Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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

For anyone that doesn't know, much of my work here is done as a paid editor that is sponsored by article-subjects. I disclose my conflict of interest on corresponding pages and rely heavily on the Talk page. To date I've created almost 40 Good Articles in this capacity. @Slimvirgin: has twice now asked me to disclose not just that I have a conflict of interest, but the actual name of the PR agency or client. She has correctly cited the Terms of Use, which not only require disclosure of the existence of a COI, but detailed information on any and all relevant affiliations.

I am concerned about this for four reasons:

1. My sponsor is a one-person PR agency and I feel this degree of disclosure violates their personal privacy
2. I don't see what possible use Wikipedians have for his/her name, since a COI is disclosed
3. Slimvirgin has focused her efforts on finding additional negative information to add to the page and is critical of my COI involvement/conduct. The situation is such that it feels a bit intimidating/threatening. For example, here she cited a source where all the information on Invisalign was positive, but she said the source indicated Invisalign had major issues.
4. If I start offering this information regularly, it becomes easier for someone to figure out my real-world identity

I raised my concerns about privacy and bullying when the new Terms of Use were created. My anonymity is important to me, because as a disclosed paid editor I am often targeted for harassment, etc.. At the time, a WMF staffer told me I should be fine, so long as a COI is disclosed and that nobody was going to bother me for more details. That seems to be challenged now.

Will I be blocked if I refuse to provide more information? Can anyone explain why the community would require me to disclose all of this? I know it's a complicated issue and appreciate your thoughtful input on the matter. This is very important to me. CorporateM (Talk) 01:50, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

If the Wikipedian cannot comply with the Terms of Use due to some special circumstance, it is the Wikipedian's responsibility to refrain from editing until such time as it is possible to remedy that circumstance, or until the relevant rule has been modified or amended. Deliberate violation of the clearly delineated Terms of Use should result in blocking the user's editorial privileges.166.173.248.141 (talk) 03:24, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I assume you read the FAQ? It seems that you do have to disclose your employer/client, or don't get paid for editing. On the other hand, the policy does not allow other editors to engage in outing, harassment, or other violations of policy.- MrX 02:07, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Hmm. That FAQ could do with a copyedit (Corp?). And in this case it may not be that helpful, since Corp doesn't work for Acme, but for Hip&Hype's PR firm, so on whose behalf is he supposed to claim to be editing? I'm inclined to say Acme, still, since that's the ultimate beneficiary of Corp's work here (and all the hours I've donated to his service)--which means he wouldn't be required to name the agency he's working for. Drmies (talk) 02:18, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Drmies: I would say that the Terms of Use do require disclosure of the PR agency and the article-subject and my own business name, which would prohibit me from contributing anonymously entirely. However, as you indicated, I got the impression that this was just poor copyediting due to an overzealous response to Wiki-PR. I didn't think it was ever intended to be used against someone that has disclosed a conflict of interest.

Do you mean to say that my "thank yous" aren't payment enough for your time? ;-) CorporateM (Talk) 02:37, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Drmies: Yes the FAQ needs its own FAQ. Here's the salient sentence: "If you have been hired by a public relations firm to edit Wikipedia, you must disclose both the firm and the firm's client." - MrX 02:41, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• The way CorporateM has summarized this is disturbing. First, I haven't "focused [my] efforts on finding additional negative information to add to the page." I've pointed out to CM, as has Doc James, that a Cochrane report concluded that there is insufficient information available for them to reach a conclusion about Invisalign's efficacy. This is clearly stated in the review's conclusion.

That apart, CM has been hired by a PR firm to rewrite the article. He has completed, or almost completed, the rewrite, which he had two other editors add for him. He has not disclosed who he is working for, but the terms of use require this (see WP:PAYDISCLOSE:

As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.

I have asked CM to abide by the terms of use. This came to my attention, by the way, because he was edit-warring with Doc James. He ought not to be editing the article directly, and getting into battles with a medical expert on a health-related article is not a good idea. Sarah ^(talk) 02:58, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• The Terms of Use are fairly clear on this topic. CM is obligated to disclose the information he objects to disclosing if he wishes to edit for pay on Wikimedia projects (other than Commons and...I think maybe Russian Wikipedia? Something like that). The choice is to disclose or to not edit in a manner that requires disclosure; while I'm sympathetic to CM feeling put-upon by this, it's really not much to ask that the community be made aware of what, exactly, the relevant COI is if someone wants us to give them the extraordinary level of trust involved in letting them edit on behalf of article subjects. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 03:07, 18 August 2015 (UTC) ETA (to clarify): Employer, client, and affiliation can all be different, and thus be different COIs. If I work for PR Agency Y, which is hired by Social Media Company X, to run an ad campaign on behalf of Corporation Z, each step in that chain is relevant to the community's ability to evaluate my work for any COI about Y, X, or Z. Just saying "I have a COI" or "I work for PR Agency Y" or even "I'm editing on behalf of Z" doesn't give us enough information to figure out where all/any issues might be arising in the edits. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 03:13, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't see that there is anything unclear here. The ToU require that you disclose all three "employer, client, *and* affiliation" (my emphasis). Of course if there is only the employer involved, then all you need to declare is the employer, but the PR firm is involved in this - you are affiliated with them if you accept direction from them, or you direct them, or even if you just report to the employer together. "Affiliation" is a very broad term, and we must assume that the WMF put it in the ToU intentionally. We cannot change this rule or interpret this how we feel is "fairest." We must interpret it in the most straight-forward way. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:46, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to go in a slightly different direction. Our enforcement of the paid editing aspects of the ToU is erratic at best, and in practice I think the focus should be on keeping to the intent rather than the letter. We also need to balance privacy issues with disclosure. Personally, I'd be extremely happy to see clearly stated disclosures somewhere where people will actually see them, denoting that there is a paid editing COI and the nature of the COI, and if that was there I would care a lot less about knowing the client's name.

With that said, unless WP forms a clear policy on how to handle the ToU, it is going to be difficult to argue that people should enforce some aspects and not others. (Noting that it has proven hard enough to get a consistent idea on how it enforce it in the first place). - Bilby (talk) 04:40, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

The Foundation's terms of use FAQ is clear about this issue: "If you have been hired by a public relations firm to edit Wikipedia, you must disclose both the firm and the firm's client." See m:Terms of use/FAQ on paid contributions without disclosure, point 1.8. Sarah ^(talk) 06:05, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I know the ToU backwards. :) My problem is that we are doing a poor job of implementing it, and the community has some radically different ideas (all the way to ArbCom) about how we should enforce it, if at all. In that scenario, I can't recommend that people ignore the ToU, but I'd like to at least be following the intent if we fail at the letter.

The question for us is how to balance our long-held principle of not requiring outing of editors and respecting their privacy, while still meeting our needs for disclosure of paid editing. I'm worried that people willing to do everything they can to meet the ToU while still retaining some privacy will get burnt, while those who ignore the ToU terms completely get away with no sanctions at all. - Bilby (talk) 07:25, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• Full disclosure required per SV, Fluffernutter and Smallbones. The TOU is straightforward and clear, and that it might interfere with a particular editor's particular situation is irrelevant. CorporateM, you brought this here despite knowing precisely what the TOU says, which implies that you're looking for a personal pass on the policy. I suggest that is inappropriate, that you disclose it all per the TOU, and return to what I am assured is your excellent work for the project. BMK (talk) 06:11, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• As above, really. I can only advise you that if you feel that revealing the client's name will in some way compromise them, that you decline the work. Guy (Help!) 09:40, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• Full disclosure can be, 'Subject's PR firm' I don't agree with several others. The Statement "If you have been hired by a public relations firm to edit Wikipedia, you must disclose both the firm and the firm's client." is fulfilled by specifically identifying the client and stating that you are hired by "their PR firm" - that "identifies the PR firm", sufficient to fulfill the TOU obligation. Fluffernutter, who I usually agree with is only correct that we would have to know the name of the PR firm, if the user is hired to edit the article on the PR firm. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:30, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• WRT the issue at hand full disclosure is required. They need to state both the PR firm and the subject paying the PR firm (some may have multiple PR firms working for them). Corporate's statements above raise additional concerns of competence and promotional editing. CorporateM states "she cited a source where all the information on Invisalign was positive" Now lets look at the conclusions of the source in question "this review has revealed that there was no evidence from RCTs to show that one intervention was superior to another". How is that a positive conclusion?

Corporate raises the concern of bullying as to why they should be exempt from the terms of use. As someone who has had 300 of their colleagues emailed by paid editors. And had tweets send to their university stating they should reprimand for their work on electronic cigarettes I sympathise. But Corporate your editing is not on your own behalf but on behalf of someone else. We the community deserve to know who is paying for your efforts so that we can appropriately address your edits. Our readers deserve to know aswell. Should CorporateM be banned from paid editing if they decide not to disclose? I would say yes.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:27, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

And if they are banned, then does that solve the problem? And by the problem, I mean, of bad apples doing paid editing without disclosing who is paying them the money. CorporateM is getting paid by TopicOfArticle, in most cases. That the money CorporateM is getting, comes via their employer the HypotheticalSmallPrFirm, is an additional factoid, sure. Do we also wish to know, as further additional factoids, what specific banking institution, is cutting the cheques here, since the money is quite literally in reality coming from the bank of the TopicOfTheArticle, and thence to the bank of HypotheticalSmallPrFirm, and thence to the bank of the editor known hereabouts as CorporateM? It is perfectly legal for wikipedia ToU to demand disclosure of the routing numbers, of all the connected bank accounts, although obviously it would not be ethical. The three banks ... or more or fewer as the case may be ... are just financial service organizations, and their legal names and physical addresses and routing numbers and other such factoids have no impact whatsoever, upon the nature of the COI editing under discussion here. The editing is COI, because TopicOfTheArticle is shelling out money, period.

    The reason to demand the disclosure of HypotheticalSmallPrFirm, one may presume, is on the suspicion -- without evidence -- that maybe just maybe CorporateM is sekritly organizing a meatpuppet army, and if we force disclosure of the HypotheticalSmallPrFirm, we can then easily find all of CorporateM's co-workers, since they also are forced to disclose! Brilliant! Insert sarcastic comment about how well that scheme will work in practice, to actually wiki-apprehend bad apples running meatpuppet-farms. That said, you most definitely are correct that if we are to force disclosure of the employer, the specific name of the employer is very much needed -- just saying something vague like "the PR firm hired by TopicOfTheArticle" is not enough to count as full disclosure, because in some cases there are more than one PR firm working with a given company, and more pertinently, over time there are almost certainly going to be multiple sequential PR firms working therewith. The question is, do we as wikipedians *need* to know the specific name (and from there the specific legal physical address via governmental filings that all corporations must file) of the HypotheticalSmallPrFirm which is the employer or CorporateM, or is it enough to know that the people paying the bills are TopicOfTheArticle, and the means with which those USD-or-Euro-equivalents are transmitted from the pockets of TopicOfTheArticle, to the pockets of CorporateM, are irrelevant? I suggest the latter, but the ToU as currently written requires the former. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 17:56, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• What material difference does it make whether we know the name of this PR firm, if we know that their work is being paid for by the subject of the article? I feel like we have an editor who is doing this the right way - as those good articles will attest - and we're shitting on them all the same. I don't dispute that the Terms of Use require full disclosure. Rather, I'm saying that in this case they are harming the encyclopedia by getting rid of what appears to be a good editor who is committed to following our policies and creating good content. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:06, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• Full disclosure required. How the heck is this even a question? It's the Terms of Use. It is the legal agreement you agree to follow in order to use the site. It says you need to disclose. Your options are disclose or leave. Pick one. If you have a problem with those being the only options, you should be talking to the legal team, not to miscellaneous Wikipedians who are not in any way, shape or form, as a group or individually, qualified to introduce exceptions to a legal policy. This is, honestly, baffling. Ironholds (talk) 13:13, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• I have my own COI here, because I offered to be CorporateM's mentor through WP:Cooperation several years ago. I did so because CM was completely transparent about his intentions and (uniquely) asked for guidance on how to do this ethically. While our mentor/mentee relationship has been completed, I still feel a sense of responsibility (sort of as an older brother) for his growth in the project. During our association, the user has consistently demonstrated willingness to follow 5P, policies and guidelines and when seeing a contradiction, has always asked for guidance from the community, as he has in this thread. He has found his own way on the tightrope called the bright line, and is widely respected because he has not abused the privilege. It could be reasonably argued that CM wears the whitest hat of all paid editors on Wikipedia. I say all this not for any special handling, but to give context to his request in this thread. BusterD (talk) 13:24, 18 August 2015 (UTC) Three issues here:

• 1. In a way, Wikipedia's (and the foundation's) rules for COI and paid editing have grown up around CorporateM. The ToU FAQ linked above is fifteen months old; CM has been editing in a paid capacity for much longer. His request here today (as noted by Bilby and Alanscottwalker above) is about balancing the ToU need for personal privacy with the ToU need for full disclosure. This is important not just to CM, but to Wikipedia. If the community makes it impossible for an honest COI editor to function under the ToU, then we're encouraging such editors to participate without full disclosure (as I suspect the vast majority of paid advocates usually do). BusterD (talk) 13:24, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• I don't think anyone is saying that CorporateM is a black hat or that he has bad intentions. But I also don't think the choice is between asking paid editors to disclose (and keep editing) or to lie to us (and keep editing). We can't stop paid editors lying to us, and I don't doubt that there are many doing so, but the ToU are in place so that if a paid editor does lie to us by failing to disclose the required information, we can revoke their ability to keep editing on that basis. That would be a loss to the project in CM's case, but the choice is the paid editor's: disclose, stop editing because you value your privacy more than your ability to accept money for edits, or don't disclose and know that when someone notices, you will lose your editing privileges and/or be restricted in some way (and thus lose at least some of your ability to accept money for edits). Either of the first two choices are entirely valid and I wouldn't blame anyone for making the second; the third choice is the road you go down if you decide you're not bound by the ToU we all agree to by using the site. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:02, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• I disclose a great deal more than Corprate does and I do not accept money for editing. It is not a high bar we are requesting they meet. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:11, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• 2. There are many acceptable forms which balance the need for privacy with the need for disclosure. If I create a new alt account but wish to keep it off my user page for one legitimate reason or another, disclosing to a checkuser or arb is sufficient to stay within policy. When for whatever reason the foundation needs an editor to self-identify, we do it directly, not publicly. When we're dealing with BLP issues, an OTRS ticket is sufficient documentation the subject has given input. For copyright issues, an OTRS ticket can document permission from rights holders. In this case, I believe a disclosure statement (possibly through OTRS) stating complete information has been given to a responsible party (like ARBCOM or the WMF) could suffice to meet ToU. BusterD (talk) 13:24, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

"As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways: a statement on your user page, statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions". "Telling arbcom" is not on that list; every single part of that list has one thing in common and that is that the disclosure is public. Ironholds (talk) 13:28, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• 3. As to the conflict between a paid editor and MEDRS issues, I'll decline to advocate CM's position. I've been wondering when such an issue would arise. It was inevitable some client would put the paid editor in a position where the company's need for precision conflicted with existing medical documentation. BusterD (talk) 13:24, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean by "need for precision conflicted with existing medical documentation"? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for my delay in responding. I may have used imprecise language myself. I intended to say something along the lines of "the client's desired language versus the language used in independent peer-reviewed studies". BusterD (talk) 13:54, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

The official WMF FAQ says it is sufficient to say "I work for (company)" which makes sense, Asking for precise personal details about anyone is a violation of WP:OUTING as we all know. And if the WMF example is that straightforward, so the answer here should be. [1] " For example, before saving your edits to a Wikipedia article about your client, X, you may write this note in the edit summary box: "X has hired me to update their Wikipedia article" or "I work for X."" which clearly does not say that you need do more to identify what the exact COI might be.

The WP guideline states specifically: When investigating COI editing, be careful not to reveal the identity of editors against their wishes. Wikipedia's policy against harassment takes precedence over this guideline. Which emphasizes that editors cannot ask for any information which would be remotely connected to "outing" anyone. The WP specifies: Paid editors are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to declare their conflict of interest, along with the name of their employer or client which also accords with the WMF example of saying "I work for X" as being sufficient.

Folks who try saying "you must tell me who you work for, where you work, what your exact job description is, who the client is" or the like are specifically and absolutely in violation of WP:OUTING as far as I can tell. Collect (talk) 13:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

What we are asking for is CorporateM to state who is paying him for the article Invisalign. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:16, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

He clearly identified the company as "Align Technology" in case you missed it. " have a conflict of interest with Invisalign in that I'll be working with Align Technology' and their PR agency to help improve the article " fully complies with the WMF FAQ statement - and was posted 9 January 2014. What more did you wish to have? Collect (talk) 14:34, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

The name of the PR firm was requested. I guess the question is is this one of the PR firms that has been banned from Wikipedia? And if so is them hiring CorporateM okay. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:05, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Where the FAQ contradicts the Terms of Use, it's likely that the TOU applies, not the FAQ. The FAQs are really shitty, but the Terms of Use are pretty unambiguous in that you need to specify employer and client, not employer or client. WilyD 14:35, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

There is a degree of irony here, in that we have thousands upon thousands of socks here who add articles all day long then disappear to create new socks to maintain, all without disclosure, yet we have CorpM, who has been been an good Wikipedian in many ways, contributing all over the place, not just where he is paid, and we enforce the rules on him and not the socks. This isn't intentional, but clearly the TOU is such that it encourages hit and run sockpuppetry and discourages occasional paid editing by worthwhile editors who really want to be a positive part of the community. I don't think anyone demanding disclosure is being unreasonable or acting outside of the TOU at all, but the TOU itself is fatally flawed in that it tempts editors, almost forcefully, to instead be bad members of the community instead of good. And now the shortsightedness (to which I've been an unwilling party to in the past, too many times) comes back to bite us yet again. Socking is very easy to do, and now we are tempting CorpM to become an expert at it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:39, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

(EC)It really is irrelevant unless you want to try to change this part of the ToU in the specified manner (e.g. notify WMF first that you are trying to modify the ToU). The ToU exist and trump all other policies, and we can only try to change them in a very specific manner (e.g. not here). I don't believe that the ToU contradict our policy on Outing (it's voluntary whether to be a paid editor after all, the ToU only state a few minimum requirements of what you have to do if you want to be a paid editor). But if the Outing policy and the ToU did contradict each other, the Outing policy would have to change.

Taken out of context, it might seem that the ToU causes some strange situations involving other rules. But I believe that the ToU are a rock. They stop some things head-on. They also might get in the way of doing certain things, but can be avoided with a bit of contortion. If the contortion seems bizarre, that is not the fault of the ToU, it is the fault of the contortionist. If people fail to follow our rules, that is not a reason to revoke the rules.

CorporateM now has a choice. He can follow the advice overwhelmingly given here, or he can stop paid editing, or he might even be able to go to WMF legal and request a waiver. (I do believe that the WMF has the power to give such a waiver, or at least to ignore what they consider petty violations of the ToU; but I don't think they would give a waiver in this case). Going to WMF legal works both ways of course. Any editor could go to WMF legal and request that the ToU be enforced in this case, which likely would result in CorpM backing down, or even being banned. I won't make such a request, but there's nothing we can do to stop somebody else from doing it. It's CorpM's choice. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:29, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Uh.... Smallbones, quite obviously the recent change to the ToU is causing CorporateM to be forced into a choice. That's not a "choice" in the language used on this particular enWiki website, unless you count Hobson's choice. But in fact, the most likely outcome is that CorporateM will be forced -- not by choice but by the newly-revised ToU -- into creating a Delaware-based holding corporation, which does not disclose investors, and which is legally the property of the one-person PR firm which actually employs CorporateM. Thenceforth, the human known here as CorporateM can say, with a straight face, that they are "an employee of PrivacyProtectionShimCorp, working for client NameOfThisArticle" ... all without ever revealing their real-life identity. If you think this is hypothetical, please be aware that I've seen this happen all the time in political situations: major megadonor wants to contribute to the campaign, but FEC requires all donations above $200 to include name of megadonor and name of megadonor's employer, so instead of donating directly to campaign in question, megadonor has their lawyers fill out the paperwork for a shell-corp, and then the donation is made in the name of said shell-corp. Similarly, many (and I mean MANY MANY) presidential campaigns use "nonprofit foundations" with no donor-disclosure requirements, as a loophole for skirting FEC regulations. Wikipedia's new ToU is encouraging socking, either in the traditional sense of using multiple usernames without disclosing the linkage between them, or more likely in my estimation, in the shell-corp-as-a-privacy-protection-sockpuppet sense. As was noted by Dennis Brown, the new WMF regulation is (much like the FEC regulation) simply going to punish the good apples like CorporateM, whilst the bad apples -- who already have sockfarms and already regularly violate the ToU and the five pillars with impunity -- could care less about the latest wiki-rule. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 17:37, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Of course, this whole discussion has one fatal flaw - this is a ToU issue, so it's up to the WMF to decide, nor for us lot. Ping User:Philippe (WMF) Mdann52 (talk) 15:11, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I do think that everybody would prefer that we take care of it ourselves. And we do have the power to enforce the WP:TOU since they are Wikipedia policy. Of course the WMF also has the power to enforce the ToU. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but we do not have the power to introduce an exemption, and that is what CorporateM is asking for. Ironholds (talk) 17:35, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• Full disclosure is required. According to the terms of use, this includes naming "employer, client, and affiliation". In the case at hand, the terms of use require CorporateM to disclose his employer (the PR firm in question), the client (which hired the PR firm), and his affiliation (as a paid editor). All three are required. The focus on "outing" is really misguided here. "Outing", in Wikipedia-speak, refers to the involuntary posting of personal information. In this case, it is completely voluntary for CorporateM to act as a paid editor. He can choose not to do so, in which case no personal information is required. Equating his ethical responsibility to disclose his employer with involuntary "outing" is just ridiculous.

  To be more blunt: if he's comfortable enough to cash a PR firm's checks, then he needs to be comfortable enough to disclose their name. Conversely, if he's not comfortable disclosing the name of his employer, then he can't edit Wikipedia on their behalf. This is not a major imposition, and in any case there is no Creator-endowed right to edit Wikipedia for pay while refusing to disclose the name of one's employer (quite the opposite). MastCell ^Talk 17:28, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• Comment It would seem that full disclosure is required. However, it is not stated that this needs to be in public. Is it possible that {u|CorporateM}} could make such disclosure to WMF privately. Mjroots (talk) 05:45, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Full disclosure is required MastCell sums it up perfectly for me. -- Shudde ^talk 00:25, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Questionable editing by CorporateM

I have had issues with USer:CorporateM's editing over the last couple of weeks. This includes WP:Canvassing and attempts to brush over the best available evidence and replace it with expert opinion.

WRT canvassing

• Aug 8 5:33 CorporateM asks a single editor for "help" on a RfC I replied that while it is okay to notify an entire project, notifying a single editor is not kosher
• Aug 14 22:40 they did the same thing. They requested a single editor help them out and provided that editor with their prefered version of the article.

Their prefered version places the lower quality evidence first and leaves out / poorly presents the most recent systematic review. As canvassing was not effective they appear to next try to denigrate the best available evidence by covering it in tags.

• 04:12 Aug 15 CorporateM tags the most recent systematic review we were aware of and tagging the conclusions of the best available research as undue.
• On Aug 15 16:39 I removed these tags as they appear to be an attempt to denigrate the best available literature. While there are newer reviews, commented on, these are not systematic reviews.
• I questioned these tags on the talk page Aug 15, 16:42 [2] to which Corprate replied at 17:55 stating these tags were "annotation"
• Aug 15, 17:56 they tagged the review again
• Aug 15, 18:20 I removed these tags again and commented further on talk [3] All they needed to do was provide a newer systematic review.
• Instead on Aug 15, 18:26 they re added the tags and stopped responded on talk.

I left them a edit warring notice after which they started a 3RR which got the article protected.

P.S. I added the prior systematic review in Jan of 2015. We now have a new systematic review on pubmed which comes to the same conclusions as the last one "The quality level of the studies was not sufficient to draw any evidence-based conclusions." The prior issue should thus be solved. But the concern I have is one of behavior. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:58, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• Re: canvassing accusations. I replied on my talk page: "CorporateM works by asking editors to review and approve content he's suggested / written, so that he doesn't violate COI policies adding potentially promotional or problematic content by himself. I've reviewed many of his contributions these past years, and he has taken to directly asking me if the requested edits template is taking a long time (several months) or if something requires more than adding a single sentence. I don't find this canvassing, but rather asking for help to do something which our policies suggest he'd best avoid doing himself."

I read and review things he has requested I look at as a neutral party, and my previous interactions with him allow WP:APPNOTE exceptions ("On the user talk pages of concerned editors. ... Editors who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics)"; i.e. his possible COI areas). He asked me to write neutral content for the article ("I know it's a big ask, but I thought if you had some time to spend doing this last leg of the article, it would be a huge help to all parties involved.") similar to what I had done on a previous situation. That is all. It's not canvassing.

I refused to write said content not because of his COI (in fact, I didn't notice the link to User:CorporateM/Invisalign until now), but because I am uncomfortable writing about medical issues. I firmly believe that if editors interested in the article discuss things, they can work everything out. I have no comment on the appropriateness of reversions, on either side. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 16:17, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

This was discussed at the edit-warring board. The article said "As of 2005," whereas there were sources on the Talk page to say "As of 2014". I tagged "As of 2005" with a "needs updating" and mentioned on Talk that there were several sources that could be used to update this to "As of 2014". I'm sorry that I reverted, but I was very frustrated by Doc's extensive efforts to prevent me from even being able to communicate such a trivial issue and prevent any contributions from me that would alter the version he wrote.

Just to be clear nobody is contesting that the last systematic review was "inconclusive", but Doc's contributions make it sound like an alt-med article. A professional in a related field verified that dentists require a lower barrier of evidence than real medicine and the sources do say that Invisalign is proven effective for certain types of cases, but is less effective than braces in some other cases. Also, that review is ten years old. This is a product that relies heavily on computer technology and ten years ago people were using floppy drives still. I don't think it should be the only thing in the lead to summarize the entire body of medical literature.

There are literally only three MEDRS sources published in the last five years, per WP:MEDDATE. If anyone wants to get involved in the article itself, I'd really encourage you to take a look at those sources. Since there are literally just three sources, it wouldn't be hard to just read three articles, add their contents to the article and get a sense of what's representative of all three. CorporateM (Talk) 16:13, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

References

So you are stating that dentistry does not need to follow "evidence based" science? That when a systematic review concludes that there is no high quality evidence to support something, because that something is dentistry it is no longer significant and we should just include what "expert opinion" has claimed?

Alt med practitioners have also argued that they should not be held to evidence based standards but I disagree with you that the majority of dental practitioners would make this request for their profession. Some dental measures are supported by the highest quality evidence such as powered toothbrushes.[4] Stating when a measure does not have high level support is something we do equally for medical, dental and alt med topics. Just because something does not have high level support does not mean that we should not do it. But we should at least know it does not have high level evidence supporting it when we do.

Corporate is attempting to misuse WP:MEDDATE. In a poorly research areas such as this we still include older high quality sources. We specifically say "A newer source which is of lower quality does not necessarily supersede an older source of higher quality."Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:27, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I believe if someone compares the recent medical literature to the article they would find that the article needs further expansion to meet GA requirements for comprehension and is unfair. I want to encourage people to actually read the sources and make bold edits. We need more editors to get involved in the article in a sustained and in-depth manner. I don't oppose the inclusion of the 2005 item, which is mentioned in current medical literature from 2014 (hence "As of 2014" rather than "As of 2005"). I disagree with it being the only thing included to the exclusion of all else. I don't think the sources require a medical professional to interpret. CorporateM (Talk) 16:43, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

CorporateM, what are your medical credentials? Doc James is a doctor and a long-standing contributor to our medicine articles. I think you might do yourself a favour by taking on board the Doc's comments, because he (unlike you) does not actually have a dog in this fight. Guy (Help!) 16:46, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

He has a very strong opinion about paid editing and most of his editing on this page appears to be driven by that. Again, I want to encourage folks to read the sources and edit boldly! There is so much emphasis on wanting to prove that paid editing is bad or this myth that I'm trying to censor the 2005 item. I want to encourage editors as strongly as I possibly could to just read the sources. Please read the sources! Read them! Please!

Edit boldly, add their information objectively and completely. Then from your opinion after reading the sources for yourself. This shouldn't be a competition for whos reputation is better than the other. CorporateM (Talk) 17:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Before this recent interaction I did not really have an opinion on disclosed paid editing. Your attempts to dissuade me from editing the article are not appreciated.[5]

That you state that "most of his editing on this page appears to be driven" by his position on paid editing is bollocks. In my initially edits I added a Cochrane review that was missing. I added the most recent systematic review at that time. I added a 2014 review of the literature. At the same time I removed a bunch of primary sources. This is what I do on thousands of articles. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

For reference all the MEDRS sources published in the last five years are here:

• Y, Yu; Al., Et (November 9, 2012). "Interventions for managing relapse of the lower front teeth after orthodontic treatment. - PubMed". NCBI. Retrieved August 10, 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Malik, Ovals; McMullin, Allbhe; Waring, David (April 2013). "Invisible Orthodontics Part 1: Invisalign" (PDF). Dental Update. PMID 23767109.
• Kuncio, DA (March 2014). "Invisalign: current guidelines for effective treatment" (PDF). The New York state dental journal. 80 (2): 11–4. PMID 24851387.

I can also provide some older ones, if you feel there is not enough current medical literature and we need to dig older. CorporateM (Talk) 17:08, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

CM, you're representing yourself here as the only neutral person, when the opposite is true. There are competence issues – understanding certain terms, how to read medical papers, how to use MEDRS, etc. Doc James is trying to make sure the article reflects the high-quality sources. Sarah ^(talk) 17:13, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I just do not get it. I mentioned a new systematic review that come out in 2014 above and yet CorporateM still claims their are only three reviews? The have ignored my explanation of the difference between a literature review and a systematic review. I have brought up his misuse of WP:MEDDATE which others commented on here and yet they continue just as before. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:30, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• Leaving aside the issues of sourcing, I'm shocked by the spectacle of CorporateM repeatedly reverting Doc James on an article where CorporateM has a financial conflict of interest. According to our guidelines, he should not be editing the article at all, much less revert-warring with an unpaid volunteer. I would have blocked CorporateM if I had seen this happening in real time, and for the avoidance of doubt, I will block him the next time I see something like this happen. It's completely unacceptable. MastCell ^Talk 17:16, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Citation for "should not be editing the article at all", please. Even WP:NOPAY says "you are very strongly discouraged from editing affected articles where those external relationships could reasonably be said to undermine your ability to remain neutral", not "you are forbidden from ...". — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:17, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

All three of these sources are currently used in the article and nobody has contested their MEDRS compliance. Though someone reading them may have to look up a term or two, they are easy to understand. @MastCell: Please accept my apologies for edit-warring. I was very frustrated by the situation. I will not do it again. It was my understanding that the benefit of COI compliance was AGF, which I did not receive. CorporateM (Talk) 17:24, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• I have long had the same concern as Doc James about CorporateM's practice of asking individual editors to review proposed edits. The way this goes is, a request is made, and sometimes an editor decides to implement the proposed edit -- and sometimes the editor decides not to implement the proposed edit. The result is that if CorporateM asks enough editors, eventually he finds someone willing to implement the proposed edit. This business of asking for favours really needs to stop. Form consensus via discussion on the article talk page, and if consensus is present then CorporateM can use the request-edit template. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• Another issue that has concerned me is mixing volunteer and paid roles. I've seen CM begin work on an article as a volunteer, make edits of interest to the subject (reverting their COI edits or making edits that they like), then come into contact with the subject off-wiki and start editing on their behalf for pay. This is a difficult practice to negotiate ethically. I would like to see CM not accept a paid role once he has worked on an article as a volunteer. Sarah ^(talk) 18:17, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

WMF's position

@Mdann52: said "this is a ToU issue, so it's up to the WMF to decide, nor for us lot. Ping User:Philippe". I pinged Philippe right after starting this string and I hope they will chime in. It is also my understanding that it is not clear whether it is the community's or WMF's responsibility to enforce the Terms of Use. It is the Terms of Use and not a community policy, but it is often brought up as a factor in block discussions. CorporateM (Talk) 16:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Response left on Philippe's talk page by Jacob Rogers. Probably not the answer you were hoping for, CorporateM. And sadly, I think the answer will result in more and more paid editors using socks and deceptive techniques. Ravensfire (talk) 17:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Jrogers (WMF) has confirmed that "the Terms of Use are pretty clear on this one. You need to disclose your 'employer, client, and affiliation.' If those three things are different (say you are employed by PR company X, your client is person Y, and you are affiliated with company Z) you would need to disclose all three." [6] Sarah ^(talk) 17:57, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I do not buy the arguement that we should not require proper discloser because if we do people will simply sock. One could apply this sort of rational to all sorts of rules. For example why disallow socking when we have no mechanism to prevent it? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:01, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I didn't say to ignore TOU (and clearly so), I said that increased socking is surely one of the outcomes, whether we like it or not, as it makes it more difficult to be a COI editor in a legitimate way. I'm no doctor, but I've gone 1500 SPI blocks behind me, including 300 in one case alone having to do with with paid editing. The reaction by those with power was enough to make me stop working the cases altogether. We can demand all we want, but it is foolish to pretend there is no negative consequences from the policy, just as it is foolish to think the Foundation really cares about COI socking. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:12, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

User:Dennis Brown yes agree there is a concern of increased socking. And yes we do have a fair number of paid editors that use through away accounts to write promotional articles. Do we know how many legitimate COI editors we have? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there is a template of some kind that they can use, or would use, so to be honest, I don't think we know how many declared paid editors we have with any precision. The same with socks. I'm conservatively guessing 20k accounts created, but that is probably too low by a mile. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:05, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that this is the end of the line on this question. The community certainly can help enforce Wikipedia policies, and there is no question that WP:TOU are policy. Corp has gone over our heads on this (which is his right) and the answer has come back the same. It's time to invoke WP:PAYTALK and end this. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:03, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

If we are going to enforce this, so be it. But more problem is that if we create an environment where it is far more favourable to engage in covert paid editing than it is to try to work within the ToU, we create a situation where we have no hope of ever managing paid editing. Prohibition on its own doesn't work. Control should have been the target. - Bilby (talk) 23:43, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Control-rather-than-prohibition is the point of the disclosure requirement (at least to my interpretation): we can't stop you from paid editing, and we're not necessarily seeking to ban paid editing, but if you're going to edit for pay, we require you provide us with enough information to neutrally evaluate your paid edits when you make them. If you follow this requirement, your company can send (competent) paid editors to your article and know they're not doing anything wrong. If you don't follow this requirement, your employee will find themselves blocked and you will find yourself with PR disaster on your hands. There's very little potential loss in disclosing a paid editing COI - sure, your edits might get reverted if they're bad quality, but they're just about as likely to be reverted anyway if you fly under the radar, because our patrollers are like that - and a lot of potential loss in being caught not disclosing one. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:07, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

It should absolutely be that way. But no one has adequately explained why the identity of the PR Firm acting as a go-between is relevant, when the fact that the subject is paying the editor for their work is fully and explicitly acknowledged. That is the disclosure that seems most important, and it does not appear to have been lacking here. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 19:25, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

How do we know if it's irrelevant, if we don't know what the other company/s involved in this is/are? We can't fully evaluate the content he (or any paid editor) is working on to see whether it's neutral with regard to the people paying him to do it if we don't know who the people paying him to do it are. Quite possibly it's irrelevant in this case and nothing CM has done has anything to do with, let's call it Jane Doe, Inc. who's the connection between places like Invisilign and him. But until we have that disclosure, we simply have no way to know if that's the case or not, so we need paid editors to disclose these connections so we're able to identify the cases where it does turn out to be relevant. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:28, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposed solution

Hi All. It does seem clear that the Terms of Use do require disclosure of personally identifiable information and that this was the actual intention of WMF's policy. For the moment, I'm leaning somewhat towards the following plan of action:

• I will update the agreement I have with clients to include that they must be comfortable with their personal information being known and they accept the risk of being harassed or trolled as a result
• I will stop all volunteer editing on company pages or articles where there are commercial interests, so as to avoid the threat of being sued, doxed, harassed, etc. by those companies
• I will speak with my contact in this case about ending our relationship, so as to avoid the requirement and protect them from harassment. Also, because my ongoing participation doesn't seem terribly useful at this point.
• I will disclose more in the future

I'm sorry that this caused a lot of frustration for a lot of people. I'm disappointed that the community feels that information like the real names of people is important in making editorial decisions. I'm especially surprised that there has been so much resistance to using anonymous data like device IDs, IP addresses and analytics to expose sock networks due to privacy concerns, yet I am being asked to disclose real names that expose that individual to a high probability of heckling. We need to work hard to protect Wikipedia's founding principles and anonymity is one of them - eroding these principles is the real way paid editors are damaging Wikipedia.

While I may not like the outcome, I appreciate everyone's time thoughtfully discussing this important issue and accept the result. CorporateM (Talk) 18:45, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• I'd like you to be explicit about what you considering disclosing "more" to mean. "More" isn't really the word I would have picked here so much as "everything the ToU require me to disclose", since "more" implies "more than before...but maybe not all". Your agreements with your clients are your business, and you can word it to them however you like, but I would also point out that we're asking you to disclose the names of companies, not, like, stockholders' home addresses. If you work for "Joe RealName, Inc.", then yeah, I guess that technically requires disclosing their personal information, but generally we're looking for "I work for XYZ PR Agency, on behalf of MegaCorp Y", not "here's my bloodtype and mother's maiden name." And again, the agreement here is that if you wish to be given extra trust by the community and allowed to profit off of its work, then you are required to make those disclosures. If you don't wish to profit off the projects, then you're free to be 100% as anonymous as you wish to be. Similarly, companies that sponsor paid editors must decide whether it's more important to them to tweak content to their liking and have disclosed paid editing associated with their articles, or to stay hands-off with content and remain unassociated with Wikipedia editors. Both are ok, but it's their choice they will need to make. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:01, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• I'm confused about these references to outing. Align Technology, which makes Invisalign, is a large company. It employs a PR firm. That firm has hired you to rewrite the article. This is business, and you're a PR professional who has written off-wiki about your paid work on Wikipedia. Why would naming the PR firms that pay you entail outing someone? Sarah ^(talk) 18:58, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Again, the PR firm is just a single person. Given the contentious nature of the discussion, I believe there is a high probability of her being harassed/trolled off-wiki if disclosed. The whole "big company" thing is a big misnomer. I am also just a single person that does paid editing part-time. I'm a real human being and so is she. CorporateM (Talk) 19:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Forgive the statement of the obvious, but why can someone who wants to know the PR firm not find out for themselves? It took me all of fifteen seconds on Google to find out who the PR firm in question is. I don't understand the need for secrecy here. ‑ iridescent 19:34, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

CorporateM, if someone has set up a one-person PR agency and called it "John Smith Ltd," that was their choice. There's no evidence that supplying the firm's name would lead to harassment, and disclosure has been required for over a year. Also, you're writing as though you're a Wikipedian who does some occasional paid work, but you're a PR professional and have always been here as a paid editor. If some of the firms who hire you prefer not to be named, the solution is not to take the work from those companies. Sarah ^(talk) 19:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Of course there's no evidence of that. Evaluating the claim would require disclosing the name of the firm, which is precisely what they are trying to avoid - because that would OUT at least the editor and the firm's principal. And, quite frankly, given some of the comments here? No, I don't think that off-wiki harassment is an unreasonable thing to fear. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 19:57, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I have no idea what is being claimed here. Some of the PR firms that Invisalign has worked with can be found on Google. They are established companies. CM naming the PR firm that hired him is not going to out CM. Sarah ^(talk) 20:15, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

How would you know? As per below, the company name might be enough to do it. But even if not, it's trivial in many countries to determine who a company's principals are, directors or shareholders or President or whoever. And just like that, his real name and address will show up on some BADSITE and he's outed. It might not be enough of a concern to warrant changes to the Terms of Use, or to policy in other ways, but to say it's not a concern is laughable and offensive. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:30, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I think this misses the point. If his top priority is to avoid being "outed", then he shouldn't be accepting paid editing jobs. If someone is willing to cash a PR agency's check to edit here, then they should be willing to disclose the name of that PR agency. You can't edit for pay and then stand on anonymity to avoid meeting the disclosure requirements. That's a perversion of this site's commitment to anonymity, which was never intended to protect undisclosed paid editing by PR employees. MastCell ^Talk 18:37, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps I was being dense. I saw an editor who disclosed that there was a conflict and seemed, largely, to be doing things the right way (relying on talk ages, etc). I don't get why the name of the PR firm matters at all - the conflict of interest is the subject's, not the go-between. This editor accepted the work and made a good faith effort to comply with their understanding of policy - an understanding that seems to have been flawed, if the consensus here is as clear as it seems. If we intend to require paid editors to reveal their true identities, and thus open themselves up to all of the off-site harassment that our esteemed community is famous for, then we need to be clear about that. Or just ban paid editing, which will not actually end it but just relegate it to editors who can sock effectively, who can be subtle about their edits and avoid suspicion, and who can keep their fucking mouths shut. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 19:17, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Per "so much resistance to using anonymous data like device IDs, IP addresses and analytics to expose sock networks due to privacy concerns" I was not aware there was that much resistance to this. Is this not what checkusers do? Our primary goal here is to write a neutral encyclopdia. We must balance privacy against information required to effectively write said encyclopdia. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• "Disclose more" is not specific. The Terms of Use are clear on what you are required to disclose. Either agree that you will disclose that - specifically that, not "more than you currently do" - or this is not a proposed solution. Let me be clear, here; anything other than what the ToU requires is an exemption to the ToU. The community is not qualified nor permitted to grant you that exception. If "more" violates the ToU it's against reason and isn't satisfactory. Ironholds (talk) 19:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@ CorporateM. When one finds one is trying to swim up hill against a down flowing river of thick (and well thought out) treacle – it could mean, that one is attempting to perform one's PR on the wrong sort of blog. Wikipedia articles - are not the drones you are looking for advertorials.--Aspro (talk) 19:47, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I understand the community's position and would like to volunteer to topic ban myself from the Invisalign page. I have also disclosed my real-name and business name on my user page in order to better comply with the Terms of Use and discontinued my financial relationship related to this topic. I also voluntarily accept a topic ban on volunteer editing on any pages that involve a commercial interest in order to address Sarah's concerns about my dual roles as a volunteer and COI contributor and my own concerns about editing company pages from a disclosed account. I promise to follow the letter of the Terms of Use in the future, including disclosing the real names of any people or organizations involved and to be more cautious of WP:COI. I appreciate the thoughtful discussion on this issue. CorporateM (Talk) 21:47, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

CorporateM, just to be clear, no one has requested real names. The requirement is that you disclose the name of the PR company that hired you and its client. That will usually be Acme PR and the name of the company the article is about. It will only be in less common cases where no companies are involved that a real name might be exposed, but if you make this clear to the client in advance, it shouldn't be a problem. Sarah ^(talk) 22:13, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand how a voluntary topic ban from a single article solves the problem, endorsed by the community and confirmed by the WMF, that you have to fully disclose the name of the PR firm as well as the company. You've already edited the article on their behalf, so how does an ex post facto ban fulfill these requirements? Plus, I'm not sure that you're taking on board that you must disclose the information all the time, for every article you are paid to write or edit. Finally, I believe that what you're asking for is essentially an exemption, and the WMF has clearly stated above that we, the community, cannot give you an exemption, only they can. Given all this, I do not see how your suggestion can conceivably be tenable. BMK (talk) 23:15, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm concerned that CorporateM seems to have gotten a takeaway from this conversation that's very different than what (I think) people were actually saying. He's edited his userpage to say "In August 2015, there was consensus at ANI that Wikipedia's Terms of Use prohibit a sponsored editor from contributing anonymously and I was required to disclose personally identifiable information.". That's...not what this discussion, or the WMF, have concluded. A paid editor needn't disclose their name or other such "personally identifiable information"; what they're required to do is disclose who's paying for the edits they're making, all along the line. I'm actually concerned now that, because CM is so active in paid editing-related discussions, new paid editors are going to look him up, read his interpretation of this discussion on his userpage, and think that they do need to disclose their name, address, or whatever. As an oversighter, I'd rather not have to clean up after that mess. CorporateM, would you please consider re-wording what you've added to your userpage today to make it clear that editors are not required to disclose their own personal details, but rather the "corporate" details of those paying for the edits? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:01, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, CM. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:20, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

The only way that CorporateM's userpage statement can be made to jibe with this discussion is if the one-man PR operation he is attempting very strenuously not to disclose the name of is his own, and bears his name - thus disclosing it would be outing himself. If that is so, then it was exceedingly stupid of him to name his agency after himself, but that deed is sone, and the name needs to be disclosed nevertheless, per WMF, TOU, and the consensus of this discussion. BMK (talk) 02:24, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Not sure why you think the company would need to be named after CorporateM. In a number of countries open record laws mean it's often possible to find out who's a shareholder or director of even small businesses. It's sometimes possible to use various mechanisms to try and set up a company with no public connection to you, even in such countries, but while some people may have good reasons for doing so, more commonly it's actually a sign the person is up to no good, so the lack of such isn't particularly surprising. Even without the use of public records, it's fairly common for someone to disclose they are the owner of a certain business in circumstances where it's expected (like when they're looking for clients). And again, companies which don't do so will often be viewed suspiciously. Now the info which may completely out CorporateM wouldn't be on wikipedia, so anyone mentioning it here should be blocked for outing, but it's not clear CorporateM was referring to that. Nil Einne (talk) 05:03, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken, CM has said that there are three companies involved in this: Align Technology, which makes Invisalign; a PR firm hired by Align Technology, which CM says is a one-woman operation; and CM's PR firm. He says that his own PR firm was hired by the one-woman company, but he won't name it, so we don't know who paid CM to have Invisalign rewritten or why they wanted the rewrite. The question now is what to do with the article. Sarah ^(talk) 17:44, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

So that CorporateM doesn’t lead unpaid WP editors into becoming unpaid PR consultants for his client, we should just delete all his edits and let him start a fresh. He created this issue. As a self proclaimed professional, he should at least familiarised himself with our T&C first and not leave us with the problem of sorting it out for him. --Aspro (talk) 18:52, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

It would be far safer to delete every article he has ever edited. Best to be sure. Don't forget the siteban. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 20:38, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Extremely opposedto nuking-from-orbit-type suggestions. Although there have been some specific problems mentioned about specific edits on specific articles, I don't believe that the consensus here is for anything as extreme as deleting all of CM's edits, or for site banning him. Just the opposite, in fact, I see a lot of people talking about the good CM has done for the encyclopedia in his non-paid edits, and, in general, about the quality of his paid editing, especially compared to the dreck we get from some PR reps. So radical solutions wouldn't seem to be the answer. However, CM still must follow the terms of use, and if he refuses to do so, an indef block (which I presume would come from WMF, since it's their rule) would be appropriate until he agrees to do so.
  What I am confused by (once again) is why CM's response to this brouhaha was (at least as of this morning when I read his userpage) to out his RL name (which makes it child's play to find his personal PR website) and withdraw from voluntary (i.e. non-paid) editing of the encyclopedia, since this "solution" has solved nothing. If CM continues to get paid for editing he's going to have top disclose all the company names involved, and since he has (in effect) outed his own company name, and the name of the one-woman PR firm takes mere minutes to find online (so one wonders why he was so adamant about protecting it, and his userpage statement seems to be saying that he was protecting the name of his own firm), so what CM has done doesn't appear to me to be a step forward at all -- or else I'm totally misunderstanding what his intention is. BMK (talk) 22:50, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Beyond My Ken, the only firm I'm aware of that has done PR for Align Technology is Gold PR, but that's not a one-woman company. [7] Sarah ^(talk) 01:05, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

• Slim Virgin look at this page or this or this or this or a number of other pages and you'll see Ethos Commnications Inc. of Duluth, Georgia. BMK (talk) 01:44, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Well his website is linked from his userpage, so it's not like you have to search to find it. Reading his userpage more carefully, unless I misunderstood, the reason why he doesn't want to continue voluntary editing on certain pages (not the entire encyclopaedia) is because he feels without the protection of anonymity, he risks too much effect on his real life from his voluntary efforts. (And once he disclosed the company name, the nature of the company meant his real name would be known, so there was little point hiding it.) So from his POV, it does solve something, it removes the, in his opinion, excessive risk he'll be harmed solely due to voluntary efforts. He may still have some degree of risk due to his paid work, I presume he's willing to accept that risk as an expected part of his job. Similarly, the risk for other areas is I presume in his opinion low enough that he's willing to accept it. As for his failure to disclose the PR firm/s who hired him on behalf of other companies in the past, I do agree it's up to the WMF to decide whether they want to ban him for it. Perhaps they will, perhaps they'll feel given the apparent misunderstanding of the requirement, according to him partially a result of some previous communication with the WMF, and his existing partial disclosure, they'll let it be provided he practices full disclosure from now on. If they chose the later, and the community here accepts that, then it seems we have a solution, perhaps not a happy one for many, but sufficient. Nil Einne (talk) 05:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

• CorporateM, I appreciate that you are a good guy trying to do the right thing. So was Greg Kohs, but that's another story for another day. What the TOU seeks is transparency with respect to paid editing. So, yeah, who are you, who is she, and let uninvolved editors (who are not assholes trying to drum paid editing out of existence — take a number if this applies to you) review your work dispassionately to make sure that no spam has been committed. Does it increase risk of reprisal by said assholes? Yes, sadly — let us deal with them if problems arise. But the rules are very simple: disclose fully, openly, honestly. best, —Tim Davenport, 5010 NW Shasta, Corvallis, OR 97330 /// 541-745-7862 //// Carrite (talk) 00:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I think the problem is we actually have really little ability to actual deal with them. We aren't some sort of criminal gang in a lawless country who can kill anyone who does something we don't like. All we can really do is ban the stuff from here (which doesn't help when it's elsewhere), offer legal support (which doesn't negate most of the negative effects on your life whatever it is has) and express sympathy (see earlier). Different people may have different tolerances and perceptions of these risks. It seems CorporateM is willing to disclose the info, albeit with reductions in voluntary work given their perception of the risks that come from such work without anonymity. However they're still reluctant to disclose the PR firms that hired them to work on behalf of the disclosed companies. I presume this is because they're reluctant to expose these people to the possible risks of such disclosures (which frankly we have even less ability to affect), when then weren't made aware that this would be happening when they initially hired CorporateM's firm (unlike future firms who will be made aware). If this doesn't change, the WMF should decide if this is acceptable. I think most of us agree that CM and any firms hiring him should have paid more attention to the TOS, but that still leaves open the question of what to do now. Nil Einne (talk) 05:39, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

For some of the folks puzzled by CM not retroactively disclosing the name of some of the PR firms involved, this may be outside of the realm of their personal experience, but it is very likely that this is due to contractual terms he had signed with his clients including confidentiality requirements. Which means that if he's trying to do the right thing, he's currently talking to them to rectify the situation in order to comply. That takes time. The random assorted ANI crowd is ill-equipped to handle this, which should be, at this point, a WMF matter. MLauba ^(Talk) 09:00, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

As an aside, if there's any way we could become a lawless gang who can kill anyone who does something we don't like, I'd be all for that‍—‌with appropriate policies and guidelines in place, of course. EEng (talk) 06:11, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

@Carrite: I disagree that Kohs was a good guy trying to do the right thing. He saw Wikipedia and his first thought appears to have been: "how can I make money from this". I do not think CorporateM is the same. Apart fomr anythign else, I don't see CorporateM trying to get the project's charitable status revoked if he doesn't get what he wants. I do not see the two as similar. Guy (Help!) 00:49, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

If you actually do the digging, Greg came up with the idea of paid editing — taking money to help those not capable or not willing to navigate the markup language or the culture to establish pages — and was rewarded for his efforts to find out how to do things the right way with a ban at the hands of Jimmy Wales himself. This has evolved into a Hatfields v. McCoys feud with JW that has lasted for going on a decade and will finally end when one of them eats one too many corndogs and croaks it. It was a lost opportunity. Kohs back then and CorporateM now are exactly the same in the way they are trying to do the right thing and bumping into immovable objects in the process. Of course, Kohs has been driven underground — those who think he doesn't edit at WP are idiots. He does and you don't notice because he minds things like sourcing and NPOV. As long as we have instant accounts for anyone with a click of the fingers, this is always going to be an option for paid editors who want to do the right thing but can't because of the blinkered dipshits who want to drive paid editing away with a stick. News flash: you can either be reasonable and negotiate content with declared paid editors or they will move underground and you won't have the opportunity to negotiate. You wanna change that world? End IP editing and make registration at least a little difficult — I'm on that train. Until then: a little reality, please. Kohs is a good guy. I like him. Carrite (talk) 02:15, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

• Corporate should not be forced to identify his employer - you say the issue is he is editing on behalf of someone else so therefore he must disclose who that is. Why? People who edit on behalf of themselves do not have to tell you who they are or what their motives are, so what difference does it make? As long as he discloses a conflict of interest on that subject, his employer and the company that hired are worthless. Demanding this information as policy is only going to result with paid editors who, unlike Corporate, do not ever reveal a COI. Is that what you want? Be realistic. —Мандичка^YO 😜 12:07, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oh for goodness sake, your argument is silly. Read the TOU, please. BMK (talk) 18:33, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

• The TOU are laughable. Say I'm a paid editor. I will disclose I work for Acme Public Relations and we were hired by John Smith and Jane Doe. There you go. It's bullshit but I've now complied with the TOU! —Мандичка^YO 😜 07:14, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Closure

CorporateM appears to have recused himself from Invisalign (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I propose that the community endorse this voluntary topic ban, which I see as gentlemanly conduct, thus this issue is closed.

• Proposed. Guy (Help!) 01:00, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
• Comment - Well, there's nothing wrong with his having recused himself from future edits, except that it doesn't solve the problem which he himself raised at the start of the thread, and he still hasn't done the required full disclosure for the edits on the article he's already done. Given that, I'm not sure that closure is where we're at. CM brought his question here hoping for one answer, got another he didn't want, and then "solved" the problem by actions which do not appear to have fulfilled the requirements of that answer. I'm confused by that, and would like to hear more from him as to what the rationale for his "solution" is, and what he plans to do going forward. I'm not denigrating his contributions to the project, nor am I accusing him of anything nefarious, I simply do not understand why he did what he did, and why he isn't doing what seems (at least to me) to be the clear requirement for an editor in his position. BMK (talk) 01:32, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

  I simply do not understand why he did what he did, and why he isn't doing what seems (at least to me) to be the clear requirement for an editor in his position - most probably because he is bound by contractual terms that prevent him from doing so, which would mean he needs time to amend those with his clients, and may not be at liberty to discuss it with the ANI peanut gallery until it is done. MLauba ^(Talk) 17:58, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

  If so, it perfectly illustrates the problem with paid editing: conflicting loyalties. In any case, what is to prevent him from saying exactly what you just said? BMK (talk) 18:32, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

True, but that does not mean we have to play the game of immoveable object v. irresistable force - CorporateM now understands the issue and will fix the issue for this article by walking away. Problem solved, IMO. Guy (Help!) 21:20, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

• Comment The policy is stupid. If the edit would otherwise be allowed under the rules, who cares if it's being done for someone else? Apparently entirely too many people with nothing better to do. Jtrainor (talk) 22:44, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
• Endorse (as uninvolved users were requested)- there's no way to resolve the issue otherwise, and the rest will work itself out. The reason we're not a suitable source for citation for papers is because things are constantly changing here. We just don't like for it to take time; we want what we want and we want it NOW!! (or yesterday). Therefore, any issues there are now will work themselves out over time. We seem to think that what we write is set in stone, always accurate, and should be relied upon as legitimate advice, when in reality we don't make that claim and never have. MSJapan (talk) 02:23, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
• No Endorse - I am uninvolved in this particular mess, so I'll give my views, which I have expressed elsewhere. The Terms of Use are the ultimate law here. Paid editing is an abomination and I don't buy the argument that we have to endure it or the paid editors will go underground. If they do, the WMF should apply enforcement. Is this an encyclopedia, or a Public Relations website? Jusdafax 10:18, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

  Why is paid editing an abomination? The idea here is to build an encyclopedia, and that encyclopedia should abide by WP:5P, including neutrality. If paid editing helps towards that goal (including the neutrality aspect) then it is a benefit, not a hindrance. Money is changing hands, but our encyclopedia gets extra stuff for free. What is an abomination, of course, is POV pushing, marketing, and attempts by companies and individuals to falsely paint themselves in a better light than is backed up by reliable sources. As long as the COI editor discloses fully who he or she is working for, and what the nature of the COI is, on every page edited in a COI manner, so that other editors can monitor it, then I have no problem with it.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:57, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree, and if I had my way paid editing would be absolutely banned, but it isn't so we have to deal with this in the usual way: a Wikipedia fudge that recognises the world as it is, rather than as we'd wish it to be. Guy (Help!) 22:05, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Yes and No. I'm certainly fine with endorsing the topic ban from Invisalign, but I don't think that being instituted actually provides closure regarding the topic of the original thread, which was "Does CM have to disclose what the ToU say he has to disclose with regard to the work he has done/is doing?" Now, he's said that going forward, he will provide all relevant disclosures, so that part of it can be put to bed, but I am still a little concerned about the lack of disclosures thus far. Not believing the ToU applied to you is not an excuse to not have followed them, nor is it an excuse for not going back to bring your work up to the ToU's disclosure standards. I would vastly prefer that CM go back and disclose all required disclosure details to any paid edits he has made since the ToU were instituted and/or they began to apply to him. On the other hand, I understand that he may have mistakenly given privacy guarantees to his clients, and that to provide these disclosures now may harm his business. I dislike the idea of real-world harming someone who was trying to play by our rules, even if they messed it up.

  So it seems to me we have a couple of options here, with regard to the partially-undisclosed work CM has done in the past: we can ignore it, extending him one-time amnesty for this failure with the understanding he will disclose in his work going forward; we can require him to go back and provide all relevant disclosures, which may have the effect of making him choose between onwiki sanctions (for not cooperating with a requirement to do so) and real-world ones (for breaking contracts with his clients); or we can require that CM provide retroactive disclosures where he is contractually able to do so, and that he attempt to negotiate permission to do so in cases where he currently can't, and then we can extend him the good faith of forgiving any past disclosures he remains unable to make after doing those two things. If, after that, people wish to attempt to use onwiki processes to deal with articles he can't fully disclose on, that's up to the community (but I suspect it would ultimately be unsuccessful, as CM's work is generally pretty good otherwise). The last option seems like the best balance to me: CM owes the community at least his best attempt to provide ToU-compliant disclosure on all his paid work, but mistakes happen and I would rather have someone commit to not making the same mistake in the future than eliminate them and their future, non-mistaken work from the project. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:03, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

It wrong to suppose that CorportaeM has been "Not believing the ToU applied" to him. CorporateM explained in April "I explicitly and knowingly do not comply with the requirement to disclose any marketing agencies involved, when there is one.". See User talk:CorporateM/Archive 20#COI declarations and ToU. Thincat (talk) 14:54, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I...what...ok, wow. That puts a different spin on things; I have been operating on the assumption that - and CM's initial statement in this thread certainly implied that - he believed he wasn't required to disclose what he wasn't disclosing. I'm much less willing to extend amnesty to someone who consciously chose to not follow what they knew to be the rules. If he was writing contracts guaranteeing confidentiality while knowing he was misleading his clients about Wikipedia's Terms of Use, it's not the community's responsibility to bend over backwards to keep him from the consequences of his own choices. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:11, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

CorporateM, can you comment here, please? Sarah ^(talk) 20:21, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi. I believe somewhere in this string I explained that I knew I was violating the technical letter of the Terms of Use, but the feedback I got from Wikipedians and a WMF staffer when the ToU were created was that common sense was triumphant; that since my disclosure did not fall under "deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation" that the ToU were intended to prevent, that this was fine. Astroturfing firms have sometimes used privacy arguments to justify their tactics and I have always argued that there is a way to protect privacy/confidentiality, while also avoiding the deception the ToU are referring to. It seems sentiment has changed.

It is very frustrating to participate in a discussion in which I have strong views, but discussion is not going my way and I have no intention in endlessly arguing in my defense. I'm moving on. CorporateM (Talk) 21:46, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• I honestly don't understand why Corporate M is so worried about his identity being disclosed. Unless I'm hallucinating, he's attended WMF sponsored events under his real name, and I'm pretty sure he's openly written about and been on podcasts (such as Wikipedia Weekly) under his real name. I can't imagine what harm would come from requiring him to disclose? Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:20, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• Kevin, the issue is that CM doesn't want to say who is paying him to edit. CorporateM, thank you for the response. The problem is that you're working on articles (e.g. Yelp) after saying there is a COI but without specifying the nature of it. You've said elsewhere that this might mean you're being paid, or are doing what you've called pro bono work, or have some other association, so it leaves people none the wiser. The question here is whether you're willing to say who is paying you to work on the articles you accept payment for. Sarah ^(talk) 22:39, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• Ah, yeah, I misread the initial worry as his name versus his client's name. Disclosure of client's names certainly seem to be necessary, especially since presumably politicians will be involved in paid editing sooner or later (to the extent that they aren't already,) it really does seem that disclosure of the actual client is required. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:47, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

@Kevin Gorman: The case in question is an example where I disclosed having a financial connection with the article-subject's PR agency, but didn't identify the agency by name. Another example was when I was hired by a family member of the BLP and I said I was hired by "a concerned relative", but didn't identify them by name. In another case, I am working with the article-subject's daughter who is handling her affairs and I don't feel her daughter's involvement is something Wikipedians need to know. In all cases a COI is disclosed, just not the names of individuals. CorporateM (Talk) 22:59, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

@CorporateM: But that's the thing: what you feel and don't feel isn't the operative point here. By editing Wikipedia, and accepting payment for doing so, you are saying that you will abide by the Terms of Use, which you acknowledge require you to disclose the things you're choosing not to reveal. If someone wants to pay you to edit Wikipedia, they need to be ok with having their identity revealed accordingly, and I would assume they know this, because an ethical paid editor would be informing their clients what is required of them. The disclosure is not optional; it's not a judgment call you get to make. Either you abide by the ToU or you don't use the website, and the more you go on about how your feelings and preferences overrule the ToU, the less it sounds like you're interested in playing by the (quite lenient, given that they don't prohibit you profiting off the project or bar you from editing articles) rules. You can't just say "Ok guys, I'm done with this discussion, I'm tired of talking", because the point you're leaving on is "I don't have to abide by the ToU if I don't think it's necessary, and I don't happen to think it's necessary a lot of the time. But I'll totally do it sometimes, probably,", and if that's the only ground you're willing to give - that you'll probably abide by the ToU in the future, if you think it's relevant and you haven't promised your client otherwise - it's not enough for me, for one. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:47, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)As I understand it, he disclosed the ultimate client, but did not/would not disclose the name of the agency though whom the work was contracted. His stance seems to have been that since the ultimate source of the money was disclosed, the name of the middleman was not relevant and would not in fact be demanded, even if technically required. He apparently had some grounds to think that, and it is IMO not an outlandish position. But in this thread it was not accepted. DES ^(talk) 23:01, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• This isn't about one case or about exposing individuals. CM's practice is to say that he has a COI, without specifying the nature of it. He then proceeds to rewrite the article, and asks other editors to copy the drafts over, so that whole articles are being written on behalf of the subjects. This is especially tricky when dealing with medical issues. Respecting the spirit of the bright line, and naming who is paying for the edits, would help a lot. At Yelp, for example: is someone paying, and if so, is it Yelp or is it a PR company? We need this information for each article. (Pinging Coretheapple, who has been editing there.) Sarah ^(talk) 23:24, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• Regardless of whether the rule was well thought through or well written, it remains quite clear, all three must be disclosed. While most normal people would understand the conflict if you said I'm working for X while editing X's product article means you may well be biased to its good. And the normal people also would understand if you said I'm working for X's (un-named) PR company doing the same thing to mean the same thing. But alas, the standards for disclosure are aimed to essentially make it virtually impossible for you to remain anonymous under your circumstances, so perhaps your effort would be better served not editing where you're conflicted and not fully disclosed or work to change the policy before continuing. For whatever reason, the powers that be want full disclosure beyond what a normal person would probably need to assume/impute the bias/conflict, so you either play by those rules or use someone else's website. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 23:55, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• Just noticed the ping. Yes, CorporateM has to abide by the TOU, and I don't recall specifically how good his disclosure there has been. His behavior on the talk page there has irritated me because he has been off-the-charts aggressive in advancing the company's interests on the talk page, bringing RfC after RfC and generally behaving in a manner extremely wearisome to those of us who don't have a COI but are simply interested (in my case mildly) by the subject matter. CM actually invited me to that page and I assume he regrets having done so as my patience with him there has reached its limits. But to get back to this topic, he has to disclose his employer, including the name of the PR company employing him, and not wikilawyer about it. Either he is transparent or he doesn't edit the article. Coretheapple (talk) 00:39, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

• And your comment, Core, perfectly illustrates why paid editing must be ended and rooted out with determination. A paid editor, bank accounts augmented by special interest cash, has all the time and energy in the world to game Wikipedia with every tactic permissible to achieve their clients' goals, while protected by "Assume good faith" rules that are rendered absurd by fiduciary renumeration. Or to put it more bluntly, paid editors are, by definition, bribed to wear volunteer editors down. Corporate M simply needs to, as you say, come clean. Since to do so threatens his livelihood, he will not. My patience is not only exhausted by such self-evident COI editing, it is also strained to the limit by the failure of editors here to demand that the hard work of volunteer editors is protected from mercenaries pushing public relations propaganda. This failure to put an end to the flood of slanted editing is a grave danger to the concept of a truly free source of honest information, the core goal of Wikipedia, and threatens to drive away volunteer editors, leaving behind tireless foot soldiers for monied interests. Jusdafax 10:06, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

• Endorse - He had the class to just walk away, surely we can as well. His intention wasn't to slide by with any wrong doing, he said he now gets it, lets not flog him. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:57, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• This isn't something I particularly want to keep going, but I only realized yesterday that CorporateM outed himself on 12 August on the Wikiconference USA site, six days before he opened this thread. His interpretation of this thread – that we forced him to out himself, and that therefore he can't continue to do volunteer work [8][9] – doesn't reflect that chronology. It has left me confused about what the problem is here. CorporateM, we need a clear commitment that you'll disclose employer and client for any paid contribution. Part of the point of this, as was explained to me when the TOU came into force, is that it helps us keep track of which PR firms are paying for content. Sarah ^(talk) 19:58, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

What a fascinating timeline indeed. Thanks for the update, SV. The class to run away, more likely. Disclosed paid editing just means that many business interests play at disclosure to look transparent, while socking like mad. I'm afraid I'm getting a very bad feeling from all this. Jusdafax 07:49, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Best practice for Paid Contribution Disclosure

I wonder if some of this could have been prevented with a better FAQ, better information at WP:PCD and better templates to make this easier. The FAQ and PCD both give a list of options - disclose on user page, disclose on article or disclose on edit summary. That may be the minimum, but I'd like to see a preferred option listed at PCD as a "best practice" for what to disclose when and where. Ideally, I'd like to see something like:

• Full disclosure of all articles a user is paid to edit on their user page (or sub page prominently linked)
• Full disclosure for a particular on the article talk page
• Something in the edit summary that says this is a paid edit (even just "Paid edit" at the start)

The {{Connected contributor}} was suggested on WP:COIN as a means of disclosure but it doesn't include everything needed for a ToU disclosure. I think specific templates for such disclosures might reduce some confusion, help more paid editors remain in compliance and improve the ability to identify those edits. The templates could add categories to users and to article talk pages that would indicate this user is a paid editor / this article has edits from a paid editor. Thoughts? Ravensfire (talk) 16:59, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

A lot of editors prefer that paid editors list the work they have done for pay on their user page, in one place. In my view, that is where the primary disclosure should happen. The {{Connected contributor}} template has a parameter for "otherlinks" and what I generally put there is a link to the disclosure (so that would be a link to the dif where the paid editor disclosed that particular "client, employer and affiliation". The ToU are not rocket science. Jytdog (talk) 17:09, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, I'm currently working on this template. If anyone has anything they wish for me to add, drop me a note on my talk and I'll see if I can pop it into the code. Mdann52 (talk) 18:02, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Mdann52, would you be able to do something to fix {{paid}} so that there's a space for employer and client? That would separate paid contributions from a general COI, and would make it easy to see on talk pages which companies have paid for content. Sarah ^(talk) 19:58, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikicohen, WikiShanwnio, and IP at Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo

At the talk page of Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo, there has been an ongoing content dispute that has descended into severe incivility, including claims that one editor is the subject of the article themselves as well as a criminal while the other editor is a stalker who has faced charges. I originally reported this to the oversight email yesterday because I saw it as attempted outing, but that was not acted upon, so I assume that the lack of specific names here means this is not a privacy issue. Still, both editors have ignored warnings on the talk page to keep things civil, and I doubt anything short of a block will stop the incivility at this point. Please note that based on both self-identifying as "Shawn", the IP and WikiShawnio are almost certainly the same editor. ~ Rob^Talk 14:57, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• Wikicohen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• WikiShawnio (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 70.26.73.164 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Rob, it is the same person. [redacted per WP:OUTING] He seems to think I am her. He has so many obsessive content all over the internet about her and the cops in a long email told me that it was endless work while Ms Omololu-Olunloyo was in canada. Shawn built blogs, stalked Ms O-O's Youtube videos, duplicated and defaced her content, DCMA filings all day. Im telling you what a detective and a spokesman told me. [redacted per WP:OUTING] Shawn said she's not a Pharmacist, not a Journalist, wanted fugitive which is still not proven, says her name is not Kemi, says he has her birth certificate, says he's her non official biographer, says her pharmacy license was revoked 10 yrs ago. All these have been proven wrong and I cannot keep editing his page for libel and slander. This guy outed himself and should be blocked from editing this page but of course he'll create another profile. I am a new wiki writer and just fed up! When you start editing pages of hated ppl, these wikistalkers arrive and something must be done

Wikicohen (talk) 15:07, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

The way to settle this is at AfD. I predict it will be deleted, but nobody can accurately predict afd. DGG ( talk ) 12:12, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

thank you Rob for taking the time to enter me into this discussion, I resent the fact you believe I am being uncivil, I have been more than such, you can see by Wikicohens rhetoric that she is upset that someone is adding sourced information to her own authored biography page, I don't think I have anything more to add to this, the fact you believe that I might be concealing my identity as the IP user is uncalled for, I was told to register, I did so. This issue was looked over by the admin because I believe you might not understand the whole picture here, one glance at the Talk page on the Kemi Olunloyo page and you can see what is going on, please don't pool me into what ever facade the user Wikicohen is doing. thank you. WikiShawnio (talk) 15:51, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunate combination in this article of blatant promotionalism and overstatement along with excessive detail of no encyclopedic interest on the one side, along with some relatively minor alleged criminal activity reported with similar over-detail on the other. I suggest AfD, or possibly G11. DGG ( talk ) 23:54, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with DGG in that this article looks to have been created with a promotional or self-promotional point of view - either way, It isn't neutral. This article has been the subject of uncivil discussion between editors on it's talk page. I think it should also be known that, looking at the contributions of Wikicohen, WikiShawnio, and 70.26.73.164 - the majority of of their edits have been to either the Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo article or its talk page. I highly recommend that these users step away for a bit, cool down, and let others help with the dispute. ~Oshwah~ ^{(talk) (contribs)} 00:54, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

When I first looked at the article, I thought that Ms. Omololu-Olunloyo probably met the general notability guideline, but I'm less convinced now. When you check what's claimed by WikiCohen with the sources, much of it wasn't supported at all and sometimes even contradicted by the sources. AfD might be the best way to settle this. Sjö (talk) 15:24, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you on the point of self promotion, I am new to wikipedia and only doing what I have seen others do, I have tried to be as civil as possible, I agree this article is nothing more than a dramatized resume but at the same time I do believe that Olukemi has earned herself enough notoriety online this page might be what Wiki needs, it's hard for me to be unbiased when I am constantly being bumrushed by the subject matter editing and reverting edits, you can plainly see what is going on with this back and forth. WikiShawnio (talk) 00:17, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Shawn you are not new to Wikipedia, you edit with two accounts, you libel and slander Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo under the controversy section. May I remind you that you said she is not a pharmacist nor Journalist and her license to practice pharmacy was revoked 10 yrs ago, you even claimed to have someone you stalked's (according to Toronto police) birth certificate. you lied that you were her unofficial biographer? Wikipedia edits is about the good the bad and the ugly, not the libelous and slanderous. Your sources are not credible. You keep sourcing from Nigerian blogs and not Nigerian media. Blogs in Nigeria copy whatever each other writes. they write based on celebrity and public figure tweets which may be deleted by those figures later. Ms O-O has not bowed out of Journalism, i will take off that edit AGAIN. Look for better sources and stop destroying the article. Certainly you have a COI with this subject and its a huge one. Also pls stop posting primary sources when secondary sources of her criminal case was reported by 3 Toronto papers. nobody knows if those charges are still pending.I will contact that police department on the update of their website if I have to. Stop posting things you are not sure of. DGG this article was created with neutrality but has been edited and altered too many times by Wikishawnio with false information. there is no self promotionalism. It simply describes a person, their career, their activism and controversy in their life. their numerous achievements and awards were taken out because of that very reason before it was approved. Wikicohen (talk) 11:23, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry but is anyone else reading this drivel, bottom line, you keep editing your own biography, seems every day you come to this article and "buff it up" for the readers, all of wikipedia can see your edits and the patterns of your behaviour, I don't know how to handle this situation, I add credible sources., events that actually transpired and you seem to keep deleting sourced information based on the facts you "feel" it paints yourself in a bad light. one day this section is allowed the next day it isn't, then you make these long winded allegations about the internet is attacking "you" when the whole time you are writing your replies like you are not Kemi Olunloyo, do you even comprehend how your actions are being viewed right now? can someone please resolve this issue? WikiShawnio (talk) 14:28, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Both of these editors have continued their personal attacks on the talk page since this thread was started. Both of them are SPAs that aren't here to build an encyclopedia, in my opinion. ~ Rob^Talk 14:31, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

COI editors or not, both of them have shown that they can't maintain a neutral point of view. Sjö (talk) 15:24, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

you can see from my contribs that I am adding events that transpired with sourced references, it seems like there is a bit of interest in "breaking up" a fight that is not even happening, you have a new contributor to Wikipedia here trying to complete his first rounds of edits on a topic I am very familiar with, it seems like instead of doing some research and reading the interactions between us you are just injecting your opinions without knowing the full picture, I contribute to an article, she deletes it, I try another avenue, even rewording and doing what the mod asks, she deletes it. I am getting the impression because someone has a wikipedia page and is reverting their edits because they might tell the real story, I am now being ganged up on and roped into what ever the user wikicohen is doing., so let the record state that I am simply trying to paint a picture here of the subject matter backed up with credible sources, apparently to some this is not wikipedia material? I don't get that at all. right now I am watching her use her cell phone to revert edits that have been resolved by 3 different moderators. I would like to know how I am not being unbiased here, I do research, I find events I post them with credible sources, she deletes them, so that means that I am like her now? please elaborate here. thanks WikiShawnio (talk) 16:34, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

the user wikicohen is now following me around and attempting to slander me with accusations I was arrested. I am requesting that it ceases immediately. she is also roping in another person not associated with wikipedia and I keep having to redact the names from the talk pages, wikicohen has even gone ahead and created me a user page without my permission> I don't know what the angle is here but it's hindering my use of the service here. I don't want to be lumped into wikicohens behavior as I am legitimately trying to help this article here with sourced material. The user wikicohen appears to be deleting large chunks of well referenced material because it doesn't tell the story she wants to tell. can someone please look into this, thank you. WikiShawnio (talk) 15:18, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

References

Both users have now begun edit-warring and have violated WP:3RR. I've warned both. WikiShawnio appears to have backed off the personal attacks, which is appreciated. Wikicohen definitely has not, based on: [10] [11] [12] ~ Rob^Talk 22:59, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Please let the record state what I am reverting is well sourced material, I believe that wikicohen is attempting to paint the subject in a good light, unfortunately there is alot of controversy to add to the article even yet and I fear we will never come to an impasse on the issues of reverting edits if wikicohen has a COI with the subject — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiShawnio (talk • contribs) 23:03, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Nobody is trying to paint Kemi in a good light, Wikishawnio's edits have no encyclopedic value based on Facebook posts. He needs to stop reverting MY edits and that is why I have been reverting his. The edit war has to stop, you cannot cite Nigerian blogs using non existent Facebook posts on Nigerian blogs. People go back to those posts and if they cannot see them, it presents a source issue. Use sources from legitimate Nigerian newspapers who actually write the stories not hearsay on Facebook posts that is not even valid some times. Stop posting libelous information. I will continue to go after you for that. For example you say that Kemi is not a Dr. Have you heard of a Pharm.D? Its a doctor of Pharmacy. Do your homework. wiki has no say n that. It is her title on every Medical Journalism platform she has. Now I will continue editing this article and pls do not revert my edits either.

Wikicohen (talk) 08:29, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi Rob, Edit warring is not why Im here, I will not be harassed outside wikipedia by Shawn (redacted by wikishawnio) [redacted per WP:OUTING]. Harrasing me on twitter (which he tracked me to) will not be tolerated. He can do that with Kemi not me. [redacted per WP:OUTING] To edit this articles with facts, I go beyond articles and hearsay. wikishawnio should stop roping me into [redacted per WP:OUTING]. I am requesting page protection and a dispute resolution Enough is enough. I'm not kemi and Im sure she won't be happy reading all this edit war going on because of her. Wikipedia should be about encyclopedic articles backed up with solid relevant sources. Wikicohen (talk) 11:14, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

More personal attacks from Wikicohen: [13]. ~ Rob^Talk 11:45, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I have backed off from directly interacting with wikicohen, I have even gone and found additional sources to back up my references, I even use the same sources that wikicohen is using, it's frustrating. I will let the admins/mods come to their own conclusions, the personal attacks and libel needs to cease immediately.I am all for locking the page for review, I don't want it deleted nor do I want to hurt Kemi Olunloyo in any way, the story just needs to be told, this is Wikipedia. I/O (talk) 14:51, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikishawnio, pls stop reverting my edits. When I added that Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo still writes as a Journalist for her websites and a VIP blogger for Pulse Nigeria, you REMOVED them. They were sourced. You went on to call it a temporary position when the website has an entire section of her profile. Also there is no extradition order for her as of August 2015. Nigeria does not extradite it's citizens according to the united Nations. The only extradition order was when she was in Canada and it failed. I have sourced that from the Toronto Sun so pls do not post false information. I have also moved your Nigerian personal hygiene story to the controversy section as its not a career issue. She did not write it as an article. I am still expect a page protection and a dispute resolution — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikicohen (talk • contribs) 18:21, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

• COMMENT These editors are causing great havoc on this page, and action needs to be taken. For me, I would recommend a Topic Ban from the article, and an Interaction Ban with each other. The talk page is a horrendous mess, and the article needs a complete review. It should be locked down, and a couple of uninvolved editors should go through it line by line. Scr★pIron^IV 20:46, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
  • I would support a topic ban, but I think an interaction ban is not necessary. They are both SPAs interacting only over this topic, so functionally the topic ban should take care of interaction as well. If it doesn't and personal attacks continue, blocks or an interaction ban can be handed out at that time. ~ Rob^Talk 14:20, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree with a lockdown. I already requested for a page protection Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo must be going crazy if she's reading it all. Wikicohen (talk) 21:15, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

"Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo must be going crazy if she's reading it all." guys, please don't lump me in with wikicohen, please. I/O (talk) 15:50, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• comment An article on this nigerian self-publicist has been deleted once before see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kemi_Omololu-Olunloyo 78.149.122.149 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:02, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I have indef-blocked the WikiShawnio (talk · contribs) account. It is easily verified on the web that there has been a long-standing harasmment campaign (or mutual feud?) involving these persons, and the WikiShawnio account is clearly (and barely disguised) part of the same pattern, so I've blocked them for harassment. At the same time, I also consider it quite obvious that the Wikicohen account is indeed the subject of the article – they said here on this board that a Toronto police spokesperson personally gave them information about the case involving that "Shawn" person, "in a long e-mail". I'm pretty sure the Toronto police would not give out such information to somebody who just happens to be a Wikipedia editor interested in Ms Olunloyo, so either that claim is false or the recipient of that communication from Toronto police is Ms Olunloyo herself. Therefore, I warn Wikicohen (talk · contribs) to cease all COI editing on that article immediately. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:54, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

As a result of you blocking Wikishawnio, he has started posting comments on Ms O-O's blogs which I read daily and have a right to. Wikishawnio thinks Im Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo. I am not. All Toronto Police records of his arrest and harrasment case is PUBLIC and online. The claim is not false and I am not Ms Olunloyo. Below is what was revealed this morning.

AI have only one account on Wikipedia and have no time for sockpuppeting. It may be of interest to see a comment left by someone on Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo's Gun violence blog which I read daily. You should be investigating her confirmed stalker Wikishawnio [redacted per WP:OUTING] Pls don't accuse me of false and unwarranted investigations. I appreciate it. I repeat, I do NOT have multiple accounts and have no time for that. The comment written is typical of comments written by Wikishawnio on Kemi's blogs [redacted per WP:OUTING]

The Writer feels they are talking to Kemi and feel she felt for their "ploy" Unfortunately, I'm not Kemi. I created her page and once again I know the history of Kemi and Shawn McQuaid as told to me by Toronto Police. Never met or spoke to them both but their history is all over the internet. INVESTIGATE Wikishawnio properly. Wikicohen (talk) 10:21, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

• You may be misunderstanding the remit of Wikipedia. There's no police force here, and blocking Wikishawnio is the be-all-and-end-all of actions that can be taken against him. If, outside of Wikipedia, you believe that Wikishawnio is harassing you, then your sole recourse is through the legal system. We don't need to "investigate" Wikishawnio worth squat; that editor's already been indeffed. Ravenswing 08:15, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Legal threats

I filed an SPI against Wikicohen based on fairly obvious IP edits being used to fake support for their edits and edit-war. As a result, they have threatened me with legal action here: [14]. As per WP:LEGAL, they should be indef'd until the threat is withdrawn. ~ Rob^Talk 14:13, 30 August 2015 (UTC) Pinging Future Perfect at Sunrise as the admin who previously warned Wikicohen

Rob, while everyone keeps accusing me of being Kemi or even 4 sockpuppets, you should be watching the comments on this thread on Kemi's blog which I subscribe too. I already notified the administrators of this. Who is posting these sort of messages? They are obviously "talking" to kemi thinking she is Wikicohen (which is me) I cannot prove it is Wikishawnio who was blocked but don't you think when someone posts that they set up someone for a ploy, obsessed about Kemi's tweets which have nothing to do with this page and even more comments like getting dragged out and KILLED? I have a right to seek legal advice when someone else is the sockpuppet. [redacted per WP:OUTING] I need a feedback on this in the investigation. Wikicohen (talk) 09:24, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm focused on what's occurring on the wiki, not what's occurring off the wiki. If those comments are genuine, then they're certainly deplorable, but that does not allow for legal threats to be made on Wikipedia. You have the right to seek legal action whenever you want, but it is Wikipedia's policy that you cannot make legal threats on the wiki, period. I encourage you to withdraw your threat. ~ Rob^Talk 02:08, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Not to sound completely dumb, but as an uninvolved user, I'd point out that IPs here on WP (and the blog comments offwiki, for that matter) are both "anonymous." I'm not sure how, without CU (to avoid outing), it is possible to be sure that the IPs in question are definitely one person's or the other's without opening an SPI for both of them (which we haven't). Anybody can copy old reverted text, and I'm going to guess that because these people are known to one another, they're going to geolocate to just about the same place anyway, even though there's a lot of play in "location". Shawnio may be doing it, or Cohen may be fluffing "evidence" on her side, but we can't tell based on the extent of procedures at SPI as they currently stand. MSJapan (talk) 21:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand; the alleged socking is by Cohen, who is claiming Shawnio is "setting him/her up". I'll let the SPI run its course, but the behavioral evidence is strong. When a bunch of IPs appear in an otherwise low traffic article around the time that an edit war breaks out and heavily favor one side of the war, using the same odd turns of phrase that are rarely used, that points to one thing. Either way, that's not the issue I've brought to ANI. The issue that remains unresolved is that Wikicohen has made legal threats toward me at the SPI. ~ Rob^Talk 21:56, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Outing

I have removed several portions of the above discussion because it appeared that the "outing" policy was being violated. Given the quickly changing nature of the WP:AN/I page, it may not be feasible to use suppression (oversighting) or revision deletion here, but at least I can do ordinary deletion on the material. The "outing" policy is taken very seriously — regardless of whether you believe the redacted material is correct or not, do not reinstate or repeat it here or anywhere else on Wikipedia, or you risk being blocked from editing. 03:22, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Telstra, Australia IP vandalism

The last month or so, there has been a long list of IPs, all belonging to Telstra, Australia, vandalising the Israel/Palestine articles. Look at User talk:McSly, Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut, Talk:Judea, Talk:State of Palestine, Talk:German Colony, Jerusalem, Palestinian territories. He reminded me of my old friend, due to edits like this, but, AFAIK, "my old friend" is still in the US.

However, I wonder, is it possible to block a range of Telstra-Ips? Or would that catch too many innocents? (Btw, he is active as I type) Huldra (talk) 13:45, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Block the entire ISP. If they have a problem, it should remain their problem, not ours. Any decent editor can register an account. Likewise Vodafone DE. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:50, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Another death-threat against me here from the same; please rev-del and protect. Iow: please do full JarlaxleArtemis-routine when dealing with this guy, Huldra (talk) 13:54, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Hey guys, you *really* have to refuse them the possibility to edit their own talk-page; to avoid death and rape-threaths, Huldra (talk) 13:59, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks User:Gilliam, for that. (Perhaps rev-del the threats?) Also, the same IP was discussed here a couple of days ago: see here. --Huldra (talk) 14:11, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Revdelled. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:05, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, User:NeilN. I have made a list of (some) of the Telstra socks, used in July/ August this year (not a full list):

• 58.168.146.213 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 60.230.123.131 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 60.230.34.148 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)@@
• 60.230.39.160 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

• 101.160.19.93 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 101.160.129.104 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 101.160.137.108 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 101.160.148.8 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

• 110.149.115.232 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)@@

• 120.144.129.172 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 120.144.134.25 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

• 121.214.15.161 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)@@
• 121.214.145.230 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 121.219.62.208 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 121.219.134.141 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 121.220.110.251 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)@@
• 121.220.10.43 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 121.220.80.175 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) @@

• 124.176.153.138 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)@
• 124.180.155.128 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 124.180.215.81 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) @@
• 124.180.198.222 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 124.181.101.68 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)@@

• 137.147.7.109 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 137.147.7.175 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) @@
• 137.147.152.217 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 137.147.169.156 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

The IPs with @@ after them have issued Grawp-like threats, mostly rev-delled. Feel free to add more IPs, as you find them, Huldra (talk) 16:27, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Looks like any rangeblock has a lot of collateral, apart from 2-5, which are caught by 60.230.0.0/17. Page protection is the only real solution here from that point of view. Mdann52 (talk) 17:13, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

In a case like this that's too easy: we'd have to protect every page in the project where they might show up or where they might follow someone. I don't know what the limit is, what too much collateral damage is, but not rangeblocking also has a lot of collateral damage, and I prefer our own editors not fall in that category. Rangeblock away, I say. Drmies (talk) 22:24, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Unless you would also advocate rangeblocking large sections of Comcast in the US or BT in the UK, this is a really stupid idea. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:38, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

We've had to do it before to stem death threats. Not to mention that this is pretty much the only way to slow him to any appreciable degree. Even then, his abuse of open proxies is quite legendary (which is why he's showing up on BT and Telstra). —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 22:58, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

There is an alternative. Contact Telstra abuse and tell them that we are considering a range block because of the actions of one Telstra user. They may very well block the user on their end to protect their other users from collateral damage if we do it on our end. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:04, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

If it's an open proxy (and considering who we're discussing it almost certainly is), then it's not exactly on Telstra, but rather on who owns the TOR node/anonymising service/compromised server. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:13, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

If it is my old friend, (who, for sure, knows how to make use of TOR), then why does he *only* appear on Telstra IPs? I´m making some enquiries (off-line), in the mean time, I´ll ask all admins to be very vigilant when it comes to Telstra IPs: remember to block their user-page access too. And could some admin please rev-del 124.181.101.68 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) death threats? Thanks in advance, Huldra (talk) 21:27, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Oddy enough I have done this before when I was a Sysadmin, unless Telstra's policies have changed they will file such a request in the nearest bin. It took a court order for me to get them to prevent one of their script-kiddie customers attempting to DDOS one of my domains. The main problem with rangeblocking large sections of Telstra however is that in many parts of Australia it really is the only provider. There is no alternative. Unlike the example above which affected Houston - a city with many other options. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:07, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

So logged in editors can still edit, and IP editors get a notice that they can either log in or complain to Telstra for allowing one of their users to abuse Wikipedia, forcing Wikipedia to block IP edits from Telstra. Not ideal, but not a disaster for the Australian users either. One could also contact a few news outlets in Australia and let them know what is happening. If they choose to run a story or two on this, Telstra is likely to become a lot more cooperative. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Just to note that some of these are proxies, not all are in Australia by the looks of things. While blocking Australia may seem a good solution, I don't think this will be productive - partly as there are ways to easily get round this. Now, I can tell you millions of people will be caught up in any rangeblock with this - and it is incredibly hard to tell who is and isn't vandals when it comes to people like ACC dealing with requests like this. Rangeblock is the easy solution, just not the best one here. Depending on what is being inserted, a note to the ISP or police (I haven't seen the edits, but the police are likely to be interested if they are death threats) is likely to be the only solution, unless we want large swaiths of Australia waking up and wondering why they can't fix one typo or suchlike, leading to the problem building up elsewhere. Mdann52 (talk) 19:05, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

All the above IPs with @@ at the end have rev-delled rape or death threats, mostly death threats. I have no idea as to how Australian police react to this (I am not in Australia), Huldra (talk) 21:39, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I note here that if Telstra is not one of the biggest ISPs in Australia, it would have to be up there. Rangeblocking the entire ISP will result in a whole load of collateral damage. A complaint should probably be made to Telstra first, although I'm not at all confident it'll be actioned. If it's not, perhaps a message in the rangeblock stating that Telstra failed to respond to death threats originating from their network? Nothing like a bit of media coverage to encourage an episode of corporate responsibility. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:52, 29 August 2015 (UTC).

Range blocking Telstra would definitely attract media coverage in Australia, and probably overseas given how large an ISP it is (it's by far the largest telecommunications company in Australia). Telstra has an online form to report abuse here, though it may not be applicable to this case. Nick-D (talk) 00:14, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

As these IPs are making threats of harm, the Wikimedia Foundation should also be informed, and will hopefully be able to help with a response - the procedure is explained at Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm. Nick-D (talk) 00:20, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

These IPs seem to be from Victoria, and one appears to be from the town of Warrugal. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:52, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the info. Also, I believe there is an Australian Wikimedia chapter? I would assume they were closer to dealing with Telstra than WMF? (Yeah, I know: this is a "hot potato", and everyone´s reaction is to pass it on the the next person. Sigh...) Huldra (talk) 22:26, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia Chapters don't handle issues like this (they're essentially clubs of like-minded people) - the WMF is a better point of contact, and seems to take issues like this seriously. I'd suggest that you contact them if you haven't already done so. Nick-D (talk) 11:42, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I contacted Philippe B, by email last week, as he had been dealing with "my old friend" earlier. However, that was obviously not good timing, so I forwarded it through the "standard channels" earlier today. Huldra (talk) 20:19, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I did a bit of poking about and came across |this site. While it deals with some nasty business with regards to anti- vs pro-vaccination groups not relevant here, but what was relevant was the inclusion of part of the Criminal Code Act 1995. Quick summary of this is that it is an offence in Australia to use a "carriage service", such as phone, mail, but also including electronic services, to make threats to kill or threats to cause serious harm. You could turn such evidence as you have to police in that particular state. Cybercrime reporting is somewhat in its infancy in Australia but police do respond to it. Blackmane (talk) 03:00, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Extra comment The IP's largely originate from around Melbourne, Victoria with one geolocating to a town 50km north of Melbourne. This would put it in the jurisdiction of the Victorian State Police, although depending on how they respond to the threats it may escalate to the Australian Federal Police (our version of the FBI) if it is viewed as a Commonwealth crime. Blackmane (talk) 03:09, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Extra extra comment Range blocking Telstra basically means you block pretty much the whole country. Telstra is the largest telecommunications company here but it used to be government owned till its privatisation. As such, most of the other ISP's here piggy back off their hardware. Far better to report to the abuse team on irt -at- team.telstra.com. Blackmane (talk) 03:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thank you, User:Blackmane. I will email irt -at- team.telstra.com. I contacted WMF, they could confirm that this was, most likely, *not" my old friend, but some copy-cat. Besides that, they were basically doing nothing; just telling me that I should contact local police. I´m on the other side of the world, I doubt police here would do anything about a threat "down under". Also: if I went to the police, my RL name would get known, and could possibly be leaked. (Yes, I´m a bit paranoid after 5 years with constant death and rape-threaths, I´ll admit!) Lets hope the telstra-team does something; if not, I will be back in a short while asking for you to range-block the whole area: *that* would wake them up, I´m sure! Huldra (talk) 23:26, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Please keep us informed User:Huldra; while I'm not in Victoria, I'm still interested in seeing that this situation is dealt with, preferably without my own access being blocked! Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 06:00, 5 September 2015 (UTC).

User:Lankiveil : I emailed them a couple of days ago; and I have still not received an answer. It is week-end, though, so I think we should give them a few more days. However, if they totally ignore any request, I seriously would suggest blocking Telstra IPs. And no, that would *not* be of any concern to registered editors, (like Lankiveil), it would just stop any Telstra IPs from editing, Huldra (talk) 21:57, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

RefHistory

RefHistory (talk · contribs) is a single-purpose account out to promote Philip Benedict. We had to go through a RfC to determine that it's inappropriate to add the books written by his students, with no sources other than those books. That doesn't stop RefHistory from re-adding the very same content over and over again: [15] That was after a rather unambiguous warning I left at their talk page. RefHistory obviously is unwilling to accept the community's consensus, and I tire of trying to educate him on what constitutes a third-party source. I propose they're not here to improve the encyclopedia and should be dealt with accordingly. Huon (talk) 21:55, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

There is nothing promotional about the content. All content is sourced by articles and university press books. There is no community consensus on the two sentences in dispute. Huon refuses to allow any information on the page that he doesn't like. When he loses a battle on one ground, he simply deletes the material again and makes up another reason. Though I do not believe that prize-winning academic history books published by academic presses constitute a primary source; Huon needs to be reminded that Wikipedia allows for the use of primary sources.RefHistory (talk) 03:30, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Wow this is still going on? @RefHistory: you need to give it up here, the RFC result and consensus are both against you. The material is not going to stay in the article, and continually re-adding it isn't going to change that. Fyddlestix (talk) 04:23, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

There has been no justification that these two sentences are inappropriate. The debate was over the sentence that came afterwards. It is fine.12.47.233.82 (talk) 19:49, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposal (RefHistory)

Propose article/topic ban for RefHistory on Philip Benedict and related articles, as WP:NOTHERE. GregJackP Boomer! 04:28, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

• RefHistory seems to suffer from a severe case of I didn't hear that. Support topic ban. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:39, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Support indef per NOT HERE. If he doesn't get it then he doesn't get it. Pulling the same wikilawyering and copious amounts of "I didn't hear ya" at another article doesn't help the project at all. We would just be revisiting this another day. Socking/Meat has been going on with that article.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 14:35, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

• Support per BH. If you aren't here to build an encyclopedia, you are getting in the way of those that are. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:28, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
• Support Topic ban of indefinite length (until there is no need for the ban) widely construed on Phillip Benedict to be enforceable by blocks of escalating length (1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, indef). User has had more than enough opportunities to become educated with the rules of the road, but still feels the need to push their content without any new argument as to why declined content should be added. Hasteur (talk) 13:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
• I don't see much of an effective difference between an indef-block and a topic ban in this case and would support either. I'm obviously involved in the article. Huon (talk) 15:43, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
• Can someone who is suggesting this change please make a concise defense for the most recent deletes by Huon? These particular sentences were never part of the original complaint.RefHistory (talk) 19:39, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
  • We are currently discussing your behavior and not the actual content. Three different editors have reverted you and yet you come back today and go against that implied consensus and revert yet again while this thread at ANI is ongoing and an open thread is on the talk page concerning the matter. The last two editors that reverted you aren't Huon. Your fixation on that editor combined with your subject interests makes me wonder if you ran these accounts. The level of I didn't hear that and wikilawyering are on par with that.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 20:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• "The RFC never covered this last sentence. Did it?" Yes it did. "Aspect 1) Does a student mentioning/giving thanks to Philip Benedict in the acknowledgment or similar page of the book rise to the level of importance that the student/book should be covered in this article..." His other recent edit to an unrelated article removed parts of a quote explicitly marked as one, in quotation marks, backed up by a reliable source confirming that quote, and commented that there's "no support for this sentence". So either RefHistory lacks basic reading competence in English, or he's editing with an agenda so strong that it takes precedence over obvious facts. Either way, this is no longer just topic ban territory; thus I support an indef-block. Huon (talk) 23:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Support topic ban This editor has not yet made 500 edits, and has become fixated on one article. A topic ban sounds about right so than perhaps they broaden their editing and learn to work with others. If they do not, this will give them enough rope and a block will soon follow. AlbinoFerret 23:58, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Support topic ban over indefinite ban, but support both. The history indicates that the individual could very easily be an SPA, and efforts to "reform" them by trying to get them to learn elsewhere very rarely work. Having said that, idiot optimist that I am, it might be the case here. I think, maybe, the best way to go would be to impose the topic ban, and if it gets violated more than let's say two times with no reasonable contributions elsewhere, then drop the site ban hammer on him. John Carter (talk) 00:07, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Gob Lofa

Gob Lofa and myself were recently blocked for a 24 hours, with the blocking administrator Callanecc making the following statements at our talk pages [16] and [17], making it clear that they would be looking into a IBAN between us and a TBAN for either one or both of us. Nothing as of yet has come of this and I would like to request that action indeed be taken. I would ask Callanecc directly however I noticed on their talk page that they won't be as active as normal until 14 September, but I will notify them of this AN/I.

This editors problems have not been altered by their recent block and warnings of further action being taken, and it seems to me that they are intent on going back over previous "flashpoints" and trying to elicit a reaction from me, and whilst I have performed a few reverts I have kept them to the most contentious edits and have done my best to remain civil, however I am coming here hoping to get this nipped in the bud before it escalates further with either an IBAN, and a TBAN on Gob Lofa or both of us or whatever action is deemed merited. It needs to stop.

Callanecc makes it clear that such a decision will be based on mine and Gob Lofa's actions, for example about civility and usage of sources [18]. Callanecc also requested in his block notice to me (linked above) that I remain civil and leave Gob Lofa's talk page alone, and for my part I feel that I have done that except to place an AN/I notice on their page to notify them of this. Unfortunately Gob Lofa seems to have reverted back to the issues I had originally raised here before deciding to close it and go to ArbCom Enforcement instead, and seems to be intent on carrying on before as well as trying to provoke some form of response from me by revisiting previous debates/flashpoints, starting here (23rd August) and most recently today here (30th August) and here.

I deem a TBAN on Gob Lofa in regards to Troubles related articles is more than justified going by their actions I raised previously and the following recent edits:

• Despite previously being informed [19] of the problems with their attempt to add a "Terrorism" category to the article, they decided [20] to put it into the start of the second sentence of the lede in a clear violation of WP:UNDUE (talk page discussion makes it clear why). I reverted [21], asking Gob Lofa to go to talk about it, to which they did and this was the result. Note the incivility from Gob Lofa towards Snowded [22].
• They are also still at the inaccurate edit summaries. Here they state "NPOV, link, reword etc", however what they actually did was reword a more NPOV sourced statement and changed the entire context of it and made it more POV. They also reworded another sourced statement (at the end of the edit) that was inaccurate as my reversion edit summary makes clear. They made the same edit and misleading summary at this article as well.
• This is another contentious edit. The government was not involved in the violence, and it is highly contentious and inaccurate to state such.
• This talk page however clearly reveals the real level of bias with their arguments for their edit, an argument that is clearly at odds with the facts, which I make clear with responses of block quotations from several verifiable and reliable sources by respected academics. Most notably Gob Lofa explicitly stated on 15th July: "the BA put it up to republicans first, starting with forcing through Orange marches with violence in March 1970" [23] however this direct quote from one of those sources I provided on 25th August [24] states "On Easter Tuesday, 31 March 1970, the Junior Orangemen had permission to march in Belfast. On their way out they marched along the Springfield Road without incident, but on their return that evening Catholic youths began to throw bottles at the bands and when about seventy soldiers of the Royal Scots Regiment arrived they were attacked with stones and petrol bombs.". There is some difference between Gob Lofa's version of events and what actually happened, and from an editor who frequently states that they are making things more NPOV.

They also now seem to be trying to provoke/hound me:

• [25]. An IP was trying to enforce a word change, and after a few reverts I had asked an admin to semi-protect the page, however a completely new IP appears to change it again. Upon reverting, Gob Lofa appears out of the blue, stating I "Take it to talk", even though there is no basis for such a statement or revert considering I was reverting an IPs edit to the stable version. This new IP and Gob Lofa also both edited this article on the 28th August leading me to wonder are they linked.
• The following (ab)use [26] of their rollback privilege yesterday (not the first time) to make another inaccurate edit summary and what is clear incivility directed at me with "Undo convoluted POV replacement for Britain". That is in regards to me reverting an edit of theirs back on the 1st May [27]. How that edit summary was merited is beyond me. Notified that it is actually misuse of undo and twinkle, not the rollback feature itself Mabuska ^(talk) 00:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Mabuska ^(talk) 13:02, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Also in regards to the Dromore, County Down article, a clear attempt at provocation by highly dubious admonishment [28], though my response to it shows the holes in it. Mabuska ^(talk) 22:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Having failed to elicit some form of uncivil response from me at Talk:Dromore,_County_Down they decide to do it instead [29]. They have also decided to follow me to the Ulaid article in an attempt to find something to argue with me over to see if they can get a reaction out of me, in this case removing a WikiProject tag I added [30], though my response discounts their reasoning in their edit summary for it [31]. Mabuska ^(talk) 21:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Continuing to revisit past "flashpoints" to push either their viewpoint or attempt to antagonise by restoring challenged edits:

• 5 September pushing an edit that was challenged back on 8 July, and continuing with misleading edit summaries, cites the talk page as if there is a consensus for their edit when none exists.
• 5 September, undoing a revert I made back on 6 July. Once again they restored their inaccurate and unsourced opinion whilst at the same time removing sourced information. Another editor has since reverting them [32].

Examples will keep being posted until something is done and as Gob Lofa is willing to keep providing them then this issue won't go away. Mabuska ^(talk) 23:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

User:E.M.Gregory again

Coming here to avoid 3RR. As a result of a dispute on Matthew C. Whitaker, I have been keeping an eye on User:E.M.Gregory's contribs. He started 2015 Ikea murders for political reasons only per the edit comment). He supported this political view with sources from Breitbart. I knew these were not RS, but tried to stay uninvolved - I notified the Sweden Wikiproject to keep an eye on the article here. They did so, and some cleanup was done, including the addition of failed verification templates on all the sources in the Impact section (the "political part" which is the article creator's claimed focus) at the time. EM Gregory has removed those templates twice and left the sources they are tied to in the article. I restored the templates once, but I'm not going to editwar about it.

In the interests of disclosure, substantial errors were found and corrected on the aforementioned Whitaker article by myself and others, as evidenced by the Talk page, where I and others have documented several and I would note that there was no engagement by E.M.Gregory on the article talk until the initial matter was brought to ANI as the the result of a PA towards me. There is also a pattern: aside from the massive puffery removed on the Whitaker article, another sourcing error was found on another article, apparently due to a typo (because "Whitney" and "Bingham" are very close together on the keyboard, I guess). These "mistakes" seem to be far too prevalent, including what the initial PA was claimed to be. I'd note that I have also been accused of POV-pushing on illegal immigration, which is an issue I don't even edit. The intermediate diff showing the strikeout of a comment disregarding consensus is pretty interesting, too.

However, if that is, instead, the focus of EM Gregory's editing (aside from combating supposed "academic injustice" via Whitaker), that is a problem if not done fairly. The editing pattern is damaging to the encyclopedia (like moving an article during AfD), and the unwillingness to assume responsibility for the "mistakes" and errors (instead claiming "accidents", "wikihounding" and "SPAs") is a detriment to collegial editing. I'd take an interaction ban if this were indeed a personal issue on my part, but it isn't; EMG's editing pattern (and the IDIDNTHEARTHAT associated with it) is damaging to the encyclopedia, and it's simply not an isolated problem anymore, because it's cropping up on every article he edits. MSJapan (talk) 20:42, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

• Frankly I am fed up with User:MSJapan's persistent WIKIHOUNDING. This editor has been WIKIHOUNDING me since I made a simple editing error the week before last, for which I swiftly apologized, and has repeatedly stated that s/he would be glad if I left Wikipedia. I believe that her/his goal is to chase me off Wikipedia. At first, I thought the WIKIHOUNDING was a mere overreaction and have refrained form bringing this to ANI. I hate the aggression on Wikipedia. Today the editor's language leads me to suspect a POV motive. Or, perhaps, a nervous breakdown. Whatever MSJapan's editor's motives, his/her behavior is an overreaction to any actual errors I have committed. Certainly, however, MSJapan's approach is an excellent way to convince rational people to avoid editing Wikipedia.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:54, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Then stop editing contrary to policy. You keep adding sources to articles that do not support the statements you want to make. Wikipedia is not a place for your original research, and you don't understand that. Nobody should have go around cleaning up your messes because you didn't do youe due diligence. You don't start a bio article to do nothing but write about scandals, and you don't start an event article to talk about politics. You especially don't remove "verification failed" templates from sources. Respond to issues instead of making ad hominem attacks. Actually, when someone disputes your sources, you need to engage in discussion, not just revert "because it's sourced." Your problem is that you think your opinions trump policies and procedures, and they don't. In short, act like a good contributor, and perhaps people will treat you like one. Until that time, you need to deal with the consequences of your editing behavior. On another note to the admins, have I not provided enough diffs to show the pattern of behavior and lack of engagement to resolve the problem? MSJapan (talk) 15:39, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

If more diffs are needed, this was my removal for clear synth, the talk diff where I explained such, and a wholesale reversion of the edit, despite the talk thread being opened. That's the behavioral point - I made an edit in accordance with policy, explained why on talk in accordance with policy, and was reverted rather than engaged on talk. The substance of the edit is not at question here in this thread.

I'd also note that this AfD diff on an article EMG is a good indicator as well; the user thinks that writing a BLP focusing on a perpetrator is OK even when it is substantially about the event, and feels that following policies in such cases is "against consensus." The same went for the substantive version of Matthew C. Whitaker before any other editors got involved - a BLP with little to no BLP. There is a similar sourcing discussion on EMG's page here, and prod after prod after prod. EMG has refactored comments at least twice, and has a copyvio notice. I would note that a university bio was OK as a source for David_Mikics (who "automatically passed PROF" on that source), thought a "self-referenced description was OK" on Susya for an NGO, but a uni bio was "unsourced hagiography" on Matthew C. Whitaker. Again, this isn't content, it's editing conduct. When the source suits his purpose, it's OK, and when it doesn't, it isn't, no matter what.

Wikihounding seems to be a common fallback when someone disagrees with his editing and he can't get his way. He did that to Auslondoner after previously having falsely accused him of abusing SPEEDY and canvassing. He also goes after editors who tag his work as if they're in the wrong for tagging unsourced and single source articles. No one is responsible for the EMG's lack of competence other than him, and he's clearly not willing to accept that. MSJapan (talk) 18:01, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• This series of edits by E.M.Gregory violates NPOV by exaggerating the connection between the IKEA murders and the rise of Sweden's anti-immigration politics. E.M.Gregory's sentence, "The attack is said to have contributed to producing a major uptick in support for the Sweden Democrats Party, which pledges to limit immigration," falsely portrays the two sources, both of which only mention the IKEA murders as a recent element rather than as a major influence. Challenged on this point, E.M.Gregory expanded the problem, adding a source written before the murders (!!) as well as an opinion piece from the UK which fails to describe the IKEA murders as having a major influence on the popularity of the Sweden Democrats Party. This looks like political advocacy to me, not encyclopedic writing. I'm seeing poor work by E.M.Gregory, not hounding by MSJapan. Binksternet (talk) 18:15, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• • Here's a statement directly from E.M.Gregory that shows exactly why there's an editing conduct issue: [33]. MSJapan (talk) 20:04, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
  • And apparently he's attacking other users as well, later apologies aside: [34] MSJapan (talk) 22:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, if a problem has been identified, can we please have some actual disciplinary action on top of the problem identification? The user's behavior is getting ridiculous, to the point of effectively inventing things to change. It's actually a minor improvement for once, but the behavior around it negates the whole thing, as the change was made only as a way to attack me (not to improve the content). This should not be the level that it takes to get a minor positive contribution out of the user, either. Said user, by the way, despite being notified of the ANI, hasn't actually addressed anything stated herein (of which there is a substantial pattern illustrated by diffs in several articles, talk pages, and AfDs) other than to accuse me of POV editing and mental instability. I consistently address content, and he consistently addresses me, not the content. Maybe I simply haven't been clear in what I wish to be done, so here it is: The shoddy disruptive POV editing all over Wikipedia and the personal attacks in response to content edits from this user need to stop, by sanction if necessary. MSJapan (talk) 16:38, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

And some NPA [35]. MSJapan (talk) 20:17, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

which the user attempted to refactor out of the discussion, removing another editor's comment as well: [36] MSJapan (talk) 00:30, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Still more disruptive behavior:

• citing OTHERSTUFFEXISTS implicitly in an AfD by referring to his own articles' existence as reason to keep, also illustrative of POV editing with respect to articles relating to illegal immigration (a position he claimed I was pushing).
• Another personal attack on me in an AfD.
• Auslondoner cites EMG's disruptive behavior on another AfD, where EMG has brought up a totally different article.
• I'm also mildly concerned, given EMG's involvement with Susya and 2003 Route 60 Hamas ambush to see notability tagging by EMG on Arabian Business magazine, an article we've had since 2008. MSJapan (talk) 06:32, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

It is becoming apparent that when E.M.Gregory does not get his way, he edits disruptively, pushes back against editors who do not agree with him, and generally causes a problem. For that reason, I'm retitling this ANI, as this has really gone well beyond one article. There are too many issues across the contribs at this point to call this isolated or personal. I've found at least three other editors he has caused problems with at this point. By ignoring this, his behavior is being validated. MSJapan (talk) 06:32, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• Note — As a heads up, I've added {{Ds/alert}}s to editors involved with the BLPs and warned E.M.Gregory (talk · contribs) about a clear personal attack. To be fair, I do understand why he would feel he was being followed around, but clearly random accusations on talk pages or AfDs is not the proper place to go about dealing with the issue. --slakr^\ talk / 08:03, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• EMG has removed all of the failed verification tags from the Al-Bazi article, and I have notified slakr, as well as provided full support [37] as I also did in a briefer format in the AfD already. That's a clear violation of the sanctions, so I'm placing it here for documentation purposes. I will also note in the AfD diff, he states my claims are unsupported, but does not address any of them, relying on attacking the editor instead of engaging with the information. MSJapan (talk) 19:31, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• And perhaps a solid WP:COMPETENCE issue here, because in ten years at Wikipedia I've never seen these policies used to support exactly their opposite position by anyone who'd actually read them. MSJapan (talk) 23:56, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

User interactions with AusLondonder

I've mentioned these before, but I'm going to drop them into a subsection to see if Auslondonder wishes to participate in this discussion, because there's a lot of interaction between them, too.

• [38] - where EMG falsely accuses AusLondonder of CSDing
• [39] - where EMG goes from lightly reprimanding AusLondonder to notify editors from the previous AfD, and then accuses AusLondonder of violating canvassing by doing so
• [40] - EMG then returns with the wikihounding accusation MSJapan (talk) 20:40, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment having had a brief look at some of the articles created/edited by EMG, over and above the quality/misuse of sources, tag removing and general uncooperativeness referred to above. The articles seem to be written in a very WP:Coatrack manner, in which the main purpose of the article is to link immigration and criminality. Some of the articles currently at AfD, might well pass, but need major cleanups. If MSJapan and others have been obliged to follow this editor to ensure reasonable standards of sourcing and neutrality, they are doing us all a favour, not 'wikihounding'. Pincrete (talk) 08:39, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment Firstly, I am perplexed why no admin is replying to this matter or addressing the concerns. I have had some difficult experiences with E. M. Gregory in the past. My perspective is that this editor seems to seek to seek to pursue a political agenda on Wikipedia to a significant extent. This relates mostly to Islam/immigration and related topics (and in the past LGBT issues). This includes misuse and misinterpretation of sources and continual false allegations against other editors. While E. M. Gregory has made some helpful contributions, they also fail to follow some behavioural and editing guidelines. My response to his false allegations against me was fairly robust, as we have clashed in the past when I nominated an article relating to a book about gay "conversion therapy", resulting in false accusations of bad faith and agenda-pushing. AusLondonder (talk) 09:04, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Auslondoner's record of bring articles the political implications of which he does not like to AFD is remarkable. Trying to remember ever "tangling" or even editing an article on LGBT issues, I came upon his AFD for a book: The Myth of Islamic Tolerance. Cannot find/recall what LGBT -related AFD I might have met him on. More recently, he simultaneously attempted to speedy SeaGlass Carousel and brought to AFD 2012 Paros (Greece) rape and 2003 Route 60 Hamas ambush. The problem is that he does not seem to perform WP:BEFORE, before he nominated articles. Moreover, the sort of reasons he gives for deletion "An encyclopaedia cannot cover every rape committed even if it is *gasp* committed by an "illegal" immigrant." are not exactly policy driven.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:14, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

  I feel, as I have felt since MSJapan started this, that while it is true that I have made mistakes since I began editing regularly earlier this year, I have in general been a responsible editor. I also suppose that all editors make mistakes. What is intense and inappropriate about MSJapan is not only combing thorough months of edits to fine errors, but saving them up like a magpie to bring here, why not just fix the things? the intensity comes in articles like Douglas Al-Bazi, an article I found at AFD and sourced. I'm not saying that it's perfect, merely that MSJapan's description of it both at the AFD and, particularly, at the [[User talk:slakrs talk page to be almost inexplicable. Unless, of course, his goal is to drive me form Wikipedia, and the only reason for trying to drive me away that I can imagine is that she does not want articles about Christian refugees from ISIS on wikipedia. Perhaps this is not political, whatever the motivation, I do feel that I am undeserving of the language and animosity directed at me by MSJapan, and that both MSJapan (who repeatedly has expressed a desire to drive me off Wikipedia) and AusLondne To me, it feels as though they are working in combination to drive me away form Wikipedia.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:14, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I have in fact never stated such a position, and I see that EMG has not provided diffs to illustrate that. Meanwhile, I have provided plenty of diffs illustrating that EMG is not a responsible editor. Too many of his articles are written with an agenda in mind, and when confronted, he attacks the editor. The reason EMG finds my explanation "inexplicable" is dumbfounding to me, because I read every source EMG added to the article to try to find the statement he was citing to the source. In no case were those statements there; period. Therefore, it is likely that COATRACKing via Google is what is happening - Google the subject, add every source that his name is in - there's no other way that we could get to the situation that material clearly from a BBC radio program only was being sourced elsewhere. That is not responsible editing.

A similar thing happened here, where my source-based explanation was met with personal response, and in fact has nothing to do with the article's topic. The same thing happened on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shooting of Danny Gonen - the pushback against the editors, not the sources: "the nom didn't do BEFORE", "Assertion is false" etc, not "the source says." MSJapan (talk) 17:50, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

The reason for the personal pushback seems to be an agenda of wanting these articles on Wikipedia, often for what appears to be ulterior motives. 2003 Route 60 Hamas ambush was created on August 16, and then he basically walked away from the article. It was prodded two weeks later, and that's when the issues started. Every time someone said something in the AfD, EMG went an COATRACKed a bunch of sources in to the article. This is the same thing he did with Matthew C. Whitaker, and several creation edit summaries illustrates this creation/expansion pattern:

2003 Route 60 Hamas ambush - edit summary on creation diff "article on 2003 Hamas terror shooting, back in the news due to successful lawsuit against bank that transferred funds to Hamas" - CLEARLY not notable as a standalone event, but being written as such. Created the article in one edit, left it alone until it was prodded two weeks later

Matthew C. Whitaker - Started the article July 14 during coverage, worked on it for about 2 days, then went away from it until it was tagged as undue August 2. EMG removed tags without discussion, and then didn't touch the article again until it was edited August 19.

[Seaglass Carousel creation diff https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SeaGlass_Carousel&action=history] - "new article on new carousel, sourcing goes back yrs. , coverage likely to be intense when it opens next week - let them source it to Wikipedia" This is simply inappropriate use of the encyclopedia

There wouldn't be so much evidence if this wasn't such a widespread problem, and I have probably not gone back more than a month or so of editing (maybe six weeks by now?), except in a few cases, because the point is that this is a long-term problem iwith this editor, not a personal issue limited to interactions with one or two editors. MSJapan (talk) 17:50, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• I apologize for my levity at SeaGlass Carousel. The carousel is a big deal, artistically and in terms of coverage. I made a joke because I started the article just before the official opening. I happened to see it at night when the lights were on, the crew was running trials. I was totally take by it. So I wrote the little article. I write when something moves me. My first edit was about a terrorist attack. Mateu Morral. I find these things appalling, what ever the politics of the perpetrator. I suspect that a great many more of the old-time old anarchist and communist terror attacks could support articles than have them now. Often I am moved by a book, or an artist. I recently began several articles (mere stubs) about the cast of a show I saw: ((Hamilton (musical)]] and loved. I was not aware that there was a rule against starting an article and leaving it brief, in the assumption that it will grow. I have been under the impression that this is how Wikipedia functions. I often add just a bit to an article. Say, a reference, or a small fact. Sometimes I start an article in the belief that others, who know more about the topic, will sooner or later come and add to it. this seems to happen. But I have certainly been under the impression that if an incident of terrorism is widely covered by major media outlets, then an article is appropriate. This is true even of a great many such incidents where noone dies. (for example, 2014 Dijon attack, 2006 UNC SUV attack. I remember these incidents vividly, perhaps because I am familiar with the locations where they took place, but I heard about them on the national news at the time they ocurred. To me, MSJapan appears to be setting up a set of requirements for keeping an article on the 2003 Route 60 Hamas ambush that don't exist and/or are not applied to other, somewhat parallel incidents in which civilians are targeted by terrorists. In a broader sense, I do not find his descriptions of my work accurate, or his attitude constructive. I had, as I have stated elsewhere, decided that if I ignored him instead of engaging with him, that he would forget me. Since he has not, I respond here and throw myself on the fairmindedness of editors reading this.E.M.Gregory (talk) 18:21, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

COI editing and personal attacks on Democracy & Nature and Talk:Democracy & Nature

This article is mainly edited by a few editors who only edit this article and two related ones (Inclusive Democracy and Takis Fotopoulos). Although I have tried to explain clearly what problems I see with the article as it currently stands, I continue to be accused of editing with a political bias by John sargis (as well as an IP editor, 165.120.27.172, but I assume that is the same person who forgot to log in). I consider this a personal attack and have notified the editor of this. This was again answered with a personal attack. The editor's user page and talk page show that this person has a history of such attacks. The editor also has a COI with this article, having published himself in this journal several times (e.g., [41] and [42]). In view of these repeated attacks and persistent failure to AGF, perhaps some editor here can have a look. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 12:23, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• You assume wrong what you think is my IP address. It is not me. You should be sure about your "facts" before making veiled presumptions against me. After I repeatedly showed you the irregularities about the way wiki rules are applied in terms of what you see as "problems" with the article, you blame me for attacking you. I am pointing out the foolish consistencies in the way the rules are applied in that there are many other articles that suffer from the same "rule", but it seems they only apply to D&N, even after it has been pointed out to you those other articles. If there are wiki rules that are “double standards” and an administrator enforces them, then logic dictates that the administrator is biased. This is not a personal attack. Furthermore, I do question your motives since if you think I did attack you personally, you threatened to take me to the WP:ANI board to get me banned. I question your motives, because before you post a grievance against a user with the board, you must FIRST try to resolve the issue on my talk page. Which you did not do. Thus you are harassing me. And I am asking now that an administrator can have a look for proof at my talk page. Thanks. John sargis (talk) 19:15, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• The issue was discussed at Talk:Democracy & Nature, so there was no need to start yet another discussion on your talk page. And apparently there are situations where you do want to use those darned Wikipedia rules... --Randykitty (talk) 19:36, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• Sorry, but again as I have repeated, I want the rules to be evenly applied, which you did not do. The rule says that you go to my talk page to iron out the personal issue(s) and not at the article page which is inappropriate. You bypassed and undercut the rule so that you could preemptively get me banned by going immediately to the administrators. This is harassment. So again a foolish consistency underscores how you use or not use wiki rules for your convenience. John sargis (talk) 20:48, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
• Your insinuation, Randykitty, is I am hypocritical when you say, “apparently there are situations where you do want those darned Wikipedia rules.” implying I am biased is a personal attack. I replied, above, I want the rules applied evenly, but yet you are insisting not to use them evenly as evidenced not only in your discussions here and especially at your post at 19:36 (UTC) above, but also at D&N page where last year you tried the same editorial tactics with no success of deletion—and now you are at it again. It is difficult for it not come to mind that you have a political bias, but I do not know. John sargis (talk) 21:43, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oh man... Could somebody not involved please have a look at this? Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 08:57, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

• And ongoing PA by another editor, Panlis, who exclusively edits topics related to the ones mentioned above. Given the vehemence and the accusations, I feel almost like I am dealing with a sect here. --Randykitty (talk) 12:32, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

• User Randykitty, as demonstrated in Talk:Democracy & Nature, has consistently tried to impose his way of editing the article, by adding repeatedly tags and requests for citations, that were effectively shown to him that are at least irrelevant to the article and constituted the -to my mind as well- justifiable assumption that he indeed maintains a bias toward the entry. His recurrent editing "spree" has been accompanied by his unwillingness to answer to documented and logical questions brought to his attention in the Talk Page. So the assumption of his maintaining a bias towards the article does not constitute a Personal Attack, as so easily and conveniently Randykitty accuses me and other editors of, and this is because all criticizing was aimed at his activity in the entry, accompanied by documented and -to a decent degree- laborious argumentation on his recurrent and lately almost totally exorbitant actions showcased in the Talk Page. And this is particularly so, when in the meanwhile and while he accused the other editors, I tried to contribute to the article by particularly addressing his demands for citations, from the moment they seemed somehow sensible. At the same time, the only thing Randykitty did was mainly deleting, and adding tags!..

Then, Randykitty didn't take the time to activate the Dispute Resolution procedure, before bringing the matter to the Administrators' board. On the contrary he accuses the other editors involved in the discussion, with a striking nerve, of being a "sect"! But this is to say easily when an editor is short of answers to the points raised by me or anybody else who out of necessity does not spend his life in checking wiki entries and he resorts to the facile ‘accusation’ that "I exclusively edit topics related to the ones mentioned above”. But why specialist knowledge on a topic is something wrong when editing an article in an encyclopedia and in Wikipedia, when of course it's not a field for advocacy? Yes, I do have specialist knowledge on the topic and this is why I take party on discussions related to it rather than on brain cancer surgery. Unless of course, according to Wikipedia rules, people with no obvious knowledge on a topic or on the meaning or the function of a theoretical journal should have more say on any topic, as long as they have memorized some wiki rules. Of course rules are needed but the issue is how (as every rule) are interpreted. Panlis (talk) 07:54, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Do we really need to give any more rope to this group maintaining a walled garden, per WP:COI, WP:SOAP, WP:NOTHERE, WP:BATTLEGROUND, and WP:NPA. --Randykitty (talk) 08:22, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Randykitty increasingly acts in -to say the very least- bad faith and total unwillingness to follow any gradual protocol required by Wikipedia before dropping in the row and without any documented reply his "allegations" in this board. Now he demonstrates once again his blatant unwillingness to take part in the discussion in the Democracy & Nature Talk Page and to reply to the concrete arguments posed against his theses, when at the same time, he continues adding tags that have been demonstrated to him to be at best irrelevant and at worst, totally biased as [I (and other editors) have tried to prove here, without any at all, further participation to the dialogue by this obviously Disruptive Editor. It's also becoming now more than clear that the same user uses his "credentials" of thousands of edits in articles and of being an administrator, so as not only to impose his unacceptable editing methods to the D&N entry, despite my and other editors' best attempts to concretely and in detail show his inconsistency (and, ultimately), bias in this case, but to also throw mud against all other editors with whom he simply does not agree with: By putting at the venture labels on them of the sort of "WP:COI, WP:SOAP, WP:NOTHERE, WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:NPA" etc..

And all this when

(a) positive response to some of his sensible demands was accurately applied to the entry,

(b) his blatant inconsistencies were meticulously shown with specific examples and passages in the Talk Page, without him caring to give any concrete reply to my and others' argumentation in the Talk Page,

(c) he jumped without any constraint to blame me and other editors of WP:COI, WP:SOAP, WP:NPA etc., without any effort on his part to follow a normal procedure of the many available in WP:DR and elsewhere before resorting to these accusations and before bringing me and others to the WP:ANI, and finally,

(d) he continues even at this moment his disruptive editing and undocumented reverses without giving any explanation at all in the talk page for this, while at the same time he has the "nerve" of accusing me (with the non-argument) of "not addressing the underlying problems" (!), something that I tried to do in -I think- a decently laborious and well-documented attempt! Hence Randykitty's action that suits to his case could also be showcased vividly in the following clear passages from WP:DISRUPTSIGNS:

"A disruptive editor is an editor who exhibits tendencies such as the following: (...)

1. Is tendentious: continues editing an article or group of articles in pursuit of a certain point for an extended time despite opposition from other editors. Tendentious editing does not consist only of adding material; some tendentious editors engage in disruptive deletions as well. An example is repeated deletion of reliable sources posted by other editors." (...)
2. Engages in "disruptive cite-tagging"; adds unjustified {{citation needed}} tags to an article when the content tagged is already sourced, uses such tags to suggest that properly sourced article content is questionable." (...)

Panlis (talk) 13:55, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

• This thread had been archived. I have restored it in hope of solliciting some input about this case of SPA editors owning some articles. --Randykitty (talk) 08:32, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
• Having completely lost the argument, Randykitty now returns (as was fully expected of him!) with yet another wp rule: owning. However, once again, he simply distorts another wp rule. He has no evidence whatsoever to support his new allegation apart from the fact that the editors who tried to make sense of his multiple tagging (like John Sargis and Panlis) were involved before in exchanges related to D&N and related entries. However, the owning rule itself stresses that “It is quite reasonable to take an interest in an article on a topic you care about − perhaps you are an expert” and Panlis himself admitted his special knowledge on the topic. Randykitty has to show convincingly that “this watchfulness has become possessiveness” and he NEVER MANAGED TO DO SO, particularly as the editors involved (as well as myself) tried repeatedly to improve the entry following those of Randykitty’s suggestions which were specific enough and looked reasonable,e.g. providing the citations and the links to references he asked for. I also supposed that as long as he does not just put tags all around, without usually giving concrete advice on what has to be done, the editors already involved –and hopefully others as well—would continue helping to improve the entry. Unless of course his real aim is not to improve the entry but simply to have it deleted, after his failed attempt for deletion last year.165.120.27.172 (talk) 11:24, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
• Still no comments from uninvolved editors. --Randykitty (talk) 08:25, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
• According to Randykitty’s “interpretation” of wp rules, all comments from ‘involved’ editors can easily be dismissed or ignored, irrespective of the quality of the arguments concerned, just because these editors are interested in a particular topic on which they happen to have some knowledge. On the other hand, his own heavy involvement in this particular entry in the past when he tried (and failed) to have it deleted, does not matter simply because he has managed to make 62,000 edits in the short period of 2 years and 10 months - obviously working on a full-time basis - i.e. over 60 edits per day, apart from starting over 60 new entries!165.120.27.172 (talk) 11:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
• After the personal attacks, we now progress to taunting. Directly ON Ani... --Randykitty (talk) 14:30, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
• I am not personally attacking or taunting anybody and that was obviously not my intention. I simply stated some OBVIOUS FACTS and Randykitty, instead of trying to dispute them, resorts to his familiar tactics of playing the victim.165.120.27.172 (talk) 15:21, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• I really need not to "dispute" anything you and the other editors above have been writing. It is there for everybody to see and what is true of it is equally simple to see. Eventually, some uninvolved editors will get around to this and wade through the wall of accusations that has been thrown up above and, if they'll find that you are correct, I'll be swiftly desyssopped and indefinitely blocked from editing here. --Randykitty (talk) 06:47, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• Randykitty, please avoid this "self-defeating" rhetoric. The way you set the demand, i.e. for some non-involved users to intervene in order to clarify if it's that "we" ("the sect" according to your -at least, humiliating-, accusation about me and other editors of the Democracy & Nature entry) "are correct", something meaning that you will have to be "swiftly desyssopped and indefinitely blocked from editing here" (!) is at least disorienting for any user that happens to see this debate. No one asked or suggested such a "response", which shows that you probably have personalized the whole debate. In fact no one asked anything from you, apart from the logical need to show where you believe the editors are mistaken in the first place as regards the editing of the aforementioned entries, particularly when they explicitly claimed that their intention was not Personal Attacking and that they tried to a more or less degree to address your sensible "demands" for citations etc.. On the other hand, you brought two editors before this Board, with a (at least slanderous against me) row of accusations, when, as I tried to show above and in the Democracy & Nature entry's Talk Page, it' s your mistake that you haven't tried to reply to any of the significant arguments raised against your activity, (by abstaining from any dialogue in the entry's Talk Page despite my and others' effort for precise argumentation) and secondly you continued to bypass the fact that significant effort has been in the making to collectively improve the article, even by newer editors like Niceguyedc and Fusedmilk. You didn't even TRY to follow a Dispute Resolution procedure but you jumped directly into here when you saw that not all your demands would be "fulfilled"...Panlis (talk) 15:55, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Personal attacks don't go to dispute resolution, they go to ANI. Simple. --Randykitty (talk) 09:06, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

User:Jaronie

Please block Jaronie (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) at least temporarily for repeat self-promotion despite warnings. Thank you. Ariadacapo (talk) 16:51, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I can see where you're coming from, but AN/I needs a little more substance than that. _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 17:38, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, going through their edit history, here is some substance:

• The following edits: [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] add a reference to a paper co-authored by Jaronie Mohd Jani
• The following edits: [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] add a reference to another paper co-authored by Jaronie Mohd Jani
• The following edits: [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] add a reference to a third paper co-authored by Jaronie Mohd Jani
• The following edits: [62] [63] [64] add a reference to a paper co-authored by Jaronie Mohd Jani

Of the user’s other edits, one adds a seemingly-unrelated reference, one is on an unrelated topic, a couple added copyvio images (which is how I got pulled into this), all others are minor.

User:Ohnoitsjamie warned them yesterday but this morning here we are again. Ariadacapo (talk) 11:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• So, we are lucky enough to recruit a published author in a technical field and what is WP's immediate reaction? Call for a block! How the hell is this reckoned to be a positive action?

What content we used to have here was not constructed by people who were very conscientious about enforcing policy, it was built by people who understood a topic. Why are we now seeking to drive them away as rudely as possible? Andy Dingley (talk) 11:29, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

User:Hyrdlak

A story as old as time. On 19 September 2009 User:Hyrdlak (a single purpose account with 204 edits since: 2009-09-19) created an entry called Tomasz Kamusella and by the next day increased its size to 18,780 bytes (most of it unreferenced), with a few quotes from filfak.ni.ac.yu (Server not found). By 8 July 2012 Hyrdlak increased the same bio to 26,744 bytes at which point it became glaringly obvious to me I began to suspect that Hyrdlak writes about himself. By 26 February 2014 Hyrdlak expanded the entry to 29,467 bytes with a bunch of junk from his own filing cabinet (no third party assessment).[65]

I tried to help him write a better article about himself his single purpose, but ... no can do. He reverted me twice without addressing my concerns, and instead, by 10 February 2015 expanded his the bio to 31,960 bytes. This is where the whole thing went through the roof. Please, check out his aggressive and dismissive outbursts when other Wikipedians (i.e. Voluneer Marek) began reacting to his silly game. Hyrdlak pasted the same series of rants on several talk pages including Talk:Tomasz Kamusella: I suspect that Volunteer Marek and Poeticbent may be the very same user. --Hyrdlak 14:41, 23 August 2015. Meanwhile, Hyrdlak also created an entry about his work called Polsko-angielsko-niemiecki Glosariusz regionalny Województwa Opolskiego, a fringe glossary in the Polish language which sparked outrage by his Kamusella's own employer. See: "The university distanced itself from the author of a glossary" in Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper. What Hyrdlak does not understand is that we do acknowledge his academic accomplishments of one Tomasz Kamusella, but treating others like shit is not going to get him Hyrdlak anywhere around here. Poeticbent talk 18:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Relevant diffs

• First revert by Hyrdlak
• Second revert
• Third revert
• Fourth revert
• Fifth revert
• Revenge editing on unrelated BLP because it was created by me
• Rant on my talk page
• The same rant copy-pasted into Voluneer Marek talk page
• Same rant copy-pasted into his own talk page
• Same rant copy-pasted into the talk page of his own WP:BLP bio

Reply to Poeticebnt: Regarding your claim that I 'revenge-edited' the entry on Per Anders Rudling. How about I applied your own medicine of 'expert edit,' as formulated by you here:

"18 May 2015, Poeticbent reinstated Volunteer Marek’s version of this entry {on T Kamusella} and remarked: “restored expert edit by Volunteer Marek → you have been advised against writing about yourself User:Hyrdlak and if you persist, I will personally report you to AN/I for the breach of Wikipedia core policy/guidelines which can result in serious remedies.”

By 'expert edit,' here you mean removing information on most of T Kamusella's books and on all of Kamusella's journal articles and book chapters. Basically in my edit of the entry on Rudling, I removed the scholar's journal articles and book chapters, in line with what you endorse. --User:Hyrdlak (talk) 8:59, Sept 5, 2015 (GMT)

• This could be exciting, but let's do small things first. a. Poeticbent, are you in fact Volunteer Marek, and are you also an Auburn fan? b. is that fringe dictionary notable by our standards? If not, put it up at AfD. Drmies (talk) 03:18, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• As for Tomasz_Kamusella, that does not look very notable. DGG, Randykitty, do you have an opinion? Drmies (talk) 03:19, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Wait a minute, Poeticbent et al. I was looking at this version of the biography, which is indeed too much like a resume. But the references in note 23 aren't in the current version of the article anymore, and that's unfortunate since those references could easily make the subject notable per WP:PROF--if legit, they would show that the book, The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe, had a significant influence. Drmies (talk) 03:23, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

He's probably notable. 6 books by major English language publishers, include Palgrave Macmillan, an important publisher for this subject. I cannot see the article on the fringe dictionary, but I suspect that it may be a disagreement over the status of a particular dialect. I would redirect the article on it--I cannot imagine that would be sufficiently important by itself, unless it stirred up a very major controversy. (As a general rule, trying to write an article on an author & also one on a minor book does indicate a tendency to promotionalism (which is why we discourage autobiographies) , but the bio article in its present state seems acceptable. DGG ( talk ) 04:18, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Kamusella is probably notable. The glossary is not. DGG, you edited one of these articles at some point (I recall seeing your name in the page history), and put in a POV tag on one of them, which was then removed ... by Hyrdlak.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:21, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Found it: here and here.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about Kamusella (maybe he is notable), but I'm also for deleting the article about the glossary. It's not even sourced now... Peter238 (talk) 04:46, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't know whether Kamusella is notable. Quite probably, given the books with major publishers as remarked upon by DGG, although the long post on the article's talk page about how Kamusella meets many of the criteria of WP:PROF mainly betrays inexperience with how this guideline usually is applied. I don't think the fellowship of the Royal Historical Society confers notability, given the large number of fellows listed on that organization's homepage. In this case, notability most probably will come from multiple book reviews of his books (positive or negative, that doesn't really matter). I don't think his citation record is strong enough to indicate a pass of PROF#1. Below mention is made about "crazies vs non-crazies", with Kamusella in the former category. However, given the readership at St. Andrews, apparently obtained after the controversy in Poland, I'd actually be surprised if he really were a fringe/crazy. The article needs a lot of work, though... --Randykitty (talk) 08:13, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There is indeed some excitement to be had here. But strictly speaking it's a (regional) glossary not a dictionary. Anyway, the excitement... this is actually about a manufactured controversy which has been used as a way of self-promotion by one Tomasz Kamusella, which started off in the "real world" and then, thanks to the efforts of User:Hyrdlak made its way onto Wikipedia. Some serious BLP violations and slander of several individuals included along the way.

I started writing it up but then realized it'd end up being TL;DR. So here's the run down: Tomasz Kamusella = fringe "Silesian Nationalist" activist of borderline notability (this version). Publishes this glossary in 2004. The glossary has some wacky ideas in it (Opole's not really part of Poland, Polish-German border is illegal, eastern regions of Poland are really "Germany under temporary Polish occupation" etc). Kamusella in the glossary claims that it was published with backing and financial support from some local politicians and government institutions. When the book comes out these politicians freak out because they don't want to be associated with these loony ideas and apparently they neither gave money to Kamusella nor "supported" him in anyway. They want the passage which mentions them removed. Minor controversy of local regional significance ensues ... for like a week or so. Publisher also says "oh shit, I didn't realize the kind of crap that was in there". One of the said politicians makes an off-hand comment to the local town newspaper to the effect that he wouldn't mind seeing copies of the book burned. Publisher pulls the book, I'm guessing cuz they didn't want to get their ass sued.

Kamusella then runs around yelling about censorship, about how his book was burned and claims it was the "first book banned in post-Communist Poland". Which is all kinds of nonsense. He writes numerous letters to big name politicians who studiously ignore him. Kamusella publishes these letters himself on various websites and tries to make as much noise as possible. Like I said, a manufactured controversy designed to sell copies of the glossary and give him name recognition.

Volunteer Marek, have a look at the screenshot from the catalog of the Polish National Library, which you removed from the entry on Kamusella. It is quite a tangible proof censorship. You can also read about the matter in this newspaper article: http://www.nto.pl/wiadomosci/opole/art/4475287,glosariusz-bedzie-dostepny-marszalek-nie-chce-byc-cenzorem,id,t.html. --User:Hyrdlak (talk) 9:10 Sept 4, 2015 (GMT)

On Wikipedia User:Hyrdlak, who is a single purpose account dedicated to promoting Kamusella (see Poeticbent's links above - all articles created and edited by them promote Kamusella in some way or another), brings this whole sorry situation to Wikipedia. This version of the article basically gives you the flavor. There's a ton of misrepresentation of essentially the single source ([66]) on the topic in there and host of BLP violations. There's a bunch similar in related articles started/edited by Hyrdlak. To keep this at least a bit short I'll let you figure out what those are, but I'll be happy to elaborate upon request.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:20, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

BTW, if someone gets the idea that this is some kind of Polish-vs-German thing, think again. One of the people being slandered in Hyrdlak's version of the article is Ryszard Galla, probably the most notable member of the German Minority Party in Poland. It's not Pole vs. German, it's rather crazy vs. non-crazy.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:29, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry that Volunteer Marek believes I am R Galla. Perhaps he did not read the references. I realize R Galla is a respected politician and leader of Poland's German minority. Nevertheless, it was him who appealed for burning the Glossary by saying 'Ogromne oczy zrobił wicemarszałek Galla z MN oglądając zapisy w książeczce, w której wydawca (Oficyna Piastowska) dziękuje mu za sponsoring. - Spalić to' see: http://opole.gazeta.pl/opole/1,35114,2062655.html#ixzz3koOJCw4U. If we don't like an unappealing reality, should we deny it? Is it the principle of objectivity in action as Voluneer Marek and Poeticbent see it. Is this interpretation of the principle of objectivity upheld by the majority of Wikipedia users? --User:Hyrdlak (talk) 11:44, Sept 5, 2015 (GMT)

I obviously DON'T believe you're R Galla, since I said above that you're using Wikipedia to slander R Galla in violation of WP:BLP. Not that hard to sort out is it?Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:37, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Well said, Volunteer Marek. I was just wondering. Would it be possible that User:Hyrdlak created User:Franek K. on 2012-08-06 to beef up the ethno-nationalist fight for Silesia already known from the "glossary" article? Franek K. was featured on this AN/I page in October 2014. He said about himself: I live in Poland, I am a teacher at school (bingo!) and I know - most of informations by POlish authors about Silesians and Kashubians is propaganda. – On 22 October 2014 Sandstein blocked Franek K. with an expiry time of indefinite (account creation blocked) - with a rationale: (Clearly not here to contribute to building the encyclopedia: Ethno-nationalist battleground editing, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WP:AE&oldid=630623388#Franek_K. (not an AE block)). -- Poeticbent talk 05:54, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Is anybody aware of WP:OUTING?

"Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia. ... Posting such information about another editor is an unjustifiable and uninvited invasion of privacy and may place that editor at risk of harm outside of their activities on Wikipedia.

..attempted outing is grounds for an immediate block"

Poeticbent's claim that in 2009 "User:Hyrdlak (...) created an entry about himself" clearly violates these basic rules of privacy. Poeticbent is very well aware of this policy because his own identity was disclosed some years ago in the context of WP:EEML. HerkusMonte (talk) 08:02, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for reminding Poeticbent and Volunteer Marek about some basic principles of courtesy and objectivity in discussion as confirmed by the Wikipedia regulations. --User:Hyrdlak (talk) 11:47 Sept 5, 2015 (GMT)

• Read again what you just posted, HerkusMonte. Your quote from WP:OUTING contradicts your own statement because writing an article about yourself amounts to self-disclosed information which is not considered outing. Please familiarize yourself with WP:AGF and follow the WP:NPA rules. Thanks, Poeticbent talk 13:55, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

It's just your claim, it's just your conclusion of what you think might be the real identity of Hyrdlak. If you just could tell us where and when did he admit to be Kamusella. HerkusMonte (talk) 17:12, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• Please stop beating around the bush and propping up claims with willful ignorance of policies directed against WP:SELFPROMOTION, HerkusMonte. You have a history of edit warring in articles devoted to Silesia and other parts of Poland from similar viewpoint. Your single largest contribution to Wikipedia is adding two thousand German names to locations in Poland ... as if the Empire never ceased to exist.[67] Poeticbent talk 18:12, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Addendum: In the Polish Wikipedia there's a page called pl:Wikipedysta:Hyrdlak/Dariusz Jerczyński with a wall of text (13,017 bytes) of pure, resourceless promo about one pl:Dariusz Jerczyński, article deleted twice (in November 2013, and February 2015) and nominated for deletion for the third time on 30 August 2015.[68] – If we were to believe what we read, Tomasz Kamusella and Dariusz Jerczyński are writing friends from the ethno-nationalist publishing venue called Wydawnictwo: Narodowa Oficyna Śląska,[69] citing each other as experts wherever they can.[70] – In the linked paper Kamusella demands that the Council of Europe send a fact-finding mission to study the situation of the Silesians in Poland, similar to Morgenthau mission to Poland in 1919. Henry Morgenthau, Sr. was sent in to investigate allegations of pogroms against Jews, not ethno-nationalist writings of a few local ideologues who believe that: "policies in Czechoslovakia and Poland convinced the majority of the Slavophones [sic] ... to be Germans, rather than Czechs or Poles (Jerczyński, 2006: 83-233).^{(page 51 and 66, or 10-25/33 in Kamusella)} Poeticbent talk 19:25, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, I wonder why the entry on D Jerczynski in the Polish Wikipedia must be removed and vilified like that. He is the author of the single and quite extensive (however imperfect) on the history of Silesia and the Sliesians written from the Silesian point of view. This national/ethnic group with is Poland's largest national minority (see Polish censuses of 2002 and 2011) continues not to be recognzied by the state, their organizations are refused registration, and the same happens to the Silesian language. Fortunately, the Silesian Wikipedia is well and active. But if Volunteer Marek and Poeticbent have such a negative approach to matters Silesian, I won't be surprised when they propose the Silesian Wikipedia be phased out, as well. Is it not a symptom of having difficulties to see beyond the ideologica perimeter of Polish antionalism? --User:Hyrdlak (talk) 12:12, Sept 5, 2015 (GMT)

May I just quote WP:SELFPROMOTION:

"==How to handle conflicts of interest==

===Avoid outing===

Further information: Wikipedia:Harassment § Posting of personal information

Wikipedia places importance on the ability of editors to edit pseudonymously. When investigating COI editing, the policy against harassment takes precedence; it requires that Wikipedians must take care not to reveal the identity of editors against their wishes. Instead, examine editors' behavior and refer to Wikipedia:Checkuser. In asking an editor if they have COI, the request should clearly indicate that it is entirely optional for them to answer."

WP:COI explicitly warns not to disclose an editor's real life identity. WP:OUTING is a serious harassment and you should really stop your personal attacks against me. HerkusMonte (talk) 09:30, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

HerkusMonte looks to be right here, Hyrdlak never appears to say anywhere on Wikipedia that he actually is Tomasz Kamusella, so, stating that Hyrdlak is Tomasz Kamusella is indeed an act of outing , as such , the claim made by Poeticbent needs to be removed and oversighted as outing is flat not allowed on Wikipedia. KoshVorlon We are all Kosh 11:20, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for reminding Poeticbent and Volunteer Marek about some basic principles of courtesy and objectivity in discussion as confirmed by the Wikipedia regulations. --User:Hyrdlak (talk) 12:15 Sept 5, 2015 (GMT)

• You're not being serious. No-one in Wikipedia ever admits to writing an article about themselves, but that's not the point. I did the digging myself (not you, not anybody) and posted the results above for all to see proving WP:conflict of interest based on readily available external sources. That's it. I admit that after my investigation I can no longer say who is who ... and so I redacted my opening statement above. The only conclusive proof is edit warring by a WP:SPA with probable WP:COI, as well as suspicion of sock-puppetry. Everything else stays. Poeticbent talk 16:41, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Dear Poeticbent, but rules are rules and they should be observed by all, unless I am mistaken. --User:Hyrdlak (talk) 12:17 Sept 5, 2015 (GMT)

The problem is that one cannot say "this person is obviously engaging in shameless self-promotion, is slandering people they've had real-life disputes with on Wikipedia and is obviously editing with a serious conflict of interest" without at least suggesting that that person is... actually doing that. In other words, that they are that person.

Anyway, you can oversight any claims about Hyrdlak's supposed identity, but the fact remains that Hyrdlak is a single purpose account which is engaged in masivvely promoting Tomasz Kamusella and who uses Wikipedia as a platform to attack people who've had disagreements with Kamusella in real life in a way which slanders them and which involves some very serious BLP violations.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:34, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Volunteer Marek Since you chimed in, are you going to answer Drmies's question a. Poeticbent, are you in fact Volunteer Marek,? I ignored it the first time, but now, since you've responded to something PoeticBent said, it would be a pertinent question (not just that one instance, but that and the other instances Drmies mentioned ) KoshVorlon We are all Kosh 15:57, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Uh.... I don't think that was a serious question, just Drmies joking around (he's feeling insecure about Bama's upcoming season so he's getting his kicks in while he still can). But for your edification I'll answer it: no, I am not, in fact, or in otherwise, Poeticbent. I did write a poem once. Wanna hear it? Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:26, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Spare us! Poeticbent's writing style is eloquent and elegant. Let me guess... Your poem goes a little bit like this: "Freakin', freakin', freakin', freakin', freakin', freakin', you are out of your freakin' mind." --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:32, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, maybe Poeticbent and Volunteer Marek are not the same person, but for sure they do work as team. They keep removing my edits and references in tandem. One cuts, and the other confirms that such a cut is legit. When, as an example, I apply the same medicine (that is, no book chapter or journal articles in an entry on an academic) as in the case of Per Anders Rudling (an entry created by Poeticbent), they take offense and revert my edits --User:Hyrdlak (talk) 12:21 Sept 5, 2015 (GMT)

What you are doing at the Per Anders Rudling article is plain ol' revenge editing aimed at making a WP:POINT. I actually had no idea why you decided this particular academic to pick on until now, when you stated that this article was created by Poeticbent. So you went in and started fucking up that article to get even. Nice. So on top of violating WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, using Wikipedia for promotional purposes and most likely WP:COI you've now taken to making disruptive revenge edits.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:41, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Dear All, I have no time for that. I wanted to add to the Wikipedia on matters Silesian, as the corner is a tad neglected. I started my discussion with Volunteer Marek and Poeticbent in March. They never replied to my questions and concerns, apart from Poeticbent threatening to report me to the Wikipedian powers that be. Fine, now the discussion has run its course. But when I have some I will go around removing my account. I guess many entries on matters Silesian will be free game. Unfortunately so. --User:Hyrdlak (talk) 12:20 Sept 5, 2015 (GMT)

• Please stop your self centered self agrandazing User:Hyrdlak. You are not, and have never been interested in improving the Wikipedia coverage of Silesia, only promoting Kamusella. You made 68 edits to his bio (30% of your entire Wikipedia contributions). And you lied on the page List of books banned by governments claiming that his book is banned by government,[71] while slandering respected Silesian politicians who were disturbed by absurdities featured in Kamusella's infamous 128 page glossary ... such as this little gem (quote): "Śląsk częścią wschodnich ziem niemieckich pod tymczasową administracją Polski i ZSRR, 1945-1991." Translation: "Silesia is part of Eastern territories of Germany, under temporary administration of Poland and the Soviet Union in 1945-1991.[72] Emphasis mine. The glossary was printed with the money from Voivodeship executive board hoping for a guide in English they could use in their official business. Once the owner of the publishing house learned what's in the glossary, he withdrew its short run as first.[73] Poeticbent talk 01:36, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Dolovis and page creation problems

Apologies for the length of this report. The tl;dr version is that I believe Dolovis (talk · contribs)' page creation habits routinely ignore policy, guidelines and past consensus, and represent a drain on community time that far outweighs what little value they provide. I recommend this be stopped. Resolute 23:47, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

---

Dolovis is an editor with whom myself and a few other editors have had a long and contentious history with regarding article creation. He first came to ANI back in 2011 in which he was creating and/or moving pages and gaming the system as part of a diacritics war that was brewing at the time. He was briefly banned from moving pages, and later re-banned from moving any pages related to diacritics after immediately breaching a promise to reform his behaviour in that area. To the best of my knowledge, that ban remains active. (He is also under a BASC imposed one-way interaction ban with Djsasso, whom Dolovis has targeted more than once, and most recently with scrutiny-evading sockpuppet - that condition placed as part of an unblock request that a clearly divided ArbCom reluctantly granted.)

I have long been an extreme critic of Dolovis' habits of creating one or two sentence sub-stubs of marginally notable or completely non-notable hockey players, often relying on the bare minimum allowed by the WP:NHOCKEY SNG (recent example: Simon Suoranta; literally a couple thousand more examples available) - inevitably using just a stats sheet or player profile page from a league site as the sole source. His other big habit is to create redirects for non-notable players to any random article that might kind of fit, pretty much just on speculation that said player might become notable someday. I have long felt that these creations are ego-driven efforts to simply grab the first edit for as many new pages as he can, and not done out of a true desire to improve the project. Or, as Ravenswing recently put it: "This isn't any attempt to improve the encyclopedia; this is a manic rush to Game High Score for article 'creation.'" Dolovis' only real goal with Wikipedia is to create as many new pages as he can, and he has shown complete and utter contempt for virtually every policy or guideline that stands in his way. The result is that editors who also monitor in this space have to spend an inordinate amount of time curating and reviewing these articles, while his contempt for policies has caused a great deal of wasted time for editors and admins at WP:AFD, WP:REFUND, WP:RFD - By my count, Dolovis has had over 100 articles deleted at AFD alone; Ravenswing targeted about 75 articles of his for AFD in January 2014. Only ONE ended up as a keep. Four others were no consensus closes, the rest deleted. This represented a massive waste of time for those of us who had to do the research after creation because Dolovis clearly and obviously did not do any research before creation.

The problems with his creations go far deeper than just a disregard for notability criteria. He has created two speculative articles on NHL teams that don't exist - Quebec NHL team and Las Vegas NHL team - that, aside from being failures of WP:CRYSTAL, I have realized are unattributed copy-paste jobs from Potential National Hockey League expansion. In short, Dolovis is creating copyright violations because it is easier to rip off someone else's work to try and grab that first edit for any future NHL team. Another of his recent creation, 2014 KHL Junior Draft, is likewise an unattributed copy of someone else's article (in this case, 2013 KHL Junior Draft). He has also previously tried to speculate on future NHL teams as well - in this case, ironically, one of the few examples of his putting real work into something (assuming it wasn't likewise just ripped off from someone else's work).

Dolovis has deliberately created articles on non-notable players and failed to defend them when PRODded (most recent example: Pavel Karnaukhov), because he knows he can just run to WP:REFUND and request a history undeletion to get that first edit back if the player later becomes notable and someone else recreates the article. This is something that has been picked up on by others. This only wastes the time of three separate editors: whomever reviews the article, who deletes it at PROD, and who restores the article later. This is blatant gaming the system. In that thread, Ravenswing also shows numerous links of Dolovis misrepresenting sources to try and claim a player meets an easier criteria of NHOCKEY or misrepresenting NHOCKEY itself to try and justify these creations.

Dolovis is even worse when it comes to redirect creation. When he knows there is no chance of an article surviving more than a few hours, he just redirects pages to random, somewhat related targets with no regard for the fact that his actions actively hinder the search function. In fact, despite having these redirects deleted at least five times in the past two years, I STILL had to take two more to RFD this week, which are again heading to a delete. As of right now, he has 17 redirects listed at RFD, and every single one is leaning delete. And I am preparing to RFD dozens more for the exact same reason.

His non-hockey creations are no better, This article was clearly created as a synthesis of Van Gogh self-portrait (1889) - Dolovis obviously does not have those sources and never read them. He simply copied them from the latter article and reworded a couple passages to "create" his version. And then there is this. That might be the laziest article creation in Wikipedia history. He only expanded it (likely a cleaned up version of Google Translate) after someone else reviewed and prodded it.

All of this is just a long winded way of saying that Dolovis' page creations are of such a low value, that his continual disregard for policy and guidelines - including policies on copyright violations - and that the time wasted in cleaning up, PRODding, AFDing and RFDing is so high, that allowing Dolovis to continue creating pages like this represents such a drain on the community that I believe it needs to be stopped. This has been going on for years. As such, I would like to propose that Dolovis be indefinitely banned from creating any new pages in Wikipedia main space. Given he brags that he has started over 5800 pages, I would suggest that he could direct his future time into expanding those 5800 two sentence sub stubs. Resolute 23:47, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• Ah yes, Dolovis. Indef-blocked after a drawer full of socks and unblocked with a minor edit restriction--see this note by Thryduulf. That seems to have come about quite easily. Drmies (talk) 03:13, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• I completely endorse all Resolute has said and support an indef ban on new article creation by Dolovis. Dolovis is not only a disruptive presence, who's created an appalling amount of work for those who've had to clean up his messes, but he's been extremely tendentious over the years, filibustering at great length to keep his edit count high ... often at times in complete contradiction to arguments he made the week before. As you can see yourself from his edit history, he's far less interested in improving the encyclopedia as in racking up his new creation count, and has found the creation of implausible, desperately obscure redirects an easy way to do it.

  Honestly, I would really appreciate hearing from those in the BASC process who felt that Dolovis' well-merited indef block ought to be reversed. Leaving aside the minor edit restriction to which he agreed (and which he just last week sought to overturn), what led them to believe that he had changed his ways, what assurances did they receive that he would do so, and what monitoring did they undertake to ensure that he did? Ravenswing 06:16, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Can someone give some background here? The block log only says that it was a block evasion block (which seems odd to create new accounts since they wouldn't inflate your edit count) since the 2012 block and thus the standard offer that was the main basis for the unblock was for sock evasion and this doesn't seem to be the problem here. Is there a discussion about a redirect or article-creation ban (I think there's at least one other user with an ARBCOM ban with that kind of wording)? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:38, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

From the sockpuppet investigation, you can see that another account was being used to request deletion of articles created by Ravenswing and Djsasso, using the same rationale used in requests for deletion of articles created by Dolovis. isaacl (talk) 07:07, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok, so still nothing related to this specific problem (ignoring that the only response seemed to be "look at my edit count, I couldn't have done this"). Again, I'm not seeing a history of the new article abuse problem so examples of recent antics (there isn't a huge deleted edit history so there actually aren't a lot of editing articles that became deleted) would be helpful and then we're back to potential solutions: a proposal that Dolovis be banned from six months from creating a new article or redirect without the approval of an admin? (I'd suggest AFC but requiring admins would be a higher standard and one I've seen here before). Is so, suggest that and see if there's a consensus supporting that. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I didn't want to go too far into his SPI stuff since it is tangental to his article creation problem, and this was long enough as it is. But that was a hypocritical example of Dolovis using a sock in bad hand fashion to revenge target some of DJSasso and Ravenswing's oldest articles created using the exact same rationale as Ravenswing presented in nominating seven dozen of Dolovis' pages for deletion. Part of the reason why his deleted contributions list is deceptive is the fact that he knowningly creates articles that won't pass a PROD or AFD, but wants the first edit in history so he can request a history restore at WP:REFUND when someone else re-creates an article after the subject does become notable. But in short, he's had over 100 articles deleted at AFD, he's got about 100 redirects at RFD right now - he continues to create redirects of the type that have been consistently deleted at RFD for a few years now even though he is well aware of the consensus against them - and god only knows how many have been deleted through PROD, only to be restored later at REFUND. The long and the short of it is that we are at several hundred pages deleted or about to go, and what does stick, sticks only because they meet NHOCKEY or other SNGs by the skin of their teeth. Even then, those sub stubs themselves offer no value. Given his history of misrepresenting sources, it would honestly take more time than what any of us has to investigate and verify all of those pages as well. Ravenswing spent close to a month last year reviewing and AFDing less than 20% of his creations, at that time. And Dolovis is now getting into creating copyvios, which was the final impetus for this report. He's damned lucky I only picked up on those after his ill-advised request to have one edit restriction removed was archived, otherwise I would have presented this to arbcom in that process. As it is, it wastes our time to have to review this junk, it wastes an admin's time to deal with PROD requests on articles he knows won't stick, it wastes an admin's time at REFUND and it waste's everyone's time at AFD and RFD. Resolute 13:13, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Break

• At the moment, there are 103 such redirects up for "discussion" (read: deletion) at RfD:
  • Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 August 28#Pier-Olivier Pelletier (2 pages)
  • Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 August 31#NHL Draft redirects (13 pages)
  • Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 September 1#NHL team draft pick redirects (88 pages, not all Dolovis)

as well as

• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2013 December 23#Victor Rask (1 page, deleted)
• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 January 4#Eamon McAdam (1 page, deleted)
• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 January 4#Yan-Pavel Laplante (1 page, deleted)
• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 July 6#Anton Karlsson (ice hockey, born 1996) (2 pages, both deleted)
• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 June 22#Tommy Vannelli (3 pages, all deleted)

Anton Karlsson is archetypal of the page creation problem. Dolovis created this as an empty redirect to a page with no information about the player on 20 February 2014. It was prodded; Dolovis removed the prod; it was listed and then deleted at Rfd. Another editor created a page about this player some time later, when they became notable. Subsequently, Dolovis requested the history of their redirect be merged with this page, and is now credited as the creator of this content, even though they contributed exactly nothing to it. This is an WP:EDITCOUNTITIS problem, but a problem nonetheless.

The bigger problem, of course, is that of the 111 pages listed above, none have survived a deletion discussion (counting the 103 currently listed which are very likely to be deleted shortly, their discussions are really formalities at this point) and this wastes the community's time (it takes, by my count, 312 edits to list the 103 currently listed, not counting the actual discussion, plus subsequently taking up admins' time closing those discussions and deleting the redirects, plus time wasted when Dolovis requests history merges when someone else creates an article). Banning Dolovis from creating pages will not harm the encyclopedia at all, and will give other editors the opportunity to be given appropriate credit when they create pages about notable hockey players, which will further encourage the creation of those articles, which greatly benefits the project.

Thus (tl;dr) I support banning Dolovis from creating pages in any space, because I'm sure they'll just find a way to game a more limited ban. I have no comment on the socking issue as it seems unrelated to the page creation issue, and doesn't seem to be a current issue anyway. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 13:51, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support I am going to keep this pretty brief because Resolute has done a very good job of summing up the issue. Dolovis continually creates articles he know will be almost instantly deleted. And when he can't even remotely argue an article is valid he creates a redirect to some random remotely related page that often has no information on the subject. He has been an extremely disruptive editor in all manner of ways from his ban on diacritics editing to the sockpuppeting to the creation of clearly non-notable pages that are a waste to the communities time. I actually support a full site ban. But I am happy to accept a page creation ban as a first step to see if that helps the situation. -DJSasso (talk) 16:37, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Support a six-month topic ban against Dolovis creating articles or redirects without having it approved by an administrator. Proposing a dozens redirects will just annoy someone but if there's a new article, there's a chance to get it approved. I'm going to give a bit of leeway to see if Dolovis can propose articles of any worth to be created which would give us support to remove the ban in the future. Otherwise, there's no way to tell if the problems have been resolved or not. If there's no examples or new articles of the right quality to base this on, we can evaluate extending this in the future. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:18, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

This is a very reasonable response; certainly Dolovis should be allowed to create articles if they are worth creating, and not just redirects or stubs on players which they admit are non-notable. However, I propose that this restriction be placed for 14 months. Why 14? Because this will actually prevent Dolovis from creating the mass of redirects from players drafted in the next year's draft. Otherwise, it's not really a sanction, they will pretty much automatically wait it out. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 00:25, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

In six months, Dolovis can either show that this restriction is no longer needed (by pointing to actual articles created after approval by an admin) or we'll see that Dolovis has done nothing in that way because Dolovis only wants to create stubs and redirects. If there are literally zero edits because this topic ban is essentially a de facto ban for that person (for a lot of editors, a minor topic ban causes a complete meltdown, but we'll see here), then we'll all better off I guess. The personality type that sockpuppets that much and argues that much just after agreeing to restrictions tells me it won't take six months for another problem to surface that this restriction won't matter much. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:17, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

On the face of it, this sounds reasonable. My worry, however, is that at no stage in his Wikipedia career has Dolovis embraced the premise of "You're right. I'm wrong. I recognize that I broke the rules, I'm sorry and I won't do it again." Over and over again, he argues for delay -- that some other appeals process be brought into play, that he'll agree to an entirely voluntary, short-term (and unenforceable) moratorium on objectionable behavior, that deadlines be extended for further comment. What would a six-month restriction solve that his nine-month block didn't?

Beyond that, who's the poor bastard admin who's going to get saddled with doing all the notability research on dozens of new articles, an area in which Dolovis is notoriously indifferent? Ravenswing 06:32, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Mentorship, is the route to take. We can't just destroy an editor, merely because he/she may annoys us. GoodDay (talk) 23:37, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• No one's advocating "destroying" anyone. Nor is any editor prevented from being a productive contributor to the encyclopedia by being enjoined from new article creation. Not counting redirects, I've created fewer than a half-dozen articles a year, and I've only created two in the last three years. Over 40,000 edits in, I figure I've found other ways to contribute. Ravenswing 08:01, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• Sorry for butting into such an important discussion — I followed user:Resolute here. So this is where all the editors on Wikipedia are spending their time? Wow!

Anyway, I won’t stay around long (don’t want to get in trouble), but the opening statement by Resolute got me worried, because I also create a fair number of wp:stubs that end up in the wiki-garbage-can, but did not realize that this could put me on the wrong side of the wiki-law. I hope I am taking things out of context, but sorry, I don't have the time to investigate. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:02, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Response by Dolovis

• Response by Dolovis: When I joined Wikipedia in 2010, I came across thousands one line stub articles about professional ice hockey articles. I found these articles helpful as they encouraged me to become active as an editor to work to improve such articles. One editor in particular, User:Patken4, had created thousands of stub articles about hockey players, (see Roy Mitchell (ice hockey), Randy Murray (ice hockey), and Darrell May (ice hockey) for just three of such examples) and I could see that much more such work was needed in this area. Following the example of Patken4, I volunteered myself into the IceHockey Project to create and improve articles about notable hockey players pursuant to WP:NHOCKEY. Working diligently as a GOOD FAITH editor, I created starter articles for not only NHL players, but also for other major and “Top level” leagues as defined by WP:NHOCKEY and WP:NHOCKEY/LA, including Swedish Hockey League, the Finnish Liiga, Kontinental Hockey League, Czech Extraliga. I dedicated myself to creating articles for all 808 major league players who played in the now defunct World Hockey Association, completing this task on June 4, 2014 (see talk page “thanks” for my efforts). Along the way I have also made many thousands of edits to improve other existing articles.

I believe in and have remained loyal to the Wikipedia Project, despite what I have perceived as bullying from some editors, including Resolute and DJSasso, who I feel have been harassing me since first joining the IceHockey Project. I have certainly made mistakes. I used to be involved in discussions, and often found myself disagreeing with Resolute and DJSasso – but following such discussions, I always tried to follow the consensus - whether I agreed with it or not. I now try to avoid such discussions.

I firmly believe that creating stub articles encourages others to add, build, improve, and work collaboratively on on this never ending project called Wikipedia, and yes, I am proud that I have contributed over 5,800 new articles to Wikipedia. I am not concerned if some have been since deleted, because I do not own them and I welcome the efforts of others to contribute to Wikipedia. The harsh welcome felt by most new editors discourages the creation of new articles, but I believe that new articles are the life-blood of Wikipedia. If one takes a look at my edit history, you will find no disruptive editing (yes, I have made mistakes, but I have never tried to disrupt Wikipedia). Despite Resolute's numerous and loud claims that I am a bad faith editor, I am not. Following Resolute's criticism that I was making one line “stub-stub” articles, I tried to take his criticism constructively to improve my stubs to be better. A look at my recent creations will show a pattern of making stub articles for notable subject pursuant to WP:IDEALSTUB, as a starting point for other editors to build upon. Resolute is trying to make the claim that I am disruptive because I am creating too many articles, so therefore I am creating work for the other editors. Following Resolute's thinking, if there were nothing there, there would be nothing to complain about. Look at his uncivil comment following my creating an article for CalgaryNEXT where he writes “As usual, someone else is left to clean up a lazy mess created only as an ego trip” [74]. This was not created as an "ego-trip". It was created because it is a notable subject pursuant to WP:GNG and deserves to have an article. That is but one example of the incivility that I have been forced to accept from Resolute for many years.

Concerning the redirects I have created: The redirects under discussion here were created over the past 5 years by a number of different editors including myself, User:Alaney2k, User:Canuckian89, User:One95, User:Shootmaster 44, User:Uncleben85, and User:USA1168. What was once considered an acceptable and even helpful edit pursuant to WP:RPURPOSE as a ”sub-topics or other topics which are described or listed within a wider article”, are now vilified as “bad faith” edits. I don't believe any of these redirects were created in bad faith. If there is a new consensus and guideline stating that it is wrong for players to be redirected to a list of players drafted by NHL teams, then I would happily follow it. Dolovis (talk) 21:30, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Just so you know, stating that you have created 5800 new articles doesn't do much to tamp down on the concerns that you are game-playing everyone by creating nonsense stubs that get deleted and trying to jump back in when someone else eventually does create the page. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:00, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I was just addressing the issue of “5800 articles” as raised above by Resolute above. These are not “nonsense stubs”. These are deserving articles created pursuant to WP:Stub. Resolute claims that I have had “over 100 articles deleted at AFD alone”, but what he doesn't say is most of those were AfD'd only after the IceHockey Project lowered its WP:NHOCKEY bar and then targeted such articles for deletion (only articles created by me, not the hundreds created by others). He also doesn't say that these articles were brought directly to AfD where they were summarily deleted pursuant to the new standards for inclusion (when a PROD likely would have been more efficient and less time consuming). I do not create article knowing they will be deleted. I create articles so others can build upon them. Dolovis (talk) 22:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

They were AfD'd because they lacked any substantive coverage so as to pass GNG. We raised the bar on that one section of NHOCKEY because you were abusing the hell out of it and trying to use it as a shield to justify creation of articles on non-notable subjects. If you actually looked for sources to ensure a GNG pass before creation - rather than make the rest of us do it for you - the number of games a minor league player had in his career would never have entered the equation. Resolute 23:06, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry Dolovis, not buying it for a second. It is hilarious for you to claim there is no bad faith editing in your history given you have two active edit restrictions already, one for bad faith editing in the realm of diacritics, and the other for bad faith use of sockpuppets.

You claiming now that you will suddenly follow any "new consensus" about not redirecting to draft articles now is curious given I hauled you to RFD FIVE TIMES in the last 18 months or so with such redirects deleted every single time, only to have you come back with yet another run of such creations afterward. This promise today is only being made because you are staring down a page creation ban, not because you respect a consensus that has existed for a long time.

You have failed to address your cut and paste copyvios. You have failed to address your history of misrepresenting sources. You have failed to address the problem of you creating articles on subjects you know are not notable so you can have history restored later via REFUND. You have failed to address the fact that you will always do the absolute minimum per NHOCKEY - and in most cases, how you never even make the barest effort to look for sources beyond a website that is nothing but a stats page. I haven't mentioned it yet in this complaint, but in the cases where more stringent criteria has forced you to put bare effort in, I would also like you to address your habit of using blogs and other unreliable sources, WP:ROUTINE sources and sources with obviously trivial mentions while making little to no effort to find substantive coverage. This goes well beyond your habit of creating one or two sentence sub-stubs that are of no value, virtually never even bothering to look for sources that cover players in non-trivial, substantive fashion that WP:GNG requires. I gave you the benefit of the doubt when you started here and offered to work with you. And even though you were creating conflicts with others right out of the gate, I still tried to offer constructive advice - the very same advice you are being given four and a half years later and still ignoring four and a half years later. If my attitude towards you is negative today, it is because I have five years of bad faith actions to judge you by. In the end, the ultimate question is still to ask why the community should be forced to spend so much time cleaning up after you. Don't you think five years of having to fix the messes you create is more than enough? Resolute 22:59, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Resolute's argument is false deductive reasoning. He argues that because he has taken my edits to RfD, therefore I have made disruptive edits. Again, what Resolute fails to mention is that out of the hundreds of existing redirect edits, he targeted only my edits for deletion - even going so far as to apologize to another editor[75] who he inadvertently RfD'd with my edits. If there are any copyvios, they would inadvertent and minor, and should properly be be addressed through copy editing or appropriate attribution. Clearly, his RfD campaign is a personal vendetta against me and not against my editing, which falls within the standards of what other editors are doing. Dolovis (talk) 00:14, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

No, I apologized for Alaney for failing to notify him that one of his redirects was taken to RFD. My error there was simply assuming that they were all yours. As to the rest, you're just lashing out in desperation - much like you did the last time you were hauled to SPI and tried to accuse me of using a sockpuppet that voted against myself in deletion discussions to try and distract the discussion. I will once again note that you have failed to address any of the points I raised above, and you failed to answer the questions at the end. So I once again ask: how long should we be expected to fix the messes you leave behind? Resolute 01:18, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Dolovis, can we resolve the current issue here now? Would you be willing to agree to even a temporary ban on creating articles and redirects? Resolute's argument is that he has taken your edits to RFD which has deleted the redirects in the hundreds, you have an incorrect version of policy. The point is that the redirects and articles you created before (even years before) have been brought to RFD and a number have been deleted. My proposal is simply that you get an admin to approve of it which isn't a terrible chore if you've completed a decent drafts. If the issues with hockey redirects have resolved with your acknowledgment of the current policies, then I see zero issues at all here with my proposal. Else, you currently came back from an block for sockpuppetry, with an edit restriction, which I see that you're currently arguing to remove already and for which the few ARBCOM members who allowed you to return have said you either need to follow or you can retract the agreement and go back to the ban. So if you want people to think that you've seriously reformed, it would be a good idea for you to pre-emptively agree to resolving the problems that got you in trouble before. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

That is a rather gross oversimplification of my argument, actually. His redirects are only one part of the overall problem which, in short, is to do as little work as possible while trying to gain a "high score" for article creation, and leaving behind a morass of sloppy work that achieves so little value that it cannot hope to make up for the time spent cleaning up after him in multiple venues. Resolute 01:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

The only person who appears to be concerned with my edit count is Resolute, and I will be happy to remove the “Userboxes” from my user page if they are annoying to Resolute or any other editors. Until now, my understanding was that editors should be aware of WP:REDDEAL when creating redirects, and that RDs to draft lists were otherwise acceptable for nn players. But if this is no longer the consensus, then I will refrain from redirects to NHL draft lists, and even help to start tagging other such redirects for deletion.

As for article creation, I have long since demonstrated the ability to create sourced articles on notable topics (which is the benchmark for article creation). Viewing my edit history will confirm this. If there are exceptions, then please PROD them or otherwise bring them to my attention so the shortcomings can be addressed. Expecting me, or any editor, to create WP:Good articles on the first draft is not reasonable. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort. As discussed at WP:Article development, creating sourced Stub articles is an encouraged activity. If the notability of a subject is disputed, then it should be properly PRODed, or otherwise dealt with pursuant to Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Requiring Admins to move my drafts to main space will just create extra work for everyone. Dolovis (talk) 02:00, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

That is all pure BS. You know damn well that his argument isn't about the edit count on your page. It is the actions you are taking to boost it that are the issue. Creating articles that you know don't meet the notability requirement. That you have been told time and again don't meet the notability requirement. That are sourced to stat pages and blogs, which don't meet WP:GNG. All of this has been pointed out to you by a number of editors, your standard response to most people when they point it out is "Its not my job, its up to other people to come along and do it later". Except that it is your job, if you are creating an article you are expected to source it with reliable sources and to make sure they meet the WP:GNG. You have not demonstrated the ability to create sourced stub articles, a quick look through your created pages show that the vast majority are sourced to non-reliable sources. Then when the articles are inevitably deleted for non-notability you wait until you can ask at refund to restore your edit history once the person meets notability. I have even seen cases where you copy and pasted the content of deleted at afd articles (created by other people) where you then pasted the exact copy a month or two later as a "new creation". -DJSasso (talk) 02:43, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Resolute, I agree that it's a simplification of the concerns but given that ARBCOM very recently unblocked Dolovis and the little evidence that the actions are ongoing now, you'll be unlikely to find any admin will to block on that basis so I'm focusing on a resolution as to what can be shown now. Otherwise, Dolovis doesn't believe it's a problem at all. Just want everyone to be clear. We'll see from others but I still support the proposal as it provides the least amount of disruption to the project overall in exchange for resolving the largest number of concerns at the moment. And Dolovis, are you actually checking these sources in your hurry to create these articles? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:51, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Very easy to see it going on right now. Here is one he created within the last month. Only added to it (weeks later) when notified of a prod. [76]. Resolute also showed current examples of his lack of attribution on copy pastes which are current copyvio issues. You can't just focus on the here and now, because that is what the problem has been, here and now we issue a new minor restriction of some sort and he goes on and finds a way to circumvent it or some other policy to flaunt. Perhaps its at the point where it needs to go to Arbcom for a full case. -DJSasso (talk) 02:57, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• I agree but it's not totally objectionable for people to create basic stubs and to pull the information from cross-wiki. ARBCOM is really the place for that kind of thing not ANI. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:13, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• No pulling cross-wiki is fine. But his creation of the article consisted solely of "Marek Sikora is a Polish astronomer." with the only reference being his staff profile. Fine if that is the first edit in a series of edits. But he didn't go back to it until weeks later and it was about to be deleted. Either way I was just using that particular one as an example of its on-going nature. -DJSasso (talk) 03:17, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Marek Sikora (astronomer) was a listed as a hat note on the Marek Sikora article. Given that he appeared to be notable per WP:NACADEMICS, and had a Polish Wiki article, I chose to create the article rather than just wash the hat note (as I first thought to do). I agree it was a very weak start, and I have since expanded the article with text translated from the corresponding article in Polish. It is currently facing a PROD, and will be deleted unless another editor takes an interest in keeping it. Dolovis (talk) 03:18, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Yeah so that's basically you guessing that there's enough notability, copying the Polish wiki text (without you independently verifying if it's true at all) and then leaving the really hard work for others, which is why I support the temporary six month topic ban from creating new articles at the moment. Do something else rather than create new stubs as it does sound disruptive. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:21, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Exactly, and that therein is the problem. Guessing at notability without going to the effort of actually providing the sources necessary to prove it. Wasting other editors time who have to prod it, then admins who have to do their own research to see if it is notable and then them deleting it. Even worse if it ends up at Afd where then multiple editors have to do that. If you can't source it to reliable sources then you shouldn't be creating it, if you don't know its notable then you definitely shouldn't be creating it. -DJSasso (talk)

• @Ricky81682:. I'm not asking for a block - though I believe Ravenswing did. I am asking for an end to the time wasting caused by his mass creation of negative value pages. Due to his history, we already have to routinely check for both the existence of sources to meet a GNG pass, and to check that he isn't misrepresenting the paltry sources he does use. And now, given his cavalier response to the copyvio issue, we will have to check for that as well. And this rabbit hole still goes deeper than I have presented here. He routinely creates WP:CRYSTAL articles on potential draft picks a month or two before each year's NHL Entry Draft even though most of those players are not yet notable. For me, that is one instance where I just don't bother because I hate wasting the time of admins and editors at PROD and AFD when some of those articles would just be re-created a month later when notability IS achieved, but it is just another example of Dolovis looking for page creation high scores. In my view, the solution here is an indef ban from creating pages, to be lifted only when he demonstrates - via expanding a good number of his past creations - his willingness to (1) look for and accurately use sources that meet GNG before creation - meaning no more one-reference substubs relying exclusively on a stat sheet or blog ans (2) stop gaming the system via deliberate creation of bad redirects and of topics he knows aren't notable. Ravenswing, DJSasso and myself have been trying for years to hammer home the fact that GNG means non-trivial, substantive coverage in multiple reliable sources. Perhaps once he demonstrates that he will no longer ignore that via expansion and referencing of his past articles, and perhaps once he commits to follow that process going forward, such a ban could be lifted. Resolute 13:27, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support a six-month topic ban of Dolovis creating articles or redirects (uninvolved non admin) This is insane. It creates tons of work for others. Its inconsiderate and is simply gaming the system. I would also Support an indef ban on history merge requests of deleted pages more than a month old to stop the disruption in the future. AlbinoFerret 03:51, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Pursuant to WP:Notability a topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets either the GNG or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline (i.e WP:NHOCKEY or WP:ACADEMIC). Once created, an article may still face deletion pursuant to the deletion policy. This is how Wikipedia works. The Marek Sikora article is the exception to the majority of the work I do on Wikipedia. That article was well-intentioned, and I did verify the sources used in the Polish article, and I still believe he is notable. I fully intended to go back to build the article, which I have done. I believe that my good work far outweighs the weak, and in the interest of resolving this issue I will make a proposition; I will take a voluntary one month break from creating articles, with the hope that Resolute and DJSasso will stop their uncivil comments and harassment towards me. I am a good faith editor who is doing my best to build and improve Wikipedia. Dolovis (talk) 04:02, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

You need more than a month off for those games. Your denail of a problem and trying to lessen the ban time is just IDHT. I think anyone who reads this section will support the bans. You are making work for editors and disrupting the project. AlbinoFerret 04:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

So, Dolovis -- you are admitting to doing nothing wrong, and you make no stipulations that you won't start the same behavior all over again 32 days from now ... nor does anything enjoin you from doing so 32 hours from now. What leads you to believe this would be an attractive offer? Ravenswing 06:42, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Per AlbinoFerret, I likewise support an indef ban from the WP:REFUND process. For anyone following this discussion seeking evidence concerning Dolovis' motives, he doesn't have merely several dozen requests at WP:REFUND, he's featured in several dozen archives. [77] I am very hard put to find an unselfish reason for such Wikilawyering, nor one justifying the time and energy spent by those active in that area to go through his requests. Ravenswing 06:20, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Isn't that a possible contribution history problem? I mean, that's assuming there is actually is a connected history, a refund request would have to required. Isn't the issue that WP:REFUND policy be so liberal (just any request) rather than asking if the request is actually related on a separate editor from the current history which is a different problem? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:42, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

If it was a article that had some long term editing that was recreated maybe. But whats being merged is redirects and tiny subs. It takes away the incentive to create them in the first place. To make sure that he is creating articles likely to survive an afd. If it looks like a problem the exception can be added that he ask an admin and point to this section as the reason for asking and an admin can decide if its a real article or just more "Im first" games before asking for a merge. AlbinoFerret 07:11, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support temporary article creation ban, also endorse indef REFUND ban. It looks like Dolovis has a long history of creating articles that have some serious issues with notability, so I think that a temporary ban from creating any new articles in any space (draft, mainspace, redirects, etc) is reasonable. Dolovis, I see you trying to justify your article creation but at no point do I actually see you really owning up to the fact that you've made several articles that had a lot of major issues with them. I feel that giving you a temporary ban will give you the incentive to go over policy and learn how to properly source articles for notability giving purposes. I'll be extremely blunt with this: this has been a long running problem and if things don't change after the temporary ban, you'll likely be facing a permanent ban from creating new articles - if not from editing altogether. I also endorse a permanent ban from requesting article history from REFUND, as I do think that the others make a good case showing that you're really only requesting the article history so you can have the article creation credit - not so you can improve the article. The thing is, numbers mean absolutely squat on Wikipedia. You can make a lot of pages but that doesn't necessarily make you a good editor or even really an asset to Wikipedia if the article quality is poor and others have to run behind you in a struggle to prove notability or delete the articles. Case in point: I remember a user named User:MoonMetropolis that created multiple pages that had serious notability issues. While they were ultimately blocked for sockpuppetry, their poor article creation history definitely gave people another reason to indef them. This is not your first time at ANI, as you've been reported multiple times in the past - and you've already been banned from moving pages. Heck in in 2013 you tried to ask for a topic ban to be removed but everyone successfully argued against giving you these permissions back. You really need to shape up because right now all you're doing is giving yourself enough WP:ROPE to justify someone arguing for you to be indefinitely blocked from editing. To be honest, I'm actually mildly surprised that they aren't asking for an indefinite ban, considering that you've repeatedly been reported at ANI and other boards since you signed up. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• I'd actually endorse a longer article creation ban than six months. I'd actually endorse a year, followed by a year's probation where he's only able to create articles via AfC. Considering that this has been an ongoing problem for years now, I'd actually also support an indef ban on mainspace creation and then after a year, he can create articles via AfC. As far as REFUND goes, that's still an indef since it looks like he's only doing this to grandstand, not to actually improve the article - a process that I think could really, really be disheartening to the people who took the time to create a newer version of the article that did pass notability guidelines. If someone other than him requests restoration then that's fine, but I don't think that Dolovis should be allowed to request article restorations any longer. But yeah... the more I think about this the more I support an indef on mainspace creation until he can prove via AfC that he can make a quality article. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:53, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Well a new indefinite ban is unlikely since ARBCOM just unblocked Dolovis back in June. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:04, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• It looks like he was unblocked from an indefinite block, but I don't think that this would prevent us from giving him an indefinite block from creating articles in the mainspace. From just what I've seen here, it looks like there's plenty reason to justify restricting Dolovis to AfC for the time being (after the year's block is up), until he proves that he can responsibly create articles. The way he's going, if he keeps getting reported at ANI like this then I'd like to think that ARBCOM would likely approve a new block. (BTW, do they need to approve any future blocks on this user? I always got the impression that if the user kept causing trouble and refused to play nice, they could always be re-blocked.) But seriously though, we've restricted other editors to AfC for far less than this and I think that an AfC restriction and a block from REFUND is a reasonable outcome here. He's abused the system and now we need to make sure that he can edit responsibly before giving him the keys to the car/mainspace. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 13:09, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Tokyogirl79 Keeping in mind that a previous editor we referred over to AfC for remedial page creation scrutiny eventually gave up the topic space that they were precieved to be disruptive in and give up new article creation entirely because AfC didn't review the submissions fast enough for their taste. Hasteur (talk) 13:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
• I'm aware that this might be a problem, but I'm not sure what else will really be beneficial overall. I think that they need to have their work scrutinized before it goes into the mainspace and a temporary ban from mainspace article creation might not solve the issue. I think that turning him to AfC is probably one of the best case scenarios here. On a side note, if he wanted to ask for people to review his submissions (and anyone would be willing to volunteer for that), I have no problem with him asking qualified editors to review his work after he completes an AfC article. The way he's going, I think that a little one on one will likely be quite helpful. I'm willing to volunteer to shoulder part of this load, if he's limited to AfC only for the time being. I'm just worried that if he's allowed back into the mainspace he might do this without actually having learned anything, given that he doesn't seem to really understand why people find his editing habits problematic and even in violation of part of the spirit of Wikipedia. (IE, the landgrab nature that you referred to below, since Dolovis seems to feel that there's a contest for who gets the most entries created.) Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 15:05, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
• Note to Delovis: Basically while I know that you're trying to say that you're operating in good faith, if a large amount of people believe that you're doing this for your own personal glory, then that should be a sign that you should stop, pause, and look to check to see if maybe you're doing something wrong. You've been on ANI a lot for various things, all of which tend to center around the same things: creating poor articles and potentially unnecessary redirects and the general consensus seems to be shifting to the idea that you're creating these because you want your article creation numbers to shoot up, not because you're here to edit in a beneficial manner. At some point you really just need to take a look at your editing pattern and ask yourself "maybe it's not them - maybe it's actually me?" Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 15:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• I'd support your version willingly, Tokyogirl79. And as Ricky81682 suggests, the art of the possible is what's in play. Ravenswing 10:41, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Support If we're going to be shunting this editor over to AfC, we probably should make sure they're aware of the influx they're about to get. Also I'd like to see some way of allowing editors reviewing this to have a pre-approved "This submission is not qualified for inclusion" deletion process to deal with these in a more rapid timeframe than CSD:G13 (6 months unedited) or many WP:MFD nominations. If we're going to put pressure on the editor to change their behavior with respect to these creations, we need to not allow the editor to keep the crystal ball collection and then make the land grab of "created the article" once someone else did the work of properly creating the article. Hasteur (talk) 13:28, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

AFC allows pretty much any autoconfirmed user to move articles and numerous articles have been accepted with very questionable results. As such, I propose that Dolovis be restricted to six months unless an admin approves of any drafts in the user's draftspace. It's a higher restriction and a greater burden but it then creates a single point of accountability after the fact. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:49, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• It is unfair and punitive to ban me from using WP:REFUND when I was only following the lead of Admin Djsasso who demonstrated to me that such was the encouraged practice when he undeleted the histories of several recreated articles including Anthony Nigro (he now argues such practice is gaming the system). I have never been warned against using WP:REFUND to restore edit histories, and in fact I was under the impression that it should be done for proper attribution. Dolovis (talk) 15:47, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Restoring an edit history, and creating articles you know will be deleted only to just so you can have the history undeleted to claim the first edit are two very different things. If nothing on the page is from the old version of the page then there is no attribution necessary as I am sure you know. If you are not copying anything why would you need to attribute to authors who didn't contribute to that version of the article. -DJSasso (talk) 16:24, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
• Beyond that, Dolovis, I'll bite: why would you care? What is the benefit, to the encyclopedia, for one name over another to be cited as creator of an article? Our interest should be in complete articles, not in the original one- or two-sentence sub-stub that might have been there in the beginning, right? We're not in this for the glory, after all. Just out of curiosity, how many times have you sought to restore an article history that wouldn't wind up having your name listed as the first edit?

  That being said, "unfair?" It is not "unfair" for us to check your abuse of a process. No one gets gets a free pass to abuse a process just because someone else suggested it to us, in good faith, and expecting us to employ it in good faith. Ravenswing 06:21, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• It matters because there's a userbox on Dolovis' page to Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count (and as a "tool"). Currently at 111 although the userbox claims to be 43rd. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:49, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose a ban on creation of new articles, based on my random look at five creations: 1. Stig-Göran Johansson is a Swedish hockey player in the national hall of fame [78]. Nice find. 2. Sergei Yemelin is a young fully professional Russian hockey player. That's an auto-keep at AfD, no problems. Single sourced but there are two links that could have been made into sources as easily. 3. Dallas W. Anderson is a medical devices entrepreneur. The piece has a bit of the gross paid editing smell and would be less than 50-50 at AfD, in my estimation. 4. Mikael Saha is a fully professional Finnish hockey player. Another auto-keep at AfD. 5. Lukáš Jašek is a fully professional Czech hockey player. It was created without diacritical marks, and I suppose therein lies the rub with some people.. Still, this looks like a legitimate content person who is helping Wikipedia and I see no issues either with the creations or the sourcing, at a glance. Carrite (talk) 15:26, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• His mass creation of two sentence sub-stubs of European elite players is annoying, but ultimately not at the root of my complaint. Also, given he has created thousands of these two sentence sub stubs, the odds of you finding many of them at random are high. To give you a good idea of my complaints, and perhaps the scope of what you need to look for should your offer to mentor come to be, I would point you to his most recent creations:

1. Santeri Vuoti - Source does not explicitly support the statement it references. Probably would be WP:ROUTINE anyway. (Player is barely presumed notable for having played 15 Liiga games last year, however. No indication a search was done for substantive coverage in reliable third party sources though).
2. Vladimir Eminger - Source is basically the hockey team's main page. In short, source does not support the statement it references.
3. Quebec NHL team - Plagiarism, internal copyvio, crystal balling. Blatant attempt to score first edit on a proposed hockey team that does not exist.
4. Las Vegas NHL team - Plagiarism, internal copyvio, crystal balling. Blatant attempt to score first edit on a proposed hockey team that does not exist.
5. Chris Durand (ice hockey) - WP:XY-violating redirect of a non-notable player, created to get a first edit, and despite having links of this exact type deleted multiple times at RFD. This is routine.
6. Pier-Olivier Pelletier - Same as above; 100 more at RFD now, and I'll be nominating 33 more later today (Mostly, but not entirely, created by Dolovis)
7. NHL coach of the year and NHL Coach of the Year - not a great concern as they are marginally plausible search terms. He may not be aware that the search engine ignores capitalization, so didn't realize he didn't need to create both.
8. 2017 Stanley Cup playoffs - Unnecessary redirect created massively prematurely and only to score a first edit. This is routine.
9. Self-portrait without beard - WP:SYNTH as he clearly has not read or used the sources, and only copied from another article while rewording statements from that one.
10. Flower Beds in Holland - Standard redirect to an alternative title. No issues there.

• Going a little farther back, we have the one-sentence, CSD A1 eligible creation of the astronomer that he was shamed into expanding via a PROD tag. Without people there to PROD him into putting bare effort into things, he does things like this, where he simply throws an {{Update}} tag on one of his own articles because he can hardly be bothered to update his thousands of creations himself. And given he creates articles on not-yet-notable players (like Pavel Karnaukhov) and then fails to defend them at PROD because he knows he can just abuse WP:REFUND later, I would say that bans from various processes, including and especially REFUND and redirect creation, are strictly necessary. But as demonstrated above, even when he creates articles on players that strictly pass SNGs, he misrepresents sources and makes no effort to find substantive coverage. That is something I would like to see him demonstrate he is capable of without being watched before I would back down from requesting a page creation ban entirely. Resolute 16:31, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Not wanting to spend my whole day on this, #2 above (a clear SNG Keep) could have the fact of first season documented from one of the external links showing just as easily. #3 above (and presumably #4) could be de-crystal-balled with a retitling to 2015 Quebec City NHL bid, which would be a GNG pass. Agreed that the "2017 Stanley Cup playoffs" is massively premature, but all this all smacks of gross exaggeration of the actual problem presented by what seems to be a good-faith editor... Carrite (talk) 17:46, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Passing a SNG does not automatically mean a keep. If they fail to prove the notability when challenged (and a player that close to the bare minimum likely would be) they still can end up getting deleted. It specifically lays this out in the SNG. Not to mention the external links to stats pages are not reliable sources to proove notability. But as Resolute points out he creates thousands of articles so its not surprise you would find some two sentence ones, no one is claiming every single article is bad, just that a significant percentage to the point of being disruptive are. -DJSasso (talk) 18:04, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd be entertained if you could show me a couple times when a bio of a hockey player in a fully professional league has ended in deletion at AfD. It simply does not happen. If he was doing stubs of professional croquet players, those might be close. But hockey? Uh, no. Carrite (talk) 22:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Sure I will look some up. Dolovis, himself has had a number deleted. Non-North American professionals are very frequently deleted due to the varying coverage of fully professional players in different countries. -DJSasso (talk) 00:20, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I respect that you wish to AGF, Carrite, but I've been seeing these for years. These mistakes are not new, and they are not going away because Dolovis does not care. He is not here to improve the project, he is here to get his high scores and leave the clean-up to others. And that has been his MO for the entire time he's been a Wikipedian. And for the entire time he's been a Wikipedian, the only times his behaviour has been altered is through either community imposed restrictions, or a block for sockpuppetry. Six separate RFDs were not enough to cause Dolovis to stop creating bad redirects. It was only after this report and the risk of shutting his game down entirely became apparent to him that he suddenly decided that he would honour "a new consensus" - which is actually a year and a half old, at least. Ravenswing, DJSasso and I have been dealing with the mess he makes for years, and we'll all tell you the same thing: He will abuse any process he can as far as he can abuse it. And I think Arbcom recognizes this as well, given his attempt to have one of his restrictions lifted ended with a blunt "you can be restricted, or you can be blocked" response. To respond to your comments above: #1 and #2 above could be fixed by finding non-trivial sources that properly cite his claims and then properly inserting those sources, but he won't do that. #3 and #4, could have just waited until teams were actually announced - but that risks his not getting the first edit (and the expansion bid stuff is already covered at Potential National Hockey League expansion). They are also plagiarism. And his massively premature examples are ongoing and annual. It's all about getting first edits. Always has been. Resolute 19:29, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Carrite, you're missing the forest in favor of picking out a handful of stumps. Quite aside from that notability is a dynamic process -- someone who hasn't achieved notability might well do so years down the road -- of course Dolovis has created some articles that pass notability muster. It would be astonishing if, with the several thousand articles and redirects he's made, he hadn't scored the occasional hit. And I know this as well as anyone; when I filed those 75 AfDs on sub-stubs he'd created a year or so back, there were several stubs I didn't file on, because I judged they passed notability muster.

  That's not the point. You've been around the block, and you know that any number of banned or indeffed editors made some productive edits along the line. Some have had many thousands of productive edits -- people like Betacommand and Mick McNee come to mind. They were sanctioned because the disruption their antics caused not only outweighed the productive edits they made, but caused good editors to quit the project out of frustration.

  Never mind the effect they have on editors who don't quit. Take a look at my contribution history from January of 2014 [79]. I made over 500 edits that month, and easily two-thirds of them involved AfDing non-notable sub-stubs Dolovis created. That time spent didn't count, of course, research I did to ensure the ones I AfDed weren't notable. That time spent constituted time I didn't spend building the encyclopedia; it was time spent cleaning up after messes. Frankly, I don't consider the occasional sound contribution Dolovis makes worth that much time. I don't consider it worth your time as a "mentor," or worth the time it's going to take you to review a subject's notability, not when it takes away from article creation you could be doing. I don't consider it worth the time it sucks from the likes of JohnCD at REFUND. I don't consider it worth the time we've had to spend tightening the NHOCKEY guidelines you cited because despite overwhelming and frequent consensus in a number of discussions, Dolovis routinely ignores consensus where there isn't an explicit black-letter rule.

  I'm unhappy enough at a six-month ban, because just like every other time, we're going to have this all to do over again seven months from now. I think he's had too many chances as it is, over too many years. Ravenswing 05:58, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support ban on article creation, unless pre-vetted for notability as Carrite has helpfully offered below. From working at WP:REFUND, I am aware of much time wasted on the following often-repeated cycle: (1) Dolovis creates an article about a hockey-player, (2) it is discussed at AfD and deleted as non-notable, (3) months or years later the player becomes notable and an article is created, (4) Dolovis comes to REFUND to ask for his deleted edits to be restored to the history beneath the new article. Steps 1,2 and 4 of this cycle are pure waste motion and do nothing for the encyclopedia. Examples here (3 instances) and here (another 4) on just one archive page. JohnCD (talk) 21:48, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment - I've been through the ropes at AfD and if it is judged that Dolovis needs a pre-check on notability of new creations from a mentor before being able to launch them, I hereby offer to serve that role for a six month period. I will report back at the end of that period with the results. Ping me if you wish to go this route. Carrite (talk) 15:29, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment - Quick reference to the Special Notability Guideline for hockey might be of use for this debate:

Ice hockey players are presumed notable if they
[1] Played one or more games in an existing or defunct top professional league;
[2] Played one or more games in an amateur league considered, through lack of a professional league, the highest level of competition extant;
[3] Played at least 200 games (90 games for a goaltender) or achieved preeminent honors (all-time top ten career scorer, First Team All-Star) in top-level minor leagues or second tier national leagues;
[4] Achieved preeminent honors (all-time top ten career scorer, First Team All-Star, All-American) in a lower minor league, in a major junior league, or in a major collegiate hockey league (Note: merely playing in a major junior league or major collegiate hockey is not enough to satisfy inclusion requirements);
[5] Were a first-round draft pick in the NHL Entry Draft;
[6] Played on a senior national team (such as at the Olympic Games or World Championship); or

[7] Are an honored member of a national or multinational hockey Hall of Fame.

A large percentage of the recent work by this editor has involved the creation of stub bios of young professional players and prospects. There seems to me to be good faith, given how low the SNG bar is set (just one game played in a fully pro league is a Speedy Keep at AfD). Carrite (talk) 00:12, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you understand how SNGs work. They do not cause a "Speedy Keep". It lays out right at the top of them that meeting these does not mean an article must be kept. Not to mention these particular ones don't mention "fully pro" as a number of fully pro leagues do not meet them as explained in the note below the list which you didn't copy over. Some fully pro leagues require 200 games, other fully pro leagues require a first-all star award win etc. -DJSasso (talk) 00:24, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Oh, no, that's not reality. SNGs are special "low bars" to inclusion (or "high bars" in the case of politicians) to be considered in conjunction with GNG. And trust me when I say that a nomination which clearly passes a SNG criterion is almost invariably shut down at once with a Speedy Keep. One NHL game played and the debate is shut down, regardless of what it says at the top of the page. This is also true for baseball, soccer, American football, and basketball — one game in a top professional league and we're done... Carrite (talk) 14:52, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Which is why I'm unsure as to the relevance of the point. We're not talking about sub-stubs that Dolovis has created for players who've played in top-level professional leagues -- although I grit my teeth that he seldom, if ever, bothers with anything more than the two sentences of fact and the bare reference or two that's the irreducible minimum required to clear WP:BLP. We're talking about articles he creates of players who do NOT qualify, over which there's been many a tussle over the years, followed by the inevitable PROD, followed by Dolovis' inevitable removal of the PROD with a bald "Is notable" (if he bothers with an edit summary at all), followed by the inevitable AfD, followed by Dolovis going straight to DRV or REFUND should the subject achieve notability down the road.

And here's the effect on our workload: in the last two years, judging solely from the edit summaries on his talk page history, he's received notification of seven CSDs, seven copyvios, nine prods, 81 RFDs, 131 AfDs ... and despite his suggestion that the fuss is due to a vendetta a couple editors have against him, these have been filed by over two dozen different editors. After five years, over 50K edits, six blocks, multiple topic bans and edit restrictions, and several hundred articles going through deletion processes, at what point do we admit that this isn't a case of him not knowing any better as opposed to a massive IDHT? Ravenswing 15:26, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

It has been pointed out on my talk page that I inadvertently omitted the word "top." We are speaking of TOP fully professional leagues: NHL, not AHL, for example. Carrite (talk) 14:54, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• I think that there is general agreement that there is a problem. I do think that a process of "pre-approval" of new starts for notability which does not tax the bogged down Articles for Creation queue should be sufficient rather than destroying the editor's usefulness to the project, which is making sure that our hockey coverage is as complete as it can be. There is a pretty clear consensus that his redirects of drafted players with no biographies needs to stop. The inclusion rules are fairly definite for specific hockey biographies and AfD outcome can be projected with great accuracy. Carrite (talk) 16:45, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I suggested he get an admin's approval so it's not just one person and it's not just a giant slog at AFC (which lets some problematic things though anyways). I can't recall where but that's been done before. It's mostly been redirects being created anyways. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:25, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Discussion seems to have reached an end point. Is there perhaps an uninvolved admin that might close this one way or another? Resolute 12:23, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Dolovis has accepted mentorship, so hopefully an administrator will close this report on that note. GoodDay (talk) 13:02, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I think consensus has clearly gone to some sort of restriction. But yes, an uninvolved admin will make the call. -DJSasso (talk) 13:31, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

User:The Spartan 003... again.

After receiving a 24 hour ban a month ago for OR and altering sourced content, he's returned to doing the latter. Actually, he returned to doing that about two weeks ago (see [80]), and I warned him about that (see [81]).

Now, the following edits ([82], [83], [84]) are another instance of altering sourced content. Fortunately, I have that book, and I can confirm that what he added is not what the source says. Peter238 (talk) 04:28, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

There is also this edit, where his edit summary clearly indicates OR. --JorisvS (talk) 09:13, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd say it's more of a ref falsification than OR. That vowel is quite noticeably fronted, at least according to the vowel chart in Jassem (2003). Peter238 (talk) 09:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, both then, basically. From the edit summary it sounds like the listened to the audio file and concluded that he didn't really hear it. Inappropriate anyway. --JorisvS (talk) 10:37, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Yep. My question is: is anyone going to do something about that? I don't think it's a complicated issue. Peter238 (talk) 15:14, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

User:Beukford

Beukford (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is trying to include contentious WP:BLP material in Ali Khamenei. The consensus on the talk page[85] prior to their arrival was that the source was not reliable enough. Despite being informed that both the burden to demonstrate reliability of the source and the the onus to achieve consensus for including the material, they flaunted both as well as the talk page consensus and reverted multiple times to re-insert the disputed material[86][87][88]. They will continue doing so until an admin intervenes.--Anders Feder (talk) 13:49, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• There was no such "consensus", only you objected the cited content, which was in the article long time ago. And several reliable newspapers reported it, including Globalnews from Canada, The Slatest, CNN and Jerusalem Post (not to mention it was published by Khamenei himself in his twitter account). It's not a BLP violation. Just a pertinent and related comment about Israel reported by several reliable sources in an impeccable place.--Beukford (talk) 13:57, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• As predicted, the user has now reverted another editor too over the same material[89].--Anders Feder (talk) 14:02, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment I went to https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir which also contains tweets that aren't in English, scrolled down, hit auto translate and am pasting results below.

Extended content

Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Aug 1Infanticide is the policy of savage and wolfish Israeli regime. 7/23/14#AliDawabshe #WasBurnedAlive Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Jul 20#Israel's security will not be ensured whether there will be an #IranDeal or not. 11/27/2014https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4lPGXmXb3c …#Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Jul 17‘Down to US,’ ‘Down to Israel’ slogans changed country’s atmosphere and it was not only in Tehran or big cities. Khamenei.ir retweeted Ayatolá Jamenei ‏@Khamenei_es Jul 9 ~#AlgoQueNecesitoYaEs :#Libertad dlos territorios palestinos ocupados por el #Israel. #DíaMundialdeAlQuds,#Palestina Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir May 16The cause of insecurity& massacre in #Yemen are some so-called Islamic countries which are actually deceived by US&Israel.#YemenUnderAttack Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir May 13Terrorist groups in #Syria under various names work to the benefit of #Israel& those who seek instability in region to impose their own will Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir May 6In the world of deception, the most racist govts become flag-bearers of human rights#US #Israel #BlackLivesMatterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PPeQP-bY38&list=PLP9XKFcmDYv4hmgwVEXplXrfnVeZQk-St&index=1 … Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Apr 21If Israel can achieve victory in Gaza,Saudis too will achieve victory in #Yemen.Their noses will be rubbed in dirt over Yemen.4/9/15#REVIEW Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Apr 21Saudis established a bad tradition in region;they made a mistake.What Saudis did in #Yemen is exactly what Israel did to #Palestine.#REVIEW Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Apr 9Israel’s military is bigger than Saudi’s& #Gaza is a small area,but they failed;#Yemen is a vast country w a population of tens of millions. Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Apr 9What Saudis did in #Yemen is exactly what Israel did to #Palestine.Acting agnst Yemenis is a genocide that can be prosecuted in int’l courts Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Mar 17Once people in the West realize … #RachelCorrie #KillerIsrael Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Mar 3US is now facing a #dilemma. It should either stop unlimited services to #Israel or they’ll lose more face in the world.10/1/11 Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Mar 3We can't overlook #Israel's crimes agnst Palestinians;we can't remain silent towards Israel's role in regional unrest. #IsraeliApartheidWeek Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Mar 3US officials are obliged to show consideration for #Israel & cover up its #crimes. Zionists corporations' money & power have troubled them. Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Mar 3For +50yrs, Israel’s tried to destroy Palestinian nation w US supports but Palestinians disgraced Israel w bare hands. #BeliefInGod10/14/00 Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Mar 3All what US has paid to protect #Israel faced a big obstacle:#Palestine has won the hearts of justice-seekers of world.#IsraeliApartheidWeek Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Mar 3In the past 50 yrs, how much money and #reputation has it cost US to support #Israel’s crimes? Who other than its nation has paid for it? Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Mar 2Increasing global hatred of #Israel is a sign of divine help. Today Israel is more isolated&its supporters are more embattled#ShutDownAIPAC Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Mar 2Zionists’ hegemony over US officials is such that these poor ppl have to show consideration for #Israel& cover up its crimes. #ShutDownAIPAC Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir Feb 23+50M US blacks are deprived of human rights b/c their national interests are spent on covering the costs of #Israel's crimes.5/6/92#MalcomX

While I sympathise with views such as Israel should withdraw from settlements and the West Bank inc. East Jerusalem and perhaps further territories that it has taken - the above content seems pretty venemous to me. I see no reason to doubt the JP content which is inclusive of a screen shot of at least one tweet. If the jpost had falsified the story then it would be big news.

I also scrolled through the twitter feed in hope of find content such as of an incitement to love but saw nothing. GregKaye 15:20, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

@GregKaye: Anyone can access the Twitter account and analyze it for themselves. That is not the point. What gives you reason to believe that it is even Khamenei's account? What gives you reason to believe a source like JPost, which have previously has propagated such ridiculous "stories" as the Norwegian Finance Minister having shouted "Death to the Jews" in a demonstration[90], would have bothered fact-checking such a critical point? In any case, this is not the place where the source should be discussed. The user could easily have respected WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS and talk page consensus and gone through normal processes like WP:RSN or WP:RFC if he disagree. Instead he is engaged in edit warring. If your attempts to defend such behavior is considered good practice, it isn't surprising so many editors have quit Wikipedia.--Anders Feder (talk) 15:57, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Re: "What gives you reason to believe that it is even Khamenei's account?" It seems i had no basis other than my own gullibility. Apologies. Have you asked similar of User:Beukford and, if so, where? GregKaye 16:53, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I have not engaged in any analysis of the account, no. I have requested any evidence that the source is reliable.--Anders Feder (talk) 17:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

For interested editors, I've done a bit of research regarding the extent of usage of quotes from the account in reliable sources and added it to Talk:Ali Khamenei GregKaye 18:38, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• And again, as predicted, the user has now reverted a third user over the same material.[91]--Anders Feder (talk) 21:59, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

User:Ankhsoprah2 engaging in WP:HOLYWAR and accusing Beukford of being a "Jewish POV pusher"

Ankhsoprah2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) reverted Beukford while refering to him as a "Jewish POV pusher." On the talk page in response to a Shia editor he comments "Shias are always looking for excuses to eat porks, what's the big deal? lol. As long as sanction are in place, they have a great excuse... Maybe that's why Khamenei is against Iran Deal?" Can someone please permablock this fellow?Brustopher (talk) 22:04, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

For completeness, link to 3RR discussion against the same user yesterday.--Anders Feder (talk) 22:34, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• I've blocked Ankhsoprah2. As to the edits, I've responded on the talk page and tried my hand at a re-write. Just repeating tweets without a real context (or point) just made Ali_Khamenei#Zionism_and_Israel a random set of insulting tweets and comments. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:18, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• With Ankhsoprah2, the question was really when this was going to happen. As for Beukford, they are clearly edit warring. They're also, of course, a brand-new account with a distinct POV, walking into a hot-button issue with guns blazing and a pretty decent knowledge of how Wikipedia works. In other words, I have no doubt that this is a returning editor, and I will block the account accordingly. Drmies (talk) 00:25, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Between the two blocks, a modicum of order should have been restored. Thanks.--Anders Feder (talk) 00:45, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Ankhsoprah2 has apologized and I have unblocked the user. I assume the situation has calmed down nevertheless. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:58, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Question His history of reilgious insults and claims of "propaganda" are extensive; [92] calling an editor "a Jewish POV pusher," [93] "illegitimate Israel #1 terrorist" on an editors talk page, [94] addressed to a Shia editor - "Shias are always looking for a reason to eat pork," claims an editor is part of "Jewish Propaganda" [95], and these are just a few from the past few days alone. Given this, should the block be reinstated.? Thank you. Ism schism (talk) 13:00, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

You already got the answer from the admin who blocked me and then unblocked me,[96] why post it here again? BTW, after posting the question here, you reverted this edit of mine, stating in the edit summary that my edit was POV. Actually, you readded unsourced POV that is not related to the biography.--Ankhsoprah2 (talk) 01:26, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Although I'm extremely shamed of my actions, & I promise not to act that way again. I would like to point out a few things: the Shia editor, with whom I had a lighthearted exchange, actually misunderstood me as a sectarian editor and attacked me first, which another editor redacted [97]. Although I didn't mind, and didn't even think of it as an attack. Although, it was lighthearted, we ended with agreement that sectarianism is ignorant[98]. With User:Iran nuclear weapons 2, he was claiming that Iran has most record of assasination and would assasinate him for editing Wikipedia![99]. I again apologize for my actions, and promise that I will not repeat them. Thank you and best regards to all.--Ankhsoprah2 (talk) 02:14, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Feuding between two COI editors

• Grump International (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• BC1278 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Over at WP:COIN#Brickell_Flatiron, we have a dispute between two editors. BC1278 has an acknowledged conflict of interest regarding some Internet companies in Israel. Grump International denies a conflict of interest, but is involved mostly with articles about certain condo developments currently for sale, primarily Brickell Flatiron (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and 520 West 28th (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and bio articles about their architects. (Yes, this was the "integration of volumes that flow into each other, following a coherent formal language" ad, although that language has been removed.)

BC1278 has been toning down or proposing deletion of some of the Grump International articles, while Grump International has been proposing deletion of some articles created by BC1278. (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ronen Shilo) The latter is probably retaliatory; the articles involved are old. There's some incivility [100][101] bordering on harassment.

Grump International, while denying COI, is very insistent about the notability of the buildings in which he is interested, and their architects. Other than a few unrelated issues, that account is more or less an SPA. However, he makes a good case for notability. The buildings involved are very expensive (condos from $2 million to $20 million per unit), designed by famous architects, and have received press coverage due to extensive PR. On the other hand, they're not finished and occupied, and they don't really need to be in Wikipedia this early. Especially because the developers are trying to sell units before construction to finance the project. I'd be inclined to delete now per WP:CRYSTAL, and let them back into Wikipedia if and when they're built. Brickell Flatiron hasn't even broken ground yet. Wikipedia is being used here to sell real estate.

There may also be sockpuppets of Grump International, but it's hard to tell. Some people are just interested in buildings.

The editor behavior needs to be brought under control, which is AN/I's department. I think we can deal with the content issues at WP:COIN. Grump International needs to stop doing some things. Warn? Block? Topic ban? Up to AN/I. John Nagle (talk) 19:59, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I have no issue with BC1278, and am willing to withdraw from the situation entirely. I put the article Ronen Shilo up for deletion via AFD, and have been attacked ever since, as it is one of BC1278's paid clients, and put a News Release banner atop the Conduit (company) article after someone else had already put a COI tag atop it. Beyond this initial act, I have been attacked over and over again by BC1278, and simply tried to defend myself, as I actually don't have a conflict of interest. But yes I'm only really interested in architecture. After a significant level of bullying, I made an effort to improve one of the only articles I have created that was PROD'd, after which the editor who PROD'd it did not move to AFD it, which I invited them to if they felt it was a good move. The other article that I added one edit to was PROD'd by the same editor, and then de-PROD'd by the person (who I do not know) who created it. If someone would like to edit any article I have edited, please feel free to do so. I do not WP:OWN them of course. If they should be deleted, please feel free to AFD them. Other than being constantly accused of being a bad person, by someone being paid to edit on behalf of Conduit (company), I haven't had any issue with Wikipedia. If you wish for me to stop engaging with BC1278, I will simply stop responding to him, as I have not once ever begun an engagement with them--I have simply responded to their posts about me. If this is being seen as disruptive, I am absolutely fine with engaging no further with BC1278, his articles, or his postings that repeatedly PING me on my page (I have pinged nobody in my entire interaction with them). I will not even ask for him to stop pinging or posting about me, I have no issue with just withdrawing. I will state outright that I have no confict of interest, and have never edited under any account but this one. Grump International (talk) 22:10, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I would also point out that the poster of this section is stating that my edits were retaliatory, but if you look at the timeline it was BC1278 that began his tirade against me after I made the posts on the Conduit and Ronen Shilo pages--I did not do this in response to anything that BC1278 did. BC1278 started going after me once I made the edits to pages that, unbeknownst to me, he is paid to maintain. I added the two edits on these dates August 18 August 20, followed by BC1278's first aggressive edits towards me five days later. Grump International (talk) 22:13, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

John Nagle's summary is correct except that I've never directly edited, tagged or proposed for deletion any articles with edits by Grump International. I no longer do direct editing on articles that have anything to do with business, even those where I don't have a COI, just to avoid the possibility of any issue under WP:COI (in a couple of instances editors have reviewed my proposed changes on Talk, then said I should make the edits directly, which I'll only do if they explicitly ask me.) I used Grump International's Talk page to point out the COI and promotional tone of their edits (a cluster around condos, their developers, management personnel and architects), then moved the discussion over to WP:COIN#Brickell_Flatiron when he/she deleted the post. "Blatant promotion" was identified by User:Nagle on two articles. User: Ronz, who deleted Grump's specific content on Brickell Flatiron noted in the edit history: "coi, grossly undue at best - whole article needs rewrite with eye to SOAP and CRYSTAL." See the Brickell Flatiron: Revision history. User: B137 independently noted on Grump's talk page that their contribution was "borderline on spam", language Grump removed. See the full post by B137 in the revision history of Grump's Talk page. Please note that after Grump uploaded a photo of an architect in an article he created, that architect's firm e-mailed Wikipedia to give permission to use the photo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:3GATTI_Francesco_Gatti_photograph.jpg so I don't think there's any disputing that he/she has contact with subjects he writes about. (He explicitly denies even this aspect of COI at the bottom of the COIN post.]

User:Nagle proposed a couple of articles for deletion. Grump International's content was removed from one, Brickell Flatiron, (the article was not deleted after COIN editors found other reasons for notability, but Grump's contributed content was removed) and on the other 520 West 28th, Grump International removed the proposed deletion tag after adding new content, but without removing any of the identified promotional material. It was then I suggested to User: Nagle that admins needed to get involved in reviewing this account because the undisclosed COI editing was recurring after much notice about not putting promotional material into articles and disclosing COI.

The undisclosed COI overlaps with articles where I have a disclosed paid COI because at the time I complained on COIN, Grump International was using a largely single purpose account, with just a few promotional edits, to post simultaneously a deletion request, edit and post flags on articles that have come under repeated attacks over many years, to the point where they had to be placed under protection by admins. I pointed out on the deletion request page for WP:Articles for deletion/Ronen Shilo, where I a disclosed paid COI, that I don't think an undisclosed COI account, that shows evidence of possibly being a sock puppet because of its sophistication in Wikimedia mark up and policy relative to small number of edits (an observation originally made by admin User: Graeme Bartlett at WP:Articles for deletion/Ronen Shilo), should count toward consensus in the discussion of the article. Grump International made all his/her challenges almost immediately after User: Graeme Bartlett decided to split the article Conduit (publisher network and platform) into two articles (starting Conduit (company) because of the sale of the main platform discussed in the article). User: Graeme Bartlett used a draft I suggested on my sandbox, to start it off and asked other editors to help improve it, pointing out a disclosed COI editor was involved. User: Graeme Bartlett moved over the history of my sandbox, which show my edits there, but none of it was made on the article at Conduit (company). User: Graeme Bartlett also cleaned up Conduit (publisher network and platform) a bit, but it's an article with a very long history of editors inserting biased attacks backed up by unreliable sources like online discussion boards and single user blogs. Talk:Conduit (publisher network and platform) The violations were kept out by admins for years but mostly slipped back in after the article became unprotected. I've pointed out them out in its Talk page here: Talk:Conduit (publisher network and platform)#Request for assistance correcting poorly source material There are plenty of serious criticisms of the company in the article backed up by WP:RELIABLE sources, but that doesn't mean other attacks backed by no sources, original research, online forums or other unreliable sources should also be allowed.

I bring this up because I suspected something was amiss with Grump International when he placed a "news release" flag on the split off article, Conduit (company), almost immediately after it was posted and, when I tried to engage with Grump International on the article's Talk page, asking him/her to point out any issues to me, or work through the article with me section by section, or make changes him/herself directly, they declined in a nasty way: "feel free to gut the article of non-neutral material and I'm sure the tag will be removed." I pointed out to Grump International the article had very little original content -- that it was split off of another article with dozens of contributors that had been heavily patrolled and protected by two admins for several years. But I said I'd be happy to help him improve it, or, encouraged him to do it him/herself. The reply was just that the entire article was "spam." Given the user's unwillingness to engage in discussion, the simultaneous deletion request for Shilo, and the long history of biased attacks on these articles, I looked up Grump International's account and found the suspect history I discuss on COIN. I'd strongly suggest a WP:Checkuser here if policy allows - I'm not sure what the standards are for that but as admin User: Graeme Bartlett has noted,User: Grump International "is almost a single purpose account, but one that looks to have had previous experience before using this login due to their knowledge of procedures here and skill in Wikimarkup." Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ronen Shilo

The subject of the Conduit (publisher network and platform) article approached me a few weeks ago and I found the state of the article's poorly sourced attacks now and over many years to be really egregious. They just put up with it because they had no idea what to do, even though it injured them very badly. I am a paid consultant to them - I agreed to help them if we strictly abided by WP:COI. I go beyond WP:COI by disclosing my real name and job history at User: BC1278. I don't do anything on Wikipedia that I wouldn't want revealed with my actual identity. I stay above board to the best of my abilities. When I began this account in 2014 I was a total novice without a clue but I've studied pretty vigorously over the past 18 months, interacted with a lot of experienced editors, and am just now feeling comfortable enough to complain about a serious issue with another editor. I'm trying to be proactive here because I think Wikipedia is very poorly served by undisclosed COI, personal bias and undisclosed alternate accounts, all of which can end up badly damaging the encyclopedia.BC1278 (talk) 01:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)BC1278

I'm not experienced enough to track how this happened, but User: Grump International's specific denials of the various types of COI and sock puppetry have been deleted or hidden from WP:COIN#Brickell_Flatiron and I think it's important to note he went on the record to the following questions I'd seen, in part, on the COIN board. I asked: "a) Do you have any connection with any of the people or companies you have edited about? (by that I am asking if you know the people, if you work for the companies, or work for an agency that works for/with the people or companies); b) Have you ever been paid, or expect to be paid, for editing Wikipedia?; c) Do you have an alternate account(s) on Wikipedia (or IP addresses used as accounts) and if so, what are they?; d) Have you contributed to Conduit (publisher network and platform) using an account other than User: Grump International?; d) If you don't have alternate accounts, given your small number of edits and almost total lack of interaction with other editors prior to your mark ups and nomination for deletion of Shilo, how/when did you acquire your Wikipedia mark up and policy skills, evident in the deletion nomination of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ronen Shilo, the mark up and Talk discussion in Conduit (company) and your own tirade against COI editing on your use Talk page User talk:Grump International?" User: Grump International answered: "... Answering your Questions? a) no, b) no, c) no, d) no, e) Wikipedia is not rocket science and I've been here over a year. Anyone with even a moderate knowledge of computer coding should find Wikipedia fairly rudimentary...[remainder of post not shown for space] (talk) 22:16, 31 August 2015 " (talk) 04:03, 2 September 2015 (UTC)BC1278

Finally, a point on a legal threat. I've been clear in challenging the Grump account as a COI and probably a sock puppet. Grump's response on one occasion was to make a hardly veiled legal threat against me: "I just don't see enough here to meet GNG, something mixed with rather slanderous accusations above." WP:Articles for deletion/Ronen Shilo He avoided saying "libelous" but slander is just the verbal form of libel. This violates WP: THREAT and is especially challenging to me as I openly disclose my real identity on my user profile. BC1278 (talk) 04:03, 2 September 2015 (UTC)BC1278

Hi BC 1278. I had no intention of issuing a legal threat to you, my apologies if you took it that way. I also have no conflict of interest, as I explained in my answers to the quiz you demanded I answer for you at COIN :) I posted my delete vote and a news release tag on articles you are being paid to edit without knowing that you were being paid to edit them, in fact I had no idea who you were before you began interacting with me a week later, so I am secure in those decisions as they pre-date our actual interactions. Anything since, if there was an air of incivility to them, I apologize to you for that as well--no point in being stubborn on this board. Beyond that, how about we return to neutral here, and let bygones be bygones. I will stay away from articles you are being paid by Conduit to edit, as it appears we are perhaps unable to remain WP:CIVIL to each other, beyond what I have edited thus far, and we can decide not to talk to one another further. Or, if you prefer, we can try to be more amicable to one another. But if it has gotten this disruptive to Wikipedia, such that this appears on ANI, I am making the personal choice to step back from our interactions and move onto something else :) Grump International (talk) 14:47, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

BC1279 points out on my talk page that he didn't edit or propose deletion of Grump International articles. He was only arguing at length against an AfD started by Grump International at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ronen_Shilo. Since bringing up the issue here seems to have induced both parties to cease their disruption, this can probably be closed out. (Longer term issue: how to prevent COI editors from using up so much volunteer editor and admin time. See my comments at WP:AN about that. Thanks.) John Nagle (talk) 21:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I've just been waiting for a decision from admins. I have nothing more to add because I think it's pretty clear the User: Grump International's near single purpose account should be blocked or topic-banned around real estate and, I would hope a WP: CheckUser initiated to discover the alternate account(s) and check for sock puppetry. (I'd be glad to assist if I knew the alternate user accounts and IP addresses as I know likely articles to check based on the user history.) I pointed out non-disclosed COI that seems obvious. Aside from all the clustered promotional editing you can read about at WP:COIN#Brickell_Flatiron, one of the architects Grump created an article for even had his company write to Wikipedia to give permission to use a photo Grump International uploaded. The editor has explicitly denied knowing anyone related to any of the articles he edited or created. I don't think my status as a paid COI editor makes these issue I've pointed out less valid. I used the designated Wikipedia discussion forums to raise my issues. I used a similar amount of space (a lot, but the evidence was abundant and complex for me, at least) to present my arguments just as I've seen on other discussions about COI issues. Look, if obvious non-disclosed COI editing on near single purpose accounts isn't brought under control, even after a bunch of warnings to stop and disclose, then you're sending a bad message to those of us who try to convince companies and individuals in real life that they should abide by the rules. And if it's just too complex and time consuming to keep up with, then it's better to at least hire a paid consultant who knows and follows the rules rather than one who doesn't. Believe me, it's very difficult to convince companies and individuals that they should abide by COI policy rather than doing covert direct edits themselves. And it's made far more difficult by the abundance of undisclosed COI editors who offer fast, cheap results precisely because they ignore policy. Finally, I don't believe I've done anything wrong or disruptive here - unless the consensus is that any WP: COIN complaints are a waste of time and space by anyone who also does paid COI editing?BC1278 (talk) 01:38, 5 September 2015 (UTC)BC1278

User:DPGCMonsta

Over the past several months, DPGCMonsta has been adding erronenous edits to the Ice Cube discography (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) page. Ice Cube's sales figured were inflated without any viable source and chart positions were modified without any supporting evidence. As shown on the RIAA reference pages, the certifications for all of Ice Cube's albums are indeed much lower than stated. This isn't accidental reproduction of fiction; it's all pure and intentional vandalism to this page.

Reference 1 Reference 2 Reference 3 Reference 4

Users such as myself and Mmrsofgreenhave reverted his/her's edits on multiple occassions, only to have our edits reverted back. It's rather annoying having to fix this page constantly just to provide the most accurate information. If you could look into this situation, that would be well appreciated. WolfSpear (talk) 21:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

This isn't WP:AIV or WP:RFPP. User:DPGCMonsta was blocked back in June for a week for copyright violation. Your edits show the reversions (both before and after the block) even though the editor has done a ton of edits in the page in sets like [102][103]. These seem to be reverted in full, is that all nonsense? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:06, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Adding to what Ricky81682 said; I notice that no discussion had been made on the article talk page, or DPGCMonsta's talk page. It is usually best to try to initiate a conversation (AGF and such). For all we know, DPGCMonsta may not know what they are doing wrong (although, it does not seem entirely likely that he is ignorant). -- Orduin ^Discuss 22:22, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Note that I recommended WolfSpear come here after seeing a report at RFPP. Protection is of little use here and the situation is too complicated for AIV. If DPGCMonsta is deliberately adding factual errors they should be blocked. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:52, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. Reference source #11 is providing accurate information for the RIAA statistics (Gold, Platinum awards). The edits being made are inconsistent with that source and are purposely being made to enhance sales figures. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WolfSpear (talk • contribs) 12:43, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Sietecolores

Sietecolores (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

I strongly dislike coming here, but there's an ongoing issue with an user that needs resolving, and some community input. Sietecolores, presumably a Chilean user, has been, for some days, nominating for deletion several articles related to Pichilemu, a provincial capital of Chile, given that these articles were written by me. I feel the user is harassing me, because we've had different points of view before on other stuff.

The nominated articles are Marta Urzúa, Radio Entreolas, José Arraño Acevedo, Antonio Saldías and Heredero de tu Amor; all of these but the one about the radio were written long ago, and have stayed here because they pass notability guidelines. There is plenty of material about these individuals, mostly offline, I have pointed out such a thing to Sietecolores, but they have omitted discussing objectively, instead distorting arguments and reasons, prefering to disrupt the project.

A block (or at least a warning) should be in order. Sietecolores should stop pushing their bias against articles about so-called third-world people and stuff. --Diego Grez-Cañete (talk) 00:46, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

You're required to provide them with an notice to the ANI discussion. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marta Urzúa shows that it's not a clear-cut nonsensical AFDs as does Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/José Arraño Acevedo. There are going to be difficulties in finding supporting sources online but at the very least, notify Sietecolores as required above. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:33, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Sietecolores notified. Blackmane (talk) 02:18, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• OK, that notification is great. Thanks. Now to the matter at hand: Ricky81682 already noted what I saw as well. I looked at all of them hoping to find easy bad-faith nominations, so I could close them early and we'd be done. But that's not the case. It may well be so that the nominator is picking on this particular community, but that in itself is not in violation of anything--all the nominator would have to say is the magic word, "walled garden". These AfDs by themselves are valid. Drmies (talk) 02:30, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

A note of background. All these non-notable Pichilemu-related articles have been around in Wikipedia since 2009-2010 when Diego Grez-Cañete joined the project and begun creating them. Prior to that coverage on Pichilemu was equally bad to the coverage of other Chilean towns. Much good content on Pichilemu has been created but also much that is not notable. The non-notable content has survived not because of notability or a "test of time" as Diego suggests but because nobody has cared about the issue. Pichilemu (pop. 13,000) and Chilean towns of that size in general are not a hot topic that might attract scrutiny. Also, users who don't read Spanish might have felt incompetent to evaluate the "notability" of the content that relies on Spanish language sources. Sietecolores (talk) 08:27, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Looks fine to me. When someone finds one, then two articles that need AFD, it isn't uncommon to expect a nest of them and go searching. Maybe by article creator, maybe by Wikilinks or some other method. This isn't picking on someone, this is looking for low hanging fruit. Unless a nefarious motive can be demonstrated, you have to assume it was old fashioned hunting and finding within a group. The AFDs themselves each seem reasonable, the number generated won't put an undue burden on the system, the community can decide just as they do all AFDs. Some of the language below the nom is assuming bad faith, which really should be avoided. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:31, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
• The nominations are reasonable, there is something of a WP:WALLEDGARDEN going on here with Pichilemu content. See Template:Pichilemu for examples. I applaud Diego Grez-Cañete for his efforts but some rationalization through mergers/redirects/deletions is needed to keep this content in line with notability standards. Vrac (talk) 21:15, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
• There is a lot of articles about Pichilemu in Wikipedia, most of them are completely unessential. --Keysanger (talk) 11:26, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

This is an strange case of an editor with so much accounts. User Dieggo Grez has following accounts in the English Wikipedia:

• User:Küñall
• User:Diego Grez-Cañete
• User talk:Diego Grez (usurped) <-- that is the name of the account
• User:Lester Foster
• User:MisterWiki <-- moved
• User:Kyusakamoto blocked in Special:Contributions/Kyusakamoto

beside these accounts, Diego has created a lot of other user accounts, see User creation log. I don't know whether the user has commited meatpuppetry, but at least one of them has been blocked because of being used only for vandalism. --Keysanger (talk) 14:52, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kyusakamoto

Dispute between BalCoder and Ontario Teacher BFA BEd, re: article Proportional representation

• BalCoder (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Ontario Teacher BFA BEd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Proportional representation (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

A new user, Ontario Teacher BFA BEd, is being disruptive on the Proportional representation page, pushing an anti-PR view while ignoring sources. His (I assume he) first edits (16-17 Aug) referred to PR as an electoral system, a beginner error (see first sentence of the article), and that these had no districts (or ridings as he prefers) - all voting systems have districts (if sometimes only one). So I reverted it (on Aug 18) with just a comment assuming it to be frivolous. The changes were re-introduced on 18-19 Aug (partly anonymously) so in seven entries on the article's Talk page (on Aug 20, Aug 23, Aug 24, Aug 25, Aug 26, Aug 27, Aug 28) I tried to explain his errors, some of which are fantastical, reverting his changes four further times (Aug 20, Aug 23, Aug 24, Aug 25). This grudgingly produced some mostly minor corrections but important errors have not been reversed. On Aug 26, wearying, and in the hope of encouraging cooperation, I didn't revert, and instead required him to revert his changes and then integrate them into the article. This was not successful, the serious errors have not been reverted (for example section "Wider benefits to society" remains deleted without a word, closed and open list systems still have no districts, and that remains unsourced). An important sentence in the lead, that MMP "is usually considered a distinct PR method" has been replaced by "is considered a mixed system, which is a distinct voting system", a wrong, pointless statement which misrepresents the sources. This unnecessary and confusing use of "mixed systems" has caused confusion in the past (last autumn, see e.g. Talk Archive 3 - search for tier), and for this reason the term was replaced by me on Dec 11 by "two tier systems", sourced, and entirely uncontroversial. This has now affected the structure of the article (Sep 1), a renamed section "Mixed Electoral Systems" (capitalized) is no longer part of "PR electoral systems" - misleading and confusing - and "List of countries using proportional representation" is now unhelpfully "List of countries using proportional representation or mixed systems". On the Talk page his tone and arguments are not indicative of good faith, throwing my arguments back at me. For example, that I should respect WP:VERIFY, or, when I attempted to invoke WP:BRD, warning me against re-inserting "the same flawed text" and that I should post to the talk page before making any further changes. But I'm not making any changes, I'm only reverting him. When I pointed out that MOS deprecates small sub-sections he replied that they help readers. He changed the Talk section name to read that it is he reverting me, which of course he isn't.

I don't have the time or energy to continue composing reasoned criticisms of his changes, and no one else is keeping an active watch on the page, so I would like the user blocked from the page. Then I can revert a final time and add some words to the "Link between constituent and representative" section to emphasize that this is an FPTP (first past the post) advantage, his original concern.

(Full disclosure: I have rewritten most of this article (down to "History"), basically in two chunks on Aug 2 2014 and Dec 11 2014), and have since been trying to preserve the article from the usual decay, from which it has suffered much in its past. Only the section "Party list PR", which User:Ontario has changed, not for the better, remained from before Aug 2014, not because it was good but because I haven't found the energy/enthusiasm to research and re-write it; neither, of course, has any one else). --BalCoder (talk) 07:56, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I suggest you trim it down more - it is rife with "original research", parenthetical observation, and in a few cases actual misstatements. It does not cover "vote weight proportional to the number of voters" (found in some labour unions), seats reserved for specific groups, and a large number of other systems competing with the traditional "first past the post" system so widely found. Take out all the editorial opinion and work with what remains, and be open to understanding that there are many different flavors of "proportional representation" indeed. Collect (talk) 17:58, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Collect: Once User Ontario's "original research" and misstatements have been dealt with, if you add a few words to the talk page identifying the other instances, and providing sources demonstrating the relevance to PR of your other points, I'll be happy to make the changes. --BalCoder (talk) 07:59, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

BalCoder has acted contrary to WP's Wikipedia:Civility policy. Firstly, it states in bold red letters at the top of this page "When you start a discussion about an editor, you must notify them on their user talk page". This was not done by BalCoder. I was notified instead by User:EdJohnston. Secondly, while I attempted to have a civilized discussion with the user about a topic, BalCoder continued to engage in personal insults, intentional rudeness, and belittling behaviour. Specifically, BalCoder has used uncivil tone/language such as "like it or not", "many of your edits are careless", "this is hair raisingly wrong", "most [of your changes] are wrong, confused or confusing, or contain wild claims", and "You finally seem to be getting a grasp on what PR is". I informed the user of the rudeness. However, no apology was given, and no uncivil comments were stricken out. Thirdly, the major point of contention is Balcoder's opinion that mixed (voting) systems do not exist. I have provided a plethora of sources that explain the voting system categories are: PR systems, mixed systems, and plurality systems. In fact, these categories already existed in the WP article prior to my edits. Additionally, most of the sources that I used to substantiate this fact were also already present in the article, which already identified these different types of voting systems. I simply ensured that, for clarity, the same terms were consistently used throughout the article. Even in the above complaint, BalCoder has admitted to previously altering the original text "mixed system" to "two-tier system" several months prior to my contributions. This was only done in one section of the article, causing unnecessary confusion for readers. Yet BalCoder egregiously characterizes the existence of mixed systems are my unsourced opinion. In truth, not only has the existence of mixed systems been thoroughly sourced, it has been sourced by many other editors prior to my contributions to the WP article!

Lastly, BalCoder has made several objectively incorrect assertions such as "Ontario has recently chosen MMP; that will not have been because it is not a PR system but because it is" in order promote an anti-plurality voting system agenda. To be clear, Ontario uses FPTP, has never used MMP, and voted against MMP in a referendum in 2007. When I pointed this out to BalCoder, no acknowledgement of being wrong was ever made. I encouraged BalCoder to conduct research to substantiate the assertions he/she made, and post sourced contributions. Unfortunately, BalCoder did not post any sourced research to our discussion. Instead, I had to wade through a combination of sentence fragments, personal insults, and unsourced and often specious personal opinions in order to attempt, in good faith, to conduct a civilized discussion. As thanks for my abundant patience, this user has filed a complaint about me without having the common courtesy (as required) to inform me! I request BalCoder to be blocked from the Proportional Representation article to prevent further vandalism, and for his/her account to be suspended due to incivility, personal attacks, and harassment. Ontario Teacher BFA BEd (talk) 00:34, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Sock puppet of banned spammer

82.232.81.119 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is the latest IP of banned editor Archiboule. Eik Corell (talk) 11:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Archiboule (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• The 4th Coming (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Archiboule's account has been globally locked by a steward, but they are still evading the block with IPs. I'm semiprotecting The 4th Coming for three months and leaving a ping for User:Materialscientist. His name is mentioned at Talk:The 4th Coming as having issued some blocks in this case. EdJohnston (talk) 01:10, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Repeated copyvio

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

After receiving warnings from multiple users about WP:COPYVIO, Esufalim has once again posted the same damn material as last time. WP:CIR block needed. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:17, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Indef blocked. I don't know what it is about that source. That's at least the fifth editor I've come across copying from it word for word. And the source itself is very likely a copyright violation as it copies a chunk of text from a 11,000 page, $750 book. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:28, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

92.40.249.28 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) is likely linked as I just reverted a copy paste to Nizari. NeilN, given your familiarity with the source, you may want to check the other stuff and revert or see if there's a connection to the other editors. (Dynamic IP, not used since Aug 22, so not notifying). —SpacemanSpiff 15:42, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Got them. It'd be easier to check for connections if [insert standard rant about how the WMF dev department lacks competence or professionalism]. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:59, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

User: springee and Koch Industries

Complaint regarding Springee and the Koch Industries page:

I (VeritasVincintUSA) am a new Wikipedia editor, and attempted to make a substantive change to the Koch Industries article, which I believe to have been deliberately whitewashed. Following the complete reversion of my entire edit, springee and others have attempted to completely shut down or delay discussion on the numerous substantive problems identified with the article. Instead, springee filed a frivolous "sockpuppet" investigation against me and posted a spurious accusation on my talk page about association with a conspiracy theory site.

In the context of the Koch Industries talk page, springee has:

1) analogized my edits to arguing that the "confederate flag isn't racist"

2) initially repeatedly argued broadly against the entire substantive edit, while refusing to engage on the substantive details (even after a detailed edit summary was posted for each proposed change)

3) when he did engage with one of the proposals (see the particularly egregious current language under "Fatal Pipeline Explosion" and springee's defense), he again would only say broadly that "I do not support the new language as better than the existing entry" and reverted my attempted edit without posting any sensible justification

It appears that springee has also been active on the talk page for the related Americans For Prosperity where he also analogized criticism of the Kochs with "racism." The discussion, to date, on the Koch Industries talk page, coupled with the text of the page, itself, seems to confirm my belief that the entry has been deliberately whitewashed.

I hereby request redress both, specifically, regarding springee, and more broadly regarding the integrity of the Wikipedia entries concerning Koch Industries and its affiliates. There were allegations of paid PR firms "airbrushing" these specific entries back in 2011, and both the activity and text that I observed seems to suggest that some form of shenanigans is ongoing. - VeritasVincitUSA (talk) 21:27, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

References

Springee Initial Reply I don't want to snap at a new user. In this case I think he is misunderstanding things and has filed this in frustration. To address some of his specific points.

• Sockpuppet investigation: Yes, I did ask for an investigation because VeritasVincitUSA (same user as blocked Kochtruth). I was correct they were the same user but I was wrong in thinking that making a new account was not allowed in that case. Please see Ricky81682's comments on the KochTruth's talk page. Note that I never mentioned the investigation. It was "brought to his attention".[[104]]
• The user misunderstood my analogy. I was attempting to explain that having a user name like KochTruth suggests a strong POV and thus other editors may be suspicious of claims to a NPOV when a user has such a name. My analogy is here [[105]] and the follow up statement mentioning the confederate flag here [[106]].
• VVUSA's initial article insertion was 8600 bite [[107]] and reverted by another editor. I have only made one revert of 215 bites [[108]]. VVUSA added a lot of information to the talk page (which I'm OK with) but it's taking myself and others a while to get through it (20,500 bite addition [[109]]). Asking the user to slow down so others can have a proper look seems very reasonable.
• The question about the KochTruths blog seemed reasonable given the previous user name. I think my phrasing could be better but I think the question was reasonable regardless. Please see VVUSA's talk page for the question and my reply.
• The implication that I'm no a company payroll is a bad faith claim.

Overall I think VVUSA may be expressing frustration that things aren't going his way. I believe Ricky81682 was worried that the user might be problematic. I think the user has a clear and strong POV on the subject and clearly wants to make BOLD changes. But I also think he has thus far played by the rules. I would ask that this ANI be closed. Springee (talk) 00:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I think that a thorough impartial review of the talk page as of the time this entry was filed will tell a different story other than "things not going my way." Specifically, there was a strong-willed reluctance to engage with the facts and sources as presented, coupled with an attempt to circumvent discussion with the frivolous "sockpuppet" investigation and attempt to discredit me by asserting that I was associated with a conspiracy theory site. While I did not mean to assert that springee, specifically, was "on the dole," I continue to believe it is advisable to call the integrity of the articles for Koch Industries and its affiliates into question. The combination of the entries' checkered past, and current presentation, cast down on their integrity.

springee has repeatedly (on the talk page) tried to cite his belief that I have a "strong POV" to discredit my edits. However, he seems incredibly reluctant to actually engage with the proposed edits and sources, themselves, while the nature of his participation on the Americans For Prosperity and Koch Industries threads demonstrates that he, himself, has a "strong POV." Engagement with the sources would show that the current article suffers from a clear "POV problem." In at least one instance (which I outlined in "Fatal Pipeline Explosion" on the talk page), the text of the existing article is so biased and misleading that it is my contention that the language in question could only have been written by somebody on the company's behalf. It should be noted that springee reverted back to the problematic language without adequate justification or explanation. - VeritasVincitUSA (talk) 01:36, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

VeritasVincitUSA, not only are things "not going your way", but, when last I checked, no other editor had agreed with any of your 10 suggested edits. As I said before, an editor who actually wants to improve Wikipedia would only introduce one or two of these suggestions at a time, and allow time for discussion before adding controversial material. As for the thinkprogress.org reference, I believe it was considered "disproved" in the actual Wikipedia investigation. I could be wrong, but at least one item from criticism of Wikipedia is without evidence of actual problems with Wikipedia. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin: Your claim that "no other editor has agreed with any of your 10 suggested edits" could just as easily be re-framed to state that, at the time of this ANI, only 3 of the 9 proposed edits had any objections or rebuttals since they were posted days ago. One of the three, to which an objection was raised, was the disputed "Fatal Pipeline Explosion" entry. As I indicated, I expect an independent, thorough, review of the Koch Industries talk page as of this ANI will refute your assertion that things were "not going [my] way" or challenge the relative strength of the facts, sources, and arguments that I presented to defend my proposed edits.

Your assertion that I might not "actually want to improve Wikipedia" is unfair and, again, I rest on the specific facts, sources, and supporting arguments that I have cited on the talk page to support my criticism of the existing article and the need for substantive revisions. - VeritasVincitUSA (talk) 06:03, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

ANI is not appropriate for content disputes. VeritasVincitUSA, you started with the name Kochtruth which made me question whether you are here with a proper purpose or not. Many admins would have blocked you outright and moved on. I'm again presuming that you come here with the intent to create a neutral article and not to create a hit piece. The subject matter, as you are well aware, is extraordinarily controversial, is subject to numerous restrictions at the highest Wikipedia levels due to the behaviors there and as such, sources need to be neutral and reliable. Your starting comments here don't indicate that you are treating the views of others with equal respect as required here. An accusation that someone is "whitewashing" an article is no minor nor laughing matter as it's a direct personal attack on the editors. The article exists as it is exists either due (a) to some massive conspiracy of editors to whitewash the article or (b) because that's the consensus view over the years this has been topic. One allegation is frankly not productive here and is likely to get you topic banned if not blocked. At the moment, you've proposed ten separate edits and have opposition to all which is normal for new content proposed on controversial pages. Accept that opposition with an modicum of respect and try suggesting re-wording to provide a consensus viewpoint that supports the views of those who disagree or otherwise, try one of these other remedies for broader support (this is not one of them). However, I warn you that most people would presume that someone who comes, make a demand for a number of specific wordings, received opposition and only responds by making further and further attacks on their opposition is not the kind of editor wanted here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:37, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Ricky81682: Your assertion that I have "opposition to all" of my edits is not supported by the discussion (or lack thereof) on the 9 specific edit proposals on the talk page. I just checked again and no specific objections or rebuttals were made to most of the edits as of the time that I started writing this post. "Accept[ing]...opposition with an modicum of respect and try suggesting re-wording" is precisely what I have done on the specific requests where there was opposition. For example, the version of "Fatal Pipeline Explosion" that I attempted to insert (which was promptly reverted by springee without explanation or justification) was not the original proposed revision and reflected the earlier input that I received from other editors. I have not made "demands" for wording as you indicated above. All of this is borne out by the content on the Koch Industries talk page submitted with the ANI request.

I have also not been the one "attacking." As a new editor, I was immediately met with a "username ban." When I continued the conversation with a new username as directed to by the notice I received, I was met with a "sockpuppet investigation." After posting my detailed edit requests, I was accused of association with a conspiracy theory site. Accusations have been repeatedly made (including in this thread) that I have too "strong a POV" to be an effective editor. And, yet, there is a remarkable lack of engagement from my "opposition" with the specific substance of my edit requests despite all these "attacks" that I have been subject to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by VeritasVincitUSA (talk • contribs) 09:37, 3 September 2015 (UTC) (sorry, I forgot to sign) - VeritasVincitUSA (talk) 09:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

VVUSA, you actually are attacking via implication. You just again implied that editors on the article are Koch affiliated. That does not help others assume you are coming with a NPOV. You now have three editors on the article who have asked you to slow down and give people time to read over your proposed edits. Please heed their requests and let the process take it's time. Springee (talk) 12:58, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Where did I "again impl[y] that editors on the article are Koch affiliated" in the paragraph immediately above? I merely responded to the accusation that I was "attacking" people by illustrating how I, in fact, was the one being "attacked." In fact, I explicitly made clear that I was NOT leveling such an accusation against any individual editor (and you in particular, springee) in a preceding paragraph. - VeritasVincitUSA (talk) 13:29, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I recommend that an admin also address Springee's tendentious editing. On multiple articles and with multiple editors, Springee reverts material or demands a consensus before well sourced information gets added to the article. This is an explicit example of tendentious editing. As per WP:TEND , "You delete the cited additions of others with the complaint that they did not discuss their edits first." A cursory search of of the article in question or Springee's contributions supply evidence for this on multiple occasions. I can provide diffs if necessary, just ping me. Scoobydunk (talk) 20:45, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I understand that you were not involved in the recent edits on the page in question. Perhaps you should review them and all of my "changes", all one of them, before accusing me of tendentious editing. If you think there is evidence that I was in the wrong please present it. Springee (talk) 21:11, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Here is the evidence of Springee's tendentious editing by ways of removing material from articles for the reason of "no consensus":[110][111][112][113] What's even worse is that Springee is not consistent with his barrier of gaining consensus before material gets added into the article. It appears when Springee finds the material agreeable, he's more than happy to keep it in the article without requiring consensus and even reverts others who remove the material. Here [114] Springee commends the adding of material by Rjensen though there was no consensus to add the material. In the first diff above, Springee reverted removal of some of this material while citing "no consensus", though that material never had consensus in the first place. As explained above, WP:TEND specifically identifies that removing material from others with the complaint of "no consensus" as tendentious editing. Springee has applied this barrier of editing to multiple users on multiple articles.Scoobydunk (talk) 18:46, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Request for administrator to close this ANI Though I think VeritasVinvitUSA was not acting in bad faith, this is an improperly formed ANI. I ask that it be closed. Thanks Springee (talk) 17:20, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I reiterate my request an impartial review of the referenced Koch Industries talk thread in the context of this ANI thread. The hostility, persistent insinuations and accusations regarding my POV and motives, and absence of meaningful, specific, constructive engagement on the substance of the individual edit requests that I have proposed should be obvious to a detached observer. That said, if Springee and others are willing to cease their "attacks" on me, and similarly work constructively as part of the editing process, I do not object to the ultimate closing of this ANI without sanctions being applied. - VeritasVincitUSA (talk) 17:48, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Springee - We're past that, I think. You might wish to read WP:BOOMERANG, however, as it may become relevant. VeritasVincitUSA - OK, let's start over. However you intended your statements, some editors have taken them as attacks. The term "Whitewashing" is taken very seriously around here, and you've got to understand that people take that sort of statement very seriously and, frequently, very personally. They don't know you, they just know that a newer editor is demanding sweeping changes to a very controversial article, and that this new editor seems to be accusing people of shenanigans. I'm not saying this is the case, but look at it from their side - we get a lot of that sort of thing. So you're clearly upset, and they're clearly not agreeing to your edits - whether because of perceived bias on your part or because of flaws in the edits themselves, I don't know. So take a deep breath, acknowledge that there were misunderstandings, and start over - pick one of these edits, propose it, and discuss ways in which the core information (who did what when with whom, etc) can be added to the article. Perhaps the references can be supplemented with sources from other editors, or assertions can be corroborated. Discussion is your path forward, here. We have lots and lots of very new editors who come here to right great wrongs - many end up blocked for reasons best laid out at WP:NOTHERE. If you can work with us, we welcome your input, just as we require you to be open to the input of others. If not, then perhaps this is not the project for you. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 19:40, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

As you can see from the Koch Industries talk thread, I am not only welcoming of input from others but eager to collaborate with other editors to arrive at the fairest and most objective treatment of the facts. In fact, I incorporated feedback from other editors in each revision of language that I proposed. I am still eager for a constructive dialog and very open to new information, such as additional sources that challenge the facts or narrative in the sources that I initially supplied. Per springee's earlier suggestion to start with a single edit, I recommended that we start with the "Fatal Pipeline Explosion" entry, and even he admitted that the language in the existing article "could use improvement". It would be great if we could start there and work collaboratively and constructively on that topic. - VeritasVincitUSA (talk) 20:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree, I think you do want to discuss and actually I'm pleased that you have elected to put your proposed changes on the talk page rather than on the article. All I, and others are asking is that you slow down and understand that people are going to assume you have a strong POV on the subject. As I've said before, a strong POV is NOT a problem and doesn't mean that you will make bad edits. You just have to understand that people have to be given time to digest the edits you want to make. As I said on the talk page, you should come at this with the assumption that the editors think the current article is fine and thus you must sell them on the idea that your changes will improve things. Often you have claimed a fact is significant but how do we decide that? We have to assume you have a bias towards including those facts based on your strong POV. That means we need something other than your opinion. That's not an attack, just explaining things from the other side of the table. Springee (talk) 21:19, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment All articles that are related to the Koch brothers have seen a fair amount of both whitewashing and blackwashing, but there are also a lot of editors who are working hard to maintain a NPOV. There has been some actual misbehavior on both the whitewashing and blackwashing sides but there are a lot more claims of misbehavior where no misbehavior -- just a content dispute -- exists. Normally I would predict that this was going to end up at arbcom with the result of discretionary sanctions, but the articles in question are already under discretionary sanctions as part of the american politics case. As the US elections grow more heated, I expect we will see a lot more of this. I think the best answer is to be liberal with the admin-issued warnings and with short blocks when we see misbehavior, meanwhile referring content disputes to WP:DRR. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:34, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I accept springee's implicit argument, above, that my own having come on too strong and been too aggressive, coupled with some measure of Status quo bias, is responsible for the current dispute.

I think it appropriate to apply a metaphor that illustrates what I believe to be the misunderstanding on both sides:

From my perspective, it was as if I was driving through an unfamiliar neighborhood (Wikipedia) and saw what I believed was a body in the middle of the street (a problematic article). My first instinct was to apply CPR (edit the article), which was completely rebuffed by the local authorities (reverted in its entirety by the existing editors). When I went to file a police report (on the talk page), I was repeatedly reprimanded about the way I was filing the report, asked why I would file a report since it isn't my neighborhood, and repeatedly told there was no body in the street by police officers who had not yet fully read or thoroughly engaged with the police report, itself.

From the perspective of the local police (existing editors) in a dangerous neighborhood (defending a controversial article), however, my behavior as a proactive and seemingly aggressive newcomer was seen as both against the neighborhood code of conduct, and an implicit "attack" on the quality of service that they had rendered to their local community. Their defensive and skeptical behavior is both understandable and possibly even justified (maybe the newcomer will increase the body count rather than merely help deal with the existing body).

Given this set of facts, it was inappropriate for me to assume that a murder coverup ("ongoing shenanigans") was being committed. If there is a body in the street (as I contend there still is), it is entirely possible that somebody died of natural causes, and/or that people in the (dangerous) neighborhood are so used to there bodies there that it had not occurred to them to question its presence.

I look forward to working constructively and collaboratively with the existing editors once they have had a chance to read and digest the proposed edits that I recommended. - VeritasVincitUSA (talk) 18:10, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

It is worth noting, however, that, since the suggestion that we "start over", another editor (AdventurousSquirrel) has posted yet another personal attack to my talk page and the Koch Industries talk page in an attempt to discredit me. It might be relevant that this user has previously posted long-winded defensive statements from Koch organizations, which are sourced to Koch-owned websites (Kochfacts.com), and replaced independent secondary source citations that cast Koch in an unfavorable light with (again) statements sourced to Koch-owned websites (KochPipeline.com). The second diff also shows that he is the source of the misleading Koch defense to the EPA 300 oil spill settlement (the "lack of attribution") that is explicitly rebutted by the EPA response (Koch refused to supply maps) in one of my edit requests.

It is also worth noting that there has been no constructive engagement (or any engagement at all) with the substance of my edit requests since September 3, despite the eagerness of multiple unmentioned editors to pounce on me in this ANI thread.

I do not mean to make accusations. However, I find the multiple unfounded attacks against me in this thread (which are contradicted by the Koch Industries talk page that I submitted with this ANI request), coupled with the lack of willingness to engage with the underlying edit requests, somewhat suspicious. I hope you will pardon my Shakespeare but they "doth protest too much, methinks." - VeritasVincitUSA (talk) 23:36, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

(adding reflist-talk) - VeritasVincitUSA (talk) 23:41, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi again VeritasVincitUSA. It may also be worth noting that the statements sourced to Kochfacts.com that you've expressed concern for here, are contained in a section called "Koch Industry response", which contains - as you might imagine - responses from Koch Industries. The KochPipeline.com reference, as far as I can tell, was already used in the article, and is used as a reference for one line about the terms of a settlement, along with three other references, including an occupational safety website, and two deadlinks to a newspaper and the EPA website...I'll see if I can recover those two sources. I haven't read about the map thing you mention yet, so I'm not really familiar with what you're talking about. If it's agreed to be an improvement, then it should absolutely be included.

I'm not sure I can be more clear about what I wrote on your talk page, but I'll give it a go: WP policy says that an account should be operated by one (1) individual. In the English language, individuals don't refer to themselves as "we"/"us"/"our", as I noted you have. I informed you of the policy, and suggested that if you happened to be in violation of it (since you're new and might not be familiar with all the rules), you might want to talk to someone about how to begin editing as prescribed by policy. I don't believe this could be construed as a "personal attack", but I apologize if it was.

And your "dead body" analogy makes a lot of assumptions that I don't know are true, probably colored by your apparent perception that you are an intrepid savior of some kind, as some of your other comments (and your username) seem to indicate. I think that what actually happened is that some people down the street told you the guy was dead, and you didn't really bother to check his pulse between sprinting up and proceeding to thump on his chest. If you had, maybe you would have found that he just needed to be woken gently, and repositioned slightly - to a bench nearby, perhaps; everyone standing around probably would've been happy to help you walk him over there, or even take him to the hospital to get checked out if need be. And now you're wondering why everyone's upset that you tried to crack the poor guy's ribs.

But anyhoo, I'm not sure this will get us anywhere - ready to start over when you are. AdventurousSquirrel (talk) 07:19, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good, and I apologize if I have come on too strong. But, the ball is (and has been) in your court. If we can all agree to start with the "Fatal Pipeline Explosion" edit summary, I look forward to a thorough discussion of the relevant events, facts, and sources as we work through the issues identified by that edit summary. - VeritasVincitUSA (talk) 14:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

References

Apparent reference abuse in Indian music/actor articles

JithDominicJose04 (talk · contribs) has been an active creator and editor of articles related to Indian actors and actresses (many of whom also have a singing career) and their associated films. However, their contributions have been markedly suboptimal. Specifically, seemingly cognizant of the need to provide references, all of these articles do just that—but the references provided rarely, if ever, make even passing mention of the topic of the article. They do not support the claims that they cite. Rather, this is pure reference abuse, making the appearance of cited sources to avoid quick-deletion processes like BLP-PROD or CSD. Several have been deleted recently, and another has only just appeared at AFD due to a defective prior listing. It is worth noting that the deletion nominator of all these articles, @Josu4u: is clearly not a native speaker of English; his complaints about "invalid URLs" may have allowed others to overlook or disregard the actual nature of the problem.

This situation is ongoing. JithDominicJose04's most recent creation was two days ago. Unni maya ( Singer ) suffers from precisely the same reference manipulation problem as the deleted articles listed above. In this case, it is possible that the topic of the article was intended to be "Devi Unnimaya", who is at least mentioned in the first linked source. However, sources that appear to actually support establishing notability (like the one for her purported involvement in Rani Padmini, do not mention "Unni" or "Maya" or anything that could remotely be interpreted as referring to this article's topic). Most of these articles don't have even that level of support in the "references".

JithDominicJose04 has never posted to an article Talk page, a User Talk page, nor have they participated in any of the extremely numerous deletion discussions for their articles (see their Talk, which is surely not comprehensive), except to strip deletion templates. Competence is required, especially in articles like these, where WP:BLP is potentially at play. It is also worth noting that there's a probably sock account, Jithdominic (talk · contribs). @Randykitty: raised the issue with both accounts in late June, but naturally, no communication was forthcoming. The Jithdominic account has been inactive since July but remains unblocked.

I hate having to be here, but this is taking up a lot of time at AFD and, frankly, I would consider every single contribution this account has made as suspect. Fraudulent sourcing and reference manipulation can be challenging to detect and are in significant conflict with the project's goals. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:46, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Just noting that there may be copyvio and promotional editing concerns too. For example the article KKonnect 24x7, (correctly) deleted as A7, was a cut-n-paste of the second para here. Cannot take a deeper dive at the moment so pinging @SpacemanSpiff and Drmies: who live for such stuff. Abecedare (talk) 22:33, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Yes, Spiff got me involved with that, with the promise of money. I have yet to see a dime. Why don't you ping RegentsPark? or Crisco 1492? Drmies (talk) 22:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• I looked at the four AfDs. These are indeed serious concerns. I had a quick look at Unni maya ( Singer ), where two or three of the "references" do mention (yes) the person, though spelled entirely differently. At the very least there is some serious incompetence here, and this editor should not be creating articles until they a. have better command over the language and b. use reliable sources properly. I have not looked for copyvios--I assume someone here can plug this stuff into a URL and come up with some answer. Drmies (talk) 23:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• I know there have been at least some copyvio issues. In addition to the one Abecedare mentions above, they got pinged by CorenSearchBot for Bol Baby Bol ( Surya Tv) and Dj Vispi back in June and July. And their image uploads are problematic. A whole bunch of uploaded images are up for deletion at Commons as is another slate of them uploaded by the other account. Commons missed this one so far; there's some chutzpah in claiming a watermarked image as own-work. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that every image they've ever uploaded is a copyright issue falsely tagged. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 23:24, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Add WP:COI concerns to the mix. See Draft:Jith Dominic Jose (created by one of the accounts, citing a website run by article subject) about producer of film Smrithi (edited by both reported accounts), with music by Unni maya ( Singer ) etc. And KKonnect 24x7 is also, er, connected (off-wiki evidence). User:Sanilps62's edits also need review. Abecedare (talk)
  • You mean the Sanilps62 who created Jith_Dominic_Jose? Hmm, yes, the plot thickens. Can we get CU to come by, and block a whole bunch of them at the same time? I think it's blocking time--promotion, copyright violations, incompetence, socking. Drmies (talk) 00:37, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• • • I think Squeamish Ossifrage has typed what I wanted to a few threads above. I've been meaning to look into this a while back when I first saw these odd articles and the associated A1/A7s but it slipped my mind after a few image deletions at Commons. I hadn't seen the copyvio bit earlier. If sockpuppetry is suspected (and I did) Commons is a better place to figure it out as there are at least a couple more more throwaway accounts with image uploads over there. I suspect this problem might have started at ml.wiki and Josu4u followed the ed from over there to here. —SpacemanSpiff 02:46, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Summary and update Sanilps62 is clearly related to the Jith accounts, but given the autobiographical stub Sanil ps that he created, this may be a case of meat-puppetry rather than socking. JithDominicJose04 and Jithdominic are obvious socks and the latter has been blocked by Spaceman. And there are more accounts involved eg Kreativekkonnect (talk · contribs), so CU search would definitely help. In any case, here is the list of articles created by the users that still remain:

Articles needing review

Unni maya ( Singer ) (at AFD) Arun Shekhar (at AFD) Rajaganapathy (now a redirect) Vaishnav Girish (now a redirect) Pranav Pradeep (at AFD) Unto the Dusk (at AFD) Aakashvani (film) (at AFD) Saniya Iyappan (at AFD) Anju Kurian (at AFD) Ajith Mathew (at AFD) Anu Krishna (at AFD) Draft:Anu Krishna Hari Baskaran Rathnam (now a redirect) Hari Bhaskaran Rathinam (at AFD) Draft:Theertha Vinod Daniel Annie Pope (at AFD) M Chandramohan (at AFD) Sidharth Prabhu (at AFD) Sunu Lakshmi Draft:Sunu Lakshmi Hemachandran (actor) (at AFD) Draft:Jith Dominic Jose Theertha Vinod (at AFD) Palakkattu Madhavan (at AFD) File:Jayan Cherthala Actor.jpg Smrithi (at AFD) Meen (2015 film) (at AFD)

Unless someone is willing to just IAR-delete the bunch, help needed to review the articles individually and decide if prod, AFD, speedy-deletion, redirection, merge, or clean-up are appropriate. Any objections to indeffing User:JithDominicJose04 and User:Kreativekkonnect for socking and mass COI/disruptive editing?

PS Can't review this area w/o running into promotional/paid /COI editing at every turn. Example, see Ivanshanti (talk · contribs) promoting Reelmonk; or article history of Viviya Santh. Abecedare (talk) 14:26, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• SPI filed at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JithDominicJose04. I've blocked a couple of accounts as obvious socks. There's obviously way too much COI and paid editing here, I don't see the value of replicating this discussion at COIN which is already overloaded. —SpacemanSpiff 16:44, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Thank you all for realizing the truth. I reviewed the articles mentioned above and all the articles except Arun Shekhar used references as abuse (also: almost all references used are from gossip websites/paid article creating websites) and i feel there's no importance of all that articles in Wikipedia, if these Articles are not deleted from Wikipedia all visitors will surely feel that anyone can create Articles about themselves, and there's no-one in Wikipedia to remove these kinds of abuse. Hope Wikipedia admins will remove the articles except Arun Shekhar and keep the trust in Wikipedia to a higher level.Josu4u (talk) 21:05, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
  • On a spot-check I believe you are right about the sources. I have nominated Smrithi for deletion and will start looking over the others. Help would be welcome! Abecedare (talk) 15:47, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
• Update OK, I have reviewed all the above listed articles and all mainspace creations are at AFD (or redirected), except for Sunu Lakshmi who may be notable enough (although article needs clean-up). Interested editors are invited to participate at the AFDs. Note that more potential members of this PR group have been identified at the SPI; their sock/meat-puppetry remains to be confirmed and their edits need to be reviewed. Finally, does anyone know what CSD criteria can be used to delete the duplicate/autobiographical draft articles in AFC space? Abecedare (talk) 18:22, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Abecedare, you may want to check the link with Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sanju Vishnudas. —SpacemanSpiff 19:44, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• Hello everyone, I know its not the right place to report this. Now i found another user who creates articles similar to this discussion, This is the user page Patelhime (talk · contribs).

Articles I found to be used reference abuse by the user are :

1. Sulakshana Khatri
2. Chaar Choughi
3. Mere Angne Mein
4. Faraaz Khan
5. Satrangi Sasural
6. Loveleen Kaur Sasan

Some of the articles use references as YouTube, some others use some gossip websites. Hope someone check check these and will report these articles to the concerned Wikipedia team.

WP:BURO bullshit

A procedural question, really. Somebody about whom there's a thread closes it. (And does so neatly and cleanly, though without signing.) Someone else reverts this. A third editor reverts the second editor (re-closing the thread), with the comment "It doesn't fucking matter who does it." Question: Does it fucking matter who closes threads? -- Hoary (talk) 02:14, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Was the thread going to result in an admin using the tools? Had it played out to its conclusion? Who needs to be blocked as a direct result of the discussion therein? The thread was ended. We don't demand that rules are followed just to follow rules, where there is no future action required. Let me make it blunt. Should the named editor in that thread be blocked? If not, there's no point in keeping the thread open anymore. Nor is there any reason to have this thread, unless you want someone else blocked. Name some names and give some reasons if that is the case. --Jayron32 02:20, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

No it doesn't matter. It is unwise but very understandable to close a thread on oneself, becasue people will assume that the close is suspect, and either revert it, or waste time checking that it isn't.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:22, 3 September 2015 (UTC).

I agree with Rich – "self-closing" ANI threads is probably not advisable, but is acceptable in certain cases (e.g. the equivalent of a WP:SNOW close when the odds of no Admin action are near 100%, or when the OP "withdraws" the ANI complaint). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Jayron32, my intention was to spend some time checking that all the problems had been undone, and whether there were other issues, and if everything was fine, then to close it later this evening. If you wanted to close it, that's fine. But it isn't fine to close it by scolding me and cursing at me. People ought not to close threads about themselves, especially not over an objection. That's particularly true of an editor who has been asked to respect consensus and procedure. Your close didn't send a helpful message in that regard. I was shocked to see your response, so I'd prefer to say no more about it. Sarah ^(talk) 03:41, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• @SlimVirgin: I apologize. It was rude of me to be so gruff, and also to cut you short in what you were trying to do. I should have probably investigated more fully. I have no excuse, and you are of course, entirely correct in being upset at my rash actions. I apologize for them, and will try better next time to hold my tongue and also to be more cautious in stepping on toes. --Jayron32 16:10, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Jayron32, thank you for that, and of course it's completely accepted. Sarah ^(talk) 18:08, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• Back to my original, general question: I think that only Rich Farmbrough has given it a direct answer. This answer surprises me: If it's so clear that a thread can be closed, then surely somebody else can close it. Can we have this compromise: If somebody closes a thread about themself, they should at least avoid any ambiguity about who closed it. (This is as simply done as typing "~~~~".) -- Hoary (talk) 23:35, 3 September 2015 (UTC) ..... PS I missed IJBall's comment. Sorry: I blame caffeine deficiency. -- Hoary (talk) 00:24, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• FTR, if I had been asked in this case, I would have advised against Tortle closing that one down themselves. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:33, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

When a user tries to close a thread about themselves, they can be seen to avoid sanctions and it is right to revert those sorts of closes and just get on with the business that ANI handles. In this case, there was an acknowledgement of the problem, a commitment to do better and everyone can move on amiably. Isn't it moments like this that WP:IAR was written for? Blackmane (talk) 02:09, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Jakesyl

Jakesyl (talk · contribs)

• Editor for 5 years, with a few score edits, have reviewed his edits briefly, can't spot a good one.
• Regularly wipes warnings from his talk page.
• Vandalism such as this in 2012
• Today he fake-AfD'd a bivalve article, and templated a dozen editor's talk pages.

Suggest user is not here to contribute, and should be indef blocked.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:32, 3 September 2015 (UTC).

• You want somebody indefinitely blocked from editing because...they remove things from their talk page, which they are allowed to do, and because of an edit from three years ago, which I personally believe you falsely labeled as vandalism? As for the AfD, it seems to be the first AfD Jake has tried to open, and they may not have understood how to properly complete the process, as opposed to deliberately wanting to disrupt. Yes, they've been here over six years, but in that time they've only made 172 contributions to the site. Perhaps we should show them how things work around here, instead of trying to get them indefinitely banned from editing. Azealia911 _talk 02:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, I've tried to learn, and have tried to be adopted in the past to no avail. Also would someone please tell me what was wrong with the AFD? The article is a stub on a non notable topic? Jakesyl (talk)jakesyl

Maybe I was too harsh. Lets try a fresh welcome instead. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:57, 3 September 2015 (UTC).

Except that this has happened before more than once Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:09, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

… and this is a little odd. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 03:13, 3 September 2015 (UTC).

Rich, Unfortanutely, I log on from a public computer, and will occasionally forget to log out/stay logged in for some reason. Additionally, wikipedia doesn't offer MFA Jakesyl (talk) 11:19, 3 September 2015 (UTC)jakesyl

A bit early for WP:NOTHERE I think, but their talk page hardly inspires confidence. [115] [116] [117] [118]. I'm not sure if trolling or WP:COMPETENCE, but probably a bit of both. Suggest an admonition, and a warning that further behaviour of this ilk will lead blocks. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 16:04, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I went over this, I work a lot from public computers and will occasionally forget to log out. Someone sees a Wikipedia account with a few hundred edits and I guess they figure you're less likely to revert. I also want to mention that I think as dedicated editors you lose sight of why I have a Wikipedia account. It's not to maintain the site or be an active contributor, its so when I'm browsing the web and I see something wrong on Wikipedia I can change it and make the Wikipedia project better. What I did with the AFD would never be considered vandalism in open source software, but the mark of an inexperienced user and would be corrected. If you delete someones account every time they attempt (but fail) to make a change you'll end up with no users left. If you're really committed to building Wikipedia as a community and a reliable source of information, consider telling me what I did wrong rather than outright banning me with no explanation of why my edit was wrong. I did everything on the afd page. Additionally, I may have been "an editor" for 5 years, but I've probably spent less than an hour and a half editing. After doing some reasearch and trying to figure out what I did wrong, I looked at some of your edits to try to see how a proper deletion would go. While I was there, I came across many edits that conflict with WP:DNB. I'd hate to boomerang, but suggesting to delete a new users account after a ill-formatted AFD is wrong. We all make mistakes. Jakesyl (talk) 19:12, 3 September 2015 (UTC)jakesyl

The problem with the AfD was that you didn't create the actual AfD page itself. With such a number of notifications, including Jimbo Wales it looked disruptive.

It's also worth knowing that some discussions have been had so many times that the outcome is a foregone conclusion, for AfD there are some examples at WP:OUTCOMES - in particular WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:28, 4 September 2015 (UTC).

Mock RfA

A newly registered user with just 12 edits put me up on RfA. It's hard to judge whether it's just a good faith newby, or just one of the countless trolls I deal with on my talk page. In any case, I'd like the RfA page deleted. As far as action on the account is concerned, I'll leave it up to the admins though it does seem like a fake account IMO. Mar4d (talk) 07:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

 Done deleted the page. I also suppressed some early userpage edit. Leaving the rest to another admin's judgement. Keegan (talk) 07:44, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt action Keegan. Mar4d (talk) 07:45, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Not actually newly registered, Mar4d; they registered on 23 August ands made a couple of edits then, that Keegan has oversighted. The user's contribs list shows the classic "back-and-forth-to-get-autoconfirmed" pattern. All edits are from today, excepting only the two from 23 August. I presume the oversight of the earlier edits prevented the autoconfirmation? But the contribs pattern itself is a bad sign: it's characteristic of a sleeper intended to be used for vandalism at semi'd pages. Or alternatively, in this case, to be used for creating Mar4d's RFA (I'm not sure if you need to be autoconfirmed to create an RFA, but it does involve creating a page). Altogether, it doesn't look good, and I'm pretty sure this is a troll amusing themselves. Please note, AGF-warriors, and feel free to execrate me below.

Keegan, I presume you had a reason for oversighting those early edits. Abuse or merely self-outing? Anyway, it might be interesting to watch for when they actually become autoconfirmed, on 7 Sept 06:54 UTC. Not a very good time in my timezone, so perhaps another admin or two would like to keep an eye out as well. Bishonen | talk 15:42, 3 September 2015 (UTC).

Can these pointless TP nil-edits be redacted too? That way the user will go back to zero count, and will at least have to make sensible edits to become auto-c. _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 15:46, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure, but I don't think deleting edits effects autoconfirm. Even if it did that is not what revdel is for. Chillum 15:52, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Deletion or suppression of a user's edits has absolutely no effect on their autoconfirmed status. Graham87 08:30, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

My logic, a) If they know how to bypass autoconfirm and how to file an RfA then this is not their first account, b) From WP:SOCK: "Editing project space: Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project.", like creating an RfA. This seems like an inappropriate use of an alternate account to me. Chillum 16:07, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Mass deletion request / Can anybody speak Hebrew?

LizT800 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has uploaded several images from http://www.rabbikohane.org with the claim that Kohane has released them into the public domain. I doubt this for several reasons:

• The files are of varying age. This makes me suspicious that the webmaster does not own the rights.
• At the bottom of the gallery pages which are given as sources, there is a notice which, according to Google Translate, says "(c) All Rights Reserved".
• Several files are photos of people's writings and so derivative works.

I nominated one for speedy deletion but then thought it would be better to post here to get a unified response an in case any Hebrew-speakers could bring to light anything relevant on the site.

To be clear, I think these should be presumed copyvios and deleted. Thanks, BethNaught (talk) 11:23, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Meir Kahane (listed as the author) was assassinated in 1990, so unless she's got a good medium, it would be interesting to know how he managed to give permission to release them into the public domain. However, as he is in most of the photos, I don't think he is the actual author. You are correct about the translation of the copyright though. Number 57 12:40, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Number 57. Pinging Diannaa because she has just tagged them for F11. Does this information make you think they should be F9? BethNaught (talk) 14:13, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

(ec) These images all qualify for deletion under criterion WP:F11 (no evidence of permission). There's a source and a license, but no proof that the images are released under the license provided. F9 is not the correct criterion in this instance. -- Diannaa (talk) 14:17, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Even where Kahane is patently not the author? BethNaught (talk) 14:22, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

It is obviously against copyright, just delete it. The terrifying Scourge of Trumpton 14:25, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

@BethNaught: That's the way I have been interpreting the criteria. Off to work now, ttyl. -- Diannaa (talk) 14:33, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Request block of 141.239.155.158

The contributions speak for themselves, really.

• 141.239.155.158 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• Idiopathic environmental intolerances (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Edit warring to include copy-pasted conspiracy theorizing and egregious BLP violations, with a generous portion of vicious personal attacks in his edit summaries. Would place the block myself, but I reverted him yesterday and it will save some nuisance unblock requests if someone else does it. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:24, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Blocked 31 hours for egregious personal attack. --Randykitty (talk) 19:27, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks. Semi-protection of the article might be required, too, but we'll see. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Deflategate

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

---

Hello, can someone take a look at Deflategate? It appears that there are people vandalizing the page. It just got reverted again but he's been fairly persistant. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deflategate&oldid=679306770

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deflategate&type=revision&diff=679305314&oldid=679304787

Some kind of troll I think. the profile is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/24.218.237.3

Swordman97 ^{talk to me} 19:30, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Actually, looking at his history it's almost [119] entirely composed of vandalism to football articles. Swordman97 ^{talk to me} 19:38, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP for approximately the same duration as it has been used to vandalise articles.--Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 20:06, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

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

Hounding by User:‎Pluto2012

‎Pluto2012 has been hounding me for some time now. I have asked him to stop stalking me but he continued to follow me and revert good edits. I list only reverts on pages he had never edited before.

1. Susya, Har Hebron‎ - Removing material under bogus claim while deletion dicussion was taking place in which he voted 'delete'.
2. 2006 Jerusalem gay pride parade - This article was merged with Jerusalem gay pride parade after swift discussion. Pluto reverted claiming "no such discussion on the talk page" only to reply to it later (and not revert). I have followed protocol for a merge, to which Pluto didn't bother comment, and then finally made the merge.
3. Yaakov Havakook - His edits were decent but one in which he claim 'Category:Israeli anthropologists' is only for scholars though Havakook is mentioned by many sources as an anthropologist. I am not sure about this but the hounding is clear.
4. Anarchists Against the Wall - Deleted text b/c I mistaken page 83 to 82. Good edit. Still hounding.
5. Ta'ayush - Like the above.
6. At-Tuwani - Deleted two RS. The first is an Israeli encyclopedia used 41 times on wikipedia. The second was essentially copied from Susya and the source was discussed here.

I asked him to self-revert but upon playing games and repeated refusal I am asking for this discussion for his practice of hounding me as well as unjustified reverts. Settleman (talk) 20:59, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Just one comment: that "Ariel Encyclopedia" is used 41 places on Wikipedia, is absolutely no argument in favour of it being WP:RS: I have several times removed fake sources (like palestinefacts.org), used here many more times. However, I´m not familiar with "Ariel Encyclopedia": does it have anything to do with the Israeli Ariel-settlement on the West Bank? Huldra (talk) 21:16, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

@Huldra: No, it's nothing to do with the settlement. The encyclopedia was written by Zev Vilnay, a renowned geographer and Israel Prize winner. The first volume was published in 1969, almost a decade before the settlement was founded. There is an article on the he.wiki about it if you would like to read further. It is almost certainly a RS given its author's credentials and the fact that it was published by Am Oved. Number 57 22:12, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

This is not the place to discuss this but this is not wp:rs. According to its article, Am Oved was created by Histadrut "with a goal of publishing books that would "meet the spiritual needs of the working public" and according to his article, Zev Vilany was not a "reknown geographer" but a "a military topographer in the Haganah, and later in the Israel Defense Forces". I don't know that man but having in mind his personal encyclopedia (in 10 vol. indeed) was published after '67, has the name of the main Israeli settlement of West Bank at the time, and published books titled "Legends of Judea and Samaria", "Sinai, Avar Vehoveh", "Golan Vehermon" he may have some ideas in mind...Pluto2012 (talk) 22:23, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Ariel was established in 1978; the first volume was published in 1969, so Ariel was clearly not "the main Israeli settlement of West Bank at the time". In addition, your pooh-poohing of Am Oved suggests a distinct ignorance about the subject (for instance, it published Correcting a Mistake: Jews and Arabs in Palestine/Israel, 1936-1956 and several Amos Oz books). Number 57 22:47, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

You are right. There is no link with the settlement.
Regarding Am Oved reliability at the time (a Publishing house evolves as society. The left at the Birth of Israel was not the left at the time of Morris and Oz and is not the left today), as well as Zev Vilany reliability, that requires more study and I don't know that man. His background doesn't talk for him, not at all. But he can be found in numerous bibliographies. I would have expected to find references of his "books" in academic publications but could not. He is also notorious, without doubt Pluto2012 (talk) 23:04, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Irrespective of the content or of their political leanings, Am Oved is one of the leading Israeli publishing companies, and Vilnay a leading geographer. This is certainly a reliable source; though it does not appear to have been cited or paraphrased accurately in the edits under question. RolandR (talk) 11:16, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't "hound" Settleman. I am one of the many contributors who see what he does. For some points I have supported his mind (eg here) but for many I am opposed.

Settleman is frustrated because the reliability of the sources that he uses is questionned as here or here for Arutz 7, because he has no answer to provide and because nobody supports his points.

He created the article about "Mr" Havakook on 10 August after he found a source with him and because he wanted to use it, thinking that would create notoriety for him. But he doesn't know anything on the topic or that man and has never had a book of this man in hand or studied what he could have said. He just "needs" him.

Same for Ariel Encyclopedia. He has just discovered this and doesn't want to know what it is but just wants to use an information from there because it does interest him to push a point on an article. And that's it.

He is WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia but to explain to the world that the Israeli settlers claims on Susiya are legitimate. No more, no less.

The issue for me to manage him is that he really looks really good faith but just doesn't understand. Pluto2012 (talk) 22:01, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

What's said above is a good example of inappropriate stalking: regardless of the "good" or "bad" in your edits, if you're editing to stalk another user, you don't belong here. Blocked for 48 hours with a reminder that recidivism will result in longer blocks. Nyttend (talk) 00:24, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

The material from Ariel on Tuwani article supports the Palestinian side b/c it is an evidence of the village existence prior to 1967. I checked Ariel at a request from Huldra and found the info so I added it.

The Susya article was solely PNPOV (Palestinian Nerrative POV) before I started editing it. The view Regavim writes about is similar to the official Israeli position. Even if it wasn't, Wikipedia aims to be neutral so I don't see why it shouldn't be on the article. Settleman (talk) 09:04, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Cause-of-death vandal -- rangeblock him?

The Cause-of-death vandal just got blocked for a week, but this guy doesn't respect any of our blocks. Can we rangeblock him to make it more difficult for him to disrupt the project? The IPs 86.174.160.xx to 86.174.162.xx are often involved, along with other very different IPs in the same geographic area. Binksternet (talk) 21:42, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

If you give me a range to block, I'll do it, but I don't trust myself to select the right range in the first place. Best format is to give me a link to Special:Block/replacethesewordswiththerangetoblock. Nyttend (talk) 00:15, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Too much collateral damage. unfortunately. I asked for an edit filter about two months ago but it hasn't been actioned. I'll add some more information now. Black Kite (talk) 10:27, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

User:Pgbrux

Pgbrux (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Atacama skeleton (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Steven M. Greer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Pgbrux is a single purpose account, used for no other purpose than the promotion of a fringe POV regarding extraterrestrials in regard to our article on the Atacama skeleton, and to the related Steven M. Greer biography. As our article makes clear, the skeleton has unequivocally been demonstrated to be human, by DNA evidence. Pgbrux has however repeatedly edited the articles to refer to the skeleton as 'humanoid', and to otherwise promote the discredited 'extraterrestrial' hypothesis. Despite repeated requests to engage in discussion, and despite repeated warnings over edit-warring (see User talk:Pgbrux) the contributor has refused to do anything but restore the fringe material - frequently using entirely bogus edit summaries. (see e.g. [120][121]) Given that Pgbrux seems to have made no useful contributions to Wikipedia, and instead seems to think that relentless promotion of fringe material is an appropriate way to behave, I would have to suggest that an indefinite block per WP:NOTHERE would be the best course of action. It has been suggested that Pgbrux may possibly be a sock of User:Schladd and/or (blocked) User:Stickleback987, given the similarities in edit history, but frankly I don't think a SPI is necessary - sock or not, we can do without this sort of 'contributor'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:29, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Diffs on Pbrux' talk made in preparation for an ANEW report. --Ronz (talk) 00:36, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Note: even after being notified of this ANI report [122], Pgbrux has continued to add the disputed material. [123] Evidently nothing but a block is going to have any effect whatsoever. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:54, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Blocked for a week. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:40, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Disruptive editing at Talk:History of Japan

Despite warnings to stop [124][125][126], User:Signedzzz continues to add and re-add an unsigned and unhelpful message to an already bitter talk page discussion at Talk:History of Japan.[127][128][129]

Before this I'd already already declared I'm giving up copyediting the article as there are too many serious problems and—more frustratingly—too many editors who are unwilling to work in good faith on improving the problems—rather, they'd rather attack me when I even bring them up. Discussion and cooperation are impossible, and this hostility will clearly continue without me. Signedzzz isn't the only problem, but the editwarring to keep a message designed to bait and avoid working toward article improvement is a concrete issue that needs to be dealt with. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:24, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Replied to "warning" on my talk page. This is ludicrous. zzz (talk) 03:45, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• Am I mistaken, or is the subject of an ANI report allowed to delete his name from the report heading? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:57, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

There is apparently disagreement on that area. I have had my ANI reports altered for not having "neutral" headings in the past, and certainly a heading that gives the impression that Signedzzz is either the only culprit or the principal culprit in this case is not neutral. I frankly don't care about 90% of the stuff you, Nishidani and Signedzzz have been arguing over one way or the other, but implying this dispute is the fault of anyone but CurtisNaito and TH1980 is basically a misrepresentation in my opinion. Another user recently tried to alter a heading in an ANI discussion to make it about me when it clearly was not just about me, and I reverted them; their response was to say the same thing you just did, claiming that I alone, and not the other user, was the "subject of the report" and so should not be allowed delete my own name. I thought he should have just dropped it then, and I think you should just drop it here. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:30, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• I'm pretty sure editwarring on ANI is not permitted. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:16, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

You would be right, of course. But, again, if someone felt policy was on Signedzzz's side (and a lot of people think WP:TALKNEW applies to ANI as well as article talk pages) then you would be the one engaged in disruptive edit-warring while Signedzzz is just trying to enforce policy. Again, I frankly agree with the point of view that ANI headers don't have to be neutral, but I think in this case a neutral header would have been more constructive. And I've had just about enough of both users both edit-warring to change ANI headers and inserting non-neutral headers against consensus of late. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:30, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment from peripherally involved but basically neutral observer It is not clear what sanction is being called for here. This is essentially a content dispute that has been exacerbated by the toxic atmosphere on the talk page, which was primarily the work of User:CurtisNaito and two other users he brought in to be the "bad cop" to his "good cop" and help him fight his battles. The users in question (User:Nishidani was also involved for a time, and both he and Signedzzz have been accused of trolling by Curly Turkey as a result) have done a pretty poor job of discussing the dispute. Again, I must emphasize that it is not, in my opinion, the fault of Curly Turkey, Signedzzz or Nishidani that constructive talk page discussion is near-impossible in this case. Nishidani briefly brought the dispute into the article space by inserting a bad ref to verify not the factual claim in question but the use of a grammatical structure Curly Turkey disagreed with. This was an unnecessary and somewhat pointy edit, but was also extremely minor. Nishidani and Signedzzz opposed some proposals from Curly Turkey on the talk page, and their comments were collapsed with the heading "Political horseshit not focused on improving the article". I know Curly Turkey has a reputation for not being as polite as he perhaps could be, but in this case all parties on the talk page except for CurtisNaito and TH1980 (including myself) have been uncharacteristically aggressive. The reason I say except CurtisNaito and TH1980 is because CurtisNaito is engaged in his usual passive-aggressive, ignore-every-dissenting-opinion, slow-motion-revert-war, never-ever-use-foul-language but constantly-accuse-others-of-not-being-constructive behaviour, and TH1980 is engaged in his usual "CurtisNaito is right and Hijiri88 is wrong" and "everything I don't agree with is a personal attack, despite what the policy says" rambling. If anyone is to be sanctioned in this dispute, it should not be Curly Turkey or Signedzzz, or for that matter Nishidani, me, Sturmgewehr88, Rjensen, Phoenix7777 or Vivexdino. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:19, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Probably the main issue is that some editors are spending an excessive amount of time making personal attacks on other users instead of actually commenting on article content. When I post anything about article content, too many other users ignore the issues at question and instead rely exclusively on personal attacks. Curly Turkey apparently has been having the same problem, though he said it was Signedzzz and Nishidani who were derailing the discussion.

I don't think the off-topic commentary that Hijiri has been making about me personally on the talk page has contributed much to article content.CurtisNaito (talk) 04:42, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

For the record, what Curtis calls "off-topic commentary" by me is my asserting that his recent edits to the article have been disruptive and overall unhelpful (something everyone else, including Signdzzz, Nishidani and Curly Turkey agree), that his edits have a tendency to introduce OR and misrepresentation of sources into the article (again, something everyone agrees), and that this pattern is consistent with CurtisNaito's edits to other articles in the past (something everyone agrees now, and agreed in the past on those articles as well). Pointing out where the problems with talk page discussion and the article content originate is not a personal attack, despite what CurtisNaito wants to claim. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:35, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

If my edits were disruptive to the article, I would not have succeeded at bringing it to good article status before you or any other editor did. You keep on making accusations and personal attacks against me on the talk page, but the problem is that you have no evidence to support your claims. I am reminded about what John Carter said recently about you, "taking recourse to irrational, probably unsupportable, insults and obscenities directed against those with whom you are in disagreement". You apparently disagree with me (while still so often declining to discuss actual content), but that's no reason to make false accusations against me.CurtisNaito (talk) 06:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

What "false accusations" have I made against you??? Wikipedia policy clearly defines accusations of bad behaviour made without evidence as personal attacks. You have been asked several times to provide evidence of the above "false accusations" you keep claiming I made -- when is the evidence getting here, Curtis? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:51, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I've already requested a few times that Hijiri lay off on the personal attacks and discuss article content instead, but he will not listen.TH1980 (talk) 15:54, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Request move to temporarily block user Ritsaiph for personal attacks

Hello Wiki admins, am I coming to the right place? I hereby wish to make a request to you all to take action against User:Ritsaiph for making threats, personal attacks, insults, harassment, and using derogatory language against other users while discussing on a thread.

The case issue can be read at here. This user, who has never made any single contribution to this template, came onto the thread went on whacking another user rudely, who has been contributing to this template for many months, out of sudden just because consensus has reached a deadlock. I hope the Wiki admins consider looking into this manner properly and take further appropriate action against him. We only want to continue our civil discussions but he had to keep attacking and issue threats somehow. Thank you. Myronbeg (talk) 04:11, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

As it clearly states at the top of every edit block for this page, “When you start a discussion about an editor, you must notify them on their user page.” I have done this for you. Now please provide specific offs of what you need help with. --Adam in MO Talk 16:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

This user was upset that no one shared its POV in the article talk page which concerned making changes to the article. Many other editors have disagreed with the user, so the user had a Wikipedia tantrum and began accusing me of harassment and personal attacks. I do admit to criticizing the users ability to type coherent sentences while ranting on the talk page "If by "personal attacks, harassment and making threats" you mean correcting your poorly typed-grammar, then I fully agree, I am being a terrible person for doing something your grade 2 teacher should have taught you a long time ago... or maybe not so long ago. " and that, in light of the multitude of editors who disagree with Myronbeg, that we could make the edits whether he agrees or not i.e Regardless if he was on board or not, we would simply ignore the user. "We could ride roughshod over you and you can't really do anything about it." I am not apologetic for either of these statements.

I did state firmly that I would launch an WP:AN or WP:ANI against Myronbeg if the user kept reverting any future edits which had been agreed upon on the talk page, which would constitute as vandalism, "If your intransigence still kept the coloring from being implemented, I could always file a WP:AN or WP:ANI against you for disruptive edits. " diff here [130]. The user implied that he would revert any edits made without his consent, "I did not made any vandalism to this template as the original color was always black for AQAP, red for government forces, and yellow for Houthis (later I requested changing to green, but at least at that time no one objected it unlike I do for AQAP-grey)... I can argue that people are vandalizing this page by imposing their own opinion...You are not in a position to challenge me." diff here [131].

Because consensus had been reached by an absolute majority of 5 editors to 1, and followed consistency with other articles, I thought it was appropriate to use a heavy-handed response to Myronbeg's continued whinging about no one sharing the users POV. Furthermore, I was the one who actually recommended Myronbeg to file an WP:ANI against me, "Of course, you can file an WP:AN or WP:ANI against me, and I would support it if you did" diff here [132]. I wanted admins to see what kind of an editor he is. One who believes that his opinion weighs more than the opinions of others, and whose attitude has caused editors to divert their energy to argue against him on the talk page rather than improving the map that the article is based on. I am aware that some of the statements I have made were crude and inappropriate and may come under scrutiny. But when all you want to do is to actually make an article better with an improvement seen on many other maps, (Libyan Civil War map and Syrian Civil War map) you get tired of nuisances that impede the progress. --Ritsaiph (talk) 07:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Possible legal threat

Hi all, would this edit summary by 197.248.92.82 (talk) count as a legal threat? Thanks, ^{My name is}not^dave (talk/contribs) 16:30, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it is a legal threat, not even by our definition. Chillum 16:33, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Hmm. Nevertheless, the IP has created an account to do the work: see here. ^{My name is}not^dave (talk/contribs) 16:34, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Given the large amount of edit warring being done by multiple IPs and new accounts that appear to be the same person for an extended period of time I have semi-protected the page temporarily. Chillum 16:37, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

There may well be other issues at play, and blocks and protections may need to be issued for those other reasons, but I also do not see it as a clear NLT issue. The phasing "the government of Uganda has spoken" could also be an attempt to cite a source of information. Of course, that ALSO does not excuse edit warring, but it isn't a legal threat, at least not unambiguously so. If he had said "The government of Uganda will deal with you if you put this back" or something like that, THEN we have an NLT issue. But the phrasing used, while it could be interpreted as a threat, is also ambiguous enough that I wouldn't feel comfortable for using that as the rationale when issuing sanctions. Sanctions, of course, may be well deserved under a multitude of other rationales. --Jayron32 19:00, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

After I semi-protected the page it seems that a discussion has started on the talk page, I will keep an eye on the page. Chillum 19:17, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I hope somebody will reply to what I have said on my talk page, but it's becoming increasingly unlikely. ^{My name is}not^dave (talk/contribs) 21:42, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with what's said above. "The government has spoken" sounds to me like "The government already announced what happened", or "The government already announced its position" — in other words, "It's already possible to know the government's position on this matter". I can't imagine someone understanding my rephrasings as legal threats. Meanwhile, "The government of Uganda will deal with you if you put this back", or "You risk trouble from the government of Uganda if you do X" isn't necessarily a legal threat: it's perhaps saying "Watch out, because you can get yourself in trouble". This sense isn't particularly different from saying "Stop infringing copyright on Wikipedia, because it makes you liable to a lawsuit by the copyright holder and possible criminal charges." Of course it could also be a legal threat, but we can't make a blanket statement: we have to examine the context. Nyttend (talk) 21:52, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

User violating WP:NOTWEBHOST on his talk page

The user in question is User:Aerppab. After having some of their articles speedy deleted they are now reposting what appears to be the same content on their talk page, in violation of WP:NOTWEBHOST and WP:NOT#OR. This user appears to be here only to add their own original research to Wikipedia, whether in its own article(s) or as wikilinks to other articles (namely cosmology). This seems disruptive and so I think an admin should intervene. Everymorning (talk) 00:48, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Gave them a final warning. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:04, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Talk page abuse by blocked school IP

24.186.147.139 is currently school-blocked for 2 years. As soon as the IP was blocked, the IP said that they were crying, violating WP:NOTFACEBOOK and WP:NOTFORUM (and maybe WP:PRAM). Then the IP removed the {{anonblock}} template disruptively. Also, before the block, there was a personal attack by the IP and some other abuse so this already warranted a talk page revokal already, but talk access was not revoked. --TL22 (talk) 01:14, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

How long did you allow the tantrum for? Did they return after several days to continue? Or would it be best to just leave them alone for 24 hours, with no response from us, until they go away for the day, never to return, and then we can clean up their mess? --Jayron32 03:18, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

legal threat from 54.147.55.196

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[133] Bentogoa (talk) 05:41, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd block as it's a fairly open and shut case of WP:NLT, but looking at the storied history of Nanak Shah Fakir it looks like they have plenty of IP addresses at their disposal, so I'm not sure that blocking just one will achieve much. Paging User:Jayron32 to the discussion since it's his talk page. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 06:22, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to @Chillum: for blocking. The article in question will remain protected until all parties involved in the edit war agree on a consensus version. --Jayron32 1:44 pm, Today (UTC−6)

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Macon, Georgia

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The Macon, Georgia article is seeing a slow-motion edit war by IP editors (and one new registered user) about the population. One of the regular editors laid out the sourcing on the talk page, but no discussion resulted, just more reverts. Might I suggest short-term semiprotection to encourage the edit warring IPs to discuss the evidence on the article talk page? Full disclosure: The city was named after one of my ancestors, but I have no other connection to the article. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:43, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, you might (lol), but WP:RPP is thataway. Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 00:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

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Reporting IP user 31.50.140.54

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This IP user 31.50.140.54 (talk) was vandalizing the article Deep Fear with this edit [1] and this edit [2]. I reverted these edits and notified the user on his/her talkpage. Now, problem is that this user posted on my talkpage and calling me an idiot and telling me that what s/he is doing is right. I really have no idea what to do so that's why I require an admin help to resolve this. Thanks. Ayub407^talk 11:01, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Blocked and explained to him/her. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:24, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks Ayub407^talk 11:30, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

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User:1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR

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Is this an acceptable user name? It just looks like Spam to me and is not reader friendly. It's offputting for people to approach somebody with a name that long and that incoherent, I urge somebody to change this user's account name to 1Wiki8.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:21, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• We have another user that is a very regular contributor with a similar name and length, I can remember for the life of me his name, quite obviously. I agree that it is problematic, but I don't think policy disallows it unless there is a clear showing of an attempt to be disruptive. Of course, if I'm wrong, someone please correct me because I agree it is a bit annoying. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:26, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• No, you're right. Policy discourages, but does certainly not disallow it - WP:UNCONF. Black Kite (talk) 11:29, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps we should introduce something which prohibits a user name over 20 characters length for one word, 33 is just ridiculous. It wouldn't be so bad if it actually meant something but it looks like spam. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I've started a thread proposal at Wikipedia talk:Username policy.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:35, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

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Editor Jytdog's none neutral GMO edits

Editor Jytdog frequently removes content from pages related to GMOs which doesn't seem to fit his personal opinion. He is also the most frequent editor on GMO pages. Most of the time he acts like he would own these pages, as a recent example: Jytdog removes most of other editors contributions, ignoring existing talk page discussions. Jytdog insists on framing organisations (or here) like Union of Concerned Scientists or Greenpeace as advocacy groups. However, this kind of framing doesn't extend to other entities, and presents a very narrow view.

Many editors have problems with Jytdog's frequent accusations, as is evident from this discussion where several editors (Jusdafax,Tsavage,DrChrissy,SageRad) wonder about claims by Jytdog that i broke 3RR. He later redacted his claim in that discussion. However, then later eventually reported me, but then withdraws his request (time stamp Jytdog (talk) 23:11, 29 August 2015 (UTC)).

• In his report he states: I will add here, that I have functioned as a steward of this and related articles for a while now. Some consider me a whore of Monsanto etc. They consider as they will - I try to keep POV-pushing from all sides tamped down, and as mentioned, so far have helped keep these articles clear of arbcom and from wasting the community's time with too much drama board action. Apparently his words are in stark contrast to reality. Hence, this editor is creating a lot of drama, wasting time with his unclear actions.

When i challenged the editor about his claim that my edit is advocacy he responded: And I told you - look at every single edit you made in the past day or two. Every one emphasizes negatives of GM or promotes the goodness of organic. Every. Single. One. And cited this dif for his claims. That was the only dif Jytdog provided.

Yesterday Jytdog filed an AfD on a page i created, and then begun to remove reliable sources from that page. In his AfD he states, Group advocates for FRINGE science. However, Jytdog again ignores questions in the AfD discussion to explain his accusations.

Maybe even more concerning, Jytdog added or maintained on around 6 articles original research for several years, claiming that there exists a scientific consensus. Recently after several editors objections and a RFC, he begun to accept different wordings in that matter, even though it can still pretty much be regarded as to much synthesis. None of his cites actually supports his synthesis.

Jytdog was recently reported for edit warring (here), and uncivility (here). Jytdog wrote in response to Mann_jess, just to be clear, look at my contribs you arrogant and ignorant fuck. I know what NPOV is and I spent about 90% of my editing keeping FRINGE and quackery out of Wikipedia.

That was in March this year, apparently Jytdog's edit history, and frequent problems with other editors, his disruptive style, are evidence that the editor is not able to understand what NPOV edits means, and is not able to work in a community environment or to contribute in a neutral way. I therefore ask the community to topic ban Jytdog from everything which is related to GMOs. Wikipedia does not require a special self proclaimed steward for GMO topics, but maybe the attention of Arbcom. Thanks.

These pages all contain talk page discussions with Jytdog, where he defends his reverts against various editors. Not a single discussion can be considered resolved, not even after months.

• Genetically modified food controversies
• Genetically modified food
• Genetically modified crops
• Genetically modified organism
• Séralini affair
• Regulation of the release of genetically modified organisms
• Monsanto legal cases
• Glyphosate

prokaryotes (talk) 13:36, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support topic ban of Jytdog due to his WP:OWNERSHIP and WP:DE in that area. GregJackP Boomer! 17:46, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Support topic ban Jytdog is over involved in the topic. He has made 6593 edits in the area by looking at his edit history on X's tools. Those are only the easily seen ones, there are most likely thousands more if you could all the edits to drama boards like here and WP:AN/3 also question boards like WP:RSN and WP:ORN for the subjects. He shows obvious WP:OWNERSHIP and WP:DE in that area.AlbinoFerret 17:56, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Forgot to mention that GregJackP has a grudge against me as well, and continues steering into me although we were advised to steer away from each other. I have been honoring that, he has not. Both editors continue their pattern of bias, which only brings disrepute upon them. Unhappy, but not a surprise.Jytdog (talk) 18:10, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose topic ban/Send to ArbCom. That Jytdog is willing to spend his time and effort in this topic area so fraught with POV pushing by agenda editors is a reason to commend them, not sanction. I see the bandwagon of editors who have been been in editorial conflict with Jytdog has started to show up above. Yobol (talk) 18:04, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Yobo is an involved editor, as he reports in his comment below.Minor4th 18:43, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support topic ban (uninvolved editor) - I have not edited in the GMO area, but I have looked at all the diffs from the OP and from Jytdog and have found a clear attitude of ownership by Jytdog in GMO related articles, as well as NPOV edit patterns, edit warring, forum shopping, and tendentious editing. I believe this set of issues is probably too much for ANI and should be addressed at Arbcom. Minor4th 18:08, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Not uninvolved. Fellow traveller with GregJackP and edits and !votes in lockstep with him. Jytdog (talk) 18:10, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I am uninvolved, as I have not edited in the topic area, nor have I participated in the GM RfC'z and noticeboard discussions about Jytdog's editing behavior.Minor4th 18:43, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry but you are in lockstep with GregJackP, who is exercising a grudge against me. I have never seen you disagree with him on any discussion where the three of have been involved, and there have been about 4 of those. Not uninvolved - not even close. Jytdog (talk) 00:03, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

That would appear to be incorrect; you reverted Jytdog's edit here on a page regarding Monsanto to return the page to a version that GregJackP had previously worked on; you also have clearly "participated in...noticeboard discussions about Jytdog's editing behavior": in this ANI report you agreed with GregJackP's position and call Jytdog "one of the most battleground editors I have come across on WP" and then !voted to have him topic banned, you also participated in this ANI thread, where you came to the defense of GregJackP and again commented on Jytdog, and then you showed up at another thread where GregJackP had tried to get Jytdog sanctioned. In fact, the only threads you have ever showed up at ANI this year have been in threads where Jytdog have been involved as a participant. You might want to correct your misstatement above. Yobol (talk) 19:07, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support topic ban of Jytog from all GM related articles, as I have been saying since roughly 2012. His edits to pharmaceutical articles are equally non-neutral. If the true story of his edit history and interactions with the community was viewed, including his recent doxxing of Atsme, a ban from this site altogether would be the only proper response. This case should ultimately go to ArbCom in my opinion, where the edits of his supporters and the larger picture can be considered (see Yobol's recent work at Seralini Affair rejecting addition of good science, and assisting Jytdog with reverts without interacting on the TP at Genetically modified foods as an example). [Diffs forthcoming, forgive me, I am stuck on iPad for now.] What he is trying to pull in the sections below is actually shocking, when I didn't think that was still possible with this user. petrarchan47คุก 18:55, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Jytdog's work was called out by a team of scientists and over 300 signatories in this paper. This alone should suffice, once the paper is reviewed for accuracy, to consider a ban. petrarchan47คุก 21:18, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• With regard to the GMO articles before Jytdog took ownership, a quotation from Tsavage

In many ways, I find the old article MUCH more comprehensive, readable and informative than the current version, it just needs some editing.. --Tsavage (talk) 00:16, 10 June 2015

Tsavage then compares the before and after articles here, calling into question the claims by Jytdog that his work on the GMO suite has been beneficial. petrarchan47คุก 21:07, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose topic ban for Jytdog and support a one month topic ban from AN/I for editors who support topic ban. I think the circus show needs to stop. QuackGuru (talk) 19:01, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Support topic ban - Jytdog continues to think he owns articles and won't allow anything into them if he is against it. He also repeatedly misuses guidelines to get his point across (I am an uninvolved editor).TheGracefulSlick (talk) 19:15, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment - Some of the complaint has nothing to do with the topic area. For instance, the warning about incivility (directed at me) was months ago and concerned climate change. I don't edit the GMO topic, so I'm unfamiliar with these issues, but I'm getting a very strong sense that several editors are pushing an anti-GMO stance (in opposition to the mainstream scientific assessment) and they are attempting to pile on to remove an editor who supports the mainstream pov. Topics like this one encourage a lot of advocacy and coordinated bad behavior, and we should not sanction editors for having the patience to uphold our policies against fringe theories, if indeed that is what is going on.   — Jess· Δ♥ 19:27, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Mann_jess, there is no fringe pushing whatsoever going on. If you look at the actual content discussed it is most of the time via authorities or related to statements of organisations, which are relevant in the discussions. Please ask for evidence in regards to fringe, don't accept empty claims or framing as such. Also look at the articles if you are not sure, there are many issues of NPOV.prokaryotes (talk) 1:49 pm, Today (UTC−6)

• Support topic ban and possibly a short block to send the point home. I'm mostly uninvolved on the GMO issue, but have noticed on a number of articles that this editor has been getting very aggressive and would benefit from a break. Calling anyone an "ignorant fuck" for any reason is absolutely unacceptable. Montanabw^(talk) 19:55, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Weak support I am completely removed from this topic area, but the behavior of Jytdog suggests that at the very least a cooling-off period is required, and a separation from the topic is likely to make their editing more productive. Which is not to say that the behavior of the editors bringing this here is completely clean, either. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:19, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose topic ban for Jytdog, in the strongest possible terms, but there is clearly a deadlocked content dispute here. And the accusers have some competency issues (take a close look at the header of this section). For that matter, take a look at WP:EWN, where there are multiple threads of WP:IDHT. At this point, the conflict is ready to be taken up by ArbCom, and that's the only place where it can reasonably be sorted out. We've gone through enough rounds of failed community discussion that I am confident that ArbCom will accept a case titled about GMOs. I suggest that the first involved editor who is willing to put his or her money where his or her mouth is go ahead and file the request. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:25, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose sanctions in favor of taking this to arbitration. Or, alternately, I suppose, we might be able to get a ruling from ArbCom that some aspect of GMO is pseudoscience, which would allow the topic to fall under the existing pseudoscience sanctions. John Carter (talk) 20:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

To date we haven't really had a focused GMO case at ANI (just tangential ones here and there), but I think after this ANI whether we get partial resolution or not, we might be at a place where ArbCom would consider all other options exhausted in order to take it up. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:36, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose and boomerang. Being another science editor in this topic, It would be silly to topic ban one of the few editors who try to stick to NPOV with scientific sources as opposed to others who have clear behavioral or advocacy problems in the topic. There is a systemic problem in the topic of people invoking the shill gambit or engaging in POV advocacy by invoking a corporate boogeyman to make neutral approaches seen extremely POV in contrast. When you get a rare person who's critical of all viewpoints in a controversial topic (as I've seen of Jytdog across many topics besides this as my editing interests overlap with his in agriculture), it seems common for the editor to be marked pretty quickly as an adversary by editors pushing a certain point of view claiming the critical editor has a certain polarized point of view in a topic like this. Unfortunately, we see a lot of the latter from people pushing hard for anti-GMO content in the articles, and I have seen that from a lot of editors pushing for a topic ban on Jytdog now. Part of it is trying to remove someone as part of a content dispute, and the other side is part of editor behavior issues we can hopefully shed a bit more light on here.

I've seen Jytdog approaching various editors coming in with behavior problems about as civilly as one can within reason. This appears to be another case of Jytdog trying to work with the person despite the behavior issues instead of bringing it to ANI right away. Meanwhile, the editor with the original behavior problem tries to call attention to attempts to deal with that as problematic itself; rinse and repeat and you get the buildup of problems we have here. I'll comment more on Prokaryotes in their own section specifically, but there doesn't appear to be anything actionable when one looks at the full context of edits and other editors behavior with respect to Jytdog. When people behave crappily like we see at GMO articles, there's no clean way to deal with it, so we can't really fault people for trying within our policies and guidelines at least. ArbCom might be the end result, but I'd like to see if ANI can get some cleanup done first. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:36, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

For context it should be noted that KingofAces' views pertaining to this subject are quite fringe when compared with the community, and can muddy his understanding of how guidelines apply. See this RfC for example. He was one of 3 opposes against 16 support votes - and as you can see his reasoning is nothing more than pro GMO POV. petrarchan47คุก 21:00, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

This is part of the vitriol that has become disruptive at the topics. It's a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here with respect to fringe considering I cited the fringe guideline almost verbatim on what we should do in that RfC. Not exactly off-base from the community since I was explaining how it should be included. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:21, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose Look at some of the evidence. The comment "Jytdog removes most of other editors contributions" with dif [134] means they removed the openers contributions.

This appears to be the ref that was removed by Jyt [135]. The organization is an advocacy group [136]. Not a reliable source so why did Prok add it [137]?

The opener added unreffed content [138] and [139]

In this diff you are claiming their is some consensus to ignore [140] am not see any.

Further issues include User:DrChrissy who has had his tiptoeing around his topic ban described here [141] here[142]

Agree that the issue we have here is a group of editors opposing main stream scientific opinion and sources and attempting to use altmed / non main stream sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:22, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I suggest you take again a look at the article history of Séralini affair and a look at the talk page there. But since you made up your mind already ...prokaryotes (talk) 22:44, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I looked at your evidence and it was not very good, sorry. And those supporting the ban raise further concerns. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:20, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Doc James, above you cherry pick an example, but then somehow falsely conclude that he removed my contributions, or that i added content from what you suggest above is not a RS. I've added a word there, readded content from another editor, added a lede sentence based on article, and content which was part of the article since over a year. And then you fast forward through everything else (like the remaining 99%) and conclude that editors who support the topic ban of Jytdog do not accept main stream science opinion.prokaryotes (talk) 07:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually I just took your first difs and if you are re adding poorly supported content than you take responsibility for it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:31, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

You cherry pick a dif from me in an ANI about another editor, then claim that all people oppose main stream scientific opinion who are involved here, but ignore everything else. And then you call for a topic ban based on your opinion.prokaryotes (talk) 08:21, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Strong oppose and boomerang - The same old FRINGE crowd trying to silence a diligent editor. Shame on them, and maybe blocks as well. BMK (talk) 23:56, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Support topic ban from GMO articles, which Jytdog fails to edit neutrally in any way. He whitewashes everything in sight on these topics and neutral editing seems like a foreign concept to him, here and elsewhere. He also berates editors with differing opinions on the talk pages and quickly resorts to making personal attacks when his opinions are challenged. Politely asking Jytdog policy based questions, yields responses like "I'm not going into the weeds with you" or "don't Wikilawyer me". I see no other option for this editor. LesVegas (talk) 00:59, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose topic ban. Jytdog insists on use of the highest quality reliable sources in these articles and stands as a needed bulwark against transforming them into little more than brochures for advocacy organizations. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:08, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Cullen that is simply not true; it's not clear what this assessment is based on, but truth on the ground is much different. He has been using an anti-GMO labeling position paper by the board of the AAAS to claim that there is a scientific consensus among scientists that GMOs are safe. He has also used the WHO to support this claim, as did the AAAS. We recently had a RfC about this SC statement and found there was no support for it. This is profound knowing that WP has touted this claim for quite some time and has been called out for it by large numbers of scientists. As Sarah SV pointed out in the RfC, and as Grist also notes, the WHO actually says that claiming all GMO foods are safe is not possible, as each much be assessed on an individual basis. Knowing this, he continues to support use of this source. petrarchan47คุก 03:56, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

So User:Petrarchan47 are you stating that the American Association for the Advancement of Science founded in 1848 and being the world's largest general scientific society is some fringe group? This organization has 262 scientific affiliates that represent 10 million members. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:42, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Is this a serious question? Doc, I understand if you are too busy to really look at these diffs and arguments, but if that is the case your comments here should be limited. I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but I have noticed that none of your remarks here seem well thought out. petrarchan47คุก 08:47, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose topic ban for Jytdog. I suggest it go to Arbcom, where the actions of all involved can be examined by a third party. I oppose any community sanctions on Jytdog. Jytdog is no saint, but I'd rather he be active in that area than the editors who have brought this action. Since this Arbcom is not shy about handing out topic bans, I'd advise Jytdog to be on his best behavior from now on. He's also probably close to an incivility block for some of these diffs. Regardless, I don't trust the community to hand out a neutral result from this; Jytdog has made too many enemies, and there are too any POV-pushers who disagree with his attempts to clean up problematic articles. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:14, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support topic ban for Jytdog on GM-related articles (broadly construed) and including those articles listed above by the OP. This should be an indefinite ban, with no appeal allowed for 6 months. Given that Jytdog's disruptive editing has not been limited to only GM-related articles (I can provide diffs if these are needed but I suspect they are not), I agree with Montanabw that there should be a relatively brief site block for 30 to 60 days giving time for Jytdog to reflect on his behaviour.DrChrissy ^(talk) 10:49, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Nothing of merit in this case. More generally Jytdog does a lot of good work in a number of areas of WP (not just working to maintain neutrality in the vexed GMO space) and for his pains has attracted a number of persistent opponents who are becoming increasingly disruptive (not least on this N/B) in their daft attempt to remove what they no doubt perceive as a thorn in their sides. Here we go again. Alexbrn (talk) 14:38, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Response

So, this kind of case is not going to work very well at ANI. Analyzing my edits for a pattern of POV editing is going to take a lot of careful work, and ANI too easily turns into a circus.

Complicating that, there are longterm anti-GMO advocates Petrarchan47 chief among them, Jusdafax (who recently, in discussion with Petrarchan, said that I am "a boil that must be lanced"), David Tornheim who showed up more recently, and generally pro-altmed/anti-WP:MED editors like AlbinoFerret and others who will reliably show up on the other side of whatever drama board action is filed against me. Likewise, DrChrissy, whom I was rude to a while ago and apologized too, has carried a grudge and will surely show up here too.

I have been contemplating an ANI myself, but it is too messy so I haven't filed it -- there are too many separate issues/agendas here and this is going to devolve into a mess. But since it is started, here we go. I am putting these in separate subsections, which I will post in a bit, one by one. Things have come to an ugly head of late, so this is going to look like Saint Valentine's Day Massacre or something. I have been putting up with a lot of crap for a long time, and since Prokaryotes has brought this to a head, I will go ahead and lay out all the bad behavior and abuse that has been going on of late - some of it a continuation of things that have been going for a long, long time. Jytdog (talk) 14:43, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

The story is not so complicated. You have a clear case of ownership and have been bullying other editors, whilst twisting the most basic guidelines and disallowing normal edits on any article to which you've laid claim. The result will ultimately be that you find yourself here almost weekly, if not more often. But go ahead, convince us that everyone else is wrong. petrarchan47คุก 19:04, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• I wanted to add to my overall response that I posed above. The issue here, is an intense rush of not-so-civil WP:CRUSH - I provide a bunch of diffs below showing that these editors have come with a single POV - namely that pesticides and GMOs are scary and bad and that Jytdog a shill. The behavior issues are the aggressive editing (things must be fixed now!) and refusal to actually take the time to work things out on the article Talk pages in good faith discussion. That is what we have done for several years now. We are at this ugly place primarily because of Prokaryotes' reckless editing, but supported by the others I have discussed below. Of course there is a related content dispute. That is actually not a problem. We can work that out if people settled in and worked.

We actually had a pretty important breakthough last week. We have a tentative consensus on the "food safety" statement, namely: "There is a general scientific agreement that food from genetically modified crops is not inherently riskier to human health than conventional food." That is taken verbatim from the first ballpark-acceptable language offered by anybody who opposed the former language and I implemented it at the GM food article. Consensus is very possible on all the content issues, if people just slow down and talk and work. The editors I name below are not interested in doing that work. Jytdog (talk) 02:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I take issue with your comments that the editors are not interested in consensus. When PraeceptorIP added some material to a GMO article, you blew up and threw a tantrum. At this edit, you made a personal attack on Praeceptor, calling him incompetent, and you said that you were "too angry to write more," hardly the sign of someone looking for consensus. The rest of the editors stayed and worked on it until we agreed. This has been your habit, in my experience. You don't like it when, at legal articles, everyone tells you that you are wrong; nor did you like it at Pharming (genetics). The one who seems not to be interested in consensus is you. GregJackP Boomer! 04:21, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Prokaryotes

The GMO articles have been very roiled as of late, as Prokaryotes, who wikignomes these articles, showed up again recently and started editing very aggressively. This started on August 26 with this dif, and if you look at their last 525 edits, you will see that they have very almost all been on GMO-related articles, and every single one of those edits was adding negative content. (the "spark" for this, seemed to be that they just learned about a WHO committee report released in March that classified glyphosate as a "probable carcinogen", which was the subject of their first few edits; we incorporated that when it came out). And yes, I do serve as a steward on these articles, and push back on pro-industry and anti-GMO advocates, on both sides.

These articles are very controversial, and Prokaryotes' aggressive editing has destabilized them. And rather than slowing down and discussing things on Talk, as I urged them many times (e.g. here on their talk page and elsewhere, they just barrel ahead. When they do write on talk, it is ... nonsense, like this: "Greenpeace is not just an advocacy group, yes it advocates for stuff but it is also a campaigner etc." and misrepresentations/insults like this. Controversial articles require patience and an ability to talk through things, which Prokaryotes has demonstrated none of. The behavioral issue here is aggressive POV-pushing on controversial articles. Per the useful essay, WP:Controversial articles, it is best to go slow, use great sources, and talk things through. Prokayrotes barely talks and makes many poor quality edits

Prokaryotes should be topic banned from GMO-related content. Jytdog (talk) 14:40, 5 September 2015 (UTC) (clarify the behavior issues Jytdog (talk) 19:32, 5 September 2015 (UTC))

As an involved editor, I would support a topic ban on prokaryotes, who has previously been blocked and indefinitely topic banned from vaccine related topics (see ANI thread here) for disruptive editing, given their similar behavior here in this topic area. However, I predict that there will be a pile-on from editors who have historically supported prokaryotes' position in this content dispute to show up (especially since they specifically pinged them in the original post), which will likely lead to a large, meandering ANI thread consisting of accusations and counter-accusations. Yobol (talk) 15:09, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes your very involved. It also appears your involved with Jytdog quite a bit. Looking at the Intersect Contribs you have edited 319 of the same articles and the Editor Interaction Analyser shows 49 articles that you edited an hour or less from Jytdog. How many of these do you have an opposite view than his? AlbinoFerret 15:32, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I haven't the slightest idea, as I don't compare notes with Jytdog about his views on topics (he probably didn't appreciate I reverted him only a few days ago, though). For true transparency, AlbinoFerret, you should probably have noted your own previous conflict with Jytdog in a topic of area now at ArbCom, given your own previous experience at ANI, which Jytdog was involved in. Yobol (talk) 18:04, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I never said I was uninvolved. But my involvement in the specific pages under discussion here is limited. I was involved in 1 RFC on 1 of the pages. In that RFC I focused on PAG which were not being followed. AlbinoFerret 19:26, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

And you have clearly been involved in significant editorial dispute with Jytdog in the past, as have most of the those !voting to sanction him, as I predicted. Yobol (talk) 19:33, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I have had disagreements on some topics with him. But that doesnt indicate that I am wrong here. Its about long term behaviour issues on his part, in areas that for the most part I have had limited involvement with him. What your suggesting is that there is some vast conspiracy against him and that everyone takes the past on a personal level. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. AlbinoFerret 1:42 pm, Today (UTC−6)

Again, it is a fact that most of the editors !voting to sanction Jytdog have been in significant editorial conflict with them in the recent past. It is not a "conspiracy", it is the way of ANI that editors who hold grudges against those who have opposed them editorially in the past will try to get them sanctioned in the future. Happens everyday at ANI, especially with editors like Jytdog who dares to edit in areas that are controversial. Yobol (talk) 1:55 pm, Today (UTC−6)

• Oppose. This appears to be an attempt to silence those who Jytdog believes are wrong, as to content. And who recently were in a content dispute with Jytdog where Jytdog was the lone voice arguing against including legal material edited by a subject matter expert. We don't topic-ban people because they don't agree with others, especially when they are not being disruptive. GregJackP Boomer! 17:47, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - This goes to all three editors reported by Jytdog. To me, this just looks like Jytdog trying to block anyone who happens to disagree with him. Disagreeing is the whole point of talk pages, but when consensus is not in your favor, it's time to move on, which Jytdog repeatedly failed to do.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 17:56, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

TheGracefulSlick to be frank, I don't believe that you reviewed everything. All of the editors I mention here, edit with one - one - POV on these topics. I have added all kinds of content, both positive, negative, and neutral, to these articles and do my best to uphold NPOV in the face of advocacy from industry as well as anti-GMO advocates. If you are overwhelmed by the amount of stuff to work over, that is one thing. But your vote is not helpful and doesn't reflect what has actually gone on. Jytdog (talk) 18:16, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Well Jytdog "to be frank", whether you think I reviewed everything or not is just your opinion, with absolutely nothing to back it. I looked over every diff you brought up and the fact is you have a content disagreement and this was your "solution" to it. I'm more than capable in concluding this so don't try to undermine my vote again.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 18:52, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate you taking a second look. I am sorry that you cannot see the POV pushing and campaigning across this whole set of articles. The claim that "there is absolutely nothing to back it up" is not true. I meant what I said about his last 550 diffs. If you go there and click randomly, you will find that every single one adds some kind of negative information. Here I will do it and provide ten diffs - this will literally be random and selected from edits to articles, not Talk or drama boards:

1. adds content to article about a FRINGE-POV pushing article he created based on two WP:SPS sources and a meeting agenda. Padding to try to add credibility to a FRINGE group.
2. dif adds content about how humans use glyphosate to kill weeds, and lack of weeds means that butterfies starve, to article on GM food controversies. This has nothing to do with GM food (the weed stands are along roads and the edges of fields, not in the fields) Glyphosate could be used for these purposes regardless of what is growing in the field.
3. puffing up credibility of anti-GMO groups.
4. removes content about impact of Seralini's glitzy and manipulated press conference on his rat study, which the journal ended up retracting. Deleted text is a quote, yet the edit note says "too much SYN".
5. adds content making Seralini's support seem stronger than it was
6. dif modifying "Consensus statement" on relative safety of GM food, reflecting a tentative consensus on the the talk page of the GM food article. This is kind of OK.
7. dif add content about an advocacy group suing the EPA over regulation of glyphosate
8. removed statement that per WP:PSCI gave the science-based reality where FRINGE claims are presented.
9. dif adds content to Golden rice article about Tufts study that was retracted due to investigators not getting appropriate consents for testing with people
10. dif adds content trying to discredit the Science Media Centre

there you go. Exactly one POV. One. Jytdog (talk) 19:14, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog I was refering to the fact that you said I never reviewed your diffs. I don't need these other ones but I will look through them as well.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 19:18, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I am not here about content disputes - I do not bring content disputes to ANI. Everything I have written here is about behavior. The behavioral issue is aggressive POV-pushing on a controversial set of articles - sorry if I didn't make that more clear. Will redact to make that more clear. Jytdog (talk) 19:30, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose In case my comments above are unclear. This is a content dispute. Jytdog is to involved and sees dark shadows around ever corner. This appears to be the case of trying to remove an active editor who disagrees with him. AlbinoFerret 19:48, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose boomerang per GregJackP. Jytdog is not a neutral editor, he has a very aggressive POV that is less about accuracy and more about bullying; it's his tone far more than his viewpoint. He could say the same thing with far more grace and fewer attacks. Montanabw^(talk) 19:55, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• I would lean towards support, but this won't be the place to resolve it. Clear evidence of POV-pushing, and some competence issues. This can best be discussed at ArbCom. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:27, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Tryptofish there are some aspects of this Monster case that may be useful to bring to Arbcom (it may be the only way to get the longterm hounding stopped, for example, and I am sure that some editors would like my overall edits on this subject scrutinized) but Prokaryotes' editing is classic ANI-handleable disruption, in my view. Jytdog (talk) 19:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support - per nom. BMK (talk) 00:00, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Support. This is one case that I think ANI could potentially deal with succinctly as this was a very acute problem. Looking at the actual behavior of Prokaryotes shows their edit warring has locked down a couple articles in about the last week or so. It looks like they cannot competently handle editing in controversial topics as they continue edit warring when asked to discuss on the talk page[143],[144], [145],[146]. That last diff was a case where they were edit warring quite a bit that day and got the page locked down before finally coming to the talk page to specifically mention where consensus had been achieved in an entirely different article. The edit warring in that case would have been entirely bypassed if they simply linked a specific diff instead of vague edit warring summaries after being asked repeatedly to use the talk page. Once the page is protected, go to the next similarly named page.

Additionally, they consistently violate WP:FOC, which is policy, by ranting about other editors (I've lost track how many titles like, "OR by Jytdog" have been made) and often casting serious aspersions, such as being a shill, etc.[147],[148] Since they have a history of this behavior from their previous topic ban in vaccines and apparently bristles about WP:FRINGE in other diffs here, a broad topic ban for GMOs also seems pretty straightforward (or maybe even just fringe topics). Since John imposed the topic ban, I'm pinging them to this in case they remember anything from the case and have any comment on this editor's behavior here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:57, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support yes appears would solve much of the issues. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:29, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Just to piggyback a little bit, it does appear that Prokaryotes entering into the topic is the straw that broke the camel's back here. It wasn't the source of all our woes, but their behavior definitely became the focal point across different articles. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:38, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

DrChrissy

I am seeking an extension of DrChrissy's topic ban (he is already topic-banned from discussing MEDRS/human health content) to include agriculture, and an iBan. I would like to edit peacefully (as possible given the topics I work on) without him carrying his grudge into articles I work on.

DrChrissy tends to edit content about animal health/welfare; I tend to edit content about health (drugs, food, etc) and ag biotech. We overlapped a bit at the Foie gras article back in March, which didn't go well. I was rude to him, which led him to open a thread here against me for incivility that was closed with a warning for me, which I accepted, and I apologized to DrChrissy at that ANI and at DrChrissy's talk page.

DrChrissy wasn't happy with that outcome, and [[Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive270#Request_review_of_closure_of_ANI_against_Jytdog|sought to overturn the close AN to get more severe action. To no avail.

Still unhappy, DrChrissy pursued conflict with me, editing health related articles outside his normal fields, like Scrambler therapy and Acupuncture, over which he filed an ANI case (closed no action) in mid-April. By mid-May his behavior at Acupuncture got him topic banned from discussing MEDRS.

In his anger, he also started to make probing edits into genetic engineering ag content, as you can see here on the GMO article, here on the Genetic engineering article, all back in the Spring.

Most recently he has pushed heavily into article that I usually edit, often incompetently and often aggressively and up to the edge of his topic ban and over into it.

You can see the editing pattern here on Glyphosate (examples of incompetent include adding in this dif content that says "Glyphosate can be lethal to non-human mammals." ("X can be lethal to Y" is true of any X and Y per The dose makes the poison - water can be lethal to humans.) That dif also has content about toxicity that directly reports the tox experiments used to established minimum exposure levels for humans). He also proposing using a very unreliable source here for the glyphosate article, and actually edit-warred over content in Colony collapse disorder here and here based on a FRINGE source (as determined at RSN.

Along with Glyphosate and Colony collapse disorder articles, DrChrissy has extended the scope of his editing to include Genetically modified bird (which he created and edited to include the ludicrous content that RNA is a small molecule), Genetically modified fish (per this; and Genetically modified food per this. There is more, and I haven't linked to talk discussions.

I asked him not to extend the field of conflict with me here and even tried to have a neural editor who seems to be OK with both of us mediate, here. To no avail.

I am very sorry that I hurt DrChrissy so deeply but his carrying a grudge around and actually seeking conflict is not OK. So as above I am seeking an extension of DrChrissy's topic ban (he is already topic-banned from discussing MEDRS/human health content) to include agriculture, and an iBan. Jytdog (talk) 15:09, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Ban creep, this was all discussed and addressed by Adjwilley on Dr.Chrissy's page.[149][150] The admin who banned DrChrissy months ago. This is WP:FORUMSHOP AlbinoFerret 15:40, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

No. Ajwilly was dealing with a specific instance. I am showing a larger pattern of bad behavior here that was not raised at DrChrissy's talk page. It is ban expansion; this is what happens to editors who act badly. They lose their editing privileges, bit by bit by bit. Jytdog (talk) 15:50, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

No, you were unhappy with the decision of the admin in the first link[151] not doing all that you wanted. So you started a discussion on the same topics discussed here in the second.[[152] Since it doesnt look like your going to get your desired outcome, you have brought it here, thats WP:FORUMSHOP. AlbinoFerret 16:39, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

That is a flat out lie. I did not actually seek to extend their topic ban - I said I was thinking about it. Nor did I seek an Iban there. Stop lying. Jytdog (talk) 18:17, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

No, you keep pushing for more, editors are free to read the sections. As for the IBAN. How about you show that your capable of doing it. Like staying off their talk page? AlbinoFerret 18:45, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen an editor list a series of editors he wants removed.While I have no experience with the other editors, in the case of Dr Chrissy, I know that Dr Chrissy and the admin, Adjwilley, who applied a topic ban are in communication as to the boundaries of the topic ban. For example [153] I see no reason for Jytdog to look elsewhere to find support to extend Dr Chrissy's topic ban. Doing so undercuts the admin who has been thoughtful and consistent, and is forum shopping. (Littleolive oil (talk) 17:33, 5 September 2015 (UTC))

• Oppose. This appears to be an attempt to silence those who Jytdog believes are wrong, as to content. And who recently were in a content dispute with Jytdog where Jytdog was the lone voice arguing against including legal material edited by a subject matter expert. We don't topic-ban people because they don't agree with others, especially when they are not being disruptive. Also, this is another attempt for ban creep, as noted by AlbinoFerret. GregJackP Boomer! 17:48, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose: This is a vendetta and a game of "gotcha." Jytdog needs to back off. Montanabw^(talk) 19:55, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Really Montanabw, I would rather not bump into DrChrissy at all. As the diffs above show, he keeps pushing deeper into areas where I have worked for a long time. I don't know how you cannot recognize that. He and I could be both be having a more peaceful and productive time here if he weren't doing that. Jytdog (talk) 00:41, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

As someone who was more on the sidelines in the DrChrissy/Jytdog interactions as I at least began out working favorably with DrChrissy in other topics, I do have to agree with Jytdog's assessment. Whether intentional or not, DrChrissy has been pushing into the topic where any competent editor would know from the topic, much less editors they've been cautioned to try to avoid, would be highly controversial. Most people with bans over their head know to stay away from such things, not go towards them. That doesn't make it a "gotcha", but just extremely poor judgement on DrChrissy's part. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:17, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Leaning towards support, although I think that an interaction ban would be better. DrChrissy is a good editor, but has gotten into the bad habit of following Jytdog around. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:29, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Littleolive oil has summed it up very well. If Jytdog has a problem with the ban being broken, he should discuss first with Adjwilley. If he has a problem with the admin being inconsistent, or not enforcing the ban properly, or some other issue, then the issue should be raised here. Otherwise, as Littleolive oil points out, that undercuts the admin. DrChrissy and Adjwilley seem to be communicating well. Accusations of lying are a little unseemly - AlbinoFerret also seems to be making fair points. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:48, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Martinevans123 the first dif that Albino gave (one] is a link to a section where I didn't comment at all, until after Ajdwilley had already spoken up. I was fine with his call there. The 2nd diff is to a later section where DrChrissy introduced a new source (so not part of anything discussed in the first diff). Use of that source would have been a violation of the topic ban and I was fine with the outcome of that decision too. I didn't seek an extension of their topic ban there nor an iBan - it would have been inappropriate to do there. I have kept hoping that DrChrissy would stop seeking conflict with me; I would rather not have any idea if he is violating his topic ban on health content or not. I have only filed this because DrChrissy keeps ploughing ahead (even right after the stuff discussed in the 2nd diff, he kept right on at the Glyphosate and other articles where I usually work). Jytdog (talk) 00:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

You characterise DrChrissy's behaviour as simply "seeking conflict with you". Do you think it's possible they are simply editing in good faith from a different point of view? There are plenty of other editors now looking over DrChrissy's edits, in the light of the ban. Don't you think it would be better for everyone if you and DrChrissy just stepped apart for a while? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:19, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I explained it above. I was rude to him, was warned for it, he sought to overturn that and get something harsher, was denied, and started following me around and editing combatively, which led to his topic ban at Acupuncture, and after that he has gone yet farther and started editing ag/herbicide articles, where he never edited before. In every one of the ag/herbicide article he has argued with me. He could have continue editing happily in the fields where he used to work, without expanding articles where he knows i work and that are very controversial. The before/after is very clear. I am sorry that I hurt him, but his behavior since then, is entirely his choice. I am sad to see it and do not enjoy this. Jytdog (talk) 18:44, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support interaction ban, neutral on topic ban. As documented on DrChrissy's talk page already here, Adjwilley (the admin instituting the topic ban) has grown frustrated with DrChrissy's constant attempts at stepping right on the line of their topic ban even after being given a lot of WP:ROPE. There's been quite a few times where DrChrissy said he understood the limit of the topic ban followed by pulling that rope extremely tight. Expanding it even further probably won't help with the block that he seems to be on track for in the future, but I do think the interaction would be warranted in this case. I have noticed that once the topic ban was put in place, it didn't take long for DrChrissy to move into GMO related articles to continue the same behavior issues that caused the topic ban. Some of those edits to seem to be closely associated with Jytdog, and DrChrissy for some reason has decided to step into very controversial articles with that topic ban in hand rather than stay clear away from areas that could easily get them blocked. I've edited rather collaboratively with DrChrissy in animal behavior articles for instance, so I think the interaction ban would help limit them to topics where they haven't such problematic behavior regardless of what's causing it. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:06, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Support they should have been blocked based on breaking their topic ban. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:18, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. The complete opposite of what is claimed above is true. Jytdog has been trolling, baiting, and harassing DrChrissy to no end. He banned her from his talk page yet hypocritically continues to post on her talk page and harass her. DrChrissy has asked him to stop. At 13:34, 4 September, she explicitly said, "Please do not post here again".[154] He refused to stop and continued. He also falsely claimed at 13:36, 4 September that he would "stay off your Talk page, except to provide notice when you are violating your topic ban or other official purposes."[155] Well, apparently Jytdog lacks self-control, because he just edited DrChrissy's sandbox at 23:34, 5 September 2015.[156] If this isn't harassment, I don't know what is. Of course, this is exactly what happens to anyone who edits an article where Jytdog is busy enforcing his ownership policies. And if you disagree with him, he will work tirelessly to rally other editors and lobby to have you blocked and/or banned. Viriditas (talk) 01:58, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose topic ban, support interaction ban. DrChrissy and Jytdog have each developed an unhealthy obsession with the other. Both are valuable editors in their own way, but the stranglehold they have on each other needs to be released. --Epipelagic (talk) 08:58, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Epipelagic, you realize that the current conflict is driven entirely by DrChrissy's choice to start editing articles where I edit? We would have no conflict - little to no interactions - if he did not keep starting to edit articles where I already work? Jytdog (talk) 18:40, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

User:Jytdog please stop trying to deflect the discussion away from your editing behaviour. The "current conflict" is actually between you and the OP. Please stop wasting editor's time and direct your comments towards defending why you should not receive a topic ban and total block.DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:46, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Jusdafax

This editor is active in the GMO articles for exactly one reason, and that is to take care of "a boil that must be lanced") on August 27. The amount of bad faith boiled into that statement is enough to ask for IBan and for him to also be topic banned from GMO articles. Jusdafax has no interest in the content there - is WP:NOTHERE in that topic to build an encyclopedia, but just to come after me, and you can see him actually starting to try to "lance the boil" around the time he wrote that.

Here are diffs where all he is doing is ripping on me on various talk pages or rather mindlessly parroting people disagreeing with me and specifically naming them:

• Aug 26 dif and dif within moments of each other, each just agreeing with prokaryotes
• Aug 26 just praising whoever is disagreeing with me
• Aug 27 again, and this goes on and on. No content contribs, just BATTLEGROUND behavior on Talk pages.
• Aug 27 more
• Aug 27 more
• Aug 27 more - this one is important, for two reasons. Apparently prompted Petrarchan's remark discussed below, and shows the hysteria, and the way all these editors are feeding off each other (the comment is in reaction to a claim by DrChrissy)
• Aug 31 personalizing content dispute with high drama. "Something is wrong..."
• Aug 31 more of same
• Sept 2 yet more
• Sept 3 calling for early close to ongoing RfC (one of several launched of late over trivia)
• Sept 3 this comment in particular, shows no desire at all to actually try to talk through issues. It just expresses no clue that we resolve content disputes by actually talking at article Talk pages, in good faith.

When I filed at 3RR against Prokaryotes and then withdrew it because it had gone stale and the article had settled some (finally), Jusafax responded at Prokaryotes with this which was really surprising to me, as it egged Prokaryotes on instead of advising him to actually use the Talk page to work things out. I responded to him there with this.

And at 3RR where we have been three times due to Prokaryotes aggressive editing, you find this kind of dismayingly clueless stuff, trying to turn that acute-crisis board into a drama board:

• this
• this

And there is more of that.

My interaction with Jusdafax goes back to 2013, when they accused me of being a paid editor without grounds, on his talk page here. He appears to remain convinced of that, even though I have bent over backwards to prove I am not.

Yesterday when I asked Jusdafax about the "lance the boil" comment, instead of responding in a simple human way, (like "gee that was an ugly thing to write. i am sorry about that") he responded with this truly incredible rant. Really? Watching someone's Talk page is hounding them? The hysteria is way too much.

So yes I would like an IBAN and for Jusdafax to be topic banned from ag biotech/pesticide articles. They seem incapable of AGF with regard to me. Jytdog (talk) 15:46, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. This appears to be an attempt to silence those who Jytdog believes are wrong, as to content. And who recently were in a content dispute with Jytdog where Jytdog was the lone voice arguing against including legal material edited by a subject matter expert. We don't topic-ban people because they don't agree with others, especially when they are not being disruptive. GregJackP Boomer! 17:49, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose This section shows Jytdog's WP:OWNERSHIP if someone disagrees with him, that person is fodder for him to ABF. Its also a content dispute. I wonder what PAG outlines consequences for disagreeing with someone over content? What one outlines using the drama boards to win content disputes by getting the opposing editors banned? The last sentence of Jytdog's post is really telling, he expects everyone to AGF with him, but not the other way around. AlbinoFerret 18:13, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per AlbinoFerret and others. Montanabw^(talk) 19:55, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• I oppose this also, not that it can be resolved here. But I think that there is some merit to the claim that Jusdafax has been jumping too quickly to see bad things where they really aren't happening, so I hope that he will hear that from me as a friendly suggestion. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Neutral for now I've been on the receiving end of some of the inappropriate behavior by Jusdafax in this topic as well. It's disruptive, but not quite to the point yet where an interaction ban would be solidly justified. That being said, the improper use of article talk pages by not focusing on content is a distraction at best, and it should be made clear to them that continuing to use talk pages that way can results in administrative actions. One of my first main interactions with Jusdafax was tendentious "warning" to me after I asked another editor further up in the diff to stop accusations of editors being "pro-industry", etc on the talk page. [157] (with a bit more of conversation [158]). As with the AN3 boards cited here, there is a very clear trend of Jusdafax turning a blind eye to the behavior of editors with behavior problems that are pushing anti-GMO positions, but they are very quick to jump on editors that oppose the content or are trying to get edit warring editors, etc. to the talk page and focus on content. I'm really not sure how to address that behavior though as it doesn't appear to be limited to one editor and I've only had limited interactions so far. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:12, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Petrarchan47

It was a comment on his talk page by Petrarchan47, that Jusdafax responded to with the "lance the boil" comment mentioned above. Petrachan's comment was likely in response to Jusdafax's comment on Aug 27 here mentioned above.

Hounding with personal attacks - reason for iBAN

Petrarchan has been hounding me for about three years now. I have just put up with it but since I am flushing the toilet here, this comes out too. From the diff above, it is clear enough that Petrarchan needs to step away from ag biotech topics, since they seem to make her physically ill, as she wrote: "the fact that this remains a (growing) problem has disgusted me to the point that I become nauseous thinking about logging in, or in any way participating in this project."

Going back to at least October 2013 she has vilified me as something like Monsanto's Antichrist Here to Destroy Wikipedia From Within ( see this and this followed by this, and especially this).

And all along there, is stuff like the following, basically every chance she has to take a shot at me, or egg on people who are editing as advocates against good health content in WP. (and I mean that - here are her contribs to ANI, and most of them are taking shots at me. Working backwards:

• July 2015 diff trying to derail an ANI with a long rant against me
• July 2015 Jumped into a snow-closes proposal to topic ban me from COI and GMO editing here
• June 2015 Ranted against me at ANI here
• May 2015 opposes topic ban from health content for DrChrissy, "per every word by LittleOliveOil"
• March 2015 piles onto ANI against me re DrChrissy. This is the one where I was uncivil to him, and was warned, which I aknowledged and accepted and apologized for.
• (many more)
• July 2013 dif and dif and dif and dif (that one actually characterizing WP:CIVILITY as "sticky-sweet speak.") - all that trying to derail an incivility ANI filed against Viriditas by focusing it on me and others who she came to think were in the pocket of Monsanto.

It is not limited to ANI.

• more of same at EWN
• here at ORN.

In July of this year, on her talk page here and here she gives encouragement to Mr Bill Truth, who was recently indeffed for being WP:NOTHERE but rather only here to promote FRINGE theories (block log), and in the latter, Petrarchan pings ... yes, JusdaFax, several times to try to rally him to the effort of getting more FRINGE content into Wikipedia. In the midst of that is this dif where she goes on about her "Guerrilla Skeptics" conspiracy theorizing (which she goes on about) from time to time, and the conspiracy of a corporate stranglehold on WP articles about biotech. (here is a little lovefest between jusdafax and petrarchan on that topic, from P, response from J dif and response from P comes as close as you can without actually saying it, to calling me a paid servant of Monsanto. The self-congratulatory, self-righteous delusion and bad faith there, is hard for me to see. It is not WIkipedian.

The above starts to lay the ground for consistent FRINGE advocacy on matters of science, including health and agriculture. Now for more of that

• advocates FRINGE content about Kombucha - proposes adding about this tea, that: "This healthy beverage has been used as therapy for several conditions like treating cancer, increasing T cell count, lowering blood pressure, curing arthritis, treating gastrointestinal disorders and alleviating constipation. Kombusha tea is also known as “fountain of youth” tonic as it restores the gray hair, reduces wrinkles and treats acne.
• made edits to that article like this several times, downplaying negatives and pumping up "benefits" (immediately reverted by someone else
• this dif made a dramatic edit to the food safety section of the Genetically modified food article, which is the most controversial part of that article.
• dif to Joseph Mercola downplaying the extent of FRINGE content on his website
• here she says that the AAAS is an "advocacy group". oy.
• diff and dif introducing poor quality sources and giving undue weight to them, that are in keeping with skepticism about mainstream medicine here for example
• all kinds of poor editing at the Cannabis article back in 2013, which I won't go into
  • adding poor sources (immediately reverted by Doc James)[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cannabis_%28drug%29&type=revision&diff=555824297&oldid=555415186
  • dif introduced a bunch of content that didn't stick including claim that hemp cures cancer.
  • edit warring with MED admin over content based on poor source, emphasizing conspiracy theories about cannabis

Anyway, I have had it with taking these personal attacks for the past 2-3 years. With regard to anything related to health and to agriculture, Petrarchan47 is WP:NOTHERE. I am asking for a topic ban from health content and agriculture content, and an iban. Jytdog (talk) 20:20, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I have checked literally one diff, where I am claimed to have called the AAAS an advocacy group, and already am finding myself misrepresented. Below is my entire comment. I recommend editors verify all of Jytdogs comments and diffs before assuming they are factual.

Arguments that "food safety is the core of the controversy" make no sense in light of the actual contents of the controversy section. If it is in fact the core issue, it should be stated in clear terms for the reader, not left to be assumed, and the details of this controversy laid out in full. The Safety paragraph is exceedingly detailed, whilst the proceeding paragraph says nothing beyond what a Table of Contents would. The third/final paragraph gives several examples of "opponents" and members of "advocacy groups" who doubt the claims of safety, and the methods and regulatory bodies behind them. There is no reference for this, just a citation needed tag. The Safety Consensus paragraph is very well referenced, and although the very first citation is to a paper by board members of the AAAS in an effort to block GMO labeling, there is no mention of "advocacy" here. The Controversy section should discuss the controversy in detail (with references). The Safety Consensus statement, in its current form, belongs in its own section (like a "health effects" section), as it relates directly the article's subject and is not simply a subtopic. The controversy section is being misused in that it saying "nothing to see here, folks. we're not sure what all the commotion is about, but it's just coming from a couple of advocacy groups, anyway". Meanwhile the section actually says nothing about the controversy. For instance, the vast majority of the US wants GMOs labeled, and that isn't mentioned at all. petrarchan47คุก 21:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Second diff checked, more innacuracy. Jytdog must have put these diffs together in a hurry, because he's misreading them. At Kumbucha, I was questioning the source, not trying to add it. Jytdog is the one supporting the 2013 source:

However the 2013 source is of such poor quality, there is good reason to check into whether these two conflicting sources are actually referring to the same data, with the lower quality, newer review having missed the study invalidating previous findings, resulting in misinformation. I mean, they claim too that This healthy beverage has been used as therapy for several conditions like treating cancer, increasing T cell count, lowering blood pressure, curing arthritis, treating gastrointestinal disorders and alleviating constipation. Kombusha tea is also known as “fountain of youth” tonic as it restores the gray hair, reduces wrinkles and treats acne. Do you see why some are questioning its results and suggesting any claims made to it be removed from the article? petrarchan47คุก 21:41, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Mercola article - I am claimed to have added bias in this edit, when actually I fixed an OR, cherry picked statement summarizing his website contents based on a primary source by adding RS. I removed a word that was repeated in the preceding sentences because it sounded awkward. Jytdog is clearly grasping at straws. petrarchan47คุก 21:47, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Kombucha - Jdog claims I am pumping up the positives in this edit, suggesting biased editing. Actually I fixed the negative bias and only lightly reflected on some of the benefits mentioned here:

It is shown that KT can efficiently act in health prophylaxis and recovery due to four main properties: detoxification, antioxidation, energizing potencies, and promotion of depressed immunity. The recent experimental studies on the consumption of KT suggest that it is suitable for prevention against broad-spectrum metabolic and infective disorders. This makes KT attractive as a fermented functional beverage for health prophylaxis.. petrarchan47คุก

Cannabis - Jdog calls it a conspiracy theory to say that most of the studies have focussed on harm, but those who are familiar with the research know THE NATION'S RESEARCH-GRADE CANNABIS IS CONTROLLED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE, WHOSE MISSION TO CURB USE IS AT ODDS WITH THAT OF RESEARCHERS LOOKING TO STUDY POT'S THERAPEUTIC PROPERTIES petrarchan47คุก 22:23, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Cannabis and cancer - Jdog flat out lies above when he says that I added a claim that cnanabis cures cancer, or that I spun the article otherwise. I am proud of the diff he shows, and merely added that Tommy Chong claimed to have cured his cancer using cannabis extract. Cancer dot gov has just eluded to cannabinoids' effect on cancer in their (fringe?) website. I highly doubt Wikipedia hosts this information, though, which is an example of a bias problem I have been trying to call attention to for years. petrarchan47คุก 22:30, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose, this is clearly retaliatory, P-chan shows up here and comments, and then J-dog adds him to the list for a topic ban? Clear WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior by J-dog, and unacceptable. GregJackP Boomer! 20:28, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• I would very much support this a full site ban, although it will have to be dealt with at ArbCom. Nonstop battleground editing and POV pushing. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:33, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Clearly retaliatory as GregJackP points out. This section should result in a sanction for Jytdog. Attacking commentators when someone is brought to this board is clearly the wrong thing to do. I wonder who will be attacked next? AlbinoFerret 20:40, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
• Neutral/take to ArbCom. Comments that this section is retaliatory is highly disingenuous making it sound like Petrarchan hasn't been involved. Petrarchan has been a combination of a civil POV-pusher ranging to being very uncivil in a hounding manner as shown above. This editor has been highly involved in this topic and would more than qualify for a look at their behavior. That all being said, this is one case that someone needs to take a close look through the edits and behavior in an RFC:U fashion, but ANI isn't really suited for that as we don't have highly blatant actions that are easy for it to reach consensus on. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:06, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't know the editor, but the diffs that worried me most didn't hold up to scrutiny. This diff in particular is grossly misrepresented (saying that Petrarchan47 was trying to add a statement to the article that Kombucha cures cancer, arthritis, grey hair, etc. when in the diff they seem to have been criticizing the source that said that). ~Adjwilley (talk) 04:38, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment I must say that this statement is concerning [159] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:48, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

How so? Read the Grist article. This paper is an advocacy statement, not from the scientists but from the board, which contains multiple misrepresentations of the facts, including misquoting the WHO. It's atrocious that anyone would want to use this source without letting the reader know ifs true origins, let alone pass it off as MEDRS to discuss human health, as Jdog is doing. Why aren't more people speaking out against this? Why aren't you? petrarchan47คุก 09:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Because it is from the AAAS. However, the real problem is that this paper was the spear head by Jytdog to argue that there exist a scientific consensus. The outlined related synthesis by editor Jytdog has been just ignored by DocJames, and he made his judgement already - to late.prokaryotes (talk) 09:12, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

That response shows how skewed Prokaryotes Petrarchan's editing here is. HeShe pits the board of the AAAS against an alternative magazine on a science-based topic, and the alternative magazine "wins". That is the definition of FRINGE advocacy. Jytdog (talk) 19:50, 6 September 2015 (UTC) (wrong "p" editor, my bad. Jytdog (talk) 20:04, 6 September 2015 (UTC))

I have no idea what you talking about, care to share a dif for yet another accusation? prokaryotes (talk) 19:54, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

sorry, wrong "p" Jytdog (talk) 20:04, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

section break

TheGracefulSlick I have added the break above but feel free to change its title. I appreciate that it is your edit below. GregKaye 17:03, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment - (I'm an uninvolved editor) Jytdog why is it on an ANI that was supposed to be about your behavior, you are pressing all these demands for topic bans and ibans? Even if you think you have a point on some of these claims, reporting them now just seems like a way to avoid discussion about your editing. Hopefully other editors will realize this and not fall for it.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 16:21, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• A complaint at ANI (or any other dispute resolution venue) is not the Wikipedia version of a free throw. It's not at all uncommon for the person bringing the complaint to be sanctioned themselves. This does not speak to the validity or otherwise of Jytdog's arguments, only to the idea that the thread is "supposed to be about [his] behavior" without regard to other participants. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:38, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

But Short Brigade Harvester my point was more about the two other users Jytdog brought here. It has nothing to do with being boomeranged since they never even reported this ANI. Jytdog should have made seperate ANIs to avoid the enormous confusion and scrambling that will follow.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 17:07, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

TheGracefulSlick, you seem to have a misunderstanding as to what the purpose of this board is. It's not the Editor Conduct Complaints Department, it's the place one comes to report incidents which potentially require administrative action. Since all three editors' actions are alleged to be part of the same incident, discussing all three in a single section is both correct and appropriate. ‑ iridescent 17:14, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

No I completely understand what ANI is for, I've had my share of the mess users like to create here. I just know how the users will act here and it will quickly develope into a circus. If you want to handle it, be my guest, but I'd rather have this be an orderly civil discussion. Regardless, I'm no longer commenting on how anyone wants to sort this and want to look over the evidence as of now.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 17:21, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Just for further clarification if you are still reading (and for other folks), the underling issue is that many of us science editors at this topic have patiently tried to work with editors that take a very strong WP:ADVOCACY approach, mudslinging, paid shill arguments, etc. It might have been better to nip each problematic editor in the bud by bringing them to ANI earlier instead of letting things draw out with additional such editors coming in over time. That has resulted multiple editors coming up in one case instead of spread out over time. It's tough because on one end good-faith is needed to work in controversial articles, but you also need to draw a line somewhere when behavior issues don't stop. A lot of science editors are more interested in content than going to drama boards, even in topics that attract editors like I mentioned above, so you get the situation that finally came to a head here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:37, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

It might have been better to nip each problematic editor in the bud by bringing them to ANI earlier. You do realize that Jytdog has, in fact, been brought to ANI for his problematic editing numerous times, don't you? GregJackP Boomer! 17:51, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Everybody here realizes that you are here with an ax to grind GregJackP. And yes everybody here knows that I work on controversial articles and topics and get dragged here pretty often. I have been sanctioned here twice, and that was my own fault for losing my cool with DrChrissy, which I acknowledged and apologized for and have not repeated and the other, where CorporateM asked for an Iban, which I accepted. Just those two times. In any case, as I wrote in my initial response, there has been too much going on all at once to manage this gracefully and I have been doing the best I can to just manage the surge of disruptive editing across all these articles calmly. But this is what aggressive editing on a whole set of controversial does - it creates disruption and drama. None of the actual content issues are unworkable - the behavior of these disruptive editors is what is breaking things. I have gone ahead and aired the extent of what is going so the community has more insight. Jytdog (talk) 19:19, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Sigh. You keep talking about an axe to grind. I don't have one. I was appalled when I saw how you treated a subject matter expert in the intellectual property field, I helped him, and I'll continue to help him. He's the exact type of editor that we need here. You have got to back off and calm down, for your own sake. If you want, I can post diffs, but I think it would be better for all concerned if you accepted a voluntarily 6-month topic ban in order to calm down and refocus. You do some great work here, WP:COI comes to mind, but you have to let off some. You get way too involved emotionally. Just ease up. Regards. GregJackP Boomer! 20:20, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry but fake sighs are unbecoming and just make you look even more silly. I know that litigators think it is great to try to demolish the other side, but your inability to recognize any problems with the editors I have listed just demonstrates rank partisanship. I encourage you to take a more thoughtful, Wikipedian approach here. Jytdog (talk) 00:17, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Sigh. Please stop with the condescending attitude and take a step back to look at this. If there are a bunch of people telling you that you need to change, odds are good that you need to change. Had you taken a thoughtful approach when dealing with others, you wouldn't be in this situation now. Please, for your own sake, heed the comments people are making about your behavior. If you don't, I fear you will be topic-banned or worse. GregJackP Boomer! 08:31, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment Following one set of encounters with Jytdog I took some time to a previous ANI that was brought against h' following threads on GM related articles and, while it certainly was not my area centering on my main areas of background knowledge, it was apparent to me that h' was both evasive and assertive on an argument that didn't seem to me and most other editors to fully hold up.

I am particularly perturbed by the content of the second paragraph of the OP and regarding issues of incivility presented later. While I respect the general intention of Jytdog's involvements, I think that he takes things to unwarranted extents and certainly. There is certainly no excuse for the incivility and the borderline obstreperous behaviour. It would be wrong if no sanction were given although I would not recommend this to last for any lengthy period of time. Some time out to think things through I think would be potentially to h' advantage. GregKaye 18:03, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: The tone of Jytdog's approach here is very troubling. He presents a false dichotomy that anyone opposing him is somehow a POV-pushing fringe-promoting, anti-science viewpoint as opposed to Jytdog, who portrays himself as the voice of reason. But, clearly that is not necessarily the case. What the problem here is tone: Jytdog attacks - and attacks viciously - anyone who challenges his own viewpoint. Though he presents his viewpoint as "scientific" - to argue that respected entities (Union of Concerned Scientists, for example) are not is disingenuous. While I can have sympathy about how someone who is trying to keep fringe advocacy out of an article can get testy and impatient, this user is going over the top. I think a short WP block and a topic ban for 30-60 days to allow some simmering down would be in order. I'd also suggest he be told to stay off DrChrissy's talk page, perhaps an iban would be suitable there. Montanabw^(talk) 19:55, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Montanabw. DrChrissy has very steadily expanded his editing into articles that I edit - it is clear battleground behavior. I would just as soon never bump into him. I have not gone and started editing articles where he usually works - he has come directly at the articles where I work, seeking conflict. If you cannot acknowledge that basic fact here, it shows how little you are looking at what has actually happened, and are just playing politics. But that is how things go at ANI. Jytdog (talk) 00:00, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog To a limited extent I appreciate what you have been doing and that there can, in limited circumstances, be a call to oppose the views of WP:Lunatic charlatans. You hold your views very strongly and, while not criticising some root arguments, this has led to (in my interpretation) erratic behaviour to an extent that is unwarranted. GregKaye 07:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment And while this all goes on, Jytdog has made 4 (four) substantial reverts to the sandbox Glyphosate article (one of those listed above by the OP no less) here,[160] here,[161] here,[162] and here.[163] DrChrissy ^(talk) 21:16, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Support the topic ban of Jytdog. Originally was not going to comment. Yet as we all know he has long been a loose cannon here on WP. He has demonstrated repeatedly that he can not distinguish the differance between true scintific skepticism and his own pseudoskepticism. Thus, defeating WP's aims of verifiability by deleting everything that offends his POV. Everyone can edit WP is a good dictum - but Jytdog seems to want to piss on other editors backs and tell them that is raining! Enough.--Aspro (talk) 22:01, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

• Likely this needs to go to arbcom. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:33, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Why exactcly? Arbcom acts as the court of last resort! Jytdog still has a lot of steam (or hot-air) left in him. Let him finish arguing his point here first. --Aspro (talk) 22:59, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Folks who have replied so far are mostly (not all) expected knee-jerkers. There will be a few more. Most thoughtful Wikipedians are either steering clear because it is too much of a committment to read through all this, or are thinking. I am not surprised at the reaction thus far. I've been dealing with a lot of awfulness for a long time and I don't expect this ANI to end quickly either. Jytdog (talk) 23:55, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

A knee-jerk reaction is somethibg that happens quickly and without thought. We have given you ample time, consideration, suggestions etc. All of which you have ignored. Therofore it is you that are behaving wilfuly ignorate based on your very own edits. If feel you have been dealing with “a lot of awfulness for a long time” – then stop pissing into the wind. I would hate to smell your pants right now what with all this blow back.--Aspro (talk) 02:14, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Or thoughtful Wikipedians steer clear of ANI in general, because they've better things to do, and because ANI is an infamous irresponsible cesspool. But will make an exception when a user, such as you, is particularly and egregiously hypocritical with over-the-top aggression, insults, and disruption. IHTS (talk) 00:46, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Limited discretionary sanctions?

It's pretty clear to me that ANI is not going to be able to resolve this dispute. And I think that the time is ripe for it to escalate to ArbCom. However, I'm interested in finding a way to handle it, for now, with something less than a full ArbCom case. At the top section of this discussion, John Carter made what I think is a sensible suggestion, that some aspects of the GMO content area be placed under discretionary sanctions.

Here's what I suggest. Someone (could be me, or anyone else) would open a request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, asking that the discretionary sanctions put in place in the Pseudoscience ArbCom case be applied to content about the health effects of genetically modified organisms. (A good example would be the page about the Séralini affair.)

These sanctions would necessarily have limited scope, only pertaining to health effects, which I think are entirely in the realm of pseudoscience. Non-scientific aspects, such as economic or business issues about GMOs, would not be included. Nor would ecological issues, because a significant amount of the science there is not pseudo.

First, I would like to find out what editors here think about the idea. Do you think that this would be helpful? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:56, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

That is a great idea. I had thought the only way to get DS around the food safety topic would be a full arbcom case and have been happy that we have avoided that thus far (but unhappy to not have the DS). I hadn't thought of just ARCA. Jytdog (talk) 00:35, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

The issue here is about behaviour. Applying DS to a topic area does not address and in fact side steps perceived behavioural issues. How do you propose behaviour be dealt with. Should all editors just go back to work and let this AN/I fade? If so. this outcome should be clarified.(Littleolive oil (talk) 00:52, 6 September 2015 (UTC))

Littleolive oil, that's the kind of issue that made me ask here, instead of going straight ahead with a request. But my understanding of DS is that behavior/conduct is exactly what it is about. In other words, administrators would be empowered to enact blocks, page protection, or editing restrictions quickly upon a problem arising, without the need for a wall of text as we have right here. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:00, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I would be on board with this. DS are exactly meant to deal with behavior issues in specific content areas. WP:FRINGE comes up a lot in this topic related to health, so I don't see much problem with the case going through. What we really need is someone who can come in and really look at the ongoings at a specific page removed from the ANI drama. This would give that option, and also hopefully simplify a full ANI case if we really had to come to that down the road by having some prior cases. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Let me clarify. Applying DS as a solution here sidesteps the behavioural issues on which this AN/I is based. (Littleolive oil (talk) 01:17, 6 September 2015 (UTC))

It addresses the issues going forward without drama. If you feel a deep need to sanction editors for past behavior ArbCom is this way along with all the drama and likely bad results all around depending on perspective. The problems are way too involved to manage here at ANI. Jbh^Talk 15:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment The notion that the request, brought to ANI here has somehow something to do with Pseudoscience are unfounded, and show that editors who wish to defend Jytdog attempt to distract from the original issues. The references discussed from Séralini affair, have nothing to do with Pseudoscience and if anything show an edit dispute. prokaryotes (talk) 06:49, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment it would be, IMO, a travesty if this ANI closed without some ban, of whatever length of time, being imposed. I think that the bare minimum would be a one day site ban and perhaps a greater length is warranted. Editors cannot be allowed to get away with behaviours such as abuse. GregKaye 07:56, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment Great idea, and hopefully implemented as soon as possible since this discussion is continuing to devolve into editor ban proposals instead of useful discussions. Inomyabcs (talk) 08:37, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment This is about the behaviour of an editor over a wide spectrum of topics. DS in relation to just one sub-set of these topics will not address the concerns of many, many editors. Sorry.DrChrissy ^(talk) 11:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Comment I do not see why the community can not choose to implement an equivalent sanction regime, through General Sanctions, to ArbCom imposed DS. ArbCom exists for things the community can not fix on its own. Just open up an RFC here or at WP:AN and request it. Jbh^Talk 12:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• In the US, where I am, it's a holiday weekend, so I'd like to let this discussion continue for a while, but at the moment I'm leaning strongly towards making this request. I'll try to reply to several comments here. About the community enacting General Sanctions, I don't think that the community is able, at this time, to reach consensus about that any more than we are able to reach consensus here. And in case anyone hasn't noticed, we are not going to reach consensus here, sorry. And that should be a message to anyone who insists that the discussion here cannot end without punishment being doled out. I acknowledged when I first started this sub-thread that any such sanctions would be limited, and would be unable to cover all aspects of the dispute, but I do think they would cover the most acute aspects. I tend to think that we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough. And I wondered when I started this sub-thread whether any editors would claim that Seralini et al. are not pseudoscience, and I see that that has indeed happened. And it speaks volumes about where the problem really lies. Perhaps limited sanctions would be hampered by claims that there is no pseudoscience at all. But I think that ArbCom can resolve that question by motion, whether or not some editors end up liking the result. Alternatively, we could go straight to a full ArbCom case, in which case some editors may end up regretting what they wished for. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:55, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

With the fact that it is a holiday for a lot of us, I don't have any problem waiting with putting a request in until later in the week or really whenever you get around to it if you're willing. It makes sense to start small with the pseudoscience aspect rather than hit ArbCom with a rather big glob of a new case. As you said, that really is the most acute area where I think we can at least get an attempt at some resolution with the least amount of drama. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Kingofaces43

The editor above claims that i edit war and locked down several articles last week (Dif). However, the editor does not mentions:

• Editor was recently reported at edit warring board, when he not accepted RFC outcome, and all reasonable attempts to explain to editor were ignored. Until Jytdog himself commented and supported the decision. Additional Kingsofaces kept reverting after talk page discussion was established.
• Editor is involved in many of the edits on GMO related pages. In fact he is often there supporting Jytdog, trying to intimidate me with accusations here he claims i broke 3RR (notice how he cites my own edits,and this editor kept at it even after Jytdog redacted his claim of 3RR in the same discussion).
• Here he removes my talk page discussion comment, and claims it wasn't related.
• Editor claims i do advocacy (Dif). Difs he cite show me adding a study from the WHO, published in Lancet, and after reverts brought it to a RFC at the talk page there, what he and Jytdog claim is aggressive editing.
• Editor tries to prevent addition of historic, well sourced case on Monsanto, when this is brought to RfC only him and two other editors (1 is Jytdog) oppose the addition, at the article about Monsanto legal cases. Editor Tsavage mentioned there, you are misapplying WP:CRYSTAL, which clearly states its intentions: "Wikipedia is not a collection of unverifiable speculation." A well-covered lawsuit is neither unverifiable, nor a speculation.- Editor Dialectric responded to Kingofaces, As a participant in the rfc, you are in no position to propose a 'logical conclusion' which favors your viewpoint.

Because editor Kingofaces claims (Dif) that i edit war, an claims my edits locked down pages, and wants me banned for it i have to call WP:Boomerang on that user.prokaryotes (talk) 08:03, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support, Kingofaces43 usually shows up to back up Jtydog, and uses many of the same arguments while also not hearing the other side. GregJackP Boomer! 08:34, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Support - User in question continues to support Jytdog's aggressive editing habits and makes accusations with little to no evidence to back it up.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 08:41, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Guilt by association is a poor reason for a ban. I obviously have some crossover in topic areas and have a similar stance of reliability of sources and weight in scientific topics. That's really about it. That people couple their disdain for Jytdog to me because of that is unfortunate, but that's a problem with the underlying vitriol in this topic. As for "accusations", what are you referring to? In this board, I've brought quite a few diffs when I was referring to my own interactions or referred to things already cited previously by others. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support topic ban for Kingofaces43 on GM-related articles (broadly construed) and including those articles listed above by the OP. This should be an indefinite ban, with no appeal allowed for 6 months. Given that Kingofaces43's disruptive editing has not been limited to only GM-related articles (I can provide diffs if these are needed but I suspect they are not) there should be a relatively brief site block for 30 to 60 days giving time for Kingofaces43 to reflect on his behaviour.DrChrissy ^(talk)
• Oppose this nonsense. Evidence does not support a topic ban. The same people who were complaining of Jytdog "trying to get opponents removed" are the first ones to throw their support here. Sad, hypocritical, but ultimately predictable behavior for ANI. Yobol (talk) 13:44, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support topic ban for Kingofaces43. It is like a State within a state is forming here on WP and those interested in history will know where that leads to. It is dangoerous to alow a few vocal editors to work in unison, so as to put their actions above others. Looks like Yobol is puting himself forward as candidate for the next topic ban. Talk about opening a can of worms. --Aspro (talk) 13:55, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose These tit-for-tat topic ban requests on general principals. From what I have seen pop up at the various noticeboards and the very few times I have looked at GMO talk pages, the POV pushing of FRINGE material is un-relenting. Take it to ArbCom if you feel editors need sanctions for past behavior. My guess is most of the major actors would face sanctions in that case. Clean out the topic and get some new blood in. The down side of this is there are many more FRINGE POV pushers out there than editors to keep them in check. Jbh^Talk 15:11, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello Jbhunley, while you apparently entirely ignore anything related to the discussion here, I must ask you to stop making up claims that involved editors are Fringe pushers.prokaryotes (talk) 16:40, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

@Prokaryotes: Are you actually saying there is no FRINGE POV pushing in the GMO topic area? Really??!!?? I very consciously did not make any statements about editors on either side of this specific matter because I did not go dig up diffs to support those statements. If you think my statement about the general state of editing in GMO is wrong I suggest that our views of what is FRINGE is not compatable. I do not doubt for a second that if I wanted to make statements about specific editors it would be very easy to find the FRINGE pushers in the GMO topic area. That, however, is not the purpose of my comments here. Jbh^Talk 17:26, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

We discuss an ANI report here not the history of general GMO article edits. If you meant that as an excuse for Kingofaces, then I at least didn't understand it. prokaryotes (talk) 17:35, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, my discussion of the ANI report is that it is better addressed at ArbCom if people want to get other users sanctioned. The entire topic area is a pit of POV editing. Any closer can read this as my opposing any and all of the proposed topic bans in this section for the reason that they all look like simply an extension of the conflict and attempts to silence opponents. Trying to argue it out here is pointless and this exchange shows that quite well because you are unable to allow a simple stated opinion from an un-involved editor to stand without, personal and condescending, challenge. That, to me, indicates an environment that has become too toxic for 'business-as-usual' to be allowed to continue for the health of the project. Jbh^Talk 18:49, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Tit-for-tat is putting it mildly. At this point, we have reached tit-for-tat-for-tit. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:44, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
• Obvious oppose. No evidence is provided by Prokaryotes for any action, but rather further justifies a boomerang on their part for misconstruing edits. It also seems to be retaliatory for trying to address their behavior issues. One thing I've noticed is that Prokaryotes makes a point of mischaracterizing people's posts and pushing forward in a sloppy manner in controversial topics that only inflames drama. I'm not going to push for a boomerang further here, but just bring some context to what I was doing in the cited links since my name is at the section header. Let's look through the diffs they gave for each bullet:

1. The first bullet point is cherrypicking and avoiding what made that dispute an edit war. This series of diffs show the actual exchange: [164], [165][166]. There, Prokaryotes changed a statement on scientific consensus, which very much needs talk page consensus. In hindsight, text at another article had been worked out that I wasn't aware of, but Prokaryotes never pointed it out. Seeing none, I reverted it asking them to come to the talk page, but instead they reverted posting a link to a huge RfC (instead of a specific diff) that simply said the content should be changed, but didn't have any specific edit ironed out. Prokaryotes just made sweeping claims of consensus for their edit in edit summaries and links without pointing to something specific. It wasn't until after Prokaryotes escalated the situation to AN3 that Jytdog posted a link to actual consensus. This is all summarized in the talk page discussion as well. Given the sloppy editing by Prokaryotes (the burden was on them), simply providing the specific diff instead of vague comments would have resulted in not a single revert.
2. Of course I cited Prokaryotes edits. That's what you do when demonstrating 3RR. The diffs show the series of edits made, as has been pointed out to Prokaryotes already, so they aren't going to show the traditional old vs. new edit, but just the start and stop. Ironically enough, I actually pointed out that I didn't actually see 3RR when Jytdog was posting about it (so much for the gang conspiracy). However, my comments on 3RR were after that point when Prokaryotes made additional edits later in the day pushing the revert count up further.
3. More cherry picking and appears to be competence issue with respect to WP:TPO. The comments in question were very appropriate for hatting per TPO as it was not based on content at all. I posted on their talk page explaining how hatting works and to not alter other people's comments by removing select ones from the thread. What originally happened was someone else moved Prokaryotes' original comment into a new section awhile back. Prokaryotes didn't like that, but never pointed out that was done until after some discussion occurred in the new section. Instead of moving everything back, they for some reason left my comment out of the thread in the section making it look like I posted a new section with an out of context comment. I moved my comment back into the proper threading while hatting the thread, and Prokaryotes deleted my comment from the threading again. [167] However, I explained in the edit summary, "hatting discussion note[sic] related to content per WP:REFACTOR. Most recent attempt to only partially move some threaded comments misrepresented another post making it seem like it was the start of the section" I warned them again for altering my comment in the next edit summary and on their talk page linked earlier.[168] Everything was by the book on my part here for dealing with editors altering talk page comments and for hatting off-topic conversations.
4. As mentioned in Prokaryotes section here, they have been solely focusing on anti-GMO perspectives exclusely since they've come into the topic. That coupled with the behavior of constantly pushing edits in a controversial topic, edit warring, etc. was where the advocacy comment came from. There's nothing inappropriate there (honestly, read my actual post[169]), and it was meant to get Prokaryotes to slow down and focus on talk page discussion and consensus building that we need in WP:CONTROVERSIAL topics. The RfC comment was because it was putting the cart before the horse at that time. There wasn't any serious attempt at talk page discussion to figure out what to do with it the source in question, but instead Prokaryotes went straight to RfC.
5. There's quite a bit more posturing calling this a "historic case." This content in question is about a court case that was filed, but has not been completed yet. I and a few other editors do take the stance that incomplete court cases in all but extreme cases (e.g., Supreme Court cases) do not meet due weight for inclusion, but rather that weight is determined by the findings of the court at the close. This one is just a content dispute through and through with no behavior issues from anyone that really stick out. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:58, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

@ Kingofaces43. You need to change the above into a Comment as it is a given that an editor facing a topic ban would object.--Aspro (talk) 16:35, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

That's a convention I've never really seen followed at ANI as we don't vote count here, but act on consensus. I do expect whoever is reading this section though to see my signature and see that the Kingofaces43 responding here is also the same one being discussed. That should be pretty apparent. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with User:Aspro. Furthermore, your edit seems very much a a wall of text. Please consider the time constraints of other editors and the closing admin by keeping your posts as concise as possible. Thanks for your input.DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:48, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes. We are talking here about Kingofaces43 not to him. So whilst he may comment, etiquette expects the subject to step aside in such cases. So please Kingofaces43 change the above to Comment.--Aspro (talk) 18:43, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Comment Lets discus fringe. Jenner, had no ethical approval to infect James Phipps with cow pox. John Snow was dead by the time his germ theory was finally accepted by the rest of the medical community. Albert Einstein (well, we all know about Einstein) and many others were by definition fringe scientists. They were on the cutting edge – the fringe. If “you” had the power to suppress their views back then, would this World be a rich in understanding as it is now? Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. There is space to keep it cutting edge by including referenced material that indicates that the old accepted dogma is now in question based on the latest research. Please don't say that believers of old dogma have a god-given-right to censor Wikipedia. It exposes you and other believers as Luddites who were born knowing everything. One of the first, if not the first controlled trials was on blood letting – yet doctors continued blood letting and losing any hope of future income as soon as they had killed their patient. Et cetera. So don't argue this defensible nonsense by resorting to the much loved pseudo-skeptic buzz word of 'fringe'.--Aspro (talk) 16:46, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

(It's good to read an editor with their brain turned on.--TMCk (talk) 17:02, 6 September 2015 (UTC))

Yes, this might be true, but this is not the place for such a discussion, even when some want to frame it that way (See also editors who mention Pseudoscience).prokaryotes (talk) 16:52, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• oppose unsurprisingly. Kingofaces is a science-based editor who follows NPOV and like me has become a target for anti-GMO/pro-organic/Pro-altmed advocates in WP, who reliably turn up to !vote against him. Jytdog (talk) 19:47, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by MrSean99

MrSean99 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – continued disruptive editing after final warning. Inserts apostrophes into decades (e.g. changing "the 1990s" to "the 1990's" contrary to MOS:DECADE. Never responds on talk, never provides an edit summary, so no clues as to motivation and no prospect of participation in any form of dispute resolution. Diffs provided are for illustration – there are others:

• Edit | Edit
• Warning #1 | Edit | Edit
• Warning #2 | Edit | Edit
• Warning #3 | Edit
• Warning #4 | Edit | Edit
• Warning #5 | Edit | Edit
• Final warning | Edit

Adding to the difficulty of understanding this editor's motivation, there have also been some edits that are constructive:

• OK | OK | OK

– Wdchk (talk) 16:35, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Have you tried WP:AIV? Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 00:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, but no I haven't, because in my judgement, there is not enough evidence of a deliberate attempt to damage Wikipedia to call MrSean99's edits vandalism. The policy states: "Even if misguided, willfully against consensus, or disruptive, any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia is not vandalism." This user may believe he is doing the right thing and the MOS is wrong. Note that some of his edits have not been reverted. I am happy to listen to other opinions on this point, but my hope is that in a borderline case, it wouldn't matter too much which forum is chosen to request administrator attention. Whatever label we apply, unfortunately the end result is time-wasting. – Wdchk (talk) 02:03, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

If permitted please copy my response from talk page to the archived discussion.

Link. Thank you. --AmritasyaPutra^T 18:47, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

freeKnowledgeCreator has violated policy WP:DONTREVERT

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Policy clearly states edits should not be reverted in full if the edits are not vandalism. Edits are clearly not vandalism, and corrected many obvious falsehoods in Martin Heidegger , which has been called an "embarrassingly crass" "sophomoric drivel" etc by MANY users on the talk page for months to years. Policy requires editor to have selectively removed content if he disagreed, not deleted it in en masse as if it was vandalism. I demand this illegal user be banned for the destruction of content and his guarding of his demonstrably erroneous and logically false article. 2600:1017:B41C:FFAB:7400:41D8:830B:2573 (talk) 20:21, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

WP:DONTREVERT isn't policy. It is an essay :" the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors". AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:25, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

And why has User:FreeKnowledgeCreator got two AN/I notifications from two different editors, both phrased in exactly the same way today? Sock or meatpuppet? Either way, I imagine something will ding you on the back of the head soonish. 20:29, 5 September 2015 (UTC) _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi}

Please I beg of you to take a look at the page. he destroys contributions en masse, knows nothing about the topic, writes at a 4th grade level at best, and refuses to allow changes when I have explained to him and his toadies time and time again in language simple enough to fit into their tiny brains just why at least 50 percent of the sentences in the current article, are false, misleading , distortion a of scholarly consensus, or give an absurd amount of weight to the Heidegger Nazi controversy. He is an outrageously Ill-informed editor who is largely responsible for the decrepitude of the philosophy articles on here, since he deliberately inserts falsehoods. My eminent colleagues have asked me to come on here to correct the outrage that is the Martin Heidegger article, but this country rube prevents me from making my dear friends and fellow scholars from making any changes at all to an article that reads like the machine translated text of a German 4th grader. The article is a crass embarrassment and several of us have come on to stand together against this outrage.

Given that this is clearly the self-evidently-misnamamed User:SuperFriendlyEditor posting as an IP after being blocked, I suggest that this thread be closed - though someone may wish to consider extending the block. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:42, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Yah Andy, I just extended the block on the main acct to one week. Further input welcome. If anyone thinks that we should go to an indef block right now, I would not object. -- Diannaa (talk) 20:47, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Another sock just created User:HermanHeidegger, I suggest an indef ----Snowded ^TALK 20:58, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Done, and I have semi-protected the article talk page Talk:Martin Heidegger for two days as well. -- Diannaa (talk) 21:04, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

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More socks

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Can we also get a block for User:DrHermannHeidegger, newly created sock? BMK (talk) 23:51, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Chillum has since put that sock back in the drawer...but then 2600:1017:B415:575A:8D11:AD20:2467:C311 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) showed up. I notified Diannaa about it but she apparently isn't online right now, so if another admin wants to do something about it, feel free. Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 00:44, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

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WikiBullying

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This has gone on for a few days now and has caused an enormous amount of undue stress. For the original thread see WP:AN#BMK questioning Stabila711. I don't deserve this. I have tried to ignore it, I have denied the allegations and the thread just continues to roll on without any evidence presented that I have done anything wrong. This is not only a clear example of BITE it is also blatantly assuming bad faith just because I happen to have read the policies before jumping into editing. I will not be bullied off the project regardless of how much BMK wants that to happen. I have done nothing wrong. I have never harmed the project nor will I ever harm the project. This witch hunt has to stop. Obviously having the thread open on AN for a few days has done nothing to stop this blatant bullying so I appeal here. Please would an admin put a stop to this. The incivility that has been shown to me by BMK is abhorrent and against everything Wikipedia stands for. I reiterate, I have done nothing wrong. I have never vandalized any article. I have always tried to be constructive and I have never purposefully harmed any aspect of the project. I do not deserve to be treated with such disdain as has been shown in the AN thread. --Stabila711 (talk) 23:56, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

(There's nothing new to say about this that hasn't been said on the AN thread, so I'm not going to repeat it. My concerns are completely legitimate, considering Stabila711's extremely unusual appearance on the scene, and that's all I have to say. All that remains to be seen is which one of my fan club shows up first, and in what order they get here.) BMK (talk) 00:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

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Admin eyes requested

At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Palagonia double homicide. I am not involved in the dispute, but this deletion debate has started to spin out of control and needs attention by administrators. Winner 42 Talk to me! 06:06, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Promotion on user talk page by User:Super51hotels

User talk:Super51hotels Please revoke Talk page access, the user is all-ready blocked Bentogoa (talk) 10:33, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Bentogoa, done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:48, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Bentogoa (talk) 10:50, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Unsourced ideologies and controversial info for radical parties

Manolvd1999 (talk · contribs), and 3 "new" IP accounts ([170]) with a sudden interest in the topic, keep adding unsourced "Ideology" labels and other unsourced controversial content in articles of radical Eastern European parties (see Bulgarian National Alliance, Shiv Sena and other similar articles). They have received several warnings and information on the named account's talk page, several users reverted their unsourced edits in those articles. As I am close to 3RR (and a minor edit war is also happening at Shiv Sena), it would be great if someone uninvolved could look into this. GermanJoe (talk) 11:48, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I have notified the named account and one of the IPs with an active talk page. GermanJoe (talk) 11:52, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

This pattern of editing is remarkably similar to that of the prolific serial puppeteer Greekboy12345er6. It's probably worth comparing this with identified socks, and opening an SPI. RolandR (talk) 12:18, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what 'Anti-Ziganism' actually is??? _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 13:23, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I wish there were some sort of online encyclopedia where one could easily look up things like that... —Wasell^(T) 14:18, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Now that would be an innovation wouldn't it!!! Cheers _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 14:27, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Possible legal threat by User:Correctfact

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Not sure if this constitutes a legal threat, but I thought I would check here and find out anyway. --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 13:17, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Sounds more like a meltdown than an actual hard threat, but I agree it's a fine line between making a threat and wishing it to actually happen _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 13:20, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Would this push it over the edge? It's certainly chilling behavior, if nothing else. --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 13:33, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Skamecrazy123 Did you call a fellow editor a jerk and, if so, what were the circumstances? If you were uncivil to this level then it is you that should receive the sanction. GregKaye 13:36, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

No I did not. I believe that comment was aimed at User:AussieLegend. As it stands, even if it was me, I don't see why I should receive the sanction for a legal threat I never made. Prehaps you could explain this convoluted thought process to me... --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 13:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

:::I've looked through all the edits and I can't find where anyone called Skamecrazy123 a jerk, or any other name. Skamecrazy123 did have a go at me in an edit summary,[171] but that was because I reverted his disruptive edit with the edit summary "Persistently disruptive editor", which was simply a statement of fact. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I did...? --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 13:56, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

This edit summary: "Correcting fact. You guys are why wikie is not reliable. Printing what you believe over FACT. Calling people names is against wiki rules AussieLegend... A name you heaps don't deserve (John Laws really?).)" ...can't really see where he's having a go at you, apart from perhaps question the true depth to which you are a legend. _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 14:02, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Correctfact (got it right this time!) was having a go at me for calling him persistently disruptive. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:07, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, the first statement is still technically correct, because nobody called you a jerk, ;) but I meant Correctfact in both cases. Sorry about that. That'll teach me for not checking when I CTRL-V. I actually did find another post where somebody referred to him as a jerk, which was inappropriate, but that was fairly early on, and not related to the legal threat. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• It skims the sides. The basic rule of thumb is whether or not the comment is designed to chill discussion. It isn't wise, and it only takes one admin to disagree, so it is an unwise thing for him to have said, but strictly speaking, it isn't a direct call to legal action nor is it designed specifically to chill discussion. It was an overreaction, or as Fortuna puts it, a meltdown of sorts. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:43, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• I disagree. He wants his version of the page up (as evidenced by the reverting) and no one elses, and he's having to resort to hoping that everyone else gets sued as a last resort. It's chilling behavior, pure and simple. --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 13:49, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Disruptive editing, incivility, all this is not the same as legal threat. If Correctfact were wise, he would go have a cup of tea and let time give him some perspective here, calm down, and try again. While I'm not likely to block for a legal threat that skirts the boundaries, plenty of admin like myself will block for other problems. Turning all this into a drama fest is disruptive. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:30, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

No someone called me a jerk (Correctfact) which is what I copied and pasted. Have another look and I have screen shotted it as well. Thank you. And yes I want the truth up. As what is written is not fact (undermining Wiki's credibility). I looked at Wiki rules... Nothing against hoping, I even clarified for you. You are just trying really hard to get me banished. Simple as that. But I didn't break the rules and I didn't call someone a jerk (but I was called the jerk), nor am I putting untruths on Wiki. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Correctfact (talk • contribs) 14:03, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Which has nothing to do with your possible legal threat. --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 14:05, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

although it perhaps does demonstrate a similarly bizarre ranting aspect...? _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 14:13, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Correctfact wrote Was that before or after you called me a jerk? at WP:BLPN. The person who actually referred to him as that wasn't even involved in the BLPN discussion at that point. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:11, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

So, what's it to be folks?

Is this to be closed as a "meltdown" or as a legal threat? --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 14:32, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment FYI, he's just been blocked 31 hours by User:NeilN. _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 14:37, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• The page protection and notes on their user page should have acted as a clear warning not to edit like this. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Time to close, people? _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 14:42, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I think so. --Skamecrazy123 (talk) 15:05, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

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Robert Martinson problems

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk · contribs) has long been banned from article creation for his massive disregard for copyright. He has a great number of subpages on his user page, all intended as potential articles for others to move into main article space. Recently a new editor copypasted one of these subpages, creating the article Robert Martinson. The first thing I noticed about the page (unaware of its provenance) was the obvious copyvios, numerous quotations in the references. I deleted the copyvios, thinking they were rookie mistakes, and then I added information and sources. In the meantime, Richard had asked a third party to fix the article's history by moving his original subpage over the page, leading the third party to restore the copyvios and erase my changes.

Now it's a very minor mess, and I'm not sure what the proper way forward is. Plan A is to just revert and move on. Plan B is asking here, and I've opted for Plan B. I'll mention the new editor created some other pages that may have the same copypaste/copyvio issues, I just briefly looked. Richard's other subpages may also be problems, I have not looked.

I have not named the two other editors, both seem to have acted GF, and if either needs to be told something constructive, presumably their Talk pages suffice. While Richard also seems GF here, this looks like he still does not seem to get copyvio. (And I have no idea of the fine points of his ban.) Choor monster (talk) 15:02, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• If you think using the quote parameter in the citation templates is "obvious copyvios" and you "deleted the copyvios" you really need to study the fair use policy at Wikipedia fair use policy page. The policy currently reads: "Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea." The only violation of Wikipedia copyright policy and plagiarism policy was by the user who copy and pasted my work and attributed it to themselves. They contacted me when they realized they had made an error, and I contacted Sandstein to correct it. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:11, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I was the admin whom Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) asked to fix the copypaste article creation by another editor by moving the article history from his user space into mainspace. I was then not aware of his article creation ban, but another admin pointed me to this request and linked to WP:ARBRAN. I am now deleting the article Robert Martinson as an arbitration enforcement action: The ban was apparently made because Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) has previously violated copyright, and therefore the prohibition extends to all articles based wholly on his work, whether or not it was he who moved them into mainspace. This should settle the matter as far as I'm concerned, unless anybody wants to consider sanctions for any involved editor via WP:AE.  Sandstein  18:09, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Deleting it was improper, if you had doubts, you should have migrated it back to User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Robert Martinson and not delete it. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:59, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Using the quote feature built into the citation templates is not a violation of copyright, it is the definition of the Wikipedia sanctioned fair-use policy. You are welcome to argue about how much material constitutes fair-use at the Wikipedia fair use policy page. The policy currently reads: "Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea." If you think that the definition of Wikipedia fair-use is wrong, then you should lobby to have the quotation feature contained in over 100,000 citations removed from all of Wikipedia. Removing them adhoc from one article is not the way to do it. While I am blocked from moving articles into mainspace there is no restriction from others moving them into mainspace at my request or by me giving permission for someone asking to move it. However, it is a violation of copyright and a violation of rules against plagiarism to copy and paste my work into a new article under the name of another author. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:55, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Except that you don't actually need the extended quotations in the footnotes at all. Footnote quotes should only really be used where the source is large and/or difficult to navigate (i.e. no page numbers) so that the reader may struggle to find the source for the citation, or the source contains differing viewpoints so that it is necessary to pinpoint the actual sentence you are using as a source. In this case, neither applies. Black Kite (talk) 19:15, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

That is your personal interpretation of the policy and you should should state that it is your personal interpretation. You are presenting it as fact. The exact wording of facts from the original source prevents semantic drift, we have no idea if the source material will be available in 10 years, 100 years, 1,000 years, or 10,000 years. The original article may read that someone was "from a farm near Fooville", the next editor may rewrite to read that he was "born on a farm near Fooville" and the next editor may change it to "born in Fooville" and the next "born in Fooville, New Jersey. Each small change causes the information to drift slightly and that drift may or may-not be correct, every editor does this when they change wording. The reader has no idea that drift is taking place, unless presented with the original source material. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:49, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• What you're saying is that including the copyvio quote simply saves editors from looking up the RS. That's not an acceptable reason. Choor monster (talk) 19:56, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

---

• (Response to RAN/ec) In the article in question, you had more full sentence quotation from five NYT articles than you had written in the body of the article. That in itself is ridiculous. Worse, your quotations met none of FUR. Nothing except laziness or incompetence prevented you from summarizing the contents of the NYT articles and leaving out the actual quotations. We're not here for pull-quote journalism.
• The quote parameter is for responsible usage.
• I recently created an article Kelayres massacre, over 20K, with fifty footnotes, and I incorporated a grand total of one quotation, from an editorial, since the exact tone seemed to be just as essential to the whole story as the factual content of the editorial (which may, in fact, have been very little). (And there were two FUR pictures, and one PD picture which I asked about on WP:MCQ, just to play it safe.) You? You're not even trying. Choor monster (talk) 19:26, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Well you are awesome that is why your articles do not use the quote feature. However, using words like "obvious copyvios" and "incompetence" makes you less awesome. You are inserting your opinion and personal style as as Wikipedia law. If you do not like using the quote parameter, do not use it. If you think it should never be used, lobby to have it removed globally at the talk page for fair-use policy. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:55, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

My opinion seems to be the consensus opinion. I think it should be used. As I said: responsibly. I'll point out I use it frequently over on Wiktionary, since presenting exact quotations over there serves an accepted educational purpose. Choor monster (talk) 20:00, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• RAN: Given that there's still a lot of work left to do at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20111108, and WP:ARBRAN specifically states "in order for appeals of this remedy to be considered, he shall be required to submit evidence of substantial work on his part towards resolving the Contributor Copyright Investigations filed against him, most particularly the one focused on his text contributions" (referring to the ban on article creation), why are you not doing that before you create articles? —SpacemanSpiff 19:34, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• (ec) So now RAN is creating draft articles with the same kind of copyright problems he will not acknowledge to even exist. Copyright infringement in the Draft space is the same as copyright infringement in the mainspace. It's certainly a violation in spirit, if not the letter, of ARBRAN. Is it time for an amendment to that case? KrakatoaKatie 19:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your outrage, but again "copyright infringement" is incorrect, you clearly have a limited understanding of fair-use as defined by the United States Supreme Court or by Wikipedia policy of fair-use. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:02, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

IP hoping edit warrer

Originally I was going to take this to WP:ANEW (and it's too minor an issue for WP:RfPP), but when this user hopped IPs, I figured ANI was probably the best place for it... Anyway, 2.120.157.76 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has been edit warring at Streetcars in North America (see article history) to include content that is too trivial for an overview-level article like that, and has been reverted by both myself and Anmccaff several times. I was hoping my recent reversion was the last of this, but now 86.139.221.174 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has made the exact same edit (diff), so it's clear by WP:QUACK that we've got an IP jumper here. I'm asking for a short (c.48 hour) block on both IPs. And, yes, I have notified both IPs of this ANI action. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:28, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Streetcars in North America semiprotected for 24 hours by Randykitty instead. That should do the trick – thanks! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:48, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

User:ParamountLogoMaker

Creating nonsensical articles about made up films and songs, and editing pages just to add nonsensical things with no source. Clearly NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia. --189.25.205.234 (talk) 19:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)