Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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User Fastballjohnd

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

Note- This account also has two socks, Drjohndacquisto (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Johnd34 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), plus an IP 98.167.164.178 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), which has been used for the same purpose as the main account. A sock puppet investigation[1], resulted in the indefinite blocking of Johnd34 and Drjohndacquisto and a two day block on Fastballjohnd.

Fastballjohnd has exclusively done edits involving former Major Leauge Baseball player John D'Acquisto. The editor has on more one occasion, here[2] most recently, claimed to be the retired athlete.

In the 1990's(after his playing career was over) John D'Acquisto had several run ins with the law. They are chronicled in the article with supporting references. Here[3], here[4], and here[nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=NewsLibrary&p_multi=APAB&d_place=APAB&p_theme=newslibrary2&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0F8A15FC51053B7C&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM]. Beginning in August 2008 Fastballjohnd began editing the John Acquisto article. Part of his edit[5] was the following

He was sentenced to prison in 1996 for trying to pass off a forged certificate of deposit and was also indicted on charges of defrauding investors of about $7 million and on 39 counts of wire fraud and money laundering. In that case it was found that D'Acquisto was not responsible for any of the charges in the 39-count indictment and out of the 39 counts 37 were dropped and two were taken with no additional time, for misrepresentation. It was later found that the people who perpetrated the civil lawsuit and criminal investigations as well as the convictions against John D'Acquisto were arrested and are still serving jail sentances in Europe. The consensus is that John D'Acquisto was set up and used to cover up a larger scheme by others; according to the court documents in his sentencing memorandum [1], he never stole any money or committed fraud.

That edit was reverted[6]. In January 2009, Fastballjohnd again edited the article [7] giving a version of events that noone has been able to verify. I, and I only became aware of these edits about a month ago, have tried verifying the claims of Fastballjohnd using Google News archive, High Beam Research(which thanks to WP I have a subscription), and Newspaper Archive. My searches have found nothing verifying fastballjohnd's edits.

From Jan 2009 to May 2012 other edits were done to the John D'Acquisto article. I won't run them all down, just the highlights.

• [8] Feb 2009 claim that news article was incorrect
• [9] edit by Drjohndaquisto account putting in liks to court documents.(link is dead)
• [10] Johnd34 putting in link to google documents.(link is dead)
• [11] Additional commentary added by IP account. This was reverted here.[12]
• [13] IP blanks the part of the article referring to John D'Acquisto's legal problems. Then the IP edited in a new version.[14] Again this was reverted.[15]

It was shortly after that I got involved. Note I did make edits to the article before June 2012 but they were not involved in any way with Fastballjohnd's or his sock's edits concerning John D'Acquisto's legal problems. If you want to see them, click here[16] and here[17].

Then on June 16 2012 I became aware of information edited in by fastballjohnd and did edits here[18] and here[19]. I made one last edit here[20].

After becoming aware of Mr. D'Acquisto's edits, I brought the matter to the attention of the Baseball Project here[21] and asked[22] for WP administrator The Bushranger to advise us. Which he did[23] and he wrote As for his editing his own article, both the conflict of interest noticeboard and, given he's used three accounts, WP:SPI might be applicable.

So I took it to the COI board and got no response[24]. As I stated earlier, I instituted a sockpuppet investigation[25]. When I did each of these, I left messages[26][27] on Fastballjohnd's talk page to notify him.

On June 29th, Mr. D'Acquisto aka Fastballjohnd responded[28] on his talk page, I wrote back one day later[29].

Fastballjohnd edited the John D'Acquisto article again[30] making claims again which I reverted because they can't be verified. I asked The Bushranger for advice again asking if I should come to ANI, The Bushranger replied[31] that he thought it had risen to that level. So I brought it here today....William 14:40, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

As this user has not yet been notified, I have done so. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 14:53, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Now that I've done that, I want to weigh in. On the one hand, you have a whole bunch of COI edits. On the other hand, he is sourcing them; by the same principle that allows us to take sources under a paywall, we should be taking these. I guess the problem is that the COI makes it harder to just WP:AGF and take his word for it. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 14:57, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

My apologies. I did mean to notify him but forgot. In his last edit he claims a 1999 San Diego Union Tribune article would back up what he's say. The SDTU archives are behind a pay wall and I'd be willing to put up the small amount of cash to peek at the articles but the words I used for the search don't give me much confidence that I'll find anything verifying what D'Acquisto is saying. Plus If he was exonerated, this would have made news outside the SD area. His pleading guilty made the news wires....William 15:15, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

His sources are always broken links or like here[32] inaccessible. Their inaccessibility I pointed out[33] to him but got no reply. He instead changed his tune to it being reported in the newspaper. It's very hard to AGF considering the COI plus broken links and shifting edits....William 16:02, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Proposed remedy

I propose that all other accounts being used by Fastballjohnd be indef blocked if they haven't already, that Fastballjohnd be formally restricted to a single account (no legit alternates), and that they be banned (not just discouraged) from making edits to articles in which they have a conflict of interest. Fastballjohnd is still permitted, of course, to make edits to talk pages of articles in which they have a COI, as long as those edits do not violate WP:BLP or any other relevant policy or guideline (such as WP:TPO or WP:CIVIL). - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 04:33, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

• Restored from archive with post-dated datestamp. The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Why is this here, and not at WP:COIN? 69.62.243.48 (talk) 05:23, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

It was brought to COIN and I mentioned that up above. Nothing happened....William 10:33, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Note also that the POV-pushing socking puts it a bit beyond the usual COIN case. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:04, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Just found another of his socks but it is stale. Compare this edit by Jddsc3434 with this edit by 98.167.164.178 which has been Fastballjohnd's persistent IP since last September.

Isn't this thread a bit premature though? He has only made three edits since the SPI case ended...two as his account and one as the IP over several days. Shouldn't he be allowed a bit of rope? A CU advised to refile an SPI if the IP continued to edit. If it were me, I'd overlook the one IP edit and be patient.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 15:31, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Fastballjohn is in denial. He says[34] that is his only account. That was after the sockpuppet investigation. He has a clear COI and he thinks the rules don't apply to him. Not doing anything now is just postponing the matter IMHO....William 17:30, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I would have to agree with Berean Hunter here, there have only been a couple of edits and no indication as of yet that he is not complying with WP:SOCK. He is claiming sources, and WP:V clearly says contentious facts must be verifiable not easily verified. Since the edits appear to be in good faith, and COI editing is clearly not prohibited by policy, action here would be premature. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © (WER) 15:39, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Before anything is done, we might have another sock sighting.[35]. I'm going to bring it up at SPI....William 14:20, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

HiLo48 civility

We've had a bit of a flare-up over at WP:ITN/C that could use administrator attention. User:HiLo48 has been showing significant anger lately over postings of items, and it's leading to increasing name-calling. On 16 July, for example, he responds to the posts of other editors by calling them "arrogance": [36]. Two days ago he called User:BorgQueen's posting of an item "quite immoral" [37] and "stupidly rapid" [38]; he also calls another user's comment "stupid" in the latter and insults the manners of American editors as a whole. Several editors have directly requested that he be more civil [39], to which he responded "LOL".[40] After a dozen posts with this tone in that thread, he then proceeded to open continued discussion in a new forum, bludgeoning each oppose vote as invalid and misunderstanding him, posting about twenty times (see thread at Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news#Should_we_have_a_rule_requiring_a_certain_period_of_time_for_discussion_before_posting.3F. This afternoon he responded to one post asking if the user was an idiot in an edit titled "Bullshit".[41] I asked him again to be civil [42] and he responded that he was not being uncivil, but I had simply misunderstood.[43]

I'd ask that HiLo receive some sort of block or warning for his behavior. I respect that we disagree, and I hope that he'll contribute constructively and respectfully again in the future. This repeated name-calling and hostility, though, is needlessly poisoning the atmosphere of the project. Khazar2 (talk) 19:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• Related historical ANI and WT:ITN discussions on similar behaviour from HiLo48 can be found: here, here, here and here, amongst others. Once, we can AGF. Twice, you get weary. Three times, you wonder why nothing's been done. We're well past that now… and still nothing's been done. I appreciate Khazar's efforts in bringing this to a wider audience at ANI.—Strange Passerby (t × c) 19:12, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

It's generally three strikes and you're out, right? And this editor has had, as per Strange Passerby, over three strikes before this last one? After at least four previous discussions on basically the same sort of matter, I rather doubt at this point a simple warning would do any good. But such comments as those above do nothing to contribute to the atmosphere or even the opinion of others regarding the person making the comments. I tend to agree that some sort of block or ban seems called for, but I'm not sure based on the above what kind of action or how long it would optimally be. John Carter (talk) 19:25, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, every time I've looked in at ITNC, he has displayed the exact same behaviour. Personally, I'd say a topic ban would be useful. Maybe in a couple months he can then return to the arena with a better attitude. Resolute 19:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure a topic ban is sufficient. His attitude is generally uncivil, confrontational, needlessly argumentative, and exceedingly pedantic. For example: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#Young_Earth_creationism_and_Gnosticism, where he tells Dweller to 'run off to Conservapedia' after Dweller took issue with his tone; Talk:Mitt_Romney#Romney.27s_behavior_at_Cranbrook_school, where he deploys his usual high-handed tone to dismiss the valid concerns of others; Talk:2012_Summer_Olympics#Controversy:_Minute_of_Silence_for_murdered_Israeli_athletes, where he accuses others of Wikilawyering whilst engaging in exactly that behaviour himself; and right here, below this comment. He's very fond of saying provocative things, and then claiming not to have said them because he did not, in exactly as many words, say the precise thing he's accused of. Calling me an idiot talk ITN talk is a fine example - he provided a neat Morton's fork, whereby I was either a troll or an idiot, and then rejected the accusation of having called me an idiot. No doubt if he had been reprimanded for saying I was trying to provoke him, he would have said that he hadn't said that, either. It is the Magician's force technique, and we shouldn't fall for it. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

User: Khazar2 accuses me of name calling, then provides precisely zero examples of me doing so. I have certainly expressed dissatisfaction with the BEHAVIOUR of other editors. That is NOT name calling. I choose my words carefully. Others might do well to try to do the same thing themselves. I proposed a radical change. I have been involved in introducing change in many organisations over my life. I know that it's common for one of the first reactions to a new and radical idea is for those used to the old ways to feel threatened and to attack the person with the new idea. That certainly happened with my suggestion at [[Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news#Should_we_have_a_rule_requiring_a_certain_period_of_time_for_discussion_before_posting.3F]. An independent observer looking here should definitely look at the reactions of several editors there. HiLo48 (talk) 20:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• I commented earlier this year on HiLo48's ongoing long-term incivility and disruption of the ITN feature [44] and am not surprised to find this matter at ANI. The solution is a topic ban of substantial duration. Jusdafax 21:12, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

That's quite some record - as Strange Passerby has also highlighted above. For what it's worth, I advocate a complete ban for at least a month; preferably longer. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I would make the point that I have gone out of my way to warn HiLo48 in that same thread [45]. Now that I understand that HiLo48 by no means restricts his abusive commentary to the ITN feature, I have started a subsection to block him as a preventative measure. Judging from his reply he is unrepentant. And having dealt with him for years, in my view he is a poor candidate for mentoring. Jusdafax 22:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that an ITN topic ban misses the broader point of this user's difficulties with comprehending how to interact with others on Wikipedia. See ([46]), which was NOT at ITN. Arguing in defence of ridiculing others' religions is a bad idea and not part of building an encylopedia. Making ill-informed guesses about the personal beliefs of other users is a bad idea and not part of building an encylopedia. Telling other users to leave Wikipedia is a bad idea and not part of building an encylopedia. I think this user needs to radically adjust their norms of interaction. Banning him from ITN won't address the issue, but will just push the bad behaviour elsewhere. --Dweller (talk) 21:22, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

So, what would you suggest? John Carter (talk) 21:33, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

From what HiLo48 says above, his intent is to comment on the behavior of other editors, and he doesn't see this as relating to Civility. Perhaps a better explanation is needed as to why this comes off as incivil to some editors and how Civility is bigger than just "No Personal Attacks"? It sounds like HiLo48 is perfectly willing to comply with Civility policy, but has not yet seen how this applies to his actions. -- Avanu (talk) 21:40, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• I've never had any contact with HiLo before, but I'm not impressed at what I've seen. The diffs provided by the editors above demonstrate a sustained problem of incivility towards other editors. What is even more worrying is that HiLo seems never to acknowledge that his manner is utterly inappropriate (indeed, his response to this report, claiming that there are no example of name calling illustrate this nicely). If it was just a case of incivility from an editor who knew he'd done wrong, I think we could be lenient. However, the long-term nature of the problem, and the inability to even understand that his tone is regularly inappropriate, suggests to me that a block of some length may be necessary. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:42, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Topic bans work where it's the nature of the topic that stimulates bad behaviour. I really don't think that's the case here. I'm also not sure a block is a great idea. HiLo is capable of being constructive and productive and much of their contribution history is positive. It's when dealing with other editors that the problems come in... the talk page history includes much that is really problematic. Blocking HiLo IMO does not generate a strong possibility of improved behaviour in the future because I think they genuinely don't understand what they're doing wrong. I'd ideally want HiLo to agree to being mentored and then we'll have the thorny problem of finding a suitable mentor who agrees to doing the job. If that fails, I'm concerned that a block will begin a sad route, via future blocks to an eventual ban and that would be a shame. --Dweller (talk) 21:57, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

As I have said above, anyone looking for incivility need only look at several of the responses to my sincere suggestion at Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news#Should_we_have_a_rule_requiring_a_certain_period_of_time_for_discussion_before_posting.3F. HiLo48 (talk) 21:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Mentoring would be a good step forwards, if HiLo will agree to it and we can find a suitable mentor. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 22:06, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

HiLo is a good editor, but inclined to be intemperate and uncivil, which detracts from his contribution. His response to warnings and relevant wikiprocess is to become increasingly uncivil. A good example is his contributions during discussion on the Craig Thomson affair which made the news due to the level of poor behaviour. --Pete (talk) 23:57, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Actually, HiLo's tendency to directly attack an editor isn't limited to ITN. HiLo was involved in an article with another editor, who brought the issue to ANI. I'd done some poking about on the talk page and generally found that if things don't go HiLo's way, their outbursts are pretty explosive. These were some of the gems I found last time. Here, here and here. Back then, HiLo's behaviour was buried under the subsequent discussion in to the disruptive behaviour of the other editor. I guess it was only a matter of time before this came up again. Blackmane (talk) 00:00, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Please don't topic ban HiLo48. I hope this process has given the editor pause, and that they will take a self imposed break to realize that ultimately Wikipedia is not that important :) --76.110.201.132 (talk) 01:33, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Proposed block or topic ban from ITN of HiLo48

• Support block - On further contemplation of this issue, I'd agree that not just a topic ban but a block is called for regarding HiLo48's long-term and ongoing disruption, including the ITN feature as seen in discussions [47] and this one where consensus was reached that HiLo's actions were unacceptable [48]. This has gone on far too long, in my view, and it appears to me now that the problem extends further than I realized. Jusdafax 21:55, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Consensus? LOL HiLo48 (talk) 22:01, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose, in line with Dweller's comment above. With no specific appraisal of HiLo48's comments with respect to civility, if there is indeed an issue here then mentoring is far more likely to produce a desirable result. This seems like a situation that requires a more nuanced approach to solve than simply wheeling out the brute force solution of the blockhammer. – NULL ‹talk›
  ‹edits› 22:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Topic ban I have to say, the civility issue is clear here, but I think a block is unnecessary. HiLo is a good editor. Perhaps a topic ban to let HiLo cool his heels a bit? Robby The Penguin (talk) (contribs) 22:19, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - topic ban from ITN yes, block - no. Black Kite (talk) 22:35, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose block, pending mentorship proposal, see my comment above. If that fails to get off the ground or the mentor reports it fails to succeed, I'd reconsider. Definitely oppose topic ban, for reasons outlined above. Understandable motivation, but unlikely to succeed in this case. --Dweller (talk) 22:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose unless attempts at mentoring do not work, in which case I'd support a block. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 23:01, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Topic ban. The disruption has gone on far too long, and there's no reason to believe that it will cease as long as HiLo continues to post on ITN-related pages. His adversarial approach has a chilling effect on discussion, discouraging the participation of both editors disagreeing with him (who don't wish to be berated) and agreeing with him (who don't wish to align themselves with his vitriol).
  Honestly, I don't know why a topic ban wasn't enacted after consensus was clearly established here.
  As noted above, HiLo sees nothing wrong with his conduct, so a block is unlikely to inspire reform. If he's willing to accept a mentorship, this is worth trying as an alternative to a site-wide ban. —David Levy 23:15, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support Any level of action, at the very least a topic ban. It's nothing new, I've scarce seen an interaction in which HiLo took place without being insulting or condescending, not only on ITN but the front page talk as well, and there is a long history of AN/I. Frankly, it would seem that so long as nothing is done, he will continue to flaunt this; it is unfortunate because he is an active editor. If a block is deemed to severe I certainly support a topic ban, mentorship, or whatever else might be done to remedy this. - OldManNeptune ⚓ 23:18, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Reading through some of the threads presented, I do not find the same pattern. Also, some comments by other editors in these threads show a similar standard of civility. I would suggest that if editors are concerned about civility they should ask an administrator to monitor the talk pages. Below are a few of the examples I looked at.
  • Wikilawyering. An editor argues that, since WP:NOTABILITY only applies to creating articles, not to article content, "Once the article exists, any sourced material that is relevant to the topic, and that does not violate any additional Wikipedia policies, can be included; notability does not enter into that equation." Although HiLo48 had used the term "notable", WP:UNDUE would exclude non-notable content. It seems the accusation of Wikilawyering may be fair comment and yet AlexTiefling, who is calling for a block accuses HiLo48 in this discussion thread of Wikilawyering while providing no edit differences.
  • Are you trying to provoke me.... HiLo48 is replying to AlexTiefling's comment, "Let me play the world's smallest violin for you. You came here to forum-shop - to find a way of circumventing a clear consensus on ITN that you disagreed with, and continued to voice your disagreement with in tediously paranoid, nationally-biased terms. I oppose your proposal. I oppose it because it's a bad idea, but also because I can no longer Assume Good Faith in dealing with you...." Khazar2, who is the complainant in this case, then tells HiLo48, but not AlexTiefling, to be civil.

TFD (talk) 23:36, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, the distinction to me was that HiLo had engaged in a long pattern of this behavior; I also didn't engage with HiLo about civility when he first called other editors "arrogant", BorgQueen "quite immoral", or the comment of another editor "stupid". After he continued the behavior for 24 hours, though, the pattern became clear. I don't believe Alex has the same history, either in this particular thread or on ITN in general. Khazar2 (talk) 23:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

It is difficult to show long term abuse here, especially when there are no blocks or sanctions recorded against this editor. May I suggest you go to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, whether or not your application here is successful. It is a much better forum when no single edit would warrant sanctions, but when they form part of a pattern. TFD (talk) 00:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, an RfC/U is probably more effort than I'm willing to sink into this drama, but if necessary, maybe someone else can take the baton from here. But are things like calling another user a "prick" over and over really not actionable without that step? [49] Our civility policies are a lot more toothless than I realized. Khazar2 (talk) 05:17, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I was uncivil to HiLo in that thread. I apologise for letting my feelings get the better of me. I came to that thread directly from the ITN discussion about Aurora, and I definitely should have gone and got a cup of tea first. AlexTiefling (talk) 08:05, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Support topic ban (but oppose block). We have to take this first step. A topic ban from ITN will make it abundantly clear that we won't tolerate this kind of behaviour – and, if Dweller's fears that HiLo would simply bring this behaviour elsewhere come true, we can then escalate to blocks. —Strange Passerby (t × c) 00:27, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban - At most, mentorship should be used in place of blocking. However, there is no reason why ITNC should have to put up with his attitude while a mentor tries to help mend his ways. We can lift a topic ban if and when said mentor determines that future disruption is unlikely. Resolute 00:32, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban, and oppose block - the big guns can be called out later if needed, but right now a topic ban should solve the issue. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:06, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support a topic ban. One has to start somewhere. It is true that HiLo48 is not the only one with a systematic pattern of disruptive behaviour at ITN. Somehow, ITN seems to attract users who'd be blocked/topic banned/whatever for POV pushing, political soapboxing and incivility at just about any other page, and yet their conduct is largely tolerated at ITN. However, that does not mean that nothing should be done, in fact quite the opposite. If the worst offenders start being held accountable, the others will take notice. In my observations, HiLo48 conduct at ITN has been consistently non-constructive, often provocative and incendiary. A topic ban from ITN would certainly be a reasonable first step, to see if HiLo48 can engage in more productive editing elsewhere on Wikipedia. Nsk92 (talk) 01:48, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose block, neutral on topic ban. HiLo's recent behaviour is obviously uncivil, but it ought to be easily remedied by HiLo recognising the problem and agreeing to correct it. A short topic ban probably wouldn't hurt, but may not be needed if there is a sincere undertaking to self-improve. Mentorship may also not hurt if someone is willing. But I'd be surprised if HiLo is not able to work out for himself what he needs to change. Formerip (talk) 02:03, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

  Indeed, it ought to be easily remedied by HiLo recognizing the problem and agreeing to correct it. And that's been asked of him many, many times. But in HiLo's view, the blame belongs to everyone but him. This is nothing new. —David Levy 02:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

  Fair comment, but it may be that HiLo reflects on the concerns raised it this thread and resolves to turn over a new leaf. If he does, then I'd say its reasonable to take him at his word. If he declines the opportunity, then, sure, a topic ban is appropriate. Formerip (talk) 03:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

  If that were to occur, I'd be delighted to take HiLo at his word and give him another chance. But we've been here too many times for me to expect such a turn of events. And this is HiLo's current assessment of a previous determination by the community that his behavior was unacceptable. —David Levy 03:25, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose While I don't endorse rude comments, ITN has all sorts of very major problems (in short: it's American-biased and often links to low-quality articles) and the points HiLo was making actually look quite reasonable to me. This comment included in the orginal report was made in response to an extraordinarily rude comment from AlexTiefling (which includes "You came here to forum-shop - to find a way of circumventing a clear consensus on ITN that you disagreed with, and continued to voice your disagreement with in tediously paranoid, nationally-biased terms"). Nick-D (talk) 02:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

  I think this misunderstands the issue slightly. Bias and premature postings are things that can be, should be and are discussed at ITNC while keeping a civil tongue. I don't endorse AlexTiefling's tone, but his assessment is basically correct. In this instance, HiLo was too strident and deaf to other editors. Formerip (talk) 02:41, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

  That an actual systemic bias problem exists is all the more reason to put a stop to HiLo's disruption. His rants are so vitriolic that they accomplish nothing other than poisoning the well. When others attempted to express such concerns respectfully, their efforts were mistaken for HiLo-style trolling and unfairly dismissed. Regardless of where someone stands on these issues, his/her ability to engage in constructive discourse is compromised. —David Levy 02:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

  As I said above, I don't agree with uncivil comments. However, ITN is, from my experiance and observations, a very frustrating area to edit in (reasonable criticisms posted politely are often met with strong, and often quite arrogant, counter-attacks), and HiLo was responding to fairly extreme abuse in that comment I linked to. As such, I don't see how sanctioning a single editor will resolve what's a much larger problem. Nick-D (talk) 03:17, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

  And what about his comments at the Ref Desk? Hot Stop 04:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Support topic ban of limited duration, oppose block. ITN may other problems with civility, but I'm not sure that excuses any of HiLo's behavior, especially since he's displayed identical behavior elsewhere (see, for example, BlackMane's diffs above where HiLo repeatedly calls another editor "a rude, impatient prick" or Dweller's where HiLo mocks a user's religion and tells them to leave Wikipedia). I hope we'll see HiLo contributing to ITN again some day, but until he cuts back on the vitriol, he's doing much more harm there than good. Mentoring sounds like a good step too if HiLo's prepared to accept it. Khazar2 (talk) 02:46, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban, Neutral on block For a few months now, I've noticed that he has often been very uncivil when it comes to responding to nominations he feels are not worthy, and to comments made by other editors that he disagrees with. These comments usually lead to bickering between HiLo and the editor(s) that he rubbed the wrong way (one example). He is not always uncivil, but when he is, it always sparks some kind of argument that can be seen on the related ITN nomination. I would hope a topic ban from ITN for a while would be sufficient enough. He has shown this behavior enough in the past for several discussions to take place regarding his conduct throughout Wikipedia, so I would not oppose a block, but in terms of his behavior lately, I don't feel as though blocking him is really necessary unless he shows that he cannot be civil in future discussions. If the topic ban were to expire, and he goes back to being uncivil in the discussions, I feel he should be blocked. -- Anc516 (Talk ▪ Contribs) 03:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support (wide) topic ban, oppose block (for now) HiLo should be topic banned not only from ITN and its subpages, but from the refdesk as well and perhaps any WP/WT page. I would, however, oppose a block since I've found his editing outside those areas to be positive. Hot Stop 04:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Nick-D. I deal with him on Australian topics all the time and while he is sometimes a little brittle to deal with (and possibly somewhat more in the topic area under consideration, from the diffs I've clicked on), he is a productive, cooperative and useful editor who works towards building consensus in discussions and is generally coming from the right place content wise. Dealing in difficult areas of the encyclopaedia where even editors who behave normally can be mistreated, it's not hard to lose perspective and get very hard-headed about things - I know that's happened to me before, although I've usually known when to walk away. Perhaps mentorship is the answer, I don't know. Orderinchaos 05:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I've had a lot of interaction with HiLo48. 3/4 of the time we are opponents/disagree. But I have the utmost respect for them. They clearly understand what what an encyclopedia should be and work towards that end and aren't afraid to take a little heat in that effort. I find that their blunt talk much less nasty than the more clever wiki-lawyer methods of warfare more commonly used. They are a strong proponent of avoiding US-centrism in Wikipedia. North8000 (talk) 12:44, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban or at least some level of action. Countless diffs can be provided of HiLo48's bouts of incivility. I have no doubt that he is a productive editor, but all of his efforts on WP:ITN have consistently been counter-productive and deliberately antagonistic.--WaltCip (talk) 12:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban, neutral on block. I'm not at all convinced that mentoring would work, and it remains to be seen whether a topic ban will either, but it's a start. AlexTiefling (talk) 19:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban, user's disruption on ITN is a fairly big part of what makes that section of the main page not work. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 16:32, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban. It might send a message. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:18, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose The diffs don't seem demonstrate anything topic ban worthy. This [50] is a comment on the content, not on the editor. This appears to be from the same incident: [51], it contains some minor incivilities. The edit summary here is inappropriate [52] but the comment is fine (and he raises a good point in the context). Yes there are issues with civility but they seem solvable and some mentoring could help. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:18, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I move that this proposal has been open long enough (certainly by ANI standards), and that there may be consensus to topic ban. Can an admin please decide if it should be enacted? —Strange Passerby (t × c) 14:33, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I would agree completely. I'll start a new sub-heading at the bottom of this report. Jusdafax 02:04, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Propose mentorship (and fallback to topic ban from ITN of HiLo48, if mentor is rejected)

It seems that a topic ban is supported by a consensus of people above, and mentorship was proposed right before the poll above started. I would suggest that a mentor of AN/I's choosing be given an opportunity to guide HiLo48 for 2 weeks, if this mentoring fails, in the opinion of the mentor alone, or a consensus of other editors, then a 3-month topic ban from ITN would *immediately* replace the mentorship. If after 2 weeks, HiLo48 has demonstrated improvements, then the mentorship could end, with a warning to avoid further conflict or a summary 3-month topic ban from ITN would be imposed, solely at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator. -- Avanu (talk) 01:39, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I am on board with the idea but I personally think it would be more appropriate, given the rather lengthy period of these problems and HiLo's denial of any wrongdoing, to impose a (perhaps temporary) topic ban and mentorship concurrently. HiLo has said in his own words that he is interested in making this a better encyclopedia; to me, the best way to demonstrate this would be to work on other articles and take a break from ITN. If things look better the topic ban can always be lifted. I must admit I am also interested to see if ITN itself cleans up at all as a result of this, not just from HiLo taking a break but also perhaps the demonstration to others on the borderline that this is unacceptable. - OldManNeptune ⚓ 02:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose If he wants to take on a mentor, that's fine. But I doubt someone who's been editing since 2008 will change now. And plus, as proposed it seems over bureaucratic. Hot Stop 04:24, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I above suggested to the editor that regardless of the outcome of this discussion thread, that they file an RFC/U. Their reply was, "an RfC/U is probably more effort than I'm willing to sink into this drama". If the complainant shows that lack of interest in their application, I do not think that it merits any more of our attention. TFD (talk) 06:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

If it's a sine qua non for you, TFD, I'm willing to pledge to start the RfC/U--and if this was the wrong place to come for repeated personal attacks, I apologize. I'm comparatively new to AN/I, and was just surprised to hear that it didn't deal with those matters. FWIW, I'd also point out that I'm far from the only complainant on this page, as the many diffs above demonstrate. Khazar2 (talk) 06:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Eh, disregard what I wrote above. As much as I dislike HiLo's abuse of other editors, I'd rather focus on content than spend another day or two researching and setting up a second community referendum on this. Hopefully, though, the many diffs above will be enough to obviate the need for further escalation. Khazar2 (talk) 07:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

It's pretty obvious that there is divided opinion as to how to proceed. Rather than continue with the drama that will ensue if the discussion of a topic ban or mentorship continues. I propose that the discussion be stopped here with a very stern final warning that the next time that HiLo is brought here harsh sanctions will be applied. Blocking now will be punitive, a topic ban doesn't really fit the bill and mentorship of an editor who has been here for 4 years is demeaning. Blackmane (talk) 10:11, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Support HiLo is too good an editor to block, to experienced to mentor successfully, and a topic ban won't fix the problem. The solution has got to come from within, and I wish that HiLo could just stop and count to ten or something. This sort of behaviour can't go on, because it is disruptive, and it is a distraction from good editing work. But it cannot be ignored. --Pete (talk) 10:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. I believe there is currently consensus for a topic ban, and all this does is circumvent that consensus. —Strange Passerby (t × c) 11:33, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. As evidenced in the above mentioned "Previous DR Attempts", the point has not sunk in to HiLo that their comments are significantly below the minimum standard of civility for the page and at Wikipedia at large. Stern warnings have already been provided. This Alternative of an alternative of an alternative is an end run around the thin consensus for a topic ban from ITN. We're not supposed to give unlimited 2nd chances to unreformed disruptive entities. Hasteur (talk) 12:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Comment. I agree that blocking now will be punitive, and a topic ban doesn't really fit the bill, but mentorship for an experienced editor isn't demeaning. It's a sign of respect and affection and It may work, and should be offered before more serious sanctions are imposed. But let's see if this discussion has an effect on HiLo's future interaction style first.

HiLo, I followed your pregnancy argument and in that you occasionally crossed the line in terms of civility, but not until you'd been called a pervert by a passing IP (and no one had criticised or removed the comment) and been patronised by Ludwigs2. I think you were told by someone that you are stupid, or it was implied. Someone criticised you for striding up and down the RfC comments, challenging any opposing view, but you weren't standing over or bullying people, you were arguing, which is what we try to do here. What really annoyed me was your propensity to insult the intelligence of your interlocutor. Literally. Tell them their ideas are ridiculous. That doesn't advance your argument; it isn't necessary, it polarises the debate, and it makes you look unpleasant to deal with. And, as in the case of Ludwigs2, it can get you blocked. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:16, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)Comment Don't mistake that I'm aiming to circumvent a consensus, which I don't see yet, and coming down on either side of the fence. I don't approve of HiLo's behaviour either and in fact, brought up their behaviour in the previous ANI. Given that there are examples of their incivility elsewhere, I'm not sure what a topic ban would achieve. Blackmane (talk) 13:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Observation I don't know if this provides any path to consensus, but it appears that editors who know HiLo primarily from ITN are almost unanimous in supporting action (the sole exception being the IP who asks HiLo to voluntarily take time off), while those who know him from other areas are conflicted or opposed. As linked above, an August 2011 ITN discussion, involving a number of different editors from the current one, was also one !vote short of unanimous in supporting a topic ban for HiLo.[53] The sharp divide suggests to me that HiLo is a largely effective editor elsewhere and a largely disruptive one at ITN. Khazar2 (talk) 13:40, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• I think he's just as disruptive wherever he goes. It's the same editor with the same interaction style. But he spends a lot of time at ITN, so I can imagine they'd appreciate a break from him. But let's see if he engages here and agrees to stop insulting his interlocutors. If that doesn't happen, if there's no recognition of a problem, we might as well just ban him, or agree to put up with the present style, because change is unlikely if you haven't acknowledged something needs changing. It's very late where he is, so this thread should stay open to give him time to respond. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:59, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment HiLo is a fine, sound and decent editor. I refute most, if not all the claims here, and hope that editors can work together to help than gang up to hound out. HiLo has always been a good voice against many of the worst excesses of ITN/C, not least certain practices of rapid posting which I find questionable. He can be a bit 'robust', which is why I hope that co-operation can be chosen over banning. doktorb _words^deeds 15:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• I respect your changing your mind, but given that you voted to topic ban him last August, you at least understand where we're coming from, right? [54] I'm not sure this is any more "ganging up to hound" than that discussion was. Khazar2 (talk) 15:22, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

*Sorry, Dr. B. I was curious about your change of mind, but didn't mean to open the door for you to be bludgeoned. Feel free to ignore my above comment. Khazar2 (talk) 19:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• "Robust" is putting it kindly. HiLo's ITN behavior is a case of reasonable-sounding ideas with extremely poor execution; you have not addressed the many civility concerns that the above commenters have brought up, many of which have supporting diffs. How are they refutable?--WaltCip (talk) 16:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Just quietly, Doktor, but "refute" does not mean what you think it does. It goes well beyond the sense of "deny" or "reject". --Pete (talk) 18:33, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Argumentum ad lapidem might be worth reading.--WaltCip (talk) 20:53, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Support - although I think it is not unreasonable to make it clear to HiLo that it is rather likely the next step, if there is one, might be to ArbCom. There does seem to be some basis for thinking that ITN and maybe a few other areas might benefit from some attention from ArbCom, although I doubt if it goes that far that HiLo personally will benefit from such attention. John Carter (talk) 15:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Comment It would seem to me there's fairly clear consensus to topic ban. You may be right - mentorship of a long-time editor may accomplish nothing, and it may be so that he will learn nothing regardless of what is done, but that would tend to suggest that he's beyond correction and a block is in order. If he hasn't gotten the message the last dozen times he's been warned, what makes you think this time will be any different? - OldManNeptune ⚓ 17:58, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Comment Without weighing in on one side of the proposal or the other, I wish to note that competence is required not only in editing, but in working collegially in the community as well. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 20:32, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Nothing punitive about a block for long-term disruptive behavior. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:28, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Comment This is about 3 questions in one. Not sure which of them a "support" or "oppose" note would refer to. North8000 (talk) 10:36, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
  • The proposal was to close the discussion with a final warning for HiLo that the next ANI on their behaviour would result in some sort of sanction. I kinda threw it out there since mentorship had no support, a topic ban had some support but not any sort of clear consensus. I'm not against any of those proposals, just merely going by the points of view from those that have commented in those proposals. Blackmane (talk) 11:18, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Request administrator decision and closure (HiLo48)

Seeing as the comments have slowed down over the past day, this would seem to be a good time to request that an administrator decide if community consensus has been reached regarding HiLo48's editing at ITN and elsewhere, and to close the report. Thanks. Jusdafax 02:17, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Can we wait a bit please? HiLo hasn't made any significant edits for a while. He's a veteran editor who has contributed a lot to the project. Can we give him some time to reflect? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:47, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

A cynic would say he's simply waiting for this to go away before he starts up again. He's had ample time to comment here, but hasn't. Hot Stop 14:32, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I would also point out that it is almost unanimous among the people who commented here who are also active at ITN that HiLo should be topic banned, so I agree with Hot Stop's assessment of the situation. —Strange Passerby (t × c) 17:01, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

An admin would do well to consider not so much a straw poll of the !votes, but the totality of the circumstances; consensus shows that HiLo serves Wikipedia best continuing to edit articles, and is a detriment at WP:ITN.--WaltCip (talk) 18:04, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Which, conveniently enough, is what the consensus here suggests. Hot Stop 18:32, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Sad to say, he isn't taking the criticism on board, as his comments on his talk page demonstrate. --Pete (talk) 23:58, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I supported this anyway but in light of this I strongly support taking action. I frankly do not understand why this has been put off for so long, consensus has existed for several days now. - OldManNeptune ⚓ 00:07, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Several days is not a long time. We've been giving HiLo time to think and respond. He's chosen not to respond. Imposing an ITN topic ban would simply shift the behaviour to other areas of the project. If his interaction style is disruptive, which it is, and he doesn't acknowledge it, which he hasn't, an indefinite block seems appropriate. But as TFD points out, it would be improper to apply that sanction without presenting evidence of the long term problem, and no one can be arsed doing that. So I'll support the ITN topic ban for now as it might send a message. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:14, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

HiLo is also continuing to discuss this issue with editors at his talk page; as long as he's not disrupting ITN in the meantime, I agree that it's worth waiting to see if any progress can be made there. Khazar2 (talk) 15:03, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I must say I am on the verge of amused that no admin has yet been bold enough to make a call on this. —Strange Passerby (t × c) 20:59, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I alternate between amusement and puzzled depression. Will no one admin step up and finish this, please? Jusdafax 06:16, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Bueller? Hot Stop 12:48, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The editor continues to insist that labeling someone's comments "idiotic" is not the same thing as calling someone "an idiot". Given that, it's reasonable to assume he will continue using that kind of terminology and that argument. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:52, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Given that the editor has continued to answer comments on his talk page and edit elsewhere [55], it doesn't appear likely that they intend to return to this discussion, much less voluntarily accept mentoring. If the closure of this is being held to get further comment from HiLo, I'd suggest an admin at least post to their talk page requesting it. Khazar2 (talk) 18:05, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I would summarize the issue as follows: a) HiLo is a valuable contributor to the project despite any faults (which are minor compared to what he often deals with - plus incivility/bluntness is as far as it goes, it does not appear to be meant personally, etc), and b) since he is unlikely to change, any action or even warning is almost certain to lead to an eventual block, which is not justified by the consensus and is undesirable as per a). Arc de Ciel (talk) 18:12, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

So do nothing then? I missed that part of WP:CONSENSUS Hot Stop 18:30, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

So in other words, we can be as incivil as we want (as long as it's not personal) to any editor as long as we contribute to the project? That would be a most interesting precedence to set. Not that I personally would do that.--WaltCip (talk) 19:01, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Right, so because consensus to do X may lead to the user doing something that would lead to potential sanction Y (a sanction for which currently has no consensus) means the consensus to do X is invalid? I think, again, we need to have an admin decision here. —Strange Passerby (t × c) 19:26, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I didn't say any of that. I only suggested a possible reason why no action has yet been taken - I think that it is not, in fact, an easy decision to make. (But of course, you are free to disagree.) Arc de Ciel (talk) 21:15, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

gotcha. It would still be nice if an admin decided to grace us with their presence. But I guess that's too much to ask for Hot Stop 21:25, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

gaming of my 1-rr restriction by user ankhmorpork

user ankhmorpork has a long history of tag-teaming against me, hounding me and follow my edits. this behavior has been confirmed by administrators and other editors [56].

i have been baited into edit warring several times due to this tag-teaming. last time i felt into this trap and got blocked, i made the decision to abide by the 1-rr restriction and to use administrative venues when i was harassed and hounded [57], rather than getting into a fight,

originally, after a dispute on the british-pakistani page, ankhmorpork started to follow my edits and started edit warring on the dhimmi-page, together with user shrike. i have the diffs to prove this. after a warning by an administrator [58] concerning ankhmorpork's tag-teaming things calmed down. however, he is now edit warring and hounding me again. the only reason for this is the fact that i have today edited on this page, [59], a page created by ankh (see the discussion on about its neutrality on the talk page). he has at least followed me to 3 pages i have edited today.

one of them is the dhimmi-page. he is now trying to edit war content into the dhimmi-page which has been removed by other editors before [60] before. i reverted him and told him that the burden is on *him* not others, as his edits has been rejected before. instead of discussing he reverted back the content, knowing very well that i'm under a 1-rr restriction. could someone please revert ankhmorpork as he is blatantly edit warring and adding content without any consensus. content that has been removed by other longstanding editors. could someone please block him for this continuous hounding? shrike should be warned as well. -- altetendekrabbe  13:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Yup. Typical misuse of sources by Ankhmorpork. s/he is using a source which discusses the way "classical Islamic law" had discriminated against both Muslim women and dhimmis - but conveniently ignores the former, in spite of the fact that much of the surrounding text relates to discrimination against women. s/he uses the source to justify a claim that dhimmis "would also face humiliating and discriminatory distinctions" when the source actually says that the degree that such "discriminatory distinctions" were legitimate was a matter of dispute amongst Islamic Jurists - and ignores entirely the fact that the same source also points out that such discriminatory practices were unevenly applied. The book cannot be cited for categorical assertions that dhimmis 'would' face anything - and if it were to be cited for the fact that they 'might', should also point out that so might Muslim women. In any case, this is a total red herring. There is nothing remotely unusual in any system of "classical law" discriminating against women (as seen from the modern, Western 'perspective'), and likewise nothing unusual in legal discrimination on the grounds of religion either. To make out that this was somehow a significant feature of "classical Islamic law" is a highly dubious proposition, and certainly doesn't belong in the lede, particularly when the body of the text (which the lede is supposed to summarise) makes clear that the situation was much more complex, and that dhimmis were sometimes at a legal advantage under systems of "classical Islamic law" - and indeed sometimes had their own legal systems, with Islamic courts constrained from interference. The proposed edit to the lede is nothing more than spin, intended (as with much of ankhmorpork's 'contributions') to portray Muslims in as negative a way as possible, through selective (mis)reading of sources. That Ankhmorpork is still permitted to misuse Wikipedia to push such an agenda is a disgrace to the entire community. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

::: Your use of AN/I to attempt to resolve a dispute is in direct contravention of one of your two editing restrictions. I hope this results in a block for yourself. Iamthemuffinman (talk) 14:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Apologies, I completely misread your restriction. Iamthemuffinman (talk) 14:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

A notification of this would have been preferred. Altetendekrabbe has accused various editors of tag-teaming, a common denominator among them being that they do not share his view. Among them are myself, Estlandia, Frotz, Shrike and others. This is often cited when explaining his frequent disruptive editing.

Addressing his concern that I have been following him today to various pages,

• In response to a talk page discussion at Talk:Rochdale sex trafficking gang and altetendekrabbe's content removal, I added content based on the Times source as requested. I explained this on the talk page. This article was on my watchlist seeing as I created it. Note: Altetendekrabbe had made mass deletions to this page before against consensus.
• At Dhimmi, a page I have made a number of edits and introduced various sources, I explained on the talk page why a source was inaccurately presented. I then amended the article according to the source. I was immediately reverted by Altetendekrabbe who stated I was 'edit warring' and that the issue had been discussed, despite me starting a thread to discuss this source. I asked him to direct me to the pertinent discussion or explain his grounds for removal. He declined.
• Altedendenkrabbe broke his 1rr restriction today. This was pointed out to him by Shrike who advised him to self-revert which he did. This is a cynical attempt to cover up his continued disruptive editing.

I have not reverted any of his edits but improved the sourcing in one article and sought to accurately reflect the source in another, something I discussed on the talk page. His claims of edit-warring or hounding are not correct and are frequently employed when facing a content disagreement. Here are a sample of comments he has said about me in the past, 12[61].

Andy - I have no idea what you are talking about. The source and material based upon it was already in the lead and was not under dispute. What I did was alter it slightly per the source Please take a look at the edit in question before accusing me of misusing a source that various editors have agreed should be included. If you object to its inclusion, please address your concerns to the relevant talk page.

Ankh.Morpork 14:46, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Is that supposed to make sense? If the material was 'not under dispute' before you 'alter[ed] it slightly' then clearly there is a dispute if people disagree with your 'alteration' - and your 'alteration' is clearly misrepresentation and spin, per the usual habits of you and the Islamophobic tag-teamers that conveniently follow you around. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Look at the edit in question. You are clearly barking up the wrong tree seeing as the the source had long been introduced and included in the article and my edit was simply amending a couple of words exactly as source stated. Ankh.Morpork 15:03, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

excuse me but you're missing the point. your edit was reverted by other editors weeks ago, [62]. you didn't bother to discuss at all. you are now, forcefully trying to add the *exactly* the same content back. i reverted you as you have *absolutely no consensus*, and the burden is on you. instead you reverted me, knowing very well i cannot revert you back due to my self-imposed restriction. you are gaming the system, you are hounding me. regarding the so-called breach of my 1-restriction: i self-reverted![63] i forgot i was under restriction. ok? oh yes, once more: you have *consensus* and the burden is on you.-- altetendekrabbe  15:09, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Bollocks. I asked you twice to direct me to the relevant discussion so that I could participate as I could not see it anywhere and you instead ignored this and decided to take this to ANI. I still don't see where the issue on how to present this has been discussed. Ankh.Morpork 15:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

when i reverted you, you should have stopped and discussed. instead, you reverted me, when you don't have consensus, and the burden is on you. you made exactly the same addition weeks ago...and they were thrown out..u were asked to participate in the discussion then but you didn't.-- altetendekrabbe  15:22, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Not true. I did discuss it, I first started a thread directly related to my edit, a thread you have still not participated in discussing your objections. You were twice asked to show where this had been previously discussed and to explain your objections. You refused.Ankh.Morpork 15:34, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

you reverted the content back in without any consensus. consensus is not reached in 10 minutes. you took advantage of my restriction. you cannot revert back in disputed content under the cover of "i started a thread on the talk page"...-- altetendekrabbe  15:44, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Meanwhile, Ankhmorpork is at it again, on the Rochdale sex trafficking gang article, citing The Times for an assertion that "A report conducted by The Times found that most convicted offenders of child sex grooming in the North and the Midlands have involved British Pakistanis, with the victims mainly being white girls". [64] Not only is this a gross misrepresentation of what the source says, but Ankhmorpork knows full well from previous discussions of this source that it is. Still, who cares about the truth, or what the sources actually say, if you are out to spew vile propaganda... AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:16, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

yes, several editors are disgusted by his behavior [65].-- altetendekrabbe  15:23, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

And while we are at it, this edit [66] by Ankhmorpork looks a clear copyright violation: a copy-and-paste job from the source cite, with only trivial rewording. Then again, it is entirely unclear why the speculative opinions of an ex-MP on the possible relevance of arranged marriage to the issue (or more accurately a cherry-picked sample of some of her opinions) even belongs in the article at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:40, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Why are you referencing an edit from over two months ago and yet you have the temerity to tell other editors to stay on topic? Here is the source, how was this a "copy and paste" edit? Why are you discussing a topic previously discussed at ANI, which prompted this sanctimonious retirement, only to resurface and make exactly the same accusations. Ankh.Morpork 15:48, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

because you are part of the topic. your edit warring, your gaming of the system, your tag-teaming and your misrepresentation of sources.-- altetendekrabbe  16:00, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Yup: Telegraph: "Ann Cryer, the former MP for Keighley, who first came across the issue nearly a decade ago, believes the practice of arranged marriages may also have a bearing on the issue. This, she says, is because such marriages often involve the arrival in Britain of young, uneducated young men suddenly transplanted from remote villages in Pakistan. While the age of consent is the same in Pakistan as it is in Britain, girls can be marry [sic] in the former as soon as they reach puberty".

Ankhmorpork:"Ann Cryer, the former MP for Keighley, posited that the practice of arranged marriages, involving the arrival of young, uneducated men from villages in Pakistan, might have a bearing on this issue. Although the age of consent is the same in Pakistan and Britain, girls can be married in Pakistan on reaching puberty".

How is that not a copyright violation, or at minimum a violation of Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing: "Close paraphrasing without in-text attribution may constitute plagiarism, and when extensive (with or without in-text attribution) may also violate Wikipedia's copyright policy, which forbids Wikipedia contributors from copying material directly from other sources". As for when the edit was made, so what - it is yot another example of your cherry-picking of sources for the purposes of spin. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:03, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

For info, the original statement and source were introduced by User:Pudeo, to replace a much worse reference and as a compromise. That was in the best of faith, but I am not sure that the source is ideal for the article, so have opened a thread on RSN. Note all of us who are trying to ensure NPOV and policy-compliant editing are being subjected to incivility and accusations. For examplbye ants by User:Whatdafuq - a sock puppet investigation remains open, and attention to the offensive username seems to be waiting on that. The whole spat seems to have started in May, when an editor with just 13 edits brought in a lot of material sourced to the fringe author Rodney Stark. Altetendekrabbe reasonably reverted, and Ankh-Morpork reverted back, with an accusation of vandalism, no less. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Ankh Morpork did say soon afterwards that the vandalism accusation was in error, I missed that, sorry. I don't want to misrepresent anyone. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

::::::::::::::::Comment I'm not going to squeeze this point, but he actually did it twice, making the apology a little harder to believe.[67][68]

And yet you conveniently omit this edit made soon after. If you have a complaint, present it fairly and don't ignore an obvious acknowledgment of this error. Ankh.Morpork 20:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Acknowledged, I've stricken it. Please accept an apology. benjamil ^talk/_edits 21:13, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

yes, but he continued with his edit war...-- altetendekrabbe  16:56, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

here is another (!) discussion that exposes ankh's misrepresentation of sources, his tag-teaming, his blind reverts [69].-- altetendekrabbe  16:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

First of all why no one was notified of this discussion is clear violation of the policy by User:Altetendekrabbe.

user:AndyTheGrump trying to revive some topic that was closed by admin long time ago, his edits uncostrctuve to say the least and have nothing to do with the topic at hand.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Please try to write in at least an approximation of the English language. That makes no sense whatsoever. 17:34, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

It read to me like "AndyTheGrump is trying to revive some topic that was closed by an admin a long time ago, his edits are unconstructive to say the least and have nothing to do with the topic at hand". Not the best grammar in the world, but not incomprehensible (not intended to take a position on the issue, just to clarify it). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Proposal of topic ban for user Altetendekrabbe

Altetendekrabbe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was blocked for edit war multiple times and was described by an uninvolved admin as "edit warrior who may not be able to control himself"[70] Only today he broke 1RR [71],[72] though he reverted after I informed him. He clearly tries to test the limits of his restriction and game it and right now he is using AN/I to circumvent his restrictions User:AnkhMorpork is not under any restriction and restored sourced information after discussing it on the talk page but Altetendekrabbe didn't provide any meaningful explanation to his edits.

user:Altetendekrabbe was already blocked several times for constant personal attacks. He has attacked other users as "minions" [[73]] and constantly poisons the article talk page atmosphere with baseless personal accusations [74],[75],[76],[77].Though he removed most of his posts it’s very hard to edit with him in collegial way and try to improve the article. Because of the above I propose to ban user:Altetendekrabbe from all Islam related topics broadly construed

• Support-As proposer--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Comment You pointed out his violation of 1RR and then he self-reverted. What is the issue here? Fasttimes68 (talk) 17:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

The issue that he trying to WP:GAME the restriction either via testing it and hoping no one will notice or via WP:AN/I like now --Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:17, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

shrike, you are now lying. you know that i know that you are constantly monitoring me..."testing"... "hoping no one will notice"..my foot.-- altetendekrabbe  17:20, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for providing another clear example of you personal attacks [78]--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:25, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose for Altetendekrabbe, Support for User:Shrike (the boomerang effect) (Non-administrator comment) dangerouspanda 17:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)— EatsShootsAndLeaves (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

This user have made 20 edits at all suddenly returned today with perfect knowledge of wiki markup and welcomed himself.Very strange--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:32, 23 July 2012 (UTC) amended my comment

Does that supposedly make me incapable of reading? Tagging me as an SPA make very little sense dangerouspanda 17:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. A ridiculous proposal from an involved user, clearly intended to distract us from the issue here - the POV-pushing behaviour of Ankhmorpork and the rest of the tag-team, of which Shrike is clearly one. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

yes... shrike is *extremely* disruptive and destructive. he has no limits whatsoever.-- altetendekrabbe  17:44, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose for Altetendekrabbe, Support for User:Shrike. Shrike has been playing games on this and related topics (I believe he already got topic banned from Israel/Palestine topic, which is why he switched to picking on Muslims in non-directly-related-to-Israel articles) and his activity has long pasted the "disruptive" threshold and is very quickly reaching the "exhausted people's patience" level. He dodged a few boomerangs, but one of them is going to come back and get him eventually, and the sooner that happens the less trouble and disruption.VolunteerMarek 17:48, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I am not topic banned all my editions based on scholary sources you tag teaming User:Altetendekrabbe to WP:CENSOR information--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 17:51, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Please write in English. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

He has never been banned or blocked regarding his disputes with altetendekrabbe and always makes extensive use of the talk page. On the contrary, you have. Ankh.Morpork 18:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

He was topic banned from IP [79] I just couldn't remember whether it was permanent or if it expired.VolunteerMarek 20:40, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Support topic ban for Altetendekrabbe who is clearly pushing a pro-Islam agenda contrary to WP Rules about soapboxing and pushing points of view, also propose 48 Hour posting ban in relation to his breach of the 1RR Restriction today. Iamthemuffinman (talk) 17:58, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Would you care to provide evidence for this supposed 'pro-Islam agenda'? None has been offered in this thread. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:11, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Have a look at these 123 for starters. Ankh.Morpork 18:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

interesting. the fact that i asked people to replace "muslim" with "jewish", in order to make people understand the racism involved in some edits, somehow make me pro-islam? the first diff is a good one, do you want me to list up edits from the british-pakistani page where you maligned a whole racial group?-- altetendekrabbe  18:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

user iamthemuffinman is clearly tag-teaming with ankhmorpork and shrike here. iamthemuffinman joined wikipedia yesterday, [80]. still, he is so eager to get me banned that he didn't even took the time to read what my restrictions really are [81]. and he knows wikipedia very well, even striking out comments a day after joining [82]. this is extremely strange.-- altetendekrabbe  18:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Per WP:DUCK, chances are the brand spankin' new SPA User:Iamthemuffinman is SOMEBODY's sock.VolunteerMarek 18:38, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it is a sock, more likely a meatpuppet. Darkness Shines (talk) 18:41, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I love that, if anyone sides against you they are "tag teaming" and Meat/sockpuppets. Someone with your attitude shouldn't be editing wikipedia, hence why I decided to support. Your reaction to my post has only made my position more solid. For the record I have never dealt with Shrike or AnkhMorpork in the past. Iamthemuffinman (talk) 07:37, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Al is a good editor. Darkness Shines (talk) 18:03, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose I oppose sanctions against Altetendekrabbe or Shrike. -- Frotz(talk) 22:56, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Comment Altetendekrabbe is capable of intelligent discussion, but does not take opposing opinions very well. Notice that he's not including me in this tag-team cabal anymore. Shrike merely got in Altetendekrabbe's way. -- Frotz(talk) 18:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

shrike has been tag-teaming with ankhmorpork ever since the british-pakistani dispute. you and i have our differences, and i endorsed your version on the dhimmitude-page. now, who has been altering that version ever since? -- altetendekrabbe  18:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

This is bullshit. I have never edited this article before so I have no idea what you are suggesting. Ankh.Morpork 19:03, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Ankhmorpork has never reverted in this article at all but you and Volunteer Marek did and removed sourced information --Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 18:55, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

er, what? i was speaking of you shrike. you have constantly tried to destroy any consensus on the dhimmitude-page.-- altetendekrabbe  18:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose for Altetendekrabbe, Support for User:Shrike. During the last two months there have been 6 filings at AN about Altetendekrabbe, this one included. User:Shrike has filed 2 cases [83] (unsubstantiated) [84] and argued in 1 more (not counting the current) [85] for sanctions against him, while being just as disruptive himself, but far less apt when it comes to use of WP:RS. (As a side note, Ankhmorpork's count is 2 filings [86] [87] and 1 count of arguing this instance included) There are major interaction issues here, and the guilt is definitely not all, or even mostly, on Altendekrabbe's hands - all but one of his blocks have seen the involvement of either of these users. NB! The updates at the user page of User:EatShootsAndLeaves give a good explanation of the edit history vs. knowledge of WP markup and policies. benjamil ^talk/_edits 18:48, 23 July 2012 (UTC)Then he should disclose his account to vote in the ANI--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 19:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

All cases were substantiated the admins already had the suspicions and did the CU.So if the admin have the sucspicions then I have every right to have one.You just vote because you don't agree me as I not violated anything.--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 19:03, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

All cases were probably substantiated, but there was edit warring going on in all of them. It takes two to tango. Frankly, I'm appalled that it took so long as this [88] for that to be acknowledged. And I still cant get my head around what happened here [89][90]. I'm not voting because I dislike your POV. I've worked perfectly well with people with a similar POV. I'm voting because I've been watching several of the articles where you've been interacting with Altetendekrabbe and because I've seen a modus operandi of which I strongly disapprove.benjamil ^talk/_edits 19:22, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I didn't take part in this edit war , I have never was blocked for edit warring and if takes two to tango why you vote only against me?Its not clear what I have violated in Islam related articles and why should I banned from it--Shrike (talk)/WP:RX 19:28, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Someone else made the point a lot clearer than I did [91], so I'll strike the diffs. For instance, these edits sum it up quite nicely.misrepresentation 1 at Dhimmitudemisrepresentation 2a at Dhimmitudemisrepresentation 2b at Dhimmitude coatrack at Dhimmi in view of [92] and [93] It's clear that either you're unable to read the talk page and try to understand what other editors are objecting to, particularly the complexities of interpretation, or you're deliberately working against consensus. As an alternative to a topic ban, I think enforcement of FuturePerfect's suggestion of discussing all edits before making them would be reasonable.benjamil ^talk/_edits 20:49, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

you didn't get blocked because you *tag-team* and get away with it.-- altetendekrabbe  19:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose for Altetendekrabbe, Support for User:Shrike Per Andy and Marek. Sædon^talk 21:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Support for Altetendekrabbe (and just to be clear, and to fit the format of how other users are doing it, Oppose topic ban for Shrike) - a lot of people here are distracting from the main topic, by simply saying they oppose it for Alt, who, to quote an admin, is an "edit warrior who may not be able to control himsel," but they support it for Shrike. The issue isn't that Alt made a "good-faith edit" and mistakenly violated 1RR, but self-reverted. Alt is under restrictions, which you can view on his user page, which include not violating WP:1RR, and engaging in dispute resolution, and it is expected that he hold himself to higher standards and be more careful. This was part of an unblock condition, if I am correct. Shrike does not have these restrictions, because he has not warranted them, and it seems that the people commenting here "oppose for Alt, support for Shrike" aren't actually listing reasons for this, which calls into question whether they have pre-existing biases or have gotten into previous conflicts with these editors before. It's welcoming that Alt did self-revert, but it's questionable what his motives were in violating 1RR in the first place when he knows that's a specific restriction against him, and he is not allowed to violate it. And instead of trying to cooperate here and explain himself, he's just going about hurling insults at editors, and it's even worse on talk pages. I haven't personally engaged in such discussions with Alt on talk pages, as I'm too intimidated by the behavior and assaults there. I know about his actions since Ankh's page is on my watchlist (I commented on his page once, and since then it's been on my watchlist), and I noticed there was a dispute about the article dhimmi or dhimittude there, so I checked it out. Alt has a history of being blocked for these types of reasons, and it's regrettable that he still continues this behavior, rather than try to cooperate in a friendly and kind way to help benefit all of Wikipedia. I have no doubt that this post in which I expressed my sincere opinion will be attacked and assaulted as well... --Activism1234 21:32, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

^^^ Another very recent account.VolunteerMarek 01:22, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Your comment is very insulting. Since March 2012, I have had over 976 edits. Why that would disqualify me, I can't answer... Please try to refrain from these personal attacks on me, so we can have a lively and friendly discussion that results in appropriate enforcements. Thanks!--Activism1234 22:33, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

If you and your cohorts are so confident that people are using sock/meatpuppets, run a checkuser, otherwise, you need to stop with the accusations as they remain baseless and are bordering on personal attacks. Iamthemuffinman (talk) 08:01, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment Iamthemuffin, you're a newish account and until recently was editing under an IP and nearly got into some hot water here. ANI regulars are always suspicious of "young" accounts (not editor age-wise, but tenure-wise) that pop up suddenly and throw themselves into a contested discussion. Too many times the suspicions are warranted hence the long standing near-tradition of questioning new contributors here. WP:AGF only goes so far and the distance it goes here is a hell of a lot shorter than anywhere else on wikipedia. Blackmane (talk) 08:49, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Reply I'm sure they are, but unless they can find any proof to their claims regarding myself, I fully expect the accusation to be withdrawn without delay. Iamthemuffinman (talk) 09:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that you take that to their talk page. Otherwise that'll just derail this discussion. Blackmane (talk) 09:30, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Note WP:BOOMERANG, this seems to bean opportunistic proposal and the proposer clearly has unclean hands. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose This is just an attempt to deflect attention from the "Typical misuse of sources by Ankhmorpork" (as explained in detail above by Andy)—if someone from your side is in trouble, create a smokescreen to drown the discussion. Why has there been no attention to Andy's comments at "14:36, 23 July" and "15:16, 23 July" and "16:03, 23 July" above? Sure, it's a content dispute, but it appears that normal dispute resolution is entirely unsuitable for an issue like this where severe distortion of sources to enhance a POV appear to have occurred. Johnuniq (talk) 08:53, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• BOOMERANG on shrike, this reeks of vengeancemongering.Lihaas (talk) 12:12, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support for Altetendekrabbe and oppose for user Shrike. Altetendekrabbe is a repeat offendor, and what is Shrike supposed to have done? Crystalfile (talk) 13:02, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

This user, Crystalfile, that is, has registered a total of 15 edits since her/his first, at June 7. How interesting. benjamil ^talk/_edits 13:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose for Altetendekrabbe, Support for Shrike. GiantSnowman 14:29, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• support for A and maybe shrike needs a talking to and an editor? i would be happy to have him submit to me, offline, what he wants to present, i will edit into usable english.... Soosim (talk) 16:18, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• Indifferent re Altenkrabbe sanction, Oppose any sanction re Shrike. Alt self-reverted at Shrike's insistence, i.e. Shrike made a constructive contribution to the content of the article on Alt's behalf. At the same time, Alt's 1RR violation prior to Shrike's notification arguably exceeded the bounds of good faith, so Shrike's proposal is certainly reasonable under the circumstances.—Biosketch (talk) 04:54, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose for Altetendekrabbe, Support for Shrike. Altetendekrabbe is a good faith editor who sometimes makes errors of judgment. I see no grounds for a topic ban for him. If Shrike is acting in good faith, then his proposal of a topic ban for Altetendekrabbe seems incomprehensible. The principle of WP:BOOMERANG seems just and fair.--Toddy1 (talk) 21:14, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose both. Though really I should be supporting both, since both of you seem to be way too involved in this topic area. Silverseren^C 22:19, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose for Altetendekrabbe; he's a good editor and simply banning opposing editors from the topic area to get past content disputes is not the way to go (even if they editwar - if a user editwars he's blocked for that and then there's escalation). I would however support a topic ban for Shrike, who has not only started this section as harassment along with many other filings per benjamil but also proven his incapability to edit in the topic area in harmony, per WP:BOOMERANG. --lTopGunl (talk) 20:58, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

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

Per this diff, [94], it appears doubtful. Regardless of content disputes, an editor lacking the necessary language skills to recognise such poor material should probably not to be involved in such controversial topics - or arguably, in any direct input into article space at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

You're taking one diff in which he made two grammatical mistakes and going crazy over it? People make mistakes in grammar all the time; feel free to correct any mistakes you find. As far as I'm aware, there is no rule against making good-faith edits that comply with all the policies but have a grammatical error... --Activism1234 21:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I'm not 'taking one diff' - I'm giving it as an example of a wider problem. See Shrike's comments in this thread for further examples of incomprehensible postings. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I can understand everything he says. You are right, users should do everything they should in order to make their edits top-notch, and grammar plays a large part in this. But those who aren't fluent speakers in English but understand the language and can edit Wikipedia, and who have been part of the community for a long time as well, should not be discriminated against, especially for that reason. --Activism1234 00:05, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I think this case is a bit extreme and beyond simple mistakes. This is an editor who is unable to write a sentence in an article without making several basic grammatical errors. IRWolfie- (talk) 00:28, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I would say that Shrike is conversational but not fluent based on what I've read in this thread. If it is the case that he consistently adds incorrect language to articles then that would be a problem, but unless that's happening there's not much to discuss. IOW we wouldn't sanction based on this unless it was demonstrated to happen on a regular enough basis. Sædon^talk 00:09, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I went through some of his article space diffs. His additions are to a poor standard: [95][96][97][98]. IRWolfie- (talk) 00:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

And note that the first one is apparently quoting "Israel government" [sic], but gives no source. Clearly, edits like this have no place in controversial articles. And excluding someone from editing because they lack fluency in English isn't really a 'sanction' as I see it - merely a way of ensuring that article content quality doesn't suffer. Note that any problem in writing fluently is more or less certain to be paralleled by a difficulty in understanding English-language sources - at least to the level of detail that we'd expect for a contributor writing on controversial topics. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:55, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, as far as this one goes, I've seen users with much worse English language skills contribute positively to Wikipedia. In fact, I've helped a number of those. However, the two key differences between those users and Shrike are that 1) They weren't editing highly controversial topics or at the very least were not engaged in what could be called POV pushing; they stuck to simple direct, factual, edits, and 2) they weren't engaged in this gaming and WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT that Shrike does a lot of. I know this is a bit of dancing on the AGF boundary but sometimes I honestly have trouble telling whether Shrike just is not communicating/understanding views expressed in English very well, or if s/he's being purposefully obtuse and obstinate since it serves their purpose to ignore other people's comments (see also [99]). So while the lack of English proficiency is a complicating factors, it's not really the underlying issue here.VolunteerMarek 01:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

off-topic suggestion

Regardless of this case, can I suggest that the general 1RR restriction that applies in the Israel-Palestine domain (see Wikipedia:ARBPIA) be extended to all the sorts of articles that the same edit-warriors frequent? I'm not sure of the best definition, but anything related to relationships between Muslims and Jews (such as Dhimmi) should definitely be included. Zero^talk 15:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

You could suggest it - but not here. This is outside the remit of this noticeboard. Can we please stay on topic. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Interesting proposal, but as Andy said above, not the place for it. I'm sure this proposal can get a lively discussion in the appropriate forum. --Activism1234 21:34, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Moving forwards

This is getting us absolutely nowhere, generating more heat than light. Please remember that, if we are to find a resolution here, we need to work together and not treat Wikipedia as a battleground. That will mean compromise, and will probably mean that most editors will not get exactly what they want. However, if we continue like this, we get nowhere. I would encourage all involved to stop and take a step back at the moment; the initial discussion has just made matters worse, and the topic ban section is too full of accusations from involved users for any admin to judge consensus at. It seems to me that we have a complex interaction issue here, which has gone on for some time, between a number of editors. Until we resolve that, the content dispute (which a completely separate issue) will remain unsolved). While maintaining good faith and without making any accusations, perhaps we could talk about how this interaction issue might be resolved. It would be good if we could leave the past behind us and focus on developing a better relationship now. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any suggestions how editors that share similar interests can avoid the appearance of hounding? I am all ears. Ankh.Morpork 09:36, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, as one of the AE admins these are all names I'm familiar with, and I don't see a typical ANI thread resolving what's going on here. There are a lot of very deep-seated issues that require both some subject knowledge and a very good understanding of the machinations of the ARBPIA topic area. What it really would need is an AE-type setup of comments and responses, with a couple admins willing to read over everything and a section for some uninvolved non-admin comments, but unless someone really wants to set that up an attempt to restart will probably end up being an all-out brawl like before. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

A simple question for Ankhmorpork

With this edit [100] you added the following paragraph to the Rochdale sex trafficking gang article:

"A report conducted by The Times found that most convicted offenders of child sex grooming in the North and the Midlands have involved British Pakistanis, with the victims being white girls. Of the 56 offendors convicted since 1997 for crimes involving the on-street grooming of girls aged 11 to 16, 3 were white, 53 were Asian of which 50 were Muslim and most were from the British Pakistani community".

Do you contend that this paragraph (particularly the first sentence) is supported by the source cited: [www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article2863058.ece]? (note that this article is behind a paywall - I have seen the source however, and I'm sure that others in this discussion will have seen it too).

This is a simple enough question, and it should be possible for Ankhmorpork to answer with little more than a straight yes or no - I await his reply. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:45, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Here is a copy of the source for anyone who cares to judge for themselves. This very source has been the subject of a previous ANI, in which this was lengthily discussed, and like previously, you have not deigned to explicate your criticisms on the talk page. Ankh.Morpork 14:58, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

You have not answered the question. Is the first paragraph of your edit supported by the source or not? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:09, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Here is the bit from the source "Most of the victims are white and most of the convicted offenders are of Pakistani heritage," I would say that supports the first line. Darkness Shines (talk) 16:58, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

If you are claiming that the paragraph in question is supported by the source cited, I have to question your competence as an editor - see the discussion below.

Meanwhile, I am still waiting for Ankhmorpork to answer the question. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Andy, you asked "particularly the first sentence" was supported by the source, obviously it is. I am done commenting here. A question was asked and was responded to with your usual personal attacks. Darkness Shines (talk) 18:30, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

If you think that, once again, I would question your competence as an editor (hardly a 'personal attack' given that you have clearly failed to comprehend what the source actually says) - though evidently this would be best pursued elsewhere.

Meanwhile, I am still waiting for Ankhmorpork to answer the question. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

You like calling other users' competence into question, don't you? It goes hand in hand with your baseless accusations and personal attacks. Iamthemuffinman (talk) 21:00, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I happen to agree with Darkness Shines. If we're talking about the first sentence that Ankhmorpork wrote, and we're using this source, then it appears to accurately fit the source, which states "Most of the victims are white and most of the convicted offenders are of Pakistani heritage, unlike other known models of child-sex offending in Britain, including child abuse initiated by online grooming, in which the vast majority of perpetrators are white." The second part of the sentence compares one type to the first part. What exactly is the issue? The wording "child sex grooming" as opposed to "sexual exploitation?" It appears the wording was taken from "involving groups of older men who groom and abuse vulnerable girls aged 11 to 16 after befriending them on the street."

Either way, it seems like a typical dispute between two editors that is best to be resolved between the two editors, or on a talk page, or in a third party opinion forum. As I said, I agree with Darkness Shines and the edit is close to what the source says, so I recommend that any issues be taken up at the talk page or with Ankh, rather than try to cause a distraction, inflame, and spread a battleground mentality in a discussion concerning a user, not Ankh, who was reported by another user, not Ankh. Thanks. --Activism1234 22:12, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Utter nonsense. The Times article doesn't state that "most convicted offenders of child sex grooming in the North and the Midlands have involved British Pakistanis". It says that in relation to a particular type of child sex grooming, in some towns and cities in the Midlands and north of England, "most of the convicted offenders are of Pakistani heritage". It says absolutely nothing about the proportion of child sex offenders in general which are of Pakistani heritage, but instead explicitly points out that in other forms of 'grooming' "the vast majority of perpetrators are white". This had already been discussed repeatedly. And in case you hadn't noticed, the initial complaint here did relate to the behaviour of Ankhmorpork and his followers. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:32, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

And for the record, I am still waiting for Ankhmorpork to answer the question. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:34, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Off-Topic: I asked Ankhmorpork the question

Clearly it is. What you have quoted is word for word what is written in the article Ankhmorpork linked to. You clearly have a vested interest in this matter and are conducting yourself in an almost obscurist and intentionally antagonistic manner. Iamthemuffinman (talk) 16:40, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Liar. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:42, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Muffinman - copying word for word, eh? WP:COPYVIO then. Andy - please remain civil. GiantSnowman 16:47, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

If it copied word for word, it would include the phrase "unlike other known models of child-sex offending in Britain, including child abuse initiated by online grooming, in which the vast majority of perpetrators are white". It would also make clear that it is referring to a particular type of child sexual exploitation carried out by a men from such backgrounds in some towns and cities of the midlands and northern England. The source categorically does not support an assertion that "most convicted offenders of child sex grooming in the North and the Midlands have involved British Pakistanis" (even allowing for the appalling grammar), and it is an outright lie to claim that it does. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:57, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump is clearly right insofar as Akhmorpork's edit changes the meaning of the source from a statement about one specific sub-type of child grooming into a statement about child grooming in general. This constitutes a pretty severe distortion, as it makes the proportion of Asian/Pakistani offenders among the entirety of criminals appear larger than the source actually says it is. I would chalk this up to a mere mistake, if it hadn't been for the fact that this exact passage was already discussed a couple of weeks ago, and the same mistake was pointed out back then, so at this point this is no longer so easily excusable. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:47, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Precicesly: this was discussed repeatedly - and Ankhmorpork was one of the most involved in these discussions. This is why I am asking for clarification from Ankhmorpork on whether he thinks his edit reflects the source. If it was an error, he should say so, if he doesn't consider it to be an error - or refuses to actually explain the discrepancy - it only seems reasonable, in the light of previous events, to see it as intentional misrepresentation of material in a highly-controversial topic area. Taken in conjunction with other actions which clearly indicate a battleground mentality, and an unwillingness to work within Wikipedia policy and guidelines, it is difficult to see why Ankhmorpork should be allowed to continue to edit in areas where he clearly has a close emotional envolvement. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:10, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

tangential
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
To be fair, out of anyone involved in this discussion, you have shown more of a battleground mentality than anyone else. So, let's add hypocrisy to your love of questioning competence and baseless accusations. Iamthemuffinman (talk) 21:02, 24 July 2012 (UTC) The irony of your pointing out someone's battleground mentality and then following it with your second sentence isn't lost on me. I'm trying very hard now to think of a reason not to start handing out a bunch of blocks and topic bans. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:23, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Muffinman, I highly suggest that you stop posting to ANI. As a new editor on wikipedia, the last thing you want to do is to be seen as someone who does little else than stir the pot here. If you have a reasonable point to make, make it, otherwise it's wiser to keep your trap shut otherwise, in the best case, you'll find yourself topic banned from posting here and in the worst case, blocked for disruption. Blackmane (talk) 08:52, 25 July 2012 (UTC) I could not care less about what other editors see me as. Nor do I care for their opinions, or yours. I'll post to wherever I feel I want to, thanks. By the way, you might like to alter your tone and work on your civility. The tone of your message is a large reason why I will not pay it much attention. Iamthemuffinman (talk) 11:51, 25 July 2012 (UTC) If you don't care about other editors opinions, then you obviously not here to collaboratively build an encyclopedia. Fasttimes68 (talk) 11:59, 25 July 2012 (UTC) Oh is that right, Fasttimes68? Care to back that up with some evidence? You might not like me posting here, but there's no rule that says I can't, and until such a time when one exists, you're just going to have to get used to my contributions :) Iamthemuffinman (talk) 13:41, 25 July 2012 (UTC) Incivility and bluntness aren't the same thing; sometimes it takes the latter to get the message across. That you don't seem to have an issue with being blunt yourself makes it all the more confusing. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:23, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• Andy is correct about the source. What the source does say is about one specific type of child sexual grooming and not in general (in fact it appears to state the exact opposite). It just isn't in the source and doesn't verify the text. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:28, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Are we seeing a systematic pattern of disruption in this ANI thread?

I have to ask, because it is notable that several of those taking part seem intent on dragging discussions off-topic at every opportunity. I'd cite the section above as an obvious example, but it isn't the only one. Naturally, it isn't up to one individual or another to decide the flow of discussion, but comments like "I'll post to wherever I feel I want to, thanks" from what is almost certainly a throw-away account from a 'new' contributor (who seems very familiar with inner the workings of Wikipedia) appear to me to be intentionally phrased in such a way to distract from discussion of the underlying issues. If this is the case, it appears that ANI may not be the best venue for this discussion, and it might best be continued elsewhere. Clearly, a RfC/U on AnkhMorpork might be a starting point, but I feel we need to address the broader issues in some way too - as Zero suggested above, an extension of 1RR into the subject matter here might make sense, for a start. I think more needs to be done though, to find a way to systemically deal with coordinated POV-pushing and gaming the system in the ways evident in this thread and in relation to the articles concerned. Exactly where and how this should proceed I'm unsure - maybe others (amongst those that actually wish to see an honest and reputable Wikipedia) can offer suggestions? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:49, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Reminder: Civility is a pillar

You guys need to focus on the content of the arguments and not one another. I'm seeing a lot of problems with civility in the above thread, and it isn't simply the fault of one 'side' in the debate. You guys know the rules here, you know that civility and assuming good faith are central tenets. Hopefully this will be enough of a reminder. -- Avanu (talk) 18:48, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

This is ARBPIA territory; most of you are sheltered from it because almost no one dares venture into AE where most of these come up. If this were an AE thread I know exactly what I'd do, but I don't think it would fly too well here. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:38, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Do tell? I am curious now what you're thinking. -- Avanu (talk) 00:43, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd personally issue a warning for Ankhmopork about properly representing sources, advise Shrike that one should be very wary of proposing things with unclean hands, issue either a warning or a 90 day topic ban from ARBPIA articles for Altetendekrabbe (I'd seek opinions from other admins, but I'm leaning towards the latter), and finally issue a notice to all parties that 1. it's extremely unhelpful to pile multiple tangentially related topics into one thread and 2. admins aren't going to make decisions based on who has the highest word count or level of vitriol. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for being a voice of reason. -- Avanu (talk) 05:38, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Would you mind explaining your reasoning, Blade of the Northern Lights? I don't understand why you think that exactly this would be the best way forward. The main topic here is (or rather, was, seeing how it has progressed) Altetendekrabbe's claim that Ankhmorpork was gaming his voluntary restriction, which as far as I can understand, Altetendekrabbe has filed per his unblock conditions. All of the three most involved editors have previous dirt on their hands (yes, I am also involved, but have so far escaped becoming the topic, hopefully not by chance). When Shrike entered this discussion, he immediately proposed that Altetendekrabbe should be topic banned, thereby effectively stopping the discussion of the main topic. The involved parties mostly voted as one would assume they would, and after that more or less retired from the discussion. The previous bright line crossings are all on Altetendekrabbe's hands, but seeing that he accepted voluntary restrictions and self-reverted when notice was given, that shouldn't count too much, should it? When it comes to content-related errors/misconduct points, all evidence points in other directions than Altetendekrabbe's. (As a side note: I don't take all content misrepresentations as evidence of willful distortion, confirmation bias is probably the most common cause. That is an understandable part of human psychology, but still a problem to the encyclopedia). This has been noted in several instances by several editors previously or still uninvolved. Does your assessment mean that you have concluded that Altetendekrabbe is beyond doubt more disruptive than Ankhmorpork and Shrike, or are there other arguments that I fail to discern? If the former is the case, what factors play the decisive role in the distribution of guilt? benjamil ^talk/_edits 12:02, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Given the long and tedious previous discussions of the Times 'child grooming' source, given that Ankhmorpork's recent edit cited to it has been confirmed by multiple contributors (on multiple occasions) to be a clear misrepresentation of the source (the same misrepresentation which led to the earlier discussions - and which Ankh was heavily involved in - unsurprisingly, since he created the article, and was needless to say responsible for adding the misrepresentation in the first place, in the British Pakistanis article), and given the repeated refusal of Ankh to confirm whether he considers his recent edit of Rochdale sex trafficking gang, to be supported by the said source, I see no reason whatsoever to ascribe this to 'conformation bias' - or if it is, it has then to also be taken as an indication that he is incapable of writing material in a neutral manner, and should be topic-banned accordingly. With all due respect to Blade's comments, and acknowledging that my tendency to blow my top/emit vitriol has added to the problems in this thread, I think Blade may have missed a fundamental point. Name-calling, disruption, and even sock-puppetry are clearly all net negatives to the project, and need to be dealt with accordingly, but intentional misrepresentation of sources is on a whole other level: if our articles state (in Wikipedia's voice) that 'most of the bad guys doing A in B are of ethnicity X' when the source actually says something else (in this case 'most of the bad guys doing one form of A in parts of B... - and qualifies even this with statements regarding another form of A where ethnicity Y are the overwhelming majority), we are misleading our readers - and doing it in a highly charged and contentious topic area. Which is worse - annoying the heck out of each other, or presenting false and inflammatory material to our readers as a 'fact', allegedly sourced to one of the country's most prestigious newspapers? I hope that the answer is self evident - this is an encyclopaedia, and our primary responsibility to our readers is to get things right. AnkhMorpork is apparently either unwilling to do this, or unable (per 'confirmation bias') - even after repeated discussions of the particular problem. How many ignored 'warnings' are we willing to issue? Is there any evidence that Ankh takes the slightest bit of notice of such warnings? None whatsoever, from what I can see. Another warning, with no further action, is in effect a licence to continue misleading our readership, and in a most offensive and inflammatory manner. Is this what we want? And if it isn't, what are we going to do about it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:08, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

You are correct that in the end, we need to have accurate articles. However, name-calling and incivility are not just 'net negatives', they prevent us from working together to get those accurate articles. And that is why Civility is a pillar. A lot of people on Wikipedia treat civility as an afterthought or a policy that can be disregarded when other issues are more important. The fact is, we have 5 pillars, and 3 of them relate directly to content, but none of them should be casually disregarded. If you don't know how to be civil here, learn how now. Because the thing that gets in the way of good improvements more than any puppet is people creating a culture where "my edit" is more important than anything else. The unfortunate motto of too many Wikipedians: "Using logic and reason isn’t enough. You have to be a dick to everyone who doesn’t think like you." (from this episode of South Park) -- Avanu (talk) 15:24, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry Avenu. but I don't think that makes sense. The overwhelming evidence is that Ankhmorpork isn't interested in "working together to get those accurate articles". And by the way, I think your endless repetition of that alleged motto is in of itself uncivil. How about actually addressing the substantive issue here (the intentional misrepresentation of sources to our readership), and taking your 'campaign for civility' elsewhere? I've admitted I was wrong to be uncivil. Nobody is saying incivility is right. That isn't under debate. (and BTW, I have at no point suggested that 'my edit is right' in this discussion - I have merely pointed out that Ankh's have been not merely wrong, but intentionally so, in as far as can reasonably be determined) AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:42, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

The overriding factor in my thoughts above is that Altetendekrabbe has had repeated issues with edit warring, whereas I can't find anything like a similar history with Ankhmopork. I'd be willing to consider imposing a similar 90 day ban on Ankhmopork as well, if other admins think it would be beneficial. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:08, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

you are wrong about me. i accepted to abide by the 1-rr restriction. i also accepted to use appropriate administrative venues rather than continue to fight. see my unblock conditions here [101]. i brought the issue of ankhmorpork gaming my 1-rr restriction here, just like i promised i would. edit warring is not the issue here (where have i edit warred after i accepted my restrictions?). to block me for using the ani, like i was advised to by other admins, would be completely unfair. besides, i am not the one who "pile multiple tangentially related topics into one thread.".-- altetendekrabbe  16:31, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that Ankh has been doing his best in very challenging circumstances, in an area fraught with danger. A block would not protect the encyclopedia. More will follow, I have been rather busy lately and need a few hours to collect my thoughts - but that needed a quick response. Egg Centric 19:40, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

View of an uninvolved editor

It pains me to say it, but the only reasonable interpretation of what I'm seeing is that Altetendekrabbe has been consistently edit-warring, and that at having been offered advice by various editors. See e.g. Kuru after a block: "This is the third recent edit warring block" [102]

Since that he was blocked again, unblocked after agreeing 1rr restrictions... then immediately breaking them! Is this diff pugnacious or what? [103]

Even more ironically, it seems that he has been hounding editors himself. In his only edits to the article that Ankh was heavily involved in, it looks like he has followed to Ankh to revert to "his version". They are his only edits to the article or talk page. [104]

Ankh has no history of disruptive editing and a topic ban seems wholly unjustified. What he does have is a history of other editors finding fault with him for perceived bigotry and similar, suppositions that I think reflect more on the accusers than the accused. In the recent edits to the Dhimmi article, he opens this thread [105] and makes his first edit in over a week. This was immediately reverted [106] reverted by Alten...be who claims 'edit-warring' (but doesn't bother actually adding anything to the talk page).

I also feel I need to say something about the Times source. My interpretation (and it's the only fair one under AGF or imo common sense) is that Ankh was improving the sourcing in the article from the Sunday Guardian (lol) to the original Times report and basing the text upon that. The headline of the previous source explicitly said, "Most UK girl child abusers are British Pakistanis" and when reading The Times which said "For more than a decade, child protection experts have identified a repeated pattern of sex offending in towns and cities across northern England and the Midlands involving groups of older men who groom and abuse vulnerable girls aged 11 to 16 after befriending them on the street. Most of the victims are white and most of the convicted offenders are of Pakistani heritage" it is understandable that he thought it said something similar. Several editors in this discussion have also stated that the edit seemed to be supported by the source. Andy, who I must say despite this I still hugely respect as an editor, imo jumped the gun and decided Ankh was a bigot, so took a fairly simple edit discussion to ANI under that faulty assumption. I think if he looks at things again he'll see Ankh is a good faith editor, almost certainly with not a bigoted bone his body. Time, imo, for those two to get off to a fresh start with one another. Egg Centric 21:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Wrong, simply wrong. Ankh added material which had already been discussed, and which had already been shown to be a misrepresentation. As for the rest of your comments, I suggest you actually look at what else Ankh has been up to, and ask yourself if it looks like 'good faith', or POV-pushing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:41, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

on the dhimmi-page, ankh re-added the *same* content that was discussed and rejected weeks ago! this is edit warring. he re-added it again after i had reverted him. opening up a thread, and use it as a cover to add disputed content is not allowed. it takes time to gain consensus...and the burden of proof was on ankh. in addition, it turned out that he was *misrepresenting* the source as well (check andy's first comment in the relevant thread). all of this is clear, if you had taken time to read what really happened.-- altetendekrabbe  21:29, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Let me try to explain this one more time. Ankhmopork clearly had issues with the source in question, but since he doesn't have a history of source misrepresentation outside this article and instance added for clarification at 22:57, 26 July 2012 (UTC) I'm more inclined to simply remind him to be extra careful, especially in a topic area like this. You, on the other hand, are under restrictions (and though you say they were voluntary, you agreed to them to get unblocked) due to repeated issues with edit warring, and you're going back at it again. That's why I think 90 days away from this topic will do you a lot of good; it'll give you time to step back, find some place less controversial (i.e. just about anywhere) to edit, and give you a chance to get a handle on Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:10, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

"since he doesn't have a history of source misrepresentation"? Not only does AnkhMorpork have a history of source misrepresentation, he has even added the same material again after being told by multiple contributors that he is misrepresenting a source - this is the whole point of the discussion regarding the article in The Times about the Rochdale sex abuse case. AnkhMorpork misrepresented the source in the British Pakistanis article (not that it would have belonged there even if it had said what he claimed it did), but even after multiple discussions over the issue, chose to use exactly the same source to make exactly the same false claims in the article about the case. And note that Ankh has refused to clarify whether he now concedes his interpretation was wrong - what is to stop him doing this again? Ridiculous... AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:35, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

And in response to the 'clarification' added by Blade to his post above, can you make clear which 'article and instance' you are referring to: the Dhimmis one, the British Pakistanis one, or the Rochdale sex trafficking gang one? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:05, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Andy, coudl you supply more diffs for me? I try to remain open minded and if you could let me look at say the "five worst 'uns" it would be handy. Ta, Egg Centric 01:00, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I mean outside of the issues specifically brought up in this brouhaha. If there were other examples than the ones already mentioned, that would push me to go for a topic ban. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:23, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

i am simply doing what i was told to do: take the matter to ani or other boards. i am not edit warring, edit warring is not the issue here. to topic ban me will be unfair and against consensus.-- altetendekrabbe  22:17, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I can't understand why EggCentric doesn't touch upon this case [107], thorough as they have been in looking for fault in Altetendekrabbe. And no, the case with the Times article is not unique, see Talk:Dhimmi#Recent_reverts, although in my opinion, the issue is more the choice of sources than their use. And no edit warring? What is this? [108] [109] [110] [111] [112] [113] [114] [115] In my opinion it looks a lot like a protracted edit war to get in the phrase "humiliating and discriminatory" despite that having been thoroughly discussed on the talk page, the point about historical context being noted for the first time several weeks before Ankhmorpork's last talk page entry, in Talk:Dhimmi#Recent_reverts. This pattern of behaviour was also pointed out quite explicitly Talk:Dhimmi#Oy.2C_come_on_guys. This case doesn't just concern "bright line" violations, the issue that was first raised is whether there is a pattern of disruptive editing in Ankhmorpork and Shrike's work. I'm disheartened by what I see as a one-sided approach, especially seeing that there is absolutely no consensus for this in the vote above. benjamil ^talk/_edits 22:59, 26 July 2012 (UTC) updated 08:40, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

As a general question to admins, is "consensus" really necessary for admins to take action? I can't picture that, since there are a few controversial topics that have users strictly either for or against it, and tend to vote the same way on administrator noticeboards, thus creating no consensus in any case. Blade of Northern Lights said above what he feels is the correct response from admins, and was wondering if consensus really is necessary for this. Thanks. [and preferrably, I'd rather an admin respond, and not the editors involved here] --Activism1234 23:10, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Benj, although you have some good points when taken together I tend to disagree. I have to go to bed now but I shall be back in the next... oooh... I dunno... let's say 24 hours with a response. Egg Centric 01:00, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

User:Gun Powder Ma and University of Al-Karaouine‎‎ and associated articles

For some time now, Gun Powder Ma (talk · contribs) has been removing any reference of Islamic universities as having been "universities". The user claims that, despite several sources disputing his view, that they were only "madrasas" and that only European Christian institutions were "universities". This was attempted at University of Al-Karaouine‎‎ in March 2010 (also [116]) and a discussion held then (here) Unsatisfied with the result, the same thing happened in January 2011 (also [117]) with a talk page section opened back then here. Again, unsatisfied with that result, the same thing is happening today, with Gun Powder Ma making three rapid reverts ([118], [119], [120]) to restore his favored version of history, damn what the sources say. Can a user repeatedly attempt to force in his or her favored POV as though it were the only valid position to hold? And if they are unsuccessful the first time around, can they come back many months later and try to edit-war their favored version back into the article? nableezy - 21:22, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

The user is unaware of the full picture: this topic has been thoroughly discussed by many users in 2011-12 on the talk pages of the two relevant articles which define the subject: university and List of oldest universities. The result of these discussion was that a madrasa, Muslim mosque school, is a very different institution from the university which has been a Christian creation of the Middle Ages. In a nutshell: The madrasa has been the institution of higher learning of the Muslim world and the university has been the institution of higher learning of the Christian world.

Why specifically Al-Karaouine‎‎ cannot be considered an university in the strict an historical sense of the term has been discussed for example here and specifically here.

That it is consensus that a Muslim mosque school or madrasa was no university can be gleaned for users unfamiliar with the subject from two things: Both university and List of oldest universities have been regularly cleaned from such edits by an array of users, not just me, but a number of them. University also lists the madrasa issue a minority view which is generous given the shallowness of the claim. In a word, the user is not well informed either about sources nor about current consensual Wikipedia practice. Regards. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, apparently non-European Christian institutions must be cleansed from that page regularly. Last I checked, WP:NPOV was still a blue link. But that distracts from the issue of a user edit-warring in a favored version of an article, after multiple discussions rejected his favored view. That is what brought me to ANI, not the cleansing of any less than lily white institution from that list. nableezy - 22:12, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I was involved in previous discussions about this and there was no consensus at all, it just sort of petered off. But the case for excluding non-Christian institutions was extremely weak - there are certainly good quality sources which include them. Formerip (talk) 14:59, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I recommend closure of this thread. This dispute is about content and needs no immediate administrative action. The closest thing might be the edit-warring, which should be referred to the 3RRN. To my uninvolved eyes, the claims of "NPOV" that do not address GPM's source-based argument here are particularly shallow. Nableezy should familiarize himself with the long and complicated history of disputes at the "university" and "list of oldest universities" pages, and make his fresh case for the inclusion of madrasahs on the article talk page. Shrigley (talk) 18:17, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me, but this isnt "about content". I can deal with the content dispute. The issue that brought me here was GPM made the same disputed edit that gained no support in March 2010, then again in January 2011, and when reverted made two additional reverts. That is a behavioral issue, not a content one. Can a user simply attempt to outlast any opposition to their edits and edit-war in material that failed to gain consensus several times? nableezy - 18:43, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

And this has continued at Morocco, with the user making 3 rapid reverts without anything resembling a consensus for his changes. See 1, 2, and 3. The user has also blatantly misrepresented a source at University of Al-Karaouine‎‎, saying that a source that says that the university became part of the state university system in 1947. supports the claim the the university was founded in 1947 (see here). That is straight forward lie, and a purposeful one at that. Is repeated edit-warring and lying about sources not enough to attract any attention at ANI? nableezy - 18:25, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

As Shrigley has pointed out, the issue is about content and should be sorted out on the appropriate article talk pages. Nableezy seems to wish to pose the content dispute as posing Christian / European universities against Muslim / Asian and African universities. In fact, as I have pointed out several times[121] in similar disputes over the years, the issue is concerned with the distinction between universities, which it is almost universally agreed arose in Europe in the course of the twelfth century from earlier forms of education, which did not have the institutional structure and the consequent organizational and intellectual autonomy that arrived with the medieval European university. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:55, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

That is incredibly dishonest. I am not here about a content dispute. I am here because an editor is attempting to "solve" a content dispute by repeated edit-warring. That is a behavioral dispute, something that is in the scope of this page. The only people that have brought up the "content dispute" here are you, Shrigley, and GPM. nableezy - 20:08, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• As a previously uninvolved editor (though I've had interactions with nableezy in the past I believe), I'm seeing mostly a content issue but one that has non-trivial behavioral problems too (mainly WP:OWN). I'm certainly not seeing the claimed consensus on the issue at the oldest university list. There appear to be only 2-3 people talking about the topic and there is certainly no consensus to be found there: it has been a case of which side reverts the most.

The key question is if "university" in this context is in the modern and more generic sense of "...a center of higher education and study" or specifically means one in the European model. One side is arguing for the historical sense another for the generic sense. Sadly, they are talking past each other and both sides have sources that indicate that they are correct, mainly because the sources don't agree on a definition. Some options would be to A) list both definitions B) just delete the list article (really this is a haven for OR as the exact definitions of founding etc. aren't at all clear) or C) rename the list article to make it clear it is referring to European-style schools. I'd say an RfC on the topic would be the best way forward, ideally with an announcement made pretty broadly (all talk pages of schools that currently claim to be a university maybe?) So for now I don't think there is much for ANI to do. I'd recommend keeping the status quo (keep the list as is, restore university to the Islamic schools' pages) until an RfC is finished. My 2 cents.Hobit (talk) 15:39, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia, right? Logically enough, it has a Western (English-speaking world) bias to it. The history of Western civilization is clear that the university is a Western invention. This in no way minimizes the antiquity nor the academics of Asian and African schools of higher learning. The page is a WP list of limited scope. The scope is Western universities, as the lede makes abundantly clear. As I commented on the talk page, we don't see Italians grousing because Tarquin the Proud isn't on the List of pharaohs. Yopienso (talk) 22:25, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Deepblue1

Deepblue1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This is a follow-up to an issue that was raised here about a month ago. The advice given then was simply to take the issue to the article's talk page to try and reach a consensus, and the article was given temporary protection from IP edits. This user has, in the past 2 months, continued to instigate several needless content disputes on the article Not Your Kind of People, and has demonstrated a complete inability to compromise, abide by the rules of WP:Own, or even have a rational debate. When a consensus he doesn't like is reached on the article's talk page, he uses IP's to continue reverting to the version he does approve of, such as (77.49.254.23, 111.196.174.79, 111.196.174.232, 178.128.76.165). As mentioned, these actions previously resulted in the page being protected. His attitude is often uncivil and he seems completely incapable of any rational debate. At one point he insinuated that another user was a paid advocate for a website, simply because the user added a negative review. He has stated several times that he "will not allow" other users to make their contributions:

• "I will NOT tolerate your attempts to insert your shitty review"
• "GTFO! ... I will not allow that."

His tone when communicating with other users also leaves much to be desired [122], [123], and [124].

He and his IP's were involved in 2 different edit wars [I believe unpunished] in that article in the past 2 months and he shows no sign of stopping. Now that the protection has expired, he has again resorted to using anonymous IP's (178.138.33.54, 93.112.52.162), to avoid any sanction. All IP's are from Romania (his location) and their only contributions to the site are to reinstate his previous version of the article. The chances of two other users from the same country making the exact same edit in less than 24 hours? I think permanent IP protection for the Not Your Kind of People article is necessary. If he wants to continually revert multiple other contributor's work on the article because he doesn't feel like abiding by WP:OWN, he should have to deal with the ramifications of warring with his own account, or even sockpuppeting - instead of playing this game month after month. Or perhaps an article block for the user altogether, if deemed appropriate? Thanks. Homeostasis07 (talk) 01:40, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• Semiprotected the page for a week to stop the apparent IP-socking while this is discussed, for a start. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:35, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• Homeostasis07 is one of the most annoying persons I've ever seen in my life. Why I have a problem with this user? This user has an unhealthy obsession with this particular page. First of all he started to add a lot original research text of Not Your Kind of People page about a supposed Loudness War. He even added his own screenshot with waveforms from a song. His edits were rejected from the page. After a while he insisted to add a very bad review on 10 reviews panel by removing a 5 star review. He succeeded being helped by another user. And now he started to add even more negative content to this page by writing 2 more quotes from bad reviews and adding a waveforms snapshot. Not Your Kind of People is not his own page (WP:OWN) to add EVERYTHING he wants, right? By the way, he didn't reach consensus about his recent edits. If he saw that his edits were reverted why didn't he ask for consensus on Talk Page first? If I remove his non-constructive edits, I'm the bad guy in his opinion. I'm not a vandal because I don't want to see some of his edits here. It's my right to not like his non-constructive edits. I actually tried to keep the page as clean as possible. In my opinion his edits do more damage than help build a neutral wiki page. If there is someone that must be blocked, Homeostasis07 is the one. Deepblue1 (talk) 09:33, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

(More to come soon). Deepblue1 (talk) 10:30, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• Regarding the IPs: not all IPs posted by H07 are mine. I simply wasn't logged when I edited the page. Is that a problem?

• H07 said: "At one point he insinuated that another user was a paid advocate for a website, simply because the user added a negative review." Not any negative review but exactly the SAME review over and over. The reviews panel from the right was already written and it was just fine then he came with that bad review. That made me to believe that he had some interests to push that review with any price. Why so insistent? And why ALWAYS negative reviews? (I admit I'm a Garbage fan) A question for H07: why are you so insistent to add your negative edits?

• Regarding the strong language when I talked to him: he made me angry. A bit of context is needed. He used to write his opinions about the mastering of the album Not Your Kind of People on a board where I'm also member. I had some issues with him here. The admin banned him from that board for his behavior. He acted very uncivil with me and he wants respect? He's not what he seems, that's for sure.

• H07 also said: "His tone when communicating with other users also leaves much to be desired". This is tendentious. Out of context.

• In fact, I think I will also report this user to Wikipedia admins to block him for disruptive editing. He tried to add his suspicious edits and I reverted the page back to normal. That's all I've done with his disruptive edits. He was the vandal, not me. All I want from H07 is to stop sabotaging the page. Thanks. Deepblue1 (talk) 11:33, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

"Regarding the IPs: not all IPs posted by H07 are mine. I simply wasn't logged when I edited the page. Is that a problem?" When you're involved in an editing dispute, it's very much a problem. It gives the impression, rightly or wrongly, that you are editing as an IP to escape scruitiny and to dodge 3RR. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 16:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

His response only serves to illustrate perfectly the reasons why I made my original complaint. In all that mess, he has just admitted to using several different IP addresses to revert edits from different users. His excuse of simply not being logged in doesn't explain how his edits have appeared under 6 different IP's in the space of 3 months. Doesn't an IP only change once every 3 months, on average? He has clearly familiarized himself with enough of Wikipedia's rules in order to avoid sanction, but when it comes to assuming good faith, conversing politely or WP:OWN, those terms might as well not exist. Homeostasis07 (talk) 17:11, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

My own IP address changes every time I break/re-establish my Wi-Fi link, geolocates 300-1,800 miles away, and is highly variable; the numbers are visibly different when the closest connection is unavailable, but such randomization is, in and of itself, not negative. Dru of Id (talk) 17:24, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Wrong Homeostasis07. I have a wireless connection. Also sometimes I use other computer, or my mobile phone or go to an internet cafe (it depends). Ever heard of dynamic IPs? Also your original complaint is quite ridiculous considering your disruptive editing. I guess you already know that page is not your property to add everything that crosses your mind. On your complaint you also added various facts/opinions unrelated to your real complaint (which is: I reverted your edits) to put me in a negative light. Not cool. In fact I blame myself for not complaining here before you. The only thing that I regret is the strong language used. I'd like to know the reason why you insist to add only negative elements to the page. Just because other users didn't undo your latest edits YET, that doesn't mean you're right. It's clear as the light of the day that your edits are biased. Write some positive text for a change. Deepblue1 (talk) 19:18, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• And finally: now that you opened this complaint how we should solve it? Deepblue1 (talk) 19:21, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

If I were an admin, and having read your interactions above alone, I think I know how I'd be tempted to solve it ... dangerouspanda 22:05, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

How? I'm curious. Deepblue1 (talk) 00:13, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Something else I think should mention at this point: Deepblue1 actually used one of these IP's (77.49.254.23) to agree with himself on the article's talk page at one point. The IP used similar language (not swearing, but in their tone and general attitude) in their edit summaries, and also misused the word "destructively" in the same way Deepblue1 once did. So his excuse of simply not being logged in when sometimes editing goes out the window: this is a clear sign of sock-puppeting with IPs? Homeostasis07 (talk) 00:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• That IP is 100% NOT mine. I already mentioned before: not all IPs are mine. It was another user that happened to have the same opinion with me. According to IPLocation "IP address "77.49.254.29" is located @ Greece Messinia Kalamáta". I don't live in Greece and never lived. Plus the style of language used by that user is not my style. So, H07, don't make statements as facts when you have 0 arguments. Thanks. Deepblue1 (talk) 08:43, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• To be clear: I don't know what you try to prove with this complaint H07. The reality is that you're angry that I reverted your edits. This is the #1 reason you wrote all that long complaint, lawyer-style. Not the swearing, not using "hidden" IPs [sic], not "he insinuated that another user was a paid advocate for a website" and whatever. But it's my right to revert your edits as I don't agree with them. I "peppered" also some of the reverts with some swearing hoping that you'll stop. It's your fault that you didn't ask at Talk Page for consensus for your edits. You already know that thing but you didn't do it. Right? I know that you want me to be blocked as a revenge. But if I'm blocked even for 24h I will ask also for your blocking. Because you deserve it. Deepblue1 (talk) 08:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

As far as your IPs are concerned, I've presented whatever evidence I could find and hopefully some sort of solution will be provided by an administrator here soon. Another user (Dru of Id) has already helpfully explained how a user can obtain an IP from "300-1,800 miles away." Your edits [whether through your own account or with your admitted IPs] are constantly disruptive. Instead of ever adding to an article, you delete other users work, citing hypocritical accusations of vandalism. In the simple case of adding a negative review, instead of deleting someone else's work up to 5 times with different IPs, it never even occurred to you simply add something of your own to balance it out? That's practically the Wiki definition of a disruptive editor. I can't recall anyone ever swearing at you, while your foul language is immediate to anyone who is ever "annoying" to you. And every little thing added to an article shouldn't and doesn't require consensus. You just have massive problems accepting that WP:OWN applies to you. Homeostasis07 (talk) 21:26, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• "Instead of ever adding to an article, you delete other users work, citing hypocritical accusations of vandalism." I wrote some content on Wikipedia. I wrote even 90% of an article last year and I opened few pages. I didn't delete any kind of other users work, but the negative-biased ones. With your edits you made that album to appear in a more negative light than positive. That album is one of my favorites released this year so that's the reason why I defended it against exaggerated criticism. I don't consider my reverts as vandalism but some resets of the page in the previous state. It would be vandalism if I added text unrelated to the page. Or malicious text (like you did).
• To be honest I'm sick of all this talk. I have more important things to do. From now I promise that will not revert your edits on Not Your Kind of People page. Hope that will end the issue. Deepblue1 (talk) 22:30, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I suspect you will still be free to edit the page when all this is done, and I have no problem with that. Any user should be free to add whatever constructive content they want to add to an article. You've always been free to add whatever relevant, positive content you wanted to. It's the constant, angrily-toned reverts from multiple IPs I've had a problem with. In order to ensure this stops now, I think it best the article be given an extended period of protection against IP edits. Homeostasis07 (talk) 00:20, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Massive editions made by Diego Grez

User Diego Grez has recently made a massive (automatized?) intervention on articles, templates and categories regarding Chile's regions. I do not see why Aisén region should in every instance be named by its full name Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region (the same is true for O'Higgins Region and other). As far as to my understanding Chilean usage for refering to its regions is commonly the short name of regions. Despite any possible disagreements on this would like to request that all of the abovementioned recent activity of Diego Grez regarding Chilean regions should be reverted until the question has been solved at Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Chile. Chiton (talk) 05:47, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Chiton - ANI is an advanced step for incidents that are particularly bad or for which dispute resolution has already failed. For normal content disagreements, it is always required for you to attempt to resolve it with the other user(s) involved, on their talk pages or the article or topic talk pages.

You might be right on the usage / expansion there, but you need to talk to Diego Grez at least, and possibly others on the talk pages for the Regions of Chile article, and determine what the best course forwards is. If you are fair and diligent about that discussion and you feel a great wrong has occurred and it's not resolved, then it can come here.

You notified Diego, please follow up on that and discuss with him in more depth.

Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 08:15, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Without comment on the current report, it should be noted that Diego Grez [125], formerly MisterWiki [126], has a long and checkered history at AN/I, and was only released from the last of his editing restriction in January. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:07, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Re this - I am certainly aware of Diego / MW's history, it doesn't seem like we have an abuse incident here on first impression, just a failure (so far) to communicate. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Diego Grez has been notified on this discussion and on the naming convention discussion. I don't see why we should wait to undo his massive edits, I can't see where he has proposed these changes and they are far to drastical and many to be regarded as trivial edits not requesting discussion first. Since he is appparently using some sort of autmatized method to edit these articles I will not manually revert all of these (which I otherwise would have done), and therefore I doing this request here. Chiton (talk) 16:20, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Chiton - Please, talk to him about it, and use the article / topic talk pages and/or his talk page. This is not the right place to bring it up unless you try discussing it in those arenas and he refused to discuss it constructively. It's not an incident now, it doesn't require administrator intervention. It just needs discussion. So please, it's your responsibility to discuss it, with him and others on those topical pages. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

If this is not the place which is the place to request a massive revertion? Note that I have already asked him to revert his massive edits. I really think he is messing up articles with overly long official names for regions. Chiton (talk) 22:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Little harm is done in reverting tomorrow, or next week, even if it looks a little ugly or is wrong today (and I don't have any stance on the problem, yet). If there's a problem, we expect and require you to talk to the other user about it. Coming here is a last resort, if and only if you went to talk to them and that failed (they would not respond or were abusive and ignored you), you went to talk to other editors on the article or topic talk pages and those discussions failed or nobody responded, etc.

Administrators aren't here to override users any time there is a content dispute of some sort. We're here for dealing with truly disruptive stuff, users abusing each other, etc. So far there is no evidence anything happened that administrators should intervene in "officially". Again - you asked him once, make more effort to talk to him. Try that for a while ( a few days ). I asked him on his talk page to please constructively and proactively engage with you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:08, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• This will be my only comment here. First of all, I was simply bold by doing that really hard work (believe me) to move categories, move articles, replace instances of the real, and official names of the regions. Secondly, Chiton failed to talk to me before this "incident". I don't believe ANI is the correct instance to solve problems like this. It seems to me rather a content dispute, isn't it? And thirdly, and finally, I'll make the point as to why did I move the regions articles and categories. The official names of the regions I moved are "Arica y Parinacota", "Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins", "La Araucanía", "Bío Bío" (as used in Government websites, more often than other spellings, including "Bio-Bío", "Biobío", "Bio Bio", "Bío-Bío", and so on.), "Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo" (original title was "Aisén", which was anyway wrong, as "Aysén" is more popularly used in Chile - consider too the case of "Coihaique", which the municipal government itself does not use. Isn't that what is called in Spanish "arcaísmo" or something?), and "Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena". I wouldn't have done all of this if it wasn't necessary. Would you spend a whole afternoon clicking a button? I don't think you would. And if I did it, it was for the reasons I aforementioned. Want references or something? I can do that, but not right now. Diego Grez (talk) 02:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
  • @DG: Just one question regarding a subject I know nothing about: Are there English-language common names for these regions? Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:46, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

No, there aren't. However, the following links may seem interesting to you: English websites (and even journals) which make use of the regions names I have proposed.

• Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo: A company which works at the region. "... will be located in the Aysén municipal district of the Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region and will provide Chile ..." - Chilean journal of agricultural research versión On-line ISSN 0718-5839 "...murta has been reported from the Maule Region to Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region (Seguel and Torralbo, 2004)..." (Note: Aysén Region of General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo is also used.)
• Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Region: Chilean journal of agricultural research versión ISSN 0718-5839 "In the dryland of the Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Region in Chile, most farmers rely..." Merrian Webster Geographical Dictionary (or something) - Page 977. "Rancagua. City of Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Region." Chile, a country study. "...the provinces of San Felipe de Aconcagua, Colchagua and Valparaíso, as well as Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Region and...."
• Bío Bío Region: Towards Life Cycle Sustainability Management "...and at Talcahuano port (Bio Bio region)..." The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Volume 1. "...and the banks of the Río Colorado and sold in the Bío Bío region." [http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/1/59/43694606.pdf "The Bío Bío region presents a diversified economic structure that has..."
• Arica y Parinacota Region As the region is kind of "new", there are no book references which use "Arica y Parinacota Region". World Monuments Fund "However, San Pedro de Esquiña, like many other churches in the Arica y Parinacota region, is at risk." Alto Andino Nature Tours (doubt it is a reliable source, but meh) "in the transverse valleys of the Region of Arica y Parinacota (Region 15)." UNESCO "...several women’s public organizations and agencies from the Chilean region of Arica y Parinacota."
• Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena Region: Yahoo! Education "Punta Arenas, city (1990 est. pop. 120,000), capital of Magallanes y La Antartica Chilena region" InfoGlobe "The town of Punta Arenas is often tourists´destination (capital of Magallanes y la Antartica Chilena Region)."

That might be enough. Diego Grez (talk) 18:10, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I just wanted to make certain that WP:COMMONNAME was not applicable in this instance. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:37, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I know nothing about the names of the regions of Chile, but I can observe it's quite credible that in most contexts, a region might be referred to by a common shortening of its name rather than the full official name. After all, for example, the full name of Rhode Island in the United States is "the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations," but we wouldn't write in an article "Jones was born in 1973 in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations," or list Brown University in the category "colleges and universities in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." I suspect that this may be a similar situation, where common sense and common usage govern whether in a given context the longer-form or shorter-form name ought to be used. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:57, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

You are all invited to continue the discussion on the names of Chilean regions at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Chilean regions. However as the dispute last I would like to point out that Mr.wiki/Diego Grez massive edits should be reverted until the dispute has been solved. -Chiton (talk) 04:08, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I have not used the username MisterWiki for years now. Thank you. Diego Grez (talk) 15:26, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Merger of "Metrication of British transport" into "Metrication in the United Kingdom"

Would an administrator please close this merger proposal (Discussion here) and (initialisation here). The proposer of this merger is User:Pother who is now banned. Other editors who partipated are myself (Oppose), user:Kahastok (Support) and User:Ornaith (Support, but now also banned). The discussion leading up to the banning is [127].

May I draw to attention that the earlier deletion proposal was made by user:Kahastok, with Pother and Ornaith supporting the deletion proposal.

Martinvl (talk) 16:58, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

It seems that the evidence that they are both socks of DeFacto is contested. Secretlondon (talk) 17:44, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

They were both blocked by the checkuser AGK after he reconsidered his CU results.--Atlan (talk) 07:01, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Would somebody please close the merge request? Martinvl (talk) 06:29, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Danceking5

Hi all. The incident I require some help on is as follows:

• I noticed yesterday that the Tiësto article had been literally covered by {{Fact}} templates, including many places I would consider inappropriate.
• Looking at the history, I found it was completed by User:Danceking5, and after checking out their contributions, found the same on the Paul Oakenfold article.
• I then notified the user that their additions were inappropriate and reverted both articles to the version before their edits (1, 2)
• This morning I find that, not only have they reverted both, but they've simply ignored my (I feel, reasonable) talk page discussion and added a message to the talk pages of both articles. (Talk:Paul Oakenfold#Monitor This Guy & Talk:Tiësto#Gossip Column - Citation Request)

I would kinda like those messages removed, as I don't think they're fair, but am reluctant to do so myself. I'm also not sure how to respond given the attitude of this user... Some help would be appreciated! Some links:

• Nikthestoned (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Danceking5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Cheers, Nikthestoned 08:25, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Wow. That page is basically unreadable due to the number of Fact tags, many in entirely inappropriate places. I've reverted the disruptive edits, and warned the user (and directed them to the relevant portion of policy saying "It must be possible to attribute all information in Wikipedia to reliable, published sources that are appropriate for the content in question. However, in practice it is only necessary to provide inline citations for quotations and for any information that has been challenged or that is likely to be challenged.[1]"⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 10:37, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for backing me up Dan; ace username also! Any chance you could remove the inappropriate talk page notices also? I don't feel my edits deserve me being "Monitored", as per Danceking5s request on both talk pages... Nikthestoned 10:51, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

It's really difficult to justify removing someone else's talk page comments, even when they're wrong. Better to just ignore them. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 10:53, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, shall do so; thanks again! Nikthestoned 10:56, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

And upon looking further User:Danceking5 has in fact been doing this across all sorts of articles beyond those two. Probably thousands of inappropriate templates at this point. I am rolling back where I can. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 11:00, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah yes - I missed those yesterday as they were done in one massive edit... Nikthestoned 11:25, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• I've added a note on his talk page telling him this is WP:POINTy and disruptive and strongly advising him to not continue. I will assume that if he doesn't, he will earn a short block while others clean up his mess. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 16:43, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Dennis! Nikthestoned 08:18, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

In response to the efforts by all of you:

1. The term 'overuse' of citation request is subjective. 2. The broadcasting of Original Research is more dangerous than having what you call excessive inline citation requests. I can assure you that the appearance of a page looking bad or not very legible, is far less of a risk than the potential fallout that may occur by leaving it the way it was. I am not talking about dangerous to the person creating it (although this could be a possibility too), but dangerous to the DJ himself. 3. The time frame that OR has stood standing does not in fact make it published or acceptable for publication. Wikipedia is not a publisher. 4. You could potentially be creating civil liabilities for the DJs in question, as well as yourselves by ganging up (note that you can only affect change if a group of you work together - as one of you alone is too small a voice. Also note that you are not a court of law, and are executing decisions without allowing defense of your claims. For example do you guys work for these DJs, or their agents, we'd like to know?) to effect change, for perfectly legitimate challenges to edits. If nobody in the world could challenge original research, then Wikipedia would in fact become a first hand publisher. If this happened, then Wikipedia or the DJs now become liable for the 'truth defense' in a court of law. I am warning you guys, that the statute of limitations starts to run from when the tort was first discovered, so if you want to gang up to try and create a tort on yourselves or the DJs, be prepared to one day down the line accept responsibility for the actions that took place in July of 2012. There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone challenging original research, and 2 months allowed for editors to add the citation is more than adequate. We are even more than happy to allow more time if needed but the requests should stand. There is also absolutely nothing wrong with adding MULTIPLE requests at once. Swatjester, your quote to verifiability is noted, but understand that the Original Research rule is a legal rule that Wikipedia abides by for a reason. This Original Research rule trumps your claim that SOME original research should be allowed to stand. Note from this posting, today, on July 27 of 2012, that the multiple requests for citations equates to information that we are CHALLENGING, each and every request, on each and every page the requests were added to in the month of July 2012. Swatjester, understand that within the statute of limitations, we have the means to locate and find who you are, and serve a statement of claim if we deem you are working in the interest of the DJ, or even your own personal emotions. Currently there are a small group of lawyers analyzing a potential civil case. The first step to avoiding this tort is to take measures necessary to prevent the causes of action from propagating. Wikipedia is a highly useful resource to the world, but a small group of business interests (possibly yourselves) could potentially cause damage to certain parties, without you even knowing it. Please try and see all angles of this case before taking actions that might come back to haunt you down the road. 2 Years clock starts running from today.Danceking5 (talk) 01:13, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Editor consistently making bad faith assumptions

The editor User:Bittergrey appears to be making a number of bad faith allegations against editors including me. Initially he created this WQA request: [128] and so I responded. After responding to the initial posts, I saw later that a number of involved editors had commented: I asked on IRC what would be the best course of action and an admin (Fluffernutter) responded. She felt the issue couldn't be solved at WQA. I closed the thread and asked participants to take things to ANI if they wished. Most participants moved on except BitterGrey, who has kept posting bad faith assumptions about me. "... IRWolfie has a long pattern of taking WLU's side in these matters", "Oh, and the trick of tagging open issues closed to avoid discussion is getting old[17][18]. Didn't work there either". I then manually archived the closed discussion and posted on his talk page: [129]. The talk page contains a later post which also makes bad faith assumptions against me: "He seems to believe that it is OK for WLU and WAID to make cracks about my sexuality as part of ongoing ad hominem attacks."

He also appears to be hinting that other editors are sock puppeting: "WLU uses the British spelling, as did the person who briefly but energetically supported him at the article. It would seem that a lot of editors taking WLU's side use the British spellings. What are the odds". Also [130] (my interactions with both editors are minimal: [131], [132]) IRWolfie- (talk) 10:03, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

That's a pretty consistent pattern in my experience - anyone who disagrees with Bittergrey's opinion, where even the most tenuous connection can be found and no matter how reasonable the interpretation, is classified as "too involved" to give an opinion and is ignored. See for instance, the reply to Slp1 (talk · contribs)'s comments at talk:paraphilic infantilism [133] and SPI [134]. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:10, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• Although I think Bittergrey should reconsider his approach, IRWolfie has not helped this situation (throws into question whether he should be responding to WQAs). IRWolfie had no good reason to be manually archiving that thread at the time at which he did, and some of the statements he has made during the course of the WQA and at Bittergrey's user talk page ("Do not tell me what I need to do", "Grind your axe elsewhere", etc) acts to aggravate rather than resolves disputes. On the face of it, I think such escalation was unnecessary, and the concern/frustration Bittergrey expressed on his user talk page about IRWolfie's role in forcefully archiving the thread does appear to be justified. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:57, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I made no comments on Bittegreys user talk page during the course of the WQA. Your reading of the order of events is incorrect. Those comments were made days after I had closed the WQA section since it required somewhere like ANI to resolved the dispute, and after I had archived it and several days after most other editors had moved on bar Bittergrey. Also manually archiving is acceptable and mentioned as part of the volunteer instructions when using {{nwqa}}. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:07, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Also note that I had already informed Bittergrey and all editors in the dispute several times that the appropriate venue was ANI. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:18, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Right, so what you worded as a demand - "Do not make baseless accusations against me, or involve me in your dispute. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:06, 20 July 2012 (UTC)" - was made several days after the WQA was it? If not, then perhaps your general approach (both during and after WQAs) is what is in dire need of improvement. You are not an arbiter; if others think it should go to ANI, they too will pipe up or close it as appropriate. Manual archiving is used in cases where a thread has died down altogether (eg for 4 days without any activity), and threads are being marked with tags after this time - in those cases, it makes no sense to leave threads open for an additional 5 days. This was certainly not such a case, and you've given no argument to suggest you have helped resolve this dispute by manually archiving the thread. Aggravating disputes in this way undermines the very purpose of Wikipedia dispute resolution (WQA); you would be better advised to take the advice on board instead of buying yourself a more formal trout. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:51, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I archived the talk four days after asking all editors to take the issues to ANI if the editors wished: every editor did stop and move on bar Bittergrey. It is clear that a dispute of this sort can't be resolved at WQA and all other editors had moved on. It was four days after this that I archived the discussion because Bittergreys comments were focussed exclusively on me, and starting to make demands about what I should do, (after he made more bad faith assumptions about me). I felt a comment on Bittergreys talkpage was appropriate so as to provide my reasoning and make any further points. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:31, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

If you wanted to make further points on his talk page, then rather than make the comments that you did on 23 July at WQA, you should have responded directly on his talk page. The complainant will either take the feedback you have given on board, wait for more feedback before it dies a natural death, or keep it going - in the latter scenario, others will pipe up to tell him he should give it a rest (and if there are still issues, at the worst the thread will be hatted). In this case, you should have known when to let it be instead of forcefully archiving it in response to his last comment. You will note I said any activity - that especially includes activity from the person initiating the WQA. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:19, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Ncmvocalist, a review of BG's timing and order of contributions might be illuminating, specifically the ones made to Wikipedia space for the month of July [135]. More simple might be a review of the sections involved at WQA and WT:MED. I don't think any of the diffs listed as "personal attacks" at WQA are anything of the sort, and Bittergrey's attempt to co-opt an unrelated discussion at WT:MED into an attack on me (which I removed, leading to the WQA) suggests that the interest is less in writing a good page on DID and more related to a personal grudge against me. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:38, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

There are two issues here - one is the issues with Bittergrey's approach which was clearly already part of a dispute, and the other is IRWolfie's approach during attempts at dispute resolution. The latter has contributed to the escalation here (which is in part why IRWolfie has initiated this thread), so that's where I have started. I have some comments to make about Bittergrey's approach too, but I am waiting to see what he says here first before continuing with those. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:51, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment I'd agree that BitterGrey's approach to dispute resolution and failure to assume good faith is deeply wanting. Apparently this has gone on for years in conflicts with different editors (see this "final" warning given in 2009), but recently has focussed on User:WLU and the article Paraphilic infantilism. There have been multiple posts to various boards including two SPI reports (closed as a "fishing expedition" [136] though insinuations continue -direct and indirect- that the editor "got away with it" [137][138][139]). Other recent forums include Wikiquette assistance (closed as inappropriate for that forum)[140] and Wikiproject:Medicine [141], which included deletions of personal attacks made by BG by User:Colin.[142][143]. In each case, editors who disagree with Bittergrey are said to be biased, hounding him or part of a gang/mob [144][145][146] The last straw in my view has been an inappropriate and ridiculous insinuation that respected medical editor User:Colin-who removed the posts about gangs and mobs, but otherwise has had no involvement in the dispute-is somehow linked to WLU (a sockpuppet?) because they both spell "behaviour" the same way [147].

A final thing. BitterGrey makes repeated claims that editors make personal attacks and slurs about his sexuality. For example, this is described "ad hominem attack"[148]. As noted by User:WhatamIdoing here, BG self-discloses on his WP userpage as the owner of a website about Paraphilic Infantilism. Mentioning this fact in relevant contexts is in not an ad hominem attack nor a slur "unless you believe that having an apparently harmless paraphilia is somehow dirty or shameful"-as WAID puts it very well. Slp1 (talk) 13:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Note that on the website BG is the webmaster of, there's a page explicitly stating BG is the name of a practicing infantilist, and a link there on the front page of the understanding.infantilism website. So basically from BG's wikpedia page, it's two very short, very obvious clicks to get to a public disclosure about his sexual identity. It's not like it's hidden and you have to dig for it. So claiming that pointing this out is a personal attack is kinda absurd, akin to saying I'm allowed to say I am bald, but anyone else doing so is insulting me. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 14:10, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

BG is a practicing paraphilic infantilist and an activist for a particular view of the practice that seems at odds with the academic view. They have been allowed to edit as they see fit here for a long time without any consideration of whether this is wise. If they were a PR person for a corporation or a sports star they would have been booted long ago. In practice, wikipedia makes a distinction between paid and unpaid activism that I've never been able to understand. It's another systemic failure.Bali ultimate (talk) 14:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• If Bittergrey repeats allegations that users are socks where the user has been cleared at SPI, or where no SPI has ever been filed, I'll quite cheerfully block him for WP:NPA. Editors cannot work in that environment Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:31, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• I'll echo the other editors here regarding BG's behavior. In the past I've tried to mediate/offer advice to BG and explain to him why his behavior was problematic but of course I was part of WLU's cabal so there was no need to take me seriously. I eventually gave up in frustration when he was unable to understand that, for whatever WLU's supposed shortcommings, his behavior was an entirely different topic than BG's behavior. Since this seems to be an ongoing problem with no end in sight, and now that I'm aware of BG's COI, I would support a topic ban of BG from infantilism pages, broadly construed. Otherwise I think we're going to end up back here in a few months.

As Elen says above me, "Editors cannot work in that environment," but the problematic behavior goes beyond simple SP accusations. Also note that in the SPI that BG filed about WLU there is some disturbing behavior that I would describe as paranoid and a fishing expedition. At one point BG tried to tie User:Ludwigs2(!) to the IP accounts because at some point last year he had edited the PI page and supported WLU's position. Take a look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/WLU/Archive for more. Sædon^talk 20:18, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Do we do interaction bans here? I'd be very happy with a mutual interaction ban, and am perfectly happy if that means I am prevented from editing paraphilic infantilism ever again. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 21:24, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

This filing is an act of WP:KETTLE, since IRWolfie is guilty of many of his own bad faith assumptions. For example, "the person who briefly but energetically supported" WLU later changed her mind and, in her last relevant edit, reverted him. She was clearly not a sockpuppet. Had IRWolfie asked, I would have told him so. IRWolfie's interpretation of my comment as an accusation of sockpuppetry was itself an assumption in bad faith.

The reason I did not consider taking WLU's harassment of me to ANI is that I already had.

As for WLU accepting interaction bans, I'll point out that WLU is the one who has been hounding me across Wikipedia for over a year. He followed me to every article that we've had conflicts at, and to every article talk page that we've had conflicts at. He's always had the option of simply leaving me alone.

WLU knows that Wikipedia has interaction bans - he has received one[149] from arbcom that seems to be the archetype of interactions bans[150].

I'd like to ask IRWolfie, SP1, Bali ultimate, and Sædon to concede that they are involved, at least in that they've taken WLU's side against me previously. If they deny this, I can go through and gather diffs.

Regarding infantilism, in this context I am not an infantilist. Here is why: Outside of Wikipedia, infantilism is defined by widely accepted authorities and publications such as the DSM as either a type of masochism or its own separate condition. WLU fought to remove the DSM, and to replace it with a dozen citations to three publications, all from a cluster of coworkers at one Canadian facility, CAMH. Two of the three never use the term 'infantilism', and one isn't even peer-reviewed. Only one of these sources uses the term infantilism at all, and then only on one page. It describes infantilism as a form of pedophilia. ( The quality of that source is such that all citations of it on Wikipedia are due to either WLU or its author. No independent sources have been offered to support this fringe theory. WLU fought to have the pedophilia description in the article from August to Dec 6th. The representation changed on Dec 6th. The fringe sources are still cited, but are misrepresented. ) I am not a pedophile, so in the context of the current Wikipedia, I am not an infantilist.

However, WLU and friends have called me so, many times([151][152][153][154]...) They did so not to qualify me as an expert, but to disregard me as a criminal queer - a personal, ad homien attack repeated many times in multiple locations on Wikipedia. Generally, as here, infantilism wasn't even the issue being discussed. The facts didn't support his/their position, so poisoning the well was necessary.

Now it is time to go to bed: I'm a volunteer, and have to make my living with an unrelated, full-time job. BitterGrey (talk) 06:37, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I have not taken anyones "side" and still haven't. I have previously asked you on another noticeboard (FTN) not to report on the behaviour of other editors at that noticeboard for a different incident, a comment which you thanked me for: Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_29#Paraphilic_infantilism_.28shorter.29. I don't have the sort of memory to remember small incidents like that and so I forgot about it. Somehow you have twisted this comment into me being a supporter of one side or another. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:27, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I am not WP:INVOLVED per the definition. My only involvement in this issue to provide evidence in the SPI investigation you started- which was closed as a "fishing expedition" [155], and later to remove comments from an article talkpage where you repeated the same allegations after the SPI had been closed.[156][157], something that arbitrator User:Elen of the Roads has said she will block you for if you do it again. Oh yes, and I commented on your talkpage about the inappropriateness of your behaviour, and responded to your amazing allegation that I might have a financial relationship with WLU based on my use of the word "checks" in a post.[158] A final observation: you are very inclined to use strawman arguments. The current Paraphilic infantilism article makes it crystal clear multiple times, including in the lead, that PI is not paedophilia, and that the two are distinct entities. Your comment "I am not a pedophile, so in the context of the current Wikipedia, I am not an infantilist" is therefore a total non-sequitur, and going from that misapprehension to accusing people of personal attacks and slurs for mentioning your self-disclosed status are chilling and inappropriate. Most particularly when editors have been repeatedly to pointed out that they agree that PI is not pedophlilia and there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a paraphilic infantilist.Some e.g.s [159] [160] --Slp1 (talk) 14:34, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

BitterGrey, you need to stop responding to criticisms of your behaviour by commenting on the behaviour of others. Take the criticisms and demonstrate that you accept you've done something wrong and won't do it again. For example, there are differences between (1) an editor agreeing with aspects of another editors points; (2) taking that editor's side in an argument; (3) being part of that editors gang; and (4) those editors forming a mob against another editor. You've gone from 1 to 4 without justification or evidence. You claim editors are part of someone's gang as a way of dismissing that editor's comments because of who they are rather than because of what the comments say. Such behaviour is never acceptable on WP. I'm still waiting on an apology from you on this. Can you explain what you meant by "It would seem that a lot of editors taking WLU's side use the British spellings. What are the odds?". I'm failing to see any reasonable interpretation of this apart from some accusation of sock/meat puppetry. What's your innocent explanation? Can you explain how my removal of your personal attack comments on a talk page can be construed as "taking WLU's side" ((1) above) and how that makes me part of WLU's "gang" ((3) above)? In your response to these questions, please don't comment on anyone else. I just want to know how you think your statements are justified, and if you accept they are not, then I'd like an apology. Thanks. Colin°^Talk 10:01, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Bittergrey, who is the person you claim "briefly but energetically supported me" but later reverted me? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:04, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Re WLU: That would be FiachraByrne, who, in addition to reverting WLU's edits to her draft[161], didn't rejoin WLU against me when invited to do so[162]. While her initial motivations might not have been the best, her style was different from the start - unlike WLU, she contributed new sources and showed an indication of having read them. (For contrast:[163])

Re Colin: The accusation of FiachraByrne being a sockpuppet was read into what I wrote by IRWolfie, as a bad faith assumption. I merely commented about her spelling. If you think I am in error, that she uses the US Spelling, feel free to present diffs. Also, deleting my comments[164] as a way to silence me is generally not a good way to demonstrate neutrality. BitterGrey (talk) 14:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Why are you treating a revert to a user subpage as if it expressed a preference for a main page? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 14:10, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure if that is particularly relevant, or if the assumptions of bad faith are quite there as made out in the currently framed ANI. More care was needed when handling this situation as I said above (and if Colin had initiated this thread, I would have made some comments here in relation to his role in this, but I think we need to all move forward rather than dwelling on the handling of this much more). This seems to come down to Bittergrey needing to take more care to avoid giving the impression (if he is not actually) misusing talk page(s) (specifically his user talk page). In fact, I think BitterGrey would be better advised to remove the comments/threads on his user talk page which prompted this ANI, and agree to avoid making comments/threads like that in future. I also think all users who are even peripherally involved in this set of disputes need to make a greater effort to collaborate (and improve the project in accordance with its policies and guidelines); some form of mediation may be useful here, but if that also does not work or the parties are unwilling to go through that, interaction bans may need to be imposed. It is entirely possible that there are other conduct concerns concerning BitterGrey which warrant examination and that topic restrictions are not unreasonable - but I think a more appropriate venue is RfC/U if that wants to be pursued. I don't think this is ripe for any other intervention at this stage. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:00, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Bittergrey, you have completely failed to answer my questions. You were not "merely commenting on [someone's] spelling". Add once again mischaracterised other folk by claiming my edit was "a way to silence [you]". If you are unable (deliberately or otherwise) to engage in a useful interaction with other editors on WP, then I don't really see much purpose in allowing you to edit here. It seems to me you are just wasting everyone's time. Colin°^Talk 15:26, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

RFC/U might be a way forward, though in my experience they don't usually accomplish much and I think BG would pretty much ignore any critical input or suggestions. Based on my quite extensive experience with BG, nearly everything is approached as a battleground rather than a discussion. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:37, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Even where RfC/U can't accomplish much by itself, that is usually as there is no willingness to consider feedback by at least one party - but even then, that does not mean such dispute resolution is totally useless (as it can help demonstrate that the situation has gone to the next stage where other intervention is helpful). Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:18, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Edit warring: Is it time to start a new debate regarding Talk:Gdansk/Vote?

As this AN3 thread entails, there seems to be an issue regarding the vote, which was done 7 years ago. As consensus can change, it may be time to revisit the issue. Note: I'm completely uninvolved in this argument, merely visiting this as a bystander. Additional note: I know that this may not be the best forum to revisit the argument, but the underlying issue is still there, however. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 09:41, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• Volunteer Marek, Illraute, Estlandia , as well as Piotrus - all editors that commented at the AN3 thread - are notified. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 09:51, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• While the Gdanzig vote is in some ways an oddity from today's point of view (a straight vote determining naming usage), I don't think the consensus on the naming of Gdanzig really has changed. The compromise is easily acceptable to most German and Polish editors. Before the content decision is revisited, I would like to see examples how it does not work. (I am happy to believe that editors exist who turn Wikipedia into a WP:BATTLEGROUND over this, but that is a conduct issue, not an issue with the ruling of the Gdanzig vote). —Kusma (t·c) 10:08, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• Largely irrelevant is it not? Why would the vote on Gdanzig be binding anywhere else on Wikipedia? At best its a precedent for compromise. It certainly doesnt over-rule 3R and the other policies/guidelines. Trouts all round for edit-warring anyway. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:29, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

  There are various ArbCom rulings that contain binding decisions and exceptions to ordinary editing practices. The voting on conventions reminds me of Wikipedia:State route naming conventions poll, which was encouraged in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways. I don't know if we had any recent large-scale debates of this type, but essentially you'd expect people to follow the result of a formal RfC. —Kusma (t·c) 11:58, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

  The "modern" approach would probably be discretionary sanctions as imposed in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Senkaku Islands. It may be better to just block edit warriors instead of giving 3RR exceptions. Still, the question is what best keeps the peace in this German/Polish mess. —Kusma (t·c) 12:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Gdansk/Vote is from 2005 and it is not marked as being a policy page. It is not clear whether the section announcing that certain edits are exempt from WP:3RR can be viewed as policy. The main WP:Edit warring policy does not say anything about Gdansk. If a single editor were to embark on a project of undoing names consistent with the Gdansk vote, their edits would fall under WP:ARBEE. This might expose them to discretionary sanctions, which are well-established under current policy. If further disputes about Gdansk-related names were to arise, in my opinion it is better to take them to WP:Arbitration enforcement for review than to expect that a Gdansk exemption to 3RR would be accepted at WP:AN3. EdJohnston (talk) 14:17, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I think Ed has a point about that 3RR exemption. It may have been useful at the time, as a quick and dirty measure to aid rapid enforcement of the rules when they were new, but we should make clear that the exemption is now deprecated. By the way, there's an interesting parallel to another more recent case where a naming convention was buttressed with a tweak to the reverting rules: ARBMAC2. But here it's not 3RR that is being waived; there's a general 1RR for naming-related lameness edits, with edits that serve to restore an status quo unambiguously mandated by the community-endorsed naming rules being exempted from the 1RR, but not from 3RR. In the Macedonian case that's been fairly successful and is still working well, and it might work well for EE too, if it weren't for the fact that in many of the recent naming lameness cases where people have invoked Gdanzskxzigkc, editors on both sides were claiming the rule favoured their side. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• Gdanzig vote works relatively well, although I think it due to simple luck - the fact that that the two main revert warriors dancing around it and never creating any real content (Matthead (talk · contribs) and Space Cadet (talk · contribs)) got topic banned (from Poland and German shared history topics), and another editor associated with the area, MyMoloboaccount (talk · contribs), actually got a hint after a series of blocks and also moved away from regular reverting; some others I can think of became simply inactive. Unfortunately, this could last only as long as it took for another similar and active user to (re?)appear; personally I think that IIIraute (talk · contribs) contributions to that area of Wikipedia add nothing but reverts, but knowing that it took several years for Matthead and SC to get their topic bans, I don't expect anything to change here till at least 2015 and 5th or 6th ANI discussion involving that user.
• Now, regarding the Gdanzig vote itself... it was probably good for its time, as I think it stopped a number of edit wars, but even so, this could have been handled back then by some enforcement of the 3RR rule. 3RR rule exited back then, but we were just getting into the habit of enforcing it, as far as I can tell the 3RR noticeboard was created around the same time that Gdanzig vote was. Since then we have also developed a more general WP:NCGN. It should be enough, particularly considering that the Danzig vote was unfair from the start. Consider this: Germany has twice as much population as Poland, and there have always been more active German Wikipedians than Polish. I am pretty sure that the results of the vote were significantly affected by this, and as usual, I expect that the interest from general (non-Polish, non-German) community was not sufficient to outweigh the fact that majority of voters came from the two affected countries. I think the Gdanzig vote should be repeated, excluding editors from those two countries, or simply discarded; WP:NCGN is good enough for the rest of Wikipedia, why not for Polish-German topics? (Also, NCGN does not have the "revert exemption", which is hardly needed for such situations, 3RR has actually been enough to deal with the issue in all other situations).
• So, to sum up, I suggest that we retire Gdanzig vote, and let our regular policies (NCGN and 3RR) deal with anything that creeps up. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:22, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
• It seems the simple solution is to conduct a new RFC on the talk page to decide if the old Vote is still binding. Monty₈₄₅ 14:40, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

"...the two main revert warriors dancing around it and never creating any real content (Matthead (talk · contribs) and Space Cadet (talk · contribs))..."

Hm, you really can't compare the user Space Cadet with Matthead. When in 2009 I developped a first interest in various Wikipedia articles, I admired Matthead's large detail knowledge in many articles. At that time he apparantly was one of Wikipedia's top contributors. (I don't would be always of the same opinion in the talks.) A quick look, which pages he had created, stops at the possible maximum of 100 articles. For Wikipedia it's a loss, that such able editors increasingly loose interest. (As a valuable contributor you should know it.) But as a former member of the EEML list - in this case you had been desysopped and blocked - you can hardly pretend to be a neutral party. According to M.s remarks, tactics to get him and others unliked editors blocked, were one of the topics of the EEML protocols.

Regarding the Gdansk vote: It was a reasonable compromise and stopped largely chaotic edit wars. But this is only possible, when it is followed.Henrig (talk) 17:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

If the intention is to keep the decision then I would agree, it may be good to have a separate discussion confirming each of the main points. IRWolfie- (talk) 17:17, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, generally speaking the Gdansikz vote is a sensible, albeit imperfect, compromise. And it works pretty well when people apply it in good faith with common sense. Problem is that sometimes they don't. This usually happens in two cases:
  1. Applying the vote over literally in situations where it's clearly not meant to apply. Here are some examples [165] [166] (it's not quite as bad as having "Gdańsk (Danzig) Lech Wałęsa Airport" but the gist is the same). And there's more like this. Here it's really just the mindlessness that annoys, though the "territory marking" can get irritating too.
  2. Using the vote as an excuse for edit warring and reverting, in particular the erroneous and self serving belief that the vote gives immunity from the 3RR rule. As Magog the Ogre has pointed out, the Vote is an agreement between editors, 3RR is policy.

Hence overall I think the vote should be treated as "suggestions" not some kind of absolute. Common sense should trump mindless applications of the vote. Standard naming policy should apply. And it shouldn't be used as an excuse or a pretext for generally disruptive edits and reverts.VolunteerMarek 17:37, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• I have no actual opinion on the matter at issue & no intention of participating in any vote, but if we have a workable solution on anything involving ethnic conflict, or naming generally, it should not lightly be discarded. It is difficult enough to come to a workable conclusion about such issues once; having to do it repeatedly encourage attempts from one side or other to break consensus. The few naming disputes, the more time & energy for substantive contributions. The key to DR in general is getting it to stick. DGG ( talk ) 23:20, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• I support the solution proposed by Future Perfect at Sunrise. Talk:Gdansk/Vote does not work. It never did. To claim that it did, simply because it has been around for so long, would be a misrepresentation of fact. Productive editors have been driven up the wall and permabanned because of it. That's how the rule was kept alive. It is still being used by problem users to piss off their own perceived and imagined enemies in totally unrelated matters, often against basic common sense.[167] Poeticbent talk 03:40, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

User:Ghajinidetails

Ghajinidetails (talk · contribs)

I became involved with this user after he/she made several sweeping changes to cricketer articles which attracted the attention of the cricket Wikiproject. They were made without discussion and went against established consensus and were reverted when the user seemed unable to enter into discussion with us. His user talk page and WT:CRIC hold records of the discussion. I have since then been keeping an eye on the user's edits and noticed what appear to be at least two copyright violations: one at Chakravyuh where the plot section [168] appears to be lifted (with a couple of minor changes) from [169], and another at Anurita Jha where the content appeared to be lifted from [170]. The user has been blocked once already for 3RR. But I'm bringing it here now as the user refuses to engage, his activities have moved beyond the scope of WP:CRIC, and I fear I may be too involved as I've been following his edits for the last couple of days since he first came to light.

Thoughts? S.G.^(GH) _ping! 12:35, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) - The material mentioned is certainly copyvio and wildly WP:PEACOCK-y - should probably get a rev-del for Chakravyuh to avoid easy-reverts. Nikthestoned 13:09, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Block proposal

I have seen some of the chaos caused by this user, who refuses to discuss and insists his way is right in every matter. I suggest an attention-grabbing block to prevent further disruption, which can become indef if the user doesn't pay attention. Proposal is one week. --Dweller (talk) 14:46, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• Seconded. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 09:04, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

• Thirded. The user's talk page consists of a long list of warnings. The user has never made a response there. A week should be the minimum considered. EdJohnston (talk) 15:18, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

• +1. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:22, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

User:McKhan

This editor is a SPA and has been highly disruptive, he has been blocked for sock puppetry and edit warring on the Al-Ahbash article which he kept at a stup for six years. He has taken to logging out to edit war (as he previously did as one of his socks was an IP) thus continuing his old behavior. He has violated 3RR on the Abdullah al-Harari article by using this IP sock[171] I know the IP is his as he has used it to launch two extremely unpleasant personal attacks on me. This attack shows it is User:McKhan [172] as the style of writing is exactly the same. I reported him for socking again and he responded on my talk page with this attack [173] User:Beeblebrox has blocked the IP but not the User:McKhan account, which is still editwarring on the same articles he always edit wars on. I propose a full topic ban on this user on all articles related to Al-Ahbash broadly construed. Darkness Shines (talk) 15:43, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• So is this user going to get let off with "Get off my fucking back.. You God-damn little Indian RETARD"? Will no admins step in here? Darkness Shines (talk) 15:06, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by IP user 99.226.214.165

Hello.

IP user 99.226.214.165 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) keeps reverting the women's Olympics football tournament articles and artifacts (templates) back to using inferior sources – women.soccerway.com instead of the more official london2012.com and fifa.com. In addition, the result is worse visually in the template (no "References" heading).

• Template:2012 Summer Olympics women's football game A1 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Template:2012 Summer Olympics women's football game A2 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Template:2012 Summer Olympics women's football game B1 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Template:2012 Summer Olympics women's football game B2 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Template:2012 Summer Olympics women's football game C1 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Template:2012 Summer Olympics women's football game C2 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Since the attendance info differs slightly, he consequently keeps reverting the main page back to the number that is supported by womensoccerway.com:

• Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

I've tried to talk him out of it, but to no avail. He doesn't even respond. A block would be welcome.

HandsomeFella (talk) 19:51, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

User is notified. HandsomeFella (talk) 19:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

This seems like a case of edit-warring to me. I'll issue a warning and if it continues, report it to WP: ANEW. Electric Catfish 21:05, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I've backed your comments up on his talk page. Good approach, by the way. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 22:53, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

User reverted back to worse article versions again over night. No response on talkpage. Reported on WP:ANEW, but a temporary block would be welcome. HandsomeFella (talk) 11:15, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

FC Steaua București page

Hello!

The user Jjmihai violate wikipedia policy and is responsible for removing my work. Is not the first time when he did this, when disrupt my editing. Please, help me. Page FC Steaua București in Europe.

Liviu Marius Dobrea.

User talk:Liviu Marius Dobrea. —Preceding undated comment added 22:12, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

It is far from obvious what policy is being violated: this seems to be an edit-war over the formatting of tables or something. Perhaps you could explain more fully? Have you discussed this on the article talk page? I can't see how any action can be taken unless it is made clear what the problem is, and even then, you need to show that you've tried to resolve this through discussion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:21, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by user Jjmihai

Hi.

User Jjmihai keeps reverting FC Steaua București in Europe page.

He is responsible for disruptive editing against me and other users. Mortifervm (talk) 01:27, 27 July 2012 (UTC +3)

Per the instructions, you are supposed to notify the editor when you open a topic here. I've done so for you.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:13, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I know nothing about these sorts of articles. That said, I see one reversion by Jjmihai on July 26 and then nothing until June 29. You started a topic on the Topic page (good idea), with a terrible title ("Disruptive editing by user Jjmihai" - neutral titles are a little more collaborative), and a very funny question: which version do you like better, mine or Jjmihai's? (heh) A bit short on analysis, don't you think? Two people, uh, voted for your version, including one WP:SPA. The non-SPA at least said why they liked your version better. I think you need more in-depth, constructive discussion on the Talk page, including hopefully comments from Jjmihai. At this point, I see no need for administrative intervention.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:22, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

This is getting out of hand. No one has commented here since Andy's and my comments. Yet, they are still fighting with each other. It's spilled over onto my Talk page (and Andy's) and at WP:3RRN. None of the group of editors seems to be following the rules. No one notifies each other. The one who submitted the 3RR report did just about all of it wrong, although I believe at least one of the editors is in fact edit-warring. They all speak Romanian to each other on their Talk pages, so I can't understand what they're saying. I think the dispute may even be more trivial than I had at first thought - something about dashes? And they happily call everything the others do vandalism. I'm tempted to lock the article and tell them to work it out on the Talk page, but I'm not sure if there aren't other related articles - so many articles about Romanian sports clubs, none of which I can follow.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:24, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

• I would support full protection for a few days or so. It isn't the only option, but a viable one since the problem is communication and protection forces them to communicate to get changes made to the page, and hopefully to find compromise without an admin making content decisions for them. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 19:15, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

• I left a message on the article Talk page hours ago to try to get them to focus on the content disputes and try to work them out. Since that time, it's been eerily quiet - no edits to the article or to the Talk page. I guess quiet is good, but I'd like to see them collaborate with each other, or at least crystallize the nature of their disputes in a civil manner. Otherwise, it may just be a temporary lull.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:20, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Whoop whoop pull up

User:Whoop whoop pull up, who clearly should know better, is insisting (or possibly edit-warring) to keep a question he asked on the help ref desk active, [174] and won't accept the advice of others to drop it: the question is "How would one go about converting a semi-automatic firearm to fully automatic fire"? It seems self-evident to me (and others) that we shouldn't be answering such questions on a reference desk, but WWPU seems to think otherwise. Would some kind admin please try to talk some sense into him, and/or impose the necessary sanctions to ensure he stops this. Regardless of his motivations, and his dubious claims that 'automatic weapons aren't even illegal' (where?), this sort of abuse of what is supposed to be an encyclopaedia reference desk can only do harm to the project. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:56, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I should have gone to bed hours ago, and am unlikely to respond further until I've either slept, or failed to yet again (see insomnia, an article to which I could add a great deal of WP:OR, were it permitted) AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:56, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I am trying to get an answer to a question I don't know the answer to. If you don't want to answer it, why won't you at least give me information on where to find an answer to it? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 05:02, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)While there does seem to be a rather dull POINT, I doubt Whoop whoop pull up asked it in bad faith, especially since he's been a great editor to work with on chemistry-related topics. Of course, a second offense is another story. I'd like to mention that he did indeed acknowledge that he broke 3RR, but I do not suggest a block or anything unless he does another revert.--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:05, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

That's the Ref Desk actually. Pull Ups has earned a reputation for asking some pretty off-the-wall questions, but they've been mostly harmless. The problem with this one is that he appears to be asking how to break the law, and it is not appropriate for anyone at the Ref Desk to answer a question like that. If he really wants to find out, there should be no shortage of google entries on the subject. But given the Aurora, Colorado, incident this certainly seems like bad timing to be raising such a question. Also, he should know better than to edit war, especially there. There are plenty of spirited debates on the Ref Desk, and normally they are conducted on the Ref Desk Talk Page. That's where this one belongs too. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:12, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

It may or may not have originally been asked in bad faith, but his continued insistence that we must answer it looks that way: still, since he asks, how about this answer: (a) Modifying semi-automatic weapons to fully automatic certainly is illegal in many parts of the world, (including mine). (b) Modifying firearms is dangerous - and anyone answering such questions risks a lawsuit if some idiot tries it and things go wrong. (c) Without knowing the firearm in question, there is no sensible answer. (d)... need I go on?... The reference desk is there to help readers find answers to encyclopaedic questions, it is not a chatroom, and WWPA should know better than to edit-war over a question that either shouldn't or can't be answered. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:19, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

It's fairly ridiculous to ask such a question on the ref desk, and more ridiculous to expect someone to answer it. Someone really should warn Whoop for this behaviour. While I probably couldn't find any one policy that says "users should not ask ridiculous questions at the ref desk and revert war to keep them in", common sense should apply here. OohBunnies! (talk) 05:24, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I've posted to this talk page asking him to stop and search somewhere else. I've also pointed out that if he continues to ask, that becomes disruptive editing and he can be blocked. Dougweller (talk) 05:59, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

As the editor who hatted this question after seeing User:SemanticMantis object to it, I obviously find it problematic. But seeing the bald-faced lie that this posting was "coincidental" in view of the talk page discussion on illegal activity that he himself created makes me think that a serious response is in order. Trolling-for-fun is one thing, starting a thread on the inappropriateness of violent advice and then asking for it yourself is something else entirely. μηδείς (talk) 06:13, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I didn't think firearms modifications were illegal, I just saw something on Browning Automatic Rifle saying that rifles were converted to full auto by filing down the "sear", however it makes no attempt to explain what this "sear" is. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 06:26, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The question was almost certainly pointy, but I don't think any further action is required since the OP now seems to recognise that there is a clear consensus to remove it from the desk. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 06:32, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The user is still continuing his dissembling directly above you. Some formal action is justified. Or do we have to simply have to resort to an ANI every time an experienced user requests advice on how to carry out violent and criminal activity? μηδείς (talk) 06:42, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I was just explaining why I asked that question, nothing more. I'm not looking for an answer anymore. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 06:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

He's certainly entitled to explain himself on talk pages. It's not the request so much that bothers me, it's the pointy nature of the request and subsequent edit warring. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 06:50, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I occasionally scan the science ref desk and read a few things of interest—it has been impossible to miss the fact that WWPU is a frequent contributor. Some discussions have seemed of marginal value to me, and this comment may indicate that the user is not well suited to judge whether taking more volunteer time with another question is desirable. According to a quick scan of contribs, WWPU has asked 69 questions this year, with this possibly being the weakest. May I suggest a self-imposed limit of one "sensible" question per week? Also, if an established editor removes a question, do not revert them. Johnuniq (talk) 07:40, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Although the point has been raised here recently, I'm going to reraise the issue of the reference desk being a place where many editors consider AGF to be a suicide pact. I distressed both about the two threads that Johnuniq has linked to in his comment above mine and the number of people giving answers to WWPU's question on his talk page. I understand that WP attracts individuals who want to demonstrate their knowledge to others (and I am one of them), but allowing the Ref Desk to be anarchy like this potentially creates all kinds of legal issues for the foundation. Chillllls (talk) 19:27, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that we firmly ask this editor to stay away from the reference desks for awhile. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:34, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

WWPU had the reputation of asking too many questions a while back (about a year ago), but recently I haven't seen him post frequently (at least not on the Science Desk). The legality issue is something we should ignore because Wikipedia is not censored. If it is illegal to own guns or to only possess certain type of guns and you want to know how you can change the gun you legally own in your country so that it becomes something that is illegal to own, it is your responsibility if you act on that. Giving the technical information on how to do something is in itself never illegal in a free country, unless this involves leaking classified information. Count Iblis (talk) 21:57, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but you're wrong. If you provide info to someone on how to commit an illegal act, you could be charged as an accomplice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:04, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Did you read Wikipedia's ToS? Fasttimes68 (talk) 22:28, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

That abbreviation does not ring any bells. But aiding and abetting criminal activity is illegal pretty much everywhere. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:50, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

[175] Enjoy. Fasttimes68 (talk) 23:32, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Utterly irrelevant. It isn't possible to place oneself above the law by claiming it doesn't apply - and in any case, that would only apply to 'civil proceedings, against the Wikimedia foundation. As Bugs says "aiding and abetting criminal activity is illegal pretty much everywhere". AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:53, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The situation in the US is that mentally disturbed people can buy stockpiles of guns and ammunition over the internet. It is unlikely that prosecutors are going to crack down on the Ref Desk here, as the First Amendment is even more sacred than the Second Amendment. Count Iblis (talk) 22:44, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

If you're willing to stake your freedom on your assumptions about the extent of first amendment rights, knock yourself out. But try not to get wikipedia into legal trouble in the process. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:50, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

If you ask the question here on the ref desk about how to rob some specific bank and an editor here happens to be an employee at that bank and he helps you in the planning by giving specific details about the security measures, then that's different from asking a general question about how bank robbers circumvent certain generic security measures. The latter if freely accessible information that the government isn't allowed to censor, the former amounts to involvemet in the planning of a crime. Count Iblis (talk) 23:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

That we chose not to answer such questions on reference desks has nothing whatsoever to do with 'censorship'. It has everything to do with behaving responsibly - do you think that the reference desk not giving medical advice is a result of 'censorship'? Or legal advice? Is not allowing people to spam articles with tenuous URLs 'censorship'? Is the whole raft of things we don't permit in BLPs 'censorship'? Of course not - we are building an encyclopaedia, not providing a web-hosting service or an open forum. The reference desks shouldn't be answering questions that one wouldn't expect to find answered in an encyclopaedia - and I doubt an article on How to modify semi-automatic firearms to fully automatic would survive long.

Seems to me like a good faith curious question, but a terrible question to ask here that editors shouldn't answer, as it may be illegal, and such questions should not be asked in the future. I don't feel it warrants action or sanctions here, just close the question and try not to pose such questions in the future. Also the timing was pretty bad... --Activism1234 23:59, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

User:Maxviwe

Drop the stick, and walk away. --Rschen7754 07:09, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
That's enough community.How much you are going to harass a innocent editor just like this? I am retired and never want to contribute to Wikipedia at all.Also, I have to write this from Web cafe as my range is blocked. First of all, stop tagging all disruptions from my IP range which is between 219.91.128.0 - 219.91.143.255 and 123.201.208.0 - 123.201.223.255 as my sock-puppet.I am a university campus student, so was using a shared network.Many of users are clearly vandal and do such disruptions for time passing.I have no interest in editing with or without any account.So, please stop tagging them as my sock and block the range for at least one year. Thanks a lot. 14.96.183.173 (talk) 06:05, 27 July 2012 (UTC) If you are blocked, then by definition you, as a person, may not edit Wikipedia anonymously either. Nobody is forcing you to click "save", yet if you do it, it's the act of a block evading sock. Simple plan: stop editing from anywhere so that other people who are not blocked may continue to enjoy editing. dangerouspanda 06:48, 27 July 2012 (UTC) How about this: Click the little "X" on the top right-hand corner of your computer screen and be done with it? It's you against a whole bunch of us, and you will lose, plain and simple. --MuZemike 06:53, 27 July 2012 (UTC) Also your university should be ashamed in your conduct, and they should dismiss you as a result. --MuZemike 06:56, 27 July 2012 (UTC) Enough is Enough MuZemike. No single word about my personal life or anything personal attack. Block on Wikipedia is not end of life. I don't want to fight war with anyone over here.OK? What if I would criticize about your family? Remember that there's a live human being at the next end of computer screen, who has emotions and feelings. Such thing hurts a person lot and for your comment "Click the little "X" on the top right-hand corner of your computer screen and be done with it? It's you against a whole bunch of us, and you will lose, plain and simple." I have already retired from here, but It's thing, that you're just marking all disruptive edits as my socks, forced me to write here from web cafe. Lastly, you know what single thought struck in my mind ? Was my all donations of 250 $ worth such criticize ? 14.96.180.202 (talk) 07:05, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Several anon edits to BLP that should probably be deleted

Would someone mind taking a look through Special:Contributions/74.118.167.134? The edit to Irina Slutsky was already deleted, but I realized that there are several to Sandra Oh and maybe some others that are pretty offensive too. The IP hasn't edited since 2007 so it's not an ongoing problem. Thanks. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 08:05, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The most recent edit from this account was more than five years ago, and all of the edits have long been reverted. Why make an issue of this now? RolandR (talk) 13:37, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Looks like the Irina edit has been taken care of, but to answer RolandR's question- the history of that article has only recently been restored (it was deleted in 2007, then recreated a few days ago), so presumably the problematic IP edit didn't become generally visible until now. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

This. And only the Slutsky edit was reverted before I posted, User:Edgar181 just took care of Sandra Oh. There isn't a time limit on deleting revisions for BLPs that contain racist and grossly offensive comments. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 18:04, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

RogerThatOne72

RogerThatOne72 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User RogerThatOne72 has been attempting for a long period of time now to edit war promotional content about a certain spiritual teacher into the Kundalini Yoga article, including WP:FRINGE claims about the alleged health benefits of kundalini yoga (as taught by this spiritual teacher's school). Examples: [176][177][178][179][180] He has continued to do this for almost two years now in spite of the fact that there is clearly no consensus for these additions on the article talk page. Some suspicions have been voiced that RogerThatOne may at times have resorted to socking in pursuit of his goals, but I'm not sure the evidence is sufficient for that. Regardless, I think his conduct is problematic. Gatoclass (talk) 10:52, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

These edits of Affinity909 and the subsequent reliance upon them warrant close attention. These edits are also not encouraging. Ankh.Morpork 11:08, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

All of my edits have been consistently backed by references. I would counter that it is actually Gatoclass who has consistently and stubbornly refused to discuss changes in the talk pages or try to reach consensus on the edits despite numerous requests to do so over 2 years [181]. These **is** clear consensus on the matter in the Talk pages with at least 5 different sources backing the facts [[182]] (see: CactusWriter | needles 21:47, 10 February 2010, TRANSPORTERMAN 21:09, 2 February 2010, Morganfitzp (talk) 21:43, 28 September 2010 (UTC), Comment added by Ycartreel (talk • contribs) 21:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC), 201.230.249.233 (talk) 18:03, 10 March 2010 (UTC)levtar kaur201.230.249.233 (talk) 18:03, 10 March 2010 (UTC), in addition to Affinity909 and my own editorial contributions. - That actually makes 7 people). There is little refutation besides highly suspect and repetitive deletions by Gatoclass himself whose knowledge on the subject matter is ridiculously limited, bordering on ignorance. Meanwhile he has used his influence and knowledge of Wikipedia structures and policies to intimidate me several times with threats, and attempts to block me with acts such as this without once, ever trying to reach consensus. This is a shame to all editors of Wikipedia if it supports editors abusing their power. RogerThatOne72 (talk) 14:46, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

• RogerThatOne72 is a reincarnation of Fatehji who disappeared after this ANI report. See the SPI that has the CU findings (from CU talk page) on the two accounts. Given that the change in accounts happened right after the earlier ANI, it's clearly to avoid WP:SCRUTINY, and of course there's the returning to the same behavior part too. I'll enform EdJohnston on my way out. —SpacemanSpiff 17:41, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Problems with File Upload Wizard

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

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I have tried to load the logo for a radio station page 3 times in the past 10 minutes. Each time I get the error message "Upload failed" This file did not pass file verification (Filetype-mime-mismatch, png, image/jpeg)". Not sure what the last part means, but what is a "file verification"? - Neutralhomer • Talk • 11:57, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

You're trying to upload a file with the extension .PNG but it's really a jpeg. Rename it to .JPG. This question has nothing to do with admins, and should have been on the help desk. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:01, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it is a PNG file. Just checked. I would be here all day with the "help" desk, ANI is faster. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 12:08, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

As a Help Desk regular, I object to the insinuation that we are slow off the mark over there...--ukexpat (talk) 13:42, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Unless your uploading of this file was a life-or-death situation, I don't care how long the help desk would take. Please try to keep your reports/questions on the right board, regardless of the waiting times. ;) OohBunnies! (talk) 13:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't matter the board right now, there is a problem with the upload wizard. As I pointed out it is a PNG file, though according to Finlay McWalter above it is showing as a JPG file. Something is wrong with the wizard if it is identifying PNG files at JPG files, which would require an admin. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 14:07, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

It isn't checking the extension, it is checking the MIME type. Try uploading it as a .jpg anyways, it must just have been named wrong. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 16:22, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I object to the abuse of process. In an emergency, it might be valid to post to a high traffic board if the proper board is lagging, but this is no emergency, and the help desk is one of the more responsive boards we have.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:44, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the slow response, but I resent the insinuation I was abusing any process. When the wizard is showing an image type as something it is not, that's a problem for a high traffic board. Apparently not fixing things is the new way of ANI. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:51, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

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

User:Jaguar again

We previously had to mass delete stubs created by this user, after which they retired. Yesterday, they returned and continued the mass creation. Whereas I do not speak Chinese and may not appreciate the problems, I think it is worthwhile to alert the community. Please move this thread if appropriate. The user will be notified.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:00, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

See User_talk:Thumperward#Autopatrolled and Special:Contributions/Jaguar. JoeSperrazza (talk) 13:18, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the link to Thumperward's talk page. Especially interesting is that Jaguar said "I am not going back to China" three days ago. It is not clear to me what was meant by that. —Kusma (t·c) 14:01, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I checked one (Dongjinzhuang Township) and it doesn't seem to contain any major errors (unlike previously). However, it does not contain any information that is not in the parent list, not even the possible (and fairly obvious) interwiki link zh:东金庄乡 or the coordinates. Also, it is odd that the Chinese website given as source was apparently accessed last year. (That source is also on the parent article, Beishi District). In my view, even without errors, these stubs are still worthless. Jaguar should probably try some content creation instead, perhaps in an area where he/she understands the language. —Kusma (t·c) 13:37, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh my god - what is everyone's problem here!? User:Thumperward gave me some advice saying that I need to gain some trust from the community, and that is what I am doing - creating some good quality stubs with no errors, like I had done this morning. I created 18 good quality stubs, with a valid reference, Chinese included, and better quality wording - what more could you ask for? I am creating these stubs nice and slow so that I can regain everyone's trust, get my Autopatrolled back and hopefully move on creating more. You are right; I am not going back to China. I did, however, create those 18 articles to demonstrate what I can do. They are perfectly fine. They are not worthless.

When I get my Autopatrolled back, I will assure you I will create some more slowly - but I don't know. I don't know what to do with my life. It should be sensible to close this discussion seeming this is not going to go anywhere. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 14:51, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Er, shouldn't you first create pages more slowly, then ask for autopatrolled rights? And why did you access all the source websites last year instead of now when you created the articles? —Kusma (t·c) 15:13, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I thought the sources would be fine - they are the same from what I was creating last year. Anyway, I am on the right track now, I think everything is fine. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 15:19, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The answer to Kusma's question is that you copied the reference from an article created last year by another editor. Creating articles based on sources you can't read is certainly not fine. Please don't do any more. Kanguole 15:39, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The source seems to be List of township-level divisions of Hebei. Which is not really a good thing to base articles on -- several of the newly created stubs have incoming links from other places, showing they need to be disambiguated properly (sometimes even the characters are ambiguous, and zhwiki has disambiguation pages in place). This is a mess. —Kusma (t·c) 19:48, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Your "good quality stubs" are in fact worse than nothing. What you did is replace perfectly good redlinks in some list articles with pretty-looking, but contentless stubs that contain precisely zero additional information compared to the parent list article. This has been explained to you several times. You did not even do the almost trivial work to link your substubs to the relevant zhwiki pages, where more information can be found. Please find something else to do than creating pages for the sake of creating pages. Probably we should delete this batch again as you seem to listen to deletions better than to words. —Kusma (t·c) 17:19, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the concern. If I am searching for something on the internet and see that there is a Wikipedia article with that exact name, I have an expectation that going to the article will tell me more than simply the item exists. That's virtually all you get with these stubs. You don't even get a location on a map. The article is worse than nothing at all.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:10, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Thoroughly agree with the two statements immediately above this one; these substubs need a good case of WP:TNT. They discourage others from creating better articles, they provide no useful information to the reader, and they have sourcing issues. If your source were a PDF, I would assume that you'd just been using a downloaded PDF and kept citing the date on which you downloaded it (which is appropriate), but in this case, you need to look at the page and update your citation. Nyttend (talk) 21:41, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I've had a look at the stubs and taken to correcting the ref that he used. It links to the main district page so rather than badger him about the incorrect link, I'm linking it to the correct pages. I may do some content addition at some point. I've suggested to Jaguar that he not create stubs at the same ferocious rate that he did previously and also to get help from the relevant wikiproject. There really isn't a whole lot wrong with the stubs, excepting for the serious lack of content, which I think I'll take a look at. I'm working on another article translation, which I've been woefully neglecting lately. If Jaguar agrees to not create any more town stubs until the current batch has had some content added, I believe this would be a suitable compromise that would allow the articles to be kept. Anna Frodesiak has made some very good suggestions on his talk page and I have added encouragement that he work with her to learn more about content creation. Blackmane (talk) 00:27, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

These mass creations have gone on long enough by Jaguar. He doesn't have bad intentions, however the past few months of these over 10k+ creations of dubious value, and some with glaring errors, have created massive amounts of work and steered volunteer hours away from more fruitful activities. This is why we have a Bot policy (whether it's technically a bot or not, the premise is the same) so that one individual can't create massive amounts of work in such a short amount of time.

I really don't want to discourage Jaguar from working here, but these mass creations like this need to stop. If that means a topic ban on those creations... I'm not sure. But lest we forget how much discussion this generated last May, I'm dismayed to see it starting again so quickly. Shadowjams (talk) 00:36, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I have seen this kind of mass stub creation before, most recently with User: Carlossuarez46 creating mass-articles on Iranian communities like this, the exception being that Carlos provides a small amount of census information. I believe there should be an official policy dictating against mass creating poor articles with templates. Robby The Penguin (talk) (contribs) 00:43, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

That's one for the Village Pump. Well, I've just corrected all of the ref links and titles on his stubs plus moved one due to a misspelling of the pinyin. I agree with Shadowjams that Jaguar should be discouraged from mass creations, especially those in a foreign language. Blackmane (talk) 00:55, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Legal Threat

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

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Legal threat for reverting spam - [183] --Anbu121 (talk me) 12:38, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

They've been blocked by Materialscientist. Number 57 12:44, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

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

Legal threat by IP

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

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• Spootnik the sadalite (talk · contribs)
• Adventure massage therapy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Recently, I was on the Special:ArticleFeedbackv5 when 207.228.21.92 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) posted a legal threat about the History of the bikini article. I hid the feedback. The whole feedback message is located here. I have notified the IP. -- Luke (Talk) 14:22, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

• Orangemike properly blocked them. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 19:34, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

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

Seeking feedback on mass messages

Hi, I'm trying to avoid winding up at this noticeboard. Here's the situation:

I want to mass message 1000 specific editors with User:EdwardsBot (to which I have access), asking those editors the below message. Would it be canvassing or otherwise problematic?

"I'm contacting you because you have participated in the WP:HighBeam, WP:Credo, or WP:JSTOR partnerships where those research databases donated free accounts. I think you should know about a current Community Fellowship proposal to create a Wikipedia Library--a single point of access for approved Wikipedia editors to gain free entry to all participating resource providers. Your feedback on the proposal would be appreciated. I should note that the feedback is for the proposal, not the proposer, and even if the Fellowship goes forward it might be undertaken by presently not-mentioned editors. Thanks for your consideration."

Proposal: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships/Project_Ideas/The_Wikipedia_Library

Thanks for your guidance! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:39, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Because there's an element of time...

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

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Resolved

I'm posting this here only because there's an element of time, in which an administrator needs to help with a simple task before it becomes too late. Please see: MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-details#WP:V RfC. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 15:48, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done T. Canens (talk) 16:31, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much, T. Canens! I appreciate it! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

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More eyes on Maximus Inc please?

Could we get some more eyes on this article, please? I can't make heads or tails of what's going on, but there's a whole lot of content churning, reversion, and redlinked accounts popping up nonstop on my watchlist and I have a feeling something might need to be done about...something. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:32, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

• I left a message to the user, but this was only about their last edit (removing sourced content + edit warring). A careful analysis of the whole history is needed, and I am definitely not an expert.

User:Plutoofnight

Plutoofnight (talk · contribs) is closing AFD debates that have only been opened today and so have not had any discussion on them. When I left a message on his talk page - the response was this. NtheP (talk) 16:47, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I notice the "closed" AfDs have not followed procedure - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jolla still had the AfD tag on the main article. I have boldly re-opened the invalid close for this specific AfD and suggest others do the same. I suspect sockpuppetry given the only thing this account has done is improperly close AfDs. --Ritchie333 (talk) 16:50, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

CarlBrutchetus (talk · contribs) was doing similar yesterday briefly before he was blocked. The contribs pages for those two look quite similar. Not sure what other socks are involved, but I think that these two, at least, are out of the same drawer. - TexasAndroid (talk) 17:02, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

There's a whole lorry load of sockpuppets. Wouldn't surprise me if another one turned up tomorrow doing exactly the same thing. --Ritchie333 (talk) 21:33, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

IP keeps removing information from Paraskevi Papachristou

User:46.198.54.220 keeps removing sourced information concerning Paraskevi Papachristou's expressed support of Golden Dawn on Twitter, claiming that the information is not relevant because "she's not a politician". However, considering that Papachristou has been expelled from the Greek Olympic team for posting racist comments on Twitter, and at least one article says her support of Golden Dawn was a factor in the team's decision to expel her, it seems like someone should intervene and tell the IP to quit removing sourced, notable information. LonelyBoy2012 (talk) 17:29, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I removed the specific section since she here denied that. I also searched google for interviews of her expressing support to golden dawn but i couldn't find anything. --46.198.54.220 (talk) 17:49, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Narayan Dutt Tiwari semi-protect request

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Narayan Dutt Tiwari (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) article is being repeatedly vandalized by IP's. A court released a paternity test of his that has caused a lot of excitement, I would think this will be calmed down again in a few days. Can we semi-protect this please? (If this is the wrong place for this request, point me to the right one please). Thanks. -- Maelefique^(talk) 17:40, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I've semi-protected it for a month but the venue for requesting protection is WP:RFPP. --regentspark (comment) 18:40, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

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About Niemti

User:Niemti was recently blocked as a sockpuppet of User:HanzoHattori, having acknowledged in the SPI that they were said user. However, looking over the SPI archive for him, I note an extreme amount of fishing and likely false reports on other users, which makes me suspicious of anything included in Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of HanzoHattori that is based on "behavioral" evidence. One example of a perplexing case is User:Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog, where they were blocked because of this edit. I'm sorry, but how does that confirm anything?

Anyways, i've worked with Niemti before and he was of tremendous help on the Kony 2012 article, doing a ton of work on it. He's stated here on his talk page that he no longer has access to the Hanzo account from four years ago, so what would be the proper method of appealing the ban? Should he just do it on the Niemti talk page? Silverseren^C 01:05, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you believe this to be an accident made by a careless admin or a purposeful plot against Niemti by one of the user's enemies? Robby The Penguin (talk) (contribs) 01:18, 28 July 2012 (UTC)