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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Endercase

Endercase (talk · contribs)

This user is apparently WP:NOTHERE, and I don't frankly know what to do.

The account is old, but they made a tiny number of edits back before 2013, and came back about two months ago. It seems pretty likely that they were upset that a Twitter account got stealth-banned and came to Wikipedia to write up on the subject based on what was on Breitbart.com. They have spent basically all their time in the last few weeks fighting over whether Breitbart.com and other rightist fake news sites should be allowed as the sole source for factual claims and forum-shopping the same dispute to RSN, NPOVN and Jimbo's talk page (see [1]; also pinging User:JzG and User:Only in death). When said forum-shopping doesn't work out they post disruptive non-comments in multiple unrelated threads on the same noticeboards (no need for diffs; Ctrl+F their username on either of those noticeboards and it's pretty obvious; or just Ctrl+F "bold" on the currently live version of RSN).

When others disagree with them, they start posting these weird, sarcastic-looking attacks on them. (I've seen it myself[2][3] and also noted it happening to User:MjolnirPants.[4])

I'm thinking at least a TBAN from "RSN" or perhaps "right-wing news media" is in order, but at this point the user is practically begging to be blocked.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:13, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

• We can now add canvassing to the list of disruptive things Endercase has got up to.[5][6][7][8] I literally wrote my entire response to DT below before it occurred to me that it was really weird for a random editor to have seen this thread and responded in good faith the way he did. I check his talk page and find that Endercase canvassed him, apparently because he's one of the very few people (the only person?) to say "I agree" and "I don't want you banned" to them. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:25, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Please note this hidden comment with edit note "Clarifying why I pinged who I did, since I can totally see someong accusing me of assuming bad faith and hypocritical canvassing.".

If Endercase is canvassing, he sure is doing a bad job, since most of the editors didn't come here to defend him/her. It looks like a cry for help from a new user who doesn't know the rules and why he is in so much trouble. For a new user, it sure seems honest. When I asked him about mentoring, he said, "I agree I need a mentor". [9]. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:35, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

@David Tornheim: When someone adds an invisible clarification of a certain point so as to be left in the public record but not to clog up the thread, it kinda defeats the purpose when someone else comes along and adds a response to it that's longer than it, and quotes its edit summary in its entirety. I am only counting one canvassed editor who hasn't shown up yet -- do you mean that it was not votestacking since he canvassed one user who disagreed with him along with you and Nocturnalnow? That seems more like a deliberate attempt to seem like one is not votestacking, while disproportionately contacting editors on one side. Also, as I said when you quoted it below, the quote you provide was immediately followed by a clear statement of BATTLEGROUND mentality in which the users who oppose him were called a "Cabal": if you intend on mentoring Endercase, you need to stop downplaying/ignoring/denying the disruptive behaviour that needs improvement. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:56, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

The only thing I see in the diffs/link you provided is that a page-ban from RSN would be in order. He seems to be monopolizing things there and is not being very helpful (more to the contrary). Unless you provide specific diffs I don't yet see anything else actionable presented. If he is edit-warring on an article (e.g., Stealth banning), then report to WP:ANEW. Softlavender (talk) 04:48, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

@Softlavender: Given that a significant part of the problem is forum-shopping, I don't see how a narrow page ban would solve the problem. I said TBAN because, if he posts something on NPOVN or Jimbo's talk page that clearly belongs on RSN, then he could still be blocked if he were subject to a TBAN but ... well, actually if he were subject to PBAN then we could say he was wikilawyering his way around it and come right back here, but it still seems unnecessary. He also really doesn't appear to be HERE -- again, essentially all he's done since coming back is fight over Breitbart.com. (Even on Talk:Stealth banning, all his posts are essentially just him arguing for inserting material he read on Breitbart and InfoWars, or complaining about how he is not allowed directly cite them -- this (the bottom part) is a particular egregious example.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:03, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

That said, did you look at this diff? Or this one? These kind of remarks are not appropriate, and they are hardly atypical. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:07, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I looked at the three diffs and the two links you provided. The comments seem pretty standard stuff -- except for on the RSN (excess posting, excess repetition, and idiosyncratic interpretations). You haven't provided any evidence of anything else. To make a case on ANI, you need to provide probative diffs. Softlavender (talk) 06:26, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I dont think there is enough yet. But I also think its just a matter of time. Generally their noticeboard (and I am including Jimbo's talkpage here as well) posts quickly devolve into soapboxing when people disagree. What really needs to happen is that an uninvolved editor needs to close their threads sooner rather than later when they go off target. RSN/NPOV boards are for asking specific questions about specific issues with articles, not trying to convince people of an idiosyncratic interpretation of policy. If they want to soapbox on Jimbo's page, well thats different. They can join all the others there. Or an admin can take 5 minutes to explain to them that if they want to discuss the policy, do it at the policy talkpage instead of noticeboards. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:58, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

• WP:TBAN seems appropriate given the WP:NOTTHEM, WP:IDHT and everything else. Guy (Help!) 18:43, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

• I think Endercase will read carefully what everybody says and will adjust their participation in order to get along and contribute better. I'm sure they want to contribute and just need a little more time and experience. Nocturnalnow (talk) 02:49, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Nocturnalnow was also canvassed. I don't have the time or energy to figure out why right now; unlike with DT, it didn't apparently come right below the words "I don't want you banned". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:40, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

• Endercase is accomplishing nothing but the waste of time and energy by defending indefensible sources of lies and deception. When people point this out, they wiki-lawyer and whinge. That does seem to smell of NOTHERE. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:01, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Orangemike was also canvassed, but clearly it didn't go as planned. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:40, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

• No Action Endercase is a very new user, and the bigger problem is that the accuser (Hijiri88) has failed to assume good faith with unfair accusations such as WP:NOTHERE, WP:SPA, and suggestion the new editor is "editing Wikipedia because you are upset that your Twitter account got stealth-banned". Hijiri88 interrogates him/her about whether s/he is using multiple accounts [10][11]. (See entire discussion.). Hijiri88 also accuses the new editor of "a fallacious attempt to get users to say indirectly that Breitbart is reliable in certain circumstances". [12]. If anything the problem is the accuser. Perhaps an iBan from Hiriji88 -> Endercase is in order.

I have recently encountered Endercase at WP:RS/N here. It was obvious to me the editor is new and does not understand many of the rules we live by here, citing things like ignore the rules, like there are "no rules". Admittedly, s/he got a little defensive but cooled down when I treated him/her with respect, unlike others who were not so friendly. There is no reason to WP:BITE new users like this.

I have written about this problem at WikiProject Editor Retention here.. In fact, this particular case was on my mind as I wrote it.

Endercase did reach out to me on my talk page. --David Tornheim (talk) 05:56, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

David Tornheim was canvassed. Endercase chose to message him about this discussion for some reason, likely that he had written "I don't want you banned" several days earlier. David Tornheim is one of the only users to agree with Endercase in one of their content disputes, and to have partly benefitted from Endercase's disruptive "non-comments" I mentioned above. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:31, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Self-collapse. This long response was written because I (Hijiri88) have a tendency to take AGF to the extreme, and didn't occur to me until after I'd written it that Dave might have been canvassed.

@David Tornheim: Umm ... what? Endercase is a very new user The account was created in 2011. It came back recently after a long absence and has done nothing but fight over our sourcing standards. s/he got a little defensive I'll say. [Points to diffs of sarcastic attacks further up] Perhaps an iBan from Hiriji88 -> Endercase is in order. Not going to happen. I asked, in a fairly polite manner, if Endercase had used any other accounts, and was met with a string of sarcastic personal attacks. Plus, one-way IBANs don't work and are rarely resorted to except perhaps in the extremest of cases, as ArbCom explicitly told me a little while back. There is no reason to WP:BITE new users like this. Again, if I thought Endercase was a new user I would have applied BITE appropriately, but the account is six years old, and is behaving very precociously on multiple noticeboards (including Jimbo's talk page). Admittedly, some of his recent behaviour[13] does make me reconsider my earlier opinion that he was socking, perhaps his main account was blocked, and he went back to his earlier account. In that case, perhaps he could be considered a newby, and if so I apologize for BITing. However, this does not excuse his continued disruption on multiple fora, after numerous users called him out and told him what he was doing wrong. Your opinion seems to be somewhat similar to OID's (I dont think there is enough yet) except that, for whatever reason, you threw in a string of random jabs at the messenger. Seriously, if a one-way IBAN (something ArbCom refused to do even after a year long hounding campaign), what would you do with all the other users, including at least two admins and one long-term user whose contact with Endercase was essentially limited to thread you link above, who said the exact same thing as me? Your comment seems to be more about your being just about the only one so far to have agreed with Endercase on something he said on RSN than about the actual issues. Which no doubt is why he canvassed you.[14] Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:25, 11 March 2017 (UTC) Stricken as redundant. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:48, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

^This is worth a read, because it seems to reinforce what I said. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:48, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Update: Since I wrote the above "No Action", I suggested to Endercase that s/he seek a mentor. His/her response was "I agree I need a mentor." [15]. I would be okay with closing this with the recommendation Endercase get a mentor and Hijiri88 (and all of us experienced editors) be gentle and less accusatory to new users. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:48, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

@David Tornheim: Your reading of that long comment is somewhat optimistic: the portion you quote was immediately followed by I appear to have upset a very active Cabal of users. Anyway, how would you feel about a set-term (three months? six months? one year?) TBAN on right-wing news media and/or RSN combined with mentoring for the same period of time, subject to review on completion of said set term? If, as you say, this is not a NOTHERE case, that kind of solution being effective would be a pretty surefire way to prove your case. Conversely, anyone who is HERE and recognizes that their activities have caused disruption would have no reason not to accept such a narrow restriction with a definite end date to look forward to. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:28, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: I spent some time on a reply on your proposed remedy (and am a bit warn out on this whole discussion). I do not think he has been disruptive, so he should not be punished with a tban. I think he is new and *confused* about what is and is not okay, and believes he is right and argues his case.

He--like probably a large portion of Trump supporters here in the U.S.--probably does not understand why editors on Wikipedia don't consider Breitbart or InfoWars to be good WP:RS. It's our job to make it clear to him that there is some consensus that establishes that. When another editor said Breitbart was no good, they provided no evidence for it, so Endercase went to RS/N to ask whether we really do ban specific sources (especially sources he thinks are good). His reaction makes perfect sense to me--exactly what a new user would do, one who doesn't understand how things work here. Obviously he didn't know about the banning of Daily Mail. I believe this problem is going to keep coming up, so we need an RfC or something like that to point to that says Breitbart (and InfoWars) are generally not good WP:RS. I would vote in favor of it, if such an RfC is held. Maybe I'll make one myself.

I have seen similar behavior over sourcing, e.g. Talk:Breitbart_News#Fake_News_being_passed_off_as_sources.

As for a remedy: Mentoring is fine, and perhaps a warning about not advancing specific sources as good WP:RS. If he stops advancing Breitbart and Infowars, I believe your main issue goes away. I think he might begrudgingly comply. We could ask him if he will do it voluntarily. --David Tornheim (talk) 11:12, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I do not think he has been disruptive Only because you are choosing to ignore all the disruption he's been causing. I think he is new and *confused* about what is and is not okay, and believes he is right and argues his case But how do you propose we deal with that? Are you offering to mentor him? If so: you say you don't think he has already been disruptive, so how would your mentoring prevent further disruption? so we need an RfC or something Maybe. But won't Endercase keep complaining with each new "formal ban" that it should be listed somewhere? If he stops advancing Breitbart and Infowars, I believe your main issue goes away. Actually, my main issue is the incivility (as I said in the commented off section above explaining why I pinged MP). I think editors who get their information about the world from Breitbart but know better than to directly cite it on Wikipedia are just as dangerous to the integrity of the project as less tactful users like Endercase, but they are obviously very difficult to root out. Actually it doesn't matter where they got their opinions: any editor who adds their opinions to articles and look for sources retroactively, rather than read sources and write what they see in the sources is a problem (ask Nishidani or Curly Turkey for the worst example in my memory of that -- I don't wanna go into detail). Endercase has actually been showing signs that even if you or some other mentor could get him to understand that citing Breitbart is out of the question, he'll just become one of those editors. And since I'm somewhat pessimistic about the Encyclopedia, I think that's the best we can hope for in a lot of cases. Content-wise. But he would still need to drop the sarcasm, ABF, canvassing... and anyone who doesn't recognize that he has been doing these things is not the right one to teach them not to. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:44, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

• Notice: I refer to this AN/I at the talk page of WikiProject Editor Retention here.--David Tornheim (talk) 07:12, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

• Note: I don't actually believe that Endercase is a new or inexperienced user, nor that we should treat them as such. New and inexperienced users do not hang out at RSN proffering advice, nor do they quote Wikipedia:Viewing and restoring deleted pages [16]. I don't know what is the appropriate action here, since Hijiri has failed to make a case by failing to provide diffs substantiating the claims in his OP (not the first time this has happened, which makes for a lot of wasted community time). I do think Endercase should at the very least be kept on a very short leash, and be banned from RSN and probably from reliable-source discussions in general. Softlavender (talk) 07:58, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

No mos. I actually kinda regret not providing more evidence specifically in the form of diffs in my OP comment. Not that it was actually necessary or appropriate. Just that I could have prevented this massive! CREEPy, wikilawyerish tangent about what kind of evidence is preferable. No one cares anymore. Everyone can see what is going on. I think the evidence I presented upfront was enough. Others disagree. Whether I am right or wrong, I apologize for my choice having led to this long distraction from the subject of this thread. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:53, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

@Softlavender: I actually decided not to post this earlier as it might be bludgeoning to reply to you more than twice before anyone else had commented, but there is actually no obligation to provide evidence specifically in the form of diffs, and in this case diffs would not have been helpful as it would have simply multiplied the number of links that need to be clicked. Endercase posted the same comment in half a dozen RSN threads, and he was the only one to use that particular word on the page, so linking the permalink for the then-current version of RSN and saying Ctrl+F either "bold" or "Endercase" was actually better than diffs. Similarly, the claim that the user is NOTHERE cannot be demonstrated by individual cherry-picked diffs; I linked their contribs, where it is blatantly clear that all they've done for the last several weeks is argue on various fora about Breitbart and InfoWars. I provided diffs where it seemed appropriate (specific snipes at me and MP). It's really not clear what "claims in [my] OP" you want further evidence for. I guess I could have (should have?) linked this to demonstrate that more than half his mainspace and article talk edits are to the same article, which is the one he tried to cite Breitbart and InfoWars on, and his favourite single page in any namespace is RSN, where all of his comments are either weird non-comments or about rightist fake news. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:19, 11 March 2017 (UTC) You provided a link to RSN with instructions to search for his username, which was instructive, and as I stated above I feel he should be banned from that noticeboard and probably from all discussions of reliable sources. But you did not provide diffs substantiating any of your other claims. The three diffs you provided show nothing actionable, and they do not mention Breitbart. Do not expect other editors to search through hundreds of contributions to find the diffs you should have provided. Softlavender (talk) 08:40, 11 March 2017 (UTC) Softlavender, could you tell me where I was told that I am obliged to provide my evidence in the form of diffs? Or specify a particular claim I made that wasn't supported by evidence? I am sorry for not providing specific diff for the Breitbart claim. I assumed you would look at the talk pages of the articles in question and see that when he says "my sources" and the like, Breitbart is what is referring to. Here are some diffs where, either in the edit summary or his comment text, he specifically names Breitbart.[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] It also appears on his userpage under the spelling "Brietbart". It is undated, so it would be a massive timesink to find the exact diff. Currently, "Breitbart" (and "Brietbart") is only used on RSN by users responding to Endercase, but the rest of us (me, OID, Fyddlestix...) are not just putting words in his mouth: he is unambiguously referring to Breitbart, and to a lesser extent InfoWars, when he talks about "his sources" and "banned sources". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:10, 11 March 2017 (UTC) The very first instruction at the top of this page is "Please include diffs to help us find the problem you are reporting." And it doesn't mean 20 diffs, but enough to adequately demonstrate each point you are stating. Softlavender (talk) 11:51, 11 March 2017 (UTC) Please include. Not "you must include". It's a guideline, not a hard rule. Evidence in other forms is frequently enough, and sometimes (as in this case) preferable. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:44, 11 March 2017 (UTC) It's not a guideline, it's an instruction. There's nothing about the word "please" that makes the instruction conditional. It doesn't say "may" or "maybe". Nfitz (talk) 13:52, 11 March 2017 (UTC) @Nfitz: Lots of ANI threads don't require evidence specifically in the form of diffs. The one immediately below this one didn't provide a single diff because anyone could click on the blue link and see what was being referred to. The one that led to this guy getting banned said, essentially, "Look at this person's user page -- it's Nazi propaganda" and if I recall correctly included no diffs. In this case, the only thing I didn't provide specific evidence for was "This looks to me like NOTHERE, but I'm not sure how to deal with it"; there are a bunch of ways to recognize NOTHERE, and most ANI regulars are quite familiar with at least some of them. Don't wikilawyer me into requesting that the wording of the instruction be amended to take cases like these into account and say something like Please include evidence (for example, in the form of diffs) to help us. That's WP:CREEP and really shouldn't be necessary. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:06, 11 March 2017 (UTC) Although, I have seen cases where no diffs were required, I think much time might have been saved in the case if more diffs were provided in the filing, rather than expecting us to try and figure out exactly what Hijiri88 contends is "disruptive". I didn't understand what "CTRL+F Bold" meant, even though I use CTRL+F all the time. Providing the diffs of such a search would have saved me time. I hope Hijiri88 listens to the concerns raised here and take the message that if s/he is going to file something like this in the future, to please provide diffs and evidence. Also, last night I started looking at the many diffs above provided to Softlavender. The claim was "either in the edit summary or his comment text, he specifically names Breitbart." Many of them came from a SECTION named Breitbart. That's not him "naming Breitbart", that's just him posting in the section containing the name Breitbart. A single link to the section saying, "here he is defending Breitbart"--if that is true--is sufficient. I feel much time could have been saved if the original filing had focused on diffs of "disruptive" behavior or behavior advocating Breitbart, InfoWars or some other right-wing site as WP:RS. It took me a while to understand that the advancement of right-wing sites was really the main concern, rather than argumentative behavior. --David Tornheim (talk) 21:51, 11 March 2017 (UTC) @David Tornheim: I provided all the evidence I thought was necessary. Everyone here except you recognizes I mean by "disruptive", and the only reason you don't is because you are ignoring all the specific evidence presented. Softlavender also recognizes the problem, and was just being pedantic about the difference between "diffs" and "evidence, in the form of diffs where appropriate". If you sincerely think, after all of this, that my main problem is the advancement of right-wing sites when I specifically told you above, in the comment that you pointedly ignored for some reason, that [a]ctually, my main issue is the incivility. I'm still waiting for a response to the question I posed in that same comment: if you don't recognize that Endercase's behavioir has been disruptive (I do not think he has been disruptive), how would your mentoring prevent further disruption? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:34, 12 March 2017 (UTC) Hijiri, several people have informed you that you did not provide diffs adequate to substantiate your several various claims in your OP. This has happened before with your ANI filings, and as it has now, it merely wastes everyone's time (which you are continuing to do by trying to prolong your self-justification, bickering, and wikilawyering). Now you can either take that information to heart and improve the next time you feel the need to file at ANI, or not and waste more people's time. But please stop harping on it here. Softlavender (talk) 04:43, 12 March 2017 (UTC) You still have not identified the "several various claims" I didn't substantiate. But why on earth are we still talking about this? If you still want diffs for something I said, I'll provide them within his collapse template. This is just distracting at this point. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:53, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

@Softlavender: A user with 328 edits is not a new user??? [32]. When I was a new user, if someone told me, "You can't use this source anywhere"--especially if I believed it was a good source, I would have looked for a general place to air a grievance about such a banning of a particular source, or banning of any source. (for the record, I don't think Breitbart is a reliable source, but I know there are people out there that think infowars and Breitbart are the only sources that have "real" news ). The way he aired it and then posted on WP:NPOV shows he didn't know that it was inappropriate to post at that notice board. He obviously didn't know about the banning of Daily Mail either or he wouldn't have asked the question. We are supposed to assume good faith, so these claims he is not a new user (or has multiple accounts) need some evidence. I provided evidence he is a new user. Is it guilty until proven innocent? --David Tornheim (talk) 08:50, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

New and inexperienced users do not hang out at RSN proffering advice, nor do they quote Wikipedia:Viewing and restoring deleted pages [33]. -- Softlavender (talk) 08:54, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

New and inexperienced users do not hang out at RSN proffering advice. Sure they do. I did the exact same thing when I had fewer than 1,000 edits under my belt, offering opinions at six different RS/N sections in a 24-hour period two years ago, until a couple of admins basically told me to butt out. I was a bit shocked, believing that Wikipedia was completely egalitarian and everyone could comment anywhere, regardless of experience, especially when I saw certain editors making so many comments in so many places.

It is a rookie mistake to be citing things like WP:BOLD and WP:IGNORE the way he did--not disruptive but naive.

As for Wikipedia:Viewing and restoring deleted pages, who knows how he learned of it--possibly he just did a search because he didn't understand why some of us were talking about deleting an inconsequential article (WER_v_REW)) that had inadequate WP:RS. Incidentally that article has nothing to do with Breitbart, Infowars or alt right ideology. He is obviously defending an inclusionist approach. I saw no evidence of disruption. He did argue with others, when experienced editors like myself argued with him. Nothing strange about that either: New editors who think they are right will argue, just like experienced editors do. I did the same thing when I started. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:59, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, whether he is new or not (and I don't believe he is), he is borderline trolling in my opinion, does not seem to be here to build an encyclopedia, and needs to be reined in. I think a topic ban on reliable source discussions, broadly construed, would at least be a good start. That would give him a chance to cut out the game-playing and demonstrate he can edit constructively. Otherwise, I'm not sure anyone wants to babysit him and if he fails to act maturely he probably is heading away from Wikipedia, so to speak. Softlavender (talk) 11:51, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I did the exact same thing when I had fewer than 1,000 edits under my belt That's one way of looking at it. Another would be that you had made over 400 edits, over several years, before your first edit to the Wikipedia namespace. Again, though, it doesn't matter to my argument whether Endercase is actually a new editor. BITE is an essay, and is subordinate to various policies (such as AGF). Once a newbie has rejected friendly and politely-offered advice from multiple parties and kept doubling down, apparently because of a firm belief that Breitbart and InfoWars are not unreliable sources, they should no longer be treated with kid gloves: editors who refuse to abide by consensus, either by deliberate or accidental failure to recognize the consensus, should either be given a limited sanction to allow them to demonstrate that they are at least capable of contributing constructively, or in extreme cases with a block. Incidentally that article has nothing to do with Breitbart, Infowars or alt right ideology. In other words, it represents only a tiny (even negligible) portion of his contributions so far. More than half of his mainspace and talk edits are related to the two articles he is insisting on citing Breitbart/InfoWars on. In second place is the two Arianism articles he briefly edited immediately after returning. I have not looked at the content of those edits, but one would need to be pretty ignorant of right wing ideology to think that they have nothing to do with it. (I never said "alt right"; my first interaction with Endercase was the FRC thread, about a Christian fundamentalist, anti-LGBT hate group.) Nothing else even comes close to these three. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:44, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

FYI Arianism is nothing to do with Aryanism --79.71.0.201 (talk) 14:43, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

@79.71.0.201: I know that. Read my comment again. I specifically said that I wasn't talking about "alt right" or "Nazism". Arianism is associated with right wing politics because conservative Christians (Christian right) frequently associate various groups with whom they disagree with "Arianism", and lump secular scholarship of early Christianity in with that Da Vinci Code-based misconceptions, most of which center around the Arian controversy and the Council of Nicaea. It's super-off-topic and would potentially violate BLP if I posted it in detail, but there's one particular conservative scholar I'm thinking of; but it's definitely not limited to him. The topics of "Arianism" and "Gnosticism" can very easily be tied to the Christian right. As I said, I haven't looked at the content of Endercase's specific edits to the topic, so I am not judging the edits specifically: merely pointing out that the fact that he edited those pages is not evidence that he has been contributing positively to topics that aren't pet topics for the American right. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:57, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

WP:DENY.

Hijiri88 needs a long topic ban from American Politics for comments like "Breitbart.com and other rightist fake news sites" and "the FRC thread, about a Christian fundamentalist, anti-LGBT hate group" which suggest that Hijiri88 is incapable of cooperating with editors with different points of view. Breitbart is a real news source that meets WP:RS. A distaste for its political stances (WP:IDLI) is not grounds for disallowing it or comparing it to Infowars. Anyone who tries to enforce partisan purity on Wikipedia should be blocked as WP:NOTHERE. 71.198.247.231 (talk) 15:50, 11 March 2017 (UTC) Woah. Seriously? Why would I be TBANned from a topic I have barely edited, not once disruptively. Also, who on earth are you? Have you and I interacted before? Your IP range is unfamiliar... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:00, 11 March 2017 (UTC) 71.198.247.231, if you wish to troll ANI and ask for bans for users in good standing, kindly log in to your account to do it. Bishonen | talk 17:44, 11 March 2017 (UTC).

• Give them a stern warning and let David mentor them. If they show up here again, slap a TBAN (or possibly an indef block) on them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:42, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants: I would be inclined to agree that mentoring could solve this problem, but I have my doubts as to David's ability or willingness to address the problem. I have serious doubts about mentoring by David under these circumstances: if disruption continues as before, will David just ignore it as he has been? The "mistakes" could be forgiven as a thing of the past, and even the fact that many of them clearly weren't mistakes overlooked, if there were any evidence that it wouldn't continue. If an editor who had disagreed with Endercase, or had at least acknowledged the problem, were offering to do the mentoring it would be one thing, since (if the IDHT behaviour continued, even toward the mentor) they would likely get frustrated and report back that mentoring wasn't working. David, though, looks set to just ignore all further disruption and only offer Endercase advice on how to successfully get away with his disruptive behaviour. If someone who recognized the problem were offering to fix it ... wait, a funny thought just occurred to me ... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:12, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@Hijiri88:I understand your concerns, however I'm not too worried about the disruption it could cause. A failure to get the point while under mentorship would result in a fairly quick block or TBAN. Look at it in terms of a risk-reward balance: There's a substantial chance that it would result in a small amount of disruption, and a substantial chance that it would solve the problem while adding another useful editor to the project. Even if the balance is in favor of the risk, the equation points to taking the chance as the best option. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:39, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Shit. I only just saw this now. Either your ping didn't work, or I was distracted when I clicked on the notification. You actually make a fairly good point about A failure to get the point while under mentorship would result in a fairly quick block or TBAN. is right on the money, and I'm now kind of regretting all-but withdrawing my support for David doing the mentoring. I still don't think he's qualified, but allowing other users to shoot themselves in the foot is a much better idea than taking the gun off them so I can shoot myself in the foot. Put simply: I don't want to take responsibility if/when whatever happens doesn't work. There's theoretically enough support below for a TBAN (if the canvassed and hounding !votes are disregarded), so if a closer wants to go that way I think they probably could, but at this point I think a likely outcome is "Mentor, by whoever wants to take a shot at it". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:11, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• Strong warning and short leash is sufficient here. I wasn't canvassed, and am commenting because of a not very positive interaction I had with this editor at WP:RS. If Endercase is sincerely wanting to contribute, then he'll learn and change his behaviors. If not, then leash should be short. First Light (talk) 02:41, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

• JzG and Orangemike have both voiced very strong opinions but have not !voted on the two proposals below. I am pinging them to invite them to do so. Softlavender (talk) 00:08, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

  I'm pessimistic (how much rope in enough?), but not quite enough so to obstruct either proposal. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:27, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

  Very little, in my opinion. First Light (talk) 09:54, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: Mentorship

As suggested above, I also think the mentor idea is a good one. Although in most ways I am not the most qualified, I would be willing to act as User:Endercase's mentor, as long as he doesn't expect me to be available or on Wikipedia for over an hour a day. Although it is counterintuitive for me to be his mentor, I think I can guide him into compliance and non time wasting way to edit and contribute overall without pissing people off. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:46, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Nocturnalnow, respectfully, I do not think you are appropriate or qualified to be the mentor here. I say that glancing at your contribs and your edits on, say Marie Le Pen, and elsewhere via your former account. And also because Endercase canvassed you into this conversation. The mentor needs to be a longterm Wikipedia editor in good standing with very clear NPOV. I think a TBan from RS discussions and from mentions of Breitbart and InfoWars would be better than mentoring, but if mentoring is chosen, I personally do not think it should be you. Softlavender (talk) 23:40, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

ok, Softlavender, thank you for your respectful wording. I accept your observation in this regard and withdraw my offer of mentoring. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:03, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

• support mentoring. --David Tornheim (talk) 03:08, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment from someone not opposed to mentoring, in theory I still think mentoring from someone who thinks there has been no disruption -- indeed is still officially trying to shift the blame onto those disputing with Endercase, as David's first comment still has not been stricken -- is not going to help the situation at all. If David was willing to admit that there is a problem, or if someone else who was willing to admit there is a problem offered to do the mentoring, it would be another matter. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:12, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Note that I'm still waiting on a response to my [Y]ou say you don't think he has already been disruptive, so how would your mentoring prevent further disruption? above. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:24, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't think his behavior was 'disruptive'. But I also think he made a number of errors, because he is new and does not understand the rules fully, which he freely admits below. Rather than be defiant and admit no wrongdoing here, he admits he needs help and has made mistakes. That's what I would like to see personally. He wants to learn and follow the rules. I have already spent quite a lot of time on both my talk page and his giving him advice. He asks good questions. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:57, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@David Tornheim: Sarcastic, uncivil comments and laughing at other editors in edit summaries are not "errors". If mentoring does not prevent further disruption of this sort, then mentoring alone will not solve the problem. The "mistakes" you say he has admitted to are mistakes others attempted to correct both before and since you, and he has refused to listen. He is only now admitting that he made "mistakes" because he is facing sanctions, and there's no reason to believe that if those sanctions don't pass he will not go back to not listening. You are the only one who thinks his behaviour wasn't disruptive, and it's increasingly obvious that this is because you are the only one to agree with him on the substance of one of his posts (apparently the only one you read). If you don't recognize what is wrong with his behaviour up to this point, then how can mentoring by you correct it going forward? If any other editor were offering to mentor him, or if you were willing to admit that his behaviour was disruptive, I would assume that mentoring would be a good first step, since if the behaviour continued the mentor would be the first to notice and get worn out by it, but you don't seem to even understand what he has been doing wrong. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Sarcastic, uncivil comments and laughing at other editors in edit summaries are not "errors". Hijiri, I agree with this statement, but there is an argument to be made, here. Specifically, that it remains a possibility that a cursory reading of WP:RS, a misunderstanding in which WP:NPA is taken to be the whole of our policy on civility, and a few relatively minor misunderstandings about fallacies could explain the response to me that triggered this thread. To such a person, who felt that Breitbart met our RS guidelines, that any sort of interaction that didn't involve insults was acceptable and that (for example) dismissing an argument as "ridiculous" is an ad-hominem and that "argument" on WP is synonymous with "negotiation", one could see how such a response could be made in relatively good faith. Personally, I don't think that is the case here, as that requires a comedy of errors on a level that would virtually mandate a WP:CIR block. I think, in this case, it's generally more constructive to assume they acted in bad faith, but are capable of extending good faith. If we're wrong, we'll find out soon enough, and if we're right, we get a shiny new editor. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:42, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants: Yes, I agree with just about everything you said in the above comment, but at the time I posted the comment to which you were responding, I was of the opinion that David mentoring would be a bad idea, not that mentoring itself (as opposed to formal sanctions) was a bad idea. At the time you posted your response, I had already changed my opinion on this point, since I figured that if David's mentoring was supplemented with my own it would not be a problem. (That's why I didn't initially reply to you.) But now (after the discussion on JzG's talk page and a bit of my own research based thereon) I have gone back to thinking that, whether or not David is theoretically capable of offering advice to new editors, he probably shouldn't, given his own sketchy (and, more importantly, recent) edit history. Since my offer to do the mentoring is still on the table, I haven't gone completely back to where I was two days ago, so ... I guess take this for what it's worth? Whether Endercase would be open to me and only me doing the mentoring (and whether I have the time/energy to take on the full responsibility) remains to be seen. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:46, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• Strong oppose of David Tornheim as mentor. In my view, David has serious issues of his own. Guy (Help!) 07:46, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
• Comment So ... yeah ... when I questioned JzG on the specific details behind the above comment, some interesting points came up. David Tornheim was TBANned from a discretionary sanctions area last July and within a week was blocked for violating the ban.[34][35] After being blocked, he disappeared from the Encyclopedia, before reemerging 49 days ago.[36] Essentially, David appears to have engaged in IDHT regarding his own ban and almost immediately violated it, and he has less than two months of edits to his name since that incident. This all makes his apparent refusal to accept my compromise proposal, or to strike his earlier attacks against me further up this thread, difficult to interpret as good faith "not having gotten around to it yet". I of course believe in second chances for users who were blocked and briefly left the project, and particularly for those who have been TBANned in the distant past (I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't), but should such users be mentoring younger problem accounts? David Tornheim's capacity to mentor a new editor who has been (perhaps inadvertently) causing disruption is definitely in question. I dunno: am I still "failing to assume good faith", having just noticed this background four days too late? I'm still up for mentoring, for whatever it's worth, but I'm wondering if Endercase should be explicitly told not to treat David as a mentor if he wants to avoid a TBAN. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:40, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Note that I have no problem with David as a person, and have not reviewed his edits outside this thread (so I have no idea what I would think of him as an editor). His above unstricken personal remarks about me are not really a concern for me, and I don't think he should face any specific sanctions for not striking them and not accepting a compromise proposal whose terms (per my own stricken support for the TBAN) I have already technically met. The above comment only means that I am again beginning to question whether he is the right person to mentor Endercase. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:50, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

David is a perfectly nice chap, but mentorship requires someone who unambiguously "gets it", and I really don't think he does. His input would IMO be more likely to lead Endercase astray. Guy (Help!) 07:29, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: Topic ban

I propose a topic ban from RS discussions, broadly construed, and from mentions or references to Breitbart and InfoWars. Softlavender (talk) 19:40, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support, as proposer. This solution is much easier and more doable than mentorship (which is time-consuming, unpredictable, and unwieldy, and rarely works with disruptive editors who already know an enormous amount about Wikipedia). It will allow Endercase to contribute productively to Wikipedia however he likes, and demonstrate that he is here to build an encyclopedia. -- Softlavender (talk) 19:40, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support Regardless of whether mentoring happens, it's clear that nothing will be gained from the editor continuing to discuss those two sources and continuing to post on RSN. In a few months' time, once the mentor (David, if he ever gets around to explaining what he meant above) determines that the time has come, the ban can be appealed. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:27, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I stand by the above, especially in light of my own offer below to mentor Endercase. I think a break from RS discussions, and generally staying the hell away from citations of Breitbart and InfoWars, would do Endercase good, and would advise him thus if he accepts my offer of mentorship. Once I think (or perhaps David and I agree) that the time has come for him to contribute constructively to RS discussions, then I would support lifting the ban. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:27, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Support withdrawn pending agreement to my proposition on David's talk page. Both David and I agree that Endercase should refrain from both the issues covered by the proposed TBAN, and if Endercase is really serious about mentoring then the result is the same wiout a formal ban.At his point I just want this mess to be over. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:54, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Note that I am now neutral on the formal ban (assuming David Tornheim's accepts my request on his talk page), but this is based on the assumption that Endercase takes the advice of me or David or both of us, which would have about the same effect, at least in the short term, as a formal ban. I think, if mentoring works, the formal ban would be redundant for as long as it would have been necessary. I have not changed my !vote to "oppose". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:15, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm withdrawing my withdrawal. My offer to mentor Endercase still stands, and if Endercase accepts my mentoring and listens to my advice, then the effect would be the same as a formal ban. Having a ban on one's record is not a "punishment", and David Tornheim (whose own recent history with bans is apparently somewhat checkered) is wrong to claim this. The fact that both users offering to mentor Endercase have advised him to take a self-ban on these two narrow topics means that formalizing the ban would just mean that, if Endercase (flagrantly and deliberately) refused to follow said users' advice, he would be blocked for doing so. The only effect of not formalizing the ban would be to allow Endercase to ignore the advice of his mentor(s). Note that the reason I'm re-supporting the ban proposal is to allow the closer to count my !vote as what it is rather than what it would be in ideal world. If one discounts the two canvassed !votes (both of whom seems to be under the mistaken impression that bans are meant to "punish" or "censure" users rather than prevent disruption) and the one hounding !vote, the number of "support"s significantly outnumbers that of "oppose"s, so theoretically a closer could close as consensus being to enforce a formal (narrow, perhaps temporary) ban. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:11, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose for the reasons I mentioned in the discussions above. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:53, 13 March 2017 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that David Tornheim (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)

• Opposed The mentoring with David Tornheim is the perfect solution, imo. Endercase has not been such a problem that they deserve being banned or censored in any way, imo. They just need a first chance.Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:11, 13 March 2017 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Nocturnalnow (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)

@Nocturnalnow: Again with this "censorship"? I stand by my offer to mentor Endercase (or at least help/supplement David's mentoring), but continuing to claim that something is being "censored" is not going to help. Claims that can be sourced only to Breitbart and InfoWars are already, effectively, barred from inclusion in Wikipedia because they are almost certainly false, so any specific sanction on use of particular sources by Endercase would not censor any content he might want to add. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:17, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Wait ... or did you mean to write "censured"? If so, I apologize for the misunderstanding. I still disagree, but you are entitled to your opinion on whether he should be censured by the community. You're not entitled to accuse others of trying to "censor" him. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:21, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm confident he meant censured. Thanks for the kind words Nocturnalnow. --David Tornheim (talk) 08:29, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

sorry..censured is what I meant. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:20, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: Okay. Stricken. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I respect your opinion, but I don't agree. "censure" implies some kind of stigma, but not being allowed contribute to an area of an online encyclopedia in which one has caused disruption is not something that should be treated this way. Several other contributors to this discussion are subject to TBANs and other restrictions, and have (presumably) contributed constructively while abiding by those terms. Sometimes bans are handed out not because the users themselves were causing disruption (deliberately or mistakenly) but because the community or ArbCom decide that a (limited!) editing restriction is the easiest and best way to solve the problem. Again, here, I must emphasize that if Endercase is subjected to a formal ban and mentoring, and a few months down the line wants to appeal the ban, I will support it appeal if I think it is right. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:20, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Hijiri 88, I understand your reasoning, I just think that in this case we should approach the matter from the position of holding back the formal ban for application if the mentoring does not fix the entire matter, similar to a court putting someone on probation. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:53, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: But again, your analogy doesn't work: A formal ban, which amounts to "If you do this bad thing again, you will be blocked from editing" is similar to probation. Mentoring means that if the solution doesn't work, a new ANI thread and an entirely new discussion of what is to be done.

He was already given the same advice (in some cases by the same people!) that he now appears to be listening to before this ANI thread was opened, and flagrantly ignored it. It makes about as much sense to assume that he is faking contrition now in order to avoid a formal ban, and will go back to being disruptive once this thread is closed, as to assume that this is just a coincidence. It would be a technical AGF violation to apply a formal ban under these circumstances, except that both users offering to mentor him are telling him not to do what the proposed ban would formally prevent him from doing anyway, so that the only difference between a formal and an informal ban is that he is not allowed ignore the former.

If this gets closed as "Hijiri88 is to mentor Endercase" or "Hijiri88 and David Tornheim are to mentor Endercase", and Endercase immediately starts ignoring my mentoring, the responsibility to report him again and request a formal ban would then be on me, which is not something I want. Much better to formally say that if Endercase flagrantly ignores the advice of his mentor(s) he will be blocked, which would allow anyone to report him if he does so.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:36, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Regardless of the practical effect difference between mentoring and "ban", the word "ban" has a more negative linguistic connotation, whereas "mentoring" has a more cooperative connotation. So, I think we should respect the optics of any close as well as the practical effect of it. At least that's my opinion. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:21, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose It seems that Endercase is listening to some good advice now. If they could stay away from WP:RS and stop bringing up those same issues voluntarily, that would be better. If this becomes a problem again, then a ban could be revisited, though I'm hopeful that won't needed. First Light (talk) 13:50, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@First Light: You are right, but the "good advice" he is listening to at the moment is largely "don't post on RSN" and "don't cite Breitbart/InfoWars". The problem, though, is that the same advice was offered before this came to ANI, and he ignored it then. It's therefore entirely possible that he is only listening now because there is a discussion of a formal ban, and will stop listening once his thread is archived. While being formally subject to mentorship and ignoring said mentorship is likely going to result in a block, it would have to be left to the mentor to report on ANI that the mentorship is not working. The mentor, here, would be either me (I'm sick of ANI and really don't want to come back here if this happens) or David (who still seems not to recognize a number of the problems here). A formal ban would mean that if he ignores the mentors' (or even each individual mentor's) advice he will be blocked and it won't need to be the mentor who does the reporting. (I need to keep emphasizing this, since I don't want this to come back and bite me in the ass: This is based on my interpretation of the banning policy as being similar to the blocking policy; bans, with the exception of site-bans imposed on NOTHERE editors, are preventative, and are not meant to say that the banned users in some way "bad people" or "unwelcome on Wikipedia". I am not sure if others agree with this personal philosophy. I thought it was widely recognized and was kinda surprised not to see it formally enshrined in WP:BAN.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:13, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: I share some of the same skepticism that you do, regarding pattern of behavior and the mentor issues. I just think that one more chance, short leash, etc. is best. I also think that if the bad behavior continues, someone will bring it here. It won't depend upon you. Just my opinion. First Light (talk) 10:30, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

@First Light: Meh. It seems to me like "one more chance" and "short leash" would be arguments in favour of a TBAN, and if they waste that last chance by violating the TBAN they are issued with a block. But, again, this is based on my (personal? idiosyncratic?) opinion that a limited topic ban already is a last chance (which also seems to be what User:Softlavender is talking about above with [the ban] will allow Endercase to contribute productively to Wikipedia however he likes, and demonstrate that he is here to build an encyclopedia). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:43, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose - Per the points raised by other editors. DarkKnight2149 20:06, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Note Darkknight2149 says "per above", but he hasn't actually posted anything above. His only other comment in this discussion is below here, which ... well, for reasons explained here his involvement in this thread is highly questionable. I'm also not the only one who thinks this drive-by commentary is inappropriate. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:23, 13 March 2017 (UTC) (Edited 07:11, 15 March 2017 (UTC))

I was referring to genuine points raised by others when I said "See above". Also, see this. DarkKnight2149 22:09, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Please read WP:NOTVOTE. You need to specify why, not just say "per above". No two participants in this thread are in full agreement, and everyone agrees that disruption, in some form, has taken place. Also, your participation here, and explicitly stating that you are doing so [b]ased solely [emphasis added] on [your] past experiences with [me], may well qualify as a TBAN violation -- your only past interactions with me were in the topic area from which you are banned, and the ANI thread that led to said ban. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:16, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, solely from my previous observations of your behaviour at ANI discussions. Stop bringing the TBAN into this. You are clearly retaliating. DarkKnight2149 22:19, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

My behaviour at those two ANI discussions was directly related to the COMICS discussion. Said discussion is the one from which the above user is banned. I have no interest in reporting the comment in the section below (which essentially amounts to "Hijiri88 is not a nice person and his behaviour, not mine, led to me being banned") as a TBAN violation; I'm just explaining why I think it is. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:11, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support, per my arguments above. And David Trondheim is an absolutely inappropriate mentor. Guy (Help!) 07:44, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Comments (meta)

• Comment from Endercase I'm definitely open to mentorship, or to any actions deemed appropriate by consensus. I have currently engaged in mentorship with David Tornheim on our respective talk pages. Their input has been very respectful, helpful and enlightening thus far, though I would not deny the assistance of any users (particularly one/s "assigned" to me) in helping me have a better understanding of the workings of Wikipedia or of life if they would like. Despite having read all policies that have been referred to me I feel as if I do not currently have a clear understanding of Wikipedia's working definition of "disruption". All of my actions have been based on my understanding of policy at the time of my interaction. I would have definitely done things differently had I had the understanding that I currently have of policy, yet I still feel like I have a lot to learn. I'd would like to thank all of you for using your time to determine what is appropriate action to take in my case. Endercase (talk) 19:22, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

@Endercase: Mentors are not "assigned". It's voluntary, so if no one is willing to mentor you then you don't get a mentor. I appear to be in the minority in thinking that mentoring by the one person who has thusfar offered to do it is not going to work. If the community decides that mentoring by David is the solution, then I will accept that, but ... well, what would you say to me being your mentor? I'm willing to forgive and forget any past negative interactions you and I have had, and if you are really willing to work to get better at editing, then I am willing to assist in any way I can. How about it? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:12, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: David Tornheim has been extremely helpful thus far and I would not like to lose their interaction and input. However, your input would also be extremely valuable. Considering that you and David Tornheim have not gotten along even in this discussion it may be difficult for the two of you to work together. If you can work with them in mentoring me I think this would represent a major development between two very different editing styles. This would be a very growing experience for all of us and I suspect this would lead to a few growing pains. However, I feel like we would all learn quite a bit from the experience and become better editors. If you would like to mentor me the main thing I think I need at this moment is your clear definition of disruptive behavior. You have mentioned: excessive posting, sarcasm, and repeating the same arguments under a singular heading, canvassing, and having non-descriptive edit summaries, and a few other things. I have also been reading other AN/I posts to generate a better understanding. I would love to have a better understanding of your perspective and would like David Tornheim's input on this idea. Endercase (talk) 06:24, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

[me] and David Tornheim hav[ing] not gotten along even in this discussion is not really an issue, since we have never interacted before, and in this discussion we have a disagreement as to whether your behaviour has been "disruptive" or merely "mistaken". This actually isn't even that much of a disagreement, since we appear to be working on different definitions of "disruption": the way I use it, it says nothing about intent or lack thereof, and so is not mutually exclusive with "mistaken" behaviour; under my definition, it's a truism that disruption has taken place, regardless of whether or not you meant to be disruptive. Everyone, including me, is in agreement that mentoring would be a good idea: I am just concerned that David seems to have been ignoring the concerns the rest of us have had expressed about your behaviour, and so might continue to do so even if he is officially acting as your mentor.

If you are willing to accept me as your mentor, I will offer you the advice not to cite Breitbart or InfoWars at all -- they only occasionally get things right, and then only when they are in agreement with more reliable sources, and their editorial slant is so much at variance with Wikipedia's NPOV policy that using them would involve enough care and diligence that it would be impractical even for experienced editors. Better just avoid them.

As for RSN, I would strongly advise you not to contribute there in the manner you have been. That noticeboard is most often meant to determine whether this or that source is appropriate for some particular purpose on Wikipedia, and so telling other users to be "bold" and add whatever material they are talking about is not helpful. Neither is saying that a discussion of whether the FRC is a reliable source for the teen pregnancy article should take place on the talk page rather than RSN. Most regular contributors there are highly experienced in writing articles, and you are not going to be able to contribute as well as they can without gaining more experience actually writing articles and citing sources yourself. This is based on the assumption that you are not a university professor who should already know that Breitbart and InfoWars are unreliable; I'm not (I have a bachelor degree and I read a lot). I can't unilaterally ban you from RSN, but I really think it would be a good idea for you to stay away from it for a while, until you've contributed a bit more content and demonstrated to me (and whoever else) that you understand or content policies and guidelines, particularly WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:RS. (You may also have a problem with WP:NPOV, but I haven't seen enough article content to tell.)

I would be happy to continue offering you advice like this for the foreseeable future, but you would need to listen to it. I tried to offer you essentially this same advice on your talk page before coming here, but you ignored it. That is something you will not be able to do if you are granted the "mentoring" option in place of what some other editors have argued for in this thread. There may be limited support for Softlavender's TBAN proposal relative to the general concept of "mentoring", but there's more support for a "strong warning" and "short leash" than for any other option, so you must understand that if you don't listen the advice that is offered you from now on, you will likely be blocked from editing. Please do not take this as a "threat". I no more wish to see potentially good contributors blocked than does David, nor do I have the power to unilaterally block you even if I wanted to. It is simply a statement of fact.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

TLDR: You shouldn't cite those sources, and you should write more articles before attempting to offer advice on RSN. These are terms you really should adhere to, whether or not the above TBAN proposal garners enough support to pass. If this thread is closed as "Mentor", you need to listen to your mentor's (or mentors') advice. If not, your mentor will likely get tired of trying to make you listen, and we will be right back here without the "don't block; mentoring is better" option on the table. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:02, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment (addressed mostly to Endercase). I have no objection to Hijiri88 giving advice to Endercase in addition to myself. In fact, I would prefer it, as my time is limited. I agree with Hijiri88 that we would not likely be at cross-purposes, any more than the case when I first met you at WP:RS/N and experienced users were giving you advice.

I agree with Hijiri88 that the main disagreement between us is whether your behavior so far needs punishment on the level of a tban or censure: I don't think it does. I see this as a beginner who did not understand the rules, thought WP:IGNORE meant we have no rules, and now you know that, yes, we do have rules and there are consequences to not following them.

I agree with nearly all of Hijiri88's advice:

1. use of Breitbart and InfoWars as WP:RS should be avoided
2. encouraging editors be WP:BOLD is a bad idea, especially as you did at WP:RS/N
3. listen more to advice from experienced users (you can look at their user page to get a sense of who is experienced), and refrain from long arguments. If you really think the other person is wrong, you can ask us.
4. stay clear of giving advice at WP:RS/N, again avoid saying "be WP:BOLD". Learn the rules of WP:RS first, and that means more than just reading the rules. It takes experience.

It should be okay to ask a question at WP:RS/N about whether a particular source can be used to support a particular statement. But do it to gain input and consensus, rather than argue if you don't like the answer.

The only thing I disagree with Hijiri88 is any requirement that you create your own articles. There is plenty of work to be done adding to existing articles with top quality RS; and especially adding good RS to statements that are have poor RS or none at all and correcting errors in the text when the sentence does not match what is in the RS. Fixing typos is always welcome, as is reverting clear cases of vandalism. And as I mentioned before, work to be done at WP:Backlog (<I'm not sure if you need more experience to work on that stuff or not. There is probably work to be done that a new user would find comfortable.)

FYI, in the past mentors were assigned. I don't know what is happening with that now. The page Wikipedia:Co-op says that it is no longer active. I will ask. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:07, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• Concern - Based solely on my past experiences with this user, I don't think that Hijiri88 is the right choice to be the mentor. But in terms of what he's saying here, I agree with much of it. DarkKnight2149 20:22, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Note that Darkknight2149's "past interactions with me" consisted of me correcting his disruptive misreading of sources on one article, a minor interaction about which I had forgotten on another article, and my participation in two recent ANI threads about him. The ANI threads resulted in him being temporarily TBANned from the topic area covering the two articles. I am now thinking that the temporary ban may need to be extended to indef, since it's clear that it has only made the problem worse. The only thing my previous interactions with him demonstrates that might be remotely relevant to this case is that I know more about careful reading of sources than he does. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:21, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

This is the sort of behaviour I was referring to. And since you are looking for a fight, I'm moving on. Do not mention or ping me here again. I'm out. DarkKnight2149 22:24, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment - I've interacted with Endercase before at WP:NPOVN, regarding something relating to a bias. He mediated in the discussion and I did not get the sense of any bias towards either side. He seemed to be quite neutral and helpful in resolving the issue. I'm just bringing this up because it is an example where this user acted as a productive, unbiased editor and it should be taken into account. UNSC Luke 1021 (talk) 14:08, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Long-term disruptive IP hopping on The Simpsons-related articles

For nearly three years now, a group of IP's have been disruptively editing The Simpsons-related articles, by adding fake episodes, disruptively switching around information such as writers, production codes, and suppressing info by using nonsensical excuses such as "This site knows too much" displaying WP:IDONTLIKEIT behavior, including deleting source information claiming it is "too soon" to list the info or that "they're not ready" for the info to be available yet, despite that the information is sourced. After several years of reverting this user who uses a variety of different IP ranges, the most common ones being 2602:306:37eb:47e0.* (which was rangeblocked by KrakatoaKatie back in January for vandalism, including one other time in August 2015 for "tv-related, ip-hopping disruptive editing and vandalism") and 205.213.104.*, I looked into the vandalism in the page history, and found over 160 examples of this user (using different IPs) vandalizing Simpsons-related pages (the diffs can be found on this page). Despite the many different IPs, the user often uses very similar phrases throughout IPs and displays similar behavior. Adding fake titles, particularly "Maggie Goes to Nursery" 1, 2, 3, sneaky director switching 4, 5 and claiming The Futon Critic, a very reliable press release site that gets all their information directly from the television network, is somehow "ahead of its time" and should not be used 6, 7.

Going through this information, I found one editor, Davejohnsan reverted this editor quite often and seemed to be aware of the person's editing patterns, so I sought him out on his talk page earlier today asking if he would be interested in giving input when I made this report on ANI. Though Dave did not get a chance to respond yet, the IP hopper commented on my message to Davejohnsan diff here pleading with me not to report him and told me "I'll stop for real this time!" along with an "explanation" for why these edits were made. This gave me pause for several reasons, 1) despite his "begging" for another chance, the editor has been blocked several different times on different ranges, so they clearly knew what they were doing was wrong. 2) His explanation clearly displays WP:NOTHERE behavior as he is essentially editing according to his personal whims, and neglects to realize his removal and vandalizing of content affects all of Wikipedia. 3) Finally, in my message, I never once mentioned in my message what this "Disruptive IP range" was, so if the editor was truly "innocent" how would they know I was referring to them? Not to mention the fact that he "conveniently" happened to see my message Davejohnsan's talk page only hours after I posted it, meaning he was likely stalking my contributions as well. At the very least, this editor is WP:NOTHERE and their disruptive behavior cannot continue.

Admittedly, I don't have much experience dealing with this, but I would recommend at least the season 28 and List of The Simpsons episodes articles being semi-protected for now, however, I think a much more long-term solution is necessary as this has been going on for three years now, and cannot continue. Thank you. Katniss May the odds be ever in your favor ♥ 02:18, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Comment: For anyone who decides to take a look at this, Katniss appears to have been kinda keeping up with the edits. Such a list may help with any further blocks put in place. 'Fraid I've not exactly got anything to add to this yet, other than pointing out what I just did. Off to bed for moi! MM ('"HURRRR?) ^(Hmmmmm.) 02:52, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

What are the IP ranges used? It looks like 2602:306:37eb:47e0::/64 and 205.213.104.0/24. Is this correct? I can semi-protect the season 28 article for a while. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 19:11, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

NinjaRobotPirateYes, that is correct. Occasionally, other ranges have been used but not for a while. That would be great if you could protect the season 28 article, however, the List of the Simpsons episodes article is an equally common target of this vandalism. I would potentially suggest maybe blocking both of those ranges as well so they don't simply switch to other season articles after that one is blocked. Thanks! Katniss May the odds be ever in your favor ♥ 01:49, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Oops, my mistake, just saw that you protected both those articles already. Thank you! I would still suggest those two ranges you list above be blocked to prevent the other season pages from getting targeted.

Also, if the vandalism/disruption resumes after the semi-protection elapses, should I re-report back here or somewhere else? Thanks! Katniss May the odds be ever in your favor ♥ 01:54, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I semi-protected both articles. I also blocked both IP ranges for a month. Let me know if there are other IP addresses that perform that same disruption. I might be able to do something about that. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:57, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I will definitely let you know if I see any more disruption after the protection has elapsed. Katniss May the odds be ever in your favor ♥ 02:41, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Socking, COI, repeated article creation/deletion

Multiple socks and IP editors keep creating versions of Rajkumar Mishra(Film Actor) and vandalizing India film pages by replacing famous actor's names with "Rajkumar Mishra."

• Special:Contributions/RAJKUMAR_MISHRA_FILM_ACTOR
• Special:Contributions/47.31.1.214
• Special:Contributions/2405:204:3008:1F76:0:0:1B41:88A4
• Special:Contributions/37.127.136.241

Closed sockpuppet investigation here shows prior socks:

• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/RAJ_KUMAR_MISHRA

Blocking and salting page creation for this latest article would be a good thing. First Light (talk) 08:29, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

And they continue:

• dif
• dif

First Light (talk) 09:33, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

And more:

• dif]

First Light (talk) 09:45, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

 Done. Though I fail to see 37.127.136.241's connection to Rajkumar Mishra(Film Actor). El_C 10:00, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, and yes, that was mistake to add that particular IP, who actually was reverting the vandalism. Thanks for noticing! First Light (talk) 10:02, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Our sock is not done, it seems:

• Rajkumar_Mishra(Tv_actor)
• Rajkumar Mishra(TV actor)
• latest sockpuppet: User:Rajkumar Mishra (Tv actor)

First Light (talk) 10:51, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Everything above has been taken care of, now we have this user adding the name to List of Indian television actors: Block for IP, please,[37] and that article could be put under protection since it's a favorite target. First Light (talk) 11:19, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• Another IP spamming this supposed actor's name:

2405:204:300A:DB87:0:0:24B9:38B0 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) First Light (talk) 11:46, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Is there any famous person with this name, or any reason this couldn't be set up as a filter to stop it being added to random articles? From the profile it looks like a game of whack-a-mole and this mole seems to have a lot of time on their hands, so perhaps a new approach is needed. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:52, 13 March 2017 (UTC).

haha, I was just looking at the edit filter request page to ask for this. No, there is no famous person like that. No articles or authors, etc., as far as I know. Can you request an edit filter for this, or I can do it? First Light (talk) 11:55, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• And now this: Rajkumar Mishra(Actors) First Light (talk) 11:56, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
  • plus the new sock: User:Rajkumar Mishra (Actors) First Light (talk) 11:58, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd suggest that as you have more experience with this individual you'd probably be better off making the request. Edit filters are expensive in processing terms and tricky to set up, and they'll have to be run in test mode for awhile to make sure it doesn't return any false positives before being put in "disallow" mode. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 12:03, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Ok, will do - thanks, First Light (talk) 12:06, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Now "Raja Mishra

• Raja Mishra Actor (talk · contribs)

Could an admin please block this latest sockpuppet? First Light (talk) 03:49, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

More socks, additional name

• Mahant Lal(actor) (talk · contribs)
• Rajkumar Mishra(telefilms) (talk · contribs)
• 2405:204:308A:C765:0:0:1186:E8A0) (talk · contribs)

Also created the article Mahant Lal ("sources" are broken links), using a photo that had been previously uploaded by Rajkumar Mishra, in case you want to know what our friend looks like. First Light (talk) 01:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

POV-pushing on multiple Balkans-articles

Copied from WP:AIV where countless other reports have been handled since the report, but noone seems to want to touch this:

• 91.148.77.114 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) – On NATO bombing of the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters (diff):. Repeated POV removal of sourced content on multiple articles (articles subject to AE/Balkans) after getting a final warning for it (they swiftly remove all warnings they get, but the final warning, and the ones before that, can be found in their talk page history). - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 11:04, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

You forgot to mention that I stated reasons for removal of "sourced" content in edit summary. 91.148.77.114 (talk) 11:22, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Reasons that are POV and not valid. As you have been told you need to discuss it on the talk page and get support for it there, before removing it. On at least one article you are also repeatedly falsifying content, by changing text to say things that the source does not say (see comment on IP's talk page), which is as POV as it can be. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 11:27, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I can say the same thing about you - reverting back to suspicious and POV content, without bothering to understand the issue. 91.148.77.114 (talk) 11:31, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

If you are reverted, just redoing the same edit and repeating the same edit summary again and again is not enough. I think you need to use the articles' talk pages to properly explain the reasons you think your edits should remain. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:42, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

The IP (who, based on edits, page history of involved articles and general behaviour, including checking if they're being reported at WP:AIV and then immediately posting claims about POV/bias there, to make it seem like a content dispute, is identical to Special:Contributions/212.178.255.63, who was blocked twice in February, see block log, for the same and similar edits, and most probabaly also other IPs further back in time) has over the past few days repeatedly removed properly sourced material from and/or changed text on multiple articles relating to Kosovo and the 1990s Balkan War (articles edited sofar are Battle of Tripolje, Destroyed Serbian heritage in Kosovo, NATO bombing of the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters, Battle of Lođa, Attacks on Likošane and Ćirez and Kragujevac massacre, all of them subject to AE/Balkans), with claims about the articles being biased/POV, edits that also include repeatedly toning the text down and making the articles no longer say what the source says. The edits have been reverted by multiple other editors, and the IP has been told to discuss the changes on the talk page of the articles, and get support for them there, but the edits continue.

All warnings they get are swiftly removed, BTW, so you will have to check the page history, which also shows they've been around for a while, so if someone knows who the real master behind it is please say so here... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 13:47, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

When I edit, I'm a vandal, when I state in edit summary the reason for removal of the content I get reverted and accused of vandalism. I may have made some mistakes, but I am no vandal. And when I go to a talk page nothing gets done. Too bad Thomas.W cherry picked through my edits, avoiding articles where I contributed. 91.148.77.114 (talk) 16:04, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

You personally feeling that something is wrong or biased isn't a valid reason for removing properly sourced content, or rewriting sourced text in a way that doesn't properly reflect what the sources say, and especially not a valid reason for doing it over and over again, after being reverted by several different editors. As you have done, using more than one IP for doing it. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 17:03, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Again, you ignored what I said. As for your claim of "personal feeling" I can say the same about you. 91.148.77.114 (talk) 17:46, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

One good edit doesn't excuse 99 POV-pushing edits. And I don't have any personal feelings when it comes to the Balkans since I'm not from there and have never been there, I just try to uphold the rules here. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 18:04, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

The problem with Balkan-related articles is that often both sides have sources to back-up their POV, so one has to apply WP:UNDUE in order to archive balance. It is quite common to see editors cherry-picking sources that are convenient to their side and remove sourced content and sources from the other side. That makes a situation where it is not enough for some content to be sourced to become undisputable but rather one should gather and see what reliable sources say about the subject from 3 sides: one side, the other, plus neutral ones. FkpCascais (talk) 20:21, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Which is why I want the IP to discuss it on the talk page of the articles, instead of just repeatedly removing anything they don't like. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 21:11, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes,, that is clearly a way to go. FkpCascais (talk) 21:31, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Then (Thomas.W) why not take your own advice, and the initiative, and use the talk page? The last post there (talk page of NATO bombing of the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters) was on 14 feb, by me. Given the absence of talk page usage by the complainant, I don't see validity in raising a case here. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:22, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield: I thought that was obvious: I have no opinion fore or against the edits, and quite frankly don't care if it's one way or the other, I'm just reverting an IP who is repeatedly removing and/or falsifying sourced content just because they don't like it. And the reason I posted here is that I feel that repeated (as in over and over again no matter how many other editors revert them) removing sourced content, using one IP after the other, and having been blocked for the exact same thing multiple times before, deserves a block. An opinion others here apparently don't share. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 16:47, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Even if you don't personally have an opinion on the content, by repeatedly reverting and without making anything as a talk page post, aren't you behaving in the same way as the IP by doing nothing to break the cycle. Without first trying to resolve things on the talk page, bringing a case here looks premature. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:35, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

??? Are you seriously claiming that anyone reverting blanking, falsifying of sourced content etc etc needs to spend hours on discussing every single revert on the talk page of the article in question? Do you have any idea how often this happens here, and how many editors like the IP there are? - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 17:49, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Nobody is asking you or expecting you to spend "hours" discussing "every single revert", though sometimes contentious material on difficult subjects will need that amount of consideration. But you have not even spent minutes discussing it, as far as I can see. Looking at your recent edit history I see lots of revert edits, many with brisk edit summaries, and many "warnings" posted on other editor's pages, but almost no use of article talk pages. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:22, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Did you check what the edits were, or did you just look at the list? Don't judge anyone without checking what the edits were, and the page history of the article the revert was made on. Reverting vandalism, such as fanboys repeatedly inflating numbers without sources on articles about the armed forces of various minor countries (or in a case earlier today lowering the numbers for country A and at the same time increasing the numbers for neighbouring country B, without sources of course...) doesn't need any discussion, it's also difficult to discuss things with IP-hoppers, who often change IPs several times a day. Nor does reverting repeatedly made changes from "Kiev" to "Kyiv", made by editors who already know that we use the name that is in common use in English, and also has been discussed ad nauseam on Talk:Kiev/naming need any discussion. A janitorial job on a side of Wikipedia that most people here, apparently you included, never see. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 20:50, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

No I haven't looked at the individual edits in your history that are not related to the case here, and I am not questioning your good motives in any of the edits. I am just trying to say that I think going straight from reverting content deletions to here is hasty without first trying to resolve the situation through article talk pages. If the IP doesn't respond there, to your prompting, that makes the case for bringing them here much stronger. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 22:03, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Notice This IP has targeted my edits. They asked FkpCascais to have a look on my edit at Kosovo War and the later editor undid my changes. The later is currently reported by another editor. The report is some sections above. Ktrimi991 (talk) 14:04, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Of course you were reverted Ktrimi991, you removed an entire well sourced paragraph about the expulsion of Serbs and other non-Albanian civilians (your edit I reverted). You are making an euhemiism saying they wre displaced instead of expelled. FkpCascais (talk) 20:43, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• Note: The same editor, now as Special:Contributions/91.148.93.114, is still doing the same type of edits, and is now also edit-warring on Serbian Air Force and Air Defence to restore an older version of the article with outdated sources. A previous IP they have used is Special:Contributions/212.178.251.41 (check contributions), so this is an IP-hopper with a long history of edit-warring, blanking and POV-pushing on multiple articles, over a long period of time, getting away with it time and time again because of knowing how the system here works, switching IPs, swiftly removing all warnings and other talk page messages they get, and knowing how to make their pro-Serbian POV-pushing look like simple content disputes, even though it isn't... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 08:43, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I really appreciate all those accusations. Very constructive of you. Also, nice cherry picking of my edits. 91.148.93.114 (talk) 09:36, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

As I said earlier here, one good edit doesn't excuse 99 POV-pushing edits. And I didn't cherry-pick, I just picked one of your many IPs at random, if I had wanted to cherrypick I would have picked an IP like Special:Contributions/212.178.238.187, blocked on 10 March 2017 for wikihounding FOX 52, an editor you had edit-warred against on Serbian Air Force and Air Defence, reverting all edits they had made, on a considerable number of articles. But since I have your attention, would you mind telling us which registered account you once had? That is before you started to use, or were forced to use, IPs for your editing... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 09:48, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

A couple of more IPs you have used recently, with the exact same edits and exact same behaviour: Special:Contributions/212.178.241.183 (blocked in February 2017 for vandalism), Special:Contributions/91.148.93.34 (an IP that really shows your repeated edit-warring...) and Special:Contributions/91.148.93.212. All from the recent page history of a single article, Serbian Air Force and Air Defence. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 10:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Never had an account. Like I said, nice cherry picking. 91.148.93.114 (talk) 10:26, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

IP, why dont you consider creating an account? FkpCascais (talk) 21:45, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

WP:NOTHERE editing (incl. socking, using personal attacks, battleground-loaded editing, copyvios, and what-not)

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

This user has been playing with fire for quite some time now. His editorial pattern includes so many unacceptable things, that it requires admin intervention.

Recent personal attacks/battleground-editing

• "Undid Indian vandalism"
• "Kindly keep your noses in your Gangetic history. Indus history has nothing to do with India. You're welcome."
• Are you on drugs or something?
• You just completely screwed up a perfectly good article. I'll instead be reporting YOU and YOUR disruptive edits.
• "you Indians just love shoving INDIA into every bloody Pakistani article because it makes you feel better about the craphole you live in"
• "Before trying to act all smart, open up your OWN source and read what is says. Idiot"

Recent IP socks used

• IP 99.226.91.115 (same edits, same edit summaries, same target articles, literally editing the articles a few minutes before or after the account in question)

Recent Copyvios

• here
• here

OR/Agenda pushing

• [38] (basically adding information about peoples/ethnicites from regions that far pre-date any "diaspora" of the country in question, a country that was created no more than 80 yrs ago. This erroneous self-interpreted bogus would be similar to someone adding "Paeonian migrations" to the article "Macedonian diaspora", or "Illyrian migrations" to the article "Albanian diaspora".

- LouisAragon (talk) 06:42, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Clearly not competent to edit Wikipedia with such an attitude. Simply NOTHERE. --QEDK (愛) 10:05, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I will attempt to answer all these ridiculous claims one by one. First off, go through my entire edit history before making a remark about me being not "competent" enough. Pakistan Railways for example I've been working on for months and have had no problem. The problem seems to arise whenever "Persia" is mentioned. This LouisArgon character shows up literally out of nowhere and starts making really ridiculous edits. It's almost like he's desperately trying to make Persia a European country or something, judging from his edits, but that's another argument and debate altogether. This entire kerfuffle arose in Overseas Pakistanis article. He removed mentions of migrations that took place during colonial era and the Middle Ages. He brings up Albanians and Macedonians (which are ethnic groups) and then compares them to Pakistanis (which is only a nationality representing several ethnic groups). He assumes that Pakistanis didn't exist until 1947 and the ethnic groups that make up the country all popped out of thin air in 1947. He offered no reason as to why he made those edits either...he just thinks because he's an established Wiki editor, he can do whatever he wants. Is this the way Wikipedia operates? Where are his edits in Overseas Chinese and Non Resident Indian articles which practically do the same thing as Overseas Pakistani article? Where are his edits in Overseas Vietnamese? India didn't exist until 1857. Vietnam didn't exist until after Pakistan. And nobody was calling themselves "Chinese" during the Ming Dynasty either, so what his argument om about? LouisArgon, IMO, has a very unhealthy obsession with Pakistani wiki articles and employs double standards. He's made a mess of History of Pakistan too in the past and continuously reverts template edits without offering any logical explanation. Secondly, regarding my IP address, I've recently moved to another country hence the change after March 7, 2017. And many occasions I forget to login. It's not a malicious attempt to hide myself as LouisArgon is claiming. It's not hard to find out who's who anyway. Why would I hide myself? In Pakistan Railways I've done the same thing many times, simply because I just forget. For those Wiki editors who seem to have a level headed approach, look at my Wiki edit history and it speaks for itself. I don't go around looking for fights, instead they come looking for me it seems. I have no personal quarrel with LouisArgon, but his edits in Overseas Pakistanis was ridiculous to say the least. If this is his view, I expect his edits on Non-Resident Indians, Overseas Vietnamese and Overseas Chinese. But alas, no edits were made on those articles. The reason is simple. LouisArgon is biased and employs double standards. Thank you for reading my response, Have a great day.--PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 11:17, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Let me put it simply. If you can't properly conduct a conversation without using personal attacks, I am not obliged to prove you as a helpful member of this community. --QEDK (愛) 11:25, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• @QEDK: What personal attack have I used in the paragraph I wrote above? I'm stating an opinion and presenting my argument about how I find LouisArgon's edits as disruptive and unproductive. It was done out of spite, not for the betterment of Wikipedia. --PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 14:52, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• What affects me is that you already used personal attacks, ...Indian vandalism, ...because it makes you feel better about the craphole you live in, et al. You're being purposefully vile and as BSZ states later on, it's only a matter of circumstance that you haven't been blocked yet. Here's my advice to you: take a BREAK, reflect on your own actions and return when you're competent enough to work as a member of this community. Also, one of the golden rules on this site is, assume good faith and anyone can clearly observe your repeated failures at that basic rule. You hold a baseless animosity towards India and her citizens and that's very concerning considering this site is considered to be a repository of neutral and verifiable information. --QEDK (愛) 15:43, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• @QEDK: Look at the old template I edited, and the reverted version and tell me which one reflects the History of Pakistan better. When Indian wiki members continuously vandalize our articles, then you should expect a response. You have no idea how many time I've had to clean up vandalism and reverts of Pakistan being called "Porkistan" and "Pakibastardland" and stuff like that. But that's okay according to you. Heaven forbid if we actually respond back...oh the outrage. My only mistake was not reporting it. They have an entire group of people who literally skim over every Pakistani article to insert "Indian subcontinent" which isn't even valid anymore since South Asia is used. I have no hatred for India or Indians...I have a hatred for Indian ultra nationalists who are not aware that a border exists between India and Pakistan. I'm also against the notion that 92 odd years of illegal British occupation with there experiment "British India" somehow erases 9000 years of Indus history and culture. If you want to ban me, go right on ahead. I'm not shying away from what I have said...I said it...if I have to be banned, then I'll take it. But I am not wrong in my edits that I have made. Look at my edits in Pakistan Railways and the various articles I have written on connection including railway stations, lines etc. Read MY edits in Overseas Pakistani, History of Jews in Pakistan and tell me what I have done that is so outrageous that they had to be reverted? I have provided sources, used proper grammar, cleaned up the article and just made it better reading experience overall. I've doubt you've even looked at my edits. --PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 16:00, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• I do not see why that would affect your editing capability. You have to learn to distinguish between people who are here to edit and people who are there to vandalize, while I understand your situation, you're letting yourself get away with your attitude. I'm afraid I can't sympathize with you. I can only request you stop this while you still can, with the little bit of ROPE that BSZ has given you. I pray you shall continue to be a good editor. Cheers! :) --QEDK (愛) 16:05, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

He just reinstated the same material on the Overseas Pakistani people using another sock IP. Just look how the IP, with the exact same geolocation as his other IPs, reinstated PAKHIGHWAY's edit word for word verbatim. Gotta admit, this is quite the circus act. - LouisAragon (talk) 12:01, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• @PAKHIGHWAY:--Well, there exists a procedure in Wikipedia called no personal attacks and establishing consensus.That you have created some good articles hardly gives you a lee-way to harass other users who are far-more experienced than you are.And please don't bring your ethnic rivalries over here.Any-way it's high time you look at your behaviour before telling others unhealthily obsessed and employing double standards.And may-be you don't know that we are serious about WP:SPA and serial WP:COPYVIO violators.Cheers!Winged Blades ^Godric 13:07, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• @Winged Blades of Godric:-- I have a right to share my opinion, that's not called "harassment". Being singled out by a Wiki editor because I called him out on this talk page is harassment actually. Also being far more experienced doesn't give someone the right to simply make foolish edits and not give reasons for it. What's the point of an edit summary if LouisArgon won't use it? He made those edits out of spite, not for any logical reason and he has a long history of this mind you. I simply asked that if Overseas Pakistani article can't mention anything before 1947, why wasn't the Overseas Chinese or Non Resident Indian articles edited? Why can those articles talk about the middle ages and colonial era and not article in question? Nobody in the 12th century called themselves Chinese or Indians. I have yet to receive a response from you or LouisArgon over this query. Furthermore, refer to my last edit on History of Jews in Pakistan and compare the entire article to the current horrible status of the article right now. Which one is better? Mine or the reverted version? The answer is pretty simple. --PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 14:17, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@PAKHIGHWAY:--You have the right to free speech as long as you don't repetitively transverse certain boundaries guaranteed by WP:NPA and take those rules for a toss.As to why I/Louis did'nt edit the other articles, remember --We are all volunteers over here.Winged Blades ^Godric 14:25, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric:--That's no excuse whatsoever. We're all volunteers here so that means one can be biased towards one particular ethnic group or nationality? The point is, if those articles are mentioning it, then why shouldn't the Overseas Pakistani article be mentioning it. If it's invalid, then all of them should be deleted. It wouldn't take too long. Infact, I'll go ahead and delete all mentions of colonial and middle age history in Overseas Chinese and Non Resident Indian? I'm assuming you will support my wonderful volunteer work, correct? --PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 14:39, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric:--Also, I am not repeatedly using personal attacks against anyone. Have I used a few in the past, sure...but this isn't my daily way I do things. I've been on here since October...I've probably had a few run ins. I usually mind my own business and try to contribute to Wikipedia and don't get into edit wars. When editors like LouisArgon show up and make literally disruptive edits and just delete things without saying why, what do you expect the writer of that article to do? It's extremely annoying. Shouldn't editors be leading by example? How can he get away with simply deleting things he doesn't like? That's completely uncalled for. --PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 14:44, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@PAKHIGHWAY:--I understand your frustration and it may be heartening to hear that I did not took any sides at Overseas Pakistani.I plainly reverted because there appeared to be some fishy collusion between you and some IPs and since he opposed your addition, the onus was on you to prove you're correct.And in the regasrd just follow boeing's way-out.As w.r.t History of Jews in Pakistan & Pakistani Jews in Israel,I don't support your edits.Winged Blades ^Godric 14:52, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric:-- Okay that's fine, how do I go about starting a consensus debate on the talk page? Do I just start a section and write my opinion? Which editor will read my side? Or do I have to post a template or something on the talk page to get an editor involved. I'm not sure, I'm new to this because I've never had a Wiki editor breathing down my neck 24 hours a day. And furthermore, how can I report a certain wiki editor for disruptive edits? To be honest, I'm not in the business tattle tale, but I am not one bit amused about LouisArgon's editing and his lack of insight and not wanting to help new wiki members out. Classic bully in my opinion and I intend on making this an issue of this. --PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 14:59, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@PAKHIGHWAY:--Yeah, just start a section, write your opinion and wait for people to chip in.If the discussion is just between you two and still do not lead to productivity, there's WP:RFC, dispute resolution etc.

And to make an issue(lodge a complain), just create a section about your grievances at any particular editor at this very page,But, be wary of WP:BOOMERANG.And, I don't personally feel that it will be a very good step.Cheers!Winged Blades ^Godric 15:07, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll see how this current situation unfolds. I'd rather that LouisAragon just stop following me around Wikipedia and tend to his life. I'm confident that my edits are reasonable enough for logical level headed people to understand and see where I am coming from. I've written my complaint here Talk:Overseas_Pakistani#Emigration From Pakistan section edit war. I hope you and other editors reading this will look into my grievances and see my edits and see how I did nothing wrong. I provided full sources and simply put I made the article better.--PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 15:23, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

User should be indeffed. None of that is even remotely acceptable. 74.70.146.1 (talk) 13:49, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• @PAKHIGHWAY: You are edit warring with two other editors on that article to reinsert your preferred text. Some admins would have blocked you by now, but instead I have protected the article just for one hour to try to avoid the need for that. I have no idea whether or not the text you want included is appropriate and I'm taking no side in the content dispute, but you really do need to stop the edit war and seek a consensus. So please, start a discussion at the article talk page and let others offer their opinions - and if you get a consensus in your favour, you can add the content. If, instead, you continue the edit war after the protection expires, you should expect to be blocked. (I have no comment on the incivility issue as I have not looked into that.) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:26, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• @Boing! said Zebedee: Thank you for explaining the procedure. I don't expect you to take my side, I just want my side heard. None of the other commentators explained what to do. They just ganged up on me and began bullying me because I had the audacity to question a Wiki editor who took things too personally. Can you please explain how I can go about starting a consensus debate on this on the article talk page? Do I have to write a special code or something? Template:WP ABC? An example would be great. Thank you. --PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 14:39, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Nothing special needed, just start a new section at the talk page and explain the text you want to add, and let the discussion commence. And you really should stick to just discussing the content and leave out allegations of bullying and ganging up on you - it can often seem like that to those unfamiliar with Wikipedia's methods, but it's usually an incorrect interpretation. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:54, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I've done that here Talk:Overseas_Pakistani#Emigration From Pakistan section edit war. I hope you and other editors reading this will look into my grievances and see my edits and see how I did nothing wrong. I provided full sources and simply put I made the article better. I still have no idea why he simply deleted everything for no reason. Ridiculous --PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 15:23, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Add obvious lack of WP:COMPETENCE to that indeed as well ("They just ganged up on me and began bullying me" -- kidding me?...). Even after these loads of insane, grievous personal attacks, the copy-vio's, the persistent IP socking, he's still continuing with his WP:NOTHERE editorial pattern, as we speak.[39][40] Objectively speaking, not a single article protection is gonna solve anything here. I've seen a lot of disruptive editors during my time, but the lack of competence shown here in combination with the rampant curriculum, is truly baffling. - LouisAragon (talk) 15:10, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Also (the muppet show is seemingly never ending); it's beyond me how he asks here "how to start a talk page discussion". So....how exactly did he know how to start and participate in talk page consensus discussions here, here and here?.... Literally nothing matches up. - LouisAragon (talk) 15:10, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

You seem a little too over excited. I think you should read what I wrote again. I never asked anything about how to make a talk page. I asked how to get attention of other editors to my grievances so your biased edits could be reverted and condemned. I know very well how to use the Talk Page, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. I'm just not well versed in using the Talk Page to get a obsessed wiki editor off my back. Read before you call people incomptenet and muppets? Are these not personal attacks now? What "Competence is required" does not mean * It does not mean "come down hard like a ton of bricks on someone as soon as they make a mistake." Wikipedia has a learning curve. We should cut editors (particularly new ones) some slack, and help them understand how to edit competently. Mistakes are an inevitable part of the wiki process. * It does not mean perfection is required. Articles can be improved in small steps, rather than being made perfect in one fell swoop. Small improvements are our bread and butter. * It does not mean we should ignore people and not try to help improve their competence. * It does not mean we should label people as incompetent. For example, we do not say "You are incompetent because you don't know anything about the subject of this article." * It does not mean that Wikipedia's civility policy does not apply when talking to incompetent people. Rude and uncivil comments may discourage the motivation of the targeted editor, raising their psychological barrier against recognizing their own mistakes or seeking to improve their skills. * Finally, it does not mean we will give any good-faith editor an infinite number of opportunities to make themselves useful. If, after an appropriate amount of time and coaching, someone still isn't competent, don't make a heroic effort to defend them. Cut them loose, and focus your mentoring efforts on a better candidate. So next time read what's written before trying to lump me as "incompetent" and a "muppet". Is this not personal attacks?--PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 15:23, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

And what is this sock you keep calling me? I've already stated that I forget to login at times when making edits and that I recently moved to another country which explains why change in IP. You really need to tone it down. I'm baffled at how you were even made an Wiki editor with a tongue and tone like that. You jump to conclusions and get way too over your head. Calm down, drink a glass of water. --PAKHIGHWAY (talk) 15:49, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• Maybe PAKHIGHWAY earned themselves a block for edit warring or incivility, but I see a glimmer of hope. This fits the pattern of "aggressive but well-meaning newbie, who might learn to edit constructively over time". Since the bulk of the problem seems to be a paranoiac belief that LouisAragon (and their minions) is out to revert them, maybe a one-way WP:IBAN would solve it? Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 17:56, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
• Seeing the developments of late, I feel an one-way IBAN between Pakhighway and Lois will serve good.Winged Blades ^Godric 05:11, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

It looks like there are issues of competence here. For example, the user adds two paragraphs about Pakistani Jews in Pakistan to an article about Pakistani Jews in Israel, and when this is rightly reverted, they cry vandalism. I would recommend being open to the notion that they still have much to learn when about contributing to Wikipedia. El_C 05:24, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Civility

This seems to have gotten off-track. Can we address the blatant racism displayed by PAKHIGHWAY? 74.70.146.1 (talk) 01:38, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

That's quite the accusation, one which ought to be corroborated with extraordinary evidence (in the form of diffs and quoting the exact passage that's presumably racist). El_C 05:24, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

There is one outright racist comment in the original post with two further comments that while not explicitly racist, indicate the editor is focusing on other editors racial background instead of the content. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:35, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

I would block right now, but it seems that another admin is already attending to this, and that they are even more forgiving than yous truly is (wow, who knew!). El_C 14:32, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

@El C:, as far as I understood, BSZ explicitly mentioned and showed in his first comment here, that he'd only deal with the users' content-related problem with respect to one article, not with all the personal attacks/all other stuff. Btw, I just picked several of the recent incivility diffs in my original post. There are more of them, e.g. "Learn Urdu or fuck off.", and "Don't even know how to write UNIVERSITY in Urdu and you call yourselves "educated".". But, I believe that the point was illustrated more than sufficiently with the original post. - LouisAragon (talk) 01:55, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

The guy calls the entire country of India a "craphole" and he gets a free lesson in talk page editing. "Hello user IHATESTUPIDINDIANS. Thanks for your comments about how everyone from India can just "fuck off". Did you know you can change the size of the font you used for the word "fuck" by clicking on "Advanced" and selecting 'level 2' from the dropdown menu?" ADMINMIKE96 62.255.118.6 (talk) 13:32, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

The Wiki Ed welcome mat

Last month I posed a question on Adam (Wiki Ed)'s talk page and got no response. Nor have any of the students & instructors who have left queries since 29 December. Nonetheless his account is still churning out welcome messages (around 8500 in the last 15 months) which don't vary, and haven't been interrupted by any signs of human activity in some time.

I also see no other interpretation than that Adam is running an unauthorised, unattended bot.

He's not responding on his personal page either.

If Adam's no longer responding perhaps another account should be doing the welcoming? The present situation does no favours to WikiEd, Wikipedia, the students, or the instructors. Cabayi (talk) 08:29, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Entirely agreed - @Adam (Wiki Ed): please respond here at your earliest convenience, as I can't help to agree that it appears you're running an unauthorised bot. Although we don't really have much say as to the services Wiki Ed supplies I do think perhaps the welcoming aspect of it could be improved somewhat -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 08:44, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Pinging Protonk, the personal account, since I mentioned it. Cabayi (talk) 08:57, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Note, this task would generally not be approved even for a bot, see Wikipedia:Bots/Frequently_denied_bots#Welcome_bot. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:20, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

At 19:14, 3 March 2017 (within that one minute timestamp), the account welcomed 40 different editors. Many of the timestamps seem to occur at roughly the same times, suggesting an automated program running on a set schedule. There's been no activity outside user talk from this account for a while and no response to inquiries about these welcome messages. It seems extremely likely that this account is being run as an unauthorized bot, so I'm blocking it until the human editor returns and explains what's going on. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:39, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Technicalz isn't my dept., clearly; but isn't there a way of finding out what's actually being run on 'our own' site? Wouldn't it have to run from a subpage? or because it's open source, can it just run from a home PC and not be embedded? But that 19:14 timestamp seems to clinch it- one every 1.5 seconds?! — O Fortuna! ^{Imperatrix mundi.} 16:45, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: No bots run on our site. They run off some other site, server, or computer and interface with Wikipedia. There's no way to tell whether something is automated or not except via behavior, at least not in a way that has no false positives and can't be gotten around. The closest we get to running something on our own site is Tool Labs, but even that's really another site that the WMF just provides. Most bots don't use that. For example, my own bot uses AWB and runs entirely off my personal computer. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:19, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: Thanks very much for the information. Interesting stuff. I understand now, cheers. — O Fortuna! ^{Imperatrix mundi.} 21:33, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• note, Adam's account has been blocked which at least stops the ongoing botting Jytdog (talk) 18:57, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Ian (Wiki Ed) has taken up Adam's welcoming workload using the same bot. He has at least been interacting with students on his talk page. (Ping Guettarda, his alternate account) Cabayi (talk) 09:02, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• I have pinged User:Ragesoss / User:Sage (Wiki Ed), long time Wikipedian, Wiki Edu employee and product manager there. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:14, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi! Part of the Wiki Ed support system for classes is that User:Ian (Wiki Ed) and User:Adam (Wiki Ed) provide support for student editors. The welcome messages get posted (automatically) to the talk pages of users soon after they enroll in the class, by whichever Wiki Ed staff member is supporting that class. Adam has been intermittently sick for the last couple of weeks. We generally have someone else help out when someone is out sick, but these talk page messages slipped through the cracks.

The welcoming of users is something we previously did manually, but switched it to be automatically done by the dashboard at some point. I didn't think of this welcoming feature as a 'bot', separately from the general OAuth approval system, which is why I did not go through the bot approval process at the time that feature was added. I can do so if folks think that's necessary.

I will follow up in more detail later today. In the short term, I've removed the 'greeter' flag from Adam's account (but not Ian's), so the dashboard won't make any further welcome edits on his behalf.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:29, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

@Sage (Wiki Ed): I think it would be useful if you could clarify whether the dashboard makes these welcoming edits automatically, or if the user (i.e. Ian or Adam) have to manually approve each welcome. If it's the former, then that would fall under using a non-bot account as an unapproved bot. Bot Policy requires that a separate account be used, and that it be approved before running. If each welcome is being sent manually, and simply being sent from the interface, there shouldn't be a problem. Sam Walton (talk) 18:37, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Samwalton9: at the level of individual user welcomes, it's automatic. The manually approval happens at the level of a course, but once the course itself is approved, the welcome messages are automatic for each new user that joins the course.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:56, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Welcome messages disabled

I've disabled the automatic welcome messages from Ian as well now. It would be pretty simple to convert it to a dashboard-assisted manual welcome, but that seems pretty pointless since we want to make sure every Wiki Ed student editor gets a welcome ping from the person supporting their class, and the sooner after joining the class they get it, the better. I'll put up a BAG submission soon.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:42, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

BRFA is up: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Wiki Ed Dashboard student greetings.

User:Cabayi: Thank you for opening this discussion. It pointed out a hole in Wiki Ed's support procedures that we'll figure out how to patch, for when staff have unexpected time AFK.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:00, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

For clarity: the BRFA has been withdrawn (with automatic welcome messages still disabled). --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:14, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Dashboard

(may be related to the above?)

Question: is the WikiEdu Dashboard ( https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/ ) considered a bot? And if so, has it been approved by en.wikipedia bot-related approval processes?

I bring this up while there has been a problem that from that dashboard en.wikipedia pages can be updated (overriding any content that is on the page) without the dashboard editor being responsive to in-Wikipedia user talk page or project talk page comments by concerned in-Wikipedia editors. Example:

• affected project page: Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of North Carolina School of the Arts/History of Musical Styles I and II (Fall 2015, Spring 2016)
• unresponsiveness of dashboard operators demonstrated at (among other pages) User talk:Dr.renMueller and Wikipedia talk:Wiki Ed/University of North Carolina School of the Arts/History of Musical Styles I and II (Fall 2015, Spring 2016) (and related Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Archive 64#Student articles)
• follow-up discussion at User talk:Ian (Wiki Ed)/Archive 5#Re. "Removing"

Although nothing much happened any more since last year in this example it got stuck in my head as an unresolved issue. Possibly I lost my cool somewhere along the line, but what I remember is that there was a pile of cleanup after the project had passed through Wikipedia – and, frustratingly, no way to contact the people messing up. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:57, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

I would call it an alternate editing interface. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:00, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

BTW. I think that it is rather strange that WikiEdu asks people to edit something in the dashboard, and then doesn't even allow sysops to actually do so on their pages... That's definitely something that should be rectified. It's not the wikiway. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:09, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Re. "I would call it an alternate editing interface" – yeah, so is AWB I suppose... the question is not whether it is an alternative interface (it is, no doubt about that), but whether it is a bot, and if so, whether it went through due process.

The worrying aspect (as I saw it in the experience described above) is that you can ping a dashboard editor, or write on their Wikipedia user talk page or on the talk page of the project as much as you like, none of these messages go through to the "alternative interface" (so the editor there ignores it all, not even knowing a concern has been raised). Thus these dashboard editors continue editing Wikipedia via that interface without being aware about any concern voiced through Wikipedia's usual channels. In that sense it is bot-like: it steam-rolls whatever concern and overwrites Wikipedia content automatically with whatever the Dashboard sends out. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:09, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

In as much as it allows Wikipedia to be edited via WikiEdu's tools, and cuts WikiEdu users off from the concerns of Wikipedia's wider community (in effect censoring what messages get through to the WikiEdu users), it's a type of WP:OWN. Cabayi (talk) 16:17, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Really the dashboard needs to go both ways, in that anything on the wikipedia end is copied to the off-site project and vice versa. Its not really acceptable for an offsite dashboard to be in control of a wikipedia page and overwrite it regardless of what wikipedia editors have done in the meantime. Its a core tenet of wikipedia that communication is required *here* between editors. Not referring them to external websites. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:23, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Re. "... it's a type of WP:OWN" – that is indeed how I experienced it. So the question can be rephrased thus: do we allow https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/ to WP:OWN pages such as Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of North Carolina School of the Arts/History of Musical Styles I and II (Fall 2015, Spring 2016)? I, for one, can not remember ever having agreed to that, and suppose for instance Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval would be a place where such agreement can be negotiated. And indeed "two-way communication", as mentioned by Oiddde, would seem a minimal requirement for such approval to be possible. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:42, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

The idea with the dashboard on-wiki course pages, like Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of North Carolina School of the Arts/History of Musical Styles I and II (Fall 2015, Spring 2016), is that they provide an on-wiki mirror of the dashboard.wikiedu.org content, so that things like 'what links here' can be used to easily find out which editors are connected with which other editors through these courses. Two-way editing of those is not practical, because the content isn't structured the same way. Those are the only pages that the dashboard quote-unquote 'owns'.

In terms of approval process, the system itself went through the OAuth application approval process for the technical side of things, and there was a lot of (well-advertised) on-wiki discussion about the basic concept and using subpages of Wikipedia:Wiki Ed as, essentially, a replacement for EducationProgram extension that was the previous basis for course pages.

The dashboard does not allow arbitrary editing of other pages, and all the actual article editing, discussion, etc, still happens the usual way. --Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:16, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I had already understood that much. Your last words ("... discussion ... still happens the usual way") gloss over the fact that project to project (i.e. between "Wiki Ed" and "en.Wikipedia") communication is structurally near impossible, leading to frustration on both sides (frustration from Wiki Ed project participant's side is for instance documented here). So take the interface to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, which is about more than the mere technical approval, and for instance also about how the interface blends in with the English-language Wikipedia. I suppose it should be possible to send notifications about a relevant on-wiki discussion to the relevant page in the dashboard interface when a Wiki Ed project setup causes problems in the encyclopedia (like in the Wikipedia interface we get a notification with a clickable link when someone pings us or writes something on our talk page).

Several Wikipedia editors, including myself, posted suggestions for a smoother interaction (which ultimately should result in better mainspace content, and better learning curves for Wiki Ed project participants) for future Wiki Ed project setups. I wonder what has been done with those suggestions? (if your reply would be that you didn't see such suggestions, that is kind of a confirmation of my earlier point that the project-to-project communication has in practice proven near impossible). --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:15, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Francis Schonken: In general, adding more and better support for communication — such as notifying users on the dashboard about on-wiki communication they should know about — is definitely something I want to do at some point. I've thought a lot about this myself, and I've followed plenty of on-wiki discussion related to it. That said, I'm not sure what specific 'suggestions for smoother interaction' you're referring to here. I'm also not clear what you mean by "communication is structurally near impossible". The Wiki Ed system guides student editors to draft their work on-wiki, communicate about each others' work on-wiki, and interact with other editors on-wiki.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:14, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Re. "... at some point" – how about now? Re. "... on-wiki discussion related to it" – linking to some of these (if there are that provide insight) might be helpful.

Suggestions for smoother interaction / structural problems with project-to-project communication – apart from "see above" and "click on some of the links I gave above", here are some points I remember: there were some flaws in the setup of the North Carolina project mentioned above (leading to WP:CONTENT FORK problems etc.). Despite several efforts (by myself and others before me) we could not set up communication with the persons responsible for the project setup, in order to correct these flaws (the North Carolina professor...); Then there was the problem that almost all of the issues caused by the project showed up in a period of one or two days (on a few dozen pages), just before all of the South Carolina project editors disappeared from Wikipedia (a few remedies to avoid that in the future were proposed, e.g. timely publication of the due delivery date of the students' work on the project page; work from draft namespace instead of from user talk space; point students to guidelines that are specifically applicable for the topic area where they are going to edit; contact WikiProjects in the area where the editing is going to take place when setting up the project – instead of leaving the cleanup to Wiki editors when communication is no longer possible while everyone who was connected to the Wiki Ed project has left the building, etc...). --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:42, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Re. "The Wiki Ed system guides student editors to draft their work on-wiki, communicate about each others' work on-wiki, and interact with other editors on-wiki." Again, you're missing the (direct) project-to-project communication for addressing Wiki Ed project setup issues. Also, for the over two dozen pages I reviewed when cleaning up it was clear that either there had been no communication between the student and regular wikipedia editors (where such communication seemed indispensable), or, in the very few cases when there had been such communication, that communication was highly problematical (see student frustration link I gave above). So, whatever the interface was supposed to do in that respect, it wasn't working. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:56, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Francis Schonken: Thanks. That cleared things up for me somewhat. The core issues, I think, are the same ones that have been the hardest ones for the education program all along: getting newcomers to engage in communication in the ways the Wikipedia community expects is hard. I think there are some ways that improvements to the dashboard can help — especially around facilitating on-wiki communication — but it will take a lot of design and development work to do that right. When you said "project-to-project communication", I at first was thinking in terms of communication between wikipedia.org and dashboard.wikiedu.org. But I think the problems you are pointing to are more fundamentally about how to get editors whose entry point to Wikipedia is the education program — instructors and students — to think and act like experienced editors. My view is that we've gotten a lot better at this over time, and the structure provided by the dashboard is a big part of that. Over the last year, we worked with significantly more classes and students than in previous years, with fewer of these kinds of communication problems. When such things do come up, and people post about them to Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents, we often find ways of improving the process — occasionally technical ways, but usually more along the lines of changes to our training content, our help materials, and our processes for vetting courses and monitoring courses.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:00, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Some points:

1. The "automatic welcome messages" BRFA was withdrawn after a comment that ended with "... Wiki Ed [...] looks like a separate organization and it wouldn't supersede anything on Wikipedia" – if the same is applied to the Wiki Ed project page updates that overwrite all the content on such Wikipedia project pages, this would become impossible by the same reasoning... So that functionality should be disabled immediately, then kept disabled until it passes a BRFA. I'd think (after an initial setup of the project page with the basic content of who is responsible, what the project is about, what the delivery dates are etc), that the talk page of such project page should be used to post incremental messages saying something like "the dashboard page of this edu project has been updated on <date>" (of course with a link to the related dashboard page).
2. The BRFA for the Dashboard should explicitly include all aspects of (semi-)automatic updating of pages in Wikipedia originating from the Dashboard system. Thus far we've had two: automatic welcome messages (disabled, BRFA withdrawn), and automatic updating of project pages (should immediately be disabled per WP:OWN, see above) – are there any other (semi-)automatic updating functionalities generated by WikiEdu programs we don't know about yet? If so, ask permission for them via BRFA.
3. Re. "getting newcomers to engage in communication..." – a quick fix that should at least alleviate some of the problems was proposed above: instruct the students that new articles are better started in Draft: namespace (and not in their user talk namespace where they are usually under the radar of Wikipedia communication until the content is transported to mainspace). Draft: namespace is monitored and students will get feedback, will often be pointed to WikiProjects that have experience in the topic area (leading to more communication), all of that long before the "due date" (which is typically the date when students move their new content to mainspace, after which they typically immediately stop editing Wikipedia). Rewrites/updates of articles that already exist in mainspace should likewise better be kept out of user talk namespace, and should take place directly in mainspace (or via update proposals on the article talk page), where of course there will be, in most cases, immediate feedback, and thus communication, too.
4. Re. "... — instructors and students — to think and act like experienced editors" – err? I think they should think & act like newbies (which gives extra protection per WP:BITE). A part of the problem now seems to be that instructors and students, after following the WikiEdu introduction course, think they behave like experienced editors (with the tinge of arrogance that comes with it – excuse my French), but act in ways that upset regular processes and procedures, and write questionable mainspace content (e.g. in a page on a Vivaldi composition they think it is necessary to write a full Vivaldi bio, instead of just linking Antonio Vivaldi, give an overview of the composer's work, his style and whatnot, writing maybe ten percent of the new article about the composition at hand – without a single reference) – all of which isn't helped when editing from a "I'm an experienced editor" attitude, instead of from "I'm new at this, could I get some assistance?" approach. At the end of the introduction program they should know they are still newbies, so need to keep in touch with more experienced editors to address all sorts of practical issues (e.g. how to add proper references).
5. Re. Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents – didn't know about that. How about providing a link to that page in the {{dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment}} box? That box would be the first place a regular editor learns about a student's involvement, so they should know where to go when issues need to be sorted. Also, this helps for early "regulars"–"students" communication (assuming the /Incidents page is not for internal Wiki Ed communication exclusively).

All of this said, I will repeat what I said before: Wiki Ed is imho a great thing, that's why I think it is useful to take some time to hash out its issues. The program should give new editors some gusto for editing Wikipedia beyond their class assignment, which it currently only very rarely does: too often, currently, it ends in frustration, so let's do something about it. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:14, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Still another thought:

6. In the introduction for Wiki Ed instructors it should maybe made clear that the professors/teachers should not primarily expect to test a student's ability to write an essay via Wikipedia (there are more appropriate venues for that, within their institution): what they are really testing in a Wiki Ed setup is the student's ability to work together with people they don't know, within their field of interest. Are they able to learn from that interaction? This is future-minded: the idea of a single scholar working in his study surrounded by books, undisturbed by the outside world, is overhauled in a wiki setting where there is immediate feedback: how do students cope with such feedback without getting sidetracked? ...seems more like the thing that is tested in a Wikipedia setup (hence my suggestion above to keep prospective mainspace content out of user talk namespace staying under the communication radar). Which entails instructors being instructed how to read edit histories and talk pages (how did the student react to input by others? what did they learn from it in their topic area? did they manage to stay on topic? did they learn something about assessing on-line and paper reference works in a WP:RS approach?). Seems like a setting that will gain momentum in future approaches to research, so today's students would do well to prepare for it (e.g. distinguishing fake news from solid information based on source assessment & input from others is a hot topic nowadays: better learn students cutting edge approaches on how to do that than learn them to write essays old style, which their schools and universities are surely better equipped for).

--Francis Schonken (talk) 07:58, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

@Francis Schonken: If a single edit in the WikiEd interface leads to a single edit on Wikipedia, then that sounds like an alternative editing interface, not automatic editing. That's perfectly acceptable under the bot policy. It's when the WikiEd interface is set up to automatically edit with no oversight from the editor in question that we have issues. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:12, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Tx, the problem is, however, with the alternative interface not accepting feedback: i.e. it doesn't pass feedback on to the editor who accesses & edits Wikipedia through the alternative interface, that is, without logging in into Wikipedia. In that sense the Dashboard operates as a bot, churning out dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of Wikipedia edits blindfoldedly. We wouldn't accept any bot to do that: the bot would be blocked immediately, until it accepts feedback from human Wikipedia editors. Imagine being able to edit Wikipedia with AWB, without being notified of pings, user talk page messages, or whatever initiates normal in-wikipedia communication... That wouldn't last long I suppose, even if you would only make an edit in this way every few days.

For me it makes no difference whether this is approached as a "go through BRFA to get approval for this functionality", or whether, alternatively, we block all external-Dashboard-generated edits to pages for which the Dashboard claims ownership, because it goes against WP:OWN to let it continue this behaviour. The first approach does however seem to have the advantage to offer a way out. The second approach is fairly simple and straightforward: Dashboard can't own a page in Wikipedia, thus exclude it from operations on Wikipedia. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:42, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

The dashboard only makes edits on behalf of logged-in users. You must log in to Wikipedia in order to log in to dashboard.wikiedu.org, and we expect instructors to be responsive to problems that come up related to their courses. If you run into trouble with an unresponsive instructor, you can ping a Wiki Ed staff member and/or post to WP:ENI. The 'owned' dashboard pages on Wikipedia are a convenience for other editors to easily connect the dots with active courses. It would be easy to change the system such that it only posted essentially an initial version, and then made no further edits (so that it would never overwrite changes in the meantime), but that would defeat much of the purpose; it would just mean that the on-wiki page would not include up-to-date information about which users are doing what, and what the instructor's latest assignment plan is. I think I'll make some updates to the edit notice (Template:Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:Wiki Ed) to make it more clear how to address problems (ie, contact the people involved rather than edit the automatically-updated course page). I'm not aware of any problems with these course pages for quite a while, though. The case you noted was more than a year ago.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:07, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

If you think the lack of talk page messages getting through/pings is an issue, you're welcome to start an RfC on it, Francis Schonken. I'm undecided (or possibly just apathetic) on that issue. It doesn't violate our bot policy, certainly, and I'm unaware of any other policy or guideline related to the issue you've identified. The editors making edits without access to feedback are responsible for their edits (including responding to feedback, as necessary), and they could be blocked if a lack of response to feedback becomes disruptive. There's nothing about the interface itself that crosses some bright-line in policy, though. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:10, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

The editors (who are brand new editors relying on experienced WikieEd instructors) should not be blocked for not giving response to feedback. The people responsible for encouraging new editors to edit through an interface which effectively disables the feedback from reaching these editors are the ones that should be blocked for it in such a case. Fram (talk) 08:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Spam on my information

Dear Administrator

I am Dr. Rola Dashti and every time I change the info on my page to update it, a user keeps on changing it back to old information stating he knows me. I confirm to you that this person has no relationship with me and ask you to block him and return my update information on the site.

Thank you,

Dr. Rola Dashti — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdashti (talk • contribs) 10:51, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Please see WP:BLPSELF and also WP:COI. It's not advised to edit articles about yourself except to fix obvious errors. Instead use the talk page. Notably while it's best not to add information period, you definitely should not be adding information without a WP:Reliable source supporting that info. It doesn't matter that you know it to be correct because it's about yourself. Nil Einne (talk) 11:10, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Comment: I've given Arjayay a shout about this as he's tried to give SDashi a hand with this. [41] [42] standard appears to have been done for this situation, I think. MM ('"HURRRR?) ^(Hmmmmm.) 12:08, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

(ec) I have removed all unsourced information from the article per WP:BLP ("Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion"); if anybody wants to re-add the information, include an in-line citation to a reliable source. When a living person complains about an article on Wikipedia they had no hand in creating, it's best to go easy and not Twinkle spam them, as it can be contentious and upsetting. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:10, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Sdashti claims "a user keeps on changing it back to old information stating he knows me. I confirm to you that this person has no relationship with me" - Could she please show where anyone has stated that they know her? - Arjayay (talk) 12:28, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

•  Administrator note Per WP:REALNAME I have blocked the thread starter until they provide identification that they are in fact Rola Dashti. Since the subject is a government minister, I think it's best to be careful when someone claims to be her. Regards SoWhy 13:21, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• And first female MP elected to the Kuwaiti parliament, no less. Good call. El_C 04:37, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

The responses to this thread and the messages on the users talk page are a wonderful example of the complete and utter disrespect with which potential article subjects are treated (see Jimbo's talk page for a long discussion and prepare for another daily mail article). The first response encourages the user to read a couple unhelpful essays, the talk page is splattered with impersonal templates (2 of them right in a row!), and finally the user is blocked, with a note to appeal to a volunteer-run email system. Now of course there are genuine concerns of gaming, but this type of situation needs an immediate improvement from the community. More of Yngvadottir's approach is needed. 2600:100C:B225:377D:7829:F085:9E40:D72 (talk) 11:52, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Nobody was disrespected. Instead we respect Dr Dashti and want to make sure she's not being impersonated. You cannot expect that a) editors take any claim of identity on face value (that would open all floodgates to abuse) and b) a site run by volunteers to run a non-volunteer email system. Kleuske (talk) 12:01, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• I've now updated the article; it had gathered some dust. I'm tempted to try to e-mail Rola Dashti. But since I have used up my IAR unblocks for this lifetime, could I request admin consideration of unblocking Sdashti? There is a vanishingly small likelihood she is not who she says she is, the user name is by no means an obvious impersonation, the user can always be blocked in future should there be any threat to the encyclopedia, and I would really like her to help us out with Arabic references for her career, quite apart from the help she could give us with other Kuwaiti figures (Hind Sabih Al-Sabih is still a red link, for one). Yngvadottir (talk) 19:25, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

BLPSELF is not an essay and explicitly deals with the situation of people editing articles on themselves. And I also explicitly summarised the key points here, namely that they should not be directly editing articles about themselves. Like it or not, people editing articles on themselves often leads to trouble for them so there are good reasons why it's strongly discouraged. I did explicitly check their contrib history and noticed that they were adding information without sources hence my last comment.

I did consider saying something like "I know this may be frustrating and confusing, but it doesn't matter...." And similarly I did consider repeating what I'd already said namely the need for reliable sources but I can be very repetitive and know it doesn't always help. Especially when my message gets too long and there's something else it'll probably be better they read (or they're just not going to read the whole thing), this is perhaps a good example of that. Likewise I did consider mentioning something like their hopeful knowledge of reliable sources covering them but wasn't sure this was that useful, after all plenty of people know a fair a bit about them but probably don't really know what reliable sources cover that info. Especially reliable sources we will accept, since for example if a person received an award they may a photo of the award or them receiving it, but it's not generally something we will accept. (And yes I have seen similar things before e.g. someone wanting to use their passport to show something.)

Perhaps the most significant point is that there's no easy way to tell people "as much as you may understandably hate it, the article on you will only generally contain what info we can reliably source". I'm unconvinced being gentle about it is necessarily better than being direct. Notably there is always a risk an editor may feel your being patronising or treating them like an idiot who can't read or understand stuff for themselves if you specify in great deal what what they should and shouldn't do. (This doesn't mean I'm discouraging anyone from acting in a certain way, rather simply pointing out it's always difficult to say what works best since it's going to depend on the individual.)

The only thing I do agree is I'm not sure there's a need for the block here. Unless things have seriously changed since I used to frequent WP:BLP/N, we do not block people when they claim to be the subject when they are editing under a different name or as is commonly the case, an IP. While I can understand the need for the general policy on usernames, I don't see the need for it to apply here considering the only thing the editor is doing is basically the same thing namely dealing with an article on themselves. There's no reason why someone with part of their likely real name editing an article on themselves or talking about it creates significantly more risk of harm to the real life reputation than someone editing with an IP but who has also declared so. (There may be some minor greater risk in that lazy media are more likely to notice it.) Of course if the editor starts making questionable edits elsewhere we can re-visit.

Besides that, the one thing we hopefully all agree we do need to do when dealing with article subjects is as far as possible, make sure we address any concerns they do have as reasonably as possible. This means of course we should make sure info in article is well sources. I admit I didn't do that here, I didn't feel I had the time. But I don't think we should expect people only reply when they do so, that could easily leave subjects with zero help. In a volunteer run project there are always going to be limits of how much help a person receives in cleaning up an article on themselves. For example, a week or 2 ago, I dealt with this article Branimir Štulić as best I could by removing the info which seemed unsourced after complaints from someone who said they were representing the article's subject. It seemed and still seems a lot of the other info is disputed, unfortunately since it appears sourced and most of it is in Serbian or Croatian neither of which I understand, it's difficult for me to deal with the rest. This may not be a satisfactory outcome, but until and unless someone with the necessary knowledge (to check sources and confirms their sufficiently reliable especially for a BLP) helps, there's not much more that can be done.

I'd note that while the article on a government minister from Kuwait is probably more important to wikipedia than an article on a singer who's a cult hit in the former Yugoslavia but not so well known elsewhere, from the subject's POV it's equally important that they're dealt with. And in fact the problems in the article I dealt with seem to be more pressing since it seems the subject actively disputes them rather than the info just being outdated. Again this doesn't mean I'm faulting anyone for what they have and haven't done but rather pointing out as a volunteer run project there are always going to be limits on our help which will be understandably frustrating to subjects.

Incidentally, while I can't be sure, I get the feeling that at least some aspects of the other BLP dispute I mentioned are never going to be dealt with to the satisfaction of the subject simply because of our requirements and even if I'm wrong about that case the general principle definitely isn't namely there can never be an entirely satisfactory outcome for all subjects.

Finally while it's always helpful to look at a situation which seems to have gone wrong, e.g. by media reports, we also have to take care not to read too much into something just because there was a big fuss. Sure in that case maybe things would have been better if handled differently, in other cases maybe that other option would have been the worse choice. Relying on outliers to decide on what should be done tends to lead to bad outcomes. Instead you need a more wholesale analysis and also need to accept that whatever option you choose there's always going to be a case where if fails even if you follow it perfectly simply because that solution doesn't work for everyone and it's impossible to entirely accurately predict what will work.

Nil Einne (talk) 12:33, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Mlpearc, edit warring and communication style

Mlpearc (talk · contribs) is a long standing and prolific editor who works in anti-vandalism and maintenance areas of articles. Over time, I have become frustrated that he turns innocuous and mild content disputes into heated edit wars by reverting content without explanation and leaving little to no discussion beyond the standard Twinkle boilerplate and inaccurate accusations of vandalism. These issues were present in his RfA in 2012 (eg: oppose #3) and I brought up some examples at his ORCP about six months ago. Most recently, I have seen him getting into an unnecessary quarrel on User talk:SquidandStag, where he accused the other party of harrassment and filed an AIV report over it, leading me to decline the report, explain the edits weren't vandalism, and calm everybody down.

The latest feud is in Atom Heart Mother; now having done significant work on this article, including the original GA review, I fully get that IPs turning up and changing the "genre" field in the infobox again, again, again and again is worthy of WP:LAME, and I'm not exactly a saint in this regard, as I have tended to revert with occasional "not this again" edit summaries (I'd argue "not this again" is at least a reason, albeit a bad one; whereas the Twinkle "reverted edits by" message isn't). However, as soon as somebody presents the Daily Telegraph as a source justifying a change, that is sufficient grounds for leaving it and having a discussion. But this doesn't seem to be enough for Mlpearc, who wanders in and reverts it. Elsewhere, I see he's picking a fight with an IP over an edit on Electric guitar which I felt was a reasonable copyedit. Then there's the thread below it, discussing whether it's appropriate to say that Syd Barrett remained a professional musician as late as 1974, which is brushed off without assuming as much good faith as I'd like.

I have attempted to discuss this with Mlpearc in the past, as his talk page asserts he is only human and opened to reasoned debate about possible errors (which is good). Unfortunately, my edits got reverted, so I've given up. Now I find Mlpearc has created a page User:Mlpearc/Admin stalkers with a link to one of my comments on it; I don't know whether he's keeping a handy record of archived conversations, collecting "evidence" to drag me to ANI himself, or something else.

I'm not looking for any blocks or bans (they have a tendency to boomerang and he works in the same topic areas as me so I'd trip up on an interaction ban all over the place); indeed, most of the time I'd say Mlpearc's article-space edits are right, or at least justifiable on their merits. Rather I've just got a bit frazzled trying to explain to Mlpearc how he can be a better editor all-round, and I'd like to ask the community what we can do about this. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:38, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

In fairness, he's been struggling with SPI/Iloveartrock, but that subpage, which I deleted, is definitely inappropriate. I'll drop him a note. El_C 11:37, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• On the narrow issue of the "Electric guitar" revert--I agree that the IP's edit was positive. It is true that no sources were added, but most of it was copyediting, and I didn't really see "opinion" in there, so the edit summary, "unsourced personal opinions", was not correct. Drmies (talk) 04:53, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

I must say, I have always found Mlpearc to be courteous and reasonable. Are there any examples of others taking issue with his conduct? If not, I'm wondering if this may just be a personal issue between the two of you. Sometimes people just don't get along. Might it be that Mlpearc doesn't think you're the right person to be giving him advice on "how he can be a better editor all-round", which does sound a little patronising? Although I agree that the page deleted by El C bore an unfortunate title, it does reflect that Mlpearc is (rightly or wrongly) being made uncomfortable by the attention he is receiving form you. I don't think an interaction ban makes sense either, but maybe you should disengage for a while? WJBscribe (talk) 14:37, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Are there any examples of others taking issue with his conduct? Absolutely; here are some recent examples :

• Im fed up with being victimised on wiki when all i want to do is help!!
• It's on YouTube look at his Documents and his Biography Shine On You Crazy Diamond. (reply : "YouTube is not a reliable source, either find a good source or leave it out, simple" - YouTube is usually not a reliable source but can be in some context eg: official channels for speech transcript; no comment was made on the book)
• For your information, I have been an admin in former times, and at one time was in the top few hundred contributors and so am more than experienced at WP editing. I am not current with the present editorial politics, and, indeed, it was changes in those politics which caused me to go on an extended Wiki-vacation. If those changes have continued the trend I noticed then, I suspect I am likely to vacation myself again.
• Mlpearc, you're ignorant; You've done this more than once; Stop disrupting my editing or I'll report you. (Incivil, yes, but with a legitimate point behind this)
• I do not know what I have been doing to articles that is upsetting you, but I suggest you stop trying to attack me. There is really no need for this bombardment.

And that's just from the past week! I want to emphasise that I personally have never had issue with Mlpearc; I don't believe he's ever reverted any mainspace edits of mine and indeed on occasion I have been happy for him to make an edit so I didn't have to. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:55, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Rather than taking the above diffs at face value, editors should look at the complaining editors' edits and decide if Mlpearc's responses were reasonable. Active recent change patrollers are going to get many complaints like these. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:33, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

That is exactly what I did; had I concluded every comment was in response to a bad-faith or disruptive edit, I would not have come here. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:01, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

So, for example, making this revert and asking for sources is a legitimate conduct issue? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:06, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Just a note: Not a feud, I call it maintaining the project - Mlpearc (open channel) 16:09, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't see a problem here, editors make bad, poor, or questionable edits, and they get removed, then they complain. There seems to be a lot of warring over music genres by throwaway IP users, like what's going on at Atom Heart Mother right now, they have to get their favorite sub-sub-sub-genre in because one writer used a word in one article. ValarianB (talk) 16:46, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

"Bad, poor or questionable" in whose view? Yours? Mine? Jimbo Wales? The Daily Mail's? Let me try and explain where I'm coming on in one of the examples here : Atom Heart Mother is assessed as GA, but looking at it now it probably doesn't actually meet the GA criteria - in fairness it was one of my first GAs back in 2012 and so obviously doesn't come up to the standard I would deploy these days. The most obvious problem is the snippets of unsourced content; most of the claims can be cited to the various Floyd biographies relatively easily. The prose needs tidying up a bit, there are a few buzz-words like "notable" that I don't really like to see in prose. The citation format is inconsistent, particularly in the "Live performances" section where there are citations given as bare URL links, and what does "performances by other forces" mean? Elsewhere, I would prefer all of the book sources to use {{sfn}} / {{harvnb}} as it means pulling out citations to multiple pages in the same book source is more convenient. All of the above is more important than reverting back and forth over the "genre" field in the infobox (and yes ValarianB, you are edit-warring in that article, mind you don't do 4 reverts inside 24 hours and get blocked for it!), for which I do not personally give a flying toss what is in the field as long as it looks vaguely sensible. I think Beyond My Ken said it best here : "Start with an article that looks like shit and reads like it was written by a high-school dropout. A hundred edits later, take another look at the article – and it still looks and reads like shit. .... This is the problem with eventualism: it assumes that, somewhere along the way, someone's actually going to fix the real problems and not just niggle around the edges." I appreciate it's unfair to lump this entire problem at Mlpearc's door as he can't be held responsible for the entire ills of Wikipedia, but I do wonder sometimes if I'm just talking like a batshit insane lunatic for having these views? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:50, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Ritchie, you're not batshit insane; I mean, you're on the spectrum somewhere but so am I. Big deal. I sense frustration on everyone's part here and we're pretty much all on the same side. I'm thinking some time off...concentrating on other areas...the usual (or only) therapies available to us. I'm not dismissing your concerns, Ritchie, but none of us that spend a lot of time here have it easy. Again, general observation(s); dodging the crux 'cause I see both sides have merit. Tiderolls 17:16, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree @Tide rolls: my honey-do lists get longer in the summer so I'll have some time off and thank you @Ritchie333: for starting this thread, seems we'll all benefit . ValarianB I agree, there are sooo many new sub-genre's popping up everyday it seems and everyone want's their favorite bands and genre to get married, there were some sub-genre's being added to Pink Floyd that weren't even thought of when their music was released, anyway, Cheers all, - Mlpearc (open channel) 19:19, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

TBAN for Korvex from biblical archeology

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

Korvex is a pure WP:SPA for biblical archeology topics, who brings a strong POV of Biblical maximalism to Wikipedia (the view that the narratives in the Bible are actual history).

Per their edit count they have 364 edits since they opened their account in October 2016. ~200 of them are to article Talk and ~90 are to articles themselves.

Korvex almost exclusively cites things by Bryant G. Wood published on the website of Associates for Biblical Research (ABR) where Wood is research director. ABR describes itself as a ministry and links to the "The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy" in its "about" page.

Others have added bad content cited to ABR as well. For instance an IP added content here sourced to this page at the ABR website, which has a video explaining why their work is essential -- namely "This (uncertainty) has led scholars to reject the historicity of the account of the capture of Ai, the Conquest in general, the Exodus by implication, and ultimately, the Gospel of God's Son." (clears throat)

Sample edits:

• first edit was to The Exodus, added content arguing for historicity of the event, citing 2 postings by Wood at the ABR website. That edit was reverted.

• second edit was to Book of Exodus, removing the word "myth", changing BCE to BC (oy), adding content that makes the argument that the whole Torah must be very old because of a very old tiny scroll with a few verses found on it, adding some OR cited to some bible verses. It was reverted.

• next edits were to Talk:Exodus (a disambig page) arguing for their edits at The Exodus.

• next edits added content to the The Exodus "proving" that it happened, which was reverted. Korvex restored. It was reverted again. An IP then showed up the next day and blanked 2 sections on archeology. Which was reverted.
• next edit argued for that change on the correct Talk page. and also went to the User talk pages of two editors who had reverted them, User:Isambard Kingdom (diff) and User:Doug Weller (diff), in each of which he argues to support his edit with a blog posting on.... the ABR website.

You are getting the picture. The rest is more of the same.

This posting is prompted by Korvex's recent fixing on Ai (Canaan), a city discussed in the bible as being conquered by Joshua, which scholars/archeologists have not been able to find any definitive RW site for. Korvex's hero Bryant Wood believes that Ai is current day Khirbet el-Maqatir; hardly anybody else thinks so, but Korvex wants to give significant WEIGHT to that (like this (reverted by Guy here; restored in part by Korvex here (mentioning Wood in the edit note); reverted here by me.

Korvex showed up a month later and added another Wood ref here out of an edited book, trying to argue that this was independent of ABR. I reverted, Korvex restored, I removed again.

We rejected that source, as edited book chapters are often not solid scholarly works and after a lot of drama on Talk we encouraged him to go RSN, which he did, and where the source was shot down.

Korvex showed up again 2 days ago and did this, reverted by Doug Weller here, restored by Korvex here, reverted by User:Drmies here, restored by Korvex here, reverted by me here.

All though this Korvex has been BLUDGEONing the heck out of the talk page (talk page revision stats here; just their contribs here) not to mention leaving notes on my user Talk page like this (about a bogus edit war warning from another misguided editor).

Korvex is becoming a time sink. They are not WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia, but are a SPA Advocate for biblical historicity in biblical archeology, and are doing the typical things like bringing poor sources, edit warring to try to keep them, and battering the talk page. Am asking the community to consider a TBAN from biblical archeology.Jytdog (talk) 00:39, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Biblical archaeology is far from something I know a great deal about, but I will note that Korvex does seem to be editing with a strong POV. For instance, they changed the fact that Richard Dawkins is separated from his wife to their being divorced, when the source says, quite specifically, that they're separated. He also used a citation from an open access journal, the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, to make a point, without identifying the source, just the author and title of the paper. (An open access journal, of course, would not be acceptable as an RS for anything except the existence of the journal and whatever editorial comments they may make, not for the material published by the journal.) Whether he did that out of ignorance or to hide the source, I don't know. Numerous other edits of his which seemed dicey to me have been reverted by other editors. I think folks who know something about their subject matter should take a closer look at Korvex's editing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:00, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog makes many obvious errors. Jytdog apparently believes that the "only person" I cite is my "hero" Bryant Wood, but the enormity of this error is great. I've cited countless scholars in my Wiki history in conversations and edits, including 1) George Mendenhall, 2) Christopher Theis, 3) Joshua Berman, 4) Koert Van Bekkum, etc, etc, etc. Jytdog thinking that Wood is the only guy I cite is simply false.

Jytdog then states that my only edits have to do with advancing my narrative on biblical archaeology -- an obvious error. I've made edits that have nothing to do with proving biblical archaeology, including 1) William F. Albright's page (fixing sentences) 2) Eilat Mazar's page and expanding her discoveries 3) Finkelstein's book Bible Unearthed 4) encyclopedia list of online encyclopedias 6) page of Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 7) Yaki Yerushalayim page, etc, etc, etc. Jytdog also makes another funny error when he states I try to source virtually everything Wood has published, but the only work I have ever referred to from Wood is his work on Khirbet el-Maqatir. It is true though, that the majority of my work on Wikipedia has to do with the religion and political state of Israel, as well as Israeli archaeologists. Jytdog's only research seems to be limited to the talk page of Ai (Canaan). Jytdog also makes another grand error when he says no one asides from Wood considers the identification of Ai as Khirbet el-Maqatir, but that's an error for a different page to discuss.

It should be obvious that Jytdog's accusations come from his personal vendetta against me. His post advocating for my ban is full of mockery, and has many personal attacks (that I'm a "sinking time ship"). Jytdog has an obvious personal vendetta, where he believes a few selectively chosen edits of mine being reverted constitutes a ban.

As for Beyond My Ken, someone who is obviously neutral because he posts his comment in a calm tone and tries to judge the situation accordingly, makes good points. I did in fact seem to make an error with the open source journal JHS, and as for Dawkins' page, whether or not the source says "divorce" or "separated", Dawkins was in fact divorced with his third wife. If the source fails to reflect that, we need to get a new source that makes it clear to the reader of Wikipedia that Dawkins wasn't just "separated", a rather ambiguous term, but did in fact get divorced from Lalla Ward. See this for example: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3694202/Britain-s-highest-profile-atheist-Richard-Dawkins-announces-end-24-year-marriage-Dr-actress-Lalla-Ward.html Korvex (talk) 01:14, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

That's not how it works. If a source says something, we report it. If you don't agree with it, you find a different reliable source and then debate it. You don't change it and then try to find a source to fit the claim. Also DM has been determined not to be a reliable source. Try again. --Tarage (talk) 01:40, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• Why is Journal of Hebrew Scriptures a problem?

And why is, "(An open access journal, of course, would not be acceptable as an RS for anything except the existence of the journal and whatever editorial comments they may make, not for the material published by the journal."? You appear to be conflating open access journal with predatory open access journal. Why? Andy Dingley (talk) 23:17, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• They are the academic equivalent of a blog, with no guarantee of accuracy or fact checking, despite the claim to be "peer reviewed". Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:02, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Andy Dingley (talk) 09:33, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• I don't have extensive experience with this editor, but my brief interaction has been unpleasant: I think this editor adheres to fringe scholarship and it seems to me that they try to favor those fringey viewpoints in article space. They also seem to lack a basic understanding of how the editing process here works (note their latest revert and their comment, on Ai (Canaan) and Talk:Ai (Canaan)). Finally OH MY GOD the amount of verbiage they put on these talk pages is enough to drive one insane--and I find such verbosity typical of POV warriors and other tendentious editors/hobbyists/fringe inhabitants. So sure, I support a topic ban. Drmies (talk) 02:19, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
  • PS If Korvex would only refrain from edit warring (it may be that they just don't really understand how that BRD thing works, or consensus, or whatever) they'd be in a lot less trouble. If they figure that out, or make certain promises, I might reconsider. Drmies (talk) 02:56, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
• In line with what the other editors here have said, Korvex's editing history has created a large amount of work for other editors. Most of Korvex's edits are not to wikipedia pages themselves, but to talk pages, where (in most cases) the result is a long and unproductive disagreement, with Korvex on one side and every other editor on the other. I have several times been one of the "other editors" in the long, drawn-out "Korvex contra mundum sessions." Korvex is focused either exclusively or almost exclusively on topics related to religion, and in general edits in an attempt to move the articles further in line with a maximalist (i.e. religiously conservative) position. In general, discussions between Korvex and other editors do not reach a resolution, and are filled with long, tedious, and consistently disrespectful posts by Korvex, in which Korvex frequently (I assume accidentally) misrepresents the contents of various cited sources and misrepresents the meaning of Wikipedia policy pages. Korvex probably has the ability to contribute to Wikipedia constructively outside of fields related to the historicity of the Bible, but given that their editing history is one long campaign of POV-pushing, often with a tone that appears to be uncivil filibustering, a TBAN would be appropriate. Otherwise, Korvex is likely to prove disruptive in the future and distract from the goal of building an encyclopaedia. If they continue editing in the present manner, other editors will be faced with the choice of either (1) repeatedly having long fruitless discussions with an angry editor, or (2) simply giving up and allowing biased editing to avoid drama. Alephb (talk) 02:41, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

To clarify, I support a TBAN for religion (best) but if that's determined to be too broad, I would support a TBAN for biblical history, biblical historicity, biblical studies, and/or biblical archaeology. Alephb (talk) 11:11, 16 March 2017 (UTC) PS: and/or ancient Egypt and the near East, broadly constructed. That would work too. Alephb (talk) 11:12, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• Strong support for TBAN Removing neutral dating and adding christocentric dating in an article on Judaism would be enough in itself to warrant a ban, even without all the other stuff. IMO, we have far too much tolerance for both civil and uncivil POV-pushers in this particular area. He doesn't like me naming him, but everyone probably knows who I'm talking about when I say we had a massively disruptive POV-pusher operating in this area for far longer than he should have been, with the admin corps apparently afraid to do much about him until he started calling evolutionists and secularists Nazis. (In case anyone doesn't know, ask Bishonen.) As far as I am concerned, the sooner problems involving the early books of the Hebrew Bible and their relationship to archeology, geology, biology and history are discovered and dealt with, the better. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:39, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

BTW, I think the ban should be from ancient Egypt and the Near East, broadly construed. The TBAN parameters as proposed by Jytdog are far too narrow, and actually wouldn't cover a significant amount of the disruptive behaviour described. Richard Dawkins' marital status is so far removed from the rest that I think the only way it could be covered is with a TBAN from "religion", if that's seen as necessary, but most of the other stuff appears to fall within "ancient Egypt and the Near East", though not necessarily biblical archeology. Bickering over the definition of the word "myth", for instance, has nothing whatsoever to do with archeology, and he was doing it on an article about an ancient text, which would not necessarily fall within the proposed parameters either. Ditto for the christocentric dating in an article on a Jewish topic, in contravention of WP:ERA (which has nothing whatsoever to do with archeology, and he could easily keep doing it under the proposed ban). That, plus I'm not a fan of the term "biblical archeology" to begin with -- it's dated terminology that cedes too much ground to users with the same POV as Korvex: as Christine Hayes says And it was explicitly referred to as biblical archaeology — an interesting name, because it suggests that the archaeologists were out there searching for evidence that would verify the details of the biblical text. We're doing biblical archaeology; archeology in support of the biblical text. [...] Increasingly, practitioners of what was now being termed Palestinian archaeology, or Ancient Near Eastern archaeology, or archaeology of the Levant, rather than biblical archaeology — some of these archaeologists grew disinterested in pointing out the correlations between the archaeological data and the biblical stories or in trying to explain away any discrepancies in order to keep the biblical text intact. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:12, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

@JzG: @Alephb: @Drmies: @Jytdog: Per my post above and Doug Weller's below, the original proposed TBAN parameter (in the thread title) doesn't appear to be broad/clear enough. Could you clarify what topic (Near Eastern [biblical] archeology; biblical history; ancient Egypt and the Near East; religion) you think Korvex should be banned from? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:44, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• Consider the other side These "long and unproductive" debates have only happened with me on three single pages so far as I'm concerned. 1) Exodus 2) Ai (Canaan) 3) Book of Deuteronomy. In my initial post, I've shown 6 pages where I have made edits with either zero debate on the talk page or at most, 2 short responses, which shows the good majority of my edits have gone smoothly. I can show much more than 6, of course. Regarding my "bickering" over the word myth, that is actually a serious issue where Aleph insists on literally labeling the position of Wikipedia as the first five biblical books as fiction. This to me is unacceptable, an error, and of COURSE I have responded to it. It's hard to imagine I'd be banned from all discussion on religion because of drawn-out discussion on three pages (seriously) that have almost all ended. Lastly, if Tarage can direct me to a place where Daily Mail was deduced as unreliable, by Wikipedia standards, I would accept that. But again, producing a ban because of drawn out discussion on three pages (where two of it has entirely ceased for some time) seems rather unnecessary. Someone said I should be banned "just" for switching BCE to BC, but that was literally my first or second edit in the entirety of my Wikipedia account where I had just started editing and did not know about WP:ERA. I'd also accept from refraining edits in those 3 pages where I'm prone to engaging in debates for the next month or so, if that makes a difference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Korvex (talk • contribs) 05:11, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

For anyone trying to follow along, the reference to "Aleph" in the paragraph above is about this edit by Korvex [43], which I reverted [44]. This has spawned the latest exchange here, which went on while this ANI was already in progress: Talk:Mosaic authorship#Charter myth and recent undid edit. Alephb (talk) 05:28, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Korvex, if you push a fringe theory or make antisemitic, offensive, or non-NPOV edits, it doesn't matter how often other users have challenged you and you have fought back, resulting in "long and unproductive debates". Twice should be enough, but even by your own admission it has happened on three separate pages. If you are not a POV-pushing SPA, that should be the easiest thing in the world for you to prove; yet you have to resort to counting the number of articles on which you have gotten in massive blowouts with other editors -- what does this say? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:46, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Korvex, here´s the Daily Mail thing you wanted: [45]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:51, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• I've had the opportunity to interact with Korvex on one of the pages in question. I'm sure some of you are waiting for me to waffle about how he's not that bad, and a stern warning should be enough. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint, but based on what I've seen I must strongly Support a TBAN from articles on biblical history or ancient Egypt and the near East. I crossed the line of "give them another chance" when I saw them say "The exodus happened, end of discussion." And if you think that's bad (and you have any knowledge of the subject), take a look at the logic they used to arrive at that conclusion. It makes my brain itch to know that someone actually thought that was a compelling argument. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:22, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

To editor MjolnirPants: It seems as if my ban on 'religion' is inevitable, but I have without question established my case for the exodus. You were unable to refute my contentions, and using our personal debate to ban me seems unproductive. You have 1) Tried to explain the Book of Exodus' vast knowledge on the geography and customs of Egypt with "maps" 2) Spent an unfortunate amount of time trying to defend the claim that nomadic migrations leave remains, after being conclusively shown to be false 3) Called Petrovich a "fringe scholar" until of course I brought up his actual credentials and 4) Conflated the abandonment of Avaris during the reign of Ahmose I with the abandonment of Avaris in the reign of Amenhotep II. So, you were indeed wrong about that, but again, this conversation had nothing to do with any actual edits -- I specifically stated my debate with you was to show your claims were wrong and that I also had no intention of adding the content I espoused into the Wiki page. You were simply incorrect about the historicity of the Exodus with me, as I was incorrect about the validity of Murdock's quote or whatnot on that mythicism page. I have offered you an opportunity to defend your responses on my Talk Page, but you were unable to because of points 1-4 that I mentioned here. And for the third time, using a personal conversation with someone to ban them from edits is not the way to do things (but again, the ban looks inevitable as of now). If you want to ever claim that I was speaking any factual errors in our personal conversation, you're going to have to bring the evidence to my Talk Page.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Korvex (talk • contribs) 14:46, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• Take a look at the above: Aside from disruptive formatting and a really frequent problem with signing their posts, the POV problems are made obvious by this apparently willful inability to distinguish between a refusal to engage and an failure to rebut. Note also that they continue to insist upon the historicity of the Exodus, not just in terms of their own belief but in terms of fact, a statement which is flatly at odds with the overwhelming scholarly consensus.

Korvex: In case you don't get it, understand that I'm not going to engage with anyone who claims they've proven me wrong by claiming I'm wrong. Every single point of fact we've discussed has been supported by citations to evidence by myself and by bald assertions by you. You have, not once in the entire brief discussion we had, provided a single shred of evidence to support any of the assertions that you claim have proven me wrong. Indeed, I see below where you continue to make wildly unsupported claims right here in this very discussion. If you think I'm going to waste any more time trying to prove you wrong when you clearly believe that it's impossible for you to be wrong, you're sadly mistaken. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:58, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

To editor Mjolnir:, you're taking this too personally. Sit back for a second. All my claims have in fact been supported by references. I gave you quotations from world-renowned scholars like Richard Hess. I've given you references to excavations by scholars like Manfred Bietak. Why does this disappear from your memory immediately after I post it? It seems you are not very open to evidence that may challenge your view on the exodus. You gave very few citations, if any. You gave some citations to some nomadic settlements, but as I repeatedly pointed out, we were discussing nomadic migrations, not nomadic settlements. You state that the overwhelming scholarly consensus is against me. Something tells me you only read minimalist literature, Mjolnir. Grand scholars like Richard Hess, James Hoffmeir, Eugene Merrill, Kenneth Kitchen would dismiss exodus ahistoricity on any day of the week. This "consensus" seems to exist only in minimalistic imagination, I plead with you not to take up the minimalist agenda as this is very self-detrimental. Again, I have provided overwhelming evidence for my positions. I am getting tired of being constantly insulted by you, being told I am making "bald assertions" and that discussion with me is a "waste of time". All the evidence is on my side. You say that you simply are not willing to respond to me, not that you actually cannot respond to me. This is rather strange, considering you posted 3 hefty responses to me earlier, and then stopped when the evidence became too overwhelming to rebut. You have called people like Petrovich "fringe scholars" in order to maintain your hypothesis. These claims are indefensible. You will not be able to defeat me regarding exodus historicity. We likely will not converse again after this, so I will give you the last word. You can either attempt to defend the historical veracity of your claims, or you can resort to name-calling again. Go ahead.Korvex (talk) 17:20, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

To editor Mjolnir:, you're taking this too personally. Sit back for a second. All my claims have in fact been supported by references. I rest my case. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:57, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

In light of MP's ("MPs'"?) comments in another discussion further up this page, the above should be taken pretty seriously. I'm sure some of you are waiting for me to waffle about how he's not that bad, and a stern warning should be enough is right. MP is one of the most patient, forgiving users I have seen editing in this area, so his coming down as he is here is noteworthy. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:50, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

MP's would be the correct choice. MPs would be something completely different. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:47, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

To editor MjolnirPants: Your most recent personal attacks against me are getting out of hand. You state I am "trivial to disprove" despite the fact that you were wrong on everything in our personal discussion. You are crossing the line when it comes to respect and not even backing up your statements with any evidence, I am attempting to take all your attacks against me without insulting you however you seem to think that my limiting time on Wikipedia warrants you replace your fruitless arguments in our previous discussions by attacking my character. This is absolutely not the way to have a coherent debate, you must treat your opponent with respect regardless of whether or not you have faired successfully in a debate with them. You also make an innumerable number of errors regarding your latest personal attacks on Petrovich as well. I have told you Petrovich has a PhD in syro-Palestinian Archaeology and is a professor of ancient Egypt at Wilfred Laurier University. Yet you attack him. I have shown that the book has been peer reviewed, and apparently the fact that he needed a Kickstarter to raise money to be able to find his research (Petrovich is nothing near rich) apparently disqualified that. Furthermore, fringe hypotheses are not presented at ASOR, obviously Despite all this you attack Petrovich personally. You ignore the endorsement of his book from grand scholars like Eugene Merrill and other scholars like Sarah Doherty, and conclude not only is it fringe but you warrant personal attacks against him. Your behaviour reflects that when you cannot substantively address someone, whether it is me or a scholar, you attack them. Coincidentally, Petrovich's book speaks exactly about a priori rejection of a thesis that does not affirm to ones presuppositions. When you become a professor of Ancient Egypt at Wilfrid Laurier University (funny how a supposedly fringe scholar is a professor in one of the best universities in Canada), maybe your a priori dismissal can be considered. My session on Wikipedia is nearing its end, I am happy that the large majority of my edits on numerous pages have been accepted and have mixed ideas about this coming to an end.

And this is a perfect example why a siteban is necessary. Despite your continued insistence, Petrovich's book is NOT peer reviewed. You don't seem to understand what peer review means when it comes to scholarly papers or publications. Secondly, fringe hypotheses are indeed presented at the ASOR annual meeting. They will let just about anyone who is paying ASOR member, including students, to do presentations at the annual meeting. Here's their rules: http://www.asor.org/am/2017/rules.html which no way confer any scholarly reliability to the participants. The chairs just have to find it interesting enough to present and they have a TON of slots to fill. Finally, Eugene Merrill is not a "Grand Scholar" in any way. He's a Biblical literalist who only publishes in Biblical literalist theology journals. Really only one to be frank. The one published by the seminary he was a part of. He's as fringe as fringe gets. Biblical inerrancy is fringe. That's why they have to make their own journals because their "evidence" for inerrancy would never pass the peer review of actual scholarly journals. Capeo (talk) 13:50, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

To editor Capeo: Capeo, what analysis do you speak from? EUGENE H Merill being fringe? Two of his works have been cited over a hundred times, many others with a large amount as well. Definitely a renowned Old Testament scholar by every thing I've seen about him and the influence of his academic work. Wikipedia actually has a page on him (that you did not consult) noting he is distinguished professor at Dallas Theological Seminary (a major academic institution with other leading scholars in New and Old Testament scholarship as professors like Darrel Bock and Daniel freaking Wallace). He's definitely a literalist, but so are so many other leading scholars in Old Testament scholarship that this couldn't possibly qualify as fringe. In my opinion, the top New Testament scholar in the world is N.T. Wright (search up the citations to his works and try not to explode) -- a literalist by almost any definition. So of course, a work with Merrill's name on it is by definition one that cannot be dismissed, even if found to be incorrect a year later, although I'm not aware of any scholars to have ever been correct on everything.Korvex (talk) 23:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I didn't want to get involved in the Petrovich stuff any more, but I am tired of being told that he is a Professor at Wilfrid Laurier. Yes, he manages to get called this in the media, but he isn't one. His academic.edu site[46] calls him an adjunct teaching Ancient Egypt(something I've told Korvex before), and the University doesn't call him professor. See this and scroll down to HI299E: ANCIENT EGYPT (WINTER) where is is given no title. But at HI121: ANCIENT HISTORY IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT (WINTER) you'll see a real professor with the title. And the course he is teaching is not a standard part of the curriculum. Note its number if HI299E, and "Courses carrying special numbers (HI299, HI346, HI496) are established when a faculty member has an interest in pursuing a topic of study that is not part of our regular course offerings." Doug Weller talk 14:11, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that insight, Doug, I don't think I would've picked up on that. I also have to say, yourself and other editors involved on the talkpages of the articles in question have shown a level of patience that goes above and beyond what I could ever do. That Exodus talkpage in particular is an example of bludgeoning on a level rarely seen. No editors should have to put up with such endless repetition of OR, SYNTH and baseless refuted claims lacking RS. It's that talkpage in particular that has me convinced that a TBAN is insufficient. Korvex doesn't seem interested in trying to understand even the most basic sourcing policies and guidelines. Capeo (talk) 15:10, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support a topic ban. This kind of user causes burnout because they are here to mould the encyclopaedia to fit their own worldview, and they don't permit of the possibility that their worldview is wrong. Guy (Help!) 08:38, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support a TBAN from articles on biblical history or ancient Egypt and the near East. and given his edits at Dawkins, religion. One of the issues I've had with him is misrepresenting sources. His Dawkins edits are a good example of that. First he changes "separated" to "divorced" with an edit summary "Separation is an ambiguous term and fails to reflect it was an actual divorce)". This despite the fact that the source makes no mention of divorce. He even misrepresents himself. On being accused of pushing Wood he replied that he cites other sources, such as Koert van Bekkum. Now van Bekkum seems to be a reliable source and indeed Korvex did use him, but he used him to add " "However,scholars are not entirely certain that Et-Tell is the location of Ai. Koert van Bekkum says that there is scholarly discussion on the location of several biblical cities, including Ai,[1] citing Bryant G. Wood who has recently come to identify Ai with Khirbet el-Maqatir." The paragraph already mentioned Wood, stating that " Bryant G. Wood's identification has been accepted by some[12] although rejected by others." so this simply added another mention of Wood. Not only that, the mention of Wood was in a footnote which said "For literature concerning Ai and the related discussion about the identification of Bethel with el-Bireh in stead of with Beitin (172.148), see D. Livingston, ‘Further Considerations on the Location of Bethel and El-Bireh’, PEQ 126 (1994), 154-9; B.G. Wood, ‘Khirbet el-Maqatir’, IEJ 50 (2000), 123-30; 249-54; for Tel el-Umeiri and Tel Jalul as candidates for Heshbon, see S.H. Horn, ‘Heshbon’, IDBS, 410; Idem, Hesban in the Bible and in Archaeology, Berrien Springs, MI 1982, 10-1; R.D. Ibach, ‘An Intensive Survey at Jalul’, Andrews University Seminary Studies 16 (1978), 215-22; Geraty, ‘Heshbon’, 626." And given that the article was about the city of Ai, the failure to mention what van Bekkum actually said about Ai, "Et-Tell, identified by most scholars with the city of Ai, was not settled between the Early Bronze and Iron Age I." but only use a footnote mentioning Wood seemed to me, in this context, to misrepresent the source. He certainly only used it in order to get another mention fo Wood into the article, making his statement "Jytdog thinking that Wood is the only guy I cite is simply false." looking a bit - well, a bit something. He then at the talk page accused me of suggesting he was lying, something I didn't do. Which is another big problem, his continual personalisation of discussions and attacks on other editors during talk page discussions. These range from accusing User:Tgeorgescu 2 months ago of lying[47] to more recent accusations of slander[48] and another attack on Tgeorgescu[49]. He also accused User:Zero0000 of pov pushihng and misrepresenting our policies and guidelines at Talk:Ai (Canaan)#Bryant Wood and the Associates for Biblical Research.

I could provide more detail about misrepresentation, use of poor sources, WP:UNDUE, personal attacks etc but unless asked I don't want to waste even more time here. They're mentioned or discussed on the talk pages anyway. Doug Weller talk 09:10, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• • I just noticed his comments last night at Talk:Mosaic authorship#Charter myth and recent undid edit which are more evidence of his unwillingness to AGF and an evident battleground mentality. Doug Weller talk 10:17, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
• Neutral That's now, but if nothing changes in his behavior, Korvex will receive a TBAN sooner or later, that's unavoidable. Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:56, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment The above was advice, but seen his subsequent edits, it seems that he does not comprehend what the problem is about. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:54, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• Strong support for an indefinite topic ban for this persistent POV-pusher, from biblical archeology — or from biblical history and ancient Egypt and the near East and religion — indeed from any areas that otherwise gain consensus here. I'd ban him on my own responsibility if the subject was under discretionary sanctions, but since it's not, I hope the community will take care of it. The time and energy of constructive editors is Wikipedia's main resource, and is not to be squandered like that. (I know, I'm like a grammophone with that, but it's true.) As JzG says above, this kind of user causes burnout. Bishonen | talk 10:51, 16 March 2017 (UTC). Adding: After reading the further comments below, I'll support an indefinite block, too. Bishonen | talk 21:37, 16 March 2017 (UTC).

@Bishonen: I hope you don't mind, but I corrected what looked like a really obvious misprint in the above comment. I guess "bibliographical archeology" is a thing (digging up ancient books like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi Codices and the Dunhuang Manuscripts?), but I was 100% certain that wasn't what you meant to write. ;-) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:10, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support TBAN. Just at Talk:The Exodus he has written close to 20,000 words and shows no sign of slowing down. Moreover, his argumentation is rife with illogic, sophism and misrepresentation of sources. He believes what he believes and arguing against him is useless. He needs to be disappeared from any topic connected to religion and the bible, which includes archaeology of the Middle East and the history of languages. Zero^talk 12:16, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Zero. That I show "no sign of slowing down" is, I find to be not correct, as all my conversations on the Talk Page of the Exodus have finished. As for the history of languages, I understand religions, but history of languages? Are you referring to Doug's book again, in which the thesis of it has been peer-reviewed and presented to the American Schools of Oriental Research, as well as confirmed by grand scholars like Eugene Merrill? You seem to be trying to take this ban thing from religion and trying to extend over topics that you have not conformed with your personal disagreements with me, and are attempting to extend it over topics that I have made not a single attempt to edit for. Korvex (talk) 14:46, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• It looks as if the ban is inevitable with so many people against me. I have already admitted that I have had drawn-out conversations (that have all ended by the timing of this post) on three different pages, and perhaps that warrants the ban. But I will in fact defend myself from accusations of actual errors and illogical content that I wanted to add in the edit, as I considered my edits to be true, and therefore wanted to add them into Wikipedia (for examples, Dawkins did in fact get divorced from Lalla, but because the sources used the synonymous word 'separated' in this event, this edit of mine was blocked, and is now considered evidence I'm a POV-pusher). This is not the place to defend my edits, so if anyone thinks I have made factual errors regarding the truth of what I actually wanted to add in Wikipedia can discuss that with me on my talk page. Anyways, I do have a point of view (everybody does), and maybe I have indeed taken it too far twice or thrice. I will accept the verdict of the admins on this issue.Korvex (talk) 14:46, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Korvex, my question to you is whether this criticism (and I know it's not easy to handle so much of it, sorry) makes any sense to you. Specifically, do you see how the totality of your edits seem to evidence a POV, and how that particular POV is considered fringe? or at least not neutral? or, maybe, less neutral than the non-biblical archeological perspectives? Drmies (talk) 15:31, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
    • For me the problem with the Dawkins edits are not so much that you are for some reason now looking at atheists and atheism (given your post at Talk:Atheism) but that you are still misrepresenting sources. We do not decide for ourself what a source "really means" (you didn't say those words but you implied them). This type of use of sources is a constant problem with you. And your reply to Zero about Douglas Petrovich's book is another. You keep making exaggerated statements. His "thesis" has not been peer-reviewed in any way that I recognise, his book has so far not received a review so far as I know other than this one and you haven't produced one, and his thesis, that Hebrew is the basis of the world's oldest alphabet[50][51] is definitely not widely accepted. Doug Weller talk 15:51, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Drmies, yes, I understand and admit that 2-3 of my edits did in fact POV push. I fully admit this and if I receive a ban, I accept the ban I will be given. I can do nothing my past actions except for admit my mistakes. As for Petrovich, I don't know what this has to do with discussion on my ban but I will respond. Regarding Petrovich as not having his work peer-reviewed, this is incorrect -- Petrovich's publishers have peer-reviewed it. I even found some of his discussion with supporters of the funding of his book to be published that this is correct. It has also been presented to the American Schools of Oriental Research - see pages 105-106 - which is significant and definitely makes it "reliable", because the prestige of the ASOR is not easily equaled by most journals. Doug, you also point out the book only has one 'review' -- but it has already spurred discussion from people who accept it (Eugene Merrill, Sarah Doherty, I think that new chronology guy David Rohl also accepts it, Carr) and from those who do not accept it (Christopher Rollston, Thomas Shneider). Some of these names are pretty big, Doug. If you actually take a look at the current debate existing on the subject, you'll see that the evidence is heavily stacked in favor of Petrovich's side -- I have read all the positive and negative discussion. The proto-consonantal script has names only attested to in the Hebrew language (like Ahisemech), for example. Lastly, I don't know if express.co.uk is considered reliable by Wikipedia, but I found an article there that uses the phrase "their 24-year marriage is at an end" to describe what happened between Dawkins and Lalla. I will not use it to try to make an edit considered the current situation I'm in, but if express.co.uk is considered a reliable source, I will happily send the source to the editor who wants to add it in to Dawkins' page.Korvex (talk) 16:23, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Korvex, the problem with your edits and behavior to date, as my OP lays out, is that you have abused your editing privileges to use Wikipedia as a WP:SOAPBOX, to promote your view that the Bible presents history. Every one of your edits to religious-related article is about that one POV. This is not OK in WP -- WP:SOAPBOX is fundamental WP policy. This is what many WP:SPA accounts do, and they end up wasting everyone's time with endless wrangles on Talk pages. You are not here to build an encyclopedia, you are here to advocate for a specific point of view. That is the problem. Yes as you noted, everybody has a point of view but we ask everyone to set that aside when they log in, and edit neutrally. (This is discussed in the NPOV policy at WP:YESPOV) People who cannot do that, get topic banned. Please read those three wikilinks already in this post, along with the essays WP:ADVOCACY and WP:TENDENTIOUS and WP:Civil POV pushing. You have been doing all those things. Drmies is hopeful that you can have the self-insight to see this and the follow-on hope that having seen it, you might be able to rectify it. So far you are not seeing the problem, nor acknowledging the problem, and I realize that I didn't link to any of those in my OP, hence my providing them here. Please do read them and reflect on them, and then read what people have written here again, and then reply here again. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 17:45, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

The fact that Korvex is using this forum to try and rehash the entire Petrovich controversy is exactly why this TBAN is appropriate. There have already been long discussions in which a number of editors have discussed why they dismiss Petrovich as not being WP:RELIABLE. Korvex wrote long angry essays, misrepresenting the situation repeatedly, and got nowhere in convincing anyone else to accept the reliability of Petrovich's book that he himself hadn't even seen yet and which has never been reviewed in any scholarly outlet. The fact that he would use this discussion of his behavior to begin beating that dead horse again is a perfect illustration of how he operates and continues to show no sign of moving in a more productive direction. He has said nothing new here that he hasn't already said, at much greater length and with a harsher tone, on the talk pages already discussed above. Alephb (talk) 19:11, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

To editor Alephb: I request you scroll up, considering I was absolutely not the one who brought up Petrovich. I quite literally said Petrovich had nothing to do with this discussion before responding. Again, I did not bring this up. I have admitted to the POV pushing already. Couldn't be bothered going through contribs to find the date and time, but this was obviously Korvex (talk · contribs). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:22, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Does it look to anyone else like Korvex is now deliberately trolling this ANI thread? I "Ctrl+F"ed Petrovich's name, and unless someone else strategically misspelled it, Korvex was indeed the first to bring him up here. And even if that was not the case, mentioning Petrovich's name isn't even the problem; it's the continued arguing over it (which again, only Korvex has been doing). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:22, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposed site ban

• Based on my interactions with Korvex at Talk:The Exodus and here, I'm also going to have to propose and support an indefinite site ban. Korvex repeatedly makes statements of fact which are trivial to disprove, doesn't bother to provide sources for the vast majority of their claims, generally provides poor sources when they do, misinterprets those few acceptable sources they use, laces their comments with hyperbole, and continuously makes bad faith accusations against any and all who disagree with them. Those problems might be most apparent in one particular topic, but they are problems which have the potential to affect any article they work on. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:05, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
• After looking into this a bit more I have to agree with MP above that a site ban is what's needed though I'd support a very broad TBAN as well. On the Ai page Korvex showed no understanding of BRD or consensus and somehow thought because they disagreed with an edit, and brought it to the talk page, that somehow gave them impunity to repeatedly revert against consensus. That talk page and the responses above also display that they have no grasp of what an RS is and resort to OR and SYNTH continuously. Just in the response to Drmies above there is a complete lack of understanding of what constitutes a scholarly RS. Petrovich had to resort to a Kickstarter campaign to get his book published and in no way shape or form do publishers do scholarly peer review. The OR about reading some discussion somewhere about it is meaningless. Korvex then links to the program for the ASOR annual meeting, not either of the actual journals ASOR publishes, but a program. Giving a presentation (among hundreds) at the ASOR annual meeting in no way confers reliability to the presenter or indicates that their views represent the scholarly consensus. Having other fringe pushing scholars (with no sources to back that up BTW) support a fringe view in no way confers reliability either. Petrovich has articles on Creation Ministries International's website claiming proof of Biblical inerrancy. His views are extremely fringe. That Korvex doesn't see that gives me little hope they will every understand WP sourcing requirements. Capeo (talk) 19:36, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support site ban - I really don't think a topic ban, even if it covers multiple subjects, if going to be sufficient. My observation is that this editor appears to be incapable of editing in the manner that Wikipedia requires, and will do so in whatever topic he moves on to. His problem -- as is true with many FRINGErs and POV-pushers -- is in his mindset, and no topic ban is going to change that. For the benefit of the closer, my support for a site ban should be considered to be inclusive of support for topic bans for all the subjects noted here, should the site ban not become the consensus choice. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:26, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support site ban mainly based on behaviour in this thread. Accuse other Wikipedians of "personal attacks" for pointing out that this or that scholar holds a fringe view is simply unacceptable. I also think that, if he ever wants to come back and appeal the site ban, he should still be subject to the topic ban, so consider me a support for both separately. Would that it were this easy to deal with all users who falsely and repeatedly claim All my claims have in fact been supported by references. at ANI. I guess some topics aren't as sexy as so-called biblical archeology. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support site ban - moved to this from my original topic ban support after seeing the further discussions - this should be inclusive of the topic bans. He continually ignores other editors and repeats the same arguments no matter what others have said, and as others have said above this behavior would simply spread to other areas if he remains as an editor. Doug Weller talk 14:15, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Strong support for TBAN or site ban-This is an obvious and blatant POV pusher who is not here to build an encyclopedia but to fight for the truth. Editors such as this drive away others who are more productive by wearing patience to the bone, imo it is ridiculous how long such editors are tolerated in these areas, no wonder actual scholars do not spend time on WP, who wants to deal with such timesinks over and over?Smeat75 (talk) 14:18, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support site ban - for the reasons I previously stated in my support of a TBAN. At the time, I did not know the site ban was an option, so I supported the TBAN. Because of Korvex's history and his behavior here, I think a site ban would be an even better option, allowing us to focus on building an encyclopedia again, instead of having to repeatedly clear up the half-dozen misrepresentations / personal attacks per paragraph, multiplied across seemingly unending discussions, that we have seen so far from Korvex. Alephb (talk) 15:55, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• I don't object Jytdog (talk) 18:17, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support site ban mainly based on Korvex' inability/unwillingness to understand what is required in order for a source to be considered reliable. For instance, what is and isn't a "peer review" was explained in this discussion in early February and yet Korvex claims that he has "shown that (Petrovich's) book has been peer reviewed", basing his definition of a "peer review" on the same premise that was shown to be faulty in the previous discussion. I can't help thinking that Korvex doesn't want to hear about some rather central concepts, such as verifiability and consensus discussions, not to mention civility - and that is not something that can easily be confined by a topic ban. I have not ran across Korvex before, but have devoted some time to reading back on previous discussions, in particular the ones from the past few months, and so my opinion is based on that. --bonadea contributions talk 23:01, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Unable to edit because of misidentification with a blocked user

I once used a public computer apparently used by someone called Jamenta, and now my anonymous edits--almost all connected to my expertise with William James on whom I have published many articles as well as a\n Academic Press book--are all being deleted--even from the talk page--based on this misidentification. See below. Please advise. And thank you.

"Unhelpful changes./* corrections */ Please explain why correcting grammar and adding a brief quote by a well respected knowledgable source is unhelpful."

"Because you have been banned from wikipedia on your account Jamenta for inserting fringe content on wikipedia, swearing and making legal threats."

"You have an obsession with quoting William James. He was a psychologist who was duped by paranormal claims yet you quote this guy like a religious script. He he is mentioned in the article, a long quote is undue to a fringe point of view."

"It is not a long quote. I shortened it once and am willing to make it even shorter. You are apparently unacquainted with James's full writings on parapsychology. He remained open-mined, unsure, and ultimately "baffled" by parapsychology. But whatever your personal opinion about James, it is not serving Wikipedia--a forum dedicated to balancing different opinions--well here. A minimum, specific reason of support by a well-respected authority on Myers specifically and parapsychology in general, is essential to match the many reasons opposed by other, far obscurer, and by no means better vetted, authorities."

"Once again, the Jamenta thing is false. It was assumed because I posted from a public computer. I have no idea who Jamenta was or is. Please address the substantive issue raised here pertaining to this article." 71.167.134.66 (talk) 23:15, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

So Jamenta does not stantd for William James? But both of you have an interest in parapsychology...? What administrative action are you seeking. Please be brief. El_C 23:24, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Sure sounds like a duck to me. [52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59] --Guy Macon (talk) 23:56, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Just happened to be passing through ANI (ugh, why did I do that) and it's somewhat surprising nobody more invested in this issue has noticed this, but: it is obvious from Jamenta's early contributions how his username came to be, and El C's hypothesis is incorrect. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:20, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I am looking to have the capacity to suggest edits based on my expertise. If the first step I need to take is to appeal this misidentification with Jamenta so that it never arises again I will begin that appeal. Once again, I am an Academic with a significant publication history. 71.167.134.66 (talk) 00:03, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

And I have no idea who Jamenta is. The computer I used, ill-avisedly I now see, was with a huge law firm, with a staff of 800 people. Lots of people are interested in parapsychology. Some, alas, bringing to it more heat than light. 71.167.134.66 (talk) 01:13, 17 March 2017 (UTC)I can show you my Academic bona fides. You would have to believe I was some sort of Jekyll/Hyde character to be posting like the examples I saw.71.167.134.66 (talk) 01:13, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• Who was it that just removed my last post here? : “Create an account and then you will no longer be anonymous”. Wikipedia:Why create an account? --[[User:Aspro|Aspro]] ([[User talk:Aspro|talk]]) 01:10, 17 March 2017 (UTC) Was it anonymous user 71.167.134.66 ? --Aspro (talk) 01:53, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, it was [60]. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:03, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• And too bad, because it's the intuitive thing to ask: why not register an account? It only takes half a minute. El_C 02:04, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• 71.167.134.66 - Whether you are Jamenta or not, we cannot take your word for it that you are William James. You could go to WP:OTRS and ask them how to go about providing them with the information they need to prove your identity, but (I'm not absolutely certain, but I think) you will probably need to create an account to do that, since we can't have the proven "William James" flitting about from one IP to another, that would set up a situation where just about any IP could say that they were William James. On the other hand, if anyone is really convinced that you are Jamenta, they can file a sockpuppet investigation report (SPI), and if admins decide the evidence is sufficient you can be blocked from editing, whether you have an account or not.
  If anyone has corrections to this information, please feel free to jump in. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:15, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• Thank you for your time here. I can create a user name with my real name, but what is to keep my real name from being identified with this Jamenta person? Should I just disown the identity when I sign on, an make my appeals about it therefrom? One other concern: My sense is that NPOV is not always enforcedad when it comes to parapsychology. Can an Administrator override a trigger happy editor like Mr. Macon here. Can a pile-on of obscure critics really not be answered by one well-sourced renowned critic? If you find my changes serve the interest of fair play can you revert them now? That would be encouraging. There is little point in my continuing to try to balance out a pile of negative references with one positive reference if it will always be reverted by those, like Mr. Macon and company, who apparently does not believe parapsychology deserves a NPOV.71.167.134.66 (talk) 02:50, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• WP:NPOV does not mean that all points of view are treated equally. Please read WP:FRINGE. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:15, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Understood. Would very much appreciate hearing from the Administrator community whether they think Mr. Macon's deleting my sourced James review of Myers Phantasms of the Living in the 2 Wikipedia articles it appears in, an insertion I made to balance out the pile-on of obscure detractors, was in keeping with "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."71.167.134.66 (talk) 11:36, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

That isn't the role of Administrators and probably belongs at WP:NPOVN. Doug Weller talk 11:54, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Your edit was reverted because I believe (see WP:DUCK) that you are blocked user Jamenta, and additions by blocked users editing as an IP in order to evaid the block may me deleted on sight. The question you ask above is not for this noticeboard. I would also note that, when you posted at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Violation of fair and balanced policy you did not limit yourself to the question you asked above, but instead repeated your "I am not Jamenta" song and dance, a topic which belongs here.

Thank you, Doug. I will go there71.167.134.66 (talk) 13:47, 17 March 2017 (UTC). Tho at some point the Administration community might need to weigh in on what seems to be a concerted effort by a group of Editors to prevent a balanced reporting of the history of parapsychology. WP: FRINGE does not clarify whether Skeptical Extremism or the American Association for the Advancement of Science should determine the viability of James's openminded approach to parapsychology.71.167.134.66 (talk) 13:45, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

There is strong evidence 71.167.134.66 is the banned user Jamenta himself or associated with that user.

• Jamenta (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (Jamenta's favourite two people were William James and Frederic Myers) Jamenta was banned for inserting repeated fringe content, swearing and finally making legal threats.
• 208.194.97.5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) which 71.167 has admitted being was blocked by two different admins as Jamenta. This IP was pushing fringe content of William James at Watseka Wonder. Check this IPs talk-page. This IP registers to a law firm.

• 71.167 has also been creating sock-puppets. These are him which he admitted: myerslover (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), psychicbias (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). He said he forgot his password but this is false. He later logged in on psychicbias to leave a comment, but then left another comment on his IP to pretend to be two different users. Check the history at Frederic W. H. Myers.

• It is aslo likely this user has other sockpuppets on the Myers article. My conclusion is that this user is Jamenta or at a minimum associated with that individual. In his defense his wrote that over 800 people worked in the building he was working at on his own IP, but really? Two people have the exact same interest in James and Myers and moan about "sceptic bias"? Whoever this person is, he is not honest. I am all for letting people use wikipedia who make constructive edits and giving people a second chance, but this user is nothing more than a pseudoscience promoter. He fails to understand wikipedia policies on fringe material, he seems to think over a hundred years old opinions from credulous paranormal believers like Myers are reliable sources of information. He has no decent edits, not here to build an encyclopedia all he wants to do is push fringe content. He will never give up doing this, every edit he will make will be controversial and just stir up repeated arguments like he has done before. He is now stirring on another noticeboard. I think it would be best if this guy Jamenta was blocked. 82.132.242.74 (talk) 21:11, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I have to concur with 82 above. All those IPs are Jamenta or closely related somehow. I've never seen anyone else with the obsession for James and Myers and the willingness to try to argue that "evidence" over a century old outweighs more current sources. Does this have to go to SPI or can an admin just DUCK block these accounts? I'm not sure how viable a range block is. Maybe protect the effected articles for a bit? Capeo (talk) 22:03, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

82's analysis is very convincing. I would think the best option would be that all the accounts be duck blocked, and the editor's IP edits continue to be deleted as block evasion. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:55, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

{{checkuser needed}}  Clerk declined - CheckUser will not disclose the IP address(es) of a named account. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:24, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

SPI clerk comment: 82's analysis is missing diffs, and I can't find where 71.167 supposedly admitted to operating any other accounts. I completely agree with I am One of Many that this user's edits bear very little similarity to the angry rants and legal threats of Jamenta. If there's something I've missed, please make a report at WP:SPI. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:57, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I am not Jamenta. I have no idea what a sock pocket is. I am a recognized James scholar and will sign on with my own name if that is the only way to pursue this false accusation. But there is little point in my trying to edit for fairness in my area of expertise--using James, where appropriate, to balance pile-ups of obscure and sometimes questionable authorities--if the Administrators will not support my efforts. I think it is essential to make the distinction between promoting parapsychology per se and promoting a fair and balance point of view toward historical figures and events that are part of its history. 71.167.134.66 (talk) 03:05, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a James scholar. Please, just stop. You have no interest in how James, or anyone, came to their ideas from a sociological viewpoint as an actual scholar would. It's more than clear you actually believe this stuff. Capeo (talk) 05:25, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Now he is WP:FORUMSHOPing, and for some reason has decided that I am the source of the "persecution" he is experiencing. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Violation of fair and balanced policy. We need an administrator to step in and sort this out. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:15, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

You were the person who deleted my entry. I was advised on this site to take my request for reversion to the NPOV noticeboard71.167.134.66 (talk) 03:47, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Again, several people -- not just me -- have deleted your contributions as being made by blocked user Jamenta. Please stop singling me out. Again, your claims that you are not Jamenta belong at ANI, not NPOVNB. Again, your question as to whether there is a "pileup of Myers detractors" which violate NPOV does belong on NPOVNB (ANI does not rule on content disputes), but that wasn't what you posted to NPOVNB, and that wasn't why your contributions were deleted. They were deleted as block evasion by blocked user Jamenta. And your behavior is a classic example of the law of holes. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:45, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment The IP editor and Jamenta are not the same person. It's obvious from examining the writing styles of both editors. And of course there are William James scholars. We really need assume good faith here. --I am One of Many (talk) 07:31, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• It looks to me like someone purposely changing his writing style in an attempt to get away with block evasion. I won't reveal all of the things I noticed (no point tutoring him on how to evade his block) but I will point out one: What are the chances that someone who writes "I have no idea what a sock pocket is" would also also write "I once used a public computer apparently used by someone called Jamenta" and "The reason I did not fight the misconception when it arose was because it was a public computer and I did not want to involve the company"? On the one hand, he implies that he has never read WP:SOCK, yet on the other, he is making excuses for using the same IP as Jamenta before anyone here has identified the two as posting from the same IP (While doing that 71.167.134.66 inadvertently revealed that he has also posted as 208.194.97.5 [61]. Also compare [62] with [63]). So he knows that checkuser exists but doesn't know what a sockpuppet is? What he didn't realize is that most admins are not checkusers and that those who are checkusers won't reveal or even check Jamenta's IP against any IP editor -- blocked editors still have full privacy right on Wikipedia, and linking a username to an IP address is a serious breach of those rights. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:04, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Don't see where else this discussion can go. Can it be closed?--Aspro (talk) 22:07, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Not unless you want a clone of this discussion to be opened by this or some other Jamenta sock in the near future. If I and the roughly dozen other editors who have been reverting the steady stream of "new" users who just happen to be pushing the same fringe content about William James and Frederic Myers that Jamenta was pushing are wrong, we need to have an administrator tell us that so we can stop doing it. If we are right, then this latest sock needs to be told that complaining to ANI isn't going to stop the reverts. Again, can we please have an administrator sort this out and make a decision? Pretty please with sugar on top? --Guy Macon (talk) 04:04, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

• The evidence of sockpuppetry is signficant, but not conclusive. I would like to propose as a resolution of this matter an application of WP:AGF and WP:ROPE: let this editor openly create an account from which to continue editing. His edits will undoubtedly be subject to substantial scrutiny, and can be judged on their merit. The situation is likely to resolve itself on those merits. bd2412 T 04:24, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Blocked for restoring a question at the humanities refdesk

After I restored a question which seemed perfectly legitimate at the Refdesk that was removed as trolling, I was blocked for long-term abuse, without any explanation. I want the person who blocked me to apologize and/or explain to me how what I did was wrong. The question didn't seem to violate any Refdesk policies and was an answerable one.Thanks76.168.98.68 (talk) 08:07, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

It was from a long term vandal. Don't restore things like that. It gives people reason to believe you are the vandal. I doubt you'll get an apology. --Tarage (talk) 08:15, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

A long-term vandal? Well, if that's the case I'm sorry. But the question seemed legit.76.168.98.68 (talk) 08:19, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

If you look at Special:Contributions/Azimuth2469 you can see that the new editor posting the original had already been blocked. As the RefDesk does have a resident troll with just such a posting style, then I'd support that block. As you were innocent (and per AGF I'm required to believe that of you anyway) then I can only apologize on WP's behalf that you were caught in the crossfire here. It wasn't personal though - it was conflating your post with the same troll, in an environment with just terribly few clues to be going on.

I'd suggest that if you're interested in WP, it's worth creating an account. An account is just an anonymous as an IP (in fact, more so) and it allows you to establish some reputation as a genuine editor, which helps to avoid such situations. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:32, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Favonian, you need to communicate with the blocked editor when levying a block; blocking without explanation was the basis for desysopping longtime admin Can't sleep, clown will eat me a while back. I'm not trying to threaten you or suggest that one incident warrants some sort of sanctions against you — I mention this simply as grounds for saying that you must explain your blocks, if nothing else with {{uw-block}}. Nyttend (talk) 11:23, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@Nyttend: Heck, no. Do that for the usual cases, sure, but for LTAs who use thousands of IPs that's actually counter-productive. There's no need to leave a block message for some innocent user to see as the LTA instantly flips to a new IP. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 12:52, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

As for "not trying to threaten", you could have fooled me. ;) I must apologize to the IP for the miscarriage of justice, but agree with Neil regarding the utter futility in communicating with the legions of socks, knitted by the likes of the Ref Desk Antisemitic Troll and Nsmutte. Sorry for the late reply – I was temporarily Irish yesterday. Favonian (talk) 16:42, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

On-going deletions in the criticism section of WP:Fairphone

The criticism section of the Fairphone article is "cleaned up" from time to time with different rationales (no sources, invalid sources, "bs") and without any prior discussion on the talk pages.

Examples (there are more)

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fairphone&oldid=770592483
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fairphone&oldid=761885694

Could someone protect this paragraph to force the users to have a discussion on the talk pages first? Currently the talk pages are pretty blank. Also it would be nice to know if links to a forum that is maintained by the company can be used as a source or not.

I think this is an edit war between people that are disappointed by the project's information strategies and people that want to protect it for ideological reasons. Something in the middle would be nice for WP.

Thank you.

Note/disclose: My edits are affected by the changes, but also the changes of others. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.192.73.113 (talk) 18:18, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

No, we cannot protect this paragraph. That's not an "I don't want to" — with our software it's impossible to protect just part of a page. If the disruption is bad enough (I don't have the time to review it right now), the whole page can be protected. Nyttend (talk) 18:34, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll chime in and say that the forum posts are not reliable sources. If the complaints in the forums are notable, someone working for an independent, reliable publication will write about them. AniMate 18:42, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Forum posts cannot be used as sources. Please read our reliable sources guideline. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:44, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for your replies. I understand the issue of valid sources. But I think especially for current tech good sources outside of forums is hard to find. You find early reviews, but seldom long time reports, as they would be needed to show long term issues. Fairphone mentions a few of the problems from the forum in their blog. Currently the Fairphone 1 has no replaceable parts available, badly outdated software and a known design issue with its usb port. People that will buy a used FP1, will not find this information quickly. But if it's against WPs rules to use multiple users reports in an official forum as a source, I will add their own blog posts as source. The problem is, that they are framed in a way that makes it nearly impossible to use them as good source.

Please treat those as primary sources, to be used in very limited circumstances. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:23, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Winkelvi block

If the blocking administrator is not available, or if the administrators cannot come to an agreement, then a discussion at the administrators' noticeboard is recommended. - WP:BLOCK#Unblock requests

I would like to recuse myself at this point from further action on this block, and would instead like the community to decide on what to do with Winkelvi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). They have a long history of edit warrior behavior, now at 6 blocks for breaching the policy on edit-warring. I personally do not think they are going to change this pattern, and do not see any pragmatic reason to think otherwise. I suggested at most lifting the block and replacing it with a 0RR (with exceptions for blatantly obvious vandalism/spam), but there's still not evidence that this will be a net positive decision. As such, I would believe it is best if more eyes look at this and am giving my full endorsement to any community decision, even if that is a complete reversal of the block (which I do not anticipate). — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 20:53, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• Reduce the block to something far shorter (maybe a week, but I have no strong opinions)

This was raised at ANEW by a pop-up disposable IP account, and concluded with 1 day and a 3 month blocks for two parties in trivial and fairly symmetrical edit-warring (Yes the edit-warring is real, I don't dispute that). I cannot see that such an unbalanced conclusion is at all appropriate, whatever the track record of the editors. I am particularly concerned at how it was raised! Edit warring is a problem, but disposable socks to cause trouble is a far greater one. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:14, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Edit warring is a problem, but disposable socks to cause trouble is a far greater one. I'll say. Granted, I don't actually agree with you on what should be done in this case, more because of personal editing philosophy. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:24, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Endorse three months or perhaps indef Raise to indefinite block. If and when unblocked or it expires, 0RR indefinitely. How many chances do you give an editor? Five? Six? A dozen? I first ran into Winkelvi in Bess Myerson a couple of years ago, and it's the only true nightmare I experienced on Wikipedia. Enough already. Coretheapple (talk) 21:20, 17 March 2017 (UTC) Amended, per subsequent comments. Coretheapple (talk) 20:13, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• I suppose if anyone goes to WV's talk page to investigate, they'll see there are at least 6 admins who already support an unblock with an indefinite 1RR restriction, which I'm planning to enact on Monday, if no one has done it before then. Coffee opposes that and so brought it here. There was some vague accusation that WV was adminshopping before this was brought here, so it's worth pointing out that among the admins supporting this are an unpinged admin who has previously blocked him for a month (me), an unpinged admin who has previously declined a more lenient unblock request (LB), an unpinged a pinged (sorry, my mistake, she was pinged) admin who, I believe, has previously issued WV a topic ban (Bish), and another unpinged admin (Ritchie). None of the admins who were pinged by WV are supporting a straight unblock, and none of them have reputations for shady behavior or favoritism. It seems to me that 6 admins all agreeing on a course of action for an unblock, and only the blocking admin opposed, is pretty close to as good a definition of consensus as you're going to get around here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:23, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

A 1RR restriction cannot be unilaterally placed by a single administrator unless the user is editing in a topic area that's under WP:AC/DS, or if it's approved by community consensus. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:51, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Hence why this is the most appropriate venue for this review Bbb23 (in reply to your comment at this editor's talk page). — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 21:55, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

It's not a single administrator, it's 6+. And anyway, yes a single admin can impose 1RR as an unblock condition, if the blocked editor agrees. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:55, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@Oshwah: Errr... yes it can. WP:CONDUNBLOCK --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:57, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

NeilN, Floquenbeam - You're correct; if the editor agrees, then yes it's perfectly fine. Sorry, should have made that clear. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:58, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@Oshwah, Bbb23, and NeilN: "If the blocking administrator is not available, or if the administrators cannot come to an agreement, then a discussion at the administrators' noticeboard is recommended. (WP:UNBLOCK#Unblock requests) — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 22:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not making this shit up as I go along you know... — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 22:02, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I was replying to Oshwah but did you add the right wikilink? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:06, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

It would appear that I am making shit up as I go along... tsk tsk. WP:BLOCK#Unblock requests — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 22:12, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Well somebody elsewhere just pulled a cowboy unblock that I disagreed with, yet I didn't feel the need to haul them to AN and make a song and dance over it; I'm going to let it go. (And I realise writing this is ironic). Likewise, 5-6 administrators have reached a consensus of what to do, why can't you as blocking admin just accept that sometimes things don't go your way and move on? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:32, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm glad he didn't. It's a chronic issue that deserves daylight, not the shadows of a user talk page that nobody is watching. Keri (t · c) 22:44, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: Because it has nothing to do with me. I'm doing what I think is best for the community and encyclopedia's interests. I'm not "hauling" anyone here but the action itself, so I'm not sure where that came from. I'm confused though why any administrator would have an issue with their decision being brought here, if they actually thought it was the correct one per the community's wishes. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 22:46, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• Endorse 3 months. 0RR if unblocked prematurely. Far less tendentious editors have been indefd for lesser and for likewise exhausting the community's patience. This unblock, if it happens, should be the last-chance saloon for WV. Keri (t · c) 22:14, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Endorse. When an editor who has been blocked 6 times for edit warring asserts, in apparent seriousness, that he "didn't think the first revert counted," we have found ourselves beyond the limits of WP:AGF, WP:CIR, or both. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 22:32, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

In this particular case, the claim seems pretty untenable, but there can be a real question about exactly counts as a first revert. But when it comes to a 3rr rule block, you were edit warring either way, so you aren't likely to get off on the technicality. Monty₈₄₅ 22:52, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Especially given this edit WV made to his user page about 1RR. Keri (t · c) 23:08, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• Endorse either continued block, 0RR, or both. I don't think this user intends to do ill, but the aggressive editing style and sometimes discourteous mode of personal interaction has exhausted the patience of the community, as seen in his block log. Speaking in my capacity as an involved editor, not an admin: just a few days ago, at Ben Carson, WV (1) edit-warred to restore challenged material of dubious relevance; (2) did so without first posting on a talk-page discussion that I had already begun; (3) failed to give a substantive rationale once he did show up at the talk page (merely "I happen to disagree" and then, once pressed, that the content "worth noting"); and (4) blindly reverted a subsequent, separate edit; inaccurately called it a revert; and failed to acknowledge the mistake. That pattern is not promising. If unblocked, then 0RR with the usual exceptions (blatant vandalism/spam), as Coffee has agreed to, would be called for. Neutrality^talk 22:34, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

None of the admins (except Coffee) called for 0RR; we all called for 1RR instead. I'm unsure as to whether you missed this or whether you do genuinely prefer 0RR as an option. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:43, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to the "community" (of people who are not watching WV's talk page). Keri (t · c) 22:45, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh please. You want everything handled on ANI? Drmies (talk) 00:58, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

No, just prolific, tendentious repeat offenders. What a fucking stupid question. Keri (t · c) 01:07, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

What happened here to bring people like you out of the woodwork? First you're clamoring for openness, and when I ask if you want everything out in the open you say that's a "fucking stupid question". Learn some manners, child. Drmies (talk) 18:17, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Nowhere have I advocated for "everything to be handled on ANI". Your mocking tone and straw man ad hom tells me everything I need to know about you. Given that I have never advocated bringing "everything" to ANI, it is a fucking stupid question, designed purely to belittle me and undermine my opinion and dripping with trademark passive-aggression. As is your pathetic trolling/baiting attempt with "learn some manners, child." What's next, "your mom" jibes? As for "What happened here to bring people like you out of the woodwork?" And what exactly are "people like me"? You mean "other editors"? The "community"..? And "the "woodwork"? You mean working on the encyclopedia and not daring to question your judgment, like good little drones? What a thoroughly unpleasant little man you come across as. Keri (t · c) 18:58, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

At about the same time as Drmies was insulting Keri, he left an abusive post on my talk page in which he stated that my "condition" (i.e,, my Asperger's, which I just mentioned in a comment) is more "excusable" than Winkelvi's.WTF? Coretheapple (talk) 19:09, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

For clarity - I do prefer 0RR, as supported by Coffee and Keri. I think it's more than justified in light of the prior blocks/sanctions. As usual, it would not apply to blatant vandalism or spam. Neutrality^talk 22:49, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

• Endorse the initial block as a reasonable exercise of admin discretion. But also Support Unblock with 1RR, indefinite duration, with an expectation that it wont be eased for at least a year. Personally, I don't think 0RR is a reasonable solution outside very active and controversial areas. Monty₈₄₅ 22:58, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Endorse and frankly 1rr is not really an incentive to not edit war. 0RR or dont bother. -edit- And after reading his talkpage, that excuse was laughably unbelieveable. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:18, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Comment Coffee's wrong in counting five previous edit-warring blocks. Before this latest one, Winkelvi had been blocked six times for edit-warring, and two of them (including the one I levied) were removed by the blocking admin well before they would have expired. Swarm unblocked with a rationale of Sock involvement demonstrated post-block, edits exempted from 3RR (i.e. WP:3RRNO), while I unblocked and then left a comment of Winkelvi was in the middle of discussing the situation; I wouldn't have blocked if I had seen this. I'd say you should count this as four EW-related blocks. Whether or not four-versus-five-versus-six should affect anyone's vote or anyone's contribution to this discussion I won't say; I just hope that people consider the entire block log and not just the blocks themselves. In particular, don't count all of the [admin] blocked Winkelvi lines, since at least my second block of him (the one-second block) was done just to add an apology to the block log; I'm thankful that nobody, so far, has carelessly just counted the number of lines. Nyttend (talk) 23:25, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
  • The reason for the included number is the pattern of behavior itself. Just to clarify. :) — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 23:27, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Sure, that makes complete sense, and if I were voting here, I'd focus on the behavior pattern in my argumentation, regardless of how I voted. I just wanted to ensure that everyone inspecting the block log understood what was going on. Nyttend (talk) 23:30, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps the block log and blocking admins' comments deserve closer scrutiny. For example, this: "I made it clear in the last ANI that the community has had enough of this... previous blocks of up to one week have not been enough to get the point across." or this: "If you don't understand that, perhaps a month is too short, because we cannot keep indulging you in your near constant battleground behavior with everyone. Your behavior is nearly constantly disruptive. You do it even when warned, except apparently you think as long as the disruption is with some other person it is OK. Every single time you are blocked you say you've seen the light and will change, you never do. IMHO, next block for the same behavior should be indef." Keri (t · c) 23:33, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Its worth noting that in the last year they have also been blocked for deliberate harrassment of another editor and 'feuding' with other editors. Both conduct issues. That is aside from the edit-warring blocks. At what point do we accept Winkelvi is either unwilling or unable to play nicely with others? Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:43, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

All that I'm asking is that you consider the block log carefully; if that consideration leads you to think that it's time to believe that he can't play nicely with others, I won't attempt to dissuade you, just as I won't if the consideration leads you the other way. Just trying to make sure that everyone understands the facts well. Nyttend (talk) 00:12, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: I think 0RR may be justified here, given that WV's default mode is complete entrenchment in a given position without willingness to really listen or discuss -- as exemplified by Neutrality's example. This kind of behavior would be expected of a newbie, but it is unacceptable for someone who has been here 5 years and made 25,000 edits, and there has been no indication of any longterm change. I hate to say that because WV can be a good ally if he happens to agree with you, but the longterm edit-warring, tendentious editing, and personal attacks really need to be stopped. Softlavender (talk) 23:30, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Blocking administrator comment - Winkelvi is once again (cleverly IMO) admin shopping/canvassing: [64]. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 23:47, 17 March 2017 (UTC)edited — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 00:34, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Why didn't you just say in a neutral way that he has made a new post on his page?? — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 00:14, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Because, I've never found it necessary to call a spade by any other name. This is this editors 10th block for disruptive behavior, in 4 years. I can't be asked to simply assume good faith without merit at this point. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 00:31, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
      • This pinging habit of WV's is a bit irritating, but calling it canvassing here is overblown. 01:06, 18 March 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drmies (talk • contribs)
      • Coffee, you are not asked to assume anything different than anyone else. Your record of poor blocks and lack of discretion is as egregious as your description of Winkelvi. That is why we are again discussing, with much drama, your block. I would have hoped that the last reproach would have instilled a more thoughtful approach to blocking but it seems that is not the case. In any event, your block has caused much more disruption than Winkelvi. Please reflect on that and moderate your behavior and maybe take a break, say a year, from blocks. --DHeyward (talk) 03:57, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
        • I suggest you open an ANI thread, or go to ArbCom if you actually think that you have any chance of convincing anyone of your aspersions (without evidence). I'd also like to point out that while you may think that my integrity is why this thread exists, you are actually discussing this matter because I asked you to. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 04:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)@DHeyward: You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Coffee made a bad block and we're here to discuss or overturn it. In fact, the opposite is the case. Coffee opened this thread himself to ask for review, and there appears to be near-unanimous endorsement from everyone who wasn't canvassed. In addition, your casting of aspersions here is unwelcome and unproductive. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 04:14, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• Thank you User:The Wordsmith. DHeyward, really? Drmies (talk) 18:21, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• I'll add myself to the list of admins who supports an Unblock and indefinite 1RR - I have not dealt with Winkelvi before as far as I can remember. Black Kite (talk) 00:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• I've seen plenty of Winkelvi, and he of me. This edit warring is an unfortunate habit. The talk page discussion is so long that I can't even tell if he really got it--that this was a violation and a blockable one. Can any of you tell me if he posted that he gets it? Anyway, I supported, or maybe even proposed! an unblock with a 1R condition for three months--I'll settle for anything that resembles that, and if there's a majority for 0R, I suppose I'm OK with that too.

  Softlavender, I hear you--I think Winkelvi is one of those editors that just can't help himself when given the latitude editors think 3R give them. I don't want to be the psychoanalyst here or anywhere else, but that's what I think, and I think we have quite a number of those editors, most of whom function quite well though sometimes with restrictions, and you understand I'm not naming names here. His edits, as far as I remember, aren't tendentious; sometimes they're just...persistent. That's not good either, but it's not irredeemable. He's no POV warrior, for instance. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 01:06, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

My use here of "tendentious" to describe WV's behaviour is intended to reflect that of WP:TE: "On Wikipedia, the term also carries the connotation of repetitive attempts to insert or delete content or behavior that tends to frustrate proper editorial processes and discussions" (my emph). WV's edits certainly meet those criteria. Keri (t · c) 01:18, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I was torn whether to use the word "tendentious" or the word "WP:BATTLEGROUND". If you like I can change it to that, as it is a more accurate, yet stronger, description, and has been noted by various admins like Floq (e.g. in the diffs provided by Keri). In terms of "getting it", I don't think anyone who has filed, and/or been subject to, as many ANEW reports as he has, over the past 4 years years [65] (I count at least 75, including one a week ago), can maintain any semblance of credibility after repeatedly claiming that (he thought that) the first revert doesn't "count" in 3RR: [66], [67], [68]. He knows the drill perfectly; yesterday he clearly warned a user who had made three reverts for 3RR, and then when the editor breached 3RR with a fourth revert Winkelvi reported him [69]. -- Softlavender (talk) 01:21, 18 March 2017 (UTC); edited 03:33, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I meant nothing personal, by the way--and I meant "tendentious" in the strict sort of POV sense. I agree with you on the ANEW experience and I find the whole thing rather baffling, but I'm paid to AGF, sometimes to a fault perhaps. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 01:32, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support indefinite 1RR regardless of unblock and neutral, leaning support on unblock Frankly, I think the project would be better off if everyone was subject to 1RR except in cases of obvious vandalism, etc. The 3RR principle, that everyone is allowed edit-war up to a certain point, runs counter to AGF, since we should be assuming as soon as we are reverted once that the reverter is acting in good faith. 3RR also places an arbitrary numeric value on what counts as an edit war, and so encourages gaming of the system by users who don't engage in talk page discussion but edit carefully to make it look like they do. The only exception I can think of is where the reverter's edit summary made it clear that they had, in good faith, misunderstood your original edit.[70] So yeah, I would probably support an unblock and indefinite 1RR for just about anyone, but given the repeated nature of this offense, and especially that the last block was repealed with a 3-month 1RR restriction I am a bit more ambivalent on an immediate unblock, and can't see how anyone could oppose the 1RR restriction regardless of whether they agree with my personal philosophy. (Full disclosure: ArbCom subjected me to 1RR in late 2015 for some edit-warring that had happened in early 2015. I had immediately regretted said edit-warring and happily accepted the 1RR restriction. It will be the last restriction I appeal, if I decide to appeal it at all.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:24, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
  • I have to say Hijiri 88 that I'm impressed by your disclosure here. I've not known many restricted editors to be so forthcoming, without requirement (at least I don't know of a requirement... correct me if I'm wrong). It is definitely appreciated by all of the reviewing editors here. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 01:36, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Don't mention it. Honestly the disclosure was more of an afterthought. I actually think it kinda hurts my case, as it means that my case-relevant argument (that Winkelvi was subject to a fixed-term 1RR restriction as a condition to his last unblock) is sandwiched between two long pieces about me and my principles, and so is likely to be missed. I honestly hate when people !vote in these discussions based exclusively on their own principles (or their like/dislike for various participants), so I really hope no one thinks that's what I'm doing here. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:45, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• Too much drama. Conditionally unblock and close this kerfuffle. --DHeyward (talk) 02:08, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• Endorse block as a valid action of admin discretion. Given the extensive block log, I find the length to be perfectly reasonable and in the same situation, I likely would have imposed a block of similar length. Since the issue of unblocking with a 1RR condition has come up, I strongly oppose that. It almost never works, especially not in editors with an extensive history of edit warring like we see here. We'd be back here in less than a month. He has given some indication that he understands what he did wrong, so I would Support an unblock (or reduction in block length) with a 0RR editing restriction. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 03:48, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• It seems to me we should note all of the admins that Winkelvi has been ping-canvassing from his talk page [71], [72]: MelanieN, Diannaa, Bishonen, JamesBWatson, Anna Frodesiak, Drmies, Bbb23, Laser brain, NeilN, Ponyo, Ritchie333, Floquenbeam. (Those are "nopings" on my end.) Although I think Coffee is being a bit aggressive in his insistence not to accede to the other admin opinions on WV's talkpage, those admins were all canvassed except Floquenbeam and Laserbrain, whereas it is the community at large who bears the brunt of WV's behavior, and therefore the community should probably have a voice in this matter, given the very long history, in my opinion. Softlavender (talk) 03:33, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
  • That is quite in fact why I brought this here. I don't have enough energy to try to discuss this matter with that many people all at once (by myself), and it is my personal opinion that these admins do not a consensus make. I believe firmly in the community's ability to decide what is best in matters like this, and as such have deferred this matter to you all. Laser brain declined the original unblock request and another formal one was not made, WV instead decided to use a system of pings to get unblocked. Obviously, I have grave concern for such a system... and WP:ADMINSHOP shows that our community does as well. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 03:51, 18 March 2017 (UTC)UTC)
    • Huh. I'm normally inclined to agree with Drmies in cases like this, but I don't here, as that definitely looks like canvassing. I've never quite understood why something can only be called "canvassing" if the users were specifically contacted on their talk pages, especially in cases like this where that is impossible and pinging on one's own talk page is all one can do. That's way too many people for Winkelvi to be pinging. The fact that all or at least most of them are respectable Wikipedians who aren't likely to come to his aid just because he canvassed them doesn't change the fact that he did canvass them. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:08, 18 March 2017 (UTC) (edited 04:29, 18 March 2017 (UTC))
      • Hijiri88, I don't think Winkelvi can expect me to agree or jump to his defense if the position is indefensible--in this case, the block itself was justified and I said so. BTW, I don't think that canvassing need come by the way of some sort of notification; a ping will do as well. Drmies (talk) 04:17, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
        • My apologies for the lack of clarity. I meant that in this particular case I don't agree with your assessment that calling it canvassing here is overblown since whether or not the apparent intent or actual effect resembles legit votestacking, accusing someone who pings that many users of canvassing/admin-shopping can't possibly be overblown. I didn't mean to directly equate you with the "if it's only a ping, it can't be canvassing" crowd. Clarified accordingly. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:29, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Wow, yeah, (apparently) bypassing WP:UNBLOCK in favor of pinging 8 friendly admins is not good. Softlavender (talk) 04:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• A year ago Winkelvi was given a 1RR restriction for three months as a condition of an early unblock: [73], [74]. He doesn't seem to have learned anything from that sanction. That would seem to indicate that whatever happens with this discussion, the sanction should be longer and/or stricter. Softlavender (talk) 03:49, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Endorse block Endorse block, support indef There's only so much WP:ROPE you can throw out. It's been shown that 1RR can't do much, so I really doubt the effectiveness of 0RR at preventing the same WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. Stikkyy (talk) (contributions) 05:07, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support 0RR for a duration of one year and unblock (after which WV can appeal the sanction in a community discussion and if failed, every six months thereafter) 1RR clearly hasn't cut it before and I doubt that increasing the duration is helpful. I agree with Anna's judgement of the editor, I've seen them elsewhere but I think it's better if they stay away from any kind of reverts for a while. --QEDK (愛) 05:20, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: I was curious about Coretheapple's mention above of his "nightmare" encounter with Winkelvi on Bess Myerson two years ago and checked that out. It does indeed seem to have been a nightmare, and in my opinion is representative of Winkelvi's inability to, and refusal to, brook disagreement. He appears incapable of letting go. Winkelvi arrived at the article here: [75], and made 120 edits to it in 2.5 days, including massively, heedlessly, endlessly, and obstinately edit-warring with Coretheapple and Alanscottwalker (edit-warring begins here: [76], clicking "Next edit" from there on out is quite instructional). This resulted in Winkelvi being reported at ANEW [77] and the article being locked for a week, at which time Winkelvi left the article completely. Not however before covering the article talk page with endless IDHT walls of text [78] (from top to bottom of that talk page) and leaving behind two very frustrated, be-numbed, bewildered, and resentful editors. If Winkelvi is unable to edit collaboratively, and needs outside intervention on such a regular basis, this is a real problem and needs a major solution.

  I'd also like to state that, for the record, I don't know how long it has been going on, but Floq and Coffee have an obvious feud going on (I noticed this in re: the TRM AE discussions), and so Floq should not be implementing any change here in my opinion. And also for the record, Winkelvi knows very well which admins he can curry leniency from, from having interacted with them in the past, and several of those were indeed the admins he pinged in his first round of pings, so the discussions on his talkpage should not be seen as binding or representative, in my opinion. Softlavender (talk) 08:33, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

  • I was waiting for someone else to point this out organically before I commented on this, but Floquenbeam has no place in reviewing any of my administrative decisions ever as he has a clear lack of neutrality regarding me. If he makes any action here whatsoever, he's going to have to answer to the Arbitration Committee. (Of course I highly doubt he'll actually make any action on this at all; he has baited people to try to make them respond out of hand in the past, so I'm sure that's likely what's happening here [since he's very aware of our current standing]. I will not be falling for such a trap.) — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 11:32, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Softlavender is correct in every respect. One of the most frustrating things about Winkelvi is not just his serial edit-warring and cluelessness, but his ability to game the system, finding admins he can coax into giving him "just a second chance" or a third chance or a fourth chance. I don't know if this was a factor in the recent hostilities, but he also claimed to have a medical condition that somehow contributed to or "explained" his edit-warring and tendentious conduct. His lengthy block record only hints at the burden he is to the project, as he is constantly being dragged before this or that drama board. Search the drama boards and you can see for yourself. Here is one from 2014 that I just picked at random. Read that. No action. It just goes on and on and on, and he keeps on getting a pass until finally he gets blocked. Personally I am surprised that he has not been indeffed by now, but he always seems to find yet another sympathetic admin to give him yet another second chance, so that he can return to his old ways until he gets yet another second chance. Coretheapple (talk) 15:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

That's my impression, also. The gaming of the system is very clearly demonstrated by this diff from a couple of weeks ago, which should be read in its entirety. WV always claims to be shocked and surprised when bought to account for their actions, but their words there demonstrate complete clarity about how "the system" works, and how to game it. The irony is breathtaking. Keri (t · c) 16:33, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Give them the choice, stay blocked 3 months or agree to 6-month-to-1-year 1RR as unblock condition — While 3 months reflexively seemed a bit much when I first stumbled across it (but then checked the block history and totally understood why), it's also a strong incentive to agree to an unblock condition of WP:1RR. To be perfectly clear, his revert history at Billy the Kid clearly and obviously violated WP:3RR, and is doubly damning considering he's reported other people on AN3 before (I actually patrolled one of the reports the other day). What's worse is the fact that he was unable to acknowledge his error directly after the block, disputing the technicalities of what constitutes a revert—and to be clear, he's wrong. This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of 3RR, as well as the concept of WP:EW as a whole. This, first and foremost, needs to be rectified. I've always been a fan of imposing 1RR over blocking when possible, and on a completely tangential note, it might be a good idea to start an RFC to allow admins to unilaterally impose 1RR restrictions on an editor (without needing an WP:ACDS) in place of, and for durations proportionate to, normal blocks (subject to same appeals process as blocks). This would have been a prime case where an immediate 1RR restriction could have saved everyone a bunch of time and would have been pretty obviously supported. --slakr^\ talk / 09:36, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Comment: The thing about imposing 1RR instead of blocking, without community discussion, is that nobody knows that the 1RR exists except the people who happened to be watching the user's talk page at that time. So the user can freely violate 1RR and nobody knows and they do not get reported. That's why drawing the community's attention to the discussion and also allowing input and buy-in into sanctions other than blocks is very important. (And it's not the case that Winkelvi does not understand 3RR -- he has reported or been reported at ANEW at least 75 times -- see my and others' posts above.) Softlavender (talk) 10:06, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Endorse (I was pinged above) If there is an unblock condition should be 0RR, if anything, because 1 RR has already been tried. Winklevi needs to get with the program, and the more rope that has been extended, the more they seem to not get with the program. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:02, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• Unblock with indefinite 1RR (with an exception for WV's own talk page) as proposed at user talk page. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:18, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• Endorse with the only chance of unblock early being 0RR for at least 6 months, but I think a year is best. I think it's pretty clear that Winkelvi has issues with reverting. Hopefully a 0RR would keep the positive contributions without allowing wiggle room. I read the Bess Myerson talk page posts and am impressed with the paitence shown by the other editors. I might have blown a gasket with that level of edit warring and wall of text posting. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:31, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support indefinite block-I stumbled across this discussion and decided to give my opinion. I've interacted with Winkelvi a few times, most notably at Billy the Kid in early 2016. This was the first GAN that I reviewed, and I committed a few embarrassing mistakes, for which I take responsibility. But what I saw from Winkelvi was a persistent battleground attitude that included not only edit-warring but persistent hostility, questioning of motives, WP:Ownership, and vindictive behavior towards anyone disagreeing with him. By examining the history of his block log and the talk page and AN/I discussions concerning him that have taken place since then, I have found no reason to believe that he will change anything. Perhaps the biggest mistake that I made at that article was not failing it immediately after the edit war, which was largely out of guilt for originally passing it prematurely. What ensued after that was also a sort of nightmare, aided somewhat by my lack of knowledge on GA reviews and occasional immaturity, but rooted largely in Winkelvi's near-constant battleground attitude which alienated most of those who worked on the article.

On his talk page, pinging Drmies, Winkelvi said that he "gets it." He has a history of saying that sort of thing after a block, but then somehow we always end up at the same place as before. A 1RR has been put in place before. Now he is back to the same type of behavior, so it's time to take it up a notch. But even a 0RR would still result in Winkelvi being able to continue his accusatory, battleground, and non-AGF behavior on talk pages. He may even resort to doing that more often, knowing that if he reverts and is caught it would likely result in a longer or indefinite block. What I saw on the Beth Myerson talk page is disturbing, and we could see more of that sort of talk page drama if Winkelvi knows that he can't revert anymore. That's why 1RR and even a 0RR won't work well enough. It also doesn't help that I find Winkelvi's excuses about not knowing the technicalities of 3RR to be totally unconvincing, considering his experience, history of edit-warring, and history of reporting other users for edit-warring. I'm not buying it.

Winkelvi has been given plenty of chances. He has thrown away all of them and in the process has caused the WP community an enormous amount of time and anguish. I don't think that there is enough non-destructive behavior from Winkelvi to outweigh this. That's enough to say that he is a net negative and that an indefinite block would be in order. Display name 99 (talk) 13:47, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support Block, support indef block - As far as I recall, I have no involvement with this editor. Reading the above, I think there is plenty of evidence to not only support the three month block but to extend it to an indef. Enough is enough. Jusdafax 16:36, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment. I wasn't going to comment here, but in view of a couple of comments above, I will. User:Coretheapple, Winkelvi has had the aspergers userbox on his page for as long as I've known him, and your "he also claimed to have a medical condition that somehow contributed to or "explained" bla bla", is shameful, as if it was a new thing and most likely something he made up. "Medical condition", bah. You will answer me if you wish, naturally, but I have no more to say to you. @Softlavender:, when you say if there isn't an ANI discussion, "the user can freely violate 1RR and nobody knows and they do not get reported", you're assuming bad faith in a way that'll be like a knife to Winkelvi. He's on the autism spectrum, as he points out himself every now and then — it's no sort of secret — which colours his interactions with others. I understand that Wikipedia is not therapy, and I have certainly seen him behaving atrociously on talkpages. But he's actually big with rules, and I don't for a moment believe he'd violate a personal, specific sanction "freely" just because "nobody knows". Please compare the section "About me and editing" on his userpage, where he says among other things "Because those of us on the Spectrum are unfailingly "rule-followers", we are also honest to a fault. When we are accused of lying or intentionally being disruptive or not acting in good faith, it's quite hurtful." I've found that to be very true, both parts of it: Winkelvi follows rules, as long as they're very, very exact and spelled-out rules, and he's dreadfully distressed if he's accused of shady dealing. (Compare his reaction to Coffee in the first discussion, right under the block notice, and btw I think Ritchie333's comment on that discussion was excellent: "... when I block somebody I generally punt any conversations about the block off to reviewing administrators... picking a fight with an editor you block is generally counter-productive." How I wish Coffee had worn his listening ears for that.) Also, never mind the autism spectrum, which people obviously aren't obliged to know about, it's a nasty thing to imply about anybody, that they'd cheerfully violate a restriction they had agreed to. That's what WP:AGF is for: because we know so little about anybody on the internet that we're commenting on.

While I'm here: I've advocated unblock + indefinite 1RR on Winkelvi's talkpage, but I won't record any sort of bolded !vote here, because I'm not sure about the unblock. That's because Winkelvi does behave badly sometimes even apart from of edit warring, and I can certainly sympathise with the people who have experienced a "nightmare" interacting with him. That's far from something I'd wave away. But I do want to say, please don't unblock on condition of 0RR. One of Winkelvi's latest comment on his page, here is rather convoluted, which of course doesn't serve him well, but the takeaway from it is that, while he's fine with 1RR, he hates the idea of 0RR so much that he'd rather ride out his 3-month block. So please, people, don't do that; either keep him blocked, or give him an indefinite 1RR restriction. (On balance, I believe the 1RR restriction would be more helpful going forward than the block, but I think both are acceptable.) Bishonen | talk 16:52, 18 March 2017 (UTC).

Oh please. You're acting as if he just has a userbox and that was that. How dare I mention that! What you didn't mention was that when he was doing his number in the Myerson article, and in other of his many disputes then and afterwards. he was constantly "playing the Asperger's card," citing that alleged condition as an excuse for his actions. Yes, it is a claim, no it is not verifiable, yes, it is irrelevant, and yes, it is one of the many ways he gamed the system. Coretheapple (talk) 17:04, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Bishonen, thank you for your message, but I'd like to point out a view things that I object to in your comment. You say "Winkelvi follows rules, as long as they're very, very exact and spelled-out rules." Um, no. The 6 blocks for edit-warring (not counting the one with sockpuppetry) show that this isn't the case. Take a look at this quote from WP:3rr:

"An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page—whether involving the same or different material—within a 24-hour period."

That seems pretty exact and spelled-out to me.

That's also not to mention the constant disruption that Winkelvi has caused on talk pages and drama boards during his 3+ [5] years contributing to Wikipedia. In a previous block, resulting from a long-term feud with another editor, an editor (possibly Floq, but I'm not entirely sure) called attention to the fact that Winkelvi seems to think that it is acceptable to, after being warned against feuding with one editor, to instead feud with another one, or (this may be from someone else) to "regularly change [his] mode of disruption." That's not Autism. That's called gaming the system by pretending to be clueless so that people will take pity on you and keep giving you chances. Display name 99 (talk) 17:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

PS, I should know. I have borderline Asperger's. Display name 99 (talk) 17:14, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Ha! I do too, not so borderline. Other stuff too. BFD. Coretheapple (talk) 17:27, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@Bishonen: "Winkelvi follows rules, as long as they're very, very exact and spelled-out rules." - I have loads of respect for you (as you know, and I hope at least some of that is mutual), but WP:3RR seems like an awfully cut-and-dry, spelled-out, exact, clear, (whatever other synonym to refer to blatantly easy you deem necessary) rule. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 18:35, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@Coffee: yes, I respect you too. Bishonen | talk 23:48, 18 March 2017 (UTC).

• Comment There are two main concerns expressed by the editors above - edit warring and talk page bludgeoning. 1RR is the obvious solution to the first concern but I foresee two problems. First, according to the "rules", Winkelvi can revert once a day on an article ad infinitum. Second, this allows anon IPs to troll Winkelvi as they have done in the past. For the talk page issue, I would suggest he be limited to one post a day but that may lead to walloftext posts. What is really needed is a mentor that Winkelvi has to go to whenever he runs into a conflict. However that could potentially be quite a demanding job and I don't know if anyone would volunteer to take it on. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:21, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• I believe mentoring has been attempted in the past. Coretheapple (talk) 17:33, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Ahem. I think we can discuss this without getting into NPA territory when it comes to Winkelvi and his userbox. I also think we can disagree with with Coffee without making him out as some rogue Nazi admin--he is not. I also think we can disagree with Floquenbeam without thinking we'll end up at ArbCom. And I think we can disagree with, for instance, Bishonen's assessment without being rude. Winkelvi broke policy; the block was justified. Coffee blocked and others disagreed; that's fine, that's what we're here for. Discuss it without criticizing the blockee, the blocker, the hypothetical unblocker, the proponents of more blocking, etc. Keep it civil please. Drmies (talk) 18:26, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• I'm only commenting here because I noticed WV posted to my talk page the other day seemingly accusing me of being responsible for his latest block (which I'm not). Anyway, I strongly strongly endorse this latest block because this is the sixth time he's been blocked for this same offense. Aside from what others have said, it's important to note his last block was for harassment of Calibrador (talk · contribs) -- the name used by photographer Gage Skidmore. (See here for more. WV's first edit following that block's expiration -- literally his very first main space edit -- was to remove a photo Skidmore had taken from an article [79] and he has continued to do so since [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88]. Ultimately, I think we should just indef block him and get it over with, instead of having this discussion again every five or six months. Calidum 19:22, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• Endorse block, raise to indef: I'm another user who has been harangued and pursued by Winkelvi, much as Coretheapple and other describe, when he inserted himself into a discussion for the sole purpose of personal attacks and to stir trouble, and participated in an edit war about which he knew nothing in an effort to prosecute some old (and in my case, imaginary) grudge, most recently at The Crown (TV series), but also in at least one other article. He's also done the same with Calibrador in recent days. He works the "I'm on the spectrum" card for all it's worth, but speaking as someone with Ph.D.-level expertise and 30 years in the field, his social and communication skills are far too developed for a person with Asperger's syndrome. People, as uncomfortable a thought as this might be, some people with disabilities do actually abuse their disability rights, and Winklevi does so. How long will our bleeding hearts protect him, at the expense of how many editors he hassles and harangues? How many chances will it take before the community realizes he is a lost cause, and should be indeffed? --Drmargi (talk) 19:40, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

  (edit conflict)@Drmargi: Please clarify your comment his social and communication skills are far too developed for a person with Asperger's syndrome. Are you saying you don't think he actually has it? This would appear to contradict your statement that Winkelvi is abusing his "disability rights" as you put it, implying he does have Asperger's. If you think he doesn't, how can you claim to refute a diagnosis solely over the Internet? I know a person in RL with Asperger's who I am confident could conduct themselves to an excellent standard on Wikipedia, as indeed do many other autism spectrum editors here. BethNaught (talk) 20:30, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not diagnosing anything; I can't do that over the internet, nor would I care to if asked to. I'm simply commenting on characteristics and behavior as I see them. --Drmargi (talk) 21:15, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• • Comment As someone who has also had the misfortune to be on the brunt of Winkelvi's unrelenting wrath, I vouch for Drmargi's statement above. Winkelvi embodies what Wikipedia should not be. Preventing other editors from ever having to interact with them would be a great accomplishment for this project. Calibrador (talk) 20:29, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I saw what you experienced recently, which was worse even than what I have, and was appalled. I was glad to see a block was applied in your case. I mine, Winklevi's behavior barely caused a blip. --Drmargi (talk) 21:17, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Endorse block, support unblock with indefinite 1RR restriction. - Coffee's block was proportionate and reasonable. I believe that Winkelvi has the best intentions, and that his contributions are a net positive. That said, his doggedness is his Achilles heel. Since he is rule-bound, following a one revert restriction should be no problem. Personally I follow 1RR except in the most extreme situations, which I find avoids a great many conflicts. Winkelvi could benefit from the realization that any truly bad edit will probably be addressed by another editor, so he should not feel it imperative to correct it himself. My advice to Winknelvi to go out of his way to be accommodating to regular editors who push back. As to NeilN's suggestion, I thing a mentor would be beneficiaL. Perhaps someone like the esteemed Drmies would be equal to the task. I also see Bishonen as an inexhaustible font of wisdom and practical advice.- MrX 21:30, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
  • MrX, I can barely raise my own children, and I don't think I should be in charge of making coffee let alone "mentoring" a real human being, but I will do what I can. But please don't let any unblock be conditional on my or anyone else's offers to help out: the merits of the case, that is, to which extent the community has faith in Winkelvi, should be the deciding factor. You said it well, "his doggedness is his Achilles heel", and I hope he recognizes that. Personally, I have faith, though I understand that Winkelvi has made some enemies here. But I really always have faith, even in editors I've blocked myself or been in disagreement with, even in some of the most serious cases brought before ArbCom. I can't help it. Drmies (talk) 21:34, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
    • @Drmies: I fully trust you to make me, for the record. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 22:20, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Drmies has opined on his talk page that Winkelvi "can't do all that much about his self-disclosed condition."[89] I don't think an editor who holds such an opinion should mentor this user (and I believe it has been tried in the past). Besides, If that assessment is correct, no mentor would do any good. I don't think we are in a position to make such a judgment. But I do believe that for whatever reason or no reason, his behavior will not improve. It's important to note that this is a problem that stretches back ate least two years.This massive ANI case from January 2015 was what I was referring to in my comment when I used the term "nightmare," that and the talk page issues referred to by Alanscottwalker below, Coretheapple (talk) 23:02, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
      • We've also noted that one of the problems with WV's behavior is his tendency to ping numerous friendly admins hoping that he will get some support. So I'm not sure why we should appoint one of his favorite admins to "mentor" him. I don't mean to offend Drmies. It's WV's behavior that is concerning me. Also, can we please stop calling him "rule bound?" WV uses the rules when he thinks they will help him. But when they don't, he ignores them. Those 6 blocks for edit-warring tell the story very clearly. Display name 99 (talk) 23:12, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
        • Display name 99, I think you misunderstand "mentor". It means a friendly but possibly strict coach; it doesn't mean "cop who keeps someone on a leash". That I'm supposed to be "friendly" to Winkelvi is yet to be determined, and at any rate that's your assessment of Winkelvi's hypothetical assessment of my attitude toward Winkelvi--do you understand my point? You don't know, and neither does Winkelvi. But let's say I am in fact "friendly" to them (that I'm an admin has nothing to do with it)--why on earth would you want to give someone a mentor who is unfriendly to them? Isn't that just like taking out an insurance to make sure they'll fail? And can I repeat that I am not seeking to be anyone's mentor or feel qualified to be anyone's mentor? Drmies (talk) 23:36, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
          • Drmies, of course I wouldn't want the admin to be "unfriendly." My concern was the possibility of either bias in the admin or WV deciding to think that he had someone he could use to come to his rescue in the event of an argument, and nothing more. I understand your lack of enthusiasm for the job. I personally don't think that it will work, and repeat my statement that, due to the persistent and severe behavioral problems occurring over the past years and in spite of repeated warnings, an indefinite block is by far the best way to solve this crisis. Display name 99 (talk) 23:44, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
            • That's not what mentors do, typically. I just got done sending a long email to my friend and colleague Coffee, with some details about someone from a while ago, in a case somewhat similar. This editor, who had similar editing behavior, got indeffed on the spot for all the right reasons and has worked themselves back into the fold, now without any restrictions and problems. I don't think I was necessarily their "mentor", but we had discussions via email, they'd ask me what I think they'd should do, and I'd tell them what, to the best of my ability, I thought was a good thing to do. Mentors, in my experience, don't necessarily go and jump in the middle of disputes; mentors aren't advocates, though they'll act in the best interest of their protege. So, I don't know about Winkelvi, there's no guarantees, but he's a human being and he's been here a while, and he's done some good (IMO much more good than bad), and I'm not going to give up on someone as long as they have an interest in improving our beautiful project. I will confess to something: in modern US parlance, I'm a liberal, I suppose, and that means, to me, that I don't easily give up on people. Frequently one gets very disappointed that way, and there are no ribbons or medals for getting it right, but I suppose I was Born This Way. And if 0R is the best I can get out of it, that's fine, though I prefer 1R, because 0R really means "we have no faith in you whatsoever"; 1R means "we don't trust you to stop on time". That's a big difference. Drmies (talk) 02:21, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
              • Drmies, I understand not wanting to give up on people. But there comes a time when one must consider the common good. In this case, it is the interest of the project and the well-being of its contributors. If the person in question has shown a consistent failure to follow directions and change disruptive behavior, and causing countless other people a huge amount of anguish in the process, and has not given any indication that the behavior will change, any concern for that person must be made secondary to doing what is best for the community.

You say that a 0R means "we have no faith in you whatsoever." And what reason would there be to have faith after 6 edit-warring blocks in 3 years? It's a good thing to not want to give up on people, but you also need to use some common sense to deal properly with abusive people who clearly aren't going to change. And because the abusive behavior extends beyond edit-warring, and includes extensive harassment, bludgeoning, and other forms of aggressive behavior on talk pages, it should be clear that a 0RR won't even come close to solving all our problems. Only an indefinite block, made after years of smaller blocks and warnings and countless hours spent by countless editors sorting through drama and trying to find a solution, can put this unwanted behavior to rest. Display name 99 (talk) 03:25, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm glad I don't feel that way. What I do or do not need is between me and my creator. Drmies (talk) 04:18, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

• • • • • • • Winkelvi has more edits than I do and has more time in the project (24,000 edits and nearly five years). We're beyond the point at which mentoring would do any good. It's been years and years and blocks and blocks. Even if mentoring was capable of working, I believe the mentor would have to believe that the editor in question was capable of changing his behavior and dealing with whatever behavioral issues he may have. Drmies has already indicated he has no such confidence, as I observed previously. Note this exchange with Jehochman. And I agree that he does seem to be a partisan and that it would not help. Coretheapple (talk) 00:01, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
              • Coretheapple, please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say I have no confidence Winkelvi can change his behavior; au contraire. And I'll say the same to you that I said before: you can't be a mentor if you're not sympathetic. That is not the same thing as "partisan"--a. it puts everything in the context of conflict, which is the wrong way to work in a collaborative project and b. a mentor is not a punisher. If you are somehow worried that this evil Winkelvi's mischief is going to go unnoticed because partisan admin Dr. whoever is shielding his misdeeds from the world, you're mistaken. All edits are out in the open, and by last count there were some two zillion editors in this very thread who want Winkelvi blocked indefinitely and will be keeping a close eye on him. Drmies (talk) 02:25, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

You told me on your talk page that Winkelvi "can't do all that much about his self-disclosed condition"[90], by which you mean his Asperger's. If so the situation is hopeless because Winkelvi blames his behavior on his Asperger's. For instance, in this exchange with User:Jehochman, he said "Jehochman, I'm not clueless, I have Asperger Syndrome." On his user page he has two entire sections on the subject. One says "If you've had any kind of issue or misunderstanding in your dealings with me, there is an excellent article/essay on Wikipedia editors with Asperger Syndrome found here that might help." Immediately below that, in a section entitled "About Me and Editing," he goes on and on about his Asperger's and how it influences his editing.

If we take him at his word that his behavior is caused by Aspergers, and if we accept your belief that he can't do much about it, then mentoring will not work and he needs to be indeffed for the good of the community. It isn't fair to expect that the community bear the brunt of this person's behavior, whatever its cause, if self-control is not in the cards.

I realize that you have a lot of empathy for Winkelvi, but you need to have empathy for the people who have to deal with him. The reason there are a "zillion people who want him indeffed" as you put it is not that we are evil, but because of his behavior. You have never had to put up with bad behavior from him, because he shows a different face to adminstrators. As numerous editors have pointed out, he's extra-nice to you guys (unless you block him). The rest of us don't have that advantage. Coretheapple (talk) 05:00, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

• Just to be clear, the problem with my long ago interaction with Winklevi, was yes edit warring, but also his unbelievably and intentionally ignorant arguments (eg, admitting he did not read sources) and offensive long drawn-out fights (over basically nothing, at all) and gross accusations (over less) - Winklevi needs be told straight out that he harms Wikipedia. He just has to shut down this manner of interaction, which begins with reversions, 0RR actually takes care of all that, if he can buy into it - read Anna's comment on his talk page, about going to write something worthwhile -- that is what he needs to do, (don't go near others work) if he has any hope, beyond the block. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:18, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• Indefinite block. I was involved in the Myerson issues referred to above. The continued prevalence of identical issues is discouraging. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 01:45, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Disruption from IP range on race related articles

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

---

Range here

IPs from this range have been disruptive on race-related articles. E.g., [91], [92], [93]. Most recently, edits here. EvergreenFir (talk) 00:30, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

IPv6 address range blocked for 36 hours for disruptive editing. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 01:16, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

The latest IP also made a number of edits attempting to brand a British author as "liberal" without proof (in two articles), and to remove a section from Enemy of the people regarding the aborted Nazi plan to ship Jews off to Madagascar. Strong with POV is this one. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:39, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh joy. Well the IP is under the /64 range block I threw, which is good. If you see any more edits like this from another IPv6 range like this, do let me know and I'll put the kibosh to it ;-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 05:16, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

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

203.248.117.231 and other IP addresses, assigned to CJ Corporation, its subsidiaries, affiliates and other related companies

On 6 March 2017 at 10:40 (UTC), IPv4 user 203.248.117.231 vandalised the Rainbow Ruby article. According to [94] and KISA Whois, that IP address is assigned to CJ Systems, a subsidiary of the CJ Group along with CJ E&M (which co-produced Rainbow Ruby).

Similarly, on the same day at 9:17 (UTC), a registered user at the Korean Wikipedia, named Dalbit27, modified the article about the same programme to only feature CJ E&M and 38°C as the production companies. If the user is working for any of CJ Group companies, this is a serious breach of Wikipedia rules.

It shows that, if there is a mention unfavourably written about them, someone at CJ can just edit it out in an ungentlemanly manner. So, anyone in the IP addresses assigned to the CJ Group, its holding company CJ Corporation, and other related companies must be blocked from editing any article related to them and its products. Registering as a new user, as well as editing such articles as a logged in user from those addresses also must be blocked. We may not be able to block them from editing outside those IP addresses and even using VPN, but we must show them something.

P.S. I would understand if that user was writing aggressively in favour of that series (like 'That characters are so adorable that the UNESCO wanted to do something with it.'), but why did the user vandalised the article instead? JSH-alive/^{talk/cont/mail} 07:31, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Probably not going to happen Essentially, this is a complaint about undeclared COI editing. "ungentlemanly manner" is irrelevant because incivility is never going to be enough to preemptively TBAN someone, let alone a bunch of people one of whom behaved in an uncivil manner. If a bunch of Rainbow Ruby SPAs show up and start editing disruptively on English Wikipedia, maybe then it'll be worth, say, imposing indefinite extended-confirmed protection on the page, but I'm not seeing any evidence of that at the moment. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:46, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Request for some Administrator assistance at Bon Secours Sisters...

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

---

There's an increasingly edit-war like pattern of behaviour going on at Bon Secours Sisters - the calming intervention of an admin before it gets out of hand would probably be valuable. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:29, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

 Done. But next time, AN3 is that-a-way. El_C 08:41, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:52, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

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

Baseball Bugs and Widr failing to AGF

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

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I'd like to file a complaint against Baseball Bugs and Widr for failing to assume good faith. My previous IP address was blocked for supposedly trolling the Refdesk when in fact I was just asking a simple question at the Refdesk. Baseball Bugs was the one who reported me to AIV. And since Widr didn't check to see if my question was reasonable or not before deciding to block me, he's also guilty of not assuming good faith.75.109.48.189 (talk) 16:21, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Please respond with the diff to the edit you made to the reference desk, and I'll be happy to take a look. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 16:22, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Here it is:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities&diff=next&oldid=770945962 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.109.48.189 (talk) 16:28, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

The follow-up question made it pretty clear that this is an effort to troll, not a legitimate quest for knowledge. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:47, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Yup. - Mlpearc (open channel) 16:48, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

OP blocked. Block evasion and more trolling. Future appearances should really be reverted on sight and blocked. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:57, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

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

User:Jayboyspecker

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

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Nasty little schoolboy running a lame campaign of harassment (by some definitions, sexual harassment) against an acquaintance or classmate (presumably). All edits by the account should be suppressed and userspace pages deleted expeditiously. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. (talk) 17:54, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

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

Category:Movies

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

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79.168.157.156 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has been adding films to the soft-redirected category Category:Movies, and occasionally removing the redirect from the category. Has been warned numerous times, and previously blocked for this behavior. Trivialist (talk) 18:04, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

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

www.beerglasses.eu

• Pint glass (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• 46.199.38.233 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 213.7.116.8 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 46.199.15.31 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 46.199.56.152 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

@McGeddon: Spam link repeatedly inserted by a different IP each time. Maybe start with page protection. Target page looks non-commercial and I don't think it's being inserted anywhere else yet. Kendall-K1 (talk) 18:43, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

It's also being added to beer glassware. You can see it on the range contribs. Coffee semi-protected pint glass, but we might need to do a range block if it spreads to other articles. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

If the spam rate gets out of hand, you could also consider temporarily blacklisting the URL for a bit :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:58, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Nergaal at ITNC

I come here reluctantly but I feel it is necessary to address the comments of Nergaal at WP:ITNC. I have posted on their user talk page regarding this but they have offered no reply. They strongly disagreed with the posting of this ITN item regarding the Leekfrith torcs- which is their right to do- citing "US/British centrism" among other issues they saw. The event was posted to ITN regardless as it gained consensus per the processes used there. Nergaal does not seem to be able to move on from the posting of the item, and proceeds to disrupt ITN with their pointy comments on many nominations subsequent to the posting. They usually have to do with their views on bias and the "jewelry nomination"(the torcs). There are certainly legitimate concerns about bias here but these comments are not productive to the end of addressing bias.

• [95] "this has nothing to do with the UK so it shouldn't be posted /s"
• [96] "An actually important news that didn't happen in the UK, so using the rationales from below I have to call this an oppose /s."
• [97] "Are you trying to say something published in Nature does not pass our threshold for reliable? Are you saying PR advertisements by the British Museum that get absolutely no review are more reliable? Jesus."
• [98] "How is totally irrelevant topics when one is geology and the other is archaeology? One has a peer-reviewed process available to anyone, one is a PR-stunt by a profit-driven entity? He literally said there are many doubts about this. The presenters of the paper are not independent because it is in their interest to spin it as a big discovery. To accept the hype uncritically would be journalism. He applied exactly 0% of this yesterday. Why aren't we flipping coins to see what gets posted if we aren't going to bother with some consistencies?"
• [99] "Maybe you forgot that yesterday people said "of international importance", "cool stuff", "A notable historical find", "widely reported, globally, as significant", "unique find and truly historic", "If reliable sources are used and consensus exists", "this story is far too interesting to be condemned to the esoteric". Which one applies less to this story to the yesterday's one? Cause that one took only 4h to post at a 7-2 vote with ample oppose reasonings, but this one has almost a day and 9-2 vote and isn't on the mainpage yet. Origin of life is less interesting than iron age jewelry from Britain?"
• [100] "You are saying that the jewelry was unanimously agreed that it wasn't the oldest jewelry in Britain (on small corner of the world) and was less than 2/3 old as the actual record holder (~2500 years vs 4000 years oldest evidence) for is worthwhile ITN, but this evidence for earliest-fucking life that gives an average age estimate right at the previous estimate (no uncertainty range given there) but at its upper limit puts it right when the oceans formed is not ITN worthy? Dude you should become a lawyer or something."
• [101] "I agree with Luke, this has nothing to do with the UK, not visually appealing, not described by the British Museum as a "unique find" /s."
• [102] "Support, probably the largest archeological discovery in a long time; until the British Museum takes it and then gets renominated here when they put it up for visitors near the golden torcs."
• [103] "I was not talking about you, I was talking about consensus. If it was up to people like you all archeological trash finds from Britain would get posted, while colossal statues and alike would never make the main page."

I am not the only user to feel these comments are unproductive; four other users have posted to Nergaal's user talk page asking them to refrain from further comments.

I seek no specific remedy; just something that results in Nergaal stopping their pointy comments and actually work towards addressing the legitimate issue of bias. 331dot (talk) 19:20, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Notification made [104] 331dot (talk) 19:21, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

What I am supposed to do now? Nergaal (talk) 19:58, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Drop the stick, stop making pointy comments, and move on. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:29, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Yep, that. If not, I imagine the next step is to seek for a topic ban to prevent you from contributing at ITNC. After that, it'd be more widespread, i.e. you get blocked, then banned. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I endorse this ANI discussion. Nergaal can't seem to stop talking about the Leekfrith Torcs and how we need to feature other things, along with how Wikipedia has an Anglo-British bias or something along the lines. This seriously needs to stop. UNSC Luke 1021 (talk) 23:24, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Seeking a one way IBAN re Andy Dingley

For a while now, Andy Dingley had determined that I am a baleful influence that he has to set right and has parachuted into disputes I am having with other editors.

Following on the Vipul paid enterprise matter, I and other editors have been starting to clean up effective altruism advocacy in articles those editors worked on per this COIN thread (I will be bringing a more pointed RfC about that matter soon). Unsurprisingly, other EA advocates have been pushing back here and there.

Andy who, for clarification, is not one of the Vipul editors nor an EA advocate as far as I know, continued his BATTLEGROUND behavior against me and just interjected himself into one of the article discussions here and here, apparently having seen the EW notice one of the participants there left on my talk page. He has never before edited the article or its talk page. (user-search at article, user-search at talk page)

Dealing with advocacy is hard and here we have unpaid advocates teaming up, and are also dealing with content generated by the network of paid advocates who had teamed up. The last thing we need in this effort is HOUNDING wiki-politics complicating things.

There has been a nice calm period since they were blocked for 31 hours, (block notice), back in November 2016 for hounding me at EWN. That was after I had warned them here in November 2016. (see diffs there)

That was after I had warned them here in April 2016 about interfering with SPIs I had filed on a serial-socking hounder. That had followed a very hot period in March per this and this.

I am now requesting an Iban. Jytdog (talk) 20:41, 18 March 2017 (UTC) (redact to clarify, for those who are not reading carefully Jytdog (talk) 22:38, 18 March 2017 (UTC))

• I'm a vegetarian. A news story this week has been on Memphis Meats, who are vat-growing animal cells to make a "meat". So I went to see if we had an article on it, and guess what I find - Jytdog and his perennial bullying tactics and 2RR edit-warring tatics [105] [106]. I have not edited this article, I commented at Talk:Memphis Meats.

In return I get this, User talk:Andy Dingley#Hounding, again, and now here.

I am sick of Jytdog's behaviour to any number of other GF editors, particularly new editors. His history speaks for itself. He also has a very thin skin, if he calls a disagreement on an article talk page "hounding". And no Jytdog, I didn't "follow you" to that article, I'm a vegetarian (and have often mentioned this) and I'm interested in vat-grown meat news. We are both editors who have been here some years: yet it was you who opened an SPI on me, even after you'd said you wouldn't do such a ridiculous thing. Let alone awarding me a "moron diploma".

As an editor who does "good work" in rigorously enforcing MEDRS, Jytdog has some powerful friends. So a few months back I was even blocked by one of those admins for pointing out at ANEW, also Talk:, that 4RR was a brightline block, even for Jytdog. An admin who then ignored my requests to discuss this. Now you appear to be conflating me with a paid editing scheme - is there any valid reason to bring that up here, or to attempt to connect me to it, or are you just flinging mud?

Unsurprisingly I oppose IBANs. I would like Jytdog to damn well behave himself though, to me and others. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:55, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• I don't have enough experience on WP to know the policies for this situation, but I want to provide my perspective as a new user who is very frustrated by Jytdog's behavior, which seems both like very strong advocacy against certain viewpoints (perhaps motivated by inappropriate behavior from those viewpoints, but it's still advocacy) and like very rude, unprofessional, perhaps even harassing behavior. I hope someone who knows more about WP policy is able to do something about this. Utsill (talk) 22:00, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

And Andy's post at the article has succeeded in attracting one of the AE advocates that I was trying to work with at the article where Andy inserted himself. See their contribs. Jytdog (talk) 22:03, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• "one of the AE advocates" - or as most of us would describe them, the same editor you've been busy reverting at that article. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:51, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Andy as usual when we interact, you are misrepresenting the situation -- I didn't say you were connected to the Vipul thing, at all. I said you have parachuted into a complex, much bigger set of issues, complicating them with your grudge against me.

More relevant to folks reading here, here is an inappropriate use of an article Talk page by Andy to continue the dispute. Classic WP:BATTLEGROUND. I will not say more here. Jytdog (talk) 21:27, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

"as usual when we interact": every post, a sideways slight at your opponent.

Why post about a paid editing scheme in an ANI post you have raised about me? If you are alleging a connection, then say it. If you are not, then you are simply slinging mud. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:35, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• More personalized BATTLEGROUND at the article talk page, here. The disruption is clear. Jytdog (talk) 22:08, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• What's battleground about that? You started this by demanding an IBAN, and casting aspersions in your post by implying that there's a connection between Andy and Vipul, a paid editing enterprise, so of course he has to be allowed to defend himself. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 22:16, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I am sorry you don't understand. Article talk pages are for discussing article content. Andy is creating drama there attacking me, instead of addressing the content issues there. Not appropriate and Wikipedia 101 level stuff per WP:TPG; he should know better. This thread is the place to "defend himself". And my OP did not connect Andy and VIpul. Please stop continuing Andy's misrepresentation. I have added a clarification above. Jytdog (talk) 22:34, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I do understand, and don't try to talk down to me, the way you always seem to do in all discussions you get into, no matter who you get into a discussion with, it only makes yourself look bad. You have IMHO no case for an IBAN, and yes, your text did try to connect Andy to Vipul, without a shred of evidence, which also makes you look bad. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 22:47, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• So just WHY 'did you feel the urge to include a paid editing scheme in an ANI post against me? You're right, I don't understand. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:49, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey Jytdog since you know a lot about Wikipedia (probably more then me) can you tell us what "Boomerang" is ?? Jena (talk) 23:02, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Ach, I also see that in addition to posting about this at the article talk page, Andy WP:CANVASSed Utsill to this discussion, here. And Utsill being a newbie, fell right into that. Jytdog (talk) 23:12, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• Given that you're using ANI to slag them off as an "AE advocate", apart from them being the editor you're busy reverting at Memphis Meats, it's only fair to inform them too. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:14, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Nope, this thread is solely focused on your BATTLEGROUND behavior. The only reason I mentioned the context is because you carrying your grudge against me into this specific situation exacerbated a much larger issue that has already consumed a lot of the community's time. You are again diverting and misrepresenting the problem. If you actually read the links in the OP about the Vipul matter and the COIN thread you would understand what you interjected yourself into the middle of. Jytdog (talk) 23:23, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Seems like you're the one who is hounding Andy, and not the other way around, checking every single edit he makes, and then quickly posting here, trying to make him look as bad as possible. This thread is not focused solely on Andys alleged battleground behaviour, BTW, your behaviour is also fair game here... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 23:27, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• Just how am I "in the middle of" this paid editing thing? Please, humour the diploma-carrying moron here. I'm just talking about meat substitutes, I don't understand this other thing you're accusing me of. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:32, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

You are really not taking the time to understand. The article into which you interjected yourself (and Thomas I already showed that Andy never edited the article, and went to it after an EW notice was placed on my talk page - he followed me to the article, not the other way around) was created by a sockpuppet of an EA advocate as shown here. The two editors with whom I was talking, both edit EA topics as you can see from their contribs and I have already started interacting with them on other articles as part of the cleanup of Vipul's enterprise before discussions happened at this article. Vipul's entire enterprise was EA driven, if you take a few minutes and actually read the links and I anticipate there will be further issues with the already present EA advocates in WP as that cleanup continues. You are not even trying to understand what you stepped into the middle of in your hounding of me and canvassing of a newbie editor. The latter is especially bad form as you are actively trying to screw up the head of a newbie. Jytdog (talk) 00:22, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Another PA struck out.

Jytdog, as I've already told you, I'm a veggie so I'm interested in vat-grown meat and Memphis Meat (which you've been pruning as NOTNEWS) has been all over my newsfeeds this week. If you're calling me a liar, then come out and say so directly. After all, you've already called me a sockpuppeteer (or was it a puppet?) and today you're dropping me into some paid-editing fracas. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:56, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Your protestation about what led you to get involved may or may not be true. Others might believe you but give your history with me, I don't, and you came in swinging there with the same things you always say and made a mess of this just as you did the SPIs I linked to above. Your pattern of hounding me and making messes is clear. And even if what you are saying is true, given that history and your already having been blocked once for hounding me, you should have restrained yourself, but you didn't. So you walked right into this, either way. Also, I have removed the edit that you made to my comment above in this diff. You are just going for the trifecta of behavior violations aren't you? HOUNDING, canvassing, and now editing others comments. Jytdog (talk) 01:11, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

So you are outright calling another editor, me, a liar? Thanks for that. It sits nicely along the paid editing attacks. As to "making a mess of your SPIs", the only SPI I encountered you at (apart from the one you filed on me) was poor old CaptainYuge whom you hounded off the project in a month, after you'd made such a hatchet job of the RepRap project page that external press started to cover it. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:47, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

• Question. I check Jytdog's user page and find a link to a GMO topic ban. Memphis Meats wants to grow in vitro animal products. In other words, MM wants to use the genes that produce product and skip the genes that grow other stuff. Does that hit the broadly interpreted GMO predicate? Glrx (talk) 23:43, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I doubt it. AFAIK, the vat-meat people are avoiding GMO (either because they don't need it, or they don't need the inevitable bad press). It's a problem of getting (genetically) unmodified cells to grow in the vats.

I have no wish to catch Jytdog out on some contrived technicality - but I do wish he would back off his aggression to everyone. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:51, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I second the motion that jytdog back off his aggression. DennisPietras (talk) 01:54, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I note his recent reversions of you at Induced pluripotent stem cell and clearly that only slips through, "all pages relating to genetically modified organisms and agricultural chemicals, broadly interpreted" because it's an and, not an or. Now that's brinksmanship. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:11, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Without commenting on the bigger issues, IPSCs aren't GMOs, even under a broad interpretation. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 03:51, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Lute88 regarding Ukrainian collaborationism with the Axis powers

On the mentioned page, I re-phrased a sentence where the Holodomor was written as "genocide", by removing such words such as "genocide" and "engineered" as this description was not neutral. As written in Holodomor genocide question, many historians and scholars do not believe that the Holodomor falls under the definition of "genocide", as well as there being no international consensus that the Holodomor was genocide. The genocide question still carries on to this day, and therefore, the sentence was not respecting neutrality, as writing that the Holodomor was "genocide" is favoring one side. As I changed this, Lute88 reverted the edit, and I replied with that the genocide label was still disputed, where he reverted my edit again, claiming that it wasn't disputed, and when I linked the user to the Holodomor genocide question page after editing again, he reverted the edit without giving an explanation, and kept doing so, yet again without reason, leaving me to presume that the user is simply ignoring facts that is presented to them. 92.6.41.228 (talk) 21:27, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Lute88 reverts all the edits which potentially may be perceived as contradicting pro-Ukrainian POV. They rarely bother to provide a reason.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:43, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: The IP has not, however, pointed out the diff in question. Their change doesn't actually make any sense within the context. Both versions are awkward, but the IP is edit warring their changes. There's an article talk page for discussion of the phrasing. I think it needs modification, but 'Soviet' is not a replacement for 'Russian' for starters. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:53, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I would not object against blocking both of them for edit-warring. I do not like any of the versions either, both look like original research.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Edits by 70.44.233.118

This user is involved in disruptive editing on a number of pages, including one which involved a sensitive legal issue. Please take the time to review talk and contribs. This user is most likely WP:NOTHERE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/70.44.233.118Edaham (talk) 00:44, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Reverted this month's talk page posts and gave the IP a final warning. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:55, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

request for block of user @Jytdog: to prevent him from removing valid edits

As a preface, I take this action only after numerous attempts to help jytdog understand that there is no wp policy that prohibits discussion of primary sources. See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Is_there_any_official_wp_policy_that_prevents_the_incorporation_of_primary_source_material_in_wp_articles.3F

I ask for you to consider one specific example. In the article Induced pluripotent stem cell there is a section on Safety

At the start of that safety topic, there are 6 sections, with approximately 90% of the references not meeting the MEDRS guidelines followed by my addition of...

The first published report of a person treated for macular degeneration with a cell-sheet derived from iPSCs was reported in 2017 in the New England Journal Of Medicine^[61]. That publication and other research was reviewed independently in Science, which pointed out that the procedure was at least safe.^[62]. The same issue of NEJM published a perspective about the benefits and risks of stem cell therapy.^[63]

61 Mandai M, Watanabe A, Kurimoto Y, Hirami Y, Morinaga C, Daimon T, Fujihara M, Akimaru H, Sakai N, Shibata Y, Terada M, Nomiya Y, Tanishima S, Nakamura M, Kamao H, Sugita S, Onishi A, Ito T, Fujita K, Kawamata S, Go MJ, Shinohara C, Hata KI, Sawada M, Yamamoto M, Ohta S, Ohara Y, Yoshida K, Kuwahara J, Kitano Y, Amano N, Umekage M, Kitaoka F, Tanaka A, Okada C, Takasu N, Ogawa S, Yamanaka S, Takahashi M (2017). "Autologous Induced Stem-Cell–Derived Retinal Cells for Macular Degeneration". N Engl J Med. 376 (11): 1038–1046. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1608368. PMID 28296613.

62 Normile D (2017). "iPS cell therapy reported safe". Science. 355 (6330): 1109–1110. doi:10.1126/science.355.6330.1109.

63 Marks PW, Witten CM, Califf RM (2017). "Clarifying Stem-Cell Therapy's Benefits and Risks.". N Engl J Med. 376 (11): 1007–1009. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1613723. PMID 27959704.

Jytdog removed my edit (the official diff is [here]) with the comment "zero MEDRS sources."

So, my question to you administrators is whether jytdog has the backing of the community to prevent me from citing current research. It appears to me from various discussions that his view is not the mainstream consensus view of the community on this issue, and he is not following official wp policy from WP:SCIRS which specifically states "Respect primary sources A primary source... may be a valuable component of an article. A good article may appropriately cite primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. In addition, I feel that he is harrassing me by removing my edits, while not removing other material sourced to non-MEDRS sources.

Thus, I ask you to block jytdog from removing edits soley because they are based on primary sources. Note that I am not requesting a block from removing edits that are based on low quality primary sources. I strive to cite only papers published in highly respected journals. I'll save him the trouble and point out myself that I realize there is considerable discussion of the reproducability "crisis" in science, but unreliable sources can even find there way into reputable tertiary sources, as I learned and corrected here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DennisPietras (talk • contribs) 03:10, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

We're not blocking someone for someone trying to following guidelines and explaining that to you: Talk:Induced_pluripotent_stem_cell. Note you've gotten zero support from other editors for your proposed change. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:48, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Generally new editors know they are new and ask for assistance rather than tell others how things should be. There are few good editors who keep medical/biology topics clear of news-of-the-day factoids and my suggestion would be that DennisPietras should be topic banned or indeffed if they do not start taking advice very soon. The discussion at WP:VPP is unhelpful and misses several points. Johnuniq (talk) 04:00, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Disruptive Editing by 107.191.1.166

This IP address has changed The Cabin in the Woods (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) genre from horror comedy to horror 4 times, without any discussion. This goes against the hidden message left on the page which states: "DO NOT CHANGE THE GENRE WITHOUT DISCUSSION ON THE TALK PAGE. THERE ARE NUMEROUS SOURCES CALLING THIS FILM A HORROR COMEDY". I have reverted their edits 3 times and they have reverted mine 3 times so I believe that neither of us have edit warred. However, the current revision of the page (see [107]) is their version of the article which states the genre as horror. I do not want to revert this edit because of obvious reasons of not wanting to edit war. However, as said earlier, I believe they have not edit warred themselves so I cannot report them to WP:AN3. I have tried to bring up a discussion (see [108], 2nd to last message) but they have not responded. So, what should I do? Does this warrant a block? Or have I misunderstood the definition of edit warring, and that they have, in fact, edit warred. I would like some help on this matter. Thank you. Tompop888 ^{(talk) (contribs)} 05:30, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

User:JFG Edit warring/Disruption

I made several additions and copyedits to the Donald Trump article. I also moved an "ancestry section" and blended it into the Early life and Family section at the beginning. I made extensive use of the talk page. JFG came along and simply rolled back all my changes without any justification. This included copy edits and additions, which has nothing to do with his objection to the move of the ancestry section. He did not make use of the talk page prior to this, only after the fact. This is clearly disruption especially as he's rolled back all my edits using Twinkle. My edits were not vandalism. They are sourced and most of them were copyedits. This is block worthy behavior. The article is under ArbCom sanctions and I cannot simply revert him. SW3 5DL (talk) 06:56, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Notified:here SW3 5DL (talk) 07:02, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I was thinking about starting a section here about SW3. Now that s/he's done the honors, I hope s/he is not shooting himself or herself in the foot. When SW3 says "I made extensive use of the talk page", that probably means "I went to the talk page sometimes and no one agreed with me but they were mostly wrong anyway so let me do whatever I want".Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:09, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

My response is here. You made a series of edits. They were challenged. You have not gotten talk page consensus for them. End. None of the rest matters. You've been around that article easily long enough to understand how this works. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:17, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't see where mentioning Trump entered Fordham as freshman and transferred to Wharton as a junior were challenged. Nor any of the others, for that matter. Only Anythingyouwant went on about the 'ancestry' section. You've shown up after the fact, like JFG. And JFG did not bother with the talk page. He rolled back all my edits without even looking at them. SW3 5DL (talk) 07:20, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

SW3 5DL made a series of edits over a few hours which restructured significant parts of the article. Several of his changes were objected to by Anythingyouwant in Talk:Donald Trump#Jumbled chronology. One of those changes was reverted by Muboshgu. I found this major reshuffling excessive and confusing to readers. I reverted in bulk and explained on the talk page that such major changes should be discussed and get consensus first. I do not object to restoring selected edits caught in the global revert, provided they do not alter the structure of the article. If SW3 can point me to such edits, I can restore the parts of his work that are non-controversial. However, in the spirit of WP:ARBAPDS and {{2016 US Election AE}}, any edits that are contested by other editors must be discussed further before being restored. Finally, nowhere have I accused SW3 of vandalism; Twinkle is just a tool and I commented on my revert "Recent reshuffling looks messy; see Talk". — JFG ^talk 07:33, 19 March 2017 (UTC)