Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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

RfA vote spamming

I would like to know if vote spamming in WP:RfAs is permissible, as was done by various (also anonymous) users in Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Khoikhoi 2. All anon users seem to have been blocked. However, there is one registered user, User:Mustafa Akalp, who hasn't. He is a Turkish user, who right before initiating his spamming, decided to become incognito by moving the Turkish flag from his userpage ([1]) to a subpage ([2]). He later posted several vote-bullying messages that request users (in Turkish) to vote Strong oppose, as seen in the following diffs: ([3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[8],[9],[10],[11],[12],[13],[14],[15],[16],[17],[18],[19],[20],[21]) There are many more (check contribs). •NikoSilver• 13:28, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Mustafa's spamming should be rollbacked and the guy blocked for disruption. This is the worst thing that may happen on RfA: the nomination may be derailed for good. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 13:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

IMO, it is questionable whether the votes brought through the vote stacking made by Mustafa Akalp can be considered legitimate; probably they should be discounted from the vote, as is often done with the disruption of polls. And yes, the spamming should be rollbacked to set an example, and its author blocked.--Aldux 13:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Can someone translate the turkish comments in some of these posts? Thatcher131 14:15, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Here is my point of view and replies;

Here is first alert message for about campaign is not allowed ; message from Gwernol

Here is ,my response to that admin.

I stopped to send any message to any user anymore. see my Contributions. I will check the rules more detailed. It seems some complexs, to make a campaign in the vote in any country obviously free, but not in wiki. I will learn and discuss the rules asap.

I will send some messages to some admins about my alleges before; see this,

see this, see this This my oppinions is not new..

Flag about in my page. It is a comic idea, to change flag.Why flag is distruptive for my alleges. My alleges not belong today(as you see above) and flag was there in all times.

Here the reality about flag; Old version was animated one that User:Tekleni had complained about copyvivo to an admin User_talk:Future_Perfect_at_Sunrise, I took an alert from that admin User_talk:Mustafa_Akalp#Copyright_violation and I send my first response first response and second response

Now I transferred ( not delete!!)flag to my sadbox to replace a new pure-self made animated flag.

That is the reality.

Regards to all. Note; I can help for translations on my messages. Mustafa Akalp^TC 14:28, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm rolling back the spamming now. This type of behaviour is never acceptable. I'll leave the decision on whether or not to block up to others; a stern warning may suffice depending on the translation of the comments. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:29, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like Naconkantari beat me to most of them. Oh well. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Agree with reverts. Agree with possible block depending on comments. Noting here that there's been a bunch of IPs going around adding nonsense regarding this RFA to articles, which should probably be blocked on sight until at least the end of the RFA. – Chacor 14:31, 19 October 2006 (UTC)~

• Here is the traslations of Turkish to English;

Lütfen acilen oy kullanın: Please come in vote urgently.

User:.. admin olmak için oy topluyor.-User.. in vote to be admin. Lütfen hemen oy kullanın.;Please come in vote immediately. Görüşlerinizi yazın.; Wtite your oppinions. İşte benimkiler; Those is mine.....Görüşlerin iletilmesi çok önemli; It is important to put oppinions/poit of wievs.

.Selam.:Regard. İlgili link..;related link

It is possible to have traslation from another source of course.

As you see, I never invite any body to an oppose vote .I required their oppinions at vote page.

Regards Mustafa Akalp^TC 14:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

First you included your own opinion in your spam messages, which shows a clear bias. More importantly you have selected which editors you advertize the RfA to. This introduces tremendous bias into the process and is unacceptable. Gwernol 15:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked for disruption. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 15:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, this is getting out of hand. He is now continuing his spamming activity in the Turkish WP. Contribs. •NikoSilver• 15:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

My bad. :-( I didn't check the times. The usual wrong assumption that something is done when you see it done, and not when the timestamp reads. My apologies to all involved. However, these contributions in the Turkish WP above can be used as evidence for Aldux's proposal above. ("it is questionable whether the votes brought through the vote stacking made by Mustafa Akalp can be considered legitimate; probably they should be discounted from the vote, as is often done with the disruption of polls.") •NikoSilver• 16:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

---

(Having received an e-mail from Mustafa). While agreeing with all said above, I'd propose to the community that the block is lifted. I think that 48 hours for the first offense is way too much, and blocks are supposed to be preventative, not punitive; the crime he commited is serious and took a while to repair, but I don't think he was really aware how much it was against the rules. The thread above shows that Mustafa was civil and kind in response, as is my experience in contacts with him so far. I do agree what he did was way out of line, but I have a kind of understanding (if not sympathy) for what he perceives as team-tagging in Turkey and Greece related articles. He has simply chosen a very bad way to combat it, and (I hope) he learned his lesson. Duja 12:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I disagree. I may not be fully neutral on the issue, as I supported his nomination, but I feel that no tolerance must be shown to blatant attempts to disrupt a Rfa; IMO, it must be clear that all such attempts to carefully select the editors on a national base so to sink a rfa must earn a block.--Aldux 12:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Aldux. I also received an email from Mustafa Akalp which clearly shows he does not understand that what he did was wrong. He claims: "my messages is not include any comment to receivers for 'opposite vote'" despite the fact that his messages all included his strongly worded oppose in them. He openly admits he was trying to taint the RfA pool "I sent my messages to some users that possibly had problems previously with Khoikhoi" and sees nothing wrong with this action. He genuinely believes he has proved his case against the candidate despite not providing any evidence. This is an organized witch hunt against Khoikhoi where allegations alone are expected to be accepted as evidence of serious wrongdoing. We must take a firm stand against this. I strongly oppose lifting this user's block, and personally consider a 48 hour block to be too short. There is plenty of reason to believe Mustafa Akalp will continue to disrupt Wikipedia's processes and articles as he doesn't understand what he did was wrong and has open and clear biases. Gwernol 12:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I would support shortening the block (I've already asked jossi to consider it), merely because I'd like to give him the opportunity to withdraw his comments from Khoikhoi's RFA before it closes. If he doesn't wish to do so, then a longer block may be in order, but I think we should give him the opportunity. Yomangani^talk 13:07, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd support this but only with the specific condition that Mustafa Akalp agrees to withdraw his oppose on the RfA and apologize to Khoikhoi for his accusation. I don't see the benefit of lifting the block unless he agrees to this beforehand. Gwernol 13:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Khoikhoi's RfA is to be completed within 24 hours. I don't think it's necessary to unblock Mustafa until the deadline. His behaviour was not acceptable and he should have ample time to reflect on this. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 13:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Shorten the block? No way! I'd support lengthening it to indefinite. We don't need any nationalist struggles on Wikipedia. That's the worst kind of disruption. --Cyde Weys 14:03, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I've just received another email from Mustafa Akalp in which he claims his spamming was intended to "reach consensus" and in which he makes the claim that "from a neutral POV, No body had accused with like an allege before, in the history of wiki. More than 10 different users have this allege. This allege will have a stamp on this Rfa for ever." (by "allege" he is referring to his allegation that Khoikhoi was orchestrating edit wars by email off-Wiki). It is clear to me that Mustafa Akalp sees nothing wrong with his actions, is intentionally attempting to blacken the name of an editor in good standing and is an inveterate WP:POV pusher who will do anything to oppose those who are trying to maintain WP:NPOV. He has clearly declared that he will not remove his oppose contribution. I support an extended block or indefinite ban on this user, per Cyde. Gwernol 14:30, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I may dazzle you with this comment, since I am the one who initiated all this, but I'll go ahead and say it (and it is not a pretence of goodwill): Mustafa probably hasn't understood that vote-spamming is bad, because nobody explained it to him adequately (forgive me if I miss something). I suppose that if we explain why the community has decided that this practice cannot be tolerated, he will reform himself, as he shows many signs of goodwill (i.e. self translation of Turkish messages etc.) I am willing to proceed in doing this but maybe I am not the most welcome e-mail correspondent of his! I propose that someone does it, and if he is convinced to strike his unfounded comments from the RfA, he can continue to edit. That's my two drachmae! •NikoSilver• 14:49, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but the problems with his actions have been explained to him in meticulous detail over email (he sent email to me, I replied). His response is above, a firm belief that he has done nothing wrong, is trying to maintain WP:NPOV and reach WP:CONSENSUS. He genuinely does not understand the notion that spamming people known to oppose the candidate with his Oppose statement in the email might in some way bias the RfA proceedings. He also clearly stated that he intends that his allegations will leave " a stamp on this Rfa for ever". He simply won't admit any wrongdoing and has no intention of removing his comments. Someone this far from the vision of neutrality should not be participating in Wikipedia. Gwernol 15:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I support an indefinate block in this case, and in the case of all knowing vote spammers, especially in such a serious case as an RfA, and especially when used to display such a nationalist agenda. --InShaneee 15:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I would also consider that an indef block is appropriate in the case of such a serious disruption. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Consider my previous comment retracted then. After all, we use cents now! :-) •NikoSilver• 15:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

He has been clearly told that his actions were wrong; and he appears to be unrepentant, and by his last messages, continuing his groundless accusations. As for that all this was done to "reach consensus", i.e. calling all the fellow Turkish editors he knew. He simply refuses even to remember of a simple thing called WP:AGF. For this I support Gwernol and Cyde's positions.--Aldux 15:10, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

If that's the consensus, then, I'll go ahead and extend the block. --InShaneee 19:59, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in, but I just would like u to remind that Mustafa is not a native English speaker and certain things might get lost in translation :)).. I share Nikos' opinion on this.. He is a relatively new user and I don't think that we are being able to communicate with him effectively. I voted strong support for Khoi, OTOH I think that we shouldn't just bang up on people who might feel differently, especially if they r not native anglophones.. Instead we should try to improve mutual communication.. Believe me, there are much more serious nationalist POV pushers here, but they are native speakers and know their way around, so they never get caught; Mustafa however is relatively naive coz of the language barrier and hiw rookieness.. It would not be fair just indefinitely blocking him just coz of that. As for the vote spam.. He also sent me the same msg as email even though he knew I was a Khoi supporter beforehand from previous discussions.. I voted support and I find racist the suggestion or implication that all Turks r against Khoi's membership for whatever reason, TR users voted support more than oppose.. People have the intelligence to make up their own mind u know :))) Baristarim 21:42, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I would like to request the rest of the users here to give Baris the chance to explain to Mustafa why vote-spamming is not tolerated in WP in his own language. Baris, if you don't know either, it is because the participation in the polls has to be from all wikipedia in a proportional way. Specific groups may have made up their mind for or against an opinion, and inviting only those that you presume will share your views is not permissible. As I responded to you in the RfA, it is not a matter of racism or IQ. It is a matter of POV, and there are many smart guys out there with a strong POV. In case the other users agree, you will have to convince Mustafa to retract his unsubstantiated accusations for Khoikhoi in the RfA, and acknowledge that vote spamming is not permissible. •NikoSilver• 22:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to have to disagree with the inef. block. First off, I don't think it's appropriate for a first offense. Most importantly, I believe that Mustafa is a good editor, and has contributed positively to articles such as Imbros. Does anyone mind if I unblock him? —Khoikhoi 02:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

He can be told to behave better and be given a last chance I think. I support it mainly because of the extreme, damning irony involved in Khoikhoi unblocking this guy. ;-) Grandmasterka 08:37, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to thank Khoikhoi, Niko and Baristarim for their efforts at giving Mustafa another chance here. I've had previous dealings with Mustafa and have found him generally good-willing and prepared to learn, but of course quite strongly hampered in his interactions on Wikipedia by his rather poor command of English. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

This talk is continued in WP:AN#Requesting consensus to unblock Mustafa Akalp. •NikoSilver• 11:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

User: BhaiSaab’s block and allegation of provoking anti-Semitism

I noticed that BhaiSaab was blocked for “a week” mainly due to User talk:Hkelkar#Ahmadinejad. BhaiSaab has requested for unblock.

Here is the description of the reason for block:

You have been blocked for 1 week, mainly due to User talk:Hkelkar#Ahmadinejad. Since Hkelkar is a declared Jew, and Ahmadinejad is a well-known holocaust denier and virulently anti-Semitic, I can only presume that you are trying to provoke something from him. Add to that, a lot of edit-warring and general fighting.

BhaiSaab’s request for unblock is the following:

Ahmadinejad is not anti-Semitic, so what's your problem? Does denying the holocaust automatically make one anti-Semitic and would this ever take place if he was anti-Semitic? Considering that Hkelkar goes sprouting opinions about Ahmadinejad all over the place, then you don't allow me do the same I would consider this a double standard. Another admin reviewed the same edits and I received no block, then you come in and look at the section on Hkelkars page without seeing what he did elsewhere, and decide to block me. Very irresponsible.

First of all, I should mention that I, for one, do not support Ahmadinejad in anyway. He can be very well, and in many cases rightly, criticized but fair is fair. I don’t agree that he is anti-semitic. Some may think he is but that’s a POV. As Bernard lewis writes anti-semtism has some marks:

He writes:

There is a well-worn platitude that we have all heard many times before: it is perfectly legitimate to criticize the actions and policies of the state of Israel or the doctrines of Zionism without necessarily being motivated by anti-Semitism. The fact that this has been repeated ad nauseam does not detract from its truth. Not only do I accept it, but I would even take it a step further with another formulation that may perhaps evoke surprise if not shock: it is perfectly possible to hate and even to persecute Jews without necessarily being anti-Semitic.

Anti-Semitism is something quite different. It is marked by two special features. One of them is that Jews are judged by a standard different from that applied to others. We see plenty of examples of this at the present time. But there too one has to be careful. There can be different standards of judgment on other issues too, sometimes even involving Jews, without anti-Semitism or without necessarily being motivated by anti-Semitism… The other special feature of anti-Semitism, which is much more important than differing standards of judgment, is the accusation against Jews of cosmic evil.

Thus we should distinguish between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. I haven’t seen Lewis mentioning new anti-Semitism in Iran but rather among Arabs. Ahmadi nejad is definitely anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic. Ahmadinejad’s denial of holocaust, while definitely unjustified, only meant that why Arab’s should pay the price of west’s anti-Semitism. I think

Aside from these comments anti-Semitism shouldn’t become a catch phrase to condemn someone. There are academic scholars who share BhaiSaab’s view (like the distinguished academic scholars of Islamic studies, Montgomery Watt). These are his words:

I do, however, think that the US is following a very dangerous policy in relation to the Middle East. The root of this trouble is that the US gives too much support to Israel. They allow them to have nuclear weapons and to do all sorts of things, some of which are contrary even to Jewish law. Jewish families occupy Arab houses without payment. That is stealing. I think that the US should be much firmer with Israel and put a lot of pressure on them, though this is difficult because of the strong Jewish lobby. Unless something is done there’ll be dangerous conflict in the Middle East. Such danger would be less likely to arise if all three Abrahamic faiths - Jews, Christians and Muslims - paid greater respect to what God teaches us about living together.

.

I would be thankful if the bhaisaab’s block could be removed. BTW, It seems that it was the other user who first brought up this issue and not BhaiSaab.

Thanks, --Aminz 05:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• I just reviewed this unblock, wherein I discovered the following niceties for which BhaiSaab was blocked: Ahmadinejad I think he's an awesome guy. (which I agree was meant to provoke), Israel shouldn't be on the map in the first place. and Israeli prosperity is a result of leeching off the United States. I declined the unblock as I viewed these comments as inappropriate. Agree entirely with the blocking admin -- Samir धर्म 05:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Well Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel tells quite a tale as to Ahmadinejad's side of the story, and BhaiSaab knows that he is talking to a person who is declared as a Jew User:Hkelkar. As for claims that I am pro-Hindu or something I also blocked User:Subhash bose for religious inflammation (calling Muhammad a pedophile) and User:FairNBalanced also for a week (uploading Allah=pig photo) in the past. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 05:45, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

To Samir: Samir, please note that 1. it seems that the other user brought up the issue first. 2. The majority of people in Iran voted for ahmadinejad. So, please respect it. There are people who think he is a nice guy. 3. Israel being on the map is the POV of many people. I personally think Jews and Muslims should live peacefully together, but maybe under a common goverment. 3. He said: "Israeli prosperity is a result of leeching off the United States" during the discussion. --Aminz 05:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Blnguyen, see, I am an Iranian. I want a proof for your allegation of anti-semtism against Ahmadi Nejad who is a living person. Fair is fair. He is ruining many things and undefendable in many cases, but he is not an anti-semitic. I think I have the right to ask why you called him an anti-semtic. --Aminz 05:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• One week strikes me as excessive. User:Hkelkar was dishing it out pretty well him/herself: [22], "oooooooooooh! I'm so scared!I hope he is as awesome when he tries to "wipe Israel off the map" and gets blasted into a hole in the ground.Hkelkar 01:03, 19 October 2006 (UTC)" , [23], "We'll see who tries to harm Israel. Israel is too prosperous, wealthy and successful to be threatened by some mad mullah.Israel has first world technology, art, science. Israel doesn't ram planes into buildings or behead journalists on television. No medeival dump with a theocratic mullah running things can be a threat to the holy land. Nor any other Arab/Persian/whatever country for that matter.Hkelkar 01:07, 19 October 2006 (UTC)", [24] "Like I said, we still win. You still lose.Hkelkar 01:15, 19 October 2006 (UTC)". (→Netscott) 05:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it seems that Hkelkar was leading the discussion and BhaiSaab was merely responding. --Aminz 05:54, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

While Hkelkar's comments were not appropriate, they do not justify BhaiSaab's in any way -- Samir धर्म 06:04, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I think we need to analyze this issue in its context. Hklekar was the initiative and that's important. BhaiSaab's comments were short and in response to his comments. And again, I know that it might not be appropriate to write so in wikipedia, but BhaiSaab has a POV which is not far from that of some renowned academics. But I agree that he shouldn't have wrote them on Hkelkar's talk page, but again, the initiative was Hkelkar. --Aminz 06:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed that context is important. However, this is not a POV block issue, it is a block for inappropriate comments, which BhaiSaab made, regardless of the context thereof; the bottom line is that his comments were inflammatory even if he was provoked. As such, I think the block was appropriate. I have to leave but, I agree that the comments of Hkelkar should probably be reviewed as well -- Samir धर्म 06:11, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't justify BhaiSaab's statements, but I think the fair thing would be to block both. Hkelkar's comments were obviously provocative. Titoxd^(?!?) 06:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Samir, apparently those were the last in a line of inappropirate commentary by User:Hkelkar. Have a look here. Hkelkar's sarcastic use of terms like, "Halaal?" and "..should regard me as the Mujaddid.." and "infidel" while referencing User:BhaiSaab appeared in the lead up to BhaiSaab's blocking and I suspect there are other examples of such commentary as well, Aminz? Equally inappropriate commentary should merit equal punishment no? I see a 12 hour block for User:Hkelkar, but no 12 hour block for User:BhaiSaab (obviously he got a week). (→Netscott) 06:17, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

To be frankly honest, in this sphere of editing it is basically close to worthless to police for mild personal attacks as it is more or less standard amongst this lot. I have already blocked HKelkar for the ad hominem Jihad references. So that leaves religious and racial inflammation, which BhaiSaab appears to have done. Hkelkar's personal jibe is more or less the norm in this area. Things which are meant to raise the ire of others by insulting religious figures or ethnicities is what matters more. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 06:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Blnguyen, I agree with you about the propensity for personal attacking in the sphere of these topics and the virtual pointlessness of trying to police this but are you denying the religiously inflammatory nature of User:Hkelkar's commentaries? (→Netscott) 06:30, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

But it is clear that Hkelkar was actively provoking BhaiSaab. BhaiSaab mentioned his POV(which by itself is a POV), which he shouldn't have mentioned. A week is too much seeing that Hkelkar was blocked for only 12 hours. --Aminz 06:24, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

(leftshift after edit conflict) Let's make something clear. This is not about Ahmadinejad, and this is not a mere political dispute. This is about BhaiSaab's behavior and being uncivil. Let's note that this user did not think twice before using offensive language. Holocaust denial indeed constitutes antisemitism (and not "anti-Zionism"). I strongly support Blnguyen's decision on this matter. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 06:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

We can discuss it whether Ahmadinejad's denial of holocaust was anti-semitism or not, but did BhaiSaab deny it? He just said Israel shouldn't have been in the map in the first place. That is not a good comment to be made in wikipedia, but why is it anti-semtism? --Aminz 06:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I also support Blnguyen's actions - BhaiSaab's comments were completely uncalled for. Hkelkar is a seperate issue - his frequent appearances on WP:PAIN to report people show a pattern of provoking others, that however, is a matter for RfC not a reson to unblock another editor. Shell ^babelfish 06:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

May I ask you if you consider prof. Edward Said an anti-semitic? Again, I think BhaiSaab comments were not proper but not anti-semitic. A week is too long, given that he was provoked. --Aminz 06:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I was talking about the comment "Does denying the holocaust automatically make one anti-Semitic". To Aminz question: please read New anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, let's note that this was only one of many offensive things that BhaiSaab said. And for the record, I don't recall ever seeing contribs by Hkelkar (talk · contribs). Please let's not make this a political talkbox. Thanks. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 06:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I have seen New anti-Semitism and I think the views of some scholars such as Lewis are downplayed, or not properly reflected. BhaiSaab didn't really said much offensive things. His comments were short responses to Hkelkar. This discussion shouldn't have take place in the first place and it was Hkelkar who started it. --Aminz 06:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm an anti-Zionist (heck, I'm an anti-nationalist) and I'm not an anti-Semite. I don't think BhaiSaab should be given extra punishment because an admin doesn't like one of his political positions. This isn't to say that BhaiSaab is a model editor, but then neither is Hkelkar. We're seeing Indian domestic politics erupt in WP and it's an ugly sight. Zora 06:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, anti-Semitism means a discrimination against the jews simply because they are jews. BhaiSaab's argument wasn't hanging around the fact that Israel was formed by Jews but that why Israel was formed. It is a political position and has nothing to do with anti-semtism. --Aminz 07:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, maybe I haven't read well all of the details of this but where has User:BhaiSaab denied the Holocaust? Obviously he's pro-Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who himself alludes to such thinking) but can one not be generally pro something while concurrently against certain aspects of that thing? (→Netscott) 07:11, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Errr, this isn't about BhaiSaab's political opinions. It's about him making in this case an ethnically inflammatory jibe – irrespective of what anybody thinks of Ahmadinejad, he is inextricably associated (regardless of anybody's opinion of him) as being anti-Semitic, Holocaust denying and Hitler apologist and the use of the jibe could only be seen as an attempt at ethnic/religious bloodboiling. Such incidents as the Muhammad=pedophile comment by Subhash bose and the Allah=Pig comment by FairNBalanced have also been met with a one week block.

In the case of Hkelkar, the type of behaviour he engages in more or less the norm in this sphere of editing we are talking about. Both sides more or less assume bad faith, accuse the others of being out to get them, siege mentality, sarcasm, calling each other bigots, extremists, fundamentalists, arbitrary sock allegations etc. - see Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:AMbroodEY/Fundy_Watch andWikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Category:Patriotic Indian Wikipedian's Guild – as such this kind of behaviour is more or less ignored or else we would have no coverage of India-Pakistan religious politics articles. I have found it useless to police people for this type of behaviour (See my talk archives – if anybody wants to start trying to police this area properly, then they are welcome to try), so the line is basically when somebody makes racial insults or religious lampoonery akin to the Muhammad cartoons etc in an attempt at bloodboiling. In the case of Kelkar (a declared Jew) here, he has claimed that the other users are doing an “Ahmadinejad” on him – this is the standard in this area of editing - to claim that users with opposing POV have an agenda. I do not see how this is equivalent to what BhaiSaab, bose or FairNBalanced have done.Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 07:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the Subhash Bose case but as far as User:FairNBalanced is concerned the comparison of User:BhaiSaab to him isn't fully justified imho. User:FairNBalanced had been inserting himself into a group of Muslim editors and making religiously hateful edits for a long time prior to his final insult with the AllahPig image and it was for that reason that his weeklong block was merited. I've seen the ridiculous Muhammad=Pedophile idiocy bandied about repeatedly (User:Mike18xx comes to mind) and not seen blocking for it but merely warnings. In a similiar vein Andy Rooney recently made the argument that it was ridiculous that the American government should be hypocritically saying that other countries like North Korea and Iran shouldn't have the bomb. One could argue that he supports these countries because of this... but in reality that's false because his opinion is that no country should have the bomb. User:BhaiSaab was certainly baiting User:Hkelkar with his pro Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and anti-Zionist commentary but I don't think his having done that was much worse than what User:Hkelkar himself has had a pattern of doing. (→Netscott) 07:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I blocked Bose was new and I blocked immediately for that one, because that kind of inflammatory hate-speech isn't allowed. As for FairNBalanced, I had never heard of him and when Crzrussian reported it, I blocked immediately and asked people who appeared very familiar to adjust as necessary as I didn't have knowledge of what his past was. I am not comparing the records of BhaiSaab and FairNBalanced, I am referring to their singular acts. I asked people to modify FairNBalanced's block based on their knowledge of his past and nobody did anything. I don't feel that your comparison to N Korea is valid. People on WP repeatedly show their political opinions on political leaders all the time and nothing happens. I myself have been aware that BhaiSaab feels that Israel is illegitimate since August and declined a block request from his sparring partners. What happens here is that the uncontrollable norm of incivility, AGF violations, personal jibes, bogus accusations of misbehaviour and mudslinging etc in this area has crossed into the RED ZONE of making ethnic or religious jibes, which is where the magnitude of the block comes in. These guys have been doing the standard niggling tactics for 2 months. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 07:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

BhaiSaab just said that Israel shouldn't have been formed in the first place and that Ahmadinejad is nice. That's it. --Aminz 07:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone supporting this week long block provide a diff showing solid proof of anti-Semitic commentary/trolling on the part of User:BhaiSaab (anit-Zionist commentary is readily apparent)? Thanks. (→Netscott) 07:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Here are two that strike me as uncivil and intentionally offensive: Israel shouldn't be on the map in the first place. Israeli prosperity is a result of leeching off the United States. But I can imagine for someone who doesn't know the History of anti-Semitism, these won't ring a bell. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 07:40, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for you response Humus sapiens. Those are undeniably anti-Zionist statements but can you honestly argue that they are undeniably anti-Semitic? I see confusion on the part of commentators here between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism... the arguement to new anti-Semitism is a weak one as the whole phenomenon of "new anti-Semitism" is debatable given the arguments of folks like Norman Finkelstein (see this). (→Netscott) 07:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Humus sapiens, thanks for sharing your thoughts. As far as I know anti-Semitism didn't happen in Muslim lands. Muslims were not treating Christians and Jews differently in any way, and traditionally Jews and Muslims were closer to each other than each of them was to Christians. It was only after the establishment of Israel that we observe this unfriendly conversations between Jews and Muslims. Otherwise, they were very close to each other, (and I would like to think they are). That's all I know about the history of anti-semitism. --Aminz 07:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect.My own matrilineal ancestors came to India from Iraq to flee the persecution of Jews there. This was in the 18th century. Read about the history of the Baghdadi Jews in India, particularly David Sassoon.Plus, the Jews in Pakistan were ethnically cleansed together with the Hindus during partition in 47. Read about the now nonexistent Peshawar jewsih community. Khushwant Singh's "Train to Pakistan" also talks about the ethnic cleansing of the Pakistani Jews. None of this had anything to do with Israel.Hkelkar 07:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

For the reference to my comment, please see Mark Cohen (1995). Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages. Princeton University Press. p.xvii ; Lewis (1984) Jews of Islam p.85 and Carl Ernst Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World, UNC Press, p.13 All I said was quite factual. --Aminz 08:04, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

All right. Let me add my own two cents. It is my goal to make scholarly and well-referenced edits to wikipedia.However, I am a human being with human flaws, including the tendency to get provoked. Bear in mind that it was BhaiSaab who started the talk page conversation regarding the holocaust denier who's currently running Iran.I reacted aggressively, and for that I am regretful.However, let me add some more facts.Prior to the talk page incitement, I was on #wikipedia-en chatting about an unrelated matter when Bhaisaab showed up and PM'ed me. He made some of the most frightening comments I had heard in my life, up to and including polemical attacks against Jews (not Israel, but Jews as a people). A lot of these statements are considered as anti-semitic. I did not react well to those statements and was in a very agitated state.

However, since these statements were made off wikipedia, I ask that it be entered into evidence only as context. The context establishes that he intended to provoke me with inflammatory comments following the outcome of an edit war in another article (which, when thankfully stopped by administrator intervention, did not leave the situation in his favor). His support of the holocaust denier's call to eradicate Israel is a follow-up to that off-wikipedia conversation. When I first referred to the holocaust denier who's presently running things in Iran, I was addressing neither the user BhaiSaab nor the holocaust denier in the first person. Ergo, the comment, not directed at any specific person, does not count as an incitement. The only way it could have incited BhaiSaab was if he already had the view that any reference to the holocaust denier in a negative vein had to be responded to aggressively and with malice against the one who made the statement, and I cannot be held responsible for such an attitude.

Plus, regarding the apparently overwhelming support for BhaiSaab, I ask reviewers to dig a little deeper into the users who make such statements.Specifically, the block logs, and the temporal correlations with their reactions to the blocks and those of BhaiSaab in prior incidents.Also, glean from all this the apparent "Quid-pro-quo" system where BhaiSaab has similarly raised a stink when some of these users got blocked.Plus, cross-reference the users who speak "on his behalf" and the members listed in the Muslim Guild page, as well as the edits of these users in earlier debates, some of which are quite prejudiced against specific ethnic and religious groups and point to a level of hate that I had not expected to see on wikipedia. Correlate those ethnic groups to the ones involved in this issue, either directly or peripherally, and you will see that there is far more to this matter than meets the eye.

Now, like Pontius Pilate, I shall wash my hands of this matter altogether. Do whatever you please.Hkelkar 07:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

"...Some of which are quite prejudiced against specific ethnic and religious groups..." Is it a personal attack?--Aminz 07:28, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Er, a personal attack from me? On whom?Hkelkar 07:30, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Plus, cross-reference the users who speak "on his behalf" and the members listed in the Muslim Guild page, as well as the edits of these users in earlier debates, some of which are quite prejudiced against specific ethnic and religious groups and point to a level of hate that I had not expected to see on wikipedia. Dear Administrators, the only person talking on the behalf of BhaiSaab is me, and I am the only member of Muslim Guild here. Kelkar says I am quite prejudiced against specific ethic and religous groups which I consider a personal attack on myself. --Aminz 07:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, my statements were very carefully worded. I did not say that there was a connection between the Muslim Guild editors here and prejudiced comments. There are several users speaking on BhaiSaab's behalf. If A is a subset of C and B is a subset of C then that does not mean that A=B. See Venn diagram to understand this point better.Hkelkar 07:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Subhash Bose used to this type of Venn diagram stuff tooTerryJ-Ho

The logical fallacy in this claim is obvious if you can draw some Venn Diagrams.Your argument is problematic. The contrapositive of a logical statement WOULD be true if you have firmly established that EVERY INSTANCE OF set A leads to EVERY INSTANCE of set B, and you haven't established that at all.None of these so called "scholars" (with no background in mathematics or logic it would seem) have.(Netaji 11:00, 4 July 2006 (UTC))

Yes many wikipedians like to use logical arguments. So every logician on wikipedia is my "sock" ^__^.Hkelkar 19:07, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Not many work in the same laboratory,study in the same university,work almost on the same set of articles with similar perception,use similar sources,are common friends,express the same love for Zionism,act in the same aggressive manner,lie indiscriminately.One can recognise Bakaman's language,Bhaaisaab's language,Zora's language before reading their names.TerryJ-Ho 20:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Please have a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:BhaiSaab#Wikipedia:Administrators.27_noticeboard.2FIncidents.23User:_BhaiSaab.E2.80.99s_block_and_allegation_of_provoking_anti-Semitism

Thanks --Aminz 08:56, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Posting an IRC log is a policy violation: see [25]. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 19:59, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Its not a channel log, its the log of a PM. --NuclearZer0 00:03, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I support the admins actions here. The language the blocked user used was completely inappropriate and completely against the spirit and the letter of the law on Wikipedia. A week block seems fair. Elizmr 20:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I also must voice my support for Blnguyen's and Samir's action. Nothing justifies BhaiSaab's behaviour; I have been attacked, insulted, provoked in far worse ways, and have never dreamed of awnsering them how BhaiSaab has, earning him is well deserved block, that I invite not to shorten. Yes, Hkelkar's behaviour is very far from exemplary, and may deserve also a block, even if it is, sadly, normal behaviour in certain areas of wikipedia. And yes, holocaust denial is antisemitism.--Aldux 23:37, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Well this isnt the first time BhaiSaab has made anti-Israel/Semitic comments [26].Bakaman _Bakatalk 01:27, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a difference between anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, a difference many people seem to miss on Wikipedia. BhaiSaab ^talk 11:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

And not the first time HKelkar has used provocation TerryJ-Ho 18:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Well BhaiSaab has been blocked a multitude of times (9 to be exact), mostly for contentious edits and revert warring. It would be 10 but for the fact that he misled an admin to believe I had vandalized an article (while he was doing the blanking) under the canard of "copyvio". Terry, if you havent forgot, you yourself have given users nice names like "fascist" and "paid agent".Bakaman _Bakatalk 20:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

This accusation has been obviously proved wrong on my talk page. BhaiSaab ^talk 11:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The admins should take into account that Hkelkar is systematically taking an extremely provocative attitude with people he disagrees, by constant edit-warring and playing with the 3RR rule (he provokes, waits for reaction, then provokes again, and let the counterpart edit a 3rd time, then he requests for blocking under 3RR violation). User Hkelkar has triggered unumerables threats of blocking, personnal attack action etc. Just check his account and see. Hkelkar never takes the time to elaborate his viewpoint on talk pages, he just can't argue normally and has no precise perspective. He's just a provocative hate-mongering trying to block as much as he can. One week block is excessive. Really. But the important point is the following; admins take into account: I've also been accused of antisemitism by Hkelkar simply because I used the word "neocon" in an article see [27]; hence, for Hkelkar just using the word "neocon" is a mark of antisemistism... That example should put Hkelkar's accusations at the level they deserve: these accusations are void. TwoHorned 21:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes but there have been other instances of bhaiSaab hatin on the Jews. Anyway, you have been apt to defame Koenraad Elst and Hkelkar has merely let you commit your own mistakes on the page. You obviously have no idea of BhaiSaab's block log, his contentious edits, his anti-Hindu stance, or his hatred for Israel. Putting things in bold doesn't automatically make it correct.Bakaman _Bakatalk 01:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Also read Blnguyen's comments, Assuming Bad Faith, comes much easier to us than AGF. BhaiSaab has engaged in rampant baiting and bogus warnings, and misrepresentations to get me blocked. Look at 8 archives of my talk page, and User:Shiva's trident, Talk:Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, etc. The point is that this has been a growing problem and we need to draw the line, just like they did with Subhash_bose. I have no idea who Aminz is, but my dealings with Netscott have not been positive either (see arx's on this noticeboard itself) with him accusing me of being a sock and vandalizing my comments when I confronted him about false allegations of socking.Bakaman _Bakatalk 01:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

What kind of accusation is "bhaiSaab hatin on the Jews" - I have never "hated on the Jews." Where are the misrepresentations? I'd like to see you prove anything in this comment. BhaiSaab ^talk 11:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

You are wrong Bakaman. I never made defamation on Koenraad Elst page: over all the discussions happening there, I've always given references and arguments. As opposed to Hkelkar, whose mere edits were: "Indology is not a science" or "referring to Daniel Pipes as a neocon is a mark of antisemitism". Hkelkar plays it the disruptive way. Nothing else. TwoHorned 06:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Pedro Zamora and Judd Winick

Can someone block the vandal who keeps hitting the Pedro Zamora and Judd Winick articles? User:208.251.92.67 and User:65.241.54.173 (Likely the same person, since both IPs trace to Los Angeles, and are used by someone making the exact same changes), keep deleting material from these two articles, including the accompanying photo in the case of the latter, even after I and another editor keep reverting it, and refuse to engage in dialogue on the appropriate talk pages. Nightscream 05:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Pedro Zamora sprotected. pschemp | talk 01:09, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

This may have some relevance to Dollys (talk · contribs) who was on a campaign to recreate Brian Quintana (Afd'ed here in February), repeatedly recreating it, ignoring all messages about G4 and Deletion Review, until the article was salted. Apparently, there's some ongoing feud between Winick and Quintana about Zamora. Dollys' Talk page messages (like this one) assumed that editors involved were somehow involved with our "Jewish friend Judd Winick". Fan-1967 21:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what good that level of protection will do, since it appears that the unregistered Dollys simply reversed the edit that implemented it, and Quintana is now a registered user who himself has begun re-inserting his vandalized edits. He has been given a warning on his Talk Page (without the red octagonal stop sign, mind you), and if this continues, something more decisive may have to be done. In addition, someone is also vandalzing the Judd Winick page, which is not similarly "protected" (though I cannot be certain it's the same editor(s). Nightscream 01:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

TV Newser & Ponch's Disco

I have filed this case for mediation, but these guys are taking this to a new level. Please see The American Card Catalog article and the discussion for more details. I do not care to discuss anything with these individuals (or perhaps socks) any more. Just get them to leave me alone please!! I have removed their warnings from my talk page because they are completely bogus. I do not have a problem with being "warned" if it is for just cause.Tecmobowl 08:33, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• Tecmobowl is acting like one of the vandals in the Spotteddogsdotorg/Scott Brown sockpuppet ring switching from television to baseball and staying away from his main targets of abuse. The patterns are obvious, even down to the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents posting and playing innocent. I first suspected him a few weeks ago. TV Newser Tipline 09:00, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• Don't think i've ever edited a tv page. Looks like people seem to agree with me though on his/her talk page. I don't care to continue discussions with this user, I just want to make the information out there reflective of the wiki standards. --Tecmobowl 09:03, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Tecmobowl has never once edited a TV article, the hallmark of a SpottedDogs sock. These sock allegations are completely out of the blue, have lasted for weeks, and just make no sense. I have asked TV Newser before to cool it with the sock allegations and it just hasn't stopped. I have blocked user:TV Newser for 24 hours for disturbance. I welcome review. Firsfron of Ronchester 09:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Support. Baseless claims are disruptive and highly uncivil. – Chacor 09:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Endorse as well. These actions were pure harrasment, with no evidence. Daniel.Bryant 09:51, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• TV Newser is part of the CFIF/Splash cabal that sees socks everywhere. They think I am a sock and will claim that me defending Tecmobowl is more evidence that I am a sock and he is a sock. I am not a sock, he is not a sock and he as only made good edits and really understands the concept of wiki. TV Newser, CFIF, and Splash should all be banned forever! Belly Flop Patrol 09:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Another stupid ridiculous baseless outbreak like that would probably see you banned forever. – Chacor 09:55, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
  • In fact, looking at your contributions, you've only pretty much acted like a troll today - your first edits in a month. Very suspicious. – Chacor 09:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I just got edit-conflicted at an AFD this new guy just participated in, by someone who signed as Tecmobowl. I definitely smell possible sockpuppetry here. – Chacor 09:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
    • What exactly are you accusing me of? Wouldn't be surprised if this was TV Newser or a buddy. --Tecmobowl 10:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Hallmarks of a standard troll. I welcome any admin to have a look. – Chacor 10:03, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what's going on with Special:Contributions/85.214.27.102, but it looks potentially relevant to this whole situation. Impersonator or troll of some sort? Luna Santin 10:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Whatever it is, IMO that IP needs to be blocked. The way to settle this whole thing would be an RFCU. – Chacor 10:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP for 24 hours. Now I'm off to bed, will try to investigate further tomorrow. I appreciate all the input from Chacor and Daniel, and the investigation by Luna and Chacor. Thanks, all, and good night. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 10:36, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm so totally confused, is Chacor accusing me of something or not? That being said, is it safe to say that unless something is done to one of the pages in question, I can leave this issue alone? --Tecmobowl 10:13, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone signed as you at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/FEMA Trailer. Was it you logged out? If it wasn't, then we're dealing with IPs trying to cause further havoc here. – Chacor 10:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• Nope, that wasn't me. This is me signed out71.56.127.218 10:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Please, don't get drawn in to this people. Belly Flop Patrol (talk · contribs) is clearly a sock since he knows far too much about a situation he's never been involved in. I've indef blocked. TV Newser is flying off the handle as usual, and needed to be blocked. End of. -Splash - tk 10:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Completely agree with that block, as well as the earlier one of Newser. Newser appears to be trolling here. His post here uses diffs from Tecmobowl's reponse to the constant talk page reverts as evidence that Tecmobowl himself is the harassing one. Not funny. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 23:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous, Special:Contributions/User:Ponch's Disco seems to be following TV Newser's lead. Please advise. Tecmobowl 06:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

CSD G12 and {{copyvio}}

It appears Jimbo has done away the 48 hour and commercial purpose requirements of CSD A8 a.k.a. G12, and with it has virtually obviated {{copyvio}}. Am I understanding this correctly? I asked Jimbo to clarify. Should we modify the {{copyvio}} template to reflect the change? - CrazyRussian talk/email 01:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

We probably should modify {{copyvio}} to that effect and maybe start dephasing it slowly. However it could still be useful in less straight-forward cases of alleged copyvio. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 10:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

We should retain it for that reason. There are cases of genunie confusion and uncertainty. And then, giving someone with the interest the time to look it over is useful. There's no need to deprecate {{copyvio}}, although it's use should naturally decline. -Splash - tk 18:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Zarbon evading 2 month 3RR block

User:Zarbon was recently blocked for 3RR (5th offense) on Dodoria. He has an exremeley out of control WP:OWN issue with Kiwi (Dragon Ball), Zarbon, and Dodoria (see his talk page and the page histories for examples). He is now evading his block with his IP adress, 72.227.129.181 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (See the IP's contribs for proof that it is his).--KojiDude ^{(Contributions)} 02:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Blocked. --InShaneee 16:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if I should create a new section or not, but he's also using Recoome and 149.68.168.154 to also avoid the block. The edit histories should be enough, but if they aren't, I can find more. Nemu 17:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

removing afd tags

I hope this is the right place for this. Anonymous user 208.104.149.167 removed an afd1 tag from Halloweentown: She's a Witch while debate was still open. I have informed this user that the action was unacceptable and restored the tag. Is there anything else I should do?Natalie 03:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Not unless they do it again. pschemp | talk 04:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, you can just drop a {{drmafd1}} tag on their talk page rather than coming up with something. Easier for you and more specific for them. Zetawoof^(ζ) 05:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks folks.Natalie 14:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Duke53 posting warnings without merit

I am not sure this is the correct page, please direct me if it is not. Duke53 has posted several warnings on my user talk page, but either lacks an understanding of policy or is attempting to intimidate me. I have reviewed his contributions and he seems to be using warnings as threats with others. It may be helpful if a 3rd party reviews and comments directly to him to achieve acceptable behavior. Thanks. Storm Rider ^(talk) 04:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Duke53 has been argumentative upon occasision. You can see one such discussion at Talk:Crystal_Gail_Mangum#Race.3F. I removed Duke53's last reamrk,[28], but most of the conversation is still there. He is also being somewhat uncivil at Talk:2006_Duke_University_lacrosse_team_scandal#Background_of_the_Accuser and also making semi-off-topic posts.[29] further down the same Talk page. Johntex\^talk 05:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I also found this warning[30] given inappropriately for this edit[31]. I think Duke just has a fundamental misunderstanding of vandalism, personal attack, or any other potential warning. He passes them out haphazardly and inappropriately. Storm Rider ^(talk) 07:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to add a mention of the blatant incivility demonstrated in this thread. --Masamage 18:13, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Disruption by User:Zisoc?

Zisoc (talk · contribs) has done almost nothing other than to add {{db-noimage}} to 1.3 zillion image files. Can he be mass-rolledback w/o doing so being called "disruption"? Even w/ image files one has uploaded oneself? Tomer^talk 05:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've just done a mass rollback, even though some of them may have been rightful taggings. —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't arguing that some small number of them might possibly on the remotest chance have been rightfully tagged with {{db-noimage}}...but the 6 I looked at, including the one I uploaded, clearly were not... Tomer^talk 06:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

What? The ones I looked at were properly tagged, for image files from commons that did have empty (blanked instead of deleted) image description pages here. Which one did you actually have a problem with? - Bobet 07:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Uh...one of us has got to be smoking too much crack...Image:Eiao map.jpg is the one that set me off... Tomer^talk 07:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Am Í missing something? Why are you adding categories here for images that only exist on commons? Why won't you create an account at commons and categorize them there? If the description page only has a category, it's not useful. - Bobet 07:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

First off, it's not "my" image, I simply used it. I don't know what you might be missing, or what, for that matter, I might be missing, but I've responded as best I can to the question I think you're asking, on your talk page. Cheers, Tomer^talk 07:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

As an aside, and on afterthought, I think I may finally understand what you're driving at with your characterization of categorizing an image as "not useful"...and I have to say, I fundamentally disagree with the assertion I think you're making. Categories are not designed to be useful to the editors of wikipedia, especially not to experienced editors...as useless as they are to the complete novice, categories are designed to be useful to readers untainted by the jaded stains of trollabused wikieditors. I think you'll be hard-pressed to find any "feature" of wikipedia that's designed to alleviate the strain on editors--everything is done to relieve strain on the readers. Tomer^talk 07:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The commons category that contains the image in question (among others), is linked from the equivalent wikipedia category. Creating a page that only contains a category for an image that's already in the same category in commons is redundant (in my opinion). - Bobet 08:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Alright. Lemme try to figure this out tomorrow when I get home from work. For now, I've gotta get some sleep. Just don't do anything drastic on me while I'm gone. :-p Cheers, Tomer^talk 08:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

possible mass link spamming

User:Keytoart appears to be engaged in mass link spamming in art-related articles.

• Links contain the phrase "works_for_rent". [http://www.keytoart.org.ua/works_for_rent/serebriakova-nude.htm]
• Editor's user name is in the URL: "www.keytoart.org.ua".
• Editor inserted links at the top of a list of external links and added a boldface title. [32]
• Editor added links that are not directly related to the subject of the article. [33]
• Editor has been warned before and has twice removed a spam warning from his talk page. [34] [35]
• Editor does not leave an edit summary.

--Jtir 07:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow, (s)he's been under the radar for a long time. Blocked indef, and I'll get the sites he kept linking to put on the spam blacklist. Thanks a ton. --Slowking Man 12:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! There have been two sites AFAICT. One, which is now blocked, and the earlier: http://users.iptelecom.net.ua/~keytoart/, which appears in Dmytro Horbachov. (It looks like all of users.iptelecom.net is being blocked and I am not sure that is what is wanted.) [36] --Jtir 16:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I got www.keytoart.org.ua and users.iptelecom.net blacklisted. I can't imagine any article in which you'd need to link to the latter, but if such a situation ever comes up, the specific URL can be locally whitelisted. --Slowking Man 22:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

OK. I see what you mean — the latter is for user pages. I didn't think of that. Thanks. --Jtir 22:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Swadhyay Parivar

The article Swadhyay Parivar is abused constantly if some one adds the critical information about this information. There are some people and obviously anonymous users who always delete the information which is critical about this community. They want to post information which only talks nice of Swadhaya Parviar and Jayashree Talwalkar.

The critical information / the converters about this community highlighted in the article have citation and were greatly highlighted in Indian media and throughout the world by Gujarthi media. Can some one please block new users / unregistered users edit this article.

• User:89.240.152.14 is one such instance.

--IndianCow 07:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Michael Ignatieff

A sysop protected this a few hours ago and now has a "wikibreak" sign on their talk page. The article was protected with a high degree of pov-pushing by the supporters of Ignatieff who is right now in the middle of a political election campaign. There was no reason to protect it and to do so right after 1 side of the edit dispute had their way is a misuse of the "protection" option. Ottawaman 12:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I am the sysop who protected the article, that wikibreak notice means I am not so active because of exams. I protected the The Wrong Version because I discovered there is a content dispute going on, with no knowledge of the election campaign. --WinHunter ^(talk) 12:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Stevensons88 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Greetings, this user appears to have chosen a name to impersonate myself and is editing negatively in the same Islamic topics as myself. Given this user's knowledgeable editing this is an obvious sockpuppet. This editor has been vandalizing Islam related articles by adding spurious {{Unreferenced}} and {{Citecheck}} tags. The vandalism extends to blanking and heavy negative and uncivil POV editing (which admin User:FayssalF issued a warning for). To top off this user's short editing history they've been adding {{indefblockeduser}} to User:FayssalF, User:BhaiSaab, User:HighInBC and my own user related pages. A permanent solution relative to this user name would be most appreciated. Thanks. (→Netscott) 13:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I have just added this user to WP:AIV, I don't consider his antics any more special than regular vandalism and am treating it as such. As for the name, it is a very common last name, do any of his edits support the idea that he is trying to impersonate you? HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 13:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked him for one week...and if he returns and continues along the same path, the block will be longer so don't hesitate to let me know how things transpire.--MONGO 13:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks MONGO, keep up the good work. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 13:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks MONGO for the prompt assistance. (→Netscott) 13:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

inappropriate username

Hope this is the right place - User:Andministrator has an inappropriate username. Natalie 13:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The 'right places' according to process seems to be AIV if it's obvious or a username RFC (much lighter weight than most sorts of RFC!) if it isn't. I'm not sure, but I suspect AN/I will do just as well in practice. --ais523 14:08, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

How to handle this situation - advice needed

I am under the impression that WP:V applies to all articles. When I come across a series of articles that have been on Wikipedia a long time and have no sources cited, I put the unsourced tag at the top under the belief that, in the long term, identifying and sourcing these articles is for the betterment of Wikipedia.

Today I was adding the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame Induction list for 1980 on the blues artists inducted. I noticed that all of them were unsourced so I added the unsourced tag and clearly noted the reason in the edit summary. Now someone has systematically removed the unsourced tag from each article under the edit summary of "cleanup" or something similar, but without adding any sources.

How do I handle situations like this? I contacted the editor in question and she says I have no business adding such tags. She considers my tagging driveby tagging and made assumptions about my knowledge of blues and intentions. She noted that I was not part of the Blues Project and have no right.

My question: Is this ethical behavior on her part? She not only removed the tags without asking me my intentions (i.e. was I contributing to articles about the blues -- which I have as well as writing them -- and also her removing the tags under misleading edit summaries.

Should I just ignore this and leave blues subjects alone (back away from such situations is the more frequent advice I get) or is it in Wikipedia's best interest that unsourced articles be tagged as such to inspire those interested to improve the articles? Thanks for any input! Mattisse(talk) 16:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Removing an unsourced tag without supplying a source is vandalism. Might I suggest a politely worded comment on the editor's Talk page, and ask why they did the edit they did? If they persist, list them as a vandal. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Thank you for answering. Mattisse(talk) 18:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Part of the problem appears to be that you are conflating citing sources with a specific style of citation. You are tagging articles because they don't use <ref>, rather than because they don't cite sources. (Several of the articles that you tagged did cite sources.) {{unsourced}} is for where there are no actual (usable) citations, of any style. The tag that you are looking for is {{citation style}}. Before going overboard with that tag, note that citation style should match the breadth of applicability of the source to the article. This often leads to a mixed citation style. See Vince Foster#References, for example. Uncle G 15:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• I am going by a long standing discussion with User:TomTheHand.Please see recently User_talk:Mattisse#Uncited_template and User_talk:TomTheHand#So.2C_would_you_say_._._. This administrator has been very clear and consistent over time. Other than TomTheHand, I can not find a reliable source of guidance on this isuue. If you can point me in the direction of one, I would greatly appreciate that. Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 15:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • The article in question cited 7 sources, all listed in Robert Johnson#References. The problem here is not that sources were not cited. They were. A citation, giving the author, publisher, title, and date of a book, is a full citation. It provides the conventional information necessary for a reader to locate the source, which is what citations are for.

    The problem that you are addressing is not lack of citations, but, rather, which part of the content is supported by which cited source. In the absence of <ref> or Harvard-style notations in the body of the text, there are no explicit links between content and citation. That doesn't mean that the article is unsourced, however. It merely means that the exact source to consult for any specific part of the article isn't being spoon-fed to the reader. In many cases, the article can be improved, by linking sources to specific article sections, or to specific paragraphs, using <ref> or Harvard-style notations. But, conversely, note that there are cases where sources can encompass wide swathes of, or even the whole, article, and the link between citation and content really is best left at the level of the article as a whole.

    Our Wikipedia:Verifiability policy merely requires that sources be cited, somehow. The (minimum) author+publisher+title+date information for (say) a book source, enabling readers to locate the book, must be present, in some fashion. The exact cross-linking of content and citations is a matter of style, some differences of opinion, and (anyway) what the cross-connections are in each specific case. For more information see Wikipedia:Citing sources. Uncle G 16:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Tonycdp wants to be indefblocked

We're not supposed to indefblock people who want to leave Wikipedia. But, this guy threatens that he'll get himself indefblocked by disrupting Wikipedia if I don't block him. Do we have a procedure for this kind of cases? --Dijxtra 16:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd say block him indefinatly, and if he ever wants to come back, let him consider the consequences of being disruptive to get what he wants. --InShaneee 16:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I blocked him. It's quite sad to see a person requesting a block, but I think that at this point we are loosing too much time on this discussion because it is evident that he decided to be indefblocked. Of course, everybody's free to wear suns^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hunblock him, I don't want to have anything with this any more, if you think I shouldn't have done this, just unblock him. --Dijxtra 17:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

We really need to advertise the WikiBreak Enforcer more. I just unblocked someone else who was blocked at their own request. --  Netsnipe  ►  17:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Street Scholar

I recently had a run-in with this user over the speedy deletion of some pages he'd worked on. I offered to restore two of them (without going through DRV), but his sexism and personal attacks quickly made the conversation turn. (See the conversation I removed here, as well as my comments (admittedly not the calmest I could have written) here.) Another user alerted me to the fact that he'd been warned for personal attacks in the past (which I had gleaned from his talk page), but I did not realize he had a similar incident report just a few weeks ago (see here). While this was amicably resolved, it seems that he did not learn from the incident. While a person's beliefs are his or her own business, attacking a person based on gender is a clear violation of WP:NPA, and requesting all womankind to respond to his attacks is using WP as a soapbox. I'm not sure if this should go to RfC, since the first attempt to resolve this was "successful". Any help would be greatly appreciated. -- Merope 18:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I have encountered similar irreverence to wikipedia norms from this user before.I'm not sure how to link to this, but he made several uploads of images that were blatant copyvios (he put one in Mountain warfare here) which were speedily deleted. However, he had uploaded several such images from the same website that had a clear "All rights reserved" statement on it and, if an admin could assist me, then I can cite the records of the speedy deletions.This shows an irreverence for copyright rules on wikipedia. In addition, a mediated debate progresses on Cheema (see Talk:Cheema) where he continuously misrepresents sources and tries to push a POV without adequate WP:V. Most of the sources cited in the article are fabricated or misrepresented and, when confronted about this by a mediator here ignored the mediator completely and still continues with such tendentious editing (see mediator's assessment here). He has also made numerous veiled ethnic slurs on Talk:Cheema and further misrepresented the facts to try to bait users into argument here is an example. He remains unapologetic for these acts and continues on Talk:Cheema.Hkelkar 19:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

"I'm not sure if this should go to RfC, since the first attempt to resolve this was "successful"."

To be honest, I considered it closed at that time for that reason (assuming of course you were referring to the incident on my talk page and elsewhere). However, this doesn't appear to be the case! If the previous incident had been resolved successfully, then surely the same problem wouldn't have arisen again. While this user does have many good and invaluable edits among his contributions, it's also evident that he has displayed/aired these very offensive views on wikipedia throughout the history of his membership and is unlikely to change them. I would say that a firm message needs to be sent - the question of course is what that message would entail, which is a question I cannot answer. The eeasy way has been tried already. --Crimsone 22:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

he persists with his remarks even after he got admonished [37] [38]. He does not seem to have reformed at all.Hkelkar 17:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

In light of those attacks (and this edit), I've blocked him for 48h. I'll monitor his edits once the block expires. -- Merope 17:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This user is thoroughly unpleasant and seems to want to push his distasteful view of women on anyone nearby. It doesn't help that he's insulting and demeaning to those who disagree with him. My own peace of mind (and civility of comments) has slid downward such that I doubt I can interact with him civilly, and that's even without having the gender his bile targets. Wikipedia doesn't need behaviour like this, and he's expressed that it is his God-given duty (literally, as he's excused his words on religious grounds) to not keep it to himself. — Saxifrage ✎ 17:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

He continues his behaviour on his Talk page even while blocked for it.[39] — Saxifrage ✎ 15:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that, too. He's earned himself a week's block. After this, however, I'd like another admin to review his actions. I dislike being the only admin involved in this kind of dispute, particularly when I was one of those attacked. -- Merope 15:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

As another admin I endorse the current blocks. If you want I'll make any further blocks as an uninvolved admin. JoshuaZ 16:02, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

38.119.52.98 (talk · contribs)

Please be careful about blocking 38.119.52.98 (talk · contribs), this is a school IP - and if there's vandalism, please leave a message on my talkpage. Any blocks will cause collateral to me. --Pajnax 18:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Not all - for several months we've been able to block anonymous users only. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 02:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Internet for Learning: Vandalism traced to schools

I am an employee of Internet for Learning, and I have just spent hours trawling the firewall logs to see which schools are responsible for the vandalism on this site.

The schools include:

• Formby High School (www.formbyhigh.org)
• Ainsdale High School (www.ainsdalehope.co.uk)
• Greenbank High School, Southport, Lancashire (http://www.greenbank.sefton.sch.uk/)
• Marling School, Bath, Somerset
• Estover Community College

along with 2 other schools in the West Midlands, and 2 in the East Midlands.

The vandalism seems to emanate from the 3 5 educational facilities mentioned above; I will post back any more information when I can find it.

Apparently students seem to have used the IFL grid to access pornographic material ('Nuts' magazine) and Wikipedia; these two sites appear most frequently in our firewall logs.

I would like to apologise for the behaviour of the students and I assure you, there will be an investigation into this (however, due to confidentiality, I cannot discuss the ongoing investigation any further). --Neil McCarthy (Internet for Learning) 19:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, for what it's worth, school IPs usually do commit a lot of vandalism. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 19:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

AN:I troll? Anyone? --InShaneee 21:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

refer to WP:AGF... ~crazytales56297 ^{O rly? Ya rly!} 22:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This is genuine, I have checked the logs, and they trace to user logins on terminals at these 5 schools:

• Formby High School (www.formbyhigh.org)
• Ainsdale High School (www.ainsdalehope.co.uk)
• Greenbank High School, Southport, Lancashire (http://www.greenbank.sefton.sch.uk/)
• Marling School, Bath, Somerset
• Estover Community College

Contact the relevant schools if you wish to discuss IP blocks - thanks. --Neil McCarthy (Internet for Learning) 21:53, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

But we can't do much because you haven't provided the school's IP addresses. We block and warn the IPs, we usually don't send emails to the districts' headquarters. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see where we're being asked to do anything. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I read it as that he wants us to take action on the issue. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 00:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

These are the relevant IPs:

• 62.171.194.13 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) blocked 3 times - used by Formby High School library (http://www.formbyhigh.org)
• 62.171.194.36 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) blocked 16 times - used by Greenbank High School (http://www.greenbank.sefton.sch.uk/)
• 62.171.194.37 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) blocked 13 times - used in Formby High School library
• 62.171.194.38 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) blocked 10 times
• 62.171.194.39 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) blocked 6 times

What I am saying is, contact any of the 5 schools mentioned above to discuss blocking issues and repeat vandalism from students. That is the only way forward.

I have checked the firewall logs, and they trace back to the 5 schools above. --Neil McCarthy (Internet for Learning) 11:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Also be careful about blocking 38.119.52.98 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) - see the IP's talk page for details. --Neil McCarthy (Internet for Learning) 11:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks & incivility on WP as well as offwiki meatpuppet recruitment

Will314159 has taken a consistently incivil position towards myself and other users. He has increasingly engaged in this derogatory attitude, including personal attacks. I also recently discovered that he had written similar statements online (outside Wikipedia), including requests for meatpuppets on the specific article that we both often edit. I suggest that he be blocked for 1-4 weeks in order that he might have a better appreciation for acceptable behaviour, though I ultimately leave that up to the relevant administrators' prerogative. Tewfik^Talk 20:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Online:

• "you should try your hand at editing the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict there's an Israeli there user:Tewfik that's made 1,000 edits to the article and "owns" the article. He pushes his POV there unmercifully."
• "There's an editor there called Tewfik, an Israeli, who owns the site, who has made over a 1,000 edits. He has been deleting my edits. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict" "I guess this is an invitation for neutral military types to get involved in these Wikipedia history and military conflict articles and bring some balance to them."
• "The illustrious Tewfik of the 1,000 edits deleted it..." "Warning, this is a solicitation for more people to become involved as Wikipedia editors. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict"

General incivility, personal attacks, and assumption of bad-faith:

• "why do you hate the Palestinians so much? It is a full time cottage industry for you. Going around WP burning them"
• "It's a very elementary point but you don't get it. I feel for you"
• "ISArIG, Isarig always always wikilawyering"
• "ISARIG lives to abuse 3RR..."
• "Will the man of a thousand edits (Tewfik) allow it? I sincerely doubt it. Maybe he will surprise us?"
• (edit summary) "Isarig don't be boorish..."
• "...your invidious POV not surprising Tewfik, the man of the thousand edits, and the owner of the July War article. For now, WP is your POV's playpen..."
• "...whether the 10-12 editors that give Wikipedia its Likudnik slant continue to rule."

Although off-wiki actions aren;t technically punishable, this user invited further disruption of Wikipedia in addition to the disruption he himself has already caused here. Everything taken togehter, I have decided that a block of 10 days is appropriate. RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 20:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I think any off-wiki action that cases on-wiki disruption is can result in a block to help protect the wiki further. But blocks are never punishment anyway... ---J.S (t|c) 22:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Link spammer

User:Hrist is persistently spamming and has ignored warnings. Is this the correct place to report the issue? Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism doesn't appear to include linkspam. —Celithemis 23:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Blocked indef by Grandmasterka [40]. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 23:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

User:SafeLibraries.org's inappropriate username (again)

For months, User:SafeLibraries.org has been using his username for the purpose of linkspam, as explained at [41]. After several months of promising to change his username, he was recently blocked, but was then unblocked to request that his username be changed. However, the request he posted on Wikipedia:Changing username was rejected because the new username he requested was also inappropriate. After being unblocked, User:SafeLibraries.org has continued to edit articles, thereby adding further linkspamming to their edit histories. Since this user has persistently refused to allow his username to be changed, I submit that his linkspamming needs to be stopped. John254 00:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Just block him until his username is actually changed. An admin can post the change name request to Wikipedia:Changing username on his behalf. --Cyde Weys 01:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

He can't block him, Cyde; he's not an admin. (I would, but I'm not going to be around for a few days, so won't be able to follow up.) —Cryptic 02:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Geez people. I just blocked him. Grandmasterka 02:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Am I misunderstanding something in these speedy delete images?

Image:CloudOpticalThickness.jpg, Image:Cincinnati-procter-and-gamble-headquarters.jpg and Image:Cord Front Drive Model 812 (1937).jpg are a few of a bunch requested for CSD because "This is an image page for a missing or corrupt image or an empty image description page for a Commons-hosted image" but they appear to be the images from commons, not just a duplicate. Am I misunderstanding something, or is the template incorrect? Gotyear 01:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

You are ;). See the [42] vs. [43], and notice the odd question in the image description on the Wikipedia one. That's the bit that needs speedy deletion. 24.76.102.248 01:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

If you look at the history you will see it is a new user either being ignorant or malicious. I am trying to determine which. And 24, that is not enough to qualify it for speedy deletion. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 01:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh dear, look at this[44], I don't have time to fix this right now, but he needs a swift block in the pants. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 01:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The template is incorrect, he is a vandal, feal free to revert any or preferably all of his edits to images where he puts incorrect templates. The vast majority of his edits are vandalism if not all, so mabye an admin could fix it faster. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 01:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Not all his edits are vandalism. I sampled one lower down, and it does indeed have no license info, as the template he added indicates. Since I created none of those images, and I'm now pretty sure the templates with that reasoning and a "from Commons" description are incorrect, I'll remove a few, but he has 130 edits. If a majority of them are bad, I'll need help. If an admin can rollback, that'd be great. Gotyear 01:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

At least one of the images user tagged did not have an empty description page. Many of the blank ones have history that may be worth saving. The template was edited October 14; is this not in accord with I2 or should this be reverted too? Gimmetrow 01:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Many of these images were uploaded by the User:Aka - is a connection possible? Gimmetrow 02:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

With a lot of help from Grandmasterka, I believe all of the commons images are now off CSD. The rest have "no source/copyright info, delete in x days" tags, which I didn't scrutinize but generally look correct. Gotyear 07:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Again, how is tagging empty image description pages for commons images with the correct template vandalism? I thought we already went through this a day ago. - Bobet 19:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

So deleting those pages will not affect the pages that link to those images? If so, then I admit I'm completely in the wrong, which is why I waited for more opinions on AN/I before proceeding. I and others who responded were concerned the images might be CSD'd incorrectly and lost.

Considering this incident and another you mention, the template should have a bold note so it's crystal clear slapping it on images with "This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. The description on its description page there is shown below." is exactly what's supposed to happen.

While it's clear to you, it's not clear to the people who responded here, all in good faith. I had no knowledge of the previous incident and noticed this one when I browsed some images in CSD.

I apologize for my actions.

I'd be willing to revert the edits, though I'd be doing them manually. Is there someone who can revert all of ours in just a few keypresses? If not, I'll do my part. Gotyear 21:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Deleting the description page here won't affect the image in commons, or the description page there in any way. If you want to delete the actual image from commons, you'd need to log in to commons and be an admin there. Sometimes the description pages that are on wikipedia for commons images aren't useless, such as translations for longer pieces of text in the image description, but in these cases they were empty, and as such added nothing to the descriptions themselves. That's why the template says "[...]or an empty image description page for a Commons-hosted image". - Bobet 05:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm copying your reply on my talk page because it imparts useful info that your AN/I reply doesn't have, and I'm replying on AN/I so that a few more people might see it, even though it is Grand Central Station. Gotyear 09:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, don't worry about it, I'll probably fix (ie. delete) them eventually. And there's really no fault in what you did, you just happened to get unlucky by having people who weren't familiar with the subject answering at WP:ANI. As an example, I deleted the image page I linked above. As you can see, it's still a bluelink, but if you click on it, you'll see that it doesn't exist on wikipedia anymore (the "image" tab at the upper left corner is red). This is how it should be for the commons images. - Bobet 06:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad it's not a big issue and that you understand. I see the image is still there and that the Image tab is red, and "empty image description page for a Commons-hosted image" makes sense now.

See, I thought that "empty image description page" means that there'd be no image to view, just a description, especially given the other two: a missing or corrupt image. I wasn't sure if deleting the file "here" would delete it from commons or not, but I thought there'd be many missing images on the pages in "File links". Yes, some of the images had no WP pages linking to them, but in my mind there was a chance they'd be deleted from commons as well.

The other possibility was exactly what you just explained to me, that deleting these pages are fine. (How'd they come to exist on WP, since none of them had English translation descriptions?)

The wording is unclear since we all believed the incorrect option or were at least very unsure, and this is the second such incident. I suggest adding IMPORTANT: This will NOT delete the image from Commons, and if you see the image fine above, you will STILL BE ABLE TO SEE this image on any page it's linked to, at this exact address and with this description. In other words, Don't Panic!

I'm serious. It should be crystal clear that a good faith user seeing this 1. Shouldn't panic and 2. Why s/he shouldn't panic. I'd be bold, but Template talk:Db-noimage says Be timid. Or to be precise, "Please read Template talk:Db-reason before editing." That link gives me no help to understanding what I might screw up if I edit this template. Gotyear 09:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Harassment on my User Page

Some months ago, I was forced to ban someone from the portion of the message board website, [www.nitcentral.com www.nitcentral.com], that I moderate for violating that site's rules governing civil behavior. This person responded by going on what another moderator described today as "a rampage", making countless off-topic posts on other boards to attack me or otherwise complain about his ban, and eventually attack the other visitors to the site as well, even after he was repeatedly informed that that site's owner had reviewed the issue and upheld his partial ban, and that he was to cease making off-topic posts to reignite that issue. His repeated refusal to do so, and insistence that he was a victim fighting for justice incurred the ire of just about every other moderator and visitor to the site in the process. He even attempted to get our server/host to shut down the site, and even followed me here to Wikipedia, where he created a single-use identity, Rwetruck, for the sole purpose of participating in an AfD to get an article deleted simply because I had created it, and lash out at nitcentral. Just today, another moderator banned Rwetruck from the site's "Kitchen Sink" (the area where visitors can discuss administrative issues pertaining to the site), for repeatedly ignoring his past warnings to cease this behavior, and informed me via email that Rwetruck flooded his email to excoriate me.

Now, Rwetruck is harassing me on my User Page, having made three posts just today, asking me to contact him, and demanding an "apology", and is even addressing me using my real first and last name, despite the fact that he knows I do not use my real name on this site. I would appreciate suggestions. Thanks. Nightscream 02:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Edits deleted, editor warned, hopefully dealt with. —Cryptic 03:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This guy is back

This guy was suspended for vandalism - and he's back at it again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Rudolf_Steiner&diff=83333574&oldid=83331644

User:Shotwell abusing Wikipedia procedures

Shotwell has accused several editors of all being sockpuppets in retaliation for a question being raised about his relationship with another editor, both of whom are involved in various disputes on the following articles: Advocates for Children in Therapy, Candace Newmaker, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, and Bowlby (User:Sarner was blocked for a brief period of time for similiar conduct on the Bowlby article). In addition, Shotwell has been engaged in a series of edit wars and revert wars and other uncivil actions that are not consistent with building consensus or reducing disputes. There is a mediator involved, but the mediator is new and seems over his head; he's not taken any action or made any recommendations and the issue is beyond the one page he "signed on" for. DPeterson^talk 03:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Asad Aleem at it again?

• A few months back, Asadaleem12@hotmail.com (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) created a heckuva lot of hoax articles, as well as vandalizing established articles with fallacious information about his imaginary fame. Since then he has quieted down a bit, but recently, he has edited his user page and the user page of suspected sockpuppet Bret John (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) to appear like legitimate Wikipedia articles. Another user that claims relation, Calvin John (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has appeared, claiming to be "Bret"'s father. He also claims to be dead, which would make it difficult to edit Wikipedia. While all this stuff is confined to the userspace (and hence not really disrupting Wikipedia), it makes me a bit nervous. Danny Lilithborne 03:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

SPUI

It seems SPUI has been trolling with the edit summaries of SQUIDWARD! for the past few days now. Any comments on how to deal with this? semper fi — Moe 04:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

He was blocked for this disruption before following a report on an arbitration report page. He is obviously ignoring that, he needs another block.--Konst.able^Talk 05:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

You what? For inappropriate edit summaries to six edits in the last ten or so days? Erm... Thanks/wangi 05:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone asked SPUI nicely to not do that? It's not like he's really disrupting anything, just being mildly silly. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes he has been asked not to do it a week ago by Lar (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), he has ignored this. He is also on ArbCom parole for disruption on Highway-related article.s--Konst.able^Talk 05:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I would give him a more mild block next time he does it then. Obviously 15 minute blocks don't cut it and, when warned, he ignores it, so maybe a 24 hour block he continues? semper fi — Moe 05:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I just had a 24 hour block on him shortly after reading this, but I've shorterned it to 8 hours. I don't think this will affect him too much, he doesn't seem to edit too frequently, but could work as another warning.--Konst.able^Talk 05:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Most certianly agree with the short block. Since he's not frequently editing at this point, there stands a reason to give this block for this blatent disruption.. OK.. maybe his edits weren't all that too bad, but edit summaries copying a well known vandal isn't exactly what I would call helping. semper fi — Moe 05:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Hes SPUI. Hes a little silly, but really, hes a freakin genius. --CableModem 05:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

He obviously does not care. Any thoughts?--Konst.able^Talk 06:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

At this point, he has 110 entries in his block log. Short blocks are perhaps business as usual. I don't know.... is it worth trying to force someone to not use silly edit summaries for otherwise semi-productive edits? --Interiot 09:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

My opinion is that, whatever positive edits SPUI is contributing, it's more than offset by his unacceptable behavior and he should be blocked indefinitely. Unfortunately, others don't agree and will simply unblock him no matter how unacceptable the behavior is, and he will resort to sockpuppetry (with impunity) if blocked, anyway. --Nlu (talk) 10:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Or, hell, maybe we ALL should start taking breaks to vandalize and disrupt every so often, if it's going to start becoming an acceptable practice. --InShaneee 13:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandalize? As I understand it the complaint here is solely about edit summaries? How is that vandalism? If he used no edit summaries AT ALL would we be blocking for that? It isn't the preference, but hasn't normally been a blockable offense. Is "SQUIDWARD" so much worse than nothing that we must warn and then block for it? What exactly is it harming other than his own credibility? To me this seems like looking for excuses to inflate a trivial issue into an actual problem. Leave it alone unless he does something which would actually require a block to prevent damage to the encyclopedia... not because he is using silly edit summaries while improving the encyclopedia. --CBD 23:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sillyness is harmless fun. As soon as someone starts debating whether or not it's harmless fun, it's not sillyness, it's disruptive. Stop it or be blocked. That's how I feel. --Lord Deskana (talk) 23:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Normally I would agree with you CBD. But, look at this diff [45] This is hardly what I think of when I think 'harmless' or 'silly'. To me, removing cleanup tags, blanking an article and adding the edit summary SQUIDWARD are not the kinds of things I expect out of an editor to behave. I wouldn't mind one or two of those silly edit summaries if he actually had a point to add the summary, but copying the vandal's edit summaries repeatedly after an extended period of time and after two blocks, whats there left to assume good faith with? semper fi — Moe 23:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

With this many blocks he should be thankful that the ArbCom put him on probation and did not ban him for a couple of months. Instead he continues to make intentionally disruptive edits. If you look carefully, he was not just removing the tag once earlier, he was revert warring over it with that edit summary! (See [46], [47], [48]) This is almost vandalism. I see no reason to let him get away with it, especially while on probation.--Konst.able^Talk 00:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

But the stuff being removed is a bunch of unsourced original research... Disrupting attempts to re-add drivel of this sort seems morally ambiguous perhaps, but not disruptive to Wikipedia itself. The edits you cite are improving the article, in spite of the trolling done with the edit summary. Mike Dillon 00:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Edit summaries are meant to explain your edit to help others understand. Edits removing large ammounts of content (wether it belongs or not) with the edit summary "SQUIDWARD!!" will be seen as trolling. When he begins edit warring, not explaining his edit at all, it is disruptive. An indef sounds perfectly logical to me.--KojiDude ^{(Contributions)} 00:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely, Mike. The article is unsourced nonsense and perhaps JesseW summed it up best [49]. This was discussed at length in #wikipedia IRC. I looked at the article and suggested it should be either deleted or the scarce useful content merged to Turnpike. At worst, SPUI is guilty of proving a WP:POINT, that some people will look for any excuse to block him. — CharlotteWebb 00:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the specific situation in the diffs above I agree (with Moe) that this is more than just a useless edit summary... those were extensive changes which could lead to confusion as to whether they were valid or not. The usual situation then is to communicate about the reasoning... I checked Talk:Shunpiking, User talk:SPUI, and the edit summaries in the history of that page, but it doesn't look like anyone even asked SPUI for an explanation. Others have since provided seemingly valid reasons for SPUI's changes here. Yes, meaningful edit summaries might have explained the changes up front and thus avoided the need for additional communication... which is why we strongly suggest that people use them. However, again... we have not to date blocked people for failing to provide that 'up front' explanation so long as they do explain when asked directly. SPUI seems to be 'acting out' in a less than helpful way... presumably because of the browbeating with which the road poll was pushed through (which, it should be noted, I supported, though reluctantly, given the wider disruption resulting from not settling on some standard). However, jumping to block isn't going to make that better. If he does something which seems strange without explaining it we should be able to muster the civility to at least ask WHY and only block if he doesn't explain it. Basically, the situation here is that we'd rather block than expend the effort to ask for an explanation. If SPUI were an actual 'vandal' who was unlikely to have a valid reason I could see that, but given that everyone (I think) agrees that SPUI is trying to improve the encyclopedia (as he sees it) why make a small problem into a bigger one? We should block people when we find we have to, not when we think we can. If SPUI wouldn't provide explanations for disputed edits then we'd have to block him... but if we don't even ask for explanations it doesn't seem like we're even trying to resolve things - just going straight to blocks whenever we think there is some reason that we can. --CBD 12:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm wondering, what philosophy drives this block? An edit summary of "SQUIDWARD!" is not disrupting anything, nor is it any more useless/useful than a blank edit summary, which i don't see many other people being blocked for. If I chose to write SQUIDWARD or leave the edit summary blank, what difference does that make? atanamir 19:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You are obviously not aware there is a recurring vandal who vandalizes articles by posting pictures of squidward and leave the edit summaries of SQUIDWARD!!!, right? semper fi — Moe 20:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I was not aware of that; my apologies. You aren't referring to SPUI as the vandal, correct? I havne't seen him doing that recently. In either case, unless this vandal is / is a sockpuppet of SPUI, the edit summary alone shouldn't warrant a block though, is my opinion. atanamir 21:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

No problem. No, I wasn't refering to his as a vandal, but his edits did look suspicious when he blanks article sections and tags and has the edit summary of SQUIDWARD! He clearly didn't vandalize, but the edit summaries just go beyond exceptable of what WP:DISRUPT and WP:POINT say. SPUI shouldn't be blocked anymore right now. If warnings on his talk page continue to grow, I would call for a more stern block. semper fi — Moe 22:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Calton harrasing me and unnecesary tags on Alex Machacek

A User:Calton has been unnecessarily harrasing me by posting person attacks on my talk page and tagging the article I created. I created the article Alex Machacek (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), then out of nowhere came User:Calton and tagged the article as advert here. He mentioned in the summary the word - "Jawdropping". I removed the word and removed the tag. Then I informed him about me removing the tag. He retorted with this on my talk page - Personal Attack 1. He said "Repack that attitude, son, it's not going to get you far." He mentioned two more specific POVs, one which I promptly changed and the other wasn't a POV, for which I included a citation. I again told him that I'd removed the tags and rectified the matter. Again he comes and put the tags - this time he puts NPOV tag. He posts on my talk page another personal attck. He says "It's said often to me, kiddo, by trolls, the dishonest, the incompetent, and the fanatical." I add more references and remove the tags. He again comes and tags the article here. He then attacks me again - Third personal attack. He writes "What IS your major malfunction?". I ask him twice, to mention the specific instances of POV, so I can remove/rectify them, but he doesn't reply.

These seem to be done in a totally bad faith. The User:Calton is not interested in removing POV or doing any good. It seems he wants to put the tags just for the sake of putting 'em and harrassing others.

--NRS | ^T/_M\^B 05:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• The article read neutral to me, so I've removed the NPOV tag. I've left the cleanup tag, and, while it may be a little superfluous, it's not harming the article, and may attract more attention to improve it. Hopefully this resolves things, and I'd encourage discussion on Talk:Alex Machacek on further ways to improve the article -- Samir धर्म 05:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • It looks like a perfectly good musician article to me, I don't see what the big deal is. Grandmasterka 05:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Ah, so bald -- and unsourced -- statements of "jawdropping" debuts and "extraordinary chops" in the first graf is standard for musician articles. Fanboys, take note. Meanwhile, I need to go make a few changes of my own in a few articles.

• Then I informed him... "Informed"? I quote from the message: "...Don't sabotage other's hard work. By the way, Alex Machacek is a leading fusion guitarist and he is in no way related to me. [Where THAT came from, I don't know] Where does the idea of advert comes in ? I am removing the tag. If you have any issues, please tell me first. Don't tag articles just like that."

Between the bad-faith attitude, his own initial personal attacks, complete misunderstanding about the purpose of tags, his peculiar projection regarding motivation (it never occurred to me that he was related UNTIL NOW), and ownership issues, he's got nothing to complain about. --Calton | Talk 06:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Before saying things like these and attacking other users as fanboys etc., the user must first take a look at my contribs. I am registered since last year. This is nothing but undue harrasment of other users. By the way, the idea of relation came after you tagged the article as advert. An advertisement would be done only by those people who are related to the subject or the subject themselves. And that's why I said that. I reiterate again, rectify your attitude, instead of treating everyone as trolls, wannabes, etc. (in your own words). --NRS | ^T/_M\^B 07:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Accusations of harassment have no place here, either, so don't even ask him to "rectify [his] attitude" when clearly you're also being uncivil. – Chacor 07:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I don't have any problem. I won't contribute the article from now on if that's what you people want. Thanks. --NRS | ^T/_M\^B 07:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

"Don't sabotage other's hard work" isn't a personal attack. It's reactionary, but that isn't the same thing. Also, NRS, there's no reason to stop contributing. No one asked you to; the first response to your report was positive, then you got a negative response from the person the report was about (which is normal), and then a statement was made about the nature of the discussion. There's a dispute here, but you're not in trouble. Just ride it out. --Masamage 07:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I am sorry to have said that. Wikipedia is very close to me now. I will certainly contribute. I know these things happen. Thanks, everyone. --NRS | ^T/_M\^B 09:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

"Don't sabotage other's hard work" isn't a personal attack. It's reactionary, but that isn't the same thing. Utter crap. Tell me, did you pick up your nuclear-powered hair-splitter at Home Depot or WalMart? --Calton | Talk 04:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Irony abounds. --Masamage 05:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

User Page Harrassment, Uncivil Behaviour, Excessive Reverting and More

63.17.106.109 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

I've never seen anything like this, or at least been harrassed on here like this. The user above (and other IPs all beginning with 63.17) has posted psuedo vandalism-warnings on my talk page, reverted legitimate edits from other contributors on the Designer Whey Protein article in an edit war with myself and two other users (most notably David D.). This user was improperly using tags on the Biological Value article, which is fine, however he reverted attempts at fixing these sections using proper templates and the posted "vandalism" and "admin" notices on my talk page after reverting perfectly legitimate edits back after I'd fixed them. Finally this user is attempting to draw admin Glen S into this by claiming that Glen knows about him, and by referencing/baiting him in his edit summaries. Then the user left the following edit on another editors talk page regarding this issue - suggesting that I may be sockpuppeteering the entire thing. [50]. The last instance of the users beligerant behaviour here on my talk page [51] and in edit summaries here:[52] where he's trolling.

Sorry this is such an unusual request. I'm attempting to keep a cool head, however my patience is limited. I've asked the user to stop, however providing boiler plate warnign is useless because of the mulitple IP addresses that are being used. And as you can see, from the last edit to my talk page, this user is not interested in doing anything other than what they want. Thanks in advance for any help. Yankees76 21:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Update - the baiting continues today - from yet a third IP, though it's clearly the same user. See edit summary [53]. Yankees76 20:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

User:WickedHorse

This new user seems to be "wiki stalking" me. Their first edit to the Volkstaat article (16:06, 15 October 2006, [54]) was merely to move a section I worked on to the bottom of the article and this directly following a difference of opinion (diff: [55]) the preceding days on Talk:2010 FIFA World Cup#Readiness for the tournament section. I tried to discuss it, but the user now also edited another unrelated article (Valkiri) – that I created – diff [56]. Deon Steyn 06:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

DaffyDuck619

DaffyDuck619 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) has been an issue for a few months now. He has generally been edit warring at Films considered the greatest ever (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and John Cena (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (the latter of which he has a Mediation case involvement. Here are just a few examples from the last few hours at John Cena about how these things generally occur:

1. 02:04, October 24, 2006
2. 02:17, October 24, 2006
3. 02:23, October 24, 2006 "See talk page"
4. 02:26, October 24, 2006 "Revered edits back, see talk page"
5. 02:30, October 24, 2006 "Somebody must be a sockpuppet of lil crazy thing"

While this was up at AIV, Yamaguchi stated:

Endorse block of the person above, perhaps a community ban is in order, but that should be discussed somewhere else. Yamaguchi先生 07:26, 24 October 2006

Certainly, something must be done about this editor. Golbez had indefblocked him, pending that he come back and discuss things on his user talk (which he has), but he has just begun to repeat the same edits, the same disruption, and other such nonsense. Right now, he is sitting out a 48h 3RR block. —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 07:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

User:1QUIner

Can someone please investigate 1QUIner (talk · contribs), he's making some strange edits to talk pages. --SimonTheFox 11:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I have just reverted all those. But the history of his userpage is fascinating. In his very first edit he suspects himself of being a Sock of JzG. He later changes the name of who he is supposed to be a sock of. Definetly a vandal only account. Agathoclea 11:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

And already blocked. Agathoclea 11:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Help needed with copyvio policy dispute

I have been engaged in a lengthy correspondence with User:PM Poon. The history is as follows:

• User posts three copyvio articles.
• I mark them as copyvios.
• They write back, unhappy about this. I explain why I did this, and explain why it is sometimes difficult to AGF in the case of multiple copyings, and express my relief that they are a good-faith editor.
• User apologises, rewrites two of them, I rewrite the other.
• I write back to them, thanking them for their good edits, and all is right with the world.
• Some time later, the user returns to my talk page, arguing the toss about whether their edits were a copyvio in the first place, and demanding that I show them how their text resembles the original text
• I show them, in a long and careful (and partially computer-aided) analysis of their text. (Summary: over 90% is either literally copied, with slight puntcuation changes, or lightly paraphrased from the original source)
• They take this as a personal affront, and advance a number of impassioned arguments about why they are right and I am wrong, wrong, wrong. (The correspondence is no longer of my talk page, but can be found here: [57])
• When asked for a second opinion, I invited them to take up my deletion of their content on Wikipedia:Deletion review, but they have not done so.
• They complain about the "ABUSE OF ADMIN POWER". They complain about my "HALF-BAKED IDEAS ABOUT WHAT COPYRIGHT IS ALL ABOUT". They invite me to "Ask God whether you have indeed been honest to yourself, and had weighed the evidence fairly and squarely?" They claim to have "consulted my ex-company's lawyer" who has apparently told them that they are in the right.
• So far, so normal.

However, they are now advancing a new and potentially dangerous argument, in which they justify their literal copying under the principle that, since they are only copying a small part of the original work (for example, "only" a few paragraphs from a longer work), and are not doing it for profit, this qualifies as fair use. They are clearly convinced that they are in the right, and seem intent on continuing with their behavior.

At this point, I feel that rational argument has failed. They clearly feel that they are now legally entitled to copy as much stuff as they like into Wikipedia, regardless of what anyone else says, and consider my attempts to stop them from doing this as persecution. They feel that they have the law, their friend the lawyer, God, right and truth on their side. And they won't be told otherwise.

At this point, I seriously considered just blocking them as a serial copyvio artiste, and being done with it. However, that edit was carried out before our lengthy discussion, and the user has not made any further copyvios since the discussion started. Indeed, they haven't done anything else other than carry on this lengthy discussion, in spite of my repeated attempts to bring it to a close.

However, if they are allowed to carry on with this, WP:COPYRIGHT enforcement will become impossible, since they no longer regard the copying of whole sentences, or even paragraphs, from elsewhere as being evidence of potential copyright problems. Short of blocking, the only course of action I can see would be watch their every edit like a hawk from now on, and to clean up after them, forever. I don't have the time to do this, and nor, I believe, does anyone else.

At this point, I feel that their announcement of their intention to start ignoring the copyright policy has become, in effect, an announcement of an intention to disrupt Wikipedia. However, I am reluctant to simply LART-and-go, since I don't want them to have any justification for them regarding this as a personal campaign against them on my part.

I feel that I have exhausted every possible avenue with this user, short of blocking them. I'd like to believe that I've done so whilst remaining civil, and assuming good faith as far as possible. I would appreciate it if other people (preferably several other people) could take a look at this, just to be sure that this matter has been properly dealt with. -- The Anome 12:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

If he makes one more post which implies that he will continue violating copyright, whether on talk or posting copyvio, then he should be indef blocked, immediately, and told that until he promises to respect copyright policy he will not be unblocked. I'll do it myself if I happen to be around when that happens. We don't play games when it comes to copyright. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 12:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Update: Aaargh. After taking a second look, the fourth and last copyvio previously mentioned above, in Internews Pakistan, wasn't theirs: it was introduced in an earlier edit. I've removed that from the comments above: the remaining three are still valid, as admitted by the user in their earlier comments. I'm also going to remove my text concerning it from their talk page, since they do not appear to have read it yet, and the last thing I want to do is to mistakenly accuse them of anything extra that they didn't actually do. However, the rest of my comments stand. -- The Anome 12:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm myself not quite sure about this aspect of copyright law - does it make sense to distinguish between "copyright violation" (a legal concept) and "plagiarism" (a concept of academic ethics)? In the case above, it seems quite clear that, even if the guy should be right and it's not the one, it's the other. Does plagiarism automatically fall under copyright terms according to US law? And if not, should Wikipedia add to its policies that plagiarism is just as unacceptable even if it should escape the legal definitions of "copyright"? Just a thought. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Travb

This user has previously conspired against me off wiki by attempting to get in touch with users I have had disputes with [58] [59] [60] [61]. They are currently editing under two names Travb and RWV. They have begun an edit war on the article Allegations of state terrorism by United States of America and so far have not stated why they are reverting. They originally said to see talk page, however they cited a straw poll as reason why a section without sources should be kept. As I pointed out to them and want to make clear here, the sections have sources stating they happened, however they do not have sources stating accusations of terrorism carried uot by the US, per the article title. It was decided long ago that section would have to meet this criteria, containing sources that actually allege terrorism, however Travb has initiated an edit war without providing these sources. I making this note here because I want it on record that I attempted to discuss on the talk page with him, and he has instead reverted without even adding the sources, or continuing the talk page discussion of it needing sources that accuse the US of terrorism. --NuclearZer0 12:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The user has now attempted to intimidate me instead of discussing by mentioning my previous arbcom ruling[62], which User:Thatcher131 previously warned him of doing, stating Arbcom rulings are not act as scarlet letters. [63] --NuclearZer0 13:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This user has a long history of using Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard against other users, this is the third time he has reported me here on this same article, it would save a lot of people's time if he simply read the above:

This is not the Wikipedia complaints department. If you came here to complain about the actions of a user or administrator, or if your problem is a content issue and does not need the attention of people with administrator access, then please follow the steps in dispute resolution. These include: mediation, requests for comment, and as a last resort requests for arbitration.

Now that he has brought his complaints to the attention of ANI, I feel I must respond.

It appears like Nuclear/Zer0 is violating Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zer0faults, which if this edit war continues, I will have to report him to the arbitrators.

There was a strawpoll which was mediated by a third party, User talk:Wikizach in which the consensus, decided by the mediator was to keep, these sections Nuclear/Zer0 is now deleting.

I am editing different articles under the name RWV and Travb, which is permitted under Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry, I made no secret about this change either, and was very open about the change (unlike this user). I started editing under a different account for several reasons, but one of the reasons was because of Nuclear/Zer0 harrasment, including deleting my newly created articles, which User:Sean Black called "trolling". Travb (talk) 13:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

May I ask, Zer0faults, although it is clear that there is no question of you trying to hide the fact, why do you use the "User:NuclearUmpf" sockpuppet? Its a little confusing. Lord Seabhcán of Baloney 13:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

My attempts to hide it by linking my other profile in my name or by linking it on my userpage for NuclearUmpf? Or by it being included in my arbcom decision? Please stop your wikidrama. --NuclearZer0 15:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I specifically noted you weren't trying to hide it, yet it is still confusing that you, Zer0faults, use a sockpupped called NuclearUmpf. I was politely asking why? Lord Seabhcán of Baloney 15:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Its noted above in my initial complaint, Travb attempting to ally people I disagree with via off wiki means, its been discussed already with an admin, and he has been warned about it. Please read the my first paragraph again if you do not understand. --NuclearZer0 15:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Please refrain from personal attacks. I again ask an admin to look into the situation with Travb please. --NuclearZer0 15:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a valid question. --InShaneee 15:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[64], that covers the issue. Or you could ask Thatcher131. Again I ask for an admins intervention in this user threatening me with arbcom etc. --NuclearZer0 15:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Zerofaults adopted a new name to get a new start, offering on his talk page to tell admins privately his new user name. When he was called on it by Travb, and informed of his error by one of the arbitrators, he changed his sig and has been open about it since. That aspect of the case is a closed book in my opinion. Regarding his current allegations, I have previously said that arbitration provides remedies for disruptive behavior but is not a scarlet letter. The arbitration enforcement page specifically warns users against baiting editors who are under arbitration restriction. (For precedent see one of the Deathrocker cases, where Deathrocker was blocked for edit warring but so was the user who was baiting him.) Unfortunately I am at work and can not analyze the specifics right now. If any other admin can examine the facts (is NuclearUmpf editing disruptively and is he being baited) a third party review would be appreciated. I will return to this probably after work. Thatcher131 16:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Amazingly, while I went and had what passes for a life around here for a few hours, the problem took care of itself, largely through the actions of a third editor who provided sources for a disputed section. Amazing how things work out when you follow policies. Thatcher131 03:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Question about importance

An article Indian rock cut architecture, having inline citations from five different sources on the web, has been tagged unimportant for the following reason:

This looks like original research based on web-only sources. Aren't there any books or academic journals on the subject? If not, how is this important? Ekajati (yakity-yak) 15:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Is this a valid reason for tagging an article as unimportant? Mattisse(talk) 16:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I think this shows signs of actions specifically directed at one user. User:Ekajati and User:Hanuman Das seem to be following User:Mattisse around, tagging articles User:Mattisse has worked on, reverting tags which M has added, and generally trying to stir up problems (see User talk:Aguerriero). This is linked to past tagging by M on articles HD worked on and lots of sockpuppet acusations. It seems to me they are on the wrong side WP:POINT and WP:AGF. --Salix alba (talk) 16:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

You've got that backwards. It has been Mattisse stalking first Rosencomet, then 999, then Hanuman Das and to some extent myself. She used sockpuppets to stalk Rosencomet and 999, and is probably using Timmy12 now to continue to stalk Rosencomet. How long will the admins let this continue? I've put many of the involved article on my watchlist so can see the patterns. Have you looked? Ekajati (yakity-yak) 16:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

That is a past event which has been resolved with administrator intervention. We are now talking about current events such as [65], [66], removing/moving citation tags on various blues artist. Basically anything Matisse edits seems to have Ekajati quickly doing a dimetrically opposite edit. Comparing contributions for Mattise [67] and Ekajati [68] show remarkable similarity. --Salix alba (talk) 17:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe it is over. Check out these edits by Timmy12:

• edit comment - starts calling removing tags "vandalism" at the same time Mattisse does
• ditto
• adds a "personal file" of an incident involving Mattisse but not Timmy12
• titles notes section "Reference notes" just as Mattisse has been doing on multiple articles she has created.

Ekajati (yakity-yak) 20:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

User:BubbaJubba

Would appreciate someone else looking at BubbaJubba (talk · contribs). Appears to be leaving, and feels like s/he has been the victim of trolling, which is hardly the case IMO. Left a kind of nasty message on my talk page, etc. Not sure if deserving a block due to general incivility. I'm tired and cranky right now, so a 3rd opinion would be helpful. thanks. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 16:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a troll with few edits, I find it unlikely they were trolled. Anyway, check messages that have been left on their talk page. More than likely just a vandal unhappy with things.--Andeh 15:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Constitution

Can we please get a temporary user-protect on Constitution ?? Thanks for taking a look. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Serial vandal blocked for one month - no page protection warranted. --Aguerriero (talk) 16:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I left a similar message at intervention and another admin protected. By the way, the attack was coordinated by 3 or 4 IP's, did you get them all? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Jesús Gabaldón shenanigans

Ever since I nominated his autiobiographical article for deletion, a certain jazz/rock bass player from Spain has been giving me endless grief. Using a variety of anonymous IP's, Jesús has blanked my hilarious user page and my stimulating talk page 10-15 times each. Check out the edit histories[69] [70]--many of these IP's have already been blocked. Most recently, he signed up for an account, which plays on my own user name. After he resurrected the Jesús Gabaldón page in a foriegn langauge, I correctly tagged it for speedy deletion. In retalliation, he tagged my User Page for speedy deletion.

I admire his relentlessness, but his behavior is becoming exhausting. I don't want to ask an admin for broad protection of my user page and talk page, because I want any anon user to feel free to add his 2 cents about my edits. But is there a way to ban him alone from editing my talk pages--maybe a IP range block or something.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 16:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I just reverted it again. Someone want to block the IP till he cools down? Whispering 21:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate editing

There is some bad behavior summarized at this AfD that I would like someone to investigate. Rather than defending his behavior, Leinad-Z is accusing all the newer users there of being sock puppets, and I want my name cleared by somebody who is randomly appointed. --DixiePixie 16:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I am the user DixiePixie is talking about. I agree that the incident must be investigated. There are at least 3 apparent sockpuppets in that discussion, way too many for it being ignored. DixiePixie, who wrote the message above, is one of them. I have already tried to contact an administrator on the matter, but no response until now. Please help. --Leinad ∴ -diz aí, chapa. 17:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Leinad-Z has not limited his accusations to users participating in that discussion. He had also failed to notify the new users of his accusations. I just found out today. One of the new users left Wikipedia out of disgust early in the discussion. --DixiePixie 19:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Reverting or removing tags without fixing problem

User:Ekajati, along with her cohorts, has repeatedly reverted or removed tags placed on articles without addressing the underlying problem between yesterday and today. I have warned her (and her cohorts) politely, as recommended above, not to do so.[71]

• On Bessie Smith she has done so 5 times between yesterday and today.
• On Muddy Waters she had done so 3 times, User:Hanuman Das 1 time, User:Anger22 1 time.
• On Willie Dixon she has done so 3 times, User:Hanuman Das 1 time, User:Anger22 1 time.
• On Charlie Patton she has done so 3 times, User:Hanuman Das 1 time, User:Anger22 1 time.

In placing these tags, I am going by a long standing discussion with User:TomTheHand.Please see recently (yesterday) on my talk page and User:Ekajati was involved. :[72] and

[73] This administrator :has been very clear and consistent over time.

I was told above [74] that if this persisted, it constituted vandalism. I would like to report it has such. Mattisse(talk) 17:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

My dear Mattisse. You are simply misinformed. I've removed an inappropriate tag "unsourced", from articles that listed their sources. That tag is inappropriate in that case. I've moved the appropriate tag, not removed it. Please don't mischaracterize what has occurred. What is happening is that you are tagging in an intentionally annoying and serial manner in violation of WP:POINT. You have annoyed several editors in doing so. They don't agree with you. You refuse to really discuss it with anyone, despite there requests for you to do so, but simply revert to "your way" right or wrong, without discussion. Then you try to tar others with your own brush. Why not do something more constructive? Ekajati (yakity-yak) 17:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to add that although Mattisse is acting with best intentions, this has been a problem in the past and a number of her sockpuppets (see Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Mattisse) have been indef blocked for mass tagging of articles. There have been two sockpuppet checks conducted ([75] and [76]) that resulted in blocks, and a third that didn't [77]. I'm not rationalizing any behavior on the part of User:Hanuman Das and User:Ekajati (especially removing valid tags), but perhaps it sheds some light on why other editors are wary of Mattisse's tagging activities.

Additionally, I would not group User:Anger22 in with the others. His involvement with Mattisse is similar to mine - we first noticed her when she began tagging a number of articles we have on our watchlists as part of various projects. Her replies to questions of her motivation/strategy for tagging have mostly amounted to "The rules say I can!" despite other editors making the point that it can be disruptive. --Aguerriero (talk) 17:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Please check the edit histories of each article to see what happened. Again I ask you to check

[78] and

[79]

Also, please check comments under Question about importance above which relate directly to this issue:

[80]

Thank you! Mattisse(talk) 17:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I would not normally raise it on this page, but tagging along with the discussion, I have found myself in conflict with the same user over a blues page. John Lee Hooker has a reference, to a book. After some other edits, and some edit warring over the addition of an "unsourced" tag, Matisse has added a swathe of "citation needed" tags, with the commment "added citation needed tags - please do not remove without addressing problem as doing so is considervanalizm as Ekajati, Notinasnaid [that's me] & Anger22 have done previously". I would remove them, because there is a reference and no indication that the reference does NOT apply, and no previous history before today (on this article) of inline citations. However, I don't want to do what would be considered vandalism. I would welcome guidance, in passing, from people already involved with or looking over this dispute (I realise content disputes per se don't belong here)." Notinasnaid 18:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Please check the edit histories of each article to see what happened. Again I ask you to check

[81] and

[82]

Also, please check comments under Question about importance above which relate directly to this issue:

[83]

Thank you! Mattisse(talk) 17:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I put User:Anger22 in the same category because of that user's involvement with my name over time. :e.g.[84] and because Anger22 makes assumptons about my behavior that are unjustified without evidence:

[85]

[86]

Furthermore, User_talk:Aguerriero is hardly unbiased. First, where is the evidence that I answered in the manner he characterized above? I have not had contact with any of these people for months, if ever. I don't believe I ever had a conversation with User:Aguerriero until yesterday. His talk pages contain conversations about his personal life to Anger22, so he is not neutral. Secondly, the following took place recently on his talk page:

[87]

So he is part of the "group". Mattisse(talk) 18:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Further, please consider the pattern of harrassment on User:Ekajati's part. The user was instrumental in disrupting my life with this incident:

[88]

and the user and his group have continued this pattern for months. Thank you for your consideration in this matter. I have done nothing wrong since my original mistake. Please allow me to function on Wikipedia without constant harassment. Thank you. Mattisse(talk) 18:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I apologize for repetitious postings but editing conflicts confused me. Please overlook them. Thank you. Mattisse(talk) 18:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

There is no cabal. Ekajati (yakity-yak) 19:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

"Citation Needed" in John Lee Hooker

About the many "citation needed" tags on this article, rather than fighting over where they're really needed or not, the best thing seems to be to actually provide the requested citations. It's not that hard, most of them seem to be on actual fact issues that should be possible to look up and cite. Here, let me do one, just to show you how easy it is. Note, though, that all that I know about The Blues is that they come after The Greens and before The Indigos. :-)

1. Requested citation: "Hooker recorded over 100 albums and lived the last years of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he licensed a nightclub to use the name Boom Boom Room, after one of his hits.[citation needed]"
2. Google for: "John Lee Hooker" "Boom Boom Room"
3. Get: lots of results that I don't know from Adam, but the first one is a link to the BBR page itself,[89] and on the second page of results is an excerpt from a For Dummies book.[90] That's a published book from a very well known series, a pretty good reliable source.
4. And what do you know - reading the reference the sentence in our article is wrong. He didn't license a nightclub to use the name, he founded the nightclub!
5. Rewritten sentence: "Hooker recorded over 100 albums. He lived the last years of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area, where, in 1997, he opened a nightclub called "John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room", after one of his hits.^[1]"
6. Ref: ^"Discovering the Blues of John Lee Hooker" Adapted from: Blues For Dummies, by Lonnie Brooks, Cub Koda, Wayne Baker Brooks, Dan Aykroyd, ISBN 0-7645-5080-2, August 1998
7. External link: The Boom Boom Room San Francisco nightclub founded by Hooker

I'll go add that to the article. Not so hard - 7 steps, a few minutes each at most. And the article is clearly much improved, useful link, additional reference, correction of minor inaccuracy. It's not as if by adding the tags Matisse is deleting stuff, he's just questioning facts that really should be possible to verify. John Lee Hooker is a well documented person, so it should be possible to do the same for most of the other requested citations without making a fight out of it. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Folks, there seems to be a continuing misunderstanding about what citations are. Read WP:CITE for complete information, but in summary, when claims are made it's necessary to cite the claim's source at the sentence in which the claim is made. I believe part of the misunderstanding stems from the fact that WP:CITE says that an article can use any citation method. However, a list of references is not a citation method. They are half of a citation method, but the other half is the notes within the text stating which source claims were taken from.

As an example, the citation tag on John Lee Hooker placed here was necessary and appropriate. Removal of the tag by Anger22, Ekajati, and Notinasnaid was wrong and shows a misunderstanding of WP:CITE. On the other hand, Sir Isaac Lime and AnonEMouse added citations for various claims, which was helpful. Mattisse added specific "citation needed" tags to particular claims that were especially in need of citation.

Mattisse has never tried to force citations for every sentence in an article. Rather, tags are placed on articles that have absolutely no citations. Often, a contributor will add some citations, and Mattisse will add a few specific "citation needed" tags to claims that are felt to be especially in need of citation. This is the way things should work, and if we can just get rid of this "freakout phase" of the cycle everything will be great.

I'll summarize. Articles need citations. References are not citations. Do not remove tags requesting citations without adding citations. TomTheHand 21:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:CITE is a guideline, not policy, and there is apparent consensus on Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics and Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics that is inappropriate on (some of) those articles. This may not be applicable to the specific problem here, but WP:CITE is disputed in some contexts. I'm afraid TomTheHand is bordering on WP:NPA, as well. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Arthur Rubin (talk • contribs) 18:38, October 24, 2006.

WP:CITE is a guideline to teach people ways they can cite sources. However, citing sources is mandated by WP:V. I've looked at Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines proposal, and it says this about not using inline citations:

There are a few cases when it is not necessary or helpful to provide in-line citations. Most commonly this is for short, technical articles which can be written using only two or three sources: a primary source and a review article or textbook. In this case, a short "References" section at the end of the article suffices. An example of this sort of article is scalar-vector-tensor decomposition.

That is not relevant in this case, and in other cases it encourages the inline citation of sources. The biographical articles in question here need to cite sources. TomTheHand 23:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Just because Ekajati is almost certainly wrong doesn't mean that the complaintant and TomTheHand are correct (or WP:CIVIL). But I don't know much about this sort of article. I have enough trouble dealing with situations in which the source material is in Japanese, and we pretty much have to trust the editor's translation..... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Folks, there seems to be a continuing misunderstanding about what citations are. — Yes, but it is not the one put forward. A citation is the raw information necessary to uniquely identify and to locate a source. For (say) a book it is (at minimum) the author, publisher, title, and date of the book. The links between the citations and specific content are matters of style. But they are links from the content to the citations. They are not the citations themselves. An article without such links is not lacking citations. The citations identifying the sources are there. It is simply that the article isn't spoon-feeding to the reader the exact source to consult for any specific part of the article. (Adding such links from sections, or even paragraphs, to the relevant citations in general improves an article.)

Wikipedia:Citing sources is a style guideline, discussing (in addition to the Wikipedia house style of citations themselves) the Wikipedia house style for such links, which encompasses <ref>, Harvard referencing, and others.

The policy is Wikipedia:Verifiability, which merely requires that sources be cited, somehow. The (minimum) author+publisher+title+date information for (say) a book source, enabling readers to locate the book, must be present, in some fashion. The exact cross-linking of content and citations is a matter of style, some differences of opinion, and (anyway) what the cross-connections are in each specific case. Uncle G 10:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to insert a comment. I haven't read most of this conversation, so apologies if I'm abusing a deceased horse, but re: "About the many "citation needed" tags on this article, rather than fighting over where they're really needed or not, the best thing seems to be to actually provide the requested citations."

That's true. There may be legitimate concerns about the factualness of the article, and providing sources (inline or not) improves the quality of any article. However, I'd like to note that it's possible for an editor to be unkind strewing many ^{[citation needed]} tags all at once. The length of the tag, though relatively small, is still obtrusive, especially in great quantity. Partially, it's supposed to be obtrusive, to encourage editors to get off their backsides and source this one particular fact or sentence.

Instead of adding such a tag en masse though, a good faith editor should either add an Template:unreferenced at the top of the article/section (which may not encourage editors enough to source particular facts) or add a few ^{[citation needed]}s and at least make an effort to find some of the facts him/herself.

Nothing except derogatory material about a living person needs to be sourced immediately. It can be done over time. So don't do the easy, unsightly, unkind thing and strew the tag. Instead, add 3 or 4. If you want to source some yourself, do it. It shows you're willing to make the same effort you're asking of others. It's not necessary, but I argue that adding 3 tags and checking back in a week is far preferable to adding dozens and making it virtually unreadable.

Also, I'd like to prpose making it smaller. Some people said ^[?] (question mark) wouldn't be easily readable on all fonts, but something smaller and still differentiable from already sourced tags such as ^[1].

If there's a better place to discuss these aspects, let me know. Gotyear 12:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Propose indefinate block of User:TV Newser, and a look into his buddy User:Ponch's Disco

This has been going on and on. Newser was blocked on the 21st for repeated harassment of Tecmobowl, and continued it when he got off. He has therefore been blocked again. I'm getting sick of reading this. TV Newser is repeatedly adding sock puppet tags to Tecmobowl's userpage, and accusing him of being a vandal/sock without evidence and despite warning. His response to the latest block was far from dignified. While everything Tecmobowl has done hasn't necessarily been to code either, that still doesn't seem like a reasonable excuse for this.

As for Poncho's Disco, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The American Card Catalog, as well as Poncho's contribs. The user seems to be cooperating with TV Newser in this; Newser showed up in the AFD some 14 minutes after it started, and as his first contribution after the block. I'm guessing they know one another outside of the wiki.

I know there are discussions on this already. There is even a mediation (which only Tecmobowl has shown any interest in participating in). I don't think the hoopla is necessary; we should just block the troll and be done with it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed on both measures. --InShaneee 19:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Khoikhoi 19:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Three's the magic number, I've blocked TV Newser indefinitely. I'm not sure about Ponch's Disco. Clearly some highly problematic behaviour, but I'm not sure whether he merits an indefinite block either on account of being a sockpuppet or being completely intolerable. I'd be interested to see how he reacts to Newser's block. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 19:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I support the indefinite block. The block I originally instated was supposed to give Newser time to reflect, not time to plan more mischief. His last edits indicate he has no interest in building an encyclopedia. I am not certain about Ponch, though it does seem suspicious. Firsfron of Ronchester 20:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

TV Newser has needed an indef block for a long time, really. He's been little but trouble since I came across him, which was within a few hours of his account creation. There is, and I say this only tentatively, a possibility that in fact he is a sock himself of a well-establisher socket, since he share linguistic traits with a particularly unpleasant user who I blocked long ago. Add to this the fact that his 'recommendations' on who I should block tend usually to be the reverse of what I actually decide to do and well....I may have allowed us to be...you know whatted. I've had my eye on Ponch's Disco for some time, and if he puts the outside edge of a toenail wrong, he'll be gone for good. -Splash - tk 21:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Good stuff. I'm glad we came to a solid agreement here; it's been long enough. I'll also keep an eye on Poncho, just in case. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Or I won't. He's been indef'd as well. Can't say I disagree too much; the creation and subsequent AfD'ing of self-created articles (the American Card whatsit one) actually fits the "MO" of the very vandal that TV Newser was accusing Tecmobowl of being. Odd, that. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 23:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Gardez Bien and Washington, D.C. related articles

Gardez Bien (talk · contribs) has been waging a one-man POV edit war on Washington, D.C., Maryland, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Prince George's County, Maryland, insisting on placing in the introductory paragraphs of all of these articles that the state of Maryland donated the land that is now D.C. A discussion on Talk:Washington, D.C. has shown a consensus against including this information in the introduction as opposed to purely the history section, based on the current relevance of that information. Gardez Bien has nevertheless continued to unilaterally edit war, and accused those who disagree with him of being POV Virginia and Southern boosters on that talk page, as well as in edit summaries.[91] Edits such as this and this show how absurd and non-constructive his position is, as he is insisting on defining the Maryland topics by the connection to D.C. Someone with no prior involvement with these topics needs warn him against disruption and POV trolling, watch him for 3RR violations, and block accordingly. Postdlf 17:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

He's at it again.[92],[93] Postdlf 15:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

User unwilling to accept messages or discuss on user talk page

Mikkalai (talk · contribs) apparently refuses to accept messages or discuss issues on his talk page. Here's a revert of a recent message I left [94], with no followup on my talk page or the article (which might be acceptabel if he just wanted to keep is talk page clean). To me, this level of non-responsiveness is uncivil. I recall a discussion about this practice a few months ago, but don't recall the consensus. Thoughts? --ZimZalaBim (talk) 19:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

User adding content to XennoBB talk page

Lately, XennoBB talk page has been "cluttered" with link spam by User:Draky, bad comments regarding some GPL violations which never occured (we're in process of identifying the user and pursuing legal charges against him), and the only "sources" he quoted are a forum he uses currently (no problem in adding content there) and a blog. Surely, this is not the case where I can add something on my blog then quoting it on WikiPedia for example, right? The comments must come from a legitimate and verifiable source, right? Well, this is not the case with our vandal. If the Wikipedia admins' idea of democracy is that everybody can add whatever content they wish to a software talk page(a free GPL redistributed software, which doesn't get any money from it) well, I'd say it's a serious problem. Hopefully the messages can be removed. Thank you. - Osgiliath 20:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, the user has done nothing outright 'wrong' and is certainly not a vandal, although his comments may certainly be incorrect. However, there are far better ways to deal with incorrect comments than suggesting they are "full of ####" and removing the comments you don't agree with. Leave the comments there and try to start talking things out in a civilized manner. Additionally, legal threats against wikipedia users such as the one you made above are absolutely not allowed, and if you make any more you will be blocked from editing. --InShaneee 20:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Okey so If I understand correctly, I can add ANY unverified content to any wikipedia talk page and the owner/editor of that page must prove that my statement is wrong? Good thing to know ... And my legal threat was not concerning wikipedia since it's not regarding this comment, it's because the user tried to hack our website on numerous occasions. And it wasn't even a legal threat, but heh, who am I to decide ... -Osgiliath 20:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Since nobody bothered to reply to my last statement, I consider it correct. I think that's a violation of the "somebody being innocent until proved otherwise" principle; I wonder if such content was added to an administrator talk page or a page monitored by him, any measures would have been taken against the editor. I bet there would be, but clearly, trashing the name of a legitimate GPL software does not qualify for the same measures. It's a pretty sick sight to watch ... Don't bother telling me I violated the WP:CIV rules or such, any administrator who read my first complaint clearly violated the WP:NPA and WP:AGF rules, which you so dearly "enforce". I kindly ask such a "neutral" administrator to block/remove my account because do not want my name associated anymore with Wikipedia and its unjust decisions. - a disgusted ex-user -Osgiliath 04:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello. As I'm involved, I'm telling some words. 1st, excuse my english, I'm French not English... (Osgiliath told me he didn't understand me so I'm excusing myself again). 2nd : I recognize that I was too rude and that I didn't respect exactly the "civility rule" of WP so I apologize for this point. The rest of the discussion is on the talk page of the article XennoBB where I was saying something that is sourced with blog and forum assertions (like source code comparison) so it might continue on the XennoBB talk page ! I do not wish to attack personnaly Osgiliath, I'm just telling that is "program" is not OK. So... thanks for reading me. and I apologize again for breaking the "civility rule". Draky 09:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Kilz

User:Kilo-Lima blocked User:Kilz's IP address for 48 hours due to it being "used to avoid 3RR detection". I have two problems with this block, which I've brought up on the talk page but since the user appears to be offline I'll mention it here too. Firstly, Kilz made one non-logged in edit (to Swiftfox) and acknowledged responsibility for it 6 minutes later, without any prompting that I can see, so it hardly counts as attempting to avoid 3RR detection, or even using a sockpuppet. Secondly, it was that user's first edit to that page for more than 24 hours, so I cannot see how 3RR comes into it at all. If there's something I'm missing here I'd be glad to hear of it, but otherwise I cannot understand the reasoning behind this block. Thanks. --Cherry blossom tree 21:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The issue needs further attention as it looks like a larger issue with User:Kilo-Lima. He is very fast to close Sock reports and tagging the accounts as blocked. But he does not remove the tags if he changes his mind and unblocks, or as in one case even does not block the account in question. Just doesn not make sense. Agathoclea 16:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Another IP puppet of User:Zarbon

Zarbon (talk · contribs) was blocked for 2 months for 3RR. Only a few hours after his block, he used an IP adress to continue his POV pushing, and that adress was also blocked for 2 months. Now he has another IP; 149.68.168.154 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). If you look at the page histories of Dodoria, Zarbon, and Kiwi (Dragon Ball), you'll see other socks (ex: Recoome (talk · contribs)) that he's using. This kind of behavior has been going on for months. I think an indef would be suitable here.--KojiDude ^{(Contributions)} 21:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

He's also using Recoome and 149.68.168.159 to avoid the block. Nemu 21:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Time to take it to CheckUser. --InShaneee 21:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Can you block the current IPs while the chekuser is being done/filled out? I'm trying to have a decent meal here but I have to revert all his edits.--KojiDude ^{(Contributions)} 22:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Reverse dictionary attack?

Between 19:56 and 20:13 Wikipedia time, 169.204.238.174 (talk · contribs) requested that my password be reset over 150 times, at times around once every two seconds. I'm concerned that perhaps the new password is not generated randomly enough (and so collisions could be found with a bot), or maybe there is a plan to mailbomb people using this facility. Either way I thought that this should be brought to your attention. Dave 21:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Mass e-mails happen all the time, and we already know about them :) You don't get a new password everytime you get one of those e-mails. You have to autoconfirm this by clicking on this link in the e-mail, then it becomes your password. If you never confirm these e-mails and you delete them, you never change your password. semper fi — Moe 23:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The emails I receive are like this:

Someone (probably you, from IP address 169.204.238.174) requested that we send you a new Wikipedia login password for en.wikipedia.org.

The password for user "Dave" is now "********". You should log in and change your password now.

If someone else made this request or if you have remembered your password and you no longer wish to change it, you may ignore this message and continue using your old password

Dave 23:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yep, I got 200 of those in one minute once :\ I think you'll find in those e-mails a thing that says to confirm this 'click here' kind of message, right? Well, as long as you donn't click it, and do as the e-mail says ("you may ignore this message and continue using your old password"), you should be fine. semper fi — Moe 00:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thing is, I was wondering if someone has found a loophole such that they can make a reasonable guess what the password will be changed to. Not being familiar with the mediawiki software, there may be some kind of attack possible. I can't think of any other reason to do it, except as a bizarre attempt at mailbombing. Dave 14:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe it has been previously established that one request overwrites the previous one so no matter what at any one time you only have two usable passwords. – Chacor 15:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yep, but if you do a reset, then try a password, then another reset, and so on? Dave 23:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Since this keeps coming up, why not throttle the password request function down to once a day/hour/fortnight? -- nae'blis 16:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Talk to the devs. I've been told such a fix has been created, but not implimented. --InShaneee 16:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hot off the presses mailing list - [95]. This has now been fixed. Hooray! the wub "?!" 23:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Francis Schonken (talk · contribs): knowingly filing a false 3RR/sock puppet report

This reports Francis Schonken (talk · contribs) as knowingly filing a false 3RR/sock puppet report re the Republic page (and what was verging on a 3R war), based on what he has made to appear as such (in a Checkuser report), but which is refuted by viewing that page's history. Therein, all will note that I failed to realize that I had signed out, subsequently resigned in, and made a new edit with a notice to that effect. He had to know and indeed knew all this, and chose to file a false report.

further, this user is falsely accusing abusive language by leaving out the words surrounding the alleged abuse, i.e., context. none of this is 'abusive' anyway. this user is also relentlessly badgering and otherwise harrassing me, which can be noted on the Republic talk page. i'm requesting a block of this guy, until he can be made to act like a civilized individual. Stevewk 22:25, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Steve, the RFCU seems to have been unneeded as you claimed that edit, but there does appear to be a 3RR violation there on your part. The same changes are made 4 times. What is the falsity in that claim? Georgewilliamherbert 00:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, ok, I found it. The first listed should properly be:

Stevewk edits a version by Francis

The first edit listed by Francis is:

00:26, 23 October 2006 (as Stevewk)

is really:

your non-edit of ArmadilloFromHell's revert

Which was...

a vandalism fix revert

Ok. Got it. The first and last edits Stevewk actually made in the four sequence are greater than 24 hrs apart. The cited "first revert" skips several intervening posts which place the actual time outside 24 hrs, and the first edit in the sequence (first listed above) isn't a revert.

I don't know if Francis' selection of the skip-several-edits first comparison was on purpose or accidental, but the 4RR claim is bogus.

Georgewilliamherbert 01:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

User:The Ministry of Truth

Ok, I was just looking through recent changes and saw this user. I went to his contributions and found that every edit is to his userspace and his userboxes, even some of which I find offensive or not in good taste. I find it strange that this user's first and only edits this far are userbox creation and too his userspace. Does anyone else think this is very suspicious? semper fi — Moe 23:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sock of a userbox fan created to store userboxes probably, only thing they could really be violating is WP:POINT, other wise unless they edit else where you can't really do anything.--Andeh 01:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I was going to wait and see if, as a new user, he did anything productive, but it does appear that he is not actually new. —Centrx→talk • 01:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

He is doing all his edits at User:The Ministry of Truth/Userboxes. On that page, he says This is a userpage directory of "beliefs" userboxes. It is intended to track migrations to and help archive and organize userboxes in userspace. The corresponding directory, Wikipedia:Userboxes/Beliefs was deleted.

I don't see any violation here (perhaps it's subtle?); he's clearly only playing around in his own space. He could be preparing for something, I suppose; my sense is that wikipedia administrators don't often do preemptive strikes. John Broughton | Talk 15:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not so subtle. Wikipedia is not a free webhost. He's playing around not really in "his" user space, but in everybody's. Way back when, we discussed how to make rules governing those people who don't do anything but build in user talk space. No one could figure out a rule, but it's pretty clear that you've got to be working on Wikipedia in some way to get that lovely storage space. If he's an unlabelled alternate account, then he's a user who isn't editing Wikipedia. That's not good. Geogre 16:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Rexisfed & Wicky woo

Can someone monitor Rexisfed (talk · contribs) for me? Ever since the article Wicky woo was put up for deletion earlier today, he has continuously removed the AFD tag, replacing it with angry messages. I have already warned him up to {{drmafd4}}, but I will be signing off soon, so I probably won't be around to watch his next action. Scobell302 23:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll do the best I can to moniter it. :) semper fi — Moe 00:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

After I proposed his article for deletion, he vandalized my userpage, and then did it again with Rymysterio3 (talk · contribs) --Sbluen 03:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Cmr924 (talk · contribs) and 24.7.214.28 (talk · contribs)

Cmr924 (talk · contribs) and 24.7.214.28 (talk · contribs) these two or same users are on my talk page "demanding" I explain why they can't remove cited criticism. Cmr924 (talk · contribs) removed warnings on his page. They appear to be the same users it you look at my talk. An adminstrator should step in and deal with his issues as he doesn't want to listen to me. Arbusto 01:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Arbustoo has not helped at all. I want to know why the last edit I made, as user Cmr924, is in violation of vandalism. I clearly had good intentions. As the article stands, it is very biased. It is very one-sided, and reflects negatively. This is not something Wikipedia is about at all. White washing? So, trying to fix its inherent bias is now white washing? It would be white washing if it was a BALANCED entry. Also, I simply did not login, although I thought I had. This is why my IP Address showed up first.

Arbustoo also claimed I was a bunch of different users. I invite you to investigate that, as I only have one username and that is Cmr924.

Dralwik (talk · contribs)

Dralwik (talk · contribs) is going through wikipedia and changing [[Chicago, Illinois]] to [[Chicago|Chicago, Illinois]] or [[Chicago]]. Chicago, Illinois is a functioning redirect and does not improperly reflect the city. The user has been told twice to stop changing, but continues. [96][97] Think someone could make a swing by the user's talk page and add an admin voice to stop with the pointless changes.;) --Bobblehead 02:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Why? He's not doing any harm. If you have an editorial dispute, discuss it with him. Administrators aren't content police. --Slowking Man 07:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not a content issue though. The issue is the server cost of making these changes. The cost in server load of making the changes is thousands of times more than the cost of letting them stay and just letting the redirect work like it should. Changing functioning redirects is completely unnecessary and wasteful. — Scm83x ^{hook 'em} 07:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Um, right. Of course. Where did the developers provide those figures? Or did you do profiling? Morwen - Talk 10:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I haven't researched where that information comes from, but it has been stated like Scm83x says on WP:R#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken for a long while. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Still, I'm not aware there's an actual server performance problem being caused by all these people making minor unnecessary style edits : this page seems mainly there to explain that if you are doing it because you think it helps server performance, you are wrong, not to tell people not to do it for aesthetic reasons. Morwen - Talk 11:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I can think of no logical situation where the right side of a piped link would be longer than the left one. However, changing [[Chicago, Illinois]] to [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]] would be quite logical, as it gives the reader the benefit of an extra link, with no sacrifice on the wiki-text end. Generally speaking, don't ever pipe a link just for the hell of it. If you think a redirect should be bypassed, rephrase the sentence to accomodate an unpiped direct link. If that can't be done, you might be better off canceling the edit. —freak(talk) 11:37, Oct. 25, 2006 (UTC)

Legal threats from user:Diane S

Diane S (talk · contribs), in real life a moderator of the forums at Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, wrote to an administrator:

• Yankee Gal, you are being reported for the locking of an article that contains links to libelous websites, you have locked the article after including former edits of atheists/ propagandists, and liberal/atheists linking and editing this article. We will proceed with legal recourses, no not a threat, a factDiane S 02:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[98]

This appears to me to be a clear legal threat. I posted this note to her talk page:

• You may be aware of WP:NLT. In any case, it'd be best if you do not engage in further edits to Wikipedia until your legal recourses have been completed. I'm sure you understand that it would not be appropriate to be participating in this project while you are involved in legal action against it and its members. -Will Beback 02:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[99]

Does this merit a block? -Will Beback 02:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. I'll take care of it. --Yamla 02:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Legal threats screw everything up, and should be treated fairly strongly. The user is also an SPA, repeatedly trying to push her own obvious bias on only a couple of articles. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, good call on your part. Snoutwood (talk) 03:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Please everyone keep an eye on related topics (e.g. Matt Slick) and sock/meat puppets, several of which are still active on both articles as whitewashers/criticism-removers. Antandrus (talk) 03:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Is this your card? No? How about this one? Still not right? Then maybe this one is!—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 03:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I forgot to ask about this one, too.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 03:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. And it looks like Matt Slick's article may also need protection soon if "they" persist. Antandrus (talk) 03:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

And now another. I'm catching just a whiff of checkuser upwind. Antandrus (talk) 03:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

May need to look under this card, too! Justin Eiler 04:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Request for assistance

I have been drawn into a sockpuppet, etc. mess I want no part of surrounding User:Timmy12. Said user, who has an apparent history of tagging articles for various reasons with little or no reason, and has aggravated various people with said actions while refusing to read anything associated with the article in terms of references, rather simply posting annoying tags, etc. The article in question is Joseph Byrd, which Timmy12 has repeatedly tagged despite the fact the article has numerous inline citations and references listed at the bottom of the article from a variety of sources. After disputing Timmy12's tagging, they have labelled me as part of some cabal of people they've had an ongoing set of issues with I have nothing to do with. Timmy12 has now crossed any sense of good faith by reverting a significant number of inline citations I made to the page earlier today, just to attempt address an issue they raised I felt never existed in the first place, merely to repost their own citation tag that was inappropriate to begin with. I and others, from reviewing the history of Timmy12, have repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate with this person, who may or may not be a sockpuppet. The last revert by Timmy12 can be seen as nothing but vandalism, and this person should be suspended from continuing this kind of behavior. I read commentaries on cites, etc. from a link Timmy12 left on my talk page, but they don't follow what they insisted I read. Any and all assistance/advice you can provide would be helpful, this kind of behavior is absurd. I'd add, in this particular case, the material on the page has been verified not only via the numerous sources cited, but by Joseph Byrd himself, who has commented directly to me and others on the material provided, is a person I have known for some years and have published material about. I should also add I write for a major newspaper group and am a professional writer and researcher by trade. Thank you. Tvccs 04:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Block of NBGPWS

I have blocked NBGPWS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for a month due to ongoing issues about civility as posted at the personal attack noticeboard [100] and based on the fact that NBGPWS had already been blocked 6 times by 6 different admins in the last two months. NBGPWS was offered to be unblocked to post an Rfc or go and file a case with arbcom and declined. He is now posting links to what he claims is misuse of WP:BLP by a third party for their political gain and I am requesting a neutral admin look at the following link and see if there is any merit to his claims.[101] Thanks.--MONGO 06:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

No comment on the link; general comment on the block--support as he has been doing a lot of trolling recently. Not sure about the duration as it seems a big escalation from a week, but I trust your judgement. Thatcher131 11:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Having looked at the article he is upset about, the content he wanted left in may not technically be a violation of BLP since the persons aren't named, but it is definitely un-encyclopedic axe-grinding, and its removal certainly doesn't justify acting out rather than following the normal dispute resolution processes for article content. Thatcher131 12:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Additional harrassment by this user

• Vandalism:
  • [102] [103] user just keeps adding it. And to others pages [104] [105], that is two times to the same page, and in the same exact section, notice the semi threat attached. They then started using it for edit summaries when adressing me as a means of intimidation. [106], there own user history also reflects this [107]
• Insults and labeling:
  • deletionists" / "deletionist hit squad" - [108][109][110][111][112]
  • Wiki Stalinists" - [113]
• Inappropriate comments:
  • "WHAT???? If you think THAT'S an attack, You need more (or less) Byron!" [114]

    Byron reffering to The Byron Technique, "a sexual technique in which two male homosexual partners are involved"

--NuclearZer0 10:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

(Procedural note: MONGO has since reduced the block to 48 hours "due to email".)

NBGPWS's intentions are clear from his username: "Neocons Be Gone, Protest Warrior Sucks". Until recently, NBG has put a great deal of effort into vexing supporters of Protest Warrior at that article and related articles. In other words, NBGPWS is a special-purpose troll account. NBG has since branched out into wild claims at AfD and DRV pages. NBG's marked problems with spelling, grammar and wikisyntax seem to fade out when he gets really het up, suggesting to me that NBGPWS may be a sock-puppet account. Is a longer ban appropriate? CWC(talk) 11:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Request roll-back anon's multiple spamming

Hi, could an Admin consider doing your "roll-back" option on User:203.45.150.147's dumping of external links into multiple pages for a single website's articles on acupuncture please (counts as WP:SPAM). Thanks David Ruben ^Talk 07:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 07:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) LOL I started at the top and Physicq210 started at the bottom of the contributions list and we met in the middle. Done. Grandmasterka 07:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I would have thought the time spent writing a paragraph of text (and waiting for somebody to read it) would be much greater than making 15 reverts. — CharlotteWebb 07:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

No big deal, is it? --Lord Deskana (talk) 08:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Some of us have slow dial up connection, so yes 15 reverts does take time, and any way I did not think there was any race to perform the reverts (also I did rather need to leave to get to work). So yes, if a nice Admin such as Physicq210 (thank you) can do this with a single click, so much the easier is the overall effort on the wikipedia editorialship. If at any point I gain Admin or rollback privelages, then even easier too :-) David Ruben ^Talk 15:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Enormous sockpuppet army wiped out

After seeing some vandalism tonight, I ran a checkuser on an account and discovered an *enormous* sockpuppet army massing. Come to find out it happened to be the range used by Blu Aardvark (72.160.0.0/16). I blocked over 100 of the easily recognizable ones (see Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Blu Aardvark - almost everyone one of them was one I blocked tonight). I blocked that range for 6 months - anon editing and account registration, but not regular users.

Here's another 45 or so accounts that may or may not be Blu's. I suspect the vast majority are, but didn't block them for fear of hitting a bystander:

• Alightdirigible (talk · contribs)
• AnneFeastClark (talk · contribs)
• Anydoc (talk · contribs)
• Athalia (talk · contribs)
• Bear712 (talk · contribs)
• Big bob 07 (talk · contribs)
• Bobobo760 (talk · contribs)
• Boogielove (talk · contribs)
• Boundaryman (talk · contribs)
• Burnt Siena (talk · contribs) - confirmed Blu sock. Raul654 10:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Candymanl4b (talk · contribs)
• Charlesdayhoff (talk · contribs)
• Cmuniga (talk · contribs)
• DRc (talk · contribs)
• DavidBrowne (talk · contribs)
• Daydreamerz43 (talk · contribs)
• Dragonfly85 (talk · contribs)
• Dt61 (talk · contribs)
• Eileenmclain (talk · contribs)
• Fenryr (talk · contribs)
• Goozie212 (talk · contribs)
• Grimsby85 (talk · contribs)
• Hankpac (talk · contribs)
• Hnolde (talk · contribs)
• Ice Lollies (talk · contribs)
• Iwrite1969 (talk · contribs)
• KTBranson (talk · contribs)
• KaloniceStarfire (talk · contribs)
• Kodes (talk · contribs)
• Ldonegan (talk · contribs)
• Lonca38 (talk · contribs)
• MAB88 (talk · contribs)
• Mark N Ruggles Sr. (talk · contribs)
• Maryjuneb (talk · contribs)
• Mkolerich (talk · contribs)
• Patricke44 (talk · contribs)
• Phil 737 (talk · contribs)
• Ratpack1964 (talk · contribs)
• Rdc1103 (talk · contribs)
• Rerelovesbacon (talk · contribs)
• Ronin-man (talk · contribs)
• Sinnocent1 (talk · contribs)
• Sugarbear61 (talk · contribs)
• Teh nab (talk · contribs)
• Tim card (talk · contribs)
• Tony 747 (talk · contribs)

I would appreciate someone keeping an eye on them. Raul654 09:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Modified list to display talk/contribs encase any get any messages.--Andeh 09:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Cmuniga (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Dt61 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Currently unblocked vandals from above list.--Andeh 09:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmm, tagging them and making sure they were all blocked sure was fun - took myself, Raul and aksi forever to do it! Cheers, Daniel.Bryant 09:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I just reran through the list and I found a few more probables Raul654 10:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Kararowe (talk · contribs)
• Zak2023 (talk · contribs)
• Bevsmith (talk · contribs)
• Bob` (talk · contribs)
• Cfranklu (talk · contribs)
• Anydoc (talk · contribs)
• Mkolerich (talk · contribs)
• Spinnertabi (talk · contribs)

You should probably post the diffs of this conversation to Blu's arbitration cases. Thatcher131 11:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I've gone through and blocked a lot of the obvious ones that follow the typical pattern of Blu Aardvark's sockpuppet names. Some already had vandalism but weren't yet indef-blocked. --Cyde Weys 20:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Copyvio on Gymkata - does anything need to be done?

I just blanked the plot synopsis of this movie because it is identical to its IMDb entry. Does anything else need to happen? Anchoress 11:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You could leave a note for the person who added the copyvio material, or go through his contribs to see if s/he's done it in other articles. (Sometimes people go through and add IMDB stuff to a whole batch of movie articles at once.) In this case, though, he hasn't contributed since August, so I wouldn't bother with the note. And I looked at his other contribs, and they look okay. :-) FreplySpang 12:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, cool. I was wondering if it is supposed to be purged from the history? Anchoress 13:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

We do that if the copyright holder asks us to, but not by default, in cases like this. If the entire article was copyvio, we'd delete the whole thing. FreplySpang 14:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

K, thankx.Anchoress 16:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Jack Cox - Daniel Brandt's plagiarism data

Jack Cox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been contributing to Wikipedia since February 2005 and has some ten thousand edits under his belt.

Daniel Brandt's recent plagiarism report uncovered that Jack had added text without attribution from the Utah History Encyclopedia, which is not a public domain resource, to the article on Utah governor Henry H. Blood. Following Brandt's lead I've found that Jack Cox also plagiarized from the same source in writing articles on Charles R. Mabey, John Christopher Cutler, Heber Manning Wells, William Spry, Herbert B. Maw, George Dewey Clyde, Calvin L. Rampton and Scott M. Matheson - all of them Utah governors. In each case I've deleted the articles and restored pre-Jack versions where there were any.

I have checked a few of Jack's other contributions and found one more plagiarism incident, Charlie Wyse, which was not from the same source. Obviously I have made nothing like a comprehensive check of Jack's thousands of edits, most of which don't have an edit summary. It his highly likely that multiple copyright violations inserted by him are still out there.

Looking at Jack's talk page I notice that OrphanBot doesn't like him and the feeling is mutual I get the feeling that this contributor habitually doesn't exercise enough caution in handling copyrighted material. Please take whatever action you feel is appropriate. We would of course be fully justified in banning him but if someone could engage him productively, get him to clean up his act and help in identifying old boo-boos that could be even more valuable.

I'd also like to encourage more admins to get involved with the project on identifying serial plagiarists at User:W.marsh/list. We've already found multiple longstanding copyright violations starting with the data from Brandt and looking at other contributions by the same editors. Haukur 12:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• RJNeb2 (talk · contribs) seems to be a serial offender, too. We do need more admins on this... it seems some of these people have been quietly plagiarizing for months and even years. --W.marsh 15:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Stalking, vandalism, possible sockpuppetry evasion of block by Timmy12

Timmy12 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be stalking Rosencomet and vandalising Rosencomet's additions of citations by removing the citations. In the past, Mattisse also stalked and tagged articles by Rosencomet. There is reason to believe that Timmy12 is a sock of Mattisse currently being used to evade a block for 3RR. -999 (Talk) 13:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm Rosencomet, and yes, it seems that Timmy12 is actively stalking me, following behind me and eliminating the citations I post on articles I have either created or contributed to. He characterizes them as commercial, although I have asked respected Wikipedia editors who have been here much longer than I if I am doing anything wrong, and they say I am not, and have in fact reversed his efforts several times. Evidentially, I am not the only person having problems with this individual.

The most recent examples have been elimination of citations for speakers and presenters appearing at an important event, one that constitutes a credit for them, that is three years old. The web page referred to advertises no new event nor any product, although one could visit the rest of the website from there if one was interested, but the purpose of the citation was to support the fact of the participation in the event, not to promote anything. In fact, they were mostly reactions to others (if they were others) claiming that I must provide citations when I state such facts in an article.

Except for the declaration that he has "taken down a commercial link", he has given no justification for his actions nor attempted to contact me or my talk page, yet the moment I reverse his actions he repeats them. I see that he has done similar vandalism to others, yet I find little or no contributions by him among the articles of Wikipedia. I'm relatively new at this, yet I've created and/or contributed to about 100 articles, revisiting most of them often with additional data. I've encountered several very helpful folks in this microcosm, and have been pleased to see stubs grow and expand into useful and informational articles. People like Timmy12, it seems to me, ruin it for the rest. I'm not sure what I should do at this point. Please advise.Rosencomet 14:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I think there is a need for a CheckUser on User:Timmy12 and User:Mattisse. The previous sockpuppet enquiry Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Mattisse (3rd), which was negative but inconclusive. Some users still beleive these to be sockpuppets, and are spreading the acusation around, which is not condusive to a plesent community. There is a chance that they are actually socks, in which case Mattise is looking a a ban. --Salix alba (talk) 15:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Quite. The place for sockpuppet checks is WP:RFCU. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Although not really comfortable doing so, I've filed a checkuser here. If anybody could contribute further evidence or support the need for the checkuser I would appreciated it. Ekajati (yakity-yak) 16:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

A more pertinent issue to examine might be the probable linkspamming by Rosencomet (talk · contribs) of his website, often using the claim that they're "citations". --Calton | Talk 00:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

77 links -- that's a lot! I've left a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam. --A. B. 04:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for barging in uninvited. I do RC Patrol, and it is common practice for me, when I see vandalism, to check the contributions of the user involved to determine if there is more vandalism to be reverted. I do not know whether that is Wikistalking or not, but it is my practice, and as far as I know it is standard practice for many RC Patrollers. It would seem to me quite non-sensical not to follow up on the users contributions.

User Rosencomet has an extensive history of editor's complaining about his/her link spamming or otherwise promoting his/her festival. [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] [120] [121]. So, all in all, I think looking at this users contributions is an appropriate way to protect Wikipedia. --BostonMA ^talk 04:31, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Briefs-related articles - WP:HOAX??

Recently there seems to be a few articles about briefs being created, many of them I suspect to be WP:HOAXes.

This may require further investigation. --SimonTheFox 15:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Please point me to some.--Andeh 15:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

At a glance I'd say [122] or [123] is what Simon is referring to; looks like more Colberrorism. -- nae'blis 16:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

These articles don't seem to be created because of Colbert, I suspect it's rather more that there is a user/a group of users obsessed with briefs. --SimonTheFox 16:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This is the second briefs-related section to appear on AN/I today. The first was added about twenty minutes before this one [124] by User:Pajnax. It was then removed a few minutes later by User:Jeffrey O. Gustafson. Just pointing this out, draw from it what you may. Metros232 16:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It's kids from Range High School, SimonTheFox is a student there, so is Pajnax. All coming from an Internet for Learning grid of IPs. --Neil McCarthy (Internet for Learning) 17:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, one of these bored kids created his own long term abuse section recently (I deleted it). Basically he/they plan to create a fake article, nominate it for AfD and swarm it with disruptive fake Keep "votes". I suggest you delete the pages and any AfDs on sight.--Konst.able^Talk 23:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Briefs, eh? Wikinews has had a problem with a "briefs vandal" where a sockpuppet army (one sockpuppet at a time) would basically rise and create articles about briefs. They, of course, get banned quickly, do the CheckUser, and get on with our lives. Anyways, Wikipedia may be encountering the same thing. —this is messedrocker (talk) 00:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Harassment by Hanuman Das and User:Ekajati

I am reporting this now, having spent time gathering evidence. There is much more I can get.

• 1. See my talk page User talk:Timmy12. I joined Wikipedia 9-8-06 and the abuse started almos immediately.
• 2. You again? - 999 and Hanuman Das often team up.
• 3. Sockpuppetry First accusation of being sock puppet by by Hanuman Das.
• 4 Sockpuppetry Case] This is the filing of the Sockpuppetry case.
• 5 Stay off my talk page Next Hanuman Das tells me to stay off his talk page.
• 6 Harrassment by Timmy 12 Next Hanuman Das accuses me of harrassing him. The administrator says Hanuman Das is being hasty.
• 7 sock puppets/Mattisse (3rd) where I am notified that Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Mattisse (3rd) has been filed.
• 8 Maybe you can help where I appeal to User talk:JzG for help. Both User:Ekajati and User:Hanuman Das put comments after User talk:JzG notes that he is not tolerant of commercial link spam. User:Hanuman Das asserts: User:Timmy12 is clearly a sockpuppet of User:Mattisse.

User talk:JzG replies: You assert this as fact, but CheckUser suggests otherwise. Guy 10:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

• 9 As was noted on various talk pages where User:Ekajati and User:Hanuman Das accuse me of being a sock puppet, I was cleared by Check User. [125]

and User:Netsnipe said on many such pages that User:Ekajati and User:Hanuman Das should use Check User before sockpuppet accusation. I have not gathered the talk page mentions, but I will if necessary. Nor have I gathered the rude and uncivil edit summaries that are routinely entered. An example is below:

• Malicious edit put in the edit summary by Hanuman Das on Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart on 05:18, October 13, 2006 - (revert malicious edits by User:Timmy12; several editors have attempted to communicate with this user on his talk page and have been ignored). This was after he banned me from his talk page. See:

[126] I consider that a malicious message. Some users who have been involved by reverting and removing my tags in tandem with hosting talk page conversations against me, with uncivil and rude comments and personal attacks on me are

• User:Hanuman Das
• User:Ekajati
• User:Aguerriero
• User:Tvccs
• User:999 was the first to call me Mattisse
• User:Anger22

Thank you for checking into this very much. Timmy12 15:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Without commenting on the above material, we've now got about 4 threads here involving Timmy. Anyone want to combine them for easier reading? And can anyone fast track those checkuser requests so we can say something decisively about them? --InShaneee 16:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Please indicate which of my edits are relevant here, so I will know whether to defend myself, plead ignorance (I have learned something useful today), or apologise. Based on a quick scan of recent edits, I can't see anything in common between Special:Contributions/Notinasnaid and Special:Contributions/Timmy12 (except this page, of course), but I could easily have missed something. Thank you. Notinasnaid 17:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually Timmy12 is getting his personalities mixed up. He listed me and you above, when actually we have reverted Mattisse's tags, not Timmy12's. It's all very confusing. [127] [128]. --Aguerriero (talk) 18:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, so Timmy12 is complaining about reverts which affected Mattisse, not Timmy12. That's more evidence of sockpuppetry. Ekajati (yakity-yak) 18:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Addendum by User:Timmy12:

This is a plea for help message I sent to User talk:JzG maybe you can help. It is a long passage with comments by User:Ekajati and User:Hanuman Das As a result (I think) of this long conversation, User talk:JzG nominated Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart for deletion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart Timmy12 18:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC) We also discussed User:Rosencomet's commercial links and User talk:JzG said there were at least 75 such commercial links from Wikipedia to User:Rosencomet's commercial sites and that he disapproved of commercial link spam. Timmy12 21:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Addendum #2 by User:Timmy12:

I found this message to User talk:JzG Timmy12 and check user from User:Hanuman Das in response to one left on his user page: Timmy12from User talk:JzG that User:Hanuman Das did not like.

• Addendum #3 by User:Timmy12:

Messages from User:Ekajati Timmy12 and Removing tages from articles is vandalism to User:Tvccs. This explains the long, lengthy messages he left in my talk page. Let me second Ekajati

Therefore, I am substituting User:Tvccs as a member of the harassing group in place of User:Notinasnaid, a name that I could find no harassing evidence for. I am removing User:Anger22 for now as currently he is staying out and seems to be distancing himself. Timmy12 21:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Addendum #4

I am adding User:Anger22added back on list do to recent activity: Timmy12/Mattissee Saw your note

Please note that Timmy12 has been editing the wording of her complaint [129], in the process removing one of the users in which the dispute was with Mattisse rather than Timmy12, but which Timmy12 claimed as her own. Ekajati (yakity-yak) 22:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Addendum #5

After an administrator removed warnings placed on my talk page by User:999, Vandalism warning question I received the following message from User:Ekajati: Removing citations is vandalism The warnings were removed from my talk page after I posted here below *Vandalism warning -- question* Timmy12 22:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Timmy...this is not the Wikipedia complaints department. Take this elsewhere. --InShaneee 22:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Where should I take it? Look at the history of my talk page history:

Timmy12 talk page history Tell me where to go and I'll go there. These people are preventing me from doing anything on Wikipedia. Timmy12 22:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Addendum #6

Don't be taken in by Timmy12 This message appeared above an administrator User:Samir I consulted after User:Samir removed vandalsim warnings from my talk page and they reappeared within minutes. User:Ekajati is stalking me. I am being stalked. Timmy12 23:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

First strike capability

Having a poll here, is it about time that we institue a 1 strike policy for repeat offending sharedips, 1 vandal edit, and a 24 range block, 2 and they earn themselves a 48 hour ban, and so on, could be the solution to our AOL problem. All in favor ..--Heliac 18:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Support

1. Heliac 18:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Other

Take your straw poll some place else, this is not a good place to do it. Try WT:VAN or WP:VP. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{L} 18:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. This page is for concerns needing immediate administrator intervention. --InShaneee 18:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Tyciol (talk · contribs)

• Tyciol (talk · contribs) is repeatedly violating WP:POINT by harassing people who vote to Delete articles of his that are up for deletion, particularly here, where he seems to admit the article is a joke but continues to get confrontational with other editors. Danny Lilithborne 18:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Sneewop

Sneewop (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is on his second block, once for vandalism and now for repeatedly blanking warnings from his talk page. He has threatened to evade blocks/bans by creating a new account. Would there be support for a indef block or ban in this case? --Aguerriero (talk) 18:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Help for Anti-Georgianism article

How can I extend this article Anti-Georgianism? Can you give help me? --AGNLDM 19:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism warning -- question

I received these two vandalism warnings today:

*First warning:

--Vandalism warming--

Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did at Winterstar Symposium, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear to be constructive and has been reverted. If you only meant to make a test edit, please use the sandbox for that. Thank you. -999 (Talk) 13:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

*Second warning:

--Removing citations is vandalism--

Please stop removing citations from articles. It is vandalism--

This is your last warning.
The next time you vandalize a page, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. -999

---

*My actual behavior:

The "vandalism" of Winterstar Symposium consisted of (as recorded in the edit summary) -- (External link - removing 1 of 2 links to a Rosencomet commercial site as 2 links to exact same site address are unnecessarily commercial). This was one edit only. I have not edited that article since, so I do not know what the second warning refers to. The last time I edited that article was October 12, 2006.

The warning was given to me by the same person who left the note below, soon after I joined Wikipedia so I had no idea what it meant:

-- You again? --Hello, Mattisse! -999 (Talk) 17:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I had a discussion of User:Rosencomet commercial links a while ago with User talk:JzG [130], he agreed the site was commerical and said he was in favor of reducing link spam.

How am I to interpret these warnings? Are they real? What are the actual rules? Timmy12 20:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I can tell you the rules of this page. It's in red at the top, and you've violated it about three times now. "This is not the Wikipedia complaints department". This is not something that needs immediate admin intervention. --InShaneee 21:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, so instead of doing something about the complaint, threaten the complainant. ALWAYS a useful and productive approach that fosters a good working atmosphere. --Calton | Talk 01:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you are correct Timmy12 and will remove the warnings -- Samir धर्म 21:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I was just posting it on Technical Pump, not knowing where else to go. So Thanks! Timmy12 22:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Possible Username violation

user:Bastardpoopshoot Only two contribs, but seems to be vandal only. Additionally, the username violates WP:UN:

• "Names that are recognised as slurs or insults"
• "Names that refer to or imply sexual acts, genitalia, or sexual preference including slang, innuendo, and double entendre"

If this is not the right place to report this, let me know and I'll put it in the correct place. :) Thanks, Adminers. Justin Eiler 21:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Blocked by DakotaKahn (in general, check out Special:Log to see the blocked status of a particular user). Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism is generally preferred to AN/I for obvious username violations, but don't worry about it. ~ PseudoSudo 21:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks--I forgot to check the block log to see if they had already been blocked (didn't see anything on the talk page). :) Justin Eiler 21:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

With cases these obvious, it's not necessarily needed to leave a talk page message. The user will already see the entry in the block log when they try to edit a page, and frankly with cases like these it should be perfectly obvious to them why they're blocked. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 23:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Cyrillic alphabet

Can an admin add {{protected}} to this page? It has been protected in lieu of an edit war, but the sysop protecting it forgot the template. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Mr. Lefty (talk) 23:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism warning -- question again!

As soon as you removed the warning, saying:

I think you are correct Timmy12 and will remove the warnings -- Samir धर्म 21:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

See: Vandalism warning question asked above.

The warning reappeared on my talk page within seconds: Removing citations is vandalism

What should I do? Where should I go for help? Thanks! Timmy12 22:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

For the last time, go to dispute resolution like it says in BIG, RED LETTERS at the top of this page. One more complaint here and I'll block you myself for disruption. --InShaneee 00:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I've told Timmy to stop posting to AN/I on his talk page, however... on first inspection, what's happening here is that he's deleting a widespread commercial spam by Rosencomet (talk · contribs · count) and some possibly related accounts posting links to rosencomet.com wildly. I believe this needs to be investigated and possibly add that site to the URL spam block list if the links are found to be spam. Georgewilliamherbert 00:36, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I've asked him what Rosencomet is as a start, and what the affiliation is with the Association for Consciousness Exploration. It looks to me like they are synonymous, in which case, it may be appropriate to judiciously include Rosencomet based links as references for ACE events -- Samir धर्म 02:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

slow spam + harassment

204.50.176.199 (talk · contribs) has run up to the spam-4 level with links to highspeedsat.com and other sites. Now appears to have slowed to avoid being blocked and turned to harrassment in the form of user-page vandalism. Suggestions? JonHarder 22:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Already blocked. Grandmasterka 22:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Omallystwin

Could an uninvolved administrator or two take a look at Omallystwin (talk · contribs) and his activities at Alton Brown (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) to help determine is utilizing Wikipedia:Disruptive editing is appropriate. --Allen3 ^talk 23:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Legal threats from anon

I blocked an anon (128.226.160.147 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) who was reported on AIV (anon only block) for repeated and varied issues today for 3 hours, and left a list of recommended reading for him[131] which I hoped he would read while blocked. Instead, he removed several posts from his talk page and went to lunch. He now has shown his need to be also educated in WP:NLT:[132] As he stated that "I HATE YOU FOR BANNING ME FOR THREE HOURS" and "if I wished, I would sue you." I am guessing that 1) he will not be open to hearing anything from me and 2) he is either ignorant of NLT or doesn't care. I am posting this here for another, previously uninvolved admin to deal with it - if you can get this person to calm down, and read the policies, and help mentor him some, he may be a helpful contributor. If the consensus is to block him for legal threats, that's fine too. I am leaving his horrendously long and poorly formatted post on my page (most of it is a cut-and-paste letter to another editor, some is commentary about what others have left on his page, and some, of course, is actually directed to me.) Note: He looked at my block log; comparing my block message about him to a block message I left for another anon; He signed with a link to Liberty and a small icon of an American flag, and all in all seems to have a good bit of Wikipedia experience, legal threats and calling a short block "banning" notwithstanding. He has repeatedly vandalized another editor's User, not Talk, page, and in this puppy's opinion knew what he was doing. I could be wrong, of course. Cheerfully awaiting community input and assistance on this issue - KillerChihuahua^?!? 23:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for 2 fortnights. That should about solve it ... (for 2 fortnights at least). --Cyde Weys 23:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

thanks, Cyde - he'd already made 9 edits to my talk page! Sheesh. KillerChihuahua^?!? 23:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You could've just blocked him yourself, I think. No need to worry about a potential conflict of interest or whatever when the other person's abuse is so blatant. --Cyde Weys 23:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

True, but I tend to be careful if I think it is at all unclear. OTOH I've merrily blocked people myself, while others were discussing how to best work with them (Trolls are only good for reducing the goat population!). KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Adding:Also, I think it is better coming from another Admin, as that shows that he is actually violating policy here and not being trampled on by one Rouge Admin. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it was quite classy to have an uninvolved admin take care of it. -- Samir धर्म 01:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for having him removed. I probably could have handled that better, but seeing that he was invading my own user page and talk page after just a simple revert of some stupid edit he made to a article, I just stopped caring. Let's hope that this resolves everything. :) :: Colin Keigher 00:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

fyi, He's not "removed" just blocked for a while - and he can always register. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Poor choice of words on my part. I meant "removed" as in "gone for a bit." :: Colin Keigher 01:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

His IP traces to the State University of New York at Binghamton WhisperToMe 01:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

and now I wonder (disproving Samir's very kind assessment of me as classy) what the standards are now for admission to that University? KillerChihuahua^?!? 01:27, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

They appear to be quite high, actually. Then again I know from some experience that colleges will often trump up their own statistics a lot. Grandmasterka 04:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate usernames waiting to be blocked

Virus (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) and Worm (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) are all usernames relating to malware, so I listed them at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism as violations of Wikipedia:Username. Xaosflux then removed them from WP:AIV claiming that this is not the right place to report bad usernames, and said that they should be listed here, instead. Could someone please block those bad usernames and edit Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism/header to reflect that WP:AIV is the preferred way to report bad usernames. Please correct me if I am wrong. I used the same place to report Maf54 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) yesterday, and the inappropriate username was blocked. (See Mark Foley scandal if you do not know why Maf54 fails the username policy.) Jesse Viviano 04:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with Virus or Worm as usernames. --Carnildo 06:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Nor do I. In any case, here isn't quite right, either; you want to be at WP:RFC/NAME. —Cryptic 08:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I see no problem with either name, especially Worm (talk · contribs) which holds a number of benign meanings besides the reference to Computer worms. No reason to discriminate against worms in general.  ;-) We should avoid instruction creep, assume good faith, and maybe think about culling back some of the Wikipedia:Username#Inappropriate_usernames verbiage if it is going to be taken so literally. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 09:19, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

To clarify, obviously bad usernames that merit an instant no-questions-asked block (profanity, sockpuppets, etc) can be posted on WP:AIV, but anything that isn't obvious shouldn't be. Asking the user politely to change is the best first step, then WP:RFC/NAME. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 09:47, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Episode nuking

Narfers02 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been making (horribly written) pages for every single episode of Codename: Kids Next Door which are all copy-paste jobs from the various episode lists. Practically all of her contribs need to be nuked, and perhaps a short block placed on the account so we can clean up and she doesn't keep making more and more useless articles. —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

They are copyvios, then? Can you point us to an example of where one was copied from? Grandmasterka 04:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) They're not really copyvios, but copy-paste jobs from List of Codename: Kids Next Door episodes. Pretty much any blue link there is a copy-paste from that season's own article. Compare List of Season 2 episodes in Codename: Kids Next Door#T.H.E.-S.H.O.G.U.N. with Op. T.H.E.-S.H.O.G.U.N..—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:02, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

See Op. S.P.A.C.E. --ArmadilloFromHell 04:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh man, what a mess. I deleted all of the split-off articles and administered a short block to end this and force communication. --Cyde Weys 05:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, looks like someone should go through and remove all of the redlinks on List of Codename: Kids Next Door episodes. That looks to be what led to this mess in the first place ... this user saw those red links and thought it'd somehow be a good idea to split up the list of episodes into dozens of individual pages :-( Cyde Weys 05:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Mission complete! Although, Op. P.O.O.L. might have to go :/ —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Issamlee@hotmail.com (talk · contribs)

Can someone have a talk with this user about how to use fair-use images? He or she has repeated reuploaded unsourced images, again and again, simply reuploading them whenever they're deleted, and I don't really have the energy to deal with this. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:56, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Block and/or request username change is also required. Daniel.Bryant 08:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Old Proxy blocker block?

Hey everyone, could someone please unblock DarkElf109 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) who's currently being blocked on 68.98.18.98 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) which was previously a TOR exit node. Despite numerous attempts to unblock the address, it seems like an old unlisted Proxy blocker (talk · contribs) block is still in effect. Could someone else please take care of this for me? Thanks. --  Netsnipe  ►  07:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Something isn't right, I don't see any blocks made by Proxy blocker (talk · contribs)? Anyone else? Can't sleep, clown will eat me 08:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

User: Éponyme

Need some guidance. I was about to block this user when I realized I should get other opinions first. He's been a problem in the past, blocked twice for racist, disruptive and personal attacks on others. He was blocked on September 19th and 25th. Well, he's back at it. Here is a racist (and homophobic) edit summary ("letting the sweaty Nazi immigrant faggot beat me down"). And then we also have this and this, 2 more racist posts from the last hour or so. And finally, we have a personal attack here, with such choice lines such as "Therefore, cease this prattle and go back to your Mitteleuropaische shithole." and "Epf also thinks he is "English", even though his recent Italian heritage really doesn't fit in the concept of an English person.".

Actually, I am going to block him for 2 weeks (1 week was his last block). If someone disagrees, they can shorten it. To me, this is a user who apparently is going to just keep on attacking and attacking. --Woohookitty^(meow) 10:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

And now he is reverting others out of hand. --Woohookitty^(meow) 10:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Two blocks for the same thing in the last month-or-so, then returns to such diabolical behaviour? I would have been thinking at least a month, considering what he said. However, if you reckon 2 weeks is enough, that's fine. I can't see anyone shortening it, given his past, and the fact that the blatant PA's contained such racist and homophobic content. Cheers, Daniel.Bryant 10:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

On a side note, a user got a one month block for racism with no prior blocks. I think it would be justified if (considering earlier blocks) a fairly long block were applied in this case. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 11:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

OK. I'll extend to 1 month. I usually start small. --Woohookitty^(meow) 11:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

That's fair enough. However, I think it'd be stretching AGF a little too far to block this user for less than what he has been. Daniel.Bryant 11:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Spammer using a bot to flood Wikipedia?

If you check the history of User talk:Brian0918/Guestbook, you'll see that two different IPs spammed content on this talk page recently, using gibberish of the same format (a first name and 3 random letters) for the comment each time, and spamming links that you'd normally find in junkmail. It looks like someone has created a bot to send out spam in the same way used for spamming junkmail. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-10-26 11:53Z