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Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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User:Geo Swan and AfDs

Hi, AN/I. I'm concerned about the sheer number of deletion nominations that are taking place of material written by User:Geo Swan. Users unfamiliar with the history of this are invited to read Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Geo Swan, but the gist of it is that Geo Swan is one of our most productive content creators—but many of the things he's written do not comply with Wikipedian norms. I have no objection to Geo Swan's material being nominated for deletion. When one editor nominates more than 60 pieces written by Geo Swan in the same month for deletion, then that's a potential problem because the guy's entire corpus is being destroyed faster than he can defend it. Basically, it takes time to defend stuff at AfD, and Geo Swan isn't being given a chance. In my view this is not fair.

I expressed my concern to the user involved, DBigXray, here. Was that the most diplomatic phrasing ever? Probably not, and I'll take any lumps I've got coming to me for that. What I found was that DBigXray gives a very robust defence and may not have a very thick skin. So I left it there.

What happened then was that in a separate discussion, a deletion review, I saw that the multiple nominations were causing Geo Swan significant distress. See here. As a result of the Deletion Review, the article in question was relisted at AfD, and I expressed the same concerns more forcefully in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Muhammed Qasim. You'll see the same pattern, with the robust defence from DBigXray and an accusation from an IP editor that I'm "poisoning the well". Am I?

I hate posting on AN/I and I always try to avoid it. What I would like from this is for editors to agree some kind of cap on how many of Geo Swan's articles can be nominated for deletion all at the same time.—S Marshall T/C 08:58, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Clarification, The deletion review[1] has been wrongly portrayed above. The article was CSD G7ed by Author Geo Swan while an ongoing AfD was discussing it, Due to CSD G7 the article got quickly deleted, and the ongoing AfD (now moot) had to be closed. But another editor User:Joshuaism unaware that it was author Geo Swan had asked from CSD G7[2] started deletion review with WP:AOBF towards Bushranger for closing the discussion and deleting the article. After the discussion at Deletion review the AfD was reopened again and finally closed as delete--DBigXray 11:13, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

For further clarity: I did not delete the db-author'd article. I merely closed the AfD as "moot due to G7" as it had already been deleted. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:52, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that there should be a special "rule" just regarding articles created by Geo Swan. One option would be to suggest a change to the deletion policy that would limit the number articles created by a specific editor that could be listed simultaneously at AfD. I don't think this is the ideal option, but I think it is better than having a "rule" just regarding articles created by one editor.--Rockfang (talk) 09:23, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

That would probably need a RfC. What I'm looking for at the moment is a specific, immediate remedy.—S Marshall T/C 09:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• You need context to the poisioning the well comment I made. This was in relation to you insisting that loading the AFD with meta discussion on if someone should be allowed to nominate multiple articles must stay within the AFD discussion rather than being discussed on the talk page or somewhere like RFC or here. Your comments were nothing to do with the value of the article or otherwise. No admin should close the discussion based upon such opinions so the only impact could be to sideline the afd from the issue it is supposed to address. That isn't an issue of if the broader subject warrants discussion.
  I'd only see a cap on the number of deletions possible if we are also willing to impose a cap on the number of creations. If someone has created a large number of articles which don't have the sufficient sourcing etc. to stand up on their own but then take a significant time to defend each one, then I don't think we should be encouraging such large creation in the first place. Additionally if only one editor (the original author) is the only person who can or will defend an article at AFD, then there is quite a problem with those articles anyway.
  I#ll also note that you discuss DBigXray as apparently not having a thick skin being an issue, yet the very same thing about Geo Swan you seem to be something we should be sympathetic towards, you can't have it both ways. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 09:30, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Is it your position that user conduct is irrelevant to AfD closes?—S Marshall T/C 09:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Why should it be relevant? The decision should be made on the merits of the case - on our policies and guidelines. But the main issue for me here is that it appears that most of these articles have BLP issues, and given that, the faster they can be dealt with the better. Normally we might not care about how fast we deal with a large group of articles, but if there are BLP violations, and apparently there are, I'd definitely oppose a cap. Dougweller (talk) 10:02, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Is it your position that not using appropriate dispute resolution, instead just declaring in an AFD that there is a user conduct issue, is a constructive way of progressing things? Is it your position that content inappropriate to wikipedia should remain there, based on S Marshall (or any other editors) personal judgement that the person nominating it for deletion is not being "fair"? It is my position that user conduct issues are not the subject matter of AFDs, that's what we have dispute resolution for. Presupposing and judging that there is a user conduct issue is pretty much out of order. Your emotive summary of the matter on the afd "DBigXray is going through systematically destroying Geo Swan's entire corpus..." is not likely to be constructive in determining if the article is "useful" for wikipedia or not. It is unlikely to add any particular light to the discussion, just heat. Certainly if I had listed a set of articles for deletion beliving that I was doing the right thing clearing up BLPs etc, to have someone come to the discussions not comment on the substance of it the articles are valid or not. but instead declare my motivation as being to systematically destroy someone's entire corpus, then I'd certainly be annoyed (and I'd also question with who the user conduct issue lies) --62.254.139.60 (talk) 10:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

This all seems rather tangential. If you really must continue this discussion, kindly take it to user talk page. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:16, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Sixty nominations in a month is clearly going to overwhelm both the AfD process and the article's creator. It takes 30 seconds to AfD something with Twinkle and move onto the next, maybe five minutes if done manually—either of which is considerably less time than it takes to make a good case to keep the article. I think a formal cap would be instruction creep, but there really is no good reason for one editor (in good faith and employing common sense) to nominate more than one article by the same author every few days. Perhaps the discussions could be placed on hold somehow until GeoSwan has been allowed sufficient time to respond to the nominations and make the case for the articles? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:16, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• 30 seconds to AfD ? And what about the time that I spend trying to find sources and look about the notability of these BLPs and following WP:BEFORE prior to nominating these article for AFD, I feel in the above comment it has totally been ignored while it should have been taken into consideration. --DBigXray 10:59, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
  • DBigXray in the boilerplate nominations you kept placing you routinely asserted you had complied with the advice in WP:BEFORE. I am not going to speculate as to why you would make these assertions even when lots of secondary sources did exist, I will only inform readers that I think you routinely did so.

DBig, in one of your bulk nominations of half a dozen articles you decscribed them as all being about Guantanamo captives, when several of those captives had never been in military custody at all, at Guantanamo, or elsewhere. Rather they had spent years in the CIA's network of secret interrogation camps, that employed waterboarding and other "extended interrogation camps".

I regard this as a really telling mistake, one that demonstrates that, contrary to your claim above, you weren't bothering to read the articles in question prior to nomination, let alone complying with WP:BEFORE.

Ideally, no one participating in an {{afd}} should take the nominator's claim they complied with WP:BEFORE at face value, because nominators are human, thus fallible, some nominators are newbies, or have unconsciously lapsed and let a personal bias taint the nomination. Ideally, everyone participating in an {{afd}} should take a stab at reading the article -- at least to the point of reading beyond the scroll -- if it is a long article. Ideally, every participant should do their own web search, even when the nominator claims they complied with WP:BEFORE.

Unfortunately, one often sees a lynch mob mind-set develop in the deletion fora. In my experience, when that lynch-mob mindset develops, only the fairest minded participants do more than read the nomination itself, before leaving a WP:METOO or WP:IDONTLIKEIT and this is what I believe happened here. Geo Swan (talk) 13:03, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• Actually, per WP:AGF, you should assume that the nominator has attempted to comply with WP:BEFORE. You just shouldn't assume that their Google-fu (or JSTOR-fu, or whatever) is good enough to assure that their WP:BEFORE was adequate. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 14:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• comment First i have removed 10,000 from the title, this is an attempt to sensationalize this discussion.

1. For the record I have no history of editing or confrontation with Geo Swan anywhere on Wikipedia, and i have no malice against Geo Swan nor with his creations. I have no interest in Geo Swan's contributions whatsoever. I am active at military weapons, ships, History and terrorism related articles. I came across these articles via the categories on terrorism related articles . I have also created BIOs of few militants and militant organizations myself and I have also improved a number of articles on notable Guantanamo prisoners if they agree with the policies "irrespective of who created it" . I nominate articles only when I am fully convinced that they are clear cases of policy violation "irrespective of who created it" . AS the admins have access to deleted pages, they are free to check the deleted pages from my AFDs that I have also nominated several non-notable BIOs and articles created by editors other than Geo Swan if they do not satisfy the guidelines.
2. on Bundling I dont get any special joy in bundling these articles but I have started doing it as I was requested by AFD sorters and AFD contributors to WP:BUNDLE these AfD's for better discussion as single AFDs had to be relisted several times. I accepted that sane advice. Later on few editors protested against bundling and I accepted that and started nominating problematic articles individually.
3. Finally we should always "remember" that it is not me but the community who decides what article to keep and what to delete based on the consensus at AfDs. I am only highlighting that these articles that have problem. Also note that the notability of these articles could not be established even after 6 years and even after extensive search I could not find any sign of notability of the subject and thats when i decide to AfD it, Many other AfD contributors have also tried and came to conclusion that these were poorly sourced WP:BLP articles violating WP:BLPPRIMARY. And ALL of these Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons articles have either been deleted or redirected.
4. S Marshall above prefers to violate WP:Arguments_to_avoid_in_deletion_discussions#Arguments_to_the_person, making false misleading accusations of bad faith. He has never addressed the subjects of the article but only concentrated on making personal attacks on the AFD nominator on these AFDs. S Marshall falsely accused me of making "quite virulent accusations" here on this AFD. I have never made any accusation against MArshall ever, forget about "virulent" or "quite virulent". On the other hand we can see SMarshall had accused me of a Crusade on an AfD which itself is a severe Bad faith accusation on his part to which i left a civil and sane reply on Marshall's talk page[3] to stick to the content and stop doing WP:AOBF. And in reply to that I was threatened by Marshall to be dragged to ANI (Which he has done). From what i See , accusing me of making "quite virulent accusations" is clear case of Lying WP:ABF and WP:AOBF by SMarshall opposite to WP:AGF.

--DBigXray 10:19, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Your 60+ nominations of articles by the same editor in the same month, is the point you should be addressing here.—S Marshall T/C 10:25, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• I am more concerned about these poorly sourced Negative Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons articles violating WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:BLP1E as far as I am aware , Biographies of living persons is something that Wikipedia takes very seriously. These articles should have been deleted while WP:NPP but may be it escaped the eyes of new page patrollers as geo swan has Autopatrolled/reviewer rights.
• Also from the comments of Geo Swan on AfD i feel that he is still unaware of policies of WP:BLP or choses to blatantly ignore them, but then it is not something that i should care about. My concern is the Content not the contributor, I have already made my comment. and explained my position as clearly as I can. I have always followed community consensus and here also I will follow what the community decides to do with these problematic WP:BLPs, I dont have anything else to say here, regards--DBigXray 10:38, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
• Was it just coincidence that you nominated all these articles by the same editor, then?—S Marshall T/C 10:30, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• As far as I know, through AfDs I am pointing out problematic WP:BLPs irrespective of who created it now if Geo Swan has created all the problematic policy violating non notable WP:BLP Articles, then you are Barking up the wrong tree. It is not me but Geo Swan who should make a clarification about it. For the record I have already stated above an i am repeating again, I have also nominated problematic BLPs of other editors and the admins having access to deleted page history can go ahead and check it.
• I will appreciate if you do not attack me on AfDs in future, AfD contributors should not comment if they are unable or unwilling to address the subject of the article but are more concerned in derailing the AfD debate by making ad hominem personal attacks against the fellow editors as you did on AFD here andhere
• Also the fact that S Marshall wrote 10,000 AFDs as the section title in an attempt to sensationalize the discussion clarifies that he is more interested in WP:DRAMA than participating positively on Articles or AFDs. --DBigXray 10:48, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Was it a coincidence? An accident? Or are you targetting one particular contributor whose edits have caused you concern?—S Marshall T/C 10:45, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Please read WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT--DBigXray 10:48, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Stop it, the pair of you. The issue here is not (or should not) be why we have all these AfD nominations, but what to do with them and how to give each article a fair hearing and ensure that the author can mount a defence of each one if he is so inclined. Bickering over motives doesn't bring us any closer to resolving that issue. If you don't have anything unambiguously constructive to say, then don't participate in this thread. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:04, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• No, that's only part of the issue. I'm trying to establish whether Geo Swan is being personally targeted—which does matter, HJ Mitchell, and isn't irrelevant at all—and if so why he's being targeted. Sometimes it's legitimate to target one particular editor. If they're a serial copyright violator, for example, then everything they've ever written needs to be investigated. But as a general rule individual editors should not be targeted because of hounding and griefing concerns. 60+ nominations in one month is, prima faciae, damn good evidence of targeting, isn't it. I'd like to start a discussion about whether targeting is justified in all the circumstances, in the light of the RFC/U.—S Marshall T/C 13:05, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

The RfC/U itself targets him. It isn't unreasonable for someone to look at it and come to the conclusion that he created a number of dubious BLPs, is it? And then to decide to do something about those BLPs? Dougweller (talk) 16:10, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Is that what's happened? I've asked DBigXray, repeatedly, to tell us whether he's targeting Geo Swan or whether this is a coincidence. He won't answer (and accuses me of IDHT among other things because I keep asking). If DBigXray would confirm that he's targeting Geo Swan because of dubious BLPs, then we'd be making some progress here. In any case, the RfC/U does talk about the issue of targeting Geo Swan. I think that what applies to Fram applies to DBigXray as well. Don't you?—S Marshall T/C 16:24, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Well If you read my above reply again you should be able to understand how I got to these articles but for that one needs to take out the earplugs out of his ears. Everyone else here knows what the real problem is but as we see above Marshall seems to be hellbent on Getting me banned from WP:Terrorism BLPs. Assuming good faith, for you and your understanding I am explaining this one last time. As said above I am active in BLP articles specially terrorism related I have created several BLPs Abdul Rehman Makki, Yasin Bhatkal, Fasih Mahmood, Zabiuddin Ansari, Naamen Meziche, Iqbal Bhatkal, Riyaz Bhatkal, 2010 Bangalore stadium bombing, August_2012_Mansehra_Shia_Massacre, February 2012 Kohistan Shia Massacre and many more. As we know these gentlemen work in organisations that are often interrelated or work in tandem. Obviously I am expected to come across these terrorism related articles, which led me to these BLP violation articles from the categories. I have tried and improved several of these BLPs and I have nominated the non notable WP:BLPPRIMARY violations Irrespective of who has created them . To be honest I am annoyed at these attempts of making imaginary relationships between me and Geo Swan, when there is none, If you dont believe me go and dig into my contributions and bring up a relationship if you are able to find one, until then STFU ! I hope this puts an end to the silly WP:IDHT statements that Marshall is repeatedly stating above, so that we can now concentrate on addressing the Real Problem of these BLP violations.--DBigXray 16:52, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• I take it that you deny that you are personally targeting Geo Swan?—S Marshall T/C 17:01, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
• (Later) Oh, and I'm not trying to get you banned from anything. I'm doing exactly what I said I was doing: I'm trying to get you to stop nominating very large numbers of Geo Swan's contributions for deletion at the same time. And that's all I'm trying to achieve.—S Marshall T/C 17:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I think Marshall has no confidence on our WP:AFD process and least confidence on the Afd contributors and Zero confidence on the AfD nominators. Could Marshall explain why he thinks only Geo Swan has to defend these articles ? do you feel all the AfD contributors are morons hell bent on deleting BLPs ? If the articles are notable anyone should be able to prove the notability and defend it at AfD if the consensus has a view that the article is non notable and/or a

BLP violation, then its ought to be deleted. --DBigXray 17:18, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• The articles you list are all related to Muslim terrorists in India, DBigXray. What have you done to improve the articles you nominate or that you considered nominating? What edits have you made to save Guantanamo and other American terrorism related detainees?--Joshuaism (talk) 17:23, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• These are the articles that i started, the list of articles in which i have contributed is pretty long and I am not interested in giving another list of articles so feel free Dig into my contributions on Guantanamo and other terrorism articles and help yourself, regards--DBigXray 17:33, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• It is an unfair burden to make me prove a negative. It is much easier for you to provide the evidence (if it exists) as you should have a better knowledge of your edits than I do. --Joshuaism (talk) 18:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• SMarshall and DBigXray -- given that this is supposed to be about GeoSwan, could ya'll stop the back and forth?
• I'd like to hear from GeoSwan themself.
• The linked RFC/U recommended a mentor -- did that happen? Nobody Ent 10:58, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I can't see any indication that it did. As I said, my main concern is the BLP articles, should we be asking for input from BLPN? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 11:25, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• The ease with which an editor can defend his contributions should not be an issue in determining AFD - especially not in cases where a single user mass produces content that is substandard, and which includes blps. The problem is with the article mass creation, not with article mass AFDing. If a user creates a large number of dubious articles then he should expect that he will be implicated in a large number of simultaneous afds. That is how the process works. The alternative is to say that as long as you create enough substandard articles you get a get out of AFD free card. That's not the wikipedia I want to be a part of.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:25, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

As the guy that submitted the Qasim article for deletion review I feel I should share my concerns.

• DBigXray is submitting these AfDs at a rate that is too fast for any single user to review the merits of the articles. DBigXray states that he is performing this due diligence, but I have my doubts as all of his submissions consist of copy/paste boilerplate text, and I have not seen any significant edits on his part to shore up questionably notable detainees.Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• The rate of nomination for deletion is a function of the rate of creation. If the Afd rate is too high, it's an issue of the creation rate. Nobody Ent 17:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Not necessarily true. DBigXray can nominate 17 articles in a week, while GeoSwan did not create all of these articles in the matter of one week. Salim Suliman Al Harbi was created over an entire year after Omar Rajab Amin and GeoSwan and other editors have worked for years at improving these articles. All of this research and time can be wiped out in a matter of days by one "industrious" editor so long as a small but dedicated set of voters support him. Meanwhile the creator is discouraged from canvassing for favorable editors and they likely cannot be found easily after many years anyways. Not everyone can be as vigilant as DBigXRay. --Joshuaism (talk) 18:30, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Consensus on these nominations seem to only be made by the same editors, Nick-D, RightCowLeftCoast, Anotherclown,The Bushranger, and Vibhijain. With such a small userbase showing an interest in these articles, can we be sure that this is the consensus of the entire wikicommunity, or is it just WP:LOCALCONSENSUS?Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• There's no such thing as the entire wikicommunity; there are overlapping subcommunities. If those are the only editors currently interested in discussing Afds, that's the subcommittee that decides. (Exceptions would be made if there was evidence of canvassing or the like.). Nobody Ent 17:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• I'm currently investigating whether Vibhijain is a sock-puppet of DBigXray. Both share an interest in keeping topics related to India and deleting all of these detainees. They also both have an odd habit of striking their votes (along with the entire attached comment) just before the close of an AfD and then voting to match consensus. (Vibhijain's AfD record)Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Well, you should keep you suspicions to yourself until your investigation is over. If you conclude there's a reasonable chance they're the same editors, take to WP:SPI, not here. Nobody Ent 17:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
• Done! Thank you for the recommendation! --Joshuaism (talk) 19:12, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Each of these nominations have a clear redirect target. but many of these editors vote to delete anyway. The Bushranger has recently started voting "Merge and Redirect", but the events surrounding the Qasim article made me worry he was actually acting contrary to his recorded vote. It appears that I was mistaken about that. Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• With such a clear redirect/merge topic, I don't know why any of them get nominated for AfD and it causes me to worry about efforts at censorship and WP:BIAS. Many of these pages include useful references that without archiving may suffer from linkrot, making research of their individual cases difficult in the future if the page histories are not preserved. Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• DBigXray claims he worries about BLP/BLP1E issues, but if that is the case, is he concerned about the lists of detainees as well? Could these lists be targeted on the same grounds? Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• You dont need to be concerned about my concerns and how I address my concerns, as an AfD contributor one should be more concerned about finding the notability of an article rather than making personal attacks and random Bad faith accusations on AfD contributors. As for the concerns on "What if..." There is a community at AfD that is competent enough to address anyone's genuine concerns on the articles.--DBigXray 18:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to see comments on each of these individual issues I've brought up. I understand that it may be necessary to break up my long comment to facilitate this. Please feel free to interupt me between each bulletpoint as it will probably make for better readability. Thanks! --Joshuaism (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Question Would Joshuaism also Like to be blocked (if he is proved wrong at SPI) per WP:BOOMERANG for the shocking display of Bad faith you have shown above ?
• Also you need to inform Vibhijain that you are implicating him and taking his name in this ANI case.--DBigXray 17:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for allowing me to at least contact Vibhijain. It looks like you've already contacted everyone else mentioned. Thanks! --Joshuaism (talk) 18:00, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Well if you are taking names of editors at ANI you are supposed to inform them yourself, Informing editors who are being discussed here is not Canvassing and your linking to WP:CANVAS above is yet another WP:AOBF towards fellow editors

What about my question above ? The Bad Faith shown above is extremely shocking, I think I have already said enough for any sane mind to get a clue, ill take a break --DBigXray 18:08, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I make my accusations against you in good faith. I seriously think there are issues with your AfD history and am not trying to discourage good faith edits by actual editors. But this appears to be a crusade on your part and even well meaning edits can be detrimental when editors do not examine the consequences of their actions and the biases at work in their behavior that work to the detriment of Wikipedia and it's community. --Joshuaism (talk) 19:12, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that's a contradiction in terms.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:46, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Well you have already given a demonstration of your good faith by filing a Bad faith frivolous SPI against me and Vibhijain at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DBigXray All the best --DBigXray 19:15, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

And you have given a demonstration of your good faith at your talk page (archived). --Joshuaism (talk) 22:44, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• First you said I am a sock of Vibhijain then you said I am related to Nangparbat If you dont want to see/identify the disruptive misdeeds of this banned sock, then there is nothing much we can do about it.--DBigXray 00:06, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of the outcome of any of the rest of this, you've successfully caused at least one editor to add the Guantanamo BLPs to the "list of Wikipeida things I won't touch with a 10-foot (3.0 m) pole." - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:03, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment The Bad Faith SPI initiated against me by Joshuaism has been deleted as Blatant disruption. --DBigXray 11:24, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

(od, without reading the above) I've commented on quite a few of these AfDs, and I think that they're fine. Geo Swan shouldn't have created these articles in the first place and hasn't cleaned them up despite the serious concerns which were raised in the RfC over a year ago (despite being a very active editor in that period), so their deletion is long-overdue. I'd note that almost all of the nominations are being closed as 'delete', with most comments being posted as part of these discussions relating to BLP concerns. Nick-D (talk) 23:32, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• I second what Nick-D is saying above. I had come across the GeoSwan Guantanamo-related articles before and I think the sheer number of these articles still sitting in mainspace (usually for years) represents a significant problem. These articles typically rely on a combination of primary sources (Guantanamo trial transcripts) and occasional few brief mentions in the newsmedia - almost always a far cry from satisfying WP:GNG or any other relevant notability requirement. The primary responsibility to do the necessary clean up lies with GeoSwan here. But since that is not happening, anyone else who tries, even to a small degree, to do the needed clean-up, deserves considerable credit. Redirecting some of these articles may be a possibility but in many cases even that is not the right solution and a straight delete is more appropriate. Redirecting is meant as a navigation tool for likely search terms - but many of the article titles in question are too obscure to plausibly qualify as likely search terms. Given the length of time most of these articles have been sitting in mainspace, I do not think there is anything unfair about the situation where a large batch of them gets AfDed at the same time. Nsk92 (talk) 23:45, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
• Comment. I have been notified that I have been mentioned in this ANI, and one editor who is accusing another editor of misconduct have brought me up due to my AfD comments on a group of War on Terror related BLPs. First let me say that I am an active (off and on since 2009) editor within the sphere of military history, as such I have the Military DELSORT on my watch list, as well as other DELSORTs that relate to my participation in other WikiProjects and interests. I do not always make a statement in each AfD, however when I do I do research whether the subject in question meet the applicable notability guidelines, and see if the subject meets anything set forth in WP:DEL-REASON. In this case of these group of articles, I found them through one of those DELSORTs on my watch list, and have rendered my opinion (which other editors may or may not share) after looking for reliable sources that meet the criteria set forth in the applicable notability guidelines. I don't see anything wrong with my actions in this regard.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:14, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I must disagree with Nsk92 and NickD here. I think it is well established that trying to delete too many articles of the same type at the same times is abusive. It is easily possible to nominate more articles in a short time than can possibly be dealt with, and this gives an unfair direction to the process in favor of deletion, because no one can possibly do the amount of research to defend the articles that would be required in that time. I am not neutral in this matter, however, as I have repeatedly defended these articles when I thought it would do any good. I have only stopped, quite frankly , because I have gotten exhausted by the process of trying to combat what I think is the prejudice against them. anyone who pushes an issue at WP strongly enough can prevail over other editors with a less fervent devotion, and I think this is what has happened here. I think I'm pretty persistent, but i do not really have the fortitude to continue on the losing side forever. There are others here who are willing to keep at something till they eventually win, and they will be able to defeat me. In this case, the opposition has been a succession of editors over many years trying to destroy these articles, and that can be especially difficult for a reasonable person to combat. (I am not saying it is concerted action--just that a number of different people have had very strong feelings against these articles quite independently.) I think Geo is pretty tough minded also, possibly more than I am. The two of us are not enough, and our opponents have by and large succeeded. It happens elsewhere in WP, and if i couldn't live with that i would have left long ago. I've had frequent occasion to explain that to other people with valid complaints that are not going to be satisfied. DGG ( talk ) 06:20, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• If the articles are adequately sourced in the first place, shouldn't they be snow keeps? Nobody Ent 09:58, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• I am arguing they would be keeps if it were possible during the AfD to work on them to meet the objects, but at this speed of nomination it is not possible. I am also arguing, as I have in the past, that they would be keeps were there not a strong specific interest in trying to delete articles on this particular topic. DGG ( talk ) 15:35, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• The problem with that is to try and rule to limit the amount AFDable becomes a positive discrimination the other way, better an editor creates a lower quantity and hopefully higher quality such that defence is either easy or not required than create a whole ruck which are "questionable" then collapse under the weight of defending/fixing them. i.e. I don't think you can see the problem as one sided. Also I thought wikipedia was supposed to work by consensus without specific examples it's hard to judge but what you describe is to a certain degree indistinguishable from that, if you find yourself constantly fighting a large number of editors with different view, at what point do you think that actually the consensus is against you? It's the classic edit warrior who believes that it's everyone else who hasn't wrong and they are one of the minority which is righteous. To be clear here I'm not suggesting DGG is an edit warrior, merely drawing a parallel - it's always a question of perspective and the suggestion that we legislate against an apparent consensus to protect those who know the truth shouldn't be entertained. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 11:33, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• As those regularly here know very well, I have from the start consistently argued for keeping articles when the reason for deletion is affected by religious or political or similar considerations (such as small political parties or religious groups or other unpopular positions) . Those are general areas where often the community, or that part of it which chooses to participate, can, like any other group of people on such issues, make it impossible for reason to prevail. I deliberately to try to counter this by an active effort for broad inclusion where these considerations might be a factor. That in many cases the inclination is in fact my own political or religious or philosophical view is irrelevant to my consistency in opposing making decisions influenced consciously or unconsciously by such considerations. As I do this regardless of the particular politics or religion or other standpoint, I don't see how this makes me a zealot for anything but free expression for minorities and the unpopular. Nor do I think I am consistently found arguing in general at WP against a large majority. Often at XfD I am, because I am willing to do so, and express views regardless of the degree of opposition--most editors try to avoid that. I have had the satisfaction over the years of seeing some but not all of these positions become the accepted consensus, because I and a few others are willing to stand up for unpopular positions and take a long term view of it. Sometimes I do not succeed, but i succeed often enough to keep going. Anyone who thinks WP does not sometimes exhibit some religious or political or philosophical prejudice is either not paying attention, or blindly following any majority. DGG ( talk ) 15:35, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I don't have the time to read the whole discussion, but I saw some false sock-puppetry allegations on me. From my side, one is free to ask a checkuser if these allegations are true. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^{Talk Email} 06:30, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• Also I must point out that almost all of these problematic BLPs were created en masse in 2006, Even After 6-7 years their notability is not established. Even if you take 6 more years the situation will still remain the same, The only source where you find a mention is Primary sources, or at best a passing mention of name in news. As we can see from the RFC also, the problem with these BLP violations has been raised several times, and the author was asked to do something about it. But fact is the author cannot conjure up reliable secondary sources for few of these non-notable biographies to prove the notabilty, as a result not much has been done and the situation remains the same even now. --DBigXray 12:20, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
• One is free to make a WP:CHECKUSER request against Vibhijain but do not be surprised to be openly mocked by his coterie of friends and then have the request deleted (not closed!) by a friendly admin. --Joshuaism (talk) 15:45, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand the difference between closing and deleting an SPI page.An SPI case page is usually archived if there is some evidence to prove the point..and if any CU/Patrolling Admin/Clerk makes some comments on it.In the recent SPI page started by you yesterday, you were reporting a well established editor who has been an administrator in over four wikis.Morever, you haven't produced any diffs or any sort of evidence whatsoever..leave the behavioral match!.If you wish to still pursue a RFCU on DBigXray and Vibhijain...make sure you get enough evidences to prove it...not behavior matches! Thanks TheStrikeΣagle 16:03, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• Like a number of others, I am strongly opposed to GeoSwan getting any more of a free ride than any other editor. Not only is there no requirement that an AfD ought to be held up until such time as the article creator chimes in, hundreds of editors chime in at AfD, surely enough opinions to get the job done. If an AfDed article of his is worthy of defense, then someone will defend it. Ravenswing 12:41, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• No, wait, that's not what I said. I never asked for special treatment for Geo Swan. If someone came along and nominated 60+ articles that you, or anyone else, had written in the same month, then I would be here saying exactly the same thing. This is what HJ Mitchell said earlier: More than sixty XfDs in the same month is bound to overwhelm both the user and the AfD system. It's abuse of process. Whether aimed at Geo Swan or not.—S Marshall T/C 12:55, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• It's "abusive" to file lots of AfDs? Truly? Are you alleging that these are bad faith nominations? Are the nominations purely on specious grounds? Is there, in fact, anything wrong with these AfDs among the hundred-plus filed every day other than that the articles were created by a single editor? Sorry, I'm not seeing it, and I'm certainly not seeing any reason to fling the "abuse" slur. Ravenswing 08:23, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• To answer those questions in the order that you raise them:

  (1) Yes. To file 60+ XfDs on one user in rapid succession is an abuse of process.

  (2) No. Whatever DBigXray might think or allege, I have never accused him of bad faith. I presume he is doing this in a good faith attempt to improve the encyclopaedia. Nevertheless good faith actions can be unreasonable.

  (3) Yes. There is something wrong with filing so many AfDs at once, which is that it'll overwhelm and demoralise the relatively prolific content contributor who started them all, and also put pressure on our XfD process which is, nowadays, so ill-attended that it mostly consists of discussions that have been relisted for extra input. We get discussions nowadays that have been relisted twice and still nobody independent's had anything to say. Frankly, XfD was already creaking under the strain of Wikipedia's steady decline in active editor numbers, even before this.

  I see this issue as analagous to the old X-Y relations disputes we used to have in 2009, except that the Guantanmo BLPs do have sources and aren't just a massive case of WP:KITTENS. But the X-Y relations thing was stupid. We dealt with it stupidly. We repeated what was essentially the same discussion hundreds and hundreds of times, because we couldn't find a better process. Let's learn. If this user wants to target the Guantanamo Bay-related BLPs as a class (which is clearly what he wants to do) then we can come up with better ways of doing it than all these XfDs all at the same time. That might mean inventing an ad hoc process or just using an RFC, for example.—S Marshall T/C 09:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Geo Swan here

First, I need to make a very serious correction -- I dispute I created a large number of articles that don't comply with the wikipedias standards.

Rather I created a large number of articles that measured up to the standards at the time they were created, that, for one reason or another haven't been updated or rewritten so they meet the more stringent standards current today.

I am on record, and I will repeat here today, I agree that all articles that don't meet the standards of today, and can't be updated or rewritten to meet those standards should be merged or redirected.

The first Guantanamo related article I started was that of Murat Kurnaz. Its original state falls very short of today's standard this is not evidence that I am serial creator of non-compliant articles, rather it shows how our standards have evolved. The Murat Kurnaz article has been updated and rewritten, so I think most people would agree it meets today's standards.

Why haven't I made sure every article on a Guantanamo captive I started was updated or rewritten, to meet today's standards, or that it was merged or redirected, if that wasn't possible? Short answer -- wikistalkers. Long answer, its complicated.

As others have reported, DBigXray has accused me of personally attacking them, in multiple comments, when all I thought I was doing was sharing what he had written to me. So, let me state that it is not my intention to attack his character, or try to read his mind as to his motives.

Having said that, DBigXray, in trying to defend the high volume of the {{afd}}s on articles I have created has made statements which are just not supported by his contribution history.

He claimed he encountered me and my contributions "at random". In fact our first interaction was in June of this year, in the 2nd and 3rd {{Tfd}} for Template:Kashmir separatist movement. I thought it was a problematice {{Tfd}} for a number of reasons, like that the nominator had been edit warring and using inflammatory language in his or her edit summaries.

Here is a comment I made, where I said it looked like those favoring deletion did not seem to have been prepared to try collegial discussion, prior to claiming the template was hopelessly biased.

In his reply he claimed that if I looked at the templates revision history I would see those who favored deletion had tried discussion.

I did look at the revision history, and tried to explain how "discussions" of controversial topics that take place in edit summaries are triggers for edit warring, as the other party has to partially or fully revert you, to reply, and that it is far better to have a discussion that can be read later by third parties, on the relevant talk page.

Was what I saw in this discussion a small group of pro-India nationalists, trying to win their way in this template, without regard to the wikipedia's policies?

I just checked DBigXray's four edits to that template. His edits in the template itself seemed reasonable, and not instances of edit warring. But his comments in the {{tfd}} were defending the blatant edit warring of the nominator, who has a long history of being blocked for edit warring.

DBigXray's first nomination of an article I started was June 15, less than a week after that Tfd closed.

DBigXray has claimed he has shown no animosity towards me, and has not been harrassing me. This also not supported by his record. (See User talk:Geo Swan#Participating in Deletion discussion) In those first few {{afd}} DBigXray told me that I was knowingly violating policy, and was in a conflict of interest, because I had not explicitly noted that I was the contributor who started the articles in question.

An uninvolved third party came along, and explained to DBigXray, that I was not in a conflict of interest, and wasn't violating any policy -- but not before DBigXray's demands became extremely unpleasant.

With regard to DBigXray's original point -- they wanted the articles to be redirected to the articles on captives of their nationality. On July 11th, 12th and 13th I redirected 300 articles to the articles on the captives of their nationality, with an edit summary of "redirect as per User:Geo Swan/Redirecting Guantanamo captives articles to the list articles on their nationalities".

In that note I explained that I thought some of those articles could be updated to meet the current standards. But, if so, they would require multiple hours each. I said I would seek opinions from others, prior to turning any of them back from a redirect to an article. Geo Swan (talk) 12:12, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• Thank you Geo Swan for finally making a comment on the discussion about the articles, but rather than addressing the content and lack of notability that needs to be explained you choose again to point the fingers at the Nominator, Please note that your opinions/accusations with out proof have no relevance. As for the change in policy, I am not familiar with the old policies but i believe there cannot be a dramatic change between the BLP policies of then and now. WP:GNG is something that needs to be satisfied anyhow. May be at the time of creation it was thought that more sources will be added as newer sources come, out, but we should accept the fact that many of these were examples of WP:BLP1E and I am not sure how waiting for more time will get you more sources.
• Also I should point that Geo Swan had declared about the benefits of making a Fake show of good faith while harboring bad faith. I hope the admins will see how non-related things are being connect with imaginary explanations. Connecting the template discussion with Guantanamo articles that too after so many days is something I would call as ridiculous. I have never targeted Geo Swan in my AFDs, but Geo Swan has made slant remarks of bad faith at both the nominator and the contributor. Even in his above comment we see the same has been done. What I see here is a case of, "when there is no way to prove a BLP violating articles notability through fair means then go around making bad faith accusations against the Nominator and implicate him however you can." and a few great examples of this have been presented above in the thread.
• I am not going to make any more comment on the WP:AOBF above and below, I believe I have already said more than enough about my stand and I leave it for the admins to decide--DBigXray 13:00, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• You ask us to assume good faith of you a lot, I notice. You're targeting one particular user, aren't you? With 60+ AfDs in the same month aimed at the same person, it's completely obvious that that's what you're doing.—S Marshall T/C 12:55, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
• I dispute I counseled "faking good faith". I think a fair-minded reading of my comment is that I counseled continuing to struggle to give the appearance one was still assuming good faith, when one felt one's correspondent had shown bad faith, because: (1) in spite of a heated suspicions, they might merit the assumption of good faith after all; (2) continuing to show the appearance of good faith, in the face of what seems like bad faith, can make your correspondent return to good faith behavior. I didn't say, but I could have added, it is better for the project overall, when at least one party to a discussion can continue to show good faith, than to have all parties ignore WP:AGF. Geo Swan (talk) 13:57, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Replies and comments from other users

• Anyone who nominates this stuff should be given a barnstar. At this point, Geo Swan should be topic-banned from any military/War on Terror/Guantanamo-related article. We've been cleaning up his mess for, what, a year now? Either we're sifting through dozens and dozens of primary-sourced prisoner BLPs at AfD or addressing the junk still leftover in userspace via MfD. Enough is enough. Tarc (talk) 13:04, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
• as you say, if one is determining on not having articles on an issue, a good course is to prohibit their proponents from even speaking up. I said above why I will defend unpopular positions, and this suggestion is an illustration of what will happen if at least some people do not do so. DGG ( talk ) 15:58, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

  Similarly if one is determined on having articles on an issue, a good course is to prohibit proponents of that from even speaking up, by (say) trying to limit their ability to have deletion discussions on them, or by persistently badgering them about their motives - all of which can be witnessed above. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 16:25, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• I would encourage Mr. Swan to start a website with the prisoner bios. I think this is valuable material that needs to be "out there," even if WP might not be the place for it. Ironically, such a website of scholarly bios might provide the basis at some future date, when more is published by others, for a restoration of these biographies to WP in a form compliant with current BLP standards. I also would like to add that I think Tarc's tone is out of line and unbecoming. Carrite (talk) 15:31, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
• Comment - First of all, I have no idea where assuming good faith has gone and went, as a colleague of mine would say. I completely agree that, when Geo Swan started his mini-project on detainees, it was certainly within the parameters of normal editing for general notability. Some people need to give him a bit of slack. Well, as we know, consensus can change around here, and in this case, I see that it has. Even I, often accused of inclusionism, have moderated my practices and idea(l)s, as documented in April 2011 and May 2011. In fact, I detected a growing consensus in the spring of 2011 of a tightening of the outcomes of debates at AfD. We also saw that ion the massive clean-up of unreferenced BLPs a while back. So I think you can't blame Geo for being upset that the Project is changing around those issues. It is particularly cruel to post 60 AfDs, which overwhelms the deletion process -- especially when so many North American Users are on vacation! Geo has been a perfectly fine editor, and remains so. I would not topic-ban him in such circumstances, and like DGG, I defend his right to a minority viewpoint. Geo's work has, on the whole, been of great benefit to the Project, and it would be awful to lose another useful User. On the other hand, we really need to construct a more specific guideline or to clarify written consensus that we have been merging the merely or barely notable BLPs on detainees into groups of articles - such as Afghan detainees at Guantanamo Bay -- leaving individual articles only for those detainees who are most clearly notable. I hope this comment is helpful for the discussion. Bearian (talk) 22:52, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
• (edit conflict × 2) Here is a diff in which two editors tried to talk to DBigXray, and he/she removed the discussion with the word "badgering".  The issue which Geo Swan was trying to address is relevant to this entire discussion, because the diff shows that DBigXray removed material from an article seven minutes before bringing it to AfD.  This is a situation which makes it easy to read consensus from the mind of the nominator, which is that the deletion nomination was insufficient on its own merits and needed help.  The deletion discussion for Habib Noor stipulates that there was reliable primary material, but there was no WP:BEFORE analysis as to what to do with the reliable material as per WP:ATD alternatives to deletion.  Each argument in the AfD discussion is consistent with a merge result, and the most efficient way to have brought feedback into this system was for an administrator to have closed the discussion as WP:SK#1, no argument for deletion, WP:NPASR, early on July 2.  Unscintillating (talk) 22:58, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• And here we have another WP:AOBF, You are not able to see the content removed yet you assume that it was obviously my cardinal sin to do that, with complete disregrard to WP:AGF. The content was a violation of WP:BLPPRIMARY& WP:COATRACK and had been removed by several other editors in past also but Geo Swan (for whatever reasons) had reverted the problematic content back into the article. --DBigXray 23:32, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
• Just a note that the diff where "...DBigXray removed material from an article seven minutes before bringing it to AfD." had no bearing whatsoever on the subject's notability, being general material about the tribunal. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:57, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't explain why the material was removed.  And it doesn't change that the nominator saw the article as something to be edited, not as something that would soon disappear.  However, I have redacted three words that are not helpful.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:59, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I know that I have started to edit an article, removing badly sourced material, unsourced promotional stuff, whatever, and only then realised that the problem was simply that the subject of the article wasn't notable anyway and then took it to AfD. Dougweller (talk) 05:27, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and mileage may vary and people are not perfect; but such truisms are not helpful or relevant; for example, you wouldn't have re-thought your position and had the article at AfD seven minutes later, would you?  Unscintillating (talk) 08:47, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment by uninvolved editor OpenFuture: The argument here is that it's hard to defend many articles being sent to AfD. Instead it should somehow be hard to keep Wikipedia policies in place regarding articles, and that you should be able to "override" WP:N etc by creating many articles at once. That of course doesn't make any sense. The problem here is the assumption that it is hard to "defend" articles. This is false, articles does not need defending at all, and you need to spend zero time defending them. Several editors take a look at the AfD and if the article has merit, then it stays. The article creator needs to put no time on defending the article at all.

What takes time is not defending articles, but creating good articles that can survive an AfD. If Geo Swan is creating articles at such a high speed that he does not have time to make the articles good enough for Wikipedia, then he should slow down the article creation, and instead put his time and effort into making the articles good enough that they survive an AfD or even better, don't get AfD'd at all.

As such there can be no limit to how many of an editors articles get an AfD per month or day or hour or year. If the editor creates good articles that fulfill basic Wikipeda requirements, then this is simply not an issue. If he get's 60 articles AfD'd per month, then he needs to slow down article creation and concentrate more on quality and less no quantity. --OpenFuture (talk) 12:36, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

• • Yes, of course, if that was what was happening you'd be right. But what is happening is years of work are being attacked by a couple of users in a very short time frame. The same thing happened a few years ago, and one of those two users later tried the same tactic on me. (The other is banned.) And I can tell you that it is not fun seeing someone combing through your contributions for things to revert, delete or report. Geo Swann has been very open about his work, and very amenable to making changes, merging articles and other improvements, and for this he should be commended. Asking the "deletionists" to behave colligially is a good idea, and should be responded to positively. Rich Farmbrough, 06:12, 25 August 2012 (UTC).
    

Fundamental problem of Wikipedia

At the core, good faith supports all the positions expressed above. A fundamental problem of Wikipedia is the incoherence between Notability and Verifiably. The former says articles can exist if the subject is notable, even if entirely unsourced; the latter says unsourced material can be removed. But you just know that turning a totally unsourced article into the blank page (per V) is going to bring the wrath of WP upon you (Pointy!) (because of N). Likewise burden says the writer should be sourcing the stuff, whereas before says that noticing an article might not be encyclopedic suddenly makes the noticer responsible for fixing it. Nobody Ent 22:36, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

wp:BEFORE does not make the person who notices that an article "might not be encyclopedic" responsible for fixing that article. Before doesn't even kick in unless you decide not to fix an article but to delete it instead. If you doubt whether the subject of an article is notable then we have tags for that and if you consider that a fact or even a whole article needs sources then we have tags for that as well. Only if information is contentious or blatantly wrong does it need to be summarily removed, and in such circumstances there is no obligation on the remover to check first to see if it can be sourced. Most of the time Notability and Verifiability work well together, they only start to seem incoherent if you take an overly deletionist attitude and especially if you treat verifiable as the same as verified. ϢereSpielChequers 08:05, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Which essentially invalidates WP:BURDEN's alleged You may remove any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source. Because sticking a tag changes an unsourced article or section into an unsourced article or section with a four year old tag on it. Nobody Ent 16:42, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Checking for reliable sources doesn't really take that long. Google News, Google books and Google Scholar, and if you can't find anything there, then I think an AfD is acceptable. --OpenFuture (talk) 12:42, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the main issue is that a topic can be notable (WP:GNG isn't the only guideline) when insufficient sources exist. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:57, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to slow down a bit at AfD

I'd propose that DBigXray be asked by the community to nominate no more than 2 or 3 articles week by Geo Swan. Issues of socking, ABF, etc. aside, there is no rush to get these removed (and if BLPN feels that in fact there _is_ a hugely pressing need to remove articles that have been 6 years we could redirect them I suppose).

• Support as proposer. There is certainly debate about bad faith, BEFORE, socking and notability. But no one seems to disagree with the notion that high-speed AfDs make it difficult to fix these articles before they get deleted (which I think we'd agree is optimal if they are fixable). Hobit (talk) 02:52, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Comment - - I believe that this is a reasonable proposal that I might even consider supporting. But AfD is not clean-up and I believe that there are few detainee articles that require deletion as nearly all of these articles have a good merge/redirect candidate list. Has anyone considered nominating these articles at Proposed mergers? It will allow DBigXray to address his concerns while giving Geo Swan and other interested users time to fix keep-worthy articles as well as transfer usable references and information into articles that they will eventually redirect to. They currently have a backlog of 3 months, and so long as these nominations are limited to two or three a week, these detainees and detainee lists should be workable without being overwhelming. Limiting nominations to three a week would also limit any disruptions caused by False consensus or local consensus and without the threat of deletion, my worries about censorship would be alieved. So long as no other users are nominating detainee articles this should be workable. Thoughts?--Joshuaism (talk) 05:33, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Nope. Speed limits do not address problems of "bad faith, BEFORE, socking and notability". This is just another attempt to stymie the AfD process through the introduction of arbitrary barriers. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:41, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: I'm with Chris; if these nominations are on specious grounds, if they are poorly executed, if the subjects are discussed in significant detail by multiple reliable sources, as the GNG enjoins, then there are grounds for speed limits. I am, however, unalterably opposed to the AfD process being changed to suit a single editor's convenience. If the articles pass policy muster, there will be people defending them at AfD, as is always the case. If they do not pass policy muster, then any one editor's presence is irrelevant. Ravenswing 08:32, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support On the 14th Aug BigXray notified GeoSwan of eight AFDs and MFDs in under an hour, including two in one minute. Slowing down would give DBigXray more time to properly look for sources, and take some of the heat out of the situation. ϢereSpielChequers 08:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Chris and Ravenswing explain it well. Should he slow down the rate of his nominations out of courtesy? Perhaps. Should he be forced to slow down through sanctions? No. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:19, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Per Chris,Raven and BushRanger.Enforcing sanctions on a user who creates legit AfDs' only to reduce the work load(back log) of AfD process seems ridiculous. TheStrikeΣagle 09:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Look at the RfC linked to in S Marshall's opening statement. Geo Swan was (or should have been) aware of the problems with his articles after some 200 or so were deleted through AfD and the like. When left alone after the RfC ended, he basically did nothing to correct the problems with his articles. The problem is not the speed of the current AfDs, the problem is the existence of these articles for many, many years, and the reluctance of Geo Swan to clean up his articles and his userspace. The desired outcome of the RfC was "User:Geo Swan voluntarily refrains from creating anymore BLP-related articles (broadly construed) in the mainspace or in userspace until both his existing articles in the mainspace and in the userspace are checked and made fully compliant with BLP (and other policies) or deleted." Geo Swan still does not understand or accept that his view on sourcing (reliability and independence), notability (and the fact that it is not inherited), and BLP is different from the generally accepted Wikipedia norms. I don't only oppose this actual proposal, but would prefer this counter-proposal: Topic ban Geo Swan from all BLP related articles and from all Guantanamo related articles. Fram (talk) 09:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Unless I'm missing something, the 134,000 hits argument was made by a different editor. Kanguole 10:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Thanks, struck out the comment for now (reading too many AfDs and mixing things from one with another). Will look for a better example. Fram (talk) 11:33, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
      • Striking out doesn't work as I would like it, have removed the comment now instead. Fram (talk) 11:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose, and support Fram's counter-proposal above. Nsk92 (talk) 10:02, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support - the mad rush of AfDs have overwhelmed the system. As Joshuaism points out, much of this can be done through the ordinary merger and editing processes. Furthermore, as Wier Spiel Chequers notes, we need to take out time for non-urgent deletions. I also strongly urge editors please do not censor minority viewpoints by way of topic ban; it will not only create further hassle/discord/incivility, but will do great harm to the Project by driving out productive editors. Bearian (talk) 11:12, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
  • What "minority viewpoint"? Do you mean content-related, or policy-related? When someone has created hundreds of articles over years and years that need deleting, most of them for WP:BLP1E reasons, but continues to maintain that they should be kept, then there comes a point that one has to conclude that he is so far out of sync with our policies that some other way to enforce these policies should be found. A topic ban (from article space only perhaps) is one way of addressing this. A mentor was also suggested as a possible solution in the RfC, but I don't believe that the message of the RfC has had any effect, apart from me staying away from Geo Swan for a year. Not really the result most people at that RfC saw as the most urgent or necessary... Fram (talk) 11:55, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Errr ... exactly how "overwhelmed?" Are you seriously asserting that a process which receives between 70 and 120 AfDs a day is "overwhelmed" by sixty AfDs filed over the course of two months? This is absurd hyperbole at the level best. Ravenswing 12:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
    • I think the system is overwhelmed too. Many people only follow AfDs in areas they care about. That there are 100s of others isn't relevant if many are showing up in the same area at the same time. And the cut-and-paste nature of many of the votes and nominations implies that even those responding are overwhelmed (or at least not looking case-by-case very well). Also, a bit of AGF would help here. You may disagree with people, but it helps avoid terms like absurd hyperbole and the use of scare quotes just because you disagree with something... Hobit (talk) 13:44, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
      • AGF is not a suicide pact. If you want to be treated seriously, don't make bogus arguments and use them to try to enact sanctions on editors to push your ideological agenda. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
        • Weird, because all I'm doing is pushing for content to have a fair shot at being fixed before being deleted. I'm not pursuing ideological goals (or I don't think I am, not sure if you mean wiki-goals of trying to keep articles that can be fixed to meet our guidelines (true) or wider geo-political ideological goals (false)). I'd not considered this a saction before but clearly it is. I'd be quite happy with just agreeing that in general we should limit the number of AfDs to some reasonable count when a single author is involved if that removes that concern. The problem I'm having is that you seem to be seeing motivations which just aren't there (or perhaps I'm misunderstanding your statements). I feel I've proposed something fairly reasonable. I don't mind losing the debate (ok, well a little) but the ABF coming from you all is just odd and seems to be really overkill. I'm not quite sure where all the heat is coming from, but the rage some of you appear feel for this issue seems to be coloring your view. Thre are valid views on the other side the debate. Please acknowledge that and move on. Hobit (talk) 15:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
          • Weird, because all the Oppose advocates are doing is rejecting the notion that AfD needs to be changed because some people (heaven knows why) finds an average of one extra AfD a day to be an onerous imposition. As far as a "fair shot" goes, some of these articles have been hanging fire for years. If neither GeoSwan nor his supporters have sought to bring these articles up to notability standards, nor seem to find the time to do so in the week an AfD usually lasts (as opposed, for instance, to discussing the matter at length here), I can't see why they ought to be given special consideration ... especially since the community, by and large, feel that they do not satisfy notability guidelines. (After all, if you believe that the subjects are notable, what prevents you from recreating any article for which you've done the research after the fact?)

            That aside, for someone urging AGF and opposed to terms you don't like, you are quite quick yourself to put words in the mouths of others and impugn "heat" and "rage" to those you oppose. Why is that? Ravenswing 05:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

            • You are right, I shouldn't have used those words. I couldn't see any other explanation, but AGF says I should assume one exists. Hobit (talk) 16:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose there's no reason to stop these perfectly valid AfDs (almost all are closed as delete), and as Fram notes Geo Swan has been given heaps of time to fix up this mess involving BLPs he created but has failed to do so. A topic ban for Geo Swan as proposed by Fram has a lot of merit (especially as he's still been creating highly questionable articles on Guantanamo-related topics in recent months), but that should be considered as an entirely separate process. Nick-D (talk) 11:41, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support, for the moment. We should create some kind of task group or sub-process that can take all these articles together as a class. Spamming AfD with them all and watching the same users copy/paste the same !votes into all these different discussions is inefficient and impracticable.—S Marshall T/C 11:58, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: Is there some other means of deleting these articles other than at AfD? Were such a task force to conclude that the articles did not pass muster, would they not have to go to AfD all the same? Would not, in fact, those AfDs have to be considered piecemeal, because bundling a mass amount would never be acceptable? In short, no change ... other than creating another bureaucratic layer, which is what I would call "inefficient and impracticable." Ravenswing 12:51, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• If I've read DBigXray's point #2 up-thread accurately, then originally DBigXray created multiple noms only to be told that this was unworkable and that they needed to be nominated individually. Catch-22. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:44, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• The task group would presumably pop everything within scope into an unindexed space such as the incubator, then merge everything that can be merged, redirect everything that can be redirected, and whatever residue is left over could be removed with CSD G6 or G7.—S Marshall T/C 15:44, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - No reason for special treatment, nor reason to stop valid AfDs. Kierzek (talk) 14:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Per Chris Nobody Ent 16:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - Getting these god-awful embarrassments off the project needs to be encouraged, not tied up with wiki-red tape. Tarc (talk) 16:54, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose as I think I've made clear above. If we have a load of articles that need AfDs, then we get a load of AfDs. It's not the fault of the nominator that these articles exist. We need to consider Fram's proposal also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 19:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Chris nails it. It would be helpful if DBig voluntarily slowed down by half or more, just out of a sense of fairness, to allow others the opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff here, but imposing it is a non-starter. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:20, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
• SupportThese AfDs are an abuse of process, and unfair to sensible consideration of the articles. I don't see why a pause is a non-starter--I think it's elemental fairness. No afds conducted at this frequency can be valid--only fair treatment with time for work and consideration makes a valid AfD. I note the hostility against Geo for his work on this topic. There seems to be an animus here which I find hard to justify on either political or personal grounds. If it is on political grounds, I think it would be motivated primarily by a desire to avoid articles on the topic, regardless of possible ways to rescue them; the attempt to enact a topic ban would then be downright suppression of ideas which are temporarily unpopular or uncomfortable, and shows a total incomprehension or disagreement with the concept of an objective encyclopedia. There's another so-called encyclopedia that does in fact work that way; it should serve as a warning against any similar tendencies here. If it is personal, then it is necessary for those with this sort of feeling to stay away from anything involving Geo. Who they are is obvious enough without naming them. DGG ( talk ) 04:04, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Wow. Deletionists = Conservapedia. Well, that's me told. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
• Ambivalent as to practicality, but endorse the spirit of the suggestion. I don't have any great desire to see most of these articles kept on Wikipedia, and I suspect I would agree with most of DB's nominations on a case by case basis, but I agree that the current approach isn't working out. Nominating dozens at once, which effectively overwhelms the ability to individually defend them regardless of quality, is problematic. A topic ban as initially suggested is definitely not suitable, but bear in mind that deliberately limiting the rate of deletion doesn't work out very well either.

If the material is in fact inappropriate for Wikipedia, we would want to remove it sooner rather than later - saying "you can't delete that this month, there's too many AfDs already" is definitely undesirable. We could try grouping AfDs into a joint nomination, but especially where BLPs are involved it doesn't work very effectively - the variation between one case and another usually derails the discussion, and ends up with them all relisted individually to get a better discussion. (I believe there has been at least one bulk-AfD in the past with this topic.) Andrew Gray (talk) 12:18, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose as being in direct opposition to fundamental Wikipedia values and policies. See my longer comment above. --OpenFuture (talk) 12:29, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
• Strong oppose First my decision on AfD Solely depends on the notability and its adherence to the wikipedia policies and my WP:BEFORE not becuase an XYZ user had created it. The proposal wants me to check the article creator first which is simply ridiculous and will give a wrong message and set a wrong precedent, one should be more concerned about the content rather than the contributer. Its the over-emphasis on contributer that creates so much WP:Drama DBigXray 12:38, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Fram. The problem is the person who creates the articles after than they can defend them, not the person nominating for deletion. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 12:53, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose If articles aren't encyclopedic need to go to AfD we shouldn't be forcing people to hold back. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:40, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

No special treatment for Guantanamo captives

I don't think the Guantanamo articles should get "special treatment", nor do I think my contributions should get "special treatment".

With regard to {{blp1e}} whether some of these articles are instances of it, and whether I have ignored or don't understand it -- what constitutes an "event" is a highly subjective judgement. As someone noted above the participants in these {{afd}}s who favour deletion are disproportionately contributors who have self identified as military experts. And, those who self-identify as military experts don't recognize that when captives were charged before unprecedented Guantanamo "military commissions" were no longer individual known only for one event. The self-identified military experts don't recognize that when independent third parties report captives were arrested, tried, convicted or acquitted after they were repatriated to their home countries were no longer known for one event.

That other contributor above suggested that the opinions of the self-identified military experts represented a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, an overall minority view, and might not reflect a project wide view.

Those who disagree with covering Guantanamo captives expressed a lot of impatience here. Hundreds of hours have been spent on {{afd}} for these individuals.

I am going to propose a topic-specific notability guideline -- but not to get special treatment for Guantanamo captives. We have topic-specific notability guidelines WP:POLITICIANs, and WP:CRIMINALs. Those who self-identify as military experts want us to have a topic-specific notability rule for WP:SOLDIERs.

I am not proposing a topic specific notability rule for Guantanamo captives, but rather for everyone captive who is held in some kind of extrajudicial detention. Bowe Bergdahl is also held in a kind of extrajudicial detention. If he had never been captured he would be no more notable than the less notable Guantanamo captives. That female South American politician Íngrid Betancourt who was held by guerillas for half a dozen years, then freed in a daring rescue was also held in a kind of extrajudicial detention. Waterborne Iranian guards captured a small boat with a half dozen Royal Navy ratings, a few years ago, they too were held in a kind of extrajudicial detention. Íngrid Betancourt was just one of about fifty political captives the guerillas were holding. I would see the topic-specific notability rules for extrajudicial captives applying to all of those fifty.

I suggest that adopting topic specific notability rules here would avoid anyone thinking {{afd}} closures were instance of mere WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, and could be specific as to what should or shouldn't class an individual as someone known solely for one event.

Here I suggest some topic specific notability criteria for extrajudicial captives, for comment. Geo Swan (talk) 17:06, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

BLP is a tricky business at WP, as you know. I'd suggest you start a site called guantanamowatch.org or some such to make sure that biographical information is not lost to those searching for it — and as a reminder of ongoing American human rights abuses with respect to the Bush-Obama regime's illegal detention program there. Carrite (talk) 17:59, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

It's a start, although currently too targeted towards Guantanamo detainees at the moment. There are some very good ideas in here regarding having a book written about them (surprisingly not already a part of WP:ANYBIO), being tried in a military commission (should probably be broadened to anything described as a kangaroo court), being named on a most wanted list, multiple incarcerations by different countries, and compensation. Have there been any notability guidelines proposed for POWs, Political prisoners, Prisoners of conscience, or just prisoners (other than criminals) in general? --Joshuaism (talk) 18:01, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

No, we don't set up special notability categories for living people who are considered to be the victims of injustice by editors as you're basically proposing here. To be frank Geo Swan, you seem to be trying to use Wikipedia to further some kind of campaign against the Guantanamo Bay regime. The notability criteria you propose are hopelessly biased and fundamentally inconsistent with WP:BLP (for instance, you suggest that detainees become notable if the US Government labels them a "recidivist" as (in part) "This meme has been strongly challenged by legal scholars and human rights, who found, when one looks closely at the named individuals, it seems that for some of them all they had to do to get listed as "recidivists" was to agree to be interviewed about conditions in the camp."). Nick-D (talk) 23:09, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Wait, wait, wait... Nick-D, are you saying that people who are declared recidivists, terrorists, and/or enemies of the state by the US government are not notable? --Joshuaism (talk) 02:34, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

What's being said here is that they are not made notable simply by being declared those things. Being declared a recidivist, terrorist, and/or enemy of the state =/= automatic notability. They still need to pass WP:GNG, WP:BLP1E, WP:SOLDIER, WP:NPEOPLE, and/or whichever other guideline is relevant. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Hear hear. It is a staple of people attempting to save non-notable articles to hotly declare, "But X makes them notable!" No, meeting the requirements of the GNG and the pertinent subordinate notability criteria is what makes them "notable," as Wikipedia defines the term. So far, WP:USAHATESHIM is not a valid notability criterion. Ravenswing 05:59, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Wrong! I'm saying that the initial capture and release is a separate incident from the declaration of recidivism. If there are reliable third party sources that report on these two separate events then the suspected terrorist is not a WP:BLP1E and the remoteness in time between the two events show continued interest and coverage.--Joshuaism (talk) 13:12, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Note that even if WP:BLP1E doesn't apply WP:GNG does. Appearing on a "list of people we don't like" doesn't confer squat. (Also note that if it did it would, ironically, make Wikipedia's systemic bias situation worse...or do we start assuming that Soviet Enemies of the State are notable? What about India's? Ecuador's? Grand Fenwick's?) Note also that "continued interest and coverage" =/= "significant coverage". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 19:27, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

You forgot to mention China. And Singapore. And this list has a number of enemies of various states. Not all of those listed were imprisoned, many are of unquestionable notability, but others could be ripe cadidates for AfD if they were scrubbed as hard as these detainee articles have been. Would you recommend a strait down the list mass AfD of these articles? I would not. It would be more helpful to have a guideline to point to when we encounter non-notable imprisoned activists and freedom fighters. --Joshuaism (talk) 23:51, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

"When we encounter non-notable imprisoned activists and freedom fighters" - we need to do the same thing we do with any non-notable person who has an article - delete the article, Q.E.D.. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:13, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Interesting concept you have there. So how many separate sources do you think it takes to meet GNG for a detainee? Because your history on BLP AfD's shows you hold detainees to a higher standard than voice actors(AfD - 0 sources), footballers(AfD - BLP1E), African government officials(AfD - 4 tangential mentions), and um... random people tangentially related to JFK?(AfD - BLP0E). These were all from the past two months while you've been happily voting to delete and merge Guantanamo detainees for failing GNG and BLP1E. I could not find one single detainee that you have voted to keep. How much continued coverage and how many secondary events will it take for you to consider any of them as notable?

But at least you have shown consistency when it comes to deleting local political nominees. It would appear that you hold these secondary guidelines for WP:ENTERTAINER, WP:NFOOTY, and WP:POLITICIAN in higher regard than GNG. Is this why you oppose a guideline for prisoners?--Joshuaism (talk) 04:25, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

In cases where there is not a list to be merged to, I err on the side of keep. When there is a list to be merged to, I err on the side of merging. In those cases, as far as I know, there is no list or other article to merge-and-redirect to, which there is for detainees and political candidates. If there was a m+r target I had been aware of for those, that would have been my !vote, as there was not (that I was/am aware of), I !voted to WP:PRESERVE. As for "how much continued coverage/secondary events" - if they get arrested for something else, or become outspoken public figures, by all means; otherwise let's respect their privacy after their traumatic experience. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:09, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

exactly--Guerillero | My Talk 03:00, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree. These mass AfDs are tenditious. We should work together to hash out a guideline that will separate the wheat from the chaff in these detainee articles and will prevent contentious AfDs.--Joshuaism (talk) 03:30, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

...you seem to have completely missed the point. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:51, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Did you follow the links? I think you are looking at 500 Watt sarcasm. I'll admit I'm not sure what direction it's pointing or if it's directed at us all. Hobit (talk) 05:14, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I think it can be said with certainty that it is pointing squarely and only in Geo Swan's direction. Hundreds if not thousands of stubs on Guantanamo detainees and relates articles over several years, which btw are also being exported to other wikis such as wikialpha and guantanmo.wikia.com. This is an editor on a clear-cut agenda here. Tarc (talk) 12:39, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry Bushranger. I don't see Wikipedia as a Zero-sum game.--Joshuaism (talk) 13:12, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment in regards to new notability essay. Anyone can write an essay; additionally it has been my experience that getting a new notability essay passed is very difficult. Also, the weight an essay receives is determined by the weight given to it by the community. The reason why certain essays, such as WP:SOLDIER carry weight is because of how it came to be, and has evolved, and it's continued use and support.

Therefore, if one wishes to create an essay regarding notability of terrorist I suggest that WP:TERRORISM is the best place to find a group of editors interested in the subject, create a WikiProject consensus on what above and beyond WP:GNG would be considered notability within the scope of the project, and host the notability essay in a subpage of that wikiproject. As with SOLDIER, GNG comes first as it is the paramount notability guideline that all others spring from.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 08:07, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

And if I saw the editors who participated in these AfD's at WP:TERRORISM (members list) I would move this discussion there. Clearly the community that is commenting right here is the one that should participate in shaping this guideline. It should be something we can all hold each other accountable to.--Joshuaism (talk) 13:21, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

This isn't solely about Guantanamo captives though. Take an article like Jeffrey Groharing, which was prodded back in 2008 by an editor wholly separate from the RfC or the current AfDs (as far as I am aware). It has the same problems, i.e. a total lack of notability (hidden in part by the inclusion of pure trivia like "finished 1048 out of 9629 in a Marine Corps marathon"), and the counter-arguments are again cases of what Geo Swan thinks is notable, not what RS have found notable, like "I'd like to ask nominator, how many other lawyers can he name who have acknowledged withholding exculpatory evidence?". Or things like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bagram detainees' uniforms or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Starbucks at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which makes for interesting reading. Or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Amy Bechtold (2nd nomination) and the accompanying DRV at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 July 8. Fram (talk) 13:44, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I think Jeffrey Groharing ia one of the worst articles I've ever seen. --OpenFuture (talk) 19:58, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

We all know that you have an involved history with Geo Swan, Fram. Please do not try to bias this discussion by pointing out other problematic articles by Geo Swan. Wikipedia has no deadline and WP:OTHERSTUFF can be addressed at another time. This section was created to discuss the possibility of setting a guideline for the notability of Guantanamo detainees and other prisoners. Geo Swan also created the article for Bowe Bergdahl and look at how it has blossomed! While, Bergdahl does not meet the standard for WP:SOLDIER, I doubt anyone would propose an AfD on that article now, even with its such humble beginnings. Perhaps that same magic can be worked on some of these detainee articles Geo Swan has made. But no one will be willing to put in the work if there is little certainty that the article will be preserved. Let's establish which one's are candidates for notability by creating this guideline. --Joshuaism (talk) 23:01, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

That reasoning is backwards. If they put in the work, the article will be preserved. Therefore, claiming that no-one will be prepared to put in the work if there is a risk the article is deleted is not true. --OpenFuture (talk) 05:55, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to topic ban Geo Swan

The proposal (made informally above, more formal here as a separate section) is to indefinitely topic-ban Geo Swan from all BLP-related articles and from all Guantanamo-related articles, in article space and in the userspaces. He would be allowed to comment on talk pages, in AfDs, and so on.

The reason for this proposed topic ban is that he is the only editor I am aware of who has had hundreds of articles on these sensitive topics deleted through AfDs and Prods, has had an RfC on the same topic, and is after more than five years still doing the same things and still arguing in favor of these articles, ignoring policies, guidelines and consensus, preferring to create a new guideline to be able to keep most of these articles. He has had ample time to clean up his act and clean up his many still existing articles (main space and user space), but instead it comes down to other people to find the problems and get them removed. After the RfC, he continued creating BLPs and Guantanamo related articles of very dubious notability, e.g. Camp Five Echo, Hamidullah Khan (Bagram captive), Ehsanullah Ehsan (Taliban spokesman) or the already deleted David Conn (judge). An article like Mansour Nasser al Bihani would not fall under the ban, but whether it should have been created is rather dubious as well. User:Geo Swan/tm was created as a copy-paste move of Tariq Mahmood (detainee) at the time of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tariq Mahmood (detainee), and kept around since then, in violation of WP:STALEDRAFT.

There is also something like User:Geo Swan/Abdul Razik, one of the many abandoned articles in his user space, which seems to be a clear violation of WP:BLPCRIME.

WP:TLDR version: Because too many of his creations are problematic (at least with regards to notability, and often also for WP:BLP reasons), because he should by now be well aware of the consensus that many of his articles shouldn't have been created and that many of his userspace pages should long ago have been deleted (cf. the many successful AfDs and MfDs), and because he continues to create and edit articles and userspace pages with the same problems anyway, I propose the above topic ban. Fram (talk) 12:21, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support: if BLP is really a serious policy, it needs to be dealt with seriously. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 12:55, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
• Does it need to be this strong? Would simply banning the creation of new articles on the subjects in question suffice? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:06, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Perhaps. The wider topic ban would also prevent edits like this one (see the rest of the history and the talk page discussion for what was wrong with it), but I agree that preventing the creation of such pages is the main argument for the topic ban. Fram (talk) 15:24, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose -- Are you serious??? So many of Geo Swan's articles have been deleted (some too soon) only because there was a change in the Wikipediet temperament about the depth of this subject. Before that, many of these articles had been there for years -- and I've seen someone on C-SPAN praise Wikipedia for its GTMO coverage. It's not his fault that the sensitivities here have changed toward deletionism. And what are you going to do when those sensitivities swing back again? -- Randy2063 (talk) 18:46, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: Quite aside from that Wikipedia's ongoing trend over the last several years has been to tighten notability standards - something at which opponents looking for a cheap slur wave the "deletionism" flag - not to yoyo back and forth, I daresay that should sentiments change and GeoSwan wants to revisit the issue, he can raise the issue and seek relief. Ravenswing 14:04, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose -- I obviously oppose this topic ban. I am not really familiar with the wikipedia's precedents for imposing topic-ban -- but surely it should be triggered by a record of terrible judgment or terrible bad faith?

I've listed all the BLP articles I started since the 2011 discussion here. I suggest there that a topic ban on starting BLPs should be based on looking at the record of BLP articles started since the 2011 discussion. My challengers seem to be claiming that I have ignored those discussions, and created new articles that use the kinds of references that are no longer considered satisfactory. I don't think my record shows that.

My note has a subsection -- does the record of BLP articles I created merit a topic-ban? I encourage anyone considering weighing in here to look at a handful of those articles and reach their own conclusion as to whether I genuinely show a pattern of starting articles. Geo Swan (talk) 20:44, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I have noted at the talk page there that at least six of those pages are not BLPs. And you haven't included pages in your userspace either, like the now deleted User:Geo Swan/tm. Fram (talk) 08:27, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support On the basis of his statements and the problematic nature of the articles he's created since the RfC, Geo Swan is continuing to use Wikipedia to push his personal views, regardless of core policies such as WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. Nick-D (talk) 08:40, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Don't use a sledgehammer where a nutcracker will suffice.—S Marshall T/C 13:03, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
• Conditional Support: I agree that a strictly construed topic ban against creating such articles is merited, given GeoSwan's ongoing fervor in pushing articles which plainly fail of notability under current standards. I don't see that a ban against editing such articles is warranted; such should be reserved for persistent vandalism or edit warring, sins of which GeoSwan has not been guilty. Ravenswing 14:04, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
• Comment It might make sense to issue a ban on creating articles of this sort directly in mainspace, while leaving it OK to edit existing articles, and also OK to submit proposed new articles through WP:AFC for approval/import by other editors if the articles meet standards. On general principles, I do like the idea of leaving AFC available as a filter, in cases of good faith but excessively enthusiastic article creation, where there's still reasonable likelihood of something of merit coming out of it. I'm neutral on the suggestion in this specific case for now, since I haven't (so far) examined the disputed editing enough to be sure it's the right thing. Note: This is revised from a !vote to a comment. 69.228.170.132 (talk) 20:45, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
• oppose Yet another self-destructive wikilynching 8-( Andy Dingley (talk) 20:35, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Holding something against a user for something created years ago doesn't even stand up at RFA applicants, but to honestly try and topic ban a user for something that was made back in 2011 should meet with a procedural close as the window on such matters has long since expired. Considering that the proposer of the current topic ban has a history of being involved in the matter, the opportunities for such things presented themselves long ago. A storm in a teacup perhaps, but these AFDs and much of the content already deleted or removed cannot be personally verified by a majority of users and the issues within do absolutely nothing to address the changing culture of Wikipedian's interpretation of notability guidelines. The matter is unfair to GeoSwan, regardless of a years old RFC, to address the concerns. A new RFC should be done, and from the events after THAT RfC bear reason to topic-ban, only THEN should such a proposal be brought forth. AGF still stands and much of this dispute falls under disruptive editing. GeoSwan should be given considerable time and leeway to address the matters in a formal setting and context that is not ArbCom. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:37, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I am "holding something against a user" for creating similar things over years and years, right until now. I have left Geo Swan alone after the RfC, to make sure that any continuation of the problems wouldn't be caused by or blamed on me. This was requested by a number of people at the RfC. The result of this is not only that the problematic pages have stayed on Wikipedia for much longer (and have been joined by a few new ones), but also that aapparently any resolution I'm trying to find now is impossible because "Considering that the proposer of the current topic ban has a history of being involved in the matter, the opportunities for such things presented themselves long ago." Nothing has changed since the old RfC apart from me staying away from him for over a year, so there is no reason at all to request a new RfC. He has had all the time anyone could reasonably need, giving him even more time before any action is taken is not productive. Why did I need to point out two examples of problematic pages in his userspace, one from right before the RfC, one from afterwards? Didn't the RfC and the countless MfDs send a clear enough message about what is acceptable and what isn't? Fram (talk) 08:27, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose as an unnecessary wrecking ball. Might be willing to support a topic ban on creation outside of AfC. This, however, is ridiculous. We would do better to limit the number of GeoSwan's articles that can be deleted in a given time period. Absolutely absurd and not in any way called for. --Nouniquenames (talk) 08:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to refer to Arbcom

We're stuck. We've already been to RFC/U stage, and AN/I isn't solving this.—S Marshall T/C 13:43, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Worth more consideration.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Worth dropping altogether. -Nouniquenames (talk) 08:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

What issues should be referred? I agree that it's the next logical step if further dispute resolution is needed, but the AfD process is working well at the moment in relation to these articles, and there is was little support above for the proposal that the nominations slow down, so ArbCom probably wouldn't accept a case on that basis. Nick-D (talk) 08:28, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• The issues that I see are:- (1) Is Geo Swan being singled out and targeted? Assume that there is no evidence the many AfD nominations are retaliatory or vindictive. (2) If so, is it a problem that he's being singled out and targeted? Are any actions necessary to protect him? (3) Noting that there's very significant overlap between those who participated in the RFC/U and those who participated in the AN/I thread, are the AN/I thread's (lack of) conclusions reliable?

  I also have two related questions which would probably be outside the case's formal remit, but per curiam, opinions would be welcome: (4) is it possible to overuse the AfD process by making many repeated nominations in a short period? If so, how can we identify overuse? and (5) Should prolific content contributors enjoy any special rights or protection in the AfD process, or is it the inalienable right of all users to AfD material they consider unencyclopaedic?—S Marshall T/C 11:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• 1-4 I'm not sure of, but I'll comment on (5) and say absolutely not - that would be another version of the whole "vested contributor" thing that makes some editors 'more equal than others' and 'above the law'. If "anyone can edit" - which WMF has defended come hell, high water, or even editor consensus - then "anyone can delete", and creating a special caste of "AfD-proof" editors - which would be the inevitable result, regardless of good-faith intent - isn't something Wikipedia ever needs. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 17:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• Slippery slope arguments are a kind of informal fallacy. I'm not proposing to create a caste of AfD-proof editors. My opinion is merely that one person shouldn't have more than, say, ten pages created by another person at XfD simultaneously provided the creating editor is a good faith editor in good standing (i.e. not a known sockpuppet or under investigation for copyright violations or whatever).

  It's true that this means that if someone was a prolific content creator, it wouldn't be possible to eradicate their entire corpus at once. To that extent our most productive editors, provided they're in good faith, would enjoy some measure of protection. That seems right to me because the purpose of all Wikipedia processes is to help productive editors in good standing to get on with what they do best, and to protect them from vandalism and excessive amounts of bureaucracy.—S Marshall T/C 18:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• I completely understand you're not proposing that; I don't doubt your good faith in the least, don't worry. It's just that, unfortunatly, from my observations on Wikipeida behavior that would be what such a measure would, inevitably, turn into - in perception, if not in fact, an in a way the former would be even more toxic than the latter. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:20, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

• My concern is that if it's okay to play this AfD-bombing game with Geo Swan, then it might very well be okay to play it with others. I mean, let's imagine someone vexatiously or retributively nominated everything ever written by S Marshall at AfD; I could defend one, two, or three articles. I couldn't defend sixty. In the circumstances I'd simply quit Wikipedia in disgust. Letting people XfD very large amounts of material simultaneously is an invitation to hounding and griefers.—S Marshall T/C 06:53, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Of course, when you have 200 or 300 articles you created deleted afterwards, one can wonder whether they still are "in good standing" or whether creating articles really is "what they do best". AfDs (and MfDs) are not "vandalism" and not "excessive amounts of bureaucracy", they are in some cases the only way to get rid of massive amounts of sub-par or non-policy compliant articles. He was given the chance to go through his articles and clean them up (delete or redirect the problematic ones, improve the other ones with better sourcing and so on), but he didn't. He still wanted to keep things like the Starbuck's at Guantanamo article, wasting time on "excessive burocracy" instead of just G7 deleting it. Perhaps, instead of giving extra protection, we should create a process that after let's say 50 successful AfDs of anyone's articles, a CCI-like process is started to check all their articles instead? Fram (talk) 20:22, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I have already brought your attention to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Habib Noor.  This one AfD deleted four articles where the nomination does not analyze the WP:ATD alternatives to deletion, and the nomination and every argument is 100% consistent with a merge.  Likewise, current community consensus is to merge, not delete; so if it is really true that there are 200 to 300 Guantanamo AfD deletions, the fact that they were deleted seems to mean that the community now needs to run 200-300 AfD discussions through DRV.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:17, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Just becasue consensus changed doesn't mean past AfDs need to be DRV'd. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:20, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

• Going to Arbcom would also give Fram the opportunity to express his grievances. But I see little appetite for the idea.—S Marshall T/C 06:49, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by User:Metalvayne

On and off for the last year or so, I, along other editors, have been warning User:Metalvayne for his disruptive editing. Since being blocked for edit warring about a year ago, his main offense has been the unsourced changing of music genre without explanation, and/or if challenged, he continues to change it back, citing his personal, unfounded views on genre, thinking that they come first over the view of reliable sources. His talk page, User talk:Metalvayne, documents the many occurrences of warnings over this.

Up until now, I was content with just cleaning up his messes or arguing with him on discussion pages, as he usually concedes to consensus. However, recently, his genre tinkering has crossed the line into [homophobic vandalism, which he later, after a warning, just laughed off as "a little prank".

It's clear he's not taking any of the warnings on his talk page seriously, so I wanted to come here to see what else could be warranted. Sergecross73 msg me 12:59, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, for the record, to understand the mindset of this editor, this was his reaction to being reported here. Sergecross73 msg me 14:05, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello,guys,I don't know what is Sergecross's actual problem with me but he's up against me since the very beginning in example a few months back I removed a dead link/source from this article & added a source from Nuclearblast's official site but Sergecross reverted it without even properly inspecting.Nuclear Blast is the band's label for further info.Another similar case can be found here,again without even properly observing.And as far as my contributions are concerned in AiC article regarding the inclusion of Sludge metal in the self titled album,well,I do believe they played Sludge metal and Blues fused Stoner rock in the album,not only me,I know a tons of fans who identify the album as a Sludge metal album.Don't believe me,just join Encyclopaedia Metallum and find out yourself/yourselves,well I'm a member there as well.And I'v always wanted to contribute to wiki as much as I can since the beginning,I'v created article on Darkwater (band) & did various minor contributions. Metalvayne (talk) 19:40, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

And,hey Sergecross,Backtable is actually a nice guy,I'v had a brief conversation with him on last.fm a few months back & I'm extremely satisfied with his thoughts,guys like you give wikipedia a bad name.That's why members of Encyclopaedia Metallum get chance to talk crap about wiki all the time. Metalvayne (talk) 19:58, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I have reverted a number of his Metalvayne's edit without checking the sources he removed, because he did not leave edit summaries for why he removed the information to begin with. Typically, I tend to revert 10 bad edits he's made without explanation, and occassionally have 1 that he legitimately removed, but he didn't explain why. Once he explains in his next revert, I no longer challenge it. Crisis averted. He's been informed many times about using edit summaries, and continues to not use them much of the time anyways. As far as the genre stuff, that's not the place to discuss this. (Although, on that topic, see this discussion on genre to see more of his logic that doesn't comply to Wikipedia standards, not to mention he proceeds to insults other editors - his defense being that he was high.) Sergecross73 msg me 14:38, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

As an experienced wikipedian you should notice these stuffs about defunct & invalid sources.It's not like that you can't come across the changes that are being made to a particular article,you can always view the previous version of it,so pay attention to these things instead of complaining about leaving edit summaries.And one more thing,answer honestly,are you a fan of Alice in Chains?Do you even legally own a single record of them? Metalvayne (talk) 22:20, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I've made a handful of minor errors that ultimately trace back to you not leaving edit summaries, and were quickly resolved. But the topic here is you, not me. (By all means, if you'd like to open up an ANI on me, go for it. And good luck.) But how do you explain all the issues I've brought up above, and reconcile them with Wikipedia policy? That's the thing to discuss here. (Not "fanship status" of bands.) Sergecross73 msg me 16:58, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Editors' personal opinions are are forbidden, so it does not matter who owns what or who has even heard the artist or not (as Sergecross73 correctly notes about fanship being irrelevant). I urge Metalvayne to strike the patter part of his above comment, as it may also come across as suggesting a fellow editor might be engaging in illegal copying as the alternative. DMacks (talk) 17:00, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

And as you've brought upon the issue of 'insulting',well,if you call that insulting,I don't really have to say anything but to laugh out loud.But I admit,it was a bit harsh to some extent. Metalvayne (talk) 22:28, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

This goes well beyond this particular user, there are hordes of IPs that engage in genre twaddling all the time. The problem is that a lot of this stuff was PR-invented back in the day. They didn't want their new product to just be say "techno" so it became "darkwave synth". I was a DJ and a music director from about 1991-96 at an indie radio station, the PR guys used to put stickers on the jewel case with what terms and descriptors they wanted us to push. Sludge metal isn't a genre, neither is "blues-infused stoner rock". They are just colorful descriptors of the sound, not the genre. Tarc (talk) 17:07, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Tarc,If Sludge metal & Stoner rock aren't subgenres then,why are there featured articles on both? Sludge metal Stoner rock Apparently Sludge,Grunge & Stoner are sibling genres,grunge being the mainstream exposure in the early 90's. Metalvayne (talk) 22:51, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

As already stated, my particular argument isn't that it doesn't exist, it's that you can't even find any reliable sources that support using them to label the bands you chose to label them with. (Or you just change genre's without source or explanation.) And then you argue about it for, stop for a bit, and then start at it again, like you're checking to see if people are still watching the article pages. (Or, conversely, start at a new band page that no one's watching...)

Additionally, now it's moved into vandalism with you homophobic remarks, when you've been around long enough to know better...Sergecross73 msg me 17:39, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Huh? didn't understand a single word from the statement written above,too much brackets I say? Metalvayne (talk) 23:20, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that you don't seem to understand, or willing to learn, Wikipedia's standard for reliable sources to prove that certain bands are certain genre. Instead of using reliable sources, you resort to "Well, I think this sounds like so and so" or talk about how many LastFM users called it a genre. It doesn't seem to matter how many warnings you receive, and now it's escalating, with nonsense like your homophobic commentary. Sergecross73 msg me 18:02, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

About the homophobic vandalism,it won't happen again,it was just I was so p***** off by listening to that modern core band's music during a jamming session(as a friend said to listen) I did a silly childish error. Metalvayne (talk) 23:40, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

That's a terrible excuse for an offensive thing you did on purpose. Sergecross73 msg me 18:15, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Well,you don't know me personally,I'm known for being an honest guy,it's not an excuse,believe it or else chuck it. Metalvayne (talk) 23:51, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

We don't know you personally, all we know is how you come across on Wikipedia. It doesn't matter if you're "known for being an honest guy" elsewhere - all we know (and all that matters) are your actions here. Also, please indent your comments. I've taken the liberty of indenting above - please do it yourself in the future, thanks. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 19:19, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Let me get this straight: you came across the article for an "emocore/shit band" who "make such horrible music that makes me want to puke" and in your mind this means that they make homosexual music? The problem here is not that you're being honest, the problem is that you use bigoted language to equate a sexual orientation with shit that makes you want to puke. I suggest that you may not have the maturity nor enough respect for your fellow editors to be editing here (and this isn't a matter of a childish mistake; I don't accidentally refer to music I don't like as "nigger music," you know, because it's not part of my vocabulary). This isn't even yet considering the genre warring, on which based on your considerable history of WP:IDHT I would suggest a topic ban at the very least. Sædon^talk 23:43, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Since I have dealt with this editor in the past, my input may be of some use. Metalvayne does have a history of regular genre warring, and I have called him out on it in the past, as corroborated by the fact that I had posted several warnings on his talk page. Metalvayne mentioned here that he had a conversation with me on last.fm; this is true, and it did end up amicable. Ever since then, I had not really encountered him, since he hasn't, for a while, edited pages on my watchlist. Although there was no contact between us since the last.fm conversation, I have recently wondered if he is still up to the genre editing.

Anyways, I guess there was that homophobic edit on Dead by April, which was quite needless. As well, he is still performing genre changes to Alice in Chains and related pages, which is rather distracting. I think it is worth pointing out that back in September 2011, Metalvayne got blocked for 24 hours for his participation in a scuffle relating to the page for Opeth.

For people that honestly edit and maintain music articles, genre warring is a quite bothersome and ignominious practice that distracts from the true goal of Wikipedia: to be a neutral, verifiable, and accurate (et cetera) encyclopedia. People performing genre editing in such large amounts make too much of a scene around themselves, and this type of sideshow ultimately does not benefit Wikipedia. I, personally, hate genre warring and have spent too much time removing it from Wikipedia, when I could instead be adding useful information to this website. On the music articles, there is a surprisingly significant amount of it happening; right now, I am dealing with an genre warrior who might be a sockpuppet, which is unrelated to this case. I won't go into detail about what music is and what it represents, but music is not meant for someone to assign silly genre names to and pigeonhole into a label that they themselves like best; when done to excess or in an otherwise inappropriate manner, this type of practice exploits the targeted music, as well as the people who create said music. When performed on Wikipedia, I would also say that practitioners of this activity exploit Wikipedia too. I'm sick of it, and I am appalled at how much it happens; it is an extremely inappropriate way to show how someone is a fan, or at least interested, in the music.

Metalvayne has a history of questionable editing, as well as acrimonious relations with other Wikipedians, and has in recent history resorted to even lower standards, enough for his behavior to be pointed out on this noticeboard. Obviously he has created some controversy by his methods and practices here, and some of said practices breach civility guidelines. Actions beckon consequences, and giving this person a pile of warnings have proven not to get through to him. I agree with Saedon that a topic ban or a block may be necessary; the genre warring, by itself, is just too much and has gone on for way too long. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 05:32, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Hey,Backtable since you've drag up the issue of blocking on Opeth,I'd like to remind you that the other user,Gunmetalangel whom I was challenging got blocked for 24 hours as well.Oh and I just found that he's been blocked indefinitely from editing,so think about that,whether I was helping by reverting peculiar edits by a user like him or not.And as far as the homophobic vandalism is concerned I'v said that it was a rash & foolish act of desperation,& I'v apologised for that.Furthermore,I'd like to add that,I'll continue my observations on Alice in Chains & similar cases as I like their music & none of them were vandalised through my contributions,so,I'll keep on contesting if I see something wrong is going on.And one more thing,what does the 'almighty' Sergecross73 do while this kind of absurd editing take place? Metalvayne (talk) 12:10, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Metalvayne: Oh my, I did not know that Gunmetal Angel was blocked permanently, and that it had been over a month since that happened. Since I was not involved with the situation where Gunmetal Angel got blocked, I will not state here any opinion or further observation of mine on that event and the ensuing judgement. Anyways, I looked at the history of Would?, and you removed the "(And or the greatest song ever written.)" text a little bit over an hour after it was initially posted on the page. Thank you for removing that unencyclopedic text; removing it in such relatively short time was a good thing to do to the page. There are a few reasons why the allegedly almighty Sergecross73 did not get there before you did. 1: It is nearly inpossible for an individual to be on Wikipedia 24 hours per day. At any given time, a regular Wikipedia user may have other concerns or preoccupations possibly having to do with "real life" circumstances. 2: I see that Segecross73 has never edited the Would? page once, so he may not be concerned with that single page nor have it on his/her watchlist. 3: Nobody can be everywhere on Wikipedia, and missing out on activity on some pages a user doesn't usually visit does not make the user at fault for not reverting immediately. They may be elsewhere on Wikipedia, or have other preoccupations a la reason 1. 4: You got there first, and took care of it; good job.

To any interested party: I'll post in this thread if necessary, but I'm content with what I have posted as of now, so I might not need to. Also, I have a night's rest coming up, so I'll be out for the next several hours. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 07:49, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

As Backtable has said, I can hardly be blamed for not cleaning up vandalism on a page I've never edited, that was only there for about an hour anyways. And regardless of GunMetal Angel being blocked or banned or whatever, it doesn't change the fact that Metalvayne was rightfully blocked for edit warring in that instance. Sergecross73 msg me 12:45, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Topic ban?

So, two users now have suggested a topic ban regarding Metalvayne and music genre. I strongly support that as well, so that's three people. I'm familiar with the concept, but have never been part of the process of gathering concensus or enacting it, so I was wondering how do we go about doing this? Sergecross73 msg me 12:48, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

First the ban proposal needs to be formulated. Exactly what is proposed to be banned? Editing band pages? Just changing genres? Solo performers? If all band page edits, does it also include band talk pages? Is the ban to be widely or narrowly construed? Etc.

Once you have decided exactly what you want to propose (s)he be banned from doing, you propose the ban here on AN/I or on AN. If on AN, it could be a new topic. If here, it could easily enough be a new sub-topic of this current discussion. AN has the benefit of having slower archiving, making it less likely the proposal might archive off without resolution. Here has the advantage of already having the above discussion. - TexasAndroid (talk) 13:59, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Alright, I already have an idea for what it should be, so I'll just start it below in a new subsection for now. Thank you for your guidance. Sergecross73 msg me 14:03, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Topic ban proposal

I propose that User:Metalvayne be topic-banned from editing/changing genre in any musician or band related articles. I don't care if he still edits band/musician articles in general, as long as he does not touch anything related to genre/musical influences/musical styles etc.

The problem is that he doesn't seem to understand, or be willing to learn, Wikipedia's standard for reliable sources to prove that certain bands are certain genre. Instead of using reliable sources, he resorts to "his subjective, personal observations" or talks about unreliable, unverifiable generalities like "everyone knows this" or "according to people at a given fansite...". Half the time, he offers no rationale at all, removing reliably sourced info without any sort of comment on his edit summary. He frequently makes genre changes that are against prior consensus, as well. It doesn't seem to matter how many warnings he receives, he just starts up the same antics and another article. (See his talk page for the many warning he's received on all of this.)

And now it's only getting, worse, like with the incident that inspired this trip to ANI - This innappropriate homophobic vandalism to a band's genre. At this time, I just don't think he's ready to be editing this sort of content on Wikipedia.

• Support - Per my proposal. Sergecross73 msg me 14:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Go ahead,I don't care if I get blocked from making certain changes,but I'll keep observing my desired fields and if I see something wrong is going on,for instance like this IP has vandalised Alice in Chains & several other articles as you can see within few days & you didn't pay any attention,& I know you won't pay attention because you're always after me.Furthermore,you haven't warned the user but I did,not only me but many other like TYelliotdid & as a result he has been blocked from editing.So,as I was saying if I see something wrong is going on & you're being idle,I won't hesitate to open up an ANI on you. Metalvayne (talk) 20:48, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to open up an ANI on me, but things like not catching every instance of vandalism related to Alice in Chains is neither against policy, or my responisibility. Thank you though, for demonstrating that you have no defense, and that even you don't object to the topic ban. Sergecross73 msg me 15:32, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support Based on a long history of WP:IDHT regarding unsourced change. Also recommend a mentor to help with the other issues. Sædon^talk 19:12, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to bring upon an issue from Limp Bizkit like in here the involved IP has made a change in the genre without providing source & explanation.Two days have passed but Sergecross73 didn't bother to look up to the matter,but,in case if I was the guy instead of the respective IP then,no doubt till now I would've received tons of warnings on my talk page.Thus,this is as clear as daylight that,he's always after my contributions. Metalvayne (talk) 00:46, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The article isn't on my watchlist, and I don't especially have active interest in the article. I cannot fix, monitor, or be held responsible for all of the project's shortcomings. Meanwhile, as said before, there's no policy against me going around and fixing things you're knowingly doing wrong. (Which again, you don't even try to defend, but rather, you try to wrongfully drag me down with you.) Sergecross73 msg me 19:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOTTHEM Sædon^talk 19:50, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Considering this user's history with genre warring and needless tampering with the infobox's genre slot, this doesn't seem like a bad idea. Wikipedia really does not need as much genre tampering as it has. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 20:32, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

NOTE: Metalvayne has posted notices on his user page and user talk page that he has reitred. This was effective shortly after 6:00 UTC. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 08:17, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

So, I don't want it to be overkill, but can we continue on with the process here anyways? He's always been the type of editor that edits for a few weeks, then leaves a few weeks, coming and going like that. I'd rather not have it where he un-retires in 2 weeks, starts up again, and then I'd have to dig up all of this again. Seems like there'd be no problem with being both retired and topic-banned. (If that is in fact the consensus we gather here.) Sergecross73 msg me 11:19, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

It's not that uncommon for people to announce retirements to evade scrutiny. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:57, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree that retirement and topic banning should not have to be mutually exclusive, and that it is better to take care of something now than give the benefit of the doubt just to find out the person ends up still performing the activity he was criticized for. I see that since I posted my support of the idea, that two others have joined in supporting the ban as well, which is good for the consensus. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 22:09, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support Genre-fiddling without good reason and time sunk into researching relevant sources (then citing them) is a complete waste of time and causes clean-up work for others. There are countless other ways Metalvayne can contribute without them wading into this area, better a topic ban now than escalating blocks in the future. Someoneanother 19:26, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support - clearly needed; no need to let the Ten Minute Retirement let him escape scrutiny. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:21, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support although I'm not convinced that the retirement is real, or that this goes far enough after the homophobic vandalism. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:15, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Well, this is the first time I've really gone as far as pushing for topic bans and whatnot, so by all means, if you would like to suggest further avenues, I'd be open to that as well. Also, I'm contemplating going to SPI as well. I can't help but notice that User:Tehgayzpart3 and User:PriestOFmehico both came around the time of his "retirement" and have been going around vandalizing this ANI, my User Page, and a number of articles related to band articles I tend to watch over with crude and homophobic comments... Sergecross73 msg me 13:52, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

There would appear to be grounds for an SPI there. And for what it's worth I support a topic ban here, user is beyond good faith, even without the vandalism. Яehevkor ✉ 16:09, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I noticed that user PriestOFmehico visited this ANI, and that and the account's other edits did raise my suspicions of possible sockpuppeting. The two accounts in question have been indefinitely blocked, and I'm not against such a block for Metalvayne, either. Because if those two accounts belong to Metalvayne, then he should quite certainly know better than resort to such puerility. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 00:04, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Although I implied this in the previous post, I would like to blatantly state that a sockpuppet investigation against Metalvayne is totally warranted. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 00:40, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, looking over the edits of those 2 accounts, just about all edits were on articles related to this ANI case, articles I indicate I work on on my User Page, or articles related to band's he's argued to in regards to genre in the past (ie Nickelback and Chad Kroeger. So I've opened up an SPI at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Metalvayne

I'm going to be rather busy in most of the next 36 hours or so, so if anyone notices anything, I'd appreciate it if you presented it here, and/or kept this all from being prematurely archived. Thanks! Sergecross73 msg me 01:00, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by User:IPWAI

Request several months' block of IPWAI (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) at least as it pertains to Joan Juliet Buck (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article. He keeps edit warring with the same material, trying to add a comment from a blog by Michael Totten when that area of article already has sufficient criticism: [4] [5] Doesn't seem to edit much else on Wikipedia and has been warned numerous times by myself and User: Scolaire at length to no avail (see prior diffs, [6], and [7]). I suggest several months' block because he has demonstrated time and again that he thinks he can just come back and do the same thing after two weeks (see prior diffs). thanks.--Aichikawa (talk) 14:20, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

For the sake of clarity, I changed the article links on IPWAI to user links. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 15:50, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I asked a mediator to look at this issue and am waiting for him or her to get back to us on this issue. I think what I put in is fair comment, public information and properly sourced. As far as what else I do on the wikipedia is nothing to do with it but it is false. I think I am very active on the wikipedia IPWAI (talk) 05:27, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

You are using a passing comment in a blog as a source. And a near copy-and-paste of the source is arguably a copyright violation anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:42, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Joan_Juliet_Buck - all rather confusing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:00, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

See also a pevious DRN request by IPWAI. Both IPWAI and Aichikawa appear to think that if they simply post on a noticeboard, the 7th Cavalry will ride in and settle the issue in their favour. There has been nothing of what most of us would call a discussion between these two, or between any two editors on the article. But while IPWAI seems to have nothing more than a bad case of Idinthearthat, Aichikawa has major ownership and civility issues (see my comments at the current DR). Aichikawa would like to see "several months' block" – he should be careful what he asks for! And I would prefer if he would stop linking my name with his as though we were allies against the forces of darkness. Scolaire (talk) 08:02, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

• As IPWAI has a clean block log, several months seems over the top to me. Suggest 24 hour block for disruption, escalating as necessary. I also advise IPWAI to read over WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:GNG more closely. Aichikawa has a clean block log too, and I'd propose a community-endorsed trout and final warning for ownership and civility problems - future issues of this sort WILL lead to blocks. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 18:11, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

24 hours isn't sufficient. If you look at the history log, it shows that IPWAI came BACK to argue the same thing two weeks LATER. 24 hours won't solve a thing on their part. They're not on Wikipedia that frequently anymore. As far as civility issues go, Scolaire has problems with this as well: "they simply post on a noticeboard, the 7th Cavalry will ride in and settle the issue in their favour" and "as though we were allies against the forces of darkness," hell-o? As well as ownership issues for the way he has suddenly decided he is the "head editor" of this article in the last few weeks, editing out other's edits vehemently when it doesn't suit him.--Aichikawa (talk) 20:28, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

It is properly sourced information, a view of a notable journalist who is an authority on Syria. There is no reason to reject his comments for no reason. Not one person has even bothered to answer this. IPWAI (talk) 04:30, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Wrong: "You are using a passing comment in a blog as a source. And a near copy-and-paste of the source is arguably a copyright violation anyway". AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:32, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

It is rewritten

IPWAI (talk) 03:12, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, The Tablet and Guardian's condemnations are already posted. Even if this guy weren't a blogger and was an "authority on Syria" you imply these news outlets aren't and so we need him. It's simply overkill.--Aichikawa (talk) 15:53, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

This guy is much more notable then these bloggers, I wonder why you are selectively picking them over him beside the emphasis is different in these cases. Are you aware for example that 11 journalist refused to do this story before Joan accepted it?

IPWAI (talk) 03:12, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Not convinced he's more notable than The Tablet or The Guardian aside from the fact that AndyTheGrump has already outlined WHY his source can't be used here. Do you not understand what a blog is versus a not-a-blog? And this inside knowledge you claim to have: You don't provide any kind of documentation and even were it true, who cares? It would just show how keen the magazine was to have an exclusive on Asma al-Assad (they after all approached "12 journalists") so I don't know why you're not vandalizing Vogue wall as well.--Aichikawa (talk) 13:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Canvassing

An editor has started canvassing for an RfC (including two editors with a particular point of view, with ~100 watchers each) I started, one user talk page watcher has already turned up. I think the main arguments have already been made; can an admin weigh up the consensus before it becomes like WP:votestacking? Talk:Reincarnation_research#Section_.22Conclusions_and_criticism.22_-_undue_weight_and_the_like.... IRWolfie- (talk) 20:05, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

• Could you provide a link to the canvassing? In any case, the RfC started about 35 hours ago. That's well short of the normal 30 days. In addition a topic that's mostly about religion and beliefs (see Wikiprojects list at the top of the article's talk page) was listed at Maths, science, and technology, which seems odd. I'd be inclined to let it run, but I suppose it depends on the nature of the canvassing. Hobit (talk) 00:37, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I put it as the RfC myself to attract a wider audience. The topic is not about religion and beliefs and not about the study of beliefs about reincarnation, it purports to be the scientific field getting evidence for reincarnation and I don't think parapsychology topics are usually placed under religion.

Here is the canvassing [8][9][10]. See here: Talk:Reincarnation_research#Canvassing. See this as well: [11]: "I'm presently engaged in a tricky merge proposal at Reincarnation research, if you would care to take a look... ", which was posted after he gave the editor a barnstar. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:27, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Wolfie is making a mountain out of a molehill, and is simply wrong in several of his assertions. I certainly didn’t give anyone barnstar and then ask them to join the RfC discussion. That is nonsense. To the best of my knowledge no editor I notified has joined the RfC to indicate support or oppose. One has offered a comment, that is all. Notifications were done in good faith and in accord with WP:Canvass guideline, and I have explained this in some detail on the RR talk page. This is some of what was said there:

Text copy and pasted from a different talk page

Comment Johnfos has been canvassing editors to this discussion: [12], [13], [14]. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:38, 22 August 2012 (UTC) I have operated within the WP:Canvass guideline, and have been quite open about it, using editor's Talk pages rather than emailing them. Skeptics are well aware of this discussion, since there has been a post on their noticeboard. The Maths/Science people are well aware of this discussion, since this RfC is (for some reason) located in the "Maths, science and technology" area. But there are additional editors in the philosophy, religion, and sociology area who needed to be notified. If you feel I have done something wrong, please take it to the relevant Noticeboard. Thanks. Johnfos (talk) 22:13, 22 August 2012 (UTC) That is precisely not within the canvassing guideline. Firstly, It's not "their" noticeboard, it's a wikipedia noticeboard. Deciding to notify individual editors who you know have a particular POV is canvassing. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:20, 22 August 2012 (UTC) As 217 says above, "I didn’t know him before", which is true. And I certainly didn't know his POV on RR. Why are you against getting more involvement in this decision, per the guidelines? Since you seem intent on trying to make an issue of this, I would now respectfully insist that you take the issue to the relevant noticeboard and I will be happy to discuss it further there. Thanks. Johnfos (talk) 22:34, 22 August 2012 (UTC) I've already brought the issue to ANI and asked for an admin to look over the current arguments and weight up the consensus. The issue is that your notifications are based on notifying individuals who have a particular POV. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:40, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

The real issue of relevance here is that the RfC was put in the wrong category. It should be in something like "Philosophy and religion". Another problem is that the RfC was started some time after the Merge proposal discussion was started, without any notice. (The Merge proposal was started here and some editors had already participated when the RfC was begun here.) The third problem is that several editors are now talking, not about a merge, but a simple redirect, which would effectively blank all existing material. It seems to me that the solution is to declare the RfC invalid and go to AfD.

I am also concerned that Wolfie is making this very personal, instead of assuming good faith and focusing on the issues. Johnfos (talk) 10:45, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Despite being labelled a vandal, disingenuous, smug etc, I never take anything personally (it's rarely worth the effort), please don't interpret what I take personally. This page is merely one page I edit amongst many others. Notifying individuals (as my diffs demonstrates) you feel have a particular point of view is canvassing. The article has already been merged so I wouldn't get to hung up on merge vs redirect.

Was it really necessary to copy and paste multiple comments from a discussion I've already linked to?

The link [15] clearly shows you giving an editor a barn star before asking them to comment on the discussion. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:35, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Look, honestly, this is dragging on and on. I don’t see the problem with bringing in some relevant material to this discussion from elsewhere, and I don’t know why you would change my posting like that. I gave the barnstar to User:Jeraphine Gryphon, who has been unwell, and mentioned the RfC (on the same page) to User:H. 217.83 just as a passing collegial comment about what I had been working on. I have never met 217 before and had no idea about his POV on RR.

The real issue of relevance here is that the RfC was started late and put in the wrong category. It should be in something like "Philosophy and religion". You seem to be saying that the "article has already been merged" and it just needs to be redirected. Are you trying to pre-empt the outcome of the RfC? I can assure you that many editors will be unhappy if the article is simply blanked through redirection, especially after the recent work that has been put in to bring it up to standard.

It is clear that the integrity of this RfC process has been compromised and the solution is to declare the RfC invalid and go to AfD. Johnfos (talk) 13:11, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I didn’t know Johnfos, so my contribution to the discussion has nothing to do with canvassing. I don’t know how well Johnfos and Jeraphine Gryphon know each other, but I know Gryphon as a great contributor who wouldn’t be bought with a Barnstar. But I don’t know about other users being asked to contribute, so I have no idea whether Johnfos might have canvassed or not. --217/83 14:26, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Update: To the best of my knowledge no editor I notified has yet joined the RfC to indicate support or oppose. Maybe they just don't have an interest in Reincarnation research. One editor (217) has offered a comment, that is all. I say again that my notifications were done in good faith and in accord with WP:Canvass guideline. Johnfos (talk) 07:33, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Legal threat toward MadGuy7023

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

---

By 2602:306:3815:8CA0:ED57:F5CD:585C:3C2A (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Diff "I can let you know that his lawyer will be contacting you." Jim1138 (talk) 21:30, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

• Too slow, already blocked by User talk:IronGargoyle Jim1138 (talk) 21:31, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Looks like they're back as an ipv4 address, still with the "legal action will be taken" stuff. - SudoGhost 22:13, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
    • I've put a short semi-protection on the article, to see if that will deter them. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:23, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
      • It won't, public relations person ownership of this article has existed for three years. See this 2009 edit and this 2011 edit for examples. The prose in that second edit explains why you're getting legal threats, by the way. The basic conflict here is that you (Jim1138), MadGuy7023, and Bonnie13J think that this is an article about a group in the 1990s, whilst the PR person thinks that it's the vocalist that goes by this name. The puffery is atrocious for a supposedly neutral encyclopaedia article, by the way. Uncle G (talk) 23:09, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
        • Ah, right - presuming there's notability, wouldn't a sensible solution be to create two articles? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:39, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
          • That'd assume there's notability - and that they'd let it be written with reliable sources as opposed to WP:THETRUTH... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:30, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
            • I extended protection a bit. Now, does anyone know how to remove the redundant "Album" column from that Singles table? Drmies (talk) 02:15, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
              •  Done -- Dianna (talk) 03:01, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
• It should be noted that being an IPv6 address, the IP may be dynamic if the user uses stateless address autoconfiguration, although I can pretty much guarantee for AT&T that there will be no collateral damage. If a rangeblock is needed, 2602:306:3815:8CA0::/60 is the range to block (that's what AT&T gives to its end-users).--Jasper Deng (talk) 03:17, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
  • And sure enough, 2602:306:3815:8CA0:F5A0:EA79:A516:1D7B (talk · contribs · WHOIS) which also made the same edit to the article, is squarely within that range.--Jasper Deng (talk) 03:37, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Are you serious, AT&T gives a /60 to each user??? I should check into that. 69.228.170.132 (talk) 04:01, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
      • Well, IPv6 has about 3.4x10^38 addresses available, which is enormously more than the number of stars in the observable universe, so there are plenty to spare. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:24, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

One of the accounts involved, User:Maxamillionchicago, should be blocked for having an inappropriate username. —Psychonaut (talk) 09:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Why? Maxamillionchicago (talk · contribs) has a grand total of one edit, ten months ago, which certainly looks like it was trying to be helpful even though a lot of what it added wasn't usable, and I don't see that you could consider that one edit to be "inappropriately promotional". When exactly did ANI become WP:Requests for petty vindictiveness? Mogism (talk) 10:06, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

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

Consensus at Family Research Council

An RfC has just closed at Talk:Family Research Council#Rfc on inclusion of Hate group in lead regarding in-principle inclusion of text in the lead. Another discussion was carried out at Talk:Family Research Council#Proposed hate group mention in the lead. while the RfC was going, in order to establish the actual wording. Now, I think that this second discussion reached consensus, but there is a lot of text on the talk page, and some editors added their own versions, apparently unaware of the previous discussion. Now another discussion has started at Talk:Family Research Council#Inadequately explained removal from the lead. Could an uninvolved administrator (a) determine whether the initial discussion reached consensus, and (b) indicate whether that text should stand until a new consensus has been reached? Thank you. StAnselm (talk) 23:31, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

User St. Anselm is engaged in an edit war. Three times within the last forty minutes he has reverted text regarding this issue. Regardless of what he thinks was the outcome of a thread totally separate from the RFC that was ongoing, so far seven editors have started a new discussion on the exact wording. Nor was the discussion ever closed. St. Anselm should at least show that he is making a good faith request here by reverting his own third revert. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 23:37, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

It's mighty rich for you to bring up this off-topic point when you are edit-warring right along with him. Belchfire-TALK 02:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment It's my opinion that the RfC was closed properly. However I have asked the closing admin to please elaborate on his rationale.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  02:45, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I've protected the page. Now you folks can discuss without reverting.--v/r - TP 02:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Can we give the EW'ers a blanket party?  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  02:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the first discussion reached consensus, but the second seems to have, which would suggest that the wording established there (including criticism of SPLC) should be in the lead. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:28, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

If we add the reverts by StAnselm and little green rosetta together, we've got the makings of a nice little tag-teaming effort and a definitive 3RR violation... just saying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.236.81 (talk) 04:30, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Are you claiming that those two editors are sockpuppets? Becasue two legit editors can't "combine" to create a 3RR violation...just saying. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh really? Considering I've been discussing on talk of both the article and various user pages and trying to reach consensus, your suggestion that I'm involved in an edit war is ludicrous. Perhaps you should login and join the conversation?  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  04:39, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• • • [16], [17],[18], [19], [20], [21] - And the diffs make all the difference. Certainly looks coordinated to me. You did three, he did three... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.236.81 (talk) 04:49, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Of course two of my edits had no edits in between, so they rightfully count as one. And my last edit that has the summary "Restoring text per WP:LEAD (include prominent controversies), not because of lack of "mandate" per RfC -- I won't restore again if reverted until discussion occurs" is pretty darned clear that I was inserting text per guidelines not addressed by the previous editor, and my willingness to discuss. And guess what, we discussed the changes in a polite and reasoned fashion. So there you have two edits of mine, with willingess to discuss and actually discussing. Now where is this coordination you are talking about?  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  05:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Request Could someone please take a look at the recent contributions of the ip editor above? Seems pretty obvious that this is a logged out user wishing to sling some mud while keeping his/her hands clean in the process.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  05:04, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I wondered about the IP, also. Behavioral evidence suggests it's one of the logged-in participants, but there are enough differences in style that, if it's a WP:SOCK, he's making an effort to make different edits logged-in and not logged-in. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:05, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

IP has been blocked as a quacking sock of an (already-blocked) editor with a disruptive POV in this topic area. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Kendrick7 - Faliure to abide by AfD

user:Kendrick7 did not like the result of the AfD regarding Mitt Romney's Tax returns here. The result was delete. As a result of this action Kendrick7 has decided that he will simply restore the article against the AfD here.

I notified Kendrick7 that there is Deletion Review here, and Kendrick7's response was this. Regardless of anyone's feelings on the article Kendrick7's actions are simply unacceptable behaviour. Arzel (talk) 04:49, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Editor notified Arzel (talk) 04:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I would also like to note that Kendrick7 called my revert of his violation of the AfD vandalism which I strongly reject. Arzel (talk) 04:56, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I supported the deletion of Mitt Romney's tax returns because its existence was being used to justify a lack of coverage of the topic in Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012. After the deletion went through, various editors attempted to merge in some of the deleted material (full disclosure: I supported this). Their efforts were met by reverts from Arzel and other conservatives who, as far as I could tell, were working to squeeze the material out of Wikipedia from both sides.

Kendrick7 saw this and he did the right thing. He negated the dirty tricks and wikilawyering, and that's commendable. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 05:08, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Complete BS. I removed only a POV graph and opened up discussion on what material should be included into the main article. Still, if you can't make an honest statement than you should probably just stay out of the discussion. Arzel (talk) 05:14, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Anyone who even glances at the article history can see an edit war over the inclusion of tax return material. I suspect readers will believe their own eyes over your vulgar denial. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 05:32, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Note The link that you've given doesn't seem to show you informing Kendrick about Deletion Review. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 05:23, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Editors should not merge content during an AFD. AfD participants should not work "around" consensus by beginning a merge process on their own, before discussion. While preservation of content is a good consideration, copying may be contentious and may create additional steps and administrative work if undoing any copying is necessary. Such a merge also causes an attribution dependency breakage between articles that may require the merging of article history that would be lost if the source page is deleted. AFD participants may offer proposals and negotiate with the other participants during the discussion. If needed, editors may ask the closing admin how to rescue the content or what additional steps that need to be taken.

If the consensus was delete, why was the article redirected? It should be deleted, period. The closing statement says the consensus was delete, not "redirect" not merge with redirect...just delete. So...why wasn't it deleted? Was it deleted and then just recreated? Since it is obvious that it will probably just happen again an admin should delete the article again as per the closing.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:56, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it was deleted by User:Mark_Arsten, the closing admin, and then recreated as a redirect by User:Kendrick7. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 06:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This user, Kendrick7, is labeling other editors edits as vandalism when they clearly are not, and edit warring against the consensus of an AfD and of an article talk page. It seems admin intervention is necessary to put an end to this. Note I put a speedy delete tag on the recently recreated redirect "Mitt Romney's tax returns", as the user is warring over returning that to a full article as well. Tarc (talk) 06:09, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Also the article needs to be deleted again (edit: I see that Tarc has tagged for speedy delete. I support that) and set so it cannot be recreated without an admin. The outcome of the AFD did not mention merging and in this instance it is a contentious move to do so without a clear consensus now that the AFD has closed. Merging the content is controversial now as the decision did not include merging any content.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:12, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure the CSD G4 is valid as the page as it currently exists is a redirect, which fails the "substantially similar to deleted version" criteria (of course, it was not Kendrick that made it a redirect, the CSD WOULD have been valid for the previous version before Viriditas made it a redirect). I'll ask them (Tarc/Viriditas) to this page for their thoughts, rather than do it individually on two separate talk pages. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 07:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The speedy deletion has been declined by User:Crisco_1492, as it is a valid redirect. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 07:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• I am the original AfD nominator. I don't think it's too much to expect the closing admin to abide by the community's decision, is it? If the consensus was "delete", not "redirect", why is there a redirect??? This seems a little fishy to me. I would like a neutral admin to review that decision. Belchfire-TALK 07:18, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It was deleted by User:Mark_Arsten, the closing admin, and then recreated as a redirect by User:Kendrick7. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 07:22, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for that clarification. I thought the redirect was created by Mark. My bad. Belchfire-TALK 07:25, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• Reading the AFD there is a clear consensus that there should be no standalone article and that no merge is required. The creation of a redirect subsequent to the discussion is an editorial decision and is not prevented by a separate decision to have no standalone article and delete this content. Redirects are not articles and it is very rare for AFD to rule on a redirect and invariably requires a proper discussion of WP:HARM and WP:BLP issues which do not come into play here. I have closed 1000's of AFDs & DRVs over the years and I am very comfortable with the creation of this redirect. If the nom is still not happy than I suggest they list the redirect at WP:RFD but they will need a much better reason than the one we have here. This thread is redundant is policy has not been broken, no wikicrime has been committed and there is an appropriate avenue of remedy that doesn't require reference to the dramah boards. Spartaz ^Humbug! 07:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Spartaz that was not at all accurate. The consensus was to delete. The redirect was not made subsequent to the discussion. The article was recreated against the AFD consensus and THAT IS a violation of policy. Recommend the deletion of this article.--Amadscientist (talk) 09:36, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

And it was then blanked into a redirect repeatedly. Nobody has yet made an argument why a redirect is any more harmful than a redlink in this case. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 10:19, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I get that and? It is still the article that consensus agreed to delete. If the article is back the answer seems simple...re-open the AFD. It is more harmful than a red link because a redlink means the articler does not exist, the information is not in history and there is no way it can simply be reverted back to an article in the future. If this is not deleted as being to difficult to figure out then someone needs to inform every editor whose consenus has been dismissed. So either re-open the AFD (the same AFD not a new one) or notify all "delete" editors so that they can add input here. The keep votes need not be notified as far as I am concerned since they seem to have gotten what they wanted over the consensus, and we are not worried about being fair obviously. Seems a no brainer to me, but what do I know? I'm just some random editor with no experiance to speak of here I guess. Yeah, why worry about consensus. A good trick that works is much more useful than a group of people wanting to cooperate.--Amadscientist (talk) 10:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• As stated above, the redirect is/was not part of the Afd, it is a separate editorial decision, and there is no reason to delete it on the grounds of recreated article, since it isn't a recreation of the article. You can nom it as Misc for deletion, but I seriously doubt that would get much traction, as it is a reasonable search term. KillerChihuahua^?!? 12:58, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Correct, and I don't think a redirect is a problem. The issue is that Kendrick restored the article multiple times against AfD after creating the redirect. Arzel (talk) 12:59, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Agreed that was the issue brought here, but it appears Amadscientist feels the redirect is also an issue, unless I am misunderstanding him. KillerChihuahua^?!? 13:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

You do not misunderstand me. I do see the redirect as being in direct conflict with consensus, but this is a teachable moment about Wikipedia bureaucracy, as a good trick to over ride consensus, because this is exactly that. An AFD is closed as delete. The article is deleted. Whether or not the the new article contained similar or slightly different information, the fact is the article was recreated immediatly after the AFD and is extremely controversial. An editor makes the mistake of redirecting and now we are being told we are stuck with it because a redirect is an editorial decision? Would another uninvolved editor who reverts that and then tags the actual article for AFD then be doing the same type of editorial decision making? Would that satisfy the red tape of this situation or are we truly stuck with this. I guess I should just be happy that the information is still available and not worry that this was an end run around community consensus likely to be played again by editors. As I said, wide gap in policy here, but I am not going to battle over it. Let the article stand as a redirect and let there be NO POSSIBLE way to undue this, as it appears is so. I should just let this make my political minded side be happy about it, but frankly the whole thing makes me very uncomfortable to see how this was done.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:08, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• Any editor can create a redirect, even over a previously deleted page. Let's say "Umbrella (song)" were deleted. An editor could then redirect the title to the album on which the song appeared, no matter if the AFD was delete, merge, or redirect, to preserve blue links and because it's a plausible search term. This is acceptable, and in my opinion desirable, as people are still looking for the information. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:23, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• Had I noticed Kendrick re-creating the deleted article (presumably he had saved a copy offline?) and revert warring over it I would have blocked him last night. He seems to have stopped reverting though now. If he does so again, feel free to notify me and I'll block him. That being said, if anyone feels like the redirect is an issue, I think the best idea would be to go to WP:RFD. Usually no one objects to the redirection of an article that has been deleted at an Afd, but since people find it concerning I think an Rfd would be the best idea here. Mark Arsten (talk) 13:26, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Naapple added a copy of the deleted article to Talk:Mitt Romney citing WP:PRESERVE, so that is presumably where User:Kendrick7 got markup for the recreated article. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 21:00, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with Mark. A redirect like this would not fall under G4, as it is in no way "substantially similar to the article deleted", which is why it was declined. I'd suggest protecting the redirect if it a) survives or is not sent to RfD and b) is continually recreated. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:23, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Well, it was an edit-war over a redirect vs a deleted-article restoration; if I had tagged it at the right time (i.e. the Wrong Version(tm)) then the rationale would've been a perfect fit. Yea, tagging the article while in a redirected state was not ideal, but IMO you coulda saved us all a bit of WP:BURO time. Tarc (talk) 15:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Except for the fact that it's a viable search term, which would preclude its speedy deletion as a redirect. I'm not going to G4 a redirect from a video game character or anything like that. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:18, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

BP

Quite some time, the BP article, particularly its talk page has turned into WP:BATTLEGROUND. In June, the dispute between two editors over the lead of this article started. It was brought to DRN (relevant discussion is here); however, there was no consensus found. Discussion continued then at the article's talk page without any progress. The conflict between editors escalated (particularly during last week) and at the moment a number of comments do not discuss the topic but other editors supplemented by personal attacks and harassment. I will not provide any particular diffs as the whole talk page is overloaded with that kind of comments. Any assistance to cool down the heated discussion and making it more constructive is appreciated.

To avoid any potential misunderstanding I am providing an overview of my involvement in this discussion. I edited this article first time in 2010 and have had it in my watchlist since. Although I have mad 64 edits to this article, I am not the main author of this article (most of the current text is not added by me and significant part of my edits are just housekeeping). As in June I tried to make a compromise concerning the lead [22], I was invited by both involved parties to participate in the DRN process. [23] and [24]. I made my contributions to DRN, including disclosure of my involvement in the discussion [25]. However, the discussion ended without consensus. I have been also involved in the talk page discussion although after the latest escalation I'd rather limited my involvement. Beagel (talk) 05:49, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello, I also think some assistance is needed. In my opinion, there is editing at the BP article that looks like there is some kind of COI, and behavior that no editor should have to endure. Calling attention to this has ruffled some feathers to put it lightly. For my part, I came to the BP page to update it in May 2012, and noticed glaring POV right away. BP's Solar Program had closed but was still in present tense in the article. I corrected the text and added BP's stated reason for the closure from their website (it wasn't profitable enough) with a link. The reason "not profitable enough" was immediately removed by Rangoon11. Next, I noticed serious "greenwashing" in the Intro, and tried to correct it by separating the green claims from the mention of BP's accidents, which were (and remain, due to Rangoon's insistence alone) together in one paragraph in BP's Lede, like a point/counterpoint. After failing to remove the POV, I brought the issue to the NPOV Noticeboard and then to the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. It ended after a month with no resolution. We argued in circles, and continue to now.

Rangoon11 made changes to the BP article that heavily slant the Lede to the positive, and has stood by them and reverted any attempts to change it for around a year and a half. [Rangoon's greenwashing 1][greenwashing 2] In the DRN, Rangoon11 claimed without provocation not to have written the greenwashing, but that claim was not backed up by the talk pages and appears to be absolutely false. Subsequent questioning has resulted in Rangoon's lashing out (seen especially in their latest additions to the talk page) and making subtle threats that I am being watched and they are enjoying it.

An incomplete sampling of diffs regarding behavior:

Early on, Rangoon11 said "I suggest you go off and write a blog".

Rangoon11 now seems to be toying with editors and making cutting remarks "Well sadly...."(i think you are that stupid)

This comment was made tonight against my character and work

Rangoon11 has a history that shows I am not first to experience difficulty with their editing and communication style.[26][27][28] petrarchan47tc 07:24, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

You should avoid assigning contentious labels to other user's edits, such as "greenwashing", as it fosters a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality. It's more productive to stick to policy based arguments. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 07:58, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

That makes sense. petrarchan47tc 08:17, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the dispute resolution attempt, NPOV noticeboard discussion and the talkpage discussion I recommend that a request for comment be opened to get a wider view on the issues raised here. Per the dispute resolution policy, such requests "can be used when there is a content-related dispute, or simply to get input from other editors before making a change". You should also contact any relevant Wikiprojects such as WikiProject Energy, WikiProject Environment (particularly the Environmental Record Task Force) and WikiProject Companies. This noticeboard is meant for situations where urgent administrator action is required, for example blocking users to prevent disruption of the project. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 08:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I do think it is urgent to consider a block for Rangoon11 from editing the BP article specifically for the reasons I outlined, and perhaps at Wikipedia in general based on COI editing in this case and the information found in their AN/I history, which shows this is a pattern. petrarchan47tc 09:17, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

To be clear, I do not see the project moving forward with Rangoon11 on board. Their participation is heavily biased and antagonizing. petrarchan47tc 09:26, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

If you are going to make any serious proposals along these lines, you will need to familiarise youself with WP:BLOCK and WP:BAN. In any case, this is a content dispute, and if there's a long term pattern of negative behaviour by one user in particular you can propse specific remedies at a request for comment on a user. The world won't end if there isn't an immediate block issued, and remember, Wikipedia does not have a deadline. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 18:18, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Petrarchan47's comments above give a flavour, but only a flavour, of the sustained and pretty extreme personal attacks which they have been directing at me in BP related discussions. I have been accused of harassment, COI editing, paid editing, working for BP and lying. It should also be noted that Petrarchan47's sole interest and focus on the BP article has been puffing up and adding perceived "controversy" type content. Rangoon11 (talk) 10:43, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with Rangoon's assessment. My only interest in this article is to get the bias out of it with my main focus on the Intro. Records show I have made this claim from the beginning. I have made multitudes of improvements to the article, and no one has accused me of being biased in my edits save Rangoon11. Secondly, I have never claimed to know why Rangoon11's editing seems 100% like what one would expect from someone with COI, I have claimed that it really does not matter to me the cause - my understanding is COI editing is equally egregious on Wikipedia and can be shown by edits alone. Also I have never said Rangoon harassed me. But there are diffs included above which show the behavior is antagonistic and immature as well as dishonest and aggressive. I have accused Rangoon11 of bullying, and this was seconded in the DRN by a third party: [Rangoon's] "style of communication has been bullying and stultifying rather than collegial....". I realize this isn't the place for a formal complaint, but needed to comment on Rangoon's statements. petrarchan47tc 05:14, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Please note that it is strongly encouraged that editors declare conflicts of interest at Wikipedia before editing. Previous accusations that Rangoon11 had such a conflict of interest were found to be unsubstantiated. Furthermore, to quote from WP:COI, "Using COI allegations to harass an editor or to gain the upper hand in a content dispute is prohibited, and can result in a block or ban". You should try and verify suspicions about other editors' conflicts of interest at WP:COIN without publishing assertions and accusations on Wikipedia. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 05:39, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Malaysian language

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Can an administrator please have a look at this article. An IP editor is consistently reverting to a BS version despite established editors restoring. request for page protection filed 4 hours ago - no response. thanks --Merbabu (talk) 08:36, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

all done - thanks! --Merbabu (talk) 08:53, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

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User:Bosniaco

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

The user created Đukić (Sandžak) which was deleted (an article about a supposed family with nonsense history-section, plain original research), then he created it again, and it was deleted a second time, then he created it a third time under another name Đukić (Djukic). He has been warned for uploading copyrighted material, revert warring, rewriting protected page, and creating the Đukić-articles (see his talk page).--Zoupan 11:36, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Both articles now deleted and page names salted. Creator being warned not to create inapropriate pages. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:01, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Looks as if the user has been blocked already. Closing this. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I've blocked for 1 week. De728631 (talk) 12:06, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

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Is Jinx69 trying to break 3RR by proxy?

Resolved

 – I'm an idiot. GedUK  14:01, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Jinx69 (talk · contribs) left me a message on my talk page asking me to make a change to Evolution (to add in the phrase 'is hypothosised'). I wondered initially why a confirmed editor would ask me to do such a thing. Having looked at his (blanked) talk page history, I began to suspect the reason. Having received an edit war warning for the same article.

Is asking me to edit it instead an attempt to carry on the edit war by proxy (as it seems to me)? If so, should he be blocked, and if not, then what, if anything, next? Now he's involved me, I don't think I should probably block him myself.

Thoughts gratefully received. GedUK  12:18, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the timing of the edits, I see that he contacted you before ever editing evolution. Since receiving a warning about edit warring at that article, Jinx69 has restricted himself to discussion on the talk page. So it does not appear to me that Jinx69 was trying to carry out an edit war by proxy - but there are clear problems with POV edits and a bit of soapboxing that probably merit keeping an eye on his edits. -- Ed (Edgar181) 12:42, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Edgar for doing objective research.

Yes i contacted the above user BEFORE i realised i could just edit it myself, i thought it could only be changed by the user above so i asked him on his page. The claim is the height of ipse dixit though no one else concerns themselves with the lack of scientific nomenclature. I don know what 'proxy' is either.

Jinx69 (talk) 13:39, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I don't know how I missed the timing issue, sorry. GedUK  14:00, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/proxy --Guy Macon (talk) 14:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

TVFAN24

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TVFAN24 is going against the Wiki policy of WP:YEAR and when I tried to correct them, they sent me nasty, homophobic messages onto my talk page. They have had severe issues with WP:OWN in the past and is clearly showcasing those issues once again. After I corrected their edits to follow WP:YEAR, they went ahead and reverted them all. They don't go off of consensus either, they do as they seem fit and if someone corrects them, they give a major attitude and like they did to me, give off homophobic insults. This is not the first time when they've thrown around a severe disrespect for an editor, either. They clearly need to be reprimanded for their actions. Musicfreak7676 ^{my talk page!} 12:19, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

These are the diffs: [29], [30] (MusicFreak, it would have been helpful if you had provided them yourself). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:44, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Is there any reason not to indef this person for his nasty personal attacks? KillerChihuahua^?!? 13:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It looks like Black Kite couldn't think of one ;-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Especially considering their block history and their current restrictions. Black Kite (talk) 13:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

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Posted in the wrong section sorry

Jinx69 (talk) 13:38, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Offensive image placement at ITN

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this is not an administrator issue. Users can discuss concerns at Wikipedia talk:In the news, but no one needs to be blocked, and nothing needs to be deleted or protected, because of this concern.

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Right now, on the main page, we have an in-the-news item at the top that is about a notorious mass murderer. And right next to it, we have a portrait photograph of some other guy – suggesting to every unaware reader that this guy is the mass murderer named in the text.

Am I alone in thinking that this is a BLP violation that needs to be fixed immediately?

See discussion I opened at Wikipedia talk:In the news. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:27, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This isn't really an ANI issue. Just pull it. Hot Stop 12:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I tried moving the picture, but it led to an ugly display error, so somebody with more technical experience at ITN will have to step in. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:45, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

What determines the order of entries in that listing? It would perhaps be sensible to place the item corresponding to a picture at the top, next to the picture. --Mirokado (talk) 12:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I've yanked the picture for now. Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:59, 24 August 2012 (UTC) I've moved the picture down by the entry where it is referenced. Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:05, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This is said to break the layout on various pages. It's been discussed and rejected repeatedly. —David Levy 13:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The items are reverse-chronological by date.

The idea of placing the item corresponding to the picture at the top has been suggested on multiple occasions (as have other possible tweaks), but consensus for such a change has never been established. —David Levy 13:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The idea of making the image non-static has been discussed and rejected numerous times. That this is known to cause technical issues (both on the main page and on other pages on which the template is transcluded) is one of the main reasons. —David Levy 13:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This concern (the unintended association of a notorious individual with someone else) has been raised in the discussions to which I refer above, with no consensus that it's serious problem (due to the image title and "pictured" text). —David Levy 13:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, it is a serious problem, and if people in earlier discussions didn't see that, they were wrong. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:31, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Even when it's not a problem like the present one (which I agree is a problem), it's always been confusing. Readers shouldn't have to figure out which item goes with the image by looking for (pictured). Acroterion (talk) 13:37, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

By "the present one", I assume that you're referring to the Traian Băsescu image. Correct? (It's been replaced with a photograph of buildings.) —David Levy 13:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps so. To be clear, I'm only noting (not defending) the discussions' outcome.

In the future, if such an issue arises (and must be acted upon immediately, due to WP:BLP-related concerns or another reason), please simply blank the "image=" parameter and remove the "(pictured)" text. It's okay if ITN occasionally has no image. —David Levy 13:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• I think anyone with half a brain would be able to determine simply by reading through the listed news items on ITN that the picture is actually of the Romanian President, not the serial killer. Nevertheless, I agree with FPAS that the image really ought to be changed so as to avoid the possibility of giving people such a misconception. Kurtis (talk) 13:42, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
• This is an important discussion to have, but we don't want to split the discussion between venues. As this isn't really an admin issue, and in the interest of keeping the discussion in one location, I'm closing down this discussion. Please make any future comments to the already-existing discussion at Wikipedia talk:In the news. --Jayron32 13:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

dead horses should stay unbeaten.

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• Discussion about the image itself should indeed be held over there, but I have grave concerns about one of FPaS's comments above: specifically, this one. This sort of "I'm right no matter what anybody else thinks" attitude is not something we need on Wikipedia; indeed, were it a new user saying something like that that instead of an admin, the reaction would likely have turned to comments about boomerangs and cautions about consensus vs. "My Way". Yes, there very well might be/have been a serious problem, but such a ringing denouncement of consensus sounds like something I'd expect from the people running the asylum at TVTropes, not an admin on Wikipedia. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 16:52, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
  • And he's been properly chastised for the comment he made over there. There's really no reason to keep drumming it up, as it appears from his actions that he's backed down quite a bit from his extreme stance. Yes, his comment was eggregious, people have already called him on it, and we've all moved on. Continuing to bring it up here, after the situation has passed, is (ironically) no less eggregious of a hard-line stance than he did. Everyone else seems to have let this drop, and things were going nicely before you decided to open this closed wound. There still is no issue that needs dealing with here. People get emotional, they say stupid things, and then eventually cooler heads prevail. That entire process has already completed itself, and I am not sure what is to gain by reopening this just because of some impertinent comments from the past. Let it drop here already. If you have something substantive to add to the discussion note above, which is working quite well with FPAS's participation, then feel free to. But seriously, reopening this feels like an attempt to punish him for a transgression, and as bad as that transgression may have been at the time it was made, it's blown over and doesn't need any additional time devoted to it. --Jayron32 17:01, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
    • My apologies; that was not my intent. I have struck the above. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 17:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
      • It's all good. Don't sweat the small stuff. If that is really all, I'm closing this down too. --Jayron32 17:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

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User:Ifightback

Ifightback (talk · contribs) has been wantonly moving articles of certain Philippine TV shows with Tagalog titles to versions with English titles. His rationale has been usually the same improper edit summary: "iT IS BETTER TO PUT IT UNDER THEIR INTERNATIONAL TITLE FOR FOREIGN READERS ESPECIALLY BECAUSE IT WILL/OR IS BEING SHOWN OUTSIDE PHILIPPINES, LIKE KOREAN D..." (this is already enough to net him a user warning for improper edit summaries).

We are exerting every effort to undo all his unilateral moves and he has been warned for malicious contributions; last month, he previously made a bad-faith ANI report against the same editor who warned him this time around. We cannot find any notable source for a show's supposed "international title" (he probably translated them himself). We need sysops to stop all of these, since many articles couldn't be reverted back to their original Tagalog titles. Thank you.--Eaglestorm (talk) 12:40, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Without any statement as to which language should be used in the titles (i.e. without any regard of whether he's correct or not), his behavior certainly seems problematic. Unilateral action in the face of opposition is never a good idea, doubly so when it happens to multiple articles in rapid succession and accompanied by an ALL CAPS edit summary. Even if he is correct (and I'm not saying he is), he's working very hard to ensure that the correct result gets reversed. His behavior needs to change dramatically if he's to stay around here much longer, regardless of what the Wikipedia articles should be titled. --Jayron32 14:06, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I even tried moving back one of the articles, but the original name could not be used again, thanks to his handiwork. That's why we need sysopping to stop them all. --Eaglestorm (talk) 01:23, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

If I may add, according to Ifightback's user page, he "moderates" a number of articles, most of them are related to ABS-CBN. Seems to me that he is somehow violating WP:OWN as well. -WayKurat (talk) 05:19, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

SPA trying to push limits

Quione (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been editing inappropriately for an extended period of time at Talk:Aspartame controversy. These edits seem calculated since the latest commentary followed asking about the limits, including topic bans: [31]. More than sufficient warnings about behavior have been dismissed. Administrators' discretionary sanctions for fringe theories have been mentioned in past efforts to engage [32][33]. There is an extended history of disruptive comments ([34][35][36][37]) and accusations [38][39][40].Novangelis (talk) 14:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I must say this has gone on long enough, and I for one am sick of being called an industry shill. Dbrodbeck (talk) 16:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This user does not seem interested in building an encyclopedia. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 20:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Claudine Barretto

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The article Claudine Barretto contained a large amount of copyvio from [41] with a highly promotional tone. I've tried to remove it, but new editor User:Claudinenian has been repeatedly re-adding it despite several warnings at their talk page. The editor's name suggests a potential WP:COI. Editor has also been uploading copyvio images of Barretto and adding them to the article. Some help would be appreciated. Thanks, Lone boatman (talk) 15:22, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Blocked for 31 hours by 5 albert square. Electric Catfish 16:41, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah beaten to it by Catfish :) blocked for 31 hours for copyright violations and I've advised them to read our copyright policy in their time out from Wikipedia. Hopefully they'll return a reformed editor :)--5 albert square (talk) 16:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

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Commons fair use upload bot

I have just blocked Commons fair use upload bot (talk · contribs). As far as I can tell, this is an unauthorised bot, and I can say with moderate certainty that if it was not a bot, and that this was a user uploading large numbers of non-free images without license tags, fair use rationale and (in some cases) adequate sourcing information, then they would have been shown the door just as quickly. I doubt that this is something that would have been approved had it gone through the proper channels; though I can appreciate the intent, I don't really think that enwp should become a dumping ground for deleted Commons files, and I certainly don't think we need bots uploading non-free content. I am posting here for a review of this block, and I give full permission for my block to be overturned by any administrator not previously involved with this bot if I am mistaken. J Milburn (talk) 15:26, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It looks like it is run by Dcoetzee (per [42]). I'll toss a notify to him here but I do agree that even if the bot was requested on commons, we at enwp should have been informed and validated its run. --MASEM (t) 15:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Bizarrely, it also appears to be uploading PD images that haven't been deleted from Commons (i.e. [43]) and then posting a notice on the projected articles' talkpage that is therefore unnecessary (and incorrect). Since it doesn't appear to have been authorised and appears not to be working correctly, I think the block is good. Black Kite (talk) 16:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It should be noted that the questionable uploads the bot makes are not really bot-determined and hence not directly the fault of the person who runs it / programmed it. As far as I understand, the bot runs on demand, triggered for specific images by Commons users who believe en-wp might still have a use for an image that's up for deletion at Commons. That's a reasonable idea in principle, but unfortunately it's often been used by people who apparently lack a clear understanding of what gets kept here on en-wp, so they send over stuff that really hasn't got a chance to be kept. It's also problematic that the people who trigger these image moves – and who therefore really should count as the "uploaders" for these files – aren't required to then fix the tagging and FURs here themselves. Apparently the feeling is that they just send the stuff over before it gets deleted on Commons, then it's up to people here to either rescue it by fixing the FUR and tagging, or let it automatically fall into the deletion queues. But I share the feeling that's really not a good way of doing it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Yep - also it looks like the bot transfers files that are nominated for deletion at Commons that are used at enwiki even if they're not later deleted, hence my example above. That's one problem - the second, which you've mentioned, is worse; if a Commons file is in violation of their policies, there's a fair chance it might be in violation of ours as well (i.e. obvious copyvio or NFCC failure). The last thing we want to happen then is for the violating file to be copied here instead... Black Kite (talk) 16:15, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the idea of the bot is sound but only for images that are actually set for deletion from Commons. Furthermore, here on WP, it needs to tag the images with 7-day notices about rationale and licenses so they can be fixed by the editors of pages that use the materials; it is unreasonable to expect Commons editors to know the rationales, for example. But this all needs to be authorized *here* before that can occur. --MASEM (t) 16:29, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify: the bot only transfers files which have been explicitly tagged by a Commons administrator to be transferred here using the {{Fair use delete}} tag, which should normally only be done either for works which are clear copyvios, or after a deletion request has been closed. I generally only use it when someone specifically requests a reupload to En, although some other admins use it more often. In the case of File:1907_arrest_of_Dora_Thewlis.jpg above, it was mistagged by User:Túrelio without a discussion (who believed it was a clear copyvio) - I've advised them of this discussion. @Masem: the bot does tag the reuploaded files with 7-day notices, using {{di-no fair use rationale}} (I think that's the right tag?). The bot was authorized for a 7 day trial at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Commons fair use upload bot, but I forgot to request an extension after my 7 day trial expired (oops, my fault). I also probably should have linked that discussion from its user page. I can seek the appropriate authorization, but I'd like to get feedback on what changes if any are necessary. The bot was created just to streamline the process of reuploading works that are about to be deleted to En - if a Commons administrator wants to reupload it here - and it does so more correctly and reliably than a human attempting to do the same thing manually. It may be possible to have it reupload files after they are deleted instead of just before, but this would require some substantial changes to the implementation. Dcoetzee 00:33, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Sock disruption at a requested move

A requested move at Tenedos [44] is being plagued by sock disruption. IPs and brand new accounts without any previous contribs are popping up one after another, all to "Support" the move. I'm counting at least 3 [45] [46] [47]. The latter even had the nerve to remove [48] one of my comments about how one of the IPs had no previous contribs. The style and tone of the 64.134.223.42 IP and User:Cinque stelle remind me very much of the move initiator, User:AbstractIllusions, itself a brand new account without previous contributions (and 95% of their contributions to the Tenedos requested move), although there is no shortage of suspects who would be willing to engage in such disruption. It is characterstic that they are trying to conceal their tracks by removing my comments on Talk:Tenedos regarding the disruption. Any help in dealing with this would be greatly appreciated. Athenean (talk) 17:48, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Why not file at SPI?
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 17:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Because there are too many potential suspects. Athenean (talk) 17:56, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean? I don't see anything that is out of line with other cases that we process.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

There could be any number of sockmasters. Every SPI I have seen has one sockmaster, buy here there could even two or more sockmasters, and even if there was only one, I'm not sure who it would be (there are many candidates). Anyway, I need to run now and won't have access for a while. Athenean (talk) 18:04, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Anyway, since they keep removing my talkpage comments where I point out that these are brand new accounts and IPs without any prior contributions (in order to cover their tracks), an additional reason I posted here was to document this disruption (I don't think they would get away with removing my comments here), so that a potential closing admin be aware of what is going on there (again, since they keep removing my comments). Athenean (talk) 18:07, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, you named a master above and one named account that you think is a sock. If you listed your information in a proper SPI report and believed that there were proper grounds then you could request checkuser to help sort this out if you are willing to supply the diffs. A checkuser may figure out the elusive master that lies behind the report.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:35, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Some canvassing has been going on, E4024 posted this to my talk page. [49] and another to a different users talk page. [50] I'm not certain to what extent, but I've never played a part of that article, which is surprising to me. Not sure how I was contacted, but the RFC is probably tainted badly already. Though I am not sure what is actually going on, here. I'm unfamiliar with it. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:18, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I thought Canvassing means trying to bring together like-minded editors to try to influence certain editing. I only tried to bring in more editors to discuss the issue and so put an invitation to several users' talk pages, none of whom I know personally. If you look into my contributions you can find out the exact list of invitees. When you look at the list you will see that they are random users, not known to act together on certain articles (as far as I know). I tried to chose admins simply because the discussion was heated and boring as among very few users. I saw the name "I feel tired" (or smt like that) and made a joke-call to that user because of his user name. All clear? --E4024 (talk) 18:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:CANVASS, but really this isn't so much about you since I doubt we'd gladly hop on over these socks, I'm not sure where they came from, but the entire topic is weird to me. Though it is usually okay to notify via template to the relevant Wikiproject or other avenues, it is probably not a good idea to go asking random people for assistance hoping that they are favorable for your ideas, the entire thing is supposed to not be a vote, but too often people will go with sheer numbers rather than arguments made. I doubt you are in trouble, this is nothing at all in comparison, but the topic is a weird one and I have no idea what is going on. I just thought you could explain the situation better, since I doubt the socks will turn up here even if directed to. This isn't a witch hunt or a disciplinary thing, you seem entirely unaware of such obscure jargon and the hundreds of 'guidelines' under people are expected to follow... often without prior notice. Don't worry so much, I just hope you can explain the situation for everyone at AN/I, many of which are Admins or experienced and active users. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

@Chris: If your words are directed at me, I have no reason to worry about anything; I couldn't feel easier. As I do not know how to make an RfC -or am too lazy to learn using those gadgets- I asked you to do it for me, possibly because I saw a bot with your name, and as you did not do -I guess- anything about that I continued putting invitations to people's talk pages, people whose names were on the screen for changes in my watchlist. (Frankly I even do not know where to find a user if there is no blue link around. The Admins I know of their authoritative voice tone. :-) I know everybody can see each other's talk page so have no doubt when I write something in your or user x's page it is a public communication. As I said above, I asked people to come in because the discussion was not among sufficient users. On the other hand, I chose especially Admins because the discussion was getting heated. As regards sock claims, I am always open and voluntary to be checked for sock or sockmaster investigation. In Turkish we say "I did not eat anything raw so why would I have a stomach ache?" Please go ahead and get me checked if you have the faintest suspicion about my being or having a sock. I have nothing else to add, other than greetings... --E4024 (talk) 22:43, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you are a sock, I'm pointing out that said dispute exists and is now sitting at WP:WQA#Attack on Editors from one party and I was contacted for another. I really haven't looked into the matter much for a content dispute. My dictionary says Tenedos is the old name and Bozcaada is the modern name. From the Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, but that is a different matter. Though I do not run a bot, it is possible I had typo corrected or did some sourcing on an article in your watchlist. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:56, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I hope all "socks" get caught and removed immediately. I also hope when people besmirch my name, they at least have the decency to contact me about it (oh well for that). I am open to any investigation or verification, so bring them on. I appreciate false accounts very little because it make my hulk-like argument seem weak. YES I AM NEW!!! Whew! We got that out of the way. And apparently that means 1. allegations against me to start the conversation, 2. alternating lectures that go against Wikipedia:Naming Convention guidelines, 3. allegations again, 4. rejection of my evidence without even looking at it (like EVERY opposer has done), 5. more allegations, 6. and then allegations behind my back (by the way, to equate my lengthy, poetic explications with someone who made the point in three sentences is truly insulting) 7. And then when that discussion happens behind my back, I am dismissed as a Single-Purpose account, as if you all didn't read my amazing entry on Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital and my merge for Estevanico, both cutting edge. Awesome. When is the punch in the gut? If I don't become experienced and a blue-linked account, it isn't for lack of energy, passion, or ability: It will be because of community-encouraged bullying. Life's too short for this. AbstractIllusions (talk) 00:42, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Is there any evidence on any of the accused members being sock puppets? TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 01:51, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Maryland Pride

Maryland Pride (talk · contribs) is being openly hostile to other editors (example; and another example), even those to whom he has approached for help. Mainly this occurs in the course of editing Northwestern High School (Hyattsville, Maryland) and related files. This is continuous in spite of previous remarks from other editors regarding WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, WP:NPA etc. (e.g., [51], [52], [53], [54]). I believe, at the very least, a topic ban is in order, if not an outright block. This comment is how he reacted to CT Cooper (talk · contribs) after they responded to his own request for their help. See also Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 39.

(The shorter version of all this, perhaps, is the comment/warning I left at Maryland Pride's talk page: diff.)

Furthermore Maryland Pride, as per WP:QUACK and these comments, is very likely a sockpuppet of Neno8403 (talk · contribs) (originally blocked, along with other accounts, due to copyvio/non-free issues - see following paragraph). More details at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Neno8403 and Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Neno8403. Also note Maryland Pride's comments here and here, and note that they most likely refer to 158.72.22.150 (talk) whom I tagged as a sockpuppet of Neno8403 way back in Jan. 2006 (see User talk:158.72.22.150/Archive 1). I recognized Maryland Pride as a sock account when the it first appeared, but did not block the account as it appeared the editor had improved his behavior and that the net effect would be positive. (For example, at least this time around the editor was asking for assistance: here, or as previously mentioned these comments.) In hindsight I believe I was wrong, and not blocking the account was a mistake. (I don't recall whether block evasion had occurred to me, but the older accounts were a couple of years old, so I assumed good faith that this was a clean start.) However, I think the sockpuppetry (or block evasion) is greatly outweighed by the civility issues.

But another issue, which goes back to the earlier accounts (and led to their blocking in the first place), is that the user is unwilling, or unable, to abide by Wikipedia's policies regarding non-free content, and going back to the WP:CIVIL issue, is confrontational about it. Skier Dude (talk · contribs) had (rightly) tagged File:Northwestern Logo.png with {{Non-free reduce}}, and Maryland Pride responded thusly. This happened again with a related file (File:Northwestern High School Wildcat Logo.svg; apparently uploaded to circumvent (or spite) the tagging of the original): Maryland Price again removed {{Non-free reduce}}, this time using the edit summary to insult Skier Dude in the process ([55]). When I reverted the tag's removal, Maryland Pride reverted again ([56]) with the rationale that I had not provided an edit summary nor a talk page comment. The template itself uses clear language, so I am not sure whether Maryland Pride refused to read it, did not understand it, or chose to ignore it. There's also this recent exchange. The non-free issues reflect a long-standing pattern going back almost 7 years with his earlier accounts.

I think a block, or at least a topic ban at Northwestern High School (Hyattsville, Maryland) (and related files), is warranted at this point. However, I didn't think it was fair for me to apply a block, at least not without first mentioning why I had not done so when the account appeared (and I have explained this on the user's talk page). Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 18:16, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• I've notified users Maryland Pride, Skier Dude, Toddst1, Cresix, CT Cooper, and Danjel (all of whom I had directly, or (via diffs) indirectly named in this report). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 18:26, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
• Yeah, I agree that Maryland Pride needs to modify the manner in which he interacts with other people. However, has there been any attempt to codify the problem in the form of a WP:RFC/U? I don't disagree that there is a problem with how he works with others, but I am also concerned with diving into a block or partial ban without first exploring other options. --Jayron32 18:49, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• I'm not aware of one. I figured by now he'd been told enough times, by multiple editors. (I was adding more {{Diff}}s to that effect before I saw your response.) FWIW I'm also not the first to consider a topic ban (diff; though I gather that's as far as it went). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 18:59, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• To clarify, I'm not entirely opposed to enacting sanctions, but I am leary to do so unless all less-strict avenues of reaching this user have been tried. That's all. I'm not tied to the RFC/U process, per se (many people don't like it.) but we should not just go from "lots of people get in arguments with him" to "block him" in one step. There needs to be some other attempts made to reach him and to show him that his behavior is a problem, which I agree that it is. --Jayron32 19:05, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree MP has some serious problems in interacting with others and his/her editing (ownership) at Northwestern High School (Hyattsville, Maryland) is a great example of how many folks have tried to work with him/her to no avail. I'd support a topic ban there and perhaps other sanctions. Not opposed to an RFCU either. Toddst1 (talk) 20:06, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about a topic ban - I suspect it would result in this behaviour simply continuing on another article somewhere else, but an WP:RFC/U is worth looking into. Failing that, simply blocking MP if further behaviour like this occurs would also be appropriate - I think the socking issue should only be forgiven if there is a turnaround in behaviour sometime soon. CT Cooper · talk 20:53, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

User:JohnMannV

Im bringing this here because of concerns re this editor. He was blocked twice in December 2011[57] for making ethnic insults on page Talk:Tuples in association football. He has began this again in lesser form making accusations against Scottish Editors.[58] He believes all scottish editors are against him and that we wish to promote Celtic, this is not true in any form. There have been multiple discussions since December 2011 that have established consensus, he has been asked to discuss this as no consensus to include but keeps reverting.[59][60][61][62]. He also deleted all content of the talk page where discussion took place previously.[63]. He is acting it seems like he feels he owns the page, insults or accusations against other editors because of there nationality is inappropriate. Im not happy at these threats including giving me 24 hours to prove he deleted material see here.[64]Blethering Scot 18:39, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Another ANI was in December 2011 but will need to find links. These are his first edits since his short block in December 2011.[65]Blethering Scot 18:40, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This one.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks i was kind of struggling to work out how to find it.Blethering Scot 18:53, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It seems several admins suggested if he revived his previous editing practices after his block then further action should be taken. The fact he is edit-warring, and making rascist comments shows he is not acting in a good manner. Adam4267 (talk) 19:06, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I've left a note for the previous blocking admin so they may review this.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 19:14, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Although I am not as familiar with Wikipedia as Blethering Scot (formerly Edinburgh Wanderer), is it not pertinent to point out (in a non-derogatory manner) that the same group of editors that support giving greater prominence to a Scottish football club at the expense of other clubs, happen to be Scottish? The "deletion of discussions" mentioned by Blethering Scot was my reply to him in this section. If that deleted any discussions, then it was purely accidental and I apologize. It is also no coincidence that the same individuals that are displaying a bias in favor of Celtic F.C. already happen to be listed on this ANI page above [66] regarding the same exact Celtic F.C. club I am referring to. To make a very long story short, when the article in question was originally about "tuples", the same group of Scotsmen tried to argue that F.C. Barcelona's "sextuple" was not notable by continuing to stretch the burden of proof even after I provided evidence from FIFA itself and at least 5 reputable news sources referring to it as such. Once a consensus was finally reached to fully detail F.C. Barcelona's sextuple as a notable accomplishment and they didn't get their way, they moved the goal posts yet again and changed the title of the article to specifically specify "season" so as to "legitimize" their later removal of 90% of the section regarding F.C. Barcelona's sextuple, and thus give greater prominence to Celtic F.C.'s quintuple. Yet the controversy regarding whether F.C. Barcelona's sextuple of interdependent victories can be considered as "one season" was never fully resolved, yet this same group of editors took it upon themselves to move forward with their biased definition in order to diminish the accomplishments of F.C. Barcelona and give more prominence to their Celtic F.C. club. Throughout the entire discussion, they have acted as if they were above the world governing body of the sport (FIFA) and several reputable news sources. I kindly insist that everyone read the following talk sections in full for the complete evidence of the travesty that has transpired in this article:

• 'Sextuple'
• Barcelona Inaccuracies
• Questioning whether 'yearly' achievements should be in the article
• Stop diminishing the "unprecedened" and "record-breaking" "sextuple" of F.C. Barcelona in order to increase the prominence of Celtic F.C.'s quintuple

I understand my manner of speaking may be rough around the edges, but it is completely unfair to be always ganged up on by the same group of editors, especially when I have been one of the very few editors to always provide several citations from highly-reputable sources to back up all the facts I stated in the talk page of that article. I simply could not sit idly by and watch a concerted effort to instill obvious bias in a Wikipedia article. JohnMannV (talk) 19:39, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Have you read any of the discussions. There are editors from all over involved in those discussions. You haven't take part in any of them. Your first edits after block was to pursue the same course of actions that you did previously. Edit warring and nationalistic insults. It was decided that the notable achievement is a season not a year. It was decided to mention barcelonas achievement but not give undue weight as they hadn't achieved the season only a year. Read the discussions in fact I clearly asked you to discuss however you ignored made insults and edit warred. I don't believe inexperience is an excuse here. Blethering Scot 19:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Please point out where I made nationalistic insults. That is a false accusation. Pointing out the fact that the users that are ganging up on you are all from the same country is not an insult, so please stop creating straw man arguments to detract from the issue at hand. Furthermore, if it was decided to "mention barcelonas achievement but not give undue weight", then why did you state "Ive changed the wording slightly. Article is looking really good thanks to Kahkonen" (emphasis mine) at 16:20 on 24 December 2011 (UTC) referring to this specific version by you at 16:18 on 24 December 2011 (UTC) that gives much greater prominence to F.C. Barcelona compared to the version from yesterday that had slipped under the radar until I saw it today? JohnMannV (talk) 20:15, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

For the record User:Edinburgh Wanderer and User:Blethering Scot are the same account. It was renamed by a beaurocrat. Blethering Scot 19:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

re " is it not pertinent to point out (in a non-derogatory manner) that the same group of editors that support giving greater prominence to a Scottish football club at the expense of other clubs, happen to be Scottish?" quite simply, and quite emphatically NO it is not pertinent. editors of any and all sorts are to be judged simply on the basis of their edits. period. -- The Red Pen of Doom 20:01, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

OK, but then how does one address the issue of biased editing by a concerted group of individuals sharing the same interest/agenda? JohnMannV (talk) 20:15, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

After discussing on the talk page, if the issue remains, you can bring POV concerns to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. -- The Red Pen of Doom 20:17, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. When bringing an issue such as this up at the neutral point of view noticeboard, would it be pertinent to mention then that the biased editing is coming from the same group of individuals who happen to be from the country the football club in question is also from? Because I would imagine that would be pretty pertinent information in order to establish context (e.g. motive) in order for the POV issue to be better understood by editors who were not involved in the discussion. JohnMannV (talk) 20:24, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The editor who actually lessened the weight on the article as far as I'm aware wasn't Scottish. This isn't a content dispute nor is it one of neutral pov as clearly by giving undue weight to a team who didn't actually achieve what the article about is a pov. It's also rather presumptive that all Scottish editors support Celtic or to be honest care about that achievement. I don't. Blethering Scot 20:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm not buying that. Look at my | talk page, when we had these long discussion back in December, I was ganged up on by Adam4267, Chris Cunningham, and you, and only you 3. What do all 3 of you have in common? You are all from Scotland. Where is Celtic F.C. from? Scotland. Sorry, but I do not believe in coincidences. JohnMannV (talk) 20:30, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

re slipping under the radar it didn't. That was the new consensus.Blethering Scot 22:36, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

So rather than stopping your nationalistic accusations you continue. So you edit war, have a massive pov, make nationalistic accusations shows serious signs of ownership to an article and continues at an ANI about their actions. Utterly ridiculous. For the record im a Hearts fan as the picture that randomly appears on my userpage of Tynecastle will show you[67]. You cant accept that since last December other editors from outwith Scotland which is hardly the point have also discussed and come together with a WP:Consensus. Are you going to accuse Pretty Green who just reverted you of being Scottish, when all they have done is go back to the consensus of the article.Blethering Scot 22:36, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing up Peter Green, who is not Scottish, and has specifically |said he doesn't see "any harm" in reverting back to the December version I reverted to. Furthermore, you are 100% guilty of your accusations against me. Specifically: "edit war", "massive pov", and "shows serious signs of ownership". Why else would you have such an issue with reverting back to a version you yourself said was "looking really good". You're the one being inconsistent here, not me. JohnMannV (talk) 23:56, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

As Chris's name has been brought up i've notified him. [68].Blethering Scot 23:05, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

As usual, he has called his "friends" to come support him. I don't have any friends on Wikipedia, so I guess that puts me at a disadvantage. JohnMannV (talk) 23:58, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Another accusation. I Suggest you read the header of this page. Which states you must notify any user who is the subject of a discussion. You mentioned Chris not me. Also its widely known around these parts that me and chris are not friends so thats actually rather funny.Blethering Scot 00:29, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

And your clearly mis quotting Peter Green he states Whether or not we list the trophies is, for me, a moot point: I'd rather not do it, but if it makes people happy then I don't see any harm. He also says before that As far as I can see, the best option with dealing this is two acknowledge Barcelona's achievement, but also to note that it is not 'six trophies in a season'. That is what the current status is and i can tell you that it was him that actually reduced the weight of that section in the first place not me or any other Scottish or Celtic supporting editors as you call us falsely. Also where was i making any unfounded accusations, edit war you broke WP:3RR edit war, masive pov pushing against consensus to promote a club, you are the only one doing that. Ownership you cannot accept or read the discussions that show there is a WP:Consensus and insist the version you want is the correct one again showing ownership, i dont make unfounded accusations and i especially dont make accusations at users because of there nationality. You were blocked for the exact same thing in December and returned with your first edit doing the same thing not good.Blethering Scot 00:38, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Wait, did you just openly admit that a single person (Peter Green) is responsible for reducing the weight of a section that was defined by consensus (a consensus that included you, Chris Cunningham, myself and several others)? This is the smoking gun. There is nothing more to say. It shouldn't even have been a discussion to revert what one individual changed, back to the version by consensus, yet the same group of individuals that agreed with me back in December fights me today on this very issue. Ridiculous doesn't even begin to describe this situation. JohnMannV (talk) 01:13, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

User whose contributions relate almost exclusively to one argument on one article is twice blocked for issues related to said dispute, returns seven months later to pursue the same thing again. Furthermore, this time the editors he's chosen to identify as the opposing bloc are explicitly identified as Celtic F.C-supporting editors. This is nationalist edit warring, certainly, but not on behalf of that disparate group of editors who don't see JohnMannV's side of the argument (almost none of whom support Celtic; the two admins who blocked him aren't even British). Open and shut. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 23:32, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It is absolutely ridiculous that you would state publicly at an ANI "but not on behalf of that disparate group of editors who don't see JohnMannV's side of the argument" (emphasis mine) when on 22 December 2011 you yourself said on the talk page of the article in question (and I quote): "Nevertheless, if sources refer to Barcelona's success as a sextuple (and they do) then we have to consider it as such: however, rather than macking about with adding the words "or year" to the article title we can simply add a footnote explaining the situation. So remarkably I'm actually in the same boat as JohnMannV et al on this particular issue". To use your words, open and shut. JohnMannV (talk) 00:07, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

What part of further discussions have taken place and decided not to give undue weight to the achievement that actually isnt covered by the article is not understood, we acknowledge the fact they did it in a year, adding all the trophies in list order gives undue weight over the clubs who did. Chris may still have that view and can discuss on the talk page like you clearly should of done. Showing edits before the current WP:consensus was reached is irrelevant. You were asked to discuss very clearly by me instead you ignored and decided to edit war. You had the chance to discuss and attempt to change that consensus instead you went down this route thats lead us here. There are correct ways of going about things and there are wrong this is most certainly wrong. Blethering Scot 00:46, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Notice this tag-teaming between the same group of individuals, both of whom have changed their stories since December yet back each other up under pressure. This is what I had to deal with in December and what I'm having to deal with now. It is preposterous when you consider they both agreed with me back in December, and the moment I looked away, the section in question completely changed, and when I went to revert it to what we had all agreed on, they started an edit-war with me, and then have the audacity to accuse me of starting this incident. Thankfully, all the evidence backing my claims are in plain view for everyone to see on the article's talk page. JohnMannV (talk) 01:04, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Does User:Shrike have sufficient competence in the English language to be a worthwhile contributor?

As recently discussed in another AN/I thread, [69] there appear to be serious grounds to doubt whether User:Shrike has sufficient grasp of the English language to be a useful contributor. Shrike has just replaced a statement that "There is consensus among Jewish and Christian scholars that dhimmi is supposedly inferior status", with "Big part of Jewish and Christian scholars agree that dhimmi is supposedly inferior status". [70]. Even before the edit, the text was grammatically poor, but this is just plain garbage. Note to that this is in relation to a contentious article, where a clear understanding of what sources say is a prerequisite - it isn't just Shrike's writing that appears to be the problem, but also an inability (evident from discussions on the talk page) to be able to read English at the level required. Can I ask uninvolved contributors to address this matter, not in relation to any content disputes (this is a contentious subject, but that is another issue, and if it is to be discussed, it should be addressed separately), but with regard to whether, per WP:COMPETENCE, it may be in the best interests of Wikipedia to prevent Shrike from editing articles. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:23, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I asked other editor to help to c/e the article before that I am not the first not the last wiki editor that does grammar mistake.But what is clear that User:AndyTheGrump use it as pretext to remove editor that oppose him in this contentious issue instead fixing the grammar error like other user did [71] he goes to WP:AN/I I think it clearly showsWP:BATTLE behavior.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 20:33, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Shrike, you do a lot of good for Wikipedia, but you should be selective with your edits. I speak a good amount of your native language of Hebrew and carry on a conversation, but I can make only the most basic edits to an article on the Hebrew Wikipedia. You should only make edits that you are reasonably sure can be understood by everyone. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 20:48, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The edit was concerning the words "Big part of Jewish and Christian scholars" instead of "A large part of Jewish and Christian scholars." Mistakes happen all the time in regards to grammar, we have plenty of editors here from every country, and I've seen far far worse mistakes, but it's silly to file a report everytime someone writes, "And she told, "we won"" (one example of something I saw). These types of mistakes can be easily fixed, instead of requesting that an editor who can make contributions to Wikipedia get banned for making a silly grammar mistake that can - and was - easily fixed. This is too overblown. --Activism1234 20:38, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Activism1234, are you suggesting that you think "A large part of Jewish and Christian scholars..." is proper English? AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm suggesting we don't all need an 800 on the English SATs to edit Wikipedia, and suggesting that the way it's written makes the sentence perfectly clear and a large number of editors won't even notice any grammar mistake, if there is one, and that certainly doesn't disrupt the page, and anyone who does feel there is a grammar mistake can freely change that mistake. I'm furthermore suggesting that regional dialects do differ from editor to editor based on the region or country, and it would be inappropriate to ban an editor for writing "color" instead of "colour." Similar things would be putting a period before a quotation mark, which doesn't change the meaning of the sentence, and which can be easily rectified without getting so upset over it. Lastly, I'm suggesting that an editor like Shrike with over 5000 edits on Wikipedia who has been contributing since 2006 should not be banned due to a grammar mistake that doesn't distort the meaning of the sentence and that can be easily rectified instead of going to ANI over this. --Activism1234 20:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Another example would be the article 2012 Gaziantep bombing. Consider this sentence, "Bombs that were exploded through remote-control system were planted in a low truck near Karşıyaka police station in Şehitkamil district that is one of the most crowded areas of the city." Will we go and ban the Turkish editor that put in that sentence because of a grammar mistake? Of course not. Instead, we'll be a bit more mature and fix that mistake which doesn't change the meaning of the sentence in any way. --Activism1234 21:01, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Please stay on topic. The topic here is whether Shrike shows sufficient competence in the English language to edit articles. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:04, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

No, I was able to understand what he wrote. It was not very fluid, but it was not "nonsense." --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 20:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

That's a talk page, not an article, and even there, the only difference is he didn't put a period or perhaps one other word is wrong, but that doesn't change the reader from understanding what he is referring to. It's understandable that certain editors won't use full grammar markup on a talk page, especially if they're in a rush. WP:IDONTLIKEIT doesn't qualify a comment on a talk page as "nonsense." And Shrike seems to be referring to this, which does give the impression of canvassing. On an article, the story is different, but I explained this above. --Activism1234 20:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

As I read the initial comment, Andy isnt asking that you (Shrike) be banned from editing, but that you not edit articles directly. This is the English language encyclopedia, and it is expected that our articles be in, you know, English. If you are unable to write at a high level in English, then it is not an unreasonable request that you make suggestions on talk pages and have others correct the language before it makes its way to an article. nableezy - 20:41, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

No-one minds the occasional grammar and spelling error, but you consistently write English that isn't comprehensible (for example the first sentence in the above paragraph, or this diff where you took 7 edits to write something that makes no sense at all). It is not fair to other users for them to have to clear up after pretty much all of your writing. Andy is correct - if you're going to write content here, WP:CIR applies. Black Kite (talk) 20:43, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

As I rewrote the article I asked other editors to c/e it.I have asked several times how the best to rephrase but didn't recieved any meaningfull answer [72] so I tried to fix it myself anyhow in future I will consult other editors how to best rephrase a source.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 20:55, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't think that is an acceptable solution. You need to demonstrate that you understand the sources in the first place, which seems debatable to say the least. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:20, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This ANI is about a grammar mistake, and I don't feel that a grammar mistake demonstrates a lack of understanding sources. --Activism1234 21:31, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This ANI is not about "a grammar mistake". It is about repeated demonstrations by Shrike that he/she fails to display the competence in the English language required from a useful contributor. 21:35, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

With regards to understanding sources written in English, I'm not sure that's a valid rationale for excluding someone from the project. Certainly, many articles on the English Wikipedia cite sources that aren't in English, and we wouldn't say that editors that can't understand non-English sources are incompetent. That being said, I would certainly support Shrike restricting his editing in mainspace to wikification, citation of sources and other tasks not requiring him to formulate prose. Any other changes that he thinks need doing should be requested on talk pages so a user confident in the formulation of English prose can add it. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 21:46, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

"Incompetent" might be slightly strong, but this is still the English wikipedia, in order to edit it it's merely WP:COMMONSENSE that one should be *ahem* resonably competent in English. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:23, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

• We've tolerated pretty severe abuse of the English language from a number of contributors on here over the past few years. And Shrike is a veritable William Safire compared to most people who write stubs about Pakistani villages. Off the top of my head I can't recall seeing someone sanctioned for poor grammar, although there certainly are some insufferable pedants around here who would wholeheartedly support taking that step. In any case, certain parts of the project call for greater precision than others--when dealing with controversial or disputed information, clarity and precision are very important. Prose and grammar issues are less likely to lead to controversy if found on Water polo articles than on the Israel/Palestinian conflicts. It might be a good idea for Shrike to seek out less controversial topics to edit, or to propose changes on talk pages before adding them to articles to get more feedback on English issues. Mark Arsten (talk) 06:09, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Disruptive editing - User:Lysozym

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

---

User:Lysozym has long been engaged in disruptive editing at the article Hazara people and as such his/her behavior requires the attention of administrators. Please check this person's edit history on the article Hazara people. He/she has been deliberately removing sourced material referencing the Hazara's Mongol ancestry. These references come from an academic source, and a secondary source from the media:

• Where West Meets East: The Complex mtDNA Landscape of the Southwest and Central Asian Corridor
• Mongolia: Afghanistan’s Minority Hazara Students Find Peace in Ulaanbaatar

Despite the names of these two sources being pointed out to this individual in the edit history, his/her latest reversion explanation was that "no, simply a link to a newspaper article about Afghan students in Mongolia" despite the fact that this individual is fully aware that the first reference clearly does not come from a "newspaper article", but comes from the American Journal of Human Genetics. This individual is clearly engaged in disruptive editing and an inflicting an edit war at Hazara people by routinely removing these two sources. اردیبهشت (talk) 20:43, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

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

Removing scholarly sources, disruptive edit wars, violation of 3 RR

اردیبهشت (talk · contribs) has one again removed a reference to the Encyclopaedia Iranica - the most authoritative scholarly work on the subject - because it does not support his ethno-POV. Only a few days ago, he was banned for 4 days because he was removing the same source from the article Iranian cuisine and calling it "vandalism". This user - who is also stubbornly ignoring the policy of using Latin letters in his username - is a man on a mission who is not interested in discussions. Most of his edits are stubborn editwars. His latest edits in Hazara people are technically a violation of 3RR. Had he not removed that scholarly article, it would have been a violation of 3RR. Admin attention and intervention is needed. This user does not seem to havy any interest in constructive work. --Lysozym (talk) 21:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It is not the most authoritative source, it is merely one souce out of many. Yet that source, too, confirms the edits i have made and so i do not object to its removal, it has merely been replaced but can be re-included. It is you that has been engaged in silly little inter-ethnic Afghan feuding and a strange POV campaign on that article and others seeking to deny Hazara's their Mongolian racial heritage which is what is recorded about them in all other sources. As such, your desire to conceal this fact is dishonest and disruptive. اردیبهشت (talk) 21:16, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The Encyclopaedia Iranica IS the most authoritative source on the subject. Anyone with basic knowledge in this field knows and aknowledges that. In any way, this edit is an act of vandalism, because you have once again removed a reference to that source and changed the content of the intro to your POV by ignoring the consensus among leading scholars. I have no idea why you are so obsessed with "proving" that the Hazara have no connections with Iranian peoples, whom you consider to "be white and pure". That is racist nonsense. The Hazara are a mixed people. They are the product of waves of Mongol and Turkic peoples mixing with the local Persian and related populations. That's why they speak Persian and not Mongolian. That's why they have genetic similarities with both Eastern and Western populations (a fact that is highlightened in the genetics section). Your edits are POV and they are unencyclopedic, because you delete high-quality scholarly sources and replace them with news articles supporting your POV. You should have learned at least a little bit after your most recent ban. You were banned for removing reference to Iranica. And now, shortly after your ban was lifted, you come back and continue your extremely disruptive and unencyclopedic editing. Wikipedia is neither a platform for POV-pushers nor for strange racist ideologies of "pure peoples". --Lysozym (talk) 21:26, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Please learn how to stick to an issue at hand and not make false accusations and assumptions about other people which you know are simply not true. Until such time, it will continue to be incredibly testing to take you seriously. اردیبهشت (talk) 21:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Your objectives are clear. This edit is a violation of WP:STALK and WP:POINT. Maybe you can explain to us why you revert back to a version that is a direct violation of copy rights and draws heavily on obviously falsified content. Maybe you should have read the talkpage first. I let the admins decide. --Lysozym (talk) 21:44, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Once again, please stick to your own issue at hand. Also, im afraid that stalking is characteristic of your attidue and has been initiated long before by you, so please do not play a victim here.[73][74] اردیبهشت (talk) 22:00, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Violation of WP:3RR:
1)[75]
2)[76]
3)[77]
Please note that these edits are identical with previous ones of a few days ago. Meanwhile, he continues his racist approach, claiming that the Hazara are neither an Iranian people nor are related to them (a ridiculous claim that is opposed by all scholars; the Hazara are an Iranian people because they speak an Iranian language). --Lysozym (talk) 22:31, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:3RR requires 4 reverts in 24 hours not 3. One of those edits are to AN/I and is broken when I view it. Though edit warring should stop. Its time to take the matter to WP:DRN for content disputes. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! اردیبهشت (talk) 22:58, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

No rule has been broken there. Also, those edits are the same because you have been reverting them with your disruptive editing on the article by removing sourced information as i had mentioned in my initial complaint prior to this one. All you are doing is trying to complain back because of your obvious childishness and out of your silly little inter-ethnic Afghan feuding that you have expressed and admitted to me in a previous discussion. اردیبهشت (talk) 22:56, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Comments like that are unhelpful and can be seen as uncivil. Despite what you may think of the reporting user, it is probably best not to make references to their behavior or call their edits silly. The matter is serious to the both of you. Such civility concerns are best handled at WP:WQA. And that applies to Lysozym as well, calling ردیبهشت a racist is NOT helping to defuse the situation. Stick to matters of content rather than your judgement of their personal beliefs. For the sake of WP:CIVIL ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• My vote would be for an indef block of اردیبهشت, for edit warring, disruption, and POV pushing. He was recently blocked for 4 days, and almost immediately returned to the same behavior when his block expired. He clearly has no plans to be cooperative in any sense of the word. Honestly, I was about to block him myself, but I'm about to leave for the day. -Scottywong| confabulate _ 23:15, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
• I'm considering a lengthy block as well. The second edit he made after returning from their block was to continue edit warring. Clearly the first two blocks haven't driven home the point that edit warring isn't acceptable. AniMate 23:20, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd impose a final warning; either they fix the problem at WP:DRN/WP:3O or somehow agree to disagree, but either way the edit warring has to stop. ردیبهشت obviously feels strongly about the matter; rather than have an indef block be handed down, I'd bring them before a board and if ردیبهشت continues to edit war, be indef blocked until such a dispute can be resolved. Final chance, I say. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:40, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

That edit was not a revert or edit warring. I added a secondary source with a different re-write for the introduction, one that kept material from both sides of the dispute over that article's content. As for 'POV pushing', im afraid you'll just have to read through the references in their entirety if that is how this dispute appears to you. Nothing ive added to the article Hazara people has been without a source. اردیبهشت (talk) 23:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This is your first article edit after returning from your last block. Here's an edit from before your block, and a third from today. You are edit warring. Clearly and unambiguously. In fact the bulk of your edits seem to be undoing or reverting edits by User:Lysozym. You've immediately returned to the battleground and that is unacceptable. We block people to stop disruption in the hopes that when a block has lifted or ended the disruptive behavior has stopped. Your disruptive behavior clearly has not stopped. I'm leaning towards blocking this account for at least two weeks, unless you can give me a reason not to do so. AniMate 00:58, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I've been monitoring this user since s/he made this pointless deletion request on Wikimedia commons [78]. This user appears to be nothing more than a POV-pusher who removes content s/he does not like. I support the motion to indefinitely block this user. Thegreyanomaly (talk) 02:53, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

• Indef, per ScottyWong. NotHere. KillerChihuahua^?!? 04:31, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
• Indef block as well per the concerns by ScottyWong. اردیبهشت has been edit warring, and caused disruption and POV pushing, and we must not let the user disrupt Wikipedia any further. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:41, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
• Indef, per Scottywong. And both اردیبهشت and Lysozym please understand that now that this AN/I has been opened, continuing your arguments on third party talk pages will not help either of you. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:40, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

page move war

Admin intervention may be needed at Todd Akin rape and pregnancy controversy - this title violates BLP in that a straight reading implies Akin is involved in rape, but the title that the article has been moved to (edit to add) during the page move war is non-illuminatory of the actual topic. -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest a temporary move to Todd Akin's comments on rape and pregnancy as non-blp violation while a dicussion takes place on the talk page to come to a consensus. -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:19, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

While I think the year should be mentioned for the sake of descriptiveness, I would support move-protecting it at the suggested title. To be clear on the problem, "Todd Akin rape and pregnancy controversy" does not sufficiently identify the subject and could be taken in a very bad way.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:28, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Never mind why there's even an article on this nonsense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:40, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The place for that discussion is here.--JayJasper (talk) 21:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I haven't studied the dispute, and in particular, I haven't thought carefully about whether this should be a separate article from Akin's article or the election article. But if the decision is to have a separate article, it occurs to me a possible, less ambiguous alternate title would be "Todd Akin rape-and-pregnancy controversy": this makes it clearer that "rape and pregnancy" modifies "controversy" and eliminates the possible initial mis-signalling of "Todd Akin rape".... Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:45, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The issue is "rape and pregnancy" together are still misleading as to the source of controversy in a way that creates BLP issues. Looking at it Red's suggestion is also a problem. I had thought he was suggesting a slight modification of my rename to "Todd Akin's 2012 comments on rape-induced pregnancy" by removing the year, but clearly this retains the misleading and less precise "rape and pregnancy" phrasing in some manner. Akin's comments were on pregnancies caused by rape i.e. "rape-induced pregnancy" and not comments on each topic individually. More importantly, by making it that broadly worded it would seem to make the subject about any comments he has made on rape and pregnancy.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:00, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

i agree that "rape-and-pregnancy" just adds the implication that the non-existant victim of a non-existant rape is pregnant with a non-existant child. The title needs something to indicate that it is about words and not actions. -- The Red Pen of Doom 22:05, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Adding the word "comments" to the title is fine so it doesn't appear Akin himself is in an actual rape controversy, but the word "controversy" needs to remain because that's what this topic is. Adding the year to the article title is extraneous and only serves to imply there are multiple other articles with the same titles but in different years, ie 2011 Todd Akin rape and pregnancy comments controversy, which obviously doesn't exist.--Oakshade (talk) 22:24, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

the reliable sources arent using "controversy". Todd Akin's comment that “legitimate rape” rarely leads to pregnancy is the phraseology that I am seeing frequently in sources. Its gawdawful, but if the AfD doesnt put the article out of its misery, it may be the best we can do until Legitimate rapegate becomes the terminology used. -- The Red Pen of Doom 22:28, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I think it is splitting hairs to an extent to try and distinguish between whether the subject of the article is the comment or the resulting controversy. Clearly if the subject were seen as independently notable, it would just as much be about the comment as it is about the controversy surrounding it. Personally, I just find it difficult to see how "controversy" could be incorporated into the title in a way that isn't awkward.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:59, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It appears litterally thousands of sources are using he word "controversy" or "controversial" in regards to this controversy.[79] It's the controversy instigated by the coments. To not refer to this controversy as a controversy would be innacurate. --Oakshade (talk) 00:41, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

What about just "Legitimate rape" controversy? Why does Akin's name need to be in there? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:25, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Because it's fundamentally connected with him. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:29, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

And Watergate is fundamentally connected with Richard Nixon. What's your point? Our article on that isn't located at Richard Nixon Watergate scandal. Iran-Contra affair isn't Ronald Reagan Iran-Contra affair. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 06:11, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Those events had many co-conspirators and neither was authorized by Nixon or Reagan respectively. Are you suggesting that Akin's comments are not his, but rather those of a team of conspirators? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:15, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

The word "controversy" should be used in the article, but it would be difficult to incorporate into the title in a natural manner. Many sources also refer to his comments so, again, this is just splitting hairs to argue over whether the subject should be the controversy or the comments. Nothing would change with the article itself.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:48, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Possibly compromised account?

I declined a request to block an IP that was made at WP:AIV. I left a note for the requesting editor on his talk page explaining my reasons and got back the response that he never made the request.

Could someone else look at User talk:Gareth Griffith-Jones#68.185.89.83 and see if they can figure out what's happening?

I have not blocked this person since whatever's going on, it doesn't seem to be harming the project. Maybe it's some sort of STiki glitch? --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:38, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll bet $10 this is just STiki automatically reporting an editor to AIV when the program is used to revert an editor with a recent final warning on their talk page. No block needed for Gareth, but looking at the edits he reverted as vandalism, he probably owes the IP an apology; those edits don't look like vandalism to me. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It appears you're right. That seems like an undesirable feature for STiki -- it should ask the editor before making a report without the editor's knowledge.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:09, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The real problem is the erroneous identification of an edit as vandalism. I can think of little reason why you would not want to report someone who actually vandalized after a final warning. (And in fact it appears that the reporting behavior is controlled by a checkbox, though it's not very obvious.) T. Canens (talk) 01:59, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Tony Scott - Death and filmogrophy - hurtful remark

Im posting this to raise awareness of a hurtful, detrimental, subjective insult on the page of tony Scotts filmogrophy on Unstopable. Somebody placed in the text that and I quote Tony Scott died a coward. This is a incredibly hurtful remark to the Scott family anyone who knew him, worked with him, or loved his films, or anyone with moral values. Please remove this hurtful remark for the following reasons firstly this is false as tony Scott Was working on a film two days prior to his death, secondly It suggests anyone who has committed suicide is a coward, and most important of all it is a sickening deprived false statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.66.187 (talk) 03:44, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry about that, that's just some minor vandalism and has already been reverted. Jonathanfu (talk) 03:47, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Fatidiot1234 breaking etiquette

This is abrasive and insulting, with no cause for it [80]. He called me an idiot unprovoked. He is falsely accusing me of vandalism on the Coats of arms of the Holy See and Vatican City page, though none of the editors involved there has done so. I would ask intervention here, remind the editor that there is no need to call others stupid or attack them without reason, to remember to assume good faith and to be civil. Maybe a short block, a wiki-break of sorts, would allow the editor some time to cool down and not get so heated so quickly, so we can return to being constructive. Bellae artes (talk) 04:13, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

108.60.139.170 (talk · contribs)

Accusations of supporting pedophiles. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:22, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm far more concerned about the comment made by 66.110.251.145 that 108.60.139.170 was responding to. We have a policy against having such opinions displayed in user space, but saying that in an AfD? 203.27.72.5 (talk) 04:36, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I did not accuse the IP of being a pedophile, which is why a registered editor reverted Seb az86556 after Seb az86556 reverted my comment for a second time. This Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents report is ridiculous. Seb az86556 stated that my comment contributes nothing to the AfD, when the same goes for other general comments in that AFD (such as AJHingston's, the comment that is right above mine). I had a right to provide correct information about what rape is, even while stating that the IP made a comment that sounds just like what pedophiles say. The IP was mostly talking about pubescent and postpubescents, which is outside of the definition of pedophilia (except for sometimes in the case of early pubescents), which is why I stated "And while statutory rape usually concerns sexual activity with pubescent and postpubescents" before I went on with my commentary. My comment mostly has nothing to do with pedophilia. 108.60.139.170 (talk) 04:55, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

"What you are saying is just like what pedophiles say". That has nothing to do with pedophilia? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:59, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm beginning to think that you don't read all of people's comments. I clearly stated that "My comment mostly has nothing to do with pedophilia." Jeez. 108.60.139.170 (talk) 05:04, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Hm. And that makes a difference why? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 05:06, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, it makes a difference per all of what I stated above. Now let others comment on this. 108.60.139.170 (talk) 05:07, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

It makes zero difference. Retract the comment please. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:17, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

If WP:Consensus is for me striking through the pedophile part, I will. But, again, I did not accuse the editor of being a pedophile, which is why it does make a difference. And keep in mind that if the pedophile part of my comment should be retracted, then so should the IP's commentary on adult-child sexual encounters, per Wikipedia:Child protection. 108.60.139.170 (talk) 05:25, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

While my comments should not be so construed as to be defending 108.60.139.170, 66.110.251.145 really needs to be indefed as this comment (particularly the part about statutory rape not being real rape) does violate Wikipedia:Child protection, as 108.60.139.170 pointed out. Per that policy, this really isn't up for discussion or consensus and needs be actioned ASAP. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 05:51, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

No. You're totally misreading the policy. None of those comments warrant blocking. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:04, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually, yes, they do, and I've blocked 66* accordingly. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:08, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Which part exactly? Enlighten me. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:10, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

It took me a couple of readings as it's buried in the middle of the sentence, but the IP's statement here regarding statutory rape laws is blatant defense of pedophila. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:13, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

yeah... well... I took that as sarcasm. But alright. If that's the threshold, you will need to also block 108.60.139.170 who in their post defends sex ith a 16-year-old, which is advocacy for committing statutory rape. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:16, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, I like to think my sarcasometer is well-tuned and it didn't even twitch. As for 108* - 16 is the age of consent in many jurisdictions, including 30 U.S. states. I'm not sure if the fact Wikipedia's servers are located in Florida, where the age of consent is 18, makes it an issue though - in that case the IP should be warned to change their comment first, as they may be in a jurisdiction where it's 16 and it would, thus, be an honest mistake. (And his comments read as if he's in such a jurisdiction.) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:20, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

True. So let them retract. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:21, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll give him a ping on his talk page. (Done.) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:23, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Seb az86556, you're the one misreading the policy, just as you've misread everything else. The IP's comment was quite clearly expressing that statutory rape is not harmful to minors. Heck, the IP, as shown above, doesn't even believe that statutory rape counts as rape. What the IP stated is a clear-cut violation of WP:CHILDPROTECT. By law, those who are under the age of consent or age of majority are children, and statutory rape sometimes regards prepubescents. While the IP cannot be indefinitely blocked, even if a static IP, considering that Wikipedia doesn't block IPs because they get assigned to new people all the time, she (she's identified as a transsexual woman) should be blocked for that comment. And if not blocked, that comment, or at least the statutory rape part of it, should be removed. And as for defending sex with a 16-year-old... No, I stressed that there is vast mental and physical difference between a 10-year-old pubescent and a 16-year-old postpubescent. For your information, as The Bushranger pointed out, age 16 is the most common age of consent in North America. Refer to Ages of consent in North America. Sex with a 16-year-old usually isn't statutory rape, and it's far from pedophilia. Not to mention, that the earliest age at which a person can be diagnosed with the mental disorder pedophilia is age 16. 108.60.139.170 (talk) 06:29, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

As for the actual comment 66.110.251.145 left on the AfD, does that need to be scrubbed or what? 203.27.72.5 (talk) 06:30, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

It's been sent to Oversight. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:40, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

This is an interesting situation. If the jurisdiction a user is in constitutes the threshold, are users from Sonora free to say that they like sex with a 12-year-olds? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:44, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

You really do have a problem with interpreting people's words. In your view, I'm somehow the bad guy, but not the actual person who was expressing the view that statutory rape is A-okay because it isn't even rape. Unbelievable. Anyway, The Bushranger, I explained further here. With the IP's comment being removed, mine should be removed as well. 108.60.139.170 (talk) 06:53, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Bluerim, a third time (though the second was never answered by an admin)

I am once again having issues with User:Bluerim. I have mentioned the Talk page multiple times in my Edit Summaries, but he has yet to post his concerns there, and then on his last two Edit Summaries (on the two separate pages linked later), he told me to post on the Talk page despite me having addressed it multiple times in my Edit Summaries. A few times he reverted without an Edit Summary to explain his changes. This editor has stated that he's "Not going to break down every change." I'm not asking him to break down every change, but instead, explain why he's changing things that have been discussed (from his statement, it sounds like he's practically refusing to discuss). This is occuring on the two articles, God of War (series) and Kratos (God of War) with their revision histories here (series) and here (Kratos) (where in the latter he claimed that I'm making "neurotic reverts"). The previous two incident reports are here (1st) and here (2nd). I was hoping this editor would post on the Talk page instead of making his reverts, but he didn't, which is why I brought the situation here so it can (hopefully) be settled. I don't see why this user does not post concerns on the Talk page and essentially ignoring past discussions about points that he's reverting. He also seems to only post on the Talk page when he's forced to by reports such as this one (only a few times has he posted without force per se). --JDC808 ♫ 05:18, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

• I previously left a note about a borderline personal attack on Bluerim's talk page, which he appears to have partially taken on board (he's using edit summaries when reverting now at least). Nevertheless his reverting while yelling "stop reverting" is obviously hypocritical as is saying "take it to talk" while never himself using a talk page. I felt the need to modify the edit he was reverting over re the above diff, so his condescending "my wording is so obviously much better" was spurious on that occasion at least. bridies (talk) 05:49, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

User:ArdenHathaway - personal attack posted on main user page

I gave this user a Level 1 template earlier today for persistently posting irrelevant material. This was his response: [81]

The "documentary" is propaganda and the discussion about it is only in the Zero Dark Thirty article to mount a partisan attack the Obama Administration. By adding the material on the partisan creators of the documentary, I provided information from which the reader can judge for themselves whether it's an example of "Swiftboating," which it is.

I am a fan of Kathryn Bigelow, so I don't want somebody's partisan propaganda spoiling an article about a work of art (the film).

You, on the other hand. Aren't you a paid PR flack working for right wing causes?

This editor is certainly entitled to a dissenting opinion, but this seems more than a little off-base to me. Belchfire-TALK 05:28, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Belchfire, your summary is not accurate. The material he's inserting has the support of other editors, myself included, and it's well-cited now. As for his comment, I have to admit that I'm wondered the same thing myself, but decided it wasn't likely. In any case, if you didn't have a track record of persistent incivility and frequent personal attacks, I'd be much, much more sympathetic towards your plight. All I see here is someone you edit-warred against and is understandably unhappy with you. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 05:34, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Please provide diffs of said edit warring. WP:BOOMERANG may be around the corner. Viriditas (talk) 05:37, 25 August 2012 (UTC)