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Topic Ban Review (2nd Attempt)

Hi, the original thread got archived, so for convenience I've copied the postings from the original thread to here again. Hopefully that's the right thing to do.
Cailil is really busy in real life and so has recommended that I ask here for someone to do the review. The previous review can be found here. I know it takes time to do a review, so thank you in advance. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 10:14, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

This isn't about "someone" doing a review. You're now asking the community to do a review. First: you'll need to link to the discussion that led to the topic ban. You'll need to link to where you were notified that the topic ban was in effect. You'll need to educate us as to what you've been doing in the meantime - i.e. showing that you've been able to edit positively outside the area of the topic without any squabbles. Finally, you need to show us your way forward: if permitted back into that topic area, how will you act? What will you do to avoid the behaviours that led to the topic ban. Remember that if the community lessens the topic ban and you go back to the same issues, the next step is not a re-imposition of the topic ban, it's usually a block - after all, a TBAN's role is to be that "last chance before an indef" the panda ɛˢˡ” 10:41, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

FYI, some background; this stems from Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive626#User:LevenBoy which led to the issue being added to general sanctions; the page listing topic bans etc. is at Wikipedia:General sanctions/British Isles Probation Log. HighKing was topic-banned in August 2011, it was lifted in June 2012, and then re-imposed in June 2013. HighKing has not been a prolific editor since then, but I can see no actual violation of the topic ban (i.e. adding/removing "British Isles" in articlespace), although he has been active on the talkpages of British Isles and some others as regards naming disputes. Black Kite (talk) 11:04, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The fact that he was let back in and did it again doesn't give me the warm fuzzies the panda ɛˢˡ” 15:16, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• HighKing has noted my extremely busy RL situation (this wont change in the short term) since this is a community sanction the community can overturn/change the topic ban if there is a consensus to do so. In the past I've been concerned more that there is no fundamental change in HK's behaviour from gnoming in British & Irish topic areas, most notably but not limited to naming disputes related to British-Irish history or historical figures or flora and fauna articles, rather than there being an actual breach of the topic ban. From my point of view as this is an indefinite topic ban there needs to be (as EatsShootsAndLeaves points out) evidence of positive attitudinal change and development of a different/productive way of editing. From my point of view showing the community *only* that ban has not been broken proves that the ban works not that it should be lifted--Cailil ^talk 18:15, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

As noted above, this Topic Ban is specifically in relation to editing in relation to the term "British Isles". From discusions with Cailil, we agreed that the disruptive behaviour was rooted in a couple of habits that ultimately led to squabbles and disruption - and although primarily with a banned sock, it was pointed out (and ultimately I recognized and accepted) that my behaviour was the "trigger" for the sock to engage. Regardless of the right/wrong of each individual situation, ultimately my editing was the common factor, and therefore something needed to change. Since that time, it is true that I've not been as prolific. Partly because my previous "gnoming" in these areas (one of the areas that needed addressing) accounted for a high proportion of my editing, and partly because of changes in real-life. Since the Topic Ban I've created a couple of articles - Sir Fineen O'Driscoll and Coppingers Court, one of the areas I was told I should concentrate on rather than gnoming. I believe I understand which of my editing habits were problematic in the past, and I won't be revisiting those habits in the future. Thanks for taking the time. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 21:40, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Just to address Cailil's point above - it should be seen that there has been evidence of positive attitudinal change and development, specifically research and creation of articles, and avoiding gnoming. To address Black Kite - Cailil specifically stated that discussions on any issues was still fine and my Topic Ban did not forbid any discussions on any topics. I was never a confrontational editor to begin with, and I always discussed changes and been courteous to those that engaged on various topics. I think its fair to say that the deep-rooted issue was my insistence on an exact definition of "British Isles" in articles, with references to show that it was being used within the references. Other areas, involving an "exact defintion and usage", were also highlighted by Cailil even though these topics did not fall under the Topic Ban, but I understood what was being said. I don't believe there's any need for the Topic Ban to remain in place any longer as I've shown I understand the reasons why it was in place, and I've addressed those editing habits at the root of the problem. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 12:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• The fact that it fell off with only dissenting opinion meant the request failed. No need to repost the panda ₯’ 14:02, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

It isn't clear to me that there were only dissenting opinions, apologies for reposting if that is the case. I saw that editors had posted some observations and questions, and it seemed to me that it "fell off" due to a lack of activity. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 17:03, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support lifting of topic ban. I'm impressed that you've not gone the sock/evasion route & have thus respected your top ban. If the community chooses to lift the TB, I would recommend less attention to the topic-in-question, in future. I don't wann seeya getting blocked or worst. :) GoodDay (talk) 15:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you GoodDay. As I've said above, I believe I've addressed the behaviour that was at the root of the problem, and have shown to the community that I've learned. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 17:03, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I've confidence in you :) GoodDay (talk) 17:07, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support lifting with the appropriate ROPE. Happy to give a second or third chance. Drmies (talk) 19:03, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Drmies - I assume ROPE is some further probation period? Is there somewhere you can point me? -- HighKing⁺⁺ 11:34, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

HighKing, see WP:ROPE. It's not so much a rope as it is a leash... Drmies (talk) 18:45, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support lifting -- He has shown respect for the sanctions. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 09:30, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• No Support A leopard never changes its spots. Highking has been banned in the past and as soon as a ban is lifted returns to previous behaviour. To recount that Highking was never sanctioned for sockpuppetry while operating under his 2nd account - User:Popaice. No support. Dubs boy (talk) 17:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose As Calil states, a lack of problematic editing since simply proves that the topic ban works. My experience from working on problematic areas affected by nationalist POV is that editors do not change; topic bans expire and the same editing patterns re-emerge. HighKing can be a productive editor in other areas of Wikipedia if they wish, but I don't believe allowing them to return to the whole "British Isles" combat arena would be a productive outcome. Number 57 10:02, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

On that basis, is it true to say that you wouldn't agree to a Topic Ban ever being overturned? Harsh. No chance then for an editor to show they have the ability to learn from mistakes, or show that they've recognized their problematic behaviour? -- HighKing⁺⁺ 10:15, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

In areas with bad POV problems like this, I think lifetime topic bans are the most effective way of cleaning them up. As I alluded to above, I have edited around the edges of another area with some awful issues, and I haven't seen topic ban work as a temporary solution - the problematic editors return when it expires with exactly the same viewpoint - sometimes they are more subtle in their POV after their ban, but the POV remains. The issue for me is the desire to return to a topic area in which the banned editors clearly have a strong POV, and I don't believe it is a positive move to allow this. Number 57 10:24, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Some background: I edited a lot of articles that in my opinion (at the time), used the term "British Isles" incorrectly. We attempted to create rules for usage and formed WP:BISE and discussed edits among interested editors. That initiative eventually failed, and led to the discovery of a large sock farm (still active today). I wasn't ever editing from a "nationalistic" point of view, but from a (misguided) attempt to enforce a standard definition across lots of articles. Cailil correctly pointed this out (took a while for me to grasp, but I see it now), and also pointed out that this was the root of problems caused by gnoming in other areas. Enforcing definitions (especially of controversial terms) where definitions are not "exact" in the real world, was the problem. I don't believe the Topic Ban is serving any useful purpose any longer - it is "working" not because it is in effect, but because I've learned and cut out the problematic behaviour (and learned too). I don't believe any editor would say I'm a POV warrior (exceptions made for the sock farm obviously), or that I even have strong nationalistic POVs. It's less of a desire to "return" to a topic area, and more of a desire to rejoin the community as a fully-fledged and trusted editor, without a shadow of a Topic Ban hanging over my edits, and being able to show that editors do learn, and do change for the good. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 10:50, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Ha! This made me laugh. In truth, Highking systematically went page to page removing the term "British Isles" and at an unreplicable speed. I think a history of edit warring and sockpuppetry are reasons enough to decline this request.Dubs boy (talk) 21:01, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. If this editor had chosen to edit in an other way then things would be different, however on the editor's own admission, editing has just been reduced so things are not different. It sounds like the editor is mainly interested in editing in the problematic way. Maybe it would help if the editor indicated the kind of constructive edits that he wishes to make but cannot due to the topic ban. Op47 (talk) 22:57, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Op47 - just in the interests of transparency and completeness, No, that's not what I said. Yes, my editting has been reduced, but I stated that it is mainly due to cutting out the problematic "gnoming", and partially because I'm not as active as I was before. You appear to attribute the "reduction" as involuntary, and therefore nothing has changed. Not true. 80+% of the reduction is my choice, because the gnoming is the underlying problem. And in terms of "different" editting patterns - I have also researched and created a couple of new articles and working on another. But you've asked one important question - "what kind of constructive edits I wish to make but cannot due to the Topic Ban". I'm not going to blow smoke. The honest answer ... I've nothing in mind. Keeping the Topic Ban in place wouldn't affect my editing .... but would and does affect my "standing" in the community. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 09:22, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - If the topic ban is lifted simply for "time served" reasons, HighKing will likely return to the same behavior that led to the topic ban in the first place. This, in turn, will attract more disruptive socking to counter his edits. Déjà vu. I think that HighKing should not be allowed any wiggle room to muck about with the "British Isles" phrase at all, ever, as it will only lead to disruption (major headaches). The restriction is not an albatross around his neck. It is a safeguard against disruption. I have no doubt that the stalkers that watch his every edit will come out of the woodwork the second the restriction was lifted and he made a "BI" edit. Not worth the trouble. Doc talk 09:50, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Doc - to be honest, I kinda agree with you. The only point I would highlight is that I'm being heavily penalized (in my opinion) for the actions (past and potential future) of the sock (who's already attempting to disrupt this discussion). I recognize that the community can't afford to invest the time, energy and resources into every petty event, and I also recognize that the community has no appetite for anything to do with the phrase "British Isles", regardless of whether any edits are actually right or wrong. As you say, and I agree, the disruption isn't worth it. You say I'm likely to return to the same behaviour. I'm saying the opposite and I'm asking the community to trust me. You say it is not an albatross around my neck. Well .. I think it is because it's a sign that the community doesn't trust that I can behave appropriately. And it's going to be impossible for me to demonstrate that the leaf has been turned without a little trust from the community. I don't know what more I can do. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 11:06, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Hello :) I have to agree with Cailil above when he says "...showing the community *only* that ban has not been broken proves that the ban works not that it should be lifted". I see no reason to remove the ban because I know the background on this. It's not a "penalty" on you. It's there to "prevent" disruption, and it should remain in place to prevent disruption at large. Nothing personal. Doc talk 11:22, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi :-) I don't get that. How can it *not* be viewed as personal? It's a Topic Ban on me? I've said above that I recognize fully (and hopefully articulated the fact that I recognize fully) the behaviour that causes the problem. I'm asking that the community trusts me enough to lift the Topic Ban. You don't agree ... ergo you don't trust me. Kinda hard not to see it as personal.... I'm not whining or making excuses or blaming the sock or ranting. But I really don't see how the Topic Ban will ever be lifted at this rate ... which translates into the fact that I can never rejoin the trusted editors who operate without a Topic Ban. Victory to socking? Taking your logic one step further, if this Topic Ban extended to all editors, then it wouldn't be personal. But it doesn't. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 11:54, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Oppose I was around when this whole thing started(well before the sanction were in place). The wording of the ban "is topic banned from editing in relation to the term 'British Isles' broadly construed." seems reasonable considering this user was prolific in this content dispute. I think this ban has kept this user out of trouble. I think lifting the ban would be about the same as an invitation to start editing in this area which I think is a bad idea.

While I appreciate that this user has respected the ban I also think that this user returning to this topic would result in more trouble. I don't think it hangs over him like a cloud, we don't have a big banner on his userpage or anything. The only thing this ban is doing is keeping him out of an area that was problematic for him before. Chillum 14:51, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support in part because the community seems increasingly more concerned about avoiding any 'disturbance in the force' than in creating content. It is absurd to contend that an editor cannot change. In this case any repetition would rapidly result in the ban being reimposed, possibly with greater sanction. When I started editing Wikipedia there would have been no question about time served being sufficient in this case. We are now being over precious. I speak here as a veteran on those disputes having to handle socks and ill will from both sides so I know the editors concerned through long practice. We also allowed GoodDay to edit again and he was as if not more disruptive on this issue. If it helps I'll happily agree to mentor (or monitor) his behaviour as I attempted to do for GoodDay. I'm semi-retired from Wikipedia in the main because I think it has shifted from using behaviour as an enabling constraint to one where for some admins its a governing constraint which they see as the primary purpose of the encyclopaedia as a whole. So the time I used to put in to monitoring controversial articles is available ----Snowded ^TALK 02:52, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose This editor cannot change. Every time the ban is lifted, the editor returns to his former behavior. Too risky. 1999sportsfan talk to me 09:11, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support I was around before the Topic Bans occurred and experienced the problems. However, reading and considering the answers given to the questions, below, and on the basis that this really is a final chance, I would support lifting the Topic Ban for this last time. If re-imposed, it would be difficult to support any future lifting. If anyone else causes disruption, then so long as HighKing behaves in the ways he has said, I don't think he should be penalised for other editors' bad behaviour.  DDStretch  (talk) 21:34, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
• Comment If the community recommends that you have a mentor as a condition for the lifting of the TB, then I suggest you accept Snowded's offer. It didn't work out for me, that was because of my own behaviour/conduct. GoodDay (talk) 22:08, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I'll take up Snowded's kind offer. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 15:07, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Question

Is the problem the Topic, or my previous behaviour? I've stated I've no intention of ever returning to my previous behaviour. I've also articulated my understanding of what the problem was, and I've demonstrated that I can edit without gnoming while still being productive, and seen out the agreed review period without any violation. I'm getting the distinct impression from Chillum and Doc that the Topic Ban isn't really anything to do with my behaviour. Is there an elephant in the room? Nobody here is stating that they believe I'll return to my previous behaviour... but that the Topic Ban should still remain in place as it doesn't cause me any negative impact. I disagree, hence this request. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 19:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Are you saying that you want the ban lifted so that you can continue to not edit in the area the topic ban prohibits you from editing? If that is the case then the ban is of no force or effect and you can just ignore it.

There is no banner on your user page, nothing to stigmatize you in regards to this ban. It might as well not exist if you are choosing not to edit in the whole "British Isles" area.

Unless you actually want to edit the subject of "British Isles" again then there is little point in removing the ban. It is the possibility of you returning to editing "British Isles" again that I object to.

You asking for this ban to be removed is essentially you asking for permission to edit the subject of "British Isles". I don't think that is a good idea. Chillum 14:34, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Your response pretty much sums up the problem. You're saying that the problem is editting the term "British Isles" - as far as I know, the Topic Ban is to address behaviour, not "protect" a term from being editted. I've summed up before above, but here's another attempt. Previously, I had maintained that the term was incorrectly used in some articles, and I had tried to nail down a definition, and nail down guidelines as to usage (the WP:BISE). That had failed (start of sock problems) but I continued to implement the half-agreed rules anyway - resulting in more disruption (height of sock problem). The problem was described that I was engaged in systematic editting of articles containing the term, and my edits resulting in the removal of the term without proper referencing. When my edits were scrutinized, most of my edits were correct. But - and this is the problem and the root of the behaviour issues - some were not and some were marginal. I think the marginal calls were the ones that gave me my Aha moment, and I started to understand the issue. In real-life, there isn't a single definition and it is often used loosely, and trying to apply a straight and narrow definition is always going to cause problems. I'm asking for the Topic Ban to be lifted because I've learned the lesson, articulated what lesson I've learned, addressed the problematic behaviour and demonstrated that I can behave without resorting to wiki-gnoming or any other of the behaviours that led to the Topic Ban. So yes, removing the Topic Ban would leave the way free for me to edit any topic including "British Isles". Just like every other trusted member of the community. I'm trusted with every other Topic. Bear in mind as I've stated above, I've no intention of seeking out any such edits involving British Isles, or resorting to any of the previous problematic behaviour. I won't seek out articles containing the term as I did previously, I'll simply edit normally as I've been doing. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 11:36, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Dive into Highkings contributions history, pick any day and you'll find some instance of random IMOS application. Take 21st Feb 2013 as an example. Highking applied IMOS across 36 different articles and at 1 point applied IMOS across 20 pages in 16 minutes! Highking was not reading the articles nor was he attempting to find a context for the edit. It was mud slinging and seeing what sticks. How would he be able to gauge if an edit is correct if he doesn't even read the article? Take away the ban and his mask will slip. And a user with a history of socking is bound to have another sock account still active.Dubs boy (talk) 19:56, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Since when has this guy Murray been the arbiter of what can, and can't appear on these pages? He keeps reverting the above comment. He and his colleague Highking are both long term edit warriors. They revert a change and if its reverted back they leave it a while then try again. See Murray's activity on the War Memorial Gardens article for example. Neil Edgar (talk) 21:13, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

It seems that in general, there's more regular community members saying that the ban should be lifted than not. But the general concern appears to be that *if* I edit (on "British Isles"), *and* there's disruption (unspecificed), *then* that's a situation to avoid. So as a compromise, can you please comment on the proposal below as a step to ease concerns please. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 11:56, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Highking and Murry1975 are never far from each other. Some would consider this suspicious. BI and IMOS editing are inherently linked especially given that Highking has been topic banned for replacing BI with Britain and Ireland. I'm not sure Murry1975 should be removing any user comments and especially without notifying said user. I'm sure an Admin will be along shortly to speak to him.Dubs boy (talk) 18:22, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposal

Following on from various discussions, the following proposal was suggested by Doc: "trial or "probationary" period suspending the topic ban would be more realistic than a complete removal of the ban, FWIW. If no disruption occurs as a result of the ban being lifted during that specified amount of time (like 6 months minimum), we go from there." I'm agreeable to such "probationary" period. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 11:10, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Support - IMHO, your topic-ban should be lifted. But, seeing as there's no consensus for that, a 6-month probation is acceptable. GoodDay (talk) 17:06, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

There was just barely a consensus to lift the Ban, but I'd rather address the concerns properly. Thanks again GoodDay. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 18:28, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Oppose. The editor seems to have an agenda which cannot be fulfilled as a result of the present ban. I suspect that if the ban were lifted the situation would revert to how it was previously. Neil Edgar (talk) 13:46, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Oppose Per what I have said above. This proposal is not substantially different since there are no concerns about disruption while the ban has been in place. The ban is doing its job. Chillum 01:17, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Any suggestions as to what you'd like to see in the proposal? It would also be helpful if you articulated what disruption you believe I played a part in. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 16:12, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I said there has not been disruption since your ban, meaning the ban is working. A probation period is of little use since there is no issue with you violating the ban. I used to me known as HighInBC, perhaps you remember me, I used to warn you about the behavior that led up to the ban. I still believe you want the ban lifted so that you can go back to what you were doing before. Chillum 16:55, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Oppose The topic ban works, and it concerns me that the editor is so keen to return to an area where they created many problems previously. Number 57 17:36, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Oppose. As you have seen above Highking and Murry1985 operate on a tag team basis and would give The_Dudley_Boyz a run for their money. Remove the topic ban and you will see these 2 continue to collaborate promoting a skewed POV.Dubs boy (talk) 18:04, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Oppose Two reasons: One, i remember the huge amount of kerfuffle this editor (and others) have caused in the past, and see no reason to go back there; perhaps he has moved on, learned his lesson but, Two, below, in the answers to DDStretch's questions (specifically Question C), it seems to me that he really has not need for the ban to be lifted; clearly, it has worked, is working, will continue to work in the future with no real effect on the planned editing of HighKing. Thus, why change it? Simply to avoid some putative shadow? Not worth the risk. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 10:14, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Second set of Questions

It is true that every editor should be given the opportunity to change his or her ways (to "reform", if you like), and that giving them an opportunity to show this is all part of the process of reform. So, with that in mind, I'd like to ask the following set of specific questions of User:HighKing. Some have been covered in previous messages, but it is worthwhile to have them all centrally given and answered, I think, here:

A. How would your behaviour change if the Topic Ban was removed compared with your behaviour now?

B. How would your behaviour change if the Topic Ban was removed compared with your behaviour before any of the Topic Bans?

C. Are there things you can't do now, because of the Topic Ban, that you would want to do if the Topic Ban was removed?

D. What are the areas you currently contribute content to, and how would those areas change if the Topic Ban was removed?

E. Suppose the Topic Ban was lifted, and then you saw a number of articles that used the term "British Isles", what would you do? Would you: (a) Remove "British Isles" from the articles; (b) Post a message on the articles' talk pages enquiring about the use of "British Isles" with a statement that unless people gave adequate justification for its use, you would remove it; (c) Post a message on the articles' talk pages enquiring about the use of "British Isles", perhaps join in any discussion, but refrain from editing out the term in the articles; (d) Do nothing and move on; or (e) Something else?

F. Would you keep to the decision you selected in the previous question if the Topic Ban was removed, accepting that an immediate re-imposition of a Topic Ban might happen if you don't, and that this new ban would be unlikely to be removed in the future unless really convincing and clear changes in attitudes and behaviour were shown?

I would be grateful to hear your clear and full answers to them. I've asked them with the aim of then determining the chance of disruption brought about by consequences following from any and all of the answers given.  DDStretch  (talk) 02:06, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks DDStretch.

• A. I think the behavior you're seeing for the past 6 months is most likely to continue as is. That is, no "gnoming" of large numbers of articles, try to focus more on content.
• B. I would hope you'd have seen and noticed a big difference already. Gnoming was the big behavioural problem previously. Before the Topic Ban I was caught up in a bubble with the idea of implementing strict definitions across articles for terms such as "Ireland" for the name of the state, "British Isles" to mean the geographical region only. That led to edit wars and long disagreements over references. I can see now how that idea isn't workable because it doesn't reflect real world definitions and usage. There's none of that behaviour any more. The job of Wikipedia isn't to define a term, especially a narrow and tight defintion that doesn't reflect day to day usage.
• C. Nothing springs to mind to be honest. I've no desire to jump into any particular topics or edits. But it's normal and healthy to want to show the community that lessons have been learned, and to remove the shadow of editting under a Topic Ban.
• D. I mostly contribute to Irish interest articles and topics (history, local articles, sport, nature, names), technology and food/drink.
• E. OK, trying to answer this in the sprit I believe it was asked. I'm not sure if you mean to say "a number of articles"? If it was a single article, and if I thought the usage was really wrong and not a "grey" usage, I'd do C. Not A. Not B. Also E. - Snowded has offered to "mentor/monitor" any edits, and if that offer is still open I'd pop him a message on his Talk page and wait to see what he thinks. Ideally I'd prefer, even if I pointed out something that was incorrect, that the community made the edit if they felt it was appropriate, but sometimes there's no engagement at all at the Article Talk page. In the situation where there's no engagement on the Talk page, and Snowded thinks it is fine, I'd like to think I could make the edit. I don't want to derail the discussion, but realistically, the elephant in the room here, is the sock. Perhaps its not obvious, but there's a high probability that if I make an edit, any edit, correct or not, the sock would revert anyway. Also, realistically, the community has no appetite to deal with any disruption relating to "British Isles". Too long and too complicated, and a trivial matter at best. So unless there happened to be a clear plan or process in place to deal with any sock-triggered disruption relating to any of my edits that resulted in the removal of "British Isles", I wouldn't and couldn't be confident that no disruption would take place. So I know that realistically D should be the logical next step to avoid disruption. On the other hand, I'm sure that we, as a community, should be aghast at the idea of allowing a sock (any sock) that kind of power/influence. But thats a different issue and I don't want to derail this discussion. I'll take whatever direction and advice people have in this regard. And after C/E above I'll do whatever, including D, if that is what the community believes is best.
• F. Yes.

Thanks DDStretch, answered as best I can. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 17:20, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for those answers. Having read them and considered them, I think that as long as you edit wisely and carefully, and try to take up Snowded's offer (or anyone else's similar offer) for the situations I asked about, then I will support lifting the Topic Ban. You may have to convince others still, though. But good luck!  DDStretch  (talk) 21:28, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy to help. DDStretch can you formulate something to get consensus? We might want to check out on some of the editors commentating here as well. At least one has had an antagonistic pro-Unionist position on the Derry articles for example. So it might be an idea to ask for uninvolved editors to make the decision. ----Snowded ^TALK 21:58, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Snowded, I'd like to take you up on your kind offer. -- HighKing⁺⁺ 15:02, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Time to Close

Ok, so HK asked the question & got a negative answer. Then he asked again. Same answer. Then asked a third time and got the same result (no consensus to lift). The process is then repeated (or rather DDStretch repeats it) a fourth time and with 2 editors there's a "maybe" answer.
You can't just ignore 20 days or so of a "no consensus to lift" result with 2 days of "maybe". Wikipedia is not a game. While it has been remiss of other admins not close this in a timely fashion, the repeated asking of the same question has let this appeal descend into farce.
In terms of the proposal above from my perspective, as the banning admin, this is not what is necessary. What needs to happen is HK editing and creating whole articles for a concerted period without focusing on this issue. If HK can go on and edit productively for a prolonged period then I would consider lifting the ban without condition. But it's not a matter of quantity of time, rather the community needs to see a different kind of approach to editing. HK needs to show the community why the ban is irrelevant not just tell us.
This thread is an example of some of the worst aspect of the old HK. When the community said No the first time it was time to drop it. By time 3 it was *really* time to let the horse die. Abusing process like this (as you can probably tell) convinces me that it's only appropriate to leave the ban in place for the time being. If HK can follow this advice (advice I've given for 4 years now) I'll rethink my position--Cailil ^talk 20:38, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

What about Snowded's offer of mentorship? GoodDay (talk) 20:44, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Obviously the topic ban stays, be they can be mentored on every other aspect of the project. Good behaviour and good editing for 6 months, we'll see HK back here, hopefully with the full support of their mentor the panda ₯’ 21:02, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Per DangerousPanda - If Snowded can help HK get to stage of holistic editing in other areas then in 6 months (or more, again quality of time not quantity of time is the issue here) then I'll happily look at this again. But FYI attempting to find ways around the restriction or actions that appear to do that really do not help HK's case here. Rehearsing the issue to death will only calcify opinion, it rarely change it and it looks tendentious--Cailil ^talk 21:30, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I'll talk with him and see if there is a way forward. ----Snowded ^TALK 22:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

DangerousPanda's latest block of Barney the barney barney

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

---

DangerousPanda has blocked Barney the barney barney repeatedly for personal attacks on Bearcat. Today, DangerousPanda ratched the sanctions up again by blocking Barney even from editing his own talk page. Realistically, Barney has not been behaving himself. But it's becoming obvious this did not happen in a vacuum. Bearcat has continued to pick at the scab, obviously gloating over Barney's predicament and doing everything possible to annoy Barney. He should simply walk away. But also, I'm concerned with the growing appearance that DangerousPanda may be too WP:INVOLVED, that it's starting to become personal, a test of wills. When I pointed out my concerns (respectfully, I thought), DangerousPanda's response was as insulting and in the same way as what got Barney blocked from his own home page, questioning whether my brain was working. I don't think I deserved that but I do think it's evidence that DangerousPanda's handling of the situation is no longer helpful. Discussion may be found at User talk:Barney the barney barney#August 2014. Msnicki (talk) 00:11, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Just so others reading this thread don't have to search for them this post full of personal attacks and this post with its threatening wording are being equated to this. IMO there is absolutely no comparison. Again IMO, the two posts by Btbb deserve the removal of talk page privileges. B always has the WP:STANDARDOFFER should they ever want to return to productive editing. MarnetteD|Talk 00:52, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that DangerousPanda's insulting remarks toward me were worse than Barney's, I am saying DangerousPanda's insults were similarly childish playground material and, more important, completely unprovoked. When you start comparing provoked versus unprovoked insults as if the same standards should apply, aren't you out on rather thin ice? Msnicki (talk) 01:08, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

False, at no time did I insult you. This has been discussed, and clarified with you directly, and subjected to consensus - please stop using your erroneous reading as a need to provide some form of action against me. the panda ₯’ 20:25, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I suspect this is the "consensus" outcome DangerousPanda is referring to. You'll pardon my uncertainty. It happened so fast. Msnicki (talk) 03:32, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

DP's remarks were in no way, shape, manner or form like B's. You claimed that DP was somehow "involved" without offering any evidence. That can be seen as childish playground material as well. What is it that you want from admins here? I doubt that they are going to tell DP to stop reasonably explaining any actions taken. MarnetteD|Talk 01:24, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Not true. I did not claim DangerousPanda was involved. I said there was an appearance developing and that when DP's response to my raising the concern respectfully was to insult me, that that was evidence it might be more than appearance. What I recommend is that another admin step in and that Bearcat be asked to stop stirring the pot. (He's the only admin who's never read WP:STICK and doesn't know to back away when he's already won?) The objective, realistically, the only legitimate objective, is good behavior all around. The continued escalation of sanctions and the continued remarks on Barney's talk page by editors with history of conflict with Barney is not getting us there. Get these other folks with their own axes to grind out of there, back off the talk page ban, tell everyone to get a little thicker skin and I think the situation could be resolved. That's what I want. Msnicki (talk) 01:43, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

DP blocked a user who called another editor, repeatedly and at length, names like idiot, liar, and troll, and all over the stunningly insignificant matter of the proposed deletion of an article about an obscure city official. The block was entirely appropriate regardless of how allegedly WP:INVOLVED DP was or was not. I would hope any admin would have done the same. Gamaliel (talk) 01:31, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

And so why is Bearcat (an admin, for pete's sake!) still stirring the pot on Barney's talk page over this insignificant matter even after Barney was indef'ed? Msnicki (talk) 01:43, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea what that has to do with DP or the appropriateness of the block, but perhaps it would be appropriate to issue a warning to Bearcat. Gamaliel (talk) 01:48, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Just looked at BBB's talk page again and I don't see any new messages past the 1st from Bearcat., so it looks like any alleged potstirring has passed. Even so, I think it is appropriate to ask Bearcat to drop the matter and stay away from now on, without passing judgement on the appropriateness of previous comments. Gamaliel (talk) 01:54, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

This was Bearcat's last pot-stirring. Barney had already been indef'ed so what exactly was the point of all this except to poke Barney in the eye when he was already down? That's what prompted Barney's response, the one got him blocked even from his own talk page. Frankly, while I don't condone Barney's response, if I'd been Barney, I definitely wouldn't have appreciated Bearcat's boorish behavior. I might have had some choice words as well. I'll say again, the objective here should be good behavior all around. It would be helpful if we can make that outcome the easy one for Barney to accept. Allowing Bearcat to continue stirring the pot is not helping that. Msnicki (talk) 02:29, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

BBB had already called Bearcat a liar, a troll, and an idiot many days before this alleged potstirring, so this appears to me that you are blaming the victim for provoking the attacker. Even if we were to accept your reading of the situation, what is your preferred outcome or recommended course of action? The alleged potstirring is days in the past. It's over. No one is continuing to stir the pot except those of us participating in this ANI thread. Gamaliel (talk) 03:14, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

You care a lot more about who started it than I do. I care more about outcomes. My experience of Barney is that he's been a steady and constructive contributor. The outcome I'd like is one where that can continue. Msnicki (talk) 04:15, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Can you please try to be specific in your responses and make them actual responses to the points being discussed? First, you complained about Dangerous Panda, then when I responded about his actions, your response to me was about Bearcat, and when I responded to your point about Bearcat, now you are talking about Barney. We're not going to make any progress to any outcome if you are veering all over the map. I still have no idea about what specific outcome you expect to come from this discussion and what steps you think we should take to get there. Gamaliel (talk) 04:57, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

There is nothing "boorish" about responding, politely, to continued namecalling and continued mischaracterization of one's behaviour — especially when the editor in question was actively @pinging me, even when he was responding to somebody else, to make sure I knew that the personal attacks were continuing. I was not purposely watching his talk page to see what was happening; I was getting active announcements in my notification queue that I was being discussed, and responded to those notifications in exactly the same way that I'd be perfectly entitled to respond to similar discussion of me, and/or similar active @pinging of my attention, in any other space on Wikipedia. I will step away as you wish, but there is no basis for claiming that I've acted inappropriately at any point in this matter. Bearcat (talk) 15:16, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I haven't seen any proof of anyone being involved and you did state that DP was involved..."then yes, I do think you're no longer uninvolved and that you should step back." Please explain this. The only thing that I see Bearcat is guilty of is not archiving his talk page. Are you asking for a proxy block review because DP revoked talk page access or asking for review of admin behavior? Please clarify.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 02:09, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Fine. Let's not split hairs. I said I thought there was an appearance developing. Every sanction had been applied only by DangerousPanda and it was beginning to look to me like a possible test of wills. When an experienced editor is facing an indef, I expect to see a history of problems where several admins have had to step in and there was none of that. Whether DangerousPanda is or is not really involved may not even be knowable unless someone here is an undisclosed mind-reader able to tell us what motivated his behavior. But when DangerousPanda's response was to insult me, I thought that was actual evidence (not proof) of involvement. My personal opinion is that he is. But either way, I don't think this is a constructive situation conducive to de-escalation. I think it would be useful for another admin to step in to avoid even the appearance of involvement. Does that clarify my position for you? Msnicki (talk) 02:29, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Partially. What would you like admins reading this to do? What action(s) are you looking for?
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 02:40, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

{ec}Restore talk page access. 02:58, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I recommend backing off this latest indef ban even from his own talk page. This serves no purpose except to pour salt in the wound, making the one desirable outcome less likely. Bearcat should be asked to drop the WP:STICK and avoid interaction with Barney, especially on Barney's talk page. The condition of lifting Barney's indef should be that he can state how he violated our policy prohibiting personal attacks, that he agree to avoid any further violations and that he also agree to drop the WP:STICK and avoid interaction with Bearcat. He shouldn't have to say he's sorry or that he didn't mean it. He does need to say he won't do it again. It would be helpful if another uninvolved admin could volunteer to monitor the discussion on Barney's talk page and review any unblock request Barney may make. Msnicki (talk) 03:03, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• Msnicki, it's common for an administrator who blocked a user to keep monitoring the situation. The fact that Btbb - in the unblock request - basically turned around and lashed out at DP made it so that most admins would have declined and re-sanctioned Btbb. WP is not a bureaucracy*. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 02:53, 4 September 2014 (UTC) Exceptions apply in certain places, but that's besides the point.

• What unblock request?? NE Ent 02:58, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Unblock request but then he changed it.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 03:24, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• The purpose of dispute resolution volunteers -- including admins -- is (or should be) to resolve conflicts, not administer "justice." Although it's not written down -- because we are not (supposed to be) a bureaucracy -- it's generally understood editors involved in a conflict -- regardless of whether they are "right" or "wrong" -- should not be posting on the talk page of a blocked editor. Had DP addressed that issue first, the situation was much more likely to be resolved. NE Ent 03:01, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Even if "acceptable", are the actions "helpful"? At this point it seems that the actions on all sides are merely winding the spring tighter and unlikely to help achieve any beneficial outcomes. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:04, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

There seems to be a growing and disturbing trend for admins to indefinitely block content builders, demand that they grovel as a condition for their return, and then gag them by blocking access to their own talk page when they get upset. Another point of view is that this is a destructive strategy that unnecessarily alienates content builders from Wikipedia. That included content builders who just see this nastiness going on from the sidelines. Presumably admins who employ these methods feel that the mission of admins is to severely administer discipline to the rabble of content builders and show them who is boss. After all, there is no mission statement for admins. No one knows what they are here for, and individual admins are free to make up and follow their own ideas. There are many other ways of resolving behaviour issues, but admins are not taught about them, and generally seem to lack skilful means for resolving them. --Epipelagic (talk) 05:03, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

As an uninvolved admin, here is my take on the situation. This has nothing to do with blocking "content builders". DPs response was to a situation involving disruption of an AfD and personal attacks for which, not unreasonably, a 96 hour block was imposed. That should have been the end of it but BtBB chose to engage in further personal attacks on Bearcat, resulting in an indef block. BtBB's subsequent unblock request claimed "I haven't done anythign (sic) wrong" when in the preceding Talk page section he had once more attacked Bearcat. That led to the withdrawal of Talk page access, again, not unreasonable given the circumstances. Disruption and personal attacks are not acceptable on Wikipedia and in my view DP has acted correctly and in no way become "involved". The standard OFFER will apply if and when Btbb choses to return. Meanwhile, the mission of admins (yes, there is one) is to maintain the integrity of Wikipedia, prevent disruption and ensure that editors do not engage in behavoir that is considered unacceptable by the community per AGF and CIVIL.  Philg88 ^♦talk 06:17, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

That's unclear on just about every point, Phil. To mention a couple, where is this mission statement you refer to and what is this "integrity" admins are supposed to be protecting? Who ensures the integrity of the admins themselves? I'm not sure why you think BtBB doesn't qualify as a content builder. You say that the "standard OFFER" applies to BtBB. According to that offer BtBB is in effect now banned for six months, after which he may shop around and see if he can find an admin to grovel in front of, a grovel which "usually takes a few days". In the meantime if BtBB want to return, he would be "well-advised to make significant and useful contributions to other WMF projects". That's sickening. --Epipelagic (talk) 07:03, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if you find my thoughts unclear–let me clarify. I didn't use the word "statement"—I said "mission" while the "integrity" I refer to is ensuring compliance with the corpus of guidelines and policies that shape Wikipedia according to consensus. Admin's are !voted in as trusted members of the community and you are free to question their interpretation of community consensus through discussion. I also didn't say BtBB did not "qualify as a content builder", I said that the matter under consideration had nothing to do with content building, which it doesn't. The standard Wikipedia procedure in the case of an indef block is covered in WP:OFFER. If a review is considered appropriate before the expiration of six months, then everyone will have the opportunity to comment at the subsequent discussion.  Philg88 ^♦talk 07:30, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

In the absence of a mission statement, the "mission" you refer to is just one you decided upon yourself. Which is the point I was making, that admins just make up their own mission. Likewise, the guidelines and policies are controlled by and largely written by admins, not the community. There may be a degree of community consensus at the point where an admin undertakes an RfA. But admins have appointed themselves for life. In long past halcyon days, would-be admins including school children needed do little more than ask to be an admin. Many of these legacy admins would not get community approval if they ran again. Nor would many of the more recent entrants to the admin corps. So it is not correct to say that admins as a body have the trust of the community. The admin corp might gain trust and respect from the community if enough admins found the courage to address the absurdities of their own system. Rational change can come now only from within the body of admins. Content builders are powerless, and recent events have clearly shown that Jimbo and the Foundation lack the insight needed for helpful intervention. Wikipedia has been hijacked by an admin system which controls its own terms and refuses to look squarely at what it is doing. --Epipelagic (talk) 08:44, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

The admin in question was in fact rejected once by the community at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/DangerousPanda (redirects to /Bwilkins) in April 2009. Later, they were accepted by the community at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Bwilkins 2 in January 2010. This was four and a half years ago, and the last discussion had 116 participants, the overwhelming majority of whom were in favor of adminship for this editor. Your generalizations are moot at best. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 20:42, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Your strange "rebuttal" has nothing to do with anything I said. In fact I said the diametric opposite to what you apparently understood: There may be a degree of community consensus at the point where an admin undertakes an RfA. Bwilkins was not remotely in my mind when I wrote that. My generalizations are in fact accurate and easy to authenticate. --Epipelagic (talk) 02:42, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

If the apparent topic of this discussion was not remotely in your mind when writing here, then why are you writing here and not in a separate section? Do you not see the potential for this kind of a tangential rant to be offending to that person? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:17, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I was talking about the principle of indefinitely blocking content builders, which is most certainly central to this thread, and replying specifically to Philg88. Do you not see the potential for this kind of failure to read what was said to be offending? --Epipelagic (talk) 20:56, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Bit hard for barney to respond to the all encompasing witch-hunt now that he's had all editing powers removed. Maybe unrevoke his talkpage first to see if he's able to discuss this now he's had a chance to sleep on it. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 06:51, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I second this. But I suggest a 48 hour cooling off period.Two kinds of pork (talk) 07:45, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

We don't do anything that EVER resembles "cooling off blocks" - that's a dangerous suggestion. This is the second time I've removed talkpage access - it was returned, and they continued their attacks. They've had a couple of weeks to "cool off" if that was indeed possible. Barney still has many avenues of appeal open to them; let them use those wisely once they have formulated their appeal offline the panda ₯’ 09:11, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Well as long as you look like a reasonable human being and not some crackpot on a powertrip. Good work! Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 11:38, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

If letting him edit his own talk page hasn't worked in the past, how about if we make a couple changes that might give us a better chance it will work this time? First, ask Bearcat to stay away. His stirring the pot isn't helping and the fact you defended Bearcat's boorish behavior rather than stopping it isn't helping either. Second, let's ask you to stay away, too. I don't think Barney is ever going to "knuckle under" for you but I also don't think that should be the condition for being able to edit here. The condition should be that he behaves himself. Let another admin decide whether Barney can behave himself at least on his own talk page if there are no new provocations. If we can make these changes, I think it can work. Msnicki (talk) 09:54, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

You know what? You need to screw off with the suggestion that I'm trying to make him "knuckle under" and the "gosh darn it, you are going to make Barney behave" bullshit. I don't play power games, and such suggestion are inflammatory rhetoric in and of themselves. Those are serious accusations that you neither provide proof of, or withdraw. the panda ɛˢˡ” 10:55, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment Having had implications made about my competence and knowledge by BtBB at discussions surrounding Talk:Jacob Barnett, to the point where he/she tried to get me topic banned, I have been following the above discussion. The problem is that when you are subjected to personal attacks, it becomes very difficult to maintain the standards of neutrality that Wikipedia rightly demands. The signs of emotion are usually there, I see them in the above contribution. Therefore I would tend to support the view that DP should withdraw from this case, and should probably have left it to another, previously uninvolved admin to extend the block to the talk page. Viewfinder (talk) 13:17, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

No comment on the propriety of the block but this is another case where watching a blocked editors talk page allowed us to get exercised about inflammatory comments which would otherwise have been read by nobody. We should have some sense of proportionality in these situations. Protonk (talk) 14:05, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I need to bring up a new development in this matter — namely, about three hours ago Barney sent me a pvt e-mail consisting of one line: "It is not too late for you to apologise for your actions." Apart from the fact that I still haven't at any point taken any actions that need to be "apologized" for, there's obviously a veiled threat here of what might happen if and when he decides that it is "too late" anymore. I'm certainly not going to engage the matter by actually responding to his e-mail at all, but the fact that it was sent at all needed to be raised. Bearcat (talk) 01:01, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Please follow the protocol at WP:EMAILABUSE; note that emails should not be posted online. (This is not an endorsement of Bearcat's interpretation of the email, just a note that conduct in emails are out of scope of ANI due to copyright / privacy concerns). NE Ent 01:12, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you should apologize, Bearcat. Per WP:IUC, "Other uncivil behaviors [include] taunting or baiting: deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves." Msnicki (talk) 01:26, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

If he read my advice to him earlier in the day, he knows that apologies are always voluntary, else they'd be worthless anyway. If he can't be required to apologize, he knows you can't be, either. So I'd be inclined to take his remark at face value, that he's open to negotiating a way to bury the hatchet. Of the three possible choices I outlined for him, avoid, get along or fight, but only within the guidelines, maybe he'd like to get along. Perhaps he'd be willing to exchange apologies. There's nothing wrong with asking him, well, if I apologized, could I expect one from you? WP:AGF Msnicki (talk) 15:11, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Should Indefinite Block Be Limited?

There are at least two questions here. The first is whether User:DangerousPanda became involved in the block of User:Barney the barney barney and should have let another administrator handle it. The second is the length of the block for User:Barney the barney barney, who is currently under an indefinite block with talk page access revoked. The first question is about the past. The second question is about the future. I propose that we discuss the second question. In my judgment, Barney is a contentious editor who is a net plus to Wikipedia. I haven't located the AFD that was the original locus of the dispute, but I infer that it has been closed. Disruption of an AFD and personal attacks are inappropriate, and are appropriately dealt with by blocks. However, indefinite blocks should be reserved for editors who are not here to contribute to the encyclopedia, such as vandals, flamers, trolls, or incompetent editors. Barney isn't one of those. Barney isn't the sort of editor to whom the standard offer applies, to see whether the editor has learned and can become a net plus, but a contentious editor who is already a net plus. I propose that the community change Barney's indefinite block to time served, slightly less than two weeks. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:12, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support as described above. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:12, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Yes. It's time to move on. But to avoid new problems, I would also ask that Bearcat avoid interaction with Barney, especially on his talk page, for a period of 3 months to let this heal. His behavior, continuing to stir the pot, even after Barney had already been banned, is a big reason we're here and coming from an admin, I find this inexcusably boorish. Additionally, I would ask that DangerousPanda avoid interaction with Barney in his capacity as an admin for a similar period, again, simply to let this heal. There are lots of admins; if Barney has done something new and even more egregrious, surely another admin can be found to deal with it. And I would ask Barney, try to move on, behave yourself, learn from this experience, don't blow it. Msnicki (talk) 16:14, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I'd advise you to read my response above to the first time you characterized my actions as "boorish" — users and administrators are allowed to respond to namecalling attacks and mischaracterizations of their actions, especially when their attention to the discussion is being actively @pinged. Perhaps I misread what the result was going to be, but my intention was a good faith attempt to clarify the matter rather than to "poke" it or "pick at a scab" — and there's nothing "boorish" about politely responding to a personal attack. I gave my promise above to step back as you requested, but I'm not going to accept being described as "boorish" in this discussion for simply responding to personal attacks in a polite and civil manner. Bearcat (talk) 17:09, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I read your earlier comments about being pinged whenever he had something nasty to say about you. Like Robert, I haven't even been able to find that AfD that apparently started it all and frankly, I don't really care that much how it got started. I do care about fixing this and getting good behavior all around. I don't think this is about the AfD anyway. I think it's just about people who don't like each other.

I am not calling you to task over any response you might have made before he was blocked. I am calling you to task for this specific post to Barney's talk page after he'd already been indefinitely blocked. This was over the line. You had to know this couldn't possibly improve the odds the situation could be defused. I think the whole point was to give Barney another poke and see if he'd make another mistake. You should have simply walked away. That post was where I became sympathetic to Barney's position. If you were that boorish (and, sorry, that is the word), that determined to keep beating the dead horse even after you'd won and gotten Barney blocked, I thought it seemed a lot more possible you could have been truly annoying in a heated debate and not nearly so innocent. Msnicki (talk) 17:43, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I have the right as a Wikipedian to directly respond to any and all attacks on my intelligence, integrity and capability, regardless of the venue in which they're occurring — it's not my responsibility to have predicted that he would respond by ramping the attacks up even further, nor is it my responsibility to ever leave a personal attack on me sitting on the table as the "last word" in any discussion. My responses were always polite and WP:CIVIL — I've been accused in the past of being a bit too blunt, and sometimes coming off more aggressively than I intended to, in my writing style, so I (a) make every effort to be careful about how I phrase myself in a conflict situation, and (b) only ever respond to the substance of what the person is saying, and never attack or insult the individual who's saying them. I'd certainly be willing to accept "boorish" if I had lapsed into responding with similar insults, but I refuse to own that adjective for responding civilly to personal insults that I had no responsibility to not respond to. I'll certainly own up to misreading how productive the attempt was actually going to be, but there's still a massive gap between "misread the situation" and "acted boorishly". Bearcat (talk) 20:01, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

For those who care, this is the AFD that some people are pretending doesn't exist. Look at the edits. Look at the hatted comments. Look at the edit-summaries. Every editor has a right to nominate an article for AFD if they truly believe it's not meeting the standards of Wikipedia. They do not deserve to be called a "liar", a "troll" and/or an "idiot" simply because they nominated an article for deletion and defended their nomination. It is the behavior on this specific AFD that led to the original ANI report, the original block, and BtBB's behavior has led to all escalations since. This block is NOT about "boors" or "people who don't like each other", it's about one person's behaviour; period. Indeed, I have neither likes nor dislikes for any of the editors on this site - you're simply someone on the other end of a computer. I may dislike behaviours, but that's not the same as disliking a person. Sticking one's head in the sand and pretending this AFD is not the reason for the block is short-sighted, and fails to get to the true root of the overall issue. If you want to have someone unblocked, the root behavior needs to be addressed the panda ɛˢˡ” 15:20, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose There's a real misunderstanding of the purpose of an indefinite block above. "Indef" means "until the community is convinced that the behavior will not recur". I blocked BtBB originally from an ANI report about disruption and personal attacks, primarily in an AFD. When he continued his personal attacks, I removed talkpage access. Following a brief discussion at ANI, I returned their talkpage access. They then used this newfound freedom to not only continue their personal attacks, but to increase their ferocity. This led to me increasing the block to "indef", using the definition above, and when they continued further, re-removal of talkpage access - no member of this community should be forced to live with continual personal attacks. I have admitted more than once that BtBB can be a beneficial content creator, but that the personal attacks MUST be curtailed before the block can be lifted. The process for unblock is clear in WP:GAB: they need to recognize their behavior was contrary to community norms, and give the community (or at least the reviewing admin) that there will not be a recurrence. In the times that BtBB has had access to their talkpage, they've done nothing but attack another editor. As such, there cannot be an unblock at this time, based simply on the process for unblock. When they're able to make a WP:GAB-compliant request, they're welcome to use UTRS for that purpose. There's also ZERO question about me being "involved", as there's simply no proof put forward that such a relationship existed: calling me involved does not make me involved the panda ɛˢˡ” 16:18, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose barring some sort of recognition on his part that those personal attacks are inappropriate. Gamaliel (talk) 16:44, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

This is reasonable. I supported Robert's proprosal but per my comments above in the main section at 03:03, I would also support proceeding in steps, first lifting the talk page block and setting as a condition of lifting Barney's indef that he state how he violated our policy prohibiting personal attacks, that he agree to avoid any further violations and that he also agree to drop the WP:STICK and avoid interaction with Bearcat. But to make any of this happen and make it stick, I think we need to ask that both Bearcat and DP step back. Their continued involvement is no longer helpful in achieving the desired outcome, the one in which Barney is able to contribute and there are no behavior problems. Msnicki (talk) 18:14, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - The block was justified and necessary to prevent further disruption. All Barney the barney barney has to do is convince the community that the behavior will stop. The amount of time served has no bearing on whether he understands why he was blocked and what he needs to do differently to have his edit privileges restored. I disagree with Robert McClenon's premise that indefinite blocks should be reserved for editors who are NOTHERE. - MrX 16:48, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. Per my comments above.  Philg88 ^♦talk 17:11, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

But, as shown above, your comments are not correct. --Epipelagic (talk) 18:27, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose Per EatsShootsAndLeaves; behavior needs to be addressed first. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 17:33, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
• Neutral. It's not like he's banned. He doesn't even need to grovel or apologize. All he has to do is convince the community that his disruptive activity will end; that could easily take the form of a classic non-apology like, "Mistakes were made, and I regret my involvement. I am ready to drop the stick and move on." Alternatively, he could be given a chance to hang himself, which I am sure he will do rather quickly given his prior behavior. He's really not doing himself any favors by aggressively dismissing the possibility of collaboration with others. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 18:25, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree. This matches the advice I gave Barney on his talk page when all I knew was that he'd gotten himself blocked and probably deserved every bit of it. It's still my advice. But I think the real problem is 3 people who don't like each other and have become locked in a pattern. Expecting Barney to offer up even a non-apology to an angry Panda who also happens to be defending Bearcat's continuing stirring of the pot is just silly. The simple answer is to separate these 3, at least temporarily, and see how much of the problem that fixes. If you think of this as a problem in negotiation, of negotiating good behavior from Barney, I'm proposing what's known as changing the negotiator. Msnicki (talk) 19:04, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

There you go, suggesting I'm "angry" or dislike BtBB. False on both counts. I have no emotional involvement when it comes to BtBB at all ... you and your false and unfounded statements on the other hand ... so seriously, screw off with that bullshit. the panda ₯’ 20:12, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh, right. "I'm not angry, not a bit!" For more on just how not angry you are, please see here. Msnicki (talk) 20:31, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

As noted already multiple times, that is nothing to do with BtBB: that's being "angry" at you and your unfounded accusations and lies, plus your inability to address this with me directly rather than embarrass yourself with such false statements due to horrible assumptions. Yeah, I'm "angry" that I've lost all respect for someone who I once considered a respectable person the panda ₯’ 21:52, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh, my. Now I'm a liar? Isn't that one of the characterizations that got Barney blocked? But how much sweeter when you say it, I guess.

If indeed you aren't invested in this, not emotionally involved, why is it so hard to walk away? Why is it important that you have to be admin who reviews Barney's next unblock request? At minimum, you know he doesn't like you. So why can't that be handed off to someone else? What is the benefit of your continued involvement? Is it more likely or less likely the problem can be resolved if you handle it? Msnicki (talk) 22:19, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Who says I'm going to handle anything? Jumping off into bizarre conclusions, aren't you? You would have been better off discussing this like an adult with me before coming here, rather than attacking and making random, unfounded accusations. All the best to you - I have little time for people who choose this bizarre stance the panda ₯’ 22:25, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Does that mean you're willing to walk away? If so, I think this can be solved. Msnicki (talk) 22:33, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Although I said I would refuse to respond to your insults, false claims, and baiting, here is my response: I will continue to use appropriate restraint in all situations with all editors, and act what I believe to be appropriately when a) needed, b) not involved (except in emergency situations). If there's ever CONSENSUS (not unfounded accusations) that I have erred, I will deal with that accordingly as I always have in the past the panda ₯’ 20:29, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: This proposal is not aimed at enhancing admin privileges and power. The usual voting pattern with such proposals is opposition from admins and would-be admins and support from content builders who are not admins. That is the voting pattern above, with just one possible exception. Admins and would-be admins have a conflict of interest here. A parallel would be allowing the military in a country with a military dictatorship to decide what powers and privileges they should have. There is a lot of appeal to the "community" above, when what is meant in practice is merely the views of a blocking admin. --Epipelagic (talk) 18:27, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose A misunderstanding is that indef means forever, it doesn't it means when an uninvolved admin sees fit the block is lifted. Indef blocks are also not to be confused with bans. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 18:34, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose Indef is not infinite. Also the WP:STANDARDOFFER is there for any and all blocked editors to return to the editing community. Epipelagic if there is empirical evidence to support your blanket statement please present it. Otherwise please mark your comment as opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarnetteD (talk • contribs) 18:45, 4 September 2014
• Oppose Indef doesn't mean forever, and considering the circumstances, I think the appropriate block is in place. Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 20:50, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support Indef is often used to quickly get rid of an issue, but i think indef should be only used in very rare cases, for users who have been blocked repeatedly, without any signs of positive contributions. My suggestions if for indef in general and i do not want to judge the particular incident discussed here. --prokaryotes (talk) 05:38, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I hope Barney will eventually satisfy the Wikipedia community that he/she will refrain from referring to other contributors as liars and idiots but from his/her most recent posts I see little evidence that that is about to happen. Viewfinder (talk) 10:18, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support (reading section titles is hard) Wikipedia is certainly strong enough to persevere in even these strenuous times when a blocked editor calls another editor a liar, idiot or troll on their talk page. Protonk (talk) 14:42, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose lifting of block without concerns leading to the being addressed. Having said that, no objections to restoring talk page priveleges to allow for normal block appeals. It is of course understood that misuse of the user talk page again will lead to revocation of talk page again and likely be seen negatively in later requests as well. John Carter (talk) 18:20, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose reducing block length until BtBB makes some sort of commitment to tone down the attacks. This is troubling; even a token gesture of a non-apology apology is needed here. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 01:09, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose Barney has made a habit of being hostile and uncivil for quite some time; this isn't a bolt from the blue but the result of a consistent pattern of behavior. When he's willing to put forth a good-faith effort to follow policy, including the Five Pillars, then the block can be lifted immediately - but until then we need not to let the usual chorus of admin abuse (i.e. abuse aimed at admins) cause, once again, somebody who refuses to follow policy be given a pass because 'they create content'. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 10:46, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

The only person who has mentioned "abuse" in this thread has been you, Bushranger. So what is this "usual chorus of admin abuse" you refer to? If you just made that up and it's not true, then you have just provided an example of an admin gratuitously abusing content builders. --Epipelagic (talk) 10:06, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - long-term nuisance editor. GiantSnowman 10:48, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - I stand with those saying enough is enough. Jusdafax 11:11, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
• Weak Support - I believe Dangerous Panda revoking the Talk Page editing from BtBB was justified, but I do believe that BtBB deserves a shortening of the block. On second hand an indef block doesnt always stay Indef, as I have seen many cases where that "Indef" lasts less than a month. As long as BtBB is willing to be civil in the future, I support. --Acetotyce (talk) 20:30, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Let it go and move on. Everyking (talk) 00:53, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

A different proposal

There's clearly some but not a lot of support for Robert's proposal that we simply lift the indefinite block on Barney, turning it into time served. Many editors cite (correctly) that all Barney has to do is promise to stop making personal attacks. And while I supported Robert's suggestion, it was more generous toward Barney than I came seeking and, if none of the rest of the people dynamics were changed, I questioned if it would actually work. Here is my proposal, which I think will work.

1. The indefinite block on Barney's talk page should be lifted, i.e., Barney's access should be restored to his own user talk page only. I contend that the talk page block serves no purpose except to pour more salt in the wound and make it less likely a positive outcome can be achieved, especially under the circumstances at the time, with Bearcat stirring the pot and DP supporting that boorish behavior.
2. Standard conditions should apply to lifting the indefinite block on Barney's privileges outside his talk page. As NinjaRobotPirate points out, this could take the form of the usual non-apology, though personally what I would like to see from Barney is that he can state how he violated our policy prohibiting personal attacks, that he agree to avoid any further violations and that he also agree to drop the WP:STICK and avoid interaction with Bearcat.
3. Another uninvolved admin should monitor Barney's talk page and review any new unblock requests Barney may make.
4. Bearcat should be asked to avoid interaction with Barney, especially on his talk page, for 3 months, simply to let the situation heal. I agree he had the right to post to Barney's talk page even after Barney was blocked, but that doesn't mean it was the right thing to do. Bearcat's actions clearly made it more difficult to resolve the situation and as admin, he should have known better. I called his actions boorish because they were; the word simply means "ill-mannered". It's not a crime but it's not helpful. There was already an admin on the job ready to take immediate action if Barney didn't behave himself and the idea that Bearcat needed to defend himself is just silly.
5. DangerousPanda should be asked to avoid interaction with Barney in his capacity as an admin, also for 3 months, also simply to let the situation heal. DP claims he's not at all emotionally involved, not a bit angry, but his acting out and disrespectful behavior toward me (calling me a liar, telling me to screw off or that I should "act like an adult" and that he no longer considers me a "respectable person") simply for having raised the question all completely belie that. Of course he's angry. The thing is, all of us are human and we all experience human emotions. There's simply nothing wrong or surprising about that. And as Viewfinder points out, when you're being attacked personally, as DP was by Barney, "it's very difficult to maintain the standards of neutrality that Wikipedia rightly demands." So DP's behavior is completely understandable. But an admin who's beginning to experience emotional involvement is compromised. He's no longer able to manage the situation dispassionately. An admin should be able to recognize the signs of his own rising emotions and voluntarily step back to let another admin take over. That didn't happen and it should have. Further, even if DangerousPanda doesn't dislike Barney, it's obvious Barney dislikes DP and that requiring Barney to submit unblock requests to DP is not helpful. Even if DP doesn't think that amounts to "knuckling under", it's pretty obvious Barney does. And it's just not needed. Barney needs to behave but he should be able to demonstrate that to any uninvolved admin. There's no reason it has to be DP.
6. As nom, I also would voluntarily agree to avoid interaction with the parties, namely, Bearcat, DangerousPanda and Barney, for the same 3 month period and for same reason, to allow healing. As Gamaliel correctly points out below, my bringing this to ANI has also stirred some emotions.

If we can agree to this, I think we can de-escalate and resolve the situation. Msnicki (talk) 15:17, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• This seems like a solution in search of a problem. This is all standard stuff that should happen or is happening anyway. Regardless of whatever potstirring may or may not have occurred, I see no evidence of continuing disruption on the part of DP or Bearcat which requires intervention or all this talk on this page. But I will support this proposal in order to bring this matter to a close, on the condition that the nominator also avoids any interaction with the parties or this matter for three months as well, as I feel that the vigorous pursuit of this matter has exacerbated a situation which would have come to a natural resolution on its own. Gamaliel (talk) 15:41, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Sure, NP. You make a good point. I've revised my proposal accordingly to incorporate your suggestion. Thank you. Msnicki (talk) 16:01, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Re: any "evidence of continuing disruption", what evidence would you expect? Barney is now completely blocked, even from his own talk page. Bearcat might have enjoyed potstirring when Barney could be provoked into another poorly-chosen response, but what would be the point now? And I wouldn't expect DP to be reviewing new unblock requests if Barney's not able to post them. The question is what happens if all we do is unblock Barney from his talk page. If we don't ask Bearcat and DP to avoid him, I think we're doing what didn't work last time and expecting a different result. Bearcat volunteered above that he would avoid Barney. I asked DP directly but he hasn't answered. I think it would be helpful to put this into an actual agreement, one that was Barney also could rely on in choosing his response. Msnicki (talk) 16:58, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Just as I think there's no reason to needlessly hammer on an editor for attacks made while they're blocked there is also little reason to enact some sort of ad hoc framework to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. If we can ask bearcat to ignore the personal attacks made we can surely ask barney to ignore the comments made on their page and get on with editing. I suspect DP will exercise their judgment in interaction w/ Barney--that's not a euphemism for "won't interact" but a statement that we should trust them enough to interact in a reasonable manner as judged by them, not a random AN/I discussion. Protonk (talk) 16:22, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose No problem exists here. The suggestion above is that I've somehow done something wrong, which consensus says otherwise. The sole person launching shyte all over the place is MsNicki who continues to make false claims, attribute false intentions, not just about me, but about other editors. IMHO Msnicki should be blocked for these continued unfounded, unproven personal attacks which she makes simply because she (as she already admits) refuses to actually read the entire situation. Neither Bearcat nor I have acted in any way uncivil, boorish, or inappropriately, as per continued consensus. If a block is going to get Msnicki to drop the WP:STICK and go back to what they do best, then great. BtBB's way forward has already been set in stone. Close this farce and move on people the panda ₯’ 19:17, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying you've done anything wrong, I'm saying your choices weren't very good and that I thought they were adversely affected by your emotions. I don't blame, dislike or disrespect you for any of that. I get mad, too, like everyone else, so I know how my decisions become compromised when my emotions are running high. This is what it means to be human. But I thought your escalation to blocking Barney even from his own user page was too fast and that your defense of Bearcat's posts was unhelpful and I suspect your emotions were an unhelpful factor in how it played out.

Fundamentally, my complaint isn't that you did anything wrong, it's that you didn't perform very well. You started with a routine situation involving two otherwise productive people who'd been fighting over something apparently quite unimportant, one of whom had now crossed the line into silly playground personal attacks. Eleven days later, you'd escalated it into a situation where one of those editors will likely never be back. The successful outcome should have been, the behavior problems have ended and both those editors are now productive again. Sure, you could argue, that's all on Barney. But it's not. As the admin, you were the manager of this people problem and it's reasonable to ask, can you solve a people problem like this or not. Here's one that only got worse, the longer you worked on it. Frankly, as soon as you knew Barney disliked you so intensely, that alone should have been a reason to hand him off to someone else, even if only so that Barney could know for sure that what was happening to him wasn't personal and he really did need to shape up. But I think Barney probably got to you with his insults and that's why you couldn't give it up and why you were so inclined to support Bearcat's actions even though obviously they were torpedoing any chance you had of a successful outcome. When I asked you to reconsider the talk page block, you blew me off. That's why we're here. When I asked (above) if you'd now be willing to walk away, you didn't answer. That's why we're still here. Msnicki (talk) 21:17, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I didn't answer above because I told you in advance that I wouldn't due to your continued false statements, personal attacks, and bullshit which you've merely rephrased and repeated above. I have more than once disproven your "emotion"; you call Bearcat's post "unhelpful" when it's been shown by both a good reading AND by consensus to be otherwise; I have no knowledge nor understanding that BtBB "dislikes me intently", nor do you have such confirmation - it's not inherent in any of the written words so far, so we cannot assign background "hatred" to anything; what you NEGLECT is that I once already returned his talkpage access, and returning access led to BtBB escalating his attacks - even you have admitted that you have refused to read the actual DISCUSSION that led to his block. You jumped in mid-situation, read the entire situation wrong. CONSENSUS through multiple discussions has said otherwise, yet you continue to refuse to drop the stick and and gigantic chip on your shoulder. BtBB's block AND removal of talkpage access has been determined by the community to be valid; Bearcats comments and ability to comment have been confirmed by the community - now you're simply attacking Bearcat and I, hoping that some shit will stick - modifying your words, and modifying the locus of blame to where it doesn't exist does not make for some special kind of velcro. Cut it out, becausr this bullshit harassment has got to stop the panda ₯’ 21:27, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Really? You're not sure how Barney feels about you? Wasn't this a clue? Msnicki (talk) 21:35, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Never saw that before. Entertaining, but it appears that he removed it before anyone could see it. I don't get rattled, nor put stock in what someone says in the heat of the moment and then remove after rethinking; it's continual insults like yours that rattle me :-) the panda ₯’ 21:45, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

The proposal I've put on the table is that we all just walk away. If we have an agreement, I am done. There won't be anything continuing from me. Barney becomes someone else's problem but he does get another try on his talk page with a different admin and less provocative conditions to do the right thing.

(Barney, if you're reading this, you need to know that I'll be really disappointed if I discover I've gone to this much effort, basically for a stranger I felt sorry for, and you blow it. If you get a second chance, you do need to do the right thing and move on. I won't feel sorry for you a second time.) Msnicki (talk) 22:19, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Your "proposal" is based on a bunch of lies, a bunch of incorrect readings, and a bunch of things that have been rejected again and again. Again, your harassment and personal attacks are unwelcome. Stop, and drop the stick. If anyone has damaged BtBB's case, it's you by screwing this up so royally. I have advise BtBB that I fully support them making their appeal to BASC or OTRS. Drop the stick. This is a massive blemish on what has been until this date a pretty stellar wikicareer for you...but this one has been a doozy that you could have avoided by a) reading, b) following process, c) re-reading the panda ₯’ 23:40, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

You've persisted in this and I've tried to ignore it. But I think it's time to remind you, as KonveyorBelt already tried, that per WP:NPA, "Accusing someone of making personal attacks without providing a justification for your accusation is also considered a form of personal attack." An admin who can't resist making personal attacks of his own doesn't seem to me like the best choice to manage people problems involving personal attacks by others. 00:11, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Not sure who this random person is, but you've solidified my point: MsNicki has cast aspersions again and again, has assigned emotions and motive where none existed, called people boors, and yet has never been able to link to a single place that proves her point - THOSE are clear violations of wP:NPA as you note above. All I've ever done is remind her every time she does it that it's a PA. As such, I have never levelled a single PA here. Thanks for clarifying it for everyone the panda ₯’ 09:01, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not going to jump in on either side, but personal attacks don't further your cause. KonveyorBelt 21:38, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose MsNicki keeps making blanket statements about how things "are" yet provides no evidence to back up these assertions. De-escalation has already occurred and, as stated more than once, BtBB has a way back to editing - it is called the WP:STANDARDOFFER. MarnetteD|Talk 19:41, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Sure, but that standard offer starts with demanding that Barney wait six months. I don't think that's justified. I'm asking that we dial back and let Barney try again under less provocative conditions to post a suitable unblock request on his own talk page now. He could turn around and blow this, in which case, you can bet I certainly won't be rushing back to his defense. But I think this is worth a try for an editor with a history of otherwise generally helpful contributions. Msnicki (talk) 19:50, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• I personally don't think that the standard offer is required. As I've said before, he can formulate his unblock request offline, submit it through WP:OTRS or even the Arbs unblock process (wasn't WP:BASC a way of doing this, or did they stop). Last time he was granted access to his talkpage, it didn't go well - we have no proof that's going to change. Using OTRS or BASC will allow him to create a WP:GAB-compliant request, realizing that he's going to have to abide by his promises - this cannot be empty words. Indeed, OTRS or BASC might add additional limitations/restrictions on unblock, but that's not my purview. Nobody has provoked BtBB for the last 2 weeks, so people need to actually read the entire set of exchanges, and STOP suggesting that there's anyone's actions "at fault" but their own. the panda ₯’ 20:04, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• I think at this point, we're better off letting BtBB form the unblock request offline, as this is out of the line, and when taken the rest of the matter into consideration, I can't help but to think that there's not enough assurance that similar attacks on editors won't repeat if we return the talk page access to BtBB. So unfortunately, I must vote no on point 1. The rest I'm neutral on. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 01:09, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

If Barney is unblocked from his own talk page and decides to use it for more bad behavior instead of doing the right thing, believe me, I'll be the first to ask that the block be reinstated. I'll be genuinely annoyed that I'll have wasted my time on someone so undeserving. But if the rest of this agreement is place, I think he'll do the right thing and I'd like to see him have the chance to show us. Msnicki (talk) 01:19, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• @Msnicki: - at least 1 person (i.e. Knowledgekid87) thinks that your first point meant an unblock when what you mean to say is restoring the talk page access. I think fixing that would definitely help. (To Knowledgekid87: If I make the assumption erroneously, you have the permission to WP:TROUT me. Or even {{whale}}.) - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 01:41, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for that suggestion. That's very helpful. I've added some additional clarification that I hope will help. Let me know what you think. Msnicki (talk) 02:29, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Why should Barney be given another chance here? I mean what is the difference between him and all of the other editors? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:46, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

The difference is that this situation was managed far more poorly than usual. Where else have you seen someone who's just been blocked suffering long argumentative missives like this one on his own talk page, stirring the pot just 40 minutes after the second block? Bearcat should have known better and when apparently he didn't, DangerousPanda should have stepped up to manage the situation and discourage this behavior. Instead, DP endorsed that boorish behavior, yet still expected Barney to cool down enough to prepare a suitable unblock request for an admin he likely began to perceive as one of his main tormentors. This was never going to work and that wasn't Barney's fault alone. DP mismanaged what started out as a routine problem that should have been easy to solve and that part's not on Barney. That's what's different. Msnicki (talk) 03:30, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

More personal attacks - this situation was NOT managed poorly, in fact, as per consensus above, it was managed quite sanely. Repeating that I shouldn't have done something when the community says otherwise is improper. Just because you fucked this up and refuse to back down and eat crow does not mean I managed anything poorly - I gave BtBB a hell of a lot of rope, and he used it as I hoped he wouldn't. Stop questioning my competence (because that's a personal attack) when the community has determined otherwise. Again, this is harassment, so cut it out the panda ₯’ 09:01, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose unblock - Based on the latest The unblock request, it is again attacking users and using the everybody but me wording. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:21, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - For the same reasons as given in the section above, in addition to this being another case where WP:INVOLVED is misunderstood. 'Involved' explicitly exempts administrative actions - including (but not limited to) blocks, warnings, and policy advice. If it's felt that an admin shouldn't be further handling a case where they have blocked someone, then those cases may or may not have merit, but waving the flag of WP:INVOLVED on them makes them invalid from the start. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 10:52, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• The policy says Warnings, calm and reasonable discussion and explanation of those warnings, advice about community norms, and suggestions on possible wordings and approaches do not make an administrator 'involved'.. What Msnicki got was That's the most ridiculous paragraph ever written in the English language. ... Give your head a shake if that's what you're really saying. I do not consider such discourse "calm and rational," and, as an editor in good standing, Msnicki deserves better. Administrator conduct states Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others.... Administrators should strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility to other editors and to one another. ...Administrators should bear in mind that they have hundreds of colleagues. Therefore, if an administrator finds that he or she cannot adhere to site policies and remain civil (even toward users exhibiting problematic behavior) while addressing a given issue, then the administrator should bring the issue to a noticeboard or refer it to another administrator to address, rather than potentially compound the problem by poor conduct. NE Ent 19:27, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

There was quite obviously nothing wrong with that statement - Msnicki even dropped by my talkpage to discuss it because she too read something into it that was obviously not there. It was by no means uncivil, contained no personal attacks (indeed, it commented on CONTENT, and not the CONTRIBUTOR), but wholly questioned the LOGIC of her paragraph and personal attacks against me that by her own admission, was based on not-reading the entire situation that led to BtBB's sanctions. Thanks for playing though Ent ... usually you're better at doing your research, which is why I respect you the panda ₯’ 18:30, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah, yes. Another model display of deftness deafness in dispute resolution. I know I was satisfied, about the way NE Ent must also feel about now. It wasn't like you'd said something clearly rude, like "that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen". It wasn't at all like that. Msnicki (talk) 19:37, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

More insults or just sarcasm (or both)? English is not my first language, after all...sometimes I miss some of the nuances the panda ₯’ 08:57, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. Here is some advice I just posted to Barney's talk page. I realized that if my proposal was accepted, I would no longer be able to give him this advice. I should do it now. Msnicki (talk) 19:15, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

What started it all

I finally found time to read the original AfD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Mutton, the article itself, John Mutton (as it appears now) and as it appeared when Bearcat nominated it to AfD, and the original ANI complaint Bearcat lodged against Barney at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive851#John Mutton AFD. (How do you admins ever find time to do this except rarely??)

In its present state, I stopped checking the sources (via Higheam, many thanks to WP as it's really helpful for AfDs!) after the first 3 of many news stories on this subject, all helpfully contributed by I am One of Many, who got my thanks and deserves many more. There's no question the subject easily satisfies WP:GNG with multiple reliable independent secondary sources.

When I am One of Many reports at 01:34 24 Aug having found and added 10 sources on Highbeam, Bearcat responds at 01:54 24 Aug, "Now we're getting somewhere! I'd be more than happy to withdraw this if the actual substance of the article were expanded to go along with the sourcing". This is not actually the test at AfD. We do not decide notability based on whether sources have been properly cited in an article; that is a content question to be discussed on the article talk page. The question at AfD is not whether sources have been cited, but whether they exist.

But in the case at hand, it's clear that I am One of Many not only demonstrated the existence of these sources, this editor took the time and effort to incorporate them into the article. Presented with this clear evidence I am One of Many had found, 180.172.239.231 struck his delete !vote and went to keep. Though Bearcat had told I am One of Many that he'd withdraw his nomination if proper sources and content were provided, he never did.

Curiously, the case is closed by SpinningSpark as no consensus, despite the sourcing. (AfDs are not a vote, Spark.)

Turning to the specifics of the fight between Bearcat and Barney, Bearcat nominated the article to AfD arguing that there was only a single trivial source at the time (true) and that that the subject was merely a city councillor and that city councillors are not entitled to presumed notability in lieu of sources. He argued that if there was a distinction, it was "purely ceremonial".

Barney responded that this was not true, pointing out that the subject was not just any councillor, "he was "Leader of the Majority Party", and therefore the most important councillor politically, for a significant period", which seemed like a pretty good point to me. As an American, I don't think, e.g., that even the minority leader in our House is just like any other congressman. Bearcat is unwilling to concede and switches to arguing that it's about sources and at 10:31 21 Aug, Barney asks him, "Well please try to make your mind up". It goes downhill from there.

By 07:14 23 Aug, Bearcat is accusing Barney, "Your accusations of bad faith are inappropriate and I'm taking you to WP:RFC if they don't stop immediately."

At 10:53 23 Aug, Barney tells Bearcat, " I think you'll find that I have spent a lot of good faithing on you. ... This has led me to the conclusion that you deliberately and purposefully misrepresented the original case, above. I stand by everything I say, always and without exception. An RFC on Bearcat (talk · contribs)'s behaviour might be appropriate as I'd like to see what other articles he's lynched with lies."

At 20:54 23 Aug, Bearcat files his complaint at ANI, alleging "persistent allegations that my nomination was a bad faith attempt to misrepresent the subject's notability". Up to this point, Barney had not received any warnings about this alleged misbehavior on his talk page. He had not, e.g., been templated with a warning to stop any misbehavior or face a block.

At 20:56 23 Aug (two minutes later!), Bearcat tells Barney back at the AfD, "I have not made a "mistake", I have not "lied" or "misrepresented" anything, and I do not have a pattern of "lynching" articles with "lies" ... I'm not engaging this discussion any further in this venue; take it to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#John_Mutton_AFD."

At 21:25 23 Aug (29 minutes after Bearcat's complaint and without other discussion), DangerousPanda reports at ANI, "I've blocked him for the duration of the AFD (96 hours) for disruption and personal attacks".

The following exchange then takes between DangerousPanda and Roxy the dog at ANI:

This block needs reviewing by an uninvolved admin, quickly. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 00:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Is that because I've now extended it and locked his talkpage for further violations of NPA while blocked? the panda ₯’ 00:21, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

No, it is because I believe your blocking of BBB is excessive, punitive and unwarranted. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 00:30, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I've never issued a punitive block in my life. But hey, if you think personal attacks and disruption are ok, then go ahead the panda ₯’ 00:38, 24 August

Wow. This is a new way to try to win an AfD. I don't get to come in here and have someone blocked in 29 minutes flat based only my own self-serving description of events and without any discussion just because I think they said something I didn't like. I get treated far more disrespectfully all the time, but I don't find it easy to get them blocked, much less driven completely off the project, even when I report it here at ANI. I think Bearcat (however unintentionally) abused his status as admin to get a favor here, a presumption of innocence he wasn't entitled to, to get a strong opponent eliminated from a discussion in way that isn't open to the rest of us ordinary mortals. As NE Ent pointed out earlier, the standards for admins should be higher. They should model behavior for the rest of us and we should be able to expect them to demonstrate better than average ability to resolve disputes rather than escalate them. I don't think Bearcat demonstrated that.

After Barney was blocked, he responded at 23:44, 23 Aug that Bearcat "wrote an AFD nomination that misrepresented the subject as only being a minor , and specifically mentioned the role of mayor. He made innuendo that the role of mayor was unimportant (which is technically true), but failed to mention that the gentleman was a long-time leader of the majority party on the council, and used inneundo to conflate the two unrelated. He also apparently omitted to conduct a WP:BEFORE search for sources because when such a search is performed a plethora of sources are to be found. When I politely pointed out this to him and gave him the opportunity to correct himself, he refused to do this". So far so good, and I agree with this as an absolutely fair summary, now that I've read the whole thing.

What got him blocked from his talk page 20 minutes later was this unhelpful addition: "asserting things that are clearly not true to anyone with at least half a brain (that a leader of a party group is equally as important as a non-leader) and started to make personal allegations against me. He has now compounded his lies by writing further lies at WP:AN/I which have led a productive and editor of good character being blocked. WP:BOOMERANG should have applied to the petty vindictive request of a liar and a troll." Again, now that I've read the whole thing, I can be more sympathetic to Barney's opinion, but it's just not an opinion he or anyone else is allowed to voice in that way under our guidelines.

Forty minutes after Barney has been blocked, even from his own talk page for saying this, Bearcat lands on him on right there on that same talk page where Barney can no longer respond with a long complaint that Barney has it all wrong. When Barney gains access again and responds that Bearcat is "piling new lies on top of old lies ... and getting your pet admin to do the job for you", DangerousPanda blocks Barney indefinitely. I goes on from there and continues to escalate, despite remarks by Roxy the dog at 11:23 28 Aug, in defense of Barney. Bearcat continues to make long argumentative posts to Barney's page in clear violation of WP:IUC, that ""Other uncivil behaviors [include] taunting or baiting: deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves." Eventually we are here.

About the best that can be said for Bearcat is that he was never warned, e.g., with a template at the time about his uncivil behavior on Barney's talk page after Barney was blocked. (Otoh, Barney wasn't templated either before he was blocked.) This was obviously a heated discussion and of course anyone can understand what that does for anyone's judgment. But that's why have what are supposed to be uninvolved detached administrators with better than average people skills and better than average ability to resolve disputes. Never mind that DP should never have blocked Barney for 4 days on such flimsy evidence and zero discussion. He definitely should have warned Bearcat to cease this uncivil behavior. If Bearcat wasn't willing to do that, Bearcat should have faced a block.

Whenever bad behavior is reported, we always ask, were they told at the time? You can't expect people to be mind-readers. Bearcat should have been warned and he wasn't. We can all concede that. But Bearcat isn't just any ordinary editor. He's an admin. Being an admin isn't a right, this a privilege, to be enjoyed only to the extent that the individual can contribute to a sense of legitimate authority behind our guidelines, our basic social compact to be enjoyed by all. An admin is expected to have more than just ordinary ability to deal with disputes. As NE Ent points out, an admin should display model behavior. An admin should know the rules and display exemplary adherence to them. That just didn't happen.

Instead, what happened is that Bearcat took advantage of his superior status to knock out his strongest opponent. He then continue baiting Barney until Barney had been completely driven off the project. This was an incredible failure. I knew that Barney was being treated unfairly but until now, I didn't realize how unfairly. Msnicki (talk) 19:21, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Please don't let opinion get in the way of facts. I request immediate action to be taken against Msnicki for continued harassment, false claims, trying to find "evidence" that doesn't exist. I've had enough of this bullshit, and I have asked MULTIPLE times that this be stopped. the panda ₯’ 20:01, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

And now canvassing under the guise of "hey, I said nice things about you, now do me a favour and come to ANI and comment" when she knows full well that simply mentioning someone on ANI does not require notification, it's only filing a report on them that requires such notification. This flogging and disgusting behaviour has to stop now the panda ₯’ 22:47, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

@DangerousPanda: Panda I understand why you are upset right now, my advice would be to step back for a few and let other editors comment. I agree that what she is doing is WP:CANVASSING but also agree that this discussion should be closed now and a new one focused on the behavior be opened up if desired. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:54, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

[Post-closure, Msnicki disagreed with the charge of canvassing. Drmies (talk) 18:58, 11 September 2014 (UTC)]

I agree with Barney's block. He has made it clear that he has no intention of making repairs to this situation, as indicated by these comments (bold markings added by me):

At 23:44, 23 August 2014 (UTC) - I stated it was my policy to apologise for things that I have done wrong. However, as I have done nothing wrong in this case, no apology will be forthcoming.

At 10:24, 28 August 2014 (UTC) - Thanks Bearcat (talk · contribs) - thanks to your efforst I've been lbocked from editnig for the past 4 days. Bet you feel proud of yourself. However, no, piling lies on top of further lies won't help your cause. You are clearly quite delusional, a calculating liar and should not be allowed to edit Wikipedia. A leader of a council is more important than a non-leader. This is an indisuptable fact that you choose to ignore mostly because you're a complete idiot.

At 16:46, 3 September 2014 (UTC) - I seem to recall Bearcat (talk · contribs) that *YOUR* refusal to acknowledge indisputable basic facts was teh root cause of teh disruption YOU initiated at the original AFD. Although I do enjoy watching your squirm in your little hole trying to justify unjustifiable actions, it is gettting slightly tiring now. You are clearly incapable of understanding and my guess is 50% of both of your braincells are malfunctioning. You lied. Then you snuck to the teacher. Admit these facts now and we can deal with this sordid little affair appropriately.

Sure, maybe all involved here got overheated (admins are human too, you know), but I think Barney's comments are the most obvious and insulting than all the rest. Thus, I feel the block was rightly deserved.

My recommendation is that this discussion be closed, everyone walk away, and that no major actions be taken. Intense discussions rarely get anywhere. Hopefully, Barney will think about his actions and appeal the block in the appropriate way.

Writing Enthusiast ^☎ 22:15, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Close this, enough beating the WP:DEADHORSE already... - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:21, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Agreed Writing Enthusiast ^☎ 22:24, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

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

User:SchroCat and User:Cassianto

READY FOR FORMAL CLOSURE

This apparent tag team has turned uncivility into a habit. As they have shadowed and dittoed one another's edits when attacking an editor like me or others, the team label seems appropriate.

They do this primarily on talk pages, and a review of their style of comments will show a continual and long-term misuse of talk pages for making personal attacks, boastfully assuming bad faith, and generally engaging in discussions in an uncivil manner, all of which amount to disruptive editing.

In reviewing, please also note that while PAs, etc. are frequent, there is never a counter-attack or reason to attack an editor to begin with. It's simply their method of discourse which has become so expected that I usually ignore them. However, their most recent comments on Peter Sellers talk has been noted with disgust by a new editor to the article, User:Wordreader, who wrote, "I find the comments of SchroCat and Cassianto to be disparaging and rude." I personally am embarrassed that WP is shown in such a poor light.

For the record, while I'm posting this issue, I don't expect any censure of any sort against them. Their blatant PAs have appeared on talk pages with hundreds of watchers and many long-term wikipedians also commenting, and most seem to cower and say nothing, effectively giving their PA style tacit approval.

Just a few the diffs from various talk pages.

Peter Sellers talk

1. diff 9/2014
2. diff 9/2014
3. diff 9/2014
4. diff 6/2013
5. diff 7/2013
6. diff 8/2012
7. diff 8/2012

Stanley Kubrick talk

• diff 8/2014

Charlie Chaplin talk

• diff 11/2013

Light show (talk) 06:35, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Lightshow, you have engaged in endless sniping during the Sellers re-write—sniping that has lasted from mid-2012 to date—and managed to turn the work on the Sellers article into the most unpleasant editing experience I have experienced on Wiki, and you are the one that has managed to suck the joy out of that process. Your behaviour on the article has been so bad that a topic ban has been mooted here more than once.

This is yet another re-hash of a previous visit to ANI (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive252#Request to censure personal attacks and harassment re: Peter Sellers article which was quickly dismissed, as was Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive776#Request review of personal attacks. A trawl through the Sellers talk page will show everything from Lightshow/Wikiwatcher's abuse to passive-aggressive sniping that merits a topic ban on Sellers. Requests for him to take Sellers off his Watchlist have proved fruitless, and a ban might be the best way forward here.

Finally Lightshow, numerous people commenting against you isn't tag teaming: it's people disagreeing with you, based on the fact that you're not a very good editor. – SchroCat (talk) 08:29, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Dare I say it, but I agree with my fellow tag-teamer. From the moment we touched upon Sellers to this very day, Lightshow has done nothing but condemn, snipe, and criticise all the hard work that we have put into it. We have taken Sellers from the lowly depths of C-class to the heights of FA which Lightshow disagrees with; he/she has done nothing in terms of helping with the articles development. Instead, they keep the article on their watch-list hoping that one day, someone will come along who is as like-minded as they are and join their "this article is shit" gang. Until then, every time a new editor comes to the page with a question, Lightshow seizes upon the opportunity to bad mouth the article and the two of us. Frankly this ANI is pretty wasted, but nothing unusual as this is always how dealing with them ends up. Pathetic! Cassianto^talk 08:46, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Gentlemen, your PA phrasings and word choices have become so similar and repetitious, I'd like to suggest a new one you can freely use with my full approval: Sucker. When you first started editing Sellers, you both honestly had me going for a while, with Schrocat writing friendly notes like:

"Hi WW, Sorry for taking so long to get back to you - a brief holiday intervened! I think the article is broadly OK, but it doesn't hang together well at the moment—I think because of the alterations of passing editors. The overall structure is also broadly OK, although we need a few tweaks ("Acting technique and preparation" is in the middle of the chronological run through of his life, for example). I suggest that most of what is already there remains and the following structure is used (please let me know if you have any better ideas—this is just an initial suggestion!)"

I assumed your intentions were positive. That was then, this is now. And now you can freely call me "sucker." --Light show (talk) 09:08, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it was friendly: I always am when there is a receptive editor to deal with. Unfortunately you did not prove to be amenable to the development and improvement of the article, and attempted to block every change, edit warring and running spurious RfCs to hamper every step. The RfCs were largely rejected out of hand, and numerous editors advised you to drop the stick, but all to no avail. After such a campaign of negativity, even a saint's patience would have evaporated by now. - SchroCat (talk) 09:23, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Troll elsewhere:your endless bitching and sniping is deep in the territory of tedium, and your toxic rumblings have done nothing positive to this article. You are too bitter about your ownership being swamped by losing in nearly every single RfC you started to ever see anything positive here, and you make yourself look more and more ridiculous every time you post another of your pointless messages, so do yourself a favour and take this off your Watchlist and move on. - User:SchroCat 08:16, 4 September 2014 (UTC) That's not cool no matter what the provocation. If you're that angry step away before typing, regardless of whether you think you're "right".__ E L A Q U E A T E 11:22, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Neither is two years of trolling, bitching and sniping, but let's just gloss over that behaviour. FWIW, I stand by every word, as it is true, justified and entirely correct. I'll also add that I wasn't angry at all: it was written while I was extremely calm, and is an honest straightforward appraisal of this editors approach both on the Sellers page and elsewhere. – SchroCat (talk) 19:26, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

This editor appears to be engaged in a form of Wikihounding of those who he either disagrees with or won't let him have his own way, despite rules or consensus. He seems obsessed with the Peter Sellers article and the talk page history shows his many RFCs when that doesn't happen. Here we have one started at Mike Todd over the photo he placed in the infobox. The Sellers obsession is everywhere; up it comes at the Red Skelton talk page.

Those of us who don't agree with him become a Wikimafia in his opinion. From the article sandbox he started: "Obvious problems: You have greatly expanded a clear and brief paragraph into six separate topics, mostly film-related trivia, divided below, all jumbled into one hodge-podge paragraph. Which, btw, is exactly how the demolition of Sellers began. Note also that another editor has joined your team by now tagging the lead image." The infobox photo was a copyvio. He's been unwelome at my talk page since an exchange in March over a Commons-deleted photo ruled to be a copyvio.

As for his complaints about incivility, This comment "BTW, your math is about 3,000% off, since it's closer to 5K at most. Guess math wasn't your favrit subject either, huh doc?" to User:Dr. Blofeld is taunting and rude, yet he's crying about civility. Let's close this misuse of ANI and hope this editor will finally learn how to work congenially with everyone else.We hope (talk) 13:50, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, in the spirit of congeniality, I'm not sure I ever thanked you for getting me blocked from the Commons, investigated with your CCI, and for tirelessly tagging hundreds of recently uploaded public domain images, currently used for leads or body, with large red warning signs. --Light show (talk) 16:50, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

To refresh your memory and for the edification of everyone else This is how you got blocked from Commons. We hope (talk) 16:57, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Your off topic Lightshow. Leave others alone and concentrate on trying to get me and my tag-teamer blocked. Cassianto^talk 16:54, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

It was We hope that decided to join in with his image issues, not me. Nor am I concerned with getting anyone blocked, since you're both obviously immune from even mild censure or criticism. This is a notice board, and it's worth noticing the level of arrogance that has become acceptable. --Light show (talk) 17:11, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I urge an admin to close this thread asap, obviously there is no action to be taken against Schro and Cass in light of the circumstances.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:49, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

In my experience both users indeed act like a tag team, often together with two other editors. The Banner talk 19:52, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah, my other favourite editor how lovely to see you Banner. Cassianto^talk 20:03, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Can someone co-propose and hopefully support an IBAN here, as I tried to do on Kubrick's talk page? The same three editors, SchroCat, Cassianto, and DrBlofeld, as can be see on Sellers talk, are creating an atmosphere for new editors that does not invite collaboration or goodwill. My proposal to self-impose an IBAN is being ignored. The three editors, I've already pointed out, blitz-edit, comment, and perpetuate uncivililty in an identical team manner, and mock what they know is unacceptable talk page behavior, for example. We don't need to turn away more new editors, we need to attract them. --Light show (talk) 17:59, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Ban User:Light show from editing at the Peter Sellers article

Some of the above comments look pretty bad taken out of context, but entirely understandable when this haranguing has been going on for two years and I think this situation needs some resolution. After SchroCat and Cassianto put considerable effort into taking this article to FA standard (which they successfully steered through an FA review), Light show (under a previous user name) proposed junking all their effort and putting the article back to its C-class version: Talk:Peter Sellers/Archive 2#Is this "Feature Article" incomprehensible?. Now, I think it's fair to say that anyone who sincerely believes that junking an FA rated article is in the best interests of that article probably has nothing more to contribute in a positive way. Therefore I propose an article-ban for Light show: the article, SchroCat, Cassianto and Light show himself would all be better off if they didn't interact any more at that particular article. SchroCat and Cassianto are the ones that got the article promoted so they are best placed to stay and maintain it. Betty Logan (talk) 19:38, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. 19:38, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Non-issue: As Schro-Cass has/have prevented me from adding so much as a comma over the last few years, putting up a no-trespassing sign when the article is already ringed with barbed wire, will add nothing. As the proposer has, in their comment at the link above, accused me of somehow reprogramming Wikimedia and gaming user feedback, I'm not sure their good faith is clear in their proposal. --Light show (talk) 19:51, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

@Betty. It's not just the Peter Sellers article though Light show has kicked up a fuss about, it's other articles on film biographies any one of us has been involved with. But all were motivated by the Sellers vendetta he has and it is indeed the Sellers article which creates the bulk of his comments still. An interaction ban banning Light show from editing or discussing any film biographical article primarily written by myself, Schro or Cass would be more appropriate. I support of course, but I fear a ban on just Sellers will prompt petty responses on other articles. I 'd suggest a full interaction ban.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:46, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support What Dr. Blofeld has said. The insult difs above took place on the Stanley Kubrick talk page and the sandbox the editor started. While the basis for this is the Peter Sellers article, that rancor has been spread around by him. We hope (talk) 21:01, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Lightshow, to say anyone has stopped you changing a comma is an untruth. It's also an untruth for you to say that Betty Logan has accused you of anything: she provided you with an explanation regarding the feedback, not accused you of anything. Sadly the two untruths here are just the latest in a string of mud-throwing from you, where you a unable to accept that anyone who disagrees with you on Sellers is part of some massive tag-team. It's time for the community to stop your interaction on the Sellers talk page. - SchroCat (talk) 20:50, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support, needless to say. Lightshow has shown himself to be a thoroughly difficult editor to work with. I'm sure he does some good somewhere, so for that reason I think a full on block is not justified, but I think the ban as proposed above is a great comprise. Lightshow needs to let this one go and accept that the C-class Sellers is a long and distant memory. He also made things difficult for the FA nominator's on Charles Chaplin, but that is a different article altogether. Move on with your wiki-life, for god's sake! Cassianto^talk 21:09, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support topic ban on this article and a broader one one should anyone propose it. A read of the relevant talk pages shows a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality that makes editing by other members of the community an unpleasant task to say the least. MarnetteD|Talk 21:16, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• I think waiting for some neutral editors to review and comment is required, since the editors above, excluding MarnetteD, have in some way, repeatedly attacked the editor, his edits, comments or uploads. There is no way to assume their neutrality. It's also worth noting how the original ANI against their PAs has digressed and been hijacked so easily into blocking the complaining editor. The message is that guidelines about civility, including not using PAs, can be ignored. --Light show (talk) 21:20, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

this-"I'm glad you found a buddy to cover for you, but this will go to ANI if you can't get over your erroneous edits." and this-"Before posting there, let me know if you've used or are using different usernames, since socks are an exemption to 3RR, and your arrogant style of discourse and warring methods are too similar to previous events." is civility? We hope (talk) 21:34, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

The request, yet unanswered, was reasonable. Unlike this comment, from one of the above team members. And my mentioning his soliciting support there, was also fine. --Light show (talk) 21:40, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support - Although I would expand this to include the talk page, as that's where much of the conflict between the three has happened. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:11, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support – I concur with Crisco 1492 and the earlier editors supporting the proposed ban. I have not previously encountered Lightshow, but the evidence above and in the pages linked to makes it clear that such a ban is in the interests of good editing and collaborative conduct. Tim riley talk 09:47, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support – and, yes, it should be extended to the talk page as per Crisco's suggestion; hopefully the dissent will not continue to spill over into the other articles. SagaciousPhil - Chat 10:34, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment This is looking a bit kangaroo here. Looking at the article history, Lightshow hasn't edited the article for about six months. If you look at the history there is a clear pattern of SchroCat reverting all changes made by many other editors to the article during that time. It looks like all edits require SchoCat's explicit approval to be included. Not a very welcoming environment. Dr. Blofield's comment is telling here, wanting to ban someone from discussing any film biographical article primarily written by myself, Schro or Cass. It's hard to read that as anything but a demand for uncontested ownership of certain articles. __ E L A Q U E A T E 12:57, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

@Elaqueate: Frankly I'm sick of your sanctimonious uninformed comments here. You have no experience of what we've had to put up with for two years and it is rather annoying for some holier than thou individual to make judgements. Butt out, please.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:37, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry Elaqueate, and you are? Cassianto^talk 17:48, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh! Do you have to be someone to comment here? How is this attitude supposed to convince other uninvolved editors that others weren't similarly "welcomed" on pages you edit? Is this a "closed" !vote? Are we somehow not at AN/I anymore?__ E L A Q U E A T E 17:59, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

You don't, no, just stop commenting on things you know bugger all about. Lightshow has a very long history of making snide comments on talk pages of articles, Peter Sellers mainly, but his vendetta has surfaced in article talk pages as diverse as Charlie Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick. It is incredibly annoying to have somebody who has not had to deal with this for the last two years turning up and telling people to be civil or accusing people of OWN. That several very experienced administrators support a topic ban should tell you that this has gone on so long it's time for something to be done about it.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:19, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Just asking who you were, that's all. No need to swing your handbag at me, if anybody has an "attitude" it is you sir. Oh, and FWIW, I'm not here to convince anyone. Cassianto^talk 18:16, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

You were just collegially asking me for my papers, got it. __ E L A Q U E A T E 18:20, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I think you have got the shitty end of the stick. I didn't know in what capacity you were commenting from; bystander, admin, etc.. But thanks for showing your true colours which owing to the aforementioned shitty stick, is now brown I see. Cassianto^talk 18:46, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Classy argument.__ E L A Q U E A T E 19:08, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

and one it appears, you have no business in. Cassianto^talk 19:23, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I should keep talking to someone who just called me shit?__ E L A Q U E A T E 19:43, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Who would that be, because I haven't called you anything. Are you having trouble understanding, or are you only reading what you want to see? Cassianto^talk 20:00, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

If you want to descend into personal attacks it reflects on you more than me. It doesn't improve anything here.__ E L A Q U E A T E 20:16, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, I'll add another question to my a answered "Who would that be?" What personal attacks? Cassianto^talk 20:28, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for the smear, especially as it is catastrophically wrong: I have not reverted "all changes made by many other editors". I have reverted the introduction of errors (grammatical, factual, or use of the wrong ENGVAR elements), which is entirely acceptable, I believe. If I am wrong on that point, please let me know. You are also very wrong to say that "all edits require SchoCat's explicit approval to be included": that utter tripe. It's also not a question of ownership either: it's a question of having to deal with the behaviour of one disruptive editor who has been sniping and trolling on the talk page, not within the article, as well as on other talk pages. – SchroCat (talk) 13:37, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

@Elaqueate: In my experience it is very normal for all the but the highest quality edits to be reverted on a featured article. The standards are very high on those pages. Chillum 14:18, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

@Chillum:, you are right that changes to a quality FA should be made conservatively and that most proposed changes should demonstrate they meet that higher standard. I was only commenting that it seemed to be an individual editor that was ultimately judging that quality over a very long period, and that struck me as a bit of a warning flag for possible POV bias, conscious or not. FA doesn't mean perfect or finished.__ E L A Q U E A T E 14:36, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Not really. If I had not reverted the poor edits, someone else would have done. I have not reverted any improvements to the article, and it have explained my edits when I have reverted. - SchroCat (talk) 15:56, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure you find your own edits reasonable and necessary. Thanks for sharing that opinion.__ E L A Q U E A T E 17:59, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I do not, however, find your smears and untruths to be reasonable or necessary, but you seem to have skated by that. Thanks for sharing and smearing. - SchroCat (talk) 18:18, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

The discussed editor hasn't edited the article in six months, and the talk page currently only has a total of seven comments. No recent diffs were given in this proposal, but that hasn't stopped people from !voting on it. I can't see that any uninvolved editors have been given any actual evidence, other than being told to "butt out". The only diff given in the proposal is two years old and the user had a different user name (what's the deal with that? Is that public?) __ E L A Q U E A T E 19:08, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

The change has always been noted at the top of my user page. --Light show (talk) 19:15, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• As I noted above, it's even worse than a kangaroo court, as I came before this body with diffs to show a lack of civility and habitual flinging of PAs. Yet that original reason has been hijacked into a digressed topic of banning the complaining editor with almost no mention of the original complaint or its validity.

For a current example of how and why Schro-Cass resort to simple name-calling over calmly discussing things, visit the current Sellers talk page, where a new editor, User:MrBalham2, who is trying to point out exactly what I did years ago, is already being badgered and seems to be leaving in disgust. A quick link to what he observes in the article was first pointed out by me here, and the result of that was later pointed out here, which supports his and my observation. But this is not about Sellers, it's about the near total unconcern and ready acceptance of uncivility by this board.--Light show (talk) 17:31, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

And for the benefit of anyone appreciating some ironic humor, note SchroCat's first reply to the new editor: in the future, please comment on issues, not editors. and his most recent one, I have asked you not to dip into uncivil comments about other editors . . . not just insults to others, when in fact that editor was extra civil. --Light show (talk) 17:42, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you should have considered your own actions before rushing to ANI and posting this hastily added report. As for MrBalham2, they came to Sellers asserting their own POV which has been opposed by SchroCat and I. Their edits are not an improvement, and like you they can't accept that. It's just a coincidence that they are complaining about the same thing as you and they have an unhealthy interest in Sellers. Oh, and they came at the same time as this ANI having never expressed an interest in Sellers before; a bit iffy if you ask me. Cassianto^talk 17:45, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

An example of iffy is when a new editor, SchroCat, starts working on Peter Sellers, and 5 minutes later, you, another new editor, join in supporting his every edit, comment, and PA from then on. That's what may be called iffy, IMHO. And noting such things can get one banned from a talk page, it seems. --Light show (talk) 17:56, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

New editor? I have been here since 2010, SchroCat possibly longer. It sounds like you feel aggrieved at us "new" editors coming along and making your shit C-class version into an FA. Careful, your pal Elaqueate may accuse you of ownership if your not careful... Cassianto^talk 18:44, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

New editors to Peter Sellers article, in case anyone wasn't clear about it.--Light show (talk) 18:57, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support: Light show's edits and talk page postings at Peter Sellers (and other film biography articles) have been entirely disruptive over a very long period of time, and their behavior is not collaborative, but rather intended to upset other editors and make it so unpleasant for them that they will not challenge his/her edits. I also support the broader interaction ban. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:00, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support It is difficult enough to bring an article to FA without someone stepping on your shoes the whole way. Light should contribute to areas completely unrelated to Mr. Sellers. I am not sure about a wider ban, though I think as long as Sellers is not mentioned it may be okay. Repeat performances would likely result in quick consensus for widening the scope. Upon further reading I support a wider ban cover Kubrick and such. Chillum 14:11, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support and we should probably look at Stanley Kubrick as well. This is a talented and potentially productive editor but needs to learn to work better with others. Over-quoting is a defining and annoying fault, and doggedly defending the over-quoting starts to make other editors think about walking away. --John (talk) 18:49, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support Having seen the present issue spill over to Stanley Kubrick, and judging by other interactions I've had with Light Show which, by no means the same degree that would require any type of action, do point towards a battlefield mentality they hold when they don't get their way. --MASEM (t) 19:55, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I've made 517 edits to improve Kubrick, vs. 0 for you. Thanks for your support. I'll also note that Kubrick is a more honest example of how I, and other editors, should collaborate. For instance User:WickerGuy, the primary contributor, began his edits a year and a half before I started editing it. We, and other editors, including MarnetteD, had many discussions during the 8 months or so that it was heavily improved. There was never a heated discussion, no PAs, no uncivility by anyone. After much of the article was improved, WickerGuy even added some positive comments to my talk page. I know how to collaborate and work with other editors. You will not find any accusations about uncivility anywhere since I started editing 7 years ago.--Light show (talk) 20:05, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

It's your talk page behavior, eg [1], clearly pitting yourself as one side against Dr. Blofelt and SchroCat, specifically bringing up the Sellers article issues here. --MASEM (t) 20:30, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

An odd example, since you agreed with me that he was adding trivia. And under your watchful eye, you've let Blofeld do to Kubrick's personal life material, namely turn it into a choppy hodge-podge, of short, disconnected factoids, exactly as Schro-Cass-Blofeld did to Sellers. Blofeld did that to Kubrick, cutting out 75% of his personal life material, about 2,000 words, under your protection, all in a matter of minutes! All three(?) of those editors use the exact same editing style, and unsurprisingly they all use the same uncivil PA style of discourse in protecting their demolitions. Their comments above prove the point. Nuff said. Kubrick should have stayed in NY.--Light show (talk) 21:18, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, and I'm sure @John: would agree on this, no personal life section needs to be well over 2000 words!!! I cut it by 75% because it needed such a drastic cut. I haven't got around to writing a decent personal life section yet so obviously it's still not going to read wonderfully well. You're absolutely clueless how to write encyclopedia articles and don't just get that bloat and excess quotes are just not good. An actor dies and there you are adding excess quotes and bloating it out..♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:08, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Dr. Blofeld—are you really responding to User:Light show? They pointed out that this was all done "in a matter of minutes". Incremental edits are conducive to collaboration. Bus stop (talk) 19:05, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

You can be 100% certain that Blofeld knows exactly what he/they are again doing. The same as they successfully did to Sellers, ie. make it "incomprehensible", by making it unreadable. He/they quickly moved in with chain-saws and earth-movers to demolished 2,000, well-written, fully descriptive words of clear prose about his personal life. They turned it into a pile of rubble, as anyone can read here. The writing quality is enough to embarrass a twelve-year old. And that's probably the idea, IMO. The primary editor of that article had thanked me for improving the personal life material, after months of research and using numerous key sources. Blofeld is now beginning to demolish it like his team did to Sellers. I wonder what Kubrick and Sellers had in common? --20:21, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, the primary editor on Sellers had also thanked me: You added a lot of valuable detail and also some good sources that the article needs—very well done. --Light show (talk) 02:04, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

You're not helping your case by maintaining the battleground attitude here, trying to drag me into this when the only reason I have the Kubrick page on my watchlist was from NFC issues years ago. Yes, some of what Blofeld added was not really well suited, but note the difference between suggesting that trivia be cut down for improvements and holding a grudge from a different article. The ban from editing the Sellers article seems well merited until you can drop this attitude and work cooperatively. --MASEM (t) 21:54, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

The ban from editing Sellers has been in effect for about two years. Every attempt to change punctuation or almost any other minor change by me or anyone else, has gotten reverted often without the courtesy of a rationale. A new editor tried to make some change yesterday, calmly discussed it, and still got pulverized with uncivility immediately. Maybe we should add the new editor to the proposed ban, just to make sure he doesn't try to improve things again. I do make comments on the Sellers talk page, but banning that kind of activity by a civil editor would amount to eliminating freedom of speech, not something I'm used to on this side of the pond. I do not use uncivil language, which is a bit tricky when pounced on by the PA team. --Light show (talk) 22:20, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

It is a lie to say there has been a ban on editing the page. Numerous people have improved the article and their edits stand. Those who introduce errors, change spellings (and punctuation) to AmEng variants, or introduce unsupported information or delete sourced information may be reverted, with an explanation. The editor yesterday (with whom the discussion continues) was not "pulverised" with anything, although he has been requested not to make personal remarks about other editors (he is extremely new and has not yet learnt the ropes here). You manage to turn up to pretty much every thread, and will bitch about the article, linking back to one of the many, many RfCs you started during the re-write (which the community decided against your opinion on nearly every one). Your negativity on the Sellers page has been seen in comments on threads on Chaplin, Kubrick, and I think one or two others, and I sincerely hope this will bring an end to it. – SchroCat (talk) 22:33, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

We haven't banned you, we have disagreed with your attempts to try and "improve" the article. Your edits were not an improvement and went against everything which seemingly passed the strict reviewers at peer review, GAN and FAC. But somehow, you think you're above all that and when you were rebuffed, you snipe at the "state of the article". Two years...of that! Cassianto^talk 22:36, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Should anyone need an example of the exact opposite, note comments by another new editor to Sellers, who also had some suggestions. They were logical ones, so I chimed in with a link to a similar issue from an earlier discussion. I was speaking to the new editor, User:Wordreader, yet the team members came charging over the hill like a bolt of lightning, with swords out:

Troll elsewhere:your endless bitching and sniping is deep in the territory of tedium, and your toxic rumblings have done nothing positive to this article. . . .

Needless to say, that editor, who later wrote: I find the comments of SchroCat and Cassianto to be disparaging and rude, also hasn't returned. That's the kind if banning I'm referring to, the psyop kind. Very effective. --Light show (talk) 23:00, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for confirming that as soon a someone makes a comment you "chime in" with the same old comment that links to one of the pointless threads you implemented during the least enjoyable editing experience I suffered on Wikipedia. As to Wordreader, I agreed with his comment, and less than an hour after he had posted his comment, I edited the article to overcome his issue, and commented appropriately in the talk page. All you did was bitch and moan. Can you not see a) just how annoying and depressing it is for others for you to constantly bitching about the same topic, and b) why this thread has been proposed by a third party with no axe to grind here? As to saying Wordreader hasn't returned because of the comments, I find that so dubious to be laughable. – SchroCat (talk) 23:11, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Why not ask him? And that third party proposer, out of the blue, accused me of gaming user ratings, so your editing team wouldn't be too embarrassed, I presume. Oddly, all user ratings disappeared from WP soon after. --Light show (talk) 23:23, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

And note that the above discussion in the link, whereby I was immediately attacked, took place just a few months after the team began their editing of Sellers. Back then, SchroCat made comments like: Hi Wikiwatcher. I've finished my major overhaul of the "Personal life" section and this is now actually smaller than the previous version and a lot tighter than it was: I hope that you'll agree this is much more balanced than it was before. or . I'll be starting shortly on updating various bits, but any thoughts or suggestions are always welcome! Cheers -, or please let me know if you have any better ideas—this is just an initial suggestion! Within a few weeks, his comments took on a different tone, I've got a few other books knocking around, including a largely unread copy of the Lewis book (how much bile and hatred in one book can there be?!) so I hope we can get something fairly special out of it. Cheers And a few weeks later, he stopped using "Cheers" to sign off. And Sellers, IMO, is now in the cellar. Cheers.--Light show (talk) 00:15, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Those of us who support a ban are more than tired of being served Wikiwatcher/Light show WP:SOUP regardless of the type. This is the Skelton talk page, yet your inane nattering about the Sellers article found its way there. If there wasn't an agenda, this wouldn't have been posted there by you. We hope (talk) 23:26, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

If any neutral editor read those comments, they'd have a hard time calling it anything but totally logical and inherently beneficial to discuss. So I'm glad that was the best you could find.--Light show (talk) 23:55, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:SOUP's on again! We hope (talk) 00:02, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Improvements? Says who? Cassianto^talk 20:14, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment – re-reading the exchanges above, I wonder is it normal for a new user to register a username solely for the purpose of intervening at a discussion such as this? It looks rather as though this is an interested user flying a flag of convenience (a sock-puppet, I think is the WP term). Is it possible for Elaqueate to identify him/herself as a separate entity, please? – Tim riley talk 20:10, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Give me a break. This: is it normal for a new user to register a username solely for the purpose of intervening at a discussion such as this? is completely fabricated. What is wrong with you?__ E L A Q U E A T E 20:26, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

If you want a break, then log off and log back in as Light show... Cassianto^talk 20:34, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I sincerely doubt that Elaqueate, a user who has been editing here since Aug 2013, is a sock of Light Show. Such an accusation would need significant evidence. Chillum 20:41, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Chillum: see Elaqueate, that's all you needed to say in response to my first question to you. Now all Elaqueate has to do is show me "the personal attacks" I have made against them and who called him/her shit? Cassianto^talk 20:52, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually if you are interested in that then go to their talk page. This is not the appropriate place for you two to bicker. Chillum 20:58, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

It's appropriate inasmuch that it was a question which he/she failed to answer. If he/she had of told me their interest in the case to start with then we wouldn't be here now. Their failure to answer even prompted someone else to ask. My original question was a civil, pertinent and innocent question to ask which was ignored. That is why we are here now. Anyway, moving on... Cassianto^talk 21:06, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Chillum, I don't want an editor who just accused me of sock puppetry without proof and said But thanks for showing your true colours which owing to the aforementioned shitty stick, is now brown I see. anywhere near my talk page. I think I've been pretty patient after being told my true colors are shit brown, but I don't need to deal with more of it. __ E L A Q U E A T E 21:14, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't care if you two go to one of your talk pages or not. Do not engage in back and forth bickering about each other in a topic about another user. The noise being added to this discussion is not helpful. Rule of thumb, if you are talking about someone other than Light Show then you are posting in the wrong place. Chillum 21:16, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

As far as Light show, I'm beginning to see why there are only "Supports" here, even though I can see that various editors supported some of Light show's suggestions on the concerned talk pages at times. Whatever Light show's behavior, it seems to have been met with some pretty nasty business in return. I didn't even cast a !vote and I was told to "butt out", asked to identify myself twice, was told my true color is shit brown, and had a sock puppet accusation as a "new user". I wonder how much filth I would have gotten if I'd actually !voted. Something's off here but it looks more entrenched than anything I'd want to spend too much time on. It doesn't look exactly one-sided to someone outside of whatever bubble people are editing in. __ E L A Q U E A T E 21:25, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

The real rule of thumb, practiced by the team, is "The best defense is a good offense." Hence, an editor going to ANI about uncivility by a tag team, turns into a proposal to ban the complaining editor. Forget the rampant uncivility. Or when some new editor calmly suggests changes on a Sellers talk page, notice how the new editor is set upon immediately by the team. Very sobering and discouraging stuff. You would have been amazed at seeing how the team jumped on some other editors who were also criticizing Sellers at its peer review. --Light show (talk) 21:43, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

* Oppose. At least on the Peter Sellers Talk page some of the above have presented a caustic environment for those that disagreed with them. I disagreed with some of the above folks and User:Light show disagreed with some of the above folks. I don't think these comments are proper for Talk page use:

• "Why is it the same people turning up time and time again here? A couple of times it's easy to assume good faith but this sort of thing seems to happen every few weeks."

• "And, once again, it's trivial shit by someone who never met of knew either man."

• ""The reader may want to know why Sellers' was attracted to playing the role of Wingate. -- Then again, they may not give a toss. Now move along, there is nothing to see here! "

• "These are trolls, pure a simple. Let's stop feeding them."

• "THIS IS NOT OUR FUCKING OPINION, IT IS THE VIEW OF THE AUTHOR OF THE BOOK! Dr. B has addressed that. Now for gods sake move on!"

Just my opinion. Bus stop (talk) 22:13, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

So you "oppose" here based on our comments? Sorry, I thought it was Light show on offer here because of his behaviour? This is not a valid vote as you have missed the point of this proposal entirely. If I remember rightly, you accused the article and us of anti-semitism? Cassianto^talk

There has been some incivility, I don't think anyone supporting this proposal would deny that, but what do you really expect when someone has sustained a 2-year campaign to junk other people's work? The problem isn't really the incivility, that's just a symptom; the problem—and it's a fundamental one—is that you have an editor who is committed to a vastly inferior version of the article and who won't let go. The reason I proposed an article ban (and I did intend for that to include talk page input) is that I simply don't see how to resolve Light year's continued involvement in the article with maintaining its quality. You can see from the tone of this discussion just how much bad blood there is, and if it isn't ended here then it will almost certianly continue back at the article. Do SchroCat and Cassianto have another two years of this haranguing to put up with? What happens if they get so sick of it they withdraw and let Light year do what he wants to the article? The truth is it's a great article and it wouldn't be out of place in a professional encyclopedia, so the community should take action to safeguard articles of that quality. Betty Logan (talk) 04:22, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment

Hello All

I'm a "newbie" so please treat me well. Please excuse typos and bad grammar, formatting etc. I think there are a lot of experienced editors here. Some of you have done some great work and rightly some of your articles have been promoted to FA status.

However, with your experience a little arrogance has crept in, and with that you've forgotten that anyone can edit these articles regardless of experience. This is the golden rule and the overriding principle.

Any disputes are discussed on talk pages. However, I've come across something that is worse than vandalism on these pages.

Some of these articles have over 300 notes and references. A majority of these pointing to a handful of books and their page numbers. But also sophisticated named ref tags as well. Deleting lines also means deleting these named tags. There is a lot of hard work put into them. The people who have created them have read all these books and created these references.

These editors have done some painstaking research. In this pursuit they have become quite experienced and are aware of all the rules and coding. However, this is where the arrogance creeps in, and worse still, they have become "experts". They then start forgetting the Wikipedian principles and become corrupted in their overzealousness.

If you look at my experience, as an example, on the "Peter Sellers" Talk page you can see that a group of editors who have clubbed together and built FAs are commenting. Some of the FAs are very good...and here's the problem....some of them are not.

1. When the editors are challenged and and it becomes one editor vs another "separate" editor and it is merely a difference of opinion. If the "separate editor" stands their ground, another editor from the club steps in and sides with their fellow FA editor.

2. At this points the consensus principle is abused.

3. Here's where the sophistication comes in. A third editor steps in and becomes disparaging and also sides with their fellow FA editor. Opening statements are also confrontational. A distraction to anger/wind-up the "separate" editor from the original argument which gets lost into, and deteriorates, into mudslinging. Since all three club members have the consensus there is no chance for dissent or objectivity on FAs.

This "ganging up" tactic is worse than vandalism. It's perfectly good editors who have become corrupt and forgotten the Wikipedia golden rule is (and in the words of Brian Cohen) is that "we are all individuals". This "gang"/club consensus should be avoided.

Light show is quite passionate and annoying to some of you, but they are on their own fighting their own point of view. They are entitled to be as challenging as they want. You can't shrug the principle because you don't like someone.

If you choose to block this editor from the "Sellers" article, then equally, SchroCat, Cassianto and Dr. Blofeld need to be banned/blocked from this article too. I believe Tim riley is part of the same club as well, and should also be blocked. If there are others, please point them out.

It'll be a painful object lesson for them all, however, they need to realise that "gang mentality" or bullying is unacceptable on Wikipedia.

Administrators please investigate this more widely. If there are already existing rules regarding "editor clubs" please make those on this thread aware. If there is not, then I have highlighted a policy problem.

Newcomers to Wikipedia will be put off by this type of hostility. Wikipedia is one of the great achievements of the net neutral internet. Please don't wreck it with bad behaviour and the arrogant assumption that you are the true "experts".

Please note I am not a sock puppet for Light show.

Good luck all and happy editing! MrBalham2 (talk) 08:25, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

As I have explained to you previously, having people disagree with you isn’t "ganging-up": it's part of the way things are discussed and agreed upon here, and once you have been editing for more than ten days you will come to appreciate that. In other words, people joining in discussions is how we reach a consensus, and is to be encouraged: just because people disagreed with you, does not mean that anyone has been "ganging up" on you. This has all been explained to you before, and you have not taken it on board, just as you did not seem to take on board explanations in the talk page. WP:ICANTHEARYOU is not a good way to start your Wiki life, and I sincerely hope that you read and take on board other people's comments, both in talk and forums such as this. - SchroCat (talk) 08:55, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I've let it go on on the "Sellers" talk page. Don't worry! That discussion is closed. I'm illustrating your process of consensus here.

I've already highlighted your method and how I think the consensus process can be abused, so have other editors. Administrators can decide on whether that process was fair and whether you and your Wiki colleagues should be blocked from that article. I'm merely highlighting your methods in discussions. I'm entitled give my views and experience of that process. Your tactics are under scrutiny. MrBalham2 (talk) 10:16, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Putting forward a reasonable opinion on a talk page about edits isn't a "tactic": it's how wiki works, and I am not sure that with your ten-days experience here that you've fully grasped that. Additionally, just because other editors disagree with you, doesn't mean there is anything underhand about it: that's how we build a consensus, and how the consenus changes. - SchroCat (talk) 10:32, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, I'm clear about the consensus process. It is you and your Wiki colleagues' approach to that process with any editor (not just me) that is under scrutiny on this page. It is up to Administrators to decide whether that process was fair. I hope you concur. MrBalham2 (talk) 11:07, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure you are not clear about consensus on Wiki, given your comments here and at the Sellers talk page, and that you are still in WP:ICANTHEARYOU territory here. I'm sure that your ten-days of in-depth experience here has provided you with a vast amount of knowledge of how this all works, but you're just not taking on board what is being explained to you. As to what is under scrutiny on this thread, it is not my approach, but a proposal as to whether Light show should be banned from editing on the Sellers page and talk page. - SchroCat (talk) 11:30, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Administrators need to get the whole picture. This will include Light show's grievances. Light show has used my case as an illustration on this thread. This includes you and your Wiki colleagues' approach to that process with any editor (not just me) that is also under scrutiny on this page. It is up to Administrators to decide whether that process was fair. I'm entitled to express my views. Thanks. MrBalham2 (talk) 12:52, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Reality check: Earth calling Balham – how would a ban on editing the Peter Sellers article make any difference to an editor (me) whose total contribution to it was correcting three typos in August the year before last? – Tim riley talk 13:09, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

If you're innocent then there's nothing to worry about! I think you work with the aforementioned Wiki colleague on other FAs. Administrators need to be aware if FAs are becoming "no go" editing areas apart from a select few.i.e. if an FA editor is having difficulty with a another "unfamiliar editor" standing their ground then other Wiki colleagues swoop in to help out by applying a consensus. I think it's a practice that should be stamped out. It goes against Wikipedia principles. MrBalham2 (talk) 13:55, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

A "no-go" editing area like this edit, which was made and is still present on the page? Or are you just complaining because when you deleted half a paragraph of pertinent information it was reverted? There is absolutely nothing "no go" about editing on the article, as the evidence of one of your extant edits shows. - SchroCat (talk) 14:06, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I was content with both edits. Including your reversion. My attempt was to transfer the information to its correct area and reduce a overlong para I accepted your revert. It was when I suggested a reasonable alternative is when the "team" swooped in with the tactics I mentioned earlier. I have now been made aware by other editors that this is common practice with you and your like-minded colleagues. The Administrators need to be aware that this happens. If there isn't a policy then there should be one to stamp the practice out. Wikipedia is for all (even the one's who make your editing life hell) and not and for a select few "gatekeepers". MrBalham2 (talk) 15:00, 8 September 2014 (UTC).

MrBalham2 wrote (emphasis added): "I have now been made aware by other editors that this is common practice with you and your like-minded colleagues." Sorry to "swoop in", but this page is on my watchlist, as indeed is "Peter Sellers", and I couldn't help picking up this discussion. So who has told you this "now", and where? Your claim about "common practice" does not seem at all evident to me in this discussion you've had with a third party, where you have been told quite clearly that "you need to be careful about editing featured articles since featured articles are the highest standard of quality there is"; and "The fact that the editors you are in conflict with are all quite experienced. You are free to request a FAR; however, you must be prepared to have a result that you are not quite happy with." Alfietucker (talk) 15:25, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

That has also struck me, and I have asked MrBalham on his talk page about this. - SchroCat (talk) 15:30, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what the others were implying? The link to the third party discussion is a very good example on how you make new editors feel after such an experience of “being ganged up” on. Yes I am aware of FAR suggestion. Thanks for pointing it out. I was made “aware" by reading Light show’s exmaples further up this thread. I didn’t need need to be “told” by anyone.MrBalham2 (talk) 18:07, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah, the beauty of private email! Cassianto^talk 15:59, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure MrBalham2 is aware that there are already policies related to tag teams. Luckily, he seems to understand the common sense policies of civility, which is one of the pillars supporting WP, and probably civilization itself. But, like me, is taken aback that that a basic pillar can be ignored and overturned so easily by so many. Hence, the original ANI against two boastfully uncivil editors, even to other editors on this page, is immediately hijacked into a proposal to ban the complainant, who no one has shown to have ever made uncivil comments.

Regarding accusations that I've created a "battlefield atmosphere" on the talk page, I can assure your the exact opposite is the case. A quick example can be seen here, where the alleged team, shortly after coming to the Sellers article begins to demolish it without discussion, attacks every editor commenting, and gains the immediate support of teammates: Local editor being SchroCat. It is he who has single handedly turned this article's fortunes around and made it a serious future contender for FAC for which he should be applauded not villified. Recall that those two editors began their editing blitz on Sellers shortly before, and 5 minutes apart. And of course a quick look at the Sellers talk page over the last few days proves that the battlefield mentality is created against any editors, and by only one group: the team. --Light show (talk) 17:34, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the support Light show. I don't entirely agree with you about the Peter Sellers article but SchroCat is a great editor...although too stubborn for me, Good luck to you both on the outcome. MrBalham2 (talk) 18:34, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. I have no previous experience of the Peter Sellers or related articles. I was on this page because of an unrelated matter. But I think the responses to MrBalham2's politely phrased comment more than adequately illustrate the problems with these editors' attitude and behavior. "I'm sure that your ten-days of in-depth experience here has provided you with a vast amount of knowledge of how this all works, but you're just not taking on board what is being explained to you", "Reality check: Earth calling Balham", "Ah, the beauty of private email!" Whether or not these editors liked what the editor had to say, these are not reasoned or reasonable responses. Just looking at the current revision of the talk page, I see what I would consider intolerable rudeness to Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) by SchroCat, with Cassianto chipping in at the end with "I can't work out if your niceness is masking a patronising and flippant overtone, or if you are actually being pleasant. I will AGF and assume the latter." And the reader is expected to assume the assumption of good faith. SchroCat wrote above, "As to what is under scrutiny on this thread, it is not my approach, but a proposal as to whether Light show should be banned from editing on the Sellers page and talk page." Actually, no. The Light show ban is just a sub-section; the thread is about the behavior of SchroCat and Cassianto. (Note: all of this is without prejudice as to the outcome concerning Light show). Scolaire (talk) 19:47, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• That's all well and good if you ignore the fact that Norton was edit warring, breaking citations, introducing errors and cutting across cited material by trying to force a citation that didn't support the information he claimed it did. You can ignore the degradation of a quality article if you want, but I'm not sure it's the most sensible approach to article development, do you? – SchroCat (talk) 20:11, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• I think it's clear that some people, including Scolaire, would rather read a shite article which is littered with POV, mistakes, bad prose and dodgy referencing just so long as everyone who contributes are lovely to one another. This, it seems, is more favourable than reading a featured article and having to - although not needing to - read a few "rude and disparaging" comments from those who are protecting the article from slipping into the gutter. In an ideal world everybody would get on famously on featured talk pages, but this is not an ideal world. If it was, I would be shacked up with Jennifer Lawrence! Cassianto^talk 20:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you both for illustrating my point so well. I needn't say more; it would be just gilding the lily. Scolaire (talk) 07:05, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• How odd: there is nothing illustrated here, except the fact you did not look into the reasons behind the interaction properly, or you would have seen that Norton was warring and ignoring all requests to use the talk page; while he was warring he introduced errors. You still have not answered the question of how you think this is a sensible way to approach article development. - SchroCat (talk) 07:14, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: Wouldn't this be an issue to take to WP:DRN? Anyway, it would be good if Light show, and Cassianto and SchroCat, avoid talking to each other in regards to the article anywhere, not just on the article talk page. It may be that Light may have some useful comments, given the above exchanges, and that Cass's and Schro's comments, while justifiably angry because they've worked so hard to get this to Featured status, come out as too harsh. So, I'm not voting either way, but I think a topic ban doesn't resolve many problems if there are some useful suggestions, at least. In fact, an interaction ban would be more appropriate if considered. Epicgenius (talk) 20:37, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I've tried avoiding interacting with them as much as possible. My few recent comments on Sellers' talk were to other editors who had some suggestions. They were logical ones, so I naturally chimed in to help. I was speaking to the new editor, User:Wordreader, yet the team members came charging over the hill like a bolt of lightning, with swords out:

Troll elsewhere:your endless bitching and sniping is deep in the territory of tedium, and your toxic rumblings have done nothing positive to this article. . . .

Needless to say, that editor, who later wrote: I find the comments of SchroCat and Cassianto to be disparaging and rude, hasn't returned. And the following talk editor has also left for good. The team should simply be banned from ever interacting with me or discussing me, everything would go fine. I have no desire to talk with them again, ever since I realized I'd been conned:

Hi Wikiwatcher. I've finished my major overhaul of the "Personal life" section . . . I hope that you'll agree this is much more balanced than it was before, or I'll be starting shortly on updating various bits, but any thoughts or suggestions are always welcome! Cheers, or please let me know if you have any better ideas—this is just an initial suggestion! --Light show (talk) 21:37, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

If anyone wants any more examples of why this proposal has been made, Light show's most recent edit should provide enough reason of what people have had to put up with over the last two years:

You can be 100% certain that Blofeld knows exactly what he/they are again doing. The same as they successfully did to Sellers, ie. make it "incomprehensible", by making it unreadable. He/they quickly moved in with chain-saws and earth-movers to demolished 2,000, well-written, fully descriptive words of clear prose about his personal life. They turned it into a pile of rubble, as anyone can read here. The writing quality is enough to embarrass a twelve-year old. And that's probably the idea, IMO. The primary editor of that article had thanked me for improving the personal life material, after months of research and using numerous key sources. Blofeld is now beginning to demolish it like his team did to Sellers. I wonder what Kubrick and Sellers had in common? --20:21, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Enough is enough of this obsession with the Sellers article, with the constant sniping and complaining, and with continuing to spread this nonsense onto the Chaplin and Kubrick talk pages. DRN? I think we're way beyond that with Light show's approach. – SchroCat (talk) 20:40, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

So, no DRN then? Maybe an IBAN is better, as described above. Epicgenius (talk) 20:46, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

@SchroCat. Then maybe next time an editor goes to ANI about a general issue of uncivility, everywhere, you and your team don't hijack it into a proposal to ban that complainant from so much as talking on Peter Sellers. --Light show (talk) 20:51, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Most of what you say is wrong and a hinderance to the article, so maybe next time you will learn to think before you type. Cassianto^talk 21:03, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• For someone who claims never to be uncivil, you do an awful lot of uncivil accusations. There is no "team": there are individual editors who are making their own value judgements. As for something turning back on the complainant, it's called WP:PETARD, and it is the community that is discussing things here in an open forum! no "team" of anyone's. - SchroCat (talk) 20:59, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support It is not right or fair that editors who come here in good faith to work on this encyclopaedia should have to endure this sort of disruptive treatment, and for as long as as they have had to endure it. If individual editors cannot work on an article collegially then they should not be allowed to work on it at all. Jack1956 (talk) 21:09, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• I make 16 supports to 2 oppose a consensus to have Light show switched off on Sellers, Kubrick, Chaplin etc including talk pages. Are their any admins looking in who can close this pantomime now? Cassianto^talk 21:28, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

You refer to having User:Light show "switched off on Sellers, Kubrick, Chaplin". Are you gloating? Bus stop (talk) 00:49, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

If that makes you happy to call it that then yes. Cassianto^talk 04:29, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

You are referring to having "Light show switched off". Are you trivializing another editor? Bus stop (talk) 00:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Question about speed editing: How does an editor, ie. SchroCat, manage to make 19 fairly complex edits to Sellers over a 1-minute period, which is 3 seconds per edit? When I use the term "blitz," I mean it literally. The three editors in question have somehow managed that feat a number of times. Here's some of SchroCats earliest edits. This is a compilation of those 1-minute changes That miraculous feat was immediately followed by DrBlofeld, who could do about the same number of (not-minor) edits in 1 minute. Not to be left out Cassianto was nearly as fast, doing 13 in 1 minute. Should Cassianto take a speed-typing class to help keep up? --Light show (talk) 01:40, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• They look like good edits. If made quickly all the better. Chillum 01:56, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not getting your point Light show? Cassianto^talk 04:29, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• Much though I would like to be able to be that fast, the 17 (not 19) changes were over the course of an hour (16:11 to 17:11), not a minute. The same is true for Cassianto and Blofeld's edits. Whether a minute or an hour, I'm still not sure of either the problem, or the relevance here? - SchroCat (talk) 06:11, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

My mistake. I've been used to looking at my clock up top with the seconds on the right. The relevance was that with such rapid-fire editing by three editors, there's less ability for anyone to check things or make corrections. Looking back, with up to hundreds of edits a day, the article was totally changed without little chance for previous editors to comment, proof, check facts, or edit the prose. Your're right, whether it's 19 a minute or 19 edits an hour, makes little difference. This happened on Kubrick recently. My understanding of the guidelines was that incremental editing for such major changes was recommended to allow other editors to review or comment. That opportunity was mostly eliminated. When established primary editors wake up and there's 100's of edits to review, the consensus-based editing system fails.--Light show (talk) 07:11, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

The fact that it made featured article seems to indicate that the changes were good. It is good when an article is racially improved over a short period of time, we give out barnstars for that sort of thing. The history is always there so that you can take your time reviewing changes and always find old versions. And yes it makes a very big difference if it is hours or minutes. Chillum 07:14, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

As explained in an essay on tag teams, "it's a controversial form of meatpuppetry in which editors coordinate their actions to circumvent the normal process of consensus." Had the team acted in accord with consensus guidelines, this whole issue would not exist. A good early example of what kind of blitz editing led to this dispute. All very avoidable. --Light show (talk) 07:37, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

When people gang up to improve the encyclopedia it is a good thing. Chillum 07:49, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that's an essay, rather than a guideline, let alone a policy, there is no tag team here. Try to WP:AGF and think that perhaps very active editors are working on an article to re-write an essay. That's not tag-teaming or meat-puppetry: that is how articles can be re-developed. They can, of course drift for a few years with no-one attempting to do much, which explains the parlous state in whch the Sellers article was before the re-write. - SchroCat (talk) 08:03, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I had to rub my eyes: Try to WP:AGF. Was that meant as a joke? I couldn't count the times you boldly interjected yourself into talk pages, where I'm talking to another editor, to make comments such as in Chaplin:

More bad faith silliness from LightShow? What a surprise! He's always in a state of shock if someone doesn't cast a celebrity in a glowing light and gloss over everything in a private life! - SchroCat.

I have never accused you and the others of BF. And like your other ABFs, they usually have almost nothing to do with the context of the discussion, but are made simply to PA a GF editor. I can find dozens of times you and the others, who edit and comment exactly alike, have started your responses, to me and others, with the BF label. I've come to ignore them long ago. Sadly, as this ANI implies, so have your 16 supporters. --Light show (talk) 16:44, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh, no? Talk:Mike Todd ":No need to ABF by implying hidden agendas. My only agenda is to improve lead images that IMO need improving. That's why I didn't bother changing an image you chose for Red Skelton's lead, even though I also uploaded a different one last year. Yours was fine, even though it was much smaller. Lighten up." And the reply: Mike Todd talk page "If we're going to mix apples and oranges on Todd's talk page, let's set the facts straight re: your claim of not changing the infobox photo at Skelton: (add different image) (The original image is better in quality. Maybe a discussion should be started.) If the number of edits you've made to the Todd article and what they were are BF, then so be it." We hope (talk) 17:06, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

BTW, as I once tried to show, the article before your blitz re-write, went from a reader rating of 3.5 (very good) for "Readability" to 1, (incomprehensibe). And went from "neutral and balanced," to "heavily biased," according to the first 39 people who, amazingly, managed to read through it, and kindly took the time to give their objective opinions. It took me hours to remove the mud and battle scars when I returned after making that simple observation. --Light show (talk) 17:25, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Interestingly Drmies looked at your comment, and then at the article, and wrote of your behaviour that "These allegations, besides ridiculously untrue, are disruptive and I believe they are made in bad faith, a result of sour grapes." Just thought I'd remind you of that further example of WP:PETARD. - SchroCat (talk) 17:35, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Point being? You know that I asked him what "allegations" he was talking about, since I only noted reader's ratings, and neither they nor anyone responded. Although it was just another blatant, irrelevant, uncivil comment, so thanks for noting it. --Light show (talk) 18:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Errrmmm.... Drmies is an experienced and well-respected admin, so I'm not sure I would class their judgement on editor interaction as a "blatant, irrelevant, uncivil comment", to be honest! - SchroCat (talk) 18:30, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I assume you concur with Cassianto's latest expression of civility. De ja vu all over again. WP's pillars are being mocked. --Light show (talk) 20:50, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

...again, your point is? Your being your usual, disruptive best on the talk page. Like I say, as long as the edits are constructive, any editor can edit anywhere and at any time they like? It's how the encyclopaedia is built believe it or not. Cassianto^talk 20:56, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

It should be noted that Light Show has attacked Dr. Blofeld's changes that he has done over at Stanley Kubrick. (Here is Light Show's addition to the talk page today). He is calling Blofeld's 50-odd edits over a 4 month period (in brief bursts) as problematic rapid fire editing and a problem because Blofeld had never edited Kubrick's article before. Clearly part of this same battlefield mentality to try to get their way in the clear face of opposition, maintaining the battlefield mentality. --MASEM (t) 21:15, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

This is a better link to the full discussion, as it shows who creates the battlefield and how the pillar of civility is mocked. --Light show (talk) 22:00, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Considering this discussion has been open for 2-3 days now and a clear consensus seems to have emerged it would be nice if an uninvolved admin could close this. Chillum 07:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• I agree. Are there any uninvolved admins? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:54, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. I am no fan of Light show/Wikiwatcher's editing, particularly with regard to their very problematic uploads of nonfree images claimed as free. However, this free-fire zone fails basic tests. Blocks and similar sanctions are intended to be preventive, not punitive. A topic ban on an article the user has not edited for months should go nowhere, and the poorly defined/justified extension to other articles is procedurally incoherent. This is exactly the situation where a well-structured user RFC is called for, and would be useful; I would hope whichever admin closes this discussion would take no action here and direct the complainants to file such an RFC if they wish to proceed further. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 15:13, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• The ban should cover the talk page, which is where the main disruption occurs. Comments such as this on other pages (in this case the Kubrick talk page) are symptomatic of the approach of this editor to the Sellers article—and seemingly to article re-writes—not just on the Sellers talk page, but others too. Hopefully the closing admin will take this ongoing widespread disruption into account when closing. - SchroCat (talk) 15:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

BLP policy fanaticism by Hullaballoo Wolfowitz

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

---

This crosses several noticeboards (BLP and Edit Warring at least), hence why I'm posting this here. An issue has come to light by this particular User, but one that is repeated quite often on WP by others. That is using BLP policy as a blanket shield to revert endless times any content that they contest under the guise of protecting WP and/or the person the article is about. In this particular instance, the subject is not only upset over the perceived "gutting" of her article, but has since used her radio show and her Facebook page with over 10,000 followers to comment on this User and also to debase and degrade Wikipedia.

The specifics are as follows: Rebecca Bardoux, is a former adult film actress and currently an internet radio show host and a stand-up comedian. In July of last year, content began to be added (the expansion of a stub article) regarding her comedian work [2]. This went through various revisions, had references added, reworked, removed and re-added, but was left in the article until August of this year when the User in question removed it along with its cited reference [3]. It was subsequently re-added by several other Editors and then removed or reverted by this User [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] using various claims such as "unsourced" and then "sockpuppetry" and finally calling it "promotional".

Then the subject of the article noticed and commented publicly

It appears that new users where involved as well and my next point might explain why I believe this to be true. In the midst of this "BLP compliance allowed edit warring", the person who is the subject of this article took notice of what was happening to her article and she did not like it. She first commented on it on her Facebook page on August 27th [14](forgive me, I am unsure how to get that exact link, but its there now, just scroll down) and then again on her radio show on August 28th [15] at the 27:40 mark. The subject called for her listeners to go on this site and try to recover her article content which was seemingly attempted. Over these two days, Wikipedia was maligned in a variety of ways from being called unreliable to being "a bunch of bullshit" and calling Wikipedia Editors a "bunch of vigilantes". The subject even went to so far as to post Hullaballoo Wolfowitz' User name on her Facebook page. Others joined in and tried to update the article with additional sources, but this User just won't have it and continues to revert all of the material that has been recently added along with the associated references, see difs above.

The subject also mentioned on her radio show another adult film actress, Brittany Andrews, that she has similar problems with her article over several years. the other person also commented on the subjects Facebook page. The subject also questioned the legality of preventing accurate information from being posted on Wikipedia and speculated about what legal action would be required to prevent people from deleting accurate information about her.

Was this attention as damaging as this transpiring in a major newspaper or magazine, No, but my point is that a User who routinely uses BLP policy as a catch-all shield has not only obscured accurate information, but has caused damage to Wikipedia's reputation and the image of its editors. Regardless of your opinion of the subject or her profession, past or present, what this User is doing is making all of us look bad. For the record, I did notify this User of the consequences of his actions here.

I don't know what corrective action to request, because I don't know how this problem should be addressed. We have Editors who use BLP policy to run roughshod over any article about a living person as they see fit regardless of what happens in the real world and/or seemingly without regard for accurate information that even the subject themselves actually want posted. I have heard about similar instances, but this is the first time I have seen it actually transpire as well as hear in the subject's own words about what they think of how their article is managed by the Wikipedia community. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 16:35, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

The basic problem here is that PORNBIO is bullshit and these articles should be deleted, not edit warred over. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 16:40, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing your opinion, but this happens with all types of BLP articles. Another that comes to mind is for Robert Spitzer. This person has gone so far as to comment directly on their article's Talk page. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 17:08, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Those should probably mostly be deleted too. The reason we have all those restrictive BLP policies that screw up the articles' neutrality is our practice of writing BLP's against the subject's wishes. We should instead write them the same way we write other articles, but delete them if the subject asks us to. Anyway, yeah, it does look like HW is being POINTy and should back away. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 17:38, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, I can find no evidence of Hullaballoo Wolfowitz editing the Robert Spitzer (political scientist) article, or commenting on that article's talk page. Lightbreather (talk) 00:40, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

No, no, no, no, NO! That was NOT the intention or inference AT ALL. I was simply responding to the IP with an example of another BLP article where the subject had commented on their WP article. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 19:37, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

If we write only what the subject wants, we are not an encyclopedia. If we delete the article if the subject does not like it, we're no better than their PR shill. The policy of paying any attention to subject requests for deletion is a very dangerous one, and this and similar discussions have shown the dangers. (Yes, I oppose a broad interpretation current policy of doing it for non-famous by admin discretion--admin discretion at BLP is much too variable; the proper interpretation of our policy should permit it only in exceptional cases, where for one reason or another, it is not possible to write a fair article. (I have in fact closed a few AfDs as delete on that basis--my objection is to the overuse.0 DGG ( talk ) 02:42, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored. If a person is notable, we don't delete their article just because they don't like it. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:17, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• "Wikipedia was maligned in a variety of ways...being called unreliable" - well, that statement at least is correct. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:17, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• I think 50.0's main point is right, but his supporting argument is weak. If we had stronger notability standards, instead of standards that let us write articles on very marginally known people, then there would be far less problems with this sort of thing.

Notability should be a more or less iron clad answer to "Why do you have an article about me?" Achievement based SNGs are letting us write articles about people who, for some of them, Wikipedia is the only source of serious biographical coverage. That should not be the case. We should amend the GNG to require solid independent biographical coverage before we can write a biography, or amend all the achievement based SNGs to require biographical coverage (or just repeal all the achievement-based standards).

There are far too many cases of "notable work from non-notable people" that still merit an AfD-proof BLP under our current guidelines, which in turn often leads to marginal violations of our other core policies. Yes, the majority of the cases are benign, but this has become a systemic problem, a real flaw in our network of guidelines and policies that is slowly rotting our core mission. Gigs (talk) 16:34, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Reply

Simply put, this is a crock.

Scalhotrod has saying a lot of things that aren't true. For example, he says that "several other Editors" added content to the article. There's no reason to believe this. Beginning on August 28, three SPA accounts -- User:Inyourhead4ever, User: Mosmos69 and User:Spottytina have been tag-team editing Rebecca Bardoux to add promotional content to the article. None of these accounts have edited any other articles. There is no significant variation between their edits. It's more than fair to infer sockpuppetry from this behavior pattern; at best, it's coordinated promotional editing in an attempt to evade WP:BLP standards.

And HW still seems to be missing the main point. The subject that the article is about is aware of how its being edited, is unhappy about it, has commented publicly about it, AND asked for accurate information to be restored. And we know this via a statement by the subject, here 27:40 mark until the end. What is the point of having any BLP rules if we as Editors can't respect the REAL WORLD wishes of the person being written about? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 18:24, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

And so what? Exactly the same thing happened at Theodore Beale a short time ago (including the article subject teeing off on The Big Bad Wolfowitz off-wiki), and their "REAL WORLD wishes" weren't complied with because they weren't consistent with applicable policy. As DS quite properly noted on that article's talk page, even if the article subject wants something included, we generally don't include it unless it has "drawn significant independent external attention." That's basic RS 101, and there's no special pleading for porn performers in it. BTW, Ms. Bardoux also complains that there is no way for her to discuss the issues on-wiki, or to contact me on-wiki, which makes it pretty clear that she doesn't understand Wikipedia at all, making the idea of indulging her unhappiness even less appropriate. Perhaps you should be trying to educate her rather than inflicting groundless completes on the community here. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 20:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

First off, thank you for admitting openly that your strict adherence to your interpretation of policy is more important than the integrity of this encyclopedia even if it sacrifices content. So now we all understand that you simply don't fathom the 5th pillar of Wikipedia at all. As for Theodore Beale, I don't see DS's comment on that Talk page, but thank you again for admitting that you have done this before. Since you "edit" so many BLP articles, this is likely a pattern of POINTy behavior. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 15:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Promotional content

The content involved (which can be seen here [16]) is highly promotional and dreadfully sourced. Using the reference numbers on that page, we have:

• (ref 3) An AVN article describing Bardoux as a "performer-cum-comedienne" and describing the audience as "barely aware" of her efforts at comedy. This is the closest to a reliable, independent source to be found in the disputed material.
• (ref 4) Promotionally phrased text taken from a promotional biography on a vendor site hawking Bardoux videos. Neither reliable nor independent, and thoroughly unacceptable in a BLP.
• (ref 5) Promotional interview with the article subject, not independent, likely including kayfabe, not really supporting the claim in the article, and inconsistent with other interviews.
• (ref 6) Grossly promotional text taken from a promotional page on a vendor site hawking Bardoux videos. Neither reliable nor independent, and thoroughly unacceptable in a BLP.
• (ref 7) Promotionally phrased text taken from a blog post promoting an appearance by Bardoux on behalf of the blogger's business. Neither reliable nor independent.
• (ref 8) Promotional interview with the article subject, not independent, likely including kayfabe.
• (ref 9) Audio recording of article subject posted under her name to youtube. Not independent, at best.
• (ref 10) Press release hawking future appearances by article subject. Not independent, not reliable, and as a report of future events doesn't support the claim that the appearances actually took place. It's particularly curious that the linked pages for the specific appearances (eg, the "Refried Comedy" page for the gig involved) don't even list Bardoux as a performer.

Extensive copyvios

The same disputed content is laced with obvious cut-and-paste copyvios. For example:

• Paragraph 1, "She broke into hardcore in 1992's 'Brother Act,' and soon was one of the hardest working women in the business" is word-for-word identical to the second sentence in the second paragraph of [17].
• Paragraph 3, "She is best known for her anal scenes that are showcased in many of the over 200 titles in which she performed. One of her most memorable scenes was a threesome with Peter North and Sean Michaels in Sodomania 2" is word-for-word identical to the closing sentences of the first paragraph of [18], except that the original begins "Bardoux is best known".
• Paragraph 4, a lengthy paragraph making up roughly half the body of the article, is cut-and pasted without change from [19].

There are 15 sentences in the article. At least eight of them are cut-and pasted from PR sources, in direct violation of both our BLP and copyright policies.

Scalhotrod's accusations

For all his invective, there's nothing to them. It's important to notice that he makes no claim that any of my edits are not justified by policy. It's even more important to notice that he misrepresents the events involved. Claims about Bardoux's putative standup career have been added to the article without proper sourcing since at least the beginning of this year, and I am neither the only nor even the first to remove them. (I believe the first removal was almost exactly a year ago when an editor using the name "Rbardoux" tried to spamlink her youtube channel and was reverted by a bot.) After multiple attempts to plug her as a stand-up comic without reliable, third-party sourcing were rejected, Bardoux used her Facebook page and podcast to inveigh against Wikipedia and. I guess, The Big Bad Wolfowitz. And then the dispute he describes really broke out.

And, really, who cares? This happens all the time. I don't think a day goes by without an article subject being pissed off that they can't turn "their" Wikipedia article into an advertisement or a promotional soapbox. Their wishes are not indulged. Their off-wiki complaints aren't taken as proof they've been mistreated. There's absolutely no reason to give Ms. Bardoux special treatment here.

So what's the bottom line here? Scalhotrod has repeatedly reinstated obvious, substantial violations of BLP and copyright policies to the Rebecca Bardoux article without any substantive explanation, just his standard "Wolfowitz bad" edit summaries. Removing such violations isn't "fanaticism"; it's applying very basic BLP and copyright policies in a situation where there is no reasonable doubt about their application.

Either Scalhotrod's failure to understand WP:BLP principles is so profound that WP:CIR means he shouldn't be editing BLPs at all, or he hasn't brought this complaint in good faith. As the comments made by User:Spartaz and User:Lightbreather in response to his comments about me here just a few days ago[20] underscore, he applies different standards to those he disagrees with than to himself. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 22:15, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Of course HW, people that act like jerks, get treated like jerks, myself included. When I do something stupid, do I deserve to be scolded for it, of course. But the difference that I perceive between us is that I learn from my mistakes and make the effort to analyze, evolve, and modify my behavior. You... well, IMO you're kind of set in your ways and you're entitled to be that way, but the limits of WP:AGF shouldn't be tested (nor blindly invoked) every time someone wants to be a jerk. For example, Lightbreather and I have had our fair share of disagreements and as you've so keenly mentioned in various places, we've been subject to restrictions as a result. That said, I have learned such a ridiculous amount about the site's inner workings, processes, and procedures because of this interaction that I'll never be able to thank her enough. The most positive thing I have to say about our interactions is that the efforts (regardless of the intention) of yourself with regard to Porn related articles is that their collective quality is probably at an all-time high because so many have been inspired to research and cite sources that either were not cited or that were less than preferred. All we (the Editors who are OK with editing porn related articles) have to do is follow in your wake to see what needs fixing or improving. Thank you HW... --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 20:28, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment

Though I'm not going to actually debate the merits of this case, HW's outright dismissal of any critique is completely anticipated. I brought a similar issue to ANI recently and while nothing happened, I did notice that HW's edit summaries had a lot less BITE to them once I reported. HW's style to other editors tends to always start with a BITE and get worse from there. The only exception is when he's writing to an admin, during which he assumes an obsequious tone so as to not raise attention to his normal communication style. It has inspired an essay I'm working to describe the "Eddie Haskell editor style" where one behaves politely only when the parents are around. All that said, the one thing I will add is that anyone's opinion that some BIOs should be deleted is completely meaningless to this discussion. If he (or anyone else) believes they ought to be deleted, take them to AfD for consensus. Otherwise, keep your opinion to yourself, because that opinion clouds the real issue here - of whether or not the edits are correct. I'm very thankful that HW spends so much time on PORNBIO pages, as it causes our paths to cross less frequently, as I don't spend any time there at all. Whether HW is gaming the system with all the red-letter fanaticism or not is for someone else to decide. I just know he needs to back off the personal attacks. Vertium ^{When all is said} _{and done} 00:12, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment I looked at the content of the deleted material and I'm not seeing the problem with it. It could stand to be cleaned up for NPOV, but it is sourced. If the reliability of the sources is in question then maybe this should be brought to the RS noticeboard. In short, I see no BLP violations and the content is no more promotional than any information on any bio of a living person. It's impossible to write an article about a professional entertainer without talking about their careers and what they do... Kindzmarauli (talk) 15:41, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

• If you believe that "it's impossible to write an article about a professional entertainer" without using press releases and similar promotional material, you are profoundly mistaken. Just check out any of the hundreds of relevant biographies that have been declared featured articles. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 19:39, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Suggest this be closed

Aren't discussions about content disputes supposed to START on the article talk pages? Please read what I wrote[21] on this disputed article's talk page. I suggest this discussion be closed. Lightbreather (talk) 01:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Vertium raises some larger behavioral issues that might merit discussion here. That said, I don't particularly see this thread resulting in any useful outcome. Gigs (talk) 16:40, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Vertium appears to be another user with a grudge against HW and their comment is entirely diff free. That's character assassination not evidence. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:53, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Agreed this should be closed. This seems to boil down to a dispute about whether or not a source is reliable; that belongs at WP:RS/N. Other than that, there's a whole lot of 'he said, she said' but it boils down to whether or not AVN is a reliable source. Nothing to be sorted out here. GoldenRing (talk) 03:44, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Devi ever : fx

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

---

I'm having a bit of an issue with a slew of SPA IPs and accounts inserting what I consider to be incorrect and unacceptable material in this little article about a minor company. Further details are on Talk:Devi_ever_:_fx#.22Controversy.22, and I don't wish to repeat myself, but in brief, primary references represented keep getting reinserted into the article, and a manufactured "controversy" keeps getting put in our article, along with information about the former owner--information that, if not an outright BLP violation, is at least deeply problematic. I'd like for an admin or two to assess a. whether these are indeed BLP violations, b. whether the editor (who I believe to be the same as two IPs in the history, and see talk page) needs a warning or stern talking to, and c. whether perhaps the article needs some protection.

As a side note, perhaps editors can see if this shouldn't be nominated for deletion. I'm all for supporting small manufacturers of boutique stuff, but this one is really quite minor and the sourcing is, well, meager. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 18:09, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• Let me add, real brief, that I think there's a COI here as well--related to the company ownership, or perhaps to the botched Kickstarter campaign. Why else these comments on the former owner? Drmies (talk) 18:13, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
• In the meantime the new account has found the talk page, so the pressure is off a little bit. I'm still interested in opinions, of course. Drmies (talk) 19:08, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

The company comfortably fails WP:CORP, and a run-of-the-mill kickstarter controversy doesn't make it otherwise. It's neither our job to support small companies nor give a platform for unhappy kickstarter donors. We don't need to dissect which parts of this stuff belong in Wikipedia - none of it does. Off to AfD with it. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 20:06, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and nominated it for deletion: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Devi ever : fx. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 15:30, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Wikipediocracy doxxing

Wikipediocracy doxxed a couple users, including myself (though who I am is no secret) and a minor. REDACTED NAMES PER ADMIN REQUEST. I'm not sure if they're Wikipedia editors, but if they are, their actions are wholly unacceptable. Is there any way to find out if these folks are Wikipedia editors? If so, I'd like to see action taken against them. Titanium Dragon (talk) 20:51, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I do not believe that any of them are current Wikipedia users. The Wikipediocracy is an external website not under the jurisdiction of the Wikipedia in any manner. More often than not though, as in this situation, their editorial 100% nails it, IMO. Tarc (talk) 21:32, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, given that you've insulted everyone who was editing that article and trying to include information about the issue as misogynists, I'm not terribly surprised you agree with them. But your ill behavior is not at issue here. Titanium Dragon (talk) 21:35, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm terribly sorry that misogynists feel insulted. Tarc (talk) 23:17, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Interestingly, one other thing we have in common is that, unlike the other users involved in the editing of those pages, we both specifically warned @NorthBySouthBaranof: about his/her behavior. Not sure if it is related. Do you know who these people are, North? Titanium Dragon (talk) 21:35, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I would warn you about your behavior in attempting to smear living people on the encyclopedia, but that's already been done numerous times by administrators who have had to repeatedly revision-delete your scurrilous nonsense about Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian. Given your penchant for making unfounded accusations about them, I'm not surprised that you're making unfounded insinuations about me. The answer is no, by the way. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:39, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

That's a pretty serious allegation, or at least implication. You are understandably upset about what happened, but maybe step back and think about what you are saying, and reserve your anger for the four individuals at Wikipediocracy, one of whom is already indef blocked. Gamaliel (talk) 21:42, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't know (or care) who the other three are, but if any of them are still active editors here, I'd support blocks for them. The fact that we cannot regulate what happens at other websites does not mean that we have to put up with the consequences of those happenings, here. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:04, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm actually not upset, more... grimly amused? I mean, I've never been doxxed before. Its like a rite of passage! People really hate me! Rather than the casual hatred they reserved for me in the past. I suppose I am somewhat annoyed at them on the other user's behalf, because, well, I'm an adult and used to such people on the internet, but they're a potentially vulnerable minority minor who now has their picture posted for the world to see in conjunction with their user name and some other personal information which could potentially lead to identification in real life (as opposed to the Internet, though it becomes more and more real every day, I suppose). I apologize for the implication; I just noticed it off-handedly while browsing user talk pages of people who were involved, in case the folk in question were users who had been on the page. Some people list their real life names on their Wikipedia profiles, or link to where they work or whatever. I'm glad to hear you weren't involved, North; thanks for your input, and I'm sorry I came off as accusatory. I have noticed you have been more civil recently, and I appreciate that. Titanium Dragon (talk) 22:02, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

On this whole bit, since I am one of the individuals who was supposedly 'doxxed' in this article. It's not all that surprising that people--instead of wishing to conflate or actually dissent with actual arguments, have to refer to finding all the personal information about it. It's a bit weird of an obsession, honestly. I am a real person, you can talk to me, I'm not some robot being inputted some commands by some 'higher up' person, so why wouldn't they fight with an actual idea, a post on my talk page, 'Why did you do X' or 'Y' or 'Z' on this page, and get my real thoughts on it. Instead, they have to use bully tactics, doxxing me and posting information about me. That said, it's obviously more safe for me to not comment about the validity of the information posted, for my safety of course. Tutelary (talk) 22:18, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• No action can be taken here. Wikipedia cannot regulate offwiki attacks, per WP:NPA#Off-wiki attacks. KonveyorBelt 22:49, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• We can certainly block them here if they aren't already blocked, but unless someone is going to propose a specific on-wiki action, we should close this thread. Gamaliel (talk) 23:16, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Then I propose that we block the ones who aren't already blocked, and then close this thread. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:26, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

That was all the action I could really expect/hope for. Titanium Dragon (talk) 05:34, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't get the logic of people who do stuff like this. 72.89.93.110 (talk) 23:17, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

• Wow. People write My Little Pony fiction? Drmies (talk) 00:51, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Lots of them. FIMFiction has north of a billion (yes, with a b) words of pony fanfiction on it. Titanium Dragon (talk) 05:34, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• A link to some explanation of what the hell you all mean by "doxxing" would be helpful for those unfamiliar with this neologism. See Doxing. Otherwise we might assume it was related to "becoming a Doxy:" Floozy, prostitute, mistress. Edison (talk) 00:56, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Don't be such a luddite, Edison, with your old-fashioned "dictionary" full of dead, stupid words. Besides, you're wrong: a "doxy" is clearly a more economical version of User:Roxy the dog, with some metathesis or sumpin' thrown in for good measure. Drmies (talk) 01:06, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Isn't a doxy a little winged creature that Mrs. Weasley was cleaning out of Sirius' house? Btw, @Tryptofish:, you reverted my attempt to wrap this up nicely, so care to explain what you hope to accomplish by keeping this open? Tarc (talk) 01:48, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
      • I trust that is no longer a serious question. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
        • Why isn't it a serious question? What administrative action are you seeking here? Tarc (talk) 22:23, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
          • Well, it's obvious to me. Take a look at my 23:26 comment. If you wanted to wrap it up, I wonder why you have continued to comment afterwards, and in any case, you were more than a wee bit "involved". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:29, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• Hey, I resemble that remark. -Doxy the rog™ (resonate) 03:24, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• One of the editors involved in the GamerGate article dispute, Tarc, apparently commented this doxxing article in an edit summary when reverting one of the editors allegedly doxxed: "rv: Good for you to get together some editors who apparently squeezed a non-existent thing out of non-existent sources. It doesn't make t any more real, and it looks like outside eyes are finally getting in on this." I can't interpret that other than an endorsement or approval of the doxxing. Are these kind of shots at the editors mentioned in the article acceptable? --Pudeo' 03:52, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm pretty sure he's just talking about other editors looking at the article; people often refer to getting "other eyes" on stuff. Titanium Dragon (talk) 05:39, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Though it should be noted that Tarc deliberately said (On Wikipediocracy, with the same name) I had fun on Wikipediocracy for awhile pretending to be a black conservative. Can’t really say why or when it started, it just kind of came about during some discussion or other, that it’d be fun to be something else and argue as if that was important. So I rolled with it. “As a black man…” can be quite an argument-buster if wielded correctly.

We can smell our own; Tutelary is complexly, Grade-A full of shit.

As for the rest of the rabble at the Zoe Quinn and related articles, it’s a continuation of the original harassment she endured; the overlap of white, single 18-35 yr olds who are both gamers and Wikipedians is sizable. Since Tarc is a Wikipedia editor, can anything be done about this comment? Tutelary (talk) 10:28, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

How do you know that that wasn't someone who used Tarc's name to get him into trouble on Wikipedia? If we rely on Wikipediocracy comments to block Wikipedia users then Reddit comments are grounds for blocking as well. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 10:42, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I see that someone made a point about this by imposing as me on Wikipediocracy and commenting about my blocks, and even calling Drmies a 'nutjob' and such and complaining about an apparent 'feminist dominance' on here. This is growing to be quick harassment, only thing that's missing is the harassing phone calls. Tutelary (talk) 13:18, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that is a problem with the anonymous comment section of a blog; anyone can be anyone, identity is not provable. Perhaps this will be one of those proverbial "teachable moments", and going forward you will be less dismissive of the harassment endured by Quinn, Sarkeesian, et al... Tarc (talk) 15:37, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Nobody on Wikipedia is harassing people. Where do you draw the line between criticism and harassment? Because it's a problem if people are intimidated against calling out shitty/abusive behavior when they see it. 72.89.93.110 (talk) 17:38, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I call BS. Every intentional violation of BLP is an act of harassment, as far as I'm concerned. Ask around about what Qworty was doing: it was harassment. Drmies (talk) 18:37, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

... and Qworty's little game was exposed by Wikipediocracy and its so-called "doxxing," I remind everyone. Then Qworty acknowledged the accuracy of this on-wiki and only then was the community capable of doing anything. So-called doxxing has its place and Wikipediocracy doesn't engage in it either frequently or lightly. Carrite (talk) 14:20, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Evidence suggests, TD, that you were outed because you attracted attention by behaving badly in public and by leaving a trail which made it easy to tie your behavior, good or bad, into a single identity with a real-world name. That's your fault, and in the real world, pointing over at Wikipediocracy and bellowing "they outed me!" is either a sign that you don't really care that they did that, or an act of colossal stupidity. Either way, the revenge you seek here is a childishness which should be disregarded in favor of a consideration of your sins at the articles in question, where you apparently are pursuing some sort of vendetta. Mangoe (talk) 12:12, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Are you seriously blaming him for getting doxed? Tutelary (talk) 13:18, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Why, yes, I am. People who don't act like that don't motivate others to find out why they are acting that way, and those who are so promiscuous with their identity do not find such curiosity so easily satisfied. Mangoe (talk) 17:01, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

It's an interesting moral quandary, isn't it? On the one hand, WP:OUTING is strongly forbidden by site policy, and it causes people significant distress. Some "outings" appear to have served no greater purpose than satisfying the sadism or vindictiveness of some obsessive grudge-bearer. On the other hand, Wikipediocracy contributors have also successfully identified several cases of serious abuse of Wikipedia, where repellent behavior would have continued indefinitely if not for Wikipediocracy's "outing" (the cases I have in mind are those of Qworty (talk · contribs) and Little green rosetta (talk · contribs), although the latter seems to be active again now with an alternate account). We actually owe Wikipediocracy a debt of gratitude for calling attention to those cases, because these "outings" served a constructive purpose and likely reduced the real-life harm these individuals had caused. So... like most real-life ethical questions, it's not as black-and-white as one would like to believe. MastCell ^Talk 17:17, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

As someone who got doxxed for "behaving badly" by having opinions about BLPs, you can fuck right off with that. The real world is the real world, but doxxing isn't some proportionate punishment meted out for sins, real or imagined. It's cowardly bullshit designed to chill speech and heap scorn on people from afar. Protonk (talk) 19:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether this is a response to me (based on the indenting, I'm guessing it's not), but in any case I'd put your "outing" firmly in the category of "served no greater purpose than satisfying the sadism or vindictiveness of some obsessive grudge-bearer." I'm sorry if I implied otherwise. MastCell ^Talk 19:42, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

It was not directed at you. I was torn between just indenting for threading or pinging, but I figured it was less justifiable to "ping" someone and tell them to fuck off than it would be to just say it. Protonk (talk) 19:49, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

To respond to your comments that it isn't always black and white, that is true but in a really unpelasant way. To the person doing the doxxing, it's often completely black and white. Back in the day BLP apostasy was exactly that in the eyes of folks at WR and other places. BLPs were a struggle for the heart of the project and represented a real potential damage to humans based on anonymous work. We can look at them and say that this manichean view was unfounded, but they don't feel that way. The folks at Wikipediocracy are likewise concerned over sexism and harassment getting "justified" in the encyclopedia. Their concern "looks" better to us (after all, the gamer gate stuff is disgusting, but that's a story for another time), so we might be more inclined to view the outing as a necessary journalistic evil. But I don't think we need to dig too far into the piece to see that characterization as strained. The run down on TD from that article is basically "look at this fucking loser", which is par for the course with outing articles. Protonk (talk) 19:58, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

It's disappointing that nothing besides a lot of talk is going to come of this, but "The real world is the real world, but doxxing isn't some proportionate punishment meted out for sins, real or imagined. It's cowardly bullshit designed to chill speech and heap scorn on people from afar." I couldn't put it any better than that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:24, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Given that none of you are meant to be speechifying in relation to BLPs, either in articles or talkpages, then chilling of such speech would seem to be a good thing and in accordance with this site's principles. John lilburne (talk) 23:02, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@John lilburne: I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? Protonk (talk) 23:12, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLPN is that-a-way. Doxxing people is not the way to correct BLP problems. In fact, the spirit of WP:BLP is that living persons should be treated with respect, and even Wikipedia editors are living persons. meta:Privacy is another of this site's principles. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:17, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

When it comes to BLPs no one should be engaging in any form of agenda pushing. The talk page of Quinn is an object lesson in agenda pushing, attempts to get inappropriate sources accepted, character assassination, and wearisome arguing. Such speech has, according to the rules, no place here. If no one here will get the house in order and freeze it out don't complain when outside forces do the job for you all. John lilburne (talk) 23:37, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@John lilburne: I was outed for being an admin and having the "wrong" opinion on wikipedia BLP policy and expressing that opinion in RfCs and on project talk pages. Not discussing subjects or whatever else. My point above was about the entirely bullshit notion that getting doxxed by some random person with an axe to grind is karmic punishment for "bad" behavior. If it is, it is only so accidentally. The main function is to make the outed person look small and feel vulnerable. Protonk (talk) 23:43, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Well like most anything n the world, it isn't simply black or simply white; "doxxing" itself isn't an inherently evil act. It sounds like your situation was done to you out of vengefulness and spite, which isn't cool at all, and I sympathize if you were doing something good here. There are other situations, e.g. Qworty, where the revelation of an editor's identity was a good thing, as it unmasked some rather nefarious deeds. The right to privacy here isn't quite the same as a right to anonymity. Tarc (talk) 23:51, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

>Well like most anything n the world, it isn't simply black or simply white; "doxxing" itself isn't an inherently evil act.

It kind of is. If you have a specific criticism on someone, make that criticism. But doxxing is dumping a huge amount of info for the purposes of humiliation or intimidation. 72.89.93.110 (talk) 00:25, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

No, it kind of isn't. Per my example above, Qworty was rightly shamed and driven from the project. That was about a textbook example of "good doxxing" as one can find. Tarc (talk) 01:00, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what Qworty was, but if he was being criticized for a specific set of behaviors that's not doxxing. 72.89.93.110 (talk) 20:12, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Given that it is my contention that anyone editing BLP content ought not to be anonymous, that at the very least they should have there contact details held on file by the WMF I'm hardly going to be sympathetic about the doxxing of an admin. Sometimes it might be karmic punishment, sometimes revenge, sometimes simply for the LOLZ, it makes no difference. People put controversial things online under their own name all the time without any ill consequences. You deal with any harassment as it happens and the WMF should protect those that are targeted, but having the RL identity of a WP administrator or participant in BLPs isn't harrassment. You are relying on security by obscurity, that is really the wrong way of doing it. Al most all of you can be doxxed by a determined set of people. John lilburne (talk) 09:12, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

@Mangoe:: The real concern with it is A) it is against the rules, B) chilling effects, and C) that they doxxed someone else who, according to them, was underaged and (possibly) transgendered. As I noted, I don't actually care that they doxxed me in the abstract, but if they were Wikipedia users who were engaging in conversation with me on the article (they weren't) and they wrote an outside hit piece on me, that would obviously be an issue, no? Especially if they were willing to do it against people who, you know, did care. The allegations in the article were false in any event; indeed, it was noted that several of the revdels were done in error, because they were, in fact, sourced and thus probably weren't necessary. A couple of them were probably necessary, but they were not done maliciously, and we discussed it on the talk page. The rest of their accusations were... what, exactly? That I was fat and jealous of Zoe Quinn, despite not even working on video game development? Given that the discussions can be seen over on the talk pages for Zoe Quinn and GamerGate, you should really look there to see whether they're, well, just plain old wrong. As they are. They're angry more or less because their POV is that it is all sexist misogyny; they are fanatics. The reality is that the reliable sources paint a much more complicated picture, with claims of misogyny being only one side of the story - the other side being that it is about something else. Actually, it is really about five or six different stories at this point, because the reality is that more or less Zoe Quinn was the ignition point for a lot of pre-existing conflicts in the gaming community, regarding corruption, nepotism, misogyny, the so-called "social justice warriors", insulting gamers, general toxicity of the community, and several other things. It is kind of stupid. But, well, I edit stuff about current events sometimes. It just so happens that this is a particularly dumb one which ended up becoming huge thanks to early attempts at censorship causing the Streisand Effect. At this point, it is being noted by the Taiwanese press as being worrisome because they're afraid that if people don't make nice by the holiday season, it might negatively affect console sales because people will see the nastiness and choose not to buy consoles (whose components are sourced in Taiwan), and instead buy tablets (which are mostly made in China). All this, over a dumb fight on the internet. Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:21, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I just read the Wikipediocracy blog piece that gave rise to this ANI thread. I'm no fan of insults to women's dignity, and I think that a lot of what is in the piece does a positive service (as indeed many of the blog pieces there do, in my opinion, because anything as big as Wikipedia can do with some skeptical watching). However, I think a useful thought experiment is to read the piece while mentally deleting all of the actual naming of editors. Go ahead, say someone is such-and-such years old, and they previously claimed to be such-and-such a gender, and so forth – but just leave out the personally identifying information. In terms of investigative journalism, the beneficial effect would have been exactly the same. But the addition of actually identifying private individuals (I wonder if someone could sue Wikipediocracy for defamation?) just makes it look like 4chan. Maybe the people at Wikipediocracy think that they are big impressive defenders of integrity who put Wikipedia's house in order, but to me the naming just makes them look like a couple of teenage bullies. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:16, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

This whole conversation almost makes me glad I didn't know better than to use my real name when registered 8 years ago, instead of User:MsSmartyPants or something appropriate. Of course it also makes me wonder what to do when such information is revealed and an editor is being disruptive or POV pushing to the max. I guess nothing, except some how or other let them know that you know? Hmmmmm... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 12:08, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Pudeo?

Um, regarding this edit, which some unknown "Pudeo" decided to harp on...you have it wrong. "outside eyes are finally getting in on this" referred to other Wikipedians who had never been a part of older discussions at 2014 Isla Vista killings, not anyone off-site. It has nothing to do with "doxxing", and doesn't even have a connection to the Gamergate stuff we're talking about here. Tarc (talk) 12:28, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

OK. Titanium Dragon already corrected me on that. And heh, don't be so confused if "unknown" editors comment here - that's the reason why issues are posted to ANI in the first place. --Pudeo' 14:30, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

A question

If such an issue reveals that a Wikipedia user, through looking at their contributions to an external site, has a conflict of interest or other viewpoint that makes them incompatible with editing certain Wikipedia articles, is that sufficient reason to take action here? I'm not entirely sure if this has occurred before, but I'm sure it probably has. Black Kite (talk) 18:21, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

you're not sure but you're sure? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:24, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Well spotted. Typing at the same time as being harassed by daughter#1 to help with her Maths homework. Black Kite (talk) 18:43, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to ping/link and dredge up old drama, but yea, a year or so ago, Arbcom banned a user for edits made to Encyclopedia Dramatica regarding another Wikipedian. BTW, file an ANI on your kid for harassment, they'll send her to bed without supper. (in case there'a any confusion, yes, that is a joke) Tarc (talk) 19:40, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

In 2011, a user was indef blocked for canvassing on the men's rights site antimisandry.com and for using WP:Socks. The SPI was inconclusive but the off-wiki canvassing was too obvious to ignore. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 20:04, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Much as this sort of thing makes me uncomfortable, if the allegations that certain editors are pursuing an agenda against a BLP subject are true (I haven't evaluated the allegations beyond skimming the WO blog post), then I would say we most certainly should take action here. Most of us are here to build a neutral reference work. We get very hot under the collar about "paid editing" or "paid advocacy" but the corporate spammers are usually quite easy to spot and block. It seems to me that we should get much hotter under the collar about subtle, insidious campaigning which undermines our values of neutrality, especially when it is directed at subjects who are real people whose lives and personal and professional reputations could be affected by a slanted Wikipedia article. Or do we have to wait for another Seigenthaler incident and a knee-jerk reaction to adverse publicity? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:27, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

While that sounds wonderful, if we really go after all the subtle, insidious campaigning which undermines our values of neutrality in addition to the more obvious examples then there will be few editors left to contribute to this site.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:04, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

It would be a start to restrict BLP editing to editors who have demonstrated that they can edit biographies responsibly. (This could be a separate user right.) As it is, Wikipedia is throwing BLPs to the vultures to pick and fight over. Andreas JN466 03:24, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Can we take a binding vote on this right now? Also, could WP administrators please start enforcing the WP:NPOV policy? In my eight years here I don't think I've ever seen ad admin step up and openly enforce that policy. Cla68 (talk) 05:23, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Andreas, could that BLP user right be proposed somewhere? We could extend it to all BLPs (though it would stop mistakes from being fixed, including by the subject), or use it as a new layer of protection for any BLP deemed problematic. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 13:36, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Found your proposal on the mailing list, March 2011. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:04, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

This is an excellent idea. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:44, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

An intriguing idea. How does someone demonstrate that they can edit biographies responsibly when they're not allowed to edit them until they've demonstrated it? GoldenRing (talk) 06:12, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Submission of responsibly written and appropriately sourced biographies through AfC, for example, or solid research contributions to BLP talk pages. Andreas JN466 12:57, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, it still smells a lot like the established BLP club marking their turf. How is this consistent with the third pillar? GoldenRing (talk) 00:56, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

It's not about marking turf; it's about making use of the flexibility demanded by the fifth pillar in order not to have fucked-up biographies that make a mockery of the second pillar and aren't consistent with anything in the Foundation's charitable mission. Andreas JN466 06:09, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

You can get in trouble for your behavior off-site, and I think that's absolutely okay. And if you admit to being paid or whatever to edit articles, or otherwise engaging in behavior against the rules, using off-site posting as evidence is perfectly acceptable. That being said, we should not be barring people from articles simply because they have some sort of point of view; editors are allowed to have points of view. You have points of view, I have points of view, we all have points of view. That's fine. What is a problem is when it affects Wikipedia. The reality is that the people most likely to edit articles are people who are most interested in them, which is going to inevitably and invariably mean that they have a point of view on them. The problem comes when they're unable to act as responsible editors of Wikipedia. As long as they are WP:CIVIL, maintain a WP:NPOV in the articles (remember, editors can have points of view, but articles cannot), and otherwise behave within the rules, there's no reason to ban them. In any case, it would benefit people for making false aliases for the sole purpose of editing Wikipedia to make it impossible to trace back their opinions and thus result in such bans, which is highly undesirable - having traceability is both useful and worthwhile. Frankly, if you conduct yourself poorly on Wikipedia and you have an obvious point of view, we can deal with it easily enough - and indeed, more easily than if we institute such a thing.

It also would encourage people to write attack pieces like this if they were "rewarded" by getting revenge on people they didn't like, which would be extremely bad. You don't want to encourage negative behavior.

The fact that Tarc commented on that article approvingly, for instance, should not be grounds for banning him from editing those articles - but repeatedly calling people misogynists on the talk page and elsewhere would warrant action, because at that point, he'd be breaking actual rules (namely, against civility on Wikipedia). I don't care if he is pro-social justice, and neither should anyone else; the problem comes when it results in edit wars, incivility, excessive POV pushing, ect. which are all actions on Wikipedia.

We have rules against outing people and suchlike for a reason, and we definitely should not encourage people to do so. Titanium Dragon (talk) 05:57, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

When editors actively push an agenda that could reasonably be construed as misogynistic, in tone or intent, said editors do not get to hide behind civility shields, I'm afraid. Tarc (talk) 12:22, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Regardless of anyone's agenda, WP:CIVIL is one of the Five Pillars and those who violate it are violating policy, I'm afraid. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 15:01, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

What if an editor admits to hacking into others computers? I'd be wary opening links posted by an editor like that, I think it puts other Wikipedia editors at risk --81.129.126.66 (talk) 15:40, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

If someone is admitting to engaging in illegal activity, at that point the police should be involved and I would recommend contacting the police/FBI/whatever agency is relevant in whatever country the user is from. People who post malicious/harmful links on Wikipedia tend to get banned rather quickly; reporting such incidents to admins is very important. Incidentally, if you are referring to the user who I think you're referring to with this, you can relax; the person who claims to be a hacker who uses the same username on various messageboards started using it back in 2007, while the Wikipedia user used a different handle until 2014, and they aren't the same gender; they're almost certainly different people, especially given the Wikipedia user's supposed age. A lot of people happen to have the same usernames on the internet; I may be the most prominent Titanium Dragon, for instance, but Titanium-Dragon (with the hyphen) on tumblr is not me, and there is a WoW clan which uses my name which I am unrelated to, having never even played the game. I've actually spoken to several folks who use my name over the years, making jokes with them about who the real one was. Titanium Dragon (talk) 19:28, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Your name consists of two common words, however. When someone's shared handle consists of a non-English word and exactly the same 3-digit number, and they have clearly the same interests (right down to individual people) on more than one website, then I can think we can pretty much assume they're the same person. Not to mention there has been further links posted off-wiki, which I won't repeat but are 100% convincing. Black Kite (talk) 19:31, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

You're sure of that? [22] --81.129.126.66 (talk) 21:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

A new game and a suggestion

Anyone want to guess who User:PseudoSomething is? Black Kite (talk) 18:17, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

• Yeah, I know it's not difficult. Can I suggest, apart from the full protection and RD2 that is covering those four articles now, we simply indef any "new" editor who heads straight for those articles and starts with the misogynistic crap. There's only two possible reasons for it; they're a sock of another editor, or they're a meatpuppet. In neither case do I see that we're losing anything here. Black Kite (talk) 18:26, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Who am I supposed to be? Honestly? This is the first time I have ever made an account on Wikipedia. That is why I haven't even tried to touch the edit button on an article. I am trying to speak on behalf of the GG side because of a lot of the crap that has been said about us. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PseudoSomething (talk • contribs) 18:36, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, of course. Familiarity with Wikipedia (i.e. linking, indenting, reliable sources) whilst claiming you don't really know how it works, and then heading straight for another editor with the same criticisms as other accounts. Oh, and a user page that says "I'm New". Please don't take us to be stupid people. Black Kite (talk) 18:44, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I still have no idea who you think I am. I link to things because you kinda need proof behind it. I indent because I see everyone else doing it, and you add 1 : on each time you want to post under someone. Its just formatting, and every site has different formatting. Why should I post if I am going to fuck up the formatting of a ton of other people? I said my say to Tarc because he was pushing a biased POV and North (I think that is their name), because of my concerns. I put "I am New" in my user profile because I thought you needed to have that made for you to have a talk page, in case anyone needed to post something on there. Your calling me out for studying the formatting of the site before posting, for linking proof behind what I say, and for something I made to try to make sure I am within the confides of communications. PseudoSomething (talk) 18:49, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Just another sock/meatpuppet arrived to try to ram the "angry gamer POV" into the articles in question, showing up with an instant familiarity with both the Wikipedia and who's who in discussions that precede his alleged "new" arrival. WP:RBI and keep an eye out for the next one. Tarc (talk) 19:05, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

So far, yall have called me a misogynist, a sockpuppet/meatpuppet (I dont even know what the hell a meat pupper is), have said my learning the protocols of Wikipedia before posting were bad, I havent even edited an article and didn't plan on it, and your trying to silence me. Wikipedia can do IP's right? Since you would only find this account on my home IP. Is this how all Wikipedia users are, or just a minority? I would think a minority, because the admin on the GamerGate page actually talked to me last night (or was it the night before), and listened to my say on things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PseudoSomething (talk • contribs) 19:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Meatpuppet: (noun). A person or persons canvassed offsite in an attempt to sway consensus in the meatpuppeteer's favor. Etymology: a sockpuppet made of meat. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 19:39, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

What, you knew what all these things about Wikipedia were straight away (to which we can add "pushing a biased POV" and a clear knowledge of Checkuser), but you didn't know what a meatpuppet was? That's poor research. Black Kite (talk) 19:13, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I knew what a biased POV is because I talked about biased POV when others try to explain about GamerGate without providing the right info. Its a Point of View that is biased. What is wrong with that? PseudoSomething (talk) 19:16, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I will note that while PS's contributions are likely from the push from outside WP to try to balance the article (eg a bit of meatpuppetry), they have not tried to edit war , haven't put BLP in the talk page, and are provided some food for thought when the article gets unlocked, which I'm happy to listen to and consider. Yes, some of the behavior is consistent with socks but without other evidence and signs of disruption, we can't do much either. --MASEM (t) 19:38, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for helping Masem, I felt incredibly alarmed when this happened and didn't know what to do, honestly. I am trying to see how I can help balance the article, and I didn't even want to edit the article because of me being on the other side. So thank you for helping, it kinda calmed my nerves on this whole thing. PseudoSomething (talk) 20:16, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Holy shit guys, this is the reason why Wikipedia becomes a closed garden of old boys and can't get new editors. Am I now supposed to roll my eyes every time the Wikipedia Signpost complains that new editor statistics are going the wrong way? The moment someone new comes along to a controversial topic that's obviously making internet headlines, people are quick to jump on them, use disparaging epithets like "angry gamer" (thanks Tarc), and accuse them of being the neckbeard nazis. Assume good faith, you have no idea whether or not they are a genuine editor or an agenda troll; if they really are new, lead them to the right path (you guys were once newcomers to Wikipedia as well, stop pretending you guys were born with the knowledge of how Wikipedia works), and if they really are trolls, then give them enough rope to let them hang themselves. What I'm seeing here is sickening. --benlisquare_T•C•E 19:44, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, AGF only goes so far. When a brand new editor comes to a - let's face it - in the scheme of things fairly obscure article, displays obvious knowledge of Wikipedia, and takes up a theme of righting great wrongs exactly where another editor hsas left it - to the point of attacking exactly the same people for exactly the same things - then you have to say, either this is the same person, or there is meatpuppetry going on. There is AGF, and then there is naivete. Black Kite (talk) 20:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Don't call me naïve, and don't spin the situation to make it look like what people here are doing is completely justified. The #GamerGate hashtag was the top trending tag on Twitter for a significant period of time, until it was dwarfed by the #Destiny hashtag for a day (albeit still remaining active, and still has been ever since Adam Baldwin started the trend). Everyone interested in videogames and their dog knows about GamerGate, it's hardly a niche topic. For a scandal of proportions like this, it's a no brainer that people with opinions will come to Wikipedia, create new accounts, and make posts on the talk page about their opinions on the matter. People are using the boogeyman tactic because it's a convenient one. AGF is your responsibility, as a member of this community. --benlisquare_T•C•E 09:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

And those people will immediately pick one of the other contributing editors out (who hasn't actually contributed since their account was created) and start attacking them in exactly the same way as previous accounts, will they? OK then, that's clearly a total coincidence. Silly me. Black Kite (talk) 17:29, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you benlisquare. I really came to try to have the voice of the other side heard because it was a controversial issue, but I didn't even think of editing the article because I am on the other side of the topic. I felt extremely alarmed and kinda felt like crap since I was being told I was a misogynist, sock puppet, and meat puppet days after I created an account, the mocking from them didn't help either. I gonna do my best to get up on the WP guidelines though and see what I can do. Thank you. PseudoSomething (talk) 20:14, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

FYI, between the actual doxxing, and the reporting of said doxxing, there might be a bunch of newbies on the article. So try not to WP:BITE the newbies. They're very likely to perceive it as censorship/harassment, seeing as that is the mentality they're likely coming from. If they don't understand stuff, be gentle. Dunno about this particular user, but people should try to be nice in general. Incidentally, the idea of the point of view and the neutral point of view being important are actually fairly well understood by many random folks on the internet who are completely unrelated to Wikipedia; they teach about it in school in the US. Indeed, one of the reasons that many of the gamers are so upset is precisely because they feel that many articles written by the gaming press do not adopt a neutral point of view. Just an FYI; familiarity with the NPOV is hardly surprising amongst this bunch. We may also see an influx of SJW types, who should be treated the same way as we treat the gamers. Titanium Dragon (talk) 19:39, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Titanium. I actually came before the doxxing, but wanted to make my voice heard about the other side, I didn't even think of editing the article. Your right though, Bias was just easily seen, and it was happening in the article. I didn't even want to edit it because I have bias on the other spectrum. I just wanted to provide the counter point of view.PseudoSomething (talk) 20:12, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I propose we site-ban Tutelary, Titanium Dragon and anyone else trying to smear the defamation of Quinn over this encyclopedia. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:36, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Add PseudoSomething to that list. I've just read through Talk:GamerGate. How much more time of genuine encyclopedia-builders is going to be consumed by these POV-pushers? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I propose that you stop proposing site bans for people who have committed the crime of commenting on a talk page. —Xezbeth (talk) 13:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You say that like I propose site bans all the time. I'm pretty sure it's the second time in 8 years I've ever made such a proposal. And I'm proposing they be banned because they're here trying to defame one of our BLP subjects. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I'd oppose such draconian bans. You're essentially silencing anyone who wishes to question the current state of the article, under the guise of "defamation". Exactly what defaming posts have these people made on the talk page? Above, there have been allegations by Black Kite that these users spew, quote, "misogynistic crap". Where exactly is this misogynistic crap on the talk page? I don't see it. I haven't seen any hate speech against women at all by these individuals; sure, they may have opinions that differ from other people, but that is not misogyny. I'd like to see you directly address and explain exactly what part of these editors' posts are so defamatory. --benlisquare_T•C•E 14:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Not their defamation, the defamation and invasion of privacy that is the the root of this piece of misogynistic shit. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:13, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"misogynistic shit" - again, you're throwing buzzwords at me, instead of explaining your position properly. What words have these editors said that justify a ban? Where have women been attacked? These editors are here because they believe that the page is imbalanced, and are trying to tell their personal opinions on the matter. Discussion is the core aspect of any constructive negotiation, you need to understand what they think while they need to understand what you think. Conveniently silencing them instead of addressing their points and refuting them is one of the most underhanded things you can do. Picture this: You are debating with an Armenian genocide denialist. Would you rather have a rational discussion with him, addressing each others' points, or would you prefer that he screams "AMERICAN IMPERIALIST DOG! TURKISH HISTORY NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" at you over and over again? Because that is exactly what's going on here. --benlisquare_T•C•E 14:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

There is zero problem if the editors have a clear agenda, one that if they spelled it out, would be completely against BLP, but their behavior on wiki is all within the lines of BLP and they are not being disruptive or the like. If they are trying to back up what they think personally with claims from usable RS that support part of what they think and avoid delving into FRINGE, what is wrong with that? So far, save for a few IPs that were dealth with quickly, while I can easily read who is on what side and point out things we have to be careful with, there's no statements on the talk page against BLP, nor anyone being disruptive. AGF has to apply unless there's clearer evidence of a problem. --MASEM (t) 14:36, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You mean like restoring BLP violations on the Anita Sarkeesian page and IP gossip at Talk:Zoe Quinn or adding hearsay about the suicide of Amanda Todd or defending statements like this one about Amanda Filipacchi? I'm not sure if you consider the Journal of New Male Studies for Michael Kimmel's BLP or the ex-boyfriend's blog for Zoe Quinn's BLP "usable" sources, but Tutelary doesn't consider the sources unusable in those BLP contexts just because they're biased. Or how about the Men's Rights Agency? And that's not taking the information about the editor into consideration that would get me accused of "outing" them. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 17:54, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• I support a siteban for Tutelary per NOTHERE (in fact I was hoping the thread above would produce a consensus as to whether the off-wiki evidence can be used to justify a block). At most, I'd support a page/topic ban for Titanium Dragon because he seems to have an interest n contribution to Wikipedia beyond their slightly unhealthy fixation on this topic (though asking them to walk away voluntarily might have the same effect). I'm inclined to AGF (for now) on PseudoSomething (unless somebody wants to present more evidence), and I suggest we semi-protect all the pages (including talk pages) involved until this nonsense dies down an that admins closely monitor them and be prepared to sanction any editor who does not conduct themselves appropriately on those pages. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:16, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Talk pages should never be semi-protected if the mainspace article is protected. A good faith IP editor wants to fix a spelling error, but can't use {{edit semi-protected}}. What then? Wikipedia is supposed to be the free encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to, not your secret club of elite brothers. The administrative team is more than capable enough in dealing with troublemakers should they pop their heads out of the woodwork, blocking drive-by IP offenders who post any BLP-violating material on the relevant pages should be effective enough. --benlisquare_T•C•E 14:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• My secret club of elite brothers? If I was running a secret club of elite brothers, I'd have one of my secret elite brothers secretly and elitely remove you from the secret, elite club and secretly and elitely oversight that comment so that I could secretly and elitely get my way. Oh, and they'd go to WP:RFED to ask a member of the secret club of elite brothers to secretly and elitely make the edit for them. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:04, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Looking at both Tutelary's and Titanium Dragon's long-term edit history, they are not at all limited to this topic and especially in the case of Titanium Dragon I can't see he has even edited this topic before. Calling that an "unhealthy fixation" is simply false and incivil. I might add that one editor, who was in the other POV camp than Tutelary, did almost 500 edits related to Zoe Quinn/GamerGate in a few days. You're not calling him NOTHERE and fixated because...? It is also a bit nasty that doxxing is not taken with due seriousness and the thread is tried to turn into a boomerang just because you seem to personally disagree with their position in a content dispute. Get a grip, HJ Mitchell. --Pudeo' 15:37, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• What makes you think I gave a flying fuck about anyone's position in a content dispute? Editors should conduct themselves properly, both with regard to other editors and with regard to the subjects of articles, and if they don't, I have no qualms about sanctioning them. Oh, and in the case of Tutelary, pretending to be somebody else so you can push your POV is despicable and (in my opinion) ample grounds for a siteban. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:46, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• I have -not- impersonated anyone else, my name is Danielle and I am a woman, and you referring to me by male pronouns is especially offensive given that the only institution to express that view is Wikipediocracy, the institution which doxed me. Please don't do it again. Oh, and how is expressing a different opinion 'POV pushing'? Do you have any on-site proof of this at all? Period? Tutelary (talk) 15:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Where have I referred to you using male pronouns? If I have, it was unintentional—I try to make a point of using gender-neutral pronouns except where I know somebody has a preference. As to "on-site proof", that is precisely the point of this discussion, isn't it? If there was sufficient on-wiki evidence, you'd be indef'd right now; we're currently discussing whether the off-wiki evidence is sufficient presents grounds to ban you. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Taking into account benlinsquare's sage advice, I'll now support the very wise HJ Mitchell's more modest suggestion (minus the talk page semi-protection, per benlinsquare, again). --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You're going to support site banning me? If anything other than doxxing me and harassing me, what did the Wikipediocracy state? They looked into where I edited the most. That's -nothing- in support of a sanction. I'm sure that a good amount of people have tons of edits to Barrack Obama's article, yet unless there is any problems with those edits, they should absolutely not be sanctioned for merely being active on those pages. Expressing a different opinion than other editors on an article/talk page is also not a crime that is punishable by death. Obvious oppose by me. Tutelary (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Is that you posting on the hacking forum? What is the risk that you might hack other editors here and steal their bank details in that case? --109.148.125.244 (talk) 16:06, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Tutelary

• Given the extremely convincing evidence posted elsewhere, Tutelary needs, at the very least, a topic ban from any BLP. Frankly a site ban would be easier, but this is a minimum. I do not see an urgent issue with Titanium Dragon at this moment - they have moved away from the problems which led to their previous edits being rev-deleted. If you respond to this with a Support, please identify your preferred sanction. Thanks. Black Kite (talk) 17:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

What is the 'extremely convincing evidence' which you seem to have not posted? There needs to be extremely convincing evidence to justify sanctions against me, and I have not seen a single argument presented or a single set of diffs that I am disruptive in any way shape or form. There needs to be -evidence- and there is an extreme lack there of to justify sanctions. Obvious oppose. Tutelary (talk) 18:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support BLP ban with urging to edit somewhere less controversial. KonveyorBelt 17:41, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support siteban/indefinite block (as above). If and only if that's not possible, I'd support a BLP ban, though it's woefully inadequate. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose What an awesome bandwagon. Something that is posted "elsewhere" but is not linked to from here cannot be used as justification here. --Kyohyi (talk) 18:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose insufficient evidence, has a very short block log (one short block that was good-faith unblocked). Just because someone has edited BLP articles and some of that information has been removed on BLP grounds (you know many living persons are controversial, right?) there's no reason and even so there is no pattern here. It is also disturbing that somehow this ANI thread (that wasn't even started by Tutelary) has become an absurd boomerang with no protection for those who were the targets of the doxxing, even using the doxxing article alleged information for borderline-harrassment. Exactly what related to GamerGate would warrant the topic here? How is this vote related to this ANI thread? --Pudeo' 19:15, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support site ban. Knowing full well that this will probably only mean they'll be back with another account tomorrow. (Will support BLP topic ban if and only if site ban does not pass.) Andreas JN466 19:54, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• What evidence or implications there are that this user has been involved in sockpuppeting or would do so? --Pudeo' 20:10, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support - Anything to pry one of the misogynist warriors away from the battleground is a good move, as this user is clearly here to see that their anti-Quinn/Sarkeesian, etc... point-of-view is represented in their respective WP:BLP]]s. Tarc (talk) 20:06, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

  "One of the misogynist warriors"? You have been already asked to remain civil in this ANI thread by Titanium Dragon and by Drmies but now you have moved into direct personal attacks. Perhaps it's you who needs a cooldown. --Pudeo' 20:43, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support. I personally find the off-wiki evidence intriguing but ultimately circumstantial. That being said, Tutelary's on-wiki behavior has been unacceptable, as mentioned by User:Sonicyouth86 above. With defamatory edits like this and even taking someone to ANI for removing similar edits, she clearly shouldn't be editing BLP articles. And her pushing of unreliable sources shows she probably shouldn't be editing at all. Woodroar (talk) 21:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Your first diff was posted by an IP, not by me and the ANI was to make sure that the administrator was within his right to remove the section, and I closed it myself because it ultimately was. I don't see how that is ultimately disruptive to the project and deserving an indefinite BLP topic ban. Tutelary (talk) 21:10, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Defamatory material was removed on BLP grounds and you chose to restore it, which is no different from adding it yourself. That you had to take it to ANI rather than read WP:BLP is disruption to the project. Woodroar (talk) 21:20, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

This is rather weak. Coming to ANI for clarification and accepting the decision should not be considered disruption. If it were, any administrative action review which gets upheld would be considered disruption and would lead to sanctions for the person bringing up the review. --Kyohyi (talk) 21:23, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

ANI shouldn't be a "is this really policy?" Get Out of Jail Free card, though it often works as a final reminder for editors willing to change. That ANI was in July. Restoring the defamatory material was in August. This is now a recurring issue. Woodroar (talk) 22:53, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Strongly Opposed. WP:HARASS 72.89.93.110 (talk) 21:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support site ban for the reasons stated here. I think that a minimum of trust is required for interactions among editors and I don't know how the community is supposed to react when Tutelary edits particular BLPs and articles about websites like Reddit or when they write about what they – as a woman – were able to "shrug off". Feigning collective ignorance can't be the desired solution. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 21:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support per HJMitchell. I'd prefer an indef block/site ban but in the very least a BLP ban for Tutelary needs to brought into effect--Cailil ^talk 21:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose The evidence brought here seems to be about good faith disagreements mostly. No evidence is presented of actual editing of articles in an inappropriate fashion. Just say no to lynch mobs.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:04, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
• Question. I want to ask for the exact evidence for this proposal. There are editors whose judgment I respect who are supporting here, and I have no use for people who intentionally defame BLP subjects or edit in a misogynistic manner, so I am not (yet) arguing against the proposal. But, somewhat per the subsection just below, I'm unclear as to the reasons. First of all, I oppose enacting any sanctions on the basis of "evidence" posted elsewhere. If Wikipediocracy presents evidence of disruption on Wikipedia, please show the diffs here. Beyond that, it seems to me that editors are citing diffs presented by Sonicyouth86, including: [23], which does strike me as containing some BLP violation, but it's the only diff like that that I've seen so far, and by itself it isn't enough for sanctions. The other links provided go either to edits where I don't see a problem (but I might be missing something), or to discussions where I might disagree with Tutelary, but I do not see evidence of working against consensus, just of expressing dissenting opinions. This is a real question, and again, I haven't prejudged this, but I'd like the editors who support bans to provide the exact evidence. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:21, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

It is likely there are many more, but they have been revdeled. KonveyorBelt 22:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

That's a good point, but please at least point to edit histories where that has happened. If I were to see a whole bunch of edits by Tutelary that were revdeled, I'd AGF that the revdels were appropriate, and that would be evidence that would convince me. But the statement that it is "likely" needs to be backed up. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:31, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

The page history of Talk:Zoe Quinn, for example, from 11:05, August 23, 2014‎ to 12:18, August 23, 2014‎ was revdeled. KonveyorBelt 22:46, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I have just examined the entire edit histories of Zoe Quinn and Talk:Zoe Quinn, from the creation of the page up to the present. There are depressingly many revdeled edits by other editors, which makes me wonder why we aren't looking at some of them (and of course I cannot know about anything that was suppressed/oversighted). On the page, zero of the many revdeled edits were by Tutelary. On the talk page, three of the many revdeled edits were by Tutelary, and in all three cases, the revdeled sequence begins with an edit by someone else, so I cannot see whether Tutelary's edits worsened the situation or not; in one case, I see Tutelary reverting Mr. Stradivarius, so that might have been restoring objectionable material, but I do not know that for sure. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

It occurs to me that I ought to ask: Mr. Stradivarius, what do you recollect about that revdeled edit? --Tryptofish (talk) 01:29, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

@Tryptofish: It was a proposed section for the article entitled "Scandal", five paragraphs long, written by Titanium Dragon. It was mostly well sourced and mostly neutral, but, in my opinion, some of the key phrases about Quinn were not neutral, and some of the sources used were not reliable. I thought that the problems were enough that it should be removed from the talk page. It was not so problematic that I would consider it as a base for any sanctions proposed here, though. I did think that removing it would be seen as being heavy-handed - and I was right - but I thought that it should be removed anyway. The edit itself was revdelled, not oversighted, so I can still access it. I can email it to you so that you can look at it yourself, if you like. (I see that you haven't set email in your preferences, but if you email me, I can email you back with the section.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:48, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

That was about Titanium Dragon's suggestions, which were based on some reliable sources, though some were questioned. He just did not provide the sources in the initial suggestion and so the section got removed.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can tell there was an incident that was about someone other than Tutelary where Tutelary just happened to be caught in the middle. The only other instance seems to have been a rapid Huggle reverting of unexplained blanking by an IP on a non-BLP article where the blanking did have a legitimate BLP basis, albeit not explained. Nothing I have seen suggests the kind of editing warranting such severe sanctions. I actually see one instance of Tutelary reverting alleged BLP violations on Quinn's page. None of this suggests a strong case for sanctions.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support siteban. Tutelary joined the gender gap task force, then sought to represent a woman's perspective in discussions on various pages (invariably posting against women's interests – e.g. "Fellow female editor here ... People here are getting mad that a woman's breast is depicted and I'm not sure why." [24]), while posting misogynist material offwiki. (This can be deduced from his contributions history and early account name.) If a white editor were to join a group on WP aimed at increasing racial diversity, maintain he was black himself, act disruptively around BLPs about black people, and post racism elsewhere, he'd be site-banned. (But if a siteban doesn't go through, then I support a BLP topic ban.) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• We don't ban people for telling a few off-color jokes on Reddit.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I find the comment at Jimbo's talkpage offensive, myself. Here are all the edits made by Tutelary at the task force: [25]. I've gone through every one of them, and I don't see problems there, although there seems to be a lot of objecting to closing of discussion threads. I think we have to be careful about basing bans on posts supposedly made at other websites. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support topic ban per the evidence given, to be fair here a topic ban is not forever if the editor in question can win back the trust of the community over time then I see no reason why it couldn't be lifted in the future. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:16, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
• About that evidence, what I see so far is [26] and [27]. Is there anything else? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:31, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Before the ANI, there was pushing to include gossip at Talk:Suicide of Amanda Todd. And before that, it was the statement that it's only a BLP violation if it happens on the BLP page. Woodroar (talk) 00:11, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I've done a lot of editing at "Suicide of..." pages. I looked at the Amanda Todd talk page, and although I do see some indication of edit warring, it looks to me like what you call gossip was based on some British news sources saying that the cause of death was hanging, and there was a content dispute about whether the page should include the possible cause of death, or leave it out. And the diff about BLP violation does not actually say what you attribute to it, and seems to me to be more nuanced than that. Again, I still have an open mind, and I am interested in whether I'm simply missing something. And based on the Zoe Quinn page history, I wonder why we aren't looking at sanctions against other editors, because there sure were a lot of revdeled edits there. But each time I ask for evidence, and only get weak stuff like this, I become increasingly concerned that the evidence is pretty thin. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:17, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - Per the Private Manning precedent, if this user wants to identify as a woman named "Danielle," then this editor is a woman named Danielle, QED — at least that's the majority view of the nature of gender according to participants in that debate. Not my own perspective of gender but hey, majority: As ye sow, etc. As for the specifics of this incident, based on a diff cited above from the Zoe Quinn talk page, I favor a very narrow ban of this user from the Zoe Quinn biography. The call for a site ban by SlimVirgin above seems a gross overreaction — straight to the death penalty. Carrite (talk) 01:13, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I said this above, and had an edit conflict, but I'll repeat it here: And based on the Zoe Quinn page history, I wonder why we aren't looking at sanctions against other editors, because there sure were a lot of revdeled edits there. Really, there's another editor whose name came up earlier in this ANI thread, who has had a lot of edits revdeled at the Zoe Quinn page. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:22, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

As far as I know, the rev-del was done because the statements about the controversy on talk were not directly sourced, even though numerous sources existed to back the statements. So, if that is the case, then I don't think any action is really warranted.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:33, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose- basically, per Tryptofish. Those clamoring for a ban have simply not provided any evidence that this is necessary, despite several requests. I think the grounds for a ban are very flimsy, and appear to be based on a personal dislike for Tutelary and their political opinions rather than any actual misbehaviour, and I oppose at this time. Reyk _YO! 01:28, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support' topic ban for Tutelary, Titanium Dragon, Puedo. Most of the time on this page we have a problem with people who are alleged to be good content creators but cannot be civil or collaborative. Here we have editors who, at least in their dealings with me, have been respectful and civil but are unable to create content within the bounds of the rules of Wikipedia. Editors on this talk page have advocated edits that run counter to fundamental rules of the encyclopedia like RS and BLP. They have challenged first-rate sources like The New Yorker and Time using arguments that amount to conspiracy theories based on Tweets while advocating the use of poor sources, blogs, and forum posts. While, to their credit, they have expressed a desire to conform to our rules, an article involving a vulnerable target of harassment and the focus of intense media attention is too important and sensitive to serve as a learning space for editors struggling to grasp our basic policies. It is a mistake to frame this in a legalistic way, as a "conviction" for bad behavior where editors produce or challenge the "evidence" of their "crime" This is just a way of saying "you aren't ready for this article yet, please edit something else while you get the hang of how things work." Gamaliel (talk) 01:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

In the edit history for Zoe Quinn, Tutelary has made a lot of edits, and none of them has been revdeled (I'm not talking about the talk page here). Titanium Dragon has also made a lot of edits, and over and over, they do get revdeled. Puedo has not edited the page. I'm still trying to fully understand this, but it seems to me that Titanium Dragon has been the problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:11, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I think I may have confused Puedo with someone else. Striking until I have time to review the relevant articles fully. You should also look at GamerGate and related articles. Gamaliel (talk) 05:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

What Trytofish said is true, I haven't edited either the talk or article pages of Zoe Quinn/GamerGate at all. I have been commenting things related to feminism/MRM, but very rarely done actual article space edits. To be honest, you probably just support bans for editors whose point-of-view you disagree with. I think it's evident from some of the other support-votes too. --Pudeo' 12:55, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I apologize for mistakenly including you, but one mistaken, unsupported allegation does not justify you making another evidence-free claim. You should step away from this issue if you cannot refrain from making broad, unsupported claims about the motives of numerous other editors. WP:AGF, please. Gamaliel (talk) 14:50, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support site ban. Claiming to be a woman while posting misogynist comments. [28] Edit warring to restore inappropriate misogynist image. [29] then joining gender gap group. —Neotarf (talk) 01:52, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Cleavage is not misogynistic and . . . wasn't the whole discussion about the image? Seems like it was put there by a critic literally illustrating the problem with a ridiculously tactless decision by a Signpost writer.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:01, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• I do not know if this person identifies as trans-sexual so it is best to be careful here, if they don't though which the editor in question gave no indication in this case then I understand why it would cause others to be upset. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:01, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

About those two diffs, [30] does not seem to be a problem to me, but [31] does. For me, that makes a third problematic diff. And I've already pointed out that there does not really seem to be a problem at the gender gap page – although I am starting to think that there may be an issue with talk page reverts. Perhaps there should be an editing restriction against reverting in talk space, other than self-reverts. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:17, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

The person who started the thread on Jimbo's talk and posted the image did it to criticize the usage of the image here. I don't think that is a serious problem.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 03:17, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

You don't, TDA? At this point, I deeply regret supporting your bid for Arbcom. I won't make that mistake again. —Neotarf (talk) 05:15, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

You are suggesting a site ban because someone restored an image of boobs in a discussion that was about said image of boobs and claiming the image of boobs was misogynistic. I find that more silly than serious.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 05:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

You should read that whole thread, TDA, there's a lot more to it. But of course we won't be able to discourage women from joining the project by just posting a link to a disputed thumbnail image. In order to convince them that Wikipedia is just a bunch of predatory neckbeards who want to interact with them with only one hand on the keyboard, you have to actually re-post the image at a larger size, on a talk page with 3,169 page watchers, and make locker room comments about it. And above all, just keep arguing and reverting, after the image has been removed multiple times by multiple editors. —Neotarf (talk) 16:22, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose So we can't out anyone here but if someone else does the dirty work we'll take it at face value and ban people on the say-so of someone who has a blog about wikipedia. Why not just hand the editors over there the mop? If you want to ban someone do it on the merits, not some low rent horseshit from some random website. Protonk (talk) 02:36, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually the administrators over there have been handing in their mops lately, interpret that as you will. Carrite (talk) 04:54, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support BLP ban only. At an article I was helping help build, Tutelary removed well-sourced content. In my experience, that is one of the clearest indicators of activist editing (please take note of this, administrators, so you can start enforcing the WP:NPOV policy). However, when I opined on the talk page that I thought the section was fine, Tutelary ceased objecting to it. So, I think it's ok for her to continue editing the topics she takes an interest in, EXCEPT for BLPs, because with BLPs there is just no room for activist editing. People's lives are at stake. Cla68 (talk) 05:09, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose Tutelary does have a problem on talk pages with NPOV can affect her interpretation of sources. That said, I've not seen anything bad faith and I've not seen an active agenda pushing on mainspace. A short BLP topic ban may let her cool her boots but I think a civil explanation of what she's doing wrong, why its wrong and how to do it right would go a lot further to solving the problem. SPACKlick (talk) 08:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support With the additions they made to Zoe and Anitas pages, plus Tutelarys support of The Fappening articles, I find it hard to believe that this person respects the women whose articles they edit. I would suggest a BLP ban, or at the very least, one for the articles for women, as this editor seems to have no desire to break WP:BLP for articles with male subjects --109.148.125.223 (talk) 11:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - Hardly any evidence, people are often wrong in BLP, they happen to add just anything. I would just hope that this proposal would enforce Tutelary to learn some more. Bladesmulti (talk) 14:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

It should be noted

That the people voting for 'support' have -not- substantiated their claims of my apparently disruptive behavior nor other allegations. Yet they keep mentioning it as if something -did- happen. Yes, I got doxxed, and I got a less than pleasant response, some of the people commenting here on this very noticeboard even implicating that I deserved it. The apparent 'disruptive' behavior (along with gross doxxing) was pointed out at Wikipediocracy...with exactly no diffs at all. The only thing that came close was the link to my user activity, which cites that my highly edited pages are evidence of 'dispruptive' editing. Again, there are no diffs or other on site evidence that points to such. Additionally, the people commenting here have not substantiated their claims either, indeed, Black Kite even stated Given the extremely convincing evidence posted elsewhere which implies that he/she knows there's no onsite proof that I've been disruptive. Tutelary (talk) 20:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Don't be disingenuous. You'd be whining even harder if somebody posted the evidence on the wiki, and then we'd have to oversight it all and waste even more of everyone's time. If I was in your position right now, I'd go and write a beautiful, properly sourced, neutral article that had absolutely nothing to do with Zoe Quinn/GamerGate to prove that I could be trusted to edit in keeping with the values of this project. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

But that's not what's happening here. You !voted to support the topic BLP ban without a single shred of a diff or evidence on wiki that I've been disruptive. Are you basing your !vote on Wikipediocracy's post where they freakin' doxxed me? And I really wish I could, my heart has been on pace for a couple days now and my blood pressure has spiked, I've been crying and getting emotional as of late and it's plainly obvious that it's Wikipedia that's causing it; even exacerbated by you attributing my concerns to just 'whining', and probably a violation of WP:CIVIL. Tutelary (talk) 21:06, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps this should be a lesson learned; do not wage campaigns against BLP subjects via a pseudonymous Wikipedia account, or else external forces may act to strip that pseudonymity away. Tarc (talk) 22:03, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You've been exposed, elsewhere, for the liar and misogynist that you are. You just don't belong here. Sorry if that doesn't fit neatly enough into the wikirules for you. As for: "Uh, it is all explained offwiki. What happens offwiki stays offwiki." No. Not in Qworty's case. Not in yours. Why don't you just try to preserve a shred of dignity and go away. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:24, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

It would be hilarious were it not so embarrassing that we're entertaining a ban proposal on the basis of evidence which, if placed on wiki, would be oversighted away. Can someone just remove the fig leaf and post the article here? Otherwise I'm forced to ask (as a good citizen) what evidence do we have that Tutelary has misrepresented their identity? Obvious you know what the evidence is and I know what the evidence is, but how on earth am I to take a ban proposal seriously where posting the incipient piece of evidence would lead me to have my contributions oversighted or my account blocked? Protonk (talk) 13:10, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, that is a shortcoming in the Wikipedia bureaucracy...similar to how identifying conflict-of-interest editors can rub against outing concerns...but one that shouldn't prevent the project from doing the right thing if need be. "I can't link it here, therefore I cannot consider it" is hardly a compelling defense. Tarc (talk) 13:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

It just makes the whole thing asinine. To be clear, I think someone should cowboy up and actually link the piece so we're not just salaciously suggesting that editors google correctly to find a blog that most of the participants in the discussion have already read. And I think the nature of the topic can lead us to forget just how fucking malicious the article actually is. Read the Excrement will happen section and tell me that's anything besides shitting on someone for not leading an appropriate public life. Questions about Tutelary aside (and I think there's an unfortunate parallel to the specious claims from assholes about how "Gamergate is just about journalistic integrity" to our claim that we're all just so worried that Tutelary passed as a woman), there's no defence for that shit. None. And we shouldn't be supporting it here. That's not some bureaucratic inconvenience, it's an expectation that you should be able to write articles on wikipedia anonymously or pseudonymously without some shitheel telling everyone your name, location and how much you like MLP fan fiction. As I mentioned above, I was outed because like TD I wasn't careful with the use of "protonk" between disparate forums and because WR didn't like my opinions about the BLP policy. We can reassure ourselves that there's a stronger "journalistic" imperative at work than merely pissing off some person with time on their hands and an axe to grind about wikipedia, but we're not making a strong case for that by laundering those claims in service of a site ban. Protonk (talk) 14:02, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

First, anyone that knows how to search on the interwebs can find the pages in question. One would think in order to be a prolific Wikipedia editor, searching the internet is 2nd nature. Second, we should have a policy based on cases like this, and the many that have came before it. Trolling or pretending to be someone you're not is not new on the webs. BBS boards and Usenet were/are full of that sort crap. Editors should ask themselves if they want that type of behavior to become prolific on this project, without any consequences, because of some circular reasoning about rules. Lastly, of course the editor should be topic banned at the very least, and probably site banned. I would like to see better rules on this project in dealing with this type of situation, no matter who the editor is. But until we do, I guess ad hoc reasoning and common sense should overrule circular reasoning and being forced to look the other way because of ....tongue in cheek pointing to rules. We aren't stupid, are we? Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 14:21, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but the thing is, I think the notion of "writing articles on wikipedia anonymously or pseudonymously" is getting to be a bit of an outmoded ideal. For a lot of years that has shield a lot of nefarious deeds in this project. Let's put it this way; if a journalist at a reliable source pens a piece on GamerGate or Zoe Quinn or Anna Sarkeesian, that piece has a byline. An actual person has attached an actual identity to their words, and if there is something factually wrong or controversial or anything, Quinn et al can at least point to that journalist and say "hey, that's not right" and offer a rebuttal to a living, identifiable person. What recourse does Zoe Quinn have when someone known only as "Tutelary" accuses her of infidelity and ethics violations? Or "Titanium Dragon", whose contributions to the Quinn article were so egregious that dozens of his edits had to be oversighted. IMO, people like these two speak as they do about others because they do so under a fake name, just a handle on an internet forum. Strip that away, and have them post something that can be traced back to them personally, by name, just like any media journalist, and you may find that they will choose their words with a bit more care. I'm sorry that you yourself got doxxed by the old WR, but that crew, while there is some overlap with WO, was a very different and very nasty beast that attacked people they simply didn't like. WO is more of a vigilante, an Oliver Queen of the Wiki-sphere. The "Excrement" sub-section was a bit of a low-blow, but y'know, when adults are obsessed with tv shows written for 10yr-old girls, I really don't have a lot of sympathy. Being a teased Brony isn't a civil rights issue. Tarc (talk) 14:44, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

About using information from other sites: there have been precedents with the Arbcom I believe, with the Phil Sandifer situation, and with the Ironholds and Keifer Wolfowitz case, that off-wiki evidence could be considered in Arbcom cases, but anything with identifying information had to be presented by email. I also seem to remember some kind of policy, which I can't seem to find at the moment, that prohibits posting something that can damage someone's computer. If someone is claiming off-wiki that they are posing as a woman in order to convince users to download something that will introduce a trojan virus into their computer in order to get access to any porn images they may have stored in their cellphones, at the very least, someone should examine that individual's contributions to see if they are safe to leave up. —Neotarf (talk) 17:07, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

While several people supporting the ban have posted diffs I do think they should have been presented when the ban was proposed. One of the key features of evidence is that it should be evident. Chillum Need help? Type {{ping|Chillum}} 03:42, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

There are a few diffs here and here. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:30, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

One of the key features of a ban proposal is that people who are likely to be interested should be notified. Has the gender gap project been notified? I believe Tutelary and Titanium Dragon have both paid them a visit. What about the other talk pages where they have been editing? ——Neotarf (talk) 05:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Notified Gender Gap project. --GRuban (talk) 16:13, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Wdford on Talk:Historicity of Jesus

I'm asking for help with Wdford (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), at Talk:Historicity of Jesus. While there is some sniping back and forth, I think we can get around that. What I can't abide is being called a troll. I have asked him to take his trolling accusations to my user talk page, and he's not done so -- he's just continued on the article talk page.

I am not asking for any sanctions against Wdford. I'm only asking for administrator intervention, to prevent the situation from getting worse. Fearofreprisal (talk) 01:14, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• I just reviewed Talk:Historicity of Jesus#RfC? and while you are correct that people should not call each other trolls, nevertheless it would be accurate to describe your contributions there as indistinguishable from trolling. It's way-over-the-top for me to complain about that single section—the problem is the overall hammering of the issue with no discernible attempt to engage in reaching a conclusion. Fundamentally you are correct that "The scope of the Historicity of Jesus article should be the Historicity of Jesus", but you need to say that in a way that has a hope of furthering the discussion. Johnuniq (talk) 02:18, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

In other words, you just called me a troll. Nice. Here's a suggestion: Instead of calling me a troll, try telling me exactly what I'm doing that's "troll-like" (since I can't read your mind.)

You say no discernable attempt to engage in reaching a conclusion? You want me to say things in a way that has a hope of furthering the discussion? Great. Here are some links to discussions I've started: [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39]. Feel free to review these, and tell me where I've *not* attempted to engage in reaching a conclusion, or said things in a way that doesn't further discussion?

Oh, and are you going to address the issue I actually came for? Fearofreprisal (talk) 03:26, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

For those who came in late, the article in question has been subjected to a long-winded struggle over (a) what exactly the subject of the article is, and (b) whether various high profile people in the field (e.g. Bart Ehrman) can be disregarded when they state that the majority opinion is that there was a real Jesus, whatever else could be said about him. FoR's participation in this has been frustrating to a lot of people, and it times (in my opinion) has employed a style of arguing which could be interpreted as deliberately obstructive. Wdford's outbursts are a measure of his frustration at this; he of course should stop, but the FoR and the various detractors of the previous state of the article need to cut to the chase and not bury the talk page. Mangoe (talk) 12:58, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, this incident is a fine example of how ANI is screwed up. I came here with a simple, distinct and clear cut problem, looking for help to work it out. The two admins who have responded so far have done more to complicate the issue than to clarify it. (Here's a video of a group of WP Admins discussing an ANI incident: [40])

This ANI issue is very simple. All you need do to resolve it is say this simple statement to Wdford: "An editor must not accuse another of misbehavior without evidence, especially when the accusations are repeated or severe. If accusations must be made, they should be raised, with evidence, on the user-talk page of the editor they concern or in the appropriate forums." If that's too much, you can just point Wdford to WP:ASPERSIONS, where it says just that. Do that simple thing, and the incident is closed. Fearofreprisal (talk) 19:11, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

FYI no admins have responded, just myself and Mangoe. Reacting to the most recent inappropriate comment on a talk page is rarely useful—some consideration of the underlying issue is required, and that's what my first comment addressed. Please do not use article talk pages to frustrate other editors with very civil but unhelpful commentary. Johnuniq (talk) 23:52, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I see. I'd come here looking for administrator help, and you decided to pop in and call me a troll? Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:14, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

The problem here, as well as on the article talk page, is that you are engaging in a battle rather than engaging with the underlying issues. Use of very civil language does not change that fact. Johnuniq (talk) 03:03, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

What underlying issues are you speaking of (here and on the article talk page)? Fearofreprisal (talk) 04:02, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

See my first comment including "you need to say that in a way that has a hope of furthering the discussion". I have tried to dip into the talk page a couple of times to see what the fuss is about, but it's too hard to work out (or I've missed the place where someone has stated the issue without editorial commentary). For example, I have no idea what it is that you want from that page. Johnuniq (talk) 04:13, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I'll note, FoR, that when you open an ANI thread, there is nothing that says anyone must stick to the original request only. Your behavior becomes subject to scrutiny and review just as much as those you are reporting; there's a reason WP:BOOMERANG exists. (Indeed, it's virtually a rule of thumb that the more an ANI poster tries to say 'stay on topic, why are you paying attention to me', the more likely it is that there's a reason they don't want their behavior scrutinized). - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 04:47, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

ANI is not a service desk where you come to get other users warned/blocked/banned; it's a place where incidents are looked into and people try to sort them out, inasmuch as admin tools can help to do so. GoldenRing (talk) 05:15, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:Noticeboards#Administration says that ANI is "for reporting incidents requiring immediate attention by administrators."

GoldenRing, I have looked on WP:List of administrators, and you are apparently not an administrator. Nor are Johnuniq, or Mangoe. Not to be impolite, but since I made it very clear that I was looking for administrator help, why are you involving yourself? You have no knowledge of the Historicity of Jesus page (including it's long existing problems.) You have no authority or responsibility to deal with the issue I've reported. And your comment here was neither particularly enlightening, nor did it help bring this incident any closer to a resolution.

Bushranger: I came here to report an incident and get help from an administrator. Thankfully, you are actually an administrator.

If you want to examine my conduct, feel free. I've made 51 edits to the article, and 191 posts on the talk page. The archives containing my talk page posts comprise 138,000 words - which happens to be the same number of words as in the New Testament. If you'd like, I'll post a notice on the talk pages of a dozen or so other users who might have complaints about me, and invite them here. I'd actually like to hear what they have to say. But when we get all done with that, possibly we can get back to the reason I am here:

• Here's the incident link: [41]. Just look for the word “troll.”
• Here's my complaint: I asked Wdford to take his trolling accusations to my talk page. He called my request “more trolling.” I've had previous problems with him, including false narratives, policy misuse, and incivility, but am only addressing this last incident here.
• Wdford is a very experienced editor, who is well aware of WP policies and guidelines. He is always careful to stop short of blockable or sanctionable behaviour.
• Wdford does not respond well to polite warnings or reminders of WP policies or guidelines unless they come from someone he respects. e.g., an administrator.
• The action I am requesting is a reminder to Wdford, from an administrator, that he should not accuse another of misbehavior without evidence... and if accusations must be made, they should be raised, with evidence, on the user-talk page of the editor they concern or in the appropriate forums. Just as WP:ASPERSIONS says.
• Finally, if you want to examine the question of whether I was actually trolling or not, I'd suggest asking Wdford, as he's the one that accused me of it (whatever he meant.) Fearofreprisal (talk) 08:43, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Fine, but do you agree that if you participate in a discussion that you will engage with the issues raised in a manner that has a hope of furthering the discussion? For example, at Talk:Historicity of Jesus#RfC, your first comment is "What is my preferred definition? Please do tell me, I'm interested to know." and that kind of comment serves only to derail discussion and ensure that everyone is on edge and ready to argue over anything except the text in the article. Wdford then suggested "...you would state your preferred definition openly, and allow it to be debated...". Your reply was an in-your-face and unhelpful mini-rant. After that, Wdford responds "This was not a good faith suggestion for improving the article, this was the contribution of a troll." What Wdford said was perfectly correct. Collaboration requires more than avoiding naughty words. Johnuniq (talk) 10:05, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Johnuniq - You're asking "do you agree that if you participate in a discussion that you will engage with the issues raised in a manner that has a hope of furthering the discussion?" That's a "have you stopped beating your wife yet" question, and I'm not going to dignify it with an answer. My contributions stand on their own.

I'm not going to create a wall of text here, just to answer your accusations. If any administrators want me to provide a detailed response to what you've presented, I will. But otherwise, either raise actual violations of WP:Policy, along with real evidence, or please drop it. Fearofreprisal (talk) 11:58, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

• • Well, I 'involved' myself because I was trying to help. Specifically, to help you understand how ANI works and that harping on the pernicious behaviour of another editor is a good way to get your own behaviour looked at closely. If you are not interested in my advice then you are very welcome to ignore it. It was offered in a generous spirit and I did not intend any offence. GoldenRing (talk) 04:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Not offended at all, just frustrated. When Johnuniq and Mangoe added their comments, they did more to obfuscate the situation than to clarify it. I have no aversion to having my behavior scrutinized, but it makes no sense for me to respond to random drive-by users who lob grenades (and aspersions) after maybe 1 minute of research. I came here to find someone with both the responsibility and the authority to resolve a straightforward conduct issue. In other words, an administrator. And, if an administrator wanted to examine my behaviour, I'd have the confidence that they'd at least have a grasp of WP policy and guidelines.

In any event, this ANI has become a waste of energy, as it's unlikely to result in any useful outcome. (Thank you, though, for taking the time to explain that you were trying to help.) Fearofreprisal (talk) 10:14, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Nabih Berri

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

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User:Talal.talal1 was blocked for sockpuppeteering and one of his other accounts had also been blocked for edit warring. Now he's using a new account User:Lebanesetruth to make the same edits, by removing sourced content from an article and adding hagiographic material. He should be blocked indefinitely to avoid disrupting further.

Callsfortruth (talk) 08:32, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

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

User:Talal.talal1 was blocked once for sockpuppeteering, then he came up with User:Lebanesetruth which was blocked. Yet User:Talal.talal1 was not blocked again for his repeated violations. Now, User:Philanthropist1001 is making the same edits on the same article. I wish some admin other than User:Mr. Stradivarius could involve himself in this case, because Mr. Stradivarius' edits have been very dubious since he began involving himself in this case. Callsfortruth (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 10:40, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

What exactly are you accusing User:Mr. Stradivarius of doing? And you mean Philanthropist 1001 (talk · contribs). Dougweller (talk) 10:46, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was just coming here to make a post of my own when I saw this section. Let me give some background. The Nabih Berri (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article was protected on 25 August due to edit warring, and I have been watching the article since 30 August when I answered a protected edit request left on the talk page. I noticed that Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Talal.talal1 had not been processed, so I blocked some of the accounts involved, and I also removed unsourced/poorly sourced material from the "Wikileaks diplomatic cables" and "Corruption" sections to try to bring them in line with WP:BLP. There is some discussion about my edits at Talk:Nabih Berri#WikiLeaks and the corruption section. The protection expired today, and the edit war broke out again. Rather than fully protecting the article, I semi-protected it indefinitely and blocked User:Lebanesetruth, as the account looked suspiciously like a sleeper sockpuppet of Talal.talal1. I didn't block Talal.talal1 again though, as their previous sockpuppetry block expired yesterday, before Lebanesetruth's most recent edits. I chose to make the protection indefinite because there have been BLP problems with the article going back to 2008 - for those with access, there are more details in the OTRS ticket at otrs:2008092910055062. After reflecting on my actions at the article today, I think it would have probably been better to bring the matter up here sooner rather than going ahead with the blocks and protections, as it has become a little messy. I'd appreciate it if people could look into my actions here, particularly:

1. Whether the indefinite block of Lebanesetruth was justified.
2. If Lebanesetruth's block was justified, whether Talal.talal1 should be blocked too.
3. What should be done about the page protection. And,
4. Whether my admin actions violated WP:INVOLVED, or whether they were consistent with WP:BLPREMOVE.

— Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:50, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, Materialscientist has answered my questions one and two by processing Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lebanesetruth and indefinitely blocking User:Talal.talal1 and User:Philanthropist 1001. (@Materialscientist: thanks for looking into this.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 12:40, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

The article in question is an established target of a well-paid Beirut-based PR firm (not to mention party members), so it would be better if a number/committee of admins tried to mediate and establish consensus as to what the content of the article should be, rather than someone who, from the start, has been suspiciously removing copious amounts of sourced material and replacing them with unreferenced, poorly-written hagiography. Callsfortruth (talk) 11:51, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I note that this morning Painting101 (talk · contribs) arrives, gets autoconfirmed in less than 2 hours and edits this article. Philanthropist 1001 (talk · contribs) also doing the same edits is a WP:SPA. Dougweller (talk) 13:55, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

As noted before, the sockpuppeteer User:Talal.talal1 has returned as User:Painting101 to vandalize the article Nabih Berri once again by removing large amounts of sourced material, moments after being indefinitely blocked for abusing multiple accounts. I suggest that the article be fully protected, and that any such edits be reverted, as this has been established to be the effort of a PR agency meaning to "clean up" the article before parliamentary elections later this year. Callsfortruth (talk) 14:26, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• I've just restored my version of 30 August, as I think there are several BLP problems with the previous version by User:Callsfortruth. The previous version had unsourced, controversial claims, and severe problems with balance. I would go so far as to say it looked like an attempt at character assassination. As this revert has involved making some content decisions, I think other admins should probably take a look to see if my actions here have been reasonable. (You can see Callsfortruth's previous objections to this version here.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

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SLBedit edit warring - block necessary?

User:SLBedit is vandalising and trying to control the S.L. Benfica page, he is undoing all my edits, he acts like he owns the page, It doesn't seem fair how he can do this. He claims that most of my edits were useless which isn't the case because edits are clear improvements based on other higher-rated football club pages, the Benfica page needed alot of work to get it to a higher standard of quality. I have put alot of work into the page.

He has previous edits warning from other incidents so I'm not the only one with an issue with him. What can be done, can someone help please?

I have stopped undoing his edits to decrease the tension. He has been reverting edits of other people also. Look at his history, and his talk page. 213.133.205.35 (talk) 23:55, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

He delete a warning that I put on this page so make himself look better because he already has a few others, I have just put a second warning on this page. 213.133.205.35 (talk) 00:00, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

IP 213.133.205.35 is vandalising and trying to control the S.L. Benfica page, he is undoing all my edits, he acts like he owns the page and it's not the first time. It doesn't seem fair how he can do this. Most of his edits are not useful as it removes information, changes the whole layout. The Benfica article needs alot of work to get it to a higher standard of quality. I have put alot of work into the page, more than IP 213.133.205.35. IP 213.133.205.35 has been doing this with other IP addresses. What can be done, can someone help please?

IP 213.133.205.35 has been reverting all my edits, as well other IP addresses that troll the page from time to time. Look at his IP history and his contributions. SLBedit (talk) 00:05, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Take a look at how many times the page has been locked because of IP vandals like him! SLBedit (talk) 00:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC) I think the goal of most IPs that edit the article is to lock it. SLBedit (talk) 00:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

You are the one who started the reverting of edits not me, and I am not a troll or IP vandal. Also if someone where to look at your talk page they would see other complains from different users. Anyways, lets edit this, its pointless, we both are trying to make positive contribution to the page, we just seem to have a disarrangement to how to do it. I will make an account so I don't use my IP which seems to make me look like im trolling though I'm not. 213.133.205.35 (talk) 14:42, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

S.L. Benfica

S.L. Benfica has been locked 9 times. Most of the blocks resulted in IP vandalism or edit warring. Those IPs were reported, some requests were accepted, others declined. The problem is that the article continues to be a target of vandals and trolls, mostly IPs. What can be done? SLBedit (talk) 00:14, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

It's also a horrific target for block-evading sockpuppets (especially those of User:Fixed4u) and those with conflict of interest the panda ₯’ 08:37, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

This dispute was also reported at WP:AN3. Due to my impression that this is an IP-hopping edit war I've semiprotected S. L. Benfica and warned User:SLBedit for edit warring per a complaint there. The most recent IP editor has offered to create an account. That sounds like a good idea. I have no opinion on who is more likely to be right about the underlying dispute. EdJohnston (talk) 15:27, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Conspiracy, coverup...and frustration that editors keep deleting it

Hi there. User talk:Scotthoughauthor seems to be using Wikipedia to promote a personal theory about what that editor feels is a wrongful death/conspiracy/cover up...you know. The editor has been adding this theory to the Kirkland Lake article [42], and defending it to the point of edit waring [43]. The editor's frustration with Wikipedia is the same as their frustration with the mainstream media; that they are not paying any attention this obvious cover-up. Please have a look at their contributions. This seems like destructive editing, and I'm waiting for some innocent people to be named. Thanks for looking into this editor's conduct. Magnolia677 (talk) 00:49, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Although it appears that they're not as interested in improving the encyclopedia as in pursuing a personal crusade, I've left a warning about BLP, which they've clearly violated by posting accusations of complicity in a death. I suspect a block is in their future, though it looks like they might have departed for more fruitful places to post exposés. I've redacted some of the obvious BLP violations, but much of what they've posted at the Teahouse has hundreds of intervening edits and isn't easily removed. Acroterion (talk) 01:20, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

• It wasn't so bad--I think I was able to take of it. Drmies (talk) 00:36, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Anita Sarkeesian, again

Evidently sparked by some YouTube video, disruptive editors are trying to remove[44][45][46] an academic journal as a source from the Anita Sarkeesian article. See also this comment. Semi-protection keeps anons and new accounts from disrupting the article, but JJAB91 is evidently a confirmed account.--Cúchullain ^t/c 02:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

• It is time to impose discretionary sanctions of some kind. The comment in the last diff above is "Hi! Just wanted to say, I hope it's well worth your time keeping criticism off Anita's page, because it's coming whether you like it or not. It is out there, it's not being given attention, and we will not give up until it does. What's the point of what you're doing? Are you going to keep this up forever? Who's paying you?". It is not reasonable to ask a couple of volunteers to cope unassisted with the massive misuse of Wikipedia that many want. Johnuniq (talk) 03:00, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
  • How about putting flagged revisions on that article? Cla68 (talk) 05:15, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Good idea - endorsed. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:31, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
      • Two questions. (1) Who is Carpenter, and why do we care about his perspective? If he warrants an appearance by name and a quote, we ought to explain why he's relevant; nuclear physicists and historians of Late Antiquity are also scholars, but we wouldn't pay attention to their comments on Sarkeesian. (2) Why do you say that it's sparked by a YouTube video? I've never heard of this woman before, so maybe it's an obvious answer to someone familiar with her. Nyttend (talk) 05:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
        • I'll answer 2 for you: She is a noted pro-feminist in video game circles who has a series "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" (ETA: The YouTube video series in question) that points out some of her opinions with how games unfairly treat women (She and her series are notable per WP:N, as many game journalists and developers respect her observations). She is very outspoken in this and her opinions, as such , this series has drawn ire from the "broad" class of gamers to the point that she has been given death threats for speaking her opinion. She is also currently now a side of the GamerGate situation for similar reasons. --MASEM (t) 05:46, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
          • Understood; thank you. Nyttend (talk) 06:10, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
            • Actually, when the OP says a video "sparked" the edits: a Youtube video specifically called out a part of the article for removal (and it was subsequently removed in the diffs from the OP); that's the central point of the discussion at Talk:Anita_Sarkeesian#Batting_against_.2Aexpunged.2A.27s_most_recent_video -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 15:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
    • I support flagged revisions on Antia's article, just to cut down edit warring. I'd also suggest the same at Zoe Quinn and, once it's unprotected and assuming it is kept from its present AFD, GamerGate. All three of these are articles that, because their topics involve opinions from sites like reddit and 4chan, are going to be hot topics for at least a few weeks. --MASEM (t) 05:54, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
      • I don't see how flagged revisions would help—it will keep ephemeral nonsense off the pages, but the problem is that there are a significant number of active editors who will argue forever that GamerGate must be kept to give the world a lovingly documented list of allegations against two BLP individuals. There needs to be some discretionary sanctions (like WP:MRMPS) so normal procedures are not disrupted. Johnuniq (talk) 06:50, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

        I think discretionary sanctions are (already) available, under the auspices of WP:NEWBLPBAN, if there are admins willing to make judicious use of them. -sche (talk) 07:14, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

        • Correct, and as a starting point I've placed the BLP/DS notices on this article, as well as Zoe Quinn, Depression Quest and GamerGate. Black Kite (talk) 11:01, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

          • Dreadstar had been active in taking on the disruption, but it seems they're on a break right now.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:53, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Tropes vs. Women in Video Games is now being hit as well. I'd support flagged revisions at both articles - it won't solve all the problems, but it will help us out on some of the minor ones.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I should point out that there is a push by outside groups to "fix" WP's coverage of the various articles above, so anything that will help in the near future with BLP and other types of disruption would be appreciated even if we have to use 1RR prevention on these. --MASEM (t) 13:48, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Or just lock them all entirely on WP:THEWRONGVERSION (making sure they're BLP compliant, of course) until this particular teapot's tempest stops whistling. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 14:59, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually this is a reasonable step, though in the specific cases of some articles, I would even go beyond BLP and remove things that are leading to this offsite push to change the articles due to percieved bias; specifically removing some statements (even those sourced) of opinion on the matters.--MASEM (t) 15:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

• This has now extended to the Video game journalism article - see this and subsequent edits. Some revdel and page protection would be very nice. I can't do it myself, as I'm involved with this by extension of my work at the Zoe Quinn article. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:16, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• It's cool. I just put some GamerGate stuff in with some sauces. That should appease the angry gamer gods, though you should perhaps put a circle of salt around the article with Jack Thompson's still-beating heart at the center to ward off further enraged gaming spirits.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 05:46, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

More sockpuppetry on Weekly Shōnen Jump

After the article on the manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump came off semi-protection, the socks of Cow cleaner 5000‎ have return to adding information from fake sources about the magazine is a terrorist organization and was banned from multiple countries. I've reopened an SPI case, but one of the sockpuppets renominated the article for deletion again (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Weekly Shōnen Jump (2nd nomination)). Requesting immediate action on the AfD and expediting the SPI case. —Farix (t | c) 11:46, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I closed the AFD, I'll let a checkuser handle the SPI. --Jayron32 12:27, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I've blocked the two most recent ones. GedUK  21:13, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I blocked the remaining account and a couple of probable open proxies. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 01:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Amharic language / Til Eulenspiegel

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• Amharic language (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Til Eulenspiegel (talk · contribs)
• Beetstra (talk · contribs)

(Links above added by --Ronz (talk) 18:08, 10 September 2014 (UTC))

I have yesterday, after examining a list of external links on Amharic language removed 7 of them as inappropriate per our external links guideline. I will be upfront, if I get proper rebuttal why the removal is wrong, then I am very willing to consider reinsertion (of all, or some). That edit was reverted by Til Eulenspiegel without policy based commentary, but with the reason that removal should be discussed. I re-reverted as I still believe these links were inappropriate, and was promptly re-reverted by Til Eulenspiegel. The links were then removed by another party (user:Yngvadottir), and a discussion was started on the talkpage (I maybe should have done that myself, but I did not feel the burden is on me to defend policy/guideline based removal, the insertion of the links should be defended, per WP:EL), re-reverted by Til Eulenspiegel and removed again by User:Ronz. Some of the links were re-added again by User:Pete unseth, but also re-removed as inappropriate. In the meantime, I did start a more general discussion at Wikipedia:External_links/Noticeboard#Learning_a_language, as I feel that these links are inappropriate on more pages (in fact, I have removed links since on other places as well).

The responses on the talkpage by User:Til Eulenspiegel have been plainly hostile, aiming more at me than at content, policy and/or guideline arguments (in fact, I have not seen any policy or guideline based reason for inclusion from him), so I am bringing the whole situation for review:

• "I was going to say someone does not seem too familiar with the Amharic language since anyone who is knows that a distinction is scarcely drawn between "Amharic literature" and "Christian literature" -- but nothing like that view from the armchair on another continent when you are crusading against the fact of what people believe"
• "It sounds like you have a special hostility to linking the Amharic language Bible here or making it available, which just makes me sad for you." - I removed 7 links, only one relating to the bible and one relating to Christianity. Where does this come from.
• "... I oppose your ill-informed reasoning to delete them, and suggest you find something else to do."
• "... This is the centerpiece of Amharic, if you dont like that fact that is your problem, that is your problem."
• "... Beetsra insists on showing of his literacy skills by continuing to write "bible" for "Bible" ...
• "... demonstrate your contempt ... " & "... your hatred for Christianity ..."

I'd like to have a review of my actions, and of the actions of User:Til Eulenspiegel in response to them. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:28, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I was about to raise a complaint against User:Beetstra here myself. It is beyond the point of absurd to have to explain to someone how a medical dictionary in English and another language is useful to researchers of the language, or how hearing a book read out loud in the language is useful to students of the language, as well as language courses. This user is single-handedly going willy nilly into a lot of languages he does not know or care about, and is enforcing his own interpretations by deleting such useful links, to the point of creating edit wars, and that should not go over too well.Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:31, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I believe Beetstra is HERE to goad other users, he then carefully cherry picks their responses to report them here and cause more disturbance Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 13:33, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I think Beetstra is in the right policy-wise; this first arose in connection with World Mentoring Academy, which was being spammed to a number of pages on languages; see this discussion at WikiProject Spam, which I linked when I opened the talk page section. The larger context is that we have a policy against including a list of language-learning resources, as we do against any other type of directory. There is surely an article on Amharic literature where some of these links would find a better home? That said, I did not participate further in the discussion because I trusted, perhaps naively, that editors would come to a consensus through reasoned discussion on whether to reinsert any of the links, rather than returning to having anything in there that includes Amharic, which appears to have become the de facto criterion at many of our articles on languages. Yngvadottir (talk) 14:29, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Who would write a policy against including language learning resources (even medical bilingual dictionaries for lesser known languages or harder to find vocabulary for) on language articles which are obviously of the greatest use for learners and researchers of a language? This seems misguided to put it mildly, and I have never seen that enforced on language articles before (since virtually all of them already include such links). Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:40, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a directory, and cannot be. We cannot be responsible for vetting language-learning resources, making sure they are not scams, so we should not imply endorsement by listing them. We also cannot hope to provide an adequately complete list. Plus there will be accessibility/worldwide coverage problems. And finally of course the promotional aspect (regardless of whether it's for-profit or not). Our policy on external links is precisely to avoid directories for all these reasons. Particular links should be discussed on the merits: for less studied languages and where we don't have appropriate articles on the literary heritage, there may be a better case for inclusion, as has been suggested for the Amharic Bible, but it still seems better to me to put such things in articles on the literature itself, even if such articles have to be started to do so. The fact that many language articles evidently have violated policy in this respect is not an argument for ignoring the policy; External links sections are notoriously prone to filling up with excess stuff. When this arose with a particular MOOC provider, it shone a light on the problem. Yngvadottir (talk) 14:55, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

You didn't answer my question. I asked "who" would write such a "policy" - clearly it wasn't done with the wide consultation of any language editors, but by someone "behind he scenes" and I'm specifically asking "who" and "how" this became a "policy" to frustrate linguistic study and research on wikipedia. Even ancient extinct languages and languages that have never been spoken have learning resources (not pay of course - we're talking about audio samples of books read in the language to show researchers what it sound like, medical dictionaries and the like.) You will never be able to selectively enforce this shortsighted and senseless, bogus "policy" picking Amharic to start out with. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 16:27, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I support Beestra on removing the links. It was too much, too excessive. Yes, Wikipedia should be able to demonstrate a language, but it should not be used to advertise language schools. Further , Til Eulenspiegel should be blocked or TBanned due to his incivility, battleground mentatility and general making a nuisance of himself. KoshVorlon Angeli i demoni kruzhyli nado mnoj 16:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I speak, read, write and teach fluent Amharic and what we see here are people with zero knowledge about the language whatsoever and don't care either, throwing their weight around with nonsensical "rules" and threatening one of those who knows something. Once again - and what makes this all really harebrained - is that nobody is arguing for "language schools" or any pay services. We are explicitly talking about a medical dictionary and an audio sample of a prominent book read in Amharic. Whatever your personal issues toward the topic really are here, blocking interested researchers' access to these materials appears purely philistine. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 16:52, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

As a bureaucrat of Amhari wikipedia I am on the wmf African languages list where we have been engaged in quite a lot of discussion on the need to improve translation of medical articles in African languages with the Ebola crisis. Such resources are invaluable to translators who are looking for this information, but somebody puts rules and lulz and ausing disruption ahead of common sense. I am currently drafting a letter to the wmf list to advise them of the block-threatening and backwards attitude problem toward African languages I have encountered numerous times with certain editors on ENGLISH wikipedia. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 16:57, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Alternately, you could consider working to influence the policy(s) that you find constricting. Tiderolls 17:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Still haven't found out an answer to who would write such a "policy" and by what process that didn't involve language article editors? And what is it now suddenly being enforced highly selectively to remove resources that are only useful to further research into certain languages ? Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 17:38, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I can't speak for all observing this thread, but your questions presuppose facts and conditions to which I take exception. Tiderolls 17:48, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

There is no denying that language resources that assist scholars trying to find further information such as audio recordings, specialist dictionaries etc. have always been welcome on language articles until now, now we see for the first time they are being forcefully stripped from Amharic in a very ugly fashion, and I wish to know why, and demand to know WHO authored such "policy" and by what process. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 17:53, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

@Til Eulenspiegel: Replying to the 'who' - WP:EL is a well-accepted guideline written by the community, and with community consensus. It is based on sections of WP:NOT, one of our 5 pillars. Also that was written by the community and has broad consensus. There may be links that I removed which can be defended, but that needs a proper reason - "No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link". You have not chosen to give that justification (you plainly reverted), despite repeated requests to do so. Alternatively, you start discussions why WP:EL/WP:NOT need to be changed on these points. When that consensus is reached and the change is implemented on those policies/guidelines, the links could be introduced as not violating those policies and guidelines anymore. As it stands now, I still think that these links are inappropriate (on this page), but please convince me otherwise. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Given Til Eulenspiegel's history, he should know better regarding the relevant policies/guidelines regarding external links, but most importantly he certainly does know that edit-warring and such disruptive interactions with others will only lead to another block. --Ronz (talk) 18:05, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I have not edited that article in over 24 hours, I am now preparing to advise the wmf African languages project list of the atmosphere here Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 18:11, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

The complaints are against your behavior, which has caused the atmosphere. How about addressing the complaints? Maybe just apologizing, striking out all the inappropriate comments you wrote, and saying that you'll avoid such behavior in the future? --Ronz (talk) 18:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't consider any of my comments inappropriate, so I'm not sure which one to strike out...? Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 18:21, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

So you feel that the comments highlighted above are in no way similar to comments you've made in the past that resulted in your being blocked? --Ronz (talk) 19:17, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not striking out any comments, the deletion of a highly useful bilingual Amharic-English medical dictionary and an audio recording of the Amharic Bible so listeners can hear what the sounds of the language are, simply cannot be justified by any handwaving nonsense about a directory listing farm policy or whatever. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 19:26, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I had been surprised at all the external links that had been added to the Amharic language article. But I was more surprised, and disappointed, that almost all were removed. I reinserted the medical dictionary and was shocked that this one, too, was removed. I am disappointed at the way people on both sides of this have interacted. I hope that we can agree that a language article can list specialized dictionaries, but that computer software for the affiliated script belongs in another article. I gently ask that all parties speak gently. It may be hard to assume good faith, but I honestly believe that all want to see this Wikipedia page become an excellent page, even if we don't all agree on what that should include, or how to do it. Those of us who enjoy Amharic have no special authority to bypass policies in editing, but those who say they are acting on policy could remember that not everybody agrees on how to interpret and apply the policies. sälam lähullaccən yəst'ən— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pete unseth (talk • contribs)

I would argue here that a 'medical dictionary is too indirectly connected to the language, a well chosen English-<language> dictionary (as was now included) is about at the edge of it. I also think that the directory is well-chosen.

I agree that not everybody agrees on how to interpret and apply the policies, and therefore we discuss and get to consensus. Depending on the scope of the issue, that is on the talkpage of a page itself, or, if one of the parties feels that it is broader, either at a noticeboard or at the talkpage of the policy/guideline in question. I think I did ask for that on the talkpage, as well as giving the explanation that I do not see how the Amharic Bible helps in understanding the concept of the language - if I am wrong in that, which may very well be - I am, apparently, talking to people schooled in the subject, then please, explain that to me (however, I think that explanation should then be in the text, not just an (apparent) 'random' list of external links). I note that the removed link to the Bible would be appropriate on Amharic Bible (provided it is the generally accepted 'official' bible or otherwise defendable against our policies and guidelines). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Dirk, the only problem with your argument that a bilingual medical dictionary is of no utility to those studying the language and should thus be made unavailable by brute force, is that that argument is kind of retarded. (Not commenting on you as an editor, just your style of srguing) Would you mind please rephrasing that argument so another could possibly appreciate it? Thanks so much 71.246.153.24 (talk) 11:15, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Dear IP, the article is about the language and the article itself should try to explain that as much as possible. Some things that need to be explained about the language can not be included as to having too much detail, etc. That is why I say that a general dictionary is on the edge of that. It does not really explain more about the language (it explains words in the language), but it is a very useful resource with general interest in the subject. A medical dictionary is a step further, those focus on a specific sub-group of words in the subject (the medical terms) and are not of a general use. That is why I say that a medical dictionary is less directly linked to the subject. See WP:ELNO #13 codes this as "Similarly, a website on a specific subject should usually not be linked from an article about a general subject." The Wikipedia article is about the whole language, not about the medical language. Hence a general dictionary is defendable as 'directly related', a medical dictionary is 'indirectly related'. That same argument is true for other links. Anyway, the inclusion should be justifiable, and I have hitherto no seen any justification of inclusion, let alone consensus that these links need to be there. Please convince editors on the talkpage that one can NOT understand what Amharic language is about without the medical dictionary (or Bible, or the Windows Vista Amharic Language Pack). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

By the way, you say "... thus be made unavailable by brute force" .. what you are arguing is that all links, even remotely suitable, should be included, turning Wikipedia in a linkfarm. Because, when linking to a medical dictionary, why not link to a glossary of chemical terms, and a freely available translation into Amharic of the proceedings of a language conference. That is not Wikipedia's task. We are not here to replace Google (where people, looking for an Amharic medical dictionary, will easily find it). Our guideline WP:EL is wording that as "it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense". That is, as linked, based on our pillar WP:NOT, stating: "There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia" - the purpose being: to be an encyclopedia. That exclusion is not a retarded argument, it is what we are here for, to write an encyclopedia. Other websites (and even other MediaWiki Wikis) have other goals. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:09, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

If this were "Junior World Book", I might understand an argument such as "We'd better keep our Amharic article down to the bare minimum nuts and bolts, let's leave the more detailed info for professionals and researchers to the adult encyclopedias and info sources". 71.246.153.24 (talk) 12:11, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

But that is how we coded it in our policies and guidelines - keep the number of external links to a (bare) minimum (not the article, there is, apparently, still a lot of expansion room, as for example to explain why the Amharic Bible is of prime importance to understanding Amharic). However, for e.g. Wikiversity the story is different, as well as for external search engines. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:21, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Also, as I suggested above, the link to the Amharic Bible is a direct external link on Amharic Bible, which seems to be a missing subject, and I think that the inclusion there would be justified. Maybe also on Amharic language - but that argument, why it would be justified, is still not given. It was suggested that "Amhara" is considered virtually synonymous with "Christian" (which somewhat seems to conflict with that 91.5% Amhara people are living in the Amhara Region, and 82.5% of the people in the Amhara region are Orthodox Christians), still that does not convey to me why the Amharic Bible is needed for understanding what the language is about (nor does that come clearly forward from the prose of Amharic language). Anyway, this is a discussion that is supposed to be on Talk:Amharic language, as requested before; discussions on whether the scope of WP:NOT and/or WP:EL should change should be on WT:NOT and/or WT:EL respectively. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:36, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Seeing as nearly all language articles currently contain such resources of interest to interested scholars and researchers, it is good to see you are so passionate about your crusade to enforce your new "law" against them by starting with links to bilingual Amharic medical dictionaries and audio recording materials (a most diplomatic choice I must say) with the assistance of the toolboxes of sympathetic admins ready to take out any opposition... really... I only ask when is this thus-far highly selective enforcement going to be extended to the rest of the language articles on wikipedia? 71.246.153.24 (talk) 13:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You've got to start somewhere. Wikipedia is a work in progress. And that other pages contain something against our policies and guidelines is not a reason to propagate that. Glad to see you make the pages you edit a prime example of following policy and guideline. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• I a going to block Til Eulenspiegel those remarks on the talk page. I'm not much of a civility blocker but the toxicity there is intolerable: I find nothing there (or in this thread) by TE that is not a personal attack, an attempt to evade, or just repetitively disruptive and not to the point ("who would write a policy..."). They may well be an expert on the language, but they clearly are not an expert on how to conduct oneself on Wikipedia. As Tide rolls said, if you don't like a policy, try to change it--don't spray acid over those who in good faith edit in accordance with current policies and guidelines. Drmies (talk) 01:46, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
• And pinging Bishonen, since I'm somewhat in a bind here. I blocked for a week which is, I think, appropriate given the editor's behavior in this conflict--but all this comes with a history...well, you can read the block log for yourself. I am loath to block indefinitely, since I'm just not in the mood, but I can understand if editors and admins see an indef block as a logical conclusion to that block history. Drmies (talk) 01:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Drmies: The recent summary that has been used by Til Eulenspiegel permits indefinite block, and like before, talk page access can be revoked too. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 02:11, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Drmies's one-week block seems good to me. As for TE's rude edit summary when he blanked his page in response to being blocked, I'm against visiting retribution on a user for venting when they're blocked. Always was, always will be. It's human. Being blocked is a nasty shock whether or not you already have a block log. The sensible admin looks away. If TE is that rude again when/if he returns from the block, it'll be a different matter. Bishonen | talk 04:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC).

Thank Bish. OccultZone, sorry. Maybe an indef block can be justified, but what's the point--besides (I haven't seen the edit summary) we give blocked editors some room to respond. (I assume it's not antisemitic or racist or something like that.) Drmies (talk) 14:16, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Drmies: Thanks for clarifying. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 14:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Drmies: And if we add block evasion to the mix. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• 71.246.157.47 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Block evasion --Ronz (talk) 16:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

IF that's really him, and IF he is " a bureaucrat of Amhari wikipedia" like he says he is, he should loose his 'crat status on that Wikipedia as well , for incivility, battleground behavior, edit warring and then block evading. KoshVorlon Angeli i demoni kruzhyli nado mnoj 16:26, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, there's no doubt about those edits. :-( It's a duck from several angles, including being in the same /20 range as the block evasion in May, that I indeffed over at that time, e.g. this. I'm sorry to see it, but thank you, Ronz. I've changed the block to indefinite. Bishonen | talk 16:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC).

Sad but not unexpected. Thanks, Ronz, Beetstra, and Bishonen. Drmies (talk) 17:12, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Someone misbehaving in a school in Orlando is Wiki Vandalizer.

I have something to say. Someone from Freedom High School in Orlando, Florida is misbehaving on Wikipedia and putting posts that are related to ISIS, a terrorist group in Syria. This is Azalea Middle School from St. Petersburg, Florida and they have been vandalizing articles like WXXL, the local radio station in Orlando. I believe he is not good, and has gotten into trouble in the school as he put up this message on his talk page info box:

"I get it <censored> like a bad back. <censored> talking she the queen, when she looking like a lab rat I'm Angelina, you Jennifer Come on <censored>, you see where Brad at Ice my wrists and I <censored> on <censored> You can <censored> if you take this <censored> You don't like them <censored>, give my <censored>. Yeah they know what this is, giving this the business Cause I pull up and I'm stuntin' but I ain't a stuntman Yes I'm rockin' Jordans but I ain't a jumpman. <censored> play the back cause they know I'm the front man Put me on the dollar cause I'm who they trust in Ayo SB, what's the <censored> good? We ship platinum, them <censored> are shipping wood. Them <censored> hoes but my kitchen good I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish A <censored> would. - 168.184.14.9.

Note to this this is not from us, this is from the person that seems to misbehave. He has vandalized some pages with the ISIS leader, but we are going for USA :)!! We agree with 50.9.114.198 and he is right that he is a vandalizer. He should be stopped. Thanks, 168.213.7.78 (talk) 14:17, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

P.S. 70.27.98.190 from Toronto, Ontario, Canada has vandalized WZJZ and hasn't replied to 50.9.114.198 as of right now.

Thank you. I've blocked the IP address for six months. Nyttend (talk) 14:33, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

One more thing, 70.27.98.190, despite only editing 1 page, he vandalized WZJZ, and 50.9.114.198, well he is innocent and dosen't vandalize at all and he is peaceful ;). Nyttend, you should talk to this 70.27.98.190 person that is from Canada. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.213.7.78 (talk) 14:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, we usually warn people four times using the templates here before we block them, unless it's someone blatantly here to cause trouble. Used to be, if an IP caused enough trouble and had been blocked numerous times we'd take them to WP:ABUSE and notify the organization responsible for the IP address (be it a school, an employer, an internet service provider, etc), but that project has been dormant for quite some time. Hope that helps. What you're doing is very much appreciated, and as I said on your user page, I hope you will create an account and keep up the good work. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 15:33, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

To the original IP; this is minor and very silly school IP vandalism, and posting the lyrics to Nicki Minaj's "Stupid H**" or making a claim that they lead the group isn't related to ISIS (though putting their real name in is either proxy bullying or at worst, very, very stupid vandalism). I'll remove the lyrics as a copyright violation, but in the grand scheme of things, this is downright innocent compared to vandalism we see any day, and a simple request to WP:ANI should be used to request action on IP vandalism. As for the Toronto IP, that was months ago; we're not going to do anything about a piece of drive-by vandalism from that long ago. Just say 'this is vandalism' next time and don't make aspersions that they're terrorist recruiters, please. Nate • (chatter) 17:22, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I concur with Nate, it looks like it's either someone being cruel to a classmate, someone writing one of his buddy's name on Wikipedia and saying "look, I wrote your name on da Wiki, isn't that cool?", or it's someone who thinks they're hot stuff and going to write his own name on Wikipedia, like he rules the world for a day because his name is on one of our articles. That said, I'd still be tempted to call that school and inform administration about it because, at worst, it's cyberbullying, and even if it's just a couple of schoolboys playing around, they shouldn't be vandalizing Wikipedia. Two thirds of the time, the schools seem to appreciate it when things like this are brought to their attention if you're actually able to find the right person to report it to (vs. just sending it to whoever ARIN lists as a contact, which may be someone who hasn't worked there in years or never checks their email). Of course, it shouldn't be any surprise to Nate to see me take that position. :-) PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 18:53, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

You have to give the OP credit though; (s)he's in middle school and is obviously very new to Wikipedia, yet (s)he managed to find WP:ANI, which is more than I can say about myself. The first things I found were WP:ABUSE and WP:LTA (which is why I gave User:LBHS Cheerleader, another petty school vandal, an entry at LTA that lasted for quite some time); it took me a while to find WP:AIV and all of these other administrative notice boards. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 19:07, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and called Freedom High School to inform them of this and sent someone there links to the abuse via email, just as I would have as a member of WP:ABUSE. The Canadian one only made one edit, not worthy of administrative attention or contacting the ISP. The OCPS IP is already blocked, I say give FHS until Tuesday to look into it, if I haven't heard anything back by then lets oversight the posts and close this thread. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 15:34, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

1RR breach by SeattliteTungsten

SeattliteTungsten cautioned; no further action necessary. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
About Israeli West Bank barrier (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). Editor SeattliteTungsten (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) reverted twice within half an hour: [47] and [48]. I pointed this out to them, mentioning the WP:1RR rule (by WP:ARBPIA) [49]. I also did so on the article talkpage [50] (a thread started post-incident). The user rejected my request, a bit sneaky IMO [51]. I request/suggest that an uninvolved admin/editor undoes the trespassing (2nd) revert, and maybe write a clarifying note to the editor. Then, the user added this to my talkpage, which I can take as a personal attack. This also could use a clarifying note to the editor. -DePiep (talk) 18:25, 10 September 2014 (UTC) (notified user [52]) And this arrived on my talkpage after I posted this here. -DePiep (talk) 18:31, 10 September 2014 (UTC) Sequence on my talkpage: 1. the link mentioned, 2. I reverted (=deleted), 3. I notified [53] to not write on my talkpage any more, 4. ST undid the deletion, and added comment [54]. Time for a stronger approach? -DePiep (talk) 18:39, 10 September 2014 (UTC) I've spent 20 minutes looking at this and I agree ST's conduct is sub-par, but I'm not seeing a clear 1RR violation. The two diffs you cite might just about be a violation, but they're two days old. They've edited the article twice today, but neither is an obvious revert. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:56, 10 September 2014 (UTC) Two reverts within 25 minutes there is a 1RR. That shouldn't need 20 min. (I could revert myself by now, but I thought I'd take the royal route: ANI). Then, a user calling me a 'terrorist' (twice) should not not take 20 mins looking. Please act. -DePiep (talk) 23:20, 10 September 2014 (UTC) HJ Mitchell Despite panda's distractions below, I'd like to read your response. -DePiep (talk) 23:42, 10 September 2014 (UTC) There's at least 4 possible interpretations of that phrasing in their use of the word "terrorist" on your talkpage. Only 1 of them parses remotely into it looking like they called you one, as per WP:NPA. Barring other NPA violations, we'd have to AGF that it's one of the other possible ones, especially since we typically warn on a first one the panda ₯’ 23:25, 10 September 2014 (UTC) That's only the second part. What about reverting the 1RR breach? -DePiep (talk) 23:29, 10 September 2014 (UTC) SeattliteTungsten repeated the PA, as I diff'ed. -DePiep (talk) 23:32, 10 September 2014 (UTC) You were already advised - and already knew - that we will not block for 1RR violations that took place 2 days ago as that would be punitive, not preventative. And no; nowhere in the later diff's did they flat out call you a terrorist, so the PA was not repeated...you interpreted it as related to the first, but again can easily be interpreted differently. So, warn them for NPA, and let us know if it actually happens again, which is the normal procedure as you already know the panda ₯’ 23:47, 10 September 2014 (UTC) I agree that a block for a 1RR violation would be completely inappropriate at this point. We permit blocks for edit-warring only to stop an edit-war that can't be stopped any other way; when two days have passed, the edit-war has stopped. SeattliteTungsten's introduction of scare quotes around Israeli in his most recent edit is clearly not appropriate from a WP:NPOV perspective, but unless you can show us that it's part of a longstanding pattern, I don't see a need for sanctions just for that one bit. Nyttend (talk) 00:18, 11 September 2014 (UTC) I did explicitly not ask for a block. Is this your pavlov dog? (although, their afterward calling me a 'terrorist' twice might trigger that from any admin awake). I-did-not-ask-for-a-block. I asked ANI to revert the second revert or the two reverts, I diff'ed. Why does not @HJ Mitchell: or @Nyttend: simply revert the 1RR breach? -DePiep (talk) 00:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC) --sp, and add pings. -DePiep (talk) 00:55, 11 September 2014 (UTC) You might want to add a ping for HJ Mitchell — I only came here because I felt like it, since I didn't get a ping. Meanwhile...aside from a block, we have no type of sanction or action that would be appropriate in this case. I can't imagine a situation in which it would be good to revert a 1RR violation just because it's a 1RR violation: it only restarts the edit-war. Nyttend (talk) 01:04, 11 September 2014 (UTC) I don't understand your ping remark. Anyway: let me explain to you. After a 1RR trespassing, I can not revert myself, however right I might be. So I ask the trespasser to correct - to no effect, in this case. Also, your fellow-admins here can advise me to 'take a distance' (all this is in the diffs. Ditd you take note?). Now conflict resolution says: then ask outside. So I did. And again (why do admins here alway drews to block by pavlov?), I asked to revert an edit. I did not ask for a block, that is your mental issue. Asking ANI is a WP:DISPUTE basic route. If you think that I did wrong going here, click that and win it there. Now if you don't simply revert as I simply asked in my OP, what do you say I should have done, theoretically? -DePiep (talk) 01:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC) DePiep, please please please read WP:THEWRONGVERSION, and understand the basic principle of that bit of satire: admins do not involve themselves in content disputes to favor one side or the other. If the user in question is not actively edit warring, and no one else is, the solution to your problem is to take up a discussion on the article talk page, establish consensus, then put in the version that has consensus. Literally no one here would find it appropriate to, acting in an administrator capacity, revert merely on your say so. Nor are we to, as admins, act to favor one side of a dispute or another. Instead, what you do is establish consensus via a discussion, then make the change after the discussion has had adequate time to establish consensus. The existence of a 2-day old borderline 1RR violation is not reason to short circuit normal processes at Wikipedia. --Jayron32 01:28, 11 September 2014 (UTC) Well thanks, this reads like a sensible response. But I don't get the fun intended. 1RR is not about talkpage or content at all. It is, well, 1RR. And didn't I describe: 1RR - I took a break (not reload) -- then I got insults? (Had I waited just 25 hrs to revert myself, you and all here could & would have accused me of gaming the system &tc.). Now could you please3 read WP:CONFLICT, especially wrt xRR: it says don't keep fighting, take a break and ask help elsewhere. So here I came. Reverting a 1RR break is not taking position, it is solving an edit war. I can also note that I took a look & question at talkpages (what was not picked up here at all, after all the diffs I added). I find it weird that that is not rewarded or even seen as part of my editwar solution. Instead, all I get here is that - otherwise serious - admins give a "we don't block" non-response. Of course I get by now I won't get an admin action from here. The disappointment is that the pavlov reaction at ANI is: "who can I block?". And it shows that serious admins did not even read my OP. -DePiep (talk) 01:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC) And I repeat for clarity: SeattliteTungsten (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) called me a 'terrorist' twice on my talkpage (diffs already provided above). Please act. -DePiep (talk) 01:58, 11 September 2014 (UTC) So, as you were already advised, warn them for WP:NPA and move on - let us know if personal attacks happen after the warning the panda ₯’ 08:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC) Okay: You can ping me to your heart's content in the middle of the night and I'm still no going to respond, because I do have to sleep at some point. I'm not going to revert the edit because that would make me a party to the dispute and I don't won't to get involved (not in the plain English sense, nor in the Wikipedia jargon sense). The only clear 1RR violation is now getting on for three days old; no admin action is going to be taken in respect of that. There is nothing preventing any other party from reverting the edit, provided they adhere to the 1RR (note that 1RR is one revert per 24 hours) themselves, though note that violating the 1RR is not in itself an adequate reason o revert an edit. As DP says, there a multiple interpretations of the message ST left, and it's a stretch to consider it to be a personal attack. It is, though, unnecessary and deliberately provocative, so I will caution him against that sort of thing. If any editor wanted to make a case that another editor's behaviour constituted a battleground mentality, or in future wanted to allege a violation of the 1RR, they should take the matter to WP:AE, with diffs and a clear (and concise) explanation. Can we close this thread now? —HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC) re 1.: You mean a ping wakes you up? Am I supposed to check that before, somehow? re 2.: Not a dispute. Just an edit counting thing. xRR is edit warring, and I did respond along this. I am still surprised that I my de-escalating approach is used against me here. re 3.: violating the 1RR is not in itself an adequate reason o revert an edit. -- It is a solution to edit warring. Note that I asked for a revert, not a block. As you say, 'nothing preventing any other party from reverting the edit'. re 4.: Calling someone a 'terrorist' is a PA, and more so when repeated. It also illustrates the editor's attitude in this. Thanks for the action though. re 5.: see re2. AE is for blocks only. -DePiep (talk) 16:26, 11 September 2014 (UTC) No, it doesn't wake me up, but if I'm pinged while I'm asleep, I'm not going to see it until I wake up, so it doesn't accomplish much. And AE is not just for blocks, though it is mainly about requesting sanctions. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC) On pinging you HJ Mitchell, I didn't mean that you were ignoring things. DePiep's edit of 00:55, 11 September 2014 included the code to ping you and to ping me in the same edit, but I never got a notification, so I thought maybe you never got one either. Nyttend (talk) 18:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC) Sigh. OK then, WP:AE is for sanctions, not just blocks. But I did not ask for sanctions. I asked for a revert. I de-escalated an editwar. Why do the responses here keep and keep diverting? One could a. provide a to the point answer or b. ask for a clarification. Nowhere is written that ANI is a hammering-only page. -DePiep (talk) 21:06, 11 September 2014 (UTC) Now that I have read HJ Mitchell's carefully written caution (I compliment), and understanding that this thread won't produce much more, I OP agree to close it. -DePiep (talk) 21:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

GamerGate AfD plagued by SPAs

The AfD for the GamerGate article has been plagued with SPA's since day one, and is in desperate need of admin attention, regardless of how the AfD ultimately goes. This is part of the same off-site canvassing effort that's been hitting the article as well as Zoe Quinn, Depression Quest, Anita Sarkeesian, Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, and perhaps others.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:22, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Seems there are maybe six or so SPAs that have popped up, all but one being IP editors and they actually seem to be split pretty evenly between keepers and deleters. Does not seem to be a serious issue. I would hardly call it a "desperate need" as these kinds of articles do bring out a few SPAs. No admin will struggle with sorting out comments from established editors and SPAs. Even so, I have tagged the SPAs accordingly.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:03, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes but ignore them now and they pop up later, sock puppeting should not be encouraged. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:13, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

We see these kinds of SPAs pop up whenever an article with high levels of attention is up for deletion. All you can really do in this case is semi-protect the page, but that does not really seem to be necessary as there is no serious disruption and the number of SPAs has been pretty low.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:26, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Is there any evidence of sock puppetry or just single purpose accounts (SPAs)? The former is a problem that needs admin intervention, the latter does not. —Farix (t | c) 00:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Mark SPAs with {{subst:spa}} and move on. It's not going to change the amount of work the closing admin has to do one iota. If an admin steps in now and starts striking or indenting it might look like supervoting. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:31, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• I've seen at least one suspicious account in the Tropes article. If anyone feels the urge to do some comparing and investigating, "don't feel, conceal" is not the right advice: let it go and write up that SPI. Drmies (talk) 01:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• That White Eye account clearly made ten edits months ago to get autoconfirmed and slip by semi-protection. It screams sock to me. Need to turn that editor away and slam the door.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Unresolved COI issue, with veiled threats from other editor

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

---

Dear Administrators. Apologies if I am in the wrong place. I raised this matter at the History Portal, but was told it was not the right place for it, took the matter to COI but it did not get any traction there. So I hope that I am now in the right place.

Ndandulalibingi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (earlier Libingi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)) is an official of a semi-political organisation representing the interests and aspirations of the Mbunda people in Southern Africa, as can be seen from his user page. This constitutes a clear case of COI.

The editor clearly identifies himself as Ndandula Libingi, as can be seen here, towards the end (even including his own name in the WP in matters pertaining to the Mbunda people, as can be seen here). This editor further says he does not trust secondary sources or sources written by foreigners and is thus changing all references to all things Mbunda across many pages with information gathered in a collection of oral testimonies commissioned by the Mbunda authorities, of which he is himself an office-bearer and two other works. The editor is in fact, the official who signs the communiques on behalf of the organisation, as can be seen hereHe further states that everything that he edits is done in strict consultation with the Mbunda council. Finally, because of trying to stop this editor from rewriting history, he has threatened that he will report me to the Mbunda council. To put things in perspective, Angola, with a population of 19 million, has a population of 250 thousand Mbunda people, i.e., 1.3% of the population. This editor insists in overdoing everything to do with the Mbunda people, with some articles consisting almost exclusively of information about the Mbunda people and their kings, others with numerous notes, references, etc linking to the Mbunda website.

All this has been repeatedly pointed out to this editor over the years by two editors who did their best to get him to work withing the Wikipedia mold, but to no avail, such that these very same editors ended up esorting to threats of blocking him.

For now, I’d be happy for a resolution on the COI issue. The second issue is the rewriting of history, and ensuring that sctions on Mbunda issues are proportionate to both other peoples and size of artcile as per WP guidelines, for which I am counting on history editors to help with. I trust that this is in order. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 22:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Yep looks like the right place to me. "he has threatened that he will report me to the Mbunda council.", sounds like a legal threat or at least aimed to have a chilling effect which should be reported here. Amortias (T)(C) 22:26, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

This doesn't look like a resolvable situation, unless he should decide to shape up; your comments here and the links you give, plus things he says at his talk page, convince me that an indefinite block is already in order, but I'll go easy for the moment. I've given him a warning, which basically says "stop using primary sources and stop the COI, or you'll be indeffed"; I included an offer of help, but given your comments above, I doubt its usefulness. Please report him to me should he continue, or come back here. Nyttend (talk) 00:04, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Jack Vale

Jack Vale (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) There appears to be a lawsuit regarding Jack Vale. Two new editors Jackvale (talk · contribs) and Boscositcks (talk · contribs) have repeatedly removed the "controversy" section and two external links. Sources are an article in TheBlaze.com and "The Hunington Beach Police Department Facebook page". Jim1138 (talk) 01:38, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

TheBlaze is a news website, which I would classify as a reliable source even if a biased source, because face it, 90% of sources are biased one way or the other, and this to me is a pretty newsy article, not an opinion piece about Obama or the Democrats. I don't know that I like using Facebook as a source even if it is an official Facebook page, but at least it's not the only source. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 02:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

It's WP:CONSENSUS that an 'official' Facebook or Twitter page is an acceptable primary source the same as if it was an official website. (Largely, I'd imagine, because a lot of places nowadays have them, especially the former, instead of/as official websites...) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I would support a block on User:Jackvale because it's clear that he is a single purpose account interested only in editing his own page, plus there's a chance it's a troll rather than the actual man behind the account, in which case would be impersonation. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 18:59, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Boscositcks' edits seems rather sockish. JV stops editing immediately after I warned NLT, then Bsitchs edits 22 minutes after JV, uploaded the image, adds it, then stops followed by JV 8 minutes later. File:Jack_Vale.jpg was uploaded by Boscositcks, an uncropped version of what is returned by google image search. Jim1138 (talk) 04:27, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Russo-Ukrainian War

Could someone please tell this editor not to accuse others of being Marxist propaganda mongers, and also to actually read what I wrote on the talk page? He/she keeps turning a redirect into a disambiguation page that doesn't meet any of the disambiguation guidelines. RGloucester — ☎ 02:10, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you see this as a personal attack. On you'r userpage you state "This user identifies as a Marxist." ::I only point out that you beceause of a pro-Russian bias you are try'ing to defend as much the kremlin-propaganda that Russia is not a participant in the war Russia and Ukraine fought this summer discarding all the sources (like Amnesty International) and evidence many users have provided on this.

You keep turning a disambiguation page in a redirect-page, ignoring that it does meet the disambiguation guidelines and is a disambiguation-page in several other language articles.

Clearing a page on which multiple users attributed, without consensus is vandalism.

And I kindly ask you to stop that and I'm trying to convince you how disturbing covering up a war can be for people involved.----Niele (talk) 02:32, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Please tell me, what does "Marxism" have to do with Russia? What, exactly? Regardless, I will not discuss content here. RGloucester — ☎ 02:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

A lot of people with an (understandable) negative view of capitalism, tend do defend Russia as an alternative to much of the rest of the world. No more relevant is the question that you are willing to accept that also a lot of people in this word do see this as a war between Russia and Ukraine. Most of the people who live there in Ukraine and a lot of experts and the term Russian-Ukrainian War is also used by at least a significant part of the world community. Both for the war in 1917 an the 2014 war.--Niele (talk) 02:47, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not even going to dignify this with a response. All I will say is that I'm not "covering up" anything, and any neutral sysop will be able to see that. Your attacks on my character are unacceptable, and your link of pro-Russian ideology and Marxism is bizarre WP:OR. RGloucester — ☎ 02:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

As I said that wasn't a personal point, it was a general referral to the constant attempts on Wikipedia to try to set aside evidence, sources,... to replace it by the official Russian statements.

I just find it disturbing that a war with more than 3000 deaths recognized by as an international conflict by Amnesty International, can't be mentioned in that way in any form on Wikipedia. Even when most people (where I live at least) call it like that. I just want you to understand that it is a sensitive thing that when a lot of people die, truth about it is not fully reported. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Niele (talk • contribs) 03:23, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Why not have a nice sit down and a cup of tea together. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 03:15, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Tea? Please. I'm tired of being called a propaganda monger. No tea needed. All I need is for someone with rationality to come into this mess and clean it up. RGloucester — ☎ 03:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so here's what I see:

• ArbCom Disclaimer on the talk page.
• IPv6 creates a disambiguation page where a redirect once stood
• Niele edits DAB page
• RG redirects the DAB page
• Niele reverts RG
• RG redirects to a different article
• Niele reverts RG, makes a few more edits to the DAB
• Another editor edits the DAB page
• RG redirects the DAB page
• Niele reverts RG
• RG reverts Niele
• Niele reverts RG
• RG reverts Niele
• Niele reverts RG
• They flame war a bit on the talk page for the page in question
• RG comes to ANI to complain about Niele's alleged incivility. They continue to feud here.
• Niele creates a separate thrad to complain about RG's alleged vandalism.
• Neither one seem to want to hear what other's have to say.

I vote WP:TROUT for both of them for edit warring, name calling, and using ANI as a battleground. Note that I am not an administrator. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 04:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• I put the disclaimer there after the fact though as it falls under scope but agree with what you say. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• If anyone comes near me with a trout I'll throw it back into the sea (river?), so I don't recommend you do that, unless you want to waste a good catch. I listened perfectly well to what the other editor said. He said nothing comprehensible, and anyone with a head can figure that out. The fact that this discussion is even happening is indicative of a wider administrator intransigence in Ukraine crisis-related articles of late. PoV pushers and tendentious editors run wild, with no cares in the world, whilst those actually trying to write decent articles are bogged down and accused of being in cabals of ill-meaning editors. Utterly absurd. I shall return to my little Putinite Marxist hide-out and plan more transfixing travails to overthrow the Nato-Wikipedia-Ukrainian hegemony! Farewell! RGloucester — ☎ 04:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I was referring to "other's" (which should have been "others") as in other Wikipedians here at AN/I. Anyway... PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 05:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

If you had something to say other than offensive disgusting remarks like "kiss and make-up", perhaps I'd listen. Propriety is lost in this era, I fear. RGloucester — ☎ 05:03, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Could someone please ask this editor to stop clearing the disambiguation page for the armed conflicts which are at least by a significant amount of people, sources referred to as Russo-Ukrainian_War. Clearing a page of content, ignoring the talk page and doing so repeatedly count's as vandalism. And this is not the way things on Wikipedia are done.--Niele (talk) 03:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I would have to say what he is doing is not WP:Vandalism, but you bother appear to be guilty of WP:Edit warring. The obvious solution is for both of you to take a deep breath and discuss the matter on the talk page civilly, trying not to assume bad faith, and if needed, request a third opinion. As I suggested in the above thread, kiss and make up; we're all Wikipedians, and we should all be working towards the same goal: building an encyclopedia with quality information to contribute to human knowledge. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 03:38, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

This appears to have started when an IP made the page into a disamb one. [55]. The page was reset to a prior consensus but undone by User:Niele here: [56] who insisted that a disamb page was needed. This all happened on September 7th which set into motion the series of events, what should have been done in my opinion is that it should have been taken to the talkpage on September 7th and discussed rather than a revert made per WP:BRD. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

There is nothing to take to the talk page. This is not a disambiguation page. Read the WP:DAB guideline. Firstly, neither of those names are used for either of the referenced events, and secondly, even if they were, there still would not be a disambiguation page because none of our articles are called "Russo-Ukrainian War". No "disambiguation" is required, because we don't have any articles to disambiguate. I'd like to note that this thread here started here as retaliation for my above thread. Niele did not notify me. Furthermore, this action is proof of his WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude and inability to WP:HEAR what I've been saying all along. Instead, he resorts to personal attacks about my "Marxist" and "pro-Russian" ties, and my "covering up" of something equivalent to the Holocaust. That's absolutely outrageous in every respect. RGloucester — ☎ 03:54, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I've now had a look at the edits involved here, and I have yet to see any Marxist propaganda in any of them. @Neile: You have made some pretty serious accusations about RGloucester, but I can't see any evidence to back them up. Accusations about other editors that are not supported by evidence count as personal attacks, and are not allowed on Wikipedia. Your remarks were particularly bad because they ascribed a political motivation to RGloucester's actions - we are not in the business of discriminating against editors because of their political beliefs. Also, we have a strict definition of vandalism on Wikipedia, and RGloucester's edits definitely do not qualify. You should read up on our definition before labelling any more edits as vandalism. As far as I can see, RGloucester's edits have been motivated by a desire to stick to Wikipedia:Disambiguation rather than any kind of bias. @RGloucester: I think you might have missed something about the disambiguation policy. At Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Deciding to disambiguate, it says Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might search, there is more than one existing Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead. So it isn't required that we have an article with a given name for there to be a disambiguation page about it. Also, a little Google searching turned up sources that use the phrase "Russo-Ukrainian War" in reference to both the 1918 war and to the current conflict.[57][58][59] So I suspect that the decision to make a disambiguation page might not be as clear-cut as you are thinking. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:47, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Mr. Stradivarius: It is absolutely clear-cut, because using it in either manner is WP:FRINGE. Almost no sources use it for the Ukrainian War of Independence or the Ukrainian-Soviet War. You found one, but that doesn't make-up for the thousands of others that do not call these wars that. Note that no redirect with "Russo-Ukrainian War" existed to either of those articles until Niele started with his disambiguation page, proving that the name is about as low on the totem pole as could be. As far as the current conflict, that's why it redirected to "Russian invasion of Ukraine". The problem, Mr Stradivarius, is that you did not read the whole guideline. That guideline is for disambiguation generally, not disambiguation pages. This problem (that does not really exist, but I'll humour you) is meant to be solved with a hatnote. The modern war is clearly primary topic (though I think that we shouldn't cower to WP:SOAP opinion pieces and WP:FRINGE outlets, and should stick with mainstream reliable secondary sources), and hence it should redirect there. You'll probably find many more references for "Russo-Ukrainian War" to the modern war than to those other two wars, which are almost NEVER called "Russo-Ukrainian War" (and there were two of them). Whilst these references are in soapy pieces and quilt fringes, they do warrant the redirect, which is why it was established. If there really is a problem (there isn't), it can be solved with a hatnote at Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2014), which is what the guideline suggests. Never does it suggest establishing a disambiguation page for this purpose, which are based on whether we have multiple articles with the exact same name. We do not. RGloucester — ☎ 13:18, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• I've merged the two sections about the Russo-Ukrainian War together. We normally only have one section about each incident, otherwise things can get (even more) confusing. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:55, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

After the first revert by RGloucester, per WP:BRD, no further reverts should have been made. It It seems to me that Niele started the edit war, (though initially it was just a confusion). RGloucester should not have participated in the edit war, though, in my opinion, he is right (WP:DAB does not apply). The talk page discussion has no overlap between the two positions and it seems unlikely that there can be any consensus. So, some form of dispute resolution should be done, while the original version is restored. A 3O can be the start, but other methods are also possible.

As an aside, to both editors: it is no great tragedy if there is inaccurate content for a few days on Wikipedia. I have about 10 edits I want to revert in an WP:ARBPIA article. It will happen eventually, don't sweat it. Kingsindian (talk) 05:26, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, User:Niele, the first time I ran into RLGlouster I thought he was anti-Russian, which just shows perceptions can differ, depending on editing issues, WP:RS etc. But lots of people who aren't pro-Russian, including peaceniks, libertarians and people scared of nuclear war, can see certain edits as POV; not to mention those Wikipedia editors merely trying to follow NPOV and other policies to the best of their understanding. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:55, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• There is a war, whatever one could call it. Having an extra disambig page does not hurt (and yes, the name was used in sources, exactly as Stradivarius noted). This is not a good reason for bringing someone to ANI. Suggest closing.My very best wishes (talk) 17:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Seconded, although administrative action may be appropriate if the edit warring and incivility doesn't stop, IMO. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 18:21, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Utterly absurd, again. Please read WP:DPAGES. If you can't familiarise yourself with the guidelines on this matter, do not come here and lecture. Disambiguation pages are only used when we have multiple articles with the exact same name. That is not true in this case. Even if this name were to be used, the proper solution would be a hatnote, not a disambiguation page. Personal attacks ARE a reason to bring someone to ANI. RGloucester — ☎ 20:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Did you actually read WP:NPA? Yes, Niele should refrain from name calling, but less than severe personal attacks are not a reason to come to ANI. If I were a sysop, I would have probably given both of you an involuntary WikiBreak for edit warring (please do read the page on WP:Edit warring). PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 01:24, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

That is a "severe" personal attack, as far as I'm concerned. Comparing my actions to "covering up the Holocaust" is "severe" in most registers. I don't need to read anything on edit warring. I need this mess fixed. Thankfully you are not a sysop, since you are clearly very short-sighted in this regard. Comparing my actions with those of Niele is even more absurdity. I'm enforcing policy and guidelines, whilst Niele is attempting to push a point-of-view about Russian invasions and "Russo-Ukrainian Wars" that do not exist. RGloucester — ☎ 03:05, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I work in sales IRL, if I let every little insult bother me like you're doing here, I would be out of business. I would say comparing your actions to "covering up the Holocaust" is more of an example of Godwin's Law than a severe personal attack, but severe is a relative term. Regardless, if you actually read WP:NPA, you would realize that this personal attack is not on the same caliber as threatening to kill someone or threatening to burn a cross in someone's front yard. Another page you need to read is WP:Edit warring, because if you did, you would know that being right (or thinking that you're right; notice I've deliberately been being neutral as to who's right) does not give you the right to edit war, unless you're reverting blatant vandalism or dealing with a banned user. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 11:58, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't have a right to do anything, but I do have the ability to revert edits that harm the encyclopaedia. I don't need to read anything. I'm well aware of what they say. RGloucester — ☎ 12:10, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Neither one seem to want to hear what other's have to say. I rest my case. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 14:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Like I said above, if you had something worthwhile to say, I'd listen. Instead, you started off with disgusting and offensive language, and continue to ignore the blunt reality in this situation. RGloucester — ☎ 15:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

India Against Corruption yet again

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

---

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

Regular watchers of this page know the sock/meat puppeting that surrounds this article. A new user, Lindashiers, editing on this, and other articles, prompted Sitush to give them a discretionary notice. [60] In a tit-for-tat gesture, Lindashiers placed the same notice on Sitush's page. [61] I observed this could be seen as disruptive. [62] Lindashiers' reply included: [63]

• "Accordingly, I firmly believe that Sitush is a disruptive editor at Wikipedia, hence the notice."
• "he is also incompetent to edit India related articles on such a scale,"
• "PS: surely Sitush is old enough to speak for himself, or is he a minor/child that you must do so ?"

Can we nip this in the bud? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

This is a result of massive copy-violation [64] by User Sitush on this article (which I reported using a template) which controversial copy-vio text has resulted in persistent attacks on the article by Mr Anna Hazare's organisation using sock/meatpuppets. I have put certain specific queries to User Sitush which are here [65], [66], [67]. Lindashiers (talk) 02:36, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion of "massive copy-violation": Talk:India_Against_Corruption#Discussion_on_edits_to_Team_Anna_article. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:43, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• • This is equally a disruptive edit, because this is not where the discussion on the copy-vio [68] is taking place. Lindashiers (talk) 03:07, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Sitush has directly accused me of being a sock of "Zuggernaut". Prove it. Lindashiers (talk) 02:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I am not a "new user". I have never claimed to be a new user. I am not a banned user at Wikimedia project either. I regularly edit at Wikipedia, without bothering to open accounts, in part because of the hostile attitude of squatters like User Sitush who target expert females and other minorities. The only reasons I edited under a user name is because the copy-vio notice required it to be from an "auto confirmed user". Hence I made 10 innocuous edits to a minor article page before adding the copy-vio template. Lindashiers (talk) 02:57, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I also made a genuine good faith offer to Sitush to collaborate to fix the article - which he spurned [69] and persisted in proclaiming elsewhere [70] that I am a sock of "Zuggernaut". Lindashiers (talk) 04:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

When you say "Sitush has directly accused me of being a sock of "Zuggernaut". Prove it." I'd ask the same of you...can you show a diff where he has "directly accused" you of this? - Aoidh (talk) 05:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"You have obviously been around for a long time under another identity" [71], followed by "You are sounding more and more like Zuggernaut by the minute, especially in your anti-British sentiments." [72], to which Admin "Bishnonen" said "Zuggernaut is stale" [73] causing Sitush to modify his statement here [74] and throw up new red herrings. Lindashiers (talk) 05:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

So the answer is no, despite saying Sitush did otherwise, you don't have a diff where you can show that Sitush directly accused you of being a sock of Zuggernaut. Looking through your other diffs, that seems to be a pattern. This idea that you can call someone's edits POV edits and hacking(?) and that means you can dismiss them or that your edits are somehow neutral. This edit, for example, doesn't exactly reflect well upon your attempts to collaborate. What you're saying, and what the diffs are showing, are two different things. - Aoidh (talk) 07:04, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, since Admin:Bishnonen also drew the same conclusion I did, by saying a SPI against Zuggernaut's CU data is not on.Lindashiers (talk) 13:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• I'm now on a 10 hour wiki-break. Lindashiers (talk) 05:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• TLDR, sorry. The Lindashiers account was created in January 2014 and lay dormant until 3 September. On that date it made exactly 10 edits to a fairly obscure article about a place/administrative unit before launching into the semi-protected India Against Corruption. The creation date falls around the time that there was a lot of meat/socking going on in relation to the IAC article and the person behind this account is making exactly the same sort of edits and arguments for exactly the same purpose.

  In fairness to them, they have since edited a few other articles. However, in those they have continued disruptively to promote a generally pro-India/anti-Pakistan, pro-Hindu/anti-Muslim stance, for example in their efforts at Praveen Togadia (note the talk page stuff here) and with this claim of modern-day persecution at Sodha, where they seem to have followed me and for which there is no support in the source cited. They've engaged in unnecessary attacks on Britain (another Hindutva trope) and have jumped on the misogynist bandwagon for what I suspect is entirely opportunist reasons, as evidenced both on their talk page and in the thread here. Almost all attempts to clarify things seem to be met with a filibustering "I'll address your concern later but answer this first" (paraphnrase) deflecting counter.

  Also in fairness to them, they provided a diff that does indeed seem to show that I committed a copyright violation at the IAC article. I've not bothered seeing whether that actually was a reinstatement by me of some earlier version or whether it really was entirely my own doing: clearly, either way it is my responsibility and I'm very upset with myself. I'm happy to fix it but cannot because of the template; I'm confident that it is a one-off error and welcome a CCI if deemed necessary.

  This account is being used either for socking or meatpuppetry. We'll probably never know which but I'm convinced that they are not really here to collaborate or to improve and that they should be blocked. This comment neatly sums up many of the issues, when they were responding to @DeCausa:. - Sitush (talk) 09:36, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Sitush obviously knows what he is talking about. I had this editor first time when I was checking Shiva, those edits [75], [76] seemed like 'anti-hindu' to me, due to the damage that was done with the sourced information about deity's recognition by Lindashiers. Last day, if we talk about the changes of Praveen Togadia, I never agreed, I assumed them to be 'anti-hindu' again, because few lines of the speeches were added, not even the whole speech. It may have made article look explosive.

Lindashiers has potential of becoming far better editor, if they use same skills in writing and extending articles, especially the popular stubs. If it fails, we may look forward to editing restrictions. DeCausa may agree, we had dealt with the same kind of user(Septate) before. Bladesmulti (talk) 09:58, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• • Togadia's entire speech cannot be used here (if at all) until it is published. The portions I selected were but a few examples of his inciendenary statements made that day which were in turn selectively reproduced by PTI and onwards in India's largest English daily in the region as cited. Attributing motives to me is as foolish as attributing motives to the PTI reporter who filed the report from Jaipur. This also shows the low mind-set of Wikipedia's editors, especially those from India, that you can even discuss this.Lindashiers (talk) 14:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

We have a completely different interpretation, Bladesmulti. I think they're pro-Hindu, you think they are not. FWIW, they have a "Jai Anna" notice on their user page and, from past experience, I've always taken to be a message of support for Anna Hazare. Hazare, of course, was involved in the IAC popular movement and is often described as a pro-Hindutva person. - Sitush (talk) 10:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• • Anna Hazare is not in the least a pro-"Hindutva" person. Anna Hazare was never involved in the IAC popular movement. His was the "Team Anna" movement which is something entirely different. Lindashiers (talk) 14:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I had agreed with every word you had been saying, but I had different intrepretation of the edits that I had, especially on Shiva. I should have detailed my opinion. While I read your statement as well as I had checked the contribution history of Lindashiers, I had seen reverts (eg. [77]) that were correct. So I definitely agreed, that the user has anti-pakistani and pro-indian stance here. According to source it was just an allegation.

Till the time many people who used to support Anna, he was still alleged of being involved with such movements. I remember, during an interview. he would question back "have you never visited them?" And everyone would laugh.

That's said, the edits on Parveen Togadia, apart from the removal of a petition were objectionable. The discussion on India Against Corruption had been turned into battlefield. We agree that the user happens to lose credibility after making various attempts to derail. Bladesmulti (talk) 10:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

My take on this, FWIW, is that Lindashiers is here to settle "old" grudges per WP:BATTLEGROUND. Althought their first edit was on 3 September, they clearly are very familiar with WP. The level of insults and hostility to Sitush don’t seem, on the face of it, to be explicable from their early exchanges. (Nor are they the typical outbusts of a thwarted drive-by or newbie.) Eg within a week of beginning editing, Lindashiers shoe horns attacks on Sitush in an ArbCom case[78], makes sly (and not so sly) insulting remarks about his intelligence, competence, being a vigilante etc this edit summary [79], [80] - there are plenty of other examples. I mention these not in terms of their lack of civility (I’m sure that’s water off a duck’s back for Sitush), it’s more because of the depth of feeling it displays about Sitush: there’s a "history" there. They also seem to have a grudge about British editors and their "collusion", very quickly posting assumptions like these: [81], [82], [83]. Indeed, they seem to have a grudge about Wikipedia in general.[84]. DeCausa (talk) 10:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Since this is my first time at ANI, but hopefully not my last, I'd like to know what the procedure here is. For eg. is it that only Administrators are allowed to participate in these proceedings. Am I expected to reply to each any every allegation being made here ? Am I allowed to be represented though legal counsel, if so where and by when is service on opposite parties to be done? Is there any panel which frames the issues, takes evidence etc.? What is the locus standi of NeilN to file this complaint ? &c. &c...

• Before we proceed, I would like to formally place the following statement of Sitush on the record here "It's time to make a stand against the arrogant and incompetent Wikimedia Foundation and its complete disregard for those of us who actually build this encyclopedia.". His attitude (and those of full-time editors like him) has completely vitiated his editing and his contempt towards those he deems as "newbies" (I am most definitely not one) comes through in every edit he makes. It seems Sitush (and the other regulars here at ANI) is doing the world a great favour by editing "unpaid" at Wikipedia and expects something in return - (like being allowed to carry on with this sick bureaucratic system which has made WP's content and processes a laughing stock).

• Accordingly, I request that I be "tried" on a formal complaint instituted and prosecuted by editors / Admins whose "real world" identities are formally on the record. I have no difficulty in providing mine !! I have faced enough abuse by being accused of "socking" and other disparaging commments, at ANI and elsewhere, by anonymous editors. If not send my matter over to the Wikimedia Foundation to be handled through the WMF's General Counsel as this dispute is about systematic copyright violation(s) accompanied with long term abuse of editing privileges by User Sitush.

• Is this complaint limited to the topic thread ie. India Against Corruption or can I cite instances of abusive editing by Sitush, Bladesmulti, NeilN, Decausa, Aoidh &c. on any article in Wikispace or at any time in the past ?

• I look forward to receiving a list of the issues I am expected to respond to along with the prima-facie evidence for it and also the verified real world identity(s) of the person(s) making them. Lindashiers (talk) 12:56, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• FURTHER TO THE ABOVE: As I am editing under my own name, and have a high reputation in eminent academic institutes within India, I am obliged to say that the participation of the article subjects - Anna Hazare, Veeresh Malik and Meera Nanda, or their agents/publishers are obligatory in these copyright and plagiarism proceedings. Lindashiers (talk) 13:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You are welcome to do that but you will likely be blocked per our policy regarding legal threats. - Sitush (talk) 13:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"A polite report of a legal problem such as defamation or copyright infringement is not a threat and will be acted on quickly". Please examine your hostile and rude reply to my polite report [85] which has vitiated all possibility of dialog ever since. Lindashiers (talk) 13:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I now see from legal threats that it is allowed to discuss libeling content absent of indication of intent to sue. Thus can we also list out various untrue statements about persons in this article India Against Corruption which they have publicly denied, but which Sitush had repeatedly inserted/re-inserted into this article without publishing their denials. Lindashiers (talk) 14:09, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

HRA1924 (talk · contribs), Mansjelly (talk · contribs), Lindashiers (talk · contribs) were created within minutes of each other and exhibits the same fixation with IAC, Sitush and NeilN  NQ  talk 14:24, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually 18 accounts were created for individual use of the 18 experts who participated in the Mediation on IAC, under a common role IP, which Sitush walked out of. This was done as per the suggestion of WMF's counsel so that the content dispute is resolved with the Wikipedia English Community. There is still no socking or meat-puppeting if that is what you are implying. Obviously different editors reacted differently thereafter to Sitush's walk-out from the mediation, which had to be closed as a result of it. Lindashiers (talk) 14:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

18? Really? Can you list them, please. - Sitush (talk) 14:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Do you doubt it ? Actually 23 IAC / Team Anna editors collaborated under the role IP - which was openly declared as such to the mediator - and which you never objected to. But a few of didn't need accounts to be opened for them. As you repeatedly state, IAC / HRA is a "secretive underground organization" which operates on a need to know basis. Lindashiers (talk) 15:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

No, I don't doubt it. But given that HRA1924 completely misunderstood how we operate and all the known meatpuppets made the same basic misunderstandings, we might as well have a list and block you all right now as a self-declared meatfarm. - Sitush (talk) 15:15, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Lindashiers, you're mistaking this for a court of law. It's not. You can defend whatever edits and behavior you choose to. Other editors will comment. If an admin thinks some action is necessary per the discussion they will go ahead and implement it. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:37, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, NQ. And they are now displaying a similar fixation with running to the WMF and referrals to legal processes. Will someone please do the necessary wrt to this obvious sock/meat and close this thread. - Sitush (talk) 14:39, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Here is what HRA_1924 explictly wrote on his user page.

This user account is created to report and represent against BLP, defamatory, libel, privacy, false, etc. violations on articles and article subjects deriving from the Hindustan Republican Association. This account is not used to edit Wikipedia articles directly (except to place suitable tags requesting for urgent admin attention), and "we" would request for edits to be made on "our" behalf given our self-disclosed conflict(s) of interest.

Previously the editors (and we stress on the plural, as the guidelines / policy for "role" and WP:SPA accounts has been shown to us) for this account had used IPs "2001:4DD0:FF00:8A8B:0:0:0:5747" , "78.46.206.3" and "2A00:2381:72D:0:A928:C888:EE9B:8A91" in connection with India Against Corruption and Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/India Against Corruption. We also stress that we are not "meat-puppets" and this account is created after discussions here [86].

We mention that "User:HRA1924" does not necessarily accept Wikipedia's Terms and Conditions, see for eg. section 19 in [87] for the international treaties involved, and our usage of the Wikipedia project's services is as a guest (ie. not an editor) with a view to urgently bring contraventions and errors to the notice of the WMF or the WP community for them to be reviewed so as to avoid causing "harm" to the subjects.

We have no difficulty in providing our verifiable real world contact particulars on request.

HRA1924 (talk) 14:04, 25 February 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lindashiers (talk • contribs)

So as this concerns the now admitted plagiarism by User Sitush, which he is unable to confirm the specifics of, we all need to know if Sitush committed the plagiarism or whether is was done by Meera Nanda. Lindashiers (talk) 15:12, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:DEADHORSE. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:18, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh, did I mention that I have an email reply from OTRS (Aug 2014) asking me to report this matter to the WP community as OTRS cannot deal with it. Lindashiers (talk) 15:20, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Which means you tried an end-run around and OTRS wasn't buying it. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Am I missing something or doesn't Lindashiers' above ramblings confirm that they are part of the meatfarm? DeCausa (talk) 16:06, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@NeilN, I really advise you to read OTRS's email in reply to some very specific queries and requests for action) before you pass such remarks.Lindashiers (talk) 16:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@DeCausa, the term "meatfarm" has no relevance here because OTRS (on behalf of WMF) has specifically requested us to use the links they provided to the COPY-VIO forms (which need an account name to submit). The Legal (and this is now an intimation of possible legal action unless anybody other than an ADMIN takes any action they wish on behalf of the "English language Wikipedia community", including blocking / banning me etc.) consequences of admitted plagiarism by the editor who walked out of mediation over this same "libelous" content remain to be seen. I am here as an alternative to legal action in case Sitush wishes to discuss/resolve this in good faith without his usual diva dramatics (incl. this quarterly ANI circus). Lindashiers (talk) 16:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Clear legal threat. [88] Lindashiers should be blocked. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Above post by Lindashiers warrants an immediate WP:NLT block. DeCausa (talk) 16:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Already blocked by Writ Keeper before NeilN posted.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 16:53, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I've now revoked talk page access as legal threats continued there and referred the user to communicate directly with WMF via email.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:03, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone for commenting and acting. I'm still really annoyed about what now looks possibly to have been a deliberate attempt to smear me using Wikipedia's copyright processes. I'm also a bit annoyed with myself for possible close paraphrasing (it's difficult, sometimes), so if any competent person cares to comment at Talk:India_Against_Corruption#The_alleged_copyvio then it would be appreciated. And if someone wants to open a CCI against me then so be it. Whatever happens, I don't want the blanking copyvio template to remain there any longer than is strictly necessary because it just does these disruptive meats/socks a favour. - Sitush (talk) 18:13, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

This sounds like Moonriddengirl's specialty. Berean humbly requests her overview on the matter. :)
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I've been doing a little analysis and I think that copyright claim could be removed as a hoax. But that needs an administrator, copyright clerk or OTRS agent. In the hope that an admin here might be prepared to remove the notice, I'll repeat that analysis here:

The material that Sitush is supposed to have copied is presented as a blog's quotation from Veeresh Malik. It concerns events from October 2010 to late February 2011 and beyond: "by late Feb 2011 P soon realised... demanded we replace him ... who also brought his large support base along with him ... and IAC now attracted ..." It seems to be written with the perspective of more than a few days or weeks, yet it's not only marked as copyright 2011 but also as posted on the blog on 06 April 2011, very soon after late February 2011.

It's shown as having been taken from page 93 of something - perhaps a book or a journal - but no title or publisher is given. Several books by Veeresh Malik appear on Amazon with "Look Inside" enabled, but none have 2011 publication dates. Still, looking inside it's striking how different Malik's style is in them from the style of that extract in the blog.

The blog appears on a domain that was registered in July 2014. It's the only entry; it's titled "IAC Chronicles Day 2" but there is no Day 1.

The perspective is consistent with having been written at a distance of a couple of years. The succinct summary style is consistent, the use of the first person aside, with writing an Wikipedia entry. I believe the burden is on anyone accusing Sitush of copying to show that that this blog is a genuine extract from a work written by Veeresh Malik between late Febrary 2011 and 6 April 2011. NebY (talk) 20:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

collapsing long post
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2014 September 3 Fight for this page is sent to all India Against Corruption member to explain you nicely. The copy text is copy from the email date 6/April/2011 08:27 AM of Veersh bhai's intervue of Arvind Kejriwal on 5/April/2011 from jantar mantar Dehli. The email was originally also publish in members section of IAC website http://indiaagainstcorruption.org (WHOIS register to PCRF on 17/Nov/2010) on 6/April/2011. Most of Veershbhai email is published again in page 93 of Veershbhai's 2014 e-book "IAC Chronicles : An Ear to the ground". "blog" link in copyright notice is for issueing the DMCA / OCCILLA notice to other OSP, it dos not have to be original link where it was first published, but only to contain enough of such content to identify the work being copied from. IAC related editor has already disclosed [89]. IAC person telling everything to these editor but they are keep deleting our helps. So if you not take action politely will send OCILLA / India CRA86 notice for takedown to OSP and also Mark Monitor. Since Veershbhai's idea/concept/intellecual property/artistic and creatiove rigts and all other IP is involved undr INDIA COPYRIGHT LAW also please note that just paraphrase the text will not resolve the issue. You must note that since WIKIPEDEA has given wrong COPYRIGHT status as "Creative Commons" to Veershbhai's text, now WIKPEDIA / all involved editors must also ensure for immediate remove the copy content from "mirror sites" of Wikipedia, Facebook and many blogs which have copied / modify it under wrong perception of free from copyright status. As a special case, India Against Corruption, being owners / beneficiary of the domain name/website "INDIAAGAINSTCORRUPTION.NET" since 2010, would consider to release the extract from page 93 para 2 of its founding member's chronicles of the movement under a GFDL or similar licence, subject to the abovementioned link being always acknowledged as the source. This tentative proposal is made without prejudice and the timebound offer is valid for 72 hours..Dkgpatel (talk) 04:28, 12 September 2014 (UTC) As this article India Against Corruption status was reopened after "USER:SITUSH" reverted [90] a batch of edits by "USER:LINDIASHIERS" (containing fresh sources) after previously inviting her to "FIX" the article. The present article contains certain highly untrue [91], [92], and abusive comments made against the official India Against Corruption movement, such as "The popular movement is distinct from a pressure group campaigning for Right to Information that bears the same name.". A notice [93] placed on SITUSH's talk page requesting for the specific source for this grossly disparaging statement has not borne fruit. In these circumstances IAC shall continue to follow on the proper path suggested by WMF in email correspondence exchanged between IAC and WMF's Legal Counsel (Michelle Paulson) 27/Feb/2014 and 01/March/2014, the copies of which are being obtained from the IAC office records and shall be uploaded here shortly. Dkgpatel (talk) 05:40, 12 September 2014 (UTC) Text of IAC email to WMF DT. 27/02/2014 From: IAC INFO Date: Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 9:52 AM Subject: Registrant for Domain "wikipedia.in" To: mpaulson Cc: Philippe Beaudette Kind Attn: Michelle Paulson (Registrant mmr-136257 for Domain ID D7204012-AFIN) registered under .IN Policy r/w INDRP. Dear Ms. Paulson We are "India Against Corruption". We are concerned about specific content directly accessible through the .IN policy NIXI registered domain "wikipedia.in" standing in your name as per the official WHOIS accessible through NIXI's registry. Accordingly, as an Indian body, IAC's Managing Council (aka Core Committee) who are all eminent Indian citizens may like to avail the facility of "Grievance Officer" mentioned in India's Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules, 2011 to report specific contraventions of the said Rules (issued u/s 79 of the Information Technology Act, which in turn are based on the United Nations agreed UNCITRAL Model Law on E-Commerce) concerning the content in English and other Indian languages directly accessible through this .IN domain's website. We would appreciate if you would inform us about the contact particulars of the said Grievance Officer. Alternatively, if there is no such officer, the particulars of the person(s) in your organisation empowered to deal with our complaint and disable the offending content / servers promptly or within 36 hours as prescribed. As IAC's core committee members and volunteers are based in various States of India, these complaints are likely to be submitted in languages such as Hindi, Gujarati, Telegu, Bengali, Tamil, Urdu concerning offending content in those languages, in addition to the English language. Your colleague Phillipe B has been very helpful and already has some knowledge of our concerns, so we are marking a copy to him too. With best wishes IAC INFO India Against Corruption media coordination cell. www.indiaagainstcorruption.org.in www.indiaagainstcorruption.net.in Text of WMF email reply to IAC DT. 01/03/2014 From: Michelle Paulson Date: Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 12:27 AM Subject: Grievance Officer for wikipedia.in Dear "India Against Corruption": Thank you for reaching out directly. I understand that you initially contacted Mr. Beaudette over his talk page. The Wikimedia Foundation hosts the Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia. Wikipedia is available in over 280 languages, including many Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages which are spoken in India and around the world. However, as Mr. Beaudette mentioned in his response, the Wikimedia Foundation is a U.S.-based non-profit organization, which abides by U.S. law. As such, we do not have a "grievance officer" per se, as one is not required under U.S. law. That said, those with complaints against the Wikimedia Foundation may contact us either by email at legal@wikimedia.org or by proper legal service to our designated agent at: Wikimedia Foundation c/o CT Corporation System 818 West Seventh Street Los Angeles, California 90017 It is worth noting, however, that the Wikimedia Foundation does not create, edit, or curate content on Wikipedia. That is the work of a global community of volunteer users. If you or any other individual or organization has a concern about content appearing on Wikipedia (regardless of the language), it is far more effective to address that concern with the user community directly. You can address the community in a number of ways, depending on the language (each language Wikipedia has its own community and procedures, meaning that the English Wikipedia community is separate from the Hindi Wikipedia community). One way to have your concerns addressed is to start a discussion on the talk page of the particular article that contains content that you have concerns about. Another is to email info@wikimedia.org, where you will reach experienced Wikipedia users who volunteer their time to answer the public's emails and help out with content concerns. Please note that the info@wikimedia.org is generally most effective in English, but they will try to help the best they can in other languages. Another way to have your concerns addressed is to bring them up on relevant noticeboards. However, the noticeboard that will be most relevant for a particular concern will vary depending on the nature of the concern and which language Wikipedia your concern relates to. It is also worth noting that lodging a complaint about content through any of these venues does not necessarily mean that the complained-of content will be altered or removed. Content on Wikipedia is governed by standards, such as verifiability and neutral point of view, created and enforced by the Wikipedia user community. Content that meet the standards of Wikipedia will generally be kept on Wikipedia. However, if you believe that you have found content that does not meet a particular Wikipedia standard, we encourage you to voice those concerns through one of the methods mentioned above. I hope this addresses your question. Have a wonderful weekend. Best, Michelle -- Michelle Paulson Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor San Francisco, CA 94105 Dkgpatel (talk) 06:05, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• And it should be noted that after Lindashiers (talk · contribs) was blocked and TPA revoked, an IPsock posted this on the account's page, attempting to smear other unrelated editors as part of the meatfarm. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 11:04, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

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

What the heck is this?

I am not sure where to address this but what is this? [94]. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I got a random message that include this "You were mentioned in their post "test". - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Is this some sort of hack?? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:21, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

No, it's someone using Flow (and when they did some copy-pasting of a version of ANI, almost everyone that were on there is getting notified...), but.... why the heck does an IP have access to it? 2607:FB90:270A:C91E:E6EC:3C70:F405:154C (talk · contribs · WHOIS) is the editor in question. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 04:24, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Info at WT:Flow. Johnuniq (talk) 04:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for clearing things up. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:29, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Penwhale your page protection didn't do any good, maybe contact Wikimedia? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: the fact that an IP can rather unceremoniously ping many editors with something that's under testing is rather bizarre... - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 04:37, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

An IP editor could easily do that by doing what they did - which was subst WP:AN/I into another page. This actually isn't a Flow but, but an Echo bug. I'll be on the team about this tomorrow.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 04:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that in Flow, you don't need to substitute it, trying to transclude it (just like e.g. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure is transcluded at the top of WP:AN) has the exact same effect, since Flow doesn't want transclusion and automatically changes it to pseudo-substitution. I just tested, and "subst" doesn't even work, you "have" to transclude it, but then it auto-pings everyone on that page. So, contrary to what Jorm said, this isn't a pure Echo bug but also (or even mainly) a Flow bug, one that was reported in February right after the initial deployment. Fram (talk) 06:46, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Was that a happy face emoticon in their edit summaries (not part of the coding right)? Shearonink (talk) 04:54, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

That was part of their edit summary (well, topic header). - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 04:55, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You don't get edit summaries in Flow. Fram (talk) 06:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Short summary:

• Nothing was substituted, only transcluded
• Flow automatically changes a transclusion to a substitution (technically, it's not a pure substitution apparently, but that's hardly relevant here)
• Flow in Echo was badly changed last week, and slightly improved this week (the devs refused to roll back the change laast week because that would cause more problems, but despite requests no examples of what problems that would be have been given)
• The problems that the transclusion of such pages give have been shown since February. I'm amazed that only now some IP tester or vandal has tried it. Nothing has been done to solve this problem.
• No edit summaries were used, as those don't exist in Flow
• Flow pages can not be deleted, and protection only works after a fashion (or sometimes not at all)
• The page where this happened was part of a 2-to-4-week test in February, which was indefinitely kept alive afterwards (for no apparent reason, mainly on the insistence of a WMF employee). It was said that pages could be turned back to the standard text format, but a forced test on another Flow page this week showed that this is not really true (lots of things get lost in the conversion, and the Flow topics remain parallel to the converted text)
• For a more general overview of Flow, the many (sometimes hard to believe) problems it has, and the rather one-sided discussion of them, please read WT:Flow. It may be time to have a thorough discussion about the immediate future of Flow on enwiki. Fram (talk) 07:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Hey Fram, according to this revision (now deleted) this was a bulk copy and paste, so neither a subst nor a transclusion. (Correction: It was indeed a simple transclusion, I was confused by the output.) Echo is susceptible to mass pings and this would have happened in other contexts than Flow as well. How is this a Flow issue? It's possible I'm missing something, but if not, we should fix this in Echo (limit pings from one user if there's not already a throttle in place).--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 07:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Hey Erik Moeller, guess what, you're wrong! Of course, because you are no longer an admin here, you couldn't check it, but perhaps you could have believed those who are? I've now undeleted the edit (hope that hasn't caused a new round of pings), since, you know what, we can't see deleted revisions in Flow (unlike everywhere else in Wikipedia) without actually undeleting them. Too bad... Yes, you can force Echo everywhere, but Flow has made it considerably easier to do (and to do it without wanting to, as happened to me the first time). If you don't know how one can see the difference between a bulk copy and paste and a Flow transclusion, you can ask your Flow Product Manager (although he seems to have trouble answering questions lately). Fram (talk) 07:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Fram, thanks for taking a closer look even if I don't think it was necessary to undelete the page to do so; we could have investigated further without exacerbating risk of annoyance of other users. I recommend that we delete the comment again at this point.

Bulk notifications with transclusions have been an issue with Echo before Flow (cf. bugzilla:50082 and others) and can be generated by other means, but we'll fix any new issues specific to transclusions on Flow boards ASAP.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 08:43, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction of your post. As for "we could have investigated further without exacerbating risk of annoyance of other users.", I have a good solution for this. Take Flow of enwiki and only bring it back after most major bugs have been solved and missing tools have been added, and the people at enwiki agree that this seems to be the case and that the tool is ready for testing at enwiki. It will seriously reduce the risk of annoyance to other users and to yourself and your team. Fram (talk) 08:57, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Erik Moeller (WMF): I have first transcluded today AfD page on my sandbox, [95]. A 57 byte edit with no pings involved. I have then substituted it on my sandbox, [96] a 3277 byte edit with no pings involved. Any idea what would happen if I transcluded it on Wikipedia talk:Flow/Developer test page? Care to try it out? Fram (talk) 14:20, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Fram: Mentions in transclusions work (that's why stuff like {{ping}} works), but regular mentions are restricted by namespace (Wikipedia: and talk only) and to comments within sections and with signatures. I haven't tested the exploitability in bulk. If you want to do bulk tests, please do so on test.wikipedia.org so you don't annoy users here.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 17:26, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Erik Moeller (WMF): What is mw:HHVM and why are you using it here? KonveyorBelt 17:32, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Which was not what I was asking about. If you substitute a page, you go down one level, i.e. you only display / save the code of that page. With Flow, you do cascading translusion, you transclude things that are transcluded as well. That is why WP:ANI is about 500K big, but the edit that started this was about 950K big. If you would have tried the edit I suggested, the difference would have been a lot larger (relatively) and the difference in who gets pinged as well (if you add an AfD to the daily log, the editors that have edited the other AfDs on that page don't get pinged of course; but with Flow, such things would happen). Apart from that: if you want months or years of testing, do it on test or mediawiki so you don't annoy users here. Fram (talk) 18:13, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the others, I do not like how there are no edit summaries, I do not like that it pings users each time a response is made, and I do not like the idea in general. It may be a great breakthrough idea to you guys but so far from what I have seen here nobody has warmed up to the idea as there are too many problems with it. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 18:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Fram: Are Wikipedia users going to have any opinion on the matter or is Flow something that is just going to be forced upon everyone? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 18:16, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

They only roll it out to pages that have agreed to it, or where they think they have agreed to it, or where a WMF member is the main driving force, or where the page is sponsored by a WMF grant. Tests are temporarily but never get ended. Errors in rollout don't get reverted but patched somewhat sometimes. They will not roll out anything we don't agree on, but it is a foregone conclusion (and said by devs in so many words) that Flow is the Future and that Flow will eventually be mandatory. No amount of errors, no matter how serious can convince them that ending the tests here and going back to the drawing board is necessary. If the problems get too serious, they simply ignore them. As an example, you can see WT:Flow#Deletion of Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Flow test, the results of their first and only test to delete a Flow page here (forced by an MFD). The results are a complete disaster, but not a single WMF member has responded to this. They are fast to mention when something seems to work, or when something is not a Flow error but an Echo problem (see this very discussion), no matter if they are right or wrong; but they keep mum about real Flow problems that are rather serious. It's the new Community Engagement Strategy, which is the same as the old one, but with nicer packaging. Our opinion will be asked, and will be ignored if it doesn't fit their needs. Fram (talk) 18:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Flow really reminds me of Skype or a chat-room type of thing I really hope that there is a community discussion on the matter but history has shown with anything that money invested speaks louder than anyone ever could even if it has driven major companies under as a result. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 18:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Fram is correct. I transcluded ANI onto the Flow page for lulz. I typed {{WP:ANI}}, only half expecting it to work. I, for one, applaud the WMF on this extension. This might be as much fun as the MoodBar. :D I did also try a second time (this time with a colon "subst" between the left curly braces and WP:ANI), because my phone did not show the transclusion at first. The subst: didn't work. Good luck with all your endeavors and I look forward to the next rollout. :P 2607:FB90:2705:E23E:FD79:23B3:4FBE:79B6 (talk) 08:11, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

edited. 2607:FB90:270E:5DC6:4D14:C867:C698:A8CB (talk) 08:21, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• So, let's see here: No edit summaries were used, as those don't exist in Flow - So, not using edit summaries is considered disruptive, but now they want to make all discussion pages so that you can't use them? Flow pages can not be deleted, and protection only works after a fashion (or sometimes not at all) - So we won't be able to delete talk pages when we need to move them in order to move pages? This is a good idea why? The current discussion system is not broken. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Yep, what The Bushranger said. GiantSnowman 08:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Usually, edit summaries on talk pages are just something like "cmt" or "re", and a lot of the time they are left out altogether. You only really need them when you're doing something unusual like changing auto-archive settings. Do we really want to force users to type "cmt" or "re" every time they leave a Flow message? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• There is quite some room between "force" and "don't allow". No one is forced to use edit summaries now, but that's not the same as no longer allowing them at all. Fram (talk) 09:20, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
• Speak for yourself; I try to give something better than cmt, re, etc. most of the time when I'm on a talk page... it's useful for people who have the talk page watchlisted. Particularly if I make what I consider a strong point, I try to summarize it so watchlisters have a chance of reading it. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:10, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Can we take this off of the wiki until things like protection work? Chillum 08:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Obviously Flow is broken. Epicgenius (talk) 15:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Thirded, pro forma, not that the WMF will care. BethNaught (talk) 18:15, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

What is needed to close this down on enwiki?

Considering the discussion here, and the reactions on WT:Flow and the test pages, I would like to know something.

@Erik Moeller (WMF), Philippe (WMF), and DannyH (WMF): (feel free to notify other WMF people if necessary): what would convince you to remove all Flow test pages from enwiki for the time being, and to come back, once all major functionalities have been built and tested and all major bugs fixed, to get consensus to re-enable it? This discussion? A vote? An ArbCom case? Something else? Fram (talk) 19:09, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Can the WMF at least protect or otherwise limit editing of those pages to a very narrow group of users? I'm not at all technically adept, but it sure looks that incident provides a road map for vandals to abuse the notification system, if not render it almost useless. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 19:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Over the last day or so, a couple of vulnerabilities in the way that Flow uses Echo mentions were found by users testing the limits of the system. A user transcluded a busy talk page into a Flow message, and sent a lot of Echo pings to users who hadn't used Flow before. We've identified those problems, and we're currently writing and backporting fixes that should take care of those holes by the end of the day.

After the current fixes are deployed, we'll keep monitoring and getting feedback. If we see that there are still cases where a significant number of users are being distracted or impeded from doing their work, then we have a few options that we can use, starting with protecting the test pages.

There's still a lot of work to be done on Flow, including some major features that haven't been built yet. That's why it's currently deployed on a small number of test pages, here and on a few other wikis. Definitely let us know if you see more problems that are currently distracting people who aren't choosing to participate on the test pages. Being unfinished, or unpopular with some people, isn't necessarily a sufficient reason to pull the test pages. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@DannyH (WMF): Thank you for once again ignoring the big question. Can you please respond as to what level of community agreement would be necessary to withdraw Flow. BethNaught (talk) 19:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I was going to wait and see the reaction to BethNaught, but really... "Over the last day or so, a couple of vulnerabilities in the way that Flow uses Echo mentions were found by users testing the limits of the system. " Really? The last day or so? Have you read Wikipedia talk:Flow/Archive 8#Flow + Echo = Error? from 5 February 2014? As for "users testing the limit of the system", first this was far from a test of the limits of the system (although it's nice that typing ten characters into Flow is already testing the limits, and second if you don't do this kind of tests before going live, then don't be surprised that it happens here (isn't that what you actually wanted?) When you release software, don't just test whether it works as expected when people use it in the right manner (which it doesn't anyway), but also test whether it is fool- and vandal-proof. No, you can't predict everything. But this test was extremely simple, and had been done with disastrous results seven months ago already. Fram (talk) 20:46, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

"Being unfinished, or unpopular with some people, isn't necessarily a sufficient reason to pull the test pages". Maybe, maybe not. But having security flaws that lead to disruption of other users' work is a reason not to deploy software on a production system. Deltahedron (talk) 20:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Aside from active dangers such as security flaws, we really shouldn't attempt to stop a test midway through; it's not like a deployed thing that is demonstrably causing problems. Where are the security flaws here? I've read through this section but didn't notice anything about security flaws until this most recent comment. Nyttend (talk) 21:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

As I understand it, this latest piece of vandalism used a known existing bug to produce numerous bogus notifications with no obvious provenance to uninvolved editors. I call that a security flaw: a trivial edit that produces a disproportionately disrruptive effect. Deltahedron (talk) 21:53, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah, okay. I hear "security flaw" and think something with password theft, unexpected auto-logging-out of editors, etc. Nyttend (talk) 22:07, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it's an unfortunate distraction. I'm sorry for the disturbance. The fix is going to be deployed to en.WP in about two hours. I can't really speak to bug reports that were filed in February; this became a top priority issue when we saw the abuse happening overnight, and we're releasing the fix in the earliest deployment window. Again, I'm sorry that there was this distraction that got in the way of people's work. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 22:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@DannyH (WMF): I think you guys really need to do more tests and fixes on flow, I will approach it with an open mind in the future but I cant say im big on it being in the form of a chatroom type of thing. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:06, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@DannyH (WMF): I also think you have still an unanswered question. Just say if it's not up to you, then we'll ask someone else. BethNaught (talk) 22:24, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Erik Moeller (WMF) and Philippe (WMF): perhaps either of you can answer the question DannyH has so nicely ignored twice (which is a quite clear answer in itself)? What would convince you to remove all Flow test pages from enwiki for the time being, and to come back, once all major functionalities have been built and tested and all major bugs fixed, to get consensus to re-enable it? This discussion? A vote? An ArbCom case? Something else? Fram (talk) 04:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I cannot express how offensive it is to have a very reasonable question asked and to get an answer that does not address it at all. The complete disregard for consensus and seemingly intentional failure to communicate significantly compounds the technical failures of this flow project.

Frankly if not for the fact that they are apparently beyond community checks and balances this project would not be allowed on this wiki in its current state. This sort of behavior would not be tolerated from a user lacking special status from the foundation, people are often blocked for forcing their desired version of Wikipedia against consensus. There is much talk about working with the community but the actions of those imposing flow on us shows that this is lip service only.

I fear that the answer is not forthcoming because the answer is that there is nothing we can do to stop them. I think they have every intention of continuing regardless of the opinion of the volunteers who wrote this encyclopedia. Chillum Need help? Type {{ping|Chillum}} 04:44, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

At this point it's in early development and used on three production pages and one test page. The main reasons to disable it would be:

1) The two WikiProjects or the Co-op page participating it in the trial want it turned off. In that case we'd disable it for those talk pages and help them convert back to the old format, no questions asked.

2) It's causing continued problems for people not participating in the tests. We deployed fixes for the issues reported here today (by limiting post size and pings). Any remaining issues with pingspam, AFAICT, could equally easily be exploited anywhere else. Page protection should be working in case of emergency (this was also improved recently). What other issues are there that are dealbreakers for having this small number of pages Flow-enabled?

Disabling completely is on the table if there are dealbreaker issues for users not participating in the tests that can't be easily fixed. We can test in other contexts (e.g. smaller wikis where people are willing to play with it) to iron out issues. So this is not a matter of pride or anything. We want to do the right thing, both for the users on en.wp who want to play with it and for the larger community who's concerned about system-wide impact.

Thanks, --Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 05:48, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

No thanks. You are giving reasons to turn it off. I'm not asking about those. What you present is we find bugs, and you decide if they are serious enough. What I want to know is what kind of community process is expected to be sufficient to make it clear that enwiki at the moment no longer wants to test this or to host these test pages. Whether you agree that the issues are serious or not is completely besides the point, and is still you imposing your will instead of listening to what the community wants. I'm not saying "turn it off", I'm not saying "the community wants you to turn this off", I am asking what kind of community input would be considered a sufficient consensus for the WMF to turn it off. Your reply seems to be "no input will ever be sufficient if the WMF decides to continue the tests". It is not up to you to decide whether e.g. requests to only have once the promised "you-can-convert-back-to-wikitext" really works are sufficient, or whether requests to have working history, contributions, or functions like undo, rollback, delete, ... are sufficiently serious; if the feeling here is that these, individually or taken together, are sufficient to end the test, then you should end the test, without ifs or buts. Fram (talk) 06:58, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Fram, I think you did get an answer about the kind of consensus that would be needed. The consensus would have to come from the wikiprojects dealing with the affected pages, unless there are sufficiently bad bugs to affect people in other places. This is a bit different from normal en.wp practice where wikiprojects don't have special authority (LOCALCONSENSUS) over the pages they support, but it's not unreasonable in itself, and might reflect normal practices on other wikis. Anyway you can't really say your question wasn't answered. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 14:08, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

But that's of course not how it works. A project can not decide to keep working with a tool or product if the general consensus is that the tool should not be deployed on enwiki anywhere. Furthermore, the tool does affect other people, not only through the pings but e.g. also through (at least) one person getting edits in his contribution list that he never made. Fram (talk) 14:18, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Or to put it differently: the projects can ask for it to be turned on or off, no problem; unless the community (in whatever form, see my initial question) decides that for whatever reason, justified or not they no longer want Flow anywhere on enwiki. The WMF is encouraged to join the discussion, convince us that we are making a bad decision, show where our arguments are wrong; but in the end, it's not their turf, it's not their decision that we have to keep testing this on enwiki. Fram (talk) 14:40, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

You're now saying you don't like the answer, which is different from saying you didn't get an answer, so ok, that's a reasonable point to proceed from. But no, I don't believe the wiki software or even the editing culture is "our turf". Those of us (including me) who still edit here are just a self-selected group of fuckups. The community has shown consistent incompetence on the technical side and gradual degeneracy into a morass of bureaucracy and COI on the content side, so I think we need a shake-up. The project's real stakeholders are its readers and the world at large, and when the WMF and the community disagree on what's better for the world, I'm not going to automatically assume the (dysfunctional) community is right. On technical matters the WMF has a good track record, so I tend to cut them some slack when they make an error here or there. Erik: I'd be interested to know why this feature has to be tested on en.wp instead of on meta or someplace like that. The issue of revdel raised by Bushranger also seems important. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 16:24, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that I don't consider it an answer. If the answer is "the community has no say in this, it's the projects on individual basis and the WMF for the whole test", then let them say so outright. Then I will be dissatisfied with the answer, but we will have gotten one. The current reply seems to imply the answer I just presented, but is absolutely not clear on it. Fram (talk) 17:22, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

The projects are part of the community, of course. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 17:28, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Let's ask an additional simple question, as well. At WP:FLOW, it states that Flow is intended to replace - fully, I presume - "the current Wikipedia talk page system". I see above, statements that Flow pages cannot be deleted.

The simple question is this: is it true or is it not that Flow pages cannot be deleted?

And as a follow-up: if the answer is 'they can', is this 'by anyone who can currently delete a Wikipedia page', or does it require additional procedure?

And thirdly (which just occured to me): is it possible to perform Revision Deletion on Flow discussion pages?

If the answer to any of those questions is 'no', then Flow CANNOT be utilised on Wikipedia, full stop, because the deletion of discussion pages is often necessary as part of routine maintenance by admins (page moves, etc.), and revdel ability on talk pages is something that is (far-too-)often required by WP:BLP. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 10:27, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

People will be able to delete Flow boards. Right now, the only way to turn a Flow board on is for a developer on the Flow team to enable it on a single-page basis. One of the developers is in the process of creating a Special page that will allow people with the appropriate user rights to enable Flow on an existing page, or create a new Flow page. That system will also include the ability to reverse this -- to convert an existing page back to the way that it was, or to delete the new Flow page. That ability isn't currently in admins' hands, because, as people have correctly pointed out, Flow isn't ready for widespread use. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 16:48, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

In your last sentence, there is no logical link between the first part and the last, despite the "because" you interjected. The reverse of that sentence, that Flow isn't ready for widespread use because (i.a.) no admin tools are available would be correct. But that's not a reason not to have them now. On the contrary, there is already a page where the ability was needed, but it turned out to go all haywire. Please don't try to answer pertinent questions with illogical statements. Fram (talk) 17:22, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I was approached a few months ago to test Flow's integration with checkuser and oversight. I found a number of major bugs that were blockers for any kind of deployment, and those were fixed within a few weeks. I also found a number of minor bugs which were less important. It was my opinion at the time that after those major bugs were fixed then Flow's integration with the checkuser and oversight extensions was good enough for the limited test deployments that were proposed. To date, I've seen no evidence that this functionality isn't good enough for these test deployments. So, as a checkuser and oversighter, I'm satisfied for now. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 17:05, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Single Purpose Accounts

Hello, I've notice several WP:SPA editors on the pages related to Israel and the Gaza War. I'm wondering how to deal with these editors. As far as I understand it editors who edit in order to push a certain POV or advocate a certain perspective are not allowed on Wikipedia. Is this correct? If so is there anything I need to do other than just tag those users who I think might be single purpose accounts?Monopoly31121993 (talk) 19:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I've moved this section so it's in chronological order. Graham87 05:36, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Evlekis quacking again

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And a swift block would be appreciated for Educated Guesses. Amortias (T)(C) 19:43, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

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

Administrator abuse

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It is my personal conviction that User:Mr. Stradivarius was contacted by email and offered financial incentives in order to settle a dispute on Nabih Berri. The page was previously targeted by Beirut-based PR agency AddBloom and I am personally aware of the fact that the team of the politician whose article is in question has a tendency to buy off or financially settle any problem that they encounter. Mr. Stradivarius has consistently removed heavily sourced paragraphs and kept replacing them, until just recently, with unsourced hagiography. The following are the sourced (which he maliciously calls unsourced) paragraphs that were removed:

• According to former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky, in his book By Way of Deception, the Mossad "was deeply involved with several other warring Lebanese families, paying for information, passing it between groups, even paying the gangs and some Palestinians in the refugee camps for intelligence and services. Besides Gemayel, both the Jumblatt and Berri families were on the Mossad payroll. Source: Ostrovsky, Victor (1990). By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer, p. 316

• Berri is involved in corruption allegations regarding a 1996 coastal motorway in southern Lebanon. The contract for the motorway was won by a firm run by Berri's wife, Randa Assi, and was said to be overpriced by over three hundred million US dollars. Sources: Johnson, Michael (2001). All Honorable Men: The Social Origins Of War In Lebanon , p.236; Schwerna, Tobias (2010). Lebanon: A Model of Consociational Conflict , p.128.

• In 2004, Berri was mentioned in several of the diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks. One cable said that Amal is "near universally derided as corrupt to the core", and that Berri was described by a relative of Musa al-Sadr as having provided social services in the south only through "wheeling, dealing, and stealing". Also according to the cables, Berri receives USD 400,000 a month from Iran, using a fourth of the sum to shore up his support and pocketing the rest. Sources: Gloria Center, Wikileaks cables.

• According to one source, Berri was considered by Rafik Hariri to be "irredeemably corrupt and unreliable", as well as an opportunist, and is thought to maintain his support base through access to state funds. Source: Blanford, Nicholas (2006). Killing Mr. Lebanon: The Assasination of Rafik Hariri and Its Impact on the Middle East , p. 118

• According to leaked diplomatic cables, during the 2006 Lebanon war, Berri, publicly an ally of Hezbollah, described Israel's attacks on Hezbollah to US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman as being "like honey", and hoped that Israel would complete its mission against Hezbollah quickly. He suggested that the IDF "markedly improve its targeting intelligence to make air strikes more effective. Either that, or they would have to wipe Hizballah out of the south with a ground offensive." He also suggested that "if Israel succeeds in weakening Hizballah militarily, then he will be more willing to weaken them politically". Sources: Wikileaks cables, NOW Media, Aspen Institute, Middle East Online.

• Berri's sister-in-law and close business associate Samira Assi, is said to have made a fortune by getting a contract from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to print one million copies of Gaddafi's "Green Book". Assi's deals are seen as highly controversial, since the founder of the Amal Movement, Musa al-Sadr, is known to have been disappeared on the orders of Gaddafi himself. Sources: Middle East Intelligence Bulletin report, written by the current news director of Congress-funded Al Hurra.

Why should anyone bother to edit Wikipedia, when their efforts are compromised by the actions of such individuals as User:Mr. Stradivarius with dubious actions and intentions? I hope this could be referred to an arbitration or mediation committee that would decide upon restoring these sourced paragraphs in the article, and I hope that User:Mr. Stradivarius's actions could be thoroughly investigated.

Callsfortruth (talk) 19:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You'd better come up with some proof that he was offered financial incentive pretty darned quick, or else I smell a block ... the panda ₯’ 19:57, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Anyone hearing a feint whistle getting louder really quick?--v/r - TP 19:59, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

It sounds more like someoen trying to cut air with a stick more like a woosh woosh to me. Amortias (T)(C) 20:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

If I had any proof, he would have been blocked already. I am assuming, based on the fact that a PR-firm has targeted this article, and because said politician has copious amounts of money that he spends on whitewashing his image, especially when it comes to the first result in a Google search of his name. Callsfortruth (talk) 20:03, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, the reason for this post is not primarily to get someone to investigate admin's action (though it is my stated intention), it is to have this article reviewed by a committee. I am not acquainted with the procedures, as I have too little time to edit Wikipedia, so I hope any admin here could help. Callsfortruth (talk) 20:08, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• I know that this is section has been closed, but I thought I should clarify - I haven't been contacted by anyone off-wiki about this article, and I certainly haven't been offered any money to edit it. Actually, I came across it by patrolling Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 00:30, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

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Canvassing

I am bringing this here, because when the behaviour in question was pointed out on the talk with the intention merely of stopping it, I have been repeatedly challenged to do so.

User being reported: User:AmritasyaPutra. notified.

I had been involved in a long and unpleasant content dispute with said user, and Reddyuday on Talk:Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana. 5 days ago (In a dispute that has lasted several weeks already) AmritasyaPutra posted to the talk page of Bladesmulti, essentially asking for help. When I called this canvassing on the talk, I was asked to go to ANI with my accusations. I also later received a message on my talk, which said that that accusation had been a personal attack. Amritasya also then stored this.

All I want, at this point, is an admin opinion on whether the post to Blades' talk was, in fact, canvassing. If it was, then perhaps a warning. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:24, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

• Statement of AmritasyaPutra

Ping to involved editors: @Bladesmulti:, @Joshua Jonathan:, @Reddyuday:, @Sarvajna:, @Dharmadhyaksha:

The accusation of canvassing was made very strongly, on two different grounds, on this talk page section:link

Vanamonde93 also made comments on my competence to edit on that talk page, one section: link

Note: The accusations have been carried over by Vanamonde93 to this unrelated talk page discussion: link.

I had requested him to take his complaints of canvassing and competence against me to ANI instead of disrupting article talk page discussions, finally I put this warning: diff link.

This may be related: I had warned Vanamonde93 for outing in that same talk page in this section: link

This may also be related: Vanamonde93 reported me for 3RR violation earlier for same article, the closing admin took 'no action', and pointed out to Vanamonde93 not to make remarks like "Are you deliberately being dense" (to me): diff link.

--AmritasyaPutra✍ 02:55, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

This is not Arbcom, you don't have to make separate sections for each user. I am not interested in discussing most of that, because how the "accusation" was made does not change your post on Blades' page. I had also already notified Reddy and Blades. Finally, the accusation of "outing" refers to me using Amritasya's old username, which I had interacted with more frequently, and which was (and still is) visible to the public on Wikipedia. Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:13, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

It was the first time someone was insisting on calling my by name despite repeated warnings. I did not know the entire procedure, can the reviewing admin suppress such edits on the concerned article talk page? I have not done canvassing. You say in the opening statement your "intention merely of stopping it, I have been repeatedly challenged to do so." which is nonsensical because you were requested each time to take the repeated accusations to ani and keep the article talk page discussion to the content dispute. The warning I put on your talk page mentioned accusation of competence also which you have subtly brought up in an unreleated article talk page too. Blades did not comment at all in the section where I requested him to give his independent opinion -- that section discusses content that was inserted six times by you against consensus and it finally stands removed by JJ too. --AmritasyaPutra✍ 04:59, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Both of you, just knock it off. You won't get it settled this way. Go read the Dhammapada, or any Indian Guru: don't stick to hatefull thoughts. And Van, you also notified me. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:18, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, perfectly acceptable JJ. One request: could you please make similar observation on this talk page: Talk:Vidya_Bharati? That should close all the loose ends. Thank you! My personal closing remarks(will not prolong the discussion): Closing admin in the previous ANI case against me by Van also noted his offensive tone and requested him to avoid it(diff given above). Van did make offensive remarks and made accusations on article talk pages repeatedly which I pointed out to him, I did not appreciate its continuation and put a warning on his talk page. Which was immediately removed and this ANI filed. I needed to respond to this ANI. --AmritasyaPutra^T 09:14, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

No, I won't. I'm not going to read yet another quarrel. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:28, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay. On Vidya_Bharati talk page he has posted about ABISY -- it is not another case. I am not a willing participant, I must defend myself. Van, if you have any concerns about my behaviour as you have expressed on Talk:Vidya_Bharati please conclude it now/here. I do not have anything to say there what I have not already said and consider it closed from my end. Thank you. --AmritasyaPutra^T 09:41, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Both AmritasyaPutra and Vanamonde93 may have accused each other of canvassing but if we look into the definition of canvassing we would better know that there was nothing wrong with what you both were doing. In this type of canvassing, you invited only those into discussion who are regulars of Indian articles. Just like Joshua Jonathan told, I think it is really better to read some book especially the dharma related, and be resolutive like you already been so many times. Bladesmulti (talk) 13:53, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay. JJ suggested dhammapada, I prefer that over dharma sometimes, or perhaps they are same. Let me dig in library. ;-) Aside, not in continuation of this discussion and no reply expected: After SPI was done and it was revealed that Van already knew of the socks I raised doubt about such conduct that it should have been clearly declared. I understand the editor wants a clean start and it was a trivial oversight. So, I did not mention it here at all. I know it was not canvassing and neither did I canvass. If I level such an accusation I will make it on ANI directly instead of repeatedly threatening on article talk page. Of course, I was not pleased with all the name calling and accusations and put a warning. I could not have let these continue without as much as defending myself? --AmritasyaPutra^T 14:33, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

JJ, I notified you as Blades' mentor. Canvassing is inviting an uninvolved editor to influence consensus; by virtue of your position, you are somewhat involved in everything Blades does. Not responsible for, but involved, certainly. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:34, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

IP vandalizing

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IP 75.180.25.127 has been vandalizing Mary Birdsong page. (notification) diff1, diff2. IP was warned earlier for making similar changes. Also has other warnings about vandalism on the talk page. Kingsindian (talk) 22:53, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

This is the right forum for reports like this. Epicgenius (talk) 01:26, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I've reported the IP user already. Epicgenius (talk) 01:31, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Why is a user being reported for allegedly making good-faith edits? Drmies (talk) 02:24, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• A BLP that's so poorly verified, so full of resume information, where it's so difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff and every individual little job, no matter the size, is included in a filmography--well, I don't think we can throw an IP in the slammer for some unverified shuffling of content. That article is ridiculously bad. BTW, if we're going to bring the hammer down on this IP (who seems to have done some more work on this article with different IP addresses) because of "unverified changes" (not simply removal, Kingsindian)--well, what are we supposed to do about this wholly unexplained revert of 19 edits by Freshh? Who then warned the IP, a warning that can add up to four, so that one of us admins will block? Well, one thing we can do is tell them to stop using Twinkle. Drmies (talk) 02:33, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

@Drmies: I am afraid, I have very little experience in these things, so my efforts might have caused more trouble that they were worth. I was just looking at recent changes and noticed some stuff by an IP and reverted assuming good faith. I looked at the contributions and found that this stuff has been going on for some time. I looked at the talk page, and it seemed that this kind of stuff was widespread. There has been no response by the IP to anything on the talk page. This is why I reported it. Take my report with a ton of salt, and any pointers on how to deal with these kind of things are appreciated. Kingsindian (talk) 02:40, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

No no, not salt, Kingsindian--that's not the issue, and my problem isn't so much with you--I suppose you're new here, and didn't know, perhaps, that one should be reticent in starting ANI threads. In a situation like this, where editors are simply reverting each other, it's worth something trying to get them to go to the talk page. But that IP editor has nothing but templated warnings on their talk page, so I would say they have very little incentive to do anything but reinstate their information. If your counterpart Freshh had left a human message on that talk page, perhaps the IP might have found their tongue. At any rate, since there is no talk page discussion or edit summaries that explain what was vandalism here, no admin is going to act on it. The lesson, if there is one: judge an edit for what it's worth, and that includes others' reverts of edits. Another one: editors who get templated are more likely to get angry than to start talking. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 03:02, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. This seems to have happened with me before: that I was too trigger-happy. I will keep it in mind. Kingsindian (talk) 03:11, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

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Two editors collaborating on biased degrading of Wikipedia articles

I'll keep it as short as possible. Two editors, User:Pincrete and User:Bobrayner are harassing Boris Malagurski-related articles, mostly the article about his film The Weight of Chains. Even though these articles are very well sourced (not many articles on Wikipedia have so many references per sentence), they've expressed their dislike and anti-Malagurski bias very directly several times, and are now ganging up to discourage those who actually want to help contribute to Wikipedia in regards to articles on the matter. For standing up for neutrality, I've been accused of being Boris Malagurski, his friend and on his payroll, accused that I just want to praise him and his work with no criticism, while my main objection is that negative criticism should be well sourced, and that well sourced facts and positive critique shouldn't be removed. In essence, I would like neutrality.

However, whenever I list reputable sources that support any claim, they always jump to say "No consensus!", and thus any serious editing can't be done. Most recently, after I added information and quotes from a review from VICE (magazine), Bobrayner quickly reverted it [97], again citing "clearly no consensus to add this" (not a word dropped on the talk page from him). When I even expanded a review to include more negative criticism of the film, but argued that blog posts can't be considered as reliable sources for criticism, again the screams of "no consensus" to remove the blogger's rants. Pincrete keeps canvassing ([98]) and Bobrayner gladly jumps in whenever needed. This is starting to get very annoying. I've lost my nerve once and engaged in an edit war, I don't want to get into that kind of communication anymore, I would like to see what is it that has to happen so that I can peacefully edit and collaborate with those who didn't come to Malagurski-related articles with an agenda, but with an honest wish to contribute in the spirit of Wikipedia. Editing here was fun when I started, but if I have to argue with people whenever I add reliably sourced content that fulfill Wikipedia criteria, I'm out. If pushing POV, manipulating, canvassing and getting away with it just because some articles are less popular than others is the essence of Wikipedia, please let me know so that I can make my decision on whether to stay. Thanks in advance, --UrbanVillager (talk) 23:24, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Question from Pincrete, may I ask the time-frame in which this is likely to be heard? I ask as there a very large number of diffs to assemble to answer this properly. Pincrete (talk) 00:25, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

There's no guarantee that anyone will respond. However, if you keep it brief, you'll have a much better chance. Few people will read an excessively long post that details every minor transgression made by an editor. I would suggest you try to keep it to the length of UrbanVillager's post (or shorter). I skimmed over the article's talk page (and a few others), and I'd suggest that you two could probably benefit from content-related dispute resolution, such as the dispute resolution noticeboard, a third opinion, an RFC, or asking WikiProject Film for unbiased input. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 07:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

That's quite a long complaint about a small part of the problem. Let me try to condense the broader story, for the good folk of WP:ANI.

• UrbanVillager is a single-purpose account whose only work is to promote Malagurski, an obscure filmmaker. Tellingly, UrbanVillager writes promotional content about Malagurski's work before information is actually released to the public. Articles on these films have, historically, contained only positive content - and impressive lists of awards (some of which are impossible to reconcile with real-world evidence), and UrbanVillager will automatically revert anyone who tries to fix it. Just look at the history of The Weight of Chains]. Normally I wouldn't bother much with mere spam, but Malagurski's films make some radical claims about recent Balkan history, and UrbanVillager has tweaked content to suit those claims.
• The combination of promotional editing, misuse of sources, and radical views on recent Balkan history, can lead to angry comments by various people, although I've tried to remain civil. In a previous attempt at dispute resolution, UrbanVillager insisted that several editors - the folk he has diligently reverted over the years - are all conspiring to malign Malagurski. It's difficult to reason somebody out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
• The latest problem is about some reviews of The Weight of Chains. UrbanVillager has spent years adding positive wording and removing negative wording and reverting anyone who disagrees; that's his job. In the last few days, two different uninvolved people (Psychonaut (talk · contribs) and EdJohnston (talk · contribs)) had warned UrbanVillager for editwarring and for "making unilateral changes"; UrbanVillager did it again; I made a single revert, because there was clearly no consensus for UrbanVillager's wording; so UrbanVillager tried asking EdJohnston for support, and when EdJohnston disagreed, UrbanVillager started this thread instead.

bobrayner (talk) 08:04, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I took a look The Weight of Chains 2 (now at AfD) and noted it said that production was continuing into 2013. Turns out that was copyvio from [99] - a page archived 3 days before the article was created with the copyvio. Which led me to look at the creator's talk page - User talk:Kepkke which has number of copyvio warnings on it - editor also never seems to communicate, let alone deal with copyvio warnings. No comment at the moment on UrbanVillager. Dougweller (talk) 15:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Revert war at Recreational Drug Use

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

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

Recreational Drug Use (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

3RR violations all around. Lack of discussion.

Signedzzz's editing pattern of hundreds of 0-5 byte edits, making the history harder to review, rubs me the wrong way, but I think my rubbing is exacerbated by my opinion on the issue. I'm a wiki contributor that never was; I feel out of my depth trying to moderate/fix this, especially because I have strong opinions and I'm not really sure I could set them aside to moderate. This strikes me as the kind of war that will get worse without intervention. Riffraffselbow (talk) (contribs) 12:03, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• It would be better handled at the Edit Warring Noticeboard. Epicgenius (talk) 13:04, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

New editor...

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

I'm caught between WP:BITE and the trail of destruction this editor seems intent on leaving in their wake. Wikicology joined WP a little over 3 months ago and has since made about 1000 edits, 40% of which are to user talk pages where Wikicology likes to provide "expert" guidance and advice to new and established editors alike. I didn't come across them until their most questionable non-admin closure of this deletion discussion. But scanning through their edit history there are some other concerning things like:

• This series of edits to Deb's talk page.
• This equally strange advice to Northamerica1000.
• This doubling-down on WikiDan61's talk page.

I'm all for enthusiasm but attempting to function as a quasi-admin and getting it so consistently wrong is a recipe for disaster. I'm especially concerned about the idea of a non-admin with this sort of AFD track-record closing discussions (and if the currently-open AFD nominations are anything to go by, that record is progressing in the wrong direction). There's an obvious language barrier there (which makes me even less inclined to bring it here) but we're watching a bad situation get worse. St★lwart¹¹¹ 14:03, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

There's also this on Bobrayner's talk and this on his own. But I've since seen he counts Kelapstick and RHaworth as mentors so in fairness I've pinged them too. St★lwart¹¹¹ 14:22, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Since I was pinged on this, I'll throw in my 2¢ worth. My take on Wikicology is that xe is unwilling to accept advice from more experienced editors, and has an unnecessarily belligerent attitude. The fact that xe is active in WP:NPP, and thus interacting with many newbies leads to lots of biting that, on balance, does more harm than good to the project. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 14:33, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• That was a spectacularly bad call in closing the AFD. I'll soon be reverting it. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:42, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• I have given him the benefit of the doubt for this [100] where an article was accepted from AFC in this current state. Admittedly now Wikicology and several others have helped clean up the article significantly, however I still don't feel it should ever have been moved into the mainspace so I took it to AFD. I think a gentle nudge to be more cautious is definitely in order. CaptRik (talk) 15:27, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• I am particularly glad with Stalwart111 report here as this will significantly improve my edit behaviour. Let me start by correcting an impression of WikiDan61 that I don't take advice from experience editors, that's very untrue. Who else will I take an advice from if not an experienced editor? Deb is not a bot she is an admin. and I had made several comment on his talk pages. If she find it offensive, am sure deb would have taken a proactive measure to curb it, perharps report me here. It is true that I had an issue with Bobrayner (talk · contribs) but i tendered an unreserved apology to him and it was settled. I admit the fact that my comment seemed to be hostile at times and that's usually wit spammers because I found it odd to be polite with spammers. I had no intention to bite new editors. Sometimes I don't even see my comment as a bite. It is easy for Stalwart111 to point out my errors and I will take to correction. It will also be easy for others to point out his error because no one is a perfect editor. But sequel to the above allegation, am ready to takes to correction and it will not repeat itself.Wikicology (talk) 16:10, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

@Wikicology: Based on the above, and this advice from an editor, I think it might be best for you to refrain from giving advice to editors, even new editors, for a bit and take some time to observe how editors talk to each other here. Your communication style has been somewhat combative, even if you did not intend for it to be so, and even if you feel like your actions are correct. Speaking from my own experience, there is a lot to learn about Wikipedia even within the first year or two of doing so. It's best to accept that you will make mistakes because you are still learning (as am I, after editing for several years), and that trying to argue every time you are challenged is not going to be productive for you looking ahead. I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 17:06, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• I don't recall any particular interaction beyond this, and this shows as much, certainly not enough for me to consider myself a mentor. Thanks for the ping though Stalwart111. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 16:38, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• The edits here and here (noted above) are particularly worrying to me. Lesson 0 of any collaborative project is humility. We don't always know everything and we should all be willing to dial back accusations like those when countered rather than ratcheting them up. For Wikicology, here are some general pointers: When in doubt, don't template people or warn them unnecessarily. There's no need to warn editors that they might be blocked (either directly or via a euphemism) unless you're absolutely sure that A: they will be blocked for that behavior and B: that a warning will potentially deter them from said behavior. This avoids two problems. First, you don't end up biting a new editor and second you avoid having to decide whether or not you have to be "polite to spammers". If someone is spamming a link (especially multiple times) then just revert the edit. If you feel that a revert needs to be explained (and it often has to be), then leave a polite explanation noting the problems with the edit and how to correct them. Next, when someone who is not involved with a particular dispute (e.g. a revert or a comment you've left) raises an issue with your actions, your first step should be to stop and evaluate whether or not they could be correct. There's no prize for being right. You don't need to apologize or promise to correct the error every time someone comments but consider the possibility that they may have a point. Finally, while it is fun to patrol new pages and recent changes sometimes this isn't the best path for everyone. Consider just editing articles or participating in discussions for a while, you'll be amazed at how much perspective you get by merely stepping away from anti-vandalism tools for a while. Protonk (talk) 16:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• I think one of the problems here is that Wikicology is new, and trying to fit in. In doing so, they are "borrowing" a lot of phraseology and style from those who they see as "role models", such as those folks they list as "mentors". For instance, many of the phrases used are ones which RHaworth commonly uses, and they are listed as a user Wikicology admires. English maybe not being a first language tends to compound this approach. Unfortunately, because they haven't been here as long as those other editors, or gained the experience and respect which those other editors have, they can tend to use those "borrowed" styles in a way that isn't really appropriate. This can then be miscontrued as "talking down" when I'm sure that's not the intention. I have absolutely no doubt that they mean very well indeed, and can make great contributions, in time, but it would, I think, be wise for them to wait until they have listened to, and actively sought, enough advice before being confident in offering so much. A mentor is someone who has agreed to that role, and to whom one should actively go for advice, rather than just copy. They can explain why they do what they do, and at what times it would, or would not, be appropriate for you to do the same, or how you might approach things differently. Begoon ^talk 17:06, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Yet another Evlekis Sock

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Hi

A swift block for Pigs posture if someone could please, abuse pattern identical to other socks of Evlekis. Amortias (T)(C) 14:18, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

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

SPECIFICO's WP:WIKIHOUNDING of Carolmooredc - Proposal of Two Way Interaction Ban

Background: Previously, SPECIFICO and Carolmooredc clashed with one another in the Austrian economics topic space which led to community sanctions[101] and eventually an ArbCom case, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Austrian economics where both editors presented evidence against one another[102][103] and both were sanctioned by ArbCom.[104][105]

The ArbCom case should have ended this WP:BATTLEGROUND but it hasn't. SPECIFICO continues to WikiHound Carolmooredc. Here is the latest example. Carolmooredc has never edited our article on September 11 attacks until now.[106] SPECIFICO has never edited this article before until now.[107] Despite these two editors having never edited this article before, after Carolmooredc makes her first edit on 20:27, September 10, 2014, SPECIFICO show up hours later,12:13, September 11, 2014 to complain about Carolmooredc's edit and then subsequently reverts Carolmooredc's edit.18:13, September 11, 2014

The issue of SPECIFICO's WikiHounding of Carolmooredc was brought up before[108] also in a topic space completely unrelated to Austrian economics.

It's clear that this dispute has become personal. I don't think that we're quite up to the stage of requiring a site ban so I am proposing a two-way interaction ban between SPECIFICO and Carolmooredc. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:33, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support As proposer. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:33, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Comment - I think that if instead both of those two editors were topic-banned away from the Gender Gap Task Force, the maelstrom at that ArbCom-Case-Waiting-To-Happen would be lessened by about 63%. Carrite (talk) 14:42, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

  The "kill everyone and let Allah sort them out" approach is always tempting. You could probably get rid of all women-hating trolls by just banning all women. —Neotarf (talk) 15:59, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

  Considering that neither the current proposed sanction nor the underlying dispute have anything to do with the GGTF (the dispute predates the task force by quite a bit, IIRC), could y'all kindly not hijack this thread into yet another GGTF thread? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:04, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

  Well, I'm not familiar with the previous interactions on the economics topics, all I have seen is the gender gap stuff. SPECIFICO agreed here to back off from it. —Neotarf (talk) 16:43, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support. They've clashed on all kinds of different articles, so it's clear the problem is not a particular topic. Gamaliel (talk) 15:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support IBAN – I have observed the interaction between them for many months. It has been an ongoing and insidious disruption. – S. Rich (talk) 15:49, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Comment - I provided analysis for the Austrian economics arbitration case and have kept tabs on subsequent disputes, so I'm very familiar with the background here. Also, back in May I provided analysis of a separate wikihounding claim between two other Aust econ parties, so I'm familiar with the fine points of that policy. AQFK has provided evidence here to meet most of the criteria for wikihounding, but there still remain a couple of points to show: (1) An "apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance, or distress, or out of revenge for a perceived slight" on the part of SPECIFICO; and (2) that SPECIFICO's actions did not constitute "fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles" "carefully, and with good cause" in order not to lead others to suspect ill motives. That said, this is my rather wikilegalistic take on the particular charge of wikihounding by SPECIFICO; but I have long been of the opinion that a two-way interaction ban between these two (and certain other pairs of Aust econ parties, but that's outside the present scope) would prevent a lot of unproductive conflict going forward, based on their apparent mutual distrust. alanyst 15:53, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Comment My understanding is the gender gap wikiproject was pretty much a dead end project until Carolmooredc revived it. How would an interaction ban effect this project? —Neotarf (talk) 15:55, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

  I don't see how it would affect it at all; they don't seem to have anything to do with each other. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:04, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Site ban for SPECIFICO due to overt hounding and harassment of Carolmooredc and others. SPECIFICO is almost surely a ban evaded and has been engaged in egregious POV pushing and partisan slugfests since his inception. His harassment and stalking is the last straw.--MONGO 16:18, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. WP:Wikihounding means he has been following me around per WP:Wikihounding in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. I did my best to ignore him for the last few months, but when he started Wikihounding me at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force ("GGTF"), responding (usually critically or worse) to just about everything I wrote there, I had to respond at least some percent of the time. This is not a solution to SPECIFICO Wikihounding me. He'll just keep it up, disrupting any article or project I work on, just within the "letter of the law", without reverting my specific edits or replying to me, just making sure he's everyplace I am. It can definitely upset one's balance.

I have to run out in 10 minutes to a doctors appointment, so forgive obvious errors. Also leaving a couple placeholders for new information, but will just repeat what I wrote last week regarding this issue:

• SPECIFICO has been obsessively harassing/wikihounding me for over a year regarding various political differences: posting on my talk page, following me to articles, reverting me and/or negatively commenting on my edits or talk page comments. See these earlier complaints my warning 6/23/13; my 6/29/13 ANI; my complaint to an admin 10/31/13; SPECIFICO's 11/31/13 block for "interpersonal behavior" against me another editor filed at TPNO ANI; my warning on harassment 1/14/14; my later complaint to admin 1/14/14. See also an uninvolved editor's comment regarding SPECIFICO's harassment of me.
• Repeated violation of my talk page ban (except for official notifications): [Placeholder for my first ban which I just noticed other day]], October 31 2013 thread where he denied it and I couldn't find that link, I have had to remind him of the banning and/or complain about continued harassment at my talk page on these dates: Oct 31, Nov 11, Nov 22, Nov 24, Dec 19, Dec 29, Jan 10, June 30, 9/4, 9/4.
• I have tried to ignore the many more recent incidents; see just April 1-September 3, 2014 Interaction Analyzers Results with examples of his following me to 20 articles or pages he had not edited before and harassing me, sometimes repeatedly.
• Examples of constant and disruptive harassment at GGTF, which also disrupts the project: His first at GGTF supports a visiting editor's criticisms of me based on past disputes; here he criticizes an editor objecting to the two of them airing "grudges" against me; a put down of GGTF; hectoring demands not made of an editor who made similar general statements; dubious accusations of sexism in discussions of women at GGTF.
• On SPECIFICO's talk page last week an editor noted that that last GGTF edit was problematic. An admin asks SPECIFICO to cut me some slack, later to keep the page friendly, and later asks him to "staying away from Carol's posts". He writes "consider me on hiatus". But two days later the first editor again has to comment on new negative SPECIFICO comments at GGTF. And on Sept 3. SPECIFCO hectors me about an obvious joke about recruiting admins and writes "please consider departing the Project".
• He has continued harassing me on and off GGTF, even after the ANI warning to all posters on GGTF: [Placeholder for links I'll put in later this PM; or see his recent contributions.

Possible Solutions:

• Ban SPECIFICO from following me to any article he has not edited before and ban him from the Gender Gap task force and Gender bias on Wikipedia article which covers the same issues. He followed me to both to harass me, the second just four minutes after I edited there.
• Do as [[User:MONGO mentioned at this diff: But in regards to AQFK opening post here, it is obvious that you stalked Carol Moore to that page and this is apparently far from the first time you have followed her to a page. That's blatant harrassment and is a good way to get an indefinite block.

Please show that this kind of intense and ongoing Wikihounding can and will be stopped. Thank you. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:15, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• I'm leaning toward a site ban for SPECIFICO. As carolmoore points out, there are too many ways to circumvent an interaction ban, and in this case, I can only see it leading to further drama. It is always unfortunate to lose a knowledgeable user, but we can't tolerate this sort of behavior. Gigs (talk) 16:28, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Neutral - The basic issue is that SPECIFICO is indeed hounding Carolmooredc. It isn't clear that any harm will be done by imposing a two-way interaction ban, but I see no evidence that Carol is in the wrong. When I filed the (still hanging) Request for Arbitration concerning the Gender Gap Task Force (and I am not sure that I was right in filing it), I thought that two editors should be topic-banned from the GGTF, and that SPECIFICO and Carolmooredc should be IBAN'd. However, as per MONGO's analysis, the toxic interaction is one-way. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:09, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose, per below, as a 1-way ban on Specifico is what is needed here. Tarc (talk) 17:33, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose, The hounder should get the ban, not the houndee. That's how it should always work. It's basically a restraining order, and you don't restrain the victim of abuse... you restrain the abuser. Lightbreather (talk) 17:40, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Comment As always with Carolmooredc, I'd advise everyone to treat the diffs that she supplies with caution. She usually tendentiously brings up the same stuff, often just lists of previous failed reports and often does so out of context. Then she pleads naivety. Some of these issues arose as recently as the last report here involving the GGTF and her.

As far as SPECIFICO goes, there may be some following-around going on. I'm not convinced that is necessarily a bad thing because, on quite a lot of occasions when I've bothered looking, it has served to control CMDC's more wayward tendencies. If CMDC inserts herself in touchy subjects (and those are indeed the only subjects where she edits) then she should be well aware by now that she is going to attract attention, face vocal opposition etc. Since CMDC is only interested in touchy subjects, it is entirely plausible that SPECIFICO shares the same trait. I might have to start following her around more often myself if these proposals go through because someone has to keep an eye on her. I'm worried here that there might be a pile-on from those involved or interested in the gender gaps issues who dislike criticism. - Sitush (talk) 17:47, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

One-Way Interaction Ban

• Support one-way interaction between on User:SPECIFICO from all interaction with User:Carolmooredc. One-way interaction bans are difficult to enforce, but the alternative, as Gigs has proposed, is a site ban. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:09, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support If Carol has displayed any incivility here, it has come in self-defense against an aggressive and persistent stalker, and is thus quite excusable. Tarc (talk) 17:33, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support: The post initiating this thread only supports a one-way ban. And from what I've seen in the past week getting acquainted with the history and the Gender Gap Task Force drama, that's what is sorely needed. Keep an eye on Carol, but I think the one way ban is going to end our problem.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 17:36, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support For the reason I gave for opposing a two-way ban. Lightbreather (talk) 17:40, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

IP promoting the ideas of the reincarnated Christ and Einstein

This is 75.74.130.115 (talk · contribs) from Miami who is promoting the ideas of one Richard Bradshaw Watson II also from Miami, whose forum site[109] states "I, the Christ, have returned. GOD and I have produced the "book/scroll" of The Revelation 5:1-10:10 and opened the "7 seals" which are explained here as 'beyond Einsten theories'. All our eternal souls pass through time by reincarnation and my soul's last incarnation was as Albert Einstein. 2,000 years ago I was Y'shua ben Yosef (Jesus son of Joseph)." According to the IP's talk page, I (also from Miami, this must prove something, right?) "immediately deleted the most important thing on Wikipedia without even reading it". See his posts to the latest 2 sections of Talk:Seven Seals. Spamming and WP:NOTHERE. Dougweller (talk) 15:20, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Also editing as User:50.153.102.0 and 50.153.107.0 (talk · contribs) - on 2nd thought not sure where this IP is, south Florida somewhere but it must be the same one as content is the same. Dougweller (talk) 15:52, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

The supposed credibility of Mr. Watson comes from what he claims is a presentation at a NASA conference. I find no evidence for him being invited by NASA beyond Watson's claim. Unless the IP can provide some independent verification of Watson's eminence, none of it belongs here. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 15:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The IP has been making numerological edits related to the number seven on a wide range of articles, most notably at History of Astronomy. It seems there's a dynamic IP allocation here; "Ben Franklin", as he calls himself, has been editing as User:50.153.107.0, User:75.74.130.115, and User:50.153.102.0. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:02, 12 September 2014 (UTC)