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*'''Support''' move ban, as it seems that SMcCandlish will not otherwise follow the normal procedure - to request a move first if there is reason to assume that it may be controversial, and SMcCandlish seems not to understand that if a move is contested it has to be reverted, --[[User:Gerda Arendt|Gerda Arendt]] ([[User talk:Gerda Arendt|talk]]) 21:56, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
*'''Support''' move ban, as it seems that SMcCandlish will not otherwise follow the normal procedure - to request a move first if there is reason to assume that it may be controversial, and SMcCandlish seems not to understand that if a move is contested it has to be reverted, --[[User:Gerda Arendt|Gerda Arendt]] ([[User talk:Gerda Arendt|talk]]) 21:56, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' I only went thru a few of the reverted changes. I have to note it seems that more than few while reverted were not reverted to their original. It seems very reasonable that SMcCandlish did not expect any controversy. Over all the effort seemed good faith to me. It seems removing his autoconfirmed status has to be removed to physically ban him from moving articles. This would restrict more than his ability to move pages. If there is an actual need to take any action, I propose... Let's call it probation. SMcCandlish can not move any page for 3 months with out discussion. You can raise the time frame if you like. And if he violates that you can then talk about removing his autoconfirmed rights. There's no need to be unnecessarily punitive. If there actually is a disruption here there is no need to do more than what it would minimally take to end it.[[User:Serialjoepsycho|Serialjoepsycho]] ([[User talk:Serialjoepsycho|talk]]) 22:52, 10 July 2014 (UTC)


== IP Vandal at Colin O'Donoghue ==
== IP Vandal at Colin O'Donoghue ==

Revision as of 22:52, 10 July 2014

    Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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    This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems.

    When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough.
    You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.

    Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)

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    New Account Using AWB to Remove Links to archive.is based "the RFC"

    Flow of socks appears to have slowed and moved to WP:SPI. --Mdann52talk to me! 18:10, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

    Hi, a bit puzzled. User:Spartay has lots of rapid contributions today which, according to the edit summary, are using AWB. The account was registered today and does not appear on the AWB/Check page - so how is it using AWB? In addition, the edits are bulk removing links to archive.is based on the RFC but as far as I can tell the latest RFC is still far from concluding. I've posted a question to the editor's talk page, but noting it here too because of the supposed AWB usage which is troubling if true. QuiteUnusual (talk) 12:45, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • I've blocked the account as a temporary measure until the issue of the apparent unapproved use of AWB is sorted out. Let's see what they say on their talkpage first. Black Kite kite (talk) 12:51, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • The user is saying that they are only removing the reference to archive.is from links that are not dead, which would of course be a useful edit; I am waiting to see what they say on the issue of AWB though. Black Kite kite (talk) 12:55, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Except they're not just removing the reference to archive.is from links that are not dead. They're removing the whole citation, publisher, title, date, etc etc, leaving the original url bare. And certainly in this diff, the links are dead. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:01, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK. In the one I looked at it was simply removing the archiveurl= section, and the link was indeed live. Regardless of the efficacy of the edits, a brand new account should still not be using AWB, and I am interested to find out why they are. Black Kite kite (talk) 13:10, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I've just blocked Granhil (talk · contribs) who has been carrying on the deletions since just a few minutes after Spartay was blocked.  —SMALLJIM  14:34, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • Question Unless I'm being particularly stupid, how were Spartay and Granhil using AWB when they've never been authorized? I thought it didn't work if the user name wasn't on the check page? Obviously if it's available to anyone ... well ... I'll say no more. Black Kite kite (talk) 14:36, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think either user has used AWB to be honest. It is quite easy to write in the edit summary and make it appear as if they have used AWB. One only need to type AWB and nobody would be any the wiser. On another note, I have made a start on reverting all of Granhil's edits (if that's OK with everyone?) Wes Mouse 14:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I've finished reverting their edits. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 16:07, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And now Magioladitis and I have finished Spartay's. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 16:32, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    It is possible to make AWB run without authorization, but I'd rather not go into details. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 16:15, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    {{checkuser needed}}: I asked Werieth to stop removing links because every one of his edits had the perverse result of canvassing opponents to the RFC. To the best of my knowledge, he has complied with my request and seems to understand the reasoning behind it. It would appear that someone may be consciously attempting to use the same technique to manipulate the RFC. Comparing User:Spartay and User:Granhil to the participants in WP:Archive.is RFC 2 and WP:Archive.is RFC 3 would be in order. The use of AWB makes it pretty clear that this isn't an innocent new account.—Kww(talk) 14:42, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    @Kww: correct, see above where I stated that his may have been a joe job directed towards me, or an attempt to influence the RfC. After you heads up I have stopped because of the points your raised, and will wait for the RfC to close before continuing. Werieth (talk) 16:25, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    And I've just blocked Jameskine (talk · contribs) who had just started doing the same. This is obvious vandalism.  —SMALLJIM  14:43, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I find it weird that every article that is being touched is in alphabetical order. Seeing as Granhil had got as far as the J's, then could it be possible that there are multiple account that have been causing al these edits starting from the A's onwards? Wes Mouse 14:48, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    And now Hamerzi (talk · contribs) who started doing the same without edit summaries.  —SMALLJIM  14:52, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • CU can't do much here. I found a related account out of luck MyOperaCom (talk · contribs) who appears a first glance (I didn't verify this) to be using 32 individual proxies. I'll be putting the information to the other functionaries, but this one will need an edit filter. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 16:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    AWB's code may have been modified and recompiled. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:27, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    •  Question: English Wikipedia policy demands that you request approval to use AWB (by submitting a successful RfA or asking to have your name added to a page). Does AWB check if you have been approved when you try to edit pages using it?
    The source code to AWB appears to be available. Would it be trivial to disable the functions which check if you are allowed to use AWB, or is this place in the source code difficult to discover?
    I have never used AWB myself, and maybe the answers are trivial to other people. I realise that it would be easy to make a script using other tools (e.g. Pywikipedia) which uses AWB-style edit summaries, and you could add "using AWB" to the edit summary manually at the edit window. --Stefan2 (talk) 16:53, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Three more: Rabinquad (talk · contribs), Deankki (talk · contribs), Szikarim (talk · contribs). Should I report them here, or at AIV, or what? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:09, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Even more: ‎Wibawal (talk · contribs) and ‎McFrancfurter (talk · contribs)‎. Probably more around. This is getting kinda out of control... 2Flows (talk) 17:49, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    And while we're at it: ‎Hablamekt (talk · contribs) joined as well. Can an admin maybe get at [1] and block all new accounts who start making such changes? They're obviously socks and should be quite easy to spot. 2Flows (talk) 17:55, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Berriozobal (talk · contribs), KanakKanak (talk · contribs), Gandyngan (talk · contribs), Prebyslaff (talk · contribs), Janewiche (talk · contribs), SashaKahn (talk · contribs)... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:56, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I put in a sockpuppet investigation case before I saw this here. --‖ Ebyabe talk - Inspector General ‖ 18:04, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I cleaned up all the edits made by the listed above socks. But an edit filter would be a very good idea. 2Flows (talk) 18:23, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Also Nowong (talk · contribs). G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 18:25, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    In the user creation log, they appear to all be 'created automatically'. How is that different than just 'created'? --‖ Ebyabe talk - Repel All Boarders ‖ 18:27, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Lala Wigan (talk · contribs) --‖ Ebyabe talk - Health and Welfare ‖ 18:31, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And they're undoing the Cluebot reverts. --‖ Ebyabe talk - Opposites Attract ‖ 18:36, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    As far as I know, an account is created automatically if a user has an account on another wiki and logs in with it here. From [2]: "The unified login system combines the user accounts for all of these projects. The greatest advantages are single sign-up (you don't have to create your account again on each new project you get involved with; your account is automatically created at each additional Wikimedia project the first time you log on to that wiki with your existing username and password, or the first time you visit it while logged on to a wiki where you already have an account)" 2Flows (talk) 18:41, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I checked ten of the blocked socks, and found that one was created on the Japanese WP, three on the Ukrainian WP, five on the Chechen WP and one on Login-wiki, a technical site within the Wikimedia foundation... Thomas.W talk 20:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    KumarSatia (talk · contribs) --‖ Ebyabe talk - General Health ‖ 18:46, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Qrococcor. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:55, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Saimankehru. --‖ Ebyabe talk - State of the Union ‖ 18:56, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Urophora --‖ Ebyabe talk - Health and Welfare ‖ 19:20, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]


    Filter 620 created. Protected from viewing for obvious reasons, but I invite other filter editors to review my work.—Kww(talk) 19:24, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Looks fine to me. Black Kite kite (talk) 19:40, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Urophora and KumarSatia blocked, reverted. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 19:29, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm not familiar with this situation, but Special:Contributions/Yestersafe seems to be connected: new SPA account, apparently automated removal of archive links, alphabetical list of articles. - SummerPhD (talk) 05:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    This appears to be different as they are removing any citation linked to findarticles.com, a since-defunct service, and while the approach is the same, it's not the archive.is issue. Perhaps riding the coattails? --MASEM (t) 05:10, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Masem:: I can't begin to imagine this isn't related. Another detail: 12 edits, then the account was discarded. - SummerPhD (talk) 19:25, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Now with more examples showing, I'd agree that this is much more likely to be related. --MASEM (t) 19:32, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm also not really familiar with the details of this situation, but I have the impression that this new single-purpose account may also have to be looked at: Special:Contributions/Obar_Kaib. Thank you. RomanSpa (talk) 06:44, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Special:Contributions/GoFormer has, um, interesting commentary. --‖ Ebyabe talk - State of the Union ‖ 15:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    More:

    - Cwobeel (talk) 16:30, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    These accounts are coming fast and furious. Two Three more:

    - Cwobeel (talk) 16:48, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    The MO is pretty consistent: Account is created, the bot makes 12 edits and then account stops. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:06, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    One the the accounts tried to remove "http://findarticles.com" which is really defunct. Should we do something about it? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:42, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]


    Request topic ban for Andy Dingley

    This one has boomeranged. Werieth is  Confirmed as a sock of BC on behavioural evidence. However, in future, I would advise making accusations at relevant places (here or at SPI) ASAP. Additionally, if anyone was aware and chose to take no action over this (as was suggested below), then they should reconsider their actions in the future. In terms of archive. is, another RfC is ongoing, so the (muddled) discussion here appears redundant. --Mdann52talk to me! 18:34, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    I have had enough of the harassment, and personal attacks. His persistent support of the trolling and harassing sockmaster User:Formal Appointee Number 6 is getting old. Andy persistently throws veiled references/accusations whenever and where ever he can. Andy's most recent edit [3] has pushed me over the edge. At what point does this need to reach before its stopped? Werieth (talk) 15:28, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    What topic are you asking him to be banned from? — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:31, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    He accuses you of being a sock of the infamous Betacommand, yes? Are you? If not, it would be best to deny it in some prominent place, such as the SPI. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:38, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I have repeatedly denied it. Werieth (talk) 15:41, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And Andy has been warned multiple times to stop the harassment. Werieth (talk) 15:43, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Veiled? You are a sock of Betacommand. When detailed behavioural evidence for this is presented, your NFC-hardline admin friends threaten (and indeed do) block and ban those presenting it. This makes it impossible to resolve the issue.
    Your recent behaviour in stripping cites from articles has been dickish in the extreme and many editors have challenged you on this.
    To be absolutely clear here, my last comment was [Werieth's] refusal to either not remove cites altogether, or to at least stop whilst it's being discussed, is just the sort of behaviour that Betacommand was banned for in the first place. and I stand by every aspect of that. It's now at a point where I don't even care about the socking, your behaviour under the Werieth account alone is following just the same path as Betacommand did, and what caused his block.
    Why is WP enforcement for socking so random and partisan anyway? Someone who's not a friend of Kww or FuturePerfect is blocked immediately, but if you share the same viewpoint as some friendly admins on another policy, like NFC, it's a free ticket to sock as much as you like. Even someone like Hengistmate, who has been trolling me for years, can finally shoot himself in his own sock by mis-posting, yet he's ignored at both ANI or SPI. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:44, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Someone please remind me what NFC is? EEng (talk) 19:15, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    No foreign currency.--v/r - TP 19:17, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Funny. Besides "National Football Conference", here it's being used to mean "Non-Free Content". Betacommand was an extremely obnoxious warrior on the subject, and it took at least a year or two before a sufficient number of admins and other users got sufficiently fed up and saw to it that he got banned. That episode left a very bitter taste. It's understandable that seemingly similar behavior by a relatively new editor would raise yellow-to-red flags. But I say again, it's the behavior of the current named user, Werieth, which Dingley should focus on. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:40, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I thought it was funny. EEng (talk) 20:44, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:08, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    As always, canvas early, canvas often Future_Perfect_at_Sunrise TLSuda Black_Kite. Future Perfect has (as predicted) jumped to your command and has started blanking content from the SPI [4] [5]
    If we cannot discuss your behaviour on the ALLCAPS pages, we cannot address the question of your socking behaviour. Future Perfect has been warned for this in the past. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:56, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Didn't you yourself just mention me in this thread? It would have been your own duty to notify me; be thanful for Werieth for helping you out in your own failure. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:01, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    What I did was notify those administrators who have already warned you about this harassment, and the need for it to stop. Since you failed to take their advice Im taking the next step to end this. The harassment either needs to stop or Im going to leave. I cannot be a constant target of harassment. And yes since the request I have not removed cites. If you look in the related section above I noted a change in methodology to reduce the number of cites that would need removed (which is hopefully just a bare handful) and I havent run into any of those cases since. Werieth (talk) 16:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't recall TLSuda having been involved in this before. But what the hell, he's hard-line on NFC and I recently dragged him to Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Recent_discussions for File:Fredcopeman.jpg, so no doubt you're hoping for another helpful admin from that angle. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:14, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess you dont remember your own talk page. Please see User_talk:Andy_Dingley#Accusations_of_WP:SOCK Werieth (talk) 16:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    There is indeed a pattern of harassment here, and it needs to stop. There is a long-term sockpuppeter whose agenda is to harass Werieth through throwaway socks, always raising that allegation of him being Beta. However plausible that suspicion may be, the repeated use of throwaway socks for no other purpose but casting aspersions on a user cannot be tolerated. Andy Dingley has for a long time assumed a pattern of enabling and supporting that harasser, by re-posting his rants after they are removed, defending him with spurious claims of "lack of evidence" on SPI reports (all the socks are so easy to spot on behavioural grounds that they are always quickly duck-blocked), and by echoing and multiplying the complaints against Werieth whenever the sockmaster offers him an opportunity. This, too, is harassment, and I am quite willing to block Andy over it if it continues. As for the suspicions against Werieth, people repeatedly had the chance to submit legitimate evidence to the Betacommand SPI; they were repeatedly closed as inconclusive. At some point, when you can't prove your case, you simply have to shut up. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:56, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • Topic ban from what? Do you mean an interaction ban? the panda ₯’ 15:57, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Im not sure that a interaction ban would be sufficient, as Andy can and does make references/accusations to others about me. A complete ban on the topic would cover that. Werieth (talk) 16:02, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      An interaction ban does include talking about the other party to others, so that would be covered. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:04, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      However there are times and discussions (On different notice boards and what not) where we run across each other and nothing happens. In those cases where Andy doesnt take shots at me, there is constructive results. I also dont want to have an issues where we accidentally cross paths on a noticeboard or article and dont notice that the other has done so recently too. Because this problem is isolated to a topic I went that route, as the least disruptive method. Werieth (talk) 16:23, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • What I don't understand is why we tolerate Andy's reposting and enabling of this material. I don't see why the block would only happen if the behaviour continues. Andy has been around long enough to know better. If it weren't for some long-running content disputes between Andy and I, I would have indefed him long ago. This seems like as good of a time as any for someone to pull the trigger.—Kww(talk) 16:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • SPI and harassment issues aside, I am curious about why Werieth feels the need to canvass completely uninvolved admins on this issue.[6][7][8] Inappropriate. —Dark 16:35, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @DarkFalls: They are not uninvolved admins. All three of them have warned Andy about the same behavior before and told him it needs to stop. Werieth (talk) 16:38, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Since when was it common practice to notify admins who have warned the editor in the past? ANI only requires you to notify the reported party. Also, just because they have warned the editor in the past does not make them involved. And naturally since they have warned him previously, they would be more inclined to ask for sanctions. Hardly a non-partisan audience, and a blatant violation of canvassing guidelines. —Dark 17:14, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @DarkFalls: I just consider it common curtsey. I could have gone to any of them and requested that a block be placed (Something I dont feel the need for when a TBAN or IBAN would be a better solution) and it would have happened. However I tried to take the less drastic road and maintain a collegial editing environment by coming here and requesting a TBAN. Given that the user in question is persisting in behavior prohibited by three different admins notifying them of the breach and my intended route to resolution would be considered common curtsey. I did not want to create the perception that I was trying to go around them, or "over their heads" as the term is. This is similar to notifying arbcom in cases where arbcom prohibits an activity. I guess its just a perspective issue. Had I wanted to canvass I would have picked better targets, and I wouldn't have worded the notice as neutrally as I could. Werieth (talk) 17:50, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      A similar case can be made for when an admin discusses a block with the blocking admin prior to unblocking. Its not required, but more often than not the simple curtsey results in a better understanding of the situation and a better conclusion to the problem. Werieth (talk) 17:53, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I don't think its necessary common for this practice, but some of us have been mentioned in this discussion anyways, so I don't see the problem with it. Cheers, TLSuda (talk) 17:56, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    As I now see Andy Dingley had a very explicit warning about administrative sanctions in this matter from TLSuda less than a month ago [9], and his present behaviour is quite clearly in contravention of that warning, I have gone ahead and blocked him for a week. I'd very much recommend we place a formal interaction ban on him too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:38, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, thank you for that. This has gone on for years, and has gotten way out of control for such an experienced user. Andy is very skilled and has many things to contribute here, but I feel he has let these petty disputes get in the way of his positive work. I would support an interaction ban for Andy in this situation. Cheers, TLSuda (talk) 17:56, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Shouldn't it be easy to either point to (if it exists) or create (if not existing) an SPI that collects the evidence of Andy's accusations? Then, that collection could be adjudicated as being acceptable or not acceptable. This wouldn't be the first hard SPI report every done, or reviewed and ultimately decided (I'm thinking of the recent one by DrMies, et.al., regarding a particular long-term prolific banned editor). Repeated (and strident) accusations of socking without evidence is a form of PA, or so I thought. JoeSperrazza (talk) 18:43, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @JoeSperrazza: such an SPI has already been filed, and closed. Andy isnt happy with the results thus this persistent harassment. Werieth (talk) 18:46, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. For the benefit of others, here's the link: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Betacommand/Archive#09_December_2013. JoeSperrazza (talk) 18:50, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I was not involved in the Betacommand case nor have I interacted significantly with Werieth, but I can see that the SPI case accusing Werieth of being banned editor Betacommand has never been proven one way or the other, the trail being too cold for checkuser. Instead, the case was closed as inconclusive—twice. In March 2013, the editor LessHeard vanU came briefly out of retirement to say Werieth was Betacommand, and this report got the first inconclusive closure. Andy's report in December 2013 got the same treatment. Both LessHeard vanU and Andy Dingley continue to believe that they are correct, that a banned editor has returned, which explains the anger shown by Andy. I think the two SPI cases were poorly submitted rather than incorrect. LHvU and AD should have included more diffs and other forms of proof. If they had, we would not be at this juncture now. Binksternet (talk) 20:43, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I looked for more when this first came up, and I'm satisfied that they did about as good a job of digging up evidence as could have been done. I can understand the good-faith belief that Werieth is Betacommand, because I'm on the fence myself. The evidence is interesting without quite being compelling. What I have real problems with is the continuous allegations that I'm engaged in a conspiracy to enable Betacommand to evade blocks.—Kww(talk) 22:33, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And I am in exactly the same position. If one looks at the behavioural evidence presented in the ChildofMidnight SPI above, that was enough to effectively prove a connection even when/if the CU came back negative. If the level of evidence in the Beta/Werieth SPI came up to that standard, like Kww I would block Werieth myself. But it simply isn't, and when Andy repeatedly enables a banned editor to repeat the claims after being told multiple times to stop it or face a block, I don't really see what other outcome there can be. However, after Andy's block expires, a TBAN/IBAN would be the way forward here, I suspect. Black Kite kite (talk) 08:28, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I was pinged because I previously warned Andy about this behaviour. This will end happily for everyone when Andy Dingley either (a) stops enabling a disruptive (and almost certainly banned/indefblocked) editor whose only raison d'etre is to harrass Werieth, or (b) comes up with some conclusive evidence (we're not even in DUCK territory yet). If he doesn't, he needs to be prevented from doing so; an interaction ban would seem easiest. Black Kite kite (talk) 20:34, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's possible the OP is victim to the unfortunate coincidence of having been created a few weeks after Betacommnd's final edit in the spring of 2012, and from possibly focusing on some of the same issues that got Betacommand banned - hence the yellow flags. Were any socks of Betacommand discovered, and if so, during what time interval(s)? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:11, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Just to clarify, @Baseball Bugs:
    • 5 February 2012 Betacommand's last edit to en.Wikipedia [10]
    • 6 February 2012 Werieth commences editing Simple Wikipedia [11]
    • 15 February 2012 Betacommand blocked [12]
    • 12 March 2012 Werieth commences editing Commons [13]
    • 4 June 2012 Werieth commences editing en.Wikipedia [14]
    Also, notice how Werieth habitually skips the apostrophe in I'm and I'll. Now search this page and this page and see who uses those spellings. This is Betacommand.
    As for socks of Betacommand, there may be other lists, but I just found Category:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Betacommand.
    Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:35, 3 July 2014 (UTC) Addendum 13:47, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[15][16][reply]
    If you have new evidence regarding the Betacommand suspicion that has not yet been submitted and deemed to be inconclusive at SPI, then by all means feel free to file a reopened case there. Failing that, re-hashing the same suspicions over and over again is disruptive, so don't do it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:02, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I haven't looked at the earlier investigations. This is such a big fat loudly stomping around saying "I'm a sock" duck, that I don't need to. What I can't figure out is why you and User:Kww are protecting him. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, as I saw recently, simply claiming "this is a sock" without solid evidence can get you sanctioned (and that was on an account that's a really obvious DUCK). Black Kite kite (talk) 14:43, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Werieth is Betacommand. I'm saying nothing about whether anything should be done about that. His 12-month ban has long-since expired. If he's not being disruptive or breaking the rules, meh. Still, (a) I'd like to know why the socking is being ignored and (b) I think blocking productive users who point it out is harmful to the project. To be clear: Werieth is Betacommand. Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:21, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Even if Betacommand's ban is now expired, he's still indef-blocked, and creating new accounts is against the rules. Werieth could demonstrate some good faith by e-mailing his personal information to a trusted checkuser, who might then be able to confirm or refute the question. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:55, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Baseball Bugs: I honestly havent done that much research but beta looks to be a free content hardliner, and pushed for almost complete removal of non-free media. On the other hand I have a fairly moderate position and have uploaded about 350 non-free files already and am far from being done. I honestly have better things to do then play politics and investigate bogus claims that I am not myself. If people want to continue supporting Formal Appointee Number 6 (talk · contribs) and their style of behavior Ill be more than willing to avoid the toxic environment of this wiki and move to somewhere more inviting. But I do see where the claims from the media, and the loss of editors is coming from. Few people are willing to endure this crap. Ive been thinking for a while if its really worth it to continue to contribute to a project that fails to address toxic behavior? I guess Ill find out with how this discussion ends. Werieth (talk) 22:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • My two cents, it appears obvious looking at Werieth's first edits he was/is not a "new editor". No idea if he is Betacommand or someone else (even if the timing between the two accounts and a lot of behavioral affinities would strongly suggest it). --Cavarrone 16:07, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • To come back to the point: unless Andy (or any other editor) has enough evidence to open a second SPI case to put Werieth as Beta, we expect editors to AFG with the motivation of others. Since Andy has repeatedly not shown this, an interaction ban on him towards Werieth (at least, to prevent calling out Werieth as a sock, broadly construed), barring a formal SPI filing, should be placed. Andy should be free to question Werieth's actions as Werieth the editor, but to attempt to connect Werieth to Beta in this manner should not be tolerated. --MASEM (t) 18:50, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • There's just no changing Delta... I slay myself. Well, Werieth is quite an editor, with 54,600 edits to WP since this bright-eyed newcomer arrived at WP on June 4, 2012. Im amazed that we managed to find such an energetic new face to take up the slack for the banned Delta/Betacommand. What are the odds? Carrite (talk) 22:33, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you have new evidence to file against Werieth as a SPI, please feel free to do so. Until then, AGF must be taken by all editors, not just Andy. --MASEM (t) 23:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    AGF refers to the necessity of assuming sound motivations of a person behind a bold edit, not a requirement that Wikipedians pretend that a buck naked emperor is fashionably dressed. The fact is that SPI does not have the ability to make concrete connections between every editor of yesteryear and every editor of today, even in the event that those are one and the same. All we can do is listen for the sounds of quacking and draw logical inferences about the probable existence of waterfowl... Carrite (talk) 18:07, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    My 2 cents: I think we are all wasting our time here. Why do we bother if Werieth is Betacommand or not? Betacommand was (I guess) quite the problem, but so far Werieth isn't and there has been no conclusive evidence that he is Betacommand. Actually, I don't care too much if he is or not Betacommand as long as his contributions are of benefit for Wikipedia. I really dislike these useless time-consuming unfounded witch hunts against editors just because "they might possibly be X, who is/was banned." → Call me Hahc21 20:33, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not obsessed with the topic myself. However, this particular useless time-consuming unfounded witch hunt wasn't started by Andy Dingley... Carrite (talk) 22:25, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm kind of surprised that there have been two SPIs and yet no one has ever noticed that there is a strong overlapping interest between the Betacommand, Δ and Werieth accounts in the Learning management system and List of learning management systems articles. List of learning management systems and Learning management system are Werieth's 4th and 7th most edited articles [17], while Learning management system is Betacommand's top edited article [18] and List of learning management systems and Learning management system are Δ's top and 10th most edited articles [19]. That's a little hard to credit as coincidence given the other commonalities. --92.4.162.106 (talk) 22:22, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ahem. #Above, I pointed out that Werieth started editing the day after delta/beta stopped. I also pointed out that both Betacommand and Werieth habitually skip the apostrophe in "I'm" and "I'll" - this is a very idiosyncratic writing style, not typo's. I see that neither of these were pointed out at the SPIs. This is all new data to consider. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:51, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If I were studying the matter, I would also look at things like evidence of previous experience at time of first edits, similarities or lack thereof in the use of automation or semi-automation, parallels in subject interest, average editing pace per day, estimated sleep cycle of the two editors to establish geographic coincidence, American v. English spelling and punctuation, and ideological content of the editing (Free Files enforcement v. Fair Use). But that's just me. Anyway, it's really good to have someone like Werieth to come along and pick up the slack like he did at that precise moment... Carrite (talk) 06:13, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Reports at the SPIs note volume, content (non-free images), attitude, sleep cycle, ideology and tool use parallels. The dialect and spelling match. Level of eloquence, ditto. I agree, we got lucky there. What are the chances? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 06:46, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec)Well, it's pretty obvious this Werieth is using some kind of semi-automation for non-free-content removal, for example a rapid-fire string of removals on the 2nd. That, of course is the kind of thing that Betacommand got into trouble for, because he was told repeatedly to stop, and wouldn't stop. Werieth's first edit on Wikipedia was on June 4, 2012. He edited sporadically for a while. His eighth edit, four months later, was about the issue of non-free content in lists,[20] which is not something a newbie would likely know much about. Another of his shared interests with Betacommand were/are the whitelist and blacklist, which presumably relates to the contentious subject matter Werieth has been removing. Archiving those pages had been one of Betacommand's regular activities, and Werieth picked up on the same activity. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:04, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Werieth has contributed over 50,000 edits over the last two years, in the course of which he has essentially behaved well and made many useful contributions. Why should it matter a rat's arse whether or not he was previously banned? Unless the guy starts misbehaving significantly, leave him alone. --Epipelagic (talk) 08:20, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    How many of those 50,000 were accomplished via the Betacommand-like rapid-fire automation? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:00, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm very sympathetic to this notion, and if he's behaved well then ArbCom should consider just allowing him to continue.
    My problem is with the admins and possibly CU clerks who cannot but have known that he was socking to come back to en.WP 6 months early and that he had evaded discussing terms with ArbCom, which was required before he returned to editing. They're blatantly subverting ArbCom. What hubris. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:36, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    This would probably take some effort, but it could be interesting to investigate which admins were enabling and arguing for Betacommand, two to three years ago, and see if it's the same ones who are enabling and arguing for this Werieth. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:57, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Epi is endorsing a gross violation of the rules. Socking while indef'd is a bright-line offense which cannot be justified by allegedly "useful contributions". And defying requests to stop doing something controversial, and working to try to get a critic banned, is "significant misbehavior". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:50, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I suppose it comes down to whether you want to support building an encyclopedia, or whether you want to pickle yourself in self-rightousness. --Epipelagic (talk) 09:06, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't create the no-socking rule. If you've got a complaint about that rule, start a discussion about it somewhere. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:09, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is there a new SPI about Werieth opened? We have two users with a very suspect timeline, who share a bizarre interest for learning management systems, with a common interest on non-free file enforcement, with a common interest for blacklists/whitelists, who both habitually skip the apostrophe in "I'm" and "I'll", with same (bad) interaction attitude with other editors, similarities or lack thereof in the use of automation or semi-automation,average editing pace per day. Frankly I consider the new evidences above by Baseball Bugs, Carrite, Anthonyhcole and the IP, blatantly enough for WP:DUCK. --Cavarrone 12:14, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Frankly I consider that argument totally unimpressive. You ARE a free content hardliner, and looking at your profile you were also blocked for edit warring about the removal of several non-free files. I see enough evidences you are Betacommand. If there was not the common interest for the learning management systems, maybe, I would still had a very thin doubt... --Cavarrone 13:10, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I guess my uploading and using ~350 non-free files means Im a hardliner? I would hate to see what it takes for you to call someone a moderate. The learning management systems is just one of several articles that have ended up on my watchlist as persistant targets of spam/vandalism. See List of non-governmental organizations in Pakistan and Comparison of survey software for two other easy examples. But like I said Im done here, there is no amount of logic that will prove my innocents, and wikipedia has no interest in stopping the harassment of its users so Im gone. This will be my last post. Goodbye. Werieth (talk) 13:18, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Lol, the famous 350 files! I don't expect a Betacommand's sock would act in the same exact manner which lead him to a long block and these images appear just to be an excuse to say "Hey, I am not an hardliner like Betacommand". I am currently too lazy to look for the times your hardline approach towards non-free files was discussed here at ANI, AN/3 and in your talk page, but it happened a couple of hundreds of times. At any rate I don't expect a sock says "I'm a sock". --Cavarrone 13:41, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Followup discussion about archive.is links

    This sub-thread factored out from the above for clarity. – Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:46, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Actually if you look the most recent edits I was doing while removing archive.is I was recovering the original url's and hadnt been removing references. But yet again more attacks from you. Werieth (talk) 15:54, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    "the most recent edits " means little. You're good at stopping for a moment, only to resume immediately afterwards.
    Can you say (I know you can but is it true?) that you have not removed entire cites, since you were requested by multiple editors to stop doing so during the discussion? Andy Dingley (talk) 15:59, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The OP's talk page has a number of other users telling him to stop what he's doing with citations, so it's not just Dingley complaining. To me, the sockpuppetry question is a distraction. If the OP is going against consensus, he should be stopped, regardless of whether or not he's a sock of the infamous and banned NFC warrior called Betacommand. Dingley should focus on the OP's allegedly bad behavior under his own ID, and forget about Betacommand. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:15, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Baseball Bugs: Just because people complain isnt a valid reason to not do something. If that where the case admins wouldn't be able to delete or do anything. Just about every action that an admin takes makes someone upset. As an admin does more work the number of those who show up on their talk page to complain also goes up. It doesn't make the arguments for keeping articles on the user's pet rock any more valid. Find any admin who is fairly active and you will find a number of sections on their talk page or its history of people complaining. More often than not all that is needed is re-educating the user, not sanctioning the admin. Werieth (talk) 19:34, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Admins naturally attract trouble. It's part of their job. I didn't know you were an admin. Your user page doesn't have the "admin" logo. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:43, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Baseball Bugs: Im not an admin, however I do tend to do the cleanup/policy enforcement work. Due to the similar nature of what admins do I thought it would be a good analogy to present, that would be widely understood. Werieth (talk) 19:49, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I know you're not an admin. If multiple editors tell you to stop doing something, regardless of alleged "consensus", you should stop doing it pending further discussion. Continuing to take a controversial path leads to ANI - and with someone like Betacommand, ultimately to being banned. You don't want to follow in Betacommand's self-defeating path, do you? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:10, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Werieth's removal of archive.is links is an action agreed to by the community through two (now three?) RFCs about the issue. Yes, there are editors upset with this, but the RFCs clearly have shown no acceptance for these links anymore. --MASEM (t) 19:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If consensus were so clear, I don't think you would have multiple editors complaining about it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:46, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    There will always be people on the wrong side of an RfC/policy decision that disagree with it. Often those users continue to disagree/complaint long after the fact. Werieth (talk) 19:52, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Multiple editors? Usually not. If a given RFC was closed in a way that seems fishy to the "losing side", it will continue to be debated and challenged. That's usually a sign of a poor closure and a lack of real consensus. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The first RFC on the matter that included the removal of the archive.is was closed neutrally by User:Hobit (whom I would consider a very good judge of consensus/middle ground from past discussions despite numerous disagreements on other topics). Those that are complaining about that either weren't aware of this issue, or as Werieth says, didn't get their way are may be engaging in forum shopping to get that change reversed) --MASEM (t) 20:28, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Unless I'm missing some, there's only been one RFC closed in support of removing archive.is links Wikipedia:Archive.is RFC. There was a second RFC which was closed as malformed Wikipedia:Archive.is RFC 2. Obviously you can't read anything in to that other than that people have to follow proper RFC procedures when opening one (such as phrasing it neutrally and not canvasing). The third RFC is ongoing Wikipedia:Archive.is RFC 3. As a participant, I don't think I should comment on the likely outcome but I think it's clear it's not WP:SNOW. It's also worth remembering that whatever the community agreed to, I'm pretty sure we never agreed to the removal of legitimate citations in their entirety, when they didn't actually need a URL and the original still working URL could be recovered from the archive.is link which happened in at least one case. (In another case, the original URL was dead but the info that was removed about the citation was enough to find another copy.) I think Wereith has promised to be more careful, perhaps even ensure such cases never happen again (I haven't been following that well) but the fact it took so long to get there (if it's been agreed now, it was only after me and others saying many times that should never happen and getting ambigious responses in reply) is the main reason the whole thing is so distressing to me. Sure the archive.is links need to go and many of them can already go. But is our only choice for removal someone who's going to turn strong supporters of removal (like me) against their actions? And how much time have we already wasted on these silly discussions when we could be removing archive.is links properly? Nil Einne (talk) 23:31, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Threads refactored. The below was in response to the post of Werieth from 22:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC):

          • You have to decide what your priorities are. I've been hassled off and on by a particularly useless troll for the last five years, at least. I've stopped contributing pictures and mostly stopped contributing to articles. But I still think Wikipedia is worth defending. Wikipedia is a victim of its own success, and it won't change its rules to allow better prosecution of trolls who make Wikipedia look stupid. Your best bet is to find something relatively non-controversial to work on and let the warriors fight the battles. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:52, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
            • Doing the manual work that was mandated by a properly closed RFC to remove links to a highly questionable site seems like non-controversial work (granted, the issue of removing complete citations is a fair point but Werieth stopped to fix that), and we're here now. --MASEM (t) 22:56, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
              • One might think so, sure. But as soon as something becomes controversial, that's a good time to leave it alone and go do something else. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:10, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
                • How can someone doing the actions of a properly closed RFC be controversial, from the larger standpoint of WP? That would mean no work would ever get done on WP as long as someone raised a voice to complain. If there was no RFC, or the actions were not those described by the closer of the RFC, you'd have your argument, but we're talking something that is supposed to be the result of a consensus and yes, there will be people unaware of that result and will go "Well, wait...", that happens, but there's also people that did not like that result and want to challenge it further, but that's not how RFCs work, where you keep tossing things at a wall to get them to stick. --MASEM (t) 23:31, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
                  • If it was "properly" closed, you wouldn't be having multiple editors complaining about it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:02, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
                    • That's... not correct. If we have an RfC where 200 people participate (this is a big website), which ends with a result of 150 against 50, you can reasonably expect multiple users from the minority to go and complain. You'd be correct if you phrase it this way: you wouldn't be having many editors complaining about it, but multiple? → Call me Hahc21 00:12, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
                      • If there is true consensus and a proper close, the No-voters will usually see reason. If it looks fishy, or like it was ramrodded (which, believe it or not, has been known to happen), then you've got a problem. But the core problem is the amount of energy being expended on such a trivial matter as to whether to retain certain links. How does such a fight serve the average reader? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:19, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
                        • By reducing the number of links in Wikipedia to sites whose owners appear to illegally compromise other people's computers for their own ends.—Kww(talk) 01:03, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
                        • There's a reason we have DRV which often gets populated with "I didn't get my way" complaints. There is almost always negative response to how a RFC or the like is closed. That's fine. You don't take it out by trying to smear the name of an editor if you have a beef with them. --MASEM (t) 01:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
                          • That's why I say that Dingley should forget about Betacommand and focus on whatever he thinks the OP here is doing wrong. And looking at those RFC's, there was by no means a "clear consensus", and that likely accounts for the ill will it generated. There's plenty of speculation about the "legality" of whatever the archive guy is doing. The better approach would be to treat it as simple spam - and to retain the template that points out there could be dead links. Those two things would serve the reader better than this brute force "there's clear consensus because I say so" kind of argument. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:42, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
                            • I think we're against a problem akin to presenting highly technical evidence to a jury. Most of the people that actually do networking for a living or spend their time looking at proxies, botnets, and whatnot look at the edits and say that the chances of that being a legally obtained set of proxies is vanishingly close to zero. In the true Wikipedia way, we have people that say "I don't know anything about IP addresses, but no one has presented any evidence of illegality". Our opinion about whether there's a problem is weighted equally in the discussion.—Kww(talk) 02:30, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don'l think I;ve ever commented on the archive.is issue< & at present I have no clear opinion about it > But I consider the indiscriminate removal of the links while AfC3 is underway to be uncooperative editing' ; because it will take a good deal of work to undo if the AfC does not sustain the present position, and that clearly is at least a distinct possibility: I'd suggest that the removal stop for the present. (I will now go look at the RfC, so if I do express an opinion there, that's not a contradiction that I'm presently of no fixed opinion.) DGG ( talk ) 11:23, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Everybody, can we please keep separate the issue of what to do with the archive.is links and the issue of what to do with Andy Dingley? The two are only tenuously connected. This here is supposed to be the thread about Andy Dingley. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:35, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    It's also about the possibility that the OP is simply trying to eliminate a roadblock to the controversial activity he's engaged in. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:45, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree with Bugs that the concerns of Andy regarding the overall edit patterns of Werieth appear to have face-value merit and the larger circumstances merit deeper scrutiny. Jusdafax 22:45, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    In that case Andy should be able to construct his SPI himself (indeed, if he'd done this, there would have been no issue). Whilst he continues to enable a banned editor, however, he's going to continue to be blocked whether his suspicions about Werieth are correct or not. Black Kite kite (talk) 23:22, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Sock

    Will someone block this sock User:TryNotToFly/sandbox? Nil Einne (talk) 22:40, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Got it.--Jezebel'sPonyobons mots 23:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The irony is that, so I am told, the banned editor who is the source of all the socks against Werieth also has a good faith account here known to a number of admins, strange that I don't see them commenting on this if that is in fact the case. I'll say no more. Black Kite kite (talk) 00:13, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If you have information to that effect I suggest lodging an SPI, which is the correct forum for it. That applies equally to people who have accusations against the OP. On the wider issue, AndyDingley should be free to lodge an SPI against the OP if he wishes, and have the matter properly considered without blanking of his posts. But outside that potential SPI, he should drop the issue on other pages.Euryalus (talk) 00:33, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Personally I find the irony more apparent in that the same admins saying 'We cant block based on inconclusive CU/Need more evidence' have previously and routinely duck-test blocked on far less conclusive evidence. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:39, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Are these comments (or those from Black Kite) directed towards me? I have no knowledge of the blocked editor TryNotToFly being linked to any legitimate account, nor did I block based on WP:DUCK. A check showed that the account was clearly socking and was blocked accordingly. --Jezebel'sPonyobons mots 16:11, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Apologies, mine were in reference to Kites, not yours. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:12, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Mine too. Your sock block was entirely correct. If there's evidence the sock also has a "good faith account" then that should also be published via SPI. Euryalus (talk) 20:35, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, my mistake, I meant to post my comment at the end of the previous section (editing on my phone); it was nothing to do with that sock or that block, which was entirely correct. Black Kite kite (talk) 08:08, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I have no idea who it may be. But frankly, I would suggest that Andy Dingley, or anyone else, seriously reconsiders any support for this sockpuppet. Anyone who thought it was a good idea to ping BB (and me) to their sockpuppetry either has so little experience with these matters that they're not likely to help anyone, or is just trolling and not actually intending to help. Either way, not an editor you want on your "side". Nil Einne (talk) 13:41, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Retired

    [21] The user name "Werieth" has been retired. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:38, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Would an uninvolved admin please give serous consideration to unblocking User:Andy Dingley? He has been harassed, bulied and insulted for a long while now by Werieth and the same bunch of admins, including the admin who just blocked him. He may have crossed some lines out of very understandable frustration, but I'd say there are exculpatory extenuating circumstances in this case. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:55, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Huh? What are you talking about? Last time I looked, it was Andy Dingley who was harassing Werieth, not the other way round. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:01, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Although I concur that the issues have been at times in both directions, the reason Andy is blocked because he refused the basic rule of sock accusations: file the SPI and live with the results, or STFU. Not only did he fail to abide by it, he was told flat-out to stop with the accusations whether well-founded or not. Unfortunately, he didn't stop and got unfortunately blocked for it. Personally, I WOULD happily unblock based on a WP:GAB-compliant unblock request that addresses the reason and the way forward. the panda ₯’ 13:05, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Just unblock him, won't you? Really. Look at this thread. Look at what's been going on here for years. Of course Andy was frustrated. He deserves our appreciation for turning up this fetid mess. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:16, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I haven't looked enough in to the history for informed commentary on the block (but it does look like Andy Dingley received ample warning). However I do think Andy Dingley needs to "put up of shut up" (as I've said before in other cases). I don't know that much about Betacommand but I admit the evidence I saw when I looked in to one of the complaints a while back did seem suspicious. But ultimately, unless someone actually files a successful SPI (or similar, e.g. a community ban or arbcom case), it's fundamentally unfair to continually use innuedo or even point blank accusations of sockpuppetry to harass or annoy other editors. Of course, you should never be enabling sockpuppets either, even if they are allegedly exposing another sockpuppet.
    If Wereith does retire, then I guess it's a moot point but if not, Andy needs to stop with the silly business. Andy is free to believe whatever he? wants, but shouldn't bring it up on wikipedia except as part of a case to block or ban. For better or worse, the nature of wikipedia and our strong privacy policy and limited data retention, and how the internet works, means there's always going to be some sockpuppets who "get away with it", I have no idea if that's the case here but if it is, Andy needs to accept that.
    Frankly I'm bored of all the sockpuppets, alleged false flag attacks and whatever else. Actually one thing which Wereith and Betacommand I believe share, which doesn't really demonstrate any connection, is they seem to be their own worse enemy. I think it was commonly suggested that Betacommand alienated many against the causes they were trying to achieve. As I've hinted many times in many places, Wereith seems to have managed the same with this archive.is fiasco. Of course the sockpuppet, and to a lesser extent Andy seem to be doing a similar thing with Wereith (i.e. alientating people against their cause or making Wereith seem more symphathetic). Ultimately there both sides seem so ridicilous that I would hope people are able to put it all aside and concentrate on what matters.
    Nil Einne (talk) 14:00, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Above, User:Kww says, "I looked for more when this first came up, and I'm satisfied that [SPI] did about as good a job of digging up evidence as could have been done. I can understand the good-faith belief that Werieth is Betacommand, because I'm on the fence myself. The evidence is interesting without quite being compelling. What I have real problems with is the continuous allegations that I'm engaged in a conspiracy to enable Betacommand to evade blocks."

    User:Black Kite responds with gee, yeah. It's a hard one. Mmm I'm on the fence too. Is the emperor wearing clothes or is he not. I doubt anyone has the obsession or energy necessary to do the right thing wrt them. (Was User:Mark Arsten involved in this? He seems to be Kww's enabler wherever I see the two of them in one controversy.) --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:08, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    The overlapping interest in Learning Management Systems was enough to push me off the fence. Werieth is blocked as well as retired.—Kww(talk) 14:15, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think there was a conspiracy, at least not with very reliable admins such as Masem or Kww as involved parts, however this is a major setback for WP, and I am frankly amazed we permitted this sock to operate for so much time. Probably the block of Andy was correct, even if I think Future Perfect at Sunrise was too involved and he should not be the one who blocked Andy. However I would suggest an early unblock, given the circumstances. Cavarrone 14:40, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I doubt there was a conspiracy too. I suspect Betacommand was very useful to them so each on his own just chose to do nothing. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:56, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I have unblocked Andy Dingley, as the block evidently serves no further purpose now (which doesn't vindicate his earlier behaviour though) [22]. Cavarrone: I don't take kindly to baseless insinuations of misuse of admin tools; put up or shut up. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:00, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      No need for rudeness, Fut. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:06, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Future Perfect, my note was just a very civil good-faith personal remark, at any rate I thank you for the savy unblock of Andy. Turning the page, before the thread will be closed, I invite everyone to keep the eyes open as Betacommand's sock records suggest he will back in the next few weeks/months under a different name. Please let's avoid this shameful history repeating itself. Cavarrone 15:24, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I think more accurately his record indicates he will be on another project for 3 months while checkuser goes stale, *then* he will be back here. Rinse and repeat. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:56, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Regardless of whether Werieth was a Beta sock or not, a key point to walk away is that if one files an SPI which fails to show that user's case, it is unacceptable behavior to go around continuing to accuse the targeted editor as a sock outside of that. If new evidence comes up, good, file a new SPI, otherwise that behavior is intolerable. (I am aware this might be a simplification of a number of long-standing issues here, but the general point remains). --MASEM (t) 15:37, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • In my bitter experience, too often the admins and checkusers won't do anything beyond a bare minimum. SPI's are generally a waste of time and effort. By users Dingley and Cole confronting the sock in this more public forum, the truth came out. It's unfortunate that they tipped him off to the "tells", as his next sock might be more careful. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:47, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • I went looking on google to see if that name "Werieth" had any kind of subliminal meaning. I didn't find that, but I did find that someone on a Wikipedia-attack site called Wikipediocracy had figured out the Betacommand/Werieth connection in February. So much for the value of SPI's here. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:11, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • It's funny how you can find, in Wikipediocracy, people who has long ben expelled and removed from our community. Like Kelly Martin, for example. → Call me Hahc21 03:42, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
            • I found it on Google, which linked to this Wikipediocracy thing. Not a place I'd been before, and not a place I ever hope to go back to. I just found it interesting that they had figured out the Beta-Werieth connect months ago. Most of their other commentary was repulsive and useless. But even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:55, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Noting here that ArbCom received an e-mail (on 3 July) about this from a source similar to that used to leave the allegations on arbitrator talk pages and others - I think an example is here, reverted by Kww here. I seem to recall similar messages were left on my talk page earlier in the year and reverted as well (having looked it up, these earlier messages were December 2013 and February 2014). I've not been around much the last two months, but had the time to look at this yesterday and I (independently) noticed the spelling tell pointed out by Anthonyhcole above (that is very distinctive and set alarm bells ringing in my head) - that and the tone used is what convinced me that something was amiss here. As Cavarrone notes, this was handled really badly. I think there is a need to look long and hard here at whether some people were (whether consciously or unconsciously) turning a blind eye here to what had been going on. I personally feel I should have looked more seriously earlier at the allegations being made, and I'm not happy that blanket reversions were being made to messages left on my talk page. I am going to try and track down how often that happened. Carcharoth (talk) 15:53, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • It happens pretty much any time someone I blocked for socking left a message on your talk page. It doesn't suppress or undo the notification to you that a talk page message occurred. In fact, it provides you with an extra notification, because you get notified of the reversion as well as the original message notification.—Kww(talk) 16:25, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah. I realise that. An earlier reverted notification, that I carefully noted for the record, can be seen here. That was back in December. As I said above, it came up again in February and maybe a few other times (I stopped bothering about the time a banned user started pestering me with messages about something else). It is a pain to note the reversions for the record, but I would much prefer to be told that I've been left a message by a now-blocked user, than to have the message reverted and to go to the trouble of constructing a little reminder note for myself like that. What I'm trying to say is that reverting those messages didn't really achieve anything, did it? I know it is not always possible if mass rollback or something is being used, but I would much prefer that you (and others) didn't revert such messages on my talk page. Is there a way to do that at all? (Maybe we should take this discussion to one or other of our user talk pages?) Carcharoth (talk) 20:13, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Carcharoth, if that comment is basically "please don't revert sockpuppet's edits to my talkpage because it makes more difficult for me to communicate with banned users", then there's not much to discuss. No, I will not refrain from interfering with efforts by banned users to communicate via sockpuppets. The better solution would be for you to simply ignore them.—Kww(talk) 23:30, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Kww, I'm not trying to communicate with anyone, someone is trying to communicate with me (I hope you can see the difference). While I can't stop you and others reverting the edits, I will at some point need to do due diligence and look more closely at what is being said (rather than just skimming it quickly). I believe I have a duty as an arbitrator to read through what has been said, no matter how outlandish the claims might be, and especially when someone tells me I should ignore something. That is why I've made a note on my talk page relating to the edits you and Future Perfect reverted. It is so I can look at them later when I have more time (I've really been on an extended wikibreak since April). Carcharoth (talk) 00:48, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do see the difference: you aren't blocked from editing Wikipedia, the people attempting to communicate with you are. The lesson learned from this fiasco shouldn't be "sockpuppets of banned users can be valuable in identifying sockpuppets of other banned users, so let's allow them to use talk pages". It should be more along the lines of "when ambiguous cases like Werieth's show up, checkusers should make a proactive effort to obtain information from other WMF wikis to determine whether there's an identity match."—Kww(talk) 01:37, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Carcharoth: the standard response to block-evading trolls is R-B-I. You are forgetting the "I" part; it's crucial. When it comes to serial harassment and wikihounding trolls, the "I" is not only the only practical approach; it is also the only ethically responsible one. That harasser had no business communicating with you in the first place. By expressing an interest in his posts and increasing their visibility, you were enabling him and thus supporting his harassment campaign. This is not justifiable, no matter if you're an arbitrator or not. I recently said it on my talkpage, but it bears repeating it here: on Wikipedia, nobody has the right to hound and chase down an opponent and push an agenda through by aggressive socking – not even if they are right. Nobody on Wikipedia must be subjected to wikihounding and harassment – not even if they are Betacommand. Nobody, not even a legitimate user in good standing, has the right to aid and abet and make common cause with a sockpuppeting harassment troll – not even if that cause would otherwise be just. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:40, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm well aware of RBI, Fut. Perf. The point here is whether you and others can make that 'ignore' decision for me. You are doing the revert and block part, I have no problem with that. But when you go around telling others to ignore things, you are crossing a line and making decisions for them. If I hadn't made that talk page section back in December 2013, reminding myself of what happened back then, I would have struggled to dig back in the page history to find that edit again. The same applies to these edits (and there were others that I haven't yet noted down). At some point it may (hopefully not) be necessary to look very closely at everything that happened here, and keeping track of various edits will be important evidence as to what happened and how things played out. So rather than ignoring it completely, I'm making notes for the record and putting it on the back burner if you will. If it ever becomes necessary to look at all this more closely, then those notes will be there to refer back to. I'm not endorsing what is said in those edits (it comes across as rather desperate hyperbole even if the central point looks to have have been correct), but I don't want to lose track of those edits if it ever becomes necessary to refer back to them. There may be better ways to keep track of those edits, and I'm open to trying different ways, but what I don't want is for you to take a decision for me that I should ignore something. Carcharoth (talk) 08:19, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Edits of blocked socks get rolled back, without question, everywhere on the project, no matter on what page, period. Your personal page is no more exempt from this rule than any other. The rule that you cannot restore a blocked user's edit unless you want to be personally held responsible for its contents just as if you had written it yourself applies to you just as much as to anybody else on this project. Your tactics of not restoring the posts themselves but only a diff link to them is hardly more than a transparent subterfuge. If in such cases you wish to keep records for administrative purposes but want to avoid the impression you are enabling and aiding the banned users, I strongly recommend you keep the links offline. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:45, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • My views on the original allegations were "hmm, there might be something in what is being said here, I'd better keep a record of this in case it turns out to be true". Given that the user in question is now blocked as a sock, it seems my judgement there to not completely ignore this was correct. So I make no apologies for making the same decision about these edits. If you want me to move my notes on these edits to a page in my userspace and link to that page from my talk page and talk page archives, I'm happy to do that. I will try and do that by the end of the weekend. What I will then do is examine them more closely and see if there is any substance to the other allegations made. What appears to be at stake here is whether this was someone attempting to be a whistle-blower, or someone engaging in harassment. It might well be both, but given your defensive response here and for my peace of mind I need to follow this up and be sure there is nothing in what has been said there. If the consensus at a suitable venue (not just your opinion) and after a suitable period of time is that I should take the diffs offline, I will. I'll check back on Monday or Tuesday and see if there has been any progress on this. Carcharoth (talk) 09:12, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • The suggestion that there might have been a case of a legitimate "whistleblower" is breathtakingly absurd. No good-faith editor in good standing would ever have been in trouble for submitting legitimate SPI evidence about a legitimately banned user through the appropriate procedural channels. The very insinuation, on your part, that you find such a scenario plausible is an insult to those of us administrators who deal with socking issues on this project, for which you should apologize. It's not as if Betacommand was particularly popular in the community, now, is it. And no, the fact that the allegations turned out to be (probably) true does not justify what the harassment troll was doing, nor does it justify lending an ear to them. I'm asking you straightforward: which of the following three propositions do you disagree with? (a) if somebody creates a series of single-purpose accounts over a period of many months with the sole purpose of hunting down another user and getting him blocked, they are engaging in wikihounding. (b) Wikihounding is reprehensible. (c) Wikihounding is unjustifiable even if the target is himself guilty of a breach of project rules. I'd really like to know, so I can judge your level of ethics. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:49, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with all three of those propositions. What I don't agree with is using those propositions as an excuse to ignore the allegations. On the face of it, that appears to be what you have been doing. As for apologies and ethics, in your shoes I would have apologised to Andy Dingley for the block you carried out. It is still quite possible that (as I said above) this will all need to be looked at closely to see what went wrong here. I would hope that more time would be spent examining your actions than mine. What I'm doing here is saying "hang on, take a step back and consider whether this needs to be looked at more closely". For obvious reasons, you are going to say "nothing to see here, move on". I'm not sure yet whether a closer look at all this is needed, but I'm not going to agree with you on the 'ignore' part without having taken the time to look at it in more detail myself. My initial impression is that this does need looking at more closely. The problem is, to persuade me otherwise, you are gong to have to pay this more attention than you think it deserves. So we appear to be at an impasse. Carcharoth (talk) 10:36, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am not interested in persuading you of anything. Yes, we are at an impasse: I firmly know that I did the right thing, and I find your attitude morally repulsive, so I don't want to have anything more to do with you. But let's cut to the chase: by your repeated cryptic announcements about "looking at" things more closely, are you insinuating you are planning to play the Arbcom card? Not that I care what some people on Arbcom think, mind you. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:05, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment for preventative technical countermeasure Assuming there are no copyright issues, if this is a recurrent, perennial problem (conflict over deletion of links), link/content archiving might help solve or ameliorate it, should WMF have the IT resources, and the evaluation criteria were solid regarding the material to be archived.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 17:02, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's been considered, as I recall. There was a proposal over at meta two Februarys ago that WMF take over WebCite, which was supposedly about to die off. I don't think WebCite died off, and the proposal languished. Part of the issue, of course, is that there are copyright issues. Significant ones at that. You can only claim fair use for so much. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 07:57, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mendaliv: That's good, so there should be a decent amount of discussion to consider in the event something like that comes under consideration again.
    Maybe a scaled back version would suffice. Say, a system where a user like "Werieth" claims a link should be deleted because the host is distributing malware, then Wikipedia backups up the link and corresponding content and includes a pointer to that in the article. You could prevent socks (or whoever) from being disruptive by preemptively implementing a system for handling such concerns.
    It's obviously a valid concern that the deletion of such links for spurious reasons would have a serious adverse effect on the WP article content built upon the basis of such links/web-based content. That's practically vandalism undertaken with a spurious yen ostensibly legitimate reason of WP reader security.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 10:52, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Andy was blocked? Sorry I haven't read all this thread yet. IMHO Andy's style was a bit too abrasive but the stuff he said was basically legitimate and would have been fine if phrased more diplomatically. The SPI was unconvincing in part because there was no evident attempt to match CU data against known Betacommand activity on other sites (I think he was active on Commons and I know he was active on Toolserver, which hopefully cooperated with WP sock investigations though it was non-WMF itself). I know that some other SPI's used cross-wiki CU data. It really did look to me like the SPI was shut down for political reasons as Andy said, and that various admins at different times in the saga showed, if not deliberate obtuseness, then at least sufficiently clouded judgment I couldn't consider them "uninvolved" (I can dig up some diffs if the matter becomes relevant again). I remember looking at Werieth edits at the time of the SPI and not being sure Werieth was Betacommand, but I think the evidence grew stronger after that, so by yesterday when I saw this thread, I was pretty convinced.

      Regardless of the socking question, I don't think Wereith's practices should have been tolerated: BOTPOL should have been enforced rigorously against him, resulting in an indef block long ago, sock or not. This should certainly be done in the event of a reappearance of someone with the same MO. Sooner or later I think the WMF will have to intervene and deploy technical measures to stop unauthorized bot editing, and I do hear some noises in that direction, which I find encouraging.

      As a general matter, I'm uncomfortable with any editors who operate persistently in the pure realm of rule enforcement and who never contribute any content. The thread from a couple days ago about that person placing speedy tags was another example. This is an encyclopedia, whose purpose rests in what the stuff in the articles mean to the humans who read them. Ignoring that is one possible definition of perfect bureaucracy and (I've come to believe) is a form of battleground editing that should not be allowed once there is significant pushback. And in case anyone is confused: I don't think Betacommand really cared very much about NFC or that he even understood why we have it (enforcing a policy that one doesn't understand is another sign of bureaucracy). He simply used it as a vehicle to justify his bots flogging the human effort of Wikipedia until nothing was left of it but a poor lifeless carcass. The first Betacommand arb case was long before he got in the NFC business, and among other things involved using bots to block people (he was an admin at the time). If and when he reappears it will probably be something different. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 21:11, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Checkuser

    • As far as I can see, that CheckUser was asked for comparing Betacommand's and Werieth's datas and it was declined as it was technically impossible analyze Betacommand's account as it was a stale account. Currently we already know Werieth is a sock, but being this account fresh and not yet stale a CU would be helpful in detecting his eventual sleeping (or even active) other accounts. I could be technically wrong but this is the sense of my request. Cavarrone 19:35, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Betacommand is stale. I could technically check Werieth, but I need a reason to do so. The above is a major TL;DR. It relates to the Checkuser policy and Privacy policy which governs the use of our tools. @Baseball Bugs: We don't make people's cases for them. If someone wishes to put forward a straight forward case that justifies the use of CU, i'll look at it. But i'm not reading thousands of bytes of speculation. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 03:25, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with this. What are we looking for? What is the reason for checkuser in this case? Are there supposed sleeper socks? But then again, I'm just a lazy checkuser so what do I know. Reaper Eternal (talk) 03:28, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    To put it succinctly, it would be so that the next time Betacommand creates a sock, it will be easier to identify. But you all can't be bothered with that. Thanks for living down to my expectations. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:44, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
     CheckUser is not magic pixie dust. If another sock is detected 18 months from now, checkuser data becomes essentially pointless. His IP will almost certainly have jumped around so much that no overlap would remain. Even the geographic region could be different. Additionally, it's not like Betacommand (if this even is him), isn't very technically adept. Reaper Eternal (talk) 04:01, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    This recent sock was created the day after Betacommand was banished, and within 10 edits he was starting in on his old stuff. He managed to fly under the radar for a year or so (a year and a half if you only count Wikipedia). At least now we'll be more on the alert. Especially as the checkusers are unwilling to do anything. Don't give me that "pixiedust" stuff. If checkusers are motivated, they can do more. But that's a big IF. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:09, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, blow it out your ear, BB. I'm an SPI clerk and I admit to a bias, but I rely on CUs all the time, and if they decline to run a check, I respect that. They happen to be some of the more hardworking administrators I have the distinct pleasure of knowing.--Bbb23 (talk) 05:38, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    My personal experience says otherwise. There's been a troll after me for at least five years, and every time his diseased head has popped up, the admins have blocked that specific user ID and refused to do anything else. This has happened many times since 2009 or so. So I apologize if I don't share your enthusiasm. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:04, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, but I have to strongly agree with Baseball Bugs here. My experience with CU has been disastrous, time and time again, for the very reasons BB cites. I don't really trust their expertise and their results even less so. I've had to devote considerable time and energy to defending innocent users who have been falsely accused of socking and I've had to invest an incredible amount of time posting diffs and evidence of socks only to be met by stonewalling. Viriditas (talk) 06:15, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The real solution to these kinds of issues is not to keep that burden on the (few) CU folks, but instead disperse the burden by moving into a more general forum, like this one, where all the other admins can take a look and decide if it's a WP:DUCK. Obviously that's also not a panacea, because here you have to fake timestamps in order to not get rotated into oblivion before anyone's seen it (*eyeroll*), but still. Once you get a modicum of a consensus that some repeat offender is indeed so egregiously annoying to be explicitly banned, then that makes admin action easier next time a block is needed. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:55, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • DeltaQuad and Reaper Eternal, thanks for the replies. The tl;dr is that Werieth is Betacommand and has been blocked as such. When people requested a CU in March and December 2013, they were told Betacommand's data was stale and that it was a fishing expedition (despite the circumstantial evidence).

      The question is how to avoid this happening in future. I'm therefore asking whether a CU could be run now and the data retained, and also to see whether there are other accounts. Betacommand is active on Mediawiki if a comparison is needed. [23] SlimVirgin (talk) 04:00, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • To my understanding, the global CU you propose would require a steward, or at least someone with local CU access on all wikis being checked. I have no idea if that is allowable under the CU policy. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 04:10, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Unless there is crosswiki abuse, there is no reason to perform a cross-wiki checkuser investigation. Anyway, what would it prove? You're already convinced Werieth (talk · contribs) is Betacommand (talk · contribs), so asking for me to compare Werieth here to Betacommand there seems to be an unnecessary use of checkuser. Reaper Eternal (talk) 04:11, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Reaper Eternal, requesting a local CU to check for other accounts is a reasonable request in the circumstances. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:26, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    There seems to be some confusion about what is requested. As SlimVirgin has said - Werieth is a sock account. Has the editor behind Werieth created any other sock accounts, including sleeper ones? If so, can they be identified by a local CU? Euryalus (talk) 04:30, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, that's the idea. Forget Betacommand, the data is too old. The first order of business is to look for socks of Werieth. Then see if it's possible to capture the "technical data" for Werieth, to be compared with the next sock he creates, which could be today, tomorrow, next week... or more than 3 months from now, when he thinks the heat's off. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:42, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, in my view it SHOULD be done. This is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill sock case, the Werieth case is one of the worst and most shameful fiascos in recent WP history. If the CU will not give significant results, so be it, we tried. But we need to use every weapon we have to prevent this crap repeating itself, including verifying here and now if this professional sockmaster has sleeping or active alt accounts. It would not be minimally surprising considering his record. Cavarrone 04:57, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    *CU has spotted some Betacommand socks before, but I'm pretty sure Betacommand is knowledgeable enough to dodge CU once it has come into play. So a negative finding (now or in some future incident) doesn't really tell us much. Timezone evidence is also less meaningful than usual in a case like this, unless the person is actively responding to human conversation showing they are awake (bot edits don't establish this). Checking for sleepers is routine practice after a sock block anyway though, and it's (from what I hear) also SOP to keep CU data around regarding persistent sockers.

    I don't blame Andy Dingley for not opening a new SPI given the obstruction and threats he faced in the old one (I just looked at the archived SPI again and I see I had forgotten how awful it was). I'd say Andy's judgment is now vindicated even if he might better have said some things a little bit differently. The Wikipediocracy thread that Baseball Bugs found was also interesting though polemical. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 05:34, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Could an uninvolved admin look at User:TryNotToFly/sandbox and see if there is evidence there that the community might want to judge for itself? Alternatively, maybe there is something there that CU's might want to hold onto. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 07:05, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    No it doesn't. It is essentially a message identifying the editor as a sock of GoFormer and urging others to read a section of an off-wiki website. Euryalus (talk) 07:59, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 08:22, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Good job! That proves Werieth was a sock/socking, at the very least, and the other account was created before the "Werieth" account.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 20:22, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Nice, a sleeper account from 2008/09. Wonder how many more will pop up. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 23:49, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, DQ. I'm sorry to throw more annoying requests your way, but I think it's worthwhile to try to close the circle by getting a check on mw:user:Betacommand to compare with Werieth. I have noted a few more behavioural tells that confirm that Werieth was Betacommand but I think it's best to save them for next time. I'd also be interested if you can confirm that Spartay (talk · contribs) and friends didn't seem to be running similar software to Werieth's.

    Joy, yeah, one is an incident, two is a pattern. There are probably more and I can think of some ways to hunt for them, but it scarcely seems worthwhile. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 03:38, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    As a note, depending on how far this goes but if it does verifyable connect Werieth to Beta, please make sure ArbCom is notified, since Beta is - for all counts - still banned from WP (he has not approached ArbCom about removing the ban so that is still in place), and this might even contravine the second BetaCommand case, which I would thus suspect that if Werieth == Beta, ArbCom will recind the offer to return at all. --MASEM (t) 15:25, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    In actuality, I would question what difference it really makes anyway. I mean, he returned as Werieth when he was banned, so what would he care if they allow his main acct to appeal or not. He is now forever destined as a sock. That unfortunately is his fate, his legacy. "BetaCommand" is dead. Rgrds. --64.85.214.233 (talk) 15:54, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Two things: first, we don't have any direct evidence that Beta == Werieth, but the vector of what has transpired plus Occum's Razor makes this conclusion almost inevitable, but for purposes of our AGF policy on WP, we should not be walking around like Werieth is 100% Beta, so as such, there's nothing to do with Arbcom yet. If that can be proven, then it is key to make sure that ArbCom knows as given the transgression from the start, I am confident they'd remove/cancel the offer for Beta to opt to return (as is currently open after the 3rd BC case there). --MASEM (t) 17:24, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    They should be informed about Werieth, though. Trolls will try to imitate another user in hopes of getting him in trouble. True socks try to avoid scrutiny, but they usually give themselves away eventually, even while denying it. The fact that the user gave a non-denial-denial when "retiring" is just another nail in it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:31, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Masem, when is there EVER direct evidence about someone socking, short of a confession? Checkuser evidence is of course circumstantial and not direct, thus the WP:BROTHER defense. But as the article explains, circumstantial evidence is enough to create an actionable factfinding, even in the most serious criminal cases. Here there is plenty of DUCK evidence already documented, and more that hasn't been. I think the threshold of deniability has been surpassed and W=B can simply be treated as a fact. Baseball Bugs, thanks for the funny thought. The idea of someone doing a "joe job" by spending 1.5 years running buggy bots doing NFC enforcement and getting the support of multiple savvy admins brings a smile to my face. The still-missing piece is how they bring it all crashing down at the end (what we have now is an utter fizzle for such a large effort, so this can't be all there is to it). I'll go buy some popcorn while awaiting their next move.

    More seriously, I agree with Cavarrone that the system failed in this episode. We need some postmortem analysis to figure out what happened and what we can do to prevent recurrences. I have some thoughts that I'll try to post later, and I hope others weigh in with their own thoughts. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 20:27, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    The strongest evidence would be for a normal CU approach (which would confirm common IP addresses by what otherwise is apparently two separate editors with similar editing interests - which we presume for normal CU evaluation to be too much of a coincidence to dismiss). That is, reportedly, impossible for Beta and Werieth due to Beta's activity having gone stale when Werieth was sufficiently active. I do say Occum's Razor might need to apply since there's almost no other way to explain Werieth's coincidential behavior to Beta with the new evidence given. --MASEM (t) 20:38, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I echo the IP 5 messages above, Beta's Arbcom case is moot, Beta will never come back (under that name). As proven by socks Werieth and Smokestack Basilisk, this weary guy has no interest in WP other than testing and free playing his unauthorizated semi-automated bots, something clearly difficult to do as Beta in the previous circumstances (given the limitations he would surely have been subjected if allowed to come back), let alone now. About the rest, this is an obvious DUCK case, and the more I'm investigting about Betacommand the more I'm "surprised" that none of the admins/editors who were closer to this editor under his previous incarnations noted the obvious socking. Frankly, hard to believe. And even here, in the very first section of this long thread, there are a couple of comments by some (now evaporated) admins that retrospectively sound not less than ridicolous. Cavarrone 23:35, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Masem, yes, I agree that CU matches are almost always convincing enough to nail a case shut. I'm just saying that they're still indirect just like DUCK evidence, and this shows that indirect evidence is perfectly good, we close cases with it all the time, and we shouldn't pretend this case is somehow unsolved just because there's no direct evidence. I don't agree that the CU data was all cold in December since (as mentioned) cross-wiki CU might have found something but wasn't attempted (I would have expected those checks to be routine so I was upset one wasn't done, but you know better than me). I also think the SPI was shut down too early even without CU, as a deeper behavioral check might have nailed the case at that time (I just spotted another doozy, though it's from later than the SPI-- I'm sure others are better at this than I am, and I'm not trying very hard).

    I'm not blaming you as I know CU's have a heavy workload and must prioritize, and I know that the sock disruption and admin intervention must have made it hard to proceed. But, the case was quite credible and the incident was not about some routine "friends of gays" vandal attacking a few articles from multiple accounts. Betacommand is one of the worst disruptors Wikipedia has had, doing 10000's of banned edits with considerable tells already documented, so I think a more thorough investigation was more than justified.

    Looking forward, I think we should make some cultural and technical changes in site practices in response to this incident, and try to get some unclear policy questions answered. I'll try to write a concrete proposal soon. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 23:50, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • @173.228.123.145: Another CU was telling me that there was CU logs that could indicate that it is Betacommand. MediaWiki does not have it's own checkusers, so you will have to go to meta and ask for the stewards to run a CU there. I can share the relevant information as needed. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 00:07, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Mmmm, Salvio giuliano blocked Smokestack Basilisk (with the summary "checkuserblock-account") about one day before DeltaQuad posted the CU results about Werieth's sockpuppertry. Am I missing something? Then there was another CU about Werieth...? --Cavarrone 09:36, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    From how I read the active users and stewards over at MW, the only way they'd run a CU on Betacommand at MediaWiki, is to have a CU from en request it, without other direct evidence of cross-wiki actionable material. As the direct evidence is the CU information, it would appear that DeltaQuad or another CU has to make the request. ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 08:23, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    That would be in line with how Commons "handled" the Xanderliptak case: "Oh, he's not bothering us, so 'F.U.', Wikipedia." They only got serious with him when he sent them a bogus copyvio threat. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:36, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Solarra, thanks, Jasper at meta says about the same thing: "what I can say is that should English Wikipedia CheckUsers desire such a check, they would normally request it privately via a mailing list such as the stewards' list or the checkusers' list, or via private messaging on IRC". DeltaQuad, do you want to give this a try? If nothing else it would get you some experience with the process, in case another cross-wiki situation arises. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 15:54, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think leveling scorn at individual checkusers is warranted in this case. The problem actually resides in our checkuser policies. I quibble with some of our checkusers about them being more reticent to disclose IP information than our policy actually allows, but they generally follow our policy. Their reluctance to run checkusers in the first place stems from that. The problem is that our policy treats running the check as an invasion of privacy, which it most clearly is not: only a release of the information can rationally be treated as any kind of privacy issue. The solution is to loosen our checkuser policy and encourage checkusers to run checks on a much more liberal basis. Loosen the policy first, then yell at the CUs if they won't run checks.—Kww(talk) 17:46, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    They do when it suits them. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:09, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Kww, the controls and auditing on CU are a good thing, and misuse of CU is definitely invasive even if the info isn't released (consider the article LOVEINT about personal conflicts of interest by people with access to private info, or imagine a CU with sympathies in a nationalistic content dispute, noticing that editor X is editing from country Y and then giving that editor unequal attention). But it's WMF-controlled data and so cross-wiki checks are a reasonable thing when there's an issue with someone active in multiple projects. I can imagine the threshold being a bit higher than for a purely local check, but this case warrants it. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 20:10, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @DeltaQuad: Thank you :-) ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 03:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • DQ, I've started writing a post for meta about the Werieth/Betacommand behavioural resemblance so I thought I'd mention this in case you're doing the same thing. While I was writing it, we got a response which I think wants actual bad edits that Werieth made. I've asked for clarification and can try to get some of that type of diff together too. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 06:41, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Another apparent duck evidence

    Credits goes to User:GZWDer, that mentioned this one in Werieth's talk page. Apparently Betacommand (who as said above is still active in a number of other Wikis) here copied a Werieth's code [27] just a few hours before Werieth announced his retirement. Cavarrone 11:22, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, I noticed that too, but decided to keep it quiet for now (see tell (poker)). There are a few more such things that I know of but haven't posted. If you spot any more, it's probably better to either sit on them quietly or privately communicate them to a checkuser. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 16:50, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    David Horvitz

    A few years ago, I had been part of a group who uncovered a campaign by David Horvitz to have photographs of himself looking at various beaches along the California coast posted on Wikipedia. This culminated in this deletion discussion at the Commons (there may have been a discussion regarding the photos locally but I cannot seem to find it). Horvitz then turned this into an art project when every single photo he had uploaded got deleted, but it turns out that he fully intended to reupload everything.

    Binksternet recently uncovered the disruption had happened once more locally and on the Commons with a slew of sockpuppets that he has been documenting at his talk page. I also uncovered other photographs he had posted across the project and other language projects, as he did in his previous disruption in 2011. This has disruption occuring from the past 2 years, including photographs of similar quality taken of his international journeys including one of a beach in Hong Kong. I also discovered that Horvitz had been contributing to Wikipedia as early as 2006 under the account Rasputinfa, which he had explicitly linked to his own name. There was also some minor disruption late last year when he used an intern to get his article deleted.

    I am proposing that we officially ban David Horvitz from the English Wikipedia. We should also attempt to coordinate bans on other projects, as he has uploaded his photographs for a beach in Hong Kong for which there is only an article on the Chinese Wikipedia as well as constant disruption to the Commons, but I am not as well versed in the means to get that sort of ball rolling.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 14:01, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I have found the previous discussions at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive666#Something fishy on Pelican State beach and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive675#Attention Wikipedia - you have been conquered,,,.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 14:09, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    The article Whale Beach (Nevada) has a photo of a naked guy facing, thankfully, away from the viewer, looking out to the water. The camera is not the same model as the ones Horvitz has used (usually a Canon EOS 40D professional or Canon PowerShot consumer model), but the layout of the photos and the physicality of the person is the same. Binksternet (talk) 17:11, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    So he actually created a whole new article just to host a selfie.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 17:21, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And it's a crap selfie at that. Between the dust circles, sharpness, exposure settings, lens choice... while I agree with some of this guy's compositional and subject choices in some of the images displayed at that "art project" page, this is just dreck being passed off as fine photography. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:21, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Question I understand people are miffed, but I'm not sure I see the disruption. (I read the discussion at the time, but it's a distant memory.) If he is replacing pictures with worse ones just to have his picture included, then it's disruption, regardless of whether it's art, self promotion, or exhibitionism. If on the other hand the pictures are improving the articles, then we should offer a lukewarm welcome... All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:59, 4 July 2014 (UTC).
    He's using Wikipedia to promote himself and his work by only uploading photographs of himself at these various locations with his back turned to the camera, forcing editors who want to use the photos to crop them to where the subject is himself absent from the photos. Or his odd artistic photos like the one he had at melancholic depression for 2 years of him fake sobbing into his hands, the photo he posted at solitude of just himself standing on a beach with no one else, or this photo of himself looking at a sculpture. There is no point to any of the photos he has uploaded here or at the commons other than making sure that he is included in them.
    He was not welcome 3 years ago when he was indefinitely blocked. He is not welcome now that he's spent the past 3 years using sockpuppets to discreetly reupload everything that had been deleted and then go out to more locations to take more photos of himself in the same manner and then post them to Wikipedia, making screencaps of them prominent in his artwork and his fame. If he wanted to be welcomed by the community his homepage would not have a screenshot of our article on the Irish coastal town of Howth with a photo of him looking out at Dublin Bay with his back facing the camera to gloat about how he's fooled Wikipedia again. He made it his full intention to disrupt Wikipedia after we gave him the boot, and immortalized our words in his gallery when we realized we had been had.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 18:17, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    It's still not clear how we are "fooled", or how anyone is "forced" to crop his images (though go ahead if the results are better, it is a moments work after all). It's rather like saying one has "hacked" Wikipedia when one edits an article to improve it. And maybe someone should tell him about the "preview" feature if he just wants screencaps. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:33, 4 July 2014 (UTC).
    He had his photos on the project for the past 2 years after we found out about his "Public Access" installation that he was using Wikipedia for and had them all deleted the first time around. Then his first act after whatever automatic block expired was to add back the photo that led to the discovery of his stupid art project in the first place. And no, screencaps aren't what he wants. He wants to have photos of himself on the various Wikipedia articles live by being in the photographs. That's why he added the photo to Howth. That's why when he went to Hong Kong, he took a photo on a beach there and then added it to the Chinese Wikipedia page as the top image on the article. He's not here to contribute. He's here to disrupt and have his backside across Wikimedia projects. The fact that we could not catch this two years ago means that there are an untold number of lovely photographs of beaches across Wikipedia and its sister projects that have the same man looking at the horizon away from the camera just because he wants to make a statement about web 2.0.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:31, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Question - Is there a policy reason why he was not notified of this discussion, or was that just an oversight? He should have been notified, and has been. It is important for anyone reporting a disruptive editor to be sure that they follow both the spirit and the letter of our policies and guidelines. Was he not notified for a reason, or by oversight? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:40, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @ Robert; as you saw, I directed his talk page to the conversation, but with the "gaggle of sockpuppets" Modus operandi he uses, creating a whole slew of accounts, often only using the account to upload 3 photos then its never used again, how do you really notify "him", he is Wikipedia:Gaming the system, an editor finds a loophole or trick that allows them to evade community standards. talk→ WPPilot  03:47, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Question(s). Ryulong mentioned above that this person has been indefinitely banned. Was that ban lifted at some point? If not, then this discussion really is pointless: using socks to avoid a ban is not permitted (to put it mildly) & they should be blocked on sight & his edits reverted. If his ban was lifted, then what was the rationale? (I'll confess -- my opinion on this issue echoes Rich Farmborough's if he's not banned. However, if he's evading an indefinite ban then all efforts to block him are justified.) Lastly, if he was banned here on en.wikipedia, but not at Commons, wouldn't a more accurate response to be banning any reuse of his images from there without some kind of community approval? -- llywrch (talk) 19:31, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I did not say that he has been banned. He was never formally banned. There were simply several sockpuppets that were discovered 3 years ago that were blocked. This discussion exists to formally ban him and coordinate bans on the other projects to ensure that his low quality but artistic photos not end up on every single article on a California beach or some other random articles regarding types of clinical depression or abstract concepts like loneliness.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 02:00, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Ban?

    Just to be clear BMK, Nowa is not Horvitz. Nowa is an editor who has taken an interest in protecting the David Horvitz page, and thus has made constructive edits to that page. The vast majority of Nowa's edits are to other pages, far afield from this topic. So your vote is made on false pretenses.--Theredproject (talk) 16:24, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, I got suspicious too and looked into Nowa's past. But Nowa is a long time editor (over 9 years) with a variety of contributions to Wikipedia, both in article and non-article space, and even earned a few barnstars in appreciation for work done. You can disagree with Nowa's opinions here but don't mistake who they are, this is an editor in good standing. (A couple of copyright concerns years ago and a recent warning about COI but no formal warnings or blocks, which is remarkable to me.) -- Atama頭 17:39, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Questions about David Horvitz

    Were his images hoaxes, or did they actually depict the locations they claimed to? Did he remove better photos to make room for his? Did he edit war or insult people? Just trying to get my mind around the nature of the "disruption" here. Cheers! --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:24, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    He was violating WP:POINT by abusing Wikipedia's freeness to have his artistic works disseminated whenever someone wanted a photo of Pelican State Beach or something resembling "melancholic depression" by having himself included in every single photo he uploaded, usually center of frame looking out towards the horizon. In one case, he made an article just to host his photo which happened to be of a nude beach. In all cases, he made his photo the top one on the articles, sometimes replacing photos in inoboxes, sometimes adding the sole photo of the location to the project, and then he used the nature of the dissemination of the photos because they were free in his art exhibitions, as well as our reactions to the initial discovery of his disruption in 2011. My screenname is in some PDF relating to the event. Shortly after this (in 2011), he posted on his blog that he would upload everything again, which we have just found out was the case. That's the disruption. The intent to use Wikipedia and abuse Web 2.0 to his own personal gain.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:22, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    You can also read more a about the original issues with the Pelican Beach photos in this article : [29] You can see the original deletion discussion here.--Nowa (talk) 10:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. Friedrich is my favourite romantic. I once travelled to London just to see an exhibition of his work. I appreciate the homage, David, and the effort all you Wikipedians have put in (and are putting in) to make David's piece the success it is. Well done all concerned. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:28, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Anthony, while most of the images did indeed depict the claimed locations, they were all of extremely low technical quality, and many didn't really even depict anything useful. Some were little more than pictures of a man's clothed backside, buttocks clenched in an almost constipated posture. While I thought some of the images were salvageable, the folks over at Commons disagreed, and I respect the consensus that formed over there. All that's happening here is Horvitz abusing multiple accounts to promote himself, not even his works, and the community is reacting to that. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 15:41, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, there's the fact that he is actively socking and adding his shit art to Wikipedia as we speak.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 18:36, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    How do you know it's David H?--Nowa (talk) 20:41, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Because it's a fairly safe thing to assume. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 20:43, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    No it's not. Be specific.--Nowa (talk) 21:07, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you kidding? Total rando comes out of the woodwork to upload this dude's hackish art? If it's not a sock, it's a meatpuppet. In light of that it's probably a good idea to do a sleeper check of Horvitz's accounts in case there are others lurking. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you agreeing that it's probably not a David H. sockpuppet?--Nowa (talk) 21:36, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And by the way, the edit wasn’t an upload. Get your facts straight.--Nowa (talk) 21:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    One of the accounts that performed the edits I linked to uploaded the file to the commons with the exact same file name and composition. A sock puppet check was also performed and connected these two new accounts locally to accounts that were involved in the spate of edits prior. Now, Nowa, please kindly stop disrupting this discussion. We know you are not the photographer with whom you share a name so your further disruption of this thread will be seen as a separate act of violating WP:POINT.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the more detailed explanation. I checked and you are right. One of those new users did upload another copy of Mooddisorder to Commons.--Nowa (talk) 12:15, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Not this shit again. Is there a formal ban discussion over at Commons? If not, why not? —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 20:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    There is a formal discussion over at commons. They seem equally skilled at spotting ducks (It's come up that Nowa is another individual named "David Horvitz") What a bunch of idiots.--Nowa (talk) 21:11, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Retract this personal attack.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:15, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    You are right. Personal attacks don’t belong here. I apologize.--Nowa (talk) 12:17, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I see Horvitz has "published" a PDF book detailing his adventures, which includes copies of the text of several Wikipedia articles. The only indication I see of compliance with the licensing terms is the vague symbols towards the end, indicating an intent to make it available as CC-BY-SA-NC, with no link to the licensing terms (even presuming that counts as a good enough license to satisfy the share-alike requirement). —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:32, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    And Nowa, please do not refactor my comments again. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:41, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And don’t post inflammatory and irrelevant material to the discussion.--Nowa (talk) 21:48, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    This item,[30] with Nowa answering as if he were the infamous Horvitz, is sufficiently convincing. As regards these various pictures in which Horvitz has imposed his ugly self, I'm curious whether any of the pictures would be of use if Horvitz wasn't in them. If so, maybe they could be photoshopped to get rid of Horvitz and make it look like a smooth landscape. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:49, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    That's a good point, Bugs. Maybe it's time this went to SPI. Given Nowa's sudden preoccupation with censoring the fact that I noticed Horvitz may have failed to follow the terms of use in reusing Wikipedia material, even to the point of labeling that "irrelevant and inflammatory" (how it is, I have no idea), I think there's good enough behavioral evidence to ask for a CU. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, having taken a quick peek at his edits, I feel pretty convinced that Nowa is not Horvitz (and I don't say that lightly; Nowa's been practically doing everything possible to convince us he's Horvitz). I still think a CU on Horvitz's socks would be appropriate to turn any sleepers, however. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 22:22, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Are any of Horvitz's photos still known to be on Wikipedia and/or Commons? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:28, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    it is believed that there might be but as of now they all seem to be taken care of unless he posts the photo of himself looking depressed again.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:15, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Full protection of article Yank Barry

    Note; I am not here to judge the merits of the legal dispute or the dispute on the article. All I'm here to bring a discussion about is the protection type which is currently used on the article. On June 25th, 2014 User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry fully protected the article until August 29, 2014 and used this as the reference to do it in their edit summary; Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive201#Yank_Barry. Note that the discussion did not mention full protection the event of legal dispute, and only did the end of it actually link to an administrative noticeboard, which unfortunately I can't find the archives to at this moment. I went to the protecting administrator's talk page and they declined to unprotect the article, citing the possibility of editors becoming defendants. Then, I went to WP:UNPROTECT where I proposed that the protection be removed. It was declined, and was instructed to go to WP:ANI, so here I am. Yank Barry has been mentioned on multiple admin noticeboards as the subject has brought Wikipedia users to court for defamation, and is currently an ongoing legal proceedings.

    My main qualms with the current protection is that there was seemingly no policy justification for it and that it creates a bad precedent. Chase me ladies used WP:LEGAL as the policy justification for on the article. There is no protection policy outlined on WP:LEGAL. I objected to the protection type and a few other editors have as well. The reason why it creates a bad precedent is that people will see the Yank Barry article and may just use legal proceedings to ensure that the article is locked. Full protection locks out everyone, including the valid contributors who were trying to ensure the article adhered to WP:BLP, WP:V and other content policies. As well, as outlined at WP:GOLDLOCK, fully protection is only warranted in degrees of content disputes and in case of 'history only review'. This article does not outline nor meet that criteria. I propose that the article be unprotected/reduced to semi protection due to the lack of justification in policy for the protection type and the bad precedant that it creates. Thank you. Tutelary (talk) 17:25, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment Perhaps pending changes would be more suitable. If we can review anything before its put up thats potentially libelous etc might be a way forward. Amortias (T)(C) 17:31, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I am not sure of the benefits of PP on this article, or in general. Speaking to WP:LEGAL there is little benefit, indeed WRONGVERSION constraints could make the protecting admin liable. However this specific article is pretty much only edited by consensus, so I don't see much harm either. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:38, 4 July 2014 (UTC).
    Per "citing the possibility of editors becoming defendants", I doubt, from a position of ignorance, whether it is possible to sue someone for acts not yet committed, though of course additional defendants can be named, and indeed this is presumably the reason for the "Does 1-50" in the original application to the court. I would imagine the court would look dimly upon a plaintiff who had not taken the trouble to establish at least the user names of the defendants, but then I am not the court. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:50, 4 July 2014 (UTC).
    Yeah, I added that back in due to the fact that I wanted to be fair to Chase me ladies and make sure that their side was accurate and told. Tutelary (talk) 17:55, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • While there are no policy-based justifications for protecting an article under these types of circumstances, I consider this a case of IAR and common sense. On the other hand as far as I know, the supposed legal actions are based solely on the conduct and comments of individual editors in the talk page, not the article content, and the edit war, such as it were, was between several Yank Barry-friendly accounts and some of the regulars there. There are also precedents to this type of admin action - Donald Arthur for example was stubbed and fully protected for weeks while Wikimedia Legal duked it out with the subject's lawyers and eventually bounced it back to us. So let's call this a bit of justified cautiousness, set up pending changes just in case and move on. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 18:37, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the primary distance with that case is that there was an OTRS ticket which I can speculate was a specific legal threat, and that the blanking and the stubbing was done by an WP:OFFICE action, which override consensus. If the WMF foundation sees it fit that the article be fully protected in the notion of the legal dispute, I will respect that, but not when an administrator sees it fit on their own thoughts and reasoning. I do support semi protection/pending changes as a solution. Tutelary (talk) 20:07, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    That wasn't an Office action, it was an admin realizing the severity of the problem and responding to a temporary semi-protection request from me. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 06:32, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • My concern is that a non-pseudonymous editor might be added to the suit for what we would consider to be a benign edit. I consider page protection to be a reasonable tradeoff between inconvenience and benefit, but setting up pending changes would accomplish the same thing. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 18:57, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • While I am neither a lawyer nor do I play one on TV, I consider the possibility of editors being unknowingly dragged into this ongoing lawsuit real and dangerous, not hypothetical and unlikely. I endorse protection per WP:IAR. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 20:48, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • BLP states: "As noted above, individuals involved in a significant legal or other off-wiki dispute with the subject of a biographical article are strongly discouraged from editing that article." This is like allowing the subject to choose who gets to write the article by taking legal action whether it goes to court or not. A straight across the board lock seems appropriate here for now. I endorse protection as well per the Foundation's Resolution:Biographies of living people which states: "Investigating new technical mechanisms to assess edits, particularly when they affect living people, and to better enable readers to report problems". When a subject is taking legal action against editors of their page, this may well be the best mechanism for this instance.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:09, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I am against pending changes as an option in this case. There is already a clear chilling effect and as a reviewer I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Other's might be willing, but doesn't that just add potential issues such as a reviewer passing through content that then also becomes a legal matter and now we have two editors involved and not just the one?--Mark Miller (talk) 21:14, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - The real problem here is that the WMF has not said anything after the lawsuit was filed. They should have said something, as to whether they would protect the named editors or the Does, or would not protect them. Shame on them. They can cure the shame by saying either that they will defend the editors, or that they will leave the editors on their own. In the mean time, Shame on them. They should have responded quickly, rather than consulting for ever. That is my opinion. WMF: Can you say something to the sued editors, or do you really just plan to leave them hanging? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:50, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - I generally despise full page protection as many of the best content people are not administrators and protection is often used as a tool in edit wars to lock down a favored version over an alternative version. In this case, however, with a pending lawsuit which lists "John Does #1 to 50," I think full protection can be rationalized as a protective measure to prevent passersby from actually becoming embroiled in an ugly legal situation. Carrite (talk) 22:21, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - I'm not opposed to protecting the page to reduce the risk of people getting themselves involved in a potential legal case without realising. That said, it seems to me very have an interesting situation. I believe, and it seems to be supported by some of the comments above that the legal case currently is only supposed to involve talk page comments. While I don't see any reason talk page comments will be pursued but not article edits (if anything the opposite), is it possible we may actually be increasing the risk of editors becoming defendents by pushing them to the talk page rather than editing the article directly? (I presume we're not planning to protect the talk page.) Also while I'm generally a strong supporter of PC, I have to agree it seems a bad choice here since we risk just increasing the people who may involve themselves. While perhaps there would be a small number of editors willing to accept that possible consequences and monitor the PC, I don't see a way to prevent others just thinking it's a normal situation. In fact, is it more likely an editnotice will be missed by reviewers? Nil Einne (talk) 18:22, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • You raise an interesting point, but I think the distinction is a bit of a red herring: the suit concerns not talk page comments, but defamation. It's pretty meaningless where it is alleged to have happened, whether on the article, talk page, or even here on ANI: the risk of getting swept up in the suit, all else being equal, is equivalent. But all else is not equal: someone forced to go to the talk page is going to see, writ large, that something is going on and that they ought to act accordingly. Yes, that will chill commentary. Forgive me for being paternalistic, but I think in this situation, a brief period of chilling isn't too harmful if it means keeping our valuable editors from being SLAPPed around. But all said, I think the points raised by this incident at least make clear that we're just not sure how to approach these situations. What should we do during the pendency of a potential SLAPP? There are policy arguments favoring multiple approaches. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 18:37, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • To be clear, my concern wasn't much to do with chilling commentary (except that I'm not convinced we're willing to go so far as to fully protect the talk page). Rather I'm not sure we have any particular reason to think people are less likely to write the allegedly defamatory stuff on talk pages? If anything it seems they may be more likely to do so since they'll feel freerer on the talk page. Experience editors may recognise that full protection is rare, and try to work out what is going on. But one would hope experienced editors will also read an edit notice and perhaps hidden commentary. I'm less convinced inexperienced editors are going to realise there much be something going on. And while I'm not sure how likely it is inexperienced editors will read an edit notice, I'm also not sure how likely it is they will notice existing discussion on the talk page about the legal case. If anything it may be easier for them to miss, since they'll just click "add section" write some crap and be done. (I mean how many times have you seen an editor post something which is discussed one or two threads above? Heck some editors still manage to post to the top of the talk page.) In other words, the more I think about it, the more I'm unconvinced protecting the article is actually going to achieve what we are hoping it will achieve and in fact could actually do the reverse. The only chance it may is if enough people just don't bother because they can't edit or are aware of the situation but don't take it seriously but do when they see full protection because they believe it must mean there is something serious. P.S. Let's remember that there is potentially a risk outside the article on it's talk page too and so people may need to be careful with their commentary. I've purposely avoided saying anything about the merits of the case for that reason (like possible SLAPP issues). Nil Einne (talk) 17:27, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose protection, propose semi-pro and an edit notice instead an edit notice notifying editors of the pending litigation, paired with semi protection to block brand, new editors, seems adequate without the more drastic action of the full protection. VQuakr (talk) 19:33, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • While I prefer full protection for this because of the concerns mentioned above, I'm not as in favor of an editnotice. Call it WP:DENY-like reasoning (though I'm having a bit of trouble reconciling that rationale with my approval of protection). —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 00:34, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • But if you're interested in protecting editors, does it really make sense to choose the option which may put them at more harm based on some weird principle which you admit you aren't really consistently applying? Nil Einne (talk) 17:29, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment As one of the people named in the lawsuit, I can say that 1) it's a mess, and 2) it's being dealt with. I'd suggest maintaining the protection for a while longer, pending further developments. As of right now, nobody has a request for an article edit on the talk page, and there's not much controversy. So there's no urgency to do anything. John Nagle (talk) 07:01, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose protection, propose semi-protection and an edit notice instead Word for word agree with User:VQuakr.--Dr Gonzo5269 (talk) 01:38, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The "edit notice" concept is worrisome. What will it say? "You may be sued if you edit or comment on this article?" That's more intimidating than full protection. There are major policy implications to such a notice. It might well encourage other suits against editors. John Nagle (talk) 03:24, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    This, absolutely. I knew there was a reason I had a visceral revulsion to the idea of the editnotice. It's not so much a WP:DENY issue as a WP:BEANS issue. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 04:25, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I would suggest that the edit notice contain an attention grabbing (stop sign with exclamation point?) icon, and say something similar to, "Please note that per the Terms of Use, you take responsibility for your edits. Be aware that as noted in this article, in the past editors who have edited this page have been subjected to legal action. More information can be found [[<link to archived discussion about lawsuit>|here]]." WP:DENY is an essay about vandalism, and is being given undue consideration in this context. My take on this is pretty simple - we do not need to big brother the article by fully protecting it - if WMF legal thinks it should be locked, they can do it via office action. Otherwise, nothing in the protection policy supports this protection. VQuakr (talk) 06:34, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Not sure what that has to do with either John or my points to which you're replying. I already said the issue is more a WP:BEANS one. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 06:58, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mendaliv: yeah, weird; the second to last part of my reply above does not really follow. I must have misread your post. Of course WP:BEANS is just an essay, too. The example it gives is not to write, don't click on this link or you will crash Wikipedia - pretty different than please don't sue the editors. I do not really see how it applies, or how an edit notice could in any way increase the probability of legal action. VQuakr (talk) 07:08, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a great big banner saying to other article subjects "Hey, this guy sued and got a big ol' fancy banner on his article to scare away people who said things he didn't like. Why not you?" That's where the beans come in. In my mind, protection is a bit different because it doesn't make absolutely clear why the article's protected to anyone who happens to click "edit". —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 11:41, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment I support the protection as a means of reducing both the potential for drama as well as the potential for there to be further publicity generated as a result of edits made to the article while the lawsuit is pending.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 18:42, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose protection, pending changes, banners, etc. When there's no reason for protection (and no valid reason has been given) an article should not be protected. The end date is inexplicable -- if anyone thinks the lawsuit will be over in August, he doesn't know the American legal system! If the true intent is to keep protecting this version forever, or until the lawsuit is resolved (whichever comes first), then that is something that should be left to an official OFFICE action. I can excuse an admin applying brief protection until they had a chance to hear about it but that time is over. I think it's important for people to read the suit for themselves; so far as I can tell it is not based on what people added to the article, but only talk page comments and what they did not put into the article (see "false light"). In the absence of official legal guidance, Wikipedia should just go by its normal procedures. Either those are defective and leave editors exposed to lawsuits for legitimate editing, in which case we need to flex our political muscle and push for liability reform overall, or else they are not and there is nothing unusual to worry about. Wnt (talk) 13:16, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oppose Protection I second everything User:VQuakr has argued. While I am not opposed to an edit notice or banners, I do agree and second everything User:Wnt just stated. I believe the full protection may have good intentions, but it is not the proper way to handle the situation. Taking action that is not backed by Wikipedia policy is a slippery slope. What if the intent of the lawsuit IS to protect the current version? I doubt it is, but what if? As stated above, the lawsuit quotes are from the talk page, there is no need to fully protect the article. Finally, I am not for an edit notice or banner on the article page itself, but perhaps on the talk page. I DO believe editors have a right to know why the article is fully protected and I don't think a link to Slashdot is sufficient. It's as basic as an editor having the ability to weigh in on this discussion here. If they don't know why it's fully protected it would be difficult to form an opinion to support or oppose the full protection.--Dr Gonzo5269 (talk) 16:01, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: I'm wondering if any other Wikipedia article has ever received full-protection because of possible or pending legal action...is "Yank Barry" the only one? Or how about this...since the subject has taken legal action in a California court and editing on the article itself and edit-requests have been somewhat chilled by WP:LEGALTHREAT, it would seem to me that the content could be considered sufficiently legally dangerous, even though under full-protection, to administrators who now edit the article and to editors who just post requests on the talk-page (since the talk page is the target of the lawsuit and anyone who has posted on that talk page could be one of the unnamed "Does 1-50") that the article as well as its associated talk-page should both be removed completely from public view, the name/subject receive create-protection and that readers, instead of seeing the expected content when they bring up the article and its talk page, would instead see a template that states something along the lines of "During the time that this article and its talk page are the subject of filed legal papers, they have both been removed from public view to protect editors from possible legal action". Shearonink (talk) 16:51, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    That might make sense, but that is the sort of thing left to an office action. Ordinary editors and even ordinary admins shouldn't have to decide whether a legal threat is "serious enough" and it's time to censor the encyclopedia. Censorship should be limited strictly to those times when the best legal advice the foundation has actually tells them that they risk the site by not doing it. Wnt (talk) 17:01, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, I oppose such a drastic step unless the Office decides to take it. I don't think we should be doing more to potentially give Yank Barry press exposure. Let him pay for publicity. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 17:04, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I oppose censorship pretty much universally. There are exceptions. I'm not in favor of EVERYTHING the ACLU defends, but for the most part I don't think information should be taken away. I don't believe this situation warrants drastic measures. I believe the full protection is a bit extreme. I'm not sure how many lawsuits of this kind there have been, no one has answered my precedent question, but it seems, to me, to be fairly notable. It's in the article, poorly worded, but it's in there and I believe it should be.--Dr Gonzo5269 (talk) 17:54, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I wasn't saying the information would be taken away, I was saying that WMF Legal/"the office"/etc might decide, in order to protect the project, that the content of the article and its talk page should both be removed from public view pending any the outcome of this lawsuit. The temporary stubbing (as happened on another BLP) and then full-protection while legal efforts are ongoing would seem to serve somewhat the same purpose. Shearonink (talk) 15:57, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    As for previous lawsuits, Litigation involving the Wikimedia Foundation is helpful, although that article is out of date. There's been a recent lawsuit against an editor of the Greek version of Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation issued a statement.[31]. Nobody, as far as I can find, has ever collected damages from a Wikipedia editor. John Nagle (talk) 03:56, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The article does not appear to be the issue for Mr. Barry and his lawyers, while the opinions expressed on the talk-page and the talk-page itself are. I'm just saying that if editors are posting requests on the talk-page isn't it possible that they are opening themselves up to possible legal ramifications? The "office" and/or WMF Legal should decide if anything else other than basically freezing the article while offering a tincture of time is the best remedy for the situation. Shearonink (talk) 15:57, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    SummerPhD's behavior on Jasmuheen talk page

    SummerPhD has done nothing that requires administrative action--restoring the censored thing may have been unwise, but it's hardly disruptive, since it is clear that the language removed indeed constituted BLP violations. It's a matter we can talk about, not a matter we will block over. If the IP editor cannot see that the BLP covers all pages of the project (and that seems to me to be the real issue), I suggest that they should stay away from BLP issues in the first place--if they continue to violate the BLP, they will find themselves blocked. Drmies (talk) 03:39, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    This exchange neatly summarizes the issue: Article itself naturally has a history of vandalism due to controversy surrounding its subject, but that is certainly nothing out of the ordinary. What is strange is one user policing the talk page and censoring content. That talk page had not been edited for thirteen months, yet SummerPhD responded within three hours of my edit - either the user is at one with the cosmos, or they've set the talk page to be monitored.

    That monitoring in itself demonstrates a level of personal investment in the content of the talk page, and sentimentality is normally no problem at all, but the user has, for many years, carried out a bizarre censorship campaign, (censoring material like so), on the insistence that it protects Wikipedia. If this user, or any other user, had done this on any other pages on this entire site, I would be more inclined to believe that this wasn't just a case of one user going Gestapo on a pet article; that SummerPhD has a long history of association with pseudoscience-related articles, and has in fact recently edited Category:Inedia practitioners (to which Jasmuheen belongs), only reinforces this assessment... as does the fact that the user has only ever censored unsourced criticism of Jasmuheen, and not unsourced praise or agreement - the latter of which has gone unmolested for years.

    The justification provided for this censorship is that WP:BLP applies to talk pages. Again disregarding that this (censorship) has never been done outside of this specific talk page, it appears that WP:BLP does not, in fact, apply to talk pages. Quoting the policy article:

    This policy applies to any living person mentioned in a BLP, whether or not that person is the subject of the article, and to material about living persons in other articles and on other pages, including talk pages.[1]

    The citation given for that bit at the end about talk pages does not actually say anything about talk pages whatsoever. How it is being used as a citation for that purpose is a complete mystery. Is there a relevant citation somewhere else?

    If SummerPhD's behavior is inappropriate, the censorship should be undone, and it should be made clear that it is an unacceptable practice. Additionally, if there is no relevant citation for WP:BLP's applicability to talk pages, then the article should be amended to reflect that it does not. 2607:FCC8:B000:2100:D002:820C:E4C1:46D7 (talk) 14:47, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    1. ^ Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden: "WP:BLP applies to all living persons mentioned in an article"
    WP:BLP does apply to all pages on the English Wikipedia, including talk pages, user space and templates. Calling a living person a "woo peddling psychopath, or a sycophantic fan" was also not warranted, so the removal of that post was totally justified. Apart from that I don't see any "censorship" in the edit history of the talk page. Unless you can provide diffs of problematic edits by SummerPhD, this thread should be closed. De728631 (talk) 15:16, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Can you provide a citation for WP:BLP applying to talk pages? Many editors below have stated, in a strong consensus, that WP:BLP applies to all pages. I acknowledge the citations given. The problem remains that, in the quotation I provided above, the citation given is not appropriate or relevant. At time of writing, this has yet to be addressed by any other editor.
    2. Do you mean to insinuate that I am the person who wrote the "woo peddling psychopath" bit? I am not, and you are of course welcome to confirm that with whatever tools you have available. I have never added any content to the talk page before this edit, and I did so in response to the persistent vandalism and censorship of the talk page over the entire lifetime of the page, not to a minor dispute that occurred over two years ago and hasn't been mentioned since.
    3. Did you actually read the talk page? The censorship (looks just like this), is currently all over the talk page, and SummerPhD has been the only one doing it for years. Every edit SummerPhD has ever made to the talk page has been to implement that censorship, and I'd like to reiterate that SummerPhD only censors critical opinions of the article's subject and not consenting opinions or praise. 2607:FCC8:B000:2100:D002:820C:E4C1:46D7 (talk) 15:43, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Regarding #1, this from WP:BLP, in the section "Where BLP does and does not apply" ought to be sufficient:
    BLP applies to all material about living persons anywhere on Wikipedia, including talk pages, edit summaries, user pages, images, categories, persondata, article titles and drafts. (emphasis added)
    BMK (talk) 15:53, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I dunno—calling someone who makes a rather lucrative living from selling breatharianism – which has killed a number of its followers – a "woo-peddling psychopath" probably isn't far from NPOV (or, for that matter, the truth). That said, the comments on the talk page could probably be phrased in a more diplomatic manner that – more importantly – is directly focused on proposing specific changes to the article, based on specific references.
    As for manually hand-censoring individuals words and phrases from years-old comments (original posts were from 2005-2007: [32]), wouldn't it have been more sensible just to archive the darned talk page? I mean, instead of doing some deliberate pot-stirring by replacing the text with a bold "(censored)". TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:50, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    This is the very first comment to address the primary issue. Thank you for reading. 2607:FCC8:B000:2100:D002:820C:E4C1:46D7 (talk) 16:13, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The comments from 2005-2007 were not "hand-censored" recently. That was done years ago. The anonymous editor who started this thread restored comments that had been removed back then. I had not labeled them with a bolded censor, that was done by another editor claiming First Amendment issues. (because I'm a member of Congress, I guess). Archiving them would move the problem from one page covered by BLP to another page covered by BLP. - SummerPhD (talk) 16:28, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]


    I have 19,569 articles (plus their associated talk pages) on my watchlist. I suppose I should do some cleaning, but I'll keep this one.
    WP:BLP is a policy and directly states that it applies to talk pages. If you feel it shouldn't, you can work to change it, though I doubt you'll find much support. (I don't think you have disputed that the material I removed was unsourced and derogatory. As BLP is primarily concerned with libel (and protecting Wikipedia), I am not as concerned with unsourced positive material. If you have a favorite celebrity and want to say they are kind to puppies and kittens, BLP isn't much of an issue.)
    Actually, I created Category:Inedia practitioners and added this article to the category. I noticed the deletion of Category:Pseudoscientists and the associated recommendation that former members be added to categories directly describing them, with the category added to Category:Advocates of pseudoscience, which I also did.
    I'm not sure what "personal involvement" the editor believes I have with the article. I have no direct or indirect connection to anyone or anything connected to the subject that I am aware of. The closest connection I can find is that I once read a book by James Randi, who is cited in the article.
    I have removed material from other talk pages based on BLP. The talk pages for Anderson Cooper, Michelle Rodriguez and Perri "Pebbles" Reid come to mind, among others. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:45, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @IP 2607: Please read the WP:BLP page. Already at the very top there is as a box that reads "This page in a nutshell: Material about living persons added to any Wikipedia page must be written with the greatest care and attention to verifiability, neutrality, and avoidance of original research" (emphasis as seen at WP:BLP). De728631 (talk) 15:56, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The citation provided, in the quotation I provided above, does not have anything to do with talk pages. A relevant citation needs to be added, if available, but the citation provided now is inappropriate.
    If you were as dispassionate and disconnected from the article as you assert, you would not have reverted the first edit made to it in 13 months within a mere three hours of the change. Your justification for allowing unsourced praise is incongruous with your actions on the talk page in question - essentially, for the better part of a decade, you have been putting a censor bar over the word "cunt," on the principle that you disagree, not that it's unsourced (I would like nothing more than to shower the article in citations from reliable sources or opinions from recognized experts in the field who have are qualified to have the opinion that she is a cunt). That you have been doing so on the talk pages of multiple specific BLPs serves to highlight the problem. 2607:FCC8:B000:2100:D002:820C:E4C1:46D7 (talk) 16:00, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The first sentence on the BLP page says "any page", emphasis in the BLP page. Any page means exactly that, including talk pages. Ravensfire (talk) 16:06, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) SummerPhD, come to think of it, the "(censored)" approach appears to be a bit heavy-handed imo. but you are correct to remove such material from talk pages. IP, in fact the 2006 arbitration case used as a reference found that "Articles which relate to Rachel Marsden, may, when they violate Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, be reduced to a stub by any user or deleted, together with their talk pages,..." (emphasis mine). That is where this policy was established and it has since been applied to all content about living persons. De728631 (talk) 16:15, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for taking the time to read over this once more. Also, thank you for providing insight into the citation - this is knowledge that a casual user would not have, because those not involved in Wikipedia's internal drama (this accounts for a distinct majority of users, and of human beings) have no reason to know about it. The in-line citation in question links to a sentence fragment within an RfA decision. That sentence fragment did not demonstrate, on its own, the rationale for the policy. That is why I raised the question. Can that in-line citation please be changed to make this more accessible and clear to casual users?
    On the subject of the (censoring), what is to be done? Is that practice unacceptable, and can I undo it? There must be intervention in this matter, because my undoing has already been undone by SummerPhD, who has a history of undoing these undoings by others, of which I am just the latest. 2607:FCC8:B000:2100:D002:820C:E4C1:46D7 (talk) 16:29, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:BLP is clear on the subject as well. You restoring the contentious unsourced material does not exempt it. WP:BLP is one of the few exceptions to WP:3RR for that very reason. - SummerPhD (talk) 16:39, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The "(censored)" approach was not mine, I had used unbolded links to WP:BLP that an editor citing the First Amendment had changed to demonstrate their displeasure. - SummerPhD (talk) 16:43, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If we both think it's stupid, why is it still there? 2607:FCC8:B000:2100:D002:820C:E4C1:46D7 (talk) 16:46, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    What's wrong with the current version? Would the term "BLP redaction" be better? --NeilN talk to me 16:52, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    No. That this issue has fallen to a matter of opinion makes obvious the need for a concrete procedure. 2607:FCC8:B000:2100:D002:820C:E4C1:46D7 (talk) 17:06, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Sorry for blaming it on you then. But let's sum up what we've got here. Some inappropriate phrases on that talk page are currently hidden by "censored" tags which SummerPhD did not introduce [33] and which must not be fully restored for reasons of the BLP policy. Their appearance, however, isn't very pleasing either and might lead to assumptions that Wikipedia is largely censored. So instead of fiddling back and forth with old comments I suggest we follow TenOfAllTrades' approach, archive the darned talk page, and move on. De728631 (talk) 16:58, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Alternatively we could go with "courtesy blanking" or with "BLP redaction" as suggested by NeilN, both of which should link to the BLP policy. De728631 (talk) 17:00, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The semantics used in all policy documents is "remove," and redaction is not removal. Neither is censorship.
    I absolutely agree that it looks sloppy, and that it definitely would "lead to assumptions that Wikipedia is largely censored." This entire exchange has served to demonstrate a need for concrete guidelines on the actual execution of these policies as they stand. 2607:FCC8:B000:2100:D002:820C:E4C1:46D7 (talk) 17:06, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Experienced editors (who are generally the ones modifying comments so that they conform to policy) usually use their judgment. If the comment is unsalvageable it'll probably be removed. If portions are useful, then the editor might opt to excise the other offending portions. --NeilN talk to me 05:57, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Antidiskriminator

    Required reading (sorry):

    This series of unproductive communications between User:Antidiskriminator and myself has crossed the line between annoyingly bizarre and disruptive. After months of discussion, we're clearly not making any substantial progress, because today Antidiskriminator actually explicitly accused me on the article talk page of conspiring with User:Peacemaker67 to molest him, acting against consensus, having no support outside of a purported tag team, etc. To add insult to injury, that's in reply to a discussion where we actually had a new user (User:Roches) post a lengthy critique of Ad's choices that touched on all the issues that I raised earlier, and then some.

    One of the links above is from when I had asked User:EdJohnston, the admin who had last topic-banned Antidiskriminator over unhelpful Talk page behavior, and then unbanned him, to review that decision. He suggested more discussion at the time. In any event, this doesn't have to be adjudicated by a single person, so I'm bringing it up here. With regard to admin involvement, I have to also mention a recent incident where I was blocked by User:JamesBWatson after having imposed blocks in a manner that could have reasonably put my impartiality into question. An unfortunate coincidence is that this story also involved Antidiskriminator, and he's proceeded to use that against me in discussions.

    Yes, it's possible to continue toiling away at this rate, engaging in numerous mind-numbing discussions, !voting in numerous RMs, fixing various unreliable source issues, and trying to make sense of user talk. But it's an unreasonable drain on our collective resources. Volunteer time is a scarce commodity, and we shouldn't waste it on repeating the same errors and error corrections all the time.

    I have no intention of using my admin powers here (despite the myriad slaphappy accusations by Ad of how I'm abusing them...), and instead I'm asking for others to help. Some sort of a topic ban should be imposed that would break this disruptive pattern. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 23:41, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments by Peacemaker67

    This has been literally going on for several years. The only time I have experienced Antidiskriminator not behaving in this way is during his ARBMAC topic ban on Pavle Đurišić, imposed (and later lifted) by User:EdJohnston. Since the lifting of his topic ban on 10 January, Antidiskriminator has started over 45 new sections on Talk:Pavle Đurišić, making over 560 edits on the talk page. In the entire history of the article, he has made only 46 edits in article space. A quick skim of the talk page and its two most recent talk page archives will give you a taste of the behaviour, which includes him placing "Not resolved" tags on threads, and refusing to edit in article space despite the fact that on numerous occasions there has been no opposition to material being added. It has recently been extended to Talk:Vojislav Lukačević, where Antidiskriminator has started 19 new talk page sections since 17 June.

    Because of the incredibly frustrating behaviour, circular discussions and constant going off on tangents, my judgement has slipped on a couple of occasions, and I have consequently unilaterally imposed a ban on interacting with Antidiskriminator on both these articles unless he first edits in article space. This appears to have had no effect, but at least now I am not being drawn into more and more discussions that go nowhere, and his WP:IDHT approach. I have also banned him from posting on my user talk page, because he was effectively harassing me there as well. The evidence is that the lifting of the topic ban has only encouraged him to continue with his disruptive behaviour, and that it is getting worse. I consider that a three month topic ban on Yugoslavia in WWII (broadly construed) would be appropriate, and might have the desired effect of getting him to ameliorate his behaviour. If it doesn't have the desired effect, an indefinite ban will probably be necessary. He just isn't making enough of a contribution to the encyclopedia to justify the disruption. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 07:11, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I will add, for anyone watching this, that Antidiskriminator is not only aware of this discussion (because Joy obviously advised him), but since it was logged, he has been busily working away in areas that are not the subject of this discussion, with over 75 edits in less than two days. I am afraid that he has no respect for consensus-based processes, he just soldiers on regardless, in the hope that it will just go away and he can return to the same pattern of behaviour. God help the editors that work in late 19th century/early 20th century Serbian history, because that is what he is editing now. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 13:12, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments by IJA

    I think it is fair to say that me and Antidiskriminator don't see eye to eye. I'm no angel, but then again Antidiskriminator is certainly no angel either. He isn't the easiest editor to work with, but then again, neither am I. In February he went through a phase of harassing me on my talk page making weird comments, making false accusations (mainly that I was personally attacking people when I hadn't) and just general spamming. [34] and [35] I warned Antidiskriminator back then to stop harassing my talk page [36]. After this, he stopped harassing my talk page. I had previously told him that "Your harassment and spamming on my talk page is irritating. I will be deleting anything you post on here." I just wanted to be left alone and not have a constant barrage of comments from him on my talk page. It is like he has to have the final word on everything.
    I recently spent ages upgrading the history on the "Prizren" article and Antidiskriminator just out of the blue reverted it and he tried justifying it by saying that the history added to the article makes Serbs look "particularly bad". All I was trying to do was upgrade the history section and he wanted to censor bits he didn't like. As a Brit, I know we have one of the darkest histories in the world, but I'd never say we shouldn't include something on Wikipedia because it makes Brits look "particularly bad". This was blatant stonewalling by Antidiskriminator.
    I'm in no position to say whether or not he should be topic banned and I certainly don't think it would be fair of me either as I tend to have disagreements with Antidiskriminator. This is Wikipedia, everyone should be free to edit. I think it is worth mentioning that Antidiskriminator can be a useful editor and he does sometimes make useful contributions to Wikipedia, even though he does tend to be a thorn in my side. He can be an asset at times. Regards IJA (talk) 22:17, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion

    From my own experience with Antidiskriminator, I would second Joy's and Peacemaker's complaints. It's difficult to provide diffs because it's just such a pervasive and diffuse long-term pattern of behaviour, but Antidiskriminator is certainly one of the most persistently tendentious and stubborn actors in the field – usually keeping below the threshold of admin intervention by avoiding overly perspicuous edit-warring sprees and incivility, but persistently obstructing discussions through stonewalling and refusal to get the point, coupled with tendentious and poor-quality editing in articles. I've unfortunately got involved in disagreements with him on a small number of occasions myself, so I probably no longer count as uninvolved (although I have no involvement in any of the disputes Joy is talking about), but I'd say it's high time somebody pulled the WP:ARBMAC trigger on him again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:19, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I agree with Joy and Peacemaker, but Fut.Perf. has really hit the nail on the head. Antidiskriminator occasionally does something blatant, like adding hoax content, tag-teaming with obvious socks, using fake numbers, creating pov-forks &c.; but really the main problem is the pervasive low-level pov-pushing on Balkan history and geography, and the stonewalling. It's been going on for years. bobrayner (talk) 21:09, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Pm67 proposed a three-month topic ban above. The previous topic ban, narrower in scope, lasted between 2012-11-02 and 2014-01-10, that is, 14 months. If there is consensus that the previous topic ban had no positive effect, I see no point in a new topic ban that is shorter than 14 months, and the scope also has to be wider. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:41, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed. bobrayner (talk) 20:03, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not an admin therefore I don't believe it is my place to say what ban, if any ban at all Antidiskriminator should get. IJA (talk) 20:26, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    You don't have to be an admin, IJA. WP is run by the community, which empowers admins to do certain tasks on its behalf. They are a bit like the police in that respect, they operate with the consent of the community. If community consent is withdrawn, the mop is taken away. That doesn't mean we are governed by the admins, or that they are the only ones whose opinions matter. For Joy and Bob, I believe a shorter but much wider ban would permit the community to see if Antidiskriminator can edit outside Yugoslavia in WWII without being disruptive. That topic is my concern here, because that is where I deal with his behaviour. However, you and others may be aware of other areas where he is being disruptive, in which case the scope of the ban should be widened further, perhaps to include anything to do with Serbia or Serbs (broadly construed). If he returns to the behaviour demonstrated after the ban ends, then I think the only answer is an indefinite site ban, just as he has on Serbian WP (for similar behaviour). Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 00:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    AFAICT the topic area that encompasses the articles where I've noticed Antidiskriminator to have been disruptive would be 20th-century Serbian history, broadly construed. That should cover both the '09 Dedijer book stuff at Talk:Skaramuca and the '90s war stuff at Talk:Serbia in the Yugoslav Wars. Since we have a pretty clear case of recidivism here, I just don't see a point in a short length ban, but obviously anything is better than nothing. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:47, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I wouldn't work on the World War 2 stuff if you paid me, because the editing environment there is so toxic. I work on other topics, for instance more recent Balkan history; but where that involves Serbia, it involves Antidiskriminator, and similar problems appear - kneejerk reverts, stonewalling, pov-forks, misrepresentation, &c. There is also highly asymmetric use of sources - where content fits a Serb-nationalist POV, sourcing requirements are very low; but where it doesn't fit that POV, suddenly even the strongest sources are somehow disqualified and the content swiftly removed. More frustrating is that when some other (more blatant) pov-pusher (or sockpuppet) appears on the scene and other editors are trying to contain the damage, Antidiskriminator gives the POV-warrior support and helps them with a few reverts. For instance, the most destructive Balkan POV-warriors who have been kicked off the project seem to have one thing in common: Antidiskriminator gave them barnstars (Example 1, 2 3, 4 5). As far as the scope of a topic ban is concerned, I am pragmatic. I just want to make it possible for other editors to fix some of our neutrality problems. Half the scope means half the benefit, but that's better than nothing at all. bobrayner (talk) 18:53, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    What about Serbia and Serbs from 1900-? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 00:34, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Sounds reasonable to me. There are probably some potential conflicts in the 19th century (or in the Ottoman era), but I think your proposal would tackle the most serious problems. bobrayner (talk) 01:10, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps a more appropriate topic ban would be a ban on topics involving/ relating to "Serbs, Serbia, Yugoslavia and the Former Yugoslavia" 1900 to Present? This way it will stop any topic ban from being loosely interpreted. IJA (talk) 10:00, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]


    Proposal for a topic ban on Antidiskriminator

    Consensus from the two involved (Joy) and possibly involved (Future Perfect) admins and the other editors in this thread (bobrayner and I) appears to be coalescing around proposing a ban on Antidiskriminator editing in topics involving "Serbs and Serbia 1900-current" (broadly construed). Given we have yet to get any non-involved admin comment on this thread so far, and Antidiskriminator appears to be avoiding the issue, I believe it is appropriate to make a formal topic ban proposal for the admins here to consider. I would particularly like to get User:EdJohnston's perspective, given he was the one who lifted the original, much narrower ban. Thoughts? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 08:52, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • People, what we need here is more input from uninvolved observers. As much as I would want this topic ban to happen, it's no use for us involved people to be proposing or "!voting" for things here. Without outside attention, nothing's gonna happen. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:14, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sadly, FP, if we don't make some attempt to progress it, it will just get archived as "too hard" by the admins that work here every day, because those admins aren't willing to dip their toes into ARBMAC territory, because that is generally not where they work. I've been here before, and I'm sure you and Joy have seen it too. That is the reality of bringing anything of mild complexity and longevity to this board. Easy stuff gets dealt with quite quickly. That is why I have tried to progress it, given it is already half-way up the current list, with no uninvolved admin comment at all, even from Ed Johnston, who was the one who lifted the ban. Frankly, I think that the admins that were involved in the original ARBMAC discussion, the ban and the lifting of the ban should make some time to at least give it their opinion. Short of pinging them, what else is a non-admin supposed to do? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 10:54, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support, it has taken me hours to read the history of Pavle Đurišić and other pages, but that is the problem: The tendentious editing of Antidiskriminator, and always arguing over any little detail for POV. I am not sure about how long the ban should be. I don't think I'm involved, at worst I did give a WP:3O on a different Serbia page, years ago. Dental plan / lisa needs braces! 17:44, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. I reviewed much of the material on the Đurđevdan uprising, which led me to the conclusion that a topic ban is warranted at this time. My previous interaction with Antidiskriminator was at The Holocaust, where my perception was that he intended to block the removal of peripheral content from the article, which meant it would be impossible for the article to reach GA status. -- Diannaa (talk) 19:08, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - Starting from tomorrow I will be on holiday and may not respond swiftly to queries. I expect to be able to reply to questions with not more than 24-48 hours delay. With all due respect for a group of editors (who were all except Dentalplanlisa involved in disputes with me) I don't think they presented valid arguments for sanctions against me. I still believe that Joy should simply initiate WP:RM as explained to him multiple times, also by another administrator in his replies (diff and diff) to Joy's and Peacemaker67's complaint about my conduct. If in the meantime the consensus is reached that Joy was right that there was something wrong with my editing, I sincerely apologize in advance and promise not to repeat same mistake in future. All the best!--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:37, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Administrator Doc James obstructing improvements

    Content dispute. Discussion ongoing at talk, ANI's job here is done. Feel free to take somewhere like WP:DRN if the issues continue. However, that discussion should take into account the points raised here. --Mdann52talk to me! 18:06, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    In the past few months I have made it my pet project to update articles about autism to reflect more current research and maintain a neutral point of view. User:Jmh649 has been obstructing these changes through persistent edit reversion, even after a style-related consensus was reached on Talk:Autism and the changes were specifically in accordance with said consensus. This reversion is one example. He offered the excuse that I've also made other minor corrections (I figured if it's broke, fix it.) Surely there is a reasonable limit to requests for comment; we don't need to halt progress for every minor change in wording. I believe User:Jmh649 is being intentionally disruptive and preventing articles from being improved. Muffinator (talk) 08:15, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • Thanks for the note. So what is the issue with Muffinators's edits? If you look at this one [38] he has changed "200 children without autism." to "200 allistic children". I had no idea what an allistic child was. I do know what a child without autism is.
    • Here is another one [39] "normal individuals" changed to "neurotypical individuals".
    • Muffinators wishes appears to wish to use the vocabulary of the autistic community rather than standard commonly used English. This I oppose.
    • Now with respect to Muffinator's specific dif [40] there is no references added. Thus unclear how this is updating to "more current research" Additionally the term autistic spectrum disorder is not the same as autism thus not sure why the change.
    • Now Muffinator did get weak consensus to change "person with autism" to "autistic person" but this is not what they have done in the first 7 changes.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:20, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Muffinators wishes to use the vocabulary of the autistic community rather than standard commonly used English." This blanket statement is not at all true. Assuming good faith means not ascribing motivations. The above example was the only time I added the word allistic to an article, which I only did because I couldn't think of a better way to re-word it at the time. As stated on Wikipedia_talk:MED, I'm open to any alternate suggestion, as I do not own the article.
    • This is the first time it's been stated that the problem was lack of references. Muffinator (talk) 08:36, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    The discussion at "Talk:Autism" was about "person with autism" vs "autistic person". That discussion is totally irrelevant to this one. (The analogous implication is that "persons without autism" would prefer to be known as "non-autistic persons". Of course there is no evidence for that.)

    From WT:WikiProject Medicine:-

    " If you know a more appropriate alternative to "allistic", please add it, because "without autism" doesn't make any sense and we have already determined consensus on person-first language. "

    — Muffinator

    That's entirely wrong. "without autism" makes complete sense. Also, the consensus was to use identity-first language for autistic persons, not person-first language.

    " "Normal" is not a diagnosis and is frankly presumptuous. There is no reliable source to say those individuals were normal. "

    — Muffinator

    Our articles should include similar text to that used by the sources.

    For this edit, the source states "200 children without autism", not "200 allistic children".

    For this edit, the source describes "individuals with high-functioning autism", not "[unqualified] autistic adults and autistic children".

    For this edit, a source describes "children with ASD [autism spectrum disorders]", not "autistic children". Given the previous consensus about identity first, it would have been reasonable to change this to "autism-spectrum children". If the edit would subsequently be reverted, then it should be discussed on the talk page, with a link to the previous discussion & consensus.

    " A person on the autism spectrum is autistic. That's why it's called the autism spectrum. "

    — Muffinator

    No, that's wrong. The opening paragraph of our "Autism" article states "[Autism] is one of three recognized disorders in the autism spectrum (ASDs), the other two being Asperger syndrome, which lacks delays in cognitive development and language, and pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified (commonly abbreviated as PDD-NOS), which is diagnosed when the full set of criteria for autism or Asperger syndrome are not met." Reference. Indeed the "autism spectrum" is so named because it includes more than just autism.

    Summary: Muffinator is pursuing his/her own agenda of re-defining "autism spectrum" as "autism" and "normal" as "allistic", contrary to the sources and in the absence of consensus. Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:14, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Well... many people technically identified as PDD-NOS and Aspie (whose only DSM-IV difference to the "Autistic disorder" criteria is that speech happened on time when they were a baby) identify as autistic, and per the DSM-5 at least, people identified as either of those should fit in the new unified "autism" diagnosis, which folded both of the other ones into itself (as in they don't exist separately in DSM5). Further, though this may be relevant within an article that discusses sociological and cultural aspects of autism (though I feel it's difficult for that article to portray either perspective without undue weight and should be split, but eh, very little to do with the price of tea in China right now) or other social model topics for instance, it's true that it's not entirely appropriate to use "autistic" for the spectrum when talking about the spectrum within an article that discusses medical aspects unless most sources in that vein do so. It's nonspecific (or too specific?) and confusing. Shoot, this ended up being more comment on the content disputed than the editor's behavior. Dang it. Oh well. - Purplewowies (talk) 17:26, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    With this edit [42] Muffinator has changed all of the section titles in his/her talk page to 'trolling' which 1) they are not and 2) show a lack of WP:AGF. Dbrodbeck (talk) 14:14, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Acting out on my own talk page is irrelevant to this discussion. Muffinator (talk) 18:23, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    You might want to read WP:BOOMERANG. Dbrodbeck (talk) 18:55, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I read it. Edits that I made on my own talk page (which I already reverted, by the way) are not relevant to a discussion of edits I made to article pages. Muffinator (talk) 19:45, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    They can be put under scruntiny nonetheless if they violate policy. - Purplewowies (talk) 19:54, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And calling perfectly civil comments 'trolling' certainly violates AGF. Dbrodbeck (talk) 23:55, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • As much as I think this thread could be closed, I'm -> this <- close to suggesting a 6-month topic ban for User:Muffinator. This single-minded behaviour that is damaging the article, and is in fact insulting those on the Spectrum, and it might just be time to temporarily provide restraint from such behaviour the panda ₯’ 00:07, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • No matter Muffinator's other issues, we should absolutely not be using "normal" to describe non-autistic persons. Not only is it a POV value judgment, it's factually inaccurate: non-autistic persons can have all kinds of neurological, psychiatric, etc. conditions and still not be autistic. The difference is between autistic and non-autistic, not between autistic and "normal". --NellieBly (talk) 19:33, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • The whole concept of a spectrum is that it encompasses all wavelengths. In the ASD context, that analogy would include a tree sloth toward the longwave end and a hyperactive chipmunk toward the short. Saying "non-autistic" simply makes no sense: we all live somewhere on that spectrum. "Normal" just means one is somewhere in the range of the bell curve occupied by 68.2% of the population, equispaced around the mean. See normal distribution. It isn't a POV or a value judgement. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:01, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • That seems at odds with what our autism and autism spectrum articles assert, which is that a person who falls under the autism spectrum is a person diagnosed with either the autism disorder itself, or Asperger sydrome, or a pervasive developmental disorder. The "spectrum" does not include every human being within its definition, and it certainly shouldn't include tree sloths, chipmunks, bumblebees, or paper shredders. It seems pretty extreme, or WP:FRINGE to suggest it should. -- Atama頭 21:12, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
            • Speaking as a parent of a child with autism, the term to define someone who does not have autism is neurotypical, not normal. I generally don't favour referring to someone as an autistic person (although I know other parents who do) because it is not particularly nice to define some one by their disabilities. Do we refer to someone with cancer as cancerous person? Of course not.--kelapstick(bainuu) 21:39, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
              • "Neurotypical" seems more accurate than "normal". In my particular case, I could probably be described as "neurotypical" but nobody who actually knew me would ever call me "normal". (I don't think normal people are allowed to be admins on Wikipedia.) -- Atama頭 21:50, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
                • The word "normal" means "typical" or "common".[43] If you're going to invent a term called "neuronormal", the antonym has to be "neuroabnormal", and then you're right back where you started. Also, check the term "allism" on Google and it's clear it does not mean "without autism". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:11, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
                  • I'm pretty sure you won't find "normal" in this context in anything peer-reviewed in the last quarter of a century or more. "Neurotypical" and "developmentally normal" are acceptable alternatives. For the sake of precision, though, it should be noted that "neurotypical" and "non-autistic" are not synonymous. A non-autistic person with ADHD, for example, is not neurotypical. It should also be noted that this is not really about political correctness gone mad, but about avoiding ambiguous language where specific language is called for. I'm not sure "allistic" has entered into general usage. Formerip (talk) 22:26, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd like to point out that for a lot of people this (fairly understandably) appears to be a difficult subject to speak about without emotion or prejudice or speculation or opinion or personal experience/viewpoint or non-specific guesses like "I'm pretty sure". Hence all the radical disagreement on this thread. I think it worthwhile to step back and realize that terms like "normal" or "control" are not aspersions or prejudices, and have been used clinically for centuries in differentiating groups with major presenting conditions or diseases and groups without major presenting conditions or diseases. We do not have to invent a whole new vocabulary when no prejudice or aspersion exists. (My opinion.) Softlavender (talk) 22:38, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm actually fairly certain that you won't find "normal" in this context in anything peer-reviewed in the last quarter of a century or more. My use of "I'm pretty sure" should not be taken to indicate that I'm guessing. It is just to give me a little cover when someone contradicts me by citing an article from a 1989 issue of The International Journal of Bumwiping. Formerip (talk) 22:46, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Allism is a silly neologism, and I feel roughly the same way about 'neurotypical' though it has gained some traction. Dbrodbeck (talk) 22:48, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      A very poor neologism as well, since in spoken conversation it would be very easy to mishear "alltistic" as "autistic" and vice versa. BMK (talk) 22:58, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Note to BMK: Allistic doesn't have a T after the Ls, and it's pronounced with a short A like allopathic, so it wouldn't be quite as confusing as you think. That said, I think it's thus far a very obscure and faddish (if not bizarre) neologism (I see no official online dictionary at all has it) and it certainly has no place in Wikipedia. Softlavender (talk) 23:12, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Softlavender - Thanks for that, I was obviously misreading it (another reason, perhaps, that it's not a great choice as a neologism). BMK (talk) 10:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agreed. I don't understand why anyone would have a reasonable objection to that. It seems pretty obvious and sensible. If "non-autistic" is meaningless because "everyone is on the autism spectrum" as suggested earlier, then the term "autistic" is equally meaningless. Fortunately that's just not the case. -- Atama頭 23:02, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes Atama, but the original complaint was this, for example, changing autistic child to child with ASD (people-first language). In this case the opposite would be child without autism. As I mentioned above, the latter is my personal preference, but I am not that dug into my position to worry that much about it (I think I made one such set of changes a few years ago, but generally don't have ASD articles on my watchlist). --kelapstick(bainuu) 23:29, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: I'm the one who closed the discussion at Talk:Autism last month that Muffinator is referring to, and I just became aware of this via one of their pings. Looking briefly over how the issue has developed, I just wanted to stress the "weak" part of "weak consensus." I suggested continued discussion in the close, and it seems to me that this has happened; more importantly, the question has attracted new, substantial arguments that were not made during the RfC. IMO this is more than enough to make the previous close obsolete. Sunrise (talk) 07:26, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Suggest closure this truly is a content dispute. Discussion is taking place at Talk:Autism#Individuals with autism, which is where it belongs.--kelapstick(bainuu) 12:23, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - I agree that this is a content dispute, not a behavioral issue. I urge all parties to strive for the least possible amount of jargon in mainspace, particularly with respect to the use of trendy neologisms. Carrite (talk) 17:30, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Misbehavior at the Ari Teman AfD

    A flock of apparent SPA socks have been making disruptive edits on both the Ari Teman (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) article and its AfD. There have been instances of personal attacks, legal threats, and creating an illusion of support with !votes and article edits from multiple sources.

    Named accounts

    These are the five named accounts. While they're all pretty obvious socks, only NYClay770 has any abusive edits. NYClay770 edited Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ari Teman to !vote for "keep" in addition to his "keep" arguments as several anons diff. Then actually tried to !vote a second time with the same account diff. There also seems to be some WP:OWNership issues diff.


    These four were all used for separate "keep" arguments on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ari Teman, to attack other users diff diff diff diff etc, to make WP:LEGALTHREATS diff diff etc, and to delete a template from a deletion sorting page diff. They're all from a provider in the Seychelles, and I suspect they're an WP:OPENPROXY.


    This one, like the ones below, is from Verizon Broadband IP in Manhattan. Possibly a WP:Straw puppet?


    The rest of these are the series of IP addresses with similar editing styles to those listed above, that have edited the Ari Teman and associated articles. The first IP is the one that wound up in the edit war that attracted my attention to the article. Their edits all aim to the purpose of promoting the subject diff, removing the WP:PROD with an attack in the edit summary diff, removing maintenance tags diff diff, and deleting any negative material -- even when properly sourced diff diff. Most of them source to Verizon FiOS/Broadband IPs in Manhattan, NYC. One's a mobile edit on a Sprint IP, and one's from a ComCast IP in New Jersey (visiting a friend, perhaps?)

    From the similar editing style and tone of writing across all these accounts, I believe they're all the same person. To my judgement, this all adds up to a user with a conflict of interest and ownership issues.

    I didn't bring this to WP:SPI because with the behavioral issues and open proxy, it seems more complicated than that. I don't enjoy making dramaboard reports, too much commotion for my taste, but I've grown weary of the repeated attacks and deceptions of this user. I think some rangeblocks may be in order. Ashanda (talk) 17:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]


    (edit conflict)And the attacks diff and legal threats diff continue. Ashanda (talk) 18:38, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]


    And another attack diff. And another diff, where he gives away the sockpuppetry -- he didn't make the sexist accusation from that account. Ashanda (talk) 18:59, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I am seriously tempted to IAR, close this AFD early, delete and salt the title for six months. Never mind the personal attacks and pointless keeps from SPAs, the chilling effect from that claim about a defamation suit being served to a Wikipedia editor is the kind of bullshit (pardon my French) that we've already seen at Yank Barry. We as a community need to be a lot more aggressive against that sort of thing. §FreeRangeFrogcroak 19:07, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't even think that would be an IAR action. The article subject has now made a credible threat of legal action and has asked that his article be deleted. On the basis of the subpoena issue and BLP, I would suggest we take swift action, as User:FreeRangeFrog suggests (tho I was of the "keep" camp). Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:16, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The subject's request for deletion at least weighs heavily in favor of deleting even on a no consensus outcome. Since it's been relisted once already we can probably close at any time. I don't think anyone could reasonably say there's a rough consensus to keep. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 19:18, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I've struck through my keep to facilitate that, hopefully. There's been appalling behaviour on both sides but this needs to end soon. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:26, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    (non-admin comment) That is most definitely a legal threat, I responded to it directly and warned the user on their talk page. I have no way of verifying if that is in fact the article's subject, but I think WP:DOLT applies here due to the veiled legal threats made on the article. As there is no way to verify the credibility of the threats as there was with Yank Barry not quite sure if this should be SALTed or protected. ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 05:38, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I actually wrote a close and considered closing it myself now, but I know that it will go to DRV no matter what, will be another pissing contest there, and not sure that is how I want to spend my next week. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 23:46, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If an admin could respond to this legal threat it would be appreciated. WP:NLT clearly applies here. ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 06:40, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
     Done Since he claims to have pending action, I politely blocked him for the duration, and explained our policy on pending legal actions. I think we are done here. If the socks show back up (doubtful except to recreate) they can go to WP:SPI. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 13:20, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Need help at Oathkeeper article

    A recent topic here was an edit-war that had spanned weeks at the Oathkeeper article. It resulted in two editors (I was one of them) being blocked for the back and forth edit war.
    At the heart of the problem was a seemingly intractable disagreement as to the use of primary sources as evaluative material and the appropriateness of blog (or dead) links as secondary sources. The other editor in the dispute is under the bizarre impression that she was given permission to make evaluative statements based upon primary sources, and can support said sourcing by using blog and fan and dead sources. There are other editors opposing her usage, but she is unwilling to listen to the consensus.
    I totally realize this is a content issue, but I have exhausted the dispute resolution progression, and simply do not know how to proceed. We desperately need some experienced editors to drop by and help guide us in the usage of the aforementioned sources. It would be a tremendous help to the discussion, and prevent other sourcing issues from cropping up - an ounce of prevention, and all that. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:25, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    ROFL - I was expecting a political contest about the Oath Keepers, but this is a pay-TV episode. It's hard for me to work up much concern about the material you're cutting out, but my view is: I'm an inclusionist, and I don't think Wikipedia does or should ban primary sources. A modicum of care is needed with them, that's all. Unless you think the data is actually wrong there's no reason to cut it out even if it were unsourced, though some of that i.e. the list of chapters would best be transferred to explanatory text within the reference itself that names the main source. But no, I'm not getting involved editing this. :) Wnt (talk) 12:55, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, thanks for your take on it, Wnt. My problem isn't with a piddling tv episode. Its the idea that primary sources shouldn't be used - even in a tv episode - to make evaluative connections. Imagine how, in other articles of considerably more importance, that could be grossly manipulated through primary sourcing evaluation. The reason we use secondary sourcing is to keep Wikipedia out of the Original research busness. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 01:04, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Problematic forum- and soapbox-like post at the reference desk attempting to rationalize pedophilia

    86.6.96.72 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), who has a problem of posting and reposting forum-like posts has made a post about 97% of which (per word count, excluding signature) attempts to rationalize pedophilia with only a nominal question (half of it seeking opinions) tacked on the end.

    If the subject matter was something else entirely, it'd still be a problem with WP:NOTFORUM and WP:NOTSOAPBOX, but I'd assume that this user was a troll if there was no prior involvement (instead, I'll believe he just has no idea that his behavior is inappropriate).

    I boxed the thread instead of deleting it (which was my first reaction), but he unboxed it, and then recreated it. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:51, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    For goodness sake, I made it clear that I am completely reviled by all acts of pedophilia. Yet, I have been accused of being a pedophile and now am also accused of being an apologist. In response, I say take my IP, report it to the police and when they kick my door in you can personally see I have NO interest abusing kids. If you were from the U.K you'd realize there is a media circus relating to MP's child abuse, Rolf Harris etc and I asked the question in that light. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.96.72 (talk) 18:57, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The IP was blocked already once for 60 hours on grounds of WP:NOTHERE. Since the unblock, he's continued to post questions that are intended to stir up arguments. Maybe his upcoming block will be a lot longer than 60 hours this time. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:59, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict)86.6.96.72, 97% of your post (360/369 words) was attempting to rationalize pedophilia, and the entire point was to argue that we should "rehabilitate" it, citing societies that incorporated pedophilia into their culture. You were not there to ask for references about pedophilia, its role in society or evolution, or how society has tried to deal with it -- you preached about it. If the subject matter were something totally harmless (like clowns), the post still would have been inappropriate for the reference desk. Regardless of what you are or are not attracted to, the behavior is absolutely inappropriate and disgusting, and your continued failure to see that only makes you look more suspicious. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:02, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Why hasn't someone indeffed this troll? Were neither a forum nor platform for promoting... well, anything.- MrX 19:08, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    As per WP:NOTFORUM, I tend to agree that there should be definite consideration of a very long block. We are not here to right the wrongs of the world, or any individual country, and any attempt to use wikipedia to do so is inappropriate. Repeated attempts to do so are strictly problematic. John Carter (talk) 19:15, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Take back your claim that I am attempting to rationalize pedophilia. As someone who utterly condemns such vile acts (and has made no effort to hide pointing that out) I am grossly offended by your accusation.

    I will re-iterate for the last time : you have my I.P. I can be tracked down in a heartbeat. File a complaint with the police (Metropolitan police) and wait for them to raid my house. They can then use their forensic software to examine my hard drive in minute detail, and what will they find? Nothing. Please do it.Take back your claim that I am attempting to rationalize pedophilia. As someone who utterly condemns such vile acts (and has made no effort to hide pointing that out) I am grossly offended by your accusation.

    Sigh. And someone was just telling me at WT:Child protection how that policy has so neatly closed off and put a stop to all these issues..... Let's be clear: this OP didn't phrase the question properly to get a good Refdesk answer. Even so, there is a good Refdesk question in there. We know that a few ancient societies i.e. Greece had a remarkable incidence of pedophilia, and any genuine humanitarian desiring to see the condition cured and these endless reports in the press put to an end should recognize that it would be scientifically useful to understand why some societies had so much more than others. Is there a way that trauma or some kind of virus can damage the brain and prevent a child from changing his sexual desires as he ages to match his own social cohort? I am sick and tired of year after year, politicians and athletes and popes begging for forgiveness, but so few people even willing to think about the problem let alone do real research. Please do not close the door on such discussions and thereby ensure Wikipedia cannot contribute any part of the solution. Leave the OP unblocked and encourage him to put more question in his question, then try again. Wnt (talk) 19:20, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    First see if you can convince the OP to sign his posts. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:27, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict)Wnt, read his original post. It includes multiple sentences outright calling for more accepting reconsideration of pedophilia in society, with the only question at the end being a vague and tacked on "Any comments, or pointers to research in this field?" He did not ask what role pedophilia played in certain societies, what roll it might play in evolution, or what attempts have been made to try to make it more mainstream or less harmful or something. He stated that society needs to accept pedophilia, and then asked for opinionated discussion about the matter. There was no question in there. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:29, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    True, when I look at the last two paragraphs I definitely don't like where they're headed, but they don't prove to me that this poster is any particular sort of person. His thesis is that pedophilia is a sexual orientation - perhaps an excusable delusion considering how many pundits eagerly abandon all hope that those who have it could ever be cured. But that thesis is ridiculous nonetheless! Evolution has honed a target for people (mostly women) to like men, and a target for people (mostly men) to like women -- it has never hardwired a mechanism to make people love little kids, or toy rafts, or people in fur suits, or any of the other absurdities in the modern media. Whatever you would call such strange ideas people get in their heads, and however firmly they seem established, I don't think they are immutable any more than it's immutable that an obsessive-compulsive has to flip a light switch seven times. But this is the sort of thing that people ought to be free to debate about at the Humanities desk. Wnt (talk) 19:46, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Wnt, I've seen quite a bit of discussion about societal impact on individual expression of sexuality, and think there is at least one article there, maybe a full wikibook. But such comments, as comments, are disruptive, and in this case I think maybe inherently disruptive in context, and in this case I think reasonably actionable. John Carter (talk) 19:44, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    You are misquoting me and reading into your own narrative. Conformation bias. If I didn't make the question direct enough for pond life, I apologize. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.96.72 (talk) 19:35, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    (edit conflict)Anon, your post includes: "Perhaps it is time to redefine what place child-adult relationships have in our society" and "I can't help but wonder if it is simply a part of the human condition. And, dare I say it is merely a normal behavior within the range of human behaviors." You cite societies that included degrees of pedophilia as why you believe "that somehow the conditions of pedophilia evolved with us and improved our survival." You conclude with "Perhaps we need to come to terms with pedophilia, and rehabilitate it somehow."
    That is only attempting to rationalize pedophilia. No sane and reasonable person can deny that. If you are not trying to promote it or troll us, you'd back off, apologize, or otherwise admit that you totally fucked up in phrasing your question.
    And again, even if the post was about whether or not clowns are acceptable to society, your behavior would still be inappropriate. With the subject matter, and your continued failure (apparently deliberate refusal) to understand (or consider) this, I can only conclude that you're either a troll or you're protesting too much as a cover. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:24, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Oh here we go, using false logic to back up a non argument 'if a duck is a duck...yawn'. Please, I think the tin foil hat elves want their leader back. If you truly thought I was a pedophile, I hope you have reported my I.P address to the relevant authorities. Otherwise you are simply hot air. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.96.72 (talk) 19:31, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Your argument is akin to "terrorism isn't going away, so we may as well accept it." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Not a single useful edit. Certainly WP:NOTHERE - Blocked for 6 months. Ronhjones  (Talk) 19:49, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:50, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict × 2)Anon, of your original post, 249 of the 369 words (67%) spoke about accepting, redeeming, or rehabilitating pedophilia; while 103 words (27%) portrayed pedophilia negatively, and only 48 words (13%) raised doubts, concerns, or questions. That you don't seem to understand that over half of your post calls for accepting pedophilia shows that you're either a troll, promoting acceptance of pedophilia, or don't know how to ask a question. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:50, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    What is it that makes otherwise reasonable editors into pitchfork wielding crazies whenever the word "paedophilia" appears? Darkness Shines deleted the thread with these words: "The only way to rehabilitate pedos is with a length of piano wire and a breeze block" Personally I find this comment far more despicable than anything the OP said. Wnt's comments about "nature" logically apply to any form of non-heterosexual desire, and his comments about Greece totally confuse paedophilia with pederasty, (a confusion which the hysterical popular press consistently encourages). The OP was incoherent, yes. But there were some genuine questions in there. Incoherent rambling posts that jumble up separate but related issues are typical of this IP. But we are surely better off allowing questions than trying to shut them down. Doing so only encourages the quasi-thuggish tendencies empitomised by the post I just quoted. Paul B (talk) 21:00, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I would second Paul B's remarks - there have been some very alarming remarks made about this thread - I attempted to bring it up with Darkness Shines, only to be told in no uncertain terms where to go. I actually found Bugs' remarks about "fantasising" on Darkness's talk page the most alarming of the lot. Horatio Snickers (talk) 21:35, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    There's nothing wrong with wishing evil human beings were dead. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:27, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I would be more open to considering that if the OP admitted that he could have phrased his post better, and if he didn't have a history of asking questions to stir the pot. Seeing this post leaves me convinced he was a troll (at best).
    I've honestly been considering starting a thread on the relationship between pedophilia and society just to demonstrate how such a thread could be done without coming across as a troll or advocate (for pedophilia or tying millstones around pedophiles' necks and chucking them into large bodies of water), but have not done so since it feels a bit WP:POINTy to me. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:06, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Good luck, man, you'll need it, even though I would be interested in seeing such a discussion myself. John Carter (talk) 21:14, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Seriously guys? Whether or not pedophilia is acceptable or not, and whether our very hostile approach to pedophilia and the proponents or suspected proponents of it is appropriate or not - Wikipedia is just not the place to hold this discussion. We are an academic project and the status of anyone's sexuality as acceptable normative behavior just isn't our business. We follow the sources. Right now, the sources say it's deviant behavior - and highly illegal. We treat it as such in our articles and in the people who come here to advocate for it. If any of you would like to discuss a societal change to pedophilia, find some other soap box. If any of you have a problem with how we deal with it here, pick your battles. Our hostility toward pedophilia-advocacy oriented opinions errs on the side of caution toward protection of children over the censorship of adults. There are better more worthy fights to be had.--v/r - TP 22:20, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Suppose you wanted to take a quiet mostly-white American suburb and hold a rally to decry the lingering effects of racism in our society. Despite the sensibility of your cause, you would be hard pressed to get a dozen people behind you. But let one little group of a dozen Ku Klux Klan supporters declare they want to protest in front of your town hall with their little white hoods, and the only problem you'll have is finding parking for five thousand people. It does us good to allow people to talk even when we know they are wrong. Wnt (talk) 11:57, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The only problem with that analogy is the Wikipedia is not a debating society, a promotional medium, the town square, or a soapbox in Hyde Park. Neither the decrying of the lingering effects of racism nor a KKK rally is appropriate here, on a private website which specifically disallows polemics. BMK (talk) 23:29, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Nay, we're not a debating society or a town square - we're a library, which is the same thing, only more comprehensive. And this was the reference desk of that library. Wnt (talk) 23:57, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And in the library, one can research all sorts of points of view, but one cannot advocate for one of those points of view while others are trying to do their research. If someone wants to proselytize, a book, pamphlet, flyer or op-ed is appropriate, or, on the web, a blog -- not the library, and not anywhere on Wikipedia. BMK (talk) 00:54, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Have there been studies on and do we have an article on the changing attitudes over time to paedophilia in society? Such attitudes have obviously changed a lot over time, even in my lifetime, to a position now which is probably (and quite possibly justifiably) more intensely against paedophilia than at any other time in history. I'm always interested in how things got to how they are today, and wondering where they will go in future. I'm sure I'm not alone. HiLo48 (talk) 01:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think it needs to be isolated from the overall evolution of moving away from child exploitation in other ways. Someone here and/or on the ref desk pointed out that protection of children from human predators is a relatively recent concept. And it's not just sexual predators, it's also forced child labor, and physical or mental abuse of any kind. It wasn't that long ago that corporal punishment was banned in most (not all) places in America. That's the area worth exploring, and child molestation is just a part of it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:32, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Unfortunate early closure

    I am asking assistance for my opponent in AGF :-). I am involved in TfD:Distinguish. Today it was closed early by User:Ktr101 (self-declared non-admin) -- now my opponent. From my procedural follow up at their usertalk [44], I got the impression that the closer did not oversee the whole process (while, as XfD's go, this one was getting hot). My question here is that maybe the damage could be limited by finding an early revert-option. But I am not familiar with what it could look like. Any suggestions for Ktr101? -DePiep (talk) 02:00, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Meh. I also !voted in the TfD (opposite direction of DePiep); honestly it seemed pretty overwhelming against deletion. But you did raise some good points that I was hoping to respond to later. I wouldn't object to it being reopened. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 02:05, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Since Ktr101 specifically said on his talk page that re-opening it would be OK with him, I've done so. I note that, as usual, De Piep was unnecessarily snotty in his comments on Ktr101's talk page, but I suppose it would be poor form to refuse to do a reasonable thing just because it was demanded in an unreasonable way. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:19, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I am not going to contest Floquenbeam's actions here, DePiep, it is a really bad to bring someone to AN/I just because you disagree with their closure of a discussion which was closed even though there was overwhelming consensus against you. Also, if by "hot", you mean the badgering of users you disagree with even though there was an almost overwhelming consensus against you, then I guess it was pretty "hot". I told you that you could revert me, so there was no reason to bring this to a higher group of people when I told you that I wasn't going to contest any of you actions there as long as it was within reason. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:26, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Honestly, I've seen many other afds be snow closed for far fewer votes than that many, and all by different editors as well. If we're going to be deciding on whether it should've been reopened, I guess it could stay for the minimum time mandated by TfD, but honestly, if it's that unanimous in consensus, it should just be snow closed. Tutelary (talk) 04:41, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Going to ANI is not a criminal prosecution (although some may see it that way). And no way I am going to undo a closure. I'm glad that implicitly Floquenbeam agrees. I expect that the arguments are read and weighed instead of !votecounted, resulting in an argumentation. Otherwise, this can frustrate this TfD and any future XfD (why spend time on arguing?). If that frustration shows in my writing - so be it. It is a response to the brute treatment of the TfD discussion, and an effort to improve the quality of closures. As usual. -DePiep (talk) 08:46, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The minute you called someone an "opponent", you showed that you lost touch with the community nature of the project. We don't have opponents...we're supposed to have confreres in the battle to produce an encyclopedia the panda ɛˢˡ” 11:29, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree. Someone who has a opposing opinion I can call an opponent ("in this" you might add). I used it here to make clear asap that I had such an opposing opinion with the editor, nothing to hide. Opposing opinions can appear in the community. And then you introduce the word "battle" for the wiki process? -DePiep (talk) 18:08, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    While "opposing" and "opponent" have the same root, use of the latter has a strong connotation of an adversarial process, as well as making the other editor (rather than the opinion) the focus of the dispute. Wikipedia works by a collaborative process. That's why the term is seen as troubling. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 18:17, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    That subtlety I was not aware of, thanks for pointing that out. I only know that in formal debates "my opponent" is regularly used to address the person with an opposing opinion. And maybe even, in this situation, the 'adversial' adjective could be applicable. Still unresolved is how or why User:EatsShootsAndLeaves tried to explain me something in this by introducing the "battle" wording. -DePiep (talk) 22:36, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    In the U.S. Senate, which has been called "the world's most exclusive debating society", Senators when speechifying have the tendency to refer to their opponent as "My learned colleague" and other phrases along that line. BMK (talk) 10:42, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Um, YOU are the one who "introduced the battle wording". Just reminding you not to do that the panda ₯’ 23:14, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And that would have been inappropriate as well. SNOW is not supposed to be a way for dissent to be rapidly shut down by a mass of squirming bodies being shoved in front of any debate. Nobody can honestly suggest that the current overwhelming head-count lead is due to anything other than people overreacting to seeing a TfD tag at the top of random articles they're watching. I was honestly debating whether to noinclude it for precisely that reason, but I foolishly thought it better to brave what I'd hoped would be a little knee-jerking for the sake of a robust discussion. Instead, while I was asleep the well was not so much poisoned as stuffed entirely full of gerbils. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:32, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    IP hopping editor evades blocks, disrupts multiple articles, etc.

    There's a disruptive IP editor, currently editing as 90.196.3.222 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), who targets martial arts films, and his edits are becoming increasingly frustrating. He generally engages in edit wars over genre, but he also changes sourced text to incorrect values, removes valid cleanup templates, removes requests to use national variations of English, does whatever the hell he's doing in this edit, and never uses edit summaries. His edits are highly disruptive, and he constantly evades blocks. I'm not quite sure how to demonstrate that last one with a diff, but it's fairly obvious from Puncture Wounds (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and I Come in Peace (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), where I have labeled such edits. Short of having every Dolph Lundgren, Sammo Hung, and Jackie Chan article semi-protected, I'd like to investigate the possibility of a range block. Given the wide variety of IP addresses, I guess there probably isn't much chance, but his known IP addresses include:

    Some of his edits are vandalism, some of them are constructive, but the vast majority are edit warring over film genre. See also this sock puppet investigation, which documents disruptive editing since 2011. If a range block is out of the question, should I re-open the SPI? I'm not sure what else to do except file a new report at WP:ANEW or WP:AIV every 72 hours when he changes IP address. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 11:59, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I went through this IP's contributions, only correcting what was blatant vandalism, and the IP reverted me every time. In one of my edit summaries I sad "if you disagree take it to the talk page" and have left two notices on their talk page, yet no communication on their side has been attempted. At least block this IP for a lengthy amount of time, as they are WP:NOTHERE. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 16:38, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I've blocked 90.196.3.222 for one week, but I don't see how that will stop the hopping tendencies. I think range blocks won't work here because of the broad range of IPs, so does anyone have an idea how to stop this? If there was a specific pattern being applied by this user we might write an edit filter. De728631 (talk) 17:03, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The only thing I can think of is to either monitor all of their known IPs and block them the instant they vandalize, or semi-protect all of the articles within the IPs interest. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 17:29, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    However, after going through all of the talk pages of these IPs, all of them have multiple warnings about vandalism/disruptive editing and many have been blocked in the past and even recently, although the longest block was only two weeks. I'm in favor of preemptively blocking all of them for at least three months. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 17:57, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think that would accomplish anything. They're throwaway IP addresses that he doesn't reuse. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 18:40, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm just saying better safe than sorry. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 03:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll even cite WP:GAV. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 07:30, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, GAV suggests something that I've considered off-and-on for about a month: reporting the user to his/her ISP as a persistent, block-evading vandal. I'm not sure they'd really care, but it's an option. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 09:48, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The fact that this guy is so persistent means that something needs to be done. The best I can do is immediately report any IP that edits in his style. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 09:54, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    This is a highly dynamic IP. He is constantly being assigned a new IP, sometimes as many as three times a week. Here's the deal on the IPs in the above list:

    IPs used on which dates
    • 90.200.85.80 - October 17, 2013
    • 90.200.85.196 - October 28, 2013
    • 90.195.176.24 - December 17-20, 2013
    • 2.127.228.78 - January 1-2, 2014
    • 2.216.204.97 - January 23-28, 2014
    • 176.251.46.19 - April 9-14, 2014
    • 2.127.230.64 - April 17-21, 2014
    • 2.124.213.167 - May 3-4, 2014
    • 90.218.116.10 - May 19-21, 2014
    • 94.0.242.227 - May 28-29, 2014
    • 90.211.105.144 - June 4, 2014
    • 2.223.225.29 - June 7-8, 2014
    • 90.197.98.22 - June 8, 2014
    • 90.205.208.98 - June 11-13, 2014
    • 94.2.192.7 - June 14-20, 2014
    • 90.205.210.134 - June 27-28, 2014

    Once an IP has been assigned, the user never seems to get that IP again. Thus blocking the above IPs will not stop the problem or even slow it down. The use will never even notice that the IPs have been blocked, because the next time they fire up their computer, they're assigned a new IP. The service provider seems to have access to several unrelated ranges, which means there's no possibility for any range blocks either. My suggestion is to promptly report vandalistic edits to AIV as soon as they occur, and request page protection on five or ten of his favourite target articles. -- Diannaa (talk) 22:01, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    How do they change IPs so frequently? And yes, the best thing to do is to protect articles that he usually vandalizes. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 22:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The user is not changing the IP; his internet service provider is assigning him a different IP each time he accesses the internet. This is called a dynamic IP. -- Diannaa (talk) 00:43, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Diannaa: Roger that, thanks. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 02:09, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I wish more of his edits were obvious vandalism. It would make reporting him a lot easier. Many of his edits are disruptive in ways that don't individually break policy. It's tough to convince an admin to block his new IP addresses for longer than 31 hours. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:55, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 July 6#Template:Distinguish

    No admin action required. Just a reminder to everyone to watch what they say, and try and get along with one another (if only...). --Mdann52talk to me! 18:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    I am getting fed up of this clogging up my watchlist. There is currently a cacophony of useless accusations ("low-information voters" really is a guttersnipe remark) and the discussion, only two days old, is billowing out smoke. I fear a flame war. Will someone please close it? If sanctions need to be taken out, I really don't care, but could this be defused?--Launchballer 12:33, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I see a discussion with a bit of sniping, but also a fair amount of introspection; some contributors recognizing that there is an issue worth addressing and attempting to address it. Maybe it will deteriorate, but I see some progress being made.--S Philbrick(Talk) 12:53, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    This. There's a little sniping, but thus far it's been pretty mellow. Take it off your watchlist if you don't want to see it. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 14:05, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    IP user claiming to be banned user Russavia repeatedly removing a CSD tag

    An IP user (220.129.146.201 (talk · contribs)) claiming to be banned user Russavia (talk · contribs) has twice removed a CSD:AG5 nomination from Kendeffy Castle, an article which was created by another banned user. Diffs here and here. I'm requesting a block per WP:EVADE.- MrX 16:17, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    When an IP claims to be a sock, it's likely he's not. "Disruption" is a good catch-all when there's uncertainty. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:04, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps we can have a CU check? (t) Josve05a (c) 19:26, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Ha. Checkusers won't do anything with IP's due to "privacy" issues. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:27, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And the article is not speedy deletion material, as a 1782 building is pretty likely to be listed.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, you might want to familiarize yourself with WP:EVADE and WP:CSD#G5.- MrX 18:26, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:CSD#G5 is an option not a mandate. Deletion is at the discretion of the admin handling the request. --Versageek 01:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Harassment by user RaulEEsparza

    Resolved
     – User blocked indefinitely as an impersonator

    Rauleesparza (talk · contribs) has been vandalizing the page Raul Esparza in order to start drama on Tumblr. I would like any help I can get here. 2601:8:A880:A6:B15B:7BED:345F:B6EF (talk) 19:03, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Don't bother doing that; I have semi-protected the page for a week and will add it to my watch-list for a while. -- Diannaa (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I have blocked that user indefinitely as an impersonator. Daniel Case (talk) 16:48, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Metamodernism edit conflict is getting out of hand... again

    This time over at the SPI on User:Festal82. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Festal82. I'd appreciate it if someone would just put their foot down already. This nonsense was out of hand almost a week ago and it needs to end here. Inanygivenhole (talk) 23:12, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Harassment by user Festal82

    Festal82 is in clear contravention of WP:HARASS, WP:OUTING and WP:PERSONAL here [45], making blatant, baseless accusations and personal attacks against myself and others, accusing me of either being someone I am not, or speculating about my location (bafflingly, simply because I'm familiar with a subject he claims almost nobody in the US has heard of--despite the fact that it had an exhibition at a major New York museum devoted to it in 2011, etc.). He has also taken this WP:OUTING to another user's talk page here [46], as well as repeated WP:GAMING behavior on Talk:Metamodernism, attacking other users by repeatedly misrepresenting their edits, and even admitting to playing games such as "reverse psychology" (his words) to get his own way here [47]. Despite the measured responses and numerous warnings from myself and other editors going back weeks, Festal82 has persisted in these attacks, which according to the guidelines at WP:OUTING is "grounds for an immediate block". I agree with Inanygivenhole that this absolutely needs to end here, not least because this personal harassment is extremely unpleasant to have to continually deal with, and is stifling any discussion of the actual content of the Wiki article. Esmeme (talk) 12:37, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    As per some comments he's directed at me on Talk:Metamodernism and my own talk page, he seems to think there is some kind of conspiracy working against him (though quite a few of his posts are too long and vague to decipher any kind of clear point out of them). I would also like to point out that, because Festal82 is a single-purpose account dedicated to POV pushing on Metamodernism, he gives off a general vibe of WP:NOTHERE. felt_friend 14:32, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm at my wit's end. Any review of the "Talk" page at metamodernism will reveal that the above two users, Inanygivenhole in particular, have been harassing me for weeks as I've tried to make substantive edits to an article they feel passionately about. Esmeme has accused me, in violation of WP:OUTING, of being Seth Abramson; Inanygivenhole has accused me, in violation of WP:OUTING, of being Timotheus Vermeulen. Inanygivenhole has violated WP:HARASS by appending warning tags to all my comments, starting investigations about me on multiple pages that have consistently been shot down by WP administrators, and trying to foment anger against me by other users. Esmeme has maded editing of the metamodernism article a pure misery by insisting that the only usage of a philosophical concept that can be mentioned on Wikipedia is one tied to a single non-WP:N blog run out of England; I have indeed suggested that Esmeme might have special affinity for that blog, as I can't for the life of me figure out any other reason someone who wanted to edit a WP article on metamodernism would delete, en masse, perfectly good and incredibly substantive articles about the topic on WP:N media like Indiewire, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, the Journal of American Studies, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, PMLA, Contemporary Literature, and elsewhere. This is a clear instance of WP:GAMING--these two editors are trying to eliminate the account of an editor with whom they have substantive disagreements, even though those disagreements are based on careless citations of important WP principles like WP:SYNTH (a WP policy these two editors have used to insist that any article on a philosophical concept be about only one reading of or usage of that concept, otherwise the entirety of an article on it violates WP:SYNTH). When I've tried to reason with these editors, for instance by begging them to consider how analagous articles like modernism and postmodernism are handled, Inanygivenhole told me to "stop running my mouth" and repeated more than 10 times (across multiple comments) demands that I stop "straw manning him"--a usage of that idiom that in this context makes no sense to me. The one editor who has no involvement in any of this but has looked into it extensively, Rhododendrites, has concluded that the above two editors are deliberately harassing me, and has told them so, and has asked them to stop. Instead, they've come here to see if they can strike up more mischief. This is exhausting, humiliating, and undeserved--and I'm begging for the assistance of a WP administrator at this point. I thought I could weather this, but as any review of the "Talk" page on metamodernism will reveal, I may at times be long-winded and over-thorough, but I've done nothing to deserve this sort of treatment. My edits to metamodernism have not only been in good faith but neutral, fully sourced, and as much as possible efforts to reflect consensus from the "Talk" page. I beg WP not to let substantive editing disputes become grounds for editors on one side of a debate to terrorize the others. Especially when it devolves, as it has in this instance, to Inanygivenhole alleging that I am fourteen different sock puppet accounts with absolutely no evidence or basis whatsoever. Investigating someone to death over nothing is the worst form of bullying--I know that now. Festal82 (talk) 14:38, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    You cannot hide behind personal attacks, incoherent rambling, and vague accusations of "bullying" forever. We're tired of you Festal. We're tired of being met with a wall of text every time we disagree with you in the slightest. We're tired of your page-long, incoherent screeds. We're tired of you thinking you WP:OWN the page. We're tired of you acting like the opinions of other editors don't matter, which you show every time you straw man them. We're tired of your personal attacks. We're tired of your hipocrisy. We're tired of your drama. Most of all, we're tired of YOU Festal. (NB: uninvolved editors, all of Festals attacks and other inappropriate editing patterns take place almost excusively at Talk:Metamodernism.) This ends right here, right now. Put up or shut up Festal. If you're going to publicly accuse me of something, at least have the decency to provide diffs for your baseless accusations. Inanygivenhole (talk) 16:44, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    On edit to address Felt friend, the third person who was warned by Rhododendrites to stop harassing me: Proof that these are simply editors on one side of a dispute trying to vanguish disagreement is that Esmeme, a user Felt friend writes here in support of, is also an SPA working only on metamodernism, a fact Felt friend somehow left out in accusing me, but not Esmeme--whose edits Felt friend prefers to mine--of WP:NOTHERE. Felt friend, like the other two editors above, has been shot down everywhere s/he has attempted to take this unusual form of harassment, and so now s/he is here to cast additional aspersions that don't touch the central fact that all of my edits have been neutral and fully sourced and simply don't meet the approval of these three accounts. Festal82 (talk) 14:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I've been editing that page frequently lately, but I don't understand how I could be considered an SPA seeing as I have an edit history that predates that page. Also, I don't recall bringing the issue to anywhere else other than this thread on RSN, and that had nothing to do with you on a personal level. I'm sorry that you feel as though you are being attacked, but I will just speak for myself here and make it clear that I have no malicious intentions. felt_friend 14:59, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Here we go again: I very clearly referred (above) to Esmeme as an SPA, not you. In any case, if you're not looking to participate in this any further, beyond the accusation you made...just yesterday...that I'm the account "Metamodernwoman," which I am of course not--just as I wasn't the last 14 accounts I was accused of being--I'm satisfied. Festal82 (talk) 15:25, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Again Festal is trying to drag me into some kind of conspiracy here, fabricating stories of me unilaterally deleting things that I have not, but my own edit history, and the blatant WP:HARASS and WP:OUTING found here [48] speaks for itself. To save being dragged into yet another never ending spiral of retaliatory abuse from Festal, I am going to simply leave those links above and rest my case. Esmeme (talk) 14:57, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm in agreement with Esmeme at least as to this much, with one exception: I'm not going to provide a hand-picked link to try to mischaracterize by omission a dispute that's been going on for many weeks now. I urge anyone looking at this to look at the entire "Talk" page on metamodernism, the edit histories of the parties, the appeals made by other parties to various administrators, and so on. Most of all, I hope any WP administrators who do take the time out to do all this will look at the most important thing, the thing all of the above editors tellingly elide from their complaints: the present state of the metamodernism article. An article that between April and May and June received a total of 12 warning tags from the WikiProject:Philosophy Group for the sorts of WP violations the editors above approved (single-sourced article, exclusive use of primary sources, opposition to divergent viewpoints, et cetera) is now in the best shape it has ever been in. Which is what I thought we were all here to do anyway--build an encyclopedia. And if the editors above would put aside these bullying tactics and this persistent harassment, we could get back to it. Festal82 (talk) 15:32, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Could we get an admin to take a look at this? This is devolving into Festal arguing with everyone again, and we've all seen that plenty of times now. Inanygivenhole (talk)

    Hello!

    Complainant is User:Commissioner Gordon evading a block. Choess (talk) 00:58, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    I've encountered a truth that might be valuable to the neutral point of view of an article on this site, Wikipedia (yes-yo):

    To get a bit more detailed, it is about a series of articles, all concerning one topic (but quite unfortunately, there seems to be a single person trying to prevent changes of the curren (POV) state of things.

    But get yourself an impression, first hand,

    It is about this circumstance:

    Talk:Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedition#Warning_by_Local_Fishermen

    (Which gets a lot more interesting when you consider the allegations raised against other historical protagonists "being engaged" in that topic area, like R.F.Scott)

    But the most interesting point will probably be whether some enemy with a fixation will just delete the issue raised (due to partiality)...

    Nevertheless,

    have a nice day and

    keep up the good work!--37.230.7.70 (talk) 00:35, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    It is still there! An information not glorifying a certain person has not been deleted by a certain admirer...Wow.--37.230.7.70 (talk) 00:54, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    I would like to report user:daniellagreen for doing paid editing with nondisclosure to wikipedia as is the current policy.

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

    I would like to report user:daniellagreen for doing paid editing with nondisclosure to wikipedia as is the current policy.

    Extended content

    Diffs of the articles which may possibly have been done while being paid or working in association with several different entities while not disclosing that she was doing paid editing, or editing for and in association with several entities that will be mentioned further down in this posting.

    Also this same user:Daniellagreen has been adding images to these articles here that are hosted at wikipediia commons that are very possibly promo or PR pictures that user:daniellagreen has submitted to wikipedia commons that she has claimed as her own work. The particular files of the pictures suspected of being possible copyright violations have been tagged as possible copyvios on the commons site.

    Flavia C. Gernatt

    After discovering this suspected paid editing at a group of interrelated article subjects, I did nominate one article to be either merged, redirected, or possibly deleted.

    Talk:Flavia C. Gernatt#Deletion nomination?

    After this nomination this user:user:Daniellagreen went to several different user/editors talk page to canvas WP:CANVAS for user/editors to come and to paraphrase look at this article or check it over. Three or more examples of canvassing are as follows:

    After the afd for the article Flavia_C_Gernatt user Daniellagreen started going from talk page to page of the four diffs just previously had canvassed spewing vitriole and making borderline personal attacks and baseless allegations that I had been “stalking” her and “following her around.” The user:Daniellagreen seemed to be quite upset that I had edited “her articles that she created.” WP:OWN I did try to participate at the talk pages of these aforementioned articles, and directly replied to the [user:Daniellagreen]] on the talk page for the article subject Flavia C. Gernatt

    As I said in my response to her there: Talk:Flavia C. Gernatt#Deletion nomination?

    My main purpose, and any agenda I may have are solely for creating, and or maintaining the best and most exquisite online encyclopedia in the world. If I believe that a user or editor, or in fact any contributor has been acting in any way, shape, fashion, or form that might harm the online encyclopedia'a reputation, I do look in to the matter. With that being said, "Do you have any associations of any type with Flavia C. Gernatt, Daniel R. Gernatt, Jr., Daniel R. Gernatt, Sr., Dan Gernatt Farms, Gallo Blue Chip, Gernatt Family of Companies, Sir Taurus, Dan Gernatt Farms, Gernatt Family of Companies, and the Daniel and or Flavia Gernatt Family Foundation???

    • Please see these diffs:
    • [[49]] --- notice notation above draft article which reads "New
    • Task Force: White House Task Force, Council on Women and Girls:, Memorandum, Buffalo Niagara Partnership"
    • [[50]] --- again notice notation above draft article which reads "New
    • Task Force: White House Task Force, Council on Women and Girls:, Memorandum, Buffalo Niagara Partnership"
    • [[51]] --- again notice notation above draft article which reads "New
    • Task Force: White House Task Force, Council on Women and Girls:, Memorandum, Buffalo Niagara Partnership"
    • [[52]] --- again notice notation above draft article which reads "New
    • Task Force: White House Task Force, Council on Women and Girls:, Memorandum, Buffalo Niagara Partnership"

    "Do you, User:Daniellagreen have any associations with the White House Task Force, Council on Women and Girls, and or the Buffalo Niagara Partnership?"

    "Are you, User:Daniellagreen doing paid editing on behalf of any person, association, foundation, partnership, task force and or councils?"

    If you may be possibly being doing paid editing for any of these above-mentioned entities, have you disclosed this as is the policy at wikipedia?"

    I would ask a the very least that user:Daniellagreen

    • be topic banned and not allowed to edit or work with any of the articles regarding the Gernatt family.
    • be asked again if she is or is not doing paid editing without disclosure and or editing for entities with a POV that she is promoting on wikipedia by having an agenda that does not allow her to write and edit articles at wikipedia with a neutral tone.
    • be asked to stop making personal attacks and baseless allegations that I am “stalking” her or following her around.
    • be instructed or perhaps taken in under a mentor in order to continue editing here at the english wikipedia
    • be instructed on how the copyright policies here ar wikipedia work. For example that you cannot take a promo or PR pic that may have been taken by a professional photographer, and claim it as “her own work.”

    ciao!!! please all have a lovely evening! Carriearchdale (talk) 02:24, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    (Non-administrator comment) Two points:
    1. WP:TLDR (actually, I did read it, but you can expect few others to subject themselves to this)
    2. I see no diffs here actually indicating paid editing.
    I think you should probably back down from this unless you have proof (which does not involve violation of our outing policy or other policies). Moreover, with all due respect, I really don't even care what's going on here unless there's some indication that Daniellagreen is engaged in disruption. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 02:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi user:Mendaliv, I am glad you mentioned that about never wanting to WP:OUTING user:Daniellagreen any user editor in public spaces here at a public part of wikipedia. Where is it that I can turn over the rest of this info that was given to me by another party that is the true and physical evidence of the paid editing? Is it the OTRS? I was not sure of the protocol about who to speak with regarding the other info and "evidence?"

    ciao!!! 03:10, 9 July 2014 (UTC) Carriearchdale (talk) 03:11, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I would say, based on my understanding of WP:OUTING, that it's probably inappropriate for you to be engaging in "opposition research". As to where to send evidence, if you should even do so, I'm going to leave that to my more experienced colleagues here. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 03:17, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mendaliv: This report can be considered as "digging your own grave".
    I would like to notify that I've reviewed at least 2 - 4 of the articles that were made by Daniellagreen, so I've watched it. Now bigger point is that Carriearchdale is clearly trying to irritate Daniellagreen for no reason. Carriearchdale unreviews the articles of Danniellagreen, sometimes more than 4 times. To Carrierchdale, it is not even a matter that the subject is notable or article has been written per wiki standards or if they have been reviewed again by multiple editors, Carriearchdale would still continue to unreview. Often leave meaningless[53] tags. Also made unfounded allegations of "removing AfD tags", but as usual you won't see any evidence.
    Now you maybe thinking what actually made Carriearchdale do this all.. Well, Carrierarchdale has got problem with me and Fram. What happened was that Carrierchdale used to make horrible edits with Autowikibrowser, such as these [54], [55],[56]. There are like 100s of them that were reverted by Fram. Fram and I tried to tell that AWB is not for these purposes,[57] especially Fram was more concerned.[58] Carrierarchdale ignored his notifications, though he was only providing her useful information.[59] Fram revoked access.[60]
    Since then Carrierarchdale tries to crash any new page or new Afd where Fram or I've been involved. Few pages such as 1704 in Spain, Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-in-Opposition are notable, but Carriarchdale would 'unreview' them as part of her revenge.
    Let's see, but yes there is no rationale in this malformed report whatsoever. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 03:33, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    That was certainly my initial impression. Given there's some significant indication of hounding on Carriearchdale's part, I think we're squarely within WP:BOOMERANG territory. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 04:00, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If this claim is false or unprovable, I think that as a preventative measure to prevent more such, that the complainant receive a considerable block for disruption. We did not ask for this paid editing policy, it was imposed above our heads and is another's hobbyhorse. I personally, as an admin, will take no part in enforcing it. But when people use it to beat others about the head as a way of upping the ante in their petty interpersonal disputes, that can't be tolerated.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:03, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed. Carriearchdale's post here is little more than an attempt to trigger a witchhunt. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 04:11, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Per the multitude above me, this is clearly an attempt at WP:OUTING a user who has no history of paid editing I can see. WP:BOOMERANG clearly applies here, I don't think a block is in order (blocks are preventative not punitive) but a strongly worded warning most certainly is. ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 04:31, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I suggest that an administrator close this discussion and advise interested parties to take this up somewhere else. Even though we have a new TOS, the community has demonstrated time and time again that they are incapable of handling COI cases without violating policy. Funny how that works, isn't it? Viriditas (talk) 04:45, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I do hate coming to take a look at what is up around here and seeing my own name. Carriearchdale should be made aware that you must notify any editor you mention at ANI. Yes, Daniellagreen did canvas me. I informed her that was inappropriate, and actually !voted against her position at the aforementioned AfD. (Which BTW is an ugly bloody mess. I pity whomever has to close it.) Daniella is an excellent writer, a relative newbie, and does have a bit of trouble handling the drama around here. It appears she got singled out by someone and I do feel a short block is in order under WP:NPA, if only til the AfD closes. Better, until Carriearchdale indicates that he/she understands what it is that is wrong with this complaint. John from Idegon (talk) 05:16, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Carriearchdale has now filed a (malformed) sockpuppet investigation, [61] claiming that User:OccultZone is User:Daniellagreen's sock (or possibly vice versa, it is hard to tell). Given this monumental outbreak of cluelessness, I have to wonder whether an indefinite block on competence grounds might be for the best... AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:00, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    It appears to be a copypasta from here. so,
    (Non-administrator comment) At first I was content to give this user a strong warning, but now, given the unsupported WP:OUTING at SPI, I have to concur with John from Idegon ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 06:20, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just like this report was most immature and unbalanced(in terms of title, summary, etc.) on ANI. I think I've seen most immature report on SPI today. No comments on SPI, or any other thing, but lets think that way, even for 5 seconds, you would ask that I've been asking myself to review my own articles,[62] I've been notifying myself that I am going to take a break.[63] Sounds unbelievable? Yes that's why it is senseless. Carriearchdale has shown no remorse for making a series of unfounded allegations about Daniellagreen, it includes COI, removing AfD templates, personal attacks, etc. Now there are more unfounded allegations. Fram had said about Carriearchdale's actions that "They are not targeted at you, but at me, probably as some kind of misguided revenge against my repeated corrections of her sometimes very problematic edits." Apparent WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. You will probably find novelty in the actions of Carriearchdale, but they are disruptive. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 06:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    The more one investigates, the more this seems far more sinister and disturbing than a mere lack of competence on the accuser's part. Look at this edit summary and edit: [64] -- a bizarre accusation which is repeated time and again in other edits [65] and on the article's Talk page [66]. And that is apparently only the tip of the iceberg. It seems we may have a case not only of lack of competence, but also deliberate harassment and disruption/trolling/vandalism. Softlavender (talk) 07:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    And what is up with the copycat animated horse under the wiki logo, which Carriearchdale copied on July 6 from Daniellagreen (who had installed it on her userpage on June 27)? Stalkerish much? I have never seen that animation on any user pages except those two. Softlavender (talk) 07:29, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Montanabw has long had a similar running horse on her user page. Cardamon (talk) 08:36, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    As do dozens of others. 80.43.208.93 (talk) 08:45, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    An extremely minuscule fraction of users, and it's obvious (to me at least) where Carriearchdale copied it from. Plus why are you posting under an IP, which has never posted before? Softlavender (talk) 08:56, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    As many IPs are dynamic, it's common for the same unregistered user to get different ones at different times - and you can guarantee that at least some of them have never before been used to edit Wikipedia — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:54, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I've clashed with Carriearchdale a few times recently. I wanted to make sure that the problem was not on my side (or at least not solely), so I stayed out of the recent interactions she had with other editors, essentially ignoring the problems Daniellagreen had, which wasn't nice from me. But the result is that it has become obvious that while Carriearchdale is enthusiastic and wants to edit, she indeed not only lacks the required competence, but also the required interaction skills. As an example, after Occultzone made this edit (which he probably shouldn't have made as a fairly useless edit, but which is essentially harmless), Carriearchdale first made this edit which more or less ruined her own user page, and then reverted her own problematic edit and Occultzone's innocuous one in one go[67], with the edit summary "Do not edit my userpage or my talk page occultzoNe - OccultZone you are hereby banned from my talk page, and banned from my user page. thanks but no thanks... "

    This is typical of her overreactions and poor communication: she usually "archives" her talk page by simply removing everything she doesn't like, routinely banning people as well. A polite question like this one gets removed from her talk page without an answer (there or elsewhere) or a correction of her previous incorrect claims. If nothing happens soon to suggest that she is going to drastically change her approach here, I have to support an indefinite block as well. Fram (talk) 08:33, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I've speedy deleted the SPI. It was nominated as a G3 and I agree, but in any case WP:IAR. Dougweller (talk) 09:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why on earth was this editor (Carriearchdale) granted Reviewer rights in February 2014 [68] only a month after she made her first edit on Wikipedia [69], a blp violation which she edit-warred to keep and for which she was subsequently blocked [70] and without ever having created a single article? Reviewers are allowed to accept pending changes on BLPs. Surely, she did not meet the criteria. Her subsequent behaviour and lack of competence bears that out. A week after she received Reviewer rights, she was receiving BLP violation warnings re another two articles [71], and edit-warring to restore them. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive831#Carriearchdale and Rachel Reilly articles. At the very least that right should be removed. Voceditenore (talk) 09:45, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • One more small data point: I looked at the images uploaded by Daniellagreen on Commons that were nominated for deletion by Carriearchdale. Of the 5 images, my opinion was that 1 was clearly deletable (because scanning a drawing does not make it your "own work"), one - of a local public event - might have been previously published, but Tineye couldn't find it, so there was no evidence to support that contention, and the other three should never have been nominated in the first place. To me, the nominations appeared to be intended to harrass Daniellagreen. BMK (talk) 10:29, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Also note Carriearchdale's language above concerning these photos: she writes that they "have been tagged as possible copyvios", not "I tagged them as copyvios", thus making it appear that a third party had problems with the images. BMK (talk) 10:32, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Typical behaviour: in an edit some months ago, she corrected an unclosed "ref" that caused an error, but at the same time removed the single square brackets from around a hyperlink. I readded these single square brackets today, only to get reverted by Carreiarchdale again[72]. This is not the first such occurrence, she often blindly reverts back to her version, no matter if the newer version is an improvement or not. I see no improvement in her approach whatsoever, even in the middle of a discussion like this one. Fram (talk) 11:35, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I've dropped a note on her talkpage to make sure that she is aware that the section she started has boomeranged and is now discussing her edits and potential indefinite block: [73]. Fram (talk) 11:40, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I must agree with User:OccultZone that, on the surface, it appears that the user has something against him since, as soon as he began reviewing articles that I had created in the past one week (the ones related to Gernatt), both he and I, as well as other editors with whom I was communicating, began experiencing stalking and/or harassment from the user, including unfounded allegations. That is the only explanation that I can come up with, as User:OccultZone stated, the user seems to be acting out some vendetta against him, and anyone with whom he communicates. Thus, the user has now become fixated on me, even after my explanations and communications in attempts to dispel her/his beliefs. --- Additionally, I saw the animated horse at the user page of Montanabw and simply added it to mine since I do have an interest in horses - 2 articles that I created in the past week have been on horses. Thanks, Daniellagreen (talk) (cont) 21:32, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Indefinite Block Proposal

    I know myself and others have expressed support for a community generated indefinite block for Carriearchdale's conduct here and prior to this ANI thread, so I'll be bold and do the formal proposal:

    As proposed: Carriearchdale (talk · contribs) is indefinitely blocked from editing English Wikipedia for multiple acts in bad faith in detriment to the project.
    ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 09:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Support

    1. Support indef block per the discussion (and diffs) above. Thomas.W talk 10:21, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    2. Support per my above reasoning (I've unbolded my support in the above section to avoid the appearance of double-voting) Fram (talk) 11:35, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    3. Oddly enough, support - At first glance, I expected to try a compromise for a shorter period as an indef seems extreme looking at just this report, but the deeper I go down this rabbit hole, the more disturbing it appears. Without question, the reviewer and rollback bits need removing (and shouldn't have been granted....), but I don't think that is sufficient. There is a combativeness that goes beyond simple contrarianism, past WP:HEARing problems and borders on WP:CIR. I don't doubt the editor is intelligent and acts in a way that they think is best, but I don't think they have the ability to collaborate in a cooperative way, in the way that is required in a community project. From what I've seen, we will end up here soon enough, so best to acknowledge now and move forward. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 12:51, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    4. Support indefinite block per all the above - Carriearchdale clearly doesn't have the competence or willingness to contribute productively here. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 14:06, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    5. Support Why does this even need to be formally asked given the above? —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 15:01, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Indef blocks for patterns of behavior where each individual act doesn't warrant an indef (ie: CIR related), are best decided by the community as a whole. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 15:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      As usual, you're quite correct. Upon reflection, I may have given too much attention to some of the statements Carriearchdale made, and believed they were obviously block-worthy on their own. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 00:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    6. Support. Having looked further into Carriearchdale's behaviour, I can see no way that she is anything but a net liability to the project. Her contributions are frequently of questionable merit, and her battleground mentality is self evident. Some people simply aren't capable of productive work in a cooperative environment. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:23, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    7. Support - Ran into this...colorful character, to be kind...a few months ago at Talk:Rachel Reilly, where similar text-bomb accusations were being hurled regarding conflict-of-interest editing and such. The less of this type of person running amok around the project, the better. Tarc (talk) 17:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    8. Support Thank you to all of you who are supporting a block on User:Carriearchdale. Her/his edits have been those that have caused disruption, and which have made Wikipedia and WikiCommons a battleground for me and other editors, including User:OccultZone, User:Piguy101, and User:Pink Bull. This user's disruptive edits and inability to cooperate have caused me to become extremely discouraged. I have attempted to deal with the situation myself as best as I can because this user has been following, stalking, and harassing me on the following articles in the past week: Daniel R. Gernatt, Sr., Daniel R. Gernatt, Jr., Flavia C. Gernatt, Dan Gernatt Farms, Sir Taurus, and Gallo Blue Chip, including with reverting several reviews on some of these articles to being unreviewed, without providing any notification about reasons for doing so. Further, this user has followed me to WikiCommons, and has suggested unnecessary deletions of photos that I, myself, have taken, including in the following articles, Bill Greiner, St. Joseph Parish, Gowanda, New York, Gernatt Family of Companies, Daniel R. Gernatt, Sr., and Flavia C. Gernatt. User:Carriearchdale's accusations and report are unfounded and unwarranted, unnecessary and offensive to me. I edit and contribute to Wikipedia and WikiCommons as my hobby, and as my hobby and personal interest, only. I have not, nor have ever received one cent, nor have I ever sought or solicitied any type of compensation for my endeavors on Wikipedia. The misjudgments of this editor have been hurtful and harmful to me. I very clearly state on my user page - and bolded it following her/his initial accusations to me - on the Flavia C. Gernatt talk page - after she/he also put it up as an article for deletion - that I do not, nor have ever done any paid editing on Wikipedia. It is ludicrous and ridiculous. Again, I appreciate everyone's support regarding this matter as it has been difficult and upsetting to me, particularly as a Wikipedian who has no other interest than contributing to the organization. By the way, I see that the sock puppet issue has been a hoax; it is untrue and there is absolutely no basis for it. Thank you, Daniellagreen (talk) (cont) 17:50, 9 July 2014 (UTC) Thanks to those of you for your follow-up comments, below, too. I have refrained from reporting the user because a couple of other experienced editors recommended not to, so I have been tolerating the situation as best as I can, and many other editors have been going back and trying to un-do the havoc wreaked by the user. I tried to confront the user and let her/him know my thoughts and feelings, and that her/his actions were hurtful, and tried to open up constructive communication, and the user didn't reply to my questions/comments on their talk page, but instead, made more incorrect accusations and misjudgments on the Flavia C. Gernatt talk page. I could have alot of choice words about what I've experienced from this user, though I see that I'm not the only one, and have tried to back off as best as I can so that the situation is not escalated. It appears that the user escalated the situation, themself. Thanks again, Daniellagreen (talk) (cont) 20:49, 9 July 2014 (UTC) For the record, I just made a report at WikiCommons regarding the user's conduct toward me and my work over there, and I have notified them about it. The user sees absolutely nothing wrong with her/his behavior, Daniellagreen (talk) (cont) 04:00, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    9. Support Remember indef is not infinite. The WP:STANDARDOFFER is always available. Should Carriearchdale ever come to understand what it is about her behavior that is problematic return to the project is always possible. MarnetteD|Talk 17:51, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    10. Support The editor has abhorrent behavior, and hardly discusses disputed edits. I have seen the editor personally harasses Daniellagreen repeatedly, without reason. The editor has accused Daniellagreen of poor behavior [75] when none is apparent. The user should be blocked. Piguy101 (talk) 18:55, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Carriearchdale has noticed this discussion and put an appeal on Jimbo's page. [76] Looking at the appeal, it appears that Carriearchdale lacks the technical competence to edit Wikipedia without a script, such as AWB. Piguy101 (talk) 20:59, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    11. Support. I really didn't want to support an indef for someone who has only had one short block, but the level of vindictiveness I see here is quite appalling - I don't think I've seen anyone as apparently incapable of interacting in a civil and respectful manner as this. Having said that, I'd support leaving a door open for some kind of mentorship, if that is possible. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:28, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      As an additional thought, should an indef block not be approved by the community, at the very least we should have some sort of serious interaction ban here - we need to prevent people being subjected to this level of harassment. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:34, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    12. Support This is the kind of behavior we don't need here. I see nothing redemptive in her behavior, and as I stated above, unless the editor in question comes here and explains herself, I do not see that we have any choice. Without some explanation of her behavior, an idef is appropriate and needed to protect the community. John from Idegon (talk) 20:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC) Note that she did come here and made no attempt whatsoever to explain her behavior, only continued unjustified and false accusations. Now I am saying unqualified support for an indef, and hopefully soon. This has wasted too much time already. John from Idegon (talk) 18:48, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    13. Support I was the nominator, but I wanted to add my views here as well. This user's conduct has been extremely disruptive, if not outright hostile. I am a firm believer in WP:AGF and giving every possible opportunity for users to learn the system, the community, and how things run here, but in this particular case, this user is clearly out to be vindictive, disruptive, and otherwise hostile to any users who disagree with her. Given the extremely long and detailed history of such behavior, that is the basis of my proposal for an indef and why I support it. ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 20:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    14. Support Swayed by extension of harrassing behavior to Commons. BMK (talk) 21:43, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Also, I'm not sure anyone's mentioned these two previous AN/I reports: "Carriearchdale and Rackel Reilly articles" and "Carriearchdale's "copyedit work". BMK (talk) 21:50, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      More: The Carriearchdale account was created on 21 November 2007, according to the account's logs, but did not make its first edit until 2 January 2014 . That kind of gap is highly unusual, although it's frequently seen in sleeper socks. Certainly it can't have been reticence to edit on Carriearchdale's part, because since that first edit only 6 months ago, the account has made 12,431 edits. BMK (talk) 22:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Hmm. That is pretty damn weird. Seven years a sleeper? And that includes deleted edits. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 22:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      In her appeal to Jimbo, she writes: "My name on wikipedia is Carriearchdale and I have been a registered member of wikipedia since 2007 contributing globally across some 35 wikipedias", but under this name she has contributed to en.wiki (the bulk), Commons, and the 406 edits to 19 other projects, with meta getting the most (305), and simplewiki (29) and ew.wiktionary (27) following. All other projects received a handful of edits. If she has contributed to "35 wikipedias" (which we'll assume means all WMF projects), there are 14 missing -- so what is the username those edits are under, and was that account active on en.wiki between November 2007 and January 2014? BMK (talk) 22:28, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Beyond My Ken: Well, she posted this wall of text on her talk page, listing all the projects she has "contributed" to - note, however, that the last 17 on the list (she now claims to have contributed to 38 projects) all have a grand total of nil edits. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 00:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Another interesting turn of events: In her appeal on Jimbo's talk page, she writes:

      Another party contacted me about what to do and how to report paid editing which apparently is one of the newer policies at wikipedia. paid editing without disclosure.

      I let the party know that they could probably report it at the ANI board or maybe dispute resolution. THE PARTY LET ME KNOW THAT THEY WERE AFRAID TO REPORT THE POSSIBILITY OF USER Daniellagreen doing paid editing with non disclosure.

      I felt bad for the party, and concerned for wikipedia, so I took a few days and looked over the info I had been given.

      As far as I can tell, the claim that she was doing this for someone else is new - a look at her original report above will show that it is written entirely in the first person. This new claim of helping out someone else looks like an attempt to distant herself from the filing. (Or course, she also proclaims herself on her talk page as a "W H I S T L E B L O W E R" concerning this report.) BMK (talk) 01:21, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Wow, the more I look into this, the worse it get. Carriearchdale trumpets on her talk page that she's contributed to 38 projects, but it turns out on 17 on them she simply registered and has no contribs. Well, on 11 of the 21 that are left, she's done nothing but make a user page and edit it, and on four others she's done that and made a couple of edits on one or two articles. This is a user who has a rather distant relationship with the truth. By the most liberal possible definition of having "contributed", she's done so on 10 projects, not 38, as she claims. BMK (talk) 01:49, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    15. Weak support: although I think an indef block is too severe, punishment action is needed here, however, this user should be unblocked when she accepts and learns that what she did is wrong and is ready to contribute positively to Wikipedia again. I will also volunteer to mentor her if she is unblocked. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 22:04, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Sturmgewehr88: You may want to change your wording a little bit per the block policy. "Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users." Piguy101 (talk) 00:41, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Piguy101: Roger that. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 01:57, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    16. Support. This editor has demonstrated far too much battleground behavior, with no acknowledgement of the damage done. Binksternet (talk) 00:05, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    17. Support. There has been an extraordinary amount of peculiar, disruptive and abusive behavior associated with the Carriearchdale account. Despite having been discussed on ANI on multiple occasions -- principally at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive831#Carriearchdale and Rachel Reilly articles, and at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive838#Disruptive editor, where Carriearchdale repeatedly made false statements and phony accusations to in a futile attempt to protect rather clear copyright violations -- the editor has been treated remarkably and inexplicably indulgently, to their detriment, to the detriment of the several editors and admins they've regularly abused, to the detriment of article subjects they've targeted for embarrassment, and to the ultimate detriment of Wikipedia itself. As BMK quite correctly points out, there are also quite a few anomalies associated with the account, beginning with the seven-year gap between registration and their first edit and the quite unusual, determined effort to bloat their edit count with extraordinary numbers of inconsequential edits. Their posting on Jimbo's talk page, in lieu of responding here, with its preposterous claims about an anonymous source and organized retaliation, is, quite bluntly, hard to see as anything but a poorly-thought-out pack of lies. And, in addition to hounding daniellagreen at commons, Carriearchdale devotes much of her userpage there to crossposts from enwiki clumsily vilifying myself and User:Fram. Preventive intervention is overdue. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 01:17, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    18. Support per above. Protonk (talk) 01:27, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    19. Support. Scary, vicious, totally insupportable and unconscionable behavior. I do not support any sort of future reprieve or repeal, even with mentorship. Softlavender (talk) 01:33, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I am glad that this is something that is being taken very seriously because I had already accepted that this user's behavior is something that is accepted on Wikipedia. I had not reported her/him because of several reasons, including that a prior dispute resolution request that I made on another issue was not, to my conclusion, resolved. Further, two editors suggested that I not report, and two others suggested that I do report. What I did was to back off so that the situation was not further escalated, as I could see that, already, in one week's time that no progress was being made in my communications with the user. Not only were the user's actions detrimental to me, but also to other editors, as well as Wikipedia as a whole. The user explained to me that she/he was taking their actions in order to preserve Wikipedia's reputation, however I perceived that the user was actually harming its reputation. So, really, I am relieved and happy that this is being taken seriously, and a strong message should be sent to the user. I believe that if some further investigation is done into the user, it may be seen that at least most of their recent edits have been deletions that have caused further difficulty and that have not at all been in good faith. As for accusations of paid editing, again, I have not received any kind of compensation at all from anyone for my efforts on Wikipedia. Anyone who states otherwise is making fraudulent and libelous accusations, and is a liability to this organization. The user should be stopped before more harm is done to editors and to the organization. Thanks, Daniellagreen (talk) (cont) 02:54, 10 July 2014 (UTC) To add, I have absolutely NO intentions of taking legal action regarding my prior comment, and am only trying to look out for Wikipedia's benefit. Thanks, Daniellagreen (talk) (cont) 03:23, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    20. Support per WP:NOTHERE and WP:CIR. See my comments by my struck vote in the oppose section. Ivanvector (talk) 04:46, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Comment I just wanted to point out, since this proposal has been opened, this users behavior has not improved whatsoever, and in my view worsened. ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 05:03, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    21. Support. At first, I was a bit put off by how quickly this turned into a boomerang, and I thought about opposing it based on the arguments made there. I have no love for Carriearchdale (and I would have strongly opposed giving her any advanced user rights based on what I've seen of her behavior in the past six months), but the matter seemed almost settled before she even logged back in to Wikipedia. However, as others have stated, her behavior has only worsened since this discussion began, and I don't see much hope that she will ever change. She's still inventing wild stories to support her baseless claims. If she had just calmly retracted her accusations, apologized, and asked for a mentor, I'd say, "Lesson learned. No block necessary." This is like the worst possible response imaginable, except maybe threats of a lawsuit. She's too disruptive. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 08:18, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Support In addition to this apparently bad-faith filing and the SPI, add forum-shopping here. JoeSperrazza (talk) 11:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC) Striking per this JoeSperrazza (talk) 14:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @JoeSperrazza: But what is that? OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 15:08, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I think he meant per this. Voceditenore (talk) 15:12, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, thank you: [77] JoeSperrazza (talk) 15:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    22. Support Obvious troll is obvious. She should have been indef'd as a result of the first ANI thread about her...the fact that she's made so many edits and is still here indicates either a special talent for trolling, or a serious issue with en:WP's tolerance for trolls. I'd be a little surprised if this doesn't end with a community ban. Bobby Tables (talk) 12:20, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    23. Support This sort of stalking has a chilling effect on other editors. Support indefinite block, any reversal of this block should include very clear criteria from the user so that there is no doubt as to if the user is following the standards of the community. Chillum 16:38, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    24. Support Carriearchdale is no more a whistleblower than Chelsea Manning is. There are processes for whistleblowing. For Chelsea, it was to go to Congress. For Carriearchdale, it was to go to Arbcom. Carrie didn't follow process, they can't claim to be whistleblowing when they've not followed the process, and we can block them for inappropriate behavior. Note to actual whistleblowers: email Arbcom - it's that simple.--v/r - TP 17:27, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose

    Oppose, to be different. User clearly has some troubling behaviours, but has the community genuinely tried to do anything to rehabilitate the user, other than plastering them with talk page warnings? They seem to make constructive edits interspersed with the disruption noted above, and from what I see they have only been previously blocked once, 31 hours for edit warring, and the other discussions linked above did not result in a conclusion that this user was the exclusive problem. I suggest instead revoking their reviewer and rollbacker rights that they are clearly abusing, giving them a few interaction bans, and at least making an attempt to get them up to speed before we launch our strictest sanction at them. (Non-administrator comment) Ivanvector (talk) 16:16, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia isn't therapy. Several have engaged, and from what I've seen, have been met with hostility each time. Unless a disruptive editor has admitted they see the problem and has shown a willingness to get mentoring, you are putting off the inevitable and simply pissing off good editors until that time arrives. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 16:29, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I get that, really, and I've supported community bans before. What I'm not seeing in this case is where we've given the user a "final warning", where they are blocked with an explanation that their behaviour is unacceptable and why, and give them a chance to demonstrate that they understand and can edit cooperatively when the block is up. It seems to me that they've only been warned by users who they are in an active dispute with, and our past action (rather our lack of action) lends credibility to the notion that Carriearchdale isn't actually doing anything very wrong. I think that jumping to the WP:STANDARDOFFER is too big of a jump in this case. Ivanvector (talk) 18:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Struck. Carriearchdale is clearly aware of this discussion based on her defensive post on Jimbo's talk page. I'm satisfied that what we're saying here is sufficient warning that her behaviour is unacceptable, yet she continues to defend it. Indef with the standard offer. Ivanvector (talk) 04:36, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Precisely. This leopard has had innumerable opportunities to change its spots, and has not only not done so, but has subverted and thwarted any efforts at dialogue or rehabilitation, and seems extremely unlikely to change at any future date, however distant, IMO. Softlavender (talk) 04:49, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Oppose: I understand this editor is problematic, but to date, has had one 24 hour block, and that's all. To move from that to a ban indefinite block is draconian. She hasn't been mentored, she's received precious little feedback of substance from the admin corps, who to date, have done precious little to solve the problem. In a sense, that she's continued unabated is an indictment on them. At minimum, she should be mentored as well as followed by a neutral editor, with a series of escalating blocks -- in other words the usual treatment -- before she is banned. She's not going to change if she's not taught appropriate behavior. --Drmargi (talk) 18:36, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment - It is not a ban that is being discussed here. It's an indef block. As noted, indef blocks are not infinite blocks. They can be appealed and appeals will be granted if the issues leading to the block have been addressed. Harry the Dog WOOF 18:44, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      You're right - my mistake. And I know the difference! --Drmargi (talk) 19:32, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Drmargi: Is there any possibility? Have you seen [79], [80]? Just say anything and you are "banned" from the talk page for being "abusive" even when you are not. Doubt what will mentor do. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 18:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    2. Oppose per Drmargi. My problem is that simply on the face of it, User:daniellagreen has started and maintained a large number of articles about the Gernatt family largely on her own, so it is not unreasonable for an editor to raise the question of whether some conflict exists. I have not attempted to evaluate User:Carriearchdale's behavior, but to move directly to a full indef block, while pointedly ignoring her offer to provide evidence in private to avoid outing this user, totally fails the sniff test. Whether or not the allegation would be sustained, an abrupt block of the "whistleblower" here would make me doubt that Wikipedia has any serious intent to look into allegations regarding the paid editing TOS. Wnt (talk) 18:45, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Wnt: Not only paid editing, but also unfounded allegations of personal attacks, Afd template removal, sock puppetry, stalking, etc. I don't see any regrets. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 18:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Well, the underlying problem here is the use of an official unofficial policy "WP:BOOMERANG" that inherently legitimizes silencing whistleblowers as routine behavior. In every arena, including government and corporate settings, whistleblowers are always problematic people. Normal get-along-go-ahead don't-rock-the-boat people don't blow whistles. So if we want to learn from their experience, we should recognize that coming at the person raising the complaint fast and hard should not be accepted as a way to suppress it. So long as this abrupt jump in penalty serves two purposes I won't be confident of either. Wnt (talk) 18:59, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Wnt, take a look at the behavior. Yes, I understand that moving directly to an indef seems extreme, but you really need to look at the behavior. It's unacceptable by any standard. This isn't a situation that can be decided purely as a matter of policy interpretation as to the proposed sanction. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 19:04, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Comment: I created a number of articles regarding three members of the Gernatt family and two of their businesses in the belief of them being genuinely notable. I had considerable time during the July 4 holiday weekend, and I used it constructively by adding to Wikipedia. I received some kind support from some editors, and also this "editor from H..." behavior from the user. Again, I have not received any compensation in any form for my endeavors on Wikipedia. When I very clearly (and boldly, I might add) explained that and pointed it out to the user, she archived my comments and didn't respond to them, and instead, she escalated the situation by filing a report here. Keep in mind by reading my above Support comment, this is after stalking and harassing both me and my editing for the past one week on six Wikipedia articles, and now, also some photos that I've added to five Wikipedia articles. The situation was so bad that I reached out to three other editors, User:Piguy101, User:John from Idegon, and User:OccultZone just to ask for suggestions on how to proceed. I was so upset that I took two days completely away from Wikipedia, only to come back and find that she has recommended five of my photos for deletion, without merit. It also appears that the user has harassed and/or attempted to stalk and/or harass these users simply for their involvement in my communications with them and/or editing or reviewing of articles. User:Pink Bull has experienced the same thing regarding her reviews being reverted by the user. So, on the face of it, someone can think what they want, however I became disillusioned in a prior dispute resolution that I had initiated because there really was not resolution, and therefore, I did not report the user here. I was afraid that if I did, I would be further blamed with unfounded reasons. This user's actions have been harmful not only to me, but several other experienced editors who contribute to the organization in good faith. I have seen nothing in the user's actions that constitute any good faith at all, and it had caused me to become even more disillusioned, which is another reason why I didn't report. Again, I appreciate everyone's support as what I have experienced is quite unbelievable to me and is nothing like what I've ever experienced in any online organization or forum before. Thanks, Daniellagreen (talk) (cont) 21:13, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Oppose indefinite block, support long-term block: per my response in the "Neutral" section. This user should be blocked for at least three months, and upon returning should be given a mentor. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 20:19, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Carriearchdale has been around long enough that mentorship is silly. Mentors aren't very good if the protégé is unwilling to discuss. In addition, good luck finding someone who will provide the service. Piguy101 (talk) 20:34, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I really don't get why 3 months instead of indef until it's clear there's an understanding of community standards. 3 months just seems punitive: I really think this could be over in a week or two if the editor makes it clear she understands that her behavior was unacceptable. And I don't think mentorship is going to happen. Unless there's someone willing to take the reins who will actually be here and still willing in 3 months, we should presume this will end with the block being lifted. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 20:44, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @User:Piguy101 & User:Mendaliv, if no one else is willing to take up mentorship for User:Carriearchdale, I would do it, seeing as WP:RYUKYU gives me plenty of freetime.
      @User:G S Palmer & User:Mendaliv, that makes a lot of sense, and you've convinced me. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 21:56, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    3. Oppose - With over 10,000 edits and one, count it, one 24 hour block for edit warring showing on the block log, this is not an acceptable outcome here. This site is built on the premise of warnings and escalating blocks. No opinion of the fundamental competence of the editor, but going straight to the death penalty is unjustifiable here. Carrite (talk) 22:21, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      But an indef block is not the "death penalty" because it is indefinite, not infinite. It can be undone at any time that Carriearchdale shows understanding of community editing norms. I can't recall many instance of people receiving the death oenalty who were brought back to life when it was found a mistake had been made. BMK (talk) 22:41, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Normally, you and I are on the same side of the argument when it comes to these kinds of issues, Tim, but reading through the history, I find this is an extraordinarily obtuse individual and shocked I haven't heard the name before. The kind of editor that runs off other editors. It isn't infinite, but something needs to shake loose for an epiphany to happen. There is no way a fixed time is guaranteed to make that happen. I hate it, but things are what they are. I respect if you disagree, but it isn't something I do lightly. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 22:58, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I am glad that this is something that is being taken very seriously because I had already accepted that this user's behavior is something that is accepted on Wikipedia. I had not reported her/him because of several reasons, including that a prior dispute resolution request that I made on another issue was not, to my conclusion, resolved. Further, two editors suggested that I not report, and two others suggested that I do report. What I did was to back off so that the situation was not further escalated, as I could see that, already, in one week's time that no progress was being made in my communications with the user. Not only were the user's actions detrimental to me, but also to other editors, as well as Wikipedia as a whole. The user explained to me that she/he was taking their actions in order to preserve Wikipedia's reputation, however I perceived that the user was actually harming its reputation. So, really, I am relieved and happy that this is being taken seriously, and a strong message should be sent to the user. I believe that if some further investigation is done into the user, it may be seen that at least most of their recent edits have been deletions that have caused further difficulty and that have not at all been in good faith. As for accusations of paid editing, again, I have not received any kind of compensation at all from anyone for my efforts on Wikipedia. Anyone who states otherwise is making fraudulent and libelous accusations, and is a liability to this organization. The user should be stopped before more harm is done to editors and to the organization. Thanks, Daniellagreen (talk) (cont) 02:50, 10 July 2014 (UTC) To add, I have absolutely NO intentions of taking legal action regarding my prior comment, and am only trying to look out for Wikipedia's benefit. Thanks, Daniellagreen (talk) (cont) 03:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        I made a report about the user's behavior at WikiCommons, which can be seen here [81]. The user commented on my talk page there last night, and reflects that she/he sees no wrong in their actions. This is only continuing over there. Daniellagreen (talk) (cont) 16:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Just a comment on the 10,000 edits. I've looked back at some copy editing, and I see a lot of changes done one word or punctuation change at a time. So what for most of us might be a single edit of a paragraph or page would become 5 or 10 edits - eg 10 edits for this change. I'm not knocking the work done and doing it like that is fine, I'm just saying that not all 10,000-edits are equal. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Neutral

    From what I understand per the diffs above, it began shortly after the user first started editing Wikipedia ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 09:56, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Sturmgewehr88, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive831#Carriearchdale and Rachel Reilly articles for summary of the problems from the time she started editing in January 2014 through 3 March 2014, and nothing has improved. In anything, it appears to have got worse. Voceditenore (talk) 10:20, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The user seems very emotional and lacking self control under criticism. Has anyone tried to mentor her? I think an indef block is too severe, although that stunt at SPI warrants at least a few months-worth of a block. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 12:05, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sturmgewehr88: Just now you can check, Carrierchdale reverted a edit only because it was made by Fram. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 12:53, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Not that I have any interest in defending Carriearchdale (I definitely don't) but that doesn't seem to be an accurate statement. CA changed a reference, stating that she had "fixed incorrect ref formatting" (which doesn't seem to be the case, CA's edit broke the external link formatting). Fram reverted that change (again, rightly so in my opinion). CA didn't revert Fram because the edit was made by Fram, CA was trying to reinsert her original change. Again, CA's actions were wrong, but I think the motivation you're suggesting here isn't correct. In this particular case, CA's intention was good (in her mind, fixing the reference) even if the action was obviously wrong. -- Atama頭 17:21, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    That explanation would make sense, except that Carriearchdale made the "correction" well over two months ago. Yet, as soon as Fram corrected her error today, she blindly reverted, and I gather that was not an isolated case. Voceditenore (talk) 17:43, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    That timing doesn't make any difference. When Fram reverts Carriearchdale, CA is going to get a notification about it (I know that if someone reverts me, I get a notification). I don't understand what you mean by "blindly reverted", CA was reverting a revert from Fram which itself didn't have an explanation. If anything you could ask why Fram reverted CA months after the fact, without explaining why. Though I still support Fram's revert because it's reasonable to look through CA's contributions to make corrections especially as CA is under this kind of scrutiny; per WP:HOUND, "Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles." And as I said before, CA's edit broke the external link formatting, it was a bad edit to begin with and needed to be undone.
    If you have other examples of Carriearchdale reverting Fram, especially as some kind of retribution, I'd be interested in seeing it. Again, I'm not interested in defending CA. The information presented in this thread makes a pretty good case against CA. I just want to make sure that the evidence presented is accurate out of a sense of fairness. -- Atama頭 18:42, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with User:Atama, you misjudged this edit. Yes it was a bad edit and should've been undone, but Carriearchdale didn't revert Fram just because Fram did it. In fact, User:OccultZone, User:Fram, and any other editor who has an issue with User:Carriearchdale shouldn't be reverting her edits during this discussion, because instigating bad behavior on her part seems like WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior to me. As I said above, her past behavior, coupled with this thread and the one at SPI, makes her deserving of a long block, but until you provide proof that she's unwilling to change I will be opposed to an indefinite block. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 20:07, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If she didn't undo it because I made the edit, then she undid it because she thought her version was better, which again is evidence of the WP:CIR issues. Fram (talk) 07:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Additional comments

    I have addressed Daniellagreen about the personal attacks and baseless allegations there at the commons, as well as to her personal attacks, baseless allegations, and now more recently clear and posted by her legal threats against me by her Daniella Green. On at least two occasions other editors here at wikipedia tried to correct Daniellagreen by posting and telling her that that making legal threats using the L word, LIBEL, and variations thereof is considered a legal threat which can get you blocked.

    I recount my comments to Daniellagreen that I posted at the commons as quite pertinent, and relative to the debate here about an ANI REPORT of which the subject is: " I would like to report user:daniellagreen for doing paid editing with nondisclosure to wikipedia as is the current policy."


    "For the record I responded to your continued personal attacks against me here at the commons, and I also set the record straight that it is you Daniellagreen that this current debate at ANI on en wikipedia is an ANI report that you are the subject of. You are confusing the the witch hunt, and lynch mob battleground tactics which are being used to try to sway the debate, and report about you being reported and accused of possibly doing paid editing while not disclosing. I also have made notice of two instances where you have made a clear legal threat towards me at the en wikipedia by using the words LIBEL and and variations thereof in statements you made there. Several editors on the pages where you made at least two legal threats against me even agreed with my view that what you posted in your statements would be considered as legal threats. I have never wished you any ill harm or bad wishes. In fact I do think that your motives might be good, but you have been led astray by the contentiousness of others. I wish you well in all your future endeavours. I have done my due diligence here, and have turned over any and all info that was given to me by another party to one of my trusted associates to move forward. Please do govern yourself accordingly!!! and as always please do have a lovely day!!!"

    I do hope everyone will continue to have a fruitful and enjoyable week!!!

    ciao!!! Carriearchdale (talk) 18:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Carriearchdale, would you care to tell us (without outing anyone) who it was that gave you 'info', and who it is that you have passed it on to? I suspect that without such information, your claims are unlikely to be taken seriously. So far, you have asserted that evidence of paid editing exists, but provided none. You have claimed that another user was a sock of Daniellagreen, but again provided no evidence. Why should we attach any credence to further unsubstantiated claims? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:58, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I have done my due diligence, and as I stated before turned over any info and evidence that was given to me by another party to my trusted advisors to move forward. Please Andythegrump do not cast aspersions on the mere messenger. And, as always, you really all should govern yourselves accordingly!!!

    ciao!!! I hope you have a great rest of the day!!! Carriearchdale (talk) 20:11, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    So who are these "trusted advisors"? If they are going to deal with it, they will have to come forward. So you telling us who they are is not going to be breaching a trust. Name names, or drop that line too. This is ludicrous. John from Idegon (talk) 20:21, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Carriearchdale, asking you to provide evidence for your repeated claims is not 'casting aspersions'. You are required to provide evidence when making claims of paid editing or sockpuppetry. I suggest you do so now, or withdraw your claims.Failing that, you will have to accept the consequences. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:28, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The editor doesn't seem to think that any rules or procedures we have, such as requiring evidence of malfeasance, apply to her. It's sufficient for her to wave her hands and cite mysterious sources and advisers, and we're supposed to kow-tow and throw Daniellagreen to the lions.

    But that's not all: After six months of editing and 12,000+ edits, she still doesn't know how to properly format a talk page comment -- or, more likely, doesn't care to learn how to, such things are beneath her. She also appears to have a classic case of psychological projection, in which one's own flaws are projected on other people. For instance, she will make an inflammatory statement or act, and then blame a responding party for "battleground behavior". She appears to be incompetent to edit Wikipedia, doe not add appreciable content to the encyclopedia, and looks to be incapable of the collegiality and cooperative spirit required to be a successful editor here. This is more than a net negative, it's almost entirely a complete negative. A few corrected commas can't make up for this amount of disruption. BMK (talk) 21:33, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    (comment moved from above, missed this section earlier) CommentI think it would be worth the time of others to review recent activity at User talk:Jimbo Wales. John Carter (talk) 21:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    For what it is worth, my comments at the bottom of [82] include six instances where Carriearchdale blindly reverted or deleted polite comments without responding, including the Jimbo-HTML-comment-hiding incident. I am linking to an old revision of her talkpage because she has since removed them. Piguy101 (talk) 22:18, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    How long will this take?

    Jimbo's talk page is beginning to get as long as a Tolstoy novel due to Carrie. Can someone do something soon? John Carter (talk) 22:20, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    @John Carter: Now Jimbo has responded and is mad. [83] There is a consensus to close this and block Carriearchdale. Let us be done. Piguy101 (talk) 22:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    User:Mysticseaport

    Can an administrator please look at the contributions of User:Mysticseaport — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Newspaper (talk • contribs) 05:36, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Blocked before I saw this report.—Kww(talk) 05:49, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Kww: I'm guessing you clicked the button too quickly, but it'd probably be useful if you re-block with a reason in the block log. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 14:07, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Children's immigration crisis

    User given advice as what to do regarding SD tagging. If they don't get it, then a TBAN may be needed. --Mdann52talk to me! 18:26, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    A page I'm trying to create at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Children%27s_immigration_crisis&action=history is being speedied and blanked by AlanS (talk · contribs). This is accompanied by notices on my user page that the new page is an "attack page." I have contested the speedy and find no reason for it. User:Fred Bauder Talk 13:39, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    My speedy has been denied. That's the way it is. However Fred the instructions in that template are quite clear that if you disagree with the nomination for deletion you are not to simply restore the material. AlanS (talk) 13:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I declined a report by AlanS at AIV for "vandalism" by Fred Bauder. AlanS, please AGF, there appear to have been a number of edit conflicts, and nobody thinks it was an attack page. Acroterion (talk) 14:02, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Fred, you deleted the CSD tag the first time when adding the CAT to it, which might have unintentionally set off a chain reaction, I'm guessing that was an accidental edit conflict action and not your intent. Alan, that does happen sometimes. I don't see this passing CSD#G10, but I can see Alan making that mistake in good faith. It is always better to not war over a G10 as long as the CSD tag stays. It is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Children's immigration crisis now, so I don't see a need for any action here, as I'm guessing it was as much misunderstanding over an edit conflict/overwrite as anything else. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 14:04, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Looking at the user who made this report the user in quesiton, this is not the first time this has occured. Yesterday, the user had an disagreement with D67 after D67 declined their speedy deletion tags, that also resulted in a report to AIV (diff). I feel this user needs to quickly show they understand the CSD policy (as their talk page clearly demonstrates they have a very poor knowledge of it) and what AIV is used for, and either revise their knowledge of the policy or stop tagging articles, before furthur action is proposed or taken. --Mdann52talk to me! 14:20, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    By the way, AlanS didn't file this report, Fred Bauder did. AlanS is the subject. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 14:34, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @G S Palmer: Whoops... that's what you get for living on coffee... I have corrected my post. --Mdann52talk to me! 15:09, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    My, that is a problem. AlanS, you probably need to remove yourself from New Page Patrol and spend some time familiarizing yourself with policy. Looking at some of those mistakes, like calling it vandalism when ANYONE other than the article creator removes a CSD tag....that is CSD 101 stuff. It doesn't matter than he was an admin, but you should be able to determine who is and isn't an admin in cases like this. He was literally doing his job as the community requests and you called it vandalism. Hopefully you would be wise enough to just take advice so it isn't forced on you. You can't help us enforce policy if you don't understand policy yet. In time, sure, but not yet. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 14:29, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I came to this thread to say what Dennis has pretty much just said for me. Alan, you're making too many bad speedy calls. They come across as hostile and frustrating to new users who are trying to learn how this place works. Please, refrain from doing any more, and read up on the CSD criteria very carefully, particularly what CSD is not. Also have a look through the brief notes I left on your talk page earlier. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:01, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Recommend a Topic-Ban

    Unfortunately, after looking over this editor's history, he doesn't seem to be willing to listen to suggestions that he stop recommending speedy deletion. I recommend a topic-ban from speedy-deletion nominations for three months. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:00, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • Support as nominator Robert McClenon (talk) 17:00, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose - Jimmies are rustled here because someone dared to tag a bad article written by a project dinosaur; if a new user had written this blog-like article, we wouldn't be here at all. Let the AfD play out and that will be the end of the matter. Tarc (talk) 17:27, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think there is enough evidence presented to support a vote either way. Really, something like this needs to be developed and presented at WP:AN, not just spur of the moment added on a report. At this time, I have lots of concern, but insufficient evidence to have an opinion one way or another. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 17:35, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    BLP violation on IPT

    See the following diffs [84] [85]. User:Serialjoepsycho was advised to not restore the offending comment until consensus had been achieved at the BLP noticeboard, Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Investigative_Project_on_Terrorism, but he skirted the issue by modifying the statement only to make it worse, and added it anyway. He also included the defamatory statement at the BLP noticeboard. The statement included in the IPT article was never made by Steven Emerson, rather it is an inaccurate "interpretation". See the following article in the American Journalism Review regarding what Emerson actually said: [86]. Atsme☯Consult 14:22, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    That's very interesting. Not really. What's This? Does it tie to this? Serialjoepsycho (talk) 15:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    How ever it happened, My post here was reverted and removed on this diff.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 16:07, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Such accidental removals happen from time to time. Don't think too much of it. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 23:29, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi, I'm the editor who removed the contested content after seeing the thread at WP:BLPN. (I'm not a regular editor of this article. It only came to my attention patrolling BLPN.) I removed it because a) it was citing an unreliable source and b) one of the sources (a CBS news article) didn't support the content. It turns out that I was wrong on b). The CBS News report did support part of the content. Serialjoepsycho then rewrote the content removing the unreliable source and rewording the content to fit what the CBS News article said. I do not see a problem with Serialjoepsycho's partial revert since they addressed my remaining concern (citing an unreliable source). Since I don't really know much about this topic, I'm not sure what more I can say about this dispute. Unfortunately, I was the only (previously) uninvolved editor to respond to the BLPN thread. HTH. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC) [reply]

    Pending of course further response by Atsme, I ask this be closed.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 23:22, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Cite this instead of the press release: Barringer, Felicity (24 September 2001). "A Nation Challenged: The Journalists; Terror Experts Use Lenses of Their Specialties". New York Times. p. C1. That fury escalated when, immediately after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, [Emerson] told CBS News, "This was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible. That is a Middle Eastern trait, and something that has been generally not carried out on this soil until we were rudely awakened to it in 1993" — the year of the first World Trade Center attack. On Saturday, Mr. Emerson said that he was reflecting investigators' first take on that attack. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 23:39, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually here's a better one: Mintz, John (14 November 2001). "The Man Who Gives Terrorism A Name; Expert's Finger-Pointing Troubles Muslim Groups". Washington Post. p. C01. But Emerson has made missteps. A day after the Oklahoma City federal building was bombed in 1995, he went on television theorizing -- wrongly -- that the culprits were Arab. Attempting "to inflict as many casualties as possible -- that is a Middle Eastern trait," he said in one interview, one of many statements his enemies call reckless and biased. No opinion on whether the statement belongs in per WP:UNDUE. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 23:42, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The press release was actually already taken out. The particular source of issue is 48 hrs. Atsme has an issue with the the source saying that he pointed the finger at Muslim terrorists. My posting of a direct quote from that source is the supposed defamatory statement on BLPN. Under the Same logic your comments Mendaliv are a BLP violation.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 00:48, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Well the BLP violation may stem from more than merely saying that it was said. I can see a good argument that it violates WP:UNDUE to put the claim that the day after the Oklahoma City Bombing Emerson suggested that it might have been perpetrated by Muslim terrorists in the lead section of an article about a think tank Emerson founded. In which case it probably would also violate WP:BLP. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 00:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    This diff where I quote the source represents his claim of defamation on BLPN. And it's not in the lead.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 01:35, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I have not seen any actual quotes by Emerson that specifically mention "Muslim", or "Arab", and any inclusion of such claims are a violation of WP:BLP. Reporters often take statements out of context and inject their own bias which appears to be what happened in the Emerson interview, especially considering the rebuttals and what Emerson actually said. It is our responsibility as editors to make sure we are not violating WP:NPOV, WP:Verifiable, and/or WP:NOR requirements. If any of the interpretations of Emerson's statements are considered acceptable after a fair determination in this ANI, then any inclusion must respect all requirements, including: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives; the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment. This policy applies to any living person mentioned in a BLP, whether or not that person is the subject of the article, and to material about living persons in other articles and on other pages, including talk pages.. Also keep in mind, IPT did not even exist until 2006 which was 11 years after Emerson's 1995 CBS interview, therefore if the statement in question is determined to be acceptable, it does not belong in the IPT article, it belongs in the Steven Emerson article which includes his work as an independent reporter and terrorism expert. It also includes a section about his work as leader of The Investigative Project, a think tank which is separate from The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation organized in 2006 as a Section 501(c)3 non-profit foundation. Any attempt to combine Emerson's work as a CNN reporter/independent reporter/terrorism expert, plus the work he did for his think-tank, The Investigative Project, and lump sum it together with the work he and others have performed as representatives of The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation (nonprofit Sect 501c-3 organized in 2006) is not only inaccurate, it is a violation of WP:NOR, and WP:BLP. Atsme☯Consult 05:18, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    IPT was founded in 1995. They personally claim as much [on their website]. This has also been reported by numerous sources. They did not organize in 2006. They incorporated as a non-profit then. I'll let ANI cover everything else you have said. On an interesting note this has went from conduct to content.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 06:10, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh and see Mendaliv using Atsme's logic you have violated the BLP.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 06:15, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    As I recall, pretty much everyone jumped to the conclusion that it was foreign terrorists. It was a reasonable assumption at the time. It never occurred to most of us that someone like McVeigh would do something like that. Now we know better. Supposing the BLP in question actually did say it, why does it matter 19 years later? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:46, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    It happened in 1995. This group in the article was founded by him in 1995. A counterterrorism expert, his counterterror think tank, and an incident that happened in 1995. A notable incident. An incident that has not only only followed him til now but also this group. The IP that originally put it in found relevant. I and another editor found it relevant. The only editor to respond on the BLP noticeboard did not see a BLP issue. The entry on the BLP noticeboard is still active awaiting further comment.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 07:11, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Australian IP hopping vandal

    Prosecreator listed these in March:

    The changes are often superficially plausible; human and bot patrollers are prone to miss them. In addition, the target articles are often unsourced, requiring a google search to identify vandalism. Trivial and seemingly constructive edits are mixed in. The IP hopping often has the effect of burying old vandalism.

    There are so many of these IPs -- the above is just a sample -- and so many music-related pages have been affected. Looking at the history of any affected article will usually reveal more of them. It's not clear whether range-blocking or massive page protections (or both) is in order. vzaak 00:44, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Not relevant to addressing this problem.
    Do be careful with allegations of deliberate IP hopping. Unfortunately, Telstra, Australia's biggest ISP, and the ISP which seems to be mostly involved here, gives its customers new IP addresses every time they reconnect. HiLo48 (talk) 00:53, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    It doesn't matter whether it is deliberate or not. This is behavior-based, with IPs editing the same music-related articles and making the same kinds vandalism edits. See here for precedent. vzaak 01:03, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, the behaviour is what needs to be discussed. I'm just pointing out that the "IP hopping", two of the four words in the heading, is probably not part of the user's behaviour. Maybe the heading should change to reflect just the problem with the edits. HiLo48 (talk) 01:12, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem is that there are many IPs, otherwise I would post to AIV and be done with it. The behavior is IP hopping, whether purposefully done or not. I don't care about hurting the vandal's feelings with the possible insinuation that the hopping may be deliberate. vzaak 01:28, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you've missed my point. The problem created by the user is the vandalism. That we don't have an easy solution because the editor's ISP changes his IP address frequently is OUR problem. They are two entirely separate issues, only one of which is part of the (alleged) unacceptable behaviour. HiLo48 (talk) 01:35, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Why would they be reconnecting multiple times a day? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:31, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Don't make the assumption that dial-up services have disappeared. I'm willing to bet that once you get 100 kilometers from the coast, that and satellite service will be all you find in Australia. Both services would tend to reconnect far more often than the DSL and cable services that dominate in the US and Europe.—Kww(talk) 03:50, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, I have a static IP, but my router goes down on the average of every couple of days (gotta get a new one). If my IP was not static, I assume that every time it reconnected it would be a new number. BMK (talk) 03:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Not necessarily. Many DHCP servers will not return an IP address to the pool of assignables for some period of time after a disconnection. This can be hours or even days during which a reconnect from the same MAC will result in assignment of the same address. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 07:56, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Although having a lengthy lease time makes sense in an intranet, unused IPs are wasted money for ISPs. It's in the ISP's financial interests to recycle IPs as quickly as they can in order to maximise their (customers):(size of IP pool) ratio. There's no advantage to an ISP in having long leases. --RexxS (talk) 13:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    For the record, this issue was discussed on Discospinster's page a few weeks ago: [87].

    Examples of pages affected:

    The last article is an example of how the IP hops have likely caused older vandalism to be missed. Should I list more articles for an admin to protect, or list more IPs for a better understanding of what range blocks might be appropriate, or should I ignore the matter altogether? vzaak 12:58, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Undiscussed page moves by SMcCandlish

    Last month SMcCandlish moved hundreds(?) of animal breed articles to different titles without seeking any consensus to do so. A good number of these moves were reversed after community consensus was reached in separate discussions at Talk:American Paint Horse and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dogs. Disclosure: I participated in both of those discussions in favour of restoring the previous titles.

    In closing the American Paint Horse discussion, Jenks24 made this comment:

    @SMcCandlish: please don't move articles without an RM when you know that there is very likely to objections. It's all very well to cite WP:BOLD, but the the RM page is quite clear that you should only do so "If you have no reason to expect a dispute concerning a move".

    For what little it is worth, I had earlier written in the same discussion:

    There are probably several others that SMcCandlish has moved without discussion or understanding ... I suggest to that editor that from now on any move of a breed article that he/she may be contemplating should automatically be regarded as contentious, and be subject to a move request in the normal way.

    I am curious to know, therefore, why SMcCandlish has without discussion (that I am aware of) recently moved dozens more breed articles. I suggest that making a vast number of page moves while knowing perfectly well that they are contentious, and after being clearly warned that to do so is a misuse of the process, comes very close to being WP:DISRUPTIVE. I'd like to propose that SMcCandlish be deprived of the right to move pages until and unless he/she can clearly demonstrate understanding of what collaborative editing is supposed to mean. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:44, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    And these moves don't even raise capitalization or any other MOS issues at all; they're pure WP:AT policy. As noted below, the complainant here is conflating wildly different kinds of page moves, just because they inolve animals and he's taken an intensely censorious, punitive dislike to me.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:55, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, I had assumed they they were more of the same based on some of the articles linked at the top. Sorry. PaleAqua (talk) 02:36, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    No worries!  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:44, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • This set of moves looks like the typical fiddling with things that does not help the reader one iota. It's nothing but "busy work". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:45, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • That comment looks like the typical venting at other editors for self-satisfaction, that does not help ANI or anyone one iota. It's nothing but policy-unrelated "noise". Do people seriously have nothing better to do than hang out here and kick good-faith editors in the shins just because we're not doing precisely the same kinds of editing they'd prefer themselves? Is that really why you're here? Is that rewarding for you?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:55, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Bugs' commentary, while a bit more candid than I would put it myself, is pretty well on-point. I'm looking at some of these pagemoves, and if they're clearly supposed by policy, I'd be surprised. Even then, policy is supposed to be descriptive of practices: If you're finding just that many pages that don't conform to policy (or your understanding of it anyway), your response shouldn't be to ram it down everyone's throat, but to question whether the policy is still an accurate reflection of community consensus. Especially when people are complaining. And I frankly question whether your interpretation of WP:AT (specifically, I think you're referring to the WP:NATURAL subsection) is correct; it seems at odds with WP:COMMONNAME. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 02:04, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    It's SOP; see WP:AT#Deciding on an article title at "* Naturalness", and search that page throughout for "natural", including in WP:COMMONNAME (and yes, WP:NATURAL of course). If you think that "Hebridean (sheep)" is somehow a more natural or common name that "Hebridean sheep" good luck demonstrating that. Somewhere else. Whether my interpretation of the policy turns out, after some hihgly subjective, nitpicky debate, to not be absolutely 100% perfect, is not an ANI matter, nor any kind of enforcement or disciplinary matter, it would simply be a WT:AT discussion the conclusion of which would be that some wording at AT/DAB needs to be tweaked. Anyway, then see WP:AT#Disambiguation and WP:DAB about not using disambiguators unless necessary to begin with, as in the other kind of move at issue here (see details in longer post below).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:44, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    You've completely missed my point somehow. I don't care what your personal understanding of WP:AT is. When you stumble across a large number of articles that in your view violate that policy, it falls to you to first verify that your understanding of policy isn't wrong. Based simply on your responses here, and your past issue with pagemoves, I don't believe you did that. You made a bunch of controversial pagemoves that you knew or had reason to know would be controversial based on your past issues that were squarely on point with this matter. Attempting to deflect this by arguing that it's not an ANI issue is not addressing the problem, nor is vomiting up the a wall of text below (which, frankly, is curious behavior if you believe there isn't an ANI issue here). —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 04:28, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I've already addressed all this in the "vomit" (nice attitude!) that you apparently won't read (if you can't handle a few paragraphs without blowing up on people, what are you doing editing an encyclopedia, which mostly consists of paragraphs of text?!) I accept that you're developing a contrary opinion on the fly about what AT really means with regard to such unnecessarily parenthetical page names, but I'm not, and have sat on this and thought about it for a long time. You having a different take on it all of a sudden (one that's gone from tentative to condemnatory in the space of a few hours, perhaps simply because I'm standing up to you and you're looking for an argument?), it does not make for a case of wrongdoing or negligence on my part, and shaking your fists at me about it won't change any of that. If we all had to stop editing and to start a discussion about everything that someone somewhere might possibly object to, pretty much nothing would ever get edited here. BOLD is policy for a reason. Filibusterers would block all action on anything except the most obscure, boring topics.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:34, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If we all had to stop editing and to start a discussion about everything that someone somewhere might possibly object to, pretty much nothing would ever get edited here. Except that you were on clear and unambiguous notice that your novel interpretation of WP:NATURAL was controversial. And frankly, it's incorrect based on a plain reading of WP:AT. Nothing, I repeat, nothing in that policy puts WP:NATURAL on higher ground than WP:COMMONNAME. I would argue that the contrary is plainly the case. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 05:53, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    No one ever made an argument in this discussion that NATURAL is "on higher ground" that COMMONNAME. The only notice I was on related - I've told you this, what, three times now? - to capitalization, not parenthetical disambiguation. This is essentially moot now anyway; I have no more breed-related articles to move for these or any similar reasons. Most of these moves have stuck, as they should. I notice now that the dogs project pollstacked an RM in their own back yard to move various dog pages back to parenthetical disambiguation, but oh well. It's not like I'm going to go revert an actual RM decision, bogus as it may be. This question basically needs to be settled in an RfC. That is clear now, but only after I boldly made changes, in good faith compliance with AT, and some of these changes were reverted, so now a discussion is in order, e.g. an RfC. This is WP:BRD in action. Before I did anything, all of these categories were not only inconsistent internally, they were wildly inconsistent with each other. We're now much closer to a standard, which editors and readers will understand. So, please get off the high horse. You can't come in here with an uncertain, questioning attitude about my AT interpretation and three hours later be an ostentatious firehose of certainty and accusation just because I'm not agreeing with you. See WP:MASTODON. I don't need to be browbeaten by you any further with your WP:IDHT circular arguments and borderline accusations of bad faith, so good day and please drop it. No one else here is agreeing with your take on this, and I have way better things to do.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:18, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • [EC, and my actual first response; the above is later interpolation]: The American Paint Horse and related moves and disputes about them have nothing to do with this sort of move I was doing earlier today. No one notified me of any dispute about dog-related articles, so my expectation would be that any that were disputed (on valid bases) were about the same issue as the horse ones, namely perceptions about how to capitalize based on what the alleged "real" or "official" name of the breed is (with or without "[H|h]orse" or "[D|d]og" at the end of it). While I don't agree with the pro-capitalization crowd on that, I chose not to fight with them about it any further, because of the level of bad-faith-assumptive and attacking invective they were engaging in already (for which several of them could have been sanctioned under MOS discretionary sanctions against personalizing style/titles debates), among other reasons, like just being busy off-wiki, the issue probably being moot eventually the way that downcasing is going, and the kangaroo-court nature of the canvassing-stacked RMs).

      Capitalization changes are not disambiguation fixes. Not every edit to an article that happens to be about an animal is the same thing. Get your facts right before you run off histrionically to ANI.

      Let's be very clear here: I have absolutely no reason to expect a dispute concerning a move from a name that patently violates WP:AT policy because it uses parenthetical disambiguation when natural disambiguation is available (e.g. moving from Hampshire (sheep) and Hebridean (sheep) to AT's preferred Hampshire sheep and Hebridean sheep, especially when numerous articles were already in the correct format, and there's no record of a discussion at WT:AT or WT:DAB coming to a "special exemption for sheep breeds" rule), or because it violates both AT and DAB by using disambiguation at all when there is nothing to disambiguate it from (e.g. moving from Meatmaster (sheep) to Meatmaster, and Perendale (sheep) to Perendale). There are surely several more of the latter sort that need to move from "Whatever sheep" to "Whatever" because their names are trademarks or nonce words that do not actually need to be disambiguated from anything (e.g. Perendale sounds like a placename, but is actually a portmanteaux made up for the breed). Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy, wikiprojects cannot make up their own anti-AT/anti-DAB rules, and I did not even see any attempt at one at WikiProject Agriculture or WikiProject Mammals anyway. Similar moves of cats, ducks, chickens, turkeys, goats, donkeys, etc., etc., have been uncontroversial, as they logically should be since they're moving policy non-compliant articles to policy-compliant titles. Note also that admins fulfilled all or almost all of the {{db-move}} requests I used for those I could not move myself, so there did not seem anything problematic in these requests to them, either.

    Sarcasm:
    I am curious to know, therefore, why User:Justlettersandnumbers has come here to enforce...whatever, while not actually understanding applicable policy and guidelines. For what little it is worth, I suggest to Justlettersandnumbers than from now on any issue he/she has with some another editor be brought up on their talk page instead of running to admin notice boards to start formalized trouble. We have loads of dispute resolution methods, and ANI is principally for vandals and nutjobs, and is toward the last-resort end, not the "this bothered me and I'm in a bad mood" end. I'd like to propose that Justlettersandnumbers be deprived of the right to file noticeboard cases until he/she can clearly demonstrate understanding of what ANI and the other boards are actually for, what a frivolous case is, how dispute resolution works, what our article naming policy says, how consensus works and does not work, what WP:Be bold policy says, and, yes, what collaborative editing is supposed to mean.

    Seriously, has it escaped everyone's attention that virtually no WP:MOS/WP:AT regulars ever come to ANI (or AN, AE, etc.) to try to get people punished for failure to comply, only for utterly tendentious, disruptive behavior, meanwhile any number of topical wikiproject editors who do not understand that WP:OWN and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy prohibit them from dictating article titles and content that contravene policies and real guidelines (that they rarely if ever participate in crafting), will turn immediately to admin noticeboards to vindictively punish and muzzle anyone they disagree with? How long is this going to go on? It's time to start judiciously applying WP:BOOMERANG with regard to all this anti-MOS, anti-AT, anti-DAB battlegrounding.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    PS: A warning to Justlettersandnumbers against any further frivolous and vexatious noticeboard filings is probably sufficient. I don't mean to imply anything stronger. As it is, I think ANI and some other noticeboards issue too many non-trivial sanctions against editors who are not habitually disruptive. Many good editors quit over being administratively rough-handled.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Then again, that was before I saw Justlettersandnumbers's blatant canvassing proposal.[88]  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:44, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Can I point out that the report was filed by User:Justlettersandnumbers, not by User:G S Palmer, who was merely the first commenter. BMK (talk) 01:58, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Right! Fixed. I mis-copy-pasted. D'oh. Apologies to User:G S Palmer! <sheepish grin>  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:02, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, here's my "blatant canvassing proposal", posted on the talk page of G S Palmer:

    Anyway, a quick question which I hope you can answer: is it appropriate to notify the various animal breed Wikiprojects of the discussion, or would that look like canvassing?

    As it happens, I've only had one answer to that question, and that was from SMcCandlish, whose reply could hardly be taken as dispassionate. I've not notified the WikiProjects affected, nor do I know if it is appropriate to do so. But if it is, would some kind person do it for me? I'd be grateful. Those would seem to include Agriculture, Equine, Dogs, Cats ... and, oh yes, I almost forgot! ... Birds. Thanks either way. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 15:39, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Disappointing to say the least. I completely fail to understand how you, SMcCandlish, thought after the kerfuffle surrounding the exact same type of moves to dog breed articles, that it would somehow be completely uncontroversial for sheep breeds. Use this process [RM] if there is any reason to believe a move would be contested. It is that simple. Jenks24 (talk) 08:28, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • And upon further review, I'm reasonably certain the moves were against policy. The claims that they were in line with WP:AT are little more than VAGUEWAVEs. That parenthetical disambiguators should not be used where any other title is possible seems to directly contravene the policy that we should use the common name rather than something made up out of whole cloth. Even if the dog breed pagemoves were a reasonable mistake, to turn around and do precisely the same thing with sheep breed articles one month later is inexcusable. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 09:26, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Isn't Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation#Final decision directly applicable here? "All parties are reminded to avoid personalizing disputes concerning the Manual of Style, the article titles policy ('WP:TITLE'), and similar policy and guideline pages, and to work collegially towards a workable consensus. In particular, a rapid cycle of editing these pages to reflect one's viewpoint, then discussing the changes is disruptive and should be avoided. Instead, parties are encouraged to establish consensus on the talk page first, and then make the changes." SMcCandlish does exactly what that says not to, moves first, discusses later (with lengthy posts full of alphabet soup and "personalizing" comments such as on this very page "That comment looks like the typical venting at other editors for self-satisfaction, that does not help ANI or anyone one iota....if you can't handle a few paragraphs without blowing up on people, what are you doing editing an encyclopedia?...please get off the high horse. You can't come in here with an uncertain, questioning attitude about my AT interpretation and three hours later be an ostentatious firehose of certainty and accusation just because I'm not agreeing with you"etc.Smeat75 (talk) 14:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • To be fair, the arbcom decision you cite appears to be talking about avoiding overly bold edits to guideline pages, not overly bold actions in actual page moves, but other than that, I agree that SMcCandlish's behaviour is exactly what that case was about, and it has to be stopped. From my position as a distant observer, it sure looks like a long-term pattern: SMcCandlish's attitude to these issues is a classical battleground approach; time and time again he gives the impression of perceiving of his actions as a kind of crusade to bring some corner of Wikipedia under the control of the MOS, and if I remember correctly he has quite openly expressed that he conceives of opposition to this – especially when it comes from the corner of some wikiproject – as some kind of insubordination or "insurgence" that needs to be squashed by the legitimate power of the MOS-wielders. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:03, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • General comment: when it comes to contested page moves, you're only permitted to be bold ONCE. Not once per article, once per species, once per genus ... just once overall per type of move. The first time someone complains about a move, you stop. Then you have to gain consensus for any similar move in the future. the panda ɛˢˡ” 16:41, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: This is not SMcCandlish's first rodeo, or even his second or third. This is not about what he does, it is about how he does it, and his behavior toward others when challenged. I think SMC needs a restriction from moving articles or posting requested moves for articles. He is creating a WP:BATTLEGROUND all over the place. As noted, he led a contentious battle over bird names, then next created a circus over capitalization of a few exceptions in horse breed names. Though his current set of moves constitutes natural disambiguation, which I normally favor, SMcCandlish is returning to a bad habit of making massive page moves without discussion or consensus-seeking and then attacking anyone who disagrees with him, usually referring to policies that he was active in writing, usually by bullying others into submission. Here, JLAN has worked hard on the sheep and other farm animal articles and SMC should have posted at article talk before moving, and particularly before moving and "salting" so they couldn't be moved back. SMC knows full well that the animal articles are contentious; for example, WP:DOGS prefers parenthetical disambiguation for breeds, and just had a discussion about the matter reaffirming this concept, while WP:EQUINE has long preferred natural disambiguation for breeds and parenthetical disambiguation for individual named horses. But in other past rodeos, this user wasted endless bandwidth arguing over what constituted a "breed" and at the time, argued for parenthetical disambiguation for quite some time, though after the discussion moved here, he appears to have changed his mind on that issue. Given his history, a restriction of some sort if appropriate. Montanabw(talk) 18:53, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Note: I also believe that it is appropriate to notify wikiprojects where this has been an issue (based on current moves and my past knowledge) and I have taken it upon myself to post neutrally worded notifications at WP farm, mammals, birds, dogs, equine and cats. Montanabw(talk) 19:07, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strongly Support a page move ban on User:SMcCandlish, SMcCandlish has clearly caused enormous disruption across the project with their non-consensus move and battleground tactics and personal attacks against those who dispute the moves. IF SMcCandlish believes a page move is necessary, then they need to engage the appropriate WikiProject and file at Wikipedia:Requested moves. Dreadstar ☥ 20:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support move ban, with deference to other discussants as to the terms (i.e., length). The evident battleground mentality and refusal to develop clue after the last controversial set of pagemoves indicates that this individual should not be making pagemove for the foreseeable future. His attitude towards the entire RM process evidenced above is frightening, particularly in light of the refusal to hear that anything could be wrong with his personal interpretation of the article title policy: Wikipedia is governed by consensus, and matters of project-wide importance require stakeholder input. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 20:17, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sigh - Support - reluctantly. I am not happy with this. I don't LIKE doing this kind of things. But I can't notice any difference in the editor's discussion above. Can't see any I am sorry, it was a mistake. And I don't like moving back a lot of pages either. Hafspajen (talk) 20:20, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support move ban - Unless he asks first, each time. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:05, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    (edit conflict)I came here to say a few simple things:

    • That the only thing that matters here is the non-collaborative behaviour of SMcCandlish
    • That the moves may have been right or wrong, in accordance with policy or not, but that that is not relevant; they should, as McCandlish is perfectly well aware, have been proposed as move discussions
    • That I've met rudeness before, and am confident that I will again before I die.

    But I find that the situation is not so simple. My attention has been drawn to [[89]]. There it appears that SMcCandlish is under warning of Arbritration Enforcement for all pages relating to article titles, broadly construed (which at this point must include this one), and that he has been specifically advised to "to avoid commenting on contributor"; does not, for example, his description of Mendaliv as an "ostentatious firehose" now come under the scope of those sanctions?

    I originally brought this here because pages were being moved against consensus. I now understand that the problem is more serious. SMcCandlish may for all I know once have been a productive editor, but it's clear that he has now lost his way, and completely lost sight of what we are here to do (build an encyclopaedia, right?), treating this instead as a sort of bare-knuckle arena. The degree of belligerence with which he came to this discussion is to some extent understandable, but quite excessive, and serves to confirm that those page moves were indeed not made in good faith. I suggest that he take a break from Wikipedia; and that if he is not prepared to do so of his own accord, that he be obliged to do so until he is able to demonstrate understanding of collegial editing and community consensus. Yes, I'm suggesting an indefinite block. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:11, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    While I agree SMC's conduct here has been atrocious, I don't think it's severe enough to merit an indef when a move ban will take care of it. Should he not respect the move ban, or start playing games with RMs so as to impede stakeholder involvement, then we can start talking indefs. I think a temporary indef might be called for as well should SMC come on tonight and go straight back to controversial pagemoves, but I'm going to AGF that he'll try to work things out here first. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support move ban, as it seems that SMcCandlish will not otherwise follow the normal procedure - to request a move first if there is reason to assume that it may be controversial, and SMcCandlish seems not to understand that if a move is contested it has to be reverted, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:56, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose I only went thru a few of the reverted changes. I have to note it seems that more than few while reverted were not reverted to their original. It seems very reasonable that SMcCandlish did not expect any controversy. Over all the effort seemed good faith to me. It seems removing his autoconfirmed status has to be removed to physically ban him from moving articles. This would restrict more than his ability to move pages. If there is an actual need to take any action, I propose... Let's call it probation. SMcCandlish can not move any page for 3 months with out discussion. You can raise the time frame if you like. And if he violates that you can then talk about removing his autoconfirmed rights. There's no need to be unnecessarily punitive. If there actually is a disruption here there is no need to do more than what it would minimally take to end it.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 22:52, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    IP Vandal at Colin O'Donoghue

    WP:AIV is thataway. --Mdann52talk to me! 10:39, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    173.73.78.137 has been vandalizing Colin O'Donoghue by changing his last name. I have already reverted the change twice. Can someone please have a look at this. Thanks. The Newspaper (talk) 03:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I've warned the IP for now. I'm disinclined to make a block since he or she hasn't made an edit in nearly an hour. (These types of vandals usually "have their fun" and then move on to something else in life.) If it continues - and for any routine types of vandalism in the future - please make a post at the administrator intervention against vandalism board. Best, Mike V • Talk 03:57, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Reporting a user

    Blocked for two days for personal attacks and edit warring. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    I'd like to report MarkBM (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for this edit [[90]]:. where he abused me and called me a prick because I was trying to prevent an edit-war. RealDealBillMcNeal (talk) 05:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Also at WP:AN/EW for tangentially related issue, opened by a different editor (though both these reports spawned out of the same AIV report). Ansh666 05:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Notifying user...done. Ansh666 05:55, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Jesus. For someone calling themselves the real deal, you sure do whine a lot. Get over it. I've said in the other venue where I'm being told on at, I'm not going near that article with a ten foot barge pole - so you need no longer try so hard to prevent an edit war (Personal attack removed) All this fuss about how to stop people getting a quick but engaging opening to the Brazil 1-7 Germany article. I never knew 'Wikipedians' were so determined not to write good copy, but my eyes have been well and truly opened. MarkBM (talk) 05:57, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Removed personal attacks in above comment ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 06:04, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Billy, dear, if you want to know my response - go fish. It's been censored. Everything is censored here, including quality writing. MarkBM (talk) 06:05, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    I did not censor anything, I removed a personal attack per Wikipedia policy. Such activity can and most likely will lead to a block. ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 06:08, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Mark, would you stop calling people pricks? It's not often I get to link to this, but m:DICK pretty clearly applies. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 06:07, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Only the first one counts though, as obviously that's the only time I meant to call him it (and it was well deserved). That really should be obvious, to anyone reading properly. But when is the discussion going to get around to what's best for the article? Or am I correct in assuming that doesn't matter one bit. Readers can get immediate access to the date, location, name of the referee and the half-time result, and that's all that matters, as far as the first paragraph goes, right? I mean, that's what I understand by "The notability of the article's subject is usually established in the first few sentences", in the page helpfully shown to me by someone. Anyway, I digress. We were here to help "RealDealBillMcNeal" with some pressing issue he had, right? MarkBM (talk) 06:21, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Look, just ease up on making it personal with Bill. That's all that needs to happen on this board. As to the edit warring issue, the rule (WP:3RR) doesn't recognize one party as "in the right" pretty much unless it's obviously vandalism. And that's not the case here. So don't edit war. I don't care how bad you think someone's writing is. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 06:28, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict × 3) I've got no comment on this specific issue, because both users here have not been on their best behavior (and both have gone over WP:3RR, but that's for another board), but Mark has had an abrasive and confrontational attitude and refuses to listen to consensus, indeed edit warring with 3 separate users over the lead section of Brazil vs Germany (2014 FIFA World Cup), as well as some rabble-rousing at ITN which I just glanced over. Add to that a gratuitous sprinkling of personal attacks or almost-personal attacks and condescension... Ansh666 06:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Consensus being two people saying they prefer another version, without any other explanations, but only after I've been repeatedly ignored and edit warred with by two others who offer no explanations also? Right. Got it. MarkBM (talk) 06:21, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I've counted 6 who have directly or indirectly supported the current version, maybe even more. Ansh666 06:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Kindly note Bill's previous 3RR offence was just 4 days ago and user has a tendency not to bring any debate over to the article's talk page in order to resolve disputes. LRD NO (talk) 06:37, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Bill may have opened this report, but he is by no means the only one who has the sentiment. Let's not poison the well here. Ansh666 06:39, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    persistent personal attacks and disruptive editing

    blocked. --Mdann52talk to me! 07:15, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

    Obongolover (talk · contribs) has not only been making persisent personal attacks in response to being warned about their behavior [91], [92], [93], [94]. but also creating disruptive questionable categories such as and adding this to user pages [95]. LibStar (talk) 06:01, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Hmm. Category:American racists is probably not a good idea. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 06:03, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Nor is this edit where he drops the N-bomb referencing a living person. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 06:05, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm pretty sure this is a personal attack against me. --I dream of horses (T) @ 06:11, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Now indeffed, apparently for block evasion. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 06:14, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    This may be a sock, I think I got all of his vandalism, if I missed any please grab it for me :-) ♥ Solarra ♥ ♪ 話 ♪ ߷ ♀ 投稿 ♀ 06:16, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Blanket removal of multiple references without consensus and replacement with an alternative source

    User has been blocked, unblock request has been reviewed. I don't think there is any more need for admin action. Chillum 16:55, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    As per previous discussions in user's talk page in May and most recently in WP:RSN, user:RealDealBillMcNeal has engaged in blanket removal of multiple sources from articles, leaving them unsourced and without replacement with another source.[96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104] (5-6 July), over 70 edits on 13 and 23 May. As explained by various editors, sources should not be removed based on his personal opinion that they are crap sources (as evidenced by weasel terms in edit summaries and replies, and this edit to an article page) nor should they be done without consensus. Despite agreement by other editors that user needs to stop with those edits, user has continued to skirt the issue and fail to engage in sensible discussion. As we could not get a resolution, the issue has been brought over to this board. Can we include any action or outcome with a commitment by user to stop with such edits in future, failing which appropriate action should be taken by administrators? Thank you. LRD NO (talk) 06:27, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    User:RealDealBillMcNeal has been blocked 12 hours by User:Callanecc for 3RR violation. EdJohnston (talk) 15:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I have declined the unblock request. The block is short and reasonable. The blocking admin has made a very generous offer to the editor to unblock if the user agrees to discuss first rather than keep reverting. Chillum 16:53, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Vote-stacking and warring at deletion discussions

    Gokulchandola (talk · contribs) seems to have a bit of a habit of edit warring relating to articles that are in the deletion process, eg: at Tanu Sharma (current) and at Template:Aam Aadmi Party (in relation to the now-deleted Naveen Jaihind). Worse, though, is the way that an anon has appeared in support at the discussions here, here and here. SPI will not link usernames to addresses (and I'm off out to work & so have no time to cross-check further) but this looks suspicious to me. I'm wary of labelling it as WP:DUCK, although an IP turning up at DRV seems particularly odd. What do others think? - Sitush (talk) 06:33, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • I also notice that Gokulchandola reverted six times at Rajat Sharma yesterday against an IP to re-insert a BLP violation about the subject, and the article was then semi-protected in that version. (OK, the version they were warring against was a copyvio, but that's not the point). I've fixed that problem now. Black Kite kite (talk) 12:04, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    60.240.185.251 / 115.64.25.61 adding unsourced content into BLPs and not communicating

    Could somebody please have a word with 60.240.185.251 (talk · contribs), who according to Smuckola (talk · contribs) is also 115.64.25.61 (talk · contribs)? They have been adding content to musician biographies, all generally in good faith, but never leading edit summaries, citing anything to reliable sources, or discussing edits (which have been reverted due to violating WP:BLP) in any way. (Examples : John Robinson (drummer), James Taylor, Terry Kath by 62, James Taylor, Northern Calloway by 115). Occasionally they have blanked content in articles (Terrigal, New South Wales), which is less of an issue as it is typically unsourced, but even then a lack of an edit summary or talk page discussion is problematic. Their talk page is full of people (including myself) telling them to stop and discuss issues, but it seems to be ignored. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:56, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Disruptive edits by User:Ravishyam Bangalore

    Ravishyam Bangalore is on a POV pushing spree on articles Aadhaar, Permanent account number and Unique Identification Authority of India. He has been reverted several times, but restores the content that he feels is correct citing vandalism. On Aadhar, I had reverted the article to a version before this user edited which redirected to Unique Identification Authority of India until today.
    Diffs:

    After a month long break, he is back with this. — LeoFrank  Talk 14:01, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Problem IP editor on BLP - NAGF, BATTLEGROUND, possible LIBEL

    Very aggressive IP editor (98.100.23.77) on Talk:Jenny_McCarthy#RFC not assuming good faith, attacking every single comment on the RfC they started, and making borderline libelous claims about a BLP (frankly that "body count" website is libelous imho). Same IP editor was edit warring before the page was protected and the RfC initiated. Requesting an admin look over the situation. Thank you. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 18:19, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    >I never deleted anyone's article or sources or talk page content, but EvergreenFir can't state the same honestly. The problem editor from the beginning has been EvergreenFir, who deleted talk page content and then repeatedly deleted article content that meets wiki standards. I did not start the rfc and merely followed the advice of a wiki editor - EvergreenFir's distortion on this is an easily discoverable fact and is typical of his/her approach on this matter, but I gladly embrace it since EvergreenFir deleted all previous attempts to discuss a key issue. My tenacity in applying and defending wiki standards should not be perceived negatively. The accusation of libel is extreme and unsupported but typical of EvergreeFir's tactics. I also call for a higher authority to defend wiki standards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.100.23.77 (talk) 18:36, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    See what I mean? Not sure what my typical tactics are... and I never said you deleted anything. You did start the RfC (see this edit). EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 19:39, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The Huffington Post article restates Jenny McCarthy's wrongheaded idea that vaccinations cause autism. Then it goes on to report some stats about kids who weren't vaccinated. The BLP violation is the attempt to essentially blame Jenny McCarthy for it. That's called "connecting the dots" or "original synthesis". Huff Post might be able to get away with it. Wikipedia cannot. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:28, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm starting this ANI for the editor's behavior, not the validity of the RfC. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 19:39, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Edit-warring to re-insert original synthesis qualifies as bad behavior. The IP is on a crusade of some kind, trying to blame Jenny McCarthy for 1,000 kids dying. That kind of charge could definitely subject Wikipedia to serious legal trouble, if her attorneys cared to do so. Better safe than sorry. Put the IP crusader on ice for a while. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:53, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And then bludgeoning the process in the RFC. I think this dude needs to take a vacation from the article, and if he won't do so voluntarily, then he should be assisted by a friendly admin. You know who this IP editor reminds me of? User:MilesMoney. I hated contributing to talk pages (and especially RFCs) when he was involved, because you knew that you were going to get a tl;dr, POV rant affixed to every comment that he disagreed with. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:09, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The IP became rather more active on January 29, the same day MilesMoney made has last edit. I haven't yet looked to see if they have common interests. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:17, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I noticed that, too. Miles was more of a political POV warrior than anything else. It's possibly him, but there isn't really enough political POV warring to make a formal accusation. The IP editor has defended the Huffington Post as a reliable source and accused other editors of political censorship, which set off warning bells, but I'd probably want to see some edit warring on Ayn Rand, Austrian School, or Far right politics before I said it was anything close to a duck. This guy skirts the edges of Miles' behavior without ever actually reaching the dizzying levels of disruption that Miles did. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:38, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    Disruptive behavior

    Withdrawn before review. A statement saying "withdrawn" is also handy when you strike, so I don't have to search archives and make sure it was you that struck the comment ;) Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 21:50, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Extended content

    Factchecker atyourservice (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

    Jennifer Rubin (journalist) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

    This user, who has on his User page this very revealing statement: Wikipedia is an incorrigible, destructive cesspool of agenda-pushing by sneaky, dishonest POV warriors, chooses edit warring and tendentious comments in talk pages instead of participating in WP:DR (see for example Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Jennifer Rubin (journalist). This is WP:BATTLE behavior and not conducive to collaboration. In this specific article, the user keeps deleting material and does not engage in useful discussions, instead he comes once every other day to delete content. He has deleted the disputed content multiple times over past weeks. - Cwobeel (talk) 19:53, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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

    User talk:Bgwhite

    This editor, User talk:Bgwhite, brought to my attention WP:COLOR after his removal of part of the shading that I then reversed. I use in a table to show odd ownership of various Disney Channel. So, I engage in the discussion to find a solution when he just goes and starts stripping the table completely of any color (than lies that he didn't do so), so there isn't a guide for me directly in the source to use another method. Basically he continues to bash me and shows he isn't following the conversion. Basic he went all troll on me (stupid me, I assume I could get back to reality of the discussion, I end up feeding him), lied to me, and made false claims about me. It is highly frustrating when trying to work with this guy, even when (not he has bother to look) I changed it to a non-color notation. Then he starts calling me names - that are more appropriate for him -- and more lies (assumptions) on my talk page AFTER I banned him from it. Some one needs to have a serious chat with this fellow, who indicates that he could care less about people trying to cooperate with him. He has notassume good faith, acted in a rude matter towards my attempt to retain the context that the shading provided. --Spshu (talk) 22:09, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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