Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Images used in Intelligent design covered by Non-free content policy?

Unresolved

Moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/ID-NFCC due to size issues. MBisanz ^talk 15:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Tag-abuse by Dicklyon of a page for which he is already in formal mediation

This is newly repeated tag-abuse by Dicklyon of a page for which he is already in formal mediation (here).

Dicklyon recently nominated Feminine essence theory of transsexuality for deletion, a nomination which was defeated nearly unanimously [1]. He immediately followed-up by filing an RfC [2], which also failed to provide support for his POV about the page. Apparently displeased with these outcomes, Dicklyon multi-tagged the page [3], with the edit summary “a few tags to point out some of the made-up assertions in this stupid article.” Those apparently being insufficient, he added more: [4][5].

To fast forward a bit, the mediator has referred to the issues about the page as "water under the bridge" (here). Now apparently displeased with that, Dicklyon added to the page another dozen or so dubious-tags, who-tags, and cn-tags (here). (He has inserted more tags than the page has sentences.)

I am posting this at ANI instead of the at the vandalism noticeboard because, in my opinion, tag-abusing a page for which one is already in mediation and for which one has been forum-shopping for opposition is a very different issue from regular vandalism. Dicklyon has a substantial history of blocks [6] and topic banning [7].

Although Dicklyon has every right to disagree with the page and to accuse me of any of many things (and he does), this is not how to participate in dispute resolution.

I have notified our mediator here, and I am making this ANI post because it's not quite appropriate (to my mind) for the mediator to perform anti-vandalism and other admin actions for the same case. Finally, because I am also in the mediation, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to revert the page on my own.

— James Cantor (talk) 22:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I reverted it as blatant tag-abuse. LOL^thulu 22:34, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Is there a policy or guideline someone could point me to that defines tag abuse? I ask because of a totally unrelated article, but it may help in could be looked at. Thanks ;) — Ched (talk) 23:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

It's described at [[WP::Vandalism#Types_of_vandalism]] — James Cantor (talk) 00:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

(EC)

In this case Ched, wp:POINT is exactly what Dicklyon is broadly guilty of. Look at #10 under the 'Gaming the system' for a more specific clause. There may be more guidelines we could cite, but Dicklyon himself said "a few tags to point out some of the made-up assertions in this stupid article." Because of the repetitive nature of this issue, WP:STICK also applies. NJGW (talk) 00:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Dicklyon just reverted the vandalism right back onto the page [8].

Thanks anyway, LOLuthan. Dicklyon used the edit summary "That was a complete revert and gave no idea which aspects of my calls for discussion of dubious claims were considered inappropropriate." Personally, I think that's just doing what WP:civility calls "playing dumb" and "Taunting or baiting" to pull you into a dispute with him. I think an admin's look is necessary. (The mediation broke down, by the way.)

— James Cantor (talk) 00:19, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

And yet again. [9]
His edit summary this time: "Reverted 1 edit by NJGW; These tags are not pointy; they are serious; please address on the talk page".
— James Cantor (talk) 01:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

He's now at 3rr. I mentioned that on his talk page, and started a talk page section to discuss how to continue. NJGW (talk) 02:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed that Cantor had mentioned this on my talk page; I missed that before, as another item came in after it. My point with the tags was to more specifically point out the assertions that are dubious, in the sense of being made up as opposed to being supported by the sources that Cantor cited. This can also be addressed in mediation, assuming that resumes, but to help the issue along I felt it appropriate to indicate those specific aspects of the language that are dubious, or, in actuality, quite absurd and unsupportable. If there's a better way to do this, someone please let me know. Dicklyon (talk) 03:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

At Talk:Feminine essence theory of transsexuality#Dubious I've add three subsections on the first three dubious tags; I want it to be clear that each tag had a serious intent, and that I was not intending this a pointy tag abuse; but I can see why it might have been taken that way by some not familiar with what James Cantor has done with this article. I invite your comments on the talk page. James has also not approved moving forward with the new mediator, after he gave the old one a vote of no confidence, so it's not clear how he thinks this is going to get resolved. Dicklyon (talk) 04:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid user:Dicklyon has added another seven tags to the page again. [10] Although he added seven tags, his edit summary is "first three dubious tags, corresponding to the discussion sections that are open on the talk page," bringing his current total number of tags on the page to 12. In addition to the vandalism itself, I don't know if that counts as an official "fourth revert" (being 28 hours from his first revert), but to me personally, this smells like a violation of the spirit.
— James Cantor (talk) 05:22, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Dick made 2 edits in the past 24 hours, only one of which is a revert. He is also discussing this on the talk page. This is a content dispute, not a 3rr issue/Incident. NJGW (talk) 16:22, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

You don't regard adding so many tags, some to already "fact" tagged sentences, as disruptive? It may not break the letter of any rules, but is certainly against fostering a collaborative spirit. The first time may have been good faith, but repeated additions are unecessary/pointy - the points should be discussed one at a time. For a typical editr this would be no big deal, but during a formal mediation it indicates a lack of self-control. (Although i'm not sure why fact tagged sentences are allowed to remain if any editor disputes the sentence, but that is another matter).Yobmod (talk) 14:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I had the same reaction. An RfC/U regarding this and other aspects of Dicklyon's problematic user-conduct, where folks may comment located here.

— James Cantor (talk) 15:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Tom Lennox

Resolved

 – Blocked for 48h, hopefully the user will think about future conduct as some edits are good. Black Kite 18:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Please see Tom Lennox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) ... as you can see from his talkpage and contributions, he is becoming increasingly disruptive. He referred to someone as an "asshole" in an edit summary, and has continued to act in a similar manner since being warned. Users have provided policy to no avail. Your action/assistance is appreciated. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 17:00, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Note: this was originally a WP:WQA incident yesterday. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 17:03, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Well seeing as he is now activly vandalising Wikipedia by blanking pages and not jsut being incivil I think we can block him. For the convinience of anyone who doesn't want to dig through his contribs, here is an edit sumary in which he labelled someone an idiot.--Patton^t/c 17:58, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, whoever is insisting that the Silence of the Lambs is a "horror" film is a bit ridiculous, but that is no excuse for the incivility in his reverts. It does make the decision-making easier when the incivility is so blatant, at least. Tarc (talk) 18:10, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I thought it was a "horror" film... Garycompugeek (talk) 22:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

You do a lot of editing on Circumcision ... now that would be a horror film...a real hack and slash. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 00:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

[-Unindent-] It appears that Tom lennox is continuing the edit war using an IP address (see here). Should this be escalated to SPI? Should the block be extended? Non Curat Lex (talk) 00:44, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Please. Rules. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 00:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Removal of sourced genre on Within Temptation

Resolved

 – discussion to continue on article talk

Please feel free to move this elsewhere/ask me to if it's in the wrong place. I've never been clear on where to actually go with cases like this. It isn't actually breaking 3RR, but I don't want to end up breaking it myself.

1st: [11]

2nd: [12]

3rd: [13]

4th: [14]

User:Ada Kataki continues to remove the "gothic rock" genre from Within Temptation, despite it being sourced. The source in question is allmusic. The user has been told that allmusic is a reliable source, and that if he disputes this he should take it to the noticeboard. The user refuses to accept this and continues to revert. I don't want to get into an edit war over it, but I don't see that there's any need for discussion either: Allmusic -is- a reliable source, that's all there is to it. Note that he doesn't remove allmusic full stop: he only removes it where he doesn't agree with it (see diffs).

Is anyone willing to help in stopping these reverts? Prophaniti (talk) 20:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

From a cursory look around various archives, it appears Allmusic is considered to be a reliable source, but when it comes to genres it's generally preferred that it's not the only reliable source. This discussion should really be taking place on the talk page. I suggest you invite Ada to discuss the issue on the talk page and try and find another reliable source listing "Gothic Rock" as a genre - if you can then I can see no reason it can't go back into the infobox. About the only thing administrators can do here is lock the page to stop a potential edit war or issue brief blocks for 3RR violations if applicable - they have limited ability to deal with content disputes. If you have no luck, try dispute resolution. Exxolon (talk) 21:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Exxolon. The problem is, I don't see any need for discussion in the first place: Allmusic is considered one of the most reliable sources there is. The only circumstance I could think of where it shouldn't be used is if it's outweighed massively by other sources. In this case it isn't. I doubt discussion would go anywhere, given the user's hostile manner, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Prophaniti (talk) 21:48, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I've posted on the Music Wikiproject asking for assistance (and I've notified Ada explicitly they are being discussed here) - if you get no joy, try mediation or an RFC. Exxolon (talk) 21:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Allmusic is all music, a web-based, non-genre-specific music data bank, co-operating with the music industry. It's definitely not a reliable source for genre definitions. Reliable sources are genre-specific publications such as books. Books about Gothic rock. Within Temptation (and also Lacuna Coil) is a METAL band. They've nothing to do with the basically style elements of Gothic rock. Gothic is a POST-PUNK genre and definitely not an outgrowth of METAL music. --Ada Kataki (talk) 00:33, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Please take any further discussion to the talkpage - if you cannot reach agreement, use the WP:DISPUTE processes. Exxolon (talk) 02:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the kind of case that lead to the extended Music project discussion about genre fields in infoboxes in September and October (see Music project archives). I have sympathy with both sides here. IMO the solution is to avoid including subjective information in these boxes, and try to agree a form of words in the main text that satisfies individual circumstances. --Kleinzach 02:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Fragments of Jade

Retitled thread, was "Help please?"

Hope I'm doing this right. My friend said this was the place to go with Wiki problems. To put it simply, someone named Collectonian is undoing my edits. He/She has accused me of being a sock. I'm not sure what that means, but he says I'm blocked, and he's undone edits I've put a lot of work into. I feel like I'm being attacked, and I don't know what to do. He's also posting mean stuff on my talk and user page. I politely asked him not to just undo my edits and create a discussion or post on my talk page if he has a problem, but he won't. Is there something I should do or can someone handle it? I'm still a bit unfamiliar with the policies here. UnitedRhapsody (talk) 05:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and here's an example of an edit he/she reverted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Higurashi_no_Naku_Koro_ni_characters&diff=269942224&oldid=269942148

UnitedRhapsody (talk) 05:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/67.163.193.239... Can you say "shameless"? Erigu (talk) 05:33, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

And now Collectonian has reverted every single edit I've made! Someone please do something! This can't be okay... UnitedRhapsody (talk) 05:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

This is yet another sockpuppet of User:Fragments of Jade who was here just the other day as User:+20 EXP attacking Luna and making the same proclamations . Has already been reported for AI/V to have this one blocked and a checkuser requested for an underlying IP block. Faster attention would be great to get this guy blocked (yet again). And yes, per the banned editor policy, all of his edits (none of which were actual useful anyway) have been reverted. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Was she (as she's female, for the record) actually banned though? Blocked over and over again, yes, but banned? I'd say she should be, but...? Erigu (talk) 05:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

In the last SI, it was noted that the main Fragments of Jade is considered banned as no admin would ever unblock do to their history. Not sure if that was considered calling community banned, but certainly all socks are being blocked on site which I believe alls under the banned editor policy. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

That's not true! I don't know what you're talking about! How can you just attack someone this way? And my edits were not useless! I corrected plot and grammer errors, added lots of character info for characters that had none, and was even trying to create a page of the characters of a game whose article was getting cluttered because there were to many profiles on the page! You're just being mean! UnitedRhapsody (talk) 05:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No, you attempted to create a character list in an attempt to get your way over your dislike of there being spoilers in the Umineko no Naku Koro ni, per your own repeated arguments that spoilers should be limited to a non-existant character list, and you added excessive details on minor characters in another list. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

That's not true! I was trying to create a character list because there are over thirty character profiles on the main article for the game, and that's too many! Higurashi has it's own page, so I thought it was about time Umineko got one too! And the details I added were for the main characters of the manga arc, who had essentially no descriptions at all, in comparison to all the other main characters. I also fixed grammer and punctuation mistakes, removed plot errors, and so on. Please stop lying about me! UnitedRhapsody (talk) 05:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, it seems like someone just recently turned immediately to calling people liars as soon as they were found out. I can't recall who it was, but I'll bet if I could, it would be worth...oh, probably twenty experience points. Dayewalker (talk) 05:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

It is a lie! What else can I say? You are all ganging up on me with accusations I don't even completely understand! My edits are being reverted, people are being rude to me, and I've done nothing but try to improve the articles here... UnitedRhapsody (talk) 05:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

UR, then stop calling people "liars" and posting frivolous AIV reports, and just sit tight until an admin takes a look at this. If it's as you say it is, it'll all be cleared up shortly. In fact now that I think of it, it'll be cleared up soon regardless. Dayewalker (talk) 06:03, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

(EC) Note: he's also now attempting to file retaliation reports at AI/V against me[15]. Admin warned him, and he put it back.[16] -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

And put it back again[17]. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 06:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I have a right to defend myself! And there's nothing frivolous about it! Revering another person's edits just because you don't like that person has to be vandalism! And I can't just "sit tight". I'm being attacked left and right, while you guys are going around undoing edits I put a lot of work into! Why did you do that, instead of just sitting tight and waiting like you just told me to? You're making accusations, and before anyone has confirmed them as true or false, you're already reverting perfectly good edits, saying things that aren't true, and just being generally mean! UnitedRhapsody (talk) 06:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

My rabbit ears sense yet another "Plaxico" in the making. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Why, did he shoot himself in the crotch? Dayewalker (talk) 06:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, +20 did, the other day, and if UR turns out to be a sock, he will have done likewise. Two Plaxicos for the same guy in one week might be a new record. However, it could all be an innocent misunderstanding that we'll all be laughing about together someday as we sip our Kool-Aid. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

WhenTheyCry, IceQueenAvril, 76.120.153.223, MiyakoKajiro and Lamiroir were all blocked in less than five days, so she has yet to break her own record, actually. Erigu (talk) 06:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not talking about merely getting blocked, although 5 socks blocked in 5 days is fairly impressive. I'm talking about the situation of coming here with a complaint and ending up as the one who gets indef-blocked. That's the "Plaxico" metaphor - bringing a gun to defend oneself, and ending up being one's own victim. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:33, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Isn't that what 20XP also did? It's like FoJ is writing a book on how to sock obviously. Dayewalker (talk) 06:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The funny part is how perplexed they appear to be that they get found out so easily. The many socks of User:Pioneercourthouse are one example. The sad part is how much time they end up wasting, as every minute spent dealing with them is a minute not spent doing something productive. Which I'm sure they take great glee in doing, as it's basically a game. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:43, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, I think she's being dead serious about this. Which makes the fact she doesn't realize how transparent the whole affair is even more perplexing (and she did get blocked after posting on AN several times last year, actually... how should we tell her that it's not working?). Erigu (talk) 06:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of games... Yahtzee! [18] Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

How do you tell the user that it's not working? I don't know. How many examples will it take? It reminds me of the stubborn mule that was really smart but you had to whack it over the head with a 2 x 4 to get its attention first. How many 2 x 4's will it take with this user, or with Pioneercourthouse, etc.? Beats me. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

And now, we're back to the good old "unblock requests" part of the cycle... Yeah, that should work, too. It usually does! Erigu (talk) 06:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Yep, just 4 minutes after the block, the user posts an unblock request, protesting innocence. I say it's a game. It's a trolling game of a particular type. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

(OD)Always strange how a new user with no concept of sockpuppetry picks up on filing an unblock request in a heartbeat, isn't it? Of course having said that, I'm sure the next iteration of socks will file incorrectly, and pretend they don't know. Dayewalker (talk) 06:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, this time around, we had the added flavor of "my friend told me", "according to my friend", etc, just in case somebody accused her again of being too familiar with Wikipedia for a "new" user.[19][20] She's trying. Not even close to succeeding, but trying. Erigu (talk) 07:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Unblock request declined, user disabled from editing talk page. Game over. Until the next time. Yeh, those mysterious "friends" often come to the aid of socks. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 07:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

As an update, Trusilver is now looking into this case, so things should be moving right along. Dayewalker (talk) 06:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

From what I'm seeing, there is sufficient reason to believe that UnitedRhapsody is a sock. His/her knowledge of Wikipedia procedures alone is fairly compelling. But the editing patterns and history are also a little bit too close to just laugh it up to coincidence. Trusilver 06:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing funny about bullying new users. UnitedRhapsody (talk) 06:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

And he's blocked, thanks to Luna. Bon voyage, sock. Dayewalker (talk) 06:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

 Likely another sock, from a CU perspective, behavioral cues pretty much seal the deal. I've gone ahead and blocked, unless anyone has any objections. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I remember Fragments of Jade's first sock like it was yesterday *wipes away a single tear*. They arrived on the scene and their second or third post was "I have read the entire thing with you guys and FoJ, and you sure were not fair", and went on to lecture everyone, including those of us who tried to help. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 10:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Then again, like I explained there, even Fragments of Jade was just her latest sock at that point... It's "funny" to see how things were exactly the same two years ago. She even accused an admin of photoshopping evidence, back then.[21] Erigu (talk) 12:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

There is no accounting for the persistence of vandals playing this trolling game. One of the most persistent was at Rick Reilly, where it went on for like 4 years. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:22, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't suppose a checkuser could help block the underlying IP(s)? -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 14:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I have started a thread at WP:AN shortly after the 20 EXP sock incident proposing a community ban on FOJ. It's there's quacking, there's going to be reverting, at least in my view. MuZemike 15:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The community ban wouldn't need to explicitly be on socks; all socks should be treated as that of the one banned user anyway. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks like another one: WitchAlliance (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki). – Luna Santin (talk) 09:25, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The game continues. Isn't there a way to block the underlying IP address or addresses in order to stave off the new-account creation? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 09:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It'd be a rangeblock, here. Not a very loud range, but there are nevertheless other users on it. It's easy enough to notice the socks as they come in, so far. – Luna Santin (talk) 10:08, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I reckon that's an option if things get out of hand. A week or two would at least compel the puppetmaster to find something else to do for awhile. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

See User talk:Xeno#I'd like to get your opinion..., wherein WitchAlliance claims not to be a sockpuppet and just wishes to edit the articles, etc... –xeno (talk) 15:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Disruption by User:Mihai cartoaje at Peter Breggin

A long-standing situation needs to stop. I have had little to do with this article, but I have noticed a pattern usually seen when COI editors or subjects edit their own articles without understanding our rules very well. I don't think this user (MC) actually is Peter Breggin, but the editor is acting like an ill-behaved meatpuppet. Here are some relevant links:

• Mihai cartoaje (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

• Article: Peter Breggin

• A section to start with: Talk:Peter_Breggin#Text_deletion_by_User:Mihai_cartoaje

MC is misusing BLP to delete whole paragraphs of properly sourced material for various reasons. Edit warring and possible 3RR violations are the order of the day. One of MC's most absurd arguments for deleting well-sourced negative material is because some of them are "opinion". Well, that's what we do here, we document opinions and facts using V & RS. Deletionism and removal of all negative material is destructive, and the editors who are doing the editing need help and more eyes on the situation. A large cluestick needs to be wielded, followed by short blocks (2-3 weeks), topic bans, and then banning if necessary. -- Fyslee (talk) 06:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• I would like to add that Mihai cartoaje uses completely inappropriate arguments when interpreting sources, as documented on the talkpage and in the edit history of the Breggin article ("they don't believe what they say",[22] "he was paid by Lilly to find this, otherwise nobody would ever have seen it",[23] etc). --Crusio (talk) 10:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

This spat is about a remark made in an article in Forbes which states that Breggin supported children having sexual relations, and that he later changed his position. Breggin himself (as User:Peter Breggin) complained that the Forbes article is misleading on other points. So, this is fairly controversial. If the article on Sarah Palin said something like that, you'd have an army of editors trying to remove the statement as coming from an unreliable source or other WP:BLP reasons. I've edited that statement on Breggin's page to give proper attribution. I have to say that User:Crusio, probably due to his professional bias, attempts to lampoon Breggin a bit too much on Wikipedia. Xasodfuih (talk) 13:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• Really?!? Lampooning?!? For my educational benefit, could you give me an example? And what, exactly, do you think my "professional bias" is? --Crusio (talk) 21:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• Xasodfuih, I'd really appreciate if you could explain yourself. Currently the Breggin article for the most part consists of puffed up stuff, with only parts of the criticisms on him included. As an example, it is proudly mentioned that the journal he founded is published by "Springer Publishing Company". Everybody knows, of course, the prestigious scientific publisher Springer Verlag. So try Googling "Springer Publishing Company" and you may get a surprise. Any attempt to qualify the statements in the article has been rebuffed by a host of POV pushers, so I've given up. Similarly, anybody knowing scientific literature, citations, etc. will see that the lists of articles and multiple mentions of Breggin's publications in "peer-reviewed journals" really are mostly puffery. Yes, I agree, this lampoons Breggin, but I did not put that stuff in there and any attempt to remove it is being prevented by the same POV pushers that want to promote Breggin and his views. Without all the puffery, the article would look more encyclopedic and would in fact also look better for Breggin, IMHO. --Crusio (talk) 11:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry if I assumed too much. Seeing how proud you are of you own h-index and the discussion on Breggin's page on that I assumed you put that in, as well the citation comparison between Breggin's obscure journal and the top psychiatric journals. It's no great mystery that some peer-reviewed journals are crap; who does the peer-reviewing obviously matters a lot (I'm just writing this for anyone else reading this, you obviously know it).
• I don't agree that Breggin's article is mostly puffed up stuff. There are some WP:SYNT claims that greatly overemphasize his role in SSRI black box labeling (I've tagged them as such), and enumerating the journals he published in is a bit silly. But last 1/3 or so of the article is very critical of him ("Expert witness" and "Mainstream psychiatry exponents' criticism of Breggin"). I agree that more could be said there, but that should preferably come from more credible sources than Steven Milloy/FoxNews. Xasodfuih (talk) 16:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• It's dangerous to assume too much... :-) If I remember correctly (it's a while ago), someone inserted some text on how much Breggin was cited by mainstream psychiatrists (funny how people attacking "mainstream" medicine/physics/astronomy/whatever always yearn for recognition from that same despised mainstream) and I then indeed put in hard data on how much he was cited (or, rather, how little he was being cited, the figures basically mean that he's being ignored by mainstream science). I did not put in the citation comparison between his, as you say, obscure journal and other journals, as I found that not fitting for the article (but I admit not having felt compelled to remove it at the time - must have been irritated by some POV pushing editors - not a good thing, but understandable, I hope). I did prod the article on the journal and it was deleted without contest. It would never survive AfD as a scientific journal anyway. In any case, the article is slowly improving.... As for me being proud of my h, it's really not that high, you need to take the duration of someone's career into account. One of my colleagues has 41, now that is high, I'll probably never reach that in my lifetime ;-) --Crusio (talk) 17:38, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• PS: you're right about "mostly", there's quite some criticism in there, too. It would have been more correct to say that there's "a lot" of puffery in the article. I have pared down the publicaiton list, trying to be as non-controversial as possible, basically only taking out editorials and letters to the editor. I'd appreciate if you could have a look at it to see if you agree. --Crusio (talk) 17:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The long discussion is about this: [24]. --Mihai cartoaje (talk) 14:04, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• I think you mean this and this one.--Crusio (talk) 21:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I didn't write all that you're attribting to me. Stop twisting facts. --Mihai cartoaje (talk) 13:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

(ECx2) On the Peter Breggin article there are users whose only activities at that article are to denigrate him. Since there aren't enough neutral editors willing to spend time keeping out BLP violatins, the article is regularly turned into an attack page with BLP violations. Even the bio subject has complained about it. --Mihai cartoaje (talk) 13:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Let's face it, "neutral editors" are rare, and usually neutral because they are ignorant of the deeper details of a controversy. They are sometimes good for cleanup, for refereeing in dispute resolution situations, and for interpretation of policies, but for content they aren't always very good.

Neither you nor any of the other editors at the article are "neutral", as far as I can see. I sit somewhere in between, since I disagree with some of Breggin's methodologies and broadsided (too wide-sweeping) attacks, and yet I do agree with some of his concerns about the overuse of certain drugs. Basically being against any unnecessary use of drugs, supplements, or even vitamins, I tend to sympathize with cautions regarding their use. This goes hand-in-hand with my love/hate attitude toward the pharmaceutical industry. So far my few edits have been pretty innocuous cleanup attempts.

As far as the article goes, I am basically concerned with your removal of sourced information, your misuse and misunderstanding of BLP to justify deletions of whole paragraphs of properly sourced material, your antipathy towards the use of Quackwatch (a very notable source that has been exonerated in a recent ArbCom amendment of a previously inaccurate finding), your failure to understand our most basic policy, the NPOV policy, and your antagonistic attitudes towards other editors at the article. Deletionism is very destructive, especially when it's whitewashing. Around here, whitewashing gets punished by the debate attracting more focus and publicity.

As far as the complaints from the bio subject, unless there are proven inaccuracies of a serious nature, we couldn't give two hoots about them. Article subjects regularly complain about their bios not being sales brochures for their ideas. We are writing an encyclopedia here. We're not in the PR business, and we are not Breggin's spin doctor. If you don't want your dirty laundry displayed here, don't become notable. You and Breggin need to read about Wikipedia's Law of Unintended Consequences:

"If you write in Wikipedia about yourself, your group, your company, or your pet idea, once the article is created, you have no right to control its content, and no right to delete it outside our normal channels. Content is not deleted just because somebody doesn't like it. Any editor may add material to or remove material from the article within the terms of our content policies. If there is anything publicly available on a topic that you would not want included in an article, it will probably find its way there eventually. More than one user has created an article only to find himself presented in a poor light long-term by other editors. If you engage in an edit war in an attempt to obtain a version of your liking you may have your editing access removed, perhaps permanently." "In addition, if your article is found not to be worthy of inclusion in the first place, it will be deleted, as per our deletion policies. Therefore, don't create promotional or other articles lightly, especially on subjects you care about." "Accounts that appear, based on their edit history, to exist for the sole or primary purpose of promoting a person, company, product, service, or organization in apparent violation of this guideline should be warned and made aware of this guideline. If the same pattern of editing continues after the warning, the account may be blocked." (Source.)

Right now, your editing and talk page behavior are precisely described by that last paragraph and you may should be blocked. Consider this your warning. You have (once again) been made aware of this guideline. You act like you own the article.

Our reaction to improper complaints should always be resistance to attempts at whitewashing, and thus the negative material that is properly sourced will be included, enlarged, and strengthened, and poorly sourced material will be strengthened using better sources if possible. If that isn't possible, then of course they should be deleted per BLP. But objections will usually have the opposite effect of what is desired by the article subject, IOW they may achieve a short-lived Pyrrhic victory, with very negative consequences for them. On top of that, the media are often aware of such attempts at whitewashing and they just love to publish about it. Better to keep silent. Only make very serious complaints. They will be heard. We have to balance our concerns with being a serious encyclopedia, and being a tabloid newspaper. We include all forms of well-sourced opinions and facts. Period. Get used to it. -- Fyslee (talk) 03:25, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Attempting to give an less involved opinion on Wikipedia is like trying to break up a street fight: you're guaranteed to get pounded from all sides. I'll let you highly involved fellows continue to duke it out. Xasodfuih (talk) 16:00, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Nobody's pounding on you. For the moment, nobody from either side has reverted your edits to the Breggin article. The above remarks from Fyslee are clearly directed at MC. And I didn't pound you either, I just asked whether you could explain what you meant when you said that I was trying to lampoon Breggin because of my professional bias. --Crusio (talk) 16:21, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Osli73

Also Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Osli73 (2nd) --PBS (talk) 12:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

From my talk page:

What's up? Can you stop Osli73 from using IPsocks: User:79.102.103.78 & User:212.73.169.196, or if you could tell me how to start official request or smth? thanks! Historičar (talk) 09:00, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I seems to me Osli73 you have been a naughty boy. Both these IP addresses are ones that you could use indeed the history of 212.73.169.196 shows that you have used this IP address in the past to edit the Bosnian mujahideen article.

Because of edit warring over Bosnian mujahideen Osli73 is restricted to one revert a week to the Bosnian mujahideen article (Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Macedonia#December 2008 - February 2009) and because he spent several months editing that article with just IP addresses the article is protected from editing by new and IP addresses.

This is not the first time that Osli73 has been in this sort of situation. I think it is time that Osli73 is either blocked from editing Wikipedia for a time or under the terms of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia#Discretionary sanctions he is banned from editing any articles concerning the Balkans for a time. However I would like to hear what other administrators think and give Osli73 a chance to speak in his own defence. --PBS (talk) 10:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

There's a duck quacking. We could get a CU to confirm, perhaps.

It looks like he's violated the 1 revert per week in any case.

Is there a reason we don't permanently semi-protect the pages? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 11:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The 1RR is only a restriction on the Bosnian mujahideen article (i've altered my first post to make this clear) --PBS (talk) 12:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

PBS, thanks for giving me the heads up on this discussion. To all above I would like to make the following statement:

1. I am a little baffled. I realize I (inadvertedly) broke the 1RR limit in the process of editing parts of the article. However, this was not my intention.
2. the basic problem is that since I first wrote the Bosnian mujahideen article in 2007 it has been constantly either deleted or the text replaced by, what I believe to clearly be unsubstantiated, unsourced, (Bosniak) nationalist POV text.
3. I believe I have been very patient in engaging editors in discussions and I have initiated at least one formal mediation process.
4. the problem is that the Bosniak editors are either unwilling to engage in discussions completely or disregard sources.
5. again, I am more than willing to participate in formal mediation processes.
6. even better would be if more outside (ie non-Balkan) editors were willing to engage themselves in editing the article since it now very polarized between myself and a large group of Bosniak editors (who in my opinion are more interested in using Wikipedia articles as a means of promoting their view of the Bosnian wars of the 1990s, creating a heavy POV slant).Osli73 (talk) 13:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Could someone pls explain what I am doing wrong here. I am sorry about the recent breaking of the 1RR rule for the Bosnian mujahideen article, I was editing sections at a time, which I believed was withing the bounds, but apparently broke the 1RR rule in the process of doing so. Bastically, I believe I have been very cooperative regarding this article, including extensive discussions on the Talk page and initiating at least one formal mediation process. However, given that the article has been either repeatedly deleted or, as is now the situation, filled with what I believe to be unsubstantiated and clearly POV nationalist

Osli73 is using IPsocks in Bosnian war and Alija Izetbegovic article in order to avoid 3RR, AGAIN! - User:79.102.108.221 Historičar (talk) 13:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Osli73 see WP:STUFF "or engaging with two or more accounts in an edit war.", it is not your editing of Bosnian mujahideen but your alleged interlacing of IP addresses with your own user name when editing pages like Alija Izetbegovic. Do you deny that you made this edit? --PBS (talk) 14:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I have blocked all 3 IP socks for one month, and semi-protected the listed articles for a month to prevent further IP socking. I am inclined to a week's block of Osli73 as well, for sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry, but have not done so at this time. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I think we give Osli73 24 hours to state that he will not use IP addresses to edit Wikipedia articles and talk pages -- if he does do so accidentally (it can happen to us all) then he agrees to reverts out those edits as soon as possible -- otherwise we ban his editing of articles concerning the Balkans under Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia. --PBS (talk) 08:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Nonstop OR from Rktect (talk · contribs) despite 3 1/2 years of editing including a ban and blocks

I am here to ask for help from the community in dealing with this editor, who for 3 1/2 years has constantly posted OR both to articles and to talk pages (which at times he turns into virtual mini-articles. In 2005 he was banned from all articles to do with weights and measures (metrology) and he has been blocked 6 times for breaking the ban, OR, 3RR, etc, the last time being a month's block last September for Disruptive editing: Persistent insertion of original research in articles. This seems to have had no effect on him and he has continually received comments from other editors on his original research and soapboxing on talk pages. Since mid-January I count perhaps 8 editors commenting on his talk pages on his original research User talk:Rktect/archive 5 and User talk:Rktect - most of his past talk pages seem to have vanished.

Rktect considers himself to know a lot about the ANE, the Bible, and hieroglpyics. This may well be the case and perhaps a reason that most of his edits are using his knowledge to create original research. In articles which involve hieroglphics hs often inserts edits based on this knowledge, including his own new translations such as this one of the Merneptah Stele [25] which I note he has also inserted in our article on the Shasu [26] (I see he has recently created Shashu as a stub). His explanation for this is here [27] and the reaction of two other editors here [28].

Recently he also edited Chedorlaomer to claim that the name is Akkadian (see talk here [29] where another editor says it is original research), that the name Pi-hahiroth is Phoenician -- see this version of the article [30] and the discussion on his talk page here [31] and added the claim to Asherah pole and Asherah also - all on the basis his own research.

Some other examples of edits and comments on talk pages are [32], [33] (where he was trying to turn on article about the biblical story of the passage of the Red Sea into something on Red Sea trade -- I think, it's often hard to tell what he is doing).

He disagrees as to what is a primary source also. Eg, he thinks that the Bible is not a primary source, see [34] and [35].

Wading through his edits and talk page comments is, I'm afraid, tedious as he tends to add a lot of his own knowledge and references to it rather than references that directly discuss the article in question. Some of this may look like content dispute at first but I feel that enough other editors see it as original research that it is worth bring here. I've also just found this while looking for his missing talk pages: User:Rktect/Doug Weller. I'll put a notice on Rktect's talk page about this. dougweller (talk) 16:10, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Doug, I have MfD'd that as being... well, just wrong. Guy (Help!) 21:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. A bit weird also, I wasn't bothered, just amused. dougweller (talk) 21:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• I suggest banning this editor. The history suggests willful non-compliance with policy despite being told many times over what policy is and how it works. Certainly any other measure is unlikely to be effective, as they all seem to have been tried already. Moreschi (talk) 19:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• Absolutely agree. I don't think this is the first time concerns have been raised about Rktect, either. Guy (Help!) 19:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• I'm fairly new to the situation, only interacting over the issue at Chedorlaomer, but looking through this history I am quite surprised. How has this user been allowed to edit like this for years? A ban seems long overdue. Chedorlaomer (talk) 19:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• I have no idea. Looking at his block log I remember now the last conversation when I blocked him, since then he has had two long blocks for disruptive editing (OR) and has not changed at all. I am forced to the conclusion that he actually does not understand (or perhaps does not care) what he is doing wrong. I have blocked indef with an explanation, if only because other editors seem on the point of exploding out of sheer frustration. Guy (Help!) 19:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• Comment On the Merneptah stela, I had to insert referenced material here showing the stela did indeed mention Israel and not Syria. All Egyptologists (including Kenneth Kitchen, Frank Yurco, etc) today accept it is Israel that is mentioned in this document and yet Rktect claims they are all wrong. This is OR theory in my view by Rktect. Wikipedia is judged by its content, and fringe or OR theories doesn't help its reputation. Regards, --Leoboudv (talk) 20:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• This behavior appears very similar to the conduct addressed at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rktect but is in a different topic area, so we can't just apply the still extant sanction thereunder. However, that RFAR is pretty clear evidence that the behavior pattern goes back to 2005. In the RFAR workshop, then arbitrator Fred Baurer said "If his habits extend to other areas they can be dealt with later." We have reached that point now. I've reviewed the still extant talk history, and my take is that this is an editor that just doesn't act as if they get WP:NOR and WP:SYN, and occasionally combines this failure with tendetious editing to include material that is problematic for those reasons. I see in the extant talk history plenty of warnings about this, but I never found one where they appeared to understand. If the editor would understand and comply with those policies, they could be very valuable. While they don't, they are very problematic. I concur with an indefinite block, with the unblocking condition being evidence that they are starting to understand these fundamental policies and will attempt to respect them in the future. A mentor might help as well. GRBerry 23:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

One side issue -- I can't find his talk pages for 2008, I've used the special pages prefix function, any suggestions as to how to find them? Thanks. dougweller (talk) 11:18, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

1) From September 2007 to September 2008. 2) From September 2008 onward. He seems, however, to have made no edits between October 22, 2007 and May 13, 2008.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 12:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Having been clued in, after the event, to Rktect's RWI (which is easy enough to establish if you know what to look for) I am pretty confident that this one always was unfixable. His off-wiki behaviour is well off into the outer reaches of the kook zone, and largely dominated by trying (and failing) to persuade much better informed people of his weird fringe ideas. Guy (Help!) 22:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

New university project or keen undergraduates?

See the following new articles: Computer science at strathclyde and Livingstone Tower (where said department is based), and the following users who have contributed: User:Group5cis, User:CSgroup7, User:Cs104group7, and User:Smilers.

The new users and their names and editing topics are suggestive of a group effort, and it's my view that the department is not notable for an article. Anyway, I thought some people here might like to investigate and take any action they deem appropriate. Thanks, Verbal chat 16:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Also University of Strathclyde CIS Department (which may actually be a good article), Strathclyde Personal Interactive Development and Educational Resource and User:CS104Group11, User:Kimscottross. Verbal chat 16:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• If you feel the articles aren't notable you should deal with them in the usual manner. –xeno (talk) 16:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
  • That isn't the reason I brought them here, it is due to usernames suggesting group editing as part of a course or project. Verbal chat 16:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
    • Hmm, they look like they could be group accounts so a note should be left about our policy on that. Looks like uxepat has left a message to them. –xeno (talk) 16:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I didn't mention group accounts though, maybe I should go back and add that. – ukexpat (talk) 16:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

 Done  – ukexpat (talk) 17:02, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I just made a complete mess of trying to notify these accounts, so if Ukexpat could continue his sterling work I'd be grateful. Sorry if I wasn't clear in my original notice. Verbal chat 16:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason to disagree with your guesses about this being an improper group efford are correct. On the other hand, even if we assume that this is true and that Smilers is someone actually involved rather than being another editor who happened upon the situation, I don't believe that s/he should be seen in the same light: Smilers' contribution log begins nearly three years ago. Nyttend (talk) 03:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Titian

I've temporarily protected this page, as editing of it has become newsworthy. Discussion welcomed in this section at the Talk page. --Dweller (talk) 16:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

194.203.158.97 Titian and the Conservative Party (UK)

194.203.158.97 (talk · contribs · count)

It is being reported by the BBC that Titian has been vandalised by Conservative Party Central Office. I have identified the IP address used. Looking at the talk page there is a warning about an edit to Tosser but that edit does not appear in the account history and the link to the diff is dead. Was deletion, oversight used to remove the edit? In which case why is the warnign still visible on the user talk page I suspect that Wikipedia-literate journalists may already have noticed things. --Peter cohen (talk) 16:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

There are three deleted edits to Tosser in that IP's deleted contribution history. Warnings aren't automatically or routinely removed simply because the offending edit has been deleted. Bencherlite^Talk 16:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

BBC report here. – ukexpat (talk) 17:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

This might explain why David Cameron is under "attack" by numerous IPs, including someone from an IP at the Daily Express changing his date of birth. --Blowdart | ^talk 17:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Excellent. Birthdaygate --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps David Cameron should be semi-protected? If the press is going to vandalize, let them at least sign in :) - Nunh-huh 17:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Most of the vandalism is coming from one IP that I've already blocked - if someone were to ask at WP:RFPP I'd be inclined to say User(s) blocked. _Gb^T/c 17:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

But then again, what do I know? _Gb^T/c 17:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I think 24 hours of semi-protection will probably help, which is why I protected the article—the last thing we need are journalists claiming that we're having a big row with that party because their representatives have acted inappropriately and then dubiously accused us of inaccuracy. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 17:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

When I cleaned up the IPs talk page due to vandalism, I removed the warning about vandalising Tosser, I am sure I checked the IPs edit history before removing this warning, but how can I know it is a valid warning if it is not in the IPs edit history. Martin451 (talk) 00:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, it was a valid warning having looked at the deleted edits, but it was rather very stale, so no harm done in removing it now. Bencherlite^Talk 10:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Personal attacks

User Wikidea (talk · contribs) was blocked several months ago for constant personal attacks, and unblocked when he swore that he wouldn't do it again. However, he started again with PA, this time against different users. He called user THF "right wing hack" and suggested him to "crawl into a hole somewhere, disappear and take your shallow, bigotted view of humanity with you" [36]. He was warned by Cool Hand Luke [37] and Will Beback [38], but he continued with personal attacks. [39]. He even accused Cool Hand Luke of holding grudges and being "sly". [40]. -- Vision Thing -- 18:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's the earlier block

Warnings from Will Beback, Cool Hand Luke, Cool Hand Luke, Cool Hand Luke, Cool Hand Luke, Jpgordon, Jpgordon, and RayAYang. See also the unsuccessful intervention at Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts/archive49#User:Wikidea.

• "What would you know?" and "Sorry, but you're not qualified to comment." to User:Padillah in the process of edit-warring over an AFD tag
• "You're a group of disruptive right wing thugs, posing as thought police. You're probably working in the industry, your life isn't worth very much, and you think you might be doing something important by trying to censor others. You're not. Go away" to User:Jbowersox.
• In addition, the following diff from an IP address is very likely from Wikidea: "And you're a fat right wing cunt", followed by Wikidea immediately archiving the insult. The IP resolves to London, where Wikidea is from; note his use of fat and "right wing" as insults in other PAs. THF (talk) 18:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• I would support perhaps a topic ban and parole/mentorship, with an injunction to leave THF alone. Apparently Wikidea thinks that warnings for the behaviour that previously got him blocked are "not relevant", I don't think that is the case. He is very clearly edit-warring on The Burke Group (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), a sensitive article which has previously been the subject of OTRS complaints. The presence of editors with an obvious agenda against the subject is one of the things that provokes people to return and try to rewrite the article as a vapid hagiography. I don't think he's helping there. Other work is much less contentious, a lot of wikignoming. Oh, and if the IP edit can be confirmed as Wikidea? Then reinstate the indef block. Guy (Help!) 19:32, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

  When you say an injunction to leave THF alone, do you mean something similar to the Abtract-Collectonian remedy? Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, exactly so. There are other similar injunctions, but that is very much what I have in mind. And a reciprocal understanding of no baiting on the part of THF, I guess. Guy (Help!) 21:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• I am in the process of making a conflict of interest allegation against THF. It is typical of his actions (that is what I criticise) that he would try to turn this into something else. Cool Hand Luke's "warnings" are something without any credibility. He doesn't like me, and I think he is unfit to be an administrator, just as I maintain, THF has a conflict of interest editing topics anything to do with the right wing lobby group, the American Enterprise Institute that he works for. I create and write articles. I contribute. This lot are trying to waste everything they see. I stand by my record. I have more credibility in one key stroke than every talk page they fill up with their garbage. Wikidea 19:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• I don't dislike you (and neither does SandyGeorgia, or anyone else you've disagreed with); in fact, I've tried to give you lots of opportunities to improve your behavior. I would just like you to edit cooperatively. I think the most striking feature of this exchange is how you invited THF to edit the article, then opened a COIN on him once he did. He was sticking to the talkspace before that. He has worked well with other editors, as exemplified in this comment.

  IANAL and I am also not an admin, but I would like to someone who is an admin to enforce Wikipedia policy by taking some action against Wikidea for his attacks on THF and his disruption of the editing process on Tort reform, now being actively edit-warred as this dispute here drags on unresolved, with accusations and angry responses flying back and forth.

  I put in many hours of work gathering good references to clarify the arguments made pro and con various aspects of tort reform. Wikidea nuked the whole article back to its state on January 3, and wants everybody to re-start from there. I'm not about to waste my time on an article that is being nuked and re-nuked, now on almost an hourly basis. Please, somebody, block Wikidea until he cools down a bit. It is my opinion that THF, despite having a pro-insurance-company POV on tort reform, has behaved honorably in revealing his POV and civilly in collaborating with editors who don't attack him. There is a difference between having a POV and having a COI.Questionic (talk) 16:43, 10 February 2009 (UTC) [Quoted on ANI with permission]

  Cool Hand Luke 20:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

  • • The message above (specifically including "This lot are trying to waste everything they see." and "I have more credibility in one key stroke than every talk page they fill up with their garbage.") violated WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. Wikieda was repeatedly warned on his talk page (warnings deleted by him - per policy, assume read and acknowledged), but continued with this abusive behavior above. I have blocked him for 24 hrs for personal attacks. Please feel free to file a non-personal-attack formatted COI claim on THF at the COI noticeboard 25 hours from now, Wikidea. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
      • Good call. The COI allegation is pure spite; we all know who THF is, and a calm, polite note requesting assistance would be more than sufficient. I suspect there is even an old arbitration case to which a motion could be attached, if anyone cared, but it's probably unnecessary. Guy (Help!) 21:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikidea's COI allegation

The history of Wikidea's COIN complaint is separately worth noting:

• December: THF, following WP:COI, registers objections to NPOV and NOR violations at Talk:Tort reform.
• 14 Dec: Wikidea, well aware of THF's identity, writes, "why not just replace the parts you feel are inadequate"
• 3 Jan: Wikidea, well aware of THF's identity, repeats the invitation to edit the tort reform article:

As an American tort reform professional I'm sure you have plenty of ideas. Here's your chance. I suggest that you change something. Wikidea 13:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC) and even templates THF on his talk page telling him to "be bold" and edit the article.

• 13-25 Jan THF does so, editing civilly and collaboratively. THF stops editing mainspace on 25 Jan when User:Questionic indicates he'll be editing the article.
• 9 Feb: Without notifying THF, Wikidea runs to COIN and alleges a COI violation because THF responded to Wikidea's multiple requests to edit: "He does not appear to be fit to participate in any constructive dialogue."
• 9 Feb: Reverts 44 edits made by six different editors, against talk-page consensus that Wikidea preferred version of article a mess
• 9-10 Feb: Even after every editor and admin to look at the situation marvels at the meritlessness of the accusation, Wikidea makes twelve more edits to the COIN page, not with any new evidence, but instead increasingly shrill demands that THF be barred, to the point that an editor opposed to THF politically asks for Wikidea to be "block[ed" "so that people can get back to work on the article"].

Four separate editors across the political spectrum--THF, Cool Hand Luke, Questionic, and Wikidemon--find Wikidea's ownership of the tort reform article problematic or have called his version of the page "a mess." THF (talk) 20:12, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• Well, THF, we know who you are and we know you have an off-wiki agenda here (tousands of Google hits and your own Wikipedia biography link you wiht that subject), so perhaps it would be prudent for you to stick to making sourced suggestions on the talk page; that would largely forestall any COI allegations. Play a straight bat, eh? Guy (Help!) 21:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm perfectly happy to stay on the talk page of that article; you'll note that I have done so except when invited otherwise, and hadn't touched it in over two weeks when the meritless COIN allegation was made. I let myself get trolled into editing the mainspace by an editor who took the position that I was not allowed to comment on the talk page unless I actually made edits in the mainspace and repeatedly and insultingly demanded that I edit--and then threw a fit when I did what he asked.

Please don't accuse me of an "off-wiki agenda here"; I edit here as a hobby; if I wanted to push an agenda, I'd start by correcting the multiple factual errors in my wikibiography. But if you have evidence that my hundreds of edits on articles in Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability from September 2007 is part of a center-right agenda, I'm happy to address it. THF (talk) 21:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No need to get airigated. I'm not accusing you of having an off-wiki agenda, I am simply stating fact. I'm glad you are mainly keeping to the talk page, that helps to keep COI allegations at bay, as I said. Guy (Help!) 08:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Sanction proposal

I make the following sanction proposals:

1. Wikidea (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is subject to an editing restriction (probation). Should he make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be disruptive, he may be banned from any affected pages or set of pages. The ban will take effect once a notice has been posted on their talk page by the administrator and logged at User:Wikidea/Community_sanction. If he is also banned from using affected talk pages, this must be specified in the notice and log.
2. Wikidea (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is banned from interacting with, or, directly or indirectly, commenting on THF (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) on any page in Wikipedia. (Note - this remedy may be expanded in scope to include interaction of any other user if it is later deemed necessary in the opinion of 3 administrators to prevent harassment.)

• Support both 1 and 2. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Please make it explicit that he may continue to use the talk pages of articles he is restricted from. Cool Hand Luke 21:10, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
    • I want to leave that at the discretion of the sanctioning admin; have tweaked it for clarity. Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
      • Looks good. Cool Hand Luke 22:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support with the caveat that civil participation in talk page debates is permissible, provided that he does not slip into circular argument, soapboxing, grandstanding or other nonsense - i.e. he restricts himself to comments specifically focused on actionable improvements ot content, not commenting on contributors or pursuing any form of activism. Guy (Help!) 21:23, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I've made it so that the sanctioning admin has discretion to ban him from relevant talk pages; but this would need to be specified in the ban-notice, or in a separate ban-notice if it later becomes necessary. Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support - Identical terms as Guy. — neuro^(talk) 21:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support per Guy. --David Shankbone 17:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Disruption at Lady GaGa

Resolved

 – Blocked 24h, hopefully that deter them in future. — neuro^(talk) 07:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been sort of watching this situation from the sidelines for a few days now, but it's getting to the point I feel admin action is needed; before I do so, however, I just want a second opinion here.

Dance-pop (talk · contribs) has been edit warring over a long period of time at Lady GaGa (and some other articles), apparently over some sources that are either unreliable or do not back up the information Dance-pop is adding to the article. Several users, namely User:Legolas2186, User:Efe, and User:Realist2, have been trying to explain why the edits Dance-pop is making are not acceptable. In response, Dance-pop has been making some very disruptive comments and continues to add content against consensus (Some examples: [41] [42] [43] [44]). While I don't think 3RR has ever been reached, almost all edits to the article over the past week or so have been in relation to this edit war, and Dance-pop has stated that they are not open to discussion (see last diff above).

Efe has not taken action on this, as he is involved, and the only reason I haven't yet is because I don't want to come swooping in out of nowhere with a banhammer. However, I bring this to your attentions for advice. Thanks. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

This edit summary, although it was two days ago, makes me think that blocking isn't a bad idea here.  GARDEN  18:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't be averse to a block if the disruption continues when the user has clearly been told why their edits go against policy (which they do). Punitive though, remember - two days ago is much too long. — neuro^(talk) 20:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

From what I can see, it's continuing through to today - the last diff I provided was left earlier this morning, and basically says Dance-pop refuses to discuss until "it becomes a edit war," which I believe it already is. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:14, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello I am Dance-pop, and this "little convention" needs to stop, I have not put unreliable source into articles. Your examples are taken out of context, how about checking my user talk, and the others( Realist, etc). So before you disscuss the disruption, how about looking at both sides of the story (adims need to be fair). The two users Realist and Legalos are the real antagnists. Efe has done nothing wrong. So if you dont stop this I will go to someone with higher authority--this is not a therat, perhaps a warning.Kind Regards.

Admins need to be fair, assume good faith at all times. Dance-pop (talk) 00:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been looking at this for a few days, and I'd have to agree your sources aren't up to standard; either they aren't reliable, or they don't support the content you're adding. Regardless, part of the issue here is your behavior. Attacking people and threatening to start an edit war is considered disruptive. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

There is also quite obvious sock puppetry via the use of an IP. — R² 00:38, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, blocking is not a bad idea, but I have been talking with Dance-pop, and he sort of listened to me, and using my administrative powers (i.e. do the blocking) would be unfair for him for I am hugely involved in this matter. What I did was chop the problems and slowly try each to resolve. One of the problems was regarding the associated acts of Lady GaGa. The problem of Dance is that he continues to add what he thinks is GaGa's associated act when he knows that it is disputed and a discussion is ongoing. I have provided links at the talk page and a hidden comment on the infobox. What I find today is really disruptive: He removed the note. --Efe (talk) 00:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

You people are ignorant and arrogant. I will say again you dont have enough power nor evidence to block me, so how about you drop it. You will see, I will get what I want, Like the assoc acts and the name. About the IP puppertry--what is that?

C ya. Dance-pop (talk) 01:42, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Nope, and this is getting quite old. seicer | talk | contribs 01:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

And what does that mean? Dance-pop (talk) 01:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

You can't even hide your hostility at ANI, with probably 100 admins watching you. — R² 01:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I am not hostile. My comments may seem harsh, but thet are not.

                            Do NOT hold a Grudge Against a Admin, from previos posts.Dance-pop (talk) 02:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Blocked

I gave a final warning to Dance-pop (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), who subsequently ignored it with a rather curt reply. The user then began blind reverts. The user has duplicated the reverts at The Fame (album), but I'll let someone tackle that. The user was subsequently given a 24 hour block. seicer | talk | contribs 02:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Seicer. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 03:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Copyright problem or harassment?

I've spent the last week-and-a-half or so working on USS Connecticut (BB-18), attempting to get it to the main page on 22 February for the centennial of the [{Great White Fleet]]'s return to the U.S. However, while it was on the main page for DYK, Ottava Rima decided to dispute whether or not it really was a 5x expansion. Read the discussion there as to why; it's too long to try to type out 10 minutes before class. Basically, it was a question of whether DANFS should be blockquoted.

However, he then started (and still is) now hounding me on a copyvio, where he found two sentences that were too similar to a book I used for sourcing that article. Now, I had no intent of copyvio'ing, so I changed them and also started going through the article, double-checking. I found zero copy-vio's in the first three paras that I checked, so I quit. Ottava, howver, is continuing to hound me on the FAC page for the article, theDYK section I linked above, and he was at SandyGeorgia's page here. Now, I need to know if I copyvio'ed parts of the article from this book, as Ottava can't/won't look for more than what he found. I'm just totally frustrated and a little stressed by this continual hounding and harassment, so I'd like to get third, fourth and fifth opinions from neutral editors. Thanks a lot everyone, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 18:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Also: I will be gone for probably the next eight hours; it can't really be helped. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 18:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• The further I dig, the more copyright problems I keep finding. After finding uncited public domain information reported on here, I decided to check all of the sources. I immediately found a problem with this text having full phrases taken. From this diff, I discovered this set of duplicated phrases and these. This is from random checking, as I only have access to the Google book, which cuts off large sections and makes it hard to review all of the pages. However, these five sections shows that there is a blatant problem.

• This page was also displayed on the main page while having these errors. GFDL does not allow for us to pass off such information as our own, and putting it on the main page is a disgrace. User:the ed17 is a participant in a competition that gives points to DYK and FAC articles. This article when from DYK and is now at FAC. I find this combination of many copyrighted passages used, passed onto the main page by User:Dravecky, an admin, who did not look thoroughly at the article to see if there were any copyrighted problems, and now put at FAC is an abuse of all of our principles here at Wikipedia. I would recommend a ban from either DYK or FAC from this user for a short period of time in order to prevent further copyrighted material being placed up and displayed in prominent positions as their articles are more thoroughly searched for these problems. This is a blockable offense, and this temporary ban is the minimum of responses necessary. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Those diffs that you claim show copyrighted material being lifted... um, don't. As you yourself say on your user page:

Article: "After an eight-day period known as 'Navy Farewell Week' during which festivities were held for the departing sailors, and all sixteen battleships took on full loads of coal, stores, and ammunition, the ships were ready to depart."

Original: "The following eight days were known as 'Navy Farewell Week.' The preparations and festivities concerning the fleet's departure were extensive. Every battleship took on coal, stores and ammunition to capacity."

When you're describing a particular historical event, there are only so many ways to do it.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Really? So, you can't describe "the village of Uraga, where Commodore Perry landed more than fifty years before" that passage any other way besides "the village of Uraga, where Commodore Matthew C. Perry had landed 50 years before"? Sounds a little odd. I have written many biographies here and this is completely unacceptable. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Ottava Rima and I don't like each other, so you can take this with a grain of salt, but I will just point out that this user has been hounding various people at DYK for a while now. People have expressed concerns in the past about his disruption there. Just a couple weeks ago Dravecky (the admin who O R keeps saying should be desysopped) made a minor slip-up in promoting a DYK article that was on AfD, and rather than say "ok, people make mistakes, let's move on," he kept repeatedly going on about how Dravecky was "violating admin principles" (scroll down to bottom of that section), and didn't lay off until he got distracted fighting with me instead. In the dispute that's at issue here, O R came to the DYK talk page looking to start a fight about how PD text (specifically, DANFS) should be used, and was told by several editors (not just me, but also Art LaPella and Wehwalt) that such a discussion would be more appropriate elsewhere...but instead of taking the discussion elsewhere, he just continued to look for things over which to hound Ed and other editors.

As SarekofVulcan points out, Ottava's own collection of evidence shows pretty clearly that Ed's editing here is innocuous, and no different than the sort of paraphrasing that is done across thousands of articles; if this text weren't cited with inline citations it would be problematic, but the wording itself is really not a big deal. It seems to me that this is a pretty clear case of someone going out of their way to look for (if not, dare I say, make up) problems in order to attack someone. rʨanaɢ (formerly Politizer)^talk/_contribs 20:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

(@ uncited public domain) - you have a point with the uncited PD info, though that is hardly a fault of mine - there wasn't a {{DANFS}} tag before I started editing, and all copied DANFS info was removed by the time the article hit the main page (I was not finished rewriting that article at the time of the diff you gave)
(@ WP:CUP) - Full disclosure: Ottava, you appear to be in the Cup as well. Now, I will say it again to you: I did not write this article to get points in that contest. I wrote it so that WP would have something good to put on the main page for the centennial of the Great White Fleet's return to the U.S.. The Cup had nothing to do with this - and haven't I told you that already?
(@ similar phrases) - I've said it enough: I don't believe that I plagiarized anything. However, for obvious reasons, I will leave that for others to decide. I apologize in advance if any of my phrases are determined to be plagiarized, as I was consciously trying to not do that while writing it. If it is determined that one is needed, I will fully accept any ban placed upon me by the community. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 20:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I haven't seen any plagarism. Paraphrasing goes on here constantly, of necessity, since we are a tertiary source and have to report what secondary sources have said. My only concern would be if Ed has adequately sourced the content. I'm not familiar with the template, since I don't deal much with Navy vessels, but if that is considered appropriate, that's fine. I'd like to see that resolved by people more familiar with copyright than me, since by the various threads, I see several thousand articles are affected. However, I don't think any of this is bad faith, by Dravecky, Ottava, or Ed. I think everyone is arguing about what they believe is proper, and that's what goes on, on Wikipedia.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

OR's recent escalating series of unfounded accusations and uncivil attacks against me and several other editors on WT:DYK is, now that I am forced to think about it, possibly a subject for ANI. That I promoted an article, already vetted and approved by at least one other editor, without somehow detecting one or two sentences vaguely similar although by no reasonable reading a blatant copyright violation out of 20K of prose? Not so much. While not perfect, I am willing to stand by my work at DYK as well within both policy and reason. - Dravecky (talk) 20:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Having looked over the article and DANFS, I really can't see the problem here. Everything is cited and templated - seems to be a big row over, well, nothing. Skinny87 (talk) 21:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean, "cited"? Citations require quotations for phrases taken from copyrighted books. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Unfounded accusations? You allowed copyrighted material to appear multiple times on the main page. That is a severe problem. And one or two sentences? I found a whole paragraph that was a problem just from glancing over the document, then I found whole chunks lifted from text randomly. You didn't put forth the least bit of effort. When it comes to copyright law, that is inexcusable. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• Few things on the whole of Wikipedia can be more pointless than the absolute determination to get a DYK and arguing the toss over whether it is 4.9x or 5x expansion. I've had a few DYKs myself, all of them on things I thought were actually interesting (as in, genuinely unusual) facts. A very great number of DYK noms amount to "Did you know that I think X band/wrestler/hockey player is really k3wl and should be on teh wikipedias main page d00d" with nine different hooks all of which would apply to a hundred other similar articles. I applaud those who clerk DYK for their amazing patience in the face of rampant vanity. And that's despite not actually being much of a fan of Ottava Rima, for reasons which I have to say I can no longer recall so are probably residual sour grapes over something or other. Guy (Help!) 21:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Tend to agree with Guy, I've submitted a few DYKs when I saw there was no article or it just seemed like a fun thing. Most, I hope, were interesting. But Ottava Rima is to be applauded for one thing, he is trying to apply the rules on a page where people want something. I try to do the same thing on TFA/R. The problem is, that OR is being too heavyhanded here and, and won't step away from the equine's cadavar.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, just about everyone working at DYK is "trying to apply the rules"—if you look, we have had numerous recent discussions there over how to handle hooks that are vain/boring (which seems to have been Guy's major complaint). If you think Ottava Rima is somehow above the vanity and is a shining star of integrity at DYK, you might want to look at the major proposals he made, against overwhelming consensus, to loosen the DYK length rules after one of his articles didn't get accepted. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations on completely missing the point :-) The point is this: fighting over DYK nominations, the lion's share of which invite nothing more than "so what?" is WP:LAME in the extreme. Guy (Help!) 21:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, this thread was not started about fighting over DYKs, but about "harrassment" and allegations of copyvio. With all due respect, I'm not sure how your first message (above) was really relevant; I'm gonna try to keep my mouth shut now to avoid going even farther down a tangent that would just muddle things more. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

As many people here will say in agreement with me - copyright violation is not a matter that can be like a dead horse. It is a constant vigilance. This is the second time in a relatively small time frame that Dravecky passed pages on DYK that had copyrighted violation material (the other being Doug's articles on Appotomatox, which included exact phrasing of descriptives). I gave ed a chance to correct the page of all copyrighted material and phrasing, and I only picked out the ones that had a blatant breach. The fact that ed does not think that it is a problem, and that others don't think it is a problem, is a direct disregard for copyright laws. Believe it or not, the people publishing the works own those phrases unless there is proof that they are "common" enough. Even then, their alterations to common phrases (adding a certain adjective phrase, a verbal phrase, etc) makes them completely new. It is our obligation to not have any copyright infringement, and it is our obligation to not have it displayed prominently on the main page. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a copyright expert, but even if Ottava is right, he should get a consensus from a place like Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems. Then he should propose changes to the thousands of articles that don't meet his demands, which I believe include nearly all our major ship articles for instance, not just Did You Know articles. More importantly, he's been told that before, but WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, and that's a pattern I thought Ottava had abandoned since last December. Art LaPella (talk) 23:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Ottava's previous brutal lack of knowledge about copyright precedes him (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 00:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Art, you cannot justify copyright problems by pointing out other copyright problems. And if every article on ships includes sentences lifted from copyrighted texts that were published in the past decade, then there is a serious problem and many people should be banned. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Did you hear the part about taking it to Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems (not DYK) and then fixing it everywhere, since the alleged problem isn't unique to DYK at all? Art LaPella (talk) 07:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Are you honestly trying to suggest that it is not DYK's responsibility to check through the articles and make sure that there are not copyright violations before producing them on the main page? After many ANI discussions and bans of people who violate the copyright laws from using DYK, I really don't know how you can say such a thing when the consensus is clearly against you on this. It is DYK's ultimate responsibility to make sure that DYK pages conform to the basic -legal- requirements of GFDL. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:18, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I heard your opinion that almost the rest of the world should be banned for plagiarizing the public domain, and I heard those who disagree. Did you hear me say you need to convince our copyright experts first? If not, did you hear WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT states that all your threats of banning should be made to the mirror? Art LaPella (talk) 15:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Did you know that Trimphone dials were self-illuminated using tritium and are now considered nuclear waste? Now that's interesting! Guy (Help!) 23:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

So let's see. the_ed17 (talk · contribs) you are doing a poor job of paraphrasing. You are copying the same structure, phrases, and syntax, even though you don't seem to be lifting whole sentences. I think you are trying to do the right thing and acting in good faith, but you really should be summarizing more and copying less. For example, try reading a couple paragraphs from a source, get the idea from them, and then write that idea in your own words without relying on the same phrases and structure in the original. Ottava Rima (talk · contribs), for you let me say, dial it down. Rather than helping Ed do a better job, you really do seem to be badgering and harassing him. Ed17's writing is not good at paraphrasing, and might be considered unprofessional, but none of your examples that I looked at rose to a level that I would expect to be criminal (see: de minimis and fair use). He appears to be acting in good faith and trying to do the right thing, so either be supportive and help him learn to do that or get out of the way. The repeated calls for blocking are over the top and inappropriate. Dragons flight (talk) 23:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I told Ed where the problems were. I told him that he had a few days to fix it if they were errors in good faith. I told him that I would check to make sure. He hasn't and he refuses to accept that they are a problem. This is extremely bad. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:42, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Um, you gave me two sentences, one of which I don't consider to have been a problem. I didn't even see this 'evidence' page (with additional diffs) until 3:30 today my time - half an hour before I want to work... —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The fact that you don't think that what you did is problematic is why you should be banned from DYK for a while until you understand that it is a serious matter and it needs to end. You cannot justify copyright violation in any kind of manner like this. If you can't find a way to appropriately reword it, directly quote it. I told you to go through your source and check the rest and you refused. I have pointed out 4 more spots. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:24, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say that I didn't think those later diffs weren't problematic; it was the earlier diffs that I disagreed with. I'll quote an e-mail I sent to Durova, who recommended that I post it here:

Hating to admit this here, but while it may not have been plagiarism, some of those [new diffs] are AWFully more similar that I thought [they would be]. I know that I was tired when writing some of those parts, but that's no excuse...:/ I am never writing a long article in a week ever again... however, I can't say [all this] onwiki because Ottava will seize it and run with it (and I've had more than enough drama in the last few days...

(The [bracketed] stuff was me copy-editing myself, no content was removed) Take it how you want, Ottava, but don't run with it please, because I'm sick of drama. I will be working on your new diffs, tomorrow or the next day, btw...even if they aren't plagiarism in my or others' eyes, they are too close for comfort. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

As I stated above, I believe (hope) that the problem is simply rushing about trying to finish something for the competition and not -malice-. My major concern was that people were not taking this seriously. There were too many admin who did not believe that such language was a problem, which means that they would be passing this onto the main page without realizing the legal implications of checking through this. In the past, when I have reviewed hooks for DYK, I have contacted people directly and asked him to rewrite/reword sections before they could be passed. If the admin who are supposed to stand as a buffer between new articles and the main page start to believe that this is not an important matter, then how can we expect any standards? The most troubling thing out of all of this is Dravecky acting like it was not his responsibility and Art seemingly stating that since there are so many possible copyright violations that we should not bother at all with them. No, the copyright problems should not count to DYK, but the beauty of DYK and Wikipedia is that editors have the ability to -fix- things and should eagerly fix these things. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

You're not listening Ottava. Ed has said many times that being a WikiCup participant is meaningless in his working on the article. He has stated many times that his goal is a TFA appearance on 22 February. He even stated that in his opening statement for the article's FAC. -MBK₀₀₄ 06:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Even 100% good faith does not require all users to believe the stated motivations of another user. Regardless, all you did was prove a further motivation for him rushing through items, which means short cuts. I see plagiarism come about because students feel the need to rush through papers. Its a common occurence but never proper. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:15, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Ottava I really appreciate your commitment to keeping plagiarism and copyvio off Wikipedia's main page. That's a major problem when it happens. What we have here doesn't rise to that level. Ed's a GA and FA writer who understands proper sourcing. He's being a great sport about the WikiCup so let's set that aside too. He just did a bit of editing when he was fatigued and it wasn't quite up to his usual standards. That could happen to anyone. Looks like this thread could be marked resolved, but recusing from closing it since I'm a Cup participant also. Best wishes, Durova^Charge! 07:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Rise to the level? One instance of a duplicated phrase is enough. There were random passages taken and were found to be duplicates. I am certain that if someone went deeper, there would be even more. Anyone who works in academia would instantly know that this is very problematic, and those who worked in teaching know that people would be expelled over this. And if he "understands proper sourcing" then there is absolutely -no- excuse for it. Fatigue is not an excuse. There is even an old Wikipedia entry about if you are tired, drunk, etc, that you should probably not feel obligated to continue writing. The major problem is that there is a system set up to make sure that people (passively or maliciously) do not have copyrighted material on the mainpage, and certain admin are turning a blind eye. I think it is a further problem that you think that duplications of whole clauses multiple times is some how not a big deal, Durova. We have quotation guidelines for a reason. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:15, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Ed acknowledges that his edits there are problematic enough to deserve attention. He is a featured article writer and is acting in the self-correcting manner we expect of all good editors. Please refrain from speculation regarding my opinions: the normal way of resolving that type of uncertainty is to ask for clarification. To presume a faulty understanding and then lecture an editor for the imagined shortcoming could be regarded as incivility. The question to be discussed here at this board is whether admin intervention is needed, and clearly it is not. Let's shake hands and call this resolved. Durova^Charge! 15:28, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Read above, there are many pressing issues that the community needs to decide on: 1) Should Ed be allowed to continue editing as long as we are still uncertain about the copyright problems or that he accepts that he needs to either directly quote material or summarize in a more efficient manner (which could be -resolved-). 2) What responsibility do admin at DYK have to thoroughly check for such copyright problems, including PD info not cited and other problems. 3) Should admin that allow such information to pass onto the main page multiple times be restricted from approving hooks at DYK. These final two need to be determined by ANI consensus. This was obvious above. I am not sure how you missed these last two issues. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:41, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely oppose any restrictions or sanctions being placed on Ed17; this is beginning to whiff of a witchhunt. We all make mistakes, and not only has Ed17 admitted to them, he has gone above and beyond what was needed to be done to correct it. Skinny87 (talk) 15:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

And the other two concerns? The one admin who promoted Ed's page also promoted other pages that were found to have similar violations. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

You caught them and informed others - good for you, thank you!; errors have been addressed, and I am sure everyone will try to be more careful in the future. What more did you think should occur? KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:00, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Art stated above that the admin at DYK should not bother looking for copyright problems anymore because all of the pages have them. This is the same view that Dravecky, the one who passed the hook, took up. In an earlier incident (just a few weeks before), I found multiple copyright violations in hooks put forth by Doug that were quickly corrected (too much quoted for fair use, one or two lines taken from a text, but nothing big). It is Dravecky's duty as an admin at DYK to check to make sure that pages do not have these. These are just two pages that I happened to glance at and saw a problem with. Who knows how many have been missed? I think it is in everyone's best interest if Dravecky was put on probation (if there is a third found incident then he be prohibited from adding hooks, but could still respond to hooks) and a stronger response taken to admin who let these slip through the crack in order to head off the problems being displayed on the main page. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Art never said that we "shouldn't look for copyright problems"; he, like numerous other people there, said that starting a discussion about how to use PD text is not productive at DYK because it's a big discussion that spans many areas.

As for Dravecky, he doesn't have sole responsibility for what goes to the main page, as you would know if you actually knew how DYK worked. Anyone can check DYK nominations, and anyone can assemble the set of hooks (Next update) that goes to the main page. The people who assemble that set of hooks are often in a hurry and go through and grab whatever hooks have the next to them, which means that when a mistake does happen (and, by the way, mistakes happen often in all projects, not just where Dravecky is), it's because several people made mistakes at the same time, not because a single admin is being abusive. Trying to pin this all on Dravecky and attack him for it, as you have been doing repeatedly, is really inappropriate. He's been doing the same thing everyone at DYK does. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Admin abuse of tools

Resolved

 – frivolous complaint Toddst1 (talk) 21:00, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

On February 9 I was blocked from the Masonic conspiracy theory talk page, based on invalid rationale. When I tried to argue my case using the unblock template I was subjected to verbal abuse, and then had my user talk page protected. Not a single admin has been able to argue his side, and instead all have tried to gag me to stay quiet. This sets a very dangerous precedent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ukufwakfgr (talk • contribs) 19:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Notified blocking admin and the three reviewing admins. –xeno (talk) 19:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Heh. Ukufwakfgr had his user talk page projected after the fourth unblock request in quick succession, most of which suggested incompetence/malfeasance on the part of the blocking admin, Elonka. (I'm a participant in the content dispute on the other side.) This message is a textbook case of calling the cops to report that your marijuana was stolen...--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Lol...now now...civility and mutual respect. :P

But seriously, I can find no fault with that block, and most certainly, no tool abuse. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:02, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I've reviewed Uku's edits and the blocks and, like Ncmvocalist, see no problem with the latter. As to the former, whilst Uku continues to be aggressive in a pompous sort of fashion, he will find precious little support for his arguments. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:12, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Seems okay to me too. — neuro^(talk) 20:14, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No complaints either. One should note that firing off a rapid succession of unblock requests after they are denied will result in a talk page being protected, per this handy dandy guide. The unblock requests were vague and did not address the block itself. seicer | talk | contribs 20:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No issue found. Marking as resolved - frivolous complaint. Toddst1 (talk) 21:00, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

(followup) User has been blocked again, for two weeks this time by Toddst1. --Elonka 18:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Pikacsu running afoul of Talk:Barack Obama/Article probation

Resolved

 – Blocked 24 hours ACB. — neuro^(talk) 21:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Pikacsu (talk · contribs) is a SPA who has been running amok on Talk:Barack Obama for the last week trolling for arguments and pushing an anti-Obama POV. This includes assumption of bad faith against responses to the user's various "proposals". This article is on probation and I suggest that Pikacsu's disruptive visit has lasted long enough. Bigbluefish (talk) 20:16, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Pikacsu (talk · contribs), despite numerous warnings and suggestions (which are blanked without response on his talk page), continues to create non-productive, disruptive, and overall useless discussion topics to the talk page of Barack Obama. Gems include;

• Obama's health report
• Obama and drug
• Died soldiers
• Has Obama paid his tax?
• Could Obama pass Yankee White test? - (Yankee White)
• What is Obama's IQ?
• Obama's IQ is only 116!

These have been either reverted outright or quickly archived as unproductive by a wide variety of editors. IMO, this user's conduct has crossed the line of the article probation linked above. User was clearly notified about the article probation, and, again, blanked it without response. Clearly the actions of regular editors is having no effect here, so admin intervention is needed. Tarc (talk) 20:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Some of those edits seem a little forumish, and some are certainly disruptive. Seems to be a pro-Dubya SPA, judging by his constant comparisons of various attributes of this article and related articles with the GWB one. — neuro^(talk) 20:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Note - because the editor repeatedly blanks his talk page you may not notice all of the warnings. Here[45] is a version with all the warnings intact. Two SPA editors with similar but distinct patterns of disruptive trivia appeared in the past couple weeks, so if the problem persists after this account is blocked we'll probably need to see if there are sockpuppets to root out.Wikidemon (talk) 20:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Do just note though that users are allowed to remove warnings. They're to notify editors, not to chronicle a user's past misdeeds. If you think you need to reinstate them, your new warning probably isn't severe enough. Bigbluefish (talk) 21:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I have blocked Pikacsu for 24 hours under the terms of the Community Probation placed on Barack Obama and related pages. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 20:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

A good block. It´s hard enough there without this type of behaviour. Escalating blocks should be very severe.Die4Dixie (talk) 21:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Concur.  Sandstein  21:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Likewise. Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:36, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! Grsz¹¹ 21:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

A good block. Brothejr (talk) 21:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The editor removed the AN/I report and block notice. I restored that, but I get the feeling I'm beating a dead horse here so I'm just going to ignore it. Maybe he'll calm down or just go away after 24 hours.Wikidemon (talk) 22:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think he had actually edited the article, only the talk page. It's still nonsense, but at least it's only talk page nonsense. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

There's no 'at least' in this. Disrupting the talk page of an article is often a lot harder to deal with than straight up nonconstructive editing to the article. — neuro^(talk) 07:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I understand what you're getting at, but the difference is that in theory it can simply be ignored (or deleted), whereas article vandalism has to be dealt with. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 09:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

But as a rule of thumb, probably better to keep it an equally high priority; separating them as one that has to be dealt with and one that can be left till later was one reason why problem editors became so difficult to deal with; their nonsense accumulated to an unmanageable level. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

That's a good point. Better to choke it off before it gets to the point of actually being added to an article page. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems that with his block now lifted, he is up to the same thing as before. Brothejr (talk) 21:44, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Yep, initial edits after coming off a block are: editing GWB article to say he is currently the last white president, blp violation on Barack Obama article, and trolling/talkpage disruption (complete with wondering if a reverting editor is racist) on Talk:Barack Obama: [46] [47] [48] --guyzero | talk 21:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

He's back, making insane references about Bush being the last white president, and Obama's IQ. --DemocraplypseNow (talk) 21:45, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the same problems. Looks like more time I suppose. Grsz¹¹ 21:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Eh. He's a dead man typing. Whatever. HalfShadow 21:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Blocked for a week. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 22:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Seeing as he continues to blank his page and hide the blocked notice from admins, should we also protect his talk page for one week also so that the messages he keeps on removing sink in a bit. Brothejr (talk) 22:08, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Topic ban for User Pikascu

Pikacsu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been a problem editor at talk Obama, a page under the Obama umbrella of probation. His logs are short and problematic. Please view his talk page history for recent warnings. If someone wants to set this up better, since I have no experience with this, I would welcome any help. Diffs are not supplied, as the history is short and can be found in the userlinks.Die4Dixie (talk) 22:10, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

IP edit warrior at Illuminati

Resolved

We have a problem at the Illuminati article. An IP editor (using several related IP adresses) keeps removing the same paragraph over and over. I could report this at 3rr, but I think the the problem goes beyond just 3rr... A major concern is the obvious fact that the editor seems to have an extremely poor grasp of English... this makes discussions almost impossible. He does not understand our explanations and it is often very difficult for us to understand his complaints. Blueboar (talk) 21:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, the contested content ([49]) does include unsourced information pertaining to possibly living people, and a probably inappropriate external link. What do you want us to do?  Sandstein  21:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure what you can do... all I know is that the language problem is more than I can deal with and I need assistance and advice. If this were a normal content dispute, I would be able to at least try to have a reasonable dialogue with the other editor in an attempt to reach a consensus... that isn't possible in this case. The language bar is just too wide. I come here because I don't know where else to get assistance and advice with this. See my attempts at communication at the article talk page. Blueboar (talk) 22:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The article has been semi-protected until February 25 independently of this report.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

New user spamming articles

Resolved

 – No admin action necessary here. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 11:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've run across a user, Jhalapch, who's spamming articles with links to ClassicGameRoom.net (he links to the main page, not an individual review as his edits claim). It looks like that's all he's done. I don't want to clean up after him, just to have him do it again. Is there a bot that can revert all his changes? Can he be blocked? Thanks. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 22:12, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

You can report him to be blocked at WP:AIV if he has been sufficiantly warned. (It looks like he hasn't been sufficiently warned yet.) As for reverting his changes, anyone with rollback can do it easily; just drop me (or anyone else you know of who has rollback) a message and they can revert everything in a couple seconds. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

User has not been active since before this report was placed; marking this resolved. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 11:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Legal threat?

I can't tell if this is a legal threat or not. Certainly an attempt to intimidate an editor who made a less than constructive comment on the talk page. Toddst1 (talk) 23:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Certainly intimidation. But also 13 August 2008. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Definatly a breach of NLT. Though all that will happen will be an admin will indef block and the editor will then say 'Oh I didn't mean it like that' and annother admin will unblock. Not sure how worth it such a block would therefore be when recanting is so cheap a method of escaping the block in these not quite direct legal threats. --Narson ~ Talk • 23:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC) (ec)

(e/c)You mean this edit. I didn't see that. Yes, that one too. Toddst1 (talk) 23:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Support a block for that particular diff. The user has been here for almost two years so he should know how things work, and this can't be taken as anything but a legal threat, really. Block and ignore any "but I didn't mean it as a legal threat, I just meant I'd get the police to kick the shit out of him, can't you see the difference?" reasoning. Ironholds (talk) 00:26, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I felt totally incredulous over this unwarranted notice, as well as the digging up & the putting of 'extra words' in my mouth as seen above, over a general comment I made nearly 6 mths ago, in which I've nearly forgotten. According to past news reports, the security agencies of S'pore are known to monitor online media and taking swift action on individuals or groups such as [50], [51] for making provocative and untrue remarks previously. As such, is citing a true and factual example of their presence here (in 2006) as a note to the user, who had been making repeated provacative comments on Singapore-related pages previously, constitutes an imminent explicit legal threat on my part here? (The user concerned is still happiliy going around making his POV comments afterwards) Is reverting an edit made by the same individual who choose to remove my previous comment deliberately without any valid reason given wrong too? I'm deeply disappointed by the unprovoked vindicative atmosphere that I'm seeing here, and sad to note the lacking of prevailing good sense as well. -- Aldwinteo (talk) 02:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Careful there. Nobody but any words in your mouth - rather cited your own actions and let them speak for themselves. Another diff you may want to remember is here. Toddst1 (talk) 02:42, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Good thing Wikimedia's servers (or the target of your ire) aren't located in a police stat^H^H^H^H COUGH sorry. I don't think that the individual you made the threats to is contributing productively - indeed, he seems to be on something of a soapbox. Nonetheless, threatening to sic Singaporean Miniluv on him is seriously, seriously out of line. I would support a block for this sort of intimidation. Skinwalker (talk) 02:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I was about to say the same thing when I realised that Skinwalker had said it — what are Singaporean police going to do to someone in the USA? While the "presence here" link is a demonstration of their interest in Wikipedia, the fact that the crest remains on the article demonstrates their powerlessness over things not in the country. If this comment were made to a user in Singapore, I would see it as nothing but a good faith please-don't-get-yourself-into-trouble admonition. Given that Aldwinteo believes that this user is not in Singapore, I see it as a clearly empty threat that deserves to be treated like we treat a normal legal threat. Nyttend (talk) 02:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

By the way, Todd, could you explain what you mean by the "another diff"? I looked at it and saw a warning that you left, not something either negative or positive that Aldwinteo said. Nyttend (talk) 03:00, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Point was not engaging others in a productive, civil manner. He's already had a uw-4 for that. I had forgotten that I had issued that when I posted here. He's apparently been on my watchlist since then. Toddst1 (talk) 03:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Despite my further clarification as someone who highlighted the relevant news/discussions that I've read to the user previously, and to all here now, they are those who still don't get the whole picture & deliberately try to nitpick on my comments repeatedly as a 'threat' to someone, in a negative way, even though I've not done anything on my part to date, to warrant such unfair accusations or association. No one has informed me on my talkpage that certain words or the tone of the comment concerned (since 13 Aug 2008) may look 'intimidating' until now. But instead deliberately choose to highlight this near forgotten 6-mth old comment on this page here now, as well as adding a separate unrelated comment made previously, which ironically to say, only serves as another growing bad taste of this place. I can see where this mob action is heading even If I cited the full history, as well as the full & complete verbatim of the previous related discussions here. As I'm currently heavily tied down by various project deadlines at work, I'm unable to spare precious time to engage in a lengthy unproductive online debate now. Cast the stone if u want, if u think this block is meaningful in its intent or purpose now - and most importanlty - whether your intention is made in good conscience. Bye -- Aldwinteo (talk) 06:10, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

No matter how old your comments are (obviously a low-traffic page), they are still a legal threat, and against the rules. You could continue this debate and risk a block for rules violation, or you could fix this problem by deleting those comments. You had the "precious time" to write a lengthy self-defense, while it would have taken much less time to simply delete your comments on that page. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

To be clear, the diff I cited was in the editor's last 10 edits. It wasn't ancient history, rather, it was highly relevant to recent behavior. Toddst1 (talk) 21:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/89.241.62.18 making childish changes to articles

Resolved

 – Vandalism is stale, IP may be dynamic

Moved discussion to WP:AIV#Special:Contributions/89.241.62.18 making childish changes to articles. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:18, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Please don't do that in the future. I reported it here because I thought someone with a brain needs to look at this. At AIV the report just got deleted by a bot. Xasodfuih (talk) 13:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

You might want to rethink the incivility in your above statement. The directions are clear, vandalism is at AIV. It appears that a bot accidentally deleted the move. Why not post it there properly yourself, and advise that you were referred there by ANI?? (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 14:32, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

On your behalf, I left a message on the AIV talkpage. See it and its response here. Hope you don't mind me marking this resolved. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 15:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe the brain comment was directed at the bot? --DFS454 (talk) 21:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Stevewunder

Resolved

Could someone have a look at this user's contributions. Examples of contributions: [52] and [53]. Contribution history: [Contributions:[54]]. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

There's also talk page gems like this one:[55] He's had a number of warnings about this type of behavior.[56]Idag (talk) 02:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• The disruptive editing continued even after he had been warned that he was reported here. Blocked for 24 hours. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Stalking // Bribing Incident

I was taking part in watching after a blatantly inappropriate article until a sysop came around. I kept adding a CSD template, but they kept undoing my edits. Anyway, eventually the article was deleted by a sysop. I figured the story would end there. It did not. Users joined my IRC network and started demanding I undelete their article - eventually some started flooding, using annoying color/control codes, etc. As the network manager, I simply removed them from the network.

Then starting a few minutes after the first removal, I started getting calls on my personal cellular phone. The number was the number used by Sprint's IP relay service. They called several times between 4 and 5 AM. They got my cell phone number by performing a WHOIS on my domain.. an ICANN requires accurate information to be provided on your domains.

Just a small while ago, I had another user join my network, who I believe is user:Dk69 - that was their nickname. He started offering me bribes ($10, $20 then $100) via paypal for undeleting the above article. I have logs of this conversation and his IP. Here is the log of the bribing incident. I also have the IPs (not sure how many are actually their IPs, not proxies) from first wave of harassment, which i can furnish upon request.

I figure that perhaps in circumstances likes this a Checkuser user can use the tool on DK69 and compare it to the IP I provided so we all can be certain that that user was actually DK69 and not another user claiming to be him.

While I normally would shrug this off as a bunch of immature kids having "fun," they went as far as sending me several IMs from different AIM accounts AND calling my personal cell phone number at 4:30 AM.

I can provide any information I have, including IPs of the users, as public information isn't covered by the privacy policy on my IRC network. Please help. Alpha 4615 (talk) 03:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I would notify the authorities for harassment. Isn't there also something OTRS or the Wikimedia office can do? MuZemike 04:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I would have taken his money. But yeah, email OTRS with the run-down and they can put you in contact w/ a checkuser. I wouldn't start a WP:SPI because of the private data issue. Protonk (talk) 04:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

This editor might be worth a look. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 06:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

This is outside the remit of what OTRS deals with - OTRS is nearly exclusively for complaints and questions from non-editors, excluding the permissions segment which deals with archiving email releases from copyright - and I'd suggest that OTRS won't be able to assist you much. You can contact the checkuser mailing list directly at mail:checkuser-l, which is probably your best bet. Daniel (talk) 07:21, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Aha! There is a checkuser mailing list. Should have known. Protonk (talk) 16:20, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've notified ArbCom of it and have provided them with logs (including IPs) and additional incidents that occurred after my initial posting. Alpha 4615 (talk) 22:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

User talk:151.199.197.142 as chat room

It looks like User talk:151.199.197.142 is being used as a chat room by a half-dozen high school students. I would dig into it myself and point all the folks to WP:NOT#CHAT but my electricity is out and I only have about three minutes of juice left in the UPS. If someone else could check it out, I would appreciate it. Thanks, --Kralizec! (talk) 05:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've deleted the inappropriate edits from the talk page and I've blocked three of the four new accounts who edited there. The fourth, Krasilschic (talk · contribs) has actual edits.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:44, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Userspace pages, worries about good faith, stalking and so on

Resolved

 – Let's please not let this escalate further. This is a matter suited for dispute resolution at best, but you two should really separate from each other for a while. seicer | talk | contribs 13:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems he's simply not going to stop. Just when I think: finally, the mess on the ANI talk page was done, Dayewalker made this, which I presumed (in good faith) was an intention to pursue dispute resolution, given the matter was resolved well before-hand to warrant anything else. After requesting clarification on some comments by others, an administrator suggested that Dayewalker may not be pursuing dispute resolution, but may have a similar rationale to that specified here. I decided to have a look for the actual page referred to in the diff, and came across several others instead: User_talk:Dayewalker/Apoklyptk, User_talk:Dayewalker/Sandbox01, User_talk:Dayewalker/Penn, User_talk:Dayewalker/Sauve, User_talk:Dayewalker/Lando, User_talk:Dayewalker/Sockfile, etc.

What is most troubling is that some of these, particularly User_talk:Dayewalker/Lando, goes as far back as December last year. While replying to another comment made by Dayewalker, I decided to make him aware of the fact that I will request such pages be deleted, particularly those that are so old, as they do not comply with userspace requirements. His response was to accuse me of stalking his contributions because I'd come across that contribution from December last year. Making those sorts of accusations purely on assumptions of bad faith is disruptive. The assumptions of bad faith need to stop, and so do these userspace problems. If this means that he needs to be banned from interacting with me, or commenting directly or indirectly on me, for however long I'm still here, then so be it.

To clarify, ...lists of fault-finding diffs, users described as "problem users", negative postings, and other matters of a generally uncollegial kind, should be written only if needed, kept only for a limited period, and only for imminent use in dispute resolution or other reasonable and short term dispute handling. They should not be allowed - deliberately, through passage of time, good faith, wilful allusion, or neglect - to create some kind of perennial "hall of shame" or list of "disapproved, shunned or negatively viewed users". Users are encouraged to avoid keeping such content on the wiki when there is no good cause. Uninvolved users and administrators are encouraged to be willing to check whether such pages may be removed, if they appear to be dormant, redundant, or not presently "live". from here.

I request the following:

1. Someone to inform him of this thread (I won't go near his talk page when he makes such accusations);
2. For the stale pages in question to be deleted;
3. For the ridiculous accusation of stalking to be retracted in full;
4. For Dayewalker to leave me, and my edits for that matter, alone. As I noted in my final comment; in all honesty, I'd rather not have contact with an editor that acts to be more disruptive than finding better ways to amicably resolve a dispute.

Thanks, Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Ncm, you're the one who is supposed to inform me when you post about me to ANI. When you refer to my single edit followed by talk page discussions with you as "disruptive," you misrepresent the case.

In terms of good faith, I tried to discuss your actions over your edit war at ANI [57] with you, but you continued to revert five times to post your side of the matter until finally three different editors reverted you. As I pointed out to you earlier, when it looked like you were purposefully edit warring, I went ahead and typed up the diffs in case you wouldn't stop and a report had to be filed. Even after the ANI matter was finished (and numerous editors asked both sides to stop), you continued to bring it up and argue over the details of a truly lame edit war. An admin finally got you to quit. At the conclusion of the matter, I summed up the situation and saved the page in my own userspace.

I saved this page for several reasons, not the least of which is that I correctly assumed that Ncm would show the same level of civility he did in the ANI matter and attempt to cause problems for me one day. When that day happens (unfortunately sooner than later), I'd like to be able to show any admin who asks where this situation came from and the original ANI thread.

That day is here, apparently. The link to the situation is here, just as Ncm pointed out.

No link to this page exists anywhere on wikipedia. If Ncm hadn't been going through my contributions looking for some kind of evidence, he would never have seen it, and it links to no other page except the ones he's linked it to. After going through my contribs, Ncm began posting the link [58] [59] [60] on three different talk pages, and when no one responded to him, he brought it here. Never once did he come to my page and ask why the subpage exists.

As Ncm points out, I've done this before. Admin Kralizec! pointed out to Ncm here [61] a similar discussion where I told CadenS my philosophy on these pages, and how they're not harmful. Most of those pages chronicle old situations, and would hopefully never be used. However for an example, if I need diffs of my own personal long-term stalker for an admin to issue a range block or see the evidence to protect my page, I have them [62]. I edit from multiple computers, so having the diffs is a great help to me in some cases. Again, those pages have no active links to them.

I'm not assuming bad faith here, I tried to talk Ncm out of an edit war (in which I only made a single edit), and didn't file a case of any kind on him. I'm certainly not the first editor to feel that Ncm has overstepped his bounds, and his behavior towards me validates that feeling. If he'll just leave me alone and stop posting about me (as I've asked him to do), as far as I'm concerned the matter will be over. When Ncm stops making this whole dead horse an issue, I'll blank the page myself. For now, I'd prefer to leave it as is since this is obviously still an active discussion.

Summing up, I'm sorry this wound up here. This is getting lamer and lamer with each iteration, and I've tried to steer the conversation to its correct location [63] and end it [64] [65] [66] without further wasted time. As I told Ncm on his page, I'd rather not have anything further to do with him, if only he will have to stop digging in my contribs and posting reports to numerous other pages in hopes of getting me in trouble. Honestly, I consider every single word I just wrote in my defense as just wasted time in response to a frivolous complaint, and I'd rather get back to actually helping the wiki. Thanks in advance for your time. Dayewalker (talk) 10:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

This complaint is far from frivolous. His definition of stalking is so incredibly ridiculous that his use of the word is simply a personal attack - can someone please make him retract the claim?? It's simply not legitimate as an accusation. Yet he finds he has free license to litter my talk page (and every other page) with more rants trying to justify it; that's nothing more than being disruptive.

Not only does he apparently have difficulty understanding what stalking entails, but he apparently also has difficulty understanding when it's a laundry list of grievances is permitted and when it's not. That's evidenced by his persistent denial in the response above. Can any arbitrator from ArbCom actually find his use of userpages in compliance with their ruling? Absolutely not; some have been around since December last year when "they should be...kept only for a limited period, and only for imminent use in dispute resolution or other reasonable and short term dispute handling." What is so difficult to understand about that?

As Dayewalker refuses to voluntarily do anything about them, or his personal attack, this does require administrator intervention. The pages need to be blanked or deleted; his comment needs to be forcibly refactored; and he needs to understand that he cannot continue to make those pages if he intends on leaving them around for months merely because he "changes computers".

I gave him a caution that he needed to have those pages deleted or I'd make a request myself; he responds by pretending there's stalking. I move forward with my request asking for admin intervention so that it's deleted; he claims that it's stalking too. How else do you describe this sort of behaviour than disruptive? He makes a response that clearly is long enough to be tendentious in the hope that no admin will intervene: my only fear is he will be successful in warding off admins. Finally, I have no obligation to inform Dayewalker of the ANI myself; I just have to ensure that someone informs him - and I made a request, given he's still wrecklessly and disruptively maintaining his frivolous stalking accusation. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Now he's resorted to changing the title of my ANI - can someone please tell him to back off? [67] When an editor makes an accusation, the title stays the same and the closing comment notes whether it's legitimate or not. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:08, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I changed your title because your accusations are very much in doubt. Much like the ANI case [68], you're willing to edit war to make an attack in a summary. Fine, whatever ends this quickest.

I answered your accusations above and you responded with further accusations that I went into too much detail. Fine, I'll sum up. You edit warred at ANI, and I was about to file a report on your when you made your fifth reversion in less than 24 hours. When you stopped, I just saved my sandbox page. Since then, you've continued to argue about the ANI case across several other editors pages (as shown above), and now have come to ANI to try and get your way. As of today, you were still complaining at Krazelic!'s page about the ANI, and making atacks on me without informing me. That means this whole situation is still active, and I'm perfectly within my rights to keep a report of it in my space in my defense.

I'll make the same offer I made above, please leave me alone. Stop posting to multiple places to try and get me in trouble, and show me that you're going to let your incident go, and I'll blank that page myself. When this is settled, I'll gladly request deletion of it. Until you stop attacking me on multiple fronts, it's evidence. Dayewalker (talk) 12:20, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

If you actually addressed what I was saying, this would be done with, but you keep skipping right around the issue. If this was merely about a page on me, I would've frowned and kept walking. I'd be happy with your assurance, had this not been online since December. Again, that is not permissible.

The other issue is your stalking accusation; I'd be happy to mark this resolved and as nothing more than an allegation that I will never look at again if you retracted that - you refuse to so this does not become something I will let go in the absence of someone else refactoring it for you.

After that, I'll be happy to not encounter you again - and I don't doubt that you'd look forward to that. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anything for an admin to do here. I do think each of you should try staying away from each other, there are so many articles which could be helped by your skills, this shouldn't be too hard. Dayewalker has said he'll be asking an admin to delete the note-taking pages, which I think have been mistaken for something they are not. Beyond this, if y'all truly want to waste your time, please take this to WP:DR. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree. You are both valuable editors and there is no sense in letting this spiral out of control. There is always a point from where you can't step back and, though you're close, you're not there yet. Best to move on and ignore each other. --Regent's Park (Rose Garden) 14:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

As I know from my own experience, Ncmvocalist is like a pit-bull when someone has upset him: he'll keep hanging on until the arm is off. The content in the userspace is a work in progress he's entitled to keep. There's nothing for an admin to do here, besides perhaps warning Ncmvocalist for frivolous forum-shopping, following good users around and attempted bullying. And Ncmvocalist, please stop handing out "cautions" to people you are in dispute with; none of them will ever take them as cautions since you are not an admin and even if you were you be too involved enough to do anything. Instead of trying to bully Dayewalker, focus instead on improving your own behavior, because that's the real way you will avoid trouble. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 15:23, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Miklebe impersonating User:Mikebe

Resolved

 – User indefinitely blocked for spam/apparent harassment. –xeno (talk) 18:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

All of User:Miklebe's contributions are linkspam; furthermore they're linkspam for an organization that User:Mikebe opposes including and which he has been the target of harrassment for (by socks of User:Newcrewforu) in the past. --Killing Vector (talk) 11:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I have just reverted most of this user's edits, simply because most of his links are invalid links (404 errors). E Wing (talk) 12:08, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

He's put all the links back up. --Killing Vector (talk) 04:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Mikebe has raised a complaint of impersonation against User:Miklebe here. --Killing Vector (talk) 12:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Reverted remaining links and warned him 3 times for link spam. Thanks for the info. E Wing (talk) 14:47, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Mikebe asked me as an admin to keep an eye on Beer style and I have been doing that. While both sides of the argument there are not being very productive, I consider User:Miklebe to be particularly unhelpful and I suggest he is banned if he does not respond to the warning about his user name. Any htoughts? How long should we let him have to respond. --Bduke (Discussion) 20:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

A username created intentionally for impersonation, trolling, and harassment? Would definitely support a hard block. –xeno (talk) 20:47, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Username impersonations are especially frowned upon because no doubt they will hurt the editor whose identity is being maligned. I wouldn't give the editor much time at all. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 21:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

(thread un-archived) The user has not responded to requests for discussion about their user name. They have also gone and re-added the links. --Killing Vector (talk) 10:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Seemed like checkuser might be helpful, here; Miklebe (talk · contribs) appears to be related to Tonyelsnow (talk · contribs) and Perapera (talk · contribs). For the time being I'll leave Miklebe another message asking for comment, with a very concerned outlook if they continue to ignore that request, but have no objection if someone else takes action in the meantime. – Luna Santin (talk) 10:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

If that's the case then it might also be worth looking at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Therascal99. That user's been harrassing User:Mikebe in the past and has impersonated User:Editor437 in the past as well... --Killing Vector (talk) 11:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... from a purely technical standpoint, a relation between this group and that groups appears to be possible, but can't be proven or disproven with the information I'm currently looking at. Examining behavior might be more conclusive. – Luna Santin (talk) 11:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Both groups tend to harp on links to the BJCP, that being the edit war on Beer Style that involved User:Mikebe on the exclusion side. --Killing Vector (talk) 13:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Note: User:Miklebe re-inserted all spam links, just reported him to AIV. E Wing (talk) 11:21, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I blocked, given the weight of evidence above. I've asked the user to respond on their talk page to what has been said here and said that Luna Sorry to volunteer you! or I will review the block if an answer is forthcoming. Otherwise, that's that. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ dedicated to making a happy man very old 11:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. :3 – Luna Santin (talk) 11:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Respectfully Request to Repeal 72 Hour Block

Resolved

 – No admin action necessary

To Whom it May Concern:

Today I made a minor edit to the Billy Graham Wikipage. The edit contained a blatant and obvious false fact about Billy Graham. The purpose was to educate one of my co-workers as to why one must carefully choose what they use from Wikipedia as a source because anyone can edit information. When I went to undo my edit, a user had already caught the misinformation and reversed my edit.

When I went to the individual's page to leave a quick apology and explanation I found that my account was blocked.

I would like to respectfully request a repeal of my instated 72 hour block. If not, would an authorized moderator please send along my apologies to the user who reported the abuse. (I would have done the same thing has him.)

Very Respectfully,

205.56.145.36 (talk) 10:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

You're not blocked, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to post to this page. None of the users who have edited Billy Graham in the last week are currently blocked. _Gb^T/c 10:33, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

With the continual pattern of unhelpful edits from that US Navy IP address, one would think that due to its high-profile nature, users from that location would create accounts so as to not cause as much embarrassment to their fine organization. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 10:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, now I just feel ridiculous. I saw a banner state that I was blocked. Thank you for the correction.

Mr. Wilkins, the point was to show my co-worker that *anyone* could edit Wikipedia; even without an account. I am sorry if you feel this incident constitutes an embarassment. I don't believe I have much of value to contribute to Wikipedia at this time, and so I believe I don't need an account.

Very Respectfully,

205.56.145.36 (talk) 10:45, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Do not create hoaxes and Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, which contain the relevant guidelines. --Killing Vector (talk) 10:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

What he was probably seeing was a banner left over from a previous block, from last year. Wilkins is right that the various warnings and blocks on that page do not speak well of the Naval personnel that use that IP address. We expect a higher standard from our military than junior high school vandalism. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

What you saw was a banner left for the user who's talk page you visited, who had been blocked for 72 hours at some earlier point, and no one else had posted to their page subsequently.-gadfium 11:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Which user page would that have been? In any case the IP user ID has 2 blocks of 24 hours in the past year [69] and none for 72 hours. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Presumably User:Mike Doughney, the editor who reverted the anon IP. Mike Doughney was blocked for 72 hours on the 8th of February. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 11:41, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Aha. Yep, that [70] would be it. And obvious, too. Looks like it's time to get my eyes checked again. :( Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Some wikihounding going on

• Wikifan12345 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Editor, obsessed with adding "Jewish" to articles, is WP:HOUNDing User:David Eppstein at Talk:David_Eppstein#Jewish.3F after their content dispute at Talk:Noam_Elkies#Noam_Elkies_is_Jewish. THF (talk) 11:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

There's some edit warring and hounding, so a 12 hour block for disruptive editing would probably be justifiable. PhilKnight (talk) 12:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Apparently a recidivist. Twelve hours seems light if a block is appropriate at all. THF (talk) 13:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

My reading of the block log is that s/he should be considered a user with a single block from over 6 months ago. PhilKnight (talk) 13:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Separately, there seems to be some similarity with Wolfowit (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), though it's within the realm of possibility that two different editors have the same insistence about identifying Jewish bloodlines in biographies. THF (talk) 13:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

THF, just a heads up, but you already probably knew this, there are actually many IPs, editors, socks, meatpupetts, you name it, that have an obsession with Jewish related issues. I send alot of time sending them Jayjg's way :) So I wouldn't assume they are the same editor. I just "treat" them as I find them :). Anyways, cheers, --Tom 15:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this here. I did bring it up at WP:BLP/N but haven't yet received a response there. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:15, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

My take on this is that if an editor is going around generally inserting what they think is a person's religion into bios, they may be being a pain or tendentious or whatever, but probably not racist. But if they are only inserting Jewish into articles, well, that looks like a duck. dougweller (talk) 15:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Jews look like ducks? :-P Sorry, could not resist. /humor KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps wikifan may be aware of the Jewish background of some people but perhaps not aware of the Muslim or Christian background. People tend to know the background of our own group rather than others. That wouldn't be "racist," it would simply be adding material. I haven't looked at this article (and can't speak to the edit warring charge) and know nothing about David Eppstein myself, but generally speaking if a notable person is of an ethnicity or a religion, what is wrong with its inclusion (assuming that there are RS to support it)? Tundrabuggy (talk) 16:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Of course, early Christians were primarily Jews anyway. Maybe someone is looking waaaayyy too closely at the photographs, and can determine if the individual in question went through their brit milah or not? (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 16:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Could this be a content-dispute masquerading as an "edit-war"? Just wondering.  ? Tundrabuggy (talk) 16:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Not really. Please read this section. Is there a point here or not?? --Tom 18:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Topic ban

※I don't accuse anyone here, I accept topic ban.※

I edited some Japan-Korea related articles. I admit my edition tendency was somewhat rough.

I was Topic banned by Future Perfect at Sunrise after my edition of Comfort women and Talk:Comfort women. And this time is the my first edition of Comfort women and Talk:Comfort women.

• User talk:Bukubku#Blocked again

Then I protested my Topic ban with my explanation. (Before I was topic banned, I encountered Future Perfect at Sunrise at Yaeko Taguchi and Korea under Japanese rule.)

• User talk:Future Perfect at Sunrise/Archive 15#Let's have a conversation
• User talk:Future Perfect at Sunrise#Please talk civilly

After our conversation went awry, I accept my Topic ban. Then I read Wikipedia:Banning policy. I think there is lack of procedure. But I don't know Wikipedia rules well. My edition certainly tended to edit nationalstic issues, so I think I deserve topic ban. However, my topic ban has no specifically definition.

Administrators, please specify my Topic ban definition like other users.--Bukubku (talk) 13:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The topic ban was given at User talk:Bukubku#... and topic-banned as "I am therefore banning you from all topic areas dealing with Japanese-Korean political, historical and cultural controversies." Bukubku, what part of "Japanese-Korean political, historical and cultural controversies" is unclear for you? Without being familiar with the subject area, it would seem to me that one would know if an article did or did not fall under this description. Comfort Women - yes. Oxygen - no.

Oh, and may I say thank you to you for accepting the topic ban; very good. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Is only Japan-Korea related article and how long? Please, define like other users.--Bukubku (talk) 14:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It is only articles which fit the description "Japanese-Korean political, historical and cultural controversies" from which you are banned. There is no time limit on the ban. The normal mechanism for lifting the ban would be for you to ask for it to be lifted. You would have to show evidence that you are unlikely to undertake the same sorts of edits that got you banned in the first place. I would suggest that you need to do many months of good work whilst still having the ban to be able to convince an admin to lift the ban. But as there are nearly 3M articles on wikipedia, and millions more that could be added, there is no shortage of good work that you can do. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Abusive admin

Yes, I used that heading. Yes, I can't believe I did either. I am at a loss. User:John is in a content/policy dispute, the crux being whether or not criteria #8 has been met on the NFCC policy. I avoid such disputes and am not part of it. However, John has been threatening to use his admin tools to block and/or ban editors[71][72][73] during an edit war and after I counseled him against threatening to use his tools in a dispute[74], he responded by basically saying I was a liar and he attempted a misdirect to the content, accusing me of violation OWN[75] ignoring that I have said nothing on the dispute. I spoke only to his handling of the dispute. He has escalated to trolling my talk page, attacking me and my motives, and continues his attacks on other editors with whom he disagrees. He most recently made a personal and insulting attack on Guettarda[[76]. I left a notice[77] on his talk page, but he has summarily removed it, apparently feeling that if he trolls my talk page and is called on it by me, he can ignore NPA warnings from me. I cannot say I am done with John; as if he continues to insult and attack editors, and certainly if he blocks to gain advantage in a dispute, if no one else will act I will feel compelled to do so. Hence my presence here, as John has dismissed me as "not in good faith" and is continuing to attack and run roughshod over other editors. Please, do not confuse this or mix this with the content/policy dispute, which is being discussed elsewhere. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• John's tone isn't much different from Guettarda's tone in the [diff you posted. I don't see one being better off than the other from a brief glance. They both should try to be calmer and AGF, for sure, but I'm not sure these are blatant personal attack violations. They disagree and have been at it for weeks now, so tempers are expected to be thin. I wish it wasn't like that, but it isn't entirely unexpected. Also, I believe John has been clear that he has no intention of using the tools. He initially issued warning on the 6th, but once he became involved in the dispute, he has not used the tools (nor issued any threats like the ones from the 6th). Are there any more recent diffs of possibly admin abuse??-Andrew c ^[talk] 15:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
• IMO his tone is significantly different, but that's subjective of course. Where did he say he wouldn't use the tools? His response[78] to my concern was to call me a liar and accuse me of violating OWN, neither of which is correct or helpful and neither of which address his threat to end an edit war he was in by blocking three editors who disagreed with him. This is a matter of grave concern; that he threatened to do so at all is very disturbing, and he has responded to concern about it with insults. If he did state he would not use his admin tools, well and good - where did he do so? Do you recall? Thanks much - KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:24, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

  Adding, what do you mean "once he became involved" - he was edit warring before issuing the block warnings. That's why I said something. He was deep in an edit war when he made those threats. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

  I was referring to this, where John says I then made one revert on the article myself, after which I recused myself from taking admin action on the matter, as I felt that by the very strict interpretation of WP:UNINVOLVED that I hold myself too, I would no longer be considered strictly uninvolved. , and the whole WP:UNINVOLVED business is discussed further at John's talk page by two other admins.-Andrew c ^[talk] 16:15, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

  Ah, ok. That I missed in the noise, I guess. I note he only considered himself "involved" well after others did, which is still of serious concern to me, as he does not acknowledge that his previous edit warring constituted involvement in any way. I would still appreciate others keeping an eye on this, especially as this editor continues to be verbally abusive and hostile to well-intentioned counsel and criticism, personalizing both the content/policy dispute as well as any concerns about his handling of it in an inappropriate way. KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

  Missed it in the noise because you removed it from your talk page with the edit summary "READ the note at the top of this page. Keep article content disputes on the ARTICLE talk page". You're complaining that I am personalizing the dispute, and here you are... personalizing the dispute. Hmm. --John (talk) 19:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

  Indeed, I did miss it in the morass of edits on my page which I removed. I expected you to respond to my concern post; you did respond, but your response was to malign me and dismiss me[79], as I have already noted. That you chose to change venues and state that you had belatedly determined you would not use your admin tools fails to address that you actually did threaten to do so while engaged in a content dispute. I have yet to see you acknowledge that or address that issue. Further, I fail to see how attempting to engage more of the community in this and solicit input and assistance could be in any way characterized as personalizing; I have made no personal attacks but have addressed only concerns about your actions and behavior. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:54, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

John's actions in this matter have already been discussed at length at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/ID-NFCC. Since these actions are directly involved with the debate regarding WP:NFCC and Intelligent Design, I earlier moved this discussion to the ID-NFCC page [80]. KillerChihuahua believes this is not the same dispute at all, and reverted this action [81]. I don't see the point in having two obviously tightly related discussions going on same topic. Would someone else please move this discussion as I did? Thank you. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

That discussion is about content and policy. This is about behavior; specifically threatening to use admin tools during an edit war, and subsequent attacks on editors who disagree with his position. They are specifically different and not related at all. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Probably better if KC will agree to close this one. His/her comments have been noted. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. Closure would indicate my concerns have been addressed; they have only been partially addressed. Closure also suggests that there is an "end point" and IMO that paradigm is inaccurate for this type of concern. Closure is inappropriate. KillerChihuahua^?!? 19:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

"I don't see the point in having two obviously tightly related discussions going on same topic." Doesn't that apply here as well, then? •Jim62sch•^dissera! 19:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• No. The reported admin abuse has already been discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/ID-NFCC, and opening up another discussion here at WP:AN/I where that discussion came from is rather pointless. The discussion of the image itself is a rightful standalone. Regardless of the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/ID-NFCC, the question of its use under our policy is perfectly legitimate and worthy of standing on its own. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

What part of "this has noting to do with NFCC" are you failing to comprehend? This is a separate issue. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• What part of this has already been reported are you failing to comprehend? --Hammersoft (talk) 20:22, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Clearly, I disagree with you - or else you are not quite getting what I'm talking about. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• You are complaining about his actions in this event, are you not? You have noticed that discussion regarding the appropriateness of his actions has already taken place at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/ID-NFCC, yes? --Hammersoft (talk) 20:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Looked over this. The warnings given by John, though they do not specify the policy violation, all relate to potential copyright infringements. John's previous "involvement" doesn't matter as WP:NFCC is serious global policy, and if there is a situation where several editors are collectively violating - knowingly or not - this policy, there's little John could do in theory except warn/block or revert and protect (or get other admins to do the same). Local "consensus" can never override this policy and John, having had the community trust placed in him, is entitled to be given the benefit of the doubt to force the application of this policy over local consensus when the latter may be insisting on - knowingly or not - violating it. I don't see how John behaviour can be at issue here. I suggest this thread is closed. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The warnings given by John were not about a policy violation. They were about interpretation of a highly debated criteria which one side of an edit war felt had been met and the other side feels has not. This must be resolved by dispute resolution; not by one side threatening to block. The "other" side would have been just as in the right to block John for page blanking vandalism (in other words, not in the right at all, even though that's what he was doing). KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Ah, it's only guideline so it can be ignored. Understood. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:23, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Now I *know* you aren't talking about the same thing I'm talking about, and further, your sarcasm is unhelpful. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Call it as I see it. In NFCC debates, an age old argument is "It's only guideline, so it doesn't have to be followed". John acted properly. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:54, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

You're on the wrong page. This belongs in that other discussion. THIS discussion is NOT about NFCC, which is a policy, not a guideline. Please do not continue to post your thoughts about NFCC here. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Kinda like the cop who likes Pat's Steaks but doesn't (should that be "don't?") like Geno's Steaks only busting people who rob from Pat but not those who rob from Geno. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 21:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the other discussion, John clearly believes those edits constituted copyright infringements. So he was only doing his job, and can't be seen to be acting in bad faith or abusively (and wikipedia can't chastise admins for attempting to protect wikipedia from copyright infringements). The only potential issue would be whether John's intepretation is so unreasonable that his judgment could be called into question. It really doesn't look like that's gonna be the case. So there's nothing more to say here. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I have no dog in this fight whatsoever. But as a confirmed cynic, I would note that "clearly asserts" and "clearly believes" are not synonymous. arimareiji (talk) 20:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

"potential copyright infringements"? Yep, the publishers are gonna pitch a bitch and sue us castrato over free publicity. Duh. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 20:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• Another ancient argument. "They'd never sue over this!" so therefore it's ok to violate copyright. Uhg. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Did you realise that if you go to cross the street and your first step is not inside the ped-walkway, no matter that all the rest of your steps are, you're jaywalking and can be cited? That's why there's these really weird concepts like discretion, judgment, intent, etc. Oh, wait they're all subjective. You get a ticket. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 21:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Arimareiji. Speaking as an admin, I think it is a poor idea to enforce policy in that way on an article you're involved in, once the fact of said enforcement becomes contentious. There are dozens, if not hundreds of uninvolved admins who would be willing to come in and help out.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

We have WP:AGF when in doubt. I'd agree that the method John pursued was not the one most likely to avoid animosity for himself, but there's no question of abuse here. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 22:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

thanks for addressing your comments to my areas of concern, Deacon. Clearly there is a question, since I raised it. I accept and respect that in your opinion, my concerns are unfounded and you feel his actions, while less than optimum, are not abuse or even bordering on abuse. Please correct me if I have misunderstood you in any way. Two questions (this is to Deacon) do you feel that his edit warring was excusable as he thought he was enforcing a policy, or do you feel his threatening blocks while edit warring was not in any way using his tools (by threat) to gain the advantage in an edit war? and 2) the NPA violations - acceptable or not? KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Suggest you drop it now, Killer. It takes two to edit war, and AN/I is not limited to action against the complainee. Your question is loaded and seems designed (as did your initial post) at gaining you sympathy, and possibly advantage in an editing dispute. Let it go.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

"complainant" maybe, but irrelevant. KC is pooched because she bitched about the same thing others are bitching about? Nice. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 22:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

KC is hunting for a declaration that John was edit warring, from another admin. I think the matter has been resolved, now let's improve an encyclopedia.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

user:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) and article John Nicholas Ringling

RE: John Nicholas Ringling, Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk · contribs) is treating me like a vandal and reverting my VERY WELL referenced changes. He is not treating me in Good Faith. Not observing Wikiquette. 3RR. Civility. He thinks that he owns the article. I request an unbiased third-party admin to intervene. - 4.240.78.237 (talk) 17:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

A quick skim through the history leads me to believe that he is reverting and then reinstating your additions, and citing reasons why in the edit summaries, such as issues with the references. Are you absolutely sure there is a problem here? --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it is a perception thing. Can't Norton do that without beginning with a reversion? But I don't think AN/I is needed for that discussion.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:NPOV/FAQ and User:Dreadstar

Resolved

 – Not the correct venue for the "core" issue, and AN3 is thataway. –xeno (talk) 18:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Dreadstar (talk · contribs) is editwarring to preempt any discussion and demote WP:NPOV/FAQ - which has been policy since 2002, originally as part of WP:NPOV, and then split off in 2006 for space reasons - was, in his exact words "never meant to be a policy" and Never any WP:CON this should be a polcy, nor should it be.

What the hell is going on here? Since when can someone just claim that a long-standing policy was never meant to be a policy, and demote it to guideline instantaneously because they don't want it to be policy, then edit-war to maintain the new status? Shouldn't it at least require an RFC to demote a policy, not adding three or four comments to a discussion from October that ended with no consensus, then immediately acting to demote it? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd recommend reading the entire discussion on this: Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#Policy.3F. Dreadstar † 18:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It's a longstanding essential part of NPOV policy, and wide consensus that it's fully merged into NPOV itself would be needed before such a change. . dave souza, talk 18:21, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The merge discussion of any policy material was started over four months ago, without any progress being made. A WP:FAQ should not be a WP:POLICY, if the material is so important that it needs to be policy, then move it over. Dreadstar † 18:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks to me like there is a productive discussion in progress on the talk page. It doesn't seem like something that needs an AN/I report. If wider attention for a policy discussion is wanted, there are RFC procedures for that. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 18:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure why Shoemaker is bringing this here, or why he is attempting to push this. This was discussed in the past... notice Dreadstar's post/link above regarding past discussion in which no decisions were reached, and doesn't make a lot of sense to now attempt to push this through, or back, to Policy status by himself, without wider community input. Confusing.(olive (talk) 18:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC))

vandalism only account

Resolved

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Zak_gray

this is probably a vandalism-only account: [[82]] [[83]] [[84]] [[85]] [[86]] Theserialcomma (talk) 21:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Blocked. For future reference, such accounts are dealt with faster at WP:AIV.  Sandstein  21:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Possible block evader continuing their edit warring

A couple of days 23prootie (talk · contribs) was blocked for a second time for edit warring over lists of countries (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:23prootie reported by User:Nick-D (Result: 1 week )). This editor's edit warring and dubious additions included adding non-independent countries to the Allies of World War II (for instance, [87]), claiming that the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor was a former country in South East Asia [88] and changing the name of the Phillipines in articles on World War II such as Battle of Bataan (1945) from 'Philippines' to 'Philippine Commonwealth': [89]. A few hours ago Lemen drop (talk · contribs) registered as a new account and is continuing this exact behavior by undoing the reversions of 23prootie's edits: (Allies of World War II: [90], United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor: [91], Battle of Bataan (1945): [92] - all their edits so far have been restoring material added by 23prootie). IP editor 203.76.211.184 (talk · contribs) has also just reverted my reversion of Lemen drop's changes and re-added most of the countries 23prootie was adding to the Allies of World War II article: [93] (revert), [94] (revert) and [95] (added more countries - note the similarity to 23Prootie's edit: [96]). This seems to be a clear-cut case of block evasion and continued edit warring by a blocked editor, and I'd appreciate it if an uninvolved admin could look into this and take appropriate action. I briefly blocked Lemen drop for block evasion, but undid this a few seconds later as it seemed better for a totally uninvolved admin to review this situation. Nick-D (talk) 21:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

User requesting block on their IP address

After reverting the blanking of User_talk:75.147.171.209 by 75.147.171.209 I received a comment on my talk page asking me to explain my actions. After explaining that user talk pages were not usually deleted s/he has asked for a permanent ban on that address and that the talk pages be permanently deleted. They are also threatening legal action against Wikipedia if this matter is not resolved. —Smilers (talk) 22:00, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The user has no grounds for action against wikipedia. They should, however, be banned for the threat. The page should stay as is. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick update: the user (75.147.171.209) has now removed the entire section discussing this matter from their talk page. I have not reverted it as I don't think me doing that would help the situation in any way. —Smilers (talk) 22:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I blocked the IP indefinitely. The block can be lifted once the issue is resolved, or after the IP is released from the current holder and reissued to someone else. I wouldn't be opposed to blanking the talk page, though. WODUP (talk) 22:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

That possibly is a good idea considering the circumstances. —Smilers (talk) 22:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I thought users were allowed remove warnings from their talk pages anyway, as long as they are not currently blocked, as this indicates the warnings were read. In any case, "Block me or I'll sue" gets them blocked, meaning there's no more legal threat since you did what they wanted, so the block goes away, meaning they will now sue, meaning a block..... *explodes* Arakunem^Talk 22:41, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

You blocked the IP indefinitely? When we explicitly do not block IP's permanently? Surely a block of a few hours / days and contact to the ISP would help better - unless you have some magic wiki-pixidust that will alow you to know when the IP is released back to the pool. Further, if you think this is a legal threat you clearly have no understanding of what a threat is. Bad block. this is a legal threat so fair enough. Reduce the time. M♠ssing Ace 22:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

And before we start arguing - from the policy; "Rather than blocking immediately, administrators should seek to clarify the user's meaning and make sure that a mere misunderstanding is not involved." - I see no evidence this was done. M♠ssing Ace 22:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

There's no need for a tone like that. It frustrates me to see people communicate in this way - as wikipedians, why do we find it so difficult to keep an element of kindness and understanding? Anyway, off my soapbox, I'm sure WODUP will record the IP and unblock after a suitable amount of time has passed. Seraphim♥ 22:54, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) A courtesy blank is not unreasonable, and I've gone ahead and done so. An ARIN search shows the IP registered to a company, so it is not likely to be released any time soon, as it doesnt appear to be a DHCP pool. Arakunem^Talk 22:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Ace, if that's not a legal threat, I don't know what is. And an indefinite block != a permanent block, as the blocker said. Please don't try to inflame the situation. You're not likely to help much. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ dedicated to making a happy man very old 22:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

User:AndrewAntaro

I would like to draw attention to this user. It appears to me that he is using Wikipedia to promote his company (MarketingMarksman) and his clients. I have left a message on his talk page asking if we could discuss the issue, but it seems to have been ignored. This user is uploading spam images and creating advertisements disguised as user pages. This isn't the normal spam I run across (rampant addition of the same web address), but appears to be more subtle. If someone could review his contributions and let me know if I'm correct or not. If not, please let me know so I can see what I missed. I will notify the user after I post this. TNXMan 22:38, 12 February 2009 (UTC)