Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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COI, rambling, outing and legal threat in Talk:Torsion field

Resolved

 – User:Torsionfield banhammered per pseudoscience Arbcom enforcement. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:11, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

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

Appears to be someone with a conflict of interest. He has made several (desperate) attempts to have Torsion field deleted or whitewashed to remove any mention of fraud. (For example, he as argued for the removal of any source associated with the Russian Academy of Sciences, and claims that the "commission to investigate pseudoscience" is not a "legal" part of said academy, despite being clearly listed in their official website.) Attempts to negotiate or reason with him have been met with ramblings, accusations and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.

Now he has resorted to attempting to out editors[1] and issuing legal threats [2]. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:56, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

illustration of disruptive conduct
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Enric Naval you didnt negotiate anything you only lied all the time, using ignorance as discussion, it seems that you have a conflict of interest. Maybe you are the one who respects no rules, as it can be seen from discussion page. The article Torsion Field is an Atack Page. Nobody is part of the academy as Gryzlov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Gryzlov) mentioned here: http://www.gazeta.ru/interview/nm/s3337459.shtml you are an accomplice helping user:cubbi the creator of the page who is in fact Eduard Kruglyakov or part of his team. there are no reliable references, they have noon-neutral point of view, in the discussion page there cant be a reasonable dialogue but only a monologue with you and user:cubbi...sorry but its clearly that you are supporting Eduard Kruglyakov and his work. You have non-neutral point of view and use bad intentions in conversation. The page must be deleted.Torsionfield (talk) 10:10, 26 February 2011 (UTC) Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, Torsionfield. Do you have diffs proving your claims? —Jeremy (v^_^v Hyper Combo K.O.!) 10:38, 26 February 2011 (UTC) reference nr. 2 (from torsion field article) supporting torsion field pseudoscientific concept: [3] has non-neutral point of view it present fraud but also the opposite, and a conflict: torsion field exposed as fraud but Minister of Science didnt agree and financed torsion field research for unlimited time. Is an extraordinary evidence? User:Jéské Couriano|Jeremy? Torsionfield (talk) 10:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC) I wasn't referring to the content, I was referring to your accusations that Enric Naval and Cubbi are conspiring to control article content. As a general rule, AN/I refuses to handle pure content disputes. —Jeremy (v^_^v Hyper Combo K.O.!) 10:52, 26 February 2011 (UTC) where content dispute should be placed? About Enric Naval and Cubbi i dont know how to copy paste all the torsion field article discussion page but please go there and just search theyr name, you are going to have a surprise: they are ignoring smartley every argument or discussion, it is impossible to have a reasonable conversation with them, they play an experienced game...this cant be done by someone who uses wikipedia for a few days, its clearly that theyr conspiracy its well mastered. All the evidences are on the discussion page, only negative attitude (collected): Having a patent doesn't mean that your device works This doesn't look like a reliable source by wikipedia standards Your comment implies that sources "critical in nature" are automatically not reliable This article is about Shipov's claims, it's not about mainstream theories that happen to have similar names Only stuff from unreliable sources and fringe promoters, who seem to have a conflict of interest in making Shipov's torsion fields look like mainstream. Her being a CEO of a "torsion field" companies only adds additional proof. I hope I explained myself clearly. so he has an answer for everything but of course not for a dialouge..or any support for his opinions He is very clear from my point of view ... Torsionfield (talk) 11:03, 26 February 2011 (UTC) Enric Naval i really belive that you were waiting for something like that to come here and notice other administrators, you are lucky because i didnt know Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents even exist. Now i will not use discussion page anymore as they are consumed by you and your colleagues games. I have nothing against wikipedia as i now understand wikipedia is not represented by you! You are just one simple user and i am asking real Wikipedia administrators to understand my concern and powerless in torsion field article discussion page as i didnt understand how things work on wikipedia website. It seems that a discussion is better not to open with users like Enric Naval and user:cubbi as they only treat it like monologue with hopes that nobody goes further. But this is the moment to say STOP. So thank you Enric Naval for bringing me on this page: Torsion field article is presented as the ultimate truth as pseudoscientific concept in references who represents just 1 person (his colleagues) and his work, the references cant be reliable since they all come from 1 source, second: reference nr. 2 presents the article as fraud but in the same time after being exposed: Minister of Science didnt agree and financed with unlimited funds (also Minister of defence), so as they didnt agree with Eduard Kruglyakov there is no reason to assume that torsion field is fraud. Enric Naval ignored this but he was surprised why other people dont do the same thing, as for this he should be discredited and his username erased for bad intentions and cooperation with Eduard Kruglyakov`s team. Torsion field article and its pseudoscientific references are copyright violations of business, Institutions, Ministryes, the article use harassment tactics and instigation to hatred. From this point of view the article must be deleted as it presensts also nonsense as the truth. WP:OFFICE seems to be a good reason and any other rule from Wikipedia as nothing is respected by editor user:cubbi. thank you and sorry if i disturbed anyone with my presence. 213.233.93.182 (talk) 10:41, 26 February 2011 (UTC) He has withdrawn the legal threat[4]. For the record, I am not related to Kruglyakov nor associated with him in any manner. I can't even speak or read Russian, and I hadn't heard about him or about the RAS until I started editing this article. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:00, 26 February 2011 (UTC) of course i withdrawn it because i realised wikipedia have nothing to do with you Eric Naval! ..now i know how to handle you and your team of pseudoscience. Dont try to explain us that you are not related...dont lie again! The discussion page speaks for itself. Stop supressing communication and dialgoue in your attempts for "a better life" from your "beliefs" and personal point of view, opinions. Ex.: "You imply that we should discard all sources written by members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, because of them being just puppets of Kruglyakov. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:57, 25 February 2011 (UTC) I find it unreasonable, and I doubt that you find any support for doing this. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC) excuse me Enric Naval what do you mean by unreasonable? you mean torsion field article is the truth itself? so there is no reason to even discuss the torsion field article because its so clear from your opinion with best reliable personal pages as references. or what explain editors...enlight us. you are very clear now also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Torsionfield (talk • contribs) 11:38, 26 February 2011 (UTC) Your suggestion to exclude anything written by Russian Academy of Sciences academics is unreasonable. Accusations that all negative info is controlled by Kruglyakov sound like a Conspiracy theory. If there were reliable sources for a negative campaign against Torsion Field, then I would take your accusations more seriously. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:13, 26 February 2011 (UTC) You are talking to me? sorry do i seem your puppet? your agressive attitude and lack of common sense is miserable! My suggestion is that your username to be deleted because you lie too much and now you have also support on this page..as i received a private message from Wikipedia to leave you alone and go away from wikipedia.org ...sorry but this is not a dialogue...you impose your bible...good bye..may your attitude define wikipedia! Torsionfield (talk) 12:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Torsionfield (talk • contribs) 12:47, 26 February 2011 (UTC) And i frogot dont repeat like a broken record Russian Academy Of Science ....they didnt write anything in legal manner ..so stop playing games! Russian Academy Of Science financed torsion field even today...and where is neutrality respected by your "academics"? in your reliable links from torsion field article!! Answer ..!!!!Torsionfield (talk) 12:52, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

The IP has created User talk:Zackexley - there doesn't seem to be such a user. I'll delete it if no sensible explanation if forthcoming. And maybe the IP needs blocking as it seems to be Torsionfield. Dougweller (talk) 13:02, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

There is such a user, but he isn't exactly active. :) He's the chief community officer for WMF. (For those who are OTRS enabled, Ticket:2011022510014002 and Ticket:2010092210005623 relate.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:13, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

That explains the creation of his talk page and the post then. I'm not sure it's appropriate to leave it though, any comments? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 13:19, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

But as for Talk:Torsion field? It appears, from first glance, to be full of accusations, conspiracymongering, and the like by Torsionfield and his IP. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Hyper Combo K.O.!)} 22:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I had a look at this and I can't make heads or tails of what is good and what is gross POV pushing, treating Wikipedia as a battleground, and even personal attacks. The whole talk page should probably be deleted and started from scratch, or at least the more egregious attacks and libels should be purged. Night Ranger (talk) 07:31, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Time for an indef

[5]. Clear vow to continue disruption. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Hyper Combo K.O.!)} 04:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Probably should get a talk-page block too. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:26, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

....the hell did that guy say? Seriously. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 08:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

HeckifIknow! I can't even tell if he's vowing to return, or vowing to not. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:42, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I tried reading all his commentary. The first parts look high-academic, but the later parts...it looks like a completely different person, one with very little skill in the English language, wrote them. It's moot at this point, but could this be a group account? Or (extremely unlikely, but still possible) a compromised account? I can't come up with a more logical explanation for the way the comments read. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 23:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

To say the least, the block length on the IP should match the length on the main account (which is 1 month); we don't want block evasion going on. –MuZemike 10:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Potential misuse of undo button and AfD report

I like to file this user: Intoronto1125 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) for following misuse:

1. User filed 17 AfD a day, based on his contributions, with reason "This is not reputable. There source does not give the information listed and gives the reader barely any information." A misuse, which i see it is nonsense enough, because the source can be all reclaim from here.
2. Second misuse including an "undo" button, which user always do it based "I just don't like it", as i believe. [6][7][8][9] Furthermore, the undo either include a no sense/ no meaningful reason or empty reason, which scrapped other editor good work to standardize the format across Wikipedia, and put in terms edit-warring. Monthly discussion did not solve anything and user do again and again while reason given is obvious enough.

I hope this can be solve because incident already filed few times. --Aleenf1 15:15, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

First of all I apologized to Aleenf1 and tried to settle this with him but he did not accept it [10]. Even an administrator told Aleenf1 to accpet the apology and he refused to accpet it. Second, the 17 afds please go ahead and check the articles out. The sources provided either do not work, for example for the Azerbaijani national championships, the following link is given [11], it does not work or do not provide the information given (for other articles). This would be against wikipedia's rule, "any unsourced information will be challenged and removed". If the entire article is removed the article should be deleted, hence the 17 afds. Thirdly, I am not misusing the button, rather I am making constructive edits to wikipedia. For example, Aleenf1 has accused me of putting the word "ceremonies" in the center and that is wrong, but the majority (if not all) calendars for multi sporting events have the word ceremonies in the center, [12], [13],[14] and etc.. Moreover, for the edits Aleenf1 has provided, I never used "i just don't like it", again showing Aleenf1's ability to lie to get his/her way. Aleenf1 is repeatdly reported me for no reason, has lied and is abusing his editing rights. As this has happened more than three times! action needs to be taken against this editor, because nothing is stopping him/her from continuing. Intoronto1125 (talk) 16:30, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Just chipping in here, I would like to point out that WP:LINKROT states "Do not delete factual information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer. WP:Verifiability does not require that all information be supported by a working link, nor does it require the source to be published on-line.", emphasis in the original. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

You not a justice here, you not have a right "call" for action against me. Again, the link you provided did not have "Ceremonies" centralised, either is you try to "lie/en-route" people for all the false you do, or what i am said, your action is simply "I just don't like it", thats all. I already said, if you have HTML problem, please raise or simply you "just don't get it", may i claim that? --Aleenf1 04:31, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Clearly Aleenf1 does not understand what I am saying or cannot see the word "ceremonies" centralized. I have every right to call for action against you, becasue you constantly report me for no reason and at the end of the day no action is taken against me, because you are wrong. This clearly shows you are misusing your privileges and some sort of action is needed here. Intoronto1125 (talk) 15:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

~~

Stop your "lie". You are not wrong, the other editor wrong because not listen to you. Thats all. --Aleenf1 15:07, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

First of all it would be stop your lieing, not stop your lie, which again you are wrongly accusing me of doing. The second part of the sentence makes no sense, so clarify your wording before you post please. Intoronto1125 (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• Girls, girls...Am I gonna have to bring out the spray bottle? HalfShadow 22:55, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Girls? Who are you calling a girl? Intoronto1125 (talk)

User:Darwinek refuses to stop renaming articles contrary to policy of WP:DIACRITICS

User:Darwinek has been persistently using diacritics to rename and move hundreds of biographical articles (see his edit history for February 26, 2011[15]). He is doing so even when the use of modified letters is not required in the names of the persons. This issue has been raised with Darwinek on his talk page. I have asked him to seek consensus for his moves, and I have also referred to WP:DIACRITICS which explains the wiki-policy as follows: “The use of modified letters (such as accents or other diacritics) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged; when deciding between versions of a name which differ in the use or non-use of modified letters, follow the general usage in English reliable sources (for example other encyclopedias and reference works)." Darwinek has continued his actions to rename and move biographical articles on a massive scale, and has refused to follow my direction that he first verify that the use of such modified letters is required, and he has refused to provide English reliable sources to justify such moves. I am requesting administrative action to prevent him from continuing to make such disruptive article moves. Dolovis (talk) 21:59, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

What's "disruptive" about improving Wikipedia? Eastern European languages use diacritics, so it is inaccurate to not use them in an article title if that is the name of the person in question. Please use some common sense, as Darwinek is doing by ignoring that rule in order to improve Wikipedia. GiantSnowman 22:16, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Giant Snowman. Noting wrong with using diacritics. My personal opinion is that we should use them, rather than being lazy and not using them. We have the technology... Mjroots (talk) 22:23, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:RETAIN would seem to apply here. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:30, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

If it is the generally used name of the person in question there would be no problem, but such usage must be verifiable. Darwinek is moving articles even when it is not required. It appears to me that his edits are WP:POINT. Why does Wikipedia have WP:DIACRITICS as policy if it cannot be referred to when controversial edits are being made? It clearly states that the use of modified letters should follow the general usage as shown in English reliable sources. If Darwinek was to provide reliable English sources to verify that such spelling is generally used for the person, then I would not have raised this as an issue. Dolovis (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Darwinek is just correcting the names into their correct spelling in their native language, something that has been allways donne for all non-English speaking countries biographies. There are only some few exceptions when the article is not named as the correct name of the person in question is (Exemple: Preki) but those are exceptions, and it has been positive for WP to have dedicated editors like Darwinek that go around correcting the spelling of the foreign biographies. FkpCascais (talk) 22:44, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

This is the English-language Wikipedia, not the multiple-language Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 23:08, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, I can´t find anything regarding Czech names (which is the case here) but there is a list of cases where there is a set of transliteration rules of namings from other languages, and many of them use diacritics without a problem. See for exemple other Slavic languages (from same family as Czech) here (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic)) and most of them are transliterated into latin alphabet using diacritics, instead to an English latin alphabet. FkpCascais (talk) 23:20, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic), "If a name or word has a conventional English spelling, that is used." All of the hundreds of renamed articles have a conventional English spelling. Lets follow the established policy and only use diacritics when required. Dolovis (talk) 00:15, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:DIACRITICS - "the use of modified letters (such as accents or other diacritics) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged." What actually is the issue here? GiantSnowman 00:41, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:Diacritics also says, "Beware of over-dramatising these issues". I think that is exactly what has happened here. LadyofShalott 00:41, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

So if an editor were to "correct" hundreds of articles to their English generally used spelling, then that would be a none issue? And if another user were to suggest that such renaming was controversial he would be shut-down as "over-dramatising the issue? Dolovis (talk) 03:07, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I beleave LadyofShalott advice has much to do with the fact that both of you are well intentioned, so instead of seeking for admin punishment for the eventual guilties here, this is more a case for a pleasent discussion. However, it is a real discussion that should take place and my only question is if there is some other more convenient place for it to take place, somewhere where other involved editors would notece it and could express their views on this subject as well. Perhaps Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography? However, this is only a sugestion. FkpCascais (talk) 03:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I first encountered this on Karel Capek (or Karel Čapek) - here it is not really an issue of language, but of font. In the case of further eastern slavic languages then yes, using cyrillics would cause a problem. Many of the Czech and Polish names etc. are really no different, Karel Capek and Karel Čapek are both as recognisable as the other, and the EB also uses the name with diacritics.

As for other languages let us consider some: German diactric usage seems interchangeable in BLPs, though we do have the problem that many German place names are transcribed, such as Nuremberg (Nürnberg); French, such as the writers Raymond Léopold Bruckberger, Frédéric Cathala, Raphaël Fejtö, Émile Bernard are among the many French names which use diacritics in the EN wiki.

We have to accept WP:COMMON and WP:RETAIN, or at least unless there is a consensus for change. I appreciate that the U.S., Australian and N.Z. opinion may be different (as with other English speakers), but as part of Europe we in the UK are perhaps more tolerant of such usage.

Most importantly though, is the fact that editors will probably not have those fonts on their systems. This would be a major problem for them to retain consistency.

I think that only titles that are the same letters in the English common usage and sourced from the three mentioned encyclopaedias should be allowed to be changed, and only after consensus if it is less than 50:50 +/- 5 in common usage - I accept Čapek as he is a special case re RUR and meets all my criteria, although I do not think using the diacritics throughout the article are so uncontroversial. It is usually enough, such as the Nuremburg article, to simply list the "correct" usage, and not to use them throughout the article. Chaosdruid (talk) 03:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Part of my concern over the article moves made by User:Darwinek is that most of his moves could not be made if he were not an Admin. This appears to be a misuse of his Admin powers. A "non-special" editor would need to make a move request, and wait for a consensus, before the move may or may not be approved. But with Darwinek's Admin powers he just bulldozes ahead to move hundreds of article as he, in his unilateral and sole unfettered discretion, sees fit. He also appears to not give a hoot about whether or not his article moves are controversial as he has continued, unabated, to rename and move articles on a massive scale even during the period of time that we are discussing this issue here. Dolovis (talk) 04:06, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Are the articles move protected? If they are not, then any editor could indeed move them the same way. The vast majority of articles do not require an admin to move them. LadyofShalott 04:48, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

He is generally moving the articles over pre-existing redirects (a violation of WP:DONTFIXIT?), which is not a move that can be made without Admin powers. Dolovis (talk) 05:06, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Any user can move an article over an ordinary redirect. If the redirect has been edited, then they need to request that the redirect be deleted under CSD G6. There's no misuse of admin powers here. --Carnildo (talk) 07:21, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I guess the question for me is whether it is beneficial to move these articles at all. It's been noted that the guideline neither favours nor disfavours a format, so a mass move like this does smack of one individual pushing their viewpoint around something where I do not believe there is consensus for one format over the other. I think the moves were good faith, but were also unnecessary. And to admit my bias, I am in the camp that opposes diacritics in most cases. Resolute 04:30, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed: we are the English-language Wikipedia, and English does not use diacritics. Words that are borrowed from other languages and are taken into English lose their diacritics if the have them (for instance, "naive"). If they retain their diacritics, they're recognized as foreign terms. If a person or thing has a common English name, such as Karel Capek, we use that name. To mass-move articles that have been existing happily without diacritics without discussion is wrong, and if admin powers were used to do so, that is an abuse. I hope that the move has stopped, at least, while this discussion is going on. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

That spelling of "naive" is a prime example of what I meant earlier. The correct spelling is "naïve" (the "i" is in both syllables - nai-ive). Other words frequently misspelled include hôtel and depôt. Mjroots (talk) 05:55, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, you are mistaken, English does not have such marks, and "naive" has been taken into English, losing the mark. To use it as naïve, one would have to mark it as a foreigh word, which is generally done with italics. Such usage was justified at one time, but now that the word has been assimilated into English, to use it in this manner is pedantic. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:45, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

While your points about assimiliation of words into English are true, I don't see how they apply. It looks like that many (if not most) of the moves involve people that do not have common English names. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 08:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Not a single move, but hundreds of them, and yes they are on-going - even during this discussion. Dolovis (talk) 05:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it looks as if the moves continued for 2 1/2 hours after your notification of the AN/I discussion. That's very bad form. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps there should be a 'freeze' on the moving of those bio articles-in-question, until this is settled. GoodDay (talk) 05:17, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I have placed a comment to that effect on Darwinek's talk page. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:42, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

First of all, User:Dolovis should be grateful somebody actually took his time to correct his creations, which were all poorly referenced, often without basic categories, information (like birth date) and even without {{DEFAULTSORT:}}. Some of these articles also mistakenly presented nationality of some hockey players. Slovaks were labelled as Czechs, Czechs as Slovaks, Slovaks as Canadians etc. All of these articles had wrong names. That user, who created them, should be grateful a native Wikipedian came across and helped fix/improve the basic issues - categories, birth information, interwikis, {{DEFAULTSORT:}} and yes, correct Czech/Slovak names.

Second of all, it is absolutely atrocious how still, in 2011, some mostly North American users continue to ignore that English Wikipedia is not "English", but multi-national. It is atrocious how they did not notice that use of diacritics on EN Wiki is a common use, which can be seen by non-problematic use in tens of thousands articles here. The fact that the current use is not represented properly in written rules does not change anything. Czech, Slovak, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Hungarian, Romanian, Turkish, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Bosnian, Spanish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish and much more names are rendered here in their correct, original form. De-diacriticized redirect should also follow and in vast majority of cases does. I myself are creating these redirects coming across some articles, so other users could access them more easily. Argument that "most users couldn't write these characters" doesn't hold water. There are various national WikiProjects and many native Wikipedians from all countries who can help. Also, if somebody did not notice yet, the text editor offers an extended list of special characters. - Darwinek (talk) 11:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I would point out that "WP:DIACRITICS" is a very poor statement of Wikipedia's actual practice - inspection of actual practice and of past discussions reveals quite clearly that we do use diacritics, and wish to continue doing so, in most cases even if a majority of English sources happens not to use them (unless English usage is particularly strong, as with Zurich, or e.g. the subjeDarwinekct is a naturalized Brit/American). The reason WP:DIACRITICS is worded as it is is that a few people with an aversion to diacritics revert any attempt to make it describe practice more accurately. In deciding these questions, I suggest we ignore that "guideline" completely and follow actual practice, which in cases like this is most definitely to use the original diacritics.--Kotniski (talk) 12:13, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Also pointing out that despite title of this thread, WP:DIACRITICS is not policy, but a naming convention. As it says, treat with common sense. Mjroots (talk) 12:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• Comment Numerous diacritis are English characters: coöperation, reëducation, über, raison d´être, soupçon, naïve, déjà-vu, jalapeño, crême brulée, papier-mâché, omertà, and many others. ^walk victor falk ^talk 13:51, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
• Reply Comment Victor Falk is mistaken. The Oxford English Dictionary shows that all of the above listed examples are properly spelled without the use any modified letters or diacritics. Dolovis (talk) 14:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

As a veteran of the old Dio debates from WP:HOCKEY, I recommend that both sides of this argument 'restrain' from claiming their version of spellings are 'correct'. Such a claim only agravates the other side & heats up disputes. GoodDay (talk) 15:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• Note: to all those who say that "English doesn't use diacritics" - may I point out such people as Phylicia Rashād, Zoë Wanamaker, Chloë Sevigny - especially relevant as they are all names... GiantSnowman 15:14, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Whether or not written-English uses diacritics is not relevant to this ANI. This discussion is about the massive article moves being made by Darwinek, who has been abusing his Admin powers to POV-push is concept of "correct" names for hundreds of biographical articles. Dolovis (talk) 15:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Well no, it is relevant. Your very first post opened with "User:Darwinek has been persistently using diacritics to rename and move hundreds of biographical articles", so it's obviously an issue for you. Darwinek is not moving pages to 'wrong' titles; he is moving them to 'different' titles. And as stated above, by numerous different editors, he is not abusing any admin powers. It's not POV to move Page A to Title B when that is the correct a reasonable alternative spelling of the name! GiantSnowman 15:57, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Again, I request that 'both sides' refrain from claiming this verson or that version of words/names are correct or wrong. GoodDay (talk) 16:02, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, I've made myself more neutral. GiantSnowman 16:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Darwinek himself identifies the moves he is making (by his edit summary) as the "correct name" in the renaming that he has been, and continues to do[16] as we hold this discussion. By inference he is claiming that the generally used English spelling is wrong. And to take your point, if the pages are being moved to "a reasonable alternative spelling" what is the point of that when a redirect has already been established for such alternative spelling? WP:RETAIN applies and so does WP:DONTFIXIT, the spirit of both has been violated - so yes, Darwinek has expressed this to be a POV issue. Dolovis (talk) 18:25, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

He shouldn't be making such claims. Particulary while this is being resolved. GoodDay (talk) 18:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that Darwinek continuing to claim what he is doing is "correct" while there is an on-going discussion about such moves is not proper behaviour. GiantSnowman 18:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

They are indeed "correct" according to established Wikipedia precedent and practice. We don't need a new debate(well all right, debate maybe, but not a ban on carrying on doing what we currently do) about this issue every time one individual comes along and makes a fuss about it. Dolovis should accept that while his position is perfectly acceptable in terms of correct English, Wikipedians have decided (for good reasons) to do things a different way, which is also perfectly acceptable in terms of correct English, and is felt to make for a better encyclopedia.--Kotniski (talk) 20:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Again, I request that both sides refrain from claiming correctness. As seen at past debates at WP:HOCKEY, such stated claims only stoke the fires. GoodDay (talk) 20:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Claims that only one style of English is correct are unwarranted; but claims that one side is "correctly" following established Wikipedia practice seem perfectly justified. Consensus can change; but one individual's loud objections provide no reason to suppose it is about to.--Kotniski (talk) 20:43, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I really think that if User:Darwinek wants to make a lot of changes that are in direct contradiction to the current consensus at WP:DIACRITIC, then he is definitely very much in the wrong for doing so without first discussing it there and seeking consensus for his desired change in the guidelines. Has he even articulated clearly what change he wants to make to the guidelines? Surely he doesn't think that all articles about international subjects should be in their original letters? That would make searching for Asian people and places more or less impossible for most of our users. To sum up: It appears that he has stopped for now, and that is good. If he were to continue, I'd be happy to block him. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 20:53, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Most of Asian languages do not use Latin alphabet. Anyways, if you would block me, it would constitute a misuse of your admin powers and you would be most probably stripped of your admin rights. Especially when you are well known from past debates as siding with one camp on this issue. - Darwinek (talk) 21:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Wow. I don't remember ever getting involved with a disagreement regarding diacritical markings before, so I'll just say this nice and clearly: making large numbers of page moves is something you do with consensus. If you go back to making page moves in this way, make sure you can provide a link to the conversation where a clear consensus supporting that is established. Editing without consensus is disruptive, and it is something that admins will block for. If you are right, you don't have to be mean. Just establish clearly with other users that this is what will be best for Wikipedia and its readers. If you make another diacritical-related page move without a clear consensus, I will block you from editing Wikipedia. Your threat of my loss of admin powers is not very scary to me, since it isn't likely to happen, but still not very polite or helpful. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:13, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Hang on, you're an admin? I apologize for threatening to unilaterally block you; I didn't look closely at your user page, and just assumed from the page moves that you were a newer user. Now I'm very puzzled about why you'd be making page-moves without consensus especially to titles that will be more difficult to search for, but I won't block you without opening a discussion and getting a clear consensus from other admins. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:26, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Whyever not? When I violated 7RR on Harry Potter 7 part 1 the day after I saw it, I insisted on getting the same block any other editor would have gotten. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:30, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I get that... but I, personally, feel icky about blocking an admin without some specific discussion, except in very obvious cases. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of the correctness of this particular action, I do think that WP:DIACRITICS is in need of some attention. Aside from the fact that it's not really much of a guideline at all (otherwise this discussion would be only half as long), it approaches the matter with too much simplicity. For example, in my second language, ä and ö are not merely letters with diacritics, but distinct letters in their own right that happen to look like letters with diacritics. This is the case to such an extent that ä and ö appear in completely different parts of the dictionary than a and o. In the ASCII/7-bit world, when these characters were not available on most computers, making the distinction was so important that it was preferred to re-use existing punctuation characters for these letters altogether rather than be grossly incorrect and just use a and o. WP:DIACRITICS fails to capture this type of distinction. I realize that this would be more helpful on the guideline's talk page, but I do think it is relevant to this discussion as well. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 21:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it's important to remember that the main purpose of an article title is to help people find the article they are interested in reading, and to make the article readable. Is a title that few people will search for and some people can't view really the best choice? Since this is the English Wikipedia, using the name that English-speakers are most likely to know a subject by seems to make sense, and is consistent with the WP:MOS guidelines for other subjects (like those much-warred-over place names, for example). -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Of course. Regarding the "find" part: that's why we have redirects in Category:Redirects from titles without diacritics. Favonian (talk) 21:46, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I suppose that's where redirects become useful; and in any case, I'm mostly thinking of names where there isn't a common English name (the Karel Capek example has already been hashed out above). I also keep hearing the argument of "what about the readers who can't read these characters?", and I'm genuinely curious to hear what percentage of readers actually fall into that category. In my experience it hasn't been a problem since the mid-'90s, and that's even taking into account the expected technology adoption delay of readers in less-fortunate regions. Maybe a helpful operator can tell us via user-agent analysis how many readers are using OSes that can't at least handle ISO 8859-1. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 21:54, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I need to remmber all that this discussion regarding diacritics is exclusively for people´s names, not any foreign words, things, organisations, or whatever. Orange Suede Sofa made a good point regarding the letters with diacritics not being just the simple version of the same letter, but rather a completely different letter in some cases, or an accent on other. I already had exemples where a letter with diacritics made a disambiguation from another word with same letters but without diacritics. Also, different diacritics (or their abscence) in words may mean completely different things. And obviously they sound different: for instance Capek would sound "Tsapek" and Čapek would sound "Tchapek". Not here, but there are cases where Capek could exist, and I had that case in the past (the disambiguation episode I mentioned) and I´ll bring it into this discussion if I get to find it. However, I have a question that may or not be of interess for this: how names with diacritics written in British, American, Aussy, or any other English-speaking countries passports, ID´s or any other official documents? For exemple, if some Czek guy named Čapek gets American passport, how would his name be written in the same? FkpCascais (talk) 22:28, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little confused about why there is confusion here. I thought that our policy, on pretty much everything, is "follow the sources." In that case, isn't this a simple issue of looking at what the English language sources use, on average, giving preference to those sources that are more "encyclopedic", like other encyclopedias and scholarly papers, over newpspapers, etc.? In other words, if the name regularly used in English language sources has no diacritics, then neither should or article title, and vice versa? These seems to me to parallel the principle we use on geographic names, like how our article is found at Florence, not Firenze. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand you can see mass graves in Goražde, go to Swedish sounas in Malmö or drink beer in České Budějovice, all these exemples of cities. The problem is that this entire question started around sportsman biographies, that pretty much most of them lack encyclopedic sources, and usually are sourced trough sports or information (news) websites. Saying that we should follow the sources can be quite tricky on this because many times even they fail to be consistent in their use, or not, of diacritics for people´s names. FkpCascais (talk) 03:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

"Follow the sources" is a fine policy to live by. We should have it tattooed under our eyelids.

However, the devil is in the detail. Two parties can be quite convinced that they each have the "correct" name when each has a different source in mind. And when dealing with foreign-language subjects, it's common to find that few of the sources are in English. If you're writing an article about a Latvian poet and incredibly all 100 sources were English, no problem. But what if 90 of the sources are Latvian and 10 are English? Should we stick to the English-language minority even though they're more distant from the poet? What about 99:1? Of 100:0? In fact there are plenty of notable subjects out there with zero English-language sources (I've probably written articles on a couple of them) since the GNG rightly makes no language requirements; should we leave these article nameless until it's mentioned in the Anglosphere, or should we commit the cardinal sin of OR by translating the name, or should we just use an accurate name offered by existing sources?

Not long ago I created an article on an organisation with a non-English letter in its name; I choked down my personal feelings on the subject and copied the policy-mandated, non-accented name used by a sole anglophone source, even though the vast majority of sources were local and had an accented name. Shortly afterwards somebody else came along and moved the article to the accurate, diacritical-laden, but non-English spelling. Ho hum. bobrayner (talk) 03:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Not to mention the case when you have a number of English language sources, some using diacritics, some not, for same person name. FkpCascais (talk) 03:37, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If only it were possible to divide the Bio articles into categories, like Poets, Librarians, Politicans etc etc. Each category sources would likely be mostly dios or mostly non-dios - then go from there. However, I'm not certain if this is possible. GoodDay (talk) 03:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

For ice hockey players (as is the situation in this ANI) sources are easy to find. Virtually every professional player will be listed on the following three well-used and reliable hockey stat sites. For example, listing for Tomas Nadasdi (moved by Darwinek to “Tomáš Nádašdi') is found at:

• Tomas Nadasdi career statistics at EliteProspects.com
• Tomas Nadasdi profile at Eurohockey.com
• Tomas Nadasdi career statistics at The Internet Hockey Database

The first two are European sites, the third is American. None of these listings use diacritics for that player. But evenso, Darwinek still “corrected” that player's name to Tomáš Nádašdi. Such a move is not justified by the sources, and that is just one example of what has been repeated in hundreds of BLP article moves. Dolovis (talk) 04:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

In general, if the moves are to names which don't appear in sources, that would be a Very Bad Thing. However, I can't help but notice that there are other sources using "Tomáš Nádašdi" which you did not mention, in which case I would consider any breach of naming policy (ie. that names should be chosen from a certain subset of sources) to be rather less serious than the problem of mass moves without consensus. bobrayner (talk) 05:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The single link to the one non-English site that uses modified letters[17] was placed by Darwinek only after I insisted that he support his moves with English-language reliable sources. His earlier moves were unsourced. Apparently Darwinek was not able to find an English-language source using diacritics for that player, but that did not stop him from making the move. The point I was trying to make by using the above example is that English-language spelling is the generally used form for all of the player's names and that my assertion is supported by reliable English-language sources (for which I listed three sources which will universally cover all such articles). Established policy says that English-language sources are preferred over foreign-language sources. And in the situation of these moves, the generally used form of the names is written without diacritics. The moves are not proper. And done in-mass, without a consensus, and over the objection of another user, and even while this ANI going on, is unjustifiable. Dolovis (talk) 15:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I got into a minor disagreement about this a while back at Talk:Elian_Gonzalez_affair#Name_of_article. My view is still basically what I said there: do what the most careful and high-quality English-language sources do. Kurt Gödel would look completely wrong without the diaresis, but Karl Friedrich Gauß can be written Gauss with no problems. In general, go with the practices of academic sources over those of newspapers, as they tend to practice more care and precision, partly as a matter of not being on such tight deadlines and partly because they are in the business of being fussy about accuracy (like we should be). In uncertain cases, use the diacritics.
• That said, don't do mass moves or mass anything without consensus. That is disruptive and should result in blocks if not stopped once people start objecting.
• Also, biographical subjects about whom there is little or no English-language sourcing should probably not be article subjects in English Wikipedia. For example, if there's only Latvian-language sourcing, try writing about them in Latvian Wikipedia (lv:) instead of here. lvwiki has only 33k articles and is in much greater need of new articles than enwiki, which is frankly bloated. Remember our goal is to give every child in the world an encyclopedia in his or her own language. Some of us are stuck contributing in English because it's what we know, but those who can edit in Latvian are (IMO) would help the project much more by expanding lvwiki, than by cramming yet more obscure info into enwiki. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 09:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
  • On the contrary: while most of the info on the English language Wikipedia can be found elsewhere as well, the best added value it has is the introduction of subjects which are notable somewhere else, but which didn't have info available in English yet. The goal should be to have the same articles in all language versions of Wikipedia eventually. Utopic, obviously, but not something to be discouraged at all. Fram (talk) 08:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• @FisherQueen - to be honest I think that your comment should be the opposite in reality, an admin should be held to the same standards as any other editor, and maybe even higher standards ("They are expected to observe a high standard of conduct"). What you said in fact shows preferential treatment for admins over editors in general, something which can only be a bad thing. Chaosdruid (talk) 10:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Ongoing harassment

User:Lisnabreeny frequently launches unprovoked personal attacks, is egregiously uncivil and, in his role as my angry victim, tries to raise a fuss. If there's an audience, I can expect to be vilified with no compunctions about lying blatantly for shock value and misinformation. Inference with my ability to participate at Appeal to nature is ongoing, and now, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy, he's become quite belligerent. I've suggested that the article talk page would be more appropriate than the project talk page at this time...

Ridiculed for agreeing with him (and he's started using "they" instead of "he" to refer to me now):

22:51, 26 February 2011 Lisnabreeny

(→The logical priority of meaning to validity: machine elf's prime source is the "rule of thumb")

The edit summary follows from my post to a different user: “The "Machine Elf's abuse" language ends now. WP:NPA”

18:05, 26 February 2011 Lisnabreeny

(→The logical priority of meaning to validity: Machine Elfs Abuse)

Unconcerned with self-contradiction:

04:25, 26 February 2011 Machine Elf 1735

(→The logical priority of meaning to validity: enough already)

Still singing my praises:

22:10, 25 February 2011 Lisnabreeny

(→The logical priority of meaning to validity)

Saving the world, one drama at a time:

18:33, 20 February 2011 Lisnabreeny

(→And/or validity?: stroll on)

I'm the bully...

19:37, 18 February 2011 Lisnabreeny

(→Refactor)

Wouldn't let him rearrange the talk page history:

21:17, 17 February 2011 Lisnabreeny

(→And/or validity?: seeking arbitration)

Soon learned I was in some kind of ideological dispute:

02:58, 13 February 2011 Lisnabreeny

(→Advice on a dispute)

Advice unwelcome:

16:20, 12 February 2011 Lisnabreeny

(→Post Review Discussion: rply Machine Elfs Advice)

Thank you.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 23:30, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't be surprised if user complaining have been doing some winding up here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.102.254.209 (talk) 00:12, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

NB. I realised very recently i did not know Machine Elfs gender so I corrected my use of personal pronouns, of course this was not meant or expected to offend.

I am relieved that the situation will be reviewed. I have been dismissed, had my input ignored and misrepresented, been accused of dishonesty and threatened too often by this abusive bully. He can not work with the other very patient and mature editor of the "appeal to nature" article either. All my dealings with this editor have been in discussion of the appeal to nature article and my talk page, and recently the WikiProject Philosophy talk. An efficient reading of these pages (far too much of which is spent in conflict with machine Elf) can hopefuly establish where the problem lies. Let me know if i should provide specific links. Thankyou. Lisnabreeny (talk) 00:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Please provide specific diffs.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 01:17, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

My account is this: the appeal to nature article was in a terrible unphilosophical state, effectively 'baiting' nature lovers of any kind. I had seen several discussions spoiled by reference to it and came to wikipedia to get it reviewed, being already registered for making minor technical corrections to a few articles previously. I put tags on "appeal to nature" and a note in the discussion page, i worked with another editor improving the introduction to Nature (philosophy) and tried to NPOV some statements in Naturalistic Fallacy, for about week. No discussion appeared in "appeal to nature:talk" so i put a tag on it for deletion. There were no replies to deletions tag, so after a week it was redirected to a section in Naturalistic Fallacy by a helpful editor. Then an unregistered editor, reverted to the old 'fallacy' article again, and reverted the few changes I made to Naturalistic fallacy and shortly disappeared. So i put the article up for deletion again with a proper discussion, and set about composing my case in the discussion. I am a relatively inexperienced wikipedian so i was feeling my way around, and facing a void of uncomprehension in other any other editors as to what was wrong with the a.t.n article at that time. I was occasionaly incredulous its errors were not apparent. I was pleading for editors with experience in philosophy. iirc my first contact with Machine Elf was when he restored the unregistered editors wording in the naturalistic fallacy article, removing "or may not" from "may or may not" (be invalid) from a scentence, i was too busy with the review at this time and regarded this as petty so i ignored it. (I had already referenced my wording in the article's talk page and the reasoning is tight).

Machine Elf voted 'keep' in the deletion review, and supported the claim that appeals to nature are fallacious, he introduced an encyclopedic reference to the article, which was missapplied but he claimed with it in the deletion review that my claim the article was poorly referenced was innaccurate. Here is what M.E. did to the article during the review. [18]

I got one of my first instructions/chastisments from M.E. in the deletion review that i "must" use strikeouts and not change anything i had written. [19] (its under a couple of other comments here) I had not made any significant changes, he made it sound as though i had. I did have a problem editing early on without using preview enough so i was taking multiple edits and didnt realise the bloat i was causing in history. This would have been helpful to point out. Even at this early stage M.E. seemed to be overly authoritive and quite patronising, especially considering he was editing that "appeal to nature" was some kind of fallacy at that stage, on the strength of obviously POV and private sources.

Just after the deletion review closed, with speedy keep because i agreed to let user:Walkinxyz try to improve it, i attempted equality with Machine Elf writing >"The thing is there are two sides here, of the light understanding of nature and its appeal in philosophy. And this article has been one sided, and quite confused by that. Machine Elf, i think we both have everything to learn with this concept, but lets not pretend the outcome is failed or given without need for investigation, like many popular sources do. Lisnabreeny (talk) 02:16, 11 February 2011 (UTC) " Here was his reply >. [20] (I do not know what M.E. means with 'comments about other editors' there.) I found the reply literally wounding. I struck out my response shortly after, just to let it go, with an edit note saying i was "taking it on board", considering that Machine Elf was maybe sore from being told by Walkinxyz, that the concept is not in fact fallacy, which is what he had been arguing and working to substantiate.

I had been doing alot of reading and writting for the deletion review and discussion as was often tired with it all. I put up each of the examples of fallacious appeals to nature stated in the article for discussion, because i wanted to start removing them and wanted to discuss objections first, M.E.s involvement was purely dismissive and obstructive, putting my section into extended content, striking out and dissmissing parts. It can be seen to be explained at the start of the section still: [21]

Around this time I performed a minor refactor to the discussion page here: [22] In a single refactoring edit i moved a single chunk of text to fit timeline, consolidated 3 short sections into one, rephrased one section heading which i had just clumsily named, and added a couple of timeline notes. This may have been overly complex and not properly performed. What M.E. proceeded to make of it was terrible. It is played out in my talk page and ends up with him accusing me of telling lies. He seemingly cant read diffs well, i can, i do it at work with complex code. I know that i did not make the errors he claims (deletion and duplication) He made a mess which took work to tidy up, and insisted in having his way.

I took a short wikibreak to let things calm, (somewhere before or during the refactoring mess i think). When i returned things were calmer, but i was not impressed at how M.E. had responded to the concessions i left with, i felt he never made any consessions, and while discussing some references, i surprised him and myself with what might be described as an outburst, but i stand by all of it: [23]

This is around the time he starts accusing me of lying, there and in my talk page.

During any discussion with or about M.E. following this time, i am offended and amazed that he thinks he can call me liar and continue to instruct and obstruct.

So here is another couple of hours of my life spent bothered with this editor who is a law unto himself. It will be a relief to finish with, an experience i do not wish to repeat. Regard his edit summaries too, constantly laying down the law, not just to inexperienced editors like me.

I apologise for the racket caused by this conflict, had i the experience to know how to resolve it sooner i would have. Lisnabreeny (talk) 03:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Also to my defense, i think it relevant to point out in case it is missied, that Machine Elf has also enflamed user:Walkinxyz who complains here Alleged_consensus in WikiProject Philosophy: ".....If you can't get your way, you kick sand in the face of whoever is arguing with you.....". Machine Elf has riddled Walkinxyzs comment with single line responses, making it difficult to follow, despite having complained before for posting a single comment inside his comment. Lisnabreeny (talk) 16:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Who's defense? Alleged consensus (renamed)

—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 05:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

(I mentioned in my own defense, evidence of conflict with another editor) Lisnabreeny (talk) 17:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Fine then, together in WikiProject Philosophy threads Alleged consensus (renamed), (originally Machine Elf's abuse), and The logical priority of meaning to validity, you've argued ad hominem ad nauseum, (WP:NPA, WP:DISRUPT), just to avoid citing a source which, at long last, you've rendered moot with your Appeal to nature edits yesterday. Just keep it down to a dull–roar without the reverse "wikibully" nonsense.

You might be surprised to hear that I just–so–happen to be a nature–worshiping pagan who doesn't just think nature's good, it's grrreat! So with a little good faith for (IMO) WP:NPOV edits, I think you'll find I'm hardly an enemy.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 05:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Protection policy#Admins editing through full protection: proposed addition

Would an admin close and summarize Wikipedia talk:Protection policy#Admins editing through full protection: proposed addition (initiated 8 January 2011)? This discussion was listed at WP:CENT and was archived a few weeks ago by the RfC bot. Cunard (talk) 23:58, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Somewhat off topic. I think we need to get rid of that ugly-ass pink background shown when an admin edits a protected article. I know why it's there but it hurts my eyes :(. A better choice might be a light gray. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Red for danger. Having that colour on fully protected pages is a reminder that the article is fully protected. Jarring as it may be, it should stay. Mjroots (talk) 05:45, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Timestamp so this will not be archived. Cunard (talk) 05:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Timestamp so this will not be archived. Cunard (talk) 06:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Sol Goldstone and User:Mbz1

Hi all. I'm posting this here for more eyes on a somewhat long-term issue. Tonight, RussianLoveBoat (talk · contribs) made an edit here (now suppressed) which linked to an off-wiki image containing both the RL name of User:Mbz1 along with messages alleged to be obtained from her gmail account. This was reported to Oversight by another editor (ticket:2011022710001736, oversight queue) and I ran the case. On checking the clear SPA account, I discovered that the account was hiding behind a South-African proxy, now blocked. (Un-)fortunately, the proxy wasn't as anonymizing as was thought and the underlying IP was traced back to Sol Goldstone (talk · contribs). I'm calling that  Confirmed, per checkuser. I blocked this 'retired' account for a month but am now bringing it to the attention of the community for discussion and further action, if needed. It was pretty egregious abuse, and on a number of levels. Hiding behind a proxy and a throwaway account to post email allegedly taken from someone's email account is pretty messed up - Alison ^❤ 06:20, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Novel, someone gets blocked for outing? I thought wikipedia didn't care when attempted outing occurred anymore, or at least didn't care enough to issue any blocks over it... _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 06:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Last I checked, WIkipedia cared about abuse of multiple accounts. That work for you? - Alison ^❤ 06:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, if this is indeed confirmed, this should be grounds for an indef. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:17, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, if someone has hacked an account, or are socking...then, by all means, block them. What I do NOT agree with, though, is blocking someone for "outing" the RL name of User:Mbz1...she "outs" it herself. Look at User:Mbz1, and the pictures she has uploaded to commons. Srsly, you cannot name your RL-name as an "author"...and then complain about "outing"!! Cheers, Huldra (talk) 07:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

While I agree with Huldra that it is not hard to find the RL info, there have been long threads on user talk pages about this issue. It is clearly way out of hand. "Last I checked, WIkipedia cared about abuse of multiple accounts. That work for you?" said it pretty well. In addition, the editors are in disputes in the I-P topic area (strict sanctions can be applied) and there was a complete lack of decorum. Some of the long discussions and possible manipulation related to this issue are shocking. I cannot see how an indef is not a great answer and do not see how there could be any defense of the behavior unless we are encouraging manipulation in an area currently seen at arbitration enforcement too often.Cptnono (talk) 07:46, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Agrees with Cptnono about indeffing. It continues to amaze me how Wikipedia can tolerate bad behaviour of this kind. Editors get blocked a month or two and then they're back doing the same thing all over again. This is especially true for editors engaged with Israel-Palestine related articles. One strike-and-you're out is the way to go. --Frederico1234 (talk) 08:04, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Given the comments above, I've changed the block of User:Sol Goldstone to an indef. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm broadly in agreement with what you're saying re. the RL name, Huldra; that cat left the bag some time ago. What I do take issue with, though, is the socking and proxy use to post private emails; that was just underhanded and sneaky in the extreme. WP:SOCK more than covers that - Alison ^❤ 07:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• For a slightly deeper peek at how duplicitous and troubling Sol Goldstone's behavior has been here, with the above as background, look at this recent revealing exchange between him and his target, and this discussion on Jimbo's talkpage. This incident has it all -- phishing; illegally posting as the internet provider to obtain a wikipedia editor's password; illegally breaking into, viewing, and distributing their private emails. I can't imagine how many rules have been violated. Let alone laws. This isn't just a normal wiki-issue; these are very severe infractions, that raise questions of serious violations of law.

I would urge one of the sysops here (Alison, perhaps?) to, as Jimbo suggested, "write to Danese Cooper, the CTO, with full details and evidence. [Jimbo would] appreciate seeing that as well, preferably by email, so that if there is any aspect of it that would allow the culprit to cover his or her tracks, we not tip our hand." BTW, do we have a super-duper-permanent block category? If so, I think I have someone I would like to nominate.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:BAN perhaps? N419BH 16:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I would support a ban. This behavior is outrageous, especially the flourishes identified by Epeefleche oops, I meant Cptnono. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 20:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Alison, if policy allows it, please retain any available checkuser data for possible later use by IC3. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 10:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Community ban on Sol Goldstone?

Interpreting Epeefleche's comment about a "super-duper-permanent block" as support for a ban, I'll third his suggestion (Malik has already seconded it). The evidence he and Alison have brought forth is very damning, and so is this thread on PhilKnight's talk. While Mbz1 had already disclosed her real name by the time the RussianLoveBoat issue was raised, it's the thought that counts, and Sol was obviously intent on outing Mbz1. Even one such incident is unacceptable; keeping it up for two whole months is intolerable to the highest degree.

I understand if no admin would unblock Sol after this, and I do hope that's the case – so if there's no reason to go beyond a de facto ban, then so be it. Bear in mind, however, that this is an editor who, for an extended period of time, engaged in malicious harassment/stalking of Mbz1 by hacking her e-mails, falsifying an e-mail to her from ArbCom, making deliberate and egregious attempts to invade her privacy, and using lies and open proxies to cover up his own tracks. I wish Mbz1 the best in all this, and Alison has my utmost thanks for bringing this to ANI's attention.

We've banned for less than this. --Dylan620 ^{(t • c)} 23:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• I'll...fourth?...the call for an application of the banhammer on the basis of the evidence that's been presented here. And I'll add a Facepalm for the fact that some people have so little life they'll do things like this. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• And how! Some things are just beyond the pale, including any one of the actions identified. All combined? Definitely ban-worthy. --Danger (talk) 00:30, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Sol Goldstone notified. --Dylan620 ^{(t • c)} 00:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Endorse. A person who engages in activities like this should not be participating in a collaborative project.   Will Beback  talk  00:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Sol's harassment of Mbz1 and proxy-sneakery are ban-worthy, whether he was the original email hacker or (as he claimed) somebody who got sent the hacked emails. I have sometimes disagreed with Mbz1 but arguing about articles is one thing, what Sol did went way way beyond that. betsythedevine (talk) 01:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Agree. Seal the vault. Dayewalker (talk) 01:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. Dylan interpreted my comment correctly.--Epeefleche (talk) 01:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• I also support and as there are clearly not objections I have added the template banned to the users page and added him to the Wikipedia:List of banned users#S - user S there Sol Goldstein banned . Off2riorob (talk) 01:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Sorry Rob, but even though a ban is a foregone conclusion at this point, two hours just isn't enough time for substantial discussion. 48 hours is preferred instead. --Dylan620 ^{(t • c)} 02:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
    • I think in a case as blatantly egregious as this there's no need to wait for 48 hours to pass. What this person did is flat out illegal. N419BH 02:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
      • I've reverted this closure by Dylan620. Whatever the merits of this proposal, we cannot ban someone in a three hour discussion. WP:BAN is crystal clear, this discussion should remain open at least 24 hours, with 48 being preferable. Also, the language of the policy requires an administrator to close the discussion. Courcelles 06:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. This type of activity simply cannot be tolerated. 28bytes (talk) 06:40, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. "Sol Goldstone"'s actions make it impossible to AGF if he/she ever returns asking for the right to edit. His/her actions have already caused enough damage and harm to WP, its editors, and its readers. -- nsaum75 ^{!Dígame¡‎} 07:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. We can't possibly trust someone who is morally capable of this kind of action. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. There appears to be solid evidence of very serious, and potentially criminal, misconduct here so a ban is fully warranted. Nick-D (talk) 10:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse ban. Editor is unconstructive. TFD (talk) 11:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse - though I try to find reasons to oppose draconian measures, this one seems, if anything, a tad prudent. Collect (talk) 11:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Kitb132's edits to St Helens RLFC

Over the past few weeks, the afore mentioned user (talk) has become increasingly difficult in removing Ricky Tomlinson from the notable fans section. Despite a consensus being reached through the discussion page that the source questioned is reliable, states that the content is valid and that the content should stay, Kitb132 continues to remove Tomlinson from the list. Clearly, this is disruptive, verging on the boundaries of edit warring, so I would appreciate it if blocking steps could be taken on the user. Also, I don't know for sure whether I'm in the right place or not to discuss this, but can semi-protection steps also be taken on the page itself?

The persistent childishness of what the user is doing is getting beyond a joke, so I would be very appreciative if someone could help me out here.

Thanks,

Ymron (talk) 10:30, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the 3RR noticeboard is the better place to park this issue (note: 3rr can apply where there is edit warring that is not technically within the 24 hour limit).--Epeefleche (talk) 11:15, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

They need a warning first; I've given them one. If they continue, blocking would certainly seem appropriate. Semi-protection would not be the right approach if this is a single user who can be prevented from continuing the behavior but can be considered if (vaguely put) addressing the user does not resolve the problem. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:53, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

The contributor has again reverted and is now blocked for 72 hours (a time chosen given that he is a WP:SPA who does not log in daily). I leave it to the editors of the article to restore the content per consensus. If the edit-warring continues, further intervention will be necessary. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:17, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for all your help,

Ymron (talk) 17:14, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Russian IPs vandalizing

Hello, admins. I need help on these following IPs, all of which are trying to put "anime" hoaxes and other misinformation and "connections" to the Philippine cartoon, Super Inggo at ang Super Tropa. I've also noted that users of these addresses (possibly a single person) have also put unsourced information and categories on other unrelated anime articles and several others. Here are the addresses I found so far (he may have used more):

• 92.100.237.11 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.178.61 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.161.170 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.182.39 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.177.214 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.238.160 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.176.43 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.169.199 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.175.99 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.179.158 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.178.40 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.230.74 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.176.43 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 91.122.87.45 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 91.122.89.81 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 91.122.84.59 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

To top this all off, these addresses are based in Russia. So obviously, the vandal surely couldn't provide sources for his edits as the said cartoon (if I'm not mistaken) has not been aired out of the Philippines. The problem however, is he also does some minor valid edits and addition of ANN links. This makes a rangeblock a little touchy (they are under the 92.100.128.0/17 and the 91.122.80.0/20 ranges). But he's becoming a problem as well. So please give action to this in the earliest time as possible. Thanks. - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs 14:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Havew you tired communicating with them? Looking through the edits this is not something I am able to judge on being way way outside my areas of experience - but if he is doing a few good edits that suggests less a vandal as someone misguided. We need to try and open lines of communication :) --Errant ^(chat!) 16:12, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

There are two types of edits I've generally seen from this IP range. The first is adding genres that are very likely to be challenged, give the tendency for some to add anything that resembles that genre, or are redundant to one or more specific sub-genres already listed. The second is adding production studios that either cannot be verified or were studios where some work was outsourced from the actual production studio. —Farix (t | c) 18:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Here are several more addresses. It seems that this vandal is very obsessed on vandalizing on the Makisig Morales article. Again, these are Russian IPs putting misinformation on an article on a Filipino child actor:

• 91.122.94.240 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 92.100.170.165 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 91.122.5.132 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 91.122.10.118 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

It looks like that two of the 91.122.x.x addresses are way outside the 91.122.80.0/20 range. - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs 21:30, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• I have semiprotected the article for a while Alex Bakharev (talk) 23:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

How about the other articles unto which he put the misinformation? Super Inggo At Ang Super Tropa isn't the only article the vandal hit. - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs 03:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

So, any other suggestions on combating the vandal using these addresses? - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs 02:49, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

SirEpicBob / MrArticleWizard et al.

Looks like we got another long-term abuse case. This guy's M.O. is to steal other user's drafts and move them into mainspace as if they were his own, which causes other good faithed users to do mistaken histmerges. He just keeps creating more and more socks, (SPI). One user already had enough and decided to leave Wikipedia in frustration over it. Just recently he even tried to Impersonate another user. I think we need to make users aware somehow that this guy's on the prowl, and to have them report it to an admin immediately if they see someone has moved their article drafts out of their userspace and/or copied their userapges or editnotices. -- œ^™ 17:48, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I've seen some of this guy's work come up at WP:SCV and seen him defending the content as his own. How do we notify users of this problem? Do you know if the attribution issues he's created have been cleaned up? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well I was thinking, since it seems to be mostly drafts that he's swiping maybe we could add a note or something to WP:MADEDRAFT, but I don't know if it's worth it just yet, we'll see if he continues. We've had a couple users in #wikipedia-en-help complain about this too so now that we're aware it's the same guy we can inform them if any more show up to complain. I haven't looked through the contribs of all the socks but the most recent ones from MrArticleWizard have been moved back to their proper place. Clarkson, Ohio still exists with User:Wikiapelli as the creator but (the real) User:Wikipelli from whom it was copied appears to be letting this one slide. -- œ^™ 13:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It would be very easy to correct that, simply by G6ing the earliest edits (since all content is by Wikipelli) or merging. I'll check with him about it at his usertalk. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:07, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, I wasn't aware that there were remedies to the draft theft. I guess I had it in my head that fighting for attribution would be contrary to wp:own. So, not so much 'letting it slide' as assuming "them's the breaks on wikipedia"! In any event, thanks for whatever you can do on this, my first article! :) Wikipelli ^Talk 13:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

It's done. All credit where credit is due. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Extreme WP:CIVIL in Libya Entry

User:Sayerslle has engaged in a pattern of extreme WP:CIVIL in the discussion page for Libya. I itemize these examples: to Dn9ahx “load of rubbish” to A.h. king “sorry this is tedious for you, keeping you from peter pan and his adventures” to Berber1 “all talk, hYpocrite” Beyond his occasional outbursts of this nature, his general participation is non-constructive. When he is not making WP:CIVIL attacks he is posting emotional pleas - with no actual requests for edits - for us to consider the Libyan people being "murdered/butchered/attacked/assaulted" by "Qadaffi/Gadaffi." His pattern of interaction on Wikipedia seems generally polite and lauditory so I think an intervention only of his ability to participate in Libya would be advised. I would be loathe to see him be subject to a more general block. Berber1 (talk) 19:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

While User:Berber1's comments here about User:Sayerslle are generally accurate (I believe the "Peter Pan" comment was intended for me, as it's one of my academic interests), Berber1's own remarks contain numerous instances of incivility as well. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 19:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

You should feel at liberty to file a noticeboard alert about me. This one, however, is about User:Sayerslle. Thank you for your kind assistance in keeping this on-topic. Berber1 (talk) 19:46, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

That's not how it works, I'm afraid; when someone complains about another user at ANI, admins habitually review the edits of both the complainer and the complained-about, in order to help solve the problem fairly. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 19:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

That's certainly fine. I simply note that I am not making an accusation user has been WP:CIVIL-un to me alone. Quite the opposite, really. I'm noting a pattern of incivility toward users other than myself and hope this is reflected upon juristically. Berber1 (talk) 19:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I would agree, after looking at Talk:Libya, that you are being just as uncivil as User:Sayerslle- in fact, it looks to me like you're being considerably ruder. If I were to block User:Sayerslle for incivility, I'd need to block you as well. There is a conflict going on in Libya right now, and you're all spending a lot of time arguing about how the article should look during the conflict. Maybe everyone should remember that, a year from now, which flag should be used in the article will probably be a lot more clear, one way or another. Maybe you should all just choose a compromise that won't make anyone happy for now, and wait for the national conflict to be sorted out more clearly. The side who wins on Wikipedia doesn't actually determine which side wins in Libya. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 19:56, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

"Maybe everyone should remember that, a year from now, which flag should be used in the article will probably be a lot more clear, one way or another." We agree and, regrettably, when we explain this to User:Sayerslle is generally the point at which he erupts into a volcano of emotion. Naturally if you feel it is necessary to block me from Libya I would disagree (I think being aggressive or blunt in tone or style in the face of tediously refiled edit requests is different from a WP:CIVIL violation) but accept it. There overwhelming consensus of talk on Libya supports my position of not changing the flag until a calmer, measured, rational analysis can occur so I have no issue with being blocked provided User:Sayerslle is as well. My primary motivation is to see the Talk page return to a state of tempered civility and if that will accomplish it I accept and encourage that action. Berber1 (talk) 20:12, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

If it makes you feel any better, you're right that the legal flag ought to stay up unless the law changes what the flag is... so relax. When you're right, you don't have to be mean. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 20:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Berber1 seems like an obvious sock of Felixhonecker (talk · contribs). Given this, I've blocked Berber indefinitely. There is a Checkuser request pending which should either validate this block or be grounds for unblocking. Toddst1 (talk) 20:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

The side who wins on Wikipedia doesn't actually determine which side wins in Libya. - another classic line, FisherQueen. As I've recommended before, Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not the UN is a red link . Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:34, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I was arguing two flags should be shown - I still think so! whatever, - the only edit I regret, the 'peter pan' jibe - sprang from anger at being called 'tedious' - when one believes one might be arguing persuasively, even eloquently ! for a point of view, to be straight told to stop being 'tedious' is a jolt, my 'amour propre' demanded revenge - but it doesn't show me in a great light that edit - mean-spirited - and I regret it too because I love literature, and its kind of an anti-literature remark. As for the rest its just arguing and I hate the urge to silence and censor that some people rush towards when there's the slightest incivility. Sayerslle (talk) 20:43, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Until or if Qadafi's government is overthrown, it remains the government, and the flag remains as is. Meanwhile, if Berber is a sock of Honecker, I reckon that's a good sign, as it would mean he is no longer cowering in fear of the FBI, the CIA, or door-to-door salesmen. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:49, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Here,[24] and on his talk page,[25] Felix appears to be promising to create a lot more socks. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

This - "will likely be getting a lot of users from this geolocation in the coming days and weeks as it is to the Libyan community in the U.S. as Miami is to the Cuban community" - means many users will be editing the Libya entry from the same geographic area due to the large number of Libyans living in that area almost to the exclusion of any other area in the United States. That should be absolutely apparent in my wording and phrasing. Please make the choice not lobby distrust of me on various Noticeboards without first informing me as required. I deserve, and am entitled to, the opportunity to provide clarification of accusations when they are levied against me. It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to track the various places across WP you are sewing assorted accusations against me. While you are entitled to do that, I simply request you notify me of where they are being placed so I have the opportunity to defend myself. Thank you. Felixhonecker (talk) 04:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps he is just trying to spread as widely and quickly as did "Ice Nine", invented by his namesake in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

And now user:Sayerslle [26] has accused me of lying when I have simply tried to follow policy. Dbrodbeck (talk) 13:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:DTTR stops my initial instinct, but I think that comment needs to have something done about it, especially since it was later repeated. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 17:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I object to blocking, or in any other way, penalizing user:Sayerslle. People need to stop looking for ways to rally opinion against editors so as to inflame the impact of minor transgressions just to get them blocked. I've had my run-ins with user:Sayerslle, however, if he gets blocked I'm quitting. (not really, that's hyperbole, but it's the thought that counts in any case) Felixhonecker (talk) 04:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Removal of NPOV dispute tag before dispute is resolved

The NPOV dispute tag says that it should not be removed until the NPOV dispute is resolved. At Lyndon LaRouche, SlimVirgin has removed the tag twice today (diff,diff), despite the fact that the majority of those commenting on the talk page have agreed that there is a neutrality problem. She has also referred to those who disagree with her, and specifically to myself, as "LaRouche accounts,"(diff) which is an ad hominem that is specifically discouraged at WP:NPA#What is considered to be a personal attack?. I think that SlimVirgin has also made numerous constructive and helpful edits and comments to the article, but this flare-up is something of a set-back. Delia Peabody (talk) 22:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Note. Delia Peabody has been blocked as a sock puppet of banned user Herschelkrustofsky.   Will Beback  talk  02:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The majority commenting have not said the article is not neutral. Delia Peabody (talk · contribs) is the latest in a long line of LaRouche accounts since 2004 who have repeatedly added the NPOV tag, then tried to use it as a bargaining chip. If an established editor clearly unrelated to LaRouche were to add the tag after trying and failing to resolve a specific issue on talk, then of course it would be respected. See Wikipedia:NPOV dispute: "Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag. Tags should be added as a last resort." SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 22:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not the editor who originally added the tag, but I have gone over the article carefully and made very specific observations on the talk page about problems with neutrality, as have others. I believe the message on the tag about not removing it is clear, and I don't believe that the tag was added frivolously. It looks like the dispute has been going on for about a month, and the participants are not predominantly newbies. I also think that the branding of editors who disagree with SlimVirgin as "LaRouche accounts" is a tactic that should be discouraged. Delia Peabody (talk) 22:57, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

And am I also a LaRouche account? John lilburne (talk) 23:58, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

My simple take on this is that the article has been 'owned' by 2 people for about 5 or 6 years, that they have battled through various notice boards, and banning processes throughout that time (the latest being in the last few weeks), and both argue that the article in question is neutral. Yet when I asked whether they have ever allowed anything positive to be said about the subject of the article the response I got was that in one instance they ameliorated the term 'savage'. John lilburne (talk) 23:58, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

To be frank I don't care about arguing the toss over specific instances of phrasing in this article. I just want to say that if this article is an example of a NPOV by two experienced editors working on it for several years, then heaven help the rest, because a system that after 6 years ends up with this is severely broken. John lilburne (talk) 23:58, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

John, you've made 58 edits to articles, and you made clear on the talk page that you hadn't read the LaRouche source material, so with respect how would you know whether the article is neutral? Neutrality involves presenting a balanced account of the sources, and that is what the article does. If anything, it is slanted in LaRouche's favour.

The issue is simple. People who work for Lyndon LaRouche, whether as employees or volunteers, have a strong conflict of interest, and shouldn't be editing the article about him. That ignores the rampant sockpuppetry; it ignores the offwiki attacks; and it ignores that the LaRouche position is a tiny-minority view. The COI argument is strong enough on its own. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 00:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

For 'a tiny-minority view' there is an awful lot about it on WP, in fact there seems to be more here than on Jimmy Carter. and apparently it spreads off into other areas too, a similar sized article on the 'movement' too. One might say that it borders on an obsession. John lilburne (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If you are claiming that any one that wants to make a judgement on this article has to have all the sources, and then gone and read all the sources that were rejected over 6 years, and all the various notice boards discussions, then you are placing an impossible burden on anyone wanting to comment on the process. I do not doubt that the sources will say, what you have said they said in the article, I do not suspect that you have misrepresented them. However, some sources have been picked and others reject, and that is where I suspect that bias has crept in. John lilburne (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

That you are unable to point to a single source, used in the article, that isn't critical, is a strong indicator that the article is not neutral. The guy could well be a complete rotter and bounder for all I know, but 100+ picked sources saying so is surely over egging the pudding somewhat. John lilburne (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It reminds me of a book I read last year by Robert Hutchinson on Thomas Cromwell in which there was nothing good to be said, and every action was ascribed to venal motives. A deeply unsatisfying read. John lilburne (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Numerous sources are used for the article, including many written by LaRouche and his associates, and they span the range of views on the subject.   Will Beback  talk  02:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The Thomas Cromwell biography mentioned above also used numerous sources, it still didn't mean that it was in any way balanced. But as you've been working on this article for 5 years, and participated in all the discussion, you'll be able to show us where a source was used in such a way that venal motives aren't being ascribed to this guy and 'his associates'. That is all that is being asked of you, which I think is a reasonable request to make of any neutral editor, who we assume is in command of his sources. You should be able to provide a few examples, after all it has been a week since I first asked. John lilburne (talk) 07:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, you asked for "positive sources" that include "positive" assertions. I provided you with several examples. You denied that running for U.S. President, proposing AIDS-related legislation, or meeting with foreign leaders were positive accomplishments. You also refused to actually read the article. For the record, I'd hope we can all agree that LaRouche's two autobiographies, which is cited extensively, is not what you'd call a "critical" source. In all, the article cites LaRouche movement sources at least 32 times.

However this isn't the right venue to discuss the neutrality of articles.   Will Beback  talk  09:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Wrong I never said I hadn't read the article. I said I didn't 'give a damn about the minutia in the article', which is exactly what I've said above, and elaborated upon here. Also running for political office is NOT, repeat NOT a positive achievement 10,000s of people do that every year, and some do so in order to defer a prosecution, or for other non noble reasons. Running for US president isn't a positive achievement either, its a notable event, just as when the Yippies nominated a pig. Also meeting foreign leaders isn't a positive achievement either, again at best it is a notable event, you need to understand the differences here. Also a proposal of legislation is not a positive achievement in itself. It might be a notable event, though as 100,000s do that every year, one would expect the proposed legislation to be somewhat notable in itself. For you information a positive achievement would be if some one manages to get legislation passed that actually improves the lot of humanity. John lilburne (talk) 10:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If all you can say is that the article is neutral because "we've said he's run for president, and he's met with some foreign bigwig" then no wonder people are questioning the process here. John lilburne (talk) 10:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If you're still concerned about this then let's take it to the WP:NPOVN. The sourcing of a biography doesn't require administrative action.   Will Beback  talk  10:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

That would be dandy if the article as it stands could be rescued by a bit of judicious tweaking. The resistance to acknowledging that anything is wrong by the two main authors makes one think that perhaps the thing has been so poisoned that it needs to be stubbed out and rearchitected. John lilburne (talk) 19:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Issues like this seem to be quite common at WP:NPOVN. A helpful answer as to how editors should treat a "source" can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOVN#is_NPOV_a_factor_when_discussing_sources.3F. The Editor "J.Johnson" says, quote:

"Acceptable" depends on the context. Editors should not simply parrot every "interesting" remark made about their subject: Wikipedia is not a gossip column. It is an encyclopedia, and tries to be a serious, credible encyclopedia. Which means that the material in article should be researched. The first requirement is that everything is "sourced" (traceable back to some source that presumably knows what they are talking about). Hopefully these sources are reliable, and even neutral. But even if Satan himself says 2+2=4, we do not despise the arithmetic "truth" of 2+2=4. In some contexts, sure, you might find good reason to quote or take material from a very non-neutral source. But editors still have a responsibility to produce neutral material ("balanced", see WP:WEIGHT). CNN might have some pertinent material about Ted Williams, but (esp. in this case) it might also be highly biased; an editor would be expected to check a range of sources, and evaluate the entire context. So strictly speaking the specific answer to your question is "no". But more fully the answer is: depends on how you use it. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:47, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to focus the attention on this sentence: "CNN might have some pertinent material about Ted Williams, but (esp. in this case) it might also be highly biased; an editor would be expected to check a range of sources, and evaluate the entire context". Now, we had the case in TALK:Lyndon Larouche a case where WB asserted, that context is not very relevant, quote: "Regarding HK/Angel's flight's assertion of a misused quote, I don't see it. While King did quote a line without giving extensive context, that isn't necessarily an error. He didn't assign any specific meaning to it and readers can interpret it for themselves. It's not an example that proves the book unreliable." My point is, that while the sourcing of a biography may indeed not require "administrative action", it requires careful evalution of the sources, and certainly not a "leave it to the reader" - attitude. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.210.206.223 (talk) 12:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• Comment from uninvolved editor: Are there any sources available that are not critical? If there are not, or if there are only a very few, then writing a "50/50 = neutral" article would be giving undue weight to the non-critical sources. Quoting from that page: Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention overall as the majority view. I'm not saying it is or isn't the case here, but that that should be kept in mind when determining whether or not the page is "neutral". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Of course one wouldn't expect a 1:1 split. But one would expect at least a 1:5, 1:6, 1:7, 1:8, or 1:9 split. Unfortunately the two editor involved can't provide any examples. Even if it was a 1:100 split, you'd think they would remember as it would have been a memorable event. John lilburne (talk) 07:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

@bushranger: Please keep in mind, that, apart from SVs insistance that LaRouche presents a quote "tiny minority view", even though and especially because it seems to be a "minority", that it does deserve the same uncompromised, neutral treatment as any other viewpoint, see Galileo Galilei. It is oftentimes not the amount of existing sources, but the selection of them and out of them, which makes the difference between a biased and a neutral treatment. 81.210.206.223 (talk) 02:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Note: 81.210.206.223 is a single purpose account focused on LaRouche articles.   Will Beback  talk  02:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

For the complete picture it is helpful to look at the revision history http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lyndon_LaRouche&limit=500&action=history of "Lyndon Larouche" which gives a more complete history of the problems involved.81.210.206.223 (talk) 03:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• Comment from uninvolved editor I've stayed out of what has been going on at the LaRouche page, but I have been keeping an eye on the discussions going on there and I must agree that there are definite NPOV issues going on. I think the main issue is that, yes, there are a lot of pro-LaRouche accounts getting involved in the discussion, but SlimVirgin is also extremely anti-LaRouche. It is this sort of clash that is causing issues at the page. Silverseren^C 01:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Slimvirgin isn't pro-LaRouche, but I don't see her engaging in non-neutral editing on this topic either. If there are particular neutrality issues that you notice then you're invited (not that you need an invitation) to raise them on the article's talk page.   Will Beback  talk  02:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Suspicious block

User: Delia Peabody was just blocked, as noted by Will Beback above. Please see this section on Delia's talk page, where there are concerns raised about the lack of evidence being presented when asked. In response to Cla68 asking to be emailed the SPI info, Will responded with "I doubt you'd be satisfied with any amount of evidence" and refused to share the information. I find this to be highly concerning and raise suspicions of mine that Delia is not a sock of Herschelkrustofsky at all, but was instead blocked to remove yet another person in the pro-LaRouche side, as Will Beback is the one other person that has been working with SlimVirgin on the talk page and is, thus, clearly involved in the situation.

Also, as Cla68 pointed out on Delia's talk, why does Will have access to this SPI information in the first place if he is an involved editor? This only heightens my concerns. Silverseren^C 16:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If Cla68 is actually engaging in off-wiki coordination with HK (as was claimed in one of the earlier threads), then sending nonpublic info to Cla68 that could help HK's socks avoid detection would be clearly not be in the encyclopedia's interests. If there's some real doubt about Delia Peabody, IMO it's enough to get an additional opinion from some other checkuser beside the main one handling the report. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 17:30, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Will didn't block Delia; I did. I am not involved in LaRouche content editing; I am involved (on and off) with administrative / protective issues such as page protection and sockpuppet identification and blocking.

My block was done on behavioral evidence, which was extensive and included some very specific patterns I am not going to go in to in public as it would tip HK off to how we find him. It included detailed comparisons with other, recent CU-and-IP-address confirmed HK socks.

Subsequent to my behavioral based block, a CU was performed privately, and the results confirmed that Delia was part of a sockpuppet accounts group which included 2 other editors, who were both then blocked. Unsurprisingly both were editing in LaRouche topics. This is apparently yet another new IP range for them to be using; they have become aware that we ID groups of them that way, but are not yet getting a whole new IP block for each and every account they create.

Another checkuser, Lar, is now following up with the one who made the connections I mention, as Lar is skeptical of some of the evidence. I'm not privy to the details, as I'm not a checkuser. Larry will presumably discuss the results if he disagrees with earlier findings. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 17:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I never stated that Will was the one that blocked the account, I already knew that you did, George. But what I still don't understand is why Will is privy to the specific information that was found out in this CU, when he is a very involved editor in this subject area? Unless he isn't privy to the information and was lying on the talk page. Which is it? Silverseren^C 17:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

After I blocked, the CU did the check and then emailed myself and Will with the information that Delia and the other two accounts were CU confirmed sockpuppets. No email I saw contained protected private information such as IP address or identity info; it was merely a 'the result was that these accounts are sockpuppets'.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, so he wasn't lying, per se, he was just exaggerating the extent of his information. Alright. I still don't understand why he was sent the info. I mean, if you're going to send it to him, you might as well send it to SlimVirgin as well. Silverseren^C 18:18, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Good to hear that, but wouldn't it have been cleaner if it had been done through an SPI so that everybody could have seen that statement? That way, justice could have been seen to be done. We had a similar lengthy discussion here regarding User:Angel's flight, which again one would have thought would have been avoided by an SPI. No-one is suggesting that private information should be made public, and certainly not if that would help the socks to evade detection, but if we have a process for sockpuppet investigation it isn't clear why sockpuppetry blocks are being done without using it. If it's a clear WP:DUCK then fine, but if CU is needed, why not do it formally through SPI? - David Biddulph (talk) 18:30, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Don't look at me, I just work here...

If someone would like to file a SPI request, to get the result confirmed "on the record" that those three accounts are all socks of each other, that's fine by me. I didn't ask for the info, it was sent to me as an interested party as I'd just blocked. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I just think we should have stuff like blocks on the public record whenever they're enacted. Obviously, we shouldn't reveal private information, but we should have a record that this person was blocked for this reason by this person. CU was confirmed, blah, blah, blah. It's when you don't have rightfully public info like this on display that you gets calls about there being a cabal or a conspiracy going on and, rightfully so, for what else are people supposed to think when this info is hidden from them? Silverseren^C 18:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

We have not made a general policy, to date, requiring CUs to go "on the record" with results that supported a block.

I don't oppose doing so. Some actual CUs might object, I don't know. Would be good to ask them.

I think it would help admins who are following up later on other SPI / abuse reports.

Part of the problem is that with private CUs, the checkuser doesn't necessarily know / follow up on what the admin did after being told the results. So they don't know if they would need to "put it on the record". This complicates things.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:05, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Can't we just say that all CUs that are done by a checkuser need to be reported in some sort of public place, much like how SPIs are reported in their area? They aren't in charge of what is done with the information, but having the transparency of the results of CUs would help all sides, I think. Silverseren^C 19:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

There's resistance to that, as a lot of CUs turn up negative results, and posting that they were done would seem like an attack or black mark on the users. There may well be other good reasons not to post them all, including what happens if you find something that opens a seriously big can of worms (like, finding a very senior admin or arbcom member doing something Wrong, etc). Some things need to be reviewed and investigated more in private before actions are taken.

I agree with more openness, it's somewhat delicate though. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I see Delia Peabody (talk · contribs) has been linked to Tidyborg (talk · contribs) and Pachuco cadaver (talk · contribs).

It's worth noting that Tidyborg was created this month to add this template to the LaRouche talk page. The same edit was first made to another LaRouche page in August by 68.164.112.178 (talk · contribs). That IP resolves (see below) to American System Publications in Los Angeles, the LaRouche company Herschelkrustofsky (talk · contribs) works for. This is the same company Leatherstocking (talk · contribs)—a LaRouche account active 2007–2009—was linked to via his logged-out edits [27] [28] as 64.183.125.210 (talk · contribs), which also resolved to American System Publications.

Who-is for 68.164.112.178

network:IP-Network-Block:68.164.112.176 - 68.164.112.183

network:Org-Name:American System Publications

network:Street-Address:3018 Carmel St

network:City:LOS ANGELES

network:State:CA

network:Postal-Code:90065

Who-is for 64.183.125.210

network:IP-Network:64.183.125.208/29

network:IP-Network-Block:64.183.125.208 - 64.183.125.215

network:Organization;I:AMERICAN-SYSTEM-PUB.

It's also worth noting that Leatherstocking denied having any connection to LaRouche before he was found to be editing from a LaRouche office. See for example [29] and [30] Most of the other longer-term accounts have done the same: denied all knowledge and said they were being victimized, until the technical or behavioral evidence became too strong. It's unhelpful to be naive about this. This is serious long-term abuse carried out by one or two long-term employees of LaRouche (staff, not just supporters), and we shouldn't be having to argue each case anew when it's so obvious. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 21:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

That's why i'm saying that we should be more transparent with CUs and blocks for behavioral evidence. If we have a place where such information is announced, such as in a SPI case archive, then we wouldn't have as much arguing because those publically accessible areas can be pointed to. The main reason for most of the controversy here is all of the secrecy and back-room information trading that was not initially put out in the open. If it had been stated clearly in the beginning, this wouldn't have happened. Silverseren^C 21:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "this wouldn't have happened," and most of the behavioral evidence can't be made public, for obvious reasons. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 21:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Let's be frank, shall we? For six years a whole series of unnecessarily long articles pertaining to LaRouche have been owned by two editors, SlimVirgin and Will Beback. They have cleverly cherry-picked sources to conform to their POV, and if you challenge them, they will get all indignant and say, "But we're only using reliable sources!" And if you continue to challenge them, then ipso factor you are pro-LaRouche (and probably not just a supporter, but an employee,) and you have become a "LaRouche account." Then, they have an admin, Georgewilliamherbert, who does bans on request, and they have a checkuser, Jpgordon, who will provide semi-plausible CU data on request. Don't forget: they have orchestrated bans on so many different accounts, from so many different locations and IP ranges, that they can probably connect your IP to at least one of them. So don't mess with their articles! With Warmest regards, Orange claw hammer (talk)

"Let's be Frank"? Who's Frank? Is that the ID of your sockmaster? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

CU time, I suppose? And, no worries, Mr. Orange claw hammer, while i'm not going to say anything about your personal attacks on other editors, have no fear about the LaRouche article. I've read through it and seen that there are definite neutrality issues that I plan to help rectify. Silverseren^C 21:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

HK has used over 100 socks over the past seven year, many before he was first blocked then banned in 2006. Not a single block of a sock account has been overturned due to misidentification. With his various sock accounts, HK has made far more edits to Lyndon LaRouche, over 1200, than any other editor. The accounts typically push the same issues and make the same personal attacks on other editors. Off Wiki, HK continues to attack WP editors on a forum where he is the senior administrator. The person is clearly devoted to the topic and obsessed with Wikipedia. It's unfortunate that editors in good standing offer him support.   Will Beback  talk  21:55, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not offering him support. The LaRouche article is clearly negatively biased. Anyone can see that just from a passing read through. I'm hoping to help fix that by the application of reliable sources that can help make the information more neutral and encyclopedic. If you think improving the article is offering HK support, then I guess we have different opinions on how to edit Wikipedia. Silverseren^C 21:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll challenge you to find some. My journalist contact in the US, who says he is heavily biased against LaRouche, informs me that media interest in LaRouche was 30 years ago; that he barely gets a passing mention these days; and that it would be a major surprise if anyone could find any media coverage that wasn't biased; there certainly won't be any recent reliable reportage, unless someone had very specific reasons to investigate claims. IMO the bias in this article is that it is too long and gives greater prominence to the subject than is actually required. Also that it has been over egged and polished to give the impression that this is something relevant for today. Given the obsession evidenced in these articles and discussion one wonders whether or not a LaRouchite eloped with someone's daughter/son wife/husband. John lilburne (talk) 22:23, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

(SPI filed on Orange claw hammer, though it's rather glaringly obvious who it is)

The insidious problem is that an active sockpuppet tends to eventually drive off even their content allies, leaving only the enforcement-oriented admins to keep battling it out as it were. This is not a desirable state of affairs.

As I have said, I'm not editing the content on the articles themselves, as I am tangled up on the admin side rather much. However, I strongly encourage anyone who has a well established WP editing career (i.e., is clearly NOT yet another sockpuppet run by the LaRouche organization) to feel free to start contributing on the article and improve it. We need the help.

It's a little sensitive - Please don't help the socks out, as Will pointed out in a somewhat oversensitive way IMHO. But legitimate interest in neutrality and good article content from established editors in good standing? Much appreciated, personally, and hopefully by all.

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:05, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Silverseren, with respect, you're not in a position to make that judgment until you're familiar with the source material. The LaRouche article, including the lead, significantly understates both the range and depth of the criticism of him—and the problematic issues attributed to him (which he often doesn't see as criticism, because he stands by them)—in high-quality reliable sources from the 1970s until the present day.

If you do want to help out, I've posted links to the New York Times and Washington Post archives about him on the talk page, which will get you started. See here. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 22:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

In his day, Lyndon Larouche got a lot of publicity and was widely regarded as a looney. But that was then. Since no one really give's a rat's donkey about Larouche anymore, maybe we should stop fighting it and let the guy have his way with the article. Only be sure and post a disclaimer that the article is an experiment, and that other editors may wish to write a separate, non-fiction version. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:14, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Correct. In his day he ruffled a number of feathers within the political establishments, and for one reason or another he became the hate figure de jour (and for some the hate figure de millénaire), he provoked passions and you were either for him or against him. There are no unbiased sources to find as none were ever written, and only those that are still fighting the 1970s and 1980s care about any of it today. In the UK the nearest we have would be Arthur Scargill. John lilburne (talk) 00:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

American System Publications

I was just wondering, has this organization been banned from editing Wikipedia? It appears that at least part of the justification for blocking some accounts as socks is because they edited from this organization. I'm told, however, that between 100 and 200 people staff that organization and have access to the Internet. Cla68 (talk) 01:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Who told you that?   Will Beback  talk  02:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's a picture of it. Now, is anyone who edits from this facility who tries to add neutral or positive material to a LaRouche article and suggests using a LaRouche-published publication as a source going be blocked on sight? Cla68 (talk) 04:49, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Again, who told you how many people work at ASP? Would it be incorrect to guess that you've discussed this with HK, and that it's he who gave you this information?   Will Beback  talk  06:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Will, Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. You're really crossing the line to suggest some one Cla86 is in communication with HK The Resident Anthropologist (Talk | contribs) 06:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

If you think it would be inappropriate for Cla68, or an admin like Lar, to be communicating with HK then you'll be shocked to read WikipediaReview. But we still don't know the source for Cla68's information about the LaRouche movement office in Los Angeles, a place from which a number of abusive socks have been found to be editing. One long term sock, user:Leatherstocking repeatedly and angrily denied any connection or support for the LaRouche movement until we determined that he was editing from the ASP office itself. The general issues is if a banned editor is know to be editing from a fixed IP, and then another account comes along using the same IP and promoting the same POV, it's usual and ordinary to assume that it's the same person.   Will Beback  talk  07:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Will, it sounds as if you are saying that anyone who edits from that organization should be banned as an HK sock. That picture I linked to shows a fairly large facility. Are you saying that HK is the only person working there? Cla68 (talk) 07:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

How do you and SV know that the organization is "tiny?" Cla68 (talk) 07:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

No, the pictured building is not that large. It certainly isn't big enough to fit '100 or 200 people', as a mysterious person told you. In any case, I don't see any further need for administrative action on this issue.   Will Beback  talk  08:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Not a reliable source (but more reliable than a mere picture anyway): this claims "Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $500,000 to $1 million and employs a staff of approximately 1 to 4. ". I have found no reliable info on this company, no news or anything, and the only publication I could find was written by someone with the same surname as the company president... For a company with 100 to 200 people staff, they are extremely low-profile. Fram (talk) 08:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Conflict of interest by an admin

Cundallini (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

SchuminWeb has a long and checkered past with the Portal of Evil and Old Man Murray websites. He should not be involved in nominating nor arguing for their deletion. He posted and was posted about voluminously on both sites. Cundallini (talk) 23:11, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Quack quack. GiantSnowman 23:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Moo? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 23:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Vacas escritoras? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:13, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Where's My Cow? HalfShadow 22:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Why a Duck? Yworo (talk) 23:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

"Who are you people and where's my horse?". - Neutralhomer • Talk • 23:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

No Wife, No Horse, No Moustache. Yworo (talk) 23:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Because I've been seduced by the duck side of the farce. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

What also floats in water? A duck! Magog the Ogre (talk) 04:49, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

How a user with a total of 2 edits would know about someone's "long and checkered past" is hard to say. Cundallini, meanwhile, had a short and checkmated present. Ironically, Cundallini is an old Italian word meaning "Boomerang". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit war at Talk:September 11 attacks

The main combatants, as you can see are user:Vexorg and user:Soxwon. Seeing the edit warring I warned them both about the discretionary sanctions involved and edit warring. [31][32]. Now they are both posting on my talk page defending their actions. As I wrote this Soxwon posted a comment indicating they may take a break from the subject, but input on whether Vexorg's comments should be allowed to stand or if they violate WP:FORUM is still sought. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks like I should probably mention HalfShadow (talk · contribs) as involved user as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:26, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Only in an extremely technical manner; I reverted it once. And the comment really didn't have any place there; it was just him complaining about the article: "Censorship!" this, "Political bias!" that, etcetera... HalfShadow 04:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I admit that the "piss off" was out of order and it won't happen again. However, I stand by my statement that his statement was clearly just a general Truther complaint about some massive conspiracy with no intention of helping. In that case, I felt WP:FORUM applied. I have gotten too wrapped up in that talkpage anyways, and I'll probably take a wikibreak (well, massively downgrade activity) this week. Soxwon (talk) 04:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

For making yet another revert after blanking Beeblebrox's warning, I have blocked Vexorg for 72 hours, and placed him on revert restriction over the 9/11 topic for half a year. I have not sanctioned Soxwon, but someone else may choose to do so. Courcelles 04:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Given that he is lucky not be blocked as well after all those reverts and his own admission of already being well aware of the sanctions, I think an identical restriction is in order. 1RR for six months, I believe it was? Please understand Sox, edit warring is always the wrong thing to do. Even if a clear, overwhelming consensus emerges that this content did not belong on that talk page, it was still not acceptable to revert so many times. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's not my business what you may decide to do in the case of Soxwon, but in his defense, it's not like he was actually reverting a legitimate post, it was just some guy complaining, which isn't what talk pages are for. Isn't there some sort of loophole for that sort of thing? HalfShadow 04:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is 1RR for six months that I put Vexorg on. I didn't sanction Soxwon because he didn't continue this trainwreck after a formal notification of the sanctions was delivered, given the "despite being warned" clause of the Arb decision. I don't, and didn't mean to sound as if I did, endorse the way Soxwon handled this situation, if anyone wants to sanction him for his part in this mess, you won't get an objection from me. Courcelles 04:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

HalfShadow, no there is absolutely not a loophole that allows edit warring anywhere on Wikipedia except in cases of blatant vandalism, which nobody has even claimed this was. I would like to see some input from uninvolved users on the appropriateness of the remarks and if they were germane to the talk page on which they were posted, but it doesn't matter as regards the edit warring. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Beeblebrox, the remarks in question do not follow the guidance of WP:TALK, in my opinion.[33] They lack the prime values of "courtesy and consideration" of talk page communication. I judge them more likely to provoke or offend than to further a discussion leading to an improvement to the article. The same guideline goes on to say that it is appropriate to remove "harmful posts, including personal attacks, trolling and vandalism. This generally does not extend to messages that are merely uncivil; deletions of simple invective are controversial. Posts that may be considered disruptive in various ways are another borderline case and are usually best left as-is or archived." Often such posts are best handled by reminding the editor of the relevant guidance from WP:TALK. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Per Courcelles, I think sanctions for Soxwon are in order, and should be discussed. This recent diff [34] in which he sort of apologizes for his bullying at the 9/11 conspiracy theories article, illustrates his mindset. In my view he sees himself as a crusader against "Truthers", and it his mission to squelch them on Wikipedia. I'd like serious consideration be given to sanctions on 9-11 articles, given that his talk page features a user box that calls the "9-11 Truth Movenment" "bullshit". Such a person openly advertises they are not at all neutral on a given topic. I am unimpressed by his stated intent to "massively downgrade activity" for one week. (Full disclosure: Soxwon and I have a history from a couple years back, but with the exception of my comment earlier this month, I have stayed away from further confrontation. However, this ANI discussion is too "in my face" to ignore.) Jusdafax 06:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

*sigh* And once again, Jusdafax accuses me of bias for being forthcoming with my opinions within my userspace. As previously stated, User:Jusdafax and I have a history. He/She also clearly failed to read the discussion at all, or he/she would have noticed I was arguing in favor of including truther content and I am not trying to "squelch them on Wikipedia." Again Jusdafax, just b/c I'm open and don't act as if I don't have an opinion one way or another doesn't mean I can't be neutral. Also, my downgrade in activity will be the result of real life, so you can rest assured that, save for tonight, I won't be on much this week. Soxwon (talk) 07:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Huh? So what if he thinks what the truthers say is bullshit? It is. Is there such a thing as being biased in favor of sanity? --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 08:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Did I read this right? An editor repeatedly posts material on an article talk page which does not, on its face, have anything to say more than he does not like the article, and proffers nothing to improve the article? Seems to me that "misuse of an article talk page" is involved, and not "edit war." Irrelevant discussions are subject to removal seems applicable. As does Do not use the talk page as a forum or soapbox for discussing the topic. Frankly, too many talk pages are ruled by people who post long screeds saying "this topic does not exist" and the like - which does not actually further the project. Collect (talk) 13:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The two are not mutually exclusive. We generally do not allow edit warring regardless of the underlying reasons for it. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted his comments, because they do not belong. I don't believe this fits within the above edit warring, but I wanted to comment about it here. The comments in question do not belong, do not help the article at all, and is simply soap-boxing. That is enough for me to consider it vandalism. --Tarage (talk) 23:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the remarks do belong, but labeling them as vandalism is just plain wrong. Vandalism is editing done with the clear and obvious intent to damage Wikipedia. Making off topic or useless comments on talk pages is not helpful but there is no clear intent to damage the project. If we have a consensus to remove the comments that's fine, but they were not vandalism by Wikipedia's long-accepted definition, and therefore not exempt from the edit warring policy. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Give me a break..the {{notaforum}} banner has been at the top of that talkpage for a long time...if "editors" are posting there just to promote conspiracy theories or to disrupt true efforts to make the article better, then such posts should be removed on sight as disruptive material...the reason that article has 50 plus archive pages is due to the "truthers" efforts to promote nonsense over facts...and little in those archives has done anything to make the article better....its mostly been the sane telling the truthers to get lost....I mean, this is supposed to be an encyclopedia of knowledge afterall, not some place where conspiracy theorists can try to override the known evidence with fantasy and delusions.--MONGO 00:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I have a different take. If you aren't helping the project, you are either not participating(Which is not vandalism), or you are participating in a way that is not helping the project(Vandalism). His comments were inflammatory, did not cite one source, and did not present any benefit to the article. That's vandalism. --Tarage (talk) 00:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Tarage, I watched (at least part) of this drama unfold and tried to politely warn both Vexorg and Soxwon that they were breaking the 3RR and would likely get smacked for it. Both deleted the Talk page entries I added, which—while a bit dodgy—is their right and I wasn't going to say anything about it 'cause far smarter folks than I are handling the situation.

However, as annoying as are incivility and hateful speech, mischaracterization and abuse of process for the sake of expedience is far worse. I believe your assertion that these two are "vandals" is unfair; the evidence does not support the accusation. The Wikipedia definition of vandalism states, very clearly:

Edit warring over content is not vandalism.

Were it up to me, I'd block edit-warring parties for several weeks but it would be for "lack of judgment" and "unwillingness to follow the rules", NOT "vandalism". — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 02:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

You missunderstand. I don't believe edit warring is vandalism. I am claiming that Vexorg's post was vandalism, and Soxwon was reverting vandalism. I was saying he should not be punished in any way, shape, or form. --Tarage (talk) 08:49, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I see absolutely no reason why user:Soxwon should be blocked or sanctioned at this point. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I made an error

Hello, my name is User:Presidentman. When I put the Wikibreak Enforcer in my script page, I made an error, putting a 5 in instead of a 3. - 74.171.71.173 (talk) 11:26, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I've altered the 5 to 3 for you. Mjroots (talk) 11:55, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Interesting that User:Presidentman and User Talk:Presidentman both say May, not March. - David Biddulph (talk) 15:37, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I meant to change those, but I forgot. - 74.171.71.173 (talk) 20:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Mindbunny - disruptive editing on Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

I’ve been trying to reach agreement with User:Mindbunny on a content dispute in Women's rights in Saudi Arabia and have found Mindbunny to be confrontational, unwilling to discuss meaningfully, as well as issues of WP:OWN and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and generally disruptive editing, underpinned by a POV. In a sense, the content issue is not that significant, but I am concerned enough to bring it here because I believe this user has driven other editors away from this article in order to keep control of it e.g. please see this and especially this posted by another editor. Mindbunny forced this into the article (fairly clearly lacking in NPOV), by edit-warring here here here here here here here and here. An opposing editor posted these on Mindbunny’s talk page, gave up and has not edited the article since. The Mindbunny account has only been in existence since 1 December 2010. There is a strong suspicion that this user is a sock of User:Noloop who supposedly retired last November – another editor has begun an SPI on that (see here, the result is not yet known. Noloop largely created the article as it now is and was under scrutiny for disruptive behaviour (see also this revert of Noloop's Talk page) – that’s covered in the diffs in the SPI report. (Incidently, 5 editors in total have expressed the opnion that Mindbunny is a sock - see SPI diff plus this

On the specific issue of my current content dispute with Mindbunny, the summary is as follows. I introduced this edit at the beginning of Feb., which Mindbunny reverted. I couldn’t get Mindbunny to discuss this meaningfully and regretfully I got into an edit war. I admit I was at fault on this as well but it was out of frustration in Mindbunny’s lack of proper response. I reported it to AN/3RR (here. This was how far I got on the Talk page with the user at the time I reported it. Mindbunny was blocked and then unblocked in part because I was not sanctioned (the reviewing admin thought I was at fault as well.) After this Mindbunny posted a proper response to my edit on Talk, I responded by radically changing my edit here (with Talk comment) on 8 February. Actually it was a completely different edit albeit with te same underlying point. The article was edited by about 10 editors over the next two weeks including one editor who made some minor changes to the text I added and Mindbunny herself who edited other text in the section it was in on 21st February. None (including Mindbunny) removed the text or commented adversely on it. To me (and maybe I’m wrong on this) this indicates consensus acceptance of the text. Then on 22 February (the day after the SPI on Mindbunny began, to which I posted a comment on the 21st) Mindbunny removed the text. After two reverts, and an exchange on the Talk page I proposed that we get a WP:Thirdopinion here, but there has been no response despite asking a second time. I believe that the reason for Mindbunny’s latest reverts is (a) because I supported the SPI (the timing indicates that) and (b) it is contrary to Mindbunny’s strong POV on this subject. The original edit and this edit are completely different texts but with a similar underlying point. This point is valid and would provide the article with some balancing NPOV – it would appear that Mindbunny objects to that. Mindbunny's edits (as with Noloop) are generally along the lines of being overtly hostile to the Saudi treatment of women. Just to be clear, I have absolutely no sympathy with the Saudi position, but there is a question of maintaining NPOV credibility. I've informed Mindbunny of this post. DeCausa (talk) 15:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, on February 7, the user was not blocked (or, rather, the blocking admin quickly reversed their block), because at that point in time (February 7), they had not been given {{uw-3rr}} or some other warning making them aware of that policy. Since that time, Mindbunny's edits have contained very little other than edit warring and some fundamental misunderstandings of policy (eg "undo violation of BRD by Decausa" - what does that even mean?). I support something being done here. --B (talk) 20:13, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It would appear that Mindbunny has adopted a similar approach on Lara Logan - see this. DeCausa (talk) 21:26, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Entertaining to see so much edit-warring by those complaining of edit warring. The link above is a threat by Eriklectic to start edit-warring, complete with a time and date: "I will be reverting the Lara Logan edits by 10am EST tomorrow". This, on a page that has been protected for much of the last week. B, who "supports something being done here" has chosen to do it by reverting my revert on Women's rights in Saudi Arabia. His comments on the Talk page? Nonexistent. His edit summary? Nothing to do with content. That's a great way to diminish edit warring! As for Decausa, the actual sequence was that he plopped an enormous list down into the article, saying he had found it in Saudi Arabia and needed a place to stick it. [[35]]. I undid it with an edit summary, and he immediately reverted my revert, complained that my reasons weren't "proper," and accused me of edit-warring. Smart! Due to confusion caused by sloppy "recent change patrollers", I was blocked twice. Both blocks were undone by the blocking admin on his own initiative. Decausa's description is erroneous in many other ways. This is wrong: " Mindbunny forced this into the article (fairly clearly lacking in NPOV), by edit-warring...." I didn't add that; I undid its removal. There is more nonsense in his account, but it's not worth belaboring. My only other comment is that I will edit war to keep out the details of someone's sexual assault in a BLP that she didn't authorize and that is sourced anonymously. There is no public right to know that Lara Logan was or was not raped that can be bequeathed by anyone by Lara Logan. To date, she hasn't chosen to make that information public and we should respect that.Mindbunny (talk) 02:33, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Saying "I will edit war...", for any reason, is not the way to win friends and influence people. There are lots of things that lots of people would rather not have the public know that are reported and verifiable through reliable sources. Should they be removed from articles just because the person the article is about has neither confirmed or denied them despite the fact that reliable sources state them as fact? Also, a BLP that she didn't authorize - are you referring to the release of the information (which, if the source of the information is anonymous, how do we know they aren't speaking on her direct behalf?), or are you suggesting that the subjects of BLPs must give their consent to their Wikipedia articles? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

We're talking about a recent sexual assault. So, yes, she must give her consent before the details of exactly how she was or wasn't sexually assaulted are declared "encyclopedic" by a bunch of assholes with Wikipedia accounts. Mindbunny (talk) 03:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 04:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Mindbunny, what makes you the enforcer? Why are you deciding for the community rather than letting the community decide for itself?
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 04:02, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I for one, am the enforcer on the issue, as the previous blocking admin (note: I'm not even sure what the whole edit war is about, so I can't be biased on the issue). And that statement was entirely inappropriate. Yeah, I kind of goofed up that block history; the first block was only not deserved because the user wasn't given a proper warning - although later talk on the user's page now gives the impression this may not be the user's only account. The second block was definitely deserved, but I was feeling lenient.

Mindbunny, please stop hitting the revert button and being rude, now, or you'll see yourself blocked again. Magog the Ogre (talk) 04:47, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Exactly why would I be blocked for "hitting the revert button", rather than, oh say, those who are hitting the edit button without consensus? As for civility....If you think you're entitled to know whether somebody was raped, you're an asshole. If you think that detail is encyclopedic when it is reported anonymously, you're truly uncivil. The idea that admins care more about the word "asshole" than compliance with something truly respectful, civil, and humane in the description of a sexual assault is offensive and disgusting. And, exactly why is all this crap being directed at me? Somebody just announced an intent to edit war beginning precisely at 10 AM tomorrow. A reader of this page just went over to Women's rights in Saudi Arabia and reverted my revert--to prevent edit warring. So now you're threatening to block me for editing other pages because I said "asshole" on AN/I? That makes no sense. Mindbunny (talk) 06:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of the reasoning, referring to other editors by that term is uncivil and borders on WP:NPA territory. It has nothing to do with the article or its content, it has to do with how you choose to present your case. (And on the subject of the article and its content, does it strike anybody else as odd that the, presumably positive, statement that the assault was NOT rape is what's being demanded to be removed?) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Suppose I told you that I had been sexually assaulted. Would you ask me "Well, were you raped"? If you heard from someone who heard from someone who probably knew the truth, would you run around announcing that I hadn't been raped, and put it on the Internet? I sure hope not, and if you did do those things, you would be an #*$%. Privacy is privacy. You don't ask such things, and you don't tell them. If they're not volunteered, you live without knowing. It's for the victim to specify, or not. And, the BLP guidelines pretty much say that. Mindbunny (talk) 06:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support blocking for disruptive behavior and incivility. There doesn't seem to be any getting through that he/she is not in charge and we have to work with others.
  ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 06:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support blocking for disruptive behavior and incivility. Despite clear, eminently civil requests from the community, Mindbunny appears intent on being uncivil, and of the mind that that is the only way (s)he will be able to make her point. We don't need that. Even if the substance of MB's issue is one (s)he is correct on. Would also suggest a CU, as this appears a likely second problem.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:02, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

FYI, Account is stale for CU purposes, but the behavioral evidence is very strong. Sailsbystars (talk) 14:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support blocking for disruptive behavior and incivility. I wasn't exactly sure what should happen when I made the original post above, but with the User's responses (which is, by the way, typical of the way the User always behaves and edits) it's difficult to see that he/she will ever learn to behave in a reasonable way. This is particularly so, given the disruptive track record of the user's previous probable account, User:Noloop, who "retired" with the words "I am just fed up with Wikipedia: the cultural bias, the abusive administrators, and a "dispute resolution" process that ultimately has no method other than the popularity contest". DeCausa (talk) 10:10, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey -- Noloop may have a legitimate basis for some of his complaints. Or not. But whether or not MB is the same editor, MB's performance here in this string is sufficient for a block. IMHO.--Epeefleche (talk) 10:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support block User has shown complete inability to assume good faith and thus assumes everyone else is wrong. Incivility and tendentious editing issues as well, on top of violating WP:CLEANSTART. Sailsbystars (talk) 14:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

A block would solve everything. Do it! The best way to teach editors to assume good faith is to block them. The best way to teach them not to edit war is to revert their reverts. Do I assume everybody else is wrong? It seems to me I've spent hours giving reasons and researching Wikipedia policies. I must be hallucinating. Block me! Hallucinating editors can't help but be disruptive. A block would solve that. Do it. Mindbunny (talk) 14:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Kim-Zhang-Hong

Kim-Zhang-Hong (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · logs · block log · arb · rfc · lta · SPI · cuwiki)

This user has been an ongoing problem for several years now, and has shown no sign of "getting it". Per WP:COMPETENCE, I would like to request a topic ban from all religion-related articles at this time, in the hopes that the user can use his time here to reform. The problem with this user's editing has involved repeated incidents of plagiarism, original research, misuse or misunderstanding of how to use sources, tendentious editing, WP:POINT, and POV pushing. This issue was previously raised in 2009 but the problematic editing behavior appears to have continued. Viriditas (talk) 20:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Update: It appears that Kim-Zhang-Hong requested adoption in June 2010, and User:Curtis23 responded with an offer,[36] but there is no evidence adoption ever took place. Curtis23 has not been active since Nov. 2010. Viriditas (talk) 20:19, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Diffs please. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The diffs are easy to provide. What is more important, is that the user has been previously warned about making these edits, acknowledges the problem, but continues to make the same problematic edits months later. This is willful POV pushing, and the user has been at it for years, in many different religion-related articles. For example, the user was POV pushing on Missionary in September 2010, adding OR and using unreliable sources,[37] and engaging in plagiarism.[38] User was warned on their talk page about plagiarism by User:Oda Mari.[39] Response on talk page indicates that user doesn't understand the problem.[40] User:Amatulic steps in to help explain it again.[41] Response by Kim-Zhang-Hong indicates he still doesn't understand.[42][43][44] User returns to the Missionary article and continues adding copyvio.[45] User:Amatulic replies, asking Kim-Zhang-Hong to stop.[46] This was September 2011, however, as one can see from his talk page, Kim-Zhang-Hong has been previously warned about NPOV, OR, and the misuse of sources since 2009. I myself had a protracted discussion with Kim-Zhang-Hong in August 2010, a month before the problem listed above. But, it is still occurring. In February 2011, he was warned again about plagiarism on South Korea[47] by User:Rjanag.[48] Both of Kim's responses indicate that he does not understand the problem.[49] Rjanag has made it clear: If you continue violating copyrights in this way, your account will be blocked until you demonstrate that you understand our policies.[50] I, however, believe we are already at that point, judging by his latest edits to Buddhism.[51][52] He was previously asked in August 2010, many times not to use sources in this way. All attempts at discussing with this user have failed and I respectfully request that he be topic banned from all religion-related articles until he stops POV pushing, plagiarizing, and adding original research, and starts using sources correctly. We also need users to look through his contributions one by one, as I am quite confident we will have to revert quite a number of his edits. Viriditas (talk) 21:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Request input on unblock request

KnowIG (talk · contribs) has been indefblocked for a history of problematic behaviour. He has been trying to get unblocked since. His unblock request have been denied 6 times, for not showing any reason how the problematic behaviour be prevented in the future. I asked him to present a plan so on the unblock list so that we won't be here in the future again. With his permission I'm reproducing my question and his answer here. My query:

Your messages to the unblock mailing list have been received. I am unwilling to unblock you. Obviously you have done a lot of good work, and we are thankful for that. In the mean time, there have also been a lot of trouble. You have proven yourself unable to discuss things in a positive constructive way. Everywhere where there was debate where you were involved, you have turned debate into an argument, and never has there been indication you have been looking for a way to resolve things through consensus. Every dispute you have ever been part of turned sour. It has always been your way, or the highway, going on until you get your way. You were blocked by an administrator for your incapacity to work in a collaborative environment. Three other admins reviewed your block on Wikipedia. All of them agreed that you were too combatitive in disputes to work in a collaborative environment, all while continuing to antagonise our administrative volunteers on site, and on this mailinglist. On this mailinglist, another unblock request of yours has been denied.

Including your original block and my rejection right now, that makes 6 administrators that have come to the same conclusion. Before I am willing to unblock, and although I can't speak for anyone else, I expect many others to agree with me, I would like to see a compelling explanation how you are planning to avoid the same problems you have encountered before. Others aren't going to change, I need to know what you are going to do about it.

I know how this sounds, it sounds like third grade: Think about what you have done, and write an essay about it. That's not what I'm trying to do here. The simple truth is at the moment I don't have any faith in any resolution if there isn't going to be any change on your part, and until I know what you are going to do about it, that will stay the same.

You may do so at any time, and I will consider what you write. For me, this is as much effort as I'm willing to put in to this. For others, this point may be further away, but it is more likely that we're already past that point. As a suggestion, put some genuine thought in it. For me, failing this, the door will be shut. Calling me and the other volunteers on this list out for being bullies/pathetic/illegal/unjust/corrupt/ganging up on you/etc will not likely help you much.

Regards,

Martijn

His response:

Hi all

I want to be unblocked. But there is nothing I have really done which I can specifically appoligise for. All I can say is sorry for being stubbon. I am not the best communicator as in explaining things simplierly. Secondly I have personally been told in a nice way that I am werid as I look at things from a different angle. But I am not going to change that trait because it's a good one. However a lot of the issues have arised when people have put me under stress with their bulldosering tatics. So what I am going to do is to ignore them and answer at my tempo in a way which communicates effectively and means that I don't get pissed off. If they then want to carry on with that's not an answer crap. I will simplerly ignore them and leave them to throw a tantrum in a corner. As theyu have my answer and an explanation. Nothing else needed from then. If they continue then I will tell them to go and ask someone else. And if people still complain then you know that I am not the issue. And that you should look at other issues, and leave me in peace. :)

Looking forward to being unblocked

knowIG

I believe that this is suffient for him to be unblocked with a few extra conditions: If he is getting into trouble, and feels unduely pressured or unable to deal with it, he should not only disengage from discussion about whatever the dispute is about, but also disengage from the subject of the dispute itself. Further he should realise this is a last chance, and that further difficulty, regardless of good intention, should result in another block. The reason I look for further discussion here is that firstly his unblock request has been rejected multiple times, and I don't want to go against consensus, and secondly, that I don't find his request entirely convincing. Sufficient, but not completely convincing, since he still places most of the blame elsewhere, while a good deal of the problem lies with the user himself. I do however see a genuine will to work towards a better Wikipedia, and at least a willingness to put effort in avoiding further trouble. I welcome all further comment. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to say "no" outright at this point, but I will say that I twigged on the same point you did -- it's not his fault, but he'll ignore them while they go throw their temper tantrum. Are you sure that he'll be able to edit productively, given this attitude? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia is a collaborative environment, and he'll stuggle. Yet I believe he could be a net positive. If he can find terms for himself to disengage, and revisit the subject later, and deal with 'tantrum fits' either real or conceived, in a civil, constructive manner, even if it is a few days, or a few weeks later, then there ought to be no problem. Also bear in mind the block is reasonably fresh, and there may still be some frustration mixed in. Sure, it isn't the easiest way to communicate, but it could well be enough. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I've had extensive experience of this editor, when I was an Admin, and I blocked him on at least one occasion. As regards tennis-related articles, it seems he is a knowledgeable editor, but unwilling to accept alternative points of view. His use of the word "bulldosering"(sic), above, makes me think that he is unused to negotiation, or seeking independent counsel. His heart may be in the right place, but his mind is not yet accustomed to dealing with dissent here. I hesitate to propose some sort of mentoring, since I'm not convinced, given his history, that he would either accept or stick to that sort of agreement. I think s/he needs to realise that nobody gets their own way here, however correct they may be (and that applies more so to me), and collaboration is better than combat. I'm not sure how that realisation may be expressed, but neither would I wish to shut him out for ever. Rodhullandemu 23:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• Just stumbled across this. Martijn, FWIW, as the blocking admin, I'm fine with you trying anything you think might be worth trying. --Floquenbeam (talk) 05:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

RevDel and short-term block needed re user:81.174.165.169

Repeated sophomoric vandalism spree inserting derisive sexual commentary re named private persons. Presumably a high school kid ridiculing his classmates, or some such, but he's not stopping and his contributions are utterly worthless. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 20:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Blocked while I was posting this, but RevDel would still be a good idea. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 20:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

RevsDel'd. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 20:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Doug Phillips

I moved Doug Phillips to Doug Phillips (rugby) to create a new article on someone more primary. However after I did that someone noticed that the talk page for Doug Phillips still redirects to Doug Phillips (rugby). I can not find a way to fix this problem. Could you fix it or tell me how I can? Thanks. Jehorn (talk) 21:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Now, wait. You moved a stub article about a rugby player to a disambiguated title to make way for an even smaller stub about a guy who has no notability beyond being the leader of a largely unknown organization, and itself only has a stub article? Are you sure it shouldn't be the other way around, with Doug Phillips having a "did you mean" link to Doug Phillips (religious leader)? --King Öomie 22:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Or even have Doug Phillips be a disambigation page itself? There have to be other notable Doug Phillips out there. At least one might think so. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I did this because the current Doug Phillips is more notable. Just do a google search, bing search or google book search. The rugby player does not show up. Hope that explains it. Jehorn (talk) 00:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Not resolved; what makes the religious Phillips more worthy of a primary title over the rugby Phillips? I think we need a 'Doug Phillips' disambiguation page, and the new article moved to Doug Phillips (religious leader). I don't have time to do it tonight (UK time y'know) but if nobody kicks up a major fuss and/or beats me to it, I'll do all the moves/redirects/link fixes when I find some time tomorrow. GiantSnowman 00:29, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The Doug Phillips article urgently needs improvement to avoid deletion. It has no worthwhile assertion of notability, no content that justifies its existence separate from Vision Forum, and is badly supported by sources associated with the subject (and no independent reliable sources at all). This isn't an acceptable condition for a BLP article, ever. Bing search numbers are not evidence of absolute or comparative notability. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 12:40, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Prodded, definitely no established notability & I wasn't able to find anything usable to expand it. --Errant ^(chat!) 12:49, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Yworo

Hello, just notifying that Yworo is abusing his power through a series of reverts on the Monolith (Space Odyssey) article, with no solid reasons, while applying the WP rules to his own personal point of view.

He's also deleting what I'm adding to the discussion page of the latter article, so please check the modifications history of said page.

Links to concerned pages:

• History to the Monolith article: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Monolith_%28Space_Odyssey%29&action=history
• History to the Monilith discussion page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Monolith_%28Space_Odyssey%29&action=history
• Personal page of the IP I'm using right now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:93.19.187.248
• Personal page of Yworo : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Yworo

That's the first time I have to deal with Yworo, it's not a big issue and I don't have anything against him, but it's a weird enough behavior from an administrator to be notified. Thank you. 93.19.187.248 (talk) 22:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

First off, I'm not an admin. Second, despite being pointed to the relevant guidelines and warned about 3RR, 93.19.187.248 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) has repeatedly reinserted trivia removed from the article on December 31, breaking 3RR in the process. The 3RR report can be found here. The IP has also engaged in several personal attacks, mostly in edit comments, but also on its talk page. Thanks! Yworo (talk) 22:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

IP has now started to inserted the same pointless trivia into 2001: A Space Odyssey (film) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Yworo (talk) 22:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Please refrain from applying rules in a discriminate manner the way you did on the linked article. That's infringing the rules that you keep bringing up to get me out because you don't agree with me. Also please check the context before applying rules blindly, otherwise you only end up modifying articles with a narrow point of view and thus take the risk to erase content that shouldn't be erased. I don't want to bug you, I'm only complaining about your behavior on this particular matter, please think about it. Thanks.

As for what you call "the same pointless trivia", it was there, on both articles, a couple months ago, before it got deleted due to a lack of source. It now has a source, and there's no reason, besides your tastes, to disapear. Else it would have disapeared before it got marked as unsourced. Again, please think about coherence and context. 93.19.187.248 (talk) 23:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I repeatedly pointed you to WP:IPC. First, I don't believe the source is reliable. Second, even if it is reliable, the trivial mention is simply not significant to the subject. Yworo (talk) 23:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

You started by reverting my modifications before pointing anything. And what I added, I actually added it back with a source, since it only got deleted a couple weeks ago due to its lack of source, and not because it shouldn't be there. Also, you deleted things I didn't added that were in-topic too (about a music band IIRC). And you left a line about a video game, while deleting another line (mine) about a video game, with the same kind of sources for both. Isn't that discriminatory and incoherent? 93.19.187.248 (talk) 23:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I see that despite my arguments you keep deleting my modifications in a discriminate manner and without any solid ground, so from now on I won't edit anything until this matter is resolved, either by a higher authority, or by yourself if you can manage to think about your behavior. 93.19.187.248 (talk) 23:07, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It looks to me as if you have both broken 3RR on the monolith article. Take the debate to the talk page, seek further input from other editors if necessary, and for goodness sake stop reverting each other's edits or else you'll both end up blocked. Simples, no?--Korruski^Talk 23:05, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

No, I haven't. Yworo (talk) 23:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

1, 2, 3. No?--Korruski^Talk 23:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Read 3RR. It's the fourth revert that's a violation. The IP made three before being warned, and one after, and should be blocked. Yworo (talk) 23:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

4. Either way, you are edit warring and show no intention of stopping. Indeed, you seem keen to continue on a second article, so I would suggest that you yourself are blocked.--Korruski^Talk 23:13, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Same crap, different article. Reread 3RR, it four reverts in 24 hours on the same article. That insertion makes 5 for the IP, who is clearly intentionlly trying to take the war to another article which I regularly edit and on which the primary editors have made an agreement about the level of citation required for cultural references, see the article talk page. Yworo (talk) 23:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

They are all the same article. Just for a minute, stop telling me to reread 3RR, and listen to me when I tell you that you are, or at least were edit warring.--Korruski^Talk 23:23, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Uh, no, they are two separate articles, Monolith (Space Odyssey) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (film). There's also a separate article on the book. Yworo (talk) 23:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The four reverts in 24 hours that I have linked to are all on the same article. 1, 2, 3 4. In any case, continuing an edit war on a second article is still edit warring, whether 3RR is breached or not.--Korruski^Talk 23:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Uh, number 3 is the removal of an insertion of a hoax which is clearly vandalism. Reverting obvious vandalism is exempt from 3RR. Yworo (talk) 23:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

In addition, a series of edits without any intervening edits by another editor counts as one edit for the purposes of 3RR. Edits 3 & 4 are sequential and count as a single edit. Yworo (talk) 23:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Didn't spot this, sorry about it, I messed up my revert. By the way, it may not be an hoax, but only about the movie, can't remember. But it doesn't matter, my edits was only about the monolith in popular culture. 93.19.187.248 (talk) 23:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If it were in one of the books or movies, it should be mentioned in the text. It was written as if factual. I don't recall any such event in any of the books or films, and it wasn't sourced. Yworo (talk) 23:49, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree, but I didn't add this part. Just check the history. I only added back something about Eve Online that got deleted a couple weeks ago due to its lack of source. I added a source to it to bring it back, on both articles. That's all, really. 93.19.187.248 (talk) 23:53, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Good faith edits are not vandalism. This edit cannot possibly be characterised as 'clearly vandalism' and your attempt to do so suggests that you are simply trying to avoid scrutiny of the fact that you yourself are engaged in an edit war here. --Korruski^Talk 23:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Addition of a hoax is never a good faith edit. From my point of view, you are now starting to harass me. Please back off. Yworo (talk) 23:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It is obviously not a hoax, it is the addition of information in an 'in-world' voice, as though the fictional world was true. That may not be the best way to write it (although is is consistent with some of the rest of the article) but it is clearly not a hoax. I cannot believe that you are characterising my behaviour as harassment, but since I am obviously getting nowhere with this, and have no desire to get dragged into some epic AN/I drama, I'm going off line. No doubt at some point an admin will deign to turn up and sort this all out.--Korruski^Talk 23:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Really, which book or film was it in? I don't recall it being in any. Yworo (talk) 00:07, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

@Korruski I won't edit back anything on these pages now. I hate these situations, each time I find it to be mad and meaningless to be forced to do this for a couple stupid lines on an article, only because someone is editing way too fast and/or blindly. It's a sink of time. Yworo, I have no grief against you, you just acted wrong to me on this. 93.19.187.248 (talk) 23:21, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Guys, I've started a section on the article talk page for y'all to discuss things. I'm pretty revert happy and I still think y'all should stop. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:19, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

And for the other article. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I gave my last opinion on both. Thanks for your interest on that matter. 93.19.187.248 (talk) 23:34, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I have warned Yworo about the multiple issues he's engaged in. Please stop arguing over content here. If you would like to have a civil discussion, take it to the relevant talk page. --Selket ^Talk 00:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This discussion thread is about a content dispute and edit-warring, neither of which is appropriate for ANI. I suggest it be closed and the discussion continue at the talk page, and/or the edit-warring noticeboard. TFD (talk) 11:38, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

FORUM and IDHT problems at Libertarianism and Talk:Libertarianism

User being reported: Darkstar1st (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User:Darkstar1st (notification)has civility problems of using Talk:Libertarianism as a forum; and, in relation to "I didn't hear that" conduct in relation to constantly and periodically revisiting community consensus without presenting new evidence or arguments at Libertarianism and Talk:Libertarianism.

1. Forum: [53]
2. IDHT: [54]

The article community has attempted numerous dispute resolution techniques, including BRD, Talk: discussion, User Talk: discussion, informal mediation, formal mediation attempts, administrator assisted informal mediation, article locking, talk page locking, collapsing FORUM and IDHT sections of text on the talk page, revisiting high quality scholarly sources, and ignoring the behaviour as lying outside of consensus. The behaviour has continued; and disrupts the encyclopaedic project by disrupting the talk page and distracting from article improvement.

I would like community assistance in developing a way forward with an editor who does not adhere to argued consensus, and displays tendentious IDHT behaviour. I am at a loss for a way to avoid article disruption, and would like advice. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Darkstar1st has a bad history of edit-warring and continues to communicate with the banned User:Karmaisking on his talk page. Instead of making a constructive contribution, he chooses to argue obscure positions, wasting the time of other editors. I would recommend a community ban. TFD (talk) 02:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Would you not consider my edition of william belsham as the man who coined the term libertarian a constructive contribution? Darkstar1st (talk) 02:24, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, well if Darkstar1st, who said he was done editing the article, is back, I'll be putting Libertarianism back on my watchlist. Yworo (talk) 02:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This is your sole contribution to the article William Belsham. You added that he coined the term "libertarian" and btw got the referencing wrong. TFD (talk) 02:35, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

you are also wrong, i have made several edits, here are the 2 most recent, unappropriated and advocating reduction to just state protection from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud. Darkstar1st (talk) 02:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you talking about the same article? Here is the article history and you have only a single edit, Darkstar1st. Yworo (talk) 02:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

yrowo i am discussing edits made to the libertarianism article. before i arrived, it was incorrectly attributed. suggesting my numerous edits are not constructive is curious given i am the editor who identified the person who coined the term. my faith is most certainly good concerning the term. Darkstar1st (talk) 02:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Other Stuff, even Other Good Stuff, may exist. Good edits you may make do not change the disruption attendant upon your use of the talk page as a forum, and your failure to abide by argued consensus on the article and in the talk page. It is impossible to weigh contributions against disruption of the encyclopaedic project; and, highly structured and repeated attempts to stop the disruption have not succeeded. That you're not understanding that your conduct is highly problematic to the project is worrying. It makes me seriously consider seconding calls for either an RFC/U or a community ban in the problem topic area as ways forward. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Yup, reading through the talk page, it seems Darkstar1st is back to his/her old soapboxing and treating the talk page like a WP:FORUM. IIRC, Darkstar1st was on the verge of having an WP:RFC/U opened against them and decided to abandon editing the article. It's probably time to reconsider starting that RFC. Yworo (talk) 02:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

First, just as a point of information, as you can see here Belsham was added in Oct 2008 by an anonymous IP and improved later me with a decent reference. Darkstar1st may have re-added him after he fell out after some edit war.

As I wrote at the talk page after playing catch up at talk: I wasn't ready to go there (ANI), but can understand why others might be. WP:Soapbox about people's opinions and questions regarding general views, and vague references to some problem in the text that we would be forced to have to figure out for ourselves have been the problem. Maybe Darksnot answers of six new threads with 10 word descriptions and a lot of opinions and "questions" that are just opinions, all inferring the same POV - dump the anarchists and leftists. One just never knows when some sensible edit is going to be reverted with a waterfall of six new threads with 10 word titles and a lot of opinions, all inferring the same POV - dump the anarchists and leftists. It's totally distracting and disruptive, including from those occasions when he has a legitimate point. I think it would encourage me to help clean up the article if he had to take a six month break from it. CarolMooreDC (talk) 06:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I concur that the tendentious WP:IDHT behavior presents a huge barrier to progress at the article. North8000 may choose to overlook the behavior from the small tendentious minority, but it is certainly persistent and quite frustrating. Every few weeks, one of the editors in this vocal minority seeks to overturn consensus that has been clearly established [*here, here, here, here, here, and here]. I guess this is a small step up from the vocal minority starting up an RfC every 4 days on average [no exaggeration], but I do wish there were a remedy available so that these editors could finally "get it" that collaborative editing oftentimes means accepting community decisions that you may not like or that conflict with your preferred POV. The months of this behavior is truly excessive.

Darkstar1st in particular seems to introduce difficulties, as he seems to read very selectively based on his POV. It's almost as if he steels his POV and then goes through the article looking for the merest cherry-picked sentence fragments which conflict with his POV and that he thinks he can assault based on comments from the talk page. Here's one exchange I've had with Darkstar1st that I found discouraging. BigK HeX (talk) 06:41, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The mess and gridlock at that article is very complex, and very unlike most other contentious WP articles. Brief, low key comments by Darkstar on the talk page are certainly NOT the problem there. I have no stomach for starting to spar with these folks. I make my main point and request below. I just want someone besides me to tell them to chill out have a cup of tea.

Regarding the oft-abused RFC,s, in my 6-7 months at the article, there were basically a bunch of RFC's that I would call false starts in a spirited debate that never really had substantive discussions and never really went anywhere, and one that had substantive discussions and a real conclusion. Since then everybody has been misrepresenting and misusing the results of the RFC (s)North8000 (talk) 12:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This accidentally points out the more pervasive problem at the Libertarianism article

This article has been a painful situation of continuous warring, and the main method of warring has been to continuously hurl accusations of violating wp rules without much basis or for the most minor of things, and continuously doing the same on notice boards. In my 1/2 year there, I've not even seen a POV difference at the root of this, just warring for the sake of warring. Even though I consider at two of them to be friends, I want to report this behavior on Fifelfoo, TFD and Yworo. The proof is right here in this notice. One need only READ the diffs provided by Fifelfoo, and then read what those three folks have said in this notice about what Darkstar said in those diffs. It's so obvious that I need say no more. I don't want any sanctions, I just want someone to tell those three folks to CHILL OUT and have a cup of tea. The article could use such a notice with that same advice for one or two more folks over there. :-) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 04:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

What the article needs is a couple of strong but uninvolved editors to help head off the silly side tracking as it starts to happen :) I gave it a shot but honestly don't have the time or will power to keep it up --Errant ^(chat!) 12:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I have only posted to the discussion page twice this year, and last edited the article in September. TFD (talk) 12:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The article hasn't even been on my watchlist for months, I only noticed the renewed problems b/c another issue brought me to AN/I, which I also haven't been watching for months. Clearly, my two or three comments since this thread was opened can't possible demonstrate "the real problem". Yworo (talk) 13:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

my edits are an attempt to reconcile the contradictions

How can anarchy be a school of libertarian, if all libertarians originated from anarchy?, that is like saying Christianity is a school of Lutheranism. apologies for using too few words in the past to illuminate what i considered obvious. the article says anarchy is the origin of libertarianism as well as one of two libertarian schools of thought. why is it a school of thought, isnt it actually simply itself? should the followers of anarchy be called anarchist? if not, would someone please explain what is the difference between an anarchist, and a libertarian in the anarchist school? Darkstar1st (talk) 13:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Content issues are not resolved at AN/I, only behavioral issues. This is not the place for that discussion. Yworo (talk) 13:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

correct, but since we are here, do you see my point? Darkstar1st (talk) 13:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Discussions on improving articles must be based on sources, not our own reasoning. And the place to discuss article content is on article talk pages, not ANI threads. TFD (talk) 13:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

tdf i copied the text in this section from the talk page. i noticed you have yet to discuss my content there concerning this issue. Darkstar1st (talk) 13:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with TFD. All discussion needs to be based on sources. If you provide a source that answers that question one way or the other, then that source's POV can be explicated in the article. General discussion without sources is not useful. That's been explained to you repeatedly in the past. Yworo (talk) 13:36, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

no source required, libertarian is a school of anarchy if anarchy is the origin of libertarian. the reverse is a contradiction such as the article currently reads. Darkstar1st (talk) 13:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Darkstar1st seems to have a serious misunderstanding of even the most basic/elementary set logic. This tends to add to the frustration with his edits and proposed edits. Again, I'll reference the discussion here: User_talk:BigK_HeX#how_is_anarchy_different_from_left-libertarian.3F BigK HeX (talk) 13:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Threats of violence

contribs) 04:24, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

 – WMF representative has taken responsibility for further action (or inaction) on the issue The Resident Anthropologist (Talk

Hello, there are threats of violence here, where the author claims that he "hates his family's guts", and here, where he states "i hate people so much i just want to kill them". Should I email emergency@wikimedia.org? Reaper Eternal (talk) 02:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that is just the person venting. There isn't a direct threat of violence, just he/she "want[s] to kill them", but doesn't say who "them" is. Unless something more direct comes from the user, I wouldn't. But I could be in the minority there. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:35, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This one might be hard to find. GeoLocate comes back as "United States", but no city or state. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks like the IP is merely making fun of Tom Bosley, by pretending to be his (angry) spirit. The 'late' Bosley having potrayed an understanding, caring family-man (Mr Cunninghham). GoodDay (talk) 02:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Just looks like run-of-the-mill vandalism to me. I've blocked the IP for 31 hours to make sure it doesn't come back and start doing that again. Cheers, everyone. lifebaka++ 02:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) The rather fetching rose-coloured box at the top of the page talks about "serious threats" - but who are we mere mortals to decide if it's serious or not? Let the big boys decide. Yes it's probably just some bored teenager mucking about, but if it's not...e-mail them to be sure. No harm will come of it. GiantSnowman 02:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/71.190.32.77 HalfShadow 02:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

All right, I've sent the email (with apologies if this was unnecessary). Reaper Eternal (talk) 02:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

It was received and looking into it. Thank you for letting us know we're always happy to get something even if you aren't sure. Jalexander--WMF 03:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Bored? In Coram, New York? Well, I guess that's possible. I don't think they've had much exciting going on there since Tallmadge's Culper Ring captured and burned 300 tons of British hay there during the Revolutionary War.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

User:WikiManOne possible violation 1RR

I believe the user has violated general sanctions on the abortion article Catholics for Choice here: [55] and [56]. Lionel (talk) 03:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The first one is a clear revert. It's a stretch to call the second diff a revert. On the other hand, while reviewing the article history today, it's clear that Kenatipo (talk · contribs · block user) has violated the 1RR general sanction.[57][58] I will not enforce the GS here as I have previously tried to mentor WikiManOne who is involved in this exchange.--Kubigula (talk) 03:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't look like the second one is a revert. It's POV though... N419BH 03:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

WMOs 2nd revert does appear to be a partial: but considering the recent, extensive discussion on this board, and the fact he is just coming off a block, something more substantial than a warning may be in order. Regarding Kenatipo, I believe those edits count as 1 revert, since there were no intervening edits by other users. Lionel (talk) 03:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I was about to agree on the "no intervening edits" bit. I'm not sure I'd classify WM1's second diff as a "partial revert", though.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The second set of edits is pretty clearly not a revert, but adding blatant POV pushing is really not appropriate. He also has declared that pro-life activists are by definition extremists and not long after the expiration of his previous block, he repeated the same revert that got him blocked to begin with. Also, he has on his talk page, a "theme song" for the Republican party in violation of WP:UP#POLEMIC and has declined to remove it. This behavior really needs to be modified in some fashion. Perhaps a completely uninvolved admin with a relatively neutral position on abortion could mentor him? --B (talk) 04:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm involved with him on a related topic, and so will not be taking any action as either an admin or an arb, but man... this guy just won't learn to back down--he's essentially an unrepentant POV warrior. If someone else wants to move for a sanction (topic ban, etc.) on WikiManOne, I'd be happy to support it as an editor, though. Jclemens (talk) 04:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Anti-choice? Really? That's a pretty obviously loaded term, and edit warring is no worse a crime than POV pushing. I for one have lost my patience with WmO (something I've never done with anyone to the point). I think anything short of a statement explaining his lack of POV-pushing should be dealt with a topic ban, closely monitored, and only let up when a mentor (who is on his side in the debate) agrees he can handle it. Magog the Ogre (talk) 04:41, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Unlikely, since he's also completely unwilling to accept responsibility for his actions, as shown by his comments at this 3RR report. He blames his block on "opposing admins in content disputes", and calls it "indefensible" when in fact it was affirmed by multiple admins at ANI (and a couple emails from other admins saying it was "not a block they would have made" does not admin abuse make). I'm with all others here calling for action; a topic ban seems like the best way forward. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree on the anti-choice, I should not have used that term in article space. I use "pro-choice" and "anti-choice" exclusively to describe those that support women's reproductive rights and extremists who do not regularly outside of wikipedia so it was just an honest oversight. I would not have fought to re-include it and would have in fact changed it to another term if someone had asked. The theme song is not in violation of that policy, you were one of those that thought my statement on the radical evangelist in Afganistan was a violation of said policy, a position which there was no consensus on. I'm unlikely to view your statement that it is a violation very seriously when I don't see it and you have previously made the same claim without consensus. I stand by my statement that anti-choice activists are extremists by definition, in fact, the subject of the article whose talk page I made that statement on has also made the same statement. I think that covers everything. As for the reverts, there were no two reverts, as there were no two reverts on Lila Rose yesterday. Pretty amusing to see editor after editor who pushed a right wing pov come here asking for a topic block though... _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 04:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Statement of Intent

I think that's enough toleration of a clearly disruptive POV-warrior. It only encourages others to follow his example. If this is how he is going to behave, we are better off without him. Here's the deal:

1. I am removing (not proposing for discussion, I'm going to do it) the statements at the top of his talk page. If he reinstates them, I will block him indefinitely. If he puts them back up while blocked, I will remove his talk page access.

2. I propose topic banning him from editing any abortion-related articles or their talk pages, broadly construed, for a period of 1 month. If the topic ban is enacted and he violates it, I will block him indefinitely. Not a gradually escalating series of long drawn-out ANI threads, but an indef block.

3. I propose an interaction ban with anyone he has had previous fights with, for a period of one month. He is not to follow, or even give the appearance of following, other editors around to continue the battle on another battlefield. If the interaction ban is enacted and he violates it, I will block him indefinitely.

4a. I propose that if he starts POV-pushing or treating editing like a game/battle/etc on new subjects, that the topic ban can be extended to include those new topics by any uninvolved admin.

4b. I propose that after the topic and interaction bans expire, his edits be monitored. If there is a consensus that he has resumed POV-warring, the topic and interaction bans will be made permanent.

5. If the topic and interaction bans are enacted and anyone goes to his talk page to gloat, I will block them for a week. If they follow him to a non-abortion article, or even give the appearance of following him, and pester him while he's attempting to gain experience editing constructively, I will block them for a week. This includes seeing how close you can come to gloating without going over the edge. I'd put an edit notice up to this effect on his talk page, so no one could claim they didn't know.

Like I said, I'm going to clean up his talk page now, but any thoughts on the other proposals? Keep in mind that, just this once, it would be great to not spend 5 disruptive days discussing how to stop one disruptive editor from being disruptive. --Floquensock (talk) 05:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC) p.s. crap, I just noticed I'm logged in on my non-admin account, but I don't want to lose this edit. I'll switch to Floquenbeam before changing his talk page. --Floquensock (talk) 05:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Did you read the discussion at Wikiquette alerts? There doesn't seem to be consensus in favor of your position on the items on my talk page... Let's get this straight: if the wikiquette complaint had any sort of consensus against my statements, I would have removed them myself already._WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 05:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I will block you for it anyway. It is an example of all that is wrong with your participation here. I am sick to death of the games we let people like you play, and I am doing what I can to stop it, at least in this particular instance. --Floquenbeam (talk) 05:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

So why are you taking actions that there wasn't consensus for at the wikiquette alerts? I thought that that was the place to handle it. _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 05:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, I don't see how I'm pushing any more of a pov than Kanatipo or Haymaker or Lionelt or Jclemens, or any of the other right wing editors here? Heck, most uninvolved editors get disgusted and leave those articles for a reason. _WM^O _{Please leave me a wb if you reply} 05:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support measures 1-5. I sincerely hope this works. Jclemens (talk) 05:14, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Support for All: With a couple editors (myself included, plus an admin) having tried to help WMO, I feel there is no other option but to do the "tough love" alternative proposed above. WMO has been given multiple options and chances, but yet continues to POV push and edit war on the same articles which has gotten him into trouble previously. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:14, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• (edit conflict × 4)Strong Support Enough is enough. Even his post here characterizes the pro-life (using the most common term here) movement as "extremist". In fact, Support an immediate block to prevent disruptive POV pushing at ANI. And before you go calling my support here political in nature, I am pro-choice. N419BH 05:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• One month? Is that really going to do much good? I predict we'll be right back here again at the beginning of April if this is enacted as is. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
  • IMHO, If he doesn't learn anything in one month, we need to show him the door as quickly and smoothly as possible. If we're back here in a month, then we either make it permanent, or block him indef. --Floquenbeam (talk) 05:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
  • (ec, great minds thinking alike and all...) If he comes back from a topic ban and keeps up the same kind of behavior, the community is not generally willing to give further chances. On the other hand, if a month working on different topics won't help him to see all the lovely non-battleground parts of Wikipedia in which he can participate, I don't think anything will help. Jclemens (talk) 05:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
    • OK, fine, support this proposal. Can't hurt to try. I still think it's likely we'll be here next month to discuss sanctions again, though. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support as I think an enforced topic ban is in the best interest of the encyclopedia and WMO. There's no question that WMO has lost his way as a result of editing these articles and that he wears his heart on his sleeve. He has done productive work outside the abortion arena, and I hope the one month break will help him get on a better path. That being said, I do remain concerned that WMO is the sole focus here. While nobody technically crossed 1RR, the Catholics for Choice article was clearly the subject of edit warring today and WMO was not the only one pushing his point of view.--Kubigula (talk) 05:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• If this is enacted, I'll guess I should avoid stalking WmO, for fairness sake. Actually, WmO is welcome to make good faith comments on my talk page about any matter whatsoever at any point, so long as he doesn't obviously abuse it (e.g., by throwing epithets at me). I extend that invitation within any possible ban on interaction, so long as it's within my say. Also, I think WmO is probably an INTP (like half the rest of us here, given the fact we're editing Wikipedia). INTPs, such as me, are really good at recognizing what they do know, and being right, but they're also really bad at not recognizing when they're wrong (as opposed to INTJs). In fact, they're known for being utterly obnoxiously opinionated (like ENTPs), and making asses of themselves over it. Again, all of this applies to me, but perhaps WmO could turn down the heat a bit and realize that other people can have another point of view without being Science-hating Fundamentalist Religious Zombie Nazis who wouldn't deserve even the time of day. Magog the Ogre (talk) 08:01, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support all the suggestions as a practical way to de-escalate and stop further disruption. Hard sanctions, but seems fair (I've been keeping my eye on this whole charade but not commented so far I think). Particularly #2 is of importance. --Errant ^(chat!) 11:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support 1-5 and a slow clap for Floquensock. Hopefully this puts the user back on the narrow path. - Haymaker (talk) 13:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support all measures. WMO has had too many chances. It's time to see if he is interested in helping the project as opposed to simply pushing his POV. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support - Worth a try. - TexasAndroid (talk) 14:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• (EC)Oppose All: Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it against the Talk page guidelines to edit a user's talk page against their expressed requests. Second, the jump from 1 month to indefinite duration blocks/bans seems significantly more punitive then preventative in terms of scale. I was under the impression that we went with escalating duration (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, indef). Third, the virus like behavior (as I read it) of these sanctions could very quickly encompass every single article and author in the community. As such I'm inclined to oppose these as we're supposed to extend to our troublesome editors the same level of good faith and policy implementation. Hasteur (talk) 14:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
• Comment I'm hesitant to impose sanctions solely on WikiManOne -- there have been other people in the recent disputes who have been equally as disruptive, imho. An uninvolved admin might want to check the recent edits to Planned Parenthood and see if there's anyone else in the past few days who's been reverting with minimal explanation and minimal talk page discussion. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
  • The general sanctions that are in effect in this topic area were a result of a conversation that was initially about only sanctioning WMO. Many people supported the more general restrictions because the issue is more widespread, but that doesn't mean WMO isn't at the forefront. Anyway, general sanctions are in effect, now its time to deal with disruptive editors on a case by case basis as need arises. It appears that need has arisen in this case. If you want to start new threads about other editors please do so. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 14:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Large number of continuing BLP violations at Raymond Allen Davis incident

Hi,

I hope I'm in the right place. Many attempts have been made to resolve it by two editors, including multiple postings to WP:BLP ([59], [60]), but no luck and no improvement to the article. A more knowledgeable editor than myself said that if the BLP tag is removed, I should report it here, so here I am.

Background: The article covers the current diplomatic incident in Pakistan where an American working for the U.S. gov't is accused of killing two Pakistanis. My impression is that the editors are motivated to reveal suspected conspiracies and tell their 'true' version of the story through WP. According to them, sources such as the NY Times are part of the conspiracy, so they rely on very many non-RS sources.

Issues:

• A) This article qualifies as BLP based on my limited understanding of the policy, and per the discussions on WP:BLP ([61], [62])
• B) I added the BLP template; it's been removed.
• C) Many sources clearly fail WP:RS, including blogs, conspiracy websites, etc. So many, that I can't list them; just skim through the Reference list.
• D) A very large number of sources are questionable regarding WP:RS. Most sources are Pakistani media, and nobody knows which Pakistani media sources are the equivalent of the New York Times, or News of the World, or The Onion. Which are state-owned or organization-owned mouthpieces? Which are college newspapers, community newspapers, or Vogue dipping into a little politics for an article? Again, skim the References list.
• E) Some claims go way over the line -- I'm trying to be open minded, but for example, there's a claim that Davis was helping the CIA supply nuclear materials to Al-Qaeda (you read that correctly); it's sourced to a website that, if you click through the chain of sources to find it, also claims the Haiti earthquake was caused by a US military 'earthquake machine'. Section is here.
• F) Last I saw, there was some OR also, of an editor interpreting a U.S. State Dept briefing (also not an RS).

Attempted solutions

• WP:BLP ([63], [64])
• Added BLP template. It was removed.
• Remove a little of the most egregious content ([65], [66], [67]). It was restored, including by this apparently unhappy editor ([68], [69], [70]).
• Discuss with other editors (see article talk page, my talk page, and David Able's talk page. Discussions devolved into ridicule and name calling, and the editors involved were not willing to or unable to grasp the basics of BLP, RS, and OR. I followed the conversation in circles a few times, endured some ridicule, suggested some ways forward (find substitute sources that are RS, find a way to identify RS Pakistani sources, at least remove the most egregious material), but made no headway.

I fear that, due to issue D above (the Pakistani sources of undetermined RS status), strictly following BLP would result in the elimination of much of the article. Suggested solution, if nobody can identify which Pakistani sources are RS:

• 1) Remove the worst material (issues C and E, above)
• 2) Give them time to find RS sources to backup the claims covered by the undetermined Pakistani sources (issue D)
• 3) After a certain period, remove anything that fails BLP.

I regret that I've spent about as much time as I can spare on this article. I'll check back to answer any questions and try to be helpful.

Thanks, guanxi (talk) 07:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Emmanuelm and 1RR on Israel, Palestine, and the United Nations

I would like to raise what looks to me like a violation of 1RR by Emmanuelm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) on Israel, Palestine, and the United Nations: [71] and [72]. Since the editor has a previous block for exactly this type of violation, I assume no prior warning is necessary. I posted about this earlier on AE [73] but a few of the regulars there are not active and there has been no sign of it being seen/noticed. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

You can ask him to self revert. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

My understanding of the 3RR and 1RR is that it applies to one particular text or source in an article. My two edits above are on different subjects in this article: (1) Bayefski on Dugard and (2) Canadians + Costea on Costea. These three sources were deleted by two editors (Nomo and User:Passionless) without discussion. Also, my understanding is that the intent of these rules is to protect the work of editors. With these edits, I am not undoing someone's work, I am protecting this work from being undone without discussion. I use WP:NPOV#Achieving neutrality for guidance. Finally, we are here talking about the worthiness of particular sources, a matter that should be discussed in the talk page of the article. A discussion topic already exist on Canadians & Costea on Costea; Passionless as so far not commented on his/her deletion. I just created another for Bayefski on Dugard. I trust Nomo will come discuss his/her deletion there. Emmanuelm (talk) 14:02, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Ohconfucius, MOSNUM edit warring / ARBCOM Date delinking case revisited.

Resolved

 – blocked --slakr^\ talk / 09:35, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Originally from RFPP: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

Ohconfucius (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · logs · block log · arb · rfc · lta · rfcu · SPI · cuwiki)

RFPP:Full protection, duration unknown

Ohconfucius is edit warring over date formats at WP:MOSNUM. He's been previously topic-banned by ARBCOM because of his edit warring over date formats, and run disruptive date-formatting bots, and used multiple accounts to evade blocks. The sanctions have expired, but they are relevant for the context.

In a nutshell, there was a big RFC in 2009 on which date formats were allowed, which included an effort to get rid of YYYY-MM-DD formats. As you can see in the RFC, a significant number of people explicitly mentioned YYYY-MM-DD formats as an example of a place where they should be allowed. OhConfucius is currently trying to get a date-formatting bot approved, I've explained the current situation to him on the BRFA, which he originally agreed represented consensus, but now slaps me with 3RR warnings (when at the time only 1 revert was performed, [although now it's 3 on each side]),. He says he would not revert again, but did so anyway.

I've made threads on the MOSNUM (see here) and I've talked to him on my talk page (here), but he refuses to engage at WT:MOSNUM, and doesn't even bother checking the links I give him on my talk page.

I'm requested page-protection, as it's obvious OhConfucius will not stop. If something else needs to be done about this, I leave in the hands of admins. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:29, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The reason for this sudden change of heart seems to be that Ohconfucius was/is running his script to unify dates (specifically, here), then an editor asked him to stop doing that (see here). So instead of complying with bot policy as promised on his recent BRFA, Ohconfucius refused to stop, tried to legitimize his script through edit warring on MOSNUM [74][75][76], rather than adapt his script to perform non-controversial edits. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 08:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to Wjemather for pointing this out on my talk page. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 08:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I've made a request for protection earlier in the night (in green), but it seems that the scope of the request as expanded beyond the original thing. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 08:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Ummmm ... can you perhaps change the background on your comment from very dark green -- which is how you set it -- to white? I'm having trouble understanding what you are trying to say, and thought that perhaps it was the color.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Between the arbcom findings, objections to his edits, block history over edit wars on the same subject, and that he edit warred on a guideline, I've blocked him for 31 hours. Other admins are free to unblock earlier than that if they so desire. --slakr^\ talk / 09:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• (ec) Head -- thanks for changing the background to a better color. I see that you are asking for page protection, but that is not what AN/I is for. Edit warring, as well, has a separate noticeboard. This is AN/I, and we don't want to clutter it up with things that belong elsewhere, when we have important issues like the above-mentioned serious illegal phishing/outing/ban issue to address. If this is the right church, your page-protection/edit warring concerns have certainly landed themselves in the wrong pew.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I read it as. I treated it as if it had popped up at WP:AN3, which would have been the most appropriate venue. --slakr^\ talk / 09:35, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The page protection request was the original thing. As I mentioned, it evolved beyond that, hence I moved it here. This is a mix of edit-warring, unapproved script-assisted editing (which fall under the purview of WP:BOTS), page protection, ARBCOM mess, etc... ANI seems the best place for a complex thing like this. Blocking is needed (and has recently been done by Slakr) for the short term, since the bot-like edits would keep on going otherwise. For the mid-to-long term solution, I've got no idea what the ideal result would be. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:36, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Hi slaker. I'm still wading through the copious background material that you apparently finished. But between what I've read, and what Head has written in his complaint (see my above comments), I think with all due respect that your block should be summarily reversed. Preferably, by you. No block-worthy behavior was even alleged. The "edit warring" was equal (if it was even edit warring). And you've notably failed to block Head. From what I can see so far, on the facts that were disputed Oh seems to have made the superior case.

You've not even waited for input from the community. And there is no reason to believe there is need for a block "to prevent further disruption" -- certainly not you're "gosh, full steam ahead, let's rush to justice with zero input here because this is uber urgent" block. The urgency? We're terrified that, god forbid, a senior editor might (with an AN/I pending) change the format of a date in some article if we don't block him super duper fast??? That barely seems a credible concern under the circumstances, both because it seems unlikely and because the "harm" your block prevents (even if we believe there is a pending threat) is so ridiculously minuscule.

Here, on a page where in the above strings we are discussing illegal phishing (punishable in the US by five years in jail) and someone possibly threatening violence, you are blocking an editor over this? I'm flabbergasted, frankly. I would urge you to revisit your decision, rather than ring up a reversal of it by another sysop.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, he was blocked super duper fast, because I believed that there was significant evidence in his prior and current actions to suggest that a preventative block was in order, as I explained above. AN3 is one of my haunts, and rest assured, blocks like this happen there frequently. Other admins are free to disagree and reverse me if they believe that the block is not or is no longer necessary—same with any edit warring block—and while mere edit warring pales in comparison to whatever drama is transpiring above, it is still nonetheless a frequent occurrence that we simply deal with so that we can get on to other things. --slakr^\ talk / 10:00, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• This all seems awfully quick to me. Regardless of "right"/"wrong", etc. there were two sides reverting in this issue. Wouldn't it result in a better decision for all if some time was taken to evaluate before blocking? Things had calmed down (out there), so this decision was too rapid. I'm sure if an unblock were made, the sky wouldn't fall, and the world wouldn't end. Ohconfucius‎‎ does such an amazing amount of good work, that this is just a bit too brutal.  GFHandel.   10:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Malfunctioning bots are blocked on sight. That's pretty much what's happening here / why I came here, it's just mixed with a lot of background stuff and other problem behaviour (which alone doubtfully would warrant a block). That the block has been justified under 3RR (while technically no 3RR has taken place) detracts from the issue. As for the editwar itself, so far only Ohconfucius disputes that accessdates are allowed to be in YYYY-MM-DD format when the rest of the reference is not in YYYY-MM-DD format (even editors like Jc3s5h who are staunchly opposed to the use of YYYY-MM-DD format in general concede that the big date format RFC had no consensus to deprecate them and hybrid styles in citations). I tried to engage Ohconfucius several time on the MOSNUM talk page, but he refused to do so. I gave him the links to the previous RFC, and the diffs he requested, and he refused to look at them. There's not much one can do at this point.

There's a simple way to solve this issue, assuming the current version is challenged; create a new RFC specifically on the hybrid style, otherwise the old one will more less have the force of law on MOSNUM. Of all people, you'd think that Ohconfucius would appreciate the need for one. But that's a discussion for MOSNUM rather than ANI. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 10:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, he was blocked under 3RR because that in part is how you cast your complaint. As you (and I credit you for this) admitted that you were equally at fault on 3RR grounds, the fact that he was blocked and you were not makes the block automatically unsound. For my part -- I would not block either of you. But blocking one and not the other, for the same offense, is not appropriate. My advice to the sysop who re-jiggers the result is that they not even it out by blocking you, but by unblocking OC.--Epeefleche (talk) 10:40, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not running a script against bot policy, nor do I have a history of edit warring, incivility, block evasion, etc... on this topic (or any topic for what matters). That's hardly the same offense. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 10:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Bad block. Unfair. Apparently not for the protection of the project. Tony (talk) 11:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Given that the block appears not to have general support; if Ohconfucius commits to talking about the issue I'm willing to reduce his block to time served with a stern warning. No condemnation intended on Slakr; it could be that the block was useful in forcing OC to engage on the issue. --Errant ^(chat!) 12:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that it is certainly fair for Errant to ask O to talk about the matter -- though I imagine it is possible that in disgust he turned off wp for the moment. As far as using a block "to force [an editor] to engage" on an issue ... is that one of the permitted uses? I'm not clear that it is, and in any event no less draconian measure was attempted. I still think it was uncalled for overkill.--Epeefleche (talk) 13:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Certainly not one of the permitted uses, and I don't at all think that was the intent. But I was looking for positives :) what is done is done. OC does seem to have disappeared, I'll give him a bit to come back and then consider the best approach. --Errant ^(chat!) 13:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok I have to disappear, but I reduced the block to time served per my comments above. And have left EW notes for the various parties. --Errant ^(chat!) 14:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry question

Further information: WP:AN § SpeakFree

Where an editor is blocked on another language Wikipedia for sockpuppetry, do we need to block the socks on en-wiki too? There is a case currently at WP:AN of such a sockpuppeteer. My personal view is that there is no case for action against the main account in respect of editing outside en-wiki. If the main account can be shown to have been disruptive on en-wiki, appropriate action can be considered, but it should not be blocked on en-wiki just because it has been blocked elsewhere (sockpuppety apparently not the only offence on nl-wiki). Mjroots (talk) 14:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we need to autoblock. After all, if everyone did, how could someone demonstrate on another project that they could edit productively? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:41, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Enforced Wikibreak

I accidentally set my enforced wikibreak too long (like above) and can you remove it? The page is here. Thanks. --173.49.140.141 (talk) 14:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)