Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Problem with Ave Caesar & CadenS on Jesse Dirkhising

I'm having a problem with two editors on Jesse Dirkhising, an article I've fully vetted, re-written and am trying to get to GA status. The article has been largely free of disputes and stable since the rewrite several months ago.

Another editor and I were discussing converting over the citation style to make editing the HTML easier for them when Ave Caesar (talk · contribs) added the {{citation style}} tag, which was odd because the discussion was already in process and the tag is about the uniformity and appearance which was already done. Our discussion was about switching over from one system to another. I explained in my edit summary "rmv tag as unneeded, they are all consistent at present and there is presently a discussion on converting them". They re-inserted the tag so I tried to explained the tag wasn't addressing any relevant issue to Ave Caesar and they deleted the thread citing my concern should only be placed on the article talk page. They didn't join in the discussion but instead re-added the tag. I, tried again to explain how the tag was unhelpful - they deleted this thread as well. As far as I know tagging the article and reverting my edits has been their only involvement on that article. Looking at some of their recent edits I was a little shocked to see edit warring over the WP:LGBT project tag on Lindsay Lohan with Dev920 who has, as part of their signature "who misses Jeffpw". Stunningly Ave Caesar follows up with Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User talk:Jeffpw/Isaäc's Memorial Page.

My introduction to CadenS (talk · contribs) was a bit more blunt as they were a newbie, as far as I can tell, and on the Jesse Dirkhising article they plain out just accused me of a few things and lobbed a few personal attacks my way then left the article about six months ago. We had been dialogging on their talkpage as I tried to help find them some grounding and on-wiki resources so thought that whatever hard feelings were there had dissipated. Then again within the last month or so on E.O. Green School shooting I could feel the level rise a bit and CadenS takes a bit of a dig at me and follows it a day later by accusing me and two others of "hateful attacks". No requests for explanation are answered but they seemed to be dialogging with others on their talk page so I left well enough alone. Now CadenS is back to Jesse Dirkhising and their first edits there were to change instances of gay to homosexual, which is generally considered pejorative outside a research context - for instance, it's not the "Homosexual Pride Parade" except to some conservative religious folks - it's Gay Pride. They also changed some content thus misrepresenting what the sources stated. I reverted back and point out the concerns and they respond by calling me a POV pusher. At this point Ave Caesar reverts "restoring encyclopedic language" which i revert and going back to the sources to see if there is a better way to reflect what they state I return to the article to insert a quote in hopes of resolving misrepresenting a source to find CadenS has again reverted.

I'm unsure if they are working together on purpose but they are effectively causing the article to fail the GA process for being unstable, amongst other concerns, and I see no future in trying to complete the clean-up with two users edit-warring and inserting problematic and POV language. I would appreciate others looking at this and I'm uncomfortable reverting either of them and don't see engaging them any further as a good path for me. Just writing all this up has taken away the rest of my time for editing today. I have to get some sleep but I think the above lays out what I see as the issue. -- Banjeboi 14:11, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree that these users should be discussing on the talk page instead of reverting. Have you contacted kotra (talk · contribs), who is CadenS's mentor? Although that is an option, I expect editors to be responsible for their actions, and not require a mentor talk them out of disproportionately defensive posts. CadenS is clearly passionate about gay-themed articles and has been asked to avoid them in the past, to my memory. Though his comments about E.O. Green school shooting correctly indicated the poor writing and layout of the article, the stressful way it was brought about was unnecessary. --Moni3 (talk) 15:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Moni, Benji never once initiated any type of discussion on this matter. He went and filed this report instead. Let me remind you that Mr. Benji was reverting left, right and center. How convenient to see how you leave that part out. Furthermore, Kotra did not talk me out of anything. You insinuating such a thing is insulting to both Kotra and I. And another thing, since when is rape, murder or shooting's suddenly classified as "homosexual-themed" type of articles? That's a narrow way of thinking on your part and I'm shocked that you would post such a thing here. Caden S (talk) 10:50, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I find Benj's choice of words ("they", "their", "them"), to describe me personally, as very offensive. I have a name. My name is Caden. That's C-A-D-E-N. I'm also a male. That's M-A-L-E. Therefore my gender is "he", and not "they" or "them" or "their". Got it? Now, in regards to the word "homosexual", this is the correct word to be used. It's used in the same way as the word "heterosexual" is often used. Homosexual is only considered pejorative by those who support the political correct movement. I did change some of Benji's POV content because he was misrepresenting what those sources stated. He deliberately did that to mislead the readers just like he's been doing with the E. O. article by adding the POV "see also" sections that serve his biased POV. The real issue here is the issue of POV language used by Benji and him misleading the readers by insinuating this in the main article. I also find it highly insulting that he is accusing me of working together with Ave Caesar on purpose. I've never spoken to User:Ave Caesar, and he or she has never had any contact with me. Furthermore, Benji claims I took a dig at him? Please. I was defending myself. I was replying to an attack made by him (on the E.O. page) towards me when he had the nerve to say: "Let's not paint all gay people as predators or liars or anything else". I found his statement offensive, bizarre, and completely uncalled for. Caden S (talk) 17:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Caden: Chill, no one can tell your gender on teh Internet. A simple "Oh, btw I'm male" would have done. Your "get it?" etc is very hostile. I am sure no rudeness was intended. People on Wikipedia refer to other editors as "he" "she" and "they" almost at random it seems, and it is generally best to ignore or tactfully inform the editor using the incorrect term. As regarding "homosexual" vs. "gay" that is a content dispute and belongs on the talk page of the article - but the parade is certainly the "gay pride" parade and not the "homosexual pride" parade, so at least one of your edits is simply wrong. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello, it's me. I haven't been contacted, but as you say, all editors are responsible for their own actions (though I would appreciate it if these issues were discussed with me occasionally). I want to clear up a few things, though. Caden has already apologized for some of the issues raised above, and has voluntarily maintained long breaks from LGBT-related articles in the past. As for this recent incident (changing "gay" to "homosexual" on Jesse Dirkhising), that seems like a minor content dispute that you should discuss with each other first before bringing up here. So concerning Caden, I'm not sure what this incident report is for, since it's a minor dispute and has not yet received much discussion. Concerning Ave Caesar, I don't really have an opinion about their edits, except I very much doubt they are conspiring in any way with Caden. -kotra (talk) 18:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Killer, I'm sorry but you are so wrong. Benji knows full well that I'm a male and he knows my name very well. He and I have had conflicts in the past concerning the Dirkhising and E. O. pages. Furthermore, I know nothing about such parades and have no interest in them. And for the record, I made no edits on any parade so I have no clue what you're talking about. Also, I agree with Kotra. He should of have been contacted regardless of my actions. He is my adopter. Caden S (talk) 18:36, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, did he? Still not seeing why you should bother to care. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:03, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I beg your pardon? How would you like it if I called you "it", huh? Because that's basically how he's referring to me on this report. And that sir, is why I bother to care. Caden S (talk) 09:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

A bit of a side-note concerning this: "I expect editors to be responsible for their actions, and not require a mentor talk them out of disproportionately defensive posts.". I actually disapproved of that comment, and I did not "talk him out of it". -kotra (talk) 18:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, this is a content dispute and not really a matter for ANI. This should be on the discussion on the article talk page. The issue is over the inclusion of encyclopedic language. The user wishes to replace "homosexual" with the slang term "gay." --Ave Caesar (talk) 20:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. Sorry I see this as an editing dispute. Ave Caesar's only participation there has been disruptive, IMHO, coupled with their other, apparently anti-LGBT concerns are also alarming. With CadenS, his changing gay to homosexual, reinforced too by Ave Caesar, along with misrepresenting sources is basic vandalism that should be reverted under normal circumstances. Gay is not considered slang and that both these editors fail to see its pejorative connotations is also disquieting. That CadenS couples this with bad faith accusations and hostility aren't encouraging. Wikipedia isn't a battleground or a place for POV pushing. If any of the gay people involved self-identified as homosexual it's usually good to put that in the article as such. Instead mainstream society and media outlets use gay. I find having to explain this is this decade a bit odd - homosexual is used predominately in conservative religious venues to vilify LGBT people - its use on Wikipedia is dubious - especially on biographies. I came here because I'm trying to get the article to GA, I see these two as disrupting that process. I want to nip editing warring in the bud here. Considering each of their recent actions and looking at editing histories of these two my concerns are justified. The article had been stable for six months - with gay intact - why now the interest? Why now the changes?

To CadenS specifically, you assert "Please. I was defending myself." here is the comment I made in full

“ CadenS, please stop, taking little digs at me, or anyone, isn't helping improve this article. You could have let it go with Exploding Boy's comment that indeed another person in the source stated it was likely untrue. And just as some gay kids lie about heterosexual boys, heterosexual boys lie about such things as well. Let's not paint all gay people as predators or liars or anything else. People lie, let's stay on to improving the content. ”

If you felt I was attacking you I apologize, that was not my intent at all, I was trying to figure out what actionable items on that article needed to be addressed as there was a POV tag you had re-inserted and the consensus was that POV concerns had largely been addressed. -- Banjeboi 23:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

You are correct that it is an editing dispute. Therefore, it should first be discussed at Talk:Jesse Dirkhising. It is not proper to escalate it to WP:ANI until lower levels of dispute resolution have failed, as you must know. Regardless, I believe you are seeing an example of bias where there may not be one. "Homosexual" as a derisive term is very subtle and recent and depends largely on regional dialect and context. It is not unlikely that it has been used in Wikipedia bios without any actual bias intended, particularly since Wikipedia strives to be somewhat academic in tone. So I don't think there are any actionable items for an admin here. To get more eyes, WP:RFC would be the proper place. And I sympathize that this dispute has come at an inconvenient time for your GA review, but these things happen. -kotra (talk) 01:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, upon rereading, I now realize you mean "editing dispute" to mean "a dispute over how a user is editing", as opposed to "a dispute over particular edits". If that is what you meant, I disagree. I don't see any problem with how users are editing, except that there isn't enough discussion (which is the fault of all three parties). -kotra (talk) 02:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

My experience with CadenS on this article in particular and then again on E.O. Green School shooting was generally being on the receiving end of bad faith accusations and hostility. Ave Caesar deleted talk page threads about the concern on their talkpage and never discussed any concerns except in edit summary comments. Either are welcome to engage in civil discussion on the talk page but edit-warring is unproductive and, really, do we need an RfC to confirm that homosexual is pejorative and gay should be the default? Or that we shouldn't misrepresent sources? Both have indicated they feel their edits are fine - they really aren't. I'm looking for the edit warring to stop and I've been on the talkpage consistently. -- Banjeboi 03:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I had thought the hostility at E.O. Green School shooting was over, so it surprised me that you would bring it up again here. But as for this recent dispute, I still haven't seen any discussion about it on Talk:Jesse Dirkhising, from them or you, so I guess I'm still at a loss as to why you brought this up here, without hardly discussing the issues first. And, you acknowledge that "homosexual" is not always pejorative, so perhaps it is not being used in that tone here? These things should be clarified first before one assumes bad faith; this is why I suggested RfC before ANI, if talk page discussion fails (which has still barely been explored). I think we're going in circles, though. (by the way, since blanking is usually ok on your own talk page, that particular part of Ave Caeser's behavior seems fine) -kotra (talk) 07:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

My experiences with Benji have been unpleasant. I feel he's anti-heterosexual, anti-Christian and anti-conservative due to his biased POV. I don't know what his problem is with conservatives, or Christians or even us heterosexuals. But his edits are more than clear he has some serious issues concerning the three. He often assumes bad faith and he's assuming bad faith once again by attacking my good faith edits as "vandalism". My edits are fine and have all been done in good faith. Benji's edits are questionable, in my opinion. "Gay" is a slang liberal word. "Straight" is a slang liberal word. Homosexual and heterosexual are the correct words to be used in a encyclopedia. I am not using the word "homosexual" in a pejorative way (like Benji accuses me of), and I highly doubt that Ave Caesar is using it in a negative way either. But as always, Benji assumes bad faith over any edits made by any editor who does not share his homosexual POV, regardless of the topics. I wonder why? Could it be because of his problems with heterosexuals, Christians and conservatives? He claims: "homosexual is used predominately in conservative religious venues to vilify LGBT people". Please. That's PC nonsense and is not true. You cannot group all people together as one just so you can push your POV on here. Doesn't Benji understand that not all christians are conservative? I assure you that not all conservatives are religious. Furthermore, the slang word "gay" is a liberal mainstream word that liberal society and liberal media outlets use for political correctness. Regardless of all this, Benji's issues are focused on a individual editor's way of editing. That's bad faith on his part. It should be focused on the true issue, which is a content dispute. I don't see any problems with how I edit, nor do I see any issues with how Ave Caesar edits. I do have some serious concerns with an editor who vilifies other editors as, "they" or "their" or "them". That's extremely rude. On a final note, Benji failed to initiate discussion on the talk page. Had he done so, I would of gladly taken part. Instead he filed this report. This alone was bad faith on his part. Caden S (talk) 09:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

As soon as you throw "liberal this" and "liberal that" and "political correctness" about, then you are showing your prejudices very clearly, thank you. Never mind what you think should be the correct wording and usage, what does the community think? This is after all a collaborative project. Black Kite 09:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Your statement above shows me where your prejudices are. But yes, what does the community think should be the correct words to use? Caden S (talk) 10:50, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

"Gay" is hardly a "slang liberal word". Conservatives use it as well. So does the mainstream media. I'm more interested in the terms used by reliable sources to describe the subject than in a community referendum, though. MastCell ^Talk 16:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

You have zero idea what my politics are. However, it is a standard Wikipedia (and general) fact that editors who rail against what they think is "political correctness" and use "liberal" in a pseudo-pejorative manner are rarely very good at editing articles in a neutral manner. Black Kite 18:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The use of the word "gay" to refer to the LGBT community, or it's members, is entirely appropriate and is in accordance with the Wikipedia community guideline WP:Naming conventions (identity)#Sex and sexual identities that states: For people, the terms "gay" (often, but not always, used for males only) and "lesbian" (which is used for females only) are preferred over "homosexual," which has clinical associations and is often considered pejorative. However, homosexual may be used in describing people in certain instances, in particular in historical contexts. Homosexual is considered pejorative, and gay is very mainstream usage. It has nothing to do with liberal bias and it's not slang. — Becksguy (talk) 20:50, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, "gay" could still be considered slang, in the same sense that "Coke" could be considered slang for "Coca-Cola". Both terms "Coke" and "gay" are widespread, though, and much more commonly used than their alternatives. Even so, we use "Coca-Cola" instead of "Coke", though we use "gay" instead of "homosexual". I think the reason we don't use "homosexual" too is because of its pejorative meaning in many contexts. In any case, WP:Naming conventions (identity)#Sex and sexual identities is pretty clear which we should use. But back to the topic at hand, I don't think either user was trying to be disruptive or particularly POV-pushing by using the more clinical term. Many people are unaware that "homosexual" is considered pejorative. -kotra (talk) 22:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The point is that if an editor informs you clearly that the word you're using is pejorative - perhaps your first action should not be to revert them. That just maybe if someone brings an issue to them your response should not be immediate spite, deletion or sarcasm. This is not a battleground and we can work with people even if we don't agree with them. That CadenS also chooses to add more POV and heap bad faith accusations towards me is also unhelpful. That they were misrepresenting sources also seems like a bad prospect for the article. I too had thought their hostility towards me had ended when they again lobbed a jab and personal attack me on E.O. Green School shooting - that's why I mentioned it. They also accused me and two other editors of attacking them. I didn't really see it myself but I apologized anyway as I certainly didn't mean any offense. Up above they attack me a few more times. What exactly do I do to prove I'm not anti-conservative, anti-Christians and anti-heterosexual? Ave Caesar chose to simply revert me as well, I rather doubt either of these editors really thought much but simply reverting someone they disagreed with. If they honestly think homosexual is the default word for gay and lesbian people I'm concerned what else they are changing and inserting. That neither has accepted that just maybe the choice to simply revert without discussing was a bad one also seems alarming - yes it happens but we have a pattern with each separately - unfortunately - of what certainly seems to be edit warring. That each save their most troubling conduct for LGBT-related subjects and hostility towards an editor and have no ownership of their actions bodes ill for the project. -- Banjeboi 10:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

CadenS' behavior

• Comment. Another hostile attack this time on my talkpage. -- Banjeboi 10:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Do I have to bring up my past ANI reports and links against CadenS or is he going to stop editing articles relating to sexuality like he promised last time to avoid a block? — Realist² 15:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Would it be possible to provide a diff or pointer to his promise to avoid these articles?

MastCell ^Talk 16:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• • • • Here. Basically to diffuse the post I made at ANI, that would have likely resulted in Caden being blocked. He instead declared that he quit, thus making a block pointless, came back 5 hours later wanting adoption and promising to avoid sexuality articles. He was back to sexuality articles very quickly. That said, and I must stress this, Caden contributes in a very positive manner to articles unrelated to sexuality. --— Realist² 16:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't believe it but my wiki stalker Realist2 is back at it sticking his nose where it don't belong. He was warned by several users in the past to stop harassing me. He agreed and promised me that he would stop. And now he's back at it with more threats. I'm fed up with you harassing me. I'm sick of you stalking me and watching my every move on Wikipedia. Get a life. Stop stalking me Realist. You have been stalking me since May 2008. Caden S (talk) 16:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

CadenS I'm not stalking you at all! There is a HUGE post about you at ANI. It's quite hard to avoid you know. You also broke your promise not to edit articles on sexuality. Then I see a post where you tell another editor that they disgust you. Christ CadenS, I'm not out to get you, I tried to help you the other week. I'm strongly advising you as a friend (I consider use on friendly terms) to stop editing these kinds of articles before your blocked. You are doing some wonderful work on other articles on wikipedia, but this other stuff is too much for you I think. I don't want to see you blocked, I really don't. Please calm down, before you get yourself into more trouble, please Caden. You love wikipedia (I hope), and we want you here. But you have your hot buttons for understandable reasons. Please make yourself some coffee or tea, take a chill and come back to what you do best. :-) — Realist² 16:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm certain this thread about the content dispute and the use of "gay" vs. "homosexual" did not have to come to ANI as members of WP:LGBT would argue about this, but Caden's posts must be addressed. Caden is an impulsive editor who allows his past experience to color his responses, which are disproportionately vehement in the scheme of natural discussion and disagreement editors have over article content. He has posted before that he has had a traumatic experience with gay men in the past, but his trauma should not define how editors communicate about problems within an article. In short, he's making his problems everyone else's problems. It sucks time away from what needs to be done to an article, and requires further intervention by his mentor kotra (talk · contribs). I can only imagine how draining this must be for kotra to have to calm Caden down this frequently. This diff provided by Benji regarding Caden's umbrage taken to non-gendered pronouns is a prime example. I can't think getting this stressed out is fun for Caden, and I suggest taking a break and doing something else that is much more enjoyable. The bottom line, however, is that other editors should not be forced to avoid his temper, especially when it's this unpredictable. He needs to take some responsibility for his behavior, tone it down, drop out of LGBT articles, and come back when he behave calmly and dispassionately. --Moni3 (talk) 16:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with Moni's assessment here - it's disappointing to see the same user here again for the same thing, as I remember the original AN/I from a few months ago quite well, and the promise made which essentially got him out of that one (noting I don't edit in the area but do watch AN/I fairly consistently and have done so for almost two years). Orderinchaos 17:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

After reviewing all of this, I'm afraid that I agree that Caden's temper flares when working on sexuality-related articles. That said, I just want to note that he has sometimes been a positive help on these sexuality-related articles, but unfortunately I'm not sure if it's worth all the anger and fighting behind the scenes. So I would be ok with a restriction on articles about sexuality. I agree with Realist, though, that he has usually been very helpful and an asset to the community on other articles, and his behavior had improved greatly until this recent flare-up. So I would support a topic restriction, but in the interests of the project, not a complete block. -kotra (talk) 17:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

As his mentor, I'm glad you suggested a possible solution that was also at the back of my mind. I think a sexuality topic ban is not necessary at this stage. Caden has every right to feel the way he does, but if he can't keep his feelings from disrupting the project in future, I think implementing such a ban is the next step, if only on a temporary basis. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you SheffieldSteel! Yes, I do have every right to feel the way I do, but many editors have attempted to strip me of my rights. At least that's how it appears to me. In regards to why my temper flared, it had nothing to do with the article content dispute. It was based on Benji's offensive description of me in all posts (as "they", "their" and "them"). I asked him many times as did my adopter, for him to refrain from describing me in gender-neutral languge. He has continued to disrespect my wishes nevertheless. A sexuality topic ban, or even a restriction on articles about sexuality is not necessary. My work on these articles speak for itself. If it weren't for me, both the E. O. Green School article and the Jesse Dirkhising article would not be NPOV. There are few POV issues still remaining on the Dirkhising page. Regardless of that, I fought hard against many POV pushers to save these articles and my good edits reflect that. Although those editors created an extremely stressful environment for me and painted me as the bad guy, I'm proud that I did what was right according to NPOV policy. I'm proud that I have the balls to speak up, the courage to be bold, and the strength to take action by doing what's right. Caden S (talk) 17:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I think a temporary topic restriction should go ahead, Kotra and even Caden himself seem to think it's probably for the best. We had a similar ANI post a few months ago, Caden said he would stay away from sexuality articles then, yet somehow we are back here. Caden has taken multiple cool of breaks (that last for weeks at a time) in the past yet things soon heat up again. Caden's talents as an editor should be kept to what he does best on other articles, without these other articles as a distraction. We really don't want another overblown ANI episode in the future, something I fear will put Caden off any interest in wikipedia. — Realist² 22:03, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Realist, please do not speak for me on my behalf. You have no business to put words into my mouth. I mean no offense to you, but I never agreed to any type of agreement in terms of avoiding any sexuality articles. All I said to you, was that I understood your suggestion, but I did not agree to any terms. Although I believe your intentions are good, I'd appreciate that you refrain from speaking on my behalf. At this point I have not been contacted by any admin, therefore I have no clue what options are available to me. Caden S (talk) 12:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

As an outsider here, it seems obviously better all round if Caden avoids topics that wind him up, however justified the reasoning, and in the long run it's better that he does that of his own accord than have it forced upon him. There are topics I specifically avoid because I know I'd only get het up, and to reduce the risk of threads such as this, er, um, I don't go there. Caden, whatever your past, its a cliche to say that "Wikipedia is not therapy", and neither (to a lesser extent) is it a soapbox for anger. Two and a half million articles should give you plenty to do. Your edits are generally good, from what I've seen, and you just need to point those talents to where they'll make you feel appreciated in the right kind of way. You have good guys on your side here; time is one healer, but doing something else is another, particularly if you've got people batting on your side. --Rodhullandemu 22:16, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Rod, I can see your point on this but I disagree with you. If I were to avoid these type of topics, they would end up being the horribly biased and POV articles they once were before I fought for them to be NPOV. However justified my feelings are concerning these subjects, the articles do not wind me up. It's some of the editors on those pages that get me going, like for example Benji. But I'm working on keeping my cool even when I'm personally attacked, which has been often. I do agree with you that it's better that I choose on my own accord, whether I shouldn't work on these articles or not, instead of it being forced upon me. I am open to feedback and suggestions though. As for working on other articles, I do work on many unrelated type of articles. I enjoy doing so. But as it stands today, I'm not sure what's going to happen with me or this ANI report. I'm not even sure why Moni went and shifted the spotlight from the original content dispute (of which this report is supposed to be about) to my behavior. I have a lot of questions but no answers. Am I going to be blocked or not? Am I going to be given a topic restriction or not? Why is the content dispute not being discussed anymore? What about the other editor Ave Caesar? This ANI was filed against this editor as well, not just me. Why am I being singled out? Why has the real issue here (the content dispute) been forgotten? Caden S (talk) 17:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

With the best will in the world, what worries me is that I doubt you are sufficiently disinterested to preserve NPOV, and that is why I think you should avoid those articles, for the very reason that this thread came to be. Up to you, of course. --Rodhullandemu 17:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

There's several categories of articles I never go anywhere near for that exact reason - I know that no matter how good my intentions, my personal opinions on the area are so strong that I know I could not be neutral and hence it is best left to others who are. Orderinchaos 18:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

L::Well, User:Mastcell has suggested a restriction, at this point though what's most important is ensuring that we don't have another ANI thread like this. This is the second and I'm not sure the community will tolerate a third incident like this. We should be looking to help Caden make the most of his abilities without all this other stuff muddying it up. If a restriction is the best way to prevent that, who knows. — Realist² 18:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Rod, you didn't answer any of my questions. Furthermore, this report is not about just me. It was filed against another editor as well. And Realist, this report is not about me. I already told you this before. Caden S (talk) 18:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Bangle-butt

I just nuked Bangle-butt (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) per WP:BLP, having been attracted to Chris Bangle (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) by a request to link a petition to sack the designer at Mediawiki talk:Spam-blacklist#petitiononline.com. The article documents (using the word loosely) a derogatory term used by detractors to describe a specific design feature associated largely, though not exclusively, to this one designer. It's a love/hate thing, and the biography and that nuked article are dominated by the hate group. Feel free to undelete the article and give it a more appropriate title, and strip out the derogatory overtones, if you can find sourcing. Guy (Help!) 14:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I dunno, the article has been around since 2005, and a 30 second search reveals more than enough sources that would warrant an article under that specific term. I think the article should be undeleted or started anew from scratch. --Conti|✉ 15:11, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see how "No one bothered to nuke it before now" somehow makes a subject encyclopedic. Age does not always denote worth - check out any dirty old man or meddlesome old lady for proof of that. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I thought that linking to dozens of reliable sources using that term was the better part of my argument, too. :) --Conti|✉ 00:33, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

If it should be anything (doubtful), it should be a redirect to Chris Bangle with some sourced information (if that's possible) at that article. Black Kite 17:54, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Good idea; I've redirected, although I have not added any content to the article. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:04, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I've seen the article numerous times in popular car magazines 100+ instances,3 instances,164 instances (mainly forums, some reviews. Here's a quote from a Motor Trend Interview with Bangle: Love or loathe his work, Bangle's impact on auto design has been profound. No other designer, not even legendary GM design chief Harley Earl, has so rapidly become a part of the industry lexicon. To "bangle" a design is now an auto-industry verb for ruining it. Auto writers use "Bangle butt" to describe a tail with an extra layer of metal on the trunk (think new Mercedes S-Class). Bangle, some rivals will remind you, is only one letter away from "bungle." Whether or not the term deserves it's own article is debatable, but at the very least should be addressed in Bangle's bio. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 18:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no opinion on what else to do with it, but redirecting it to the BLP is NOT a good way to leave it. Someone googling that term would think that the term is referring to him and not realize that it is referring to the car. It should either redirect to an article subsection, be an actual article, or redirect to an article on automotive slang (if there is such a thing). But leaving it as a redirect to the BLP really isn't acceptable IMO. --B (talk) 23:09, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Fair point. Guy (Help!) 21:52, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree it should not redirect to Bangle's bio. It's a bio about his whole person, not just his butt. The term Bangle-butt should stay redlinked, per WP:NEO, WP:BLP, and WP:CSD#R3 (Implausible). I've heard the editorial comment "that car has been bangled" (verb) as well, doesn't mean it belongs in an encyclopedia. Keeper ǀ 76 16:42, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the term isn't notable by itself. If I read this right, this is all automotive related, right? Don't we have a list of automotive industry related slang or some other similar minutiae?--Tznkai (talk) 18:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it quite fits as part of List of automotive superlatives. Maybe the BMW is the "first car to be criticized as ugly enough to disparage it's designer?", although I can't hardly imagine this is the first designer to be criticized in car mags. Someone stunk up the world with the Ford Pinto and the AMC Gremlin after all....18:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I am surprised the article is deleted. The subject is well known among car enthusiasts. And imho notable. [1] --Boivie (talk) 19:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Impolite communication

A notification.
User:Texcarson wrote in summary "deleting idiot's vandalism"[2] as a comment of my tagging as "suspicious sockpuppet".
He later gave some explanations [3] and [4].
However, calling someone as "idiot" and his contribution as "vandalism" just like that is not the appropriate way of communication. He's long enough on Wikipedia, he's supposed to know the rule WP:CIVIL. Kubura (talk) 07:38, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I do not see any need for admin intervention here. He explained his reasoning (even though he did not apologize) and has not done further personal attacks, has he? WP:NPA tells us to seek dispute resolution in such cases first, maybe reporting the user to the Wikiquette Alerts but posting here is quite unnecessary imho. There is nothing an admin can do that you or any other editor cannot do, i.e. tell the user that such attacks should be avoided. Regards SoWhy 07:56, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. After all, tagging an active user as a sockpuppet of a banned user is not exactly an uncontroversial act in itself. I see nothing here needing action absent further escalation of the issue by either side. Guy (Help!) 10:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

And those of us who patrol WQA could have looked :) However, you accuse me of being a sock without any good proof, I might just call you an idiot as well, but I'll do it in French instead BMW(drive) 22:56, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I believe the french word for idiot is... idiot. Pronounced differently, though. L'Aquatique[talk] 20:23, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

As I said in the beginning, "a notification". Insulting others shouldn't remain unnoticed. I've wanted to draw admin's attention to this.
Although he hasn't continued with this, he hasn't apologised. Still, one cannot spit in the face and then lick that, thinking that he'll get away with that. Act of perpetrated spitting remains.
I've been tagged as suspicious sockpuppet few times, few times RFCU was filed with me as suspected user, but I've never used rude words against those who tagged me or started RFCU.
I've been present on en.wiki since June 2005, and I've always been choosing my words carefully.
That rule (WP:CIVIL) applies for the others also. I haven't came on en.wiki to suffer insults.
I don't want to tolerate such behaviour. Have in mind that verbal molesting usually starts with "small" steps, and the insulter always slowly pushes the borders even further (as the insulter is encouraged with non-acting of those who are supposed to sanction that). Kubura (talk) 07:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

And as stated, the Dispute Resolution process has Step 1: deal with it directly with the editor 1-on-1. If that doesn't work, go to Step 2: file a civility report on WP:WQA. Step 3 (if necessary) is either RfC or AN/I. Please don't skip steps when the "level" is where it is right now. BMW(drive) 13:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Mtngoat63

Resolved

 – editor blocked for 72 hours (and report is old by now anyway) - Wikidemon (talk) 19:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Mtngoat63 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), fresh off a block for 3RR (actually 6RR - see discussion above), returns to the article to begin revert warring[5][6] and uncivil rants.[7] Has been warned plenty of times, and calmly offered advice on learning Wikipedia's content and behavior policies (see his talk page, for instance). Thanks. Wikidemon (talk) 20:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The incivility of this editor got under my skin enough that, for the very first time, I committed a 3RR violation myself and was briefly blocked for it. Mtngoat63 has not, as of yet, engaged in a single discussion over the contentious material s/he has been edit-warring over, despite repeated -- nay, continuous -- efforts to engage with the editor. I am beginning to wonder whether Wikipedia has been subjected to one of the long-term abusers, such as Wikipedia:Long term abuse/HeadleyDown. --GoodDamon 22:50, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Editor has reverted a third time.[8] GoodDamon reports that the citation links are copyvios. I'm proposing to restore stable neutral article content (this would be my 2RR today). Anyone, please feel free to tell me no or jump in. All attempts to communicate or reach consensus failed at this point. Thanks, Wikidemon (talk) 23:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't believe I didn't catch them earlier. One of them is a pure C&P of text written by Barack Obama, stored on someone's non-reliable (and presumably non-permitted) website. The others I removed are literally scanned pages of books, stored at a free image hosting website. I cannot comprehend what would lead someone to believe those would be suitable and permissible uses of copyrighted works. --GoodDamon 23:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Why is the short Obama paragraph being taken out when the Hillary Clinton paragraph just above it is left in? Saul Alinsky influenced Barack Obama, didn't he? That's what all the sources that mention both of them indicate. Seems like important information for the Alinsky article and, in fact, it's the kind of information on influences that would typically be in a Wikipedia article. How is your edit warring on this any different from POV pushing? I've read the discussion at Talk:Saul Alinsky#Contentious paragraph re-added without discussion and the discussion doesn't address why you wouldn't want an adequate mention of Alinsky's influence on the Democratic candidate for president. Because neither of you adequately address this point, it's pretty damn obvious why an editor would be increasingly upset. You POV push for obviously bogus reasons (trying to protect Barack Obama from criticism that might come from being more closely associated with the radical Alinsky) until someone gets so upset that a behavioral violation results, and Wikidemon immediately files a report at AN/I. I call it the "Wikidemon Method". See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Possible WP:CANVASSING at Obama/Ayers/Dohrn/Weatherman WP:RfC for a similar application of the Wikidemon Method. A non-POV-pushing way of doing this would be to find acceptable language, acceptably sourced, that mentions Alinsky's influence on Obama. This is part of a POV-pushing campaign that goes from article to article, battling to scrub each one of anything that might be inconvenient for the Obama campaign. It's on Obama-related articles, it's going on at Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Weatherman (organization). It's often got the same editors involved. Vague allusions to Wikipedia policy are made, evidently for the sake of apearances, because no specifics are mentioned. "Reasoning" that is utterly bogus on its face is proffered: GoodDamon saying that it is forbidden for Wikipedia to link to some web page on which GoodDamon alleges that there's a copyright violation. Where is that prohibition in Wikipedia policy? The POV-pushing pattern is clear. -- Noroton (talk) 00:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Can we please strike the above comment? It's really unwarranted - Wikidemon (talk) 02:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I was wrong about linking to a copyvio web page, as GoodDamon pointed out to me at Talk:Saul Alinsky, so I've crossed out that part. See how it's done, guys? You actually pay attention to the facts and when you're wrong, you admit it. Because the facts are more important than your personal preferences. Too bad you didn't follow that practice at Saul Alinsky, where you first claimed that you were removing a paragraph about Obama because it was poorly sourced and improbable. It turns out, the Wikipedia old hands didn't have a clue and the newbie they roughed up knew just what he was talking about. Pathetic. See Talk:Saul Alinsky#Contentious paragraph re-added without discussion. But for the shameful treatment, go through the short, sad history of Mtngoat63's talk page and his discussions at Talk:Saul Alinsky. Ugh. -- Noroton (talk) 06:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

At this point, I literally have no idea what you're talking about. Good job on recognizing clear violations of policy, but... what? Looking back on those earlier edits, Mtngoat63 was first trying to get the paragraph in with laughably awful sources including copyright violations and a creationist blog (the "dancingfromgenesis" one), and refused to even acknowledge that other editors might have a problem with that. I literally "begged" the editor to take the content dispute to the talk page, and simply got insults for it. Let me be blunt: Ignorance of Wikipedia policies and guidelines is mever a valid excuse for personal attacks, especially on editors who are trying to help. --GoodDamon 06:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The article in question... oh, wait, you're bringing up Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn here? Why? Well, anyway, as near as I can tell, Barack Obama never met Alinsky, so any information about the influence of Alinsky's writings on Obama actually belongs somewhere in the Obama family of articles, not in Alinsky's biography. But as Alinsky and Hillary Clinton did meet, that may merit a mention. So, as for the rest of what you wrote... Can you remind me what it has to do with this incident? --GoodDamon 01:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Additional comment - Mtngoat63 has continued to edit the article Saul Alinsky, with the apparent intention of turning the article into a list of supposed Alinsky followers, with a particular emphasis on Barack Obama. See here for a diff comparing the article prior to this editor's changes and after those changes. The editor is no longer sourcing those edits to copyright-violating links, but is now almost solely reliant on one opinion piece appearing in the Washington Post. Saul Alinsky is a notable political figure, and there is a lot more biographical information available from many reliable sources. But at this point, I am firmly convinced Mtngoat63 is only interested in turning the article into a coatrack for guilt-by-association listings of other political figures, several of which, like Obama, never seem to have met the man (at least, not from what I can tell with five minutes on the Google). The editor has made no effort to expand the article's biographical content. --GoodDamon 01:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Will an administrator please take some notice of this? There is now an anonymous editor defending the continued coatrack editing of Mtngoat63, and I strongly suspect the anonymous editor is a sock of another editor based on edit summaries. --GoodDamon 04:47, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This looks like an issue for dispute resolution. Stifle (talk) 11:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. The editor in question has been abusive and antagonistic to the point where I don't think this can accurately be described as a content dispute. Nevertheless, if that is your determination, I'll open a new report there. --GoodDamon 14:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Can we please have some assistance with this editor? Continuing to revert war over poor content.[9] That's the 9th revert of this material in 3 days by the same editor, [[10]][[11]][[12]][[13]][[ [[14]][[15]][[16]][[17]][[18]] and about 13 in a week, fresh out of a block for 6RR on the same content in another article, accompanied by ongoing vituperation and suspected IP sock behavior ([[19]]). There is utterly no sign of acknowledging policy, working with other editors, etc.[20][21] I would rate the chance of this working out without administrative intervention at about zero. Thanks, Wikidemon (talk) 17:23, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

...okay, the editor just violated 3RR again so I filed another report there. Wikidemon (talk) 17:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• As an alternative to kicking a new editor in the teeth, repeatedly, as a way of welcoming that editor to Wikipedia, and filing complaints at 3RR/N, the Sockpuppet noticeboard and here, I've left a friendly, courteous note on the editors page, at User talk:Mtngoat63#Some unsolicited advice (diff here [22]). Please watch, give it a chance and maybe it will have some positive results. Obviously, if disruption continues, it didn't work. I've posted a similar note at 3RR/N and the Sockpuppet noticeboard. I should have done this earlier. -- Noroton (talk) 01:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

If it works I'm all for it! This report is stale now anyway. Don't forget to be nice to established editors, too :) Wikidemon (talk) 02:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Deviljin60 self-identifies as a militant and refuses to clarify

I am more than a little concerned by Deviljin60 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), who recently described themselves as 'a pakistani militant' in an edit summary [23] and then deleted a talk page request to explain or clarify [24] .

He's been editing in a somewhat but not seriously disruptive manner, however the "I'm a militant" claim raises a whole bunch of other potential problems. It's generally rude to put a deleted question or comment back on someone's talk page. However, if this is a (violent terrorist type) militant, then I think that we probably would want to politely show him the door.

SO...

1. Ask again, and if he deletes again or fails to clarify block?
2. Ask again, but don't block even if he turns out to be a (violent terrorist type) militant?
3. Ask again, but don't block even if he just deletes the question again?
4. Someone else do the asking?
5. Don't worry about it?

Other options and input welcome as well. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:57, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

1. 1. ThuranX (talk) 23:59, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

1, but only to coerce him into answering the question. --erachima talk 00:04, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

5, I find the claim to be highly dubious. Erik the Red 2 ~~~~ 00:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• Certainly not 1, as users are usually allowed to remove comments from their own talk pages, and simply not answering a question is not grounds for blocking (how would it be preventative?). Even if this user comes out and says s/he's a terrorist, I'm not sure how justified a block would be unless their edits are disruptive. I would say 3, 4, or 5. -kotra (talk) 00:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd say do nothing about the "militant" statement. I could say I'm Osama Bin Laden, but if I don't provide third party verifiable sources for any information I include in an article, I should be reverted. And if I continue to ignore any warning to provide such WP:V, then block away. Militants may have something to add just like anyone else, as long as they are not disruptive and don't ignore WP policies and guidelines.--«JavierMC»|Talk 00:52, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I would hope that if you say you're Osama Bin Laden, someone would at least run a checkuser. :-) Hesperian 02:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

That $20 million reward is tempting huh? :)~ --«JavierMC»|Talk 02:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, JavierMC's course of action would be the sensible one. Alternatively, we could block him along with other militants on the project, such as anybody with this on their userpage. I thought we (used to?) at least pretend around here that U.S. foreign policy doesn't determine Wikipedia policy. <eleland/talkedits> 01:20, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, "militant" ≠ "terrorist", folks. Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 01:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the crux of the matter is whether he is a constructive editor or not. What difference his "militancy" if he does not carry on here with it, in either his editing or in using Wikipedia to promote an off-Wiki agenda. Dlohcierekim 01:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

3, 4, or 5. If its not showing in his editing, no big deal. rootology (C)(T) 03:16, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Please. If you take a look at the history of his user page, you'll see that his command of English isn't very good. He's probably in the Pakistani Army. I once had a conversation with a fellow from Spain who repeatedly told me that he used to be a "militar", while he did a little pantomime of marching. It didn't take me long to figure out that what he had been was a soldier. The answer is obviously 5--Steven J. Anderson (talk) 04:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It's still a polemic in violation of WP:USER. How does his identifying as a militant help the encyclopedia, with such obvious examples of how it hurts it? ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 05:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• You're in violation of WP:AGF. Bear in mind firstly, militant does not mean terrorist. Secondly, remember he's editing in good faith, and not causing any trouble. Thirdly, be aware he isn't a native English speaker, and "militant" to him may mean "soldier", "military man", or even "military fan". fish&karate 14:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Look at the user's edits. He's been updating articles with technical details of Pakistani military equipment. He's added things like Its armor can withstand more than 10 RPG's(Rocket propelled grenades). to Al Khalid II Main Battle Tank[25]. This editor is either a soldier or a military buff. Quit worrying. --John Nagle (talk) 05:28, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:AGF would suggest that one give the user the benefit of the doubt on that question, but that doesn't mean we have to wilfully ignore what they wrote in particular. Which is why I first asked on his talk page, and then when that was deleted by him without answering I came here. What I asked them included that exact question - whether they were what is known in US english as a military buff, explaining how "militant" is used in normal english. Rather than actually answering the question, they just deleted it.

I can continue to AGF, but it's a worrysome enough possibility that I think it's worth following up, hence the post here. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Please, please, do not take any action that would make the city of Boston look sage and cautious by comparison. Protonk (talk) 05:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Look at the bright side: Every minute he's on wikipedia is a minute he's not out trying to kill somebody. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

So we want to block a constructive editor because . . . ?[ If he were a terrorist, he'd hardly announce here, would he? This is a bit preposterous. And certainly, if anyone linked to terrorism were editing here, wouldn't the CIA be unto them? This is one of the busiest websites on the Internet. Anyone who doesn't think CIA monitors activity here is probably pretty naive. And I'm sure they would figure out who and where someone was faster than you could say "WhoIs"? Dlohcierekim 19:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of which, Dlohcierekim, the US government has a few question to ask you... We are taking this way to seriously. Erik the Red 2 ~~~~ 21:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

See intro - user is somewhat disruptive, but AGF'ing indicates it's just new user unfamiliar with Wikipedia ways. They have been resistant to repeated polite requests to change, so far. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Mcumpston

Mcumpston (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) making PAs as a result of my notification of a copyvio and the removal of some images of questionable merit; see all his edits between 23:48, 25 September 2008 and 06:29, 25 September 2008; mostly made after my advice that he read WP:NPA and WP:AGF. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 08:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a content dispute. I suggest you try dispute resolution or Wikiquette Alerts first, as there is no real need for admin intervention as far as I see it. Regards SoWhy 09:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

←This is more than a mere content dispute:

• "Article ... destroyed because of whatever idiocy motivates the complainant"
• "Apparently something I added to one or another articles set this individual off"
• "I apparently blunderd into an area that offended your sensibilities"
• "I didn't realize that the person promulgating the attack on the article was also monitoring LWF's talk page. Had I realized this I would not have characterized him in such an inflamatory and comtemptious manner"
• "I believe the inclusion of a picture of a hunter with a feral hog brough me to his attention and inflamed him in some manner causing him to research my articles and begin deleting material" (he believes wrongly).

Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 09:41, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Nevertheless this should be handled as dispute resolution. There is no apparent need for admin intervention as far as I can see it. Or to rephrase that: What do you think an admin should do about it? They are not mediators that's why WP:DR exists after all (to quote from WP:DR: The Administrators' Noticeboard is not the place to raise disputes over content, or reports of abusive behaviour. Administrators are not referees, and have limited authority to deal with abusive editors.). Regards SoWhy 11:04, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I concur, this is a matter for WP:DR. Stifle (talk) 11:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Even though he's since reverted to the Copyvio version? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:52, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• From the talk page: Let me say this about the alleged copywright violation. The apparently violated passage linked to this page is a UK based-commercial blurb of a book WHICH I WROTE AND TO WHICH I HOLD THE COPYWRIGHT. This is obviously and transparently sourced in the reference section of this article--Mcumpston (talk) 23:52, 24 September 2008 (UTC). So, Andy, once again you appear to be acting ni a disruptive and WP:POINTy way. Now would be a great time to stop. Guy (Help!) 13:04, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
  • From the copyvio boilerplate: "If you own the copyright to the material: send an e-mail from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en(at)wikimedia(dot)org or a postal message to the Wikimedia Foundation permitting re-use under the GFDL, and note that you have done so on Talk:Walker Colt.". Now, please stop making baseless allegations. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• Andy, you are being a dick. Would you liek to explain why you didn't simply point Mcumpston to Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials, which would have speedily resolved the issue, as he is obviously the rights owner? Guy (Help!) 13:16, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Kindly keep your penile insults to yourself. I didn't do so because, at the time I flagged the page as a copyvio, in accordance with the prescribed procedure, he hadn't made the claim to be the author (in fact the book has two listed authors; is he both?). As soon as he did make that claim, on his talk page, I did point him to the relevant part of the boilerplate, as quoted above. I note that you have now reverted to the version of the page containing the apparent copyvio. I've seen no verification of his claim to be the author; have you? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on completely missing the point of that long-standing meta essay. If this happens again, all you need to do is point the user to the Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials page. When they read it, content authors either send a release or run screaming (usually they do not release under GFDL, in my experience). The point is, the dispute is usually resolved swiftly and with minimal disruption. Simply revert-warring does not fix the problem, it prolongs and escalates it; instead, you need to engage the user and get him to realise what he must do to release the text and exactly what that would mean. And usually just reading the release page is sufficient. As to reverting, I simply reverted to the last version with content, on the grounds that the massive copyvio tag with zero actual content was not actually helping anyone. Had you left it at a version with content I'd not have rolled back. And what's happened is that we appear to have conspired, once again, to drive off a potential contributor with some subject knowledge - I was sort of hoping that might be avoidable in this case. Why the bluntness? Because we have been here before. So, if this happens again, please just link the release page, most authors will speedily withdraw rather than surrender all rights, as this one did in about 45 minutes, including the time it took him to read the page. That would be a great way to avoid drama if any similar dispute arises in future. Guy (Help!) 14:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have missed: I didn't do so because, at the time I flagged the page as a copyvio, in accordance with the prescribed procedure, he hadn't made the claim to be the author (in fact the book has two listed authors; is he both?). As soon as he did make that claim, on his talk page, I did point him to the relevant part of the boilerplate, as quoted above. If you wish to revise the Copyvio procedure, which I followed, this is not the forum to do so. You owe me an apology,; though it's clear from your talk page you don't intend to make one. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It's almost as if you have a reputation for disutatiousness and edit warring, isn't it? Oh, wait, you do have a reputation for just that. And trolling, quite a lot. So, sorry, it's a case of "give a dog a bad name". I posted the lnik to the page on releasing material, and Mcumpston immediately ceased the dispute - 45 minutes post to post. If I can do it, so can you. Guy (Help!) 14:42, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

From my lofty perch safely outside the conflict, it seems to me that you two have gotten on each others nerves, and are now sniping at each other more from annoyance than anything else. IMHO, this issue is more or less resolved, and things would work out better if you both walked away, even if not 100% satisfied with the results.

To facilitate this, I will offer my trademarked World Famous Bigger Person Award not yet designed; I'll get right to work on it though to the person that lets the other one make the final post in this thread. Guy, unfortunately Andy has a head start in this regard, since you were the last one to post, but life is unfair sometimes.

Surely no one would be able to resist such an award? --barneca (talk) 14:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

update: Mcumpston has now made explicitly clear that he does not wish to relinquish his copyright. Your revert to the Copyvio version now seems increasingly unwise. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The current state of the page seems to be in order. Mcumpston has ceased editing. Anything else? Stifle (talk) 14:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, yes. The images. Mcumpston uploaded two with the {{PD-self}} tag, and has since removed the tag and replaced it with "withdrawn". PD releases cannot, however, be withdrawn, and I've reverted one removal while Andy has reverted the other. Stifle (talk) 14:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I would query whether the two images Mcumpston uploaded added much value, and suggest if he wishes to delete the two images he uploaded, it would be a gesture of good will to do so. fish&karate 14:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think they qualify for G7 — it's fairly clear that he is attempting to withdraw the license illegitimately. Stifle (talk) 14:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

A user can change their mind on submitting their own text to Wikipedia, but not the images? This doesn't seem right. A gesture of good will would not require images to qualify for any speedy criterion. fish&karate 14:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Umm, the GFDL is irrevocable. John Reaves 14:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Umm, so? That means we can use the images, not that we should. fish&karate 10:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It's more that the images are quite useful whereas the article can survive fine without the text. Stifle (talk) 18:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

As Mcumpston has - as Andy says - stated he does not wish to permit re-use under GFDL (he was intially unaware this was a requirement of donating material), use of the material is again a copyright violation, so I have reverted Walker Colt to the last good version. This can probably be marked as resolved. fish&karate 14:03, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I've selectively deleted all versions of the page since Mcumpston showed up. Stifle (talk) 14:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Based on their edits (mostly the same gun articles), are User:Cumpston and User:Mcumpston the same person? fish&karate 14:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record (no impropriety suggested), note that he seems to have previously posted as Cumpston (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:16, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

No, no improprietry - just trying to track all his edits to see if he'd submitted anything else from his own books to other pages. I can't find anything. fish&karate 14:23, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry - I didn't see your post when I made mine; I meant that I was not implying impropriety. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:26, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Also Cump (talk · contribs) (again, no evidence of improprietry, just logging it here for contribution tracking). fish&karate 10:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Mcumpston is now edit-warring over rights on images. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm seeing if I can explain it to him, hoping that I'm not completely wrong. Let's try not to edit war, though, eh? lifebaka++ 15:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

So what's being said here is that images are being deleted left and right at a furious pace, all over Wikipedia, due to rampant copyright paranoia, but this guy can't delete his own damn photograph? That's cute.

What's wrong with his putting a {{db-author}} template on it, and letting it be deleted? Just because a free image exists, doesn't mean that we're required to use it.Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 01:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. Based on User talk:Mcumpston, it seems that he is the copyright holder of the images. He submitted them under a PD licence, and subsequently changed his mind. This means Wikipedia retain the image. It does not mean we are obliged to, however. There are plenty of Walker Colt / Colt Walker images on Flickr, surely a couple of them must be under CC licensing. If anyone good with images could spend a few minutes finding a suitable one (Flickr images are blocked for me - I can see search results but not the images), the images Mcumpston wants deleted could safely be deleted. fish&karate 10:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This one is BY-NC-ND 2.0 licensed. I'm not entirely au fait with Wikipedia's licensing polices though, so I don't know if that's OK, but I'm just trying to help out here. Codeine (talk) 15:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

<reset indent>I don't see the problem with deleting the images. It seems he didn't understand the license (specifically the commercial aspect) so I don't really see how the license is valid anyway. I'm rather inclined to delete the images. Sarah 19:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It appears there is indeed a licensing issue with these images, sadly - as they are good ones. Not everyone understands our copyright rules and I think there would be grounds to delete under invalid licence (also note NC is not compatible with Wiki) Orderinchaos 19:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I've deleted the three images (one was orphaned) that he was not happy with. I don't see how it can be considered a valid license when he has made it clear that he didn't understand the terms and didn't intend to release them for commercial use. And as he has given us dozens of other images, it seems sensible and decent to show a little consideration with respect to these three pictures when he has made it clear that he didn't want to release them under a free for all license. I agree with Orderinchaos that it's rather unfortunate because they're nice pictures but, as others have said, I'm sure we'll be able to find replacements, either through flickr or something similar or via one of the gun editors. Sarah 00:48, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Mass deletion of maps

There are mass deletions of properly-licensed commons map images on over 600 WP pages by Commons Delinker: Special:Contributions/CommonsDelinker. Apparently the map images erroneously listed for deletion at commons but have been (or are being) restored:[26] but the bot has been deleting them. Message has been posted to operator’s talk page. Can someone stop the bot and roll the changes back? Kablammo (talk) 11:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I've blocked the bot; Haukurth seems to be engaging himself in cleaning up the mess. Stifle (talk) 11:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Unblock the bot. It's not the bot's fault. The images were tagged {{subst:nsd}} at the Commons and then deleted, without either tagger or deleter pausing to think about what they were doing. The images have been restored in the meantime, but I don't know if CommonsDelinker has an option somewhere to automatically undo its edits for a particular image. Lupo 11:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

BTW, there is no "issue" to "resolve" with the bot.[27] The bot worked exactly as it should. The problem was caused by a human error. Lupo 11:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Unblock done. Lupo 11:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with the Block and the Unblock. Even if it was human error that caused the problem, blocking the bot is the quickest and surest way to stop the problem from getting worse - and is not a reflection on the bot itself, as evidenced by the quick unblock. Just wanted to toss that in. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 12:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Yup. It appears the bot had finished with its unlinking at 11:14 UTC. So there was no need any longer to keep it blocked. Lupo 12:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all. As Lupo mentioned here, the bot apparently was deleting images that had been restored a short time before; as was unclear that the bot was finished, a block was appropriate to limit the damage. Kablammo (talk) 12:18, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It started up again so I reblocked it and rolled back the additional edits. Haukur (talk) 12:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Haukurth. The problem extends to other projects, per these fairly direct comments. Kablammo (talk) 12:47, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

If the problem is continuing, you could probably request a temporary global block of the bot over at Meta until the problem is resolved. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 16:25, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I really don't see the point of blocking CommonsDelinker on all wikimedia projects; this bot doesn't delete any images, it only unlinks red links. Anyone who would like to block the bot should rather contact the Commons admin who's making the mistake. guillom 13:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the bot will unlink deleted images even if they have been restored in the meantime. Haukur (talk) 10:32, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Suicide threat - cross posted from WP:AIV

Suicide announcement?

I don't know if this is serious or just a hoax: [28]. But you never know. The IP is registered to St. John's Memorial University, St. John's, NFL, Canada. De728631 (talk) 13:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I think we have some framework in place to deal with these things but I can't remember what it is. Perhaps someone in the area should phone the uni, just in case. — ^.^ ^{[citation needed]} 13:16, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

In most cases WP:RBI. D.M.N. (talk) 13:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I suggest the possibly less harmful and lifesaving Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm. — ^.^ ^{[citation needed]} 13:20, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I found that too, sent an email to the NFL Constabulary, maybe that helps. De728631 (talk) 13:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

That likely wraps it up. Nothing more we can do here except move on. Cheers, guys, and good work. lifebaka++ 14:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

We probably want the edit deleted from non admin viewable history, but we'll probably need an oversighter to do it.--Tznkai (talk) 15:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Sent an email to stewards AT wikimedia.org, so it'll either get taken care of or not. Cheers. lifebaka++ 16:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely to NOT WP:RBI this. There has been a specific threat of violence made and pursuant to WP:TOV this should be taken seriously and reported to the authorities. I am currently on a bus from Boston to New York so cannot do this. Can someone please take point on this? Bstone (talk) 16:03, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Give me a moment to set up a subpage, with two active threads this is getting to damned confusing.

FYI, action has already been taken - Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Suicide_threat_-_cross_posted_from_WP:AIV. Cirt (talk) 16:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I would not suggest to use RBI, instead contacting local users so effective measures can be taken. Caulde 16:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This may be helfpul: Wikipedia:Responding to suicidal individuals --Flewis^(talk) 03:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Suicide threat - cross posted from WP:AIV

Resolved

 – authorities notified Toddst1 (talk) 15:36, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

134.153.184.17 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) has threatened to commit suicide. The Whois look up indicates the address is registered to a university in Newfoundland. I've emailed the university and the Wikimedia foundation, however I'm not based in North America, and would be grateful if someone could phone the Canadian emergency services. PhilKnight (talk) 13:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Per WP:TOV, if anyone finds these threats of suicide credible, please feel free to contact the relevant authorities. I have blocked the IP for the vandalism, but have not taken any additional action myself. -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I reported this one level above on this noticeboard. An email was sent to the Newfoundland Constabulary and to the Wikimedia foundation (who just replied that they're going to monitor this). De728631 (talk) 13:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The AN thread resulted in the local government being emailed, so there's nothing else we can do here. Cheers. lifebaka++ 14:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I also followed up via email with the IT department at that university. Toddst1 (talk) 15:36, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

See dup thread: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Suicide_announcement.3F. Cirt (talk) 16:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Unified

This is now a transcluded so both pages are up to date simulatiniously--Tznkai (talk) 16:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Oversight

I have been asked to oversight the revision concerned here. I have declined to do so, with the advice of some other Oversighters, on the grounds that it may be helpful for ISP/authorities to see the revision. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 16:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Should we have it deleted/oversighted sometime in the future? --Tznkai (talk) 16:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

No point, I think. Stifle (talk) 18:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I cannot see why this should ever be oversighted. If blatant vandalism is not oversighted or deleted than things which the authorities may need access to should certainly not be oversighted. Bstone (talk) 22:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, the Threats of harm essay above suggests deleting, not oversighting the offending edit. Usually to avoid people doing something really stupid misguided with a potentially suicidal person.--Tznkai (talk) 04:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed change of confusing jargon

Why do we call it oversight? Oversight usually means some sort of independent review or process, often to try to keep people honest. Wikipedia usage of oversight really means "Removal", "Content deletion" or "Censor" (censorship doesn't need to be bad; some countries have a censorship board). Propose making Wikipedia more user friendly and less jargon by renaming the term "oversight" to "content removal" or "remove". So the first sentence of this section would read "I have been asked to do content removal of the revision concerned here" or "I have been asked to remove the revision concerned here". 903M (talk) 03:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Not meaning to seem like I'm muting discussion here or anything, but you probably should head over to WP:VPP for things like this. You'll get a much wider group of editors there. Cheers. lifebaka++ 03:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I forget where I read this, but IIRC, the name came from the fact that all members can hide revisions and also see those hidden revisions, thereby providing oversight of each other to ensure that no one is hiding revisions that don't need to be hidden or hiding them for ulterior motives. Or it may have been that a narrow group had that oversight role and more could hide revisions, but now the groups are congruent and inseparable.--chaser - t 05:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The way I've always looked at it is since the GFDL requires attribution of all edits, exercising this tool is sort of "overlooking" that license, as we're deleting part of the history. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't have anything to do with it (admins can do that with deletion and selective diff restoraton).--chaser - t 06:04, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

The GFDL also only requires us to have the major contributors. Almost universally when we oversight whatever is left has little to no contribution from the edits in question. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Advice needed on abuse reporting

Hi, chaps. I'd like some advice on what do with banned user Jacob Peters (talk · contribs). Jakey's a pro-Soviet POV-pusher who got banned way back in the day for monomaniacal nuttery and has since been socking merrily ever since (Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Jacob Peters, Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Jacob Peters, Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Jacob Peters). He just made a reappearance on Vladimir Lenin - up to his old tricks.

For a while now, Jakey seems to have become very reliant on the IPs of the California State University network: specifically, those belonging to Glendale Community College (California), where he is apparently an undergraduate (heaven help us). This has caused me to apply some very serious blocks, effectively shutting out the whole college. The IPs in question are 204.102.211.115 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), coming to the end of a year-long account-creation-blocked logged-in editing-prohibited block, 207.151.38.178 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) approaching the end of an identical block, and 204.102.210.101 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), currently out of play for a month. A shame, because even from the IPs we were getting some good non-Jacob contributions (along with the inevitable vandalism). Is it worth someone phoning up the college and seeing if they're willing to deal with this persistent abuse of their network? Or would they view it as none of their business? I don't have a real name to give them, but they could easily figure it out from the editing times, I'm sure. Moreschi (talk) 21:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I went to Cal State, and those librarians ain't exactly super-sleuths. Plus, you don't even need to use your student ID to use most of the computers, so I really doubt they would do anything about it. I can't really picture them poring over security tapes. I don't have much of an opinion about the blocks—if I had my way, no IPs would edit—but that's my two cents about the phone call, at least. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 21:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

"if I had my way, no IPs would edit" - Hear, hear! Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 01:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I see a lot if IP edits on my watch list every day, and I'm always pleasantly surprised when one of them turns out not to be either blatant vandalism or English-as-a-third-language content. The attitude of the average IP address is "IP on U". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to disagree strongly on IPs in general. (Though this one certainly deserves it.) Sure, some IPs vandalize, but often as not they're reverted by other IPs. I see far more problems from registered users - hoaxes, attack pages, blatant POV pushing, edit warring, etc. Just take a look at this incident page - almost every problem on it is a registered user, not an IP. Edward321 (talk) 05:10, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

That's because IP's come and go, and it's easier to deal with (and block) registered users. The majority of IP address updates I see on my watch list every day are junk, one way or another. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 07:07, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

They might be able to do something, might not. No harm in calling. It really depends on the attitude at that college. Maybe they'll do something when enough students whine that the whole campus is blocked from Wikipedia. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:14, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Goingoveredge again

How many times does Goingoveredge (talk · contribs) need to be blocked before finally being banned? It doesn't seem to stop him, he just waits till his block expires, then he comes back to edit war and to repeatedly attack other edits with edit summaries like this. Corvus cornix_talk 21:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm tired of trying to encourage Goingoveredge of any form of discussion. Tried to file an RFC on him HERE and now I am even tired of keeping all his violations in this RFC list as they are very long. Please provide your feedback on the RFC: user-Goingoveredge as well. Thanks, --Roadahead (talk) 22:06, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Anybody??? Corvus cornix_talk 01:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I support an indef block on this one. Erik the Red 2 ~~~~ 01:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Hold on that for now, but consider a block for edit waring with dubious edit summaries. That having been said, this fight over... apparently all things India is a bit more complex than just Goingoveredge's behavior.--Tznkai (talk) 03:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

His recent destruction of content in Religious violence in Orissa (see my additional comments at article talk page) has resulted in protecting the page. The destroyed content is still missing. Additionally, the sock and his puppeteer are really troublemaking others and have to be seriously treated. --Googlean (talk) 08:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Support indef block His edit summaries

• "khalistani troll" [29]
• "incitement to genocide" [30]
• "Khalistani racist" [31]
• "genocide inciter" [32]
• "khalistani hatemonger" [33]

are violation of WP:NPA. After a quick review of the edits of this user, I support an indef block on this one. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 10:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Support indef block as Goingoveredge does not seem like an honest editor making honest mistakes, but somebody who is religiously adamant on fearlessly violating Wikipedia policies and pursuing POV propaganda. He seems like somebody who knows the policies and seems to believe he can hide his tactics behind wikipedia tags by creating confusion and wasting other editors time. --⇒RoadAhead ^Discuss 16:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

His more recent edits represent a slight improvement, however he still needs to tone down his rhetoric. I don't support an indefinite block at the moment. PhilKnight (talk) 01:22, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Mass canvassing by Benlisquare

Benlisquare has created the article South Korean cultural claims. This article has been nominated for deletion. During the first deletion discussion Benlisquare was accused by Caspian blue of canvassing on the Japanese and Chinese Wikipedia (see ja:ノート:韓国起源説 and zh:Talk:韓國起源論). Apparently he also canvassed on the Anti-cnn webpage, see [34], not only asking to manipulate the deletion discussion on South Korean cultural claims, but also to manipulate several other China-related articles, claiming that there is an Anti-Chinese bias on Wikipedia (due to Japanese nationalists etc.) Novidmarana (talk) 22:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Excerpt from the posting on Anti-Cnn: "Now, in the deletion discussion, the more votes we have for "keep", the more likely our articles won't be deleted by China-haters. The more people the better, HOWEVER change your text; don't make each person's entry just like the other; this gets BORING and people might realize that they are up against an army of "yes men". ONLY USE ONE ACCOUNT IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE BANNED. We need more PEOPLE voting for us, not more ACCOUNTS, or we would have done that earlier. WRITE ONLY IN ENGLISH, otherwise you may be banned." Novidmarana (talk) 01:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The article has been deleted. Anything else? Stifle (talk) 10:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Not just anything else. He has been canvassing more than twice, so he should be warned for his wrongdoings. Besides, Michael Friedrich (talk · contribs) also canvassed the AFD to 2channel forum. If you can, could you watch canvassed articles? There are too many SPA and socks keeping coming out.--Caspian blue (talk) 12:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Benlisquare deleted his posting, but Google Cache has a copy at [35]. Note that he does not only asks for manipulating the deletion discussion of South Korean cultural claims, but also to manipulate multiple other articles related to China, claiming that they are vandalized by Japanese nationalist, Koreans trolls and Anti-Chinese editors and so on. Novidmarana (talk) 14:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Novidmarana (talk • contribs)

Benlisquare has been warned about canvassing on the Japanese and the Chinese Wikipedia on 12 September 2008. On 14 September 2008 he canvassed again, this time on the aforementioned Anti-cnn forum, even going so far to give a detailed description of how to game Wikipedia. Novidmarana (talk) 15:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Novidmarana (talk • contribs)

Lightmouse again

Lightmouse (talk · contribs) is no longer using his Lightbot to remove links to dates, but is now doing it using AWB. He still refuses to discuss this. Corvus cornix_talk 22:23, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I left a message on his talk page asking him to stop using AWB in this manner until he has discussed the issue with the community. Since his bot was halted for this kind of behavior, using AWB or other scripts to perform the same kinds of edits is unhelpful and inappropriate and might even be construed as disruptive. If he continues to edit in this fashion without addressing the concerns of the community, additional warnings regarding the behavior may be appropriate. Shereth 22:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This edit shows the reckless use of a bot without regard for the proper date format for the article being edited. This user must be blocked. Lightbot should be blocked indefinitely --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's not go overboard, here. I dont' actually have a big problem with a semi-automated script as long as discretion is being applied. Most dates should probably be unlinked. It's only the automated unlinking of all dates (and reformatting of dates/units/etc. in quotes, etc.) that I think is the issue. Still, it would be nice if this editor would respond in some way to the concerns that have been expressed. -Chunky Rice (talk) 23:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Whoa, calm down! Lightmouse hasn't used his bot since it was stopped, and he appears to have stopped using AWB as requested when I left the comment on his talk page. It's unfortunate that he appears uninterested in discussing the situation here (or anywhere) but so far he's complied with requests to stop making these edits and this talk about blocking is, at this point, quite unecessary. Shereth 23:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

If not blocking then at least his permission to use AWB should be revoked. This is looks fully automated to me. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Please try to assume good faith. Even if I agreed that there was something wrong with the edits, he hasn't used it since Shereth asked him to stop. There's no reason to block or revoke privileges or anything like that. -Chunky Rice (talk) 23:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec) As I said, he stopped doing it as requested. We don't use blocks and the like to punish, we use them to prevent - and at the moment, it appears that Lightmouse is not out to cause trouble and thus there is no bad behavior to "prevent". It'd be one thing if he ignored us and just went along with these edits, but he stopped. What's the rush to punish? Shereth 23:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

My thankfully limited experience with Lightmouse has been that, as with Betacommand, it's his way or the highway. Where do these characters come from? And what's more important, who turns them loose here to do whatever they feel like, including not bothering to answer questions? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I consider this closed if Lightmouse has stopped editing dates, however I will point out that the link posted above shows that he was not just delinking dates; he was changing from one style to another, from "August 24, 1814" to "24 August 1814". This is the equivalent of switching era styles (CE to AD) or from British to American spelling (colour to color) or vice versa without a substantive reason. This is strongly discouraged by the relevant guidelines. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 03:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I have found a clear example of where the bot operated by Lightmouse (talk · contribs) is not behaving in accordance with the manual of style [36]. This diff [37] to British Rail shows a clear change of a date that was in the correct format. Lightmouse must explain why a date that is compliant with the manual of style was changed, else the bot must be permanently stopped and Lightmouse given a temporary block as punishment. Olana North (talk) 08:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Not sure how that is a "clear example", considering all that was done was removing the autoformatting. It was left in British style of date formatting, as per MoS. Am I missing something? — Huntster (t • @ • c) 10:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Olana North's complaint has no merit whatsoever. Thie date in question was in UK (dmy) format, and linked for autoformatting. All Lightmouse did was to remove the autoformatting, entirely in conformance with the manual of style, which deprecates autoformatting. The date is still in UK format. There is no case to answer. Colonies Chris (talk) 10:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This looks to me like a debate about the Manual of Style. I am not sure if ANI is a place where the MoS can be redebated but this is what it says:

• Dates (years, months, day and month, full dates) should not be linked, unless there is a particular reason to do so
• The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated.

Discussion of the meaning of those words is best undertaken at wt:mosnum. That way, you won't just get my opinion.

With respect to the example of 'Burning of Washington' given by Steven J. Anderson, I agree that it should have been in US format. There are several editors on Wikipedia that are working to clean up the mess left by date links (they conceal inconsistent and wrong-side formats from registered editors but leave them visible to ordinary readers). One part of that work is auditing date links in articles and making the dates consistent. This involves choosing one format or the other depending on the MoS guidelines for mdy or dmy format. In that case, it came up in a search for articles containing 'British' in the title (and hence likely to require auditing to dmy format) as a redirect. It was incorrectly set to dmy and you are quite right to say it should be mdy.

With respect to the example of 'British Rail' given by Olana, Lightbot delinked '2001'. Lightmouse delinked '1 January 1948'. If those are not in accordance with the Manual of Style, then perhaps Olana and I have different views on the Manual of Style. I am under the impression that debates about MoS wording are best dealt with at the MoS talk page rather than at ANI.

Having done 300,000 edits relating to the MOS, it is inevitable that some people want to debate the MoS with me. I have probably spoken about date links and MoS wording on more occasions and with more people than anyone here. I am reluctant to stop editing just because some people regard the MoS as unfinished business - the MoS is always unfinished business - so is Wikipedia. I really strongly encourage people to debate MoS implementation at the MoS talk page. Is this an ANI issue? Lightmouse (talk) 10:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Lightmouse, thank you for the response. I know several people, myself included, have been concerned by what seemed to be a lack of communication on your part. I agree that discussions of the manual of style are best handled there, but what is appropriate to discuss here are your actions related to the MOS and linked dates. What is troubling is that in neither case do the guidelines above completely support your actions.

For your first point, the key phrase is "unless there is a particular reason to do so". Without engaging the editors involved with articles with linked years, there is no way for you (or your script, or your bot, Lightbot) of knowing whether or not the linking has a particular reason.

For your second item: deprecation of auto-formatted dates does not equal their prohibition. There are compelling reasons to not auto-format dates, which is why they are now deprecated by the MOS. But I have not seen any consensus for immediate, mass-removal of auto-formatted dates. Further, to tie your two reasons together, there is no way for a bot or a script to tell if a date is "merely" auto-formatted or if there is "a particular reason" for its linking.

There's an somewhat disturbing old bumper sticker/t-shirt slogan (of which I am not very fond) that usually says something along the lines of "kill them all and let God sort them out". Regrettably, that seems to summarize your approach to your MOS date-related edits, an approach that some people find disruptive. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I think this is more about being perceived as over-keen to enforce the MoS, than the MoS itself. I recently had to head off an impending edit-war caused by Lightbot delinking not only formatted dates (no problem there), but wikilinked 'year-on-TV' dates too. This was, in my view, an unnecessary aggravation. If some linked dates remain in an article for now, so what? It's really not a big deal; I seriously doubt if a single WP reader would care or even notice. However, causing needless conflict amongst those who write the encyclopedia is a big deal, when it can be avoided with a little tact and forethought ;) EyeSerene^talk 13:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Lightbot is not programmed to delink autoformatted dates so I am bit puzzled by your suggestion that it did. Please can you give me a link and I will investigate. With regard to 'year-in-X' links, they are often concealed to look like solitary years, or concealed within full dates so that they break autoformatting. Some editors had, reasonably, considered that solitary years are not as useful as targetted years but in many cases had simply replaced solitary years with a concealed link. Many projects recommend that 'year-in-X' dates are not hidden so that the reader only sees yet another blue solitary year. One recommendation is to make it visible by showing at least one non-date term to the reader, and the MoS is considering the same. If a link looks like a solitary year, it readers will treat it just like one. Consequently Lightbot did delink concealed links on the basis that they were just as likely to be ignored as solitary years. However, that feature has been switched off. Some year-in-X links actually break autoformatting and that is an extremely common error and that error-correction feature remains switched on. I wish some of the energy that was directed into keeping date links was directed into fixing the errors and inconsistencies it causes. I know that people like to ask me lots of questions, particularly if they disagree with the MoS or its implementation. I have probably expended more effort communicating about this issue, and to more people, than anyone here. Whether this is about the history of MoS text, the text itself, or the legitimacy of acting on MoS text, I am not the spokesperson for the MoS and sometimes it feels like people treat me as if I am. I still feel like this is all MoS talk. Is this an ANI issue? Lightmouse (talk) 14:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a note: What I'm speaking of above is directed at Lightmouse, the person, who controls both the account User:Lightmouse and the bot User:Lightbot. I know that he/she is very precise about which one has performed specific actions, but I'm speaking of the combined effects of both accounts. — Bellhalla (talk) 15:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

And as an FYI, he is again actively removing date links through User:Lightmouse account and AWB. — Bellhalla (talk) 15:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It is an ANI issue because the primary concern is the method of enforcement of the MOS. If nothing else, the MOS is a style guideline and its application is thus open to debate and consideration. Furthermore, MOSNUM itself explicitly creates room for exceptions to the rule - linked dates are not always subject to unlinking per the guideline. Currently you are using AWB to make semi-automated edits to this effect at the rate of about 4 per minute, or once every 15 seconds. Do you mean to tell me that in a 15 second timespan, you have adequate time to load the page, read it over to contextually determine whether unlinking is necessary, and perform the edit? I think not. Your strict and unconsidered enforcement of MOSNUM is what is causing issues with editors. Again I will ask you to refrain from this behavior - while there is an open debate regarding the method of enforcement, it is not appropriate to continue to do so. Shereth 15:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps an RFC is the best way to handle this? — ras52 (talk) 15:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Previous discussions have brought up the possibility of an RFC on the bot. I think it would be an excellent way to clear up the confusion on how Lightmouse is choosing to enforce MOSNUM and get a better idea of how the community feels regarding the issue. Shereth 16:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Olana North provides this example of an edit that does nothing about except remove autoformatting. This could be brushed off as a MOSNUM issue, or issue about how quickly statements in the MOSNUM should be carried out, except that Lightmouse state above "Lightbot is not programmed to delink autoformatted dates". Now, the edit was made by Lightmouse (using AWB), not Lightbot, but this action suggest that Lightmouse is not fully in control of, or does not fully understand the operation of the bots he is using, which is an ANI issue. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

With respect to the example of 'British Rail' given by Ashton, I delinked '1 January 1948' deliberately. What is wrong with that? Have a cup of tea guys. Lightmouse (talk) 16:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Lightmouse managed to make 8 edits during the minute 22:25, 25 September 2008. He sure deliberates a lot faster than I do. Perhaps what he realy decided was that the AWB bot should process a list of articles he had compiled, on the basis that that the word "British" was in the title, remove all date links in those articles, and put all dates in those articles in the order day month year. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This is not an issue with the MOS. This is an issue with Lightbot. There is no consensus at MOS or anywhere else that all dates, whatever the format, should be unlinked. There is a consensus that dates should not be linked unless there is a reason to do so. "reason to do so" is something that can only be determined by a human being, not a bot. Also, please clarify: does your bot make format edits to direct quotes, categories, and other non-prose sections? -Chunky Rice (talk) 16:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Note related discussion at MoS talk started by the user in question here. Shereth 16:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Note this appear to also have some relation to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony1 dm (talk) 16:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

In response to Lightmouse's diff request: I was incorrect about Lightbot removing fully-formatted date links; please accept my apologies. I appreciate your explanation of the other issue (this was the edit I had in mind), and that this function has now been deactivated. My concern about over-zealous enforcement of the MoS remains, though - not specifically directed at you, but at any editor (or bot) who takes it upon themselves to globally apply one interpretation of an often deliberately vague document. I've followed the various discussions at WT:MOSNUM, and agree with delinking dates that are only linked for formatting reasons, but so far it's only at FA that I've encountered this as a de facto requirement. It may become more widely adopted, or it may not... but where there's leeway in the guidelines and an article is not up for formal assessment (and therefore not subject to strict application of a set of criteria), I think we end up doing more harm than good by being too prescriptive. EyeSerene^talk 16:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• I think that what Lightmouse is doing is correct, appropriate, and desperately needed. The MOSNUM policy stating that dates should not be linked was thoroughly debated for a long time and is the result of a properly-arrived-at consensus. Links should be strictly limited to topics that are topical and germane to the article. Links to rambling lists of mindless trivia are virtually never topical and germane and just clutter up articles with excess blue that anesthetizes the mind. There are simply far too many of these links in far too many articles for any human to possibly hunt them all down and correct them; automated tools are the only way to go. And if the bot removes too many, it is far easier to restore the few false positives than to manually remove all those linked dates.

  Jimbo himself posted the most important rule of all on Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Ignore all rules: “If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.” Well, in this case, Lightmouse has followed all the rules in his effort to improve Wikipedia. He just shouldn’t have to put up with any more flack from people who flat disagree with MOSNUM, just love their links to trivia, and want to drag this out with even more debate; such views have been discredited and Wikipedia is now well on the road to improvement. Greg L (talk) 20:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• • Very few of us are debating the merits of the MOS. What's in question here is how Lightmouse (here used to mean either User:Lightmouse or User:Lightbot) is going about imposing his/her interpretation of the MOS without discussion or a clear consensus. Take a look at what you wrote:

    Links should be strictly limited to topics that are topical and germane to the article.

    How does User:Lightbot determine which links are "topical and germane"? (Hint: it doesn't.) How does User:Lightmouse determine which links are "topical and germane", especially when he/she edits at an 8 article-per-second clip? I'd like to know the answer to that one. — Bellhalla (talk) 22:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, I understand your issue. It is a legitimate one. But look at what else I wrote above:

There are simply far too many of these links in far too many articles for any human to possibly hunt them all down and correct them; automated tools are the only way to go. And if the bot removes too many, it is far easier to restore the few false positives than to manually remove all those linked dates.

There is no point having a MOSNUM guideline deprecating linked dates if the remedy (hand-removing them) would essentially take forever. Even at eight per second, it would take a bot 89 hours (24/7) to go through all 6,859,519 articles on en.Wikipedia. There is just no reason for the knee-jerk reaction to what his bots are doing; it is far, far easier to restore the false positives than to do what you propose. Greg L (talk) 03:36, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Another possibility, which I'm amazed the ancient history projects haven't already put forward, is a whitelist - articles which contain BCE dates or whatever else poses a problem can be added to it, and the bot then just goes "If on this pre-supplied list, ignore." That would allow the majority of articles to be fixed without issue. Also, people need to realise the bot is not the final arbiter, it's simply doing a system-wide task. Essentially if 98% of the switches should be flicked off and 2% left on, it's a tremendous waste to leave them all on or switch them off one by one ... makes more sense to switch them all off then switch back on the ones that are needed. Orderinchaos 11:15, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced edits, plus

Resolved

 – Indef blocked as vandalism-only account

Editor Mew Xacata [38] Making many unsourced edits [39], creating unsourced article [40], lots of POV, ignores warnings. Seems to be a history. JNW (talk) 00:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, he got {{uw-unsourced3}} already, I'd say warn him again if he continues and report him to WP:AIV afterwards. If he/she ignores the warnings, there is not much hope that he/she will reform by anything else we tell him/her. Regards SoWhy 07:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

After looking at the edit history, I've indef blocked this user as a vandalism-only account. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 10:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Andrew Kelly

Resolved

 – Nothing here seems to require administrator action. Back to editing, everyone. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Andrew has recently been taking part in the RfA of another user and in doing so has expressed some extremely offensive opinions. Andrew, who is "too conservative for conservapedia" (his words not mine), has claimed amongst other things that; atheists support murder, those who do not believe in god will burn in hell, and atheists should not be given a role of authority (even on a website). Infact, I don't even need to provide links for this, feel free to review Andrews "contributions" in recent days, it's all there. Personally, I don't think I support murder and I don't want to burn in hell either. God only wonders what poor Andrew thinks of my gay friends. Would appreciate if this is dealt with, it would be a little hard to hand out 3 million incivility warring for all the "non-christian" editors insulted. — Realist² 03:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

If a legitimate Christian user is blocked (I've seen it happen several times), it would take an admin to unblock them. And, like I said, there are very few, if any, Christian admins. Most admins are atheists and they would not want to risk loosing their admin status to unblock a user they don't agree with / I do not believe that a Christian should willingly vote a non-Christian into a position of power, whether it be the power to rule a country or the power to delete a page on a website. - This is just a taster of what you will witness upon reviewing Andrews edits. — Realist² 03:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Fear not - hell doesn't exist, so you won't go there.

To be honest, he looks like a straw man to me. Don't feed the trolls. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 03:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

To those reviewing my edits, please review all of them, not just the edits that my opponents bring to your attention. Please read them in context, please do not only read the misquotes. Thank you! --Andrew Kelly (talk) 03:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Andrew, we have given you ample space to express your opinion accurately, it's crystal clear that you have offended many, and don't seem to understand why. — Realist² 03:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I understand why people are offended. I am just asking that people read my comments in context. --Andrew Kelly (talk) 03:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Context of what? Your version of the good old book? You have expressed the opinion that non christians should not be given a position of authority. — Realist² 03:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I just want to make sure they read what I actually said, not what you say I said. There is no need to yell at me using all bold comments. You are just as biased as I am, just in the opposite direction. --Andrew Kelly (talk) 03:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

My comment was not meant to appear in bold, check my edit summary, I quickly corrected it. — Realist² 03:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

All right, I won’t hold it against you then. --Andrew Kelly (talk) 03:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Evidently I was just talking to myself. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 03:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Is therea violation of policy or I dunno, something for us to do here instead of complaining about the views of an editor, I'd like to hear it. There was no lasting harm done on the RfA so thats out. Has the user (diffs here needed) injected his biases into an article? If not, ignore what you find offensive until it becomes egregious to the point where it would be disruptive without you engaging. (Like Kafziel said, don't feed.)--Tznkai (talk) 03:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Enough. The only place where Andrew Kelly's personal life philosphy is relevant is article space. If people do not want to be offended by his beliefs, they should stop talking to him about them. The abuse to which he has been subjected, for an oppose at RFA that any bureaucrat would likely have discounted, is probably the most graphic violation of WP:CIVIL that I have seen on Wikipedia in a long time. I have refactored the title of this section instead of blocking for making a personal attack. Everybody, cut it out. Risker (talk) 03:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't you two have separate corners you can stand in or something? Jtrainor (talk) 04:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I propose trouts all around and some sort of article editing penance. John Reaves 07:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• This has been closed too early. A remark like the abortion loving atheists who support senseless murder requires a bit more than dismissing this as a case for simple troutslapping. Such religiously fueled hateful generalisations have no place in talk and Wikipedia space, either. Everyme 12:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

  Agreed, but only if Jimmi Hugh (talk · contribs) gets the same treatment; Jimmiy's preceding comments caused Andrew's response, and included inflammatory gems such as "laughing at the fact they believe in an imaginary man in the sky" and "masses of drone religious idiots". fish&karate 12:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• You're right. Both indulged in uncalled-for antagonisation against large groups of people. But I still don't see how that makes any of it better, to the extent that it requires no more than a troutslap? Everyme 12:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I've given strongly worded warnings to the pair of them, for making inflammatory and unhelpful comments. Further rubbish from either of them will result in a block. Wikipedia is not the place for inflamed religious soapboxing and poisonous generalisations. fish&karate 12:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Why are you so offended, Everyme? What have you to do with this? --Andrew Kelly (talk) 12:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Everyme is, I presume, rightly reluctant to see Wikipedia serve as a venue for this unhelpful, endless fighting. fish&karate 12:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

And right he is. I am feeling very bad that it started with a userbox on my page and I agree that everyone descending into personal attacks because of that, even those defending me, are not doing the encyclopedia a favor. I hope we can just get back to editing now and admins who are not involved like fish&karate can sort out through it and give out warnings / deal with it where necessary.

@fish&karate: On a side note, if I may request it from you, would you mind checking my RfA and moving the discussions to its talk page where necessary (i.e. where they only clutter the RfA). I don't want to do it myself and I think it should be done by someone who has no involvement. Regards SoWhy 12:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Will do. fish&karate 13:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. fish&karate 13:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Feh. Andrew is free to state what his religious beliefs are, and others are free to ignore or discount them. What he may not do is assert opinion as fact, especially not in article space. I don't think that is happening here, and I think everyone would be a good deal happier if they disengaged at this point. We're not going to ban him for being a fundie, and we're not going to ban the thers for being Godless heathens. Try to respect sincerely helf religious beliefs even while disagreeing with them, and focus on content please. Guy (Help!) 12:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  • There are good and bad ways to express oneself. I think Andrew is smart enough to know when his comments crossed the (fuzzy) reasonable line from debate to polemic, but I think a warning will suffice at this point. You're right that everyone should disengage, and that content should be focussed on. fish&karate 13:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Guys, let's leave it. Andrew Kelly and others have their beliefs, and others have theirs. Perhaps his statements are inflammatory, but it's not surprising to hear them, given that many people have literally asked for his opinion. Now, perhaps throwing the bible around isn't the best way to respond to challenges by non-Christians, but it's not helpful to throw fuel on the fire by harassing him about it. This drama may be avoided by not talking to Andrew Kelly about religious matters, aptly described above as "sitting in different corners". I don't see that this thread has a further purpose other than to inflame things. Werdna 12:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think this can accurately be filed under "freedom to state what one's religious beliefs are". What's worse, Andrew replied to my suggestion of striking the remark in question (like Jimmi Hugh struck his initial oppose) like this. Everyme 13:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Not wanting to comment on the issue itself but from what I can see Jimmi Hugh struck this comment because he decided to withdraw his support. I don't know if he wanted to withdraw the comment itself or not, but I find it best not to speculate about it. SoWhy 13:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Please stop throwing that comment down my throat if you are not going to quote it in context. As I have already told you, I was responding to a ridiculously stupid comment about religious people who worship an imaginary man in the sky who supports the senseless killing of innocent people. --Andrew Kelly (talk) 13:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

You responded in an exactly as unacceptable way. And your comment remains unstruck. Everyme 13:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Let it go, please, Everyme. Andrew has been warned for his comment already - further prodding is unhelpful. fish&karate 13:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Everyme 13:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Give it a rest everyone. Andrew Kelly is entitled to his views just as SoWhy is entitled to his. I think it is a mistake to dump on SoWhy for the userbox (and a mistake in principle, though not necessarily in strategy, to change the userbox) and it is a mistake to provide AK a forum where he can vent his views. --Regents Park (sniff out my socks) 13:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Does the WMF have any non-discrimination policy?

If so, provide a link? If there is, how would that relate to RFA and volunteer community actions? I have a very queasy feeling about the allowance of supports or opposes in any kind of official community actions, or "standing" in response for any kind of religious belief, political belief, or private standing. Opposing someone for RFA for not being Christian? Whats next, opposing for being a Muslim? A Jew? Black? Gay? For not being a Jew? For not being from a given country? This is a slippery slope to allow any of that kind of thing in, and should be encoded out before we get nasty situations that could have repercussions beyond our silly little RFA practices. rootology (C)(T) 12:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Users are already opposed regularly for being "too young". It wouldn't surprise me if people went further and started discriminating against certain religious beliefs. -- how do you turn this on 13:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Or lack of religious beliefs. Everyme 13:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Please see here To quote: "The Wikimedia Foundation prohibits discrimination against current or prospective users and employees on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected characteristics." Hope this helps, Gazimoff 13:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Also see WP:DICK for something that applies on-wiki. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kelly Martin. This is hardly new. I think prohibiting grounds for opposing is very dangerous. If someone is opposing for spurious reasons, ignore them. If they are being offensive, tell them so. (I don't see "Oppose. Is atheist." as offensive, just as ridiculous.) Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 13:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Closing bureaucrats are entirely capable of assessing the validity or invalidity of a oppose's (or a support's) reasoning. fish&karate 13:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, Sam, some people do find it offensive. We can't help that. What would you say if someone said "Oppose - is black"? -- how do you turn this on 13:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

If someone wants to say oppose because a candidate is black, or an atheist, or a christian, or has a lame user name, or whatever, I say let them do it. That sort of statement says more about them than it does about the rest of us and we should just move on. What is the point of trying to change the vote when the vote is a !vote and the entire discussion is visible to the closing bureaucrat anyway. And, if a crat starts seriously considering this sort of !vote, it'll get noticed soon enough. No. There is absolutely no sense in trying to shout down a !vote of that sort. --Regents Park (sniff out my socks) 20:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I hope you are not going to drag this around to yet another discussion on "age discrimination" on RFAs. fish&karate 13:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I was more hoping that Sam would answer my question. He says above the solution is to ignore. That doesn't solve anything. People are still going to be offended. Unnecessary hurting of other editors should be avoided at all costs. -- how do you turn this on 13:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

HDYTTO, I really do think you're taking this way too far. In the hopefully very unlikely event someone is enough of an idiot to oppose on such spurious and discriminatory grounds, they're probably going to get torn up by the community, smeared across five different noticeboards, blocked, unblocked, and reblocked until they get some sense knocked into them, just like all the rest of the drama we put up with here. Comments like that aren't tolerated and you know they aren't, so this is a non-issue. The reason people occasionally oppose for being too young is not because they believe teenagers or pre-teens shouldn't be admins, it's because the nominee hasn't demonstrated that they are trustworthy or responsible enough to use the tools. Maturity level has a lot to do with how much we trust someone not to abuse the buttons, and so is taken seriously provided the person commenting that is being sensible and not dickish. Spurious comments like the one you're hypothesizing above are completely irrelevant and will be treated with the appropriate weight (that is, none) by the 'crats. Anyone who says that is very likely to get a very stern warning and/or blocked. This is the end of the story called common sense. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 16:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

(Undent) This is my read on the situation. Don't be a dick. If someone is being a dick, and it has to do with prejudices, you can try, calmly and patiently talking with them, explaining why its inappropriate to express their opinions in that way, or you can ignore them. If it rises to the point of a disruptive personal attack there is a case by case balancing test to be made, and contact a third party, a mediator, or an adminstrator at your discretion. Now, is there anything that an admin actually needs to do here?--Tznkai (talk) 16:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Closing bureaucrats are allowed to discount such spurious opposes. Practice has, however, shown that they never do. — Coren ^(talk) 21:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The non-discrimination policy has little relevance. Admins are not hired by the foundation and the foundation is not saying "we don't want this person or that person as an admin" so this has little bearing on things. JoshuaZ (talk) 16:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• I fail to see how the Wikimedia Foundation and its policies have any relevance to the factors the Wikipedia community chooses to apply when supporting or opposing candidates for its internal roles. Guy (Help!) 19:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

What someone has on their user page is a perfectly valid question to raise, and should not be censored. For example, if the guy who had the "I can make crystal meth" user box applied for adminship, it would be fair to question that. Raising a question doesn't mean the question has any merit. That's up to the deciders to decide. But censoring it is not good. Let the extremist editor expose himself (pardon the ironic metaphor) for what he is. Don't censor. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

An aside

I found this discussion based on the issues raised on foundation-l. On that list, it was made to appear that the user is simply saying "Oppose, user is not christian", but based on the above discussion, if I understand it correctly, his real complaint is having to do with a perceived lack of admins willing to unblock christian users, and a lack of christian admins. While I think that's completely ridiculous, I can see how that's a logical line of reasoning for someone who feels that way. I can see that this guy is actually opposing in good faith here, unlike, say, Kurt. So, while it may be a good idea for 'crats to discount this (I don't have much faith they will, but anyway), it'd be a bad idea to sanction the editor in this case, and I say that as a person who mistakenly was going to come in and strongly consider blocking the editor for disruption. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 23:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

As an extra aside, can we get some admin eyes on Andrew's talk page? It's getting into a complete mess with raging religious debates, and Andrew saying he's going to preach, etc., and I advised him not to do such a thing. rootology (C)(T) 00:22, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Opis (Users: Ariobarza, CreazySuit and Larno Man; Admins Kafziel and Khoikhoi )

I spotted an RFC filed against three parties. RFC's aren't for multiple parties, so I don't think that really works, and I suspect somebody will delete Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ariobarza, CreazySuit, Larno Man. However, there is evidence that suggests disruptive editing. I am hopeful we can resolve this matter here and now, rather than going to Arbitration. Jehochman ^Talk 04:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

---

[ snipped copy-paste replication of entire page]

---

It should be noted that this is not the first time user:Jehochman has come in to carry the ball for user:ChrisO, who wrote the original RfC. When a previous RfC by ChrisO failed, it was Jehochman who decided to take the same issues and attempt an administrator recall instead. I have been reading the "evidence" and links and it seems to me that virtually all of the good faith effort to reach consensus actually came from the side under attack in this RfC. The fingers should be pointing in the other direction. Tundrabuggy (talk) 05:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

If there is evidence of wrongdoing by "the other side", please post diffs. That is why we are here. Jehochman ^Talk 13:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

There is no such evidence, of course. This is a straightforward case of editors, principally CreazySuit, disregarding NPOV and OR to promote a personal point of view. DougWeller, dab and I have tried repeatedly to explain to CreazySuit and the other two what WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V require; unfortunately they've chosen to ignore the three of us. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it is useful to just copy-paste the entire page here. But I agree that the RFC is likely a waste of effort, and that since these users are clearly unamenable to feedback or criticism, they will need to be given the warn-block treatment now. If we can get a few good admins to track this issue, there won't need to be an arbitration case. If this turns into another show of admins obstructing other admins, to the arbcom this will go. --dab (𒁳) 07:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

WHOOPS! The RfC just got deleted. Could you possibly dig up the section of my post that you removed and restore at least the diffs and evidence so that people have something to look at? Jehochman ^Talk 13:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I've temporarily undeleted the RfC so that I can recover the diffs myself (and you can have a look at it in the meantime). I'll copy the principal diffs with explanations here (in a new section below this one) before re-deleting the RfC. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It looks like a content dispute to me. I would think an article RfC or some form of mediation would help. I cannot see how WP:AN/I can help here. We are not solving content disputes on this page Alex Bakharev (talk) 07:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

CreazySuit's restoration of Tundrabuggy's comment here (which was, as I understood it, a comment on the RfC and the RfC has been removed from here) just adds fuel to the fire and hardly shows GF. It isn't helpful. If he or Tundrabuggy want to raise their own RfCs, let them do it. Doug Weller (talk) 07:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It also appears that one of the main contentions is the citing of an article written by someone else, which article content in-turn cites references, and being used as a Wikipedia:CITE#Convenience_links here for our article. Perhaps if editors would take the time to find verifiable sources other than a convenience link, and use them as a basis for inclusion of material, part of the dispute may be alleviated. However, caution should be used to not violate copyright that may exist for the convenience article by solely citing it's references. This is just a suggestion and may or may not have been thought of before the escalation of the dispute currently taking place on our article.--«JavierMC»|Talk 07:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd say it's more about some editors saying that the newest translation must be the only correct one because it's the newest, it's by the teacher of the 'wrong' one, etc, linguistics is a science (although as one academic in the field tells me it can only be decided by the historians as there is more than one way to translate the contentious words) and others (including me, I confess) saying that as editors we have no business deciding which is correct. And, it appears, a belief that peer review (although the issue involves a brief note that wasn't peer reviewed) means something is 'right'. Doug Weller (talk) 08:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Th diffs are not what they appear to be in this case, this is a complicated content dispute involving a translation that has been academically challenged by the most recent academic research in the field. Another administrator (User:Khoikhoi) who is familiar with the details of this dispute, has commented on this issue in details here. I am following WP dispute resolution process, and have agreed to User:DragonflySixtyseven's suggestion of a compromise in order to resolve this dispute.[41] It should also be noted that User:Dbachmann and User:Dougweller are involved parties in this content dispute. --CreazySuit (talk) 08:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Of course I'm involved, I haven't suggested I'm not involved. I've been trying to get you and others to see that this isn't a mathematical exercise where we are going to have proof that one is right and the other is wrong. There is a version that makes the dispute clear here [42] but I suspect you will cavil at the use of 'widely accepted' (which I think is correct at the moment, and the only academic I've found who has comment on Lambert is the one who told me the historians will have to battle it out). This article has been protected now since the 19th and due to the illness of the protecting admin is protected until the 9th. Doug Weller (talk) 09:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, what is happening here is that conduct issues involving NPOV and original research are stopping the resolution of a content dispute. CreazySuit and the other two editors (and apparently Khoikhoi too) subscribe to a pseudohistorical belief, promoted by the late Shah of Iran for propaganda reasons, that Cyrus the Great was a uniquely enlightened and humane ruler. They oppose anything which contradicts that POV, which mainstream historians do not support. An ancient chronicle describing the Battle of Opis is generally translated as referring to Cyrus carrying out a massacre after the battle. CreazySuit believes this is false. Because of this belief, he has repeatedly wiped out a sourced article, replacing it with an illiterate unsourced stub (see [43], [44], [45]).) He is seeking to declare that one particular translation of the chronicle is "the truth", that all others are "false" and "discredited" (his words) and that any research based on those translations is "outdated" and cannot be included. That is pure original research and about as clear a violation of NPOV as you can get. If he continues, it's inevitably going to end up before the Arbitration Committee. Content disputes can be resolved if everyone takes a good-faith approach to basic policies such as NPOV and NOR, but not if those policies are systematically disregarded, as CreazySuit is doing with the assistance of Ariobarza and Larno Man. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It looks like a content dispute to me -- you bet it is a content dispute. What is being disputed is, should Wikipedia follow WP:ENC, or should it adhere to a basic "Iran is great" policy. Not for ANI? I don't know, maybe not these days. If it isn't, it certainly should be. --dab (𒁳) 10:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Behavioral problems almost always have an underlying content dispute. The policies in question are WP:CONSENSUS, WP:CANVASS, tendentious editing, and disruptive editing. If those policies are not adhered to, there is no way to solve the content dispute via normal dispute resolution. Jehochman ^Talk 13:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Well said. I would also add that resolving content disputes requires some acceptance of the basic principle of NPOV - "the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each". The fundamental problem here is that CreazySuit has been insisting that one, and only one, viewpoint is "the truth" and that all other viewpoints are "outdated", "false" and "discredited" (his words), and on that basis deleting any material which refers to those viewpoints. If you take that sort of position, it doesn't give much room for solving a dispute. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

That's indeed the problem as I see it. If he (and Larno) would agree that (1) editors should not be making such judgements, (2) that latest, or made by someone's teacher, doesn't mean correct, and (3)acknowledge the possiblity that no one might be able to 'prove' this translation, we could get somewhere. But until then (well, (1) and (2) would be a start, (3) would be icing, we are not having a content dispute, we are having a dispute over whether policy should be followed (and common sense, I'd say also). I do not include Ariobarza in this at the moment. Doug Weller (talk) 13:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

And re (2) it's not even the latest translation - that title would belong to Amélie Kuhrt's (published August 2007), which corroborates Glassner's translation of 2004. CreazySuit appears to be wholly unaware of either translation; that's indicative of the lack of serious research going into this. All he's really doing is parroting the claims of page 12 of this tract by an Iranian-Canadian psychologist, which nationalists in the Iranian diaspora appear to have been circulating on the web (and which Ariobarza has been copying-and-pasting into talk pages). -- ChrisO (talk) 13:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Disruption of Battle of Opis

As discussed above, CreazySuit (talk · contribs) has been engaging in POV-based disruptive editing. Ariobarza (talk · contribs) and Larno Man (talk · contribs) have also engaged in problematic editing. The main primary source for information on the battle is an ancient Babylonian chronicle. A line in the chronicle has generally been translated as indicating that Cyrus the Great carried out a massacre after the battle. The best-known modern translation is by a historian named Grayson (1975); similar translations are by Glassner (2004) and Kuhrt (2007). However, another historian named Lambert has published a dissenting translation in an obscure French journal in 2007, which so far appears to be uncited by any other academic source. Nationalists in the Iranian diaspora have latched onto this (see page 12 of this tract). CreazySuit, Ariobarza and Larno Man are seeking to declare this one translation to be authoritative. They argue that all other translations and research based on those are "outdated" and unusable. CreazySuit and Larno Man have tag-teamed to delete any material referring to those translations and research - even external links. In Ariobarza's case, he has also sought to falsify direct quotations from sources and add his personal commentary to the article. However, I would say that CreazySuit has been responsible for the most serious and sustained disruption.

This is a categorical violation of NPOV's basic principle: "the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each." It also violates WP:NOR. This conduct has seriously disrupted Battle of Opis and has resulted in it being protected for two weeks by DragonflySixtyseven. Diffs follow:

• 19:20, 14 August 2008 - Larno Man deletes an external link to a translation with edit summary: "livius translation is based on the flawed tranlation of Grayson"
• 08:36, 18 September 2008 - Ariobarza deletes sourced content without comment
• 08:58, 18 September 2008 - Ariobarza adds personal commentary to the article
• 09:13, 18 September 2008 - Ariobarza falsifies a direct quotation
• 18:13, 18 September 2008 - Larno Man deletes all of the sourced content and replaces it with an incoherent unsourced stub
• 23:52, 18 September 2008 - CreazySuit deletes all of the sourced content and reverts to Larno Man's stub, with the edit summary "rv - ChirsO's version relies on an oudated theory and false translation, discredited by academia"
• 00:12, 19 September 2008 - CreazySuit again reverts to the stub
• 01:38, 19 September 2008 - CreazySuit again reverts to the stub and refers to the talk page, where he posts this. See also this comment to DragonflySixtyseven.
• 11:17, 19 September 2008 - CreazySuit accuses me of anti-semitic motives. (How he jumps from the Battle of Opis to anti-semitism, I don't know - it's right out of left field but clearly a violation of civility.)

The article was then locked by DragonflySixtyseven and remains as an unsourced, badly written stub (compare before and after). I should add that I've since produced a longer version of the article, with more sources and translations, at User:ChrisO/Battle of Opis, but haven't had a chance to do anything with it yet. -- ChrisO (talk) 14:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

On the last of those diffs, he's accusing you of pro-semitism, not anti. Cyrus is quite highly regarded in Jewish history, because of his benevolence to the Jewish people. It seems he assumes you're Jewish and is accusing you of pro-Cyrus POV for that reason. --Dweller (talk) 14:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I never thought of it that way. If CreazySuit has anti-semitic views and assumes I'm Jewish (which I'm not), that puts a rather different light on why he's been so vehement on this issue. -- ChrisO (talk) 14:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Not sure I'd go so far as to say that edit shows anti-semitism. It's odd to have made the assumption, but not demonstrably anti semitic. --Dweller (talk) 14:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I was referring to ChrisO`s tendentious editing as a pro-Palestinian POV-pusher (for which he has been sanctioned by the ArbCom). I am myself supporter of the state of Israel, Cyrus`s decrees are of immense importance to the Jewish right of return to Israel. Given ChrisO`s history as a pro-Palestinian POV-pusher, several users [46] have argued that ChrisO`s tendentious editing on Cyrus-related pages is motivated by the I-P conflict, and his political views on Jewish right of return. --CreazySuit (talk) 15:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense as an explanation: you're accusing ChrisO of POV based on anti-Zionism. --Dweller (talk) 15:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It still doesn't make much sense to me. How do we get from "translations say Cyrus committed a massacre" to "anti-Zionism"? It's one hell of a leap - that's why I called it an out of left field accusation. Does that mean that all the historians who I've quoted are "anti-Zionists" too? Frankly, I find this sort of guilt-by-association on both sides of the I-P conflict to be very tiresome and sleazy. It's just a way of tarring an opponent with a label that's thought to be damaging. I recall a fellow named McCarthy used similar tactics, once upon a time. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh gosh, I'm not suggesting it's an accurate accusation, and I apologise if that seemed to be the case. I have no knowledge of the dispute there. Just hamfistedly trying to help make sense of the accusation. I'll butt out now and stick to the Thermopylae issue at most, which I am informed about. --Dweller (talk) 15:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, I didn't take your comments as endorsing CreazySuit's accusation. It's simply that I've clashed with I-P POV-pushers on a few occasions and CreazySuit has latched onto this to try to paint my contributions elsewhere in a bad light. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Other disruption

I post below an edited version of a message I left at the deleted RfC. Do with it as you will. --Dweller (talk) 14:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Outside view by User:Dweller

I have encountered User:Ariobarza in action at Battle of Thermopylae, its talk page and our talk pages. He's been pushing an OR take on the numbers of combatants, presumably because of POV. I gave up discussing with him because I couldn't cope with the walls of text he would post in response to simple questions, that totally ignored the points raised while frequently SHOUTING. The user seems to have WP:OWN issues to-boot and skates on thin ice of civility.

I posted at a WikiProject asking for outside views from Classicists, but no-one else seemed bothered by the dispute: the issue so tenaciously defended by the user is a number in an infobox and I have no plans on appearing in WP:LAME, so left him to it, rather saddened by the experience. --Dweller (talk) 12:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I dare say I can have a look at it; I'm a classicist myself, so this is right within my area of academic expertise. I would guess your trouble at Battle of Thermopylae is part of the ongoing problems that article's been having with Iranian nationalism ever since 300 (film) came out, which really, really pissed off those people. -- ChrisO (talk) 14:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

My turn

Dweller I thought we settled this. First, I was never that passionate about Thermoplyae, but the reliability of Ctesias numbers. Second, I accused you (at first), of WP:OWN, because since I fairly know a good bit about the battle itself, and its topagraphy, I thought I could just add new information to it. I was suprised to see that after the Persians went on the offensive, the Greeks became nationalistic about Thermoplyae, and I dare say it is a VERY protected article. Furthermore I even came up with a solution, to include all the numbers, but I guess after all the supposed yelling, I did not recieve a yes or no from you, so its up to you to end this by giving me a message on my talk page. And do not forget, even Ctesias numbers are sourced, I know how it feels, I wished the Persian army was bigger too. Just go to the talk page of Thermoplyae for a better response, that for the most part agrees with, so I think that you might have seen it before, but if not, go there. Anyways, I just want to say for the record, ChrisO and others are currently at advantage, becuase they rampage everywhere on Wikipedia spreading this issue like a virus, until me and others are blocked. But I say... As a response to ChrisO, If I was such filled with Persian Pride, should'nt I be the one ranting all over Wikipedia to gain supporters for my agenda? ChrisO is on a one man crusade to expell Wikipedia of "barbarians" and their thinking, period. But, I'm still open to the thought that he might just be abusing his powers, and that he does want neutrality, but I am not sure, and I at least hope its the latter. Thank you.--Ariobarza (talk) 17:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

See Talk:Battle_of_Thermopylae#More_Info.21 for the significant bulk of it. --Dweller (talk) 15:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I can assure you, Ariobarza, I do want neutrality. I can't speak for the other editors involved in this dispute, but all I'm looking for from you is that (1) you respect the neutral point of view, by not constantly deleting every POV other than the one you favour; and (2) you respect the prohibition on original research by not constantly insisting on your personal interpretations, not making claims without citing any sources and not putting your personal commentary into articles. These aren't hard things to do. Thousands of contributors every day manage to do them without difficulty. Can't you? -- ChrisO (talk) 18:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

ChrisO`s conduct

I am writing a a detailed response which includes numerous diff links documenting ChrisO`s tendentious editing, suppression of opposing views, lack of civility, and total disregard for several policies ranging from WP:AGF to WP:Admin. It will be posted here within the next few hours. --CreazySuit (talk) 14:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

so, what is this? Are we just conducting rfcs on this page instead of dedicated rfc pages? Or what? Dear admins, take a step back and consider DNFTT, all this section is good for is providing a platform for yet more filibustering and empty complaints in obvious attempts at dodging core policy, like the one immediately above. If you can be bothered, just go to the articles concerned, grok the issue, and clamp down on the pov-pushers. What we have here is the classic "experts are scum" phenomenon. ChrisO is a classicist, for crying out loud: exactly the kind of person we want to edit our articles on Classical Antiquity. He is being bugged by patriotic kids. You are here to help him, not to give him more grief. Also see Wikipedia:Expert retention. It's why we have admins: to use their brains. If it was just about clamping down on revert wars, we could replace our admins with very short shell scripts. Thanks, --dab (𒁳) 19:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I tried to help, but then CreazySuit showed up at my talk page to browbeat me with repetitive arguments.[47][48][49][50] I can understand why people would avoid getting involved. Who needs the grief. Jehochman ^Talk 21:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

That's the point - win the game by working the referee(s) and discouraging anyone else from getting involved. It's an old and ugly tactic. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

ChrisO`s conduct

ChrisO's conduct and behavior on Cyrus-related pages has been criticized by half a dozen editors, including several administrators as tendentious and problematic. [51] The diffs that ChrisO has cited are not what they seem to be at first glance, and should not be weighted and judged out of the context of the larger dispute.[52] It should also be noted that all these diffs are from over a week ago when a suspicious IP address from the same geographical area as ChrisO (seemingly a shared IP, possibly used as sock puppet) appeared out of nowhere to engage in an edit-war on behalf of ChrisO, on the disputed page, without as much as leaving a single comment on the talk page.[53] Since the protection of the page in question, I have done my best to follow the dispute resolution process, proposing some ideas of my own, and later agreeing to a third-party administrator's suggestion of a compromise that would cover both points of view in a fair and balanced way. ChrisO, however, has been unwilling to even recognize that there is a dispute, and has adopted a "my-way or no-way" attitude[54], going as far as attacking and bullying other administrators who had commented on the dispute and his conduct.[55][56] He has been constantly wikilawyering, picking and choosing what polices to cite in the heat of the moment, to best serve his attempts to advance his agenda and point of view, and has even openly contradicted himself while doing so [57][58]. He also has a total disregard for WP:AGF, lumping together his opponents, established users who come from a variety of backgrounds, and labeling them "Iranian nationalists", "vandals" etc. [59]

Further evidence of questionable conduct by ChrisO:

• ChrisO threatens me with a block, in the middle of content dispute [60]
• ChrisO attacks me personally, calling me crazy on at least two occasions [61][62]
• ChrisO starts canvassing for help on Wikipedia administrators' IRC channel
• Jayjg points out the irregularity of ChrisO's conduct [63]
• ChrisO lashes out at Jayjg, attacking him personally [64]
• ChrisO uses his administrative tools, in the middle of a dispute, to delete the disputed article's talk page and get rid of the evidence and diff links [65]

As documented above, things are not as black and white as some would have you believe, and I have yet to look up the more complex content-related diffs that document violations of WP:NPOV, WP:Verify and similar policies. --CreazySuit (talk) 20:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The first diff I looked seems to be a misunderstanding. He does not seems to be threatening to block you himself. He is saying that if you continue to violate policy, you will be blocked. Presumably he would use a noticeboard to find an uninvolved administrator to review the matter and place a block. Jehochman ^Talk 20:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I think CreazySuit was saying that he had violated these policies, which would on the face of it appear to be the case, in which case he shows commendable honesty and late-blooming self-knowledge and should be congratulated, once he's shown how he intends to address this behaviour. Guy (Help!) 21:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

As another administrator pointed out [66], it wasn't the first time ChrisO had used his admin access to threaten opponents. As a matter of fact, he did it again today. --CreazySuit (talk) 21:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

CreazySuit appears to have entered the "throw mud against the wall and see what sticks" phase. Dbachmann commented that "these users [meaning CreazySuit and pals] aren't receptive to feedback. They should just enter the warn-block cycle." [67] I said essentially, "yes, you're right." [68] I did not at any point say that I would be blocking anyone. This is, of course, obvious to anyone with a minimum of reading comprehension skills. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Ugh, this is ridiculous. I've unprotected Battle of Opis: can someone please rv to the referenced version? If any of these punks reverts back we should just block them. They've been shown to have no case, so if they still refuse to get it, there really are no excuses left (p.s: "keep doing this and you may/will be blocked" is not intimidation unless you're in the mood to turn your skin uber-sensitive). Moreschi (talk) 21:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Nobody should be blocking anyone. This is a content dispute and not a case of vandalism, and the talk page clearly shows that all involved parties are serious about achieving a neutral version of the article. Whether or whether not ChrisO's comment was made as intimidation, calling the opposing users "punks" is totally inappropriate. I also disagree with your unprotection of the article simply because you believe that the other side has "no case" (you yourself have already taken sides on the issue). Khoikhoi 21:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Really? This seems like text book disruption by tendentious POV pushers, something that should escalate admins into blocking mode much more often and quickly than it does. It drives good editors away from the encyclopedia, unnecessarily clogs up AN/I and fosters further drama between admins and editors who aren't exactly fast friends. I'm not saying that we should go around calling people "punks" but lets not let someone's loose use of the English language lead us astray of the problems presented by this type of POV pushing.PelleSmith (talk) 22:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I have not been involved in this dispute (and am blissfully ignorant of any matters Greek or Persian). However, I participated in a particularly muddled AfD debate (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kaveh Farrokh, where this bunch of people derailed the whole thing by continuously invoking inappropriate policies/guidelines and using bogus arguments like "the length of this debate demonstrates notability" and using amazon.com blurbs as "reliable sources". The article was kept as "no consensus", although the closing admin stated "I personally don't agree with the outcome". I find that strange, it doesn't square with the fact that an AfD is not a vote. Anyway, the behavior of the editors in question was hardly rational, without any inclination to enter into a real discussion and even listen to the other side's argument. --Crusio (talk) 22:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• BTW, aren't you involved in an edit war with the users that you just threatened to block? This is absurd. Khoikhoi 21:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, what just happened here? The page was protected for edit warring, and then unprotected and reprotected to include the sourced version of the page? If I have my facts straight, it seems that the whole dispute centers around the factual accuracy of the sourced version of the article. Anyone who continues to edit war and/or wheel war will be blocked without warning. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It gets worse. See below. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like we might be headed for ArbCom sooner rather than later. User:Moreschi who is close associate of Dab and ChrisO, and an involved administrator himself [69] [70] unprotected the disputed article, so that it could be reverted to his preferred version and re-protected. He also goes on to threaten the opposing editors with a block, calling them "punks". I can't believe what I am seeing here. Abuse of administrative privileges can not get any more clear than this.--CreazySuit (talk) 22:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Edit warring on a protected article

This is completely inexcusable. After Kafziel (talk · contribs) restored the sourced version of Battle of Opis and re-protected it, Khoikhoi (talk · contribs) abused his admin access to resume the edit war and revert the article to an unsourced stub while the article was fully protected. [71] Note also that Khoikhoi has used the same NPOV-violating rationale as CreazySuit - that the cited translation is "false" (and who is Khoikhoi to declare the academic community wrong and eliminate all other points of view?). Admins edit-warring on a protected article is disgraceful. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The unprotection itself was a violation of policy. Per WP:PREFER, "Pages that are protected because of content disputes should not be edited except to make changes unrelated to the dispute or to make changes for which there is clear consensus. Administrators should not protect or unprotect a page to further their own position in a content dispute." No one should have unprotected the page to change the contents of the page to their preferred version, and no one should have edit warred back to a previous version of the page after protection had been applied. All around gross misuse of admin tools/editing privileges, and I hardly think WP:IAR is an applicable policy in this case. The dispute revolves around the reliability/accuracy of sources used in this article; protection was applied in the first place so people could take a time out and then discuss whether there's any truth to the claims made by Khoikhoi and CreazySuit. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The dispute is only about the "reliability/accuracy of sources" in as much as CreazySuit et al believe that only one source is accurate and all the rest are wrong, can't be used and must be deleted from the article. Fundamentally this is about the acceptability of sources that contradict a particular POV held by these editors. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I really don't plan to get bogged down in this whole crazy thread, but I do want to say I don't think Moreschi's unprotection was inappropriate. It didn't further his own position because, at least as far as I could tell from the article's history, he doesn't have a position. The protection policy says administrators may also revert to an old version of the page prior to edit warring beginning if such a clear point exists. The version that is there is the version that came after ChrisO's first expansion and Larno Man's tagging as unbalanced, before the edit war started. So I don't think anyone (including Khoikhoi, at least not intentionally) has done anything wrong. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 22:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It is my feeling that Moreschi's unprotection was not appropriate. He reversed an action by another admin, but without engaging in discussion with that admin. And that Moreschi was doing this in an emotional way,[72] with an edit summary of "Unprotected Battle of Opis: no, no, and no again. Admin neutrality does not mean we stick our heads in the sand", and then called other editors "punks",[73] increases my concerns. See Don't wheel war. If there was a feeling that the protection needed to be reversed, the better way to handle this would have been to contact the protecting admin, and/or starting a thread here at ANI to get input from other uninvolved admins first. There was no urgent need to unprotect the page, that justified this kind of unilateral action. --Elonka 22:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Moreschi's unprotection was entirely inappropriate. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, okay. I guess I could see it as inappropriate from a wheel war perspective. Still, the edit summary gave me the impression Dragonfly was just protecting it for real-life health reasons (not feeling well and taking a break from the article) so I didn't think twice about Moreschi's unprotection. Well, anyone is certainly welcome to do what they think is right in terms of the page protection and content; no skin off my back, one way or the other. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 23:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how fully protecting a page for two weeks simply because one is not feeling well is appropriate at all. I thought full page protection was supposed to be invoked in the most limited manner possible. Aunt Entropy (talk) 23:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

To be absolutely honest with you, I was thinking of asking Dragonfly to extend the protection so that the unresolved edit war wouldn't break out again immediately (as it plainly would have). I didn't do that, in the end, but simply reminded him by e-mail of the imminent expiry of protection; that probably prompted him to extend it. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:03, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Yes it was indeed a mistake, I noticed that Moreschi had unprotected but I hadn't seen that Kafziel had suddenly reprotected it after the revert. However, as it has been pointed out, the unprotection and the subsequent reprotection was definitely inappropriate, as this was a valid content dispute regarding the use of an outdated translation and associated sources. The page should not have been unprotected by an involved admin in the first place. Khoikhoi 22:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Could you then explain your edit summary ("no consensus for a version based on a false translation") which very clearly shows you supporting CreazySuit's NPOV-violating line that only one translation is "true" and all others are "false" and may not be mentioned? -- ChrisO (talk) 22:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Chris, please recognize that others might differ with you over content without being vandals, POV-warriors, "ethnic nationalists", or any other pejoratives you might care to use. Please also realize that AN/I is not the place to air your content dispute. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm quite happy to deal amicably with content disputes, but when you get people like CreazySuit demanding that their POV be the only one documented and that everything else should be deleted because they think it's "false", that's simply not acceptable conduct. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not going to get into content-related discussions with you here. I have already said what needed to be said on the relevant talk page. As Kafziel pointed out, "Our edits were only a minute apart so he probably had an edit conflict and didn't notice the protection." This is exactly what occurred. Khoikhoi 22:55, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned by the fact that administrators appear to have been edit-warring on the protected article.[74] This seems to have mainly been a tug of war between a version "A" and a version "B". The sequence of events I'm seeing is:

• Administrator DragonflySixtyseven protected at Version "A"[75]
• Administrator Moreschi unprotected[76]
• Administrator Kafziel restored to a version "B"[77]
• Administrator Kafziel re-protected the page[78]
• Administrator ChrisO edited the page,[79] then reversed himself when he saw the page had been re-protected[80]
• Administrator Khoikhoi reverted to version "A"[81]
• Administrator Kafziel reverted to version "B".[82]

My own recommendation as to how to proceed would be to restore the page to version "A", as it was when Dragonfly first protected it (plus it's the shorter of the two versions), and then continue discussions from there. --Elonka 23:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Version "A" is completely unsourced and poorly written. Which is more encyclopedic - an unsourced stub or a properly sourced article? CreazySuit had no business repeatedly wiping out a sourced article in the first place; he should have been blocked for that, quite honestly. Changing it again while protected is not going to achieve anything at this point. Just leave it as it is, please. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Removing properly sourced material often qualifies as vandalism. Please don't anybody do anything until the existing protection expires. The m:WrongVersion is the right one for now. Jehochman ^Talk 00:42, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

A legitimate reason was provided for the removal of the sourced material, so as far as I know, it shouldn't be considered vandalism. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 05:41, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't remotely legitimate. CreazySuit, and now seemingly Khoikhoi, contend that one particular POV is "the truth" and all others are "false" and "outdated" (their words) and must be removed. That is as categorical a violation of NPOV and NOR as you can get. Remember, we're supposed to present all significant POVs, not just the one CS and KK favour (which isn't even the standard text used by historians anyway). What's more, neither of them have any business trying to determine which POV is "the truth" - they're not experts on ancient Babylonian texts. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:40, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Arbitration please

Take this dispute to arbitration, please, before anybody gets into deep(er) trouble. Community processes are obviously failing to resolve this, and there are evidently multi-party behavioral issues that need investigation. Jehochman ^Talk 22:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It is my opinion that "community processes" like AN/I rarely work when most of the admins commenting are involved to some degree or another, if even just in terms of past bad blood. I've noticed that truly uninvolved admins tend to stay clear of these situations. Do inter-admin spats have to go to Arbcom every time? Would this simply have been dealt with by the community if there weren't involved admin opposition? A good question to consider if you are interested in improving this process.PelleSmith (talk) 23:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

What we have here is classic disruptive editing. Many admins don't want to intervene against nationalistic teams. They can be quite difficult to deal with. This matter does require arbitration, I think, because it has already resulted in admins undoing and redoing each other's actions, which is always a bad sign. Jehochman ^Talk 00:44, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I've been looking at this, but have only gotten as far as reading through the talk page of Battle of Opis--I haven't gone through the article history yet. From what I've seen so far, though, I would have to say that Ariobarza, CreazySuit, and LarnoMan are editing tendentiously. I don't know that arbitration is the answer, but I have little faith in AN/I to solve problems. I would not characterize this as a content dispute; the editors who think that Lambert's translation has superseded all previous scholarship are misunderstanding how scholarship in the humanities works, and, more importantly, several central Wikipedia policies, i.e., NPOV and V. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:23, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As I stated already I'm in full agreement that this looks like text book disruptive POV pushing. I think the community can and should deal with that, which is the initial problem here. Unfortunately it was not dealt with by going into block mode, as Dab suggested, in order to control the tendentious editing. Instead admins siding with the POV pushers and/or simply without love for those fighting the POV pushers started chastising the very editors we should be praising for slogging through the thankless task of keeping nationalist POV nonsense out of this encyclopedia. With this kind of admin on admin action, it has been my observation, that truly non-involved admins tend to stay away. That was really my main point. I don't think Arbcom is necessary, just a few uninvolved admins who aren't scared off by inter-admin spats, and I see FT2 is making an attempt below.PelleSmith (talk) 02:36, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

The main problem as I see it is CreazySuit. It's certainly true that Ariobarza made some tendentious edits at the start (he started the article, so may have some sense of WP:OWNership) but seems to have desisted after I explained the problems with his edits on his talk page. CreazySuit, however, has simply doubled down: he is insisting that only his favoured interpretation is "the truth" and is allowing only that perspective to appear in the article. That is, as you say, text-book disruptive POV-pushing. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:12, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Admin actions

The actual admin issues here seem to be as follows:

1. Kafziel (talk · contribs) (not a party) reverted the text to a version he chose, stating "replacing sourced version", then protected it. The general rule is a protecting admin should be neutral as to versions. If one version is grossly out of line (vandalism etc), then perhaps there might be a case to revert then protect, but if so this needs justifying. Kafziel needs to explain why he chose a version before applying protection, because most times that is quite an improper sequence.
2. Khoikhoi (talk · contribs) (not a party) edits through protection to reinstate the version they feel is appropriate. The edit summary reads "no consensus for a version based on a false translation". As above, unless this version is based on gross misinformation or the like, that blatantly obviously cannot be allowed to stand, this is quite improper. Even if unfounded the talk page is a good place to get consensus that it's unfounded. Khoikhoi needs to explain why he felt that this case justified editing through protection. Most times there is no justification - admins have that access in order to make non-contentious and admin-type edits, not to be able to choose a preferred version.

Unless a good reason is given, both of these actions are improper and wrongly done. These norms are very strongly held for good reason, to draw a bright line preventing admins from edit warring with the tools. Only in very rare, or well recognized, or non-controversial cases, is there likely to be genuine cause to breach them. This doesn't seem to be one of those cases. But I could be wrong. Rather than a "pile-on" discussion, may I suggest simply, a statement by each as to the above, and no "pile-on" when they are posted.

The sole question is whether sufficient good cause for these actions, is given. That doesn't need arbitration to decide, if people keep calm.

Thanks.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Kafziel has given his reason above: "The protection policy says administrators may also revert to an old version of the page prior to edit warring beginning if such a clear point exists. The version that is there is the version that came after ChrisO's first expansion and Larno Man's tagging as unbalanced, before the edit war started." [83] Khoikhoi has declined to say why he used that edit summary (edit of 23:55, 26 September 2008): "I am not going to get into content-related discussions with you here." [84] I look forward to seeing an explanation. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I explained myself right here. I was not aware of the reprotection. How does my edit summary have anything to do with this? Khoikhoi 23:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Then the question is simply, whether uninvolved users feel both explanations are reasonable. Neither admin was previously involved in the edit war, and both have given an explanation. Are the two admin action sequences reasonable in light of the explanations given and policy (WP:PROTECT, WP:ADMIN)? If not, is protection policy at fault, or the admin actions, or neither. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

No, it is not reasonable. Especially the sentence, "Khoikhoi needs to explain why he felt that this case justified editing through protection." Khoikhoi 23:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The edit summary shows, very obviously, that you believe CreazySuit's view that the translation is "false", and that you offered that reason as justification for reverting the article. If you'd said simply "no consensus for this version" that would have been one thing, but you went further and asserted positively that the version you reverted was "false". That's your own POV speaking. As I've said repeatedly to CreazySuit on the article talk page and elsewhere, neither you nor he have any business trying to determine which academic's translation is "true" or "false". All we're supposed to do here is "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each", per WP:NPOV. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, but what does this have to do with the page protection? This is totally irrelevant to what FT2 is talking about. Khoikhoi 23:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I may need to re-state that (sorry). Both admins were uninvolved. Both have given an explanation. The sole admin issue here is three questions:

1. For Kafziel: - Does the community feel that an uninvolved admin reverting to the version before edit warring, immediately prior to protection, is okay? (If not, is WP:PROTECT misleading?) Was the version reverted a reasonable pre-edit war revision?
2. For Khoikhoi: - Does the community agree that editing through protection was reasonable in this circumstance? (Or that it was a genuine mistake)
3. For protection generally: - when an admin has protected an article, should another uninvolved admin be able to unprotect it without discussion? (And if then left unprotected should another admin then reprotect it if it looks like the edit war is continuing?)

There is no RFAR needed, just thoughtful consensus seeking on those three points. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC) Updated with general 3rd point. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "no RFAr needed", are you referring just to this specific business with the two admins, or are you describing the whole situation - including CreazySuit's conduct that I documented earlier? Resolving the issue with Karziel and Khoikhoi will not address the outstanding problems with CreazySuit. Secondly, Khoikhoi is not "uninvolved". He has previously posted on the article's talk page, arguing that he believes the translation promoted by CreazySuit to be "more credible" than the others (and how does he know this, exactly? - it's original research again). See Talk:Battle of Opis#Comment. He has clearly expressed a preference as to which version he prefers. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Specifically and only the admin actions. I reckon the community can handle the edit war and any POV or OR editing. It's the possibility of wheel warring that's the problem issue. If that gets addressed here, then we're all on the same page about the admin issues, then the possible "OMG wheel war" won't carry over into other areas covering the edit war. Admins can then handle that with whatever means are appropriate. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• I think it's kind of weird that my name is in the title of this thing now, when I'm probably the least-involved admin in the whole discussion, but okay. I can take five minutes for this, and that's about all I can do. I still haven't even read enough of the article to see exactly what it's about, but it's like 2500 years old so I really don't care enough to spend too much more time on it.

If someone is wondering about my revert of Khoikhoi when the article was protected, see his talk page (and mine). It wasn't a wheel war or anything like that; I was trying to help him out because he (as he has said) mistakenly edited the protected version and I knew ChrisO was upset about that. And, yes, Moreschi probably should have asked Dragonfly to remove the protection, but I haven't seen Dragonfly complaining. For those concerned with the extremely long duration of the page protection, I completely agree. I used Dragonfly's original end date & time, and I will have no problem if someone wants to shorten it or remove it completely. It seems quite excessive to me. I'm pretty comfortable with my tiny part in this, particularly the fact that the article has been sitting peacefully for a couple of hours now, so I guess that's about all I have to say about the whole thing. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 00:36, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

User:TylerPuetz

Resolved

 – warning given by Allison--Tznkai (talk) 19:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This user (who has rollback and untill recently ACC, it was just revoked) has been caught red handed by CU, logging out and vandalising,logging back in an using rollback to revert it then proceding to brag about reverting vandalism on IRC. He has also run a bot on his account (and may still be running)

All this was discovered when we did some looking up on the IP's he was using to connect to IRC, some interesting contributions to say the least, then finding out he was also reverting them.

For these reasons Im proposing removal of rollback due to the vandalism and a block untill he declares that the bot is currently not running, nor will run untill its approved.

For evidence see here and here   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 08:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems like Alison has got it under control, she's given him a final warning. His rollback might be an issue though, I'd support its removal. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 09:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

As much as I'd like to remove it, it just feels to punitive. After all, he's unlikely to fuck around now and would likely just get it back soon enough when he decides to "reform". John Reaves 09:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a note on the bot, he's running a copy of Addbot which can be seen by comparing the source pages --Chris 09:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I revoked the account creator right however. John Reaves 09:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

My goal here is to have him stop the vandalism; that's my primary concern. He's had his warning, so that's the end of that game. I don't see too much of a need to punish the guy, to be honest - Alison ^❤ 09:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

When do we remove rollback it not in this situation?   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 09:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

When people edit war with the tool or, say, start reverting non-vandalistic edits. John Reaves 09:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

So disrupting the project, leeching others time by reverting his own vandalism and then reporting to AIV, then logging back in to effectivly evade his own ip block doesnt count? Rollback is a privledge, this user has made it quite clear that he needs a break from it.   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 09:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

and lets not even mention the un-approved bot.   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 09:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

No, they don't. Rollback is a meaning less tool we give to revert vandalism, not some sort of reward for good behavior. He hasn't abused rollback, therefore he still has it. John Reaves 09:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

By policy he may not have abused it, but by principal he has. Making vandalism just to revert so he can make drama and bragging rights is abuse and is counter productive to the project. But since some people are more concerned about what the rules say in black and white rather than using initative, i'll let this slide.   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 09:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

"Let it slide"? It's not like any one is answering to you. John Reaves 09:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

No one in thier right mind answers to another wikipedian. In other words im withdrawing despite what i think.  «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 09:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Fully agree with Promethean that this constitutes an appaling breach of the underlying basic principles, the spirit of our policies and I also echo his wondering why people here seem reluctant to identify TylerPuetz's actions as a reason to revoke his Rollback access. He has proven that he cannot handle it responsibly, what more is needed? Everyme 12:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  • (Reopened as discussion had clearly not ended). I've removed TylerPuetz (talk · contribs)'s rollback rights; using them to tool around by reverting your own vandalism is not for what the tool is intended. I think Alison has been admirably restrained in only giving him a final warning. fish&karate 12:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Your actions and Promethean's point are supported by me. Good work in my book.--VS ^talk 12:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Well, Whilst I wanted it's removal I think that it should be made clear to TylerPuetz (who is fairly young as a contributor and person) that this is not the end of the world, we are not ganging up on him and that given good contributions / behaviour (logged in and out) for a period of time (not too long) will re-establish trust and that he can have rollback back. (if he still wants it)   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 12:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
        • Well, if you ask Troy_07, he confirmed my other IP was a shared IP, and my current IP, 24.251.76.165, has few contributions. About the bot thing, I've only made one edit via that sandbot to test it out, Only 1 at all. And it was to my userpage. The old IP was shared by about 8 different people, so please keep this topic open so I can discuss it. TylerPuetz (^talk/_contribs) 14:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
          • That may be the case, IT seems there are two possibilitys, you have either edited from an IP at the same time a massive IP changing vandal has innocently, or you are that vandal. Im looking into this further.   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 14:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
            • In further review im getting Alison just to confirm some things as i tiny detail has popped up which may change the way the storyline goes. This so called shared ip you used, do you know what it was for (eg school etc)?   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 14:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

←For info of those who aren't aware, although he's blanked the conversations regarding them from his talkpage (which he's certainly entitled to do) this isn't TP's first issue. – iridescent 15:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• • • • • • • • You were asking what school, Millennium High School, in the agua fria union high school district. --TylerPuetz (^talk/_contribs) 17:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Is it just me, or is there a big lack of evidence for anyone to review here. There's Alison's word, which I trust, that he was logging out to vandalize, but she wasn't the one who started this section, and Promethean's comments have included things that don't appear to have been confirmed on-wiki:

"logging out and vandalising,logging back in an using rollback to revert it" - Alison confirmed he was apparently logging out and vandalizing, but has she confirmed that he was logging back in and reverting it? The former could possibly be explained by a shared IP (though without knowing the IP, its hard to tell if its shared), the latter would not be.

"For evidence see here" - Umm, more specific please? He has a lot of edits, and I don't even know what I'm supposed to be looking for there.

"He has also run a bot on his account" - Where's the evidence of this?

Does Promethean know the IPs in question? If so, why not provide them as evidence? If not, why is he acting as the "official spokesman" for this, when he's almost completely in the dark? Mr.Z-man 17:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

To clarify; yes, he's using a shared IP right now, as he states above. However, the logging out occurred on an IP address that he also uses which is a domestic one - Alison ^❤ 18:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying I was doing what I was accused of, but even if I was logging out to vandalize, and logging back in to revert, if you look at my contributions, and do extensive searching, I've only reverted probably 15 of my edits, and they were to my user page/sandbox, or undoing my own edits when I had made a mistake. --TylerPuetz (^talk/_contribs) 18:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

There was not a huge quantity of them, by any means, no. Hence my dealing with the situation; you got warned to not do that. And there it basically should end, right? Problem solved? - Alison ^❤ 19:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, that main thing bothering me was the fact that I had rollback + account creator rights revoked, yet, a thoruough investigation had not taken place. I think my use of Huggle has been fair, despite the problems I had nearly 5-6 months ago. I'm confused about the status of this incident, can someone fill me in with a final descision? --TylerPuetz (^talk/_contribs) 19:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Minute, notable objects

I didn't know exactly where to take this, so I'm asking here. This isn't a proposal, just a question that I think could turn into a guideline/policy, or something, based on the views of everyone here.

Onto the topic at hand, since it was not listed, I was wondering about the notability of objects, such as all the parts of a film-set, the specific lens-filters used, the way the filming camera is created/modified to suit the purpose at hand. I honestly don't think each of these tiny objects needs a separate article, yet at the moment, there is no guideline or policy under which they would fall(at least to my knowledge).— Dædαlus ^Contribs /_Improve 10:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• If the object is the subject of substantial coverage in multiple reliabel independent sources, then it meets the general notability guideline. Whether consensus would support a given object will depend on just how far you need to stretch the values of "substantial", "multiple" and "independent", I guess. Some people think WP:ITEXISTS is enough, others don't. Guy (Help!) 11:03, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The individual projects covering entertainment mediums, for instance, would probably have guidelines or consensus on how to cover these things within articles. As far as split-out articles are concern, they are already covered under WP:N, which is deliberately vague but stipulates that there should be significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. What 'significant' means is not something that can be nailed down very well so it's a case-by-case deal. If a part of a larger topic is covered in this way, then an article is theoretically possible, but the most important thing when splitting it out is to present a good case for doing so, building it in userspace and discussing it with other contributors would make things go more smoothly. If the sub-topic is genuinely of note, then having a separate article is beneficial because it means readers can be linked to it directly and have it explained as a separate item, rather than merely an aspect of a whole. An example is Gravity Gun (Half-Life), whereas the vast majority of weapons in games are scarcely worth noting outside of a few examples, this one proved so influential and is referenced so frequently that having a separate article makes sense. It just needs more citations to reflect that *adds to things to do list*. Someoneanother 13:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Also, the more minor the spin-out seems, the more emphasis has to be placed on presenting a rounded picture, supplying sources and actually building an article. It's no good throwing up an article on an aspect of something else and typing out a few sentences, if the only conclusion which can be drawn is "yeah, so?" then it shouldn't have been created. Stubs are good, but you can't expect someone to step in and write an article for you if it's just expansion of a theme, there aren't enough weeks in the hour. Someoneanother 13:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean objects like Fatsuits? The AFD could probably be informally speedy keep'ed at this point, I think. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

the possible objection being raised in the original question is that if, say, a fog filter is used in a particular film, would the use of that filter in that particular film be worth a separate article--and the answer is clearly that it it would not, but that it would be discussed in the article on the film if significant, and possibly mentioned in the article on the filter --and just conceivably an article on the production of the film might be justified if such production is sufficiently extensive to warrant a spinout article-- which would be extremely rare indeed, but that use in that film by itself would never be worth a specific article. I hope the question was not asked as a preliminary for proposing the elimination of actually notable settings or the like--if it was asked to get a statement that there is a limit of appropriate minuteness, yes, I at certainly do agree to that. Following up on the example just above, a specific fatsuit would not be worth an article. DGG (talk) 00:05, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, say one finds an article that lists such a thing, as in, a non-notable minute object. Under what criteria could it be speedily deleted under?— Dædαlus ^Contribs /_Improve 06:16, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Multiple copyright concerns, possible pattern

There is a copyright matter that needs further investigation. I have out of town guests this weekend and very little time, and I would appreciate assistance, if possible.

After substantiating copyright concerns at the article Magyar Cserkészszövetség (listed at WP:CP), I began to look at some of the other contributions of the article's creator, Kintetsubuffalo (talk · contribs), a prolific contributor since October of 2005, and I have so far identified four more problematic articles. One of these, I've already cleaned: Hayastani Azgayin Scautakan Sharjum Kazmakerputiun (the site it was copied from permitted reuse, but not modification, though it also required credit which was not supplied). I'm about to take a look at the three others to see if the duplicated text has been entirely revised through Wikipedia's natural evolution or what further handling may be required. They are:

• Savez izviđača Hrvatske. (First edit, duplicated from here & here.)
• Beslidhja Skaut Albania. (First edit), duplicated from [http://web.archive.org/web/20050828011327/http://n2zgu.50megs.com/ALB.htm here) ("Scouting was founded in Albania...at the World Scout Conference in South Africa.")
• Savjet izviđačkih organizacija u Bosni i Hercegovini (First edit, duplicated from here

Given that five of the articles I've looked at created by this user contain text from preexisting sources with no verification that the material is free for use, I'm concerned there may be more, but I don't have time to continue looking through his contributions. As he blanked without comment my invitation to discuss the matter, here, but persisted in denying a problem elsewhere, I am unsure that he will choose to participate in this conversation, but I will notify him of this thread in case he does.

If anyone has an opportunity to look further through these contributions, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I'll pick up again on Monday, though meanwhile the listings at WP:CP march on. :) Thanks. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Updating in the midst of cleanup to note that I did notify, but he has again removed notification of concerns without comment, here. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

As to unsure that he will choose to participate in this conversation, why should I? Moonriddengirl has already decided all of my edits are suspect, has begun poorly editing my early stuff, and has started this admin thing about me. I do not care anymore. I'm not going to unwrite things I posted here three years ago, much of which was synthesis of my research originally started in September 1989, when there were only four people in the world studying this, and I was one of them, and which I lent to people for their use. The Pine Tree Web (Lewis Orans, and you will find my name-Chris Fitch-all over that site), and N2ZGU (Gregg Sablic, who has piles of my research) stuff was used by correspondents directly borrowing what I wrote my thesis on, and for which the Scouting Project has explicit permission to reuse. I'm a little more savvy than I was then, but once I have been tarred with "plagiarist", true or false (false, but how to prove, and why bother?)... ah well. I'm 6000 miles away from my archives, in another country, with stuff that was written nearly two decades ago and is buried in my storage. I explained at Talk:Magyar Cserkészszövetség, Moonriddengirl insists on labelling my reasoning as denial, and so is determined to go ahead and crucify me. Again, why should I participate in this witch-hunt? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 16:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for weighing in. You indicated at Talk:Magyar_Cserkészszövetség#Copyright_problem_removed that "I wrote the original from source material I've had since 1990, the sites may have been copied from here, I never saw them before today. The tone, tense, languange and writing of those articles seems to me totally different than my own, and where there are similarities, it's a small topic, there must by default be overlap." You also indicated there that you were "the original author of this article three years ago" and that "they were actually written here first."

As I noted at that talk page, the archived version of the identified site, here, predates us. They cannot have copied from here. The earliest version of your article, here, substantially duplicates that site. Among other duplicated text, I draw particular attention to the section in your text then beginning "In the early 1950s, the Displaced Persons (DPs), refugees from World War II and the new Communist regimes in Eastern Europe" down through "The World Organization of the Scout Movement maintains ties and provides support to the reemerging Scouting movements in the countries of their birth." This, compared with the archived site ("In the early fifties, the DPs (Displaced Persons, refugees from the Second World War and the new Communist regimes in Eastern Europe" through "The World Organization of the Scout Movement, maintain ties and provide support to the re-emerging Scouting movements in the countries of their birth"), is clearly so similar that the text could not have been spontaneously, separately composed. If you did not duplicate from that source, then the only other possible explanation is that both you and the official website, which previously published the material, copied from an earlier, unidentified source. If you were the author of that earlier, unidentified source--or of any of the material at other sites--you can demonstrate that as the talk page of each article I've addressed here now notes, through Donating copyrighted materials.

Your participation here is valuable as it is considerably easier for you to demonstrate that you are not placing copyrighted text on Wikipedia if you reply and supply verification than if you simply blank notices. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Persistent page redirecting

I'm not quite sure whether or not this can be considered vandalism, or even wrong per se, however i've decided to bring this incident to AN/I because it may require admin intervention. User 59.183.26.93 (talk · contribs) continues to blank and redirect the article "Jazz Jackrabbit (series)" to Jazz Jackrabbit (character) ([85][86][87] without explanation (Which was incidentally, originally a redirect of the former.). After reverting his edits twice, I left him a note on his talk page and explaining that he must use the article's talk page to discuss the redirect. Instead he simply ignored that and reverted my edits. The article originally contained good quality content, which acted as the the main page of that topic (Jazz Jackrabbit).

I'm unable to continue to revert his egregious edits, because I'm already in violation of 3RR [88]. However what I find more worrying, is that a similar ip address (from the same vicinity or area) belonging to blocked user Fangusu did the exact same thing 5 days earlier [89]!
I think these bad faith edits are more sinister than they appear. --Flewis^(talk) 12:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

You're not in violation of 3RR - it doesn't apply to vandalism, and once you tried to communicate with the IP and they continued the unexplained redirecting, it became implicit vandalism. So no worries there. I've semi-protected the article in question for 5 days, so you've now got time to convince the IP to talk to you, otherwise there's now time for him/her to get bored and go away. I have no opinions on the other IP or on Fangusu because I've not looked into the matter. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ is repressed but remarkably dressed 12:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Of course, the apparent lack of Notability of the Character/Series separately, and the fact that they probably belong in the same article anyway is a discussion for elsewhere :-) BMW(drive) 13:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh yes. The content element is nothing to do with me or any other administrator (in an admin capacity) and I never even looked at it; the repeatedly redirecting an article after being asked to stop bit is 100% admin territory. The IP can easily slap an AfD template on the article in question and a rationale on the talk page and I'll list it when DumbBOT next updates. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ is repressed but remarkably dressed 15:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This is certainly a sock of blocked user Fangusu. He has been editing from IPs in the same range for the past few weeks since his main account was blocked. Doctorfluffy (robe and wizard hat) 15:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Pretty clearly, yes. I've blocked the IP for a week. Feel free to let me know if you find more, so they can be blocked and this one can be unblocked. Cheers. lifebaka++ 15:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Just noticed this thread... I blocked the entire 59.183.0.0/18 range for 31 hours. If that doesn't cause a problem, we can start increasing the duration. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Threat at Sanford Bishop

Resolved

 – Georgia Board of Regents and FBI notified Toddst1 (talk) 15:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Ran across this lovely thought this morning at Sanford Bishop, added by 168.10.63.72 (talk · contribs) yesterday, and I figured that if anything further needed to be done besides removal, there'd be someone here who's better equipped to deal with it than me. 71.215.236.12 (talk) 13:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Blocked. Email sent to Georgia Board of Regents (abuse contact) reporting incident. Toddst1 (talk) 14:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

How about contacting the FBI? I think they frown upon people threatening to kill members of Congress. KnightLago (talk) 15:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. Toddst1 (talk) 15:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It looks like that resolves to a high school, actually (universities wouldn't use anything at doe.k12.ga.edu for emails), so I'll bet it's a prank. Happened around 9 AM local time, too, so during school hours. Still, no harm being cautious. The Board of Regents should be able to handle it from here, forwarding to other agencies as necessary. Cheers, guys. lifebaka++ 15:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

You could be right, but I just got a call back from the FBI. Toddst1 (talk) 15:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

So what did they have to say? "Thanks for the tip"? "Don't call this number again"? "What's this 'wikipedia' dealie"? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

With no doubt the FBI would be very interested in this. While it may be a silly prank of some high school kid they should all be looked into by the appropriate law enforcement agencies (read: no wikipedia editors) and let the threat level be determined by the experts. Bstone (talk) 20:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

They appreciated the info and asked for clarification on how to interpret the diff and exactly what text the IP added. For future reference, here is the URL: https://tips.fbi.gov/ to report such. Those of us who report TOV to authorities might want to keep that bookmarked. I also got a response thanking me from the Georgia Department of Education saying they had identified the school and were investigating. Toddst1 (talk) 20:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Kudos. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Threats against User:Orangemike by User:Wangtopgun over editing dispute

Resolved

 – Triple indef block conflict. KnightLago (talk) 15:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This guy is a combat veteran, says he's worked as a mercenary; now he's escalating an edit dispute to what he describes as "war"; when I posted a moderate notice on the Wikiquette board, he said on my talk page, "As I stated clearly, let the war begin . . . and if you think this is just cyberspace, think again." Am I unreasonable to think this is inappropriate? --Orange Mike | Talk 14:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

No, you are not being unreasonable. I was on my way to indef block him, but someone got there before I did. KnightLago (talk) 15:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Indef blocked until they retract and promise to stay completely away from you in the future. --barneca (talk) 15:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Make that a triple Block-conflict - I was going to do the same. Good block. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 15:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Well shucks, the indef block might just negate my sparkling new Civility Warning Welcome Template that I left on his page BMW(drive) 17:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Oooh. I'm going to remember that template. Definitely could have used that in the past. Yoink. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Apparently the operative part of that user's ID is its first syllable. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Avril Lavigne

Resolved

 – RBI - KnightLago (talk) 18:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

No, there is a deeper issue here. Thatcher 18:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I see "The Wikipedia Community would like to wish Avril Lavigne a happy birthday!" at the top of the article on South Africa and related articles. It appears above the article title! I have no idea how this is done, because I can't find the text in the article. Over to someone more aufait than me ... AWhiteC (talk) 18:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Fixed here, vandal blocked, but I'm a little unclear if we protect templates that have previously been targeted or not. --barneca (talk) 18:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Lonely lost soul (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Birthdaygirl84 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Wubwubus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Vancouver cornetto1989 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

These vandal accounts and the template vandalism they caused were enabled because Blueboy96 unblocked 82.198.250.0/24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and replaced it with a soft block. As I explained at Template:Checkuserblock-Synetrix, even though these are shared IPs, almost all the edits are vandalism from the Avril vandal. These accounts were created recently on Tor, then used to vandalize from school. Therefore a softblock is worthless. The template further gives several helpful instructions to good editors who might be affected. I was hoping that a hard block would annoy enough of Synetrix' clients that they would take some sort of action.

I am disappointed that Blueboy96 lifted this block without informing or consulting me. Expect the Avril template vandal to come back on a daily basis. Thatcher 18:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I've put this block back in place; checkuser blocks are obviously not to be undone. east718 // talk // email // 19:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I had thought there was a provision in the blocking policy reflecting that "checkuser blocks," designated as such, should not be undone by another (non-checkuser) administrator without checking with the checkuser. However, I'm not finding that provision in a skim of WP:BLOCK, so perhaps I am misremembering (although it seems a sensible enough suggestion in any event). Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It's just one of those things that's accepted practice but the recording of which as such has been neglected. I suppose this is as close as you'll get to instructions of this sort. east718 // talk // email // 19:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of the type of block, it would have been courteous for Blueboy to ask Thatcher first, or at least inform him of unblocking, whether it was a checkuser block, or a plain admin one. -- how do you turn this on 19:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll admit, I thought it was bad form to hardblock such a large range from editing due to the large potential for collateral damage, unless there was a lot of spam involved. If I had known that the range was being used exclusively by one editor, I'd have left the block in place. I'll do better on this in the future ... Blueboy96 19:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

There should be no future. You shouldn't be unblocking anyone unless you know exactly what is going on. It is extremely bad form to reverse another administrator's block, especially a checkuser, without consulting them first. Have you unblocked anything else we should know about? KnightLago (talk) 21:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Your tone is inappropriate KnightLago. He realised his mistake & apologized for it. If you want to check his blocking/unblocking history the logs are there to browse at your leisure. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 23:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Wubwubus

Wubwubus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) adding "AL birthday" message to widely-used templates; previously done under Khrono1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) account, now blocked. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Already blocked, see thread immediately above. --barneca (talk) 19:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Converted into a subsection of above thread.--Tznkai (talk) 19:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

 Confirmed and blocked. Also blocked one open proxy - Alison ^❤ 19:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Rangeblock necessary perhaps?

132.248.103.234 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has a template on the talk page saying the IP address, 132.248.103.234, is registered to Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Ciudad Universitaria circuito exterior s/n, 04510 - Mexico - DF, MX. Kralizec! (t · c · b · p · d · m · r) blocked it for 31 hours last week, and Icairns (t · c · b · p · d · m · r) did the same today for one week.

Last night, unaware of the 234 IP, I blocked 132.248.103.237 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) for the same vandalisms.

Looking through the articles that the two IPs likes to add its information to,

• 189.217.58.30 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log),
• 189.216.156.78 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log),
• 189.216.69.132 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log),
• 189.216.236.182 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), and
• 132.248.103.234 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

have all been doing the same thing.

I was wondering if a WP:RANGE block was in order. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 20:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

That 189 range would be enormous 189.216.0.0/15 at a minimum. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

More TyrusThomas4lyf

As seen in this thread from earlier this week, we have yet another returning IP sock of banned user TyrusThomas4lyf. [90] Exact same pattern, changing things on NBA record pages with no discussion (or pretended discussions implied in edit summaries) and refusing to follow consensus, only sourcing things with off-line sources against consensus. His claim of an NBA record by Ben Wallace has been googled by multiple editors and nothing has been found, but he keeps inserting it.

He's been recently banned as 99.141.30.69 (talk · contribs) and 99.141.32.189 (talk · contribs). I'm requesting an admin please check the matter again, it's obviously another sock back tonight. Thanks in advance for your assistance. Dayewalker (talk) 22:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Blocked the IP, 75.34.37.202 (talk · contribs), for 48 hours. Next time you report one of these, please include the IP/username in question. Cheers. lifebaka++ 02:02, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Orgone - help with pointless POV tag

There are a couple of editors who keep editing in a POV tag on Orgone - see here, [91], here, here, and here. I've tried to get explanations as to why it needs to be there (see here, where I opened a section on it), and the explanations I've been given (as unsatisfactory as they are) I've tried to address as best I can, but Tmtoulouse has only bothered to respond twice, saying that the word 'pseudoscience' needs to be in the lead, citing Gardner as a source (in the link above, and here), and User:Orangemarlin has replied mainly with incorrect statements (see here, and here where he asserts that the article claims orgone exists or works - the article doesn't - and here where he complains about the the use of 'putative energy', which is a direct quote from an (arguably) reliable source.

I don't think any of these concerns merit a POV tag,and while I wouldn't mind trying to address them, the overt hostility of the latest talk page edits from OrangeMarlin, combined with the tendency of both editors to revert without comment - I've had to press them both to participate on the talk page at all, including this note I left on OM's talk page here (which just resulted in more hostility) - makes it abundantly clear that I (personally) am unlikely to get anywhere through discussion.

I'm just trying to figure out what's needed to get rid of the POV tag; can someone please act as an intermediary? --Ludwigs2 22:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

An opening like: "Orgone is a theoretical energy first postulated and then promoted by Wilhelm Reich. There is no evidence that it actually exists." would probably go a long way towards helping. - Nunh-huh 22:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

hunh. ok - I'll throw that out on the talk page (if you don't mind me using your words) and see if it flies. --Ludwigs2 22:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It would help if there were obvious qualifications inserted into the entry, perhaps like those suggested by nunh-huh. For instance, the second sentence of the lead reads: "Orgone energy in its full sense was described as a universal life force flowing through all things, and responsible for almost all observable phenomena; an omnipresent force in nature that could account for a wide variety of phenomena including, according to sceptical critics, "the color of the sky, gravity, galaxies, the failure of most political revolutions, and a good orgasm." I tend to agree with the assessment that this type of language implies that orgone energy exists, since it offers a description of something without making it clear to the reader that this something is purely theoretical and has not been empirically observed.PelleSmith (talk) 23:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

well, I will say that part of what I was aiming for when I rewrote this article was to give a decent explanation of what Reich thought orgone was without presenting it as remotely true or queering it with too much criticism (and this article has run the gamut both ways, believe you me...). if you all think it's too Reichian, that's easy enough to fix; I'm just hesitant to take any action in the current article climate. I was really hoping that someone here could do something to nudge Orangemarlin and TMtoulouse to commit to forward progress of some sort. any way it goes that's going to be key to resolving this issue. --Ludwigs2 23:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the comments that this article is a POV pushing mess. The article implies or frankly states outright that Orgone exists. I made numerous searches of reliable sources, and I could not find anyone who confirmed it. It's difficult to prove a negative, but I tried to insert comments that "there is no scientific support for this type of energy" but editors kept removing it. So, the POV tag stays until such time as the article can be made NPOV. Oh, by the Ludwigs, thanks for the notification of this ANI. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

well, all I can say is that I don't think I would have removed a statement like that, and I don't remember ever discussing it with you. and let's be frank - it's logically and scientifically impossible to prove that something doesn't exist; all we can ever say is that there is insufficient evidence to reasonably support the claim (which is certainly the case with Orgone). Claiming orgone does not exist is just as POV as claiming it does; I mean, it literally is a putative energy (an energy that is 'reputed' to be, rather than one the actually 'is'). but this is all something we ought to be discussing on the talk page, yah?

as to your other comment... <shrug> I figured it was best to let other people inform you. can you really object? --Ludwigs2 00:04, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Technological problems

Resolved

 – Stuck SHIFT key. Next... SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 23:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

My keyboard is acting weird> I have to turn on the CAPS key just in order to type with lower case letters> I cant make punctuations because my keyboard is working backwards as you can see when I try to put a period I get this > or a comma I get this < please help me this is so weird> Crackthewhip775 (talk) 22:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see what administrative help is required here, unless you want me to recommend a vendor for a new keyboard (hint: eBay). howcheng {chat} 22:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Try typing with the keyboard rotated 180 degrees. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

lol - I'll leave a tech note on his talk page. --Ludwigs2 23:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

If you have spilled something on the keyboard, cleaning and drying out the keyboard might help. Running a virus scan on your PC would be advisable in case it's not the keyboard that's at fault. Hope this helps. Nick (talk) 23:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Everything's all good now, I don't know what caused the problem, but I think switching user accounts (Windows XP) solved it. I am running a virus scan now, so thanks to everyone for their suggestions. Crackthewhip775 (talk) 23:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

If you do spill Coke on the keyboard, disconnect it immediately and run it through the dishwasher. (Wash cycle only - not dry cycle.) That actually works. However, let it air-dry for about a week before trying it again. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This just means the software missed a key-up or key-down event, and the keyboard and operating system got out of sync. Pressing and releasing each shift, control, and alt key, and the caps lock and num lock keys will usually get things back in sync. --John Nagle (talk) 05:57, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

XP doing that? Forsooth! VISTA, I could see. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 07:02, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Repeated copyright violations by LamyQ

LamyQ (talk) has uploaded several copyrighted images and these have been speedily deleted, but now he is re-uploading them. He has been warned after each violation on his talk page. Is a block in order? Thanks. --Uncia (talk) 05:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of those who aren't spending a ridiculous number of hours on this (and thank you, btw, Uncia): LamyQ (talk · contribs · logs · block log) is almost definitely a sock of PoliticianTexas (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). If he's blocked, he'll just show up again next week with a new account.

Dori (Talk • Contribs) 06:19, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of completeness, there's more past history at WP:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive470#Repeated_copyright_violations_by_Dowhatyoudo and Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_checkuser#Image_copyvio_uploads_and_socks. This guy just keeps on coming back. Dori (Talk • Contribs) 21:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Since our last posting here, LamyQ (talk · contribs) has reuploaded a previously-deleted copyvio image (5th time for this image), another of his uploads has been determined to be copyvio, and he deleted the speedy deletion tag on that image. He has been warned on each violation. Any chance for speedy action? Thanks. --Uncia (talk) 00:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that blue box above is distracting people from this thread. If there's still no reply after a while, you might want to put this entire thread at the bottom of the page. x42bn6 Talk Mess 22:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I've now done that. Dori (Talk • Contribs) 23:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Naughty IP returns

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

Apparently recently returned from a 1 week block, this IP is now edit warring and telling us to fellate him. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 23:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Article has been semi'd, so that should handle it. Cheers. lifebaka++ 02:05, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't be too hard on him, he's just here looking for a date. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 07:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Propaganda edit war

Minor edit skirmish in Richmond, British Columbia, in which I do not want to violate 3rr: [92]. Input requested. Repeated insertion of unsourced, appears to be used as a forum. JNW (talk) 23:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I've taken a look at the contested section and removed POV statements as well as issuing a 3RR warning. Report to 3RR if POV editing continues. Toddst1 (talk) 00:37, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Bogorm again

relisted as discussion evolved to ban proposalToddst1 (talk) 23:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd like additional eyes on a situation that seems to be growing out of hand. Bogorm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) seems to think the best defence is a good offence. He or she has lashed out at both me and Tiptoety (talk · contribs) more than once. This sockpuppet report seems to capture most of it, rather than posting dozens of diffs which I don't quite have time to pull together right now. Thanks. Toddst1 (talk) 18:27, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd say continue the SSP and grab an uninvolved admin when ready. I'll note the RFCU does not rule out the possibility of socks, just that proxies may have been used, so continued investigation is appropriate. If he keeps up the attacks, try and ignore them, he clearly is warned by this point and will be blocked if they continue. MBisanz ^talk 18:39, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

(To Toddst1) The diff is a reliable manner of demonstration - the beginning of Toddst1's biased attitude towards me was here, where I presented evidence disproving the soundness of my blocking, whose proponent just handpicked 8 accidential edits of mine from one article and presented them as "reverts". User:Toddst1 decided to blank it in lieu of investigating it and even to block me for daring to refute 5 "reverts" as counterfeit. Probably some more zealous admin would investigate it, it does not take time at all, the 5 refuting diffs are in the last link above.
Following this, he accuses me of having a sockpuppet, although I made an edit from the Balcan peninsula at 21:27 UTC, 9 Sep, and at 21:34 UTC some editor from San Jose, an impostor of mine, deliberately edited his talk page. Evidence for the whereabouts is to be found here in the "contra-evidence" section. The CheckUser decided that it is inconclusive, id est, no connection to be proven, and he still maintains the Template:Sockpuppeteer on my user page, and he even provides it with the parameter "evidence", which is allowed in the template's documentation only for conclusive, affirmative outcome. Yes, sequence of actions violently disregarding WP:AGF presents en effet and undeniably an incident. Bogorm (talk) 18:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I am an editor from Bulgaria, the IP-impostor is an editor from California. My IP-address is static. Sapienti pauca. Bogorm (talk) 18:52, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to find an example of this 'lashing out' and I can't. Edit summaries?Yeago (talk) 14:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC) UTC)

I am grateful to you for you cherishing WP:AGF, you are the first admin whom I encountered and who showed such an attitude. Since I am trying to combat deletionism I would like to recollect my report on deliberate obliterations of certain sources (Toddst1 disparaged it as "frivolous" when it is providing any nevessary evidence of single-purpose deletionist actions) - at first this user was reported to have blanked ( 10 times !) large sections of information regarding Chechnya and South Ossetia simply because the sources are Russian (he deletes even scientifical books and numbers quoted from them !) His edits are only in this topic and are far from impartiality. This edit of his is in direct relationship to your term "Article hen" - he obliterates sources from Ukraine, USA, Russia and Israel and even admits that he has no knowledge of the Russian language (demonstration in the first diff) and has not asked any knowledgeable person - this is an instringent and disruptive deletionism, please take the case in consideration. I hope I am not the sole editor who is indignant about people with no knowledge of the source language but are zealous and intransigent in light-mindedly erasing whole sections (reckless deletionism). Bogorm (talk) 19:20, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia and as such I don't think your complaints about his not knowing the language apply. As for me, I am not an admin. I think you are confused--you gave a link to 'his edit' but the link went to one of your own edits.Yeago (talk) 22:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me, the diff has been redressed. The previous one showed the refutation of his 3RR claim, while copying I must have duplicated it inadvertently. Bogorm (talk) 08:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Bogorm continues to insert extremely poorly sourced and dubious material. He's been asked several times not to, and has been explained several times on the talk page that that his contributions break certain policies, but since his 2 week block for herassment expired he went on with it. Anyone who reverts him is accused of "vandalism". Now he seems to go around everywhere accusing me of past "vandalism", probably because I once reported him for a clear 3rr violation. I already tried to explain him that the report for 3rr was not meant personally, but this was in vain. Grey Fox (talk) 20:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

As requested, here are the diffs of lashing out at other editors that prompted me to start this discussion:

• accusing Tiptoety of negligence
• accusing Tiptoety of attacking Bogorm
• accusing me of being "reckless" and "inept"
• accusing me of bias
• accusing me of disruption
• accusing NJGW (talk · contribs) of disruption
• accusing two different editors of "inane or derisable" edits User:Bogorm/Inane - now deleted as an attack page (admin examination)

I would postulate that at this point it is not all the other editors that this editor has interacted with that are disruptive - rather, Bogorm is disruptive. After this editor and its sockpuppet have earned 4 blocks in a very short time, I believe Wikipedia would be better off without this editor's contributions. I believe it is time for a ban. Toddst1 (talk) 23:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I do not know what to tell. I tried to explain WP policies to Bogorm [93], [94].. The whole idea was to sit out the block, behave quietly, do not blame anyone, and edit something non-controversial for a while. But he is doing everything to inflame the conflict. He hurts himself and unfortunately others.Biophys (talk) 02:24, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Bogorm should definitely be banned if he feels so strongly about having his way. This is a serious abuse, if not a big waste of time for everyone who has to deal with him. ~ Troy (talk) 02:37, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with this. His having four blocks in a short span of time and then to return after the last block without a change in editorial attitude and an unwillingness to work within established guidelines and policies, even so far as making an attempt to engage in civil consensus debates, shows he believes his way is the right way and be damned with any other. There appears no middle ground for appeal when any attempt to engage him results in acclamations of bias, recklessness, ineptitude, etc. against his fellow editors. It is exactly this kind of behavior which drove me away from the 2008 South Ossetia war article and to work on less contentious subjects for a while. One can only take so much incivility.--«JavierMC»|Talk 03:49, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Right. There is nothing to object.Biophys (talk) 04:37, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Tohd8BohaithuGh1 (talk · contribs) again

Resolved

 – (for now at least)

• See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive475#Tohd8BohaithuGh1.C2.A0.28talk.C2.A0.C2.B7_contribs.29_recent_edits for previous discussion about this user.

In the previous discussion surrounding this user 3 different editors had to go and tell him about the discussion and finally warnings had to be given that if he didn't show up to discuss his edits they'd be viewed as disruptive and he would be blocked. Since that time he's accumulated 9 more warnings on his talk page about his editing behaviour (a wide variety of things, misuse of vandal templates, misuse of automatic tools like twinkle, and failure to respond again at times) and was recently blocked for his behaviour. All in just 10 days. He seems completely unwilling to take any advice, and in the most recent exchange said he wouldn't give up twinkle because if he does patrol, that means other people fix things faster. To me this indicates some kind of motivation for his behaviour outside of what is best for the encyclopedia. Several users have reached out to him and have made little if any difference. As well now because he's on rapid fire patrol it has become increasingly difficult to check his edits for problems as the volume has increased. At the least this user needs to have his access to this tools and any other tools stripped for the time being and if his disruptive edits continue in the face of all effort to help him, he needs to be blocked for a little longer than 12 hours.--Crossmr (talk) 02:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking about bringing him up here again. His userpage is a string of 'final warnings', he's back at it after his block and unrepentant. I suggest removing all semi-automated tools such as twinkle from him, you never know he might be ok underneath what he's doing with them. Then if he still acts bizarrely disruptively, we'll have to think again. But he's not the most collaborative of users. Sticky Parkin 03:38, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Even without the tools he has a serious issue with communication which is a big part of the problem and frustration for other editors.--Crossmr (talk) 05:19, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I've blocked him for 24 hours and will keep an eye out. I still think he's well-intentioned but we can't tolerate the constant disruption. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 03:45, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

There is definitely something not clicking with this editor. Today, while I was on RC patrol, I noted an IP that he had given SEVEN final warnings to in quick succession. I'd definitely support complete removal of all semi-automated tools. -MBK₀₀₄ 04:05, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

This editor seems to be trying to do approximately the right thing. It's the "approximately" that's the problem. Maybe with some coaching... --John Nagle (talk) 07:26, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Not only are this editor's bad edits requiring so much effort to check and clean up that they swamp any benefit from his good edits, he is also - I would surmise - chasing off potentially good editors. Final warnings given as first warnings for simple newbie errors are just not acceptable (and the irony is not lost on me). I accept this editor means well but Wikipedia is not for everyone, and I think it is time to recognise that the project would be better off without him. Ros0709 (talk) 07:32, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

He was given plenty of chances before I issued him a final warning. Several editors reached out to him and he ignored them until he was given a final warning and told he'd be blocked if he didn't discuss. I agree that an editor that continues on this path and basically has to be forced in to discussion does not benefit this project.--Crossmr (talk) 09:07, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Questionable user accounts

Resolved

 – Nothing to be done at the moment.

There seems to be something funny going on. Recently, I discovered a user account with the rather absurd name of User:Vietnameseischinesenotcantoneseisvietnamese, which had been used to vandalise the edit histories of several articles. When I checked its log, I discovered that there is another user account called User:Nefbmn which seems to exist only for nationalist provocations. The user and talk pages contain slanderous comments. In particular, this user seems rather obssessed with another user who now appears to have been banned (see user contributions for proof). I believe User:Nefbmn needs to be warned one last time. If this user does not change their behaviour or cease editing altogether, this user should be blocked indefinitely. 122.105.145.124 (talk) 04:36, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

• Nothing much to do here, the first account is blocked and the second hasn't edited for a week. Whilst there's a bit of soapboxing on their user/talk pages, I don't see anything slanderous. Black Kite 07:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Genocide against Sri Lanka's Tamils

Please comment whether we can create a Category:Genocide against Sri Lanka's Tamils and include Gotabhaya Rajapaksa there in reference to FEIN: A genocide inquiry? on The Washington Times.Christina71 (talk) 06:28, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

• In general, such categories exist where there is a well-sourced parent article i.e. Bosnian Genocide, Rwandan Genocide. The closest I see to that at the moment is Sri Lankan Civil War (see also the categories attached there). As an aside, note that we already have Category:Genocide and Category:Human rights abuses. Black Kite 10:23, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikiport Returns

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

Not 1 week after my last ANI thread about this guy, he's back again, making unexplained removals of material that has been the subject of numerous RFC's going back three years, and which has its own FAQ explaining why it's there. Additionally, at least four editors have addressed this directly to Wikiport on the talk page (see Talk:Fox News Channel#Deletion of FNC Article). Beyond all of that, he tried twice to speedily delete the entire article because he doesn't agree with the sentence in question and refuses to read or respect consensus. Can someone please end this disruptive behavior? //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 11:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC)