Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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

I really hate to do this. I'm pretty thick skinned, and generally detest people coming here to complain of incivility or personal attacks. But completely unprovoked remarks about me by Everyme (talk · contribs) have left me speechless. I'm not going to say more, to resist poisoning the well, but I'd very much appreciate some admins to examining this comment and then this thread, and take whatever action seems good to them.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 23:48, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I should note that I tried to resolve this situation, unsuccessfully. See my comments here. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 23:51, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm grateful to L'Aquatique for her attempts. Unfortunately, the user doesn't seem to get it.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 23:53, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Now that Everyme has been made aware of this discussion, can I summise the concern is that Everyme has offended Scott MacDonald's sensibilities by inferring that an good faith difference of opinion by SM has been termed "intellectual dishonesty"? If so, I agree that Everyme should apologise for the lack of good faith shown and intemperate language used - different philosophies can produce different results from the same evidence; to label a differing conclusion as "dishonest" is both arrogant and incivil. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:33, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

First of all, apologies for not informing everyme, but I didn't want to be seen as baiting him, so I was staying off his userpage. If it had just been the accusation of intellectual dishonesty, I'd have let it pass. But he also, without any provocation, compared me to Ashley Todd (a liar and a "race baiter"), and then when I (fairly mildly) invited him to remove his comment, I was subjected to a further abusive tirade. An apology would be nice personally, but that;s not the point, it is more important from the project's point of view that we communicate that there are limits, beyond which we don't tolerate this attitude. I repeat, that I'd never interacted with him before.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 00:42, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Would Everyme been aware that use of that name (it means nothing to me) would have been particularly offensive to you, or to anyone, and is it possible that they still misunderstand that this is the case? I have to say that I missed this point when reviewing the links. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:53, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Em, his post doesn't make sense without it. But read all his remarks and draw your own conclusions.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 00:58, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't noticed that Ashley Todd is the name of the hoaxer... On repeat review I don't think that Everyme meant what you have taken it to mean (IMO, regarding concerns over the BLP considerations of someone who themselves are admitted liars coupled with the "intellectual dishonesty" language), but they have not made any effort to explain themselves better and certainly not taken the route of apologising for any misunderstanding - but rather simply requested you to review the past content and draw different conclusions. I would prefer that Everyme made some comment here before seeing if any admin action is required. LessHeard vanU (talk) 01:21, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, maybe he meant something else? Maybe when he called me dumb, and stupid or dishonest, he was actually trying to say something nice as well?--Scott MacDonald (talk) 01:26, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course the real issue here is that this is ultimately about McCain-Obama. In a couple of weeks, Everye will lose interest in this, and probably Scott as well. Looie496 (talk) 02:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'm not American, and have no partisan allegiances. I'm not sure that political stress excuses Everyme's behaviour.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 03:18, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

What then excuses your behaviour? Concern about BLP? Hardly so. And for anyone who doesn't know: Yes, I'm for Obama and I despise vicious racebaiting, whether it comes from a confused young woman or from anybody else. More importantly however, I'm worried about encyclopedic accuracy and quality of discussion. Consider that the entire dispute began when Scott actually tried to argue against "Ashley Todd's mugging hoax" as the article title thusly. I responded to that by bitchslapping his comment, and I maintain that I was not only right, but doing the right thing. Everyme 07:04, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

• First off, Scott, thank you for your honesty in not informing me about this ANI thread. Thank you so much. I'm not entirely sure where I gave you the impression that I might possibly prefer not being notified over being "harassed" (a favourite buzzword of BLP-policy-fans btw, oh the irony). Well, for the record: I would have preferred it had you notified me, which I personally regard as a matter of basic politeness. Maybe you, Scott, would interpret a simple notification of an ANI thread about yourself as "harassment", but, just to kindly inform you about it, not everyone would and certainly not myself. Thank you very much for being so very considering and honest there. Wonderful.
  
  As to the merits of the thread itself: I've explained my position and my reasoning over and over, without getting any reply as to the merit of my reasoning. For Scott to say that "[...] he also, without any provocation, compared me to Ashley Todd (a liar and a "race baiter"), and then when I (fairly mildly) invited him to remove his comment, I was subjected to a further abusive tirade" is yet another comment I can only ... marvel at. I made it clear, both in my initial comment, then again at my user talk, that what I meant was the perception of some extent of intellectual dishonesty (for the record: my according reasoning has not been responded to by anyone so far). Deliberately mixing it up with Todd's racebaiting (an entirely different point in my initial comment, mind you) is, well, a wee bit far-fetched to say the very very least. So far-fetched indeed that I yet again can hardly think of any other valid explanation for why he would do that (and Scott did it in his initial comment at my talk page already).
  
  Scott refused to respond to my explanations, instead chose to be "just rather stunned". Well, again, I ask you, and this is all I care about: Why, just why, would you, at that article talk page, produce an arbitrary definition of "hoax" which you must know is entirely made up by yourself and wrong on top of that — and, most ironically, serves your stance in the article? Why would you do that? There are not so many possible explanations I can conjure up for that. Please respond to my reasoning for once. You, or anybody else who feels up to the task. Consider that I also made it very clear that in saying that I perceived his comment there as intellectually dishonest, my intention was obviously (or so I think) not to personally attack Scott. It was merely something I arrived at as the imho most likely conclusion of my reasoning. I did not comment on Scott, I commented on his comment, and told him in no unclear terms what I think of his comment, and, more importantly, why I do. Everyme 07:04, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
• Just a footnote here, but I'd like to note that Scott's memory appears to fail him when he claims above that "I repeat, that I'd never interacted with him before." Everyme 07:38, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This kind of comment about another editor is completely unacceptable: "I didn't assume for a second that you, Scott, might actually be dumb enough to believe your own bullshit, like your definition of what a hoax is. But ok, I'll leave the choice to you: Either you are intellectually dishonest, or you're stupid." The fact that you refuse to admit it was wrong or strike it is concerning as this is clearly a personal attack. (Full disclosure, I've had previous disagreements with Everyme) Oren0 (talk) 08:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

What is your explanation for his awkward definition of "hoax" at that article talk page? I merely summarised all the possible alternative explanations I could think of. Since I believe Scott is intelligent, that leaves intellectual dishonesty as the most likely explanation for why he would give an arbitrary definition that just so happens to play to his stance on the article. Again, and for hopefully the last time: It's not a personal attack, it's applied logic. Also, again: Prove me wrong and I'll happily retract. But right now it's just not in my hands, I feel like I've done my homework. Please respond to my reasoning, which concluded with me seeing some degree of intellectual dishonesty as the most likely explanation for Scott's initial comment. It's the most charming of the possible explanations I could think of: I was actually being polite and carefully weighed my limited knowledge of Scott. Everyme 09:13, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't currently have the time to get involved with this, so I can't give an opinion either way, but I have previously had to negotiate with Everyme over gross incivility after Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2008 South Carolina Learjet 60 crash and I got the impression that was not the first time, either. Maybe, if we decide this was unsuitable (again, remember I haven't actually gone over this in detail), it's time somene dished out a block. How long are we going to leave this? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 09:04, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

That's a truly hilarious situation. I can either renounce, against my better current knowledge, what I assume to be flawless reasoning on my part, or face a block. Well, I'll have to go with the block then because I am unable to discover a flaw in my reasoning and nobody bothered to even respond to my reasoning. Nevermind that I felt insulted by Scott's way of POV pushing there, and how he insulted his fellow editors' intelligence. But at least he did it civilly, didn't he. And that's what counts. Fuck my reasoning, fuck encyclopedic accuracy. Right on. Everyme 09:19, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

• Also, I'd appreciate it if the section could be renamed from the imho quite misleading "remarks" name to "Reasoning by Everyme", or alternatively "Flawed reasoning by Everyme", depending on a response by anyone who actually bothers to look at the situation at hand and doesn't merely respond on their own grudge. I am as civil as the situation allows me to be. No more, no less. And it's once again fantastic to see for how little valid reasoning counts on Wikipedia, and how zero effort to provide a valid reasoning is being constantly indulged if only the user follows the hivemind definition of "civility". Everyme 10:29, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

"...what I assume to be flawless reasoning..." is beyond hilarious; it goes a long way to evidence Scott MacDonald's complaint. No matter how "flawless" you might consider your reasoning, you have a duty to explain yourself in civil terms to a query (and you are required to AGF as regards such queries); your responses are uncivil, and arrogant, and unconducive to engendering a consensual editing atmosphere - being right isn't enough. Speaking of being right, are we not supposed to use reliable sources when ascribing motive or characterisations to a living person? Verifiability, not truth, is the basis of complying with BLP concerns, so ultimately "flawless reasoning" or lack of is unimportant. I strongly suggest that the discussion is directed to how the reliable sources describe the individual, and take it from there. LHvU (talk) 10:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

You do of course realise that Scott's reasoning there was based on his definition of "hoax" as "implying a deception over time, not claims made then quickly retracted." — To which, taking your edit summary cue re: WP:V, I responded e.g. by linking to the Merriam-Webster definition of the term. Now, why would an intelligent person like Scott make up that exact erroneous definition, on an article talk page where to me personally, he appears to be concerned more about the BLP policy than about encyclopedic accuracy? Why would he do such a thing? Why? What exactly is your alternative explanation, if you so decidedly disagree that it's intellectual dishonesty? At any rate, his wasn't valid reasoning, according to Merriam-Webster. He also displayed a less than neutral approach in inaccurately portray the situation as "Someone who may be unstable said some untrue things." — Which, come to think of it (and on top of Scott's downplaying the situation, i.e. Todd's lying to the police, the racebaiting and the self-inflicted injuries to make her story more believable), contains an actual BLP violation, namely his labelling a living person as [mentally, I presume] "unstable" without presenting a reliable source for that extraordinary and potentially libellous claim. As to "unconducive to engendering a consensual editing atmosphere" : Are you trying to make me laugh or cry with that? Everybody else disagreed with him, I just took issue at the way he insult his fellow editors' intelligence in making up that definition right out of the blue. I felt insulted, and I reacted by carefully pointing it out to him. Obviously, he didn't like that. But I'm pretty sure he knows deep down that my criticism of his comment was spot-on. That's why he didn't react to any of my reasoning. He didn't comment on that at all, not even reiterating his definition of a hoax. He knows I'm right, he's just pissed off that someone called him on it to the fuller extent to which his comment was unacceptable. Everyme 10:54, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

You do not, of course, realise that the question over the correct interpretation is irrelevant; we should use the term only if it is applied by the reliable source. Whether they are using the term in the correct sense is unimportant. Deliberating what constitutes the correct use is therefore original research, a point which Scott MacDonald also misses. The matter of the "consensual editing atmosphere" is in relation to your continuing incivil manner, and not to who is wrong or right. You earlier commented that you were frustrated by the fact SM was - in your view - incorrect yet their civil manner meant that they were not being castigated for their error. You seem blissfully unaware that ANI is not a venue for dispute resolution but for questions on violation of WP policies. You were and continue to be in violation of WP:Civil, and are displaying a lack of appreciation of WP:V. SM has also not understood the application of WP:V, but he has conducted himself in an appropriate manner in this instance. I am uncertain if sanctioning you is going to improve your understanding on how editors are supposed to conduct themselves, so I see no further purpose in continuing this discussing this with you here. LHvU (talk) 12:13, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Google says hoax, not incident. Great dispute resolution, everybody. Let's move on. Everyme 12:55, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This is not about the suitability of the term hoax. I made a case, and two people quite civilly told me I was wrong. That's fine and needs no dispute resolution. However, you then came in with gratuitous personal attacks, and when asked refused to remove them and engaged in more. Since that reflects on your weaknesses rather than mine, I've removed them myself and consider the matter closed. You, perhaps should reflect on your aggression, because if you continue in this manner I predict your future with this project will be short. I grant you the last word, and just hope it will not compound your incivility.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 14:28, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

For the record: Last word was here. 78.34.141.200 (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Everyme: Why don't you tone it down about 5 rhetorical notches? Your excuse that you "felt insulted" doesn't hold much water, I have to say. Your own response, on the other hand, was remarkably insulting. Just like Scott MacDonald can be wrong and civil, you should strive to be both right and civil. A conclusion of "intellectual dishonesty" is not supported by what Scott wrote, and certainly your further evaluation of him as either stupid or dishonest is also unsupported by any evidence. The flaw in your logic is this: You assume that in order to be wrong in this instance he must be stupid, deduce that he is not stupid, and conclude that he must be lying. Your first assumption is incorrect - you can be wrong without being stupid. Therefore your conclusion is not as flawlessly logical as you believed. Avruch ^T 16:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not logical at all. It's simply rude, and ad hominems are a logical fallacy. If someone does something wrong, there are other ways to react than arrogant and accusative speech. -- Logical Premise ^Ergo? 20:16, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Calling someone stupid is a personal attack, even if it's true. You can't logic away the fact that your comment was insulting and that's why you should retract it IMO. Oren0 (talk) 05:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Scott feels rightly insulted here. The comments by Everyme were highly insulting and should be withdrawn. Hobartimus (talk) 06:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Despite an outstandig example of wiki lawyering by Everyme, an apology is in order to insure that he understands that such insults wont be tolerated. Failiure to do so would most likly warrant a block as the user is well aware of our policies on civilty.   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 00:50, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikilawyering? I suppose you simply don't understand that term. Anyway, you forgot to mention that you yourself have been featured at the noticeboards for egregious incivility, and also that we have had some conflict in the past (was admittedly too lazy to dig through the AN/I archives, should be in there somewhere). I suppose you just forgot to mention that. You certainly did not omit it so as to appear more uninvolved. 78.34.141.200 (talk) (Everyme logged out) 17:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know either person, it just happened that I was reported above this discussion and my eyes wandered down. Does the guy go about insulting people all the time? If he does he should be warned, the discussions should be about articles, not about the editors, but insisting in getting "apologies" and "retractions" looks to me a bit like kids having a fight, let's behave like grownups, the guy should be warned not to voice again his opinion about fellow editors because it's against the rules (even if he considers he's right) and that should be it, insisting in getting apologies is a bit silly (oh my, will I be banned from Wikipedia because I said "silly"?) And by the way, I don't really get this. How can we ask (and actually force) somebody to be dishonest by apologizing for something that he obviously believes in? (this is a bit scarry, you know like 1984 and thought control...) At most the admins could say: "delete that sentence because is against the rules or you'll be punished for breaking the rules and don't continue to discuss editors", simple as that. BTW, shouldn't things that deal with incivility be reported in another part of Wikipedia? Isn't there a process, you need to warn the person and if the person continues with incivilities then you report them to WP:WQA. Has this noticeboard become a place where "justice" is dispensed summarily? Why are people reported here instead of where they should be reported? man with one red shoe (talk) 02:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

As much as I dislike posting in these threads, it is probably relevant to mention User:Wizardman's conclusion at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Dorftrottel#Conclusion. Also, an IP claims to be the individual under discussion as seen in this edit. --A Nobody^{My talk} 23:43, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

A Nobody, I believe you posted in the wrong thread. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 05:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Why? It looks like Everyme was Dorftrottel. man with one red shoe (talk) 05:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes, I see that now. My apologies, I wasn't reading carefully enough.

So, the question now: Everyme has not responded to this thread, has apparently not retracted his remarks. Do we want to let this fly or take action? I don't have a preference. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 18:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Everyme has been clearly shown to be unwilling to avoid completely unacceptable remarks in disputes, or incapable of doing so. This needs to be changed. Action. --Kizor 00:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

You're yet another editor who rightly thinks their life would be easier without me around. Maybe my memory is just better than yours, but when I saw your comment here, I immediately remembered having challenged some minor bullshit from you in the past. I suppose you simply forgot to mention that. You certainly did not omit it so as to appear more uninvolved. 78.34.141.200 (talk) (Everyme logged out) 17:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I was rolling on the floor at "As much as I dislike posting in these threads." 78.34.141.200 (talk) (Everyme logged out) 18:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) A bit of a strong attack considering that scott mcdonald made a single two line posting on the subject. One would, I presume, need a lot more rhetoric for a charge of intellectual dishonesty. But, insulting? I wouldn't really call it that. We all spend a good part of our day being intellectually dishonest (come on, admit it!) and it should be no big deal if one is labeled that in a debate (read, for example Intellectual dishonesty). It is certainly not the same as being called 'stupid' and is not properly an Ad hominem argument since it is the argument that is being attacked rather than the speaker. But, I agree that it is probably not productive to throw labels around especially when an editor has made a single objection, that objection has been addressed by others, and the editor has not yet had the opportunity to comment on the logic of the responses. I see that scottmcdonald has deleted the remarks that he/she found offensive, so it probably makes sense to close this report and let the matter rest. --Regents Park (sink with my stocks) 15:55, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

User:ItsLassieTime continued incivility and false accusations

Resolved

 – Official warning issued to ItsLassieTime

I first encounter User:ItsLassieTime back in February while editing the Lassie (1954 TV series). At first, she seemed like a good editor, new but ready to learn. I'm the one who welcomed her here, offered advice, etc. After in April, we came to a large disagreement over the Lassie articles (though I honestly can't remember why, and can't find anything specific to point to as the bone of contention). Anyway I walked away from most of the Lassie television articles doing only minor edits to a few film articles.[1] Lassie later claimed I "chased" her away from the article, but as can be clearly seen from its history, she continued to edit the article well into May before she apparently took a wikibreak.[2] She apparently returned to editing sometime in September. On October 2, I also started revisiting the Lassie articles. We came to another conflict over the Timmy Martin article. I tagged the article for issues and removed an inappropriate non-free image ItsLassieTime had added to the article.[3] ItsLassieTime quickly reverted. When I again removed, AGF, ItsLassieTime reverted again claiming "CEASE and DESIST! It is NOT your place to make decisions as to what this article should and should not include. L and R are referenced in the article. DO NOT DELETE THIS IMAGE WITHOUT CONSENSUS!"[4] Suffice to say, it all went downhill from there. She continued reverted when two other editors also removed the image, with similar edit summaries, and finally a 3RR was filed against her after she reverted 5 times.[5] User:Master of Puppets gave her a warning for the report and encouraged her to stop. Attempted discussion on the talk page frankly went to hell in a hand basket very quickly.

ItsLassieTime began throwing out slews of personal insults, and when other editors supported the image removal she accused me of sockpuppetry! Things spread around to the Television project talk page, Master of Puppets page (see User talk:Master of Puppets#ItsLassieTime and User talk:Master of Puppets#Lassie Articles), and two AfD pages I had done for the Ruth Martin (television character)[6] and Paul Martin (television character)[7] articles. ItsLassieTime began making false accusations that I was stalking her, acting down right hysterical despite the claims being completely unfounded and, quite frankly, BS. She also began displaying extremely WP:OWN over the Timmy article, reverting almost any edit I made, including edits to bring the article in-line with the MoS claiming she will do her own formats. This also spread to Lassie film articles, including Courage of Lassie in which another heated "discussion" occured at Talk:Courage of Lassie#CEASE AND DESIST!!!!! and Talk:Courage of Lassie#DO NOT!!!!! where she absolutely refused to allow the Film MoS to be applied. She even went back and removed validly sourced edits I'd made to The Painted Hills months ago. She also AfDed some Shakespearean characters in some kind of retaliatory/pointy action because of the two character AfDs I did (no idea why she did those).[8][9]

Master of Puppets gave her some mild warnings and offered to mediate,but nothing was really done and while he was on a wikibreak, things only got worse. User:Cf38 also attempted to mediate, to no avail. I finally got so disgusted with her attacks and the lack of admin intervention that I delisted every Lassie article from my watchlist except the List of Lassie episodes and its season pages, which I had created. This seemed the only way to get away from her attacks and to bring some false of peace to the world. Alas, today she added a template she had created Template:Baby Boomer Toys to Charlotte's Web. Seeing the template, I felt it was not a good template to have, so I removed it from the article and sent it to TfD. Unfortunately, that again opened the floodgates for ItsLassieTime to begin her wild accusations, personal attacks, and outright lies.[10][11]

I let her get away with all this before and just walked away, but frankly I'm tired of her lies, her defamation of my character, and her manner of throwing massive hissy fits to get her way and chase everyone off articles. I'd really like an admin to look at this situation and deal with things accordingly (and before she even says anything, yes I referred to her as a "psychotic-Lassie fan" because of her over the top reactions to this whole thing and out of frustration from her constant personal attacks). She has also claimed in the current TfD that she has no problems with other editors, but her own talk page shows otherwise, if you look back at the comments she's carefully removed so that only the ones she likes remain. She was warned about being too bold in her edits, for making page moves without consensus[12] and for ignoring established consensus on infobox usage[13]-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 20:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Jeez, what a complicated situation. In a ten minute walk through Lassie's contribs, it seems at face value that a few things are apparent. First, I really wish she would use an edit summary once in awhile. Second, overreaction is definitely a trend here, a lot of the time in the guise of complaints and admin-shopping. Third, it's not exactly clear that you are totally unfaulted here either, Collectonian - other people have complained about you recently, also. I am unable to come to a clear course of action. Tan | 39 20:23, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll admit I shouldn't have let her goad me into edit warring or responding in kind to her personal attacks (though for me, I did keep my tone down far better than she did). And yes, I get complained about. *shrug* I do a lot of vandal fighting and deal with some contentious issues at times. I can even be abrasive and blunt at times. Now, as far as I know, I haven't been reported to AN/I in a long time, unless I was never notified. As for my talk page, there is ONE dispute on there at the moment, and that was after that editor and another got into an extremely heated back and forth and I, foolishly, asked them both to step back and calm down, so I got attacked for it as well. And, as far as I know, I've never had to resort to lying to attempt to make myself look the victim in any dispute. Either way, that does not mean I have no less right not to deal with such extended and extreme personal attacks repeatedly. If I cross the line, I get warned. I keep crossing it, I would certainly get stronger warnings and maybe a block. She has never really even been warned, but practically indulged and allowed to continue this mess for a lengthy period of time. And now she's taking to calling me "Collie" which would seem to be a sneaky way of calling me something else.-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 20:31, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• I read about 4 or 5 lines above and I decided not to bother with the rest. Yawn. Collie has a difficult time getting along with people and she's been sneaking around behind me for some time -- ie, reverting my work 2 minutes after I've saved a page that I spent a long time composing, accidentally on purpose creating edit conflicts, following me from one article to the next, nominating for deletion two articles I spent considerable time upon (she was shot down by WP consensus on those), and nasty nasty nasty ... *sigh* It's all so sad. Such a waste of time. So detrimental to WP. Collie can't get along with people. BTW, she has a nasty note about me at the top of her User Page and I wish an admin would remove it and tell her to behave herself. If you notice I have nothing nasty about her on my User Page. I stay away from her but she comes looking for me with an "it's all in the line of WP duties." Good little soldier that she is. I'll let the admins take care of this one. I don't want to get involved. I have enough headaches in my life without all this silly stuff. Maybe I should be banned forever. I don't know. I'm sort of new here and I don't know ALL the back-stage stuff yet. I'd rather go about my editing and trying to do some good work for WP. Is there a way I can hide my "contributions" so she doesn't know where I am or what I'm doing? Thanks! ItsLassieTime (talk) 20:36, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Can you point out this "nasty note"? I was unable to locate it. Tan | 39 20:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I've already self-edited it.[14] It was the note I mentioned in my initial report, and frankly, considering the pages of insults she's thrown at me, it isn't that hideous (though, of course, I should have bitten my virtual tongue). -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 20:45, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• Tan -- The note is gone. She must have dumped it. ItsLassieTime (talk) 20:48, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm inclined to give both editors official warnings to remain civil and to assume good faith in each other. While one side may be more "in the right" than the other, the situation is too complicated and subjective to judge any other way. Also, all either editor would have to do to avoid any further action is simply abide by the warning. However, seeing as I'm the only admin who has taken the time (sigh) to look into both editor's editing history, I'd like to get a second opinion and/or endorsement of this course of action. Tan | 39 20:50, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• I just want her to stay away from me. I notice she's involved in a long long long Arbitration dispute of some sort and I DON'T want to get involved in that sort of thing! When I think of all the time spent on those rebuttals, accusations, evidence, reviews of edit histories, etc. I cringe. All that time could have been used improving articles on WP! ItsLassieTime (talk) 20:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I already walked away from all the Lassie articles. What else do you want. You are the one who edited an article anyone could see I edit on, so you came after me this time. And despite all your "OMG she's stalking me" I've yet to see you produce evidence. Note my report above includes evidence to support my statements. You, however, are incapable of proving that I'm "stalking" you because I'm not. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 22:07, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Based on the userid alone, I'd be concerned about WP:OWN by lassie when it comes to Lassie articles. Let's focus on the complaint (and obvious lack of following policy on even minor things like edit summaries) by the SPA. -t BMW c- 23:20, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Ditto the WP:OWN concern...along with the completely uncivil response to a complaint about their civility..."I read about 4 or 5 lines above and I decided not to bother with the rest. Yawn." Seriously? --Smashville^talk 23:40, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• And while we're talking about Courage of Lassie, I'd like all to look at the Revision history of Courage of Lassie. Collie last touched the article 24 April 08. I first touched the article 19 October 08, at which time the article was a stub of three or four sentences (see edit by Otto4711 on 12 Oct 08). Now it gets good: at 4:36 I did at bit of editing and "Saved Page". At 4:38 (all of two minutes later) Collie flew in from out of nowhere to "edit" my work and leave snotty comments in the edit summary! At one point, she created an edit conflict causing me to lose my work. It's an "ownership" stunt on her part, ie, she hasn't touched an article in months, then returns to the article a half year later to claim "ownership" by edit warring and edit conflicting when another editor does a bit of work. Another "ownership" stunt is to revert/delete another editor's good faith work and identify it as vandalism in the edit summary. ItsLassieTime (talk) 09:14, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

At this point, without even looking at your account history, I can see you're new to Wikipedia. First, Collectonian (I'm not sure if they appreciate your shortening their name to match Lassie's breed) was the SECOND editor of the article after it was created. Many users use the "WATCH" function in order to be notified of changes to "favourite" articles. Your edit would have therefore advised Collectonion of that change, so "flying in" is more of a "hey, something apparently changed...". There appears to have been a significant number of edits and arguments about "trivia" or "unsourced" statements - these do not belong in Wikipedia. Finally, you say you "lost all of your hard work due to an edit conflict." When an edit conflict occurs, you are provided 2 windows: the first has the CURRENT version of the article, and the lower one includes the edits you ATTEMPTED to make. You then have the chance to compare the 2, copy and paste any edits you consider to still be valid into the current article. NONE of your work was lost. May I also add, most of your edits have poor summaries-they need to explain what you did. Many of the edits say "tweak", and are minor...may I remind you of the "Preview" button, that will allow you to see your changes BEFORE you apply them to the article. -t BMW c- 10:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, I know Collie was the second editor after the article was created. I learned that after the "edit war" started. But if I'd known that BEFORE I began editing I never would have touched Courage of Lassie. It was a bleak little stub of three or four sentences when I ran across it and I thought at the least I could add an Infobox, a pic, and a bit of material about the film from Ace Collins's Lassie: a Dog's Life. Whew! did I open a can of worms! Anyway .... WP allows "trivia" and "miscellanea" in developing film articles. I pointed that out to Collie some-a-wheres. Anyway it's in the film guidelines. The idea is this: the data will be moved to an appropriate place as the article expands and develops. Besides, my stuff was sourced and I didn't consider it trivia anyway. Who is she to delete some else's date because SHE considers it trivia. Trivia is allowed in developing film articles. I began writing "tweaked" in the edit summary because I believe Collie or another editor was doing somewheres and I copied the style. I use it when I do something simple like rephrase a sentence or two. I don't remember now where I noted it, probably in one of the Lassie articles, several of the articles were deleted. I'm not going back through extensive edit histories to find it. I scan and copy like the editor mentions below but at that particular moment I guess I forget to do so. My bad. I should have known (the article being a Lassie article) that someone else was lurking about. ItsLassieTime (talk) 20:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about your PC, but on mine that feature doesn't work. Therefore, I always do a scan-and-copy of text I've been working on, before hitting "save". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Firefox baby!!! Although it always worked on Internet Exploder too on any PC I used - Dell, HP, Toshiba, eMachines, MyNeighbourBuiltInHisBasement ... -t BMW c- 12:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I also works for me on IE 6 on all my comps as well as Firefox. Maybe something to do with the skin you are using? -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 13:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm using the default skin, whatever it is. I'll check again the next time I have an edit conflict, and see if the problem still exists or if it works now. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:44, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I use my epidermis. --Smashville^talk 13:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that would be your default skin. Unless you've recently emerged from a burn unit. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me be Frank. Hi, I'm Frank. Every time you call her "Collie", you are being uncivil. She told you above to stop calling her "Collie". Watchlisting has been explained to you, but considering this is a complaint about your civility and bad faith assumptions, it would be in your best interests in this discussion to actually be civil and not assume bad faith. It's kind of like going into a trial for armed robbery and holding up the jury... --Smashville^talk 13:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• As mentioned elsewhere I call her Collie to save keystrokes. If I intended to insult her by calling her a dog, it would be spelled with a lower case "C" -- like this: collie. No incivility is intended. I have arthritis and I'm simply saving keystrokes and thus some finger pain. ItsLassieTime (talk) 20:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm calling BS on that. You are calling me it to be insulting. Collie is in no way at all a valid shortening of Collectonian. Not at all. And considering your extremely lengthy, and frequently reedited rants against me, claiming you are trying to save keystrokes doesn't fly. You are deliberately referring to me as a dog despite your being asked (and told) to stop it. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 20:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

So Frank is Jake with you, right? So, listen, Jake - things could be worse: at least nobody brought up the reference to "Lassie" in that landmark comedy classic film Porky's. Until now. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:30, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I prefer Laddie. --Smashville^talk 13:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I prefer Kim Cattrall, who played "Lassie" in Porky's. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:47, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

"Another "ownership" stunt is to revert/delete another editor's good faith work and identify it as vandalism in the edit summary." - for the curious, before she edited this, she specifically named the Disney vandal here. Yeah, a well known vandal of three Wikipedia's is "good faith work." Try reading for context before you keep making such false statements. And, as Frank noted, I've asked you repeatedly to stop calling me Collie. Its blatantly obvious you intend it to be insulting and its rather petty of you to keep doing it just because you know it annoys me. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 13:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• No, no, no. She pulled the stunt on me several times in the past. She would delete my material two seconds after I posted it and write "reported as VANDALISM" in the edit summary. I don't remember where. Several Lassie articles about individual episodes were deleted. Maybe it was there. I interpreted her actions then as attempt to "scare me off" the article and calim "ownership". VANDALISM is dfasfshagihafgiafgagafghadfughadfughauasdoaoriwotiwgoj and other such nonsense and mischief. Good faith editing is not vandalism. Editing the Lassie articles with Collie perched over them on a minute by minute basis has been absolute H-E-double hockey sticks. ItsLassieTime (talk) 20:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, this edit actually is pretty telling. Although, to be frank again...my name's not really Frank... :) --Smashville^talk 13:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

That's right, another stunt is to go back and edit your original edits on ANI, completely changing the context after other people have already replied. -t BMW c- 14:44, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Backing the truck up for a moment ... I just had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Did I not see a statement by Lassie about an arbitration action involving Collectonian? This is an awfully new user to have understood arbcom rulings, and the timing is just faaarrr to close to the closure of that specific arbcom case. Just sayin... -t BMW c- 14:55, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I did find it odd that she was talking about it being such a "long drawn out process" (kinda funny too, cause the ArbCom in this case went very quickly). Though, to be fair, it was mentioned on my user page, though she "accidentally" misread it to presume that someone had taken action against me instead of visa versa. I do find it the timing rather interesting, though...and the accusations of me being a stalker in view of what the ArbCom was about...-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It's especially funny when she (I assume ILT is a she) tries to throw the fact that you've been involved in an ArbCom case against you when you were the one who started the process. It doesn't really feel related to me, though... --Smashville^talk 15:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I noticed the ArbCom case on her User Page preceding a nasty comment she made about me on her page so I checked it out. I think she called me a "psycho-Lassie editor" or something like that. She removed the comment when I "threatened" to bring it to the attention of an admin. How childish -- making snotty little remarks about others on your User Page. I call her Collie to save key strokes, not to diminish her importance. I have arthritis. "Collie" isn't intended as an WP incivility. ItsLassieTime (talk) 19:31, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

If you are able to type out every other word in your responses and every word in your accusations against her and make arguments in your bad faith AfD nominations, you can type out her username. We're not naive here. Also, you keep harping back to the "psycho-Lassie editor" comment as if she is trying to hide it...if you would have actually read what she wrote instead of just playing the victim, she admitted to making the edit on this thread in her initial post. --Smashville^talk 20:30, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I did my best to assume good faith in both editors, and having watched this unfold, I'm ready to issue an official warning to ItsLassieTime to cease all personal attacks, veiled or not, against Collectonian. The victimized attitude displayed is misleading at best and outright deceptive at worst. Collectonian is not completely in the clear here, and she herself should steer clear of resorting to any sorts of attacks or edit warring with ItsLassieTime, but at the moment I'm inclined to side with her - as are most non-involved editors and administrators who chimed in above. Any further disruption of Wikipedia in line with the issues above may result in a stronger warning, sanctions, or an outright block. Tan | 39 20:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd say this constitutes an acknowledgement of the warning. Tan | 39 20:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd go one step further. There's no reason to go up the tree here. She should know that incivility and attacks are not tolerated...I have no problem with her trying to work collaboratively with Collectonian, but the next bad faith assumption/attack should warrant a little time away from Wikipedia. After this entire discussion, there'd be no reason to warn again - she's fully aware...and warnings of sterner warnings aren't really a deterrent. --Smashville^talk 20:44, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Ariobarza

I've recently been working on articles relating to ancient Babylonian history, but I'm getting increasingly concerned by the behaviour of Ariobarza (talk · contribs). While he is an enthusiastic contributor, he appears to reject the prohibition of original research. He constantly promotes original research and regularly makes edits, or even writes articles, on the basis of his own personal interpretations of sources. His additions are rarely if ever accompanied by citations. He treats Wikipedia as a battlefield, is aggressive, confrontional and accuses other editors of pursuing an anti-Iranian or even "neo-conservative" agenda (it's news to me that there's a neocon viewpoint on ancient history!). When his edits are questioned or criticised, he gets angry and posts long, rambling and often angry rants to article and user talk pages to justify his edits and views. He responds dismissively or with hostility to advice given in good faith and assumes bad faith of others who do not share his POV or question his use of original research. Key diffs:

• Promotion of original research. Numerous examples of articles created on the basis of uncited OR and personal interpretations: Battle of the Tigris (ongoing AfD - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Tigris); Siege of Ecbatana (repeatedly created and deleted via AfD - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Siege of Ecbatana); Siege of Halicarnassus (repeatedly created and deleted); Battle of Media (deleted); Battle of Mylasa, Battle of Pedasa, Siege of Pasargadae Hill, Battle of Pasargadae, Mitradates, Persian Revolt etc (all will need to be cleaned up as appropriate). Repeated unsourced additions to articles, which other editors have reverted: [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]. He is quite open about pursuing OR (which he calls "connecting the dots") in articles.[20]

• Treating Wikipedia as a battlefield / lack of good faith. Believes it's "up to me to stop Xerxes hordes". [21] Accuses other editors of pursing "an agenda". [22] [23] [24]. Accuses me of pursing "neo-conservative" agenda (Ariobarza apparently believes this is a westerners vs Iran situation and that he's defending Iranian honour) [25].

• Incivility. Numerous personal attacks against other editors. [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] for just a few examples. Has been warned by other editors and admins to stop this behaviour - [33] [34] [35] - but has continued regardless [36].

• Tendentious conduct on talk pages. Routinely posts long, rambling self-justifications and rants to talk pages (too many examples to list, see [37] for one example).

• Inappropriate canvassing. Canvassed Tundrabuggy (talk · contribs) to participate in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Tigris with a characteristic angry rant against myself. [38] (See also #User:Tundrabuggy below.)

I gather that Dougweller (talk · contribs) has been trying to "reform" Ariobarza for some months, but without any success. Given Ariobarza's complete refusal to listen to any outside advice from other editors and admins, his obvious anger management problems and his ongoing use of Wikipedia to promote his personal views, I think a topic ban covering articles relating to Near Eastern and classical history would be appropriate. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:18, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I GATHER that ChrisO is wrong that Dougweller has not reformed me, because I greatly made and improved the Battle of Hryba and almost got and I am in the process of getting a GA award for it, so I have great potential, but The Wall of Pink Floyd has is trying to block me, thanks.--Ariobarza (talk) 00:47, 29 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

• A NOTE ALL SHOULD READA topic ban, I'll still can edit articles you know. Now the message, ChrisO is lucky I do not have time to make a list of his faults and misconducts, which if I did, it would be longer that this page. So please do NOT remove this message, let it be a reminder to those that come here, so when they come here they get the FULL picture, not only ChrisO's side of events (unfairness is the biggest problem on Wikipedia, for lack of representation) and know that ChrisO were onced blocked, which now he is trying to get me mad, so I can get blocked. And all users will regret agreeing with ChrisO that the Battle of the Tigris did not happen, which as right now I am gathering the sources, thank you.--Ariobarza (talk) 20:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

I can confirm that Ariobarza has been incivil to ChrisO (and others; he called me "Mr. Wall" here), and that Ariobarza has engaged in WP:OR on the articles under discussion. Since I've pointed out to Ariobarza that he has no sources for his claims, I suppose I should regard myself as a participant. I'll leave it to others to take action, if warranted.--Alvestrand (talk) 20:38, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I did warn the user in question regarding the "Bratz dolls" uncivil comment made on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Tigris after looking through that day's list of AfDs as usual. I felt that, instead of coming to ANI, that a RfC for user conduct should have been initiated, as this seems to be a blatant misconduct issue in which multiple editors have failed to resolve. However, since we are here now, I would leave the decision on the action to be taken to whomever. MuZemike (talk) 20:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

An RFC might be helpful. I don't think we are about to ban or block this user here and now. To me, Ariobarza's editing seems more confused than malicious. A thread on ANI does not serve much purpose. Jehochman ^Talk 21:26, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I did consider an RfC, but many different editors have offered advice to him over many weeks and months and he has consistently responded by attacking them, dismissing them or ignoring them. I don't believe that Ariobarza is willing to respond positively to feedback. An RfC can serve no useful purpose in that situation. He isn't contributing anything useful, he's creating a poisonous atmosphere by constantly attacking those with whom he disagrees, he's actively degrading articles by pushing OR all the time; why exactly are we letting him continue to edit? -- ChrisO (talk) 21:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I've only really been involved at the Battle of the Tigris AfD, although have been aware of issues on related articles. In my view the comments on that page, both from Ariobarza and from others, sum up the overall problems pretty clearly on the one page. When editors start here they often dive in over-eagerly into articles, perhaps excited by the possibility that their views and thoughts will actually get integrated into content here. Gradually most either drop out altogether when they realise that they can't force their personal views into articles against consensus and/or policy, or stay but become a little more cautious and take on board the limitations imposed by core policies on original research, verifiability etc. Others just continue brazenly on, demanding the right to impose their personal world views and analysis all over various pages. Those editors lose the right to fall back on the excuse that they're new, or that they don't understand. Ariobarza even appears to claim the right to conduct original research and make "discoveries", about matters that are presumably hitherto unknown to scholarship. This latest example means we have a whole article here about a supposed battle that no reliable source appears to have any record of (and even were these sources to exist, they should be found first and the article then built around them, not the other way round of course). It totally diminishes the credibility of this place as an encyclopedic resource of any sort. Maybe strictly it should have been the first step, but I can't see what an RfC would accomplish - Ariobarza is constantly subject to comments from a wide range of editors, but just shouts back at them while asserting to right to do what he wants. --Nickhh (talk) 22:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

That has been my experience at Talk:Battle of Opis, which has been one long tedious OR-fest from Ariobarza. He has ignored everything that has been said by other editors and created Battle of the Tigris as a POV-fork of the first article, after he couldn't persuade people to include his OR. His conduct at Talk:Battle of Opis - in particular his constant insistance that he's right and everyone else is wrong or biased - is what leads me to believe that an RfC would not be of any use. Everything's already been said that needs to be said. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:36, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Firstly I never said I HAVE THE RIGHT TO ORIGINAL RESEARCH. The original research article says if in original research I find a discovery, then I could include it in Wikipedia, IF it is supported by sources. Your making up and jumping to conclusions about what I say, is very offending to me. Shall I say, this cornering and trapping reminds me of a saying... (The few against the many). I am currently minded my own business, so please, if I am going to suffer the same fate as Caesar, better do it now when my gaurd is down, than later. (When ariobarza says stuff like this he is being sarcastic.) OR, you guys can help me find sources for the battle, and not try to hinder progress on Wikipedia by deleting me. Thanks a lot.--Ariobarza (talk) 23:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

The article you are linking to is a(nother) rather badly written and referenced Wikipedia article, not the policy. I've already pointed this out to you here, but you seem to have ignored that. Nor does it even say anything approaching what you are claiming it does in any event. And finally the whole point is that you do not anyway have any sources for claiming that there were such events as "Battle of the Tigris" or "Siege of Kapisa". Your attempts to invoke this irrelevant WP article as justification for your behaviour merely serves to highlight the nature of the problem I'm afraid. --Nickhh (talk) 23:53, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

*Ahem*, canvassing and forum shopping alert: ChrisO has been canvassing a number of involved editors ([39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45]) to post here and echo his comments. As for Ariobarza, (s)he has already been warned for her inappropriate comments which were made in an apparent moment of frustration, and this is sufficient enough for now. If ChrisO feels otherwise, he should follow due process and initiate and RfC for user conduct which would allow a broader community input. Khoikhoi 23:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• Khoikhoi, don't you remember? Ariobarza's already had an RFC a few weeks ago: it just got deleted for some strange reason or other. I think. Best, Moreschi (talk) 23:46, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Khoikhoi, I notified the people who were already involved in the discussions with/about Ariobarza, so kindly keep your aspersions to yourself. As for Ariobarza, I note that you haven't addressed his continuous promotion of OR (which is the centre of the problem), and it's insufficient to blame "an apparent moment of frustration" for repeated personal attacks on various editors on many occasions recently. Judging from his contribution, he's been behaving like an angry crank for months. We don't need this kind of editor. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:49, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe that was for conduct that involved two other users (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ariobarza, CreazySuit, Larno Man). The log says that it was deleted because it was "uncertified." If that's the case, we should open a solo one as there is more of a case this time around for one. MuZemike (talk) 23:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually it was certified; there was a dispute over whether it had been properly certified. I didn't bother appealing the deletion at the time because I felt the RfC had served its purpose. Unfortunately I seem to have been wrong about that. If others feel that an RfC is needed, I could probably create a fresh one based on the evidence above, but it will probably end up in arbitration. To be honest, I think this is something that the community can and should deal with - we shouldn't need to ask the arbitrators to do what we should be doing anyway. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

JUst recently I been acting up because of ChrisO, AND I called 4 users Bratz dolls, GET OVER IT! Suggesting from ChrisO's tone, he is saying, OFF WITH HIS (ariobarza's) HEAD. Sure you guys do not need me, its not like it I made 3,000 valid contributions to Wikipedia. Your right ChrisO I should be Quarantined.--Ariobarza (talk) 23:55, 28 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

Dear, All user involved (HMM) I have come to the conclusion that I have been acting up a whole lot. Therefore I am currently writing a Public Apology to all the users I have offended and I have been wrong on most of the things. So for the sake of good faith I declare that we please put this behind us, and not escalate things, therefore we can resume progress on Wikipedia. I am willing to fix all my faults tommorow, if you and others do this now. My problem is I am short on time and often forget to source articles in the first place (which leads most users to think I am doing original research) and this is understandable from my part, so my main and maybe only problem is time managment. With best regards, thank you all (users for contributing free knoweldge to humanity) for reading.--Ariobarza (talk) 01:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk Sincerly, Ariobarza

Ariobarza's outbursts are merely the icing on the cake as it were of the problem. The bigger, more fundamental problem is that this editor is dumping extremely poor and inaccurate content into this encyclopedia, based on their own amateur guesswork and original research, and has been doing this for over 8 months, with around 2,000 mainspace edits. You only have to stop and look at what they're doing for a couple of minutes - as I did - and work this out. I really would urge others to analyse what is going on rather than simply suggesting that an RfC would be better or whatever, on a point of procedure. Other editors have had to spend hours trying to stem or rollback the more egregious errors, and counselling Ariobarza on how to edit within the rules. But it just doesn't stop. As I've said it's damaging, and ultimately embarrassing. --Nickhh (talk) 08:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I've gotta agree with Nickhh. I've taken the time to have a look through a fair bit of Ariobarza's editing history (in addition to the diffs provided here) and the quality of his contributions is pretty grim. It's one thing to have an editor who makes the odd spelling and grammar error but whose contributions of net benefit to the 'pedia, but this situation is something else altogether. I'm sure that Ariobazra means well, but his contributions are seriously diminishing quality of the articles he focuses on. X MarX the Spot (talk) 08:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I like the excuse that he's "short on time" and "forgets" to provide sources. Add that to the Pantheon of the Lame. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 10:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I've tried to work with this editor since June, trying my best to explain about original research, using references, advising him that he shouldn't self-assess his own articles (he just ignored the criteria and gave an unreferenced article a 'B' classification), using his sandbox (I was the third editor to suggest this, he was first asked to do this in February rather than create articles with no references), etc. I tried my best to work with him and support him for some time, then started to simply give up and ignore him - which isn't easy simply because he does things that shouldn't be ignored. For a while on Persian Revolt he was adding huge chunks of stuff straight from a mid-19th century book by Rawlinson, footnote numbers and all - which I reverted when I discovered that as old as it was, it has a current copyright - but it looked ridiculous [46]. It would be useful if people looked at his talk page to see just how many editors have commented on problems with his edits. There are still quite a few articles that he created with no references that he hasn't deal with, and as we still here he hasn't learned from past comments. I'm also unhappy with the way he adds infoboxes with information in them that is often based on his OR. I don't know what to do about him, but I think a review of all the articles he created is probably necessary, he's been given months to sort them out. Eg Siege of Pasargadae Hill where I asked him four months ago for references, Siege of Doriskos which has been waiting since February for references, etc. I think he should request adoption and if he does that, seek guidance as to which of his articles that he created he can improve and which he himself should take to AfD. He shouldn't be working on any other articles until those he created are cleared up. If he doesn't accept adoption I think more stringent action needs to be taken for the sake of Wikipedia. He has been given advice which he hasn't followed for a very long period of time, and it looks as though crunch time has finally arrived. Doug Weller (talk) 11:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

You people just don't stop. Despite my efforts to say I am sorry and will make wiser contributions to Wikipedia. You do three things, keep damning my efforts, making uneccessary critisims on things I am taking care of as of now, and finally taking things to the extreme. Why, I am already before God, is he showing me a list of my sins? Did you guys read the bolded message I put, or ignored it, which Dougweller has said openly? I am thinking of taking this to administrater abuse, not because you have abused your powers, but are now engaged in stalking my edits, taunting, and threatening me with uneccessary things. And I thought I could talk to you people (a small group of admin with special dreams). I have been only mean to one or two users, so why are you, 90% admin coordinating your attacks. You make it seem like I am the only one with faults here, whereas some of you have done more terrible things than I have, (it might be because this is my ANI page) I have been here for just over a year. Seeing that I am short on time, and edit fast, you could have helped me with my research (not only pointing out my wrong things) on the Battle of the Tigris, and many other articles, but you chose to accuse me of not putting sources, and blaming me for vage sources and taking it to speedily delete (A DAY AFTER IT WAS MADE). So its up to you guys if you want to escalate things, I WILL not hesitate to go the administrater abuses page. THANK YOU.--Ariobarza (talk)

Please calm down. The editing you have been doing does seem to legitimately be a big problem. Attacking administrators back only leads to getting blocked, in the end - it's not OK, it's not acceptable user behavior. Please calm down and describe what you will do to fix your prior editing problems, and make it clear that you understand what those problems were. Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:29, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• Click on the links ChrisO provides for you here, and read my messages to end, and then DECIDE whether most of them are valid arguements or not.

Ariobarza has now taken to removing links to problem articles in ChrisO's original post on WP:ANI. I am sorry but surely this is the proverbial last straw in terms of what they are doing in WP as a whole? --Nickhh (talk) 00:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

He's also taken to altering my comments on talk pages to make it appear as if I'm saying things I haven't said. [47]. Not a good idea. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that those diffs are problematic. I will have a word with Ariobarza. --Elonka 00:27, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd seen that too. A preference for mentorship and a short topic ban has now turned towards support for a total block. This kind of behaviour cannot, surely, be tolerated. What is this editor contributing apart from poor content, endless obfuscation and outright fraud? --Nickhh (talk) 00:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Can somebody take a mentorship of Ariobarza. It looks like an enthusiastic editor that may need some help. Maybe Khoikhoi? Alex Bakharev (talk) 05:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Khoikhoi would not be a good choice; his behaviour is problematic in its own way. See my comments at the bottom of #User:Tundrabuggy below. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Apparently someone did not get that Siege of Kapisa does not belong here I stand by what I did. Now ChrisO because he feels he was defeated in the feud of Opis he is LITERALLY TRYING TO DELETE ALL THE ARTICLEs I HAVE MADE, IF HE CONTinues to do this I will take him ADMIN BANNING. ANd I will offend Nickhh, for is Bull**** comments, OBFUSCATION AND OUTRIGHT FRAUD? Please get a life or stay out of mine. As you all for falling for ChrisO bones in his closet, you have drived me up the wall, I already said this here, your welcomed to include this entry in my uncivil behavior section. If I go down, all on this page will be sucked into the black hole to, so do not think your GANG is going to get away with this, LACK OF REPRESENTATION is the biggest problem on Wikipedia, so do not worry, policy changes and (Admins) being removed is in the works/ pre-production. Thanks.--Ariobarza (talk) 06:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

While I don't see how he plans to implement his threats, he's definitely being threatening. Threats have no place in Wikipedia discussions. Blocked for a week. --Alvestrand (talk) 06:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

He's referring to my nomination of Siege of Kapisa for deletion - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Siege of Kapisa. This is exactly what I had feared would be the case; he appears to think he WP:OWNs the articles he's created and gets abusively hostile when his edits are questioned. The message he left on my talk page is a case in point. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:47, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Editing restriction proposal

I don't recall editing any articles in common with Ariobarza, but I have interacted with another editor (Ramu50) who was recently blocked for similar behavior: repeated poor quality, albeit good faith edits, followed by unfounded accusations against those editors pointing out said problems. My position then was it is now: Ariobarza's editing privileges have to put in balance with the amount of clean-up work he generates for other editors. The articles in question seem to revolve around ancient history. I would propose the following topic restriction: Ariobarza is prohibited from making edits on ancient history article without discussing them first on the talk page of the article. Failure to comply could result in a short block (12hrs). VG ☎ 16:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Airobarza already generates huge blocks OF TEXT (I really wish he'd break his caps lock key) on talk pages, both user and article, and usually ignores the replies. Although I think this is a good idea, past evidence suggests it isn't enough, he really needs a mentor. Doug Weller (talk) 16

56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think that such a sanction will work in its current wording. Additionally, I'd like to see an RFC/U. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

He's just reappeared, despite his block, in IP form on the Battle of Tigris AfD [48]. --Folantin (talk) 17:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well. Does anyone still think a RfC/U would achieve anything? VG ☎ 17:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

And now on the article itself. As for restrictions once the block expires, the above seems reasonable in principle. However it would have to be specific about covering the creation of new articles, and would probably have to relate to anything to do with Iran as a whole too. It would also leave him free to continue filling out talk pages, and to a certain extent of course it would be encouraging him to do that - not harmful per se, but mildly disruptive. --Nickhh (talk) 18:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Some admin should explain the concept of WP:BLOCK to him. He doesn't seem to get it. --Folantin (talk) 18:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As with WP:OR, I think he understands knows well what the policy says, but he either doesn't agree with it or he doesn't think it applies to him. Look at the IP he's using - it's an open proxy in a school district in California. This is (one of) his normal logged-out IP addresses, an ISP in Texas. That is deliberate block evasion, quite clearly. Re VG's comment - what would an RfC/U achieve? He's shown time and again that he simply doesn't listen to what other people say. He was warned not to make further personal attacks by three admins and promptly got himself blocked after posting further rants. He's said several times that he'll change his ways but has promptly gone back to the same behaviour again. He ignores all the advice he gets on talk pages and his own user talk page. He's just ignored a block, deliberately evading it through an open proxy and continued editing regardless.

As for a topic restriction, part of the problem with Ariobarza's behaviour is his abuse of talk pages; he posts reams of original research and bogs everyone else down in endless circular discussions. Restricting him to talk pages will simply mean that instead of adding OR to articles some of the time and behaving tendentiously on talk pages the rest of the time, he will end up behave tendentiously on talk pages all of the time. Let's just get this over with - block him or topic-ban him and have done with it. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Tundrabuggy

Following on from #User:Ariobarza above, I am also concerned about the behaviour of Tundrabuggy (talk · contribs). I clashed with this editor earlier this year over his promotion of conspiracy theories on Muhammad al-Durrah. Since then I've disengaged from anything to do with him. Unfortunately he has chosen to do the opposite. He now appears to be wikistalking me from article to article, opposing whatever I support, supporting whatever I oppose, allying with and aiding editors with whom I have an editorial dispute. He has now done this on with least five articles relating to ancient history that he's never edited before I edited them - Cyrus cylinder, Cyrus the Great, Battle of Opis, Kaveh Farrokh and now Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Tigris. He appears to be systematically watching my edits and involving himself in any dispute in which I'm involved. He has accused me of "pushing a particular pov" [49] and of being part of a "campaign" [50] to push a "pro-Palestinian nationalist perspective" of ancient Babylonian history [51]. (I've never heard of such a perspective and have no idea what it would look like). Other editors have expressed concern and disagreement with his tactics and comments [52], [53], [54]. Instead of responding to these concerns, he blew them off. [55] He has now turned up on the AfD mentioned above (which I didn't start), where he was specifically canvassed by Ariobarza, the editor who created the article in question. Ariobarza has presented a very hostile view of my involvement to encourage Tundrabuggy to get involved. [56] Tundrabuggy duly turned up to support Ariobarza in the AfD, in which I had !voted to delete the article. This is looking like a systematic feud on Tundrabuggy's part, and it needs to stop or be stopped. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:18, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• Particularly since Tundrabuggy has contributed nothing useful or indeed informed. From my experience of Battle of Opis he is acting purely to harass ChrisO. It's not acceptable. Ariobarza etc at least have a genuine interest in the subject: I do not think this is the case with Tundrabuggy. Moreschi (talk) 23:45, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks so much for your perspective Moreschi. I don't remember seeing you at the Battle of Opis lately. Were you one of the canvassed ones? Tundrabuggy (talk) 06:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

(to ChrisO) This is an unfounded accusation against an opposing editor, with whom you're involved in an ongoing dispute. As Tundrabuggy pointed out, "all the articles above are intimately related to each other, and thus to be involved in one is to be involved in them all." ([57]) Khoikhoi 23:51, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Ariobarza ... if you want to strike your comments on this page, then I recommend using <s> </s> rather than deleting them like you did to these Noticed they were re-added a few edits later-t BMW c- 00:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It's hardly unfounded. I quoted what Tundrabuggy himself has said: he has already made it clear that he's following me around because he believes I'm pursuing some sort of political agenda and he's seeking to oppose that. That's a nonsensical line to take. It's also a completely inappropriate reason to pursue an editor. Wikipedia is not a battleground. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

For clarity, Khoikhoi, are you an uninvolved or involved party? Jehochman ^Talk 00:16, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Clearly involved, since he has been actively supporting one side - Tundrabuggy's, essentially - in four of the five pages I listed above. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:19, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and your comment proves my point that these pages are all part of the same dispute, and I have been involved in these pages for the same reason. Tundrabuggy has not done anything out of the ordinary here. This is the same dispute which has spanned across several pages. Khoikhoi 04:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

A few notes:

1. I'm trying to avoid ANI's but was asked to review/participate on this post.
2. Just about everyone who commented thus far, myself included, are somehow involved. It's a bit of a shame to see the same "old faces".
3. Speaking as a person who knows what it's like to be followed and harassed by fellow Wikipedians, I'd like to try and keep things in proper perspective. i.e. I'm not sure I see much more than a somewhat 'new to wiki-policy' editor responding to a canvassing note. Has there been anything new other than the AfD within the past 10-14 days? Tundrabuggy has been active on several articles which were not mentioned, and to be frank, I considered his contribution to the Battle of Jenin talk page a bit of a relief considering some of the highly provocative statements made by fellow editors.
4. Considering my (mostly ignored) proposition to both Tundra and Chris to break off from active disputes was made a bit under a month ago and that there doesn't seem to be anything new, I would personally recommend a canvass related warning to relevant editors.
5. My apologies to everyone involved for meddling in.

Cheers, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 02:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

p.s. I have not read the "Ariobarza" section above this subsection. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 03:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I just want to emphasize that KhoiKhoi is absolutely right, that all of these articles are (intimately) related to each other and have spidered to one another through the talk pages. As one of ChrisO's diffs pointed out, all are related by virtue of time-period -circa 450 BCE- subject and place. The seemingly obscure article, Kaveh Farrokh, is related as an historian. The idea that ChrisO is being wiki-stalked is out in left field, frankly. As for Ariobarza, I thought (s)he had tried consciensiously to make her points on the talk page before making small edits in the article. Then when she tried to write an article herself, before it is even finished, ChrisO and friends vote to speedily delete it. A sympathetic admin might have steered her into writing on her own name-space and helped her in making a better article. What is gained by doing a speedy delete? Nothing except [more] bad feelings are generated. That is why I voted against deletion. At least give someone a chance. I didn't vote the way I did to vote against ChrisO (as part of some [imagined] "systematic feud") but to vote for Ariobarza. I hope the distinction is clear. And @ Jaakabou -- I do appreciate your input. Tundrabuggy (talk) 06:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Considering the heightened sensitivity between you and ChrisO, I would suggest that you try and avoid even the impression of following him to future articles - there's plenty of articles out here. Also note that responding to WP:CANVASS notes is frowned upon. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 09:47, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Tundrabuggy, I've already pointed out on the articles for deletion page that this is an ordinary Articles for Deletion process, not a WP:speedy delete. And I've been telling Ariobarza since June that he needs to stop adding original research to articles and to stop creating articles with no references. He's had far more chances than most editors get. And when you take part in an articles for deletion policy, you shouldn't be 'voting' for or against an editor but stating your views based on Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Doug Weller (talk) 10:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course Tundrabuggy, you have followed Chris0 around. It stands out like dog's balls. Anyone with commonsense and good faith would raise an eyebrow to see how you followed Chris0 to the five articles after the dispute with him over the MDurrah article. The latter is an I/P article. The Cyrus articles have nothing to do with politics (though you edit there as though Chris0's putative POV on I/P issues influences his judgement on Persian battles). He has a professional background in ancient history, you apparently don't. What are the odds (wiki brims with mathematicians) that it is a mere coincidence that, after two editors had a conflict over a contemporary I/P article, on an obscure incident, the one worsted by technicalities that favour form over substance, moves on to work over several articles on Persian history that require a rather involved understanding of assessing abstruse sources, requirements he was trained in academically under a major authority in ancient history, only to find that, by pure chance, his whilom adversary shows up to edit against him over exactly the same range of articles? Almost zero. It has nothing to do with chance. To ask people seriously to believe that this is mere coincidence is a charming piece of chutzpah, nothing more. From an outside perspective, it looks as though your 'victory' in one article ran to your head, and you thought it worthwhile seeing if you could follow it up against the same antagonist. This is harassment.

You show, unlike Chris0, no technical understanding of, or informed knowledge about the historical evidence, evince no record (I stand corrected if wrong)of a long-standing intrinsic passion for the subject, but you are very strong in making 'political' assessments of the former editor's ostensible POV. That is wikistalking, and you do it by siding with, or defending, editors of little experience, nationalistic in approach, with whom Chris0 clashes on quite straightforward questions of RS. You appear in many edits, to me at least, to be a POV-headhunter, unaware of your own. That is your right. Nothing of course will be done about this, since wikistalking is quite commonplace. People enjoy niggling at others, especially when they've won one suit. Far too many editors don't contribute substantively to articles, but hang round to monitor POVs. You, at least here, are doing precisely that.Nishidani (talk) 10:29, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Finally some commentary with brains! Nishidani has it in one. Now could someone please do something about this? Moreschi (talk) 10:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd have no objections to topic bans on disruptive editors from articles; clarification: I'm not sure if this is the current state on the articles ChrisO and Tundrabuggy are comunicating on since last I looked was almost a month ago.

AS AN OFFTOPIC, I'd use this forum to note that I got a bit of a DE issue (myself) on Land of Israel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) with 2 editiors strongly promoting a personal misunderstanding of the Likud charter as a must be listed in the lead. Or as one of them put it in his revert edit: "It is important for article NPOV". Could someone please do something about this?

p.s. Tundra, Doug Weller is correct that !voting is not made on personal perspective but should be based on (preferrably also linked to) existing policy. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 15:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC) wikilink 15:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Tundrabuggy, would you voluntarily stop following Chris O, or would you like an admin (!me) to make a ruling? Jehochman ^Talk 15:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Re: the AfD vote, I thought the article had some merit and that it should be allowed to take shape. It was not part of any "feud" other than that that ChrisO would like to make it. Re what is called "canvassing," it appears that that complaint is only going to apply to me, and not ChrisO who has canvassed most of the contributers on this page. I have canvassed exactly zero. I am the 4th contributer to these articles (the Cyrus-related ones) that ChrisO has tried to take some kind of wiki-lawyering action against. The others have apparently been intimidated sufficiently to no longer contribute to these articles at all. I did approve of the effort to have a content issue resolved with mediation, though it is not clear where that went. Tundrabuggy (talk) 15:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that's a "no". Tan | 39 15:44, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

No this simply doesn't the mustard as a serious reply, Tundrabuggy. (a) Specialist qualifications are not required in Wiki for contributing to articles. At the same time, the encyclopedia is particularly happy if it can enjoy expertise, esp. in difficult fields. ChrisO has been professionally trained as an historian, in the area of antiquity. We don't know your background, but from following the edits, it does not appear that you have a formal grounding in the field of the history of antiquity. (To the contrary (need proof?), your remarks elsewhere strongly suggest you lack even an elementary understanding of historical method). That said, the rules are that you are equally entitled to edit there and anywhere else but (b) you both had a conflict of some considerable intensity over MDurrah. Chris0 left that, and, if I recall, on request, went to the Cyrus Cylinder and associated articles, as a duck returns to water, to his 'proper element'. Soon after, you turned up, and sided with editors who disagreed with him. We are not asked to assess, as you intimate, the merits of that conflict. We have been asked whether, in turning up, after your MD 'victory', to an area where he has expertise and you do not, you came there by pure coincidence, or by design? Indeed, you have, in your reply, as elsewhere, earlier, snubbed requests to clarify what appears to be a patent example of adversarial stalking. The gravaman of the charge is you have stalked ChrisO, on his natural terrain, in an area you show no particular knowledge of, immediately after the MDurrah conflict with him. He left, perhaps, to adapt an idiom from Sophocles, to browse in solitude his thoughts on quieter pastures, and finds you moseying up again to ride shotgun, herding his ideas, barely after the bulldust from your shootout with him at the OK corral had settled. So explain what you're doing there, and why your reappearance on five consecutive pages he was editing is merely random, against all mathematical odds. Nishidani (talk) 16:16, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Nishidani, we know nothing about ChrisO's qualifications, since "ChrisO" is an anonymous username. If ChrisO decides he wants to publicly identify himself, then we'll be able to ascertain his expertise. Lacking that, it is inappropriate to speculate about this matters, or to claim that he has an expertise that other anonymous userids lack. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, 'we' may not. I do. I hope I am not compromising Chris0's identity by noting that he took his degree under Bryan Ward-Perkins, fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and Chair of Oxford's Centre for Late Antiquity. I suppose 'we' will now have to open up a section, 'Who can prove Nishidani is not a liar', while studiously ignoring the point, documented in the diffs, that Tundrabuggy subscribes to what can only be called a fringe theory redolent of the hermeneutics of paranoid suspicion. He has intimated that all editing on the Middle East, from articles about Sumer to Sozomenos, is subject to suspicions of partisanship that reflect on the contemporary Israeli-Palestine conflict. It is this absolutely bizarre statement that set the bells ringing for me. Anyone who subscribes to this lunatic theory should not be editing articles on ancient near Eastern history, apart from considerations of incompetence. Nishidani (talk) 09:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Again, Nishidani, I urge you to read my earlier responses as these are not "merely random" pages but all very clearly and obviously related, and it shouldn't take a formal grounding in history to realise this. It seems to me that had you been following this "dispute" closely, you would have been able to see this as well, unless of course you are one who has been recruited as support for ChrisO, in which case in a cursory look you might have missed it. Nor, as you have noted, are such formal qualifications required to contribute, to read or be able to understand the source material referenced, much of which is available either on Amazon or on Google books. Now to the point that my editing of these related pages is somehow related to my "victory" as you call it, regarding the MD conflict, I would simply say that I cannot even imagine how you would consider a victory an event that dragged my wiki reputation and others' through endless wiki accusations, taking I don't know how many hours of life to defend against, even to the point of one water-carrier trying to get another uninvolved administrator recalled... it was endless. No user would want a repeat of that kind of "victory". Tundrabuggy (talk) 23:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

clarification. I did not say the pages were random. I said you turning up, straight after the MaD incident, on five interconnected pages your erstwhile adversary was editing on obscure episodes in Persian history, cannot be coincidental, or random. I find misconstrual of the obvious offensive, Tundrabuggy: it is called wikilawyering.Nishidani (talk) 09:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Answer the question. You now have several people, not nobodies like myself, but administrators, asking you: 'why, immediately after the Mohammad al-Durrah dispute, where Chris0 was sanctioned to your editorial advantage, did you turn up on five pages where Chris0 had begun to edit, dealing with obscure events in Persian history?' Everything else is waffle. Either this is a one-off cosmic freak occurrence, warranting investigation by Pascalian mathematicians and a wiki page itself for the advent of miracles in probability theory, or you were and are wikistalking. I've asked you to explain this bizarre coincidence three times. Three times you have rambled on about other things. Not to answer it is, in my book, a tacit admission that your appearance there comes from trailing him, to a purpose. Nishidani (talk) 09:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Tundrabuggy has already made it clear that he sees this as an ideological conflict. Note his comments that he thinks I'm pushing a "pro-Palestinian nationalist perspective" of ancient Persian history [58]. He seems to have no interest in ancient history as such - he's not contributed anything to the articles other than sniping at my edits - but he seems to think he has to act as some sort of "watchdog" to push back against my edits where they conflict with his ideological views. This is, of course, completely inappropriate behaviour. I'm not pursuing any kind of ideological agenda, though he seems to view everything through the prism of his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - a very unhealthy approach. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Tundrabuggy doesn't seem to be addressing the central concern raised in this section, which is: did Tundrabuggy start contributing to articles on ancient Persian history because he was continuing a preexisting conflict with ChrisO? As far as I can tell, the answer is yes. Furthermore, the allegation that there's such a thing as a pro-Palestian perspective on ancient Persian history is bizarre. This kind of ideological perspective is bad enough on I/P articles, it doesn't need to be imported into ancient history articles. I think Tundrabuggy ought to just step away from this topic area. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:51, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I've suggested before that we need to crack down on this sort of politicisation of ancient history. Modern Greek/Macedonian nationalist feuding being projected into the distant past in our articles is bad enough, but this is ridiculous. It's a clear violation of WP:BATTLEFIELD. --Folantin (talk) 08:28, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I can at least understand modern Greek/Macedonian feuding over ancient history, since it's a fundamental issue of national identity for them, but as you say, it's just bizarre to project the I/P conflict onto ancient Persia and Babylonia. I have no idea what a "pro-Palestinian nationalist" POV of that period would even look like. Some of Tundrabuggy's comments on Talk:Battle of Opis (see [59]) suggest that he is being influenced by a literalist reading of the Bible/Torah, which portrays Cyrus in complimentary terms as the liberator of the Jews. He appears to believe that I'm trying to "undermine" Cyrus. Khoikhoi appears to believe the same (and perhaps for the same reasons) - see Talk:Cyrus cylinder#Tags. There may be some sort of Jewish fundamentalist undercurrent here as well. They are both currently tag-teaming to remove sourced info that apparently conflicts with their POV [60], [61]. Not helpful behaviour. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec) "it's just bizarre to project the I/P conflict onto ancient Persia and Babylonia". It's ludicrous, especially since an equally valid (i.e. irrelevant) accusation of being "anti-Israeli" could be made against those promoting the opposite view. Given the current tensions between modern Israel and Iran, "pro-Persian" could be interpreted as "anti-Zionist". --Folantin (talk) 09:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's rules on wikistalking, to my brief knowledge, are hardly ever the object of administrative action, since it is intrinsically hard to prove. It is also true that far too much niggling for technical advantage is one unfortunate consequence of the rule book's articles. All editors with minimal experience will have abundant anecdotal evidence of odd coincidences on pages they edit, of people wandering in to edit, not the article, but, apparently, to resume a conflict begun on some other, often unconnected page. In my own interactions with Tundrabuggy, I have nothing to complain about. He readily accepted a correction of a confused remark he made about the circumstances of Mussolini's death. Sign of a responsive editor. We exchanged views on the Nahum Goldmann page. But I'm afraid this particular matter is serious. It may be inexperience, it may be overconfidence, it may be an inner conviction that, in the I/P area, Chris0 is biased, and therefore must be watched. But I doubt whether he will ever convince anyone that it was pure happenchance that he turned up on the 5 Persian pages Chris0 was editing, after the Mohammad al-Durrah episode, simply because he too happens to have an abiding interest in Cyrus. Jehochman made a decent suggestion, and I think Tundrabuggy should take it to heart. Admit this has, at the least, the strong appearance of an impropriety, and refrain from editing historical articles on the ancient Near Eastern history for a while. That restores the conditions for renewing a bona fides that is now under a shadow. No administrative action need be made, if a simple unilateral gesture to reassure those who are troubled by this incident is taken. There is a certain honour in admitting an error. Nishidani (talk) 09:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

William S. Burroughs

Trouble at the William S. Burroughs page has led one editor to rampage see attack on [62]and see my talk page edits [63] by User:72.154.191.175. CU on editor responsible for this diff [64] might be wise as this is the content that is being continuously added against other editors wishes. See also [65]. I note an older block on user here [66] Opiumjones 23 (talk) 08:35, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I posted a warning on the IP's user page. If he does this again, you should post another warning. Then if he does it again right away, go to WP:AIV and ask for help. That's the game you have to play with these IP's, unless you find an admin willing to block on-sight. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 09:59, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

See also [67] Opiumjones 23 (talk) 00:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Improper non-admin closure of AFD

Resolved

 – Request withdrawn. henrik•talk 12:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Scott MacDonald, having contributed to the AfD debate, expressing a Strong Delete opinion, and with opinions pretty evenly divided has closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Georgina Baillie, moved the article to Russell Brand prank calls row, and radically changed the content of the article to be about the event rather than the person. This would appear to be a case of "I have decided that BLP1E applies, and it doesn't matter what others think".

Could an admin revert the page move, and re-open the AfD, to allow it to run its course. Mayalld (talk) 11:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

That's seriously wonky - the AFD ran for one day and looked to be heading for "no consensus" at that stage --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

This is now a major UK news story involving the Prime Minister and the BBC. What wikipedia had was a dreadful little bio dreading up tabloid tittle-tattle on the victim, and including dreadful lines like "Quotes purportedly from Baillie in rival tabloid newspapers have both denied[2] and confirmed[3] this claim. [That she'd had sex with Russel Brand]". I'm afraid I took bold bold action in the spirit of BLP, and left us with a far superior article as Russell Brand prank calls row. I also confirm that I am the administrator previously known as Doc glasgow, and perfectly willing to invoke the arbcom's special BLP provisions if required. I apologise if I didn't follow all due process rules.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 11:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse closure. This girl does not require a Wikipedia article. Moreschi (talk) 11:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• I don't see any worries with this. Please let me know if I'm missing something, though. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:24, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
• Strongly endorse, and please note that Doc glasgow is an administrator, regardless of whether he's currently using the non-admin account Scott MacDonald or not. Therefore, he is entitled to and authorised to invoke the Footnoted quotes remedy as any other administrator is. Daniel (talk) 11:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there some policy that I'm not aware of that allows an admin to walk away from his admin account, set up a new account, then suddenly decide that because it's handy to be an admin today, he's an admin again. Right to vanish is one thing, but having vanished, you can't just unvanish on a whim. How is this different from sockpuppetry? Mayalld (talk) 11:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry has to do with undisclosed alternate accounts being used to mislead or skirt a block/ban, which I see no hint of here. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:41, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Not so fast. I don't see any hint on the Scott MacDonald page that that user ID is an alternate ID of an admin. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Doc (I think?) scrambled his password and stopped using that other account months ago. He was not de-sysoped. He did the move and non-admin close as Scott MacDonald. I think Daniel may have meant that Scott MacDonald still has the experience, knowledge and trust of his admin past, even if he no longer wards the bit. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Then User:Daniel muddied the waters with his comment. He and MacDonald need to explain themselves. I agree with the move, but they need to explain the user ID situation. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think they do. I don't recall that Doc asked for RTV and he only deleted his user page, which he had done many times before, but left his talk page history for all to see. Again, he did this non-admin AfD close wholly as Scott MacDonald and hasn't edited from his old account in 6 months. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

MacDonald and yourself explained anyway. And it was not really an admin action, so User:Daniel kind of sent us astray on this one. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Hardly. I said that he was allowed to use this should he feel the need to (see his initial comment in this thread), as he is an administrator, albeit editing with an alternate (disclosed) account. Daniel (talk) 13:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

He was not acting in an Admin capacity, though, so that doesn't seem to be relevant. And where in the MacDonald user page does it "disclose" that he also has an Admin account? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Since when were radical changes and pagemoves disallowed during AfDs? — Werdna • talk 11:27, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The action taken by this user has had the practical net effect of deleting the article that was the subject of an AfD, despite the fact that the AfD had no consensus. Mayalld (talk) 11:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. Good thing too. Doc being right lets him out of having dot all the i's and cross all the t's. Moreschi (talk) 11:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The article wasn't deleted, it was redirected to the new article. So anyone looking for the story using the name of the granddaughter (who is not the story) will be redirected to the prank (which is the story). The move was wholly appropriate. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:41, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It also good to point out that BLP supersedes AFD. WP:BLP is pretty clear on the point that, in the case of potentially bad biographies, discussion should take place afterwards, rather than before any action is taken. As it is, the article wasn't deleted - it was moved, so... Ale_Jrb^talk 11:44, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

(undent) OK, I give up. Clearly others disagree with me (and possibly the AfD would have resulted in the article being deleted in any case). Doesn't mean that I like the way this was done, but I really can't be bothered arguing this one any more. Mayalld (talk) 11:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

To clear up the bit about me being an admin, technically I am an admin and was never desysopped. However, I no longer use that account, and haven't particularly either declared or denied the link. Since I'm only using one account, I can't be gaming anything, can I? Actually, in this case it isn't really relevant who I am, as I did nothing that any user can't do. The only reason I mentioned that I technically have admin status is that someone was screaming "non-admin close". On reflection, I can't really see why that matters. If it needs a deletion, then it needs an admin, otherwise any action is either good or bad, the status of the user doing it isn't very relevant.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 11:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

While the move was appropriate, it could have been handled better. However, the article itself could have been handled better. Some deletionist posted it to AFD, whereas the story was notable enough that deleting the story was inappropriate. So it should have been nominated for a move rather than a delete. Unfortunately, once it went to AFD, (almost) everyone was thinking save-or-delete rather than move. Blinders on. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It's ok to boldly move an article in good faith during an AfD and let's not forget that WP:BLP trumps all. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I get it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I thought WP:IAR and the right bower trumped all? -t BMW c- 12:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

In this case Scott MacDonald trumps all. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes he does :) What's the right bower? Gwen Gale (talk) 12:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

He's a card. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

What an etymology (way down the page). Gwen Gale (talk) 12:31, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeh, it seems to come from "bauer", a peasant, i.e. the "knave". And all those words seem to be kind of connected to each other. English - the verbal virus. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Since the AfD was closed in a fairly irregular way (by a non-admin account, a user who !voted in the AfD and within only one day of the AfD being opened), I think it would be beneficial if an admin who had not !voted in the AfD adds an endorsing statement for the closure to the AfD page. E.g. one of the admins who have commented above in this thread could do that. This could spare us some problems later, if somebody tries to undo the changes made to the article as a result of the AfD (I had seen something like that happen in at least one other case). Also, it might be a good idea for an admin to look at the history log of the article ans see if a portion of that history log might need to be deleted for BLP reasons. Nsk92 (talk) 13:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. We don't need to do any rediculous formalisms. The end result has been agreed as the desired end by WP:CONSENSUS and since Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, there is no need to jump through any hoops. The current state of affairs is the consensus desired result, there is no reason for any admin to "add" their approval to a result to make it more "official". Admins don't have any special weight added to their opinions, and there is no impending need to leave any note that would imply otherwise... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Will this AFD ever be cited as an example of allowed procedure? Probably never, but an administrator endorsement has value for future readers. Unnecessary process wonkery is reverting the closure. 20:55, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Talk pages of banned users

This [68] is nasty personal attacks and trolling at best, and probably implicit blackmail. Why on earth is this guy allowed to post to a talk page? I'm not going to even mention his name, but can someone blank and protect this, then we can forget he exists.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 16:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I was actually about to ask for a similar thing. Is there a reason not to protect his talk page? --Conti|✉ 16:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Protected. NawlinWiki (talk) 16:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Going further, is there any reason not to delete that talk page?--Jac16888 (talk) 16:32, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I think blanking should be enough. --Conti|✉ 16:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Blanking is enough. Can someone do it?--Scott MacDonald (talk) 16:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Since no one seems to object, I've gone ahead and blanked the page. --Conti|✉ 21:20, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Kuban Cossack and never ending edit wars

I have no other recourse but to ask for admins' intervention in the edit war at Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). Over the past week I've tried everything to stop the revert war with User: Kuban kazak, unfortunately none of them worked, he rejected all attempts at compromise and continues to revert even referenced text. This is the user with multiple blocks for edit warring, the last being just in July of this year. Since then he got several warnings from users and admins for edit warring[69][70][71], and yet he continues to wage edit wars not just in that article but in others as well. I understand that admins cannot deal with every content dispute, but this has gone above that. This is a pattern that would not change and it's become a real nuisance. I would appreciate if admins could have a look at this.--Hillock65 (talk) 16:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Well all I can say is that Hillock65 has in the past year with the exception of interwikis and the odd article Grégoire Orlyk, has limited his participation on wikipedia to edit warring with me. Please look: here, if we filter away the interwiki edits:

• Zaporozhian Cossacks (no additions on Hillock's behalf, but nearly a year of arguing whether the term destroyed was applicable, in result by majority of users, Hillock failed to add his opinion there)
• Zaporizhian Sich (again no additions, same edit war, result Hillock gave up)
• Cossacks - A huge dispute over the lead, where Hillock attempted to first push through a WP:FRINGE theory of modern Ukrainian Cossacks, and then continued an edit war for nearly month about how the historical aspect of Ukrainian Cosascks should be given a greater portion than others.
• Mukachevo, there was a dispute on the name, yet Hillock pushed to have the official spelling added into the article, again failed.
• Kuban Cossacks, Ukrainians in Russia, Template:History of Ukraine the irony is that when I make an edit, to any such article, Hillock, always WP:STALKing me wound follow on and revert me. On the second example he got caught by 3RR by being completely careless. (Again there was a discussion in the archives about it).
• The biggest piece of evidence for the above is that during my wikibreak from 5 August 2008 to 15 September 2008 Hillock made no more than two dozens edits. Yet the moment I came back, so was he. His new victims are Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and History of Christianity in Ukraine.

All in all he is first a WP:SOAPboxing nightmare! Second a ruthless POV warrior, with whom its impossible to have any consensus. However the biggest irony about him, is that unlike some active POV-pushers and stalkers like User:Piotrus, Hillock's contribution to main article space is minute by any measure. Again in all his time on wikipedia one can postulate about no more than 10 significant contributions to article space, and about 1000 reverts and talk page rants.

The biggest irony here, is that he accuses me of being a Russian nationalist anti-Ukrainian editor, yet out of six barnstars four were given by Ukrainian editors.

With respect to the issue above, the usual case scenario, is to ask for a WP:THIRD and follow through a normal WP:DR, but for Hillock its important to raise as much noise as possible, and its too bad for him there is no Wikipedia:Request for block page. --Kuban Cossack (По-балакаем?) 16:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Notwithstanding personal attacks, the issue here is not his or mine contribution to Wikipedia, but rather this user's never ending edit wars, which is easily checked by looking at his edit history and history of blocks. He has selected a patttern of stalking me and starting edit wars whenever I edit. Anyone interested can easily check him following me in articles where he never even edited before [72][73][74][75][76]. I know arguing with him over this is a waste of time. I'll just wait for someone impartial to have a look at this. Enough is enough. --Hillock65 (talk) 16:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Let's see adding Russian language to Nuclear power plants is not a revert, and in particular South_Ukraine_Nuclear_Power_Plant Hillock's attempt to remove the passage was reverted by a third party. Ivan Bohun, was not a revert, unlike Hillock's but a correction of facts, I then went on and edited all the other Hetmans of Ukraine, and nowhere did I add Russian language, but copyedited many of them. History_of_Christianity_in_Ukraine and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church contrary to his statements of he never even edited before were partially written by me, I can't claim all the credit by the fact that others have added before and after me, but both articles have been in my to do list and on my watchlist since autumn 2005! Anyone can check the history. Given the above statement, apart from a POV-pusher and an edit warrior, Hillock is also a liar! Spreading disinformation is a usual trait more examples of which I can easily provide. --Kuban Cossack (По-балакаем?) 16:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The original complaint "I have no other recourse but to ask for admins' intervention in the edit war" points to where the problem lies. I see no attempt to file an article RfC, asking for a third opinion or do any other thing normally expected in a regular content dispute. Hillock and Kuban are both useful content writers who frequently disagree in article disputes. Nothing unusual in that. However, I am troubled but what seems like Hillock's obsession with Kuban and persistent attempts to resort to block-shopping to "win" his content disputes with this editor. Hillock follows Kuban's contributions and seems to look for every occasion to block-shop against Kuban (last time he has done it about two weeks ago.) This thread could be just as well named "User:Hillock65 and never ending edit wars" as Hillock's actions is at least no better than Kuban's. I checked the talk pages of the articles in question and Kuban seems willing to discuss. So, I don't see as an ANI matter, users should be advised to seek consensus and compromise, and if unable to reach it, they should ask for more input rather than shop for blocks. --Irpen 20:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Even a cursory confirmation of the diffs posted confirms that, despite how Irpen attempts to frame this issue above, this is not a content dispute as Wikipedians understand the term. There's evidence of an interpersonal conflict; there's evidence of WP:STALKing; there's evidence of WP:OWN, and there's evidence of assumption of bad faith. For an example, let's consider this edit made by Kuban kazak. First thing to be noticed about it is that it is a partial revert of an edit by Hillock65 about 18 hours earlier. The second thing to be noticed is that in the whole Wikipedia edit history of this article, this is the only edit by Kuban kazak. What do these two facts give us? I submit that by Occam's razor, this gives us a clear episode of wikistalking.

But there's more. Consider Kuban kazak's edit summary in this partial revert: Nothing wrong with this... Such an edit summary attached to an user's sole edit so soon after Hillock65's exercise of editorial judgment -- one could debate it, but that's what the talk page is for -- smacks, to me, of deliberately searching for things that are wrong with Hillock65's edits. In order words, it's not just wikistalking; it's also a clear case of assuming bad faith, if not battleground creation. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 22:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Request for intervention

"However the biggest irony about him, is that unlike some active POV-pushers and stalkers like User:Piotrus..." - this is a clear violation of WP:NPA/WP:SLANDER and such, and I assume the community will address this.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Piotrus, I sort of wondered who will pop up here immediately after my post. I guessed right. --Irpen 21:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Piotrus was advised to come here by an admin, having already filed a complaint on AE hours ago [77]. --Folantin (talk) 21:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Irpen, will you please apologise for your assumption of bad faith that has turned out factually incorrect? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 22:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

What "assumptions"? Kuban kazak states that some users (Piotrus among them) is following the contributions of the target editors all around Wikipedia. I don't think bringing up any names here was useful. It may have been unhelpful in sense of bloating the discussion on the narrow issue but as far as facts are concerned, my own experience with Piotrus is that he is one of the users who regularly does that sort of thing (see here, for example. So, how is stating what seems obvious from the Wikipedia actions becomes a "slander"? I wonder who else will follow me into this discussion now but this is all beside the point. The original complaint was that the content disputed between Kuban and Hillock needs an admin intervention skipping any usual steps used to resolve content disputes. Then people totally unrelated to this start magically popping up blowing and expanding this simple and narrow issue to use them for their own agendas. This is a text-book example of WP:BATTLE conduct. --Irpen 22:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

From the context, it is clear that you accused Piotrus of stalking you, and even smugly take credit for the assumption. From Folantin's post, it's clear that you were incorrect in raising such an accusation. As the primary promoter of the so-called 'sophisticated incivility' doctrine, you know as well as anybody that an insult needs not to be spelt out to be uncivil. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 22:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Natalia Korolevska

I never edit with most of you (not interested in Ukrainian politics?, strange it so much fun and a lot of female Ukrainian politicians are very good looking!) but still I think the last edits here are not helping, if not making things worse... This seems only a problem between Kuban Cossack & Hillock65. I don't see a need to drag all wikipedians in it especialy if the suggest nothing to fix the problems between Kuban Cossack & Hillock65. Mariah-Yulia (talk) 23:31, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The behavior of Kuban Cossack is nothing new. I think he should be warned for incivility and placed to this "Digwuren" list. Biophys (talk) 02:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Endorse - this is what the discretionary sanctions for EE are for.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This is not completely on-topic, but I can't believe that Kuban Cossack is being threteaned with sanctions while for months nothing is ever done about, say, Jo0doe (talk), whose behavior in terms of never ending edit wars, disruptions of articles, etc. is 100 times more egregious than what Kuban Cossack is accused of. Kuban Cossack and I often - indeed usually - take different sides on issues but despite some instances when things have gotten "hot" in general we have been able to collaborate very effectively on articles such asUkrainian Russophiles or Danubian Sich. This is so much the case that when I recently created the article Conversion of Chelm Eparchy one of the first things I did was invite Kuban Cossack to make contributions to that article. I am frankly floored that Kuban Cossack has been sanctioned and may be here when a truly disruptive editor such as Jo0doe is allowed to do his thing with impunity. Faustian (talk) 13:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with Faustian and would like to ad that I got the idea that Kuban Cossack is getting targeted because of his controversial userpage, don't judge a man on his looks, but on his behaviour. When dealing with Kuban Cossack I found him being very collaborative while I (also) often - indeed usually - take different sides on issues then him. Mariah-Yulia (talk) 16:09, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

User:ScienceApologist

This thread was started by banned user:Iantresman, is there anything here that needs actual admin attention? Thatcher 12:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Grburster

Could people reading this thread review what I've written at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Grburster? I'm rather unhappy that a checkuser request was filed purely on the basis of this ANI thread and the name similarity. It looks like fishing to me, pure and simple. It also looks like an attempt to deflect from the criticisms being made by Grburster of ScienceApologist. As someone said above, please don't shoot the messenger. Have a look at Special:Contributions/Grburster - I see nothing wrong there. It looks to me like someone who has admitted (without disclosing) a prior account (that's fine) and who came to ANI to make a criticism of another editor, is now being 'investigated' on spurious grounds. Carcharoth (talk) 08:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Recheck your assumptions please. Thatcher 12:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The checkuser was fully justified. As far as I can tell, an editor noticed what appeared to be a sock of a very disruptive user he was familiar with, and called for a check user. You should spend more time examining the situation before you call 'checkuser abuse'. Its exactly this kind of feel-good huggy enforcing of the rules without any knowledge of the actual situation that the disruptive users will take full advantage of of. Guyonthesubway (talk) 14:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Carcharoth, you are one of my favorite admins. I wish you would come over to WP:SSP or WP:RFCU and help us with the backlogs. Before criticizing, walk a mile in the other editor's shoes. Jehochman ^Talk 14:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I think Carcharoth does has a good point, the justification for the checkuser I requested was arguably borderline, but I did have a gut feeling I couldn't ignore. If that suspicion had been wrong it would have been me people would be criticising, rather than him. As a note, I've unblocked User:GammaRayBurst and apologised for my mistake in linking him to a banned user. Mark as resolved? Tim Vickers (talk) 15:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Tim, even if GammaRayBurst (talk · contribs) wasn't socking, it still looks like a vandal-only account. If you don't mind, I'll leave an unambiguous final warning for the account. — Scientizzle 15:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, fine with me. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

need block of POV-pushing static IP

Can't bring to AIV because I always catch him when 24 hours have passed. (19 in this case)

71.59.26.123 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), Matilda gave him a level 4 warning on 14 October for removing anything related to India (Hindu translations, references to Vedra, etc) and adding stuff that makes Afganisthan/Pakistan look more important than warranted, including modifying sources. He made POV edits again on 18 October, but AIV report was rejected as stale[96], so I gave him another level 4 warning on 24 October. Now he has made POV edits again on the following day after the level 4 warning on 25 October (falsifying the title of a source among other things[97]) and now again 27 October. He has done edits on October on 11 different days, and makes POV edits every time, last time he removed the hindu translation of an article about a frigging cheese[98] and then unlinked them from another article[99] (presumibly because it's an indian cheese), while modifying the article so it looks like Pashtun only ever had influences from Arabic with none of those pesky influence from indians and stuff.

It would be pointless to give a third level 4 warning, since it's obviously the same person and has not engaged on anysort of explanation or justification.

Please block for a few days, as he will surely return in 2-3 days. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:12, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Blocked for one week. Tan | 39 16:16, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Ugh, I'm going back through some contributions of him that I left for good, and it's turning out that even the most innocent-looking changes [100] (a removal of an alternative name) were POV-pushing. And people are still fixing some of his changes that I didn't notice [101]. I hate it when people introduce subtle POV pushing. It's a real pain to check stuff that I have no idea about. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Finally nailed the last one: claiming on August that Sinbad the Sailor was from Pakistan[102]. I can't believe he edited for two months before he got his first warning :( --Enric Naval (talk) 17:36, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Banned user

There's an anon user 66.192.195.193 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) edit warring on a number of articles. I believe this is Hetoum I (talk · contribs) evading the arbcom imposed parole. The anon edit warring on the article Sisak (eponym), removing the same referenced info as 216.165.12.126 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), which is a sock of User:Bursteam (see user page of IP and his block log: [103]), a known sock of Hetoum I. Urgent attention of admins is required. Grandmaster (talk) 17:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

CU  Confirmed Bursteam (talk · contribs) = 216.165.12.126 (talk · contribs)

 Likely Bursteam (talk · contribs) = 66.192.195.193 (talk · contribs), Jehochman has already blocked this IP for 48 hours. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

User: Caspian blue

• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) keeps anti-Japanese racial attacking, see as below examples.

• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) intentionally falsely citated the source and racial attacked. He appealed only Japanese called Empress Myeongseong as Queen Min from falsely citation.[104] Then I rightened his propaganda.[105]
• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) intentionally deleted citated sentences "He involved in the assassination of Queen" from Official Gazzete of Korea. Then he revised intentionally "The Japanese government was allegedly involved in the assassination of Empress Myeongseong, who had carried out policies against the Japanese, and, although there are controversial viewpoints on the subject, it is apparent that the Japanese government attempted to divert the blame to the Koreans.". This source recorded that Korean King Gojong testified Woo Beom-seon (禹範善) was the criminal and ordered cut his head off. But he intentionally converted the citation from "He involved in the assassination of Queen" to "it is apparent that the Japanese government attempted to divert the blame to the Koreans". He deleted even {{fact}}. These {{fact}} pasted sentences suspicious Japanese racism. And he deleted "<"references /">", his intention was no one could read the source[106]
• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) intentionally deleted again.[107]
• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) intentionally deleted Korean King's testify again. Moreover he intentionally added several none cited Japanese Racizm. One example is apparently not, he intentionally deleted "Then Japan was also ruled by the United States." and add "The policy was aiming to hinder Koreans from obtaining technological knowledge and to profit from selling the seeds to Koreans at a high price.". However Japan is under the United States rule at that time, so Japan has no their own policy.[108]
• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) intentionally deleted and racial attacked again.[109]

Then I appealed Administrators, Administrators recommend us go to Wikipedia:Mediation. So I sent a message for him, I said him to go to Meditation. But he refuged and he told me talking in Talk page. Who can belive this shameless man's words. Furthermore, He said that much of contents was written by Wikimachine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). It do not make sense, he deleted {{fact}} and "<"references /">" and add deleted Wikimachine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)'s articles.

Please expel this shameless man. See his contributions, he harassed Japanese countless times.

Suspicious socks puppets:

• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Appletrees (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Appleby (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Wikimachine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

These users are fond of editing Korean Culture and Anti-Japanese articles.

--Bukubku (talk) 18:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Am I suffering déjà vu, or have we done this before? Regardless, I left a note [110] for the party mentioned. --Kralizec! (talk) 23:52, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, déjà vu, is here. Same old song on the long-running Japan-Korea saga, one of wiki's long running ethnic wars. Bukubku's alleged socking by Caspian Blue, well let's see, Appltrees was his old account before he was RENAMED to Caspian Blue by a crat. This is NOT socking. Appleby's last edit was over two years ago, so these edits are WAY STALE, and Wikimachine has only made one edit all year. This is a very weak socking claim and I'm not even going to look at it. As for the other claims, been there, heard that before, ie, déjà vu. So, and as I've said before, these guys need to go to meditation since they can't work this out on their own. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Rlevse. You read my message. I'm sorry, I annoyed you frequently. We need third persons.--Bukubku (talk) 06:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Checkuser's attention needed and newbie User:Bukubku's harassment

The above report would be déjà vu just as Kralizec!'s comment. Please reference to these above reports by sockpuppeters (they were all indef. blocked) associated with 2channel and stalking site http://www3.atwiki.jp/apple-tree/ *filed by Jazz81089 (indef.blocked)

• filed by Opoona (indef.blocked)

I sense that same pattern here as well. Besides, the stalking site recorded my converstation with other users, and I think Bukubku is the operater of the site.

This report on 2channel's disruption is why Bukubku (talk · contribs) antagonizes me and calls me "vandal". (what a pathetic gesture).

• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive380#Long time abusing Wikipedia by Japanese editors from 2channel meat/sock puppets
• Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Pabopa
• Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/KoreanShoriSenyou
• Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Yuan.C.Lee
• Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Azukimonaka
• Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/2008FromKawasaki
• Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Opoona

As the newbie who knows about and analysizes me too much and Wiki knowledges unlike his registered date (one and half month old) is falsey accusing me, the user harrasses me with the hoax report. The user was warned for his falsifications on Empress Myeongseong by several admins. Morever, Appletrees is my "former screen name", and I wonder how this newbie found out this. I changed my name via WP:CHU, and this attempt is even nothing new. Other accounts have nothng to do with me and the 2channel people know it, but try to link me with others, so that they try to gain attenton with their hoax report. I don't insert any wrong info to articles, but Bukubku did. Admin Kwami would confirm this. Bukubku has refused to provide his rationales for massive deletions on mentioned articles, and refused to come to talk page. Moreover, he also lies about my suggestion to him to open a discussion.[111] If the Bukubku is a sock of indef.blocked users (I believe the user is highly likely) found on the RFCUs, well a block is quite in order again. I also think that this user is either a sock of Pabopa (talk · contribs), or Opoona (talk · contribs), Jazz81089 (talk · contribs) who made above hoax ANI reports.--Caspian blue 01:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Caspian, you are my No.1 teacher. Your edtion teach me lot. And you inform me your helpful fan sites.[112] I appreciate to Admin Kwami as third person even if things going to bad for me.--Bukubku (talk) 06:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

That is exactly the same as the stalking site. So you're admitting the operator of the shameless site? :) Your falsification is nothing new at all since you have done so many times, and make this hoax report. --12:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Good faith linkspammer

After deleting a blog link from a music-related article, I went through the submissions of contributions (who added it) and noticed that his contributions are almost 100% adding links to the blog of one "Dr. Avior Byron". The username and blog owner indicate the same person. I left a couple warnings on his talk page.

Well, he left a polite reply on my talk page defending his actions, so I looked over his most recent edit. To my surprise, the article Pierrot Lunaire#References contains not only a link to his blog, but also a link to an academic journal article he wrote.

Wikipedia:External links#Links normally to be avoided says to avoid links to blogs except those written by a recognized authority. And looking over his blog and his published article, this fellow may indeed be a recognized authority in the field of musicology, and linkspamming his blog all over Wikipedia's musicology-related articles may actually be enhancing the articles.

Any advice? Should I just leave him be? There aren't any clear guidelines. On one hand, he's got a conflict of interest and doesn't contribute much but his links. On the other hand, if he's an authority on the subject, and he happens to run a blog, then the links may be OK. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I run into this all the time, and always handle it the same way: revert all the links and give a warning. If the user asks questions, give a brief friendly explanation of the policy, and say that the only acceptable way to add an unusual link is to discuss it on the talk page of the article first and get consensus. If the user puts back the links, come here and ask for a block. (You can look at User talk:Bishopclinics for the most recent case I've dealt with.) Looie496 (talk) 19:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I personally think the Lunaire link is fine, since he actually does look to be somewhat educated on the subject. However, I believe that the addition of the links to such broad topics as Graduate school, Book review, European Research Council and Postgraduate education should be avoided. --Smashville^talk 19:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I thought too. I'll leave the musicology-related links alone, but revert and warn for the others. He's up to level 3 warnings now. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

If this fellow seems to be an expert in his field, you may want to advise him (gently and politely) to start contributing content rather than just links to articles. Maybe point him towards a relevant wikiproject. 131.111.223.43 (talk) 01:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar used as personal attack

Resolved

 – offending attack removed, offending user has left--Tznkai (talk) 22:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I’m concerned about this barnstar placed on the talk page of Crossthets (talk · contribs) by Walnutjk (talk · contribs), which seems to be a thinly-veiled attack on admin Future Perfect at Sunrise, referring to him as a “certain all knowing administrator” and his contributions and efforts to maintain neutrality as ”propaganda,” “nationalistic views”, and the reason “Wikipedia is crap.” I would like to see it removed, and I think some sort of warning is in order. Thanks, Kafka Liz (talk) 19:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• Note: I became aware of the issue via this thread at Wikipedia:WikiProject Greece. Kafka Liz (talk) 19:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I really don't think there's much action to be taken here. If CrossthetsFuture Perfect (the presumed target, per the WP:Greece thread) is personally slighted by this to the level of wanting admin action, he/she can bring it up here themselves. Tan | 39 19:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Admin action here might cause more drama than it solves; that said, this sort of thing shouldn't continue. – Luna Santin (talk) 19:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It actually says "certain administrators and their collaborators"- it doesn't name names and is just the sort of thing seen on many barnstars, sadly:) Sticky Parkin 20:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look, in any case. Luna Santin, I think you are correct about admin action causing more drama than it's worth, but the whole thing seemed very mean-spirited and was disappointing to see. Thnaks anyway, Kafka Liz (talk) 20:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It is very clearly directed at me, and it is part of an ongoing persistent pattern of harassment directed against me by Crossthets and now aided and encouraged by Walnutjk, so yes, I would appreciate admin action. This is only a small part of a pattern that has reached a stage where bans are needed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the barnstar box as a blatant personal attack. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Offending user has apparently decided that (s)he is too good for Wikipedia.--Tznkai (talk) 22:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I am too ... but I still stick around :-) -t BMW c- 23:59, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The stuff about "certain [unnamed] admins and their [unnamed] collaborators" reminds me of one of the songs from The Mikado - "... what'cha-call-it, thing-a-me-bob ... and tut-tut-tut, and what's-his-name, and also you-know-who ... the task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you ..." Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Those mean admins, wrecking all that nationalistic fun. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Can 85.73.224.212 (talk · contribs) be blocked, as well as Walnutjk (talk · contribs), now that he's unretired to use IPs. Grsz^Review! 17:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Walnutjk has already been blocked, as for 85.73.224.212 I've done the deed, blatant, ongoing personal attacks. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I can get banned for linking a well-sourced Wikipedia Article? WTH?!

The page Anonymous (internet culture) has this message embedded in the KTTV Fox 11 section:

<!--DO NOT mention any names of living individuals unless they were EXPLICITLY stated in the Fox 11 report. Any user who adds the individual's name may be blocked. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons-->

Now if i'm not mistaken, the Jake Brahm article has enough reasonable references (even copies of the court documents from The Smoking Gun) and his mugshot was used in the news segment, even thought he wasn't identified. To me, I have enough justification to link the article (my intent is to like thus: "bomb sports stadiums") and i'm not violating the rules outlined in Wikipedia Biography, because, I can reference the news articles and the court documents, which satisfies Wikipedia: Citing Sources. So what's compelling someone to write this "threat" down in the first place?--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 21:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• Because plenty of people were adding it because they thought it was cool, because other channers were doing it, or a number of other reasons that don't come from building a good encyclopedia. Most of those 4chan/anon articles have to be policed pretty heavily because they aren't important enough to be on hundreds of watchlists but bad faith/silly changes get past NPP (because it isn't obvious vandalism). Comments in articles help let people know that someone is paying attention. Edit notices help sometimes too. If you are making a good faith addition, I wouldn't worry about the admonition there. Protonk (talk) 21:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I suggest asking on the talk page of the article before taking action, though. Looie496 (talk) 21:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Looie. This should probably be fine but discussing it on the talk page is probably a good idea. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted the edit for now; while it seems valid, the suggestion here is to discuss on the article's talk page first and there has been no discussion. (As well, the link probably should not be "hidden" in that manner. That is just a matter of reformatting, however.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Carmen Miranda

Resolved

 – User:Crazyaboutlost blocked a week for edit warring

One of the lamer edit wars now centers on this well-known Brazilian (though Portuguese-born) singer/entertainer, who one user insists as identifying as strictly Portuguese. [113] Yes, this looks like a content dispute, except the one user, User:Crazyaboutlost, who keeps pushing this view is violating consensus of several users and hence is being disruptive. He hasn't quite broken 3RR yet - today. He was suspended previously for so doing. His edits in general, judging by his history [114] tend to be contentious. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Now he's violated 3RR, and I'm right at it, so I'm done reverting. I believe his efforts to be vandalism, but others might not agree, so that's as far as I can go. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:14, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Blocked for a week, because earlier, he did the exact same thing on the exact same article and earned a previous block that expired only a day or two ago. --barneca (talk) 21:16, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Muito obrigado! Someone needs to look at his other shenanigans. His user page suggests he's very pro-Portuguese, and he may just be trying to identify anything remotely Portuguese as being definitively Portuguese. But his approach is over the line. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Big fat support. --Smashville^talk 21:18, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Beat me to it. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Well-done. Opinoso (talk) 21:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Might want to add the block template, just for safety...--Smashville^talk 21:30, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Come on people. I only added information. He was the one who was removing. I only added that she was portuguese (since she was born in Portugal and never got double citizenship neither brazilian citizenship). I did not remove any part of the article.201.10.36.228 (talk) 21:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Hey-hey! Something else to block. Who wants it? I'm not an admin or I would do it myself. But I'm just a pawn in the game of life. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I win! But seriously...3RR is pretty straightforward. More than 3 is a block. Not that difficult a concept --Smashville^talk 21:37, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I could have taken him to 3RR, but this seemed to go beyond routine 3RR's. He's basically arguing for giving a technicality undue weight, against consensus. The article already states, in the very next sentence, that she was born in Portugal. However, she was known as the Brazilian Bombshell. Hence she was a Brazilian entertainer, not a Portuguese entertainer. Now I think I'll go watch Slick Hare, with its Carmen Miranda cameo. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

No Porky's? --Smashville^talk 23:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Nah, just Porky and Daffy. Alas, Kim Cattrall never appeared in a WB cartoon. :( Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I poked an admin on IRC, and the IPs blocked as well. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) 21:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Disruption on Obama talk page

Resolved

 – 2wk block Toddst1 (talk) 23:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Please review Thegoodlocust (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - just back from 1-week ban, immediately engages in old behavior: edit warring, incivility, 3RR vios, fringe theories, disruption.

• 5-6 fringe theories posted and repeatedly posted (after community deleted, closed, archived, etc) in 2 days on Obama talk page - see his edit history
• 3RR report here fore re-opening closed discussions: [[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#
• Now wikistalking / harassing other editors: disrupts an editor's editor review by accusing him of being in cahoots with "friends";[115] trolls my talk page[116][117] (last one was re-posting accusations on my talk page after I deleted them)

In a more general sense there are several editors returning or joining the page who have been causing disruption. We could use some no-nonsense help on the page, probably for the next few days until the election. Wikidemon (talk) 22:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Note - Thegoodlocust is blocked for 2 weeks based on the 3RR report.[118] The broader issue about what to do about Barack Obama and Sarah Palin remains (John McCain and Joe Biden too, I suppose, but they are much quieter). Wikidemon (talk) 23:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

More Obama-Drama

the post above was written apparently while I was writing this. Great minds think alike, doncha know! First of all, let me just say, I'm sorry to put this on you guys- I know all the election related edit and flame warring got old about three years eleven months ago, but as a sort of semi-involved admin watching from the sidelines, there's a situation that's going to spiral out of control pretty fast if we don't put a cap on it somehow and I'm sort of unsure exactly what the right course of action is.
On Talk:Barack Obama, Thegoodlocust (talk · contribs), who was blocked earlier in the month by me for edit warring and incivility, has returned from his block and is continually adding posts to the discussion attempting to connect Obama with ACORN. He is being repeatedly reverted by Wikidemon (talk · contribs). No, here's where it gets sticky. Wikidemon is warning Locust for edit warring by recreating his posts, while others are warning Wikidemon for edit warring by repeatedly deleting said posts. Wikidemon claims that his edits don't count as edit warring because he's removing blp material. I'm inclined to agree with him, but I'd like some outside opinions. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 22:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

One more thing. This might be totally wrong and against everything we believe in, but wouldn't it be nice if someone just happened to full protect Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, John McCain and Joe Biden for, oh, say... six days? ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 22:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm 100% in favor of that. Forcing consensus by making everything go thru {{editprotected}} isn't a bad way to handle articles like that. --barneca (talk) 23:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, this may just be my own bias, but I don't think consensus is the problem, rather signal to noise/disruption. Folks at the Obama and related pages are burning a ton of resources in re-explaining BLP, NPOV, RS, NOTNEWS, UNDUE, etc. very frequently as each new talking point appears (or in many cases, re-appears.) regards, --guyzero | talk 23:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi L'Aquatique, the further background is edits from Thegoodlocust (talk · contribs) on the talkpage yesterday as seen here and here. He was warned just yesterday to not disrupt the talkpage by inserting fringe theories and BLP-violations. --guyzero | talk 22:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I would support full protection as a very last resort if there is no other way. I cannot think of any change to the major candidate pages that is so burning that it cannot wait until after the election. However, locking down articles in anticipation of future vandalism may create an unwise precedent. Please note a few things - the "warning" on my page is incorrect - I am at 0RR or 2RR depending on whether you count my BLP revert and re-closing a disruptive discussion. I am on article patrol along with 6-12 other editors at a time. We close, archive, and delete many discussions per day on the Obama talk page. If not it would be mayhem, as you can see by looking at the page as it stands or the edit history. As far as I know (correct me if I am wrong) marking a discusison closed, consolidating discussions, or changing headings to be more descriptive, are not reverts. Disruption has increased several-fold in the past few days and I don't know if we can hold this back. We are, as I note on the talk page, up to 3-5 blocks per day on that page, mostly for vandals - I try to keep up with them and put them on the log at Talk:Barack Obama/Article probation, but I'm sure I miss quite a few. Wikidemon (talk) 23:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I assume that you'll be constantly watching these pages and reverting the vandalism floods? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I do my best at Barack Obama, but one non-admin isn't enough, and even six are not enough. Even on article patrol we try to be on best behavior and not to violate 3RR or article probation terms. It's like being a policeman who has to wear white gloves and a tophat all the time. It's harder for me on Sarah Palin, the other big problem article, because unless you follow it minute by minute it is sometimes hard to tell who the troll is, or what is a legitimate question / proposal versus what is a fringe theory that has already been dismissed ten times. Some problem editors have a way of mimicking the accusations of the regular editors.Wikidemon (talk) 23:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

At least there's no risk of any of those articles appearing as a Featured Article on November 5th. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

(undent)Unfortunately, there has been so much vandalism like these gems[119][120][121][122], and so many people reading the article, that some readers have been rightfully appalled and left messages on the talk page asking what is going on. You can't revert fast enough to avoid some people being hurt. And then there is the constant trolling on the talk page. It's sure to get worse. At the very least, more admins watching these pages through the election would be very helpful. Thanks, ~ priyanath ^talk 23:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I'm not hearing all the opposition I thought I would get to that little proposal of mine. We could even narrow it down to just Barack Obama and Sarah Palin, the two major problem articles. The real question: would it solve more problems than it would cause? I don't know the answer. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 03:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that extremely high profile BLPs (US presidential candidates days from election obviously qualify) lend themselves poorly to the Wiki Way. It wouldn't take much bad luck to end up with a PR catastrophe on our hands. I would support a week-long protection for all four, personally; having to use {{editprotected}} for a few days is not that onerous a price to pay to protect the encyclopedia and the foundation. — Coren ^(talk) 04:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Unless something dramatic and unexpected happens, I don't see what new information warrants adding until after the election. Protection is a good idea. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:27, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't have to tell me twice. I'm going to go make sure there are no problems with current revisions and protect them, I guess. Of course, it will invariably be the wrong version, but I'm only human after all. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 04:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) If, as it seems, the level of vandalism is so high that it's impractical to keep up with it by reverts, then protection for a short time will be needed. It's unfortunate. I would recommend protecting all 4 of the candidate pages, if any 1 of them is protected. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:40, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I also think that a full "this page is protected due to vandalism" template (not a small icon) is worthwhile for these. They are protected for a short time, and only because of heavy vandalism. So we should be up front about this, so that editors who wonder why they can't edit have some clear explanation. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with both your sentiments, my dear MzM. Moving on, however, I have fully protected Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama (John McCain was already fully protected) with an expiry time of 6 days (which may need to be tweaked so that it doesn't expire until after the election depending on time zones) and left notes of explanations on all the talk pages. Next, I will add the protection tags.

In other news, I just recieved a rather angry note from User:Thegoodlocust claiming that I'm a cabalist and an all around evil person. Whoops... I just accidentally deleted it. Oh well. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 05:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)Thank you for protecting those articles through the election, L'Aquatique. People should note that these are the candidate's biographies, and nothing significant is likely to change in the next week regarding their lives. If it does, then {{editprotected}} works just fine. Some of the trolling and vandalism is so appalling that this is for the best - for the articles and for Wikipedia. Note that the articles about the election have not been protected, for example United States presidential election, 2008, Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008‎, John McCain presidential campaign, 2008‎, and others. They can continue to be updated with current events. The bios seem to be the worst hate and vandalism magnets, unfortunately. ~ priyanath ^talk 05:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I have gone through all 4 articles alphabetically and changed the template to pp-vandalism, not small. This should make it clear why the articles are protected - because of heavy ongoing vandalism - and it also tells editors how to request changes using editprotected. — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This is undoubtably the best thing to do. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 05:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that full protection seems wise, given the circumstances. I also think Coren is correct with the comment that wide open editing on these incredibly heavily trafficked articles could open us up to a last minute public relations disaster. I wonder how many people are out there would potentially allow Wikipedia content to influence whether they would or would not vote for a particular candidate? I bet there's more than a few... In any event, again, full protection, I believe is best, especially given what we've seen on the Palin and Obama articles thus far.   user:j    (aka justen)   05:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. It's not worth the endless BLPvios that will surely be happening at an even faster pace as E-Day approaches. Good job, LAQ. [ roux ] [x] 05:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

To prevent needless drama, accusations of elitism, and/or a shit-storm like around the time Sarah Palin's VP candidacy was announced, I would like to request that administrators as a body pledge not to make any non-trivial edits to those pages without gaining consensus on the talk page. (IMHO, noting on the pages who won the election, as well as updating the infoboxes, would be trivial, since all or most of the details should be placed in the article about the election). J.delanoy^gabs_adds 06:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

CBM: You slapped full protection on John McCain and claimed it was because of "heavy ongoing vandalism". That's totally bogus. There isn't any "heavy ongoing vandalism" to this article. Kindly revert to the semi-protection that was operating satisfactorily before you needlessly interfered. Thank you. Writegeist (talk) 06:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I support locking up all four articles through November 5. However, the huge tag is hideous. The small padlock symbol would work just as well. We have been through this before.Ferrylodge (talk) 07:09, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Uh, Sarcasticidealist fully protected the John McCain article over 2 days ago. CBM just modified the tag.

Cheers,  This flag once was red  07:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Again, the lockdown is totally bogus. There is NO "heavy vandalism". But it stands to reason that our pet McCain campaign worker would support a tactic that echoes his own efforts to obstruct further additions regardless of the fact that this stated reason for the lockdown is a lie. — Writegeist (talk)

I have no connection to the McCain campaign, and I have the same stance toward all 4 articles in question. Perhaps Writegeist is projecting.Ferrylodge (talk) 07:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The tag states "This page is currently protected from editing to deal with vandalism"; it doesn't mention that there has been heavy vandalism, the inference I draw that is that it seeks to prevent future vandalism.

(Also no connection with the McCain campaign; if you want to know what my politics are you can check this edit)

Cheers,  This flag once was red  07:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Preserving thread

I'm preserving this thread linked from the protection log with a fake timestamp for transparency's sake. The bot will automatically archive it after the election is over.--chaser - t 05:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Protection notices

The huge protection notices are absolutely hideous, and a huge disservice to our readers. For every person with an account who wonders why they can't edit the article (nevermind that it says why when clicking the "view source" link) we have hundreds, if not thousands, of readers who will have to scroll down a maintainance templace with absolutely no relevance to the content they're interested in. Folks, we need to grow up and recognize that wikipedia is just not for the active editors. There is a silent majority of readers that outnumber the editors a hundred times and we shouldn't needlessly force them to start with scrolling down or reading irrelevant internal nonsense on some of our most visible pages. The large notices have a place for articles locked down due to a content dispute, to warn that the content is in dispute, but that is not the case here! A small padlock icon is definitely sufficient. henrik•talk 07:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As mentioned above, I agree 100%. The huge tag at the top of each of the articles is hideous. The small padlock symbol would work just as well, and anyone would understand what's happening from reading the tag at the top of each of the talk pages. The McCain article has already been locked up for a couple days without using the huge tag at the top of the article. This issue arose previously, and it was decided to keep the Palin article frozen but get rid of the huge tag at the top.Ferrylodge (talk) 08:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually with respect to the previous actions on Palin, the banner was removed in the absence of consensus by an admin that ignored the discussion on the issue and ultimately ended up in Arbitration over their reckless behavior with respect to Palin's article. It is no way a precedent that I would follow for only using padlocks. Dragons flight (talk) 08:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It was still an excellent suggestion by New York Brad, and in fact the suggestion was fully implemented without subsequent reversion.Ferrylodge (talk) 08:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Because only a fool will edit war on an article already in arbitration, in my opinion it was a bad decision and many people preferred the large tag. Dragons flight (talk) 08:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Nope, the article was locked up for many days, while changes were made by consensus, and there was never consensus to reinstall the huge tag.[123]Ferrylodge (talk) 08:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

That discussion didn't affect the big tag. It wasn't until later that Jossi removed it (without participating in or even being aware of the discussion about the tag). In my opinion there was never consensus to remove the tag. I might concede that there was "no consensus" on the issue, but I don't believe your side had consensus. Dragons flight (talk) 08:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's water under the bridge. We've provided links to the relevant discussion. I think Henrik makes some excellent points below; e.g., unregistered users have been unable to edit these articles for months so why would they suddenly find a huge tag useful? I'm telling you, the huge tags will reduce the number of people who read these articles by at least a factor of ten, which would be a huge shame given all the work that's gone into writing these articles.Ferrylodge (talk) 08:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, a factor of 10 is probably an exaggeration. But they're still ugly :-) henrik•talk 08:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Using the large tag to point out that these articles are being subjected to unusual treatment is a benefit to our readers. We want our readers to be aware that these articles are being subjected to different standards than normal articles. Dragons flight (talk) 08:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The vast majority of readers will see the tag, and read no further. The tag is hideous, and says the article's been vandalized. We are talking about four Wikipedia articles that have typically been getting (collectively) over 250,000 hits per day, and that number will increase dramatically during the next few days. So let's get this right, please. Editors will easily figure out what's going on, from the tags at the tops of the talk pages.Ferrylodge (talk) 08:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Then we should use another {{pp-xxx}} tag instead. I'd put {{pp-dispute}} there, because most readers will understand that those articles are subject to dispute shortly before an election and will not be scared by those tags. But most new readers have no idea what a talk page is or why they should open it. They want to read information and maybe correct things and they should be told why they cannot do so. We have to think about thousands of anon or newbie readers that do not use WP usually. Regards SoWhy 08:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

These articles have been constantly semi-protected for months already, so newbie readers have never been able to correct things directly. The only difference now is that non-administrator established editors can't edit them. The only people not being able to edit now are those who have auto-confirmed accounts, and they can be expected to find their way to to talk pages. I do not understand why restricting auto-confirmed users merits a huge banner, while restricting anonymous users routinely is done with a small icon. {{pp-dispute}} is not the right answer either, because there is no significant dispute. These protections are mainly a technical measure because the regular editors can't keep up with the (expected) traffic. henrik•talk 08:36, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Why is the reader likely to be interested in that? I'd wager a significant amount that the average reader is more interested to read the biography of the candidate in question than learning about wikipedia internal debates on article protection standards. While protection policy and article standards are interesting, it is not sufficiently interesting to occupy the whole first paragraph of such high profile articles. Again, the protection is a technical measure to solve the problem of our inability to effectively deal with the vandalism, not a warning that the content is thought to be unreliable (which the current notices certainly imply by saying "[this] in not an endorsement of the current version"). henrik•talk 08:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Most readers have at least vague idea how Wikipedia operates to the extent that it reflects an open editing philosophy. If prominent articles are being treated differently than those expectations suggest, then I think readers ought to have those expectations corrected. I am open to discussing a different presentation to the message box though, if you have some suggestions for what would be a better way to explain this particular protection. Dragons flight (talk) 08:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Unregistered users have been unable to edit these articles for months so why would they suddenly find a huge tag useful?Ferrylodge (talk) 08:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection is still a good approximation of the open editing process. Virtually all active editors are autoconfirmed and even new editors can quickly obtain that status. Full protection is different since it hands control to only a fraction of editors and generally changes the dynamic of how pages are edited. I'll assume that most readers will not be editors regardless of the protection status, but most readers still have an idea (in broad terms) of how articles are written and protection changes that. It is that change is process that I think should be announced. Incidentally, you assume protection is a turn off to large numbers of people. You ignore the other possible position. Some people will see that an article is protected and assume that it therefore is less likely to contain vandalism and hence more trustworthy. It isn't obvious to me that announcing a protection status is inherently a large net negative in public perception. Dragons flight (talk) 08:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

These protections, (as well as the Sarah Palin wheelwar) are really a new and evolving form of protection for us. We're discovering that some articles have become so high-profile that even semi-protection is insufficient, but we haven't really evolved the tools or policies needed to deal with those cases yet. I guess the best we can do is just try what seems best at the time :-)

My main problem is the size and length, plus that the standard template message isn't really suited to this particular case. As a compromise, could we craft a one-line message, with a smallish lock that explains that the articles are locked down and a link to a page with further details? henrik•talk 08:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm bowing out to get sleep (I'm in Connecticut). I can barely spew out one line of text.  :-)Ferrylodge (talk) 08:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I suspect I'll want more like 2 or 3 lines but I open to shortening the message from the 5 lines it currently displays in my browser. Dragons flight (talk) 09:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

What about using the small icon in conjunction with the new Mediawiki edit notices? That way, readers don't see the large template, while those who choose to edit can see a detailed explanation of what is going on. Thoughts? --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Support Ckatz's suggestion, above. I was going to suggest alternate phrasing for the template drafts below, but edit-conflicted with what looks to be a way better idea. Sorry for being a mediawiki noob, can you point to an example? thanks, --guyzero | talk 09:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Edit notices are only shown to people with permission to edit. In the case of fully protected pages, that is admins only. Other people who click "view source" will never see them. Dragons flight (talk) 09:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately this is true, otherwise it would have been a good idea. henrik•talk 09:48, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah bummer =( --guyzero | talk 09:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't realize they had that restriction. Another thought - we use the collapsed-form templates at the bottom of articles; what about using a similar technique at the top? The title line could simply state that the article is protected, with a link to expand it if readers/editors want more details. --Ckatz^chat_spy 10:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me.Ferrylodge (talk) 10:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Drafts

In the spirit of the above, here is my draft for custom notice. Dragons flight (talk) 09:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking something along this line, where the full policy, {{editprotected}} and other details are explained on the talk page or a subpage. I am of course open to tweaking the wording, I am sure that could be improved. henrik•talk 09:31, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

One advantage of having the details on a separate, but easily accessible link, is that it will allow us to explain everything in full without being constrained by space. It should allow us to make a more accessible introduction to wikipedia protection and editing than what could be done in the box. henrik•talk 09:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm back! Just for a little while. I still think ordinary people will not understand what "protected" means, and the word "vandalism" will be scary. How about....

Ferrylodge (talk) 09:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If you and henrik want to do the see details "here" thing, then I would like to see what text you intend to provide at that destination as well. Dragons flight (talk) 09:48, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the "here" could just be the top of the respective article talk page? There's a huge protection tag at the top of each of the talk pages right now, which is fine with me.Ferrylodge (talk) 09:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, that is of course a reasonable request. Again, feel free to edit away on this. henrik•talk 10:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Suggest perhaps replacing the first paragraph "While normally any Wikipedia article is open for editing by anyone, we've protected this article from editing to deal with vandalism due to the US Election", above? thanks, --guyzero | talk 10:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

A collapsible box was an excellent idea, how about this: henrik•talk 10:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I just have seen the four-way lockdown. (I'm the leading editor at Joe Biden and co-leading editor at John McCain.) I don't like it – we made it through the long, heated Obama-Clinton primary without having to resort to this (certainly the Clinton article, where I'm also the leading editor, was never locked down), and I don't see anything that's made it necessary here. But I can see I'm in the minority and that the decision has already been made. I strongly agree with others that the current huge tag is gross and unnecessarily throws all the current content of the articles into doubt. It doesn't even make sense – how could vandalism cause us to not be able to endorse a version of the article?? We revert vandalisms to good versions all the time! It makes us sound like we have no clue about what we are doing, which is not the case. I don't care that much which of these alternative tags you pick above, but please put them into place as soon as possible. The current tags make me feel like all the work I have done here is being disrespected. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that if we DO protect these articles, (and I am totally WITH Wasted Time R. Premptively protecting the articles is kind of the Bush Doctrine approach to Wikipedia, and we know how well THAT has worked out...) we should ONLY semi-protect them. Semi-protection will stop the sort of "drive-by" vandalism that we expect given the election, and any other vandalism can be dealt with by swift account blocks. At worst, if a whole slew of autoconfimed accounts shows up to attack the article, it will serve as sockpuppet bait; we can cause sockfarms to reveal themselves, which may be a good thing. There doesn't seem to be any real benefit from full protection here... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:21, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Jayron--semi-protection would eliminate 99 percent of the problem edits (which seem to be drive-by vandalism from new accounts). I do think a tag is needed, though--something like this: Blueboy96 12:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I see that Henrik has put in the show/hide tag proposed above. Thanks, that's a big improvement over what had been there. And I'll never criticize Henrik, given how many times I've used the wonderful page view count tool! Wasted Time R (talk) 12:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As Wasted Time R noted, I've put in the less obtrusive collapsible protection notice on all four candidate's pages for now. You can find the template at {{pp-uselection2008}} (swiftly copyedited and improved by User:Kane5187). I have no strong opinion on the issue of protection itself, but my guess is that it could probably have been handled with shorter full protections as needed. Then again, a lot of people will read these, and even vandalism for a few seconds will be seen by a lot of people. henrik•talk 12:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I want to register my support for this version of the tag. And also to register my full agreement with Dragons flight that the padlock icon is insufficient. Users of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, deserve to know that why these articles are being treated differently. Mike R (talk) 13:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

These articles should not be under full protection for any length of time. Semi-protection is clearly called for and full protection can be used for short spikes of vandalism by autoconfirmed accounts but there will be so many experienced editors watching these articles, locking them down for a week or more will stir up more harm than help to their content. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The McCain article was already full protected until after the election, since 2008-10-27. Editors above were reporting that they were unable to keep up with the vandalism at the Obama page, which was semiprotected. It seemed very unlikely to me that the Obama article would make it to Nov. 4 without being full protected; at most, it might stay unprotected another day or two. When the people watching a page start to burn out from the effort, that's when protection becomes more viable. And I think there is a relatively clear benefit to treating all 4 of the election biographies equally in terms of protection. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:42, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Red diaper baby, MILF, Trollop and a string of other articles have also been dragged into this and some of them have been semi protected, I suspect some vandals will get more inventive in the next few days. But I do think we owe it to the IP editors to patrol and action the talk pages when we semi protect, this has worked quite well for the Russell Brand Show prank telephone calls row saga and also a few weeks ago when the LHC was switched on. ϢereSpielChequers 14:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The McCain article was already full protected until after the election: Only sort of. Yes, the expiry date was after the election, but the admin who imposed it had said he intended to lift it sooner, as soon as the particular conflict he imposed it for was over. He was in fact about to lift it this morning, before noticing that this new decision had been made to protect it.

I protest this decision, especially since it was imposed with no discussion at all on the talk pages of the affected articles. I don't know what it's been like at Obama, but at Palin and McCain there's been lots of content dispute but no significant vandalism. Whatever vandalism there has been was quickly reverted by the many editors, from all sides, who are watching the pages; no need for uninvolved vandalism patrollers. Seriously, I've seen less vandalism at Sarah Palin than at Cole & Dylan Sprouse. -- Zsero (talk) 14:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

My response to all this is below, I just wanted to throw out some kudos to the folks working on templates above. The collapsable ones look great and definitely have my !vote. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 17:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Should the election bios stay full protected through the election

It looks like there is some divided opinion about the protection. On one hand,

• reports near the top of the thread show that editors who follow the Obama page say it is becoming too much to keep up, and the McCain page had been full protected for a couple days.
• there is a benefit to keeping the 4 pages in sync with regard to protection.
• it's a reasonable guess that vandalism rates will go up before the election.

On the other hand

• people are also reporting that the McCain/Palin pages had less vandalism than the Obama pages
• there is a benefit to not fully protecting pages that don't need it.

It would be helpful for uninvolved editors to weigh in, to get a better sense of the overall opinion about the balance between these conflicting concerns. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:27, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protect per my comments above. Blueboy96 16:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

All of these articles had been semi-protected for months. You seem to have missed the fact that we are talking about excessive activity that was already not stopped by semi-protection. Dragons flight (talk) 16:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If only because perception is reality in politics, protecting uniformly is the only reasonable method of avoiding appearance of bias. Spending a few days without being able to directly edit four articles is far from onerous, and a reasonable method of protecting Wikipedia's reputation. — Coren ^(talk) 16:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• Full-protect. Anything that should or need to be inserted during this time can be done through the usual method. BLP policy needs to be respected, the likely surge in vandalism is utterly avoidable, as is another ArbCom case. Additionally, the article probation that we pulled through isn't going to be effective on its own during this time. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

  I concur with Ncmvocalist and Coren. Tomer^talk 16:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it's overoptimistic to expect that the vandalism is going to decrease immediately after the election. If anything, I'd expect it to ramp up for at least a few days afterward. —KCinDC (talk) 16:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm under the impression that it would be protected during the election and for a few days following it - seems sensible for the exact reasons you've noted. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• Honestly, I think this is probably unnecessary at the moment. Barack Obama has been getting 30-40 edits per day, while John McCain was seeing about a 10-20 per day. In my opinion, those levels are manageable with the conventional level of watchlist attention that high profile articles get. For comparison, when Sarah Palin was initially locked it was getting 500-700 edits per day! That's more than an order of magnitude higher. I agreed with locking Palin at that time, but I don't think there is a crisis here that requires locking these now. Maybe such a problem will develop as the election comes closer, but I think that this protection is overly preemptive at the moment. Dragons flight (talk) 17:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support full protection firstly, what seems to be missed is the fact that semiprotection will not help- these articles have been semi-ed for a long time which apparently did not fix the situation. When I decided to protect my decision was based on a wide variety of things- firstly common sense that these articles would be under incredible dispute considering the current climate in the US and indeed the world. I also had reports from vandal fighters on the page that it was getting overwhelming, they couldn't handle it, and that was in many ways the straw that broke the camels back. Wikipedia is a big deal, I think sometimes people forget that we have a ton load of presence in the greater world and it's important that we show a good face. We're the third hit on google for search string "Barack Obama" and the first that is not run by him. I'm sure the situation is similar for the other three. People are coming here for information about the candidates, information that they may use to make an extremely important decision in a few days and it's up to us to make sure that they get the best quality information they can get. If that means restricting editing on these pages, so be it. There's so much more at stake here than editing priveledges. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 17:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

  these articles have been semi-ed for a long time which apparently did not fix the situation. What situation? There was no significant vandalism problem on Sarah Palin or John McCain. Lots of content dispute, but not vandalism. Semiprotection clearly was working, and there was no "situation". John McCain had been fully protected for a short time over an content dispute, but that was about to be lifted when you came along and slapped your blanket protection, because of nonexistent vandalism. -- Zsero (talk) 18:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• John McCain is also the third google hit. VP candidates' articles are both the first google hits for their names.--chaser - t 18:40, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you, chaser. Zsero, even though there was less of a problem on John McCain, the decision was made [not by me] to protect all of them in order to avoid the appearance of bias. ~ L'Aquatique[talk] 19:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• Not yet I understand the desire for pre-emptive protection, but aside from the wiki way issues, there was a previous thread that concluded with a number of non U.S. admins keeping an eye on things, I believe.--Tznkai (talk) 17:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• support full protection, even though I would rather not - I think that the onus of blp concerns out weighs the 'any one can edit' philosophy, through the election, due to the past experience on these articles. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 18:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support full protection through the election... and it wouldn't hurt to have more eyes on the more prominently linked articles as well--If vandals can't trash the main candidate articles, they may just switch targets rather than desisting. Jclemens (talk) 18:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Comment The page view stats aren't as severe as they were for Sarah Palin, who got 3.5 million page views over two days, but that was four days before we full protected it. When that finally happened on 3 September, her article was at about 500k per day, far higher than Obama's current 80-150k per day. The other candidate articles are getting still fewer page views than Obama's (McCain 40-87k, Palin 60-75k, and Biden 25k or less).--chaser - t 18:40, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support full protection because of the obvious BLP concerns which are heightened in this final week up to the elections because of the increased scrutiny that the public will undoubtedly have on these articles. -MBK₀₀₄ 18:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Note, since both McCain and Obama are featured articles, there is a proposal at WP:TFA/R (WT:TFAR) to run them side-by-side on the main page on Nov 4 or 5. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Extremely high level of vandalism now

Resolved

 – vandalism back down to reasonable levels. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 02:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

We are averaging around 30 reverts per minute. Any help would be appreciated. If you have rollback or are an admin, and have heard of Huggle, but haven't tried it, now would be a good time to start. Thanks. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 22:59, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Where? 30 reverts per minute? That's what I'd call a good day. seicer | talk | contribs 02:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Heh, yeah. It's down to around 20 or so now. Thanks to everyone who got on to help deal with it. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 02:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary and arrogance of American-based FRANK.

I am sick and tired from arbitrary some self-proclaimed censors demonstrate on Wiki pages.

As understood, “Frank” had deleted my article of modern internationally accepted innovator, engineer and publicist Michael Kerjman whose input in world progress is surely not less substantial than those of “Frank Lorenzo”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lorenzo

Perhaps, a CEO of NY local airline tries to avoid possibility public worldwide to realise unaccountability of American carriers as provided with http://mkwrk2.livejournal.com

Moreover, my assesses to Wiki and Yahoo!Mail were blocked since my publication appeared unsuitable to this Newyorker.

Thank you for your ultimate attention to such a McCartney-style deeds.

A.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.214.68.59 (talk • contribs)

Huh? I understand none of this. You need to explain better what the problem is and what administrator intervention is required...I'm not going to go to your blog to figure that out. — Scientizzle 01:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

And vandalism is not going to help your cause, whatever it is... — Scientizzle 01:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

'McCartney-style deeds'? I doubt that Macca goes in for that sort of thing. Now your hard-core Lennonist, on the other hand... --CalendarWatcher (talk) 01:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Be nice to the IP address. He just paid a visit to Gibberish-R-Us.com. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It appears that the anonymous IP is referring to Kerjman, created by A2325 (talk · contribs) and deleted by Frank (talk · contribs). --CalendarWatcher (talk) 01:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

checked that article. brief bio about a Russian inventor with very little published work. Deleted as G11,promotional, which is fairly vague criterion. But I doubt it will be overturned, because there is no chance whatsoever that the material included would conceivably show him meeting the Wikipedia standards for an article based on his work, via BIO, or PROF or any other criterion. No reason for blocking someone submitting it, but I see no block on the account A2325 or the ip listed. DGG (talk) 18:31, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

User:ValeriyD and Russian movies commercial spam

{{resolved}} User ValeriyD (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam) appears only to insert links to russian-dvds.com (a purely commercial site) into various articles on Russian films. I have posted a notice on spam noticeboard, but haven't warned the user as I don't know the correct procedure. Will someone more knowledgeable please review this -- 131.111.223.43 (talk) 02:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Seidenstud issued a warning and no further spamming has been seen. I'm marking it resolved until we see otherwise. JodyB _talk 12:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

He aded his link once again - I've slapped him with level 3 warning. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 16:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yoelmo (talk · contribs)

Resolved

 – _Gb^T/c 17:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yoelmo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has succeeded in creating two fake album articles in the course of a few days of editing. He recreated Autumn Goodbye (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which MSoldi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was blocked for. He has now created Fearless (Ali Lohan album) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and AliPersonal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), both of which are near copies of Interpersonal (Aliana Lohan Album) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which I believe was also an MSoldi hoax, and has been repeatedly recreated and salted. Can someone let me know the creator(s) of Interpersonal so I can open a sockpuppeting or checkuser case? Or you can feel free to shout "QUACK" and block if you think it's appropriate after looking at the history.—Kww(talk) 02:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Please? Would someone just tell me who created the various versions of Interpersonal (Aliana Lohan Album) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)? I'll do the hard parts of matching contribution histories and such.—Kww(talk) 12:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks like Ohmygod1234 (talk · contribs) was responsible for the original incarnation between 10 Sep and 11 Sep, and the last edit before its first deletion was by Heyheyi'moutboy (talk · contribs) on 16 Sep, who then recreated it the next day (when it was deleted again). Final version was created by LucasHaider (talk · contribs) on 20 Sep before being deleted an hour later. _Gb^T/c 13:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser#MSoldi has been filed.—Kww(talk) 14:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Problem user: 65.254.165.214

Anonymous user 65.254.165.214 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has periodically vandalized the Negima!? article by blanking for several days now. What can be done against this user? This guy has to be stopped ASAP. - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs 02:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:AIV? John Reaves 07:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I tried that moments before this message, but they only deal with recent vandals, not those who have done so hours after the report. And check out the recent edit history of the article. It seems that those in the 92.8.*.* and 92.10.*.* are backing him up as well. The article now currently on semi-protection, but I feel that its protection should be longer. - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs 08:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

You are probably right. If a few days protection doesn't stop them, come back here after it expires and ask for a longer one. Theresa Knott | token threats 09:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

You can also check out the protection log and the edit history. The blanking phenomenon has been going on for almost a year and a half now, possibly by the same person across a lot of IP addresses. I was hoping for a longer protection than the three month semi-protection imposed on the article last year. Is it possible for this article to be semi-protected indefinitely? - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs 11:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It is technically possible but not something I'd be willing to do with this level of vandalism. Theresa Knott | token threats 19:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Forryga and User:TrueForryga

Resolved

 – Both accounts have been indef blocked for disruption/vandalism. Jamie^☆S93 14:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This looks like it falls between WP:UAA and WP:RFCN, and it involves potential issues (the similarities in the usernames is obvious), so I am bringing this to admins' attention here (per the instructions at WP:RFCN). Also, I do not want to make any hasty judgments. The latter is claiming "forgery" of the former username. MuZemike (talk) 04:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Both accounts could probably be indefinitely blocked. First one is a vandalism only account, second one is a troll. Theresa Knott | token threats 09:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Done, nothing helpful about either account. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

More problems with Libro0

After I tried intervening with several baseball card articles, Libro0 has on more than one occasion branded me a sockpuppet of Baseball Card Guy (see: Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Baseball Card Guy) and has engaged in several passive aggressive attacks on me. His latest attack [124] where he says: "facade account(YRE) conveniently comes to the rescue of a contributor(BCG) whose edits are all reverts of my edits whenever he is in a bit of trouble". I have had it with these two who have wasted people's time with this nonsense (for example see: Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-09-04 1950s Topps). I have to constantly check up on these two to see if they are slandering me again instead of doing things that are constructive. Can we just ban these two and get on with making an encyclopedia? Your Radio Enemy (talk) 15:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Legal threat from Wolfberry man

Resolved

 – Not a legal threat, --Tznkai (talk) 17:21, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

}

I've just received by Wiki e-mail what could be read as a legal threat from Paul144 (talk · contribs).

This concerns discussion at WP:COIN#Wolfberry re the COI of Paul144 (talk · contribs) linking to his own book and articles. Paul144 is a.k.a. the "Berry Doctor", who founded a company selling berry-based nutraceuticals [125] and has written a book about wolfberries (see official site with its copious commercial links) co-authored with the head honchos of Rich Nature, a prominent vendor of berry nutraceuticals, and produced by that company.

But he's objecting to my opinion, based on the above background, that his work is commercial!

Here's the relevant section:

However, what is objectionable in your posts -- by Wiki criteria -- Wikipedia:OUTING#Posting of personal information is personal listing of names of the Zhangs and me in a way that could be interpreted negatively as if their business and I are not reliable sources.

I am a consultant so reputation matters. The Zhangs' business is of course important to them.

These sections below are violations of Wikipedia rules on harassment, and I ask you to remove them or I will have to take the matter to administration. (my bold)

"We can start by calling bullshit on that? A quick Google finds the book was produced by Rich Nature Nutraceutical Laboratories, which sells wolfberries and wolfberry products (here's their press release) and is copiously linked from the book's official site wolfberry.org. The two other co-authors, Richard Zhang and Xiaoping Zhang are the founders of Rich Nature."

and

"We can also call bullshit on the idea that Paul Gross is just some disinterested academic/freelancer who fancied a commission to write a book on wolfberries. Whatever his other credentials, his job is promoting berries as nutraceuticals, as the Berry Doctor, via promotional articles at NPIcenter ("the leading global online information resource for professionals in the Nutraceutical, nutritional, dietary supplement, cosmetic, and food industries"), and as founder of Berry Wise Inc, which sells berry-based nutraceuticals."

FYI, I have never been employed for any purpose regarding berries. My intent with my writing is purely educational and my reward is to volunteer independent literature in an industry where misinformation and fraud are prevalent. I donate my time to write about berries because I think they are an interesting scientific topic and valuable food source. There are no commercial motivations to what I write. I know this is evident from the content of those articles.

Paul

Contrary to the e-mail, I haven't "outed" him; he has self-identified twice on Wikipedia (see Wikipedia:COIN#Wolfberry).

I'm happy to go with consensus on this, but I'm not happy with this kind of threat from someone with clear commercial connections to a topic who has repeatedly linked to his own promotional articles. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 16:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to go way, way, way, waaaaaaaay out on a limb here and assume that the "administration" he refers to in the same sentence that he mentions Wikipedia is...Wikipedia:Administrators. John Reaves 17:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I get the same read. Not a legal threat at all. Toddst1 (talk) 17:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how on earth that can be construed as a legal threat. On the contrary, the plain meaning is that he is accusing you of violating WP policies, and threatening to take it up with the WP administrators. Which is exactly what someone should do if they believe someone else is violating policy. (Whether his accusations have any substance is beside the point.) -- Zsero (talk) 17:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, it's generally considered a no-no to post a private e-mail on-wiki. John Reaves 17:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I know. But when they're used as a form of harassment - to affect content and discussion by threats behind the scenes - I take that privacy as waived. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:30, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree, this does not sound like a legal threat but a statement of intent to use the mechanisms internal to Wikipedia. Mishlai (talk) 17:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, OK - this could be a regional difference, but in the UK (where I am) "take to administration" can mean "take to legal procedings". Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:30, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Firefly322

This user was discussed at WP:WQA here. My initial attempt with the WQA was to induce Firefly to refrain from calling me a troll and other uncivil comments. He was warned about his commentary here, here, and here. Of course, there are all the attempts at calming down Firefly within the WQA. Yet he continues here and here. Please assume some good faith on my part. I ran across one of Firefly's articles this week, which was going through an AfD here. Then I noticed several articles that were just not notable (in my opinion) which coincided with my desire to be more involved with the AfD process. In fact, Firefly has started several articles that I did not AfD, and thought were pretty useful (though poorly written, but that's an opinion). Since it would have seemed patronizing to make a remark on his better articles, I didn't. I believe his personal attacks against me should stop, and he should be blocked. I am most certainly not a troll. I'm lots of things, but continue to not assume good faith and calling me a troll is uncivil. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 17:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Warned. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Not to be picky Gwen, but how many times does Firefly need to be warned? I see at least 3, possibly many more warnings, yet he/she continues with the personal attacks. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 18:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I understand. Let me know on my talk page if it happens again, ok? Gwen Gale (talk) 18:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Eh, you missed one... because he removed it here. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 18:55, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

IP requests block?

147.72.126.130 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) After a short spree of vandalism (which terminated as soon as a final warning was issued), the IP actually requested to be blocked as a school IP. Is this something we'd oblige? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably, but their network administrator (or someone else in charge) should contact OTRS with the request. —Travis^talk 18:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

We don't wontedly block editors by their own request. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Even with no request, it should've been blocked, which it is now. Spellcast (talk) 18:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

There's software they can get which blocks editing Wikipedia. They could simply add "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=*&action=edit*" to their local URL blocklist, or however it is they block websites. Just a thought. Cheers. lifebaka++ 18:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As if I mind the block. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:48, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Admin Gwen Gale abusing admin tools

User:Gwen Gale is abusing her admin powers by threatening to block me over a legitimate content dispute. As can be seen at User talk:Gwen Gale#RedSpruce, she is also refusing to engage in any rational discussion. RedSpruce (talk) 19:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

No comment on anything else at this point, but it's well-established that a threat to block does not constitute the use of admin tools. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Um, have you tried to engage in any sort of discussion regarding the content dispute with Richard Arthur Norton anywhere? —kurykh 19:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

No admin tools have been used yet. It appears to me that Gwen has threatened a block to stop an edit war. —Travis^talk 19:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I may be thinking of some other users, but haven't RedSpruce and Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) been at each other's necks for a long time? I seem to recall seeing their rivalry on other boards here in the past year or so. Hiberniantears (talk) 19:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a "legitimate content dispute", its pointy behavior. RedSpruce visits certain articles once a month and removes content in lieu (or in same cases in spite of) dispute resolution. Since his stated goal is to wait until other editors aren't watching so he can sneak his changes in [126] and since he's been blocked multiple times for similar behavior, I'd say Gwen in on the right track here. Shell ^babelfish 19:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If somebody is edit warring over content, it is not abuse for an admin to state "I will block you if you carry on deleting verifiable content".[127] No admin abuse here, only questionable edits by RedSpruce. - auburnpilot talk 19:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, an improper threat to block constitutes an abuse of admin tools, and there is no edit war involved here. And User:Shell_Kinney's characterization of events is incorrect.RedSpruce (talk) 19:27, 30 October 2008 (UTC)