire political career (as the sourced comments about those who considered her for her position on the education board attest.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:17, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Nat, this edit of yours here [35] reverts out Screwball's reinsertion of the content under dispute. I took that to mean you were one of the editors who supported its removal. My apologies if that wasn't correct. I'll let Off2riorob and Collect speak to their own positions. Fell Gleaming^talk 18:45, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

As an uninvolved administrator, I would like to remind everyone on this one that with regards to biographies of living people, our policy stance (as evidenced in WP:BLP) shifts to precautionary exclusion rather than our normal generally inclusionistic if sourced approach. That can be overturned by community consensus that BLP isn't an issue with a particular item, but if there's a doubt and a dispute, leave it out until and unless a consensus evolves that it should be in.

This is particularly important with high visibility people and people running for political office, as there's a strong tendency by opponents to want to tar and feather people on Wikipedia as a cheap campaign tactic.

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Screwball23 should not continue to insert text when the consensus is against it. He should either work to change consensus with the other editors on the talk page and, since that avenue has appeared to be exhausted, use content dispute resolution, e.g., post to the BLP notice board or set up a content RfC. However the correct place for to complain about edit-warring is the edit-warring noticeboard.

It is not clear to me that the content violates BLP and in any case there is no evidence that the complainant has taken the issue to the BLP noticeboard. The subject is a Republican Party candidate for the U. S. Senate, and all editors must be careful that their political viewpoints do not influence their decision about what to include or what weight it deserves. Whether or not the text added should be there or what weight it deserves depends on the degree of coverage it has received. The article should neither draw readers attention to something that the media has neglected or omit something that has received media coverage. TFD (talk) 20:38, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, I did in fact take this issue to the BLP noticeboard, which brought at least one uninvolved editor who Screwball is overriding with his edit reversions. Fell Gleaming^talk 23:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

TFD, thanks for the reminder: participants in this conflict need to keep your final sentence more firmly in mind. FellGleaming did indeed post to BLPN, and I'm one of the people that her post attracted. I've never edited the article, though, but I did add a comment to its talk page in response to her BLPN entry. I said, in summary, that I thought she was overreacting by trying to present a legitimate content dispute as a BLP violation. If I had been as familiar then with the specific issues ( e.g. the candidate's memo to tip off her company's steroid-dispensing consulting physician about an impending federal investigation ) as I have since become, I would have been more forceful in stating my belief that bringing the matter to BLPN was unwarranted, at least. For example, FellGleaming wrote at BLPN:

McMahon's only connection to the (physician) appears to be that he worked previously for a company she took control of after he had already been fired and convicted. Given no source even claims she was involved in any way, this appears to be a simple "smear by association"...

It's hard for me to understand how she comes to make these assertions despite her extensive familiarity with the facts and sources. See, for example, this report of the candidate's involvement, from one of the papers in Connecticut, the state McMahon wants to represent in the Senate. Screwball wanted the topic and the references to support it kept in the article, and FellGleaming wanted them out. To be fair, FellGleaming has also objected, rightly, to the inclusion of poorly-sourced material that doesn't belong in the article. But I'm far from being convinced that she's the consensus-driven NPOV editor she presents herself to be, or that her imlicit claim to the moral high ground in this conflict has any merit. Rather, it's my impression that FellGleaming has demonstrated a strongly partisan bias with respect to this article, and that she has persistently fought to exclude any content at all that might reflect unflatteringly on Linda McMahon.  – OhioStandard (talk) 04:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Wow, just reading the edits that Screwball made in the three links that introduced this section were enough for me. Screw is definitely pushing an agenda. While some of the eidts might be ok, if trimmed, there are whole sections that simply do not belong in there, and your edits are in every case attempting to paint a negatie, not neutral image. Screwball, you need to revisit BLP and POV. Your edits are POV to the extreme and in many cases cross over BLP---often in regards to other people (you basically declare that Hulk Hogan, British Bulldogs, Lex Luger, etc left the WWE to join the WCW because they were using steroids.) You also made a number of edits which were pov laden. Also if something a debut, then you don't need "first debut" not only is that redundant, but it doesn't make sense.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:40, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. I've never edited this article, although I posted once to its talk page. The "sigh" is because I'd hoped I wouldn't have to take the time and trouble to get involved in this, or to document it, but FellGleaming who brought this to ANI is herself over 3RR. Further, she and Collect, along with another editor I can't recall at the moment – and no time to look-up, again, just now – have repeatedly removed the candidate's well-sourced statement that she intends to spend $50 million of her own money on her campaign for the Senate. ( If that's not worthy of inclusion in a candidate's article then I don't what is. But the statement is back in the article at the moment, I see. ) Also, FellGleaming presented this matter in her opening paragraph here in a way that gives the very false impression that Screwball attempted some kind of BLP/smear violation. He didn't. I don't have time to add more or to document FellGleaming's 3RR+ violation right now: I've made this post mostly to ask admins to refrain from closing this thread prematurely, as sometimes occurs. But I'll be back with supporting diffs within 24 hours.  – OhioStandard (talk) 01:47, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Interesting claim about my edits - I did not seek to remove a claim as to amount of money in any revert or edit on this article - [36] was my first edit here - and was specifically on the lengthy "ring boy" BLP violation and the extensive material which might belong under WWE, but which is not in any way "biographical". [37] second edit was a revert of Screwball's total reinsertion if everything under the sun. I made no other edits on this article that I can find, I ask that the false claims above as to how many edits I have mde to Linda McMahon and the nature of those edits be corrected as soon as possible. Charges made here which are inaccurate, as these are, do not help anyone at all. Thanks. Collect (talk) 11:51, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Collect, if you'll scroll down ten or twenty lines in your second diff, depending on the size of the browser window you have open, you'll see that you deleted the following, a statement and its corresponding ref that FellGleaming and another editor had deleted three times in the preceding two days:

McMahon has stated a willingness to spend $50 million in the race.^[10]

10. ^ Altimari, Daniela (2009-08-15). "Wrestling CEO weighs Senate Run". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2009-08-21.

I'm sure you just missed your deletion of this, just as I missed the fact that the same statement occurs again in a section of the article that's not represented in the diffs, and that therefore requires a very long scroll downwards, and a careful reading of that version of the article, to discover. Were you aware of the statement's presence there, in the body of the quickly-changing article, across multiple versions, I wonder? If so, and you were focused on the occurence of the statement in the body of the article, unaware of the same statement on the "left" side near the top of all the deletion diffs, while I was conversely focused on the same statement occuring in the "left" side of the deletion diffs and had similarly overlooked its duplicatation in the body of the article, well that would explain a great deal. ( Fyi, that sentence took a long time to write intelligibly! )

If that's what happened, I can well-understand your vexation, and will certainly say that I regret that so complex a confusion should have put us on the wrong foot with one another. Your objection to my having lumped you in with FellGleaming in the reference I made above to deletions of the candidate's $50 million spending plan statement having been made "repeatedly" is also quite understandable. I was operating from fallible memory and had the mistaken impression that you'd echoed her reversions of what you call, with some justification, Screwball's "everything under the sun" material more than just the one time you did. I didn't intend to imply that you had greater involvement than you actually did have with just your one reversion that included the $50 million spending plan, and only one instance of its two occurences in the article, at that. Sorry if it seemed otherwise; I should have been more clear.

It's a little funny in retrospect, but by reviewing this in such great detail, I found that you would have had some justification for intentionally deleting the cited reference for the first instance of the claim, if not the actual claim itself. The ref for its first instance was rubbish, a broken link. Either when it was created, or via successive editing, it became confounded with one or more other refs. Its url pointed to the Chicago Tribune, when this Hartfort Courant article, which doesn't even mention the $50 million figure, may have been the intended target. Or it may have been the intended target at some point in the article's evolution, at least. At the moment I write this, however, the statement in the body of the article that McMahon plans to spend $50 million to win the Senate seat is completely unreferenced... No, that does not mean that you or any of McMahon's supporters can remove it. It means that as a good, NPOV editor whose primary interest is in improving the article rather than in promoting any political agenda with respect to Ms. McManon, you need to find a valid reference for it in a reliable source. :-)

Anway, if it makes you feel better knowing it, I'll disclose that you've certainly had your revenge for my part in the confusion around this: it has taken me literally hours to sort what probably happened here. I wish there were a way to step through article versions much more quickly, and a more efficient way to note the changes that occur across versions. Best,  – OhioStandard (talk) 04:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

The statement that I violated 3RR at any point is a flat-out lie, which the diffs will show. When Screwball began mass reverting the changes of myself, Collect, and Off2Riorob, I sought resolution at the BLP noticeboard, then here. Fell Gleamingtalk 15:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Ohio, you've made two false statements here I ask you to retract. The statement that I violated 3RR at any point is flatly incorrect, which the diffs will show. When Screwball began mass reverting the changes of myself, Collect, and Off2Riorob, I sought resolution. The second falsehood is regards the statement that McMahon intended to spend $50M on her campaign. In fact, I left it in the lede of her Senate campaign article, and in the body of her main article. I simply removed it from the lede of her main article. It has no place in a five-sentence lede. Ohio, please do the right thing and correct your statements. Fell Gleamingtalk 17:52, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

FallGleaming: I've restored the initial address you made to me, and presumably thought better of subsequently, since you deleted it and added the one immediatlely above a couple hours later, even though you knew from my quick wp:indent cleanup that I'd already seen it. It's not that I appreciated your initial comment so very much, but you're demanding a very public retraction from me here, urging me from that moral high-ground you appear to favor to "do the right thing", as if I had done the wrong thing previously. It just seems a little odd that you wouldn't enjoy having the same opportunity yourself and would prefer to make a retraction on the quiet.

I am glad to learn that I've been demoted from being a liar to just telling "falsehoods", in your view, though: it takes a lot of energy to be very wicked, you know. More to the point, wp:redact recommends against simply removing your comments from a shared talk page, and I'd say that applies doubly in any quasi-judicial forum like this one. You can also consult wp:redact for the correct method to indicate that you wish to retract a statement, btw. ( Hint: <del></del>. )

Responding thus far as carefully and as fully as the occasion has called for has consumed much more time than I budgeted for or expected, however. I don't have leisure to continue with this right now, FellGleaming. I'll give you the balance of my follow-up as soon as possible.  – OhioStandard (talk) 04:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I apologize, but I can't follow your drift with all this. I do know, however, that you accused me of (a) violating 3RR when I did not, and (b) removing material from the article when I simply removed it from the lede, leaving it in the body. You're complaining about me "calling you out publicly" on this, but I first asked you politely on your talk page. And you STILL have not corrected this falsehood. Further, you complained my objections about the steroid trial section were misplaced, when the version you reviewed was already the massively edited version that I and Collect had edited, not the problematic original copy. Fell Gleaming^talk 04:33, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

The fundamental problem here is that the article is too long. The natural choice would be to split of sections into separate article, as was already done here when Linda McMahon U.S. Senate campaign, 2010‎ was separated. Looking at the article history, it is clear that Screwball23 is not introducing new material, he is objecting to the removal of sourced material from the article, without a clear consensus to do so. Apparently some editors would like the article to focus more on her current political career and less on her former professional wrestling career (especially the steroid issues that come with the territory). This is understandable during a campaign season, but may be resentist and unencyclopedic in the long run. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 05:41, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Noteworthy may also be the fact, that Screwball23's Wikipedia interest starting from June 2006 seems to have focused on World Wrestling Entertainment, while at least two of the people mentioned as his "opponents" seem to be involved in every resent campaign related dispute. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 05:53, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Aside time? Note Screwball23 accounts for about half of ALL edits here. Compared to my two edits. And [38] wherein Jimbo affirms my position regarding political BLP edits. Do I follow BLPs? Yep. Including proposals for "pending changes" on them etc. I edited on Alex Sink, Huey Long and more. WP:BLP policy must be strictly enforced on WP, per WMF as well. There is no escuse at all for violating WP:BLP. None. Collect (talk) 11:59, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Petri, I ask you retract this false statement. What other "resent campaign related dispute" have I been involved in? This is, in fact, the only article of someone campaigning at ANY level I've edited in at least half a year, if not longer. Fell Gleaming^talk 15:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

xenophobic postings

Unresolved

 – user is misusing Twinkle in disputes with D of P. Keeping this open for now. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 11:39, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi. A little bit ago I blocked DinDraithou (talk · contribs) for disruptive editing.[39] He sent me email telling me that he knew I was Scottish, and that this was why I blocked him (never seen him before). He's since been targeting articles in my interest, making fringe, highly ideological edits to medieval Scotttish articles and making offensive comments on talk pages designed to offend Scottish people.[40][41] I'm not sure if he's trying to get some kind of "revenge" by trying to stir up bad feeling, or if he genuinely believes this kind of stuff, but since he has already told me not to come to his page, I thought I'd let some other admin deal with this. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:24, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

These are some pretty blatant racially-motivated personal attacks; I believe an indef block may be in order until the user understands and abides by WP:NPA. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 20:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Well I think I've been rather misrepresented by Deacon, and absolutely nothing has been racially motivated. From my point of view it is Deacon who has now been targeting articles in my interest, and without the proper background. The accusation is incredibly vague. Examples? Btw that addition to the talk page of Clann Somhairle was made before Deacon ever visited the article. By some coincidence (or not?) I posted the half-humorous musing last night, and he visited the article today. Misrepresentation at the very least.

In the case of Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, he was later over-ruled by a vote of respectable editors and eventually another administrator. See Talk:Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone#Requested move. DinDraithou (talk) 20:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Whether the comments were directed at this user or not, they were clearly directed at an individual, and comments like "He comes from nation with an extremely limited tradition of scholarship" and "I think it's tragic that most of the Clann Somhairle now have to suffer being Scottish" in the above diffs are totally unacceptable. How you can claim these aren't racially motivated, I'll never know. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 20:40, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

It certainly looks racist and soapboxy to me, and I'll be happy to block for any repetition of this type of behavior. --John (talk) 20:47, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Unbelievable. If you knew anything about this little region of the world you would know that Irish, Picts, Welsh, and Scots all share pretty much the same genetics and ultimately lineages. So it's like heaping scorn on your first cousins! Yes we get to do that, just like the Swedes and the Danes. DinDraithou (talk) 20:50, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, no one has the right to make racial attacks on other editors or individuals. I suggest reading up on WP:NPA. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 20:52, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

As I said, they are not racial. They can't be. You just don't get it. DinDraithou (talk) 20:55, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree that those are certainly violations of our rule against personal attacks. Since he has been blocked before, and since he is responding to correction by insisting that his edits are appropriate, I have no problem with a block. I would tend to support a one-week block rather than an indefinite one, to give him the opportunity to embrace a higher standard of civility in the future, but I haven't extensively reviewed his contribution history. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

People tend to get angry when they have been unfairly blocked. After that happened, Deacon arrived at my talk page trying to force me to back down over the title of another article, where there was no move warring, by using his status as an administrator. I thought this was against the rules? To me he is clearly trying to force his POV this way. And recall he was eventually over-ruled about the form of that other title. DinDraithou (talk) 21:09, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

None of those excuse what you have said. If those are issues worthy of investigation please bring them up seperately. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 21:13, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I can only say I'll stop. I'll stop. But I've been guilty of rather less than Deacon. Believe it or not I'm a pretty excellent editor for the most part, and he has lost my confidence. DinDraithou (talk) 21:17, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

DinDraithou was move-warring with Mcferran (talk · contribs), daring him to revert.[42] I protected the page , moved the page back to its stable name and blocked him. If he's claiming he believes I was part of that revert war, he's talking in bad faith since previous posts indicate that he understood this wasn't the case. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:23, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Ultimately you blocked me without giving any warning and restored the incorrect, unlearned form of the name. Then you tried to intimidate me concerning another title. Now here you're essentially making a few things up to have me banned so that you can have your way with those articles. I see an admission above and think you should step down. DinDraithou (talk) 21:40, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

These diffs [43][44] were not made up by Deacon, but by you. This diff and the edit summary here confirm Deacon's concerns. A person who obviously has a problem with Scots should at the very least be banned from editing articles relating to Scotland, broadly construed. To me, it is further questionable how this editor is capable to edit any article related to "Gaeldom" with respect to NPOV. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:44, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, sorry DinDraithou. But having looked through the events of what happened it does not at all match what you accused above. Which is concerning. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 21:48, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Talk pages, most of it on mine. Talk pages, all three or four of them, one of which I own and another the article for which I am the creator. User:Angusmclellan is someone I know, although if he is a little disappointed with me now for going after the Picts a little hard that is understandable. Back to Deacon, I'm not surprised to see administrators defending another administrator and ignoring his failings. He is kind of like a Wiki-Peer and must be given the benefit of the doubt, right? What about the editor who had never been blocked before he showed up on an Irish subject page?

Now he's using that block primarily as evidence of a behavior I am not guilty of, namely following him around and messing things up. In fact he's the one guilty of that. But go ahead and ignore these misrepresentations and focus on anything you can find which might be interpreted as evidence of intra-Insular Celtic racism. It is laughable.

Clarification: "using as evidence", meaning it's the first thing he mentioned. Nice trick. DinDraithou (talk) 22:25, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

This looks like a case of WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT; DinDraithou is still referring to concerns about personal attacks as "laughable" and attempting to divert attention to the actions of another editor, giving fuzzy evidence which doesn't stand up to closer analysis. I'm still of the opinion that a block may be necessary until the user understands why his comments were not appropriate. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 22:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I heard that. I'm not stupid and have no intention of getting blocked. I am addressing the charges, which are mostly false. Do you think I have no rights now that you are convinced I am guilty of "blatant racially-motivated personal attacks"? You made your decision immediately and obviously didn't look into things. DinDraithou (talk) 22:52, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Whether they are racial or not is beside the point - they are disruptive personal attacks and frtankly beyond the pale. I will not hesitate to block you if you continue in that rut. This and its equivalent on your talkpage is the only warning I will give you. ·Maunus·ƛ· 22:56, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

You don't need to leave anything on my talk page. I use it for research and also don't like to be embarrassed, so it will be removed again and again. But I see your resolve.

Now back to the actual charges? DinDraithou (talk) 23:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mean to embarass you - but in that way an admin can see in the page history that you have received this warning. You are in your right to remove warnings - that is simply a sign that you have read them. The charges have been sufficiently explained to you and enough editors have agreed that you behaviour was unacceptable that for you to keep arguing details instead of accepting the criticism seems unproductive. As for the notion that people can make ethnically or religiously based attacks claim that "this is not racism (because its not biological)" that is a lost cause - race is not biology and racism in clude non race-based kinds of discrimination. I don't know about Ireland but in Denmark people have tried to make this argument in court after disparaging muslims and being charged after the racism paragraphs - and they have lost.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:21, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Well I don't think I deserved this official warning, having said little that was actually disparaging. It was, if angry, only an academic argument. Sporrans? Cultural abyss? No, the ultimate problem here was a poorly behaving administrator still trying to justify a remarkably hasty block. Maybe he saw a report eventually coming attached to some other things. Sure what I've said was a little demeaning, and to some of my own ancestors, but I've read much worse in respectable published sources. If Wikipedia can't take it then it can't take it and as I've said I'll stop, whatever it actually was. Getting hot or being right? Again see Talk:Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone#Requested move. Embarrassing for Wikipedia. DinDraithou (talk) 00:08, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There is no additional context you can provide which makes it acceptable to leave blatantly racially-offensive comments; the matter you appear to be trying to drag up to divert attention is a completely separate matter, and so far there's no indication that your accusations have any basis either. Moreover, continuing to refer to the concerns of several editors over your personal attacks as "laughable" clearly indicates that you're not taking WP:NPA seriously. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 22:57, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Now you are being unfair. You were the first to allege genuine racism and are just sticking by that charge. Even Deacon I think understands a little better.

This is a pretty serious charge. Do you make it commonly? Who is part Scottish here? (I am: Maclachlan, Petrie, Oliphant, etc.) DinDraithou (talk) 23:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

This isn't a productive line of discussion, and I see that the thread's now been marked resolved. You have promised to discontinue the personal attacks, so we'll WP:AGF that you'll do so. Take heed that at least two sysops have made it clear that they're willing to exercise a block if you make any further attacks, and knock it off. I'd also suggest that you review WP:NPA to ensure that you properly understand what constitutes a personal attack. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 23:17, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Now that we're resolved how about you knock it off? I was hoping Angus or someone who might remember my old user page, or had looked through my talk archives or once talked with me, would chime in that I am in fact part Scottish on the mother's side. Through her I actually descend from one the older Scottish families in the United States (Claflin < Maclachlan), arrived 1651, and also from Scottish Canadians (Oliphant and Petrie). But I was worried it might look like a lie, and I got distracted. And I mistakenly thought I could make you see some other things first. Principle. DinDraithou (talk) 23:30, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to go on and on and realize this is over, but I would like to point out something I was not aware of throughout the discussion. While it was certainly his right to comment, it would appear that User:Giftiger_wunsch is not actually an administrator, and has only been around since April. Here I ended up defending mostly against him and just assumed he was one. But now I see that his behavior was too aggressive for one, and think his persistent charges of racism show he is unsuited for the position, although he claims to want it on his user page. And rather badly it would seem, or he wouldn't be here. If ever he is up for that I would love to be notified. I can't remember the word for what I have seen but I think most know what I'm talking about. In any case, I offer a limited apology to the real administrators, excluding one, for calling their behavior laughable. The debate was poisoned from the start. It happens. Also please note my last response to User:Maunus above if you have not read it. DinDraithou (talk) 03:13, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

DinDraithou, why don't you quit while your ahead....he claims to want it on his user page. And rather badly it would seem, or he wouldn't be here really isn't helpful, imho. --Threeafterthree (talk) 06:13, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

GiftigerWunsch may not be an admin but he conducted himself as well as one would be expected to here. I'm an admin and I followed this exchange and I felt you were in the wrong this whole time. Let me warn you, the "I can insult you because I'm one too" doesn't work on Wikipedia, it's no immunity against accusation of personal attacks. For one thing, we're all mostly anonymous here and it's nearly impossible to verify anyone's personal claims about themselves. For another, sometimes even hearing an insult about your race or nationality from someone who shares it can be offensive. So knock it off. Please. Thanks. -- Atama頭 07:39, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

GW doesn't belong here, and it looks like you don't either. What are you talking about? DinDraithou (talk) 08:01, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Ummm... what do you mean they "don't belong here", exactly? Doc9871 (talk) 08:04, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

They share an inappropriate behavior. I need no lecture at all from the second. This is long resolved. DinDraithou (talk) 08:13, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Can you clarify what the "inappropriate behaviour" we share is? The fact that we disagree that you should be exempted from WP:NPA? If you have an accusation to make, you're in the right venue, you could simply start a new thread. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 08:18, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you'll go far. End of this discussion for me. Unwatchlisted. (And don't show up on my talk page.) DinDraithou (talk) 08:29, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

An I'm not an admin either. But it is well accepted that non-admins are welcome to contribute an opinion here. We can do clerk like work and help with resolving issues that need no admin tools. In fact it is almost a pre-requisite for passing an RFA to have AN/I activity :) But now your using another avenue to undermine those who have told you that you made unacceptable comments. Honestly; just drop it. And Giftiger; I recommend not rising to it ;) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 08:26, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of Twinkle

This caught my eye today. As a blatant misus of Twinkle's rollback in a content dispute with the same user above, I've issued a single warning to DD regarding his Twinkle privileges. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 11:39, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Personal attack by DeeMusil

This editor has a long history of attacking me. The last tim he compare me to the pedosexuals and zoosexuals and alleged me of wanting the special rights. It's outrageous and startling. I expect the radical approach here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Sexual_orientation&diff=382759804&oldid=382624002 --Destinero (talk) 23:30, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Warned.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:35, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) While I don't agree with the sentiments, the diff you provided doesn't strike me as a personal attack. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 23:35, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

He does comment on individual editors and make generalising remarks about "you homosexuals" instead of just argue his point. That is why I warned him. ·Maunus·ƛ· 23:38, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

True, it certainly wasn't necessary to address other editors, but since he doesn't seem to actually be attacking homosexuals, I don't think this is a violation of WP:NPA. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 23:41, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I am uncertain, he does say that there is nothing different between Homosexual behaviour and behaviour that is illegal in most countries.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, neither pedophilia nor zoophilia are illegal in most countries; the terms refer to the psychological states, i.e. being sexually attracted to children or animals, not the practice of sexually abusing them. It's a valid point to compare psychology of different sexual attractions, even if it could have been better phrased. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 23:46, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

He seems to be talking about pedosexuals and zoosexuals which implies acting on the desire - actions which are illegal in most countries. Anyway I agree it is not a strong personal attack. Also the fact that he is personalising the comparison is an aggravating fact imo.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:56, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Giftiger, are you really trying to say that comparing people who self-identify as homosexual to pedophiles and zoophiles is not in violation of Wikipedia rules? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 23:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

It really depends on the context; the comment didn't seem to actually attack homosexuals, just stated an opinion that the psychology of homosexuality is similar to that of pedophilia and zoophilia; though I'm not happy with the way it was phrased as "you homosexuals", the following comment appeared to partly clarify the context to be referring to the psychology. As such, I don't think this is a personal attack, no. We don't have to agree with the sentiment to acknowledge that it is a valid opinion. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 00:09, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I can really not see how you can possibly not interpret "you homosexuals are the same as pedophiles and zoophiles" as anything other than a personal attack. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 01:31, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

That's not what quite was said, the user was criticising homosexuals for not extending their own rights to "zoosexuals and pedosexuals", in response to comments about pedophilia and zoophilia above, in the same thread. The user stated that pedophiles and zoophiles can make the same psychology argument as homosexuals. I fail to see where there was a personal attack here simply because the user expressed their opinion on the comparative psychology. Referring to other editors as "you homosexuals" is incivil perhaps, but that's the "personal" part; where's the attack? GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 07:48, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

"What I wonder is that you, homosexuals, want your special rights, but you don't want to share the same rights with others, "pedosexuals and zoosexuals". What is the difference? I do not see any. Why you do not support the real diversity in your agenda?" 1. The user clearly tagged me as a homosexual (who I am). 2. Immediately after he stated there is no difference between a homosexuality and a pedophilia and a zoophilia. 3. And that we homosexuals want special right. I have to say it is much outrageous mainly since in a imediately preceding paragraph on the Talk Page I've explain that pedophilia is connected to the age (= age orientation) of the person and zoophilia to the animals (spiece orientation), not to the people and that sexual orientation connected to the sex of the object (either the same or the opposite, perhaps none - asexuality). If somebody can't understand such a simple things and make those personall connections of me to pedophilia and zoophilia it is my opinion he is clearly not mentally and morally qualified to edit Wikipedia. --Destinero (talk) 11:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

WTH? Of course this is not only a personal attack and an outrageously offensive one. Goes in the same bin with 'You Jews" and "You coloreds" of people who will bring the project into disrepute, and who should just be indeffed at the beginning to save everyone extra work. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 02:38, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand the logic. Saying something like "you Jews" isn't a personal attack unless you add additional context or offensive claims about Jewish people. "You Jews have been around for thousands of years and were the subject of genocide under Hitler's rule in Nazi Germany", for example, isn't a personal attack. Similarly, discussing the psychology of homosexuality isn't a personal attack unless an offensive remark is also made. I don't think it's civil to address people as "you homosexuals", but it's hardly a personal attack in itself. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 12:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it's a pretty important distinction to note that the comment diffed above is in the context of a discussion about sexual orientation, and that the author of the comment made it (relatively) clear that they were discussing the rights and psychologies of homosexuals, and what he termed "pedosexuals" and "zoosexuals". But I don't see anything disparaging in the comments, the closest perhaps being "Someone can say that both is bad, I personally do see pedophiles just more behind the line of normality.", but I still think that's borderline. The user then follows it up with "Pedophiles claim, that term "sexual orientation" includes their type of sexuality as well.", which makes it fairly clear that they are discussing the psychology, in the context of sexual orientation. I understand the urge to see homosexuality being compared to pedophilia and shout "personal attack", but I honestly don't think there's grounds to do so, given the context. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:00, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

You are wrong. The user is simply parroting the attacks against homosexuals made by our enemies- that homosexuality is morally equivalent to pedophilia and bestiality. I am gay, and I can confirm that I have no problem identifying this person as someone who hates me and wishes to harm me based on this comment. I'm a little puzzled about why you don't see that, but I hope the fact that a number of others have disagreed with you will prompt you to consider the possibility that this user is being insulting in a way that you didn't pick up on. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 13:09, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Not at all, I can see why some people might find it offensive, but I don't think this is a blatant personal attack, and would personally give the user the benefit of the doubt as they do appear to be discussing the psychology. I don't see any mention of "morality" being discussed here, and I strongly agree that attempting to claim that homosexuality is "morally unjustified" is a blatant personal attack. It's entirely possible that the user carefully phrased these comments to make it potentially ambiguous as something other than an attack, they certainly seem to have some sort of prejudice against homosexuals, but I haven't looked into their other edits. On the basis of this comment alone, however, I don't feel that a block would be warranted. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:13, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Personally I think that the preferred outcome is that the user strike the disruptive comment and rephrase it so as not to refer to other editors, and if they are referring to the psychological aspects, they should be clearer on that. If it's not, then perhaps I am assuming good faith which isn't there. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:15, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)(x2) I'm not gay, but this reads like a homophobic rant to me, too. And it is personalized to boot: "you, homosexuals". Besides the comparison to pedophiles and zoophiles, there's the lesser direct accusation that homosexuals have a sense of entitlement, wanting exclusive "special" privileges. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:16, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I have been misinterpreting this; I read this as "pedophiles and zoophiles have the right to defend their sexuality too", not "homosexuals don't have the right any more than pedophiles or zoophiles". I felt that this was a statement that pedophilia or zoophilia mentality isn't a choice any more than homosexuality, rather than stating that all three are equally invalid. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:22, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

In any case, if the consensus is that I'm taking WP:AGF a bit too far and that the comment is unambiguously a personal attack, then fair enough. At the very least I agree that it's uncivil and very poorly worded. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:26, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• By the way, I just informed the user of this thread since they hadn't previously been informed. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• Some of us are probably a little bit involved here just because it's about homosexuality and I know I am as well, being a homosexual, but I also view this as a personal attack. If not against the OP, then against homosexuals in general. The "pedophiles and zoosexuals" argument is one that has been used by most detractors to homosexuality and it is extremely offensive to all of us. Using it in any context, really, can be construed as an attack on homosexuality. Silverseren^C 14:26, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
• Well the user has been warned, in no uncertain terms, by Maunus. Since I'm not convinced it was an outright personal attack I don't think a block is appropriate right now, but given Maunus' clear warning, and the fact that several users here are clearly offended by the user's comments (whether intentional or not, and despite assuming good faith, I'm certainly not 100% convinced that they're not), any repeat of this type of comment should result in a block. Any comments on that? If others are in agreement about that, I think an uninvolved admin should close this thread. (Though clearly at least a couple of users support a block already, so we should clarify consensus first). GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

"Clarify consensus"? Have I missed something? Or is consensus perfectly clear, with only Giftiger wunsch persisting with an idiosyncratic point of view? The remark was clearly intended to be an attack. The fact that a strict reading of the logical content of the remark can take it as a neutral statement does not alter the fact that the whole tone and intention of it indicated an attack. In addition, the remark has to be taken in context. Destinero started this section by saying "This editor has a long history of attacking me ". Personally I think that is something of an overstatement, but an astonishingly high proportion of DeeMusil's edits are contradicting, criticising, or attempting to discredit, Destinero. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

GiftigerWunsch, you missed something. The fact you are the only one in this discussion who don't want to block DeeMusil right now. Next time, he would know what is encyclopedia and cooperation about. --Destinero (talk) 13:05, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

JamesBWatson; yes, you've missed something. Most users who have discussed this matter seem to agree that any further comments will warrant a block (including myself), a couple have expressed that an immediate block is warranted. I'm not asking for consensus on whether this is a personal attack, clearly consensus says that it is. I'm asking for consensus on whether the warning will suffice for now, or if a block is deemed appropriate regardless. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 21:04, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd block for that comment, given that DeeMusil seems to have broken four months silence (he wasn't blocked, I checked) just to say it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:05, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

As I alrady have said in the first comment I expect the block of the DeeMusil right now as the majority of people who discuss it here. DeeMusil obviously broke up months of silence just to made the personal attack and nobody can dispute this fact. It was framed as a personall attack and it was a personal attack. --Destinero (talk) 10:32, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

We don't block punitively, he has been warned that such behaviour will not be tolerated. If he repeats the offense then a block is in order.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:14, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree, blocking for that comment would be ridiculous. If the user in question continues to make similar remarks, then blocking can be discussed. Buddy431 (talk) 18:14, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit war at Yugoslav Partisans

User:LAz17 has arrived at the article in question, "denounced" published references as "BAD SOURCES", removed whole sourced paragraphs, and proceeded to alter huge chunks of text sourced by inline citations from university publications in accordance with his personal views [45]. When reverted and asked to discuss, he simply started to edit-war [46] knowing he could only be reverted three times - then left. The article is now thoroughly vandalized and the user is simply unresponsive. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 01:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

1) I was not notified of this. Hence Direktor broke a rule.

2) My only goal was to improve the article. However, Direktor has a long history of jumping on anything that is not how he likes it to be. Therefore we have been trying to hammer this out on the talk board but it is not working. Therefore the next step is to go through dispute resolution. Direktor is hoping to get me banned via this report (and notice that he did not notify me, on purpose obviously), because he does not want to have another bitter pill to swallow, as he has with the Draza Mihajlovic dispute resolution - over there things clearly did not go his one sided way. He is one sided and there is no wiggle room because his mind is set - as is mine - therefore dispute resolution mediation is absolutely necessary.

3) I did not start to edit war. Direktor did, by removing things that I added. What I added was from a scholarly pier reviewed journal, Internatinoal Security, from Harvard University. But the article has one major flaw - it has stuff that Direktor does not like. Hence he could not resist reverting and then accusing me of being the culprit. But even worse, he accused me of putting unsourced made up material on there- that is what he thinks of information that he does not like, regardless of weather or not it comes from Harvard or is indeed wrong. (LAz17 (talk) 04:01, 4 September 2010 (UTC)).

"Peer-reviewed" and "whether" are the phrases you were looking for. This is the English WP, and we should be held to proper spelling and context (unless we're being sarcastic, of course)... Doc9871 (talk) 10:52, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

English is not everyone's first language, esp. in the balkan article space. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Doc9871 you should be ashamed of thoes remarks. Ceoil (talk) 18:29, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Or not. I doubt you have a self reflective bone in you body. Woe betides the encyclopedia people like you position themself in charge of. Ceoil (talk) 19:46, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm very sorry, but I won't apologize for "thoes" remarks. It's nothing personal, really (sorry). The discussion should continue after the annoying spelling corrections from me. Please, carry on... Doc9871 (talk) 07:11, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gender equality edit war

User 212.253.32.195 has been including statements in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that he does not believe in gender equality. Myself and two other editors believe this is being taken out of context. The sources I have see are in Turkish which I don't read. However, a Google translation shows that the editor is definitely pushing a POV which can be seen on the talk page discussion and in his article edits. There is more context to the issue and the editor is just placing what they want in a BLP article. I reverted the IP twice and they have re-reverted or re-added the information 3x, in violation of WP:3RR. I explained my reverts on the talk page and have been trying to work with the IP. I am requesting that this IP be blocked temporarily to prevent further edit warring to a BLP article.--NortyNort (Holla) 02:47, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Correction, not a violation of 3RR with 3 edits. --NortyNort (Holla) 03:00, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I demand a correction. There is no original research in the added context, and no POV either. The added passage is a verbatim translation of neutral and verifiable sources, and cites the PM's own words. (This is important, since NortyNort is deleting the words that the person is question has expressed himself.) I see no reason why the passage should be deleted, and I see the reverts as a violation of NPOV policy. NortyNort relies on Google translation, which is a self-admittedly imperfect tool, but I know advanced Turkish. Please correct this mistake. 212.253.32.195 (talk) 03:59, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I posted a request for further eyes at the WP:BLPN page. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 04:02, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you quoted him but preceded it with the statement "Recently, Erdoğan stated that he does not believe in gender equality" which I could not remotely see in the one press report. That portion is WP:OR and analysis and is taken out of context. There are many ways to twist and analyze his words and that is not an editor's job, we quote reliable sources not ourselves. That statement if in the article or significant enough to be in the article must be in context. Otherwise, with your references, you are implying something that is not true and defamatory to a living person.--NortyNort (Holla) 05:13, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Huh? I quoted whom, where? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 05:38, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I re-indented, my response was to the IP.--NortyNort (Holla) 06:21, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

The TITLE of the newspaper article says exactly that: Erdoğan does not believe in gender equality. These are his own words, there is no twist. The title reads: "Erdoğan says it is impossible for men and women to be equal." The subtitle reads: "Women are women, men are men. Is it possible for them to be equal? They complete/complement each other." Pretty clear, no? Using your logic we would have to discard every single newspaper article in Wikipedia. I also added two more references just to demonstrate that his words were not out of context and that women's rights activists condemned his statements. They were also deleted in what I consider pure vandalism. Again, these are not my words but verbatim translations from reliable and neutral mainstream newspapers. Sorry, none of this is considered POV and you seem to have no idea what you're talking about. 212.253.32.195 (talk) 07:32, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

You added one reference on the first statement. Here is what title I see translated "Women and men are equal is not possible." If you are going to back a statement up like that on a BLP article, it requires more than one reference. The statement has to satisfy WP:GNG and use reliable sources. I do not know how reliable Turkish press sources are but there is bias in media everywhere. In the United States for example, certain media outlets say bad things about Barack Obama a lot but not every negative statement is notable enough to be in his article. Also, a lot of statements are taken out of context and are very controversial. They also have to be cited, referenced and provide due weight. For example: "Erdogan said 'THIS' which was largely criticized by women's rights activist groups such as THIS." And if applicable: "Others believe he probably meant THIS." As far as the interpretation, I am not the only editor who saw problems with what you included and how it was included.--NortyNort (Holla) 09:16, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

The title is not citable or a reliable source, that piece should be removed, it does look like the comments have been reported with a little added weight for effect. Off2riorob (talk) 09:43, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

This all boils down to your inability to understand Turkish. I have provided a word-by-word translation in the Biographies/noticeboard page. The expression that "it is impossible for men and women" is not just in the title but also explained in the article. Anyway, I've added more references and updated the section. Please do not vandalise the passage (again) without providing a clear rationale. 212.253.32.195 (talk) 17:26, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Well, I found ONE English source and you left out part of what he said and did not include the fact that there was no serious condemnation or protest from female politicians or activists. With that, I don't see how the statement is significant enough to be in his BLP article. I am removing it, for the third time, and the fifth time including other editors.--NortyNort (Holla) 02:02, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Well I've carefully read your reference, and guess what? Your article condemns Erdogan's viewpoint, so if you're going to add that reference you're WELCOME to do so. I certainly agree with the author that there should have been more condemnation, but she is incorrect in saying that there was no condemnation at all. Please notice that she is just expressing her POV. As such, both the statements and the scientific reports still count. Please do not revert the edit and include THIS reference to the passage instead, otherwise you'd be still vandalising the page. Note: I did some changes, created a new subsection, included your reference and the phrase "he believes in equal opportunities." Also, after you deleted the beginning of the passage, the rest was nonsensical. Please edit more carefully and read what you write. 212.253.32.195 (talk) 03:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I am not vandalizing the page, just removing content that editors aside from myself have reverted before and have argued against in the article's talk page. If there was condemnation, then where are your sources citing that? Further, why is it significant and notable to be in his article? Yes, she is expressing her POV in a liberal source, so how does that make it viable to support your inclusion? At this point, I am not reverting your edit anymore, although I believe that it violates WP:GNG and WP:NPOV. I believe this is getting out of hand and will leave this issue to further consensus. --NortyNort (Holla) 04:24, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Note: the IP has reverted or re-added his disputed text 9x since September 3 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). Yet, I am the one in "3RR land" and getting warned on my talk page.--NortyNort (Holla) 05:51, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

You're being pedantic. First of all, define "liberal" and why it's relevant at all to this discussion. The word has a very different meaning in Turkish political discourse, and refers to right-wing parties like AKP, Erdogan's party. The Cumhuriyet newspaper in which this article appeared is centre-left and social-democratic, not "liberal." Also, not all of my edits were simple reverts. Unlike you, I'm not just interested in censoring information but I've developed and expanded it, and also did a few minor grammar edits. I also included the "equal opportunities" phrase because you accused me of cherry-picking. As for controversy, the references include precisely that: there was a scientific report published specifically to counter his claims, there were some protests in the hall when he made these statements, and he attracted criticism because of his words, both for "three children" policy and "equal opportunities" policy. YOUR reference is merely an intellectual's POV who laments that there wasn't "enough" criticism of Erdogan's way of thinking. 212.253.32.195 (talk) 07:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

user:NortyNort has gone into 3RR land. They really need to take this to dispute resolution. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 02:13, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Was placing my user page into the discussion necessary? Don't forget the IP has reinserted the information 5x as well and on my last removal, I only took out the portion on gender equality with policy-based reasoning. I don't think there is consensus for that addition as well.--NortyNort (Holla) 02:39, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I think he may have done a {{subst:User:NortyNort}} by accident --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 12:05, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

used {{ instead of [[, which achieves that effect. Easy mistake. Should be fixed nowElen of the Roads (talk) 21:22, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

User:Intimidation90

Resolved

 – Nothing left to do here. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 04:06, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe just an unstable kid admitting the use of drugs, maybe just pretending. But this: [47] might be taken for a suicide note. East of Borschov 04:27, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not totally sure what he's getting at in any of his posts, but they are certainly concerning. I've blocked the account, and left this link: http://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/ on his talk page. It's the one from {{Suicide response}}. I'm not sure if we need to go any further as, again, I'm not clear what he's getting at. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 05:13, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Continual Recreation of Article under different titles

At one time there was an article Fledgling Jason Steed concerning a self-published book (Now apparently with a publisher and just about published by now). This was delted via AFD on two ocassions. The original author of that User:Beehold was never very pleased with that and kept a copy on their user page. At MFD it was determined that this content be moved to a user subpage. Earlier this year the user went dormant, however numerous other users have popped up and recreated the article at the original location, Jason_Steed_(Book_Series) and now at Jason Steed (Young adult novels). I've tagged this latest incarnation as CSD G4, though it is currently an unattributed copyvio of the User:Beehold user space draft. (Either that or the many users creating this are socks of the original author). The article has also been posted in a similar way on many other user pages (all since delted as copyvio's.

This seems a clear abuse of wikipedia, rather than getting the suitable references and getting the article reviewed, the continued recreation at different titles in order to avoid scrutiny is surely disruptive? --82.7.40.7 (talk) 07:23, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I am User:Beehold that User:82.7.40.7 makes reference to. Except I can't remember my log-on password and have had to create a new account. (My password was stored on my computer and, when the hard drive crashed and had to be replaced, none of the remembered passwords could be recovered. (As you can see by the editing history, I haven't been able to edit under that name for several months).

As far as I can tell, User:82.7.40.7 is trying to make two complaints:

1. . That I have recreated the Jason Steed page, despite it being deleted in the past. True - but, now the book has been published, reviews and stories are slowly filtering through from recognised publications. See here for example: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cooperbook.jp. I am adding these as I find them, to ensure the article is as authoritive and informative as possible.
2. . User:82.7.40.7 claims that it is a "copy violation" to recreate this article. Hardly. Articles for Wikipedia are created under a free Creative Commons licence - CC-BY-SA 3.0 - which means they are available for anyone, and everyone to use. This arguement simply does not hold water.

Thirdly, and this is a complaint against User:82.7.40.7, it clearly states at the top of this page that "You must notify any user that you discuss." talk did not, and I only stumbled across this. Perhaps this is uncharitable of me to think this may have been deliberate, to keep me from presenting any defence to their claims.--Itshayfevertime (talk) 09:42, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the G4 nomination doesn't apply, as the deletion discussion was 14 months ago. That is not to say I think the article belongs, but such a discussion should happen at WP:AFD, not here. Having said that, User:Itshayfevertime removing the G4 tag from the article was also out of process.  Frank  |  talk  10:03, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

The IP is correct. At the time the article Jason Steed (Young adult novels) was posted it violated Wikipedia:Copyrights#Re-use of text. Wikipedia uses Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. The standard instructions at Help:Moving a page#Before moving a page apply. I've moved the version from Beehold over and restored the latest version. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 17:29, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for catching and fixing that, CambridgeBayWeather. The specific guideline is WP:Copying within Wikipedia. Flatscan (talk) 04:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jason Steed (Young adult novels), if anyone's interested one way or the other. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:17, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• Note: also recreated on Beehold/HayFever's userpage. Again. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

  That I know of was previously at User:Onthemap (creator of one of the previous reincarnations), User:BonfireCharlie, User:Many A Flower and User_talk:Many A Flower. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 16:41, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I have followed this subject closely. I am now certian that User SarekOfVulcan has a personal, shall we say 'interest' in this. Can anyone other than this one person tell me why every Joe Craig book is listed, many I have helped edit. Yet this one title has been rejected despite it being more popular in both the UK and the US. I can't find a single news story of a Joe Craig book in the US. If we look further, many books are given a page on wikipedia, some have even been set up by SarekOfVulcan yet they don't come anywhere close to meeting the guidlines Fledgling Jason Steed has. I enjoy editing on here and know much about YA novels. I am stunned that this single book with newspaper articles in the UK and US, reviews from authors, published by a major publishers and is constantly voted as the best YA book on almost every book website across the world is turned down? How can newspapers in different parts of the world write a story on this and yet it's called un-notible.(Oliver Spy Fan (talk) 18:28, 5 September 2010 (UTC))

Oliver, it's against Wikipedia rules to post in a discussion with multiple accounts in an attempt to sway consensus. If you aren't Beehold/ItsHayFeverTime, I'll eat my hat. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:43, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I was just on my way here to post the same thing - has anyone opened a SPI ? Because the quacking is distracting... --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:55, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

RussBot Problem

User:R'n'B's RussBot has been going through to hatlinks on any number of pages that link to a disambiguation page and adding "(disambiguation)" whether it is in the name of the page or not. This essentially creates a redirect to the already exsisting page. I noticed it when the bot made this edit to WTOP-FM earlier. I posted a question about it, thinking it is a goof and received this answer that in fact R'n'B has set the bot to deliberately go around and create nothing more than redirects. The explanation for all this is the edit summary: "Editing intentional link to disambiguation page in hatnote per WP:INTDABLINK (explanation)". I read the mumbo-jumbo explanation and the best I can bring out of it so things can be "readily identified" in "what links here" reports. This is just silly in my opinion and not necessary in the least. I would like this mess reverted by bot (probably the only way it can be done) and things reviewed so this doesn't happen again. Creating a redirect so "what links here" reports can be easy to read is just stupid and misuse of a bot. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 09:26, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• I have notified the user of this thread. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 09:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you for notifying me. This task has been discussed ad nauseum and approved at every review. Most recently, it was advertised on both WP:CENT and WP:RFC for a full 30 days, discussed at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Redirects in hatnotes, and closed by an uninvolved admin who found a clear consensus in favor of the bot's operation. What else do I have to do???? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:37, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

  Has this been approved by BAG? RussBot 5 seems to only approved the creation of the redirect pages, not purposely linking to them. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:40, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

  Yes, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/RussBot 4 is the one that covers this task. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

  Great, thanks :) - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict): Showing how this will improve things rather than just create needless redirects for "what links here" would be nice. I am sorry you had to go through so much to get this approved but I just don't feel it is helpful to the project to have countless redirects floating around out there, when most people go out of their way (at least I hope they do) to remove redirects so you get a direct link to the page in question and not go around Jake's barn. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 09:42, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

In general, there is no reason to go around bypassing redirects. WP:R2D addresses that specifically. I'm sorry if you've been laboring under a misconception. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Similarly, there's not much point purposely not bypassing the redirects. The reason given in the BRfA seems to be it shows if linking to a disambiguation was intentional or not, but having a bot do this seems to defeat the object, since the bot just presumes that every single one is intentional... - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

See, to me, I would rather go to WTOP, then the redirect WTOP (disambiguation). You are getting the same information, but the redirect (while slightly unnecessary) just takes up space. Plus who is really going to type all that out when they can just type in "WTOP"? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 10:10, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:R2D seems to be brought up a lot by people who create redirects to bypass perfectly good direct links. The essence of R2D is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", and that applies in both directions. I think JaGa was spot on when he/she said, "Well, it is a bit confusing; you click a hatnote for XXX (disambiguation) and get redirected to XXX, and think, "Why didn't they just link directly to the dab?" I know there's nothing wrong with the policy, that redirects do not need to be "fixed", but all the same, the answer is not immediately obvious and we will have to explain why we do it this way again and again to the many future perfectly-good-faith-but-confused-and-thus-a-little-annoyed editors."[48] --AussieLegend (talk) 10:18, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I was going to bring this up with him the other day as well but I didn't have the time. It seems ridiculous to be changing a direct link to an indirect link. And it is very much counter to WP:NOTBROKEN. This is definitely not an appropriate bot task. -DJSasso (talk) 18:03, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• Let me give you a thorough explanation, then, of why this is necessary. Links to disambiguation pages are generally wrong; they are intended to go to some page with a more specific title that can be found on the disambig page. For example, where an editor writes "[[Jeff Jorgenson]] was considered to be a great baseball player", he doesn't intend to create a link to the disambiguation page for "Jeff Jorgenson", but to the article "[[Jeff Jorgenson (baseball player)]]". There are approximately 925,000 of these ambiguous links today - down from 1.35 million a year ago, thanks to the efforts of disambiguators. In order to fix these links, we have programs that generate lists of all of the links to disambig pages. These programs can not tell if the author intended to point to a particular article, or to the disambig page, so if the sentence is "There are many people named [[Jeff Jorgenson]]", there's no way to know that this is actually intended to point to the disambig page unless a pair of human eyes fall on it and make that determination. However, we have many editors going over these lists all the time, and every time a disambig page is intentionally linked, every one of the editors going through that list will have to take the time to independently review that link and determine that it is intentional. In order to make it clear to the list-making programs (and editors running through the lists by hand) that these links are intentional, we pipe them so that they read "There are many people named [[Jeff Jorgenson (disambiguation)|Jeff Jorgenson]]". Look at the "What links here" list for the disambiguation page, James Smith. We can tell right away that all of the articles that are shown on that page to redirect to "James Smith" through James Smith (disambiguation) are intentional links to that page, and don't need to be checked. Multiply that time savings by the fifteen-thousand or so disambiguation pages (that we know of so far) that have, collectively, hundreds of thousands of intentional incoming links. If the link was set up as [[James Smith|James Smith (disambiguation)]], it would only appear to be fixed, but would still show up on the lists as needing to be fixed, and therefore waste thousands of hours of disambiguator time. bd2412 T 18:38, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• • [Kingpin13] - you said the bot is just indiscriminately assuming that all links to disambiguation pages are intentional; no, that is not what it is doing. It is only changing links in specific parameter positions in specific hatnote templates, which I selected based on the wording of the templates, because the context in which these templates are used (such as "For other uses see FOO") is such that any references to disambiguation pages can be presumed to be intentional. The particular templates and parameters to be changed were specified in the bot request for approval. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:34, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
  • [BD2412] - your description suggests that the links will be piped so that the word "(disambiguation)" is not displayed to the reader, but the consensus on WT:D was that the links should not be piped, because it may be helpful to the reader to give them this signal that the link will take them to a disambiguation page. I would have been happy to do it either way, with or without piping, but I followed the consensus. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:34, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you were doing that. I was just making the case for piping through the redirect, and not merely creating the appearance of it (which some have suggested as a 'solution' in the past). Cheers! bd2412 T 20:31, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
    • The fact they aren't piped is what probably is getting most people upset, as the unpiped versions look horrible at the top of the page. People know they are going to a disambiguation page because the sentence tells them they are. Adding the bracketed words is just repetitive. -DJSasso (talk) 20:53, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
  • [all] - I may not be able to respond to any further comments immediately, as I am trying to enjoy a relaxing weekend at the beach with my family and being on the computer all the time is not conducive to that. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:34, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• Just a couple of points from above:

• "Multiply that time savings by the fifteen-thousand or so disambiguation pages (that we know of so far) that have, collectively, hundreds of thousands of intentional incoming links." - Of course you're trading off some of that saving by creating umpteen thousand "[[Foo (disambiguation)]]" redirects that are not absolutely necessary. One could argue that the spirit of WP:R2D applies to disambiguation pages; There is nothing inherently wrong with linking to redirects, so what's inherently wrong with linking to a disambiguation page? Having to click through a disambiguation page is no big deal. If anything it's likely to educate the reader to the fact that there are more than one uses for the term. As with anything else on Wikipedia, if the link is unintentional, somebody will pick it up and fix it. I know I do.
• "it may be helpful to the reader to give them this signal that the link will take them to a disambiguation page." - As per Djsasso's comment, when you see something like "For other rivers named Avon, see River Avon", it's a pretty clear indication that it's a link to a disambiguation page, not that many readers probably understand what disambiguation actually is. And then there are instances like Main North railway line, New South Wales where use of "(disambiguation)" results in a messy looking hatnote, at browser widths below 1280px, which is still about 25% of the computers in the world. --AussieLegend (talk) 06:41, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• On the first point, linking to a disambiguation page is much different than linking to a redirect. Clicking on a redirect link takes you immediately to the selected article; in fact, you have to look carefully to even notice that you went through a redirect. Clicking on a disambiguation page link takes you to a page that, in effect, says, "What did you mean by FOO? Did you mean John Foo, or Foo City, or ..."? That's very noticeable and affects the reader's experience in a way that redirects don't. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:16, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• Does anyone find it a little dishearting that the user can't respond to comments due to a "relaxing weekend at the beach" yet can continue to operate his bot while on that same "relaxing weekend"? I recommend the bot be stopped pending the outcome of this thread or until R'n'B can get back from his weekend to respond to posts. If you can operate a bot (which has to be watched all the time) you can respond to this thread. -iting the it Neutralhomer • Talk • 06:45, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oh, I can watch the bot and respond to comments; just not as quickly as I usually would. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:16, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• We don't expect operators to watch their bots all the time, just to respond to inquiries with in a reasonable amount of time (well, the word we use in policy is "promptly"). I don't really see a problem with the bot running while R'n'B is spending a weekend at a beach (where he apparently does have internet access). Although running the bot while users are discussing concerns might not be such a good idea, I normally expect bots to be paused while they're being discussed. Anyway, I think I've just about got my head around the point of this bot :D, it makes it much easier for users to find and think unintentional links to the disambiguation pages, since there are less intentional links getting in the way on the whatlinkshere page, seems clever to me. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 13:24, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

You can mark this resolved and closed. I've stopped the bot and don't plan to restart it. Somewhat embarrassingly and belatedly, I've realised that the same goal can be accomplished by editing the hatnnote templates, and won't require a bot to make changes to 20,000 articles. Sorry for wasting your time. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:33, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, that did occur to me, I notice that someone mentioned at least one of the templates already does this in one of the discussions about this bot. Will it be possible to make the templates do this even if some of the links have (disambiguation) at the end already, or will the bot have to go through the articles taking these out? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 16:35, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Attempted outing

This posting by User:Darkstar1st where he provides information that he claims to be the name of another editor and a link to their alleged website would appear to be an attempted outing, which is a form of harrassment. While the editor may have a user name that resembles a person's name, it is a common name and their user page does not identify them. Furthermore, the posting is also harrassing in that it claims that the editor is editing from a personal POV and is doing this to benefit financially. Here is the text of the posting:

Conflict of interest. Is [name of personal website] using wikipedia to promote her pov for an upcoming book? Of all the wikipedians i have met, she is the 1st to use her real name. The edits she makes happen to mirror her own political pov, which is described in the synopsis of her upcoming book. does this conflict of interest compromise her ability to edit here from a npov. does her sales from the website with the exact same url as her user name benefit her financially.

TFD (talk) 16:17, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

according to wp:outing, "legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, whether any such information is accurate or not" i simply expoxed a for profit website, that is being used on wp to shape article for the website benefit. Darkstar1st (talk) 16:22, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Although I deleted Darkstar1st's posting, he has restored it with the notation "Undid revision 382889268 by The Four Deuces (talk)as per wp:outing, the url to a website is not included as personal information". TFD (talk) 16:23, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

carol has mentioned several times she knew murray rothbard personally, and is attempting to use this article to cash in on her book. all of her edits are focused on highlighting anarcho-capitalism in the libertarian article lede. i am trying to show this is a conflict of interest by a motivated editor who is compensated on th subject she edits. 16:26, 4 September 2010 (UTC) Darkstar1st (talk) 16:28, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Darkstar: pardon my being blunt, but you're being a jerk. stop it. --Ludwigs2 16:31, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

In the meantime I suggest Darkstar1st self-revert. TFD (talk) 16:33, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

please ludwig, be yourself, i take no offense. using wp to self promote is forbidden, since her edits and book have the same pov, and the article is directly related to the book, it seems clear to me this is a conflict. would you agree? Darkstar1st (talk) 16:40, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Darkstar: I don't have an opinion on the truth of the conflict, which will be handled admirably by others. I'm just telling you that (regardless of the cause or outcome), you're being a jerk. If you want to keep being pushy, keep being pushy - I don't really care. Just don't think that you're actually getting away with anything. All you're actually doing is making yourself look like a jerk, and sooner or later that's going to bite you on the ass. understood?

then please make your comments in the appropriate talk page, this section is for a ani where i may get banned. personal attacks like "jerk" are against wp:policy, Darkstar1st (talk) 23:10, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

"Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are a vexation to the spirit..." 'nough said. --Ludwigs2 17:43, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

In cases of perceived conflict of interest, one should follow the conflict of interest guideline. Notice that it says at "How to handle conflicts of interest", "Do not out an editor's real life identity in order to prove a conflict of interest".[49] TFD (talk) 16:47, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

when a user name, is also a url, an obvious conflict of interest exist. the url is "out", on the interwebs, in google, linked to several website about the lone article being edited toward a fringe term, "anarcho-capitalism, invented by a man she has said in WP, she knew, personally. and is now writing a book advertised on an url identical to her user name. Darkstar1st (talk) 16:57, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Technically it can't be outing if they out themselves. HalfShadow 16:58, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Just provide the diff where she says she knows the guy and we're done. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 16:59, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

i will go get them now, somewhere in the libertarian talk pages, she said she used to "hang out with murray in nyc in the 80's", should be about june Darkstar1st (talk) 17:06, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

this wasn't what i was searching, ill add the other soon. :Taken from Murray Rothbard talk page, and this is a direct quote:

'Looking at the Reason article again on the controversial Ron Paul newsletters which is widely ref'd lately, I remembered - OOPS! - I was quoted in it. Some short reference to this angry period of Rothbard's life probably should be mentioned so it doesn't look like a coverup. CarolMooreDC (talk) 02:48, 24 May 2010 (UTC) Darkstar1st (talk) 17:23, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

still not what i am look for, but a different book she sells on wp. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Carolmooredc&oldid=84876028%20first%20started Darkstar1st (talk) 17:42, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Most editors disclose some personal information about themselves at some time. User:Seb az86556 for example states on his user page that he lives in Arizona, knows various languages and is an administrator on the Navaho Wikipedia. That does not give me the write to try to figure out his identity and post information that I believe identifies him. Neither does it give me the write to circumvent the conflict of interest guideline and attack him on a talk page. TFD (talk) 17:43, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

BTW Darkstar1st, I notice that a floating IP who claims to be a WP:SOCK of the banned editor User:Karmaisking is posting instructions on your talk page,[50] which you are using in response to this thread. I mentioned before that you should get your page self-protected in order to stop this. That fact is that you were not aware of any of what the IP posted and should not allow your talk page to be used by banned editors. TFD (talk) 18:07, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

archived talk page:

'Living in NYC before associated with Libertarians I was very pro-Israel. But hanging out with Murray 1979-82, I became very critical. However, when someone took "anti-Zionist" off his page, I did a quick search and couldn't find a self-identification as one. But his writings could be interpreted as that. Being an anarchist he had more the anarchist position there should not be such a state. Carol Moore 22:10, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc WOW you got to hang with Murray. Excellent. Thanks for the answer I hope that I wasnt putting you on the spot. LoveMonkey (talk) 16:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC) Question authority! :-) Carol Moore 16:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC Darkstar1st (talk) 18:18, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

(ec)TFD, you are right -- I wasn't excusing, I was merely asking for a substantiation of the claim, which I think could at least lead to "mitigating circumstances" -- otherwise, according to policy, Darkstar1st would have to be blocked immediately and indefinitely. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 18:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Darkstar1st, were you aware of that discussion thread when you attempted to out User:Carolmooredc? TFD (talk) 18:27, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Comment from Carol Moore While Darkstar1st did not handle the WP:Conflict of Interest question properly, I would say this is a minor issue compared to User:Darkstar1st's ongoing disruption as reflected in more than a dozen warnings people have given him about his editing behavior in Libertarianism and other articles on his personal talk page. This includes my recent posting User_talk:Darkstar1st#Warning_on_Meat_Puppetry.2FCozying_up_to_known_sock_puppets. He still has not deleted advice on how to "fight dirty" from banned sock User:Karmaisking from his talk page and now is getting more "advice" from User:114.73.22.23 who probably is the same sock on how to attack me. Later Added:Now removed by another editor. Now that to me is a big policy violation.

Obviously I was naive when I first signed up for Wikipedia thinking that being honest about who you are and what your pov (which I proclaim on my user page) is would somehow insulate one from absurd charges. Let's face it, I could have written a whole book in 8 months of disruptive WP:SOAPBOX and WP:Personal Attacks I (and others) have had to put up with from those who want to purge all but one narrow meaning of libertarianism from the article. Editors who want to improve the article have to put up with constant disruption of the editing process by Darkstar1st, the named socks, AnonIPs (now banned), and one or two other editors whose behavior has been disruptive. Note that we have requested mediation - see Talk:Libertarianism#Request_we_go_to_formal_mediation but no explicit response to the Mediation Cabal application yet. However, the odds of such mediation being useful are limited unless the mediation has a very firm hand to deal with constant disruptions. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:34, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

but i didnt out her, she has been out, and is using wp to self-promote: I'm not a radio person but http://youtube.com/carolmoore is chockful of my DC protest videos and starting to do music videos of my songs. Plus have another more anonymous YT site with (I take the fifth amendment) video put together cleverly to illustrate nuke war issues. Far more popular than my own site. CarolMooreDC (talk) 12:04, 30 October 2009 (UTC) Darkstar1st (talk) 18:56, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Please provide diffs when you allegedly quote people on wikipedia, as you failed to do a few times above. Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:46, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

This is ridiculous harassment by User:Darkstar1st, in my opinion. BigK HeX (talk) 20:19, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Darkstar1st, you have just repeated what was just posted on your talk page by a probable sockpuppet of banned User:Karmaisking.[51] Were you aware of any of this information before your attempted outing of another editor? TFD (talk) 21:20, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Can we be clear that this is NOT attempted outing. User:Carolmooredc seems quite clear that she is the Carol Moore Darkstar1st says she is, so it can't be outing. Soapboxing, harrassing, there may be a case for either of those. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Elen of the Roads. It seems utterly absurd that Darkstar1st is being accused of outing Carolmooredc when her Wikipaedia username is, by her own admission, her real name.

Indeed, given that this thread reads like a who's-who of the left-wing faction of the Libertarianism talk page, it appears that this complaint is little more than yet another exercise in the on-going harassment of Darkstar1st which has been escalated by their obvious meat-puppetry.

Personally, I don't know how Darkstar1st remains so polite in the face of such constant abuse. He has certainly earned my respect in that regard. BlueRobe (talk) 06:36, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Review of unblock request and discussion of possible community ban

Darius Dhlomo (talk · contribs) is a prolific editor, with over 163,000 edits since 2005. However, he is currently blocked for multiple copyright violations, and is requesting an unblock. A few different admins have looked at his case, but I believe a community consensus is required, as I believe a permanent ban is possibly warranted. Darius has a long history of ignoring other editors; perusing his talk page history you'll see that many editors have tried to engage him in discussion about some questionable edits over the years, but Darius has never bothered to reply, save for the occasional section or page blanking. Only now, upon facing an indefinite block, does he appear to show the slightest bit of understanding or remorse over his actions, although the warnings have been given to him for several years. While much of his work is commendable, he does appear to want to work in a vacuum, ignoring not just policy but also conventions and consensus that he doesn't agree with. (Note that only about 1 out of every 900 edits he has ever made have been to talk pages!) I have never believed that "vested editors" should be given more leeway than anyone else.

I seek feedback from the wider community here about what to do with Darius Dhlomo. I do not believe he should be unblocked without a more thorough review of his editing history, and not just based on his current talkpage expression of remorse. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:38, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is any need for this. He is blocked, and I have just declined his latest unblock request and directed him to consider WP:OFFER instead. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, but there were comments such as "I'm verging on unblocking" so I wanted to make sure there was actually consensus to do so (or not) instead of the decision being made by a single admin. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:41, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: not familiar with this case, but the way he repeatedly put "damage" in scare quotes in unblock requests makes me disinclined to give him another chance, at least without successful compliance with drastic restrictions (eg 3-month ban on article edits - talk pages only). Rd232 ^talk 17:45, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
• JamesBWatson sums up pretty well at user talk. I wouldn't support an unblock, per Beeblebrox and Rd232 above. --John (talk) 17:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Why in the world is "Community ban" in this? The editor doesn't get it ... there's no need to jump to that level of drama. As an admin who declined unblock once ... and have actually tried to help them, and even at one point was prepared to support an unblock (but not anymore), as James has said, everything he types just makes it worse. WP:OFFER (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:11, 4 September 2010 (UTC)]

• Let me add: thanks to NW for removing autoreviewer from them. How dumb of us not to remove it when the first copyright issues arose years ago then never stopped. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 19:40, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• Comment At present I haven't got much to add to what I have written on the user's talk page. However, I will just say that I don't think the user should be unblocked, but that I don't see any reason for a community ban. Wikipedia:Standard offer has been presented, and I would leave it at that for now. JamesBWatson (talk) 18:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
• See no need for a community ban, he's already rightfully indefinitely blocked, properly referred to WP:OFFER and should be blocked from editing his talk page if he keeps asking to be unblocked. --WGFinley (talk) 15:12, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Scale of the problem

What's the scale of the copyright problem here? I've identified these so far: Sammy Korir (2006) Joetta Clark (2007) Canyon Ceman (2008, notice removed by this same editor and still a copyright violation right now), and Phil McMullen (athlete) (2010). I am unable to determine why the 'bot thought that Kamil Damašek was a copyright violation. Is this all that there is? Uncle G (talk) 20:29, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• We don't know yet. Within the past five weeks, a contributor has removed content from Julie Isphordin (2010), Jerome Drayton (2006), Ron Tabb (2010), Steve Spence (2007), Nina Kuscsik (2009), and Maurcie Damilano (2010). There's a long way to go before we know the scale here. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:21, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Randomly jumping around his contribs, I've just found four non-vios and one pretty egregious one, from 2006, content still in the article as of today: Jill Sterkel. We've got a CCI going here at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo, but we haven't completed listing yet. Contribs of this scale challenge our system. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Well just this evening I have started going through the CCI and because I haven't done this before I thought I would start on the ones that seem to be mainly a recitation of results. I have already flagged one definite copyvio and have just come across 3 more articles this, this and this which I am fairly sure are copyvios too. That's four more probables from a fairly small sample. Boissière (talk) 21:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
      • I had my doubts about those edits. I'm very aware of the IAAF's style and the odd full caps name of NOOL was a give away. Copied sources for those three articles are here here and here. Stuff like this is often beyond the realms of search engines, but its location is second nature for perennial time-wasters such as myself. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 00:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
        • Good going, both of you! (Can we have you full time? :D) So there can be no doubt of backwards copying, I've checked archives of each of those sources. He did indeed paste the content onto Wikipedia. He assures us at his talk page that he's done this is in "No more than fifteen" articles. This is 15 right here. It would be nice to think that will be all, but I am not optimistic. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:08, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • Make that 16. I've just found Ben Plucknett, which was swiped wholesale from the New York Times. Uncle G (talk) 01:48, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 17: Eileen Coparropa swiped wholesale from The Panama News. Uncle G (talk) 01:58, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 18: Ragnhild Hveger nicked from an ISHOF profile. Uncle G (talk) 02:11, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 19: Marina van der Merwe plagiarized from a Coaching Association of Canada press release, of all things. Uncle G (talk) 02:15, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 20: Edward Liddie lifted wholesale from the 2005 World Judo Championship press pack. Uncle G (talk) 02:22, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 21: Alison Forman half-inched from a 2000 ABC News profile for the 2000 olympics. Uncle G (talk) 02:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 22: Francisco Hervás nabbed from 2003 FIVB coach profile. Uncle G (talk) 02:34, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 23: Bert Goedkoop hooked from another 2003 FIVB coach profile. Uncle G (talk) 02:38, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 24: Jeff Stork ripped from a profile in The Washington Post. Uncle G (talk) 02:41, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 25: Pete McArdle janked from an 1985 obituary in the New York Times. Uncle G (talk) 02:48, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 26: Vera Nikolić clipped from a profile by Belgrade Marathon Ltd. Uncle G (talk) 03:04, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 27: Lynda Blutreich copped from a profile by the Carolina Tar Heels hall of fame. Uncle G (talk) 03:10, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 28: Lionel Cox popped from a WWW republication of a 1984 book by Graeme Atkinson. Uncle G (talk) 03:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 29: Mike Fibbens ganked from a July 2000 Associated Press article. Uncle G (talk) 03:51, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 30: Jason Grimes filched from a profile by Maryland Track & Field. Uncle G (talk) 12:00, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 31: Caren Kemner swiped from a profile in The Washington Post. Uncle G (talk) 12:09, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 32: Rita Crockett blagged from a profile by CBS Sports. Uncle G (talk) 12:58, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 33: Philippe Blain misappropriated from another 2003 FIVB coach profile. Uncle G (talk) 13:43, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 34: Mikiyasu Tanaka purloined from another 2003 FIVB coach profile. Uncle G (talk) 14:01, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
          • 35: Vassiliki Arvaniti pilfered from a Beach Volleyball Database biography. Uncle G (talk) 16:51, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

(de-indenting) Any talk to of either an unblock or a community ban is premature until the CCI finishes. At first blush, though, this sure looks pretty grim. Nandesuka (talk) 23:15, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• I've read much of Darius Dhlomo's editing in my time here. This may sound drastic, but I would say that any article creations with more than four sentences of prose are highly suspect. Any edits adding three or more sentences of prose are also suspect. Believe it or not, despite the edit count, I guarantee that you will not find many edits which fall within this description. Most of Darius' larger edits will be adding tables/templates etc but I believe a small minority of these will yield copyright violations. I expect that these violations with be confined to large edits to biographies and event results articles (like those linked above). Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 01:43, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • It doesn't sound drastic at all, unfortunately. I've just gone through about 40 biographies in the CCI list, and there's a definite pattern emerging. Uncle G (talk) 01:48, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• When one sees a CCI listing section heading that says "articles 9661 through 9664", it's fairly daunting. Any and all help is most welcome. Uncle G (talk) 01:48, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Person has created almost 10000 articles and almost all are cruft. Why not launch a bot to delete them all. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 08:38, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
    • They may seem like cruft to people not interested in the topic, but I can tell you that there are plenty of people who think its worth writing about former European champions and world record holders such as Vera Nikolić. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 09:58, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
      • If they were so important other people would have written about them. How about deleting all the ones that have less than 500 characters of content added by other editors. That would still get most of them, making the remaining problem a lot smaller. Any that are worth having will get recreated by someone else sooner or later. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 17:27, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
    • To be honest I tend to agree with the bot idea, or at least deleting on sight anything more than a few sentences. Frankly I think the community shouldn't use resources trying to save or even think twice about these articles when the problem is of such a scale... --Mkativerata (talk) 10:24, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Ban

Per the above, which appears to show that this person is a serial copyright violator, I propose a community ban. 160,000+ edits or not, we do not need these headaches. So what now, we will have to dig through all of his contributions looking for things he stole wholesale from others? Kindzmarauli (talk) 03:34, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• Could we get him involved in cleaning up his own copyvios? 67.122.211.178 (talk) 07:23, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Given that they continually denied that there was any problem at all in the face of diffs, could we actually trust him to clean up his own copyvios? Normally I'm all for any help we can get with copyvios, but I'm not seeing any indication that they actually would (could?) help. VernoWhitney (talk) 12:29, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • 67.122.211.178, I suggest that you try doing so. Go to User talk:Darius Dhlomo and participate in the discussion of that very thing, there. Uncle G (talk) 12:54, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
    • He may be able to help identify sources, but my initial idea to have him review these to see which had more than a few sentences was obviously naive. I realized he was obscuring the problem, but I did not realize that he would obscure it so far as to assure us that this happened in no more than 15 articles, when this is so obviously not the case. We can't trust him to help identify issues. :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
      • Well he doesn't (looking at his talk page) seem to be able to help with sources all that much either. I was really disappointed with his reply to my questions - instead he seems to be suggesting that it is the fault of the community for not giving him harsh enough warnings and he felt that, despite the ones he got, he was doing a "fine job". It's not as if the notices are unclear about policy :( --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 14:03, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Mass deletion: Give up and start over

Darius Dhlomo CCI case:

• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/Created articles list
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/How to help
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/Notice
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/Task explanation
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 1
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 10
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 11
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 12
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 13
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 14
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 15
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 16
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 17
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 18
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 19
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 2
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 20
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 21
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 22
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 23
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 24
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 3
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 4
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 5
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 6
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 7
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 8
• Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo 9

This has been raised above, inline, but I wanted to call it out for discussion here. As near as we can tell, everything this person has written that is longer than a few sentences is a copyvio. This means that the well of articles he has created -- barring the ones that are simple lists of data -- are, quite simply, poisoned foundations upon which we're letting others build.

I propose that we delete every article this user has created, with an exception carved out for data-only articles like lists of winners. This will no doubt be upsetting to those who have worked on those articles since, but I don't see any other way to fairly respect the rights of the original content creators and abide by our own policies. It's very likely that there are others willing to step in and create replacement articles afresh, and I'd rather encourage that than continue to build atop a weak foundation. The task being asked of the CCI - verify the copyright status of over six thousand freaking articles - is, quite simply, beyond what anyone should be asked to do. It is a Sisyphean task. So, if you'll permit me another Hellenic analogy, let's cut the Gordian knot and start with a clean slate.

Comments? Nandesuka (talk) 14:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• It's not a Sysiphean task. It's a Herculean task. It's the Augean Stables, to be precise. Uncle G (talk) 14:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• I am loathe to do this under ordinary circumstances, but these circumstances are not ordinary. In addition to the tens of thousands of articles at this CCI, we have dozens of other CCIs, some over a year old, with additional tens of thousands of articles that need review...and where copying is not this blatant. In this circumstance, I'd support mass deletion or at least reduction of articles to a one sentence stub. (Please note: that's what we did with the last comparable CCI ([[52]]), and it still took us a year.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • (I should note that the tens of thousands of articles to which I refer are not only the ones he's created, but the ones to which he's substantially contributed: hiding reverts and minor edits, that's 23,197 to be precise. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:29, 5 September 2010 (UTC))
    • 23,197 edits or 23,197 individual articles? Uncle G (talk) 14:37, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
      • Individual articles. Mind-boggling, I know, but to quote exactly: "23197 articles from timestamp 2005-11-09 06:15:32 UTC to timestamp 2010-08-30 22:03:25 UTC." I don't know how many edits that represents, but the first on his full contrib list shows 19 non-minor edits to a single article alone. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
        • When I started going over the biographies some hours ago I started to get a grasp of the scale of the problem here, and I came to much the same conclusion based upon the evidence before me that you, Mkativerata, and Sillyfolkboy all apparently already have: Any flowing prose in an article created by this person was written by someone else. It was either written by a subsequent Wikipedia editor or plagiarized from somebody else's writing by Darius Dhlomo. I thought that the problem wasn't going to get larger.

          However, that article count manages to do exactly that. My perspective on that is that it is of a similar scale as reviewing my contributions (under just this account, not my 'bots or before I had an account). I have, as Uncle G (talk · contribs), touched fewer pages, across all namespaces taken together, than that. Uncle G (talk) 15:23, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• I'd prefer a different approach, of finding some way in which we can rapidly trim the current CCI listing. Then we can review what is left to see whether we still have an unmanageable problem. Is there some set of criteria that we can mechanistically apply to rapidly eliminate the hundreds of 1-paragraph pretty much data-only stubs that this person has made? There are quite a few of them, and eliminating them I suspect would reduce the size of the problem significantly. Moonriddengirl, what is your view on the possible copyright infringement status of articles such as … spins wheel … Jennifer Whittle for example? Uncle G (talk) 14:37, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Minimal creativity, minimal content. I would regard that as a safe stub. If those couple of sentences were highly idiosyncratic, I'd probably look for a source. :) (Compelled to come back and clarify: I'm not saying that could not be a copyvio; it could, if it copies from another sources and especially if it is one of dozens of articles he's copied from that same source, which would clearly not be a de minimis situation. This is a risk assessment question.) In terms of other alternatives, there is an image-based CCI on which I'm working that is not this scale where most of the images are free of copyright problems. I am mass sorting these to separate out the ones that need review. If we had somebody of great patience who could separate these articles according to "likely to be a problem" and "not at all likely to be a problem", that would help. I had planned to ask the contributor to do that himself, but, as I said above, I'm no longer sure we could trust him with that task. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
    • I agree that this is about risk evaluation, rather than certainty. Uncle G (talk) 15:23, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• Concur this should be reserved for special circumstances and this clearly qualifies. Looking at the scale of the problem I don't see how a volunteer effort could clean all of that up. Extreme measures for extreme actions so I support letting the bots loose to undo what he has wrought. If some stubs are lost in the process they can always be recreated if they are notable by others. --WGFinley (talk) 15:07, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• This is an enormous number of articles; do we really think that these are entirely (or almost entirely) copyright violations? I don't know how representative a single selection could be out of thousands of articles, but Swimming at the 1997 Summer Universiade, for example, doesn't seem to be a copyvio (I couldn't find anything for it on google except sites which copied the wikipedia article). GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 15:11, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm actually wondering how he hasn't had hundreds of warnings from the Coren searchbot by now... GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 15:15, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
    • No, I don't think they're entirely or almost entirely copyright violations. I think many of them are harmless charts and tables. I think, though, that the number of articles that are copyright violations will probably number in the hundreds. High hundreds or low hundreds? I don't know. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:33, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
    • This very probably is a weakness in the 'bot and in the Google Web approach. Take Mikiyasu Tanaka, for example. Picking some phrases at random from the article (e.g. "Tanaka was sent abroad by the Japan Olympic Committee to study volleyball") and giving them to Google Web doesn't turn up the FIVB profile that it was copied from. But it is a copy, nonetheless. The sentences are in a different order. But they are the same sentences, the only changes being things like exchange of proper nouns for pronouns and the like. (In the original, it is "he was sent abroad by the Japan Olympic Committee to study volleyball".) Uncle G (talk) 15:36, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• Giftiger , try this [53] for Swimming at the 1997 Summer Universiade. 81.145.247.158 (talk) 15:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • The fact that I couldn't find that quickly and that it's a single article out of thousands, does not bode well for our chances of being able to manually fix all these copyright problems... GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 15:43, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Ahem, it's listed as one of the references in the article. 81.145.247.158 (talk) 15:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
      • It would be nice if we could rely on that, but we can't always. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:47, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
      • There was no clue in the article where Edward Liddie was lifted from, for example. Uncle G (talk) 15:53, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• Rather than a straightforward mass deletion, may I suggest an element of triage? Some of the articles that this editor created will have been edited by others, and some will be more or less notable than others. If we identify and delete those that are tagged as orphans, unreferenced or tagged for notability would that leave us something more manageable? ϢereSpielChequers 16:04, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Almost certainly not. I've reviewed a few hundred of the biographies now. Yes, it's less than 5% of the problem, but I was selecting at random, from the list before it was sorted, so I have little suspicion that my sample is biased. Notability is almost never an issue on which these subjects have been challenged or tagged. These are not exactly minor sporting figures and events. Likewise, orphan status would be problematic. Many of these articles are on navigation templates for sports teams, regular sporting competitions, and the like, and are unlikely to be orphans. (Quite a few cross-reference one another, too.) Nor, indeed, is lack of any citations a recurrent issue. Darius Dhlomo has linked almost all of xyr creations to on-line sports databases and the like. As criteria for filtering out the problematic articles, from what I've seen I suspect these won't be useful at all.

    I suggested that we find some filtering criteria, above. I haven't yet come up with any, and Moonriddengirl quite rightly notes, above, that it might not be safe from a copyright perspective to even do that. Even the 1-paragraph stubs might be a mass copying exercise, from some source that we are unaware of. All of us who have reviewed the article set so far seem to have come to the same conclusion, that Darius Dhlomo simply doesn't write original prose, at all, anywhere, even if it's only a couple of sentences to make up a small paragraph. Pick a couple of hundred for yourself, check them for copyright violations, and see what conclusions you draw.

    If you find from doing so some triage criteria that actually work in practice, that would be good news, of course. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 16:29, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• I'm going to support whatever Moonridden girl thinks is best. I'm convinced we are going to have to take drastic measures here. If she thinks triage would work, fine, but on the other hand, I don't want to give already over-burdened editors doing herculean work in the copyright field even more to do. Dougweller (talk) 16:13, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• I don't know what bots can do. There are some good suggestions in this thread for narrowing down the list by presumptively deleting those that are least likely to impact others in the project, but I'm afraid that short of mass deletion the only way to process most of this is going to involve a human being (or two or ten) looking at each article. I would definitely support at this point simply wiping out creative text supplied by this contributor. But it's still going to take a ton of man hours just to review them all. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:19, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• I think some simple criteria can be defined and then a script can check all the articles against the criteria without humans having to look at them. Defining the criteria would take a little bit of work. Example criterion: find all articles that don't contain text added by humans other than Darius Dhlomo. The "text added by humans" part means ignore edits made by known maintenance bots (interwiki etc), edits to metadata only (like categories), or edits with certain strings in the edit summary indicating various script-assisted edits unlikely to add new human-written text to the article. Deleting those articles might shrink the problem by enough to make manual triage feasible for the remaining ones. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 22:23, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• How about running a script that identifies all of these articles with no more than 500 characters (or some other number) contributed by editors other than Darius Dhlomo. That might be most of the affected ones and they can then be deleted, making the problem a lot smaller. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 18:02, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• As per my comment above, I support mass deletion here. As I read the evidence from Uncle G so far (thank you), it's unlikely we can find any safe triage parameters. Although there's no great rush so I'm more than happy to wait for suggestions.--Mkativerata (talk) 19:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment: a skim of some smaller contribs suggest quite a few edits are just editing categories, DEFAULTSORT and the like. Can these be excluded from the listing using some automation? As for creations, I would suggest nuking the lot (perhaps leaving a log which then someone like Article Rescue Squadron can use, if they feel like taking responsibility for checking individual entries. In this case, for "nuking", read "userfying" or "incubating".) Rd232 ^talk 00:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• Suggestion Just have a bot (you can use AWB) mark all of them as CSD: G12 for copyvio. They can then be deleted very easily and quickly. Presumably whatever admin gets to it will check the copyvio status. --Selket ^Talk 00:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • That would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I've been looking at random examples, & either I don't understand the criteria for copyright violations (although the example above for Swimming at the 1997 Summer Universiade was pretty obvious when I found the right revision), or I'm not picking the right examples. Anyone but the most painstaking Admin, when faced with all of those edits tagged as CSD will only examine so many at the beginning before either giving up -- or simply untagging the rest. (And if I understood the proper way to clear those which I don't think are copyvios, I'd offer a hand thinning out this list.) -- llywrch (talk) 02:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Logged out bot

The HBCAI bot is working from an IP (71.244.112.164) again. The IP has been blocked before (see discussion here), but the block expired. The bot has used another IP before (discussion here). Maybe the block should be extended and the bots owner be contacted?--Oneiros (talk) 23:47, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP for 48 hours. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:00, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. The bot is using its proper account just now.--Oneiros (talk) 00:19, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I left a note at BON a couple days ago too.[54] Not sure if that was such a good place. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 07:03, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

User Reqluse

User Reqluse is going through fashion-related articles (mostly in Asia or Oceania) at a wild clip, asking for Deletion for many of them. I have been following him, reverting most of his requests. This is not productive. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Reqluce. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 02:19, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I've only noticed his edits to Nico Didonna, but that certainly seems like a valid request for deletion on that article. He did restore a PROD tag after it had been removed, I've explained to him that the next step is AfD, not re-adding the PROD. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 03:59, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

BTW, you have not notified Reqluse of this discussion, which is required. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 04:02, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Everard Proudfoot for notifying me, and for informing me of the next step for AfD. Much appreciated. Reverting my edits simply because one has a belief that the subject 'is a successful businessman/woman "at the very least"' while being unable to provide any verifiable 3rd party references is not productive either. And no, just because the subject's name appears on a google search does not make it verifiable as in the case of Agnimitra Paul, where you accused me of not clicking the link you supplied. When in fact if you had gone through your supplied link, you would have discovered that 2 of the 4 mentions were dead links, one was a press release and the last an unreliable IMDB source. Hardly successful, nor notable.Reqluce (talk) 04:07, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I have asked the editor to actually go to the Fashion wikiproject and expect the drawn out wait for any other editors to actually offer their opinion - it is clear the sense of purpose in this mission to sustain a view of notability is not patient enough to wait to see what others might think - and this is what we get - I only hope if there are active fashion project members - that they get a glimpse of what is happening - so that they might end up going to what appear to be inevitable AFD discussions - lets hope whoever does the AFD preparations - they remember to include the Fashion project and any closely related projects to go beyond 2 warring editors notion of resolving issues SatuSuro 04:38, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I am another editor who has requested Reqluse's approach slows down, allows for more input from other editors, is more communicative and less combative, and accepts that patience may be required as it is clear that others want more time to be spent on the process than he would like. He does however seem to be taking some of this on board which is good. thanks --Merbabu (talk) 05:03, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Where else would you discuss a deletion nomination BUT at AfD? And that gives you 7 days to answer how the articles meet policy, so I dont know why you're asking for patience and discussion, because he is providing exactly that. -- ۩ Mask 07:48, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Seems to be a pretty textbook case of an editor not reading the templates he's using (that clearly state they can be contested for any/no reason and should not be re-added). Rehevkor ✉ 15:33, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

To echo AKMask, I don't understand why an editor needs to "slow down" and request Project assistance in tagging articles for AfD (I'm assuming s/he now understands the need to switch from PROD to AfD when contested). If an article doesn't meet guidelines and policies, it can rightly be nominated for deletion. No editor, group of editors, or Wikiproject should be able to exempt articles from complying with policy simply because they haven't gotten around to making the articles compliant yet. Requesting an article be deleted is not combative, it's keeping the quality of Wikipedia articles at a certain level. 03:25, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Disruptive editing at Talk:LGBT parenting

User:Destinero seems to be removing fact with factual bias over on the article and is acting as the talk page's self-appointed protector. Based on the recently archived discussions he has been uncooperative with other users and is strongly asserting his opinions despite how factually incorrect they may be. The edit war has simmered down but I think that it is still present in some manner. I'm requesting an admin's opinion on the matter. Thanks Ғяіᴅaз'§Đøøм | Tea and biscuits? 03:42, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is that collegial discussion is better than edit warring. Was that the opinion you were looking for? ;-) If not, could you perhaps be a bit more specific (diffs?) as to the current problems and your desired administrator intervention? Jclemens (talk) 05:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

User notified Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 07:10, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

When I saw the MedCab request I checked the article's history, there has been a lot of edit-warring between Tobit2 and Destinero, given the long discussions in Archive 5 I gathered that Destinero was fighting a losing battle. His points were factually incorrect and one sided.

"Destinero, stop to use false arguments about others identity as "Perhaps since you are a Catholic...". this is inadequate, as somebody else can raise an issue, that "Perhaps you are a gay... (actually no doubts as you publicly point to your blog full of expressions that -you are- on Czech Wikipedia) and every your argument is based on liberal propaganda", and therefore you are removing all the content, which can possible harm the propaganda itself. So read please WP:NPOV, part "simple formulation" should be enough. You can't simply suppress facts about opinions, which have major support in States, and spread your bias only. Did you ever tried to "write for the enemy"?--83.208.153.249 (talk) 21:40, 1 September 2010 (UTC)" "Destinero, you can't commandeer a page like this. You have to allow opposing view points, especially valid ones such as these. Your responses to tobit have not been adequate - all you do is go on about how proven lgbt parenting is, and I agree that it is. It doesn't mean that opposing viewpoints should not be taken into account. You are too emotionally tied to this topic. -Javsav (talk) 15:20, 1 September 2010 (UTC)"

As you can clearly establish Destinero is preventing the positive contributions on others and is asserting his biased opinions, like the IP user says this could be due to his religion. Ғяіᴅaз'§Đøøм | Tea and biscuits? 10:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

You do know this has been to AN/I before and lots of people are now "eyes on" that topic. Why are you dragging up weeks old issues that have not repeated themselves? More to the point you seem to be very confused on the issue - due to his religion? I think even after a quick reading it should have been obvious that such a statement is pretty much the opposite of the issue that arose. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 11:04, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Inka 888's Request for Rollback

Resolved

 – Good Decline. Inka 888 should wait a reasonable length of time before reasking for Rollback. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

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

---

Hi all. I recently declined one of User:Inka 888's requests for rollback for the third time. My rationale for declining the request has been the same each time:

• The user has limited experience reverting actual vandalism (as in, many of the reverts are either self-reverts or reverts of good faith edits). This is evidenced by a quick glance at Inka 888's contributions
• The user has asked many trivial questions via the {{helpme}} template (most of the answers can be found by doing a quick search in the Wikipedia namespace - e.g. [55], [56], [57], [58]),
• The user has used the reviewer right without fully knowing what it does (and subsequently received a complaint: 1)
• The user is susceptible to brusque outbreaks when things do not go his way: [59] (as a result of Eagles247 reverting this)

I've expressed my concerns with granting rollback to Inka 888 several times (1, 2, 3, 4), explained my standards for granting rollback (minimum 50+ reverts of legitimate vandalism and no complaints), and instructed him to go to Special:RecentChanges for an easy way to identify vandalism in need of reverting. Now of course, all this is not to say that Inka 888 is a disruptive editor; frankly, I think it's just the opposite. He is a newbie determined to fit into the community and learn the rules of the encyclopedia, all while working to make the project a better place. I believe Inka 888 needs some more time and experience on Wikipedia before rollback is granted to him. That being said, I'm requesting a community review of my decision to decline Inka's third rollback request. And, everyone, please be candid; if you believe Inka 888 deserves rollback, please say so. I'll happily overturn my decision if consensus mandates it. Sincerely, FASTILY ^(TALK) 03:55, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• From what I've seen, Inka is a very enthusiastical user, but just wants too much to have the real rollback. Give it some time. Endorse request declining. --Diego Grez (talk) 04:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• I endorse the decline but I give Inka strong moral support in the future to get it. If he has any questions about it he's more than welcome to ping me. I'm an experienced roll backer to an extent and could help him out in reverting vandalism the "old school way".--White Shadows ^{Your guess is as good as mine} 04:52, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• As a user who has been helping Inka 888, I agree with the decline. I believe the user needs a mentor (any takers?) who can lead the user in the right direction. I have been acting as the "sorta-kinda" mentor trying to encourage the user to edit articles instead of getting a flashy signature (which was requested), but I don't think I am doing a good job. I think the user is unclear on what they should be doing here at the project and a mentor could help them along. I personally think with that, they would make a good editor, they just need that push in the right direction. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:16, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Taker? possibly? Me.--intelati 17:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't lie, you did give me a flashy signature and you gave no advice whatsoever. Next time i am called a newcomer i will bring it up at WP:WQA due to the fact that it is false. Inka ⁸⁸⁸ 05:31, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

You are being called a "newcomer" because you have been here for less than two months, and have less than 1000 edits. Please assume good faith when other users consider you new based on their encounters with you. Eagles 24/7 (C) 05:38, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Inka, I never said I did or didn't give you a signature. I also didn't call you are newcome, but Eagles247 is right, you are a newcomer. You have been here a short time and need to focus on things associated with editing, not getting all the neat tools. This isn't a competition or a game, it's an encyclopedia. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 09:12, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Everyone needs to read the statement Inka made before the one above. Not helpful. I recommend the user clarify what they mean by that statement. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 09:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Odd, I thought I read somewhere that everybody is a newcomer :) –MuZemike 14:37, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• I endorse the decline because of this edit which reverted several editors at once, all of whom had made good faith constructive edits, without any explanation. I think edit summaries are enormously important for reversions unless there is no doubt the material is vandalism, and rollback seems to do little aside from making it easier to not provide meaningful edit summaries, so I think a key prerequisite for rollback should be that the editor has demonstrated the judgment to make this decision or at least err on the side of making meaningful edit summaries anyway. It's not a huge deal either way, though, I think, but I would encourage him to ask again after establishing a good track record of correctly calling these. ErikHaugen (talk) 05:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse decline, especially in light of subject's above retort. Jclemens (talk) 05:54, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse decline. Use of the vandalism flag when he's reverting his own edits isn't an encouraging sign. David Biddulph (talk) 06:15, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse decline. Agree with all of the above and at the risk of the pot calling the kettle black, an attitude adjustment is in order. Been there. As an aside, thank goodness for my patient admins! DocOfSoc (talk) 06:28, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse decline. I appreciate the enthusiasm, and in a couple of years they may be one of those great editors. Right now, I'm seeing the continuation of far too many significant (although usually minor) mistakes that Rollback would just compound. Give it another 1000 mainspace edits, or at least 50 to 75 proper undoing of clear vandalism reasonably error-free. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 08:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse decline. I believe Inka has expressed an interest in using Huggle. Frankly, that scares me. I've seen experienced editors and even admins (including myself) make a mess with similar tools and someone with less experience could very easily end up making a very big mess very quickly. Inka, you shouldn't think of rollback as a rite of passage or a reward. I think you'd enjoy your time here a lot more if you focused on writing articles and making yourself useful rather than trying to acquire advanced permissions that you don't really need and which can cause a lot of damage if used incorrectly (even if you mean well, and I'm sure you do). As for the newcomer thing, I'm an admin with 27,000 edits who's been here for 16 months and there are still a lot of things I don't know. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:30, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• Endorse decline. As I stated at Fastily's talk page, the fact that there seems to be a rush to get rollback rights as soon as possible concerns me. Why the rush? If someone really wants to make this place better, they do what they can and let their actions speak for themself. The editor also does not seem to understand the purpose of Fastily's 50 vandalism revert standard in that it's not so much hitting a magic number but demonstrating consistency and comprehesion of a critical Wikipedia concept. Even this taking offense at being called a "newbie" or "newcomer" is troubling. No one is doing that to insult; it's stating a reality of having an account that is not even 2 months old. Frankly, as another editor said, I'm also surprised this editor has reviewer rights this early on. The desire and enthusiasm are there, but that does not remove the importance of adequate learning time. --JonRidinger (talk) 17:44, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

There is still a difference between me and a "newcomer" i am more experienced than a newcomer an less experienced than a lot of users, i will give you that. Can we handle this like adults, the whole reason this thread is here is because fastily is angry with me because he thinks i went behind his back to get rollback, i would really appreciate if you look at the situation. thanks, Inka ⁸⁸⁸ 19:17, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

this is nothing about that. Well, a small part of this. The point of this converstation is for fastily to get a second, third fourth... opinion on his actions. Thank you and please ponder your comments before posting.--intelati 19:20, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. Being a newcomer (newbie, n00b, beginner) is not a bad thing. It means that you started recently and possibly don't have as much experience as other users, such as those who started in 2004. This is not something to get worked up about. Using {{helpme}} is okay for things that can't be found out by doing a quick search. It's not okay for obvious stuff or getting someone's attention. As for Rollback, you just aren't ready. You don't appear to understand our policies well enough. Also asking for rollback at two different places in such a short amount of time is not okay either as it's just asking a user to contradict another user in authority. @Fastily: Endorse Decline. Mr. R00t ^Talk 19:38, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Fastily said give him a "day" aka. 24 hours to "sit on it" aka. think about it i gave fastily a day actually over a day to respond before requesting it at requests for rollback. The only reason i did that was because fastily was not responding. I believe i am beyond a newcomer. When i think of newcomer i think of new users having no idea what they are doing and not understanding much about wikipedia at all. Inka ⁸⁸⁸ 20:27, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

The discussion Inka 888 refers to be may be found here. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 20:36, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Inka 888, can I recommend that you use Twinkle for a while. It does make it easier to revert vandalism (leaves an edit summary and opens the editor's talkpage so you can leave a message), but it also offers the option to show that you know the edit you are reverting was good faith (perhaps it messed up the formatting or something), and to leave an edit summary if you revert an edit because you disagree with it - rather than it being vandalism. If you make a good go with Twinkle, you'll get your Rollbacker rights in a couple of months. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:54, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Alternatively just stick with Twinkle and ignore this most useless of all "rights". Even when I had it I hardly ever used it, because Twinkle is so much more convenient. Malleus Fatuorum 22:01, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

That Twinkle has an entirely separate rollback feature which doesn't require the actual rollback privilege is a problem to be fixed, not a handy workaround. It's bad enough that the admin bit is all-or-nothing without one of the few rights which is genuinely granular being ignored because you can get an upgraded version through ticking a box in your user prefs. I've seen two users misusing Twinkle rollback in a weekend when I've hardly been on here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 23:43, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

To be fair, Twinkle doesn't rollback (it reverts one edit at a time unless the user has made several in a row on that article, and it only allows reversion of the latest edit). I thought the three options might encourage Inka 888 to figure out the difference between vandalism, disagreement, and having to revert an edit because the other editor has made a mistake. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:48, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Anyone who can't take being declined for rollback (oh noes, the world is going to end!) and tries to defend xyrself instead of just letting it go and working with Twinkle should not have rollback. This sort of attitude is extremely indicative of a flag-collecting mentality, and should never be allowed to flourish by giving the user rights. Obviously, being so impatient and arguing about petty things like the definition of newcomer (uh, experienced users don't need rollback, see Malleus' comment above) also gives off the feeling of impatience while reverting using tools like Huggle, which means more bad reverts and careless patrolling. Endorse decline, and the next request should not come sooner than two months of at least 200 complaint-free manual reverts. —fetch·comms 22:30, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

...that's okay, he'll have self-nom'd for WP:RFA before then. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 00:01, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Most experienced editor's use rollback or huggle. The reason i defend myself not being a newcomer is because i hear it so much. I think i can handle using rollback i have used twinkle for a while i am pretty sure i have made about 50 complaint free reverts with twinkle i have slow internet twinkle is a little bit of a waste of time for me. Inka ⁸⁸⁸ 00:39, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

If you can handle rollback now, you can also handle your impatience and wait two months to handle rollback then. Huggle makes your internet even slower because you just queue up a ton of edits, half of which will have been reverted by others already. If you continue to persist in asking for rollback now, that just shows you can't handle it because you're not mature enough to see things from the admin's point of view in declining your request and telling you to wait. —fetch·comms 03:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Endorse decline. Please see comments I left on user talk page. User persistently requesting rollback, has only done 6 (that I counted) reverts in last 48 hours out of 100 edits (most of the rest of which constitute requests for rollback or related conversation). RobertMfromLI | User Talk 04:02, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I have reviewed this whole thread and everyone is in agreement..."endorse decline" and "relax" seem to be the two views in abundunce here. I see no one saying "oppose decline". As such, I am going to close this thread as "good decline" and Inka 888 should "wait a reasonable length of time before reasking". - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:05, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

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

Humaliwalay

Can I have some other editors have a look at the actions of Humaliwalay (talk · contribs), He first came to my attention when he bulked tagged a number of articles with tags he had copied from other articles with out explaining his rational (see warning here, he then cam to my attention again when he removed a source from Shi'a Islam in Pakistan with this claiming that "claim as it's highly dubious and citation is not reliable and refuted by multiple authentic and reliable sources." the source was Library of Congress Country Studies, I suggested that if he felt the source was not good then he should take it to WP:RS/N (see here).

He has continued to remove the Library of Congress Country Studies, and to refer to attempts to reinstate it as vandalism.

Also of concerns is the article Criticism of Sunni Islam which I felt has some issue that need addressing and tagged it {{expert}}, {{pov-check}} and {{synthesis}}(with this edit) and commented on the talk page, to which Humaliwalay (talk · contribs) reverted with "all references are proper" - see here.

One final point is that Humaliwalay (talk · contribs) has applied for the Reviewer right @ Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Reviewer. Codf1977 (talk) 09:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Notified Humaliwalay here

Please refer actions of Codf1977 for his repeated disruption of articles, geting into discussions and leaving it without reaching a consensus after multiple Warnings, this user even removes warnings from his talk page and is engaged in business of threatening and accusing, repeated request and Warnings have been deleted by this user like this [60] and this [61] from his talk page. All edits of this user are more or less based on no logical reasoning and without notifying the reason on talk page. This user is engaged in all these behavior leave no signs of discussion on talk page and then threatens to block me rather than discussing politely.

This user accuses others for lack of knowledge and when asked to justify quits discussion and deletes all discussed matter like this one [62]

Please review my request and take an action.

- Humaliwalay (talk) 09:48, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

So how come Toddy1 also warned you about you calling other users edits vandalism here. Codf1977 (talk) 10:47, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Humaliwalay: It is perfectly acceptable for users to remove warnings from their own talk page. Especially so in this case, where you obviously misuse the term vandalism in a content dispute. --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Toddy was engaged in discussion with me , user did not warn me as such, it was just a discussion which was agreed by me. Humaliwalay (talk) 17:54, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I am not quite sure what you are trying to say here. Perhaps you could elaborate? --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:12, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Saddhiyama - Please refer the entire discussion again and then derive at the conclusion who uses inappropriately the term vandalism so often. Humaliwalay (talk) 17:54, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I have and it is the same conclusion. You are the only one that have used the term "vandalism" in this dispute, specifically in the two "warnings" that you gave Codf1977. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:12, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, I am afraid to mention but have to that your continuous biased judgment and siding with Codf1977 forced me to think if you are a sock-puppet of this user as you can see I provided you the link here [63] in which Codf1977 clearly used word vandalism first then I replied of not doing so and then discussion was on. Hope you visit that link and have review now. - Humaliwalay (talk) 05:03, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Petition to "ban" Wikipedia

Feedeth not the trolls

See WT:WPSPAM#Petition to "ban" Wikipedia At best, this is canvasing. They've already crippled the link to work around the blacklist; so not sure if the best solution is XLinkBot, an edit filter, or a group using RBI to mop-up. --67.183.232.99 (talk) 15:06, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Added filter 360 - log only for now. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 16:35, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Appears to be working properly. Set to disallow and auto-report to ANI AIV. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 16:59, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Without falling into the trap of going to whatever their website is and probably picking up some malware in the process... by what mechanism do they propose "banning" wikipedia? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:09, 5 September 2010 (UTC) The same way one accomplishes any other big political goal--by posting an online petition. It reads: Wikipedia is the single most dangerous site on the web. It is living proof that a few individuals with a sinister agenda can change the way millions of people view the world and world history. It puts itself forward as an information resource, but a quick look through any of its articles shows that it is almost 100% entirely inaccurate. Much of the 'information' is created in the minds of at best mischievous, and at worst despotic individuals or groups who seek to create chaos and spread lies throughout the world. Much of it is aimed at young people seeking knowledge, and it is thus particularly despicable and especially dangerous. The site and those that run it - and lets not forget they are paid handsomely to keep the site prominent - should be banned from the world wide web and all references to Wikipedia should be removed. While all of that is no doubt true, per our verifiability policy it can't go in Wikipedia unless suitable references are made up supplied. ;-) 67.122.211.178 (talk) 17:17, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Shocking stats: signatures: 27, signature goal: 1,000,000. — Edokter • Talk • 18:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC) ...Lemme be the first to ask the usual question: Where's my "handsome" pay for my "despotic" work? ;p umrguy42 18:32, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Maybe you only qualify as "mischievous", Umrguy...I think the consolation prize is a toaster or an iCarly mouse pad... Tiderolls 18:47, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Darn! To quote Arlo Guthrie, "I am not the threat I'd hoped to become!" ;D umrguy42 18:50, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Random side-note, all these IPs seem to be open proxies, too. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 17:23, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Another one. It mutates. Favonian (talk) 17:58, 5 September 2010 (UTC) One more 190.201.19.91 (talk · contribs). Two Vandalisms of this post. "Don't be a D***."--intelati 18:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Dang that was fast.--intelati 18:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC) So, if one million of us sign, then we start getting handsomely paid and are promoted to despots? I'm definitely in! -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 18:42, 5 September 2010 (UTC) For starters, we should all demand that our current salary be doubled. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:47, 5 September 2010 (UTC) I've semi'd this noticeboard for 2 hours - feel free to revert if you no longer feel it's necessary. Connormah (talk) 18:43, 5 September 2010 (UTC) I was Just about going to suggest a semi-protection. Never mind. :)--intelati 18:44, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Good move. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:47, 5 September 2010 (UTC) You mean you all haven't been getting the checks? I mean...not that I have, or anything...not at all. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:48, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Hang on, are they saying that the admins are getting PAID to do this? Sign me up then! But then again what about us normal editors, don't we get anything? The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 18:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Hey, admins get paid TEN TIMES what we do. Why do you think everyone wants the job? Actually they do get paid: 10 dollars a day. Minus 10 dollars for postage and handling. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:28, 5 September 2010 (UTC) TEN TIMES the pay? It's about time I ran an WP:RFA then ;) GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 19:30, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Sure. Just be sure to cut me in on a ten percent finder's fee. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:37, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Yeah, but like Bugs said, it's ten dollars MINUS postage and handling MINUS internet user free (variable) MINUS that admin's contribution to Wikipe-tan's clothing and travel expenditures (last month, my credit card bill for this was $148.64), and whatever else the foundation's wonderfully creative accounts can somehow slip past the auditors whatever unanticipated expenses might arise. John Carter (talk) 19:44, 5 September 2010 (UTC) Hey, that's nothing like a crat's pay! We get paid 1,000,000 times as much as admins do! (X! · talk)  · @862  ·  19:41, 5 September 2010 (UTC) 10%!? What extravagence! You can't say you admins don't earn your money! Blasted Bereucrats! and I guess you have your money sent 1st class courier with a £1,000,000 handling fee? And yet us normal editors get zilch! but then Whoever said Wikipedia was fair? The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 19:44, 5 September 2010 (UTC) How cute. (X! · talk)  · @851  ·  19:24, 5 September 2010 (UTC) ['Zilla is inspired to do a bit of canvassing of her own. ] For mere 10,000 x regular Admin Handsome Pay, may touch hem of Zilla spiderman suit! Study trip pocket small extra charge. Major credit cards accepted. Form orderly line, please! bishzilla ROARR!! 20:37, 5 September 2010 (UTC). That's quite flattering really. I never knew we were that influential and I never thought we were the most subversive force on the internet. As yet I have not been paid handsomely but I'll happily accept premium bonds when I am. In lieu of payment I have made several expenses. A second home closer to my computer, a duck house, some hobnobs and had my moat cleaned. To be honest, until the 'prohibition of wikipedia act' is being pushed through the European Parliament I shan't really worry about this all that much. Mtaylor848 (talk) 22:10, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

110.20.0.0/18, 114.72.192.0/18

This vandal, who was previously discussed here, is still at large. Lately he has (as usual) inserted profanities into another user's posts ([64], [65]) and pretended to be someone he's not ([66], [67]). Please block, he is making it extremely unpleasant to visit WP:RD/math. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:10, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

The first range (110.*) is still under a 2-week block by Alison which started August 26. I have blocked anonymous edits from the second range (114.*) for one month per this block history. Rangeblocks have block logs; you can see them conveniently using the 'rangelinks' template:

• 110.20.0.0/18 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)).
• 114.72.192.0/18 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial))

The new block seems unlikely to have much collateral damage, per the rangecontribs results for 114.72.192.0/18. EdJohnston (talk) 16:09, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:16, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

user:TechnoFaye user page - possible image violation?

Does her user page violate our guideline (scroll down to the second image)? I left her a message on her talk page and she responded to me that she rectified the problem.

I rectified the problem by removing the [| third pic] (a collage), which DID violate a policy/guideline I knew nothing about. If you have further problems, tell me and I'll address them. TechnoFaye Kane 04:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

We are dealing with a guideline, not a policy, and this is I suppose subjective, thus, a gray area perhaps? I would appreciate another opinion. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:55, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Meh, just delete the whole page methinks, far too inappropriate, and not relevant to Wikipedia - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 16:59, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

1. There is nothing wrong with the image; even going by the ridiculous and puritanical guideline, the intent here is clearly to act as a visual depiction of the editor and not as gratuitously "sexually provocative". 2. The material on the editor's userpage concerning non-consensual sex is inflammatory, and it would be irresponsible for us as a project to continue to host it as presented, even in userspace as one individual's opinions. Skomorokh 17:08, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

(user notified) Too be perfectly honest, I can't actually make out the second image. But agree with point number two, and have deleted the page for now. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

1) I am damned by God with the loathsome disease of autism, and that means I am INCAPABLE of detecting social impropriety "automatically". I MUST rely on published standards. That's the main reason I do Wikipedia, because it's rule-based, and (supoposedly), people's opinions are transparent here. If you'd care to ask, as so many others have, "How can someone so smart be so stupid?", the answer is: I JUST AM. IT'S NOT A CHOICE. I DON'T LIKE IT EITHER AND IT SCREWS UP MY LIFE.

2) When Rubinstein told me that this image on my user page violated WP guidelines:

I read the guideline, observed that he was correct, and removed the image immediately . I even apologized to him graciously, politely, and self-effacingly. If you don't like something I added to my page a few hours ago, then tell me what and why, and if you're correct, I'll delete or modify that too. Do NOT wholesale-delete an entire user's page without giving the user a chance to either defend the page or correct the problem, or worse, without even telling them you have a problem with it.

And PARTICULARLY do not do that with a user who has a biological disability that prevents them from having the heuristics normal people use and call "common sense". If WP were a workplace, this would be an EEOC issue I'd take to HR. The ad-hoc, contradictory social rules you normals make are not "common" to me; they are very difficult and complex, and that is specifically because they do not make "sense".

3) I restored my user page with hacker magic. I'd point out that I have "toned it down" since apparantly I talk too muchg about sex. At least, that's my best-guess estimate. I can't know for sure because no one has told me what's wrong with the text. Tell me what on it violates which policy and if you are not lying to me as so many other people do because they think it's funny, I will alter it to be consistent with policy.

file:Fayepic2.jpg Now as far, as the other image is concerned, I respectfully chose to defend this one. a) it is not even remotely obscene. Not that there'd be anything WRONG with that. b) where and how I live is an integral part of who I am, and I refer to it on my user page. The pic is relevant. c) It is critical in preventing something I am plagued with without the pic, which is people angrily informing me that I'm fake, an internet hoax, a man, multiple people, someone's master's thesis, a sociology research project (and once, even an AI program). I have NO IDEA why people can't accept me for how I am. But when they see my pic, they realize that I'm just a person. d) The guideline states: "activities that are not strictly "on topic" may be allowed, especially when initiated by committed Wikipedians with good edit histories." I have well over 1,000 edits and have done more than edit, I was a very active participant in the arbitration of the R/I article (the cabal version of the arbitration).

TechnoFaye Kane 04:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I have changed both the pictures to links. We all do not need to see the content if we do not want to. Please only link them, instead of transcluding them.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 04:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Fine, no problem! Another issue now: someone just DELETED the first pic from wikimedia, without an speedy RFD, even though IT IS THE TOPIC OF THIS DISCUSSION. Don't you admins police each other? Or do you just let the other admins do whatever the hell they want to any user without discussing it first, saying why, or even telling anybody they're doing i? I am restoring it (as a link). TechnoFaye Kane 05:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Comment. A cursory look at TechnoFaye's contributions seem to indicate at a minimum, questionable edits insofar as their constructiveness, and at worst, a pattern of rather disruptive editing. Particularly these: [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75].   Thorncrag  05:07, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hi, Faye. While I appreciate that your autism may make it difficult for you to comply to social norms, this does not mean that we are going to effectivly let you run wild. As you say we have many policies which make it easier to detect "social impropriety", however, you claimed to have read through the USERPAGE guideline, and still can not see how your userpage violates it? Very well, I'll try to make it more clear. Your user page (before "toning down") seemed to support the idea of tortured and rape (support of grossly improper behaviors) and still seems to advocate rape. It's also completely unrelated to Wikipedia (excessive unrelated content) really your userpage should only be about things directly related to Wikipedia. Your entire userpage (except maybe the email address) seems inappropriate to me, which is why I deleted the whole thing (as well as to get it out of the history). Rubinstein actually pointed you towards the policy page, which also mentions that text can be a problem too, not just the image. I notice that you have restored your userpage, and have re-deleted it, I told you on your talk page not to restore it, and you seem, to have ignored me, if you continue to restore inappropriate content, the userpage may be protected or you may be blocked, - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 05:09, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

User Vrghs jacob vs minor edits

This user is still marking all edits as minor - and still having the vast majority reverted as other editors on his pages disagree with his revisions. His pages & mine don't overlap, so I can't say whether they really are accurate or not, but he seems to be in the minority. His contribs are here: [76]

He was discussed last month as well[77] - was anything done?

User informed. a_man_alone (talk) 18:15, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Ugh, I left a note on this user's talk page yesterday asking to stop and just discuss edits before making them. I really don't know where he comes up with his edits, a good chunk of them introduce factual inaccuracies. e.g. Changing the official name of India from Republic of India to Federal Republic of India and so on. It appears that he reads something somewhere and decides to put it up on wiki. Being that, not all of his edits are bad, sometimes he reads something in a reliable source and it finds its way here. However, he refuses to discuss, and quite often repeats the same edits to the same article after being reverted with clear edit summary notes or talk page discussions on the topic. If someone can't get through to him (and I see a lot of people have tried), it might be time for a more drastic measure. —SpacemanSpiff 18:42, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

He doesn't seem to be active right now. I'm going to slap a more direct warning on his talk page. Someone should probably give him a timeout if he resumes. I'll try to keep an eye on it. --Selket ^Talk 18:45, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Did you see his user page? "Welcome - My name is Varghese Jacob. This is my only official and the only standing wiki website that I inherently control and is of my control. If there are others associated in my name - I do not belong to them and plase do dis-regard those." Dougweller (talk) 19:28, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's very odd. I'm not sure it's a policy violation though. Or am I missing something? -Selket ^Talk 19:56, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Just odd, but what's even odder is the only contribution to any Talk namespace by this editor. —SpacemanSpiff 20:39, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I expect he's referring to his user page rather than Wikipedia as a whole. :) I suspect that his first language is not English so he is not understanding the norms in Wikipedia very well. 81.145.247.158 (talk) 21:00, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree with anon from my own experience in dealing with speakers/contributors that English is a second language for. It really sounds much like the auto-tag that appears on various user pages written with the wrong selection of English wording (such as the one I use on my page): "This is a Wikipedia user page. This is not an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user to whom this page belongs may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia itself."

Perhaps a more explained explanation may help the user? RobertMfromLI | User Talk 22:38, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Ednhil1102 (talk · contribs)

Resolved

Blocked twice for spamming, completely unresponsive to any messages; just recreated an article that has been deleted in various versions before [78].[79]. FWIW notified Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 18:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Three strikes and you're indef'ed! Favonian (talk) 18:23, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 18:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

African Spanish

Resolved

Sounds pretty unlikely doesn't it. African Spanish was a redirect which was deleted because it redirected to a page that didn't exist. I'm just curious to find out where it redirected to. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 19:45, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Nothing that exciting, African Spanish dialect. Courcelles 19:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 19:53, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Unicorn76

Please could an admin notify User:Unicorn76 about the discretionary sanctions and log it. The user added a BLP violation and a copyvio to support the BLP violation on the George Galloway talk page (and it has been removed by Off2riorob so no further action is required there). The editor's user page statement "Unicron 76 is a person who will challenge the PC of Wikipedia Administrators and Editors who refuse to accept sources that don't conform to their world view" suggests a battlefield mentality inconsistent with the sanctions. Thanks.
(User notified about ANI posting here) Sean.hoyland - talk 21:02, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree this is wise here. Done.--Chaser (talk) 22:52, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

74.66.236.70

Resolved

thanks--intelati 22:09, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

74.66.236.70 (talk · contribs) Has been warned the usual four times and is still actively vandalising the talk:Debby Ryan. thanks--intelati 22:05, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

In the future, noncontroversial block requests such as this one should be brought to WP:AIV. Thanks! elektrikSHOOS 23:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

User:Ludwigs2 / refdesk

Resolved

 – IP blocked Jehochman ^Talk 01:32, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

In this edit, User:Ludwigs2 encourages another user to commit rape. The comment was reverted later by an admin, but I feel this requires further action than a simple revert. Encouraging other users to commit illegal acts cannot be allowed on Wikipedia, and should not be dismissed with a simple revert as if it was a minor incident. 203.165.240.242 (talk) 23:33, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree, not on the basis of encouraging illegal acts, but on the basis of a personal attack. A scan of his talk page history shows that this is not a first offence. I was about to block him for it, when I saw that another admin was dealing wiht t, though more generously than I think was appropriate. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:41, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, and may in this case have constituted a NPA (which is why the admin removed it, and which may yet have some consequence for Ludwigs2 as it was rather a nasty thing to say; but it does not feature high in the incitement stakes. If I told you to go away and play on the motorway, would I be advocating Jaywalking?--Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:44, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• Note: All concerned parties notified of this thread as the IP neglected to do. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
• Agree with HJ Mitchell: (edit conflict) clearly not actually encouraging rape, but it's a pretty severe personal attack. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 23:50, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2 lost it while dealing with banned editor Light current, a pernicious years-long presence at the RefDesks. Lc is quite good at goading other editors. Their comment was quite unacceptable for any number of reasons but I thought quiet removal was the better course. I didn't look back through their history though, to see if it's an ongoing problem, having never seen problems with the editor myself. Hopefully they will respond to quiet counselling. Franamax (talk) 23:55, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure why this discussion was collapsed. I was offended by this comment. Even if he meant this to be humorous, jokes about rape are not funny. It was out of line and uncalled for regardless of who it was directed to. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:45, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

He didn't mean it to be humorous.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, he certainly wasn't serious about it. Let's ban the trolls, not the people who say something people get in a huff about. So you were offended, get over yourself. The real issue is the people constantly abusing the site. DreamGuy (talk) 01:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't give editors carte blanche to make comments like that, which are frankly vile. Nor is it the first time Ludqigs has made such comments—Two weeks ago he was warned for similar conduct and he has two previous blocks for personal attacks. I don;t think this outbusrt should just be shrugged off. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:14, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, whatever. All I can say right now is that the IP who reported this here won't be editing for a while. –MuZemike 00:56, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

That's fair enough, but being a troll doesn't necessarily make their complaint invalid. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:00, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It was a valid complaint, but I dealt with it on sight before the complaint was made. What are we going to do, enact a punitive block? If it happens again I can bring out Wonder Bat but I rather suspect it won't happen again. What more is there to do here? Franamax (talk) 01:19, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It was a tacky edit on Ludwig's part, but "be more sensitive next time" seems like enough of a response. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 01:24, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

All: I acknowledge that the comment was tactless and in bad taste, and that I would have been wiser to have refrained. My apologies to anyone offended by it; I have an acid tongue that gets away from me sometimes, to my own detriment. However, it wasn't what has been suggested here, which is evident to anyone who reads the comment. I'll swallow the rude implication in the original thread header as just desserts for the rude implication I tossed at the IP, which strikes me as a fair balance, and (with your kind permission) we can all call this a day. If anyone would like to discuss the matter with me further, feel free to leave a note on my talk page; as I said, I was simply being acerbic, not aiming to offend anyone particularly, and I'm happy to make any necessary amends. --Ludwigs2 01:24, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Anyways, before my Internet went down, I was just going to say that the IP was blocked as a Tor node, which I can verify. –MuZemike 01:26, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh grow up, will ya? It was a joke in bad taste, it reeks of sarcasm. LiteralKa (talk) 03:32, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Attack page where even the page title is an attack?

Resolved

 – HJ Mitchell got there first. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:18, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

See [redacted] - anyway we can permanently remove this so we don't even have it left in any logs? Exxolon (talk) 01:10, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• I just saw that myself, before it got deleted, and I'd have to agree that might well qualify for oversight. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:12, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I tried to do that, but HJ Mitchell was faster. Also removed the link here. Ucucha 01:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't know about oversight, but I've deleted the title from the logs and removed it from the creator's talk page. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:19, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

This title wasn't so much of a BLP violation as you might think. It was someone advertising her self-published book, which she has been using other open access WWW sites to advertise. There is no doubt that the named person has been convicted of such offenses. Here's a 1999 interview with this person while in prison after conviction for obtaining property by deception:

• Julia Hartley-Brewer (1999-11-22). "Hello John, got a new motor?". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited.

This person's habit of impersonating Mick Taylor from The Rolling Stones is also recorded in Tony Jasper's 1984 biography of the Stones (ISBN 9781850510116 pp. 50). Less BLP panic is due, I think. You should be spending more time elsewhere if BLP is the concern. You should be looking at what our article on Gilad Sharon says with respect to businessman Cyril Kern. Why do I mention Cyril Kern? In case you didn't read the deleted article before panicking, see these sources:

• ""I just wanted to help a dear friend"". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited. 2003-01-12.
• Mzilikazi Wa Afrika (2003-01-12). "Kern Son Wanted in US for Impersonating Racing Driver". The Sunday Times. Johannesburg: Allafrica.com.
• Yaakov Kat (2005-09-09). "Austria launches probe into Cyril Kern loan affair". Jerusalem Post. p. 1.
• Jeremy Gordin (2003-01-09). "Who is Cyril Kern?". Jerusalem Post. p. 3.

Gilad Sharon is currently a completely unsourced biography of a Ariel Sharon's son that deals heavily in the Kern loan affair. Worry about that more than about oversighting a book advertisement. Uncle G (talk) 02:12, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking RevDel when I typed oversight, my mistake on that... but even still, whatever the truth of it, that title was defamatory at best. I'm much looser with my take on BLP than most here (so it seems), and even I saw the really obvious issue with that title. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:18, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

User:Rekordronny

User appears to be extremely biased to IRevo, Inc., as he created 2 pages extremely biased towards them (see also: Digital Door Lock. Is a block in order?  A p3rson ‽ 02:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Not until you have a nice sit-down with them explaining WP:BFAQ. Unless they understand having a COI and writing about something they are affiliated with on Wikipedia, it's not nice to block them. Now, if they fail to heed warnings and continue to spam, a block is in order. But they haven't edited in months. So, I'd just leave it alone. —fetch·comms 03:22, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit summary BLP violation by user:RolandR

user:RolandR writes about Steven Plaut in edit summaries:

1. "Removed BLP smear sourced to known libeller and extremist agitator"
2. "It is still an unacceptable smear from a known libeller"

Even, if we are to assume that the reverted edits were BLP violation, user:RolandR has no right to revert them with BLP violations on his own most of all in the edit summaries. It is anyway as reverting vandalism with vandalism or even worse. --Mbz1 (talk) 04:01, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

How, praytell, are those BLP violations? Plaut has been found guilty of libel by a court of law, and a review of his biography indicates that he is an extremist agitator. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 04:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect. The article states: "in February 2008 the court overturned all but one count relating to a publication in which Plaut had called Gordon "Judenrat Wannabe"". There's no single word in the article that names Steven Plaut "an extremist" or a "part of the extremist lunatic fringe" for that matter. I am not saying that the edits should not have been reverted because I did not look in that matter. I am only saying that the edit summaries they were reverted with are BLP violation.--Mbz1 (talk) 04:57, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Admin threatening to block for removing prods

User:Djsasso (an administrator) appears to be "threatening" to block a fellow user who removed some prods that Djsasso placed, and just as bad (if not worse), Djsasso appears to be deliberately giving the user false information concerning Wikipedia policy. The following is the exchange that took place on User:Macpl's talk page:

• Djsasso writes: Removing prod's just because there was no edit summary is considered disruptive editing. Continuing to do so will result in a block.
• Macpl responds: Prods can be removed for any reason, but the person nominating the article for deletion MUST leave an edit summary. It is written in the policy. *Note: It actually says “Make sure to provide an edit summary that clearly indicates that the article has been proposed for deletion.”
• Djsasso writes: Actually prods should only be removed for notability reasons. And you are supposed to discuss them on the talk page before removing them. Edit summaries are not required but are suggested.
• Djsasso explanation of wiki-policy appears to conflict with WP:PROD.

I am a non-involved editor who came across this because of the resulting AfDs. Moorsmur (talk) 05:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)