Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Hounded by an admin for the past six months

I apologize in advance for the length of the post, it attempts to recount events over the duration of six months. To get right into it: User:Fainites does not like me very much. For the past six months, every single discussion I get involved in invariably results in User:Fainites following me there and, under the pretext of acting as the self-proclaimed "mediator", opposes me in every single issue of every single discussion. This happens every time, sooner or later, and if necessary I can provide diffs to that effect. You can imagine how its like being followed for six months, entering into discussions, only to have an actual admin arrive to invariably place his weight against you. This person, this admin, has thoroughly soured the Free Encyclopedia for me, and he won't let alone. In all my years on Wikipedia I've never experienced something like this, wherever I turn - the same person is there to harass me. I feel as though this person considers me something of a hobby of his.

Recently he has stepped up the campaign to get rid of me for good. Up until I've met this person, the worst I've got a was a brief block at times when I go overboard and revert someone 4 times or something. Now I have my own "personal evaluation admin", that, while following me around on the Balkans articles, has seen it as his right and duty to evaluate me and my character as he can read it over the keyboard. Of course, being biased against me he sees everything I write as hostile in some way, and probably likes to "fill in the blanks" as it were. This has resulted, in two of these discussions I've spoken of, in an effective one month block, and now another six-month block. These are topic bans on the Balkans, to be exact, but as Fainites knows all too well, I don't edit anywhere other than in the volatile Balkans articles. So I imagine this fact is quite helpful in effectively blocking me while not seeming all that harsh. The ban was placed by the one admin who should not have placed it, Fainites, who is more personally involved and biased in this issue than any other admin I could name - strongly opposing my position on two simultaneous discussions.

Of course, being an admin, the man is very skilled in hiding his personal resentment behind standard Wiki banter. Oh he will (and has) provide a long list of supposed "reasons" for his actions, and when he's done you'll think I'm the Antichrist. But the fact is, aside from not being very friendly - I've done nothing particularly worthy of note. Its just his personal "psychological evaluation", the same one that drives him to follow me and make sure nothing I support gets through, and a cherry-picked selection of everything not-particularly-nice I ever did.

Wikipedia has turned into a bitter, unfriendly place for me because of this person, his hounding, his calculated sanctions and effective smear campaign (as you can imagine, if an admin arrives on a heated talkpage and eventually labels you as "aggressive" and "rude" - you are aggressive and rude, even if he only imagines you are, and the frustration makes you more aggravated in truth.) For the first time in five years, and after tens of thousands of edits, I am considering leaving Wikipedia. Not because I no longer think Wikipedia is an excellent place, I still do, but because I am being prevented from editing and participating like any other Wikipedian. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 20:17, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Just to say the topic ban was under ARBMAC]Fainites ^barleyscribs 20:36, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

DIREKTOR is accusing you of not being "uninvolved". Is that the case? Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 20:41, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

After reading this, all the things going in my head make it seem like you two need to be sanctioned from making contact or something. Rainbow Dash !xmcuvg2MH 20:40, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

At first sight, I do share a concern that Fainite's content involvement in the Mihalovic mediation, which clearly extended to regularly expressing his personal opinions on content matters in disagreement with Direktor, constitutes a degree of involvement that may be incompatible with enacting Arbmac sanctions against him. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:40, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Having now checked the closely related Talk:Serbia_under_German_occupation, where Fainites' role was definitely that of a fellow editor involved in content debate, not that of an uninvolved administrator, I'd now strongly tend towards saying he shouldn't have taken Arbmac action here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:59, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

There are, then, two seperate issues which need to be considered here:

• Was Fainites "involved" with regard to WP:INVOLVED with these topics?
• Does the substance of the ban still apply to DIREKTOR.

The second of these points is very important as well, and we shouldn't gloss over it. That is, even if we determine that Fainites was involved, and should not have enacted the ban, we also need to determine if the facts of the case justify the ban anyways; if so it should not invalidate the ban. I am VERY concerned with DIREKTOR's statement "These are topic bans on the Balkans, to be exact, but as Fainites knows all too well, I don't edit anywhere other than in the volatile Balkans articles." If DIRECKTOR's only purpose at Wikipedia is to push a point of view in controversial articles, and serves no other purpose at Wikipedia, I am not sure the ban is unjustified. --Jayron32 21:05, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's nothing wrong with having an editing profile concentrated on the politics of a certain region. That doesn't automatically mean you're a POV-pusher. From what I've seen over the years, my impression is he's certainly opinionated, but so are 99% of all other editors in the area, and his commitment to quality sourcing and academic integrity is well above the average – the issue is that his opinions tend to be minority positions, against the more typical entrenched "national" viewpoints. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:11, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

@FP, I would agree this is a very opinionated area. However, I don't quite agree Direktors opinions are "tend to be minority opinions against the more typical, entrenched national viewpoints". Certainly there is a lot of nationalist POV pushing on these pages from various sides (more than two) but this issue is not about "DIREKTOR -v- the nationalists". Fainites ^barleyscribs 06:42, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

(EC)- I think that you make a very good point there. If DIREKTOR is only here to push a POV then of course the topic ban is appropriate. However his statement alone (whilst concerning) is not evidence enough of POV pushing. Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 21:16, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• Dealing with the "involved" issue, no I am not involved in content as such. I do not write content. I make occasional suggestions based on talkpage discussions and matters of that kind, such as suggesting a variety of solutions to the naming issues for Serbia under German occupation. I do express views on sourcing issues as described below. I have no personal POV on any Balkans matters. I don't care who were the goodies or baddies in any of the various wars. (By saying I don't care I don't mean accurate articles aren't important - just that it means nothing to me personally). However, in endeavouring to assist constructive and collaborative editing on these pages, WP policies on sourcing have to be applied. Having edited in areas myself that are rife with relentless POV pushers, I know how frustrating it is when there is no admin assistance except for drive by all-round wrist slaps. There are areas like this where an admin needs to understand what is going on to be effective. This is not about WP:CIV and WP:NPA. Anybody passing can deal with that. The problems are far more long term. My role for some months has been to endeavour to create a situation on various Balkans pages where actual source based discussion can take place without constant revert wars and the refighting of old battles. Protecting pages from edit-warring, and starting and "mediating" discussions on refined issues has been quite successful in a number of cases, particularly long-term repetitive disputes over symbolic and nationalist flash points like info-boxes, article names and the ethnic make-up or nationality of various famous Croats/Serbs'Bosniaks etc. My hope was that more serious editors would be encouraged to come back and edit as many of the articles are in a parlous state and show signs of past edit wars and nationalist POV pushing. Over time it became apparent that nationalist SPA's and IP's were one problem, but long term, tendentious, POV pushing another. Rightly or wrongly I took the view that this was also a matter appropriate for admin attention. I have by now read or have available to me a number of the mainstream, most cited works and become familiar with the revisionist approaches pushed by the various "sides". There are particular revisionist sources used and also the process of "cherry-picking" bits of reliable sources. I have attempted in various discussions to pin editors down to the provision of sources to support their claims and to the refining of what the argument is actually about. Otherwise the same old arguments go on and on and on. Serbia under German occupation has been through bad-tempered renaming disputes about 5 times already this year. Draza Mihailovich was in mediation for well over a year. It stalled and people just gave up. It is now producing results. The talkpages are so dishearteningly repetitive over years it makes you despair. From time to time on talkpages where an argument is going nowhere I attempt to summarise where a dispute has got to and what the issues now are. When people stop talking and start reverting I protect the page and re-start a discussion. When editors make sweeping claims about sources I do check the sources to see if their claims are accurate. When editors are arguing with no or inadequate sources I sometimes post a quote on an issue from a mainstream source or reinforce a request for sources. If editors relentlessly pursue tendentious arguments I try and bring the discussion back on track with reference to sources. I have added relevent chunks from what sources I have to the specially created quotations page. I have had discussions in which information from sources I have on revisionist history has been discussed. I can see why at first this may look like involvement. I do not however edit content except for copy-editing or putting in what I understand to be an agreed position after discussion on a talkpage. (In fact my lack of content editing in the last 6 months is quite dramatic compared to my earlier activities.) I do not get involved in content on these articles because if I did I could not be an admin - which in my view was what the area needed.

I realise this may all sound a little headmistressy. If the community in general should decide that admins can't "admin about" in sourcing issues and talkpage discussions in difficult areas like this in this way - then so be it. I'll go back to content editing. I don't mind. I do think however that it is an area that needs careful consideration as there are other areas apart from the endless Balkans wars where this issue arises - ie what is meant by "involvement" when trying to effectively admin in complex and difficult areas to enable collaborative editing. I suspect there are plenty of grey and borderline areas here. Fainites ^barleyscribs 22:13, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Characterizing Fainites' activities related the Balkans articles as "hounding" seems grossly inaccurate and unfair. I've been attempting to moderate a discussion related to additions to the Draža Mihailović article and have found Fainites' contributions to be helpful and even-handed. I have cautioned DIREKTOR several times for personal attacks and disruption [1]. Having tried hard to work with Direktor to no avail, I have to agree with Fainites topic ban. I think it is a moderate action that may just contribute to greater peace for those articles. Sunray (talk) 23:11, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

In the interest of full disclosure, I have been involved in the Mihailovic article since a little while before the mediation began, and since, and have interacted with DIREKTOR in a number of venues. I see no reason to put forth my opinions now about his actions here, but will be happy to elaborate if anyone is curious. I would suggest that before making any judgments about Fainites's actions that others unfamiliar with the issues take a quick look through Talk:Draža_Mihailović and associated archives, the the mediation talk pages and associated archives, as well as the archives here for prior issues relating to DIREKTOR and his interaction with other editors. I know it's a lot of material to check, but we've been at this a very long time. And for what it is worth, leaving aside the issue of whether or not Fainites should have issued a topic ban, I think that Fainites's actions regardless of his relative level of involvement have been even handed, very useful in moving us forward on the Mihailovic as well as the Serbia under German occupation, where I have been lurking but have had little involvement. These kinds of articles are a very difficult space to work in, and I commend both Sunray and Fainites on their efforts. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:01, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Fainites is indeed involved "in content as such". I cannot see how someone can voice his opinion over and over again, on content issues, and yet claim he is "uninvolved". E.g., to post the most recent example, in a discussion on which version of text to adopt in the article [2], user Fainites supports Proposal no.1 (while I support Proposal no.2). Or practically every single post in the Talk:Serbia under German occupation. Its strange to see an "uninvolved" user somehow always eventually voicing his opposition to whatever I propose. Who are we kidding? Fainites is a user that is involved with me and others in the Draža Mihailović debate - directly and in content discussions. In fact, as I said, I cannot recall a single solitary issue (content-related or not) where he has not voiced an opinion contrary to mine. Its not that I would deny someone the right to hold an opposing opinion, however strangely uniform his disagreement, its that this person can block me for six months under ARBCOM on a whim, by writing an "essay" or two, or I should say manifesto, on how I'm supposedly not a very nice person and he really does not like me. If there is one user out there that should not be administering sanctions over Talk:Draža Mihailović issues, its the one that participates in the discussion - and opposes the position of the person he sanctioned on two active discussions.

User:Nuujinn, unsurprisingly, is the user who wrote the version of the text that Fainites likes. I and another user disagree, but I suppose with ARBCOM applying one refuses to agree to the "admin version" on one's own peril. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 00:24, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Direktor, WP:INVOLVED refers to "current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics..." For this section of the policy to apply, Fainites would have to have been in a dispute with you. The diff you presented, above, simply shows Fainites expressing an opinion. The fact that his opinion may be different than yours doesn't make it a dispute. What conflicts, or disputes related to topics, have you had with Fainites? Sunray (talk) 02:50, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

This is where taking diffs in isolation is difficult. The diff produced by DIREKTOR above does not show me "voicing an opinion over and over again". DIREKTOR also "liked" and agreed with the majority of Nuujinn's draft as far as it went but wanted to add a lot more detailed information on a particular issue. I was suggesting the use of Nuujinn's draft and a more modest, summarised expansion of additional information. Nuujinn had suggested a more detailed treatment of the additional issue on the Chetniks page rather than the Mihailovic page. In relation to the point about reflection of historians views, the issue about Karchmar had been discussed at great length after DIREKTOR made an extreme statement about the historians reliability which he then completely failed to source despite repeated requests, eventually posting a nationalist blog on his talkpage. Mostly what I did was ask DIREKTOR and another editor to provide sources to support his claims and challenge his interpretation of sourcing policies particularly the oft repeated proposal that editors should analyse the primary sources used by historians with different interpretations in order to decide which is the most relaible. The mediator considered the discussion about Karchmar to be at an end. On the naming of the Serbia under German occupation article I made a number of suggestions for participants to consider ranging from looking to see how the issue of description of occuped countries was dealt with in relation to Norway, to suggesting 3 articles, one on the territory, one on the civilian administration and one on the military administration - which DIREKTOR approved of. Again, mostly what I did was ask DIREKTOR to source his assertions. Other editors had sourced their proposals as to what the "entity" was called. I also checked out the sources produced by another editor which DIREKTOR claimed were a product of "quote mining" or "quote fishing". I was eventually able to help resolve part of the issue by providing a better description of the phrase "puppet state" which was causing so much trouble amongst the editors, which DIREKTOR agreed with after doing his own researches. Following this, agreement was reached on the name. I then made a variety of suggestions for the lead sentences based on the talkpage discussions, one of which was eventually agreed by all. I also try to stop editors derailing discussions by personalising the issues. DIREKTOR is not the only offender in this regard - just one of the most prolific. Perhaps I should also say at this point that I do not accept at all the suggestion by DIREKTOR that this is all about him or getting at him or opposing his views. A careful reading of the discussion pages will not show this - but they are very very lengthy. detailed and repetitive. That's one of the problems. Fainites ^barleyscribs 05:42, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Just as a matter of interest,hereis an exampleon the Ivo Andric page which doesn't involve Direktor at all. This was an attempt to find a solution to a slow motion edit war about Andric'c ethnicity etc etc. The discussion also spilled onto some infobox disputes.Fainites ^barleyscribs 15:24, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: Ceasing of any contact between the involved parties.

After reading every comment by the involved parties, I think that the two should cease any form of contact/stalking/etc from now on. It's clearly obvious that if you're not going to play nice, then fuck it and don't play at all. Rainbow Dash !xmcuvg2MH 02:53, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Rainbow, I think that presence of User:Fainites was very helpful and constructive when article Serbia under German occupation is in question. DIREKTOR trying for months to edit this article in accordance with his personal opinion disregarding any source that I presented to him (while DIREKTOR himself either did not provided sources for his claims either sources that he recalled in fact spoke against his opinion). User:Fainites only tried to mediate dispute between me and DIREKTOR and I do not think that he was sided against DIREKTOR. For example, during renaming disputes, Fainites tried to find such name of the article that would be also acceptable for DIREKTOR. So, I would like to know what exactly would mean that "any contact between the involved parties" should be ceased? Is that mean that DIREKTOR would be free to edit article Serbia under German occupation as he wish and that no admin will be present there to evaluate his edits, his claims and, most importantly,his sources? I think that presence of an admin is very important there, and user:Fainites would be best for that job since he is familiar with the subject. Of course, presence and mediation of other admins there is welcomed too. I am tired of presenting sources on talk page to be welcomed by DIREKTOR's repeated posts in which he completely disregards any source or argument that I presented and only repeat same things from his previous post over and over like that I did not said anything. He also constantly reverting my edits there, including removal of POV tags that I added, and due to the fact that I do not want to be involved in constant revert warring, I was forced to let DIREKTOR to edit this article in accordance with his POV, no matter that his edits are to high degree unsupported by the sources. Other users that edited this article have simply abandoned the subject because they were unable to argue with DIREKTOR. I certainly doubt that one article should be written in accordance with POV of a single user who is more aggressive than others and who trying to impose his POV by all possible means. One more thing, somebody presented opinion that DIREKTOR's approach is "opposed to national approach to Balkans history". Due to the fact that he is from Croatia, I did not noticed that his approach opposed "national approach to Croatian history". Most of his POV disputes are related to Serbian history: Serbia under German occupation, Chetniks, Draža Mihajlović. All in all, presence and mediation of an admin is very needed when DIREKTOR's involvement related to these articles is in question. PANONIAN 06:00, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Rainbow Dash I don't want to be rude here but you don't seem to have understood anything that is going on. Fainites is an admin who is trying to prevent edit warring and talk page conflict on some of the Balkans articles. In order to do that he has banned DIREKTOR from editing those pages. He has done that under an arbitration committee ruling that states that any uninvolved admin can impose any sanction they see fit for editors of these articles. This ruling came about because the Balkans have been edit warred over for years by people with very strongly held opinions who's aim is to skew the articles to reflect their POV. DIREKTOR is arguing that Fainites had no right to ban him because he is not an uninvolved admin. He has brought the issue here so that other admins can assess the fairness of the ban and possibly overturn it. The discussions above centre on what "uninvolved" means exactly. Does expressing an opinion on a talk page make an admin "involved" even if that admin never edits the actual article?

Now as I see it there are several possible outcomes here:

1. We decide that Fainites was not right to impose the ban and lift it. Obviously this is what DIREKTOR wants. We could even sanction Fainites in some way such as banning Fainites from editing Balkans articles.
2. We decide that Fainites' was not right to impose the ban because he is involved in the articles, tell him not to do it again but decide that DIREKTOR was editing disruptively and that the ban needs to stay in place. Essentially what would happen is that Fainites ban would simply be replaced by some other, truly uninvolved admin here setting the ban instead.
3. We decide that Fainites is not involved in the articles and had every right to set the ban, and the ban needs to stay. This is what Fainites is arguing for by saying that discussing sources on a talk page does not make an admin involved.

Note that the issue here is essentially - what is appropriate for an admin to do in a situation like this. Is following an editor about stalking? Does expressing an opinion on a talk page count as involved? In short this is a bigger and more important issue than your proposed ban on contact could ever deal with. Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 07:08, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment by semi-involved NSU: (& apologies for TLDR that follows) I invite all the commenters to first read the Fainites's explanation for the ban Direktor's talk page, and then verify these assertions against e.g. Talk:Serbia under German occupation and Talk:Draža Mihailović before jumping in to conclusions. Also, check the Fainites's posts at User talk:DIREKTOR.

Throughout the last 6 months, Fainites has been acting as a mediator in these disputes, where DIREKTOR was the primary instigator. Every time Direktor crossed the line, Fainites politely and patiently explained to him where is the problem in his behavior. Every time Direktor made a repeating, bold and condescending assertion, Fainites just asked for sources. It is NOT, as DIREKTOR tries to present, "a neutral poor Direktor defending the truth against a bunch of POV-pushers"; (yes, that indeed was the situation that he faced often -- but not this time). He was systematically opposing, filibustering, complaining, and insulting several good-faith contributors who tried to improve the articles. No one of the involved in those debates, to my best knowledge, had a particular POV to push, or an axe to grind. There certainly was a difference on opinion, but Direktor cannot stand a difference in opinion. This is where the Direktor's attitude "my way or no way" showed up naked.

@Future Perfect: I'm familiar with WP:ARBMAC and your role there, and I know mostly what your involvement was. I know that there were, rightful, complaints against ARBCOM imposing your admin-topic-ban in the area. I assure you that, in this case, Fainites's role was similar, but even more restrained -- he has never displayed any POV in this area, and tried to arrange a consensus. But with Direktor, consensus is simply impossible.

I think that Direktor's heart is in the right place, and I consider him sort of acquaintance. I joked on his talk page several times [3]. But he simply cannot cooperate with others. We have witnessed his appearance at ANI about once a month in past years: and no, not all of it was just him defending Balkanic POV_pushing: it was just his self-applied role, which he played oh so well. But not this time: Fainites got into the heart of the matter, and I consider the sanction well-deserved and well thought out. To know Direktor's ways, you must spend some time in the debate with him. No, I don't think Fainites qualifies as an "involved" admin here. Even if he does, the end result is about right, in my opinion: when someone cannot edit according to WP:CIV and WP:CONSENSUS despite several attempts to make him correct his ways, he must be shown the door. No such user (talk) 07:48, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

...and, sure enough, his first edit to article space was in defiance of the topic ban. That just shows his inability to play by the rules. No such user (talk) 08:57, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

"Sure enough" indeed. I did not notice it yet, Nsu, and read about for the first time on the article talkpage after I posted, and thanks for doing your best. I'm sure the fact that we were in disagreement on Talk:Serbia under German occupation had no effect on your appearance here, just as Nuujinn's posts have nothing to do with me being the one who opposes his proposals. Its hardly surprising that users like PANONIAN, Nsu, and Nuujinn who, alongside Fainites, are currently in disagreement with me on two talkpages, would support my getting out of their hair for good (with all my annoying sources and such). And this is something all these fine gentlemen neglected to point out.

I'm putting my faith on the good sense and impartiality of Wikipedians who might, if they wish, simply read through Fainites' posts on Talk:Serbia under German occupation or Talk:Draža Mihailović/ethnic conflict drafts to determine whether he is indeed involved in those current discussions up to his proverbial elbows, and whether he did in fact oppose my proposals in virtually every discussed issue that was up for discussion. As for him following me to every serious discussion I got involved in since I met him, that is just plain obvious, a brief glance at my history will suffice. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 15:36, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

But you said above that you only edit Balkans related pages. It's not as if you were followed to a completely unrelated area of Wikipedia because you don't edit unrelated areas. Plus a number of people have stated that your editing style is problematic. It is perfectly reasonable and accepted practice for an admin to look over your contributions list given that people appear to be having trouble editing with you. Theresa Knott | Sort that Knee! 18:53, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Balkans pages are certainly not so small an area of Wikipedia that I might bump into one user over and over again every time. And indeed, Fainites is the only user I've met on all the discussions I've been part of. I arrive, he soon arrives, and sure enough in time voices his opposition to whatever it may be I support. Its the same pattern every time. And if you review the pages I've mentioned above, you'll note that all these users, Fainites included, are currently engaged in active disputes with me and would certainly like nothing better than to make their lives easier by getting rid of the main "adversary" in one stroke. They are hardly objective judges of my character.

This is a typical attempt to win an argument, or at least make it "simpler", by banning the opponent in a content dispute. The only difference is that the opposing party this time includes an ARBMAC-empowered admin with a long-standing grudge and bias. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 19:16, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I do indeed tend to arrive on Balkans pages where there is edit warring or arguments getting out of control. (For example Ivo Andric link above, Serbs of Croatia talkpage about the infobox, Serbs of Bosnia and Herzogvina, infobox again, Croats, on Emir Kusturica ethnicity/nationality. A number of these discussions do not involve Direktor at all or only minimally and uncontroversially. Direktor tends to be involved in articles involving WWII, particularly the activites of the Chetniks and Tito. My first major activity was on Yugoslav Front where the battle was over putting the Chetniks in the Axis or Allies belligerents column and they sometimes ended up in both as a consequence of edit warring. I suggested a third column. This activity grew over time - partly as a consequence of various editors realising I was prepared to look at and take action in Balkans disputes. If you look at my talkpage you will see that a variety of editors, including Direktor, have asked for my assistance over particular issues and on particular pages. I also learned that if you stop an unproductive argument on one page, for example over whether to put a genocidal fascist into the infobox to represent a people, some editors will go and carry on essentially the same argument on another article talkpage.Fainites ^barleyscribs 19:46, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

You were not invited to participate in the discussions I am referring to, certainly not by myself, and please don't attempt to imply that. Your sphere of interest on Balkans articles is more elegantly described as "articles where User:DIREKTOR has engaged in a discussion", and your activity there as "opposing User:DIREKTOR's position". Exceptions to the first "rule" are few and brief, and to the second - non-existent. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 20:20, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Butting in for a moment here...since when does ANY discussion on Wikipedia require an "invitation"? The very nature of Wikipedia is of collaboration, restricted only when editors demonstrate an inability to contribute constructively (e.g. vandalism, blatant promotional editing, WP:COI, and so on). While there are some areas and discussions most editors should (and do) approach only with great fear and trembling, I'm unaware of ANY areas, discussions or noticeboards on the en-wiki which are accessible only by invitation of others. I'd recommend discarding any notion to the contrary, unless I can be proven wrong in this. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (User:N5iln) (talk) 20:30, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Please note I am involved in this matter, but I believe that DIREKTOR's conception of collaboration with other editors is somewhat lacking, see [4] for one example. I think he means well, but in my experience he will only work with those with whom he agrees. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:08, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

@Alan the Roving Ambassador. Of course discussions do not require an invitation, certainly not, why would you even think I'm suggesting that? Fainites' post implied he entered the talkpage discussions and followed me around for six months on invitation by others, even myself. I merely pointed out that was not the case. The reason I posted this thread was that I have been followed to every discussion I got involved in, opposed on every single issue, hindered, threatened, and finally blocked for seven months by a user who has abused his administrator privileges and harbours an admitted animosity towards me. I am appealing to the community for a review of the situation.

@Nuujinn. Yes, you are very much involved. If I do get banned for good your version of the text will be entered into the article, concluding a month-long discussion and dispute in your favour. To that end, you are hard at work trying to find cherry-picked "shocking" quotations to make certain Fainites, who (openly) supports your version, does indeed get rid of me. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 21:23, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

It's regrettable that behavioral issues sometimes conclusively determine the outcome of content disputes which are being worked on in good faith, but that does not invalidate our necessity to act upon the behavioral issues.

I have not seen a good refutation of the claims that there are valid behavioral issues underlying Fainites actions, nor good suport that he was in fact involved or acting in bad faith or to win a content dispute when he issued the ban. Perhaps the evidence exists, but what is being posted here is discussion, not diffs.

I understand your opinion that this is what happened, DIREKTOR. I believe that you believe so in good faith. But you need to provide actual evidence (diffs, etc) to convince uninvolved admins.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:42, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I dare say its often unclear whether behavioural issues cause content disputes, or disputes behavioural issues. Being harassed and frustrated by one and the same admin wherever you turn, for months on end, can have its impact on behaviour I assure you, particularly towards the user and the editors with whom he has found common ground in this. I shall do so to the best of my ability tomorrow (its almost midnight CET), its quite the project as you can imagine. Regards --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 21:50, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Direktor, I don't see evidence from you that you have been "harassed" by Fainites. His interventions seem to be entirely in keeping with an administrative role. On the other hand, I do see evidence from Fainites and several other editors that you have repeatedly expressed strong opinions and, when asked by other editors, have failed to provide sources to back up your claims. You have often carried on discussion long past the point where it is constructive or useful. There seems to be little doubt that you have been disruptive. Sunray (talk) 20:19, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Predicatbly, User:Sunray is another deeply involved editor, who opposes my position on Talk:Draža Mihailović, as I will explain below. What we're seeing here is a sort of "convention" of everyone who opposes me from two separate talkpages, lobbying for my ban. I can't stress that enough or too infrequently: as I said at the start, when five or six users congregate and start depicting someone as the "Antichrist", that looks like a very strong argument on its own that I may in fact be Satan himself.

Regarding your comment above, Sunray: @"Direktor, WP:INVOLVED refers to "current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics..." For this section of the policy to apply, Fainites would have to have been in a dispute with you. The diff you presented, above, simply shows Fainites expressing an opinion. The fact that his opinion may be different than yours doesn't make it a dispute."

These are word games, Sunray. Two users in active disagreement over edits on the talkpage are, by definition, in a dispute over content. How more "disputed" can you get? In every single disagreement Fainites "expressed an opinion" contrary to mine. You're simply referring to a dispute in different, euphemistic terms. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 13:17, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

My apologies for the long wait and for the size of the post, but here, as requested, is "Part I" of the detailed "treatise" on this issue. What I am saying on this thread is, firstly, that User:Fainites is currently involved, not in one, but in two discussions where he opposes my position in content disputes. And that he has abused WP:ARBMAC and his admin privileges, essentially to "make his life easier" by banning the main opposing party. And secondly, that since I met the man, I had not participated in a single noteworthy discussion where this admin did not follow me to and oppose whatever it may be I am suggesting.

• Talk:Serbia under German occupation. I will only be posting a few examples, as copying over the whole months-long discussion would not be productive, and its available for review on the talkpage. It is difficult to explain what Fainites is arguing for, or against, without going into the details of the content dispute, which is why I will be posting only the more obvious examples that do not require a detailed understanding of the complex disputes. Again, however, virtually his entire involvement there constitutes direct or indirect criticism of myself, and whatever position I may advocate in each the three main issues of the dispute.
  • [5]. Here, in one of the more obvious examples, Fainites argues against the map label I introduced ("NGS"), supporting another one, and argues for using the term "puppet state" in the article (which I oppose). Its interesting to see him later protest "I don't argue for or against anyone" [6], after having been arguing for days :).
  • Here Fainites' very nicely describes his opinion. This is my post where, after days of discussion, having agreed on an article lead, I protest Fainites entering his own, completely undiscussed version of the lead. And this is Fainites' completely unwarranted hostile response, where he judges I've apparently been "insulting everyone" and that I should "learn" something from him. This is hostility by way of lies and slander, plain and simple. He has stricken that remark after a while, but its effect is unmistakeable: I am the villain. User:PANONIAN, who posted things like "any intelligent discussion with you is obviously impossible. Anyway, consider your bullishness temporary. Your attitude will very soon get you blocked for good and then I will revert you" [7], is apparently the victim. This ban is the second time Fainites has ignored the hostility of others, and only condemned and sanctioned me.
  • Here is Fainites, for another example, pushing for the lead version preferred by User:No such user ("NSU" in the text), proceeding, it seems, to make fun of my language: "Schhliivvvovisshhishishish" I assume would be how Fainites pronounces "Slivovitz".
  • The text of this section, is an example that does not require a detailed read-thru of the whole dispute. Here you will find Fainites proposing content edits, arguing for the implementation of this version or that, and in the end implementing a new lead version of his own writing. Also understanding full well (as he would admit later), that his edit goes against what I've been proposing (I won't go into details), and directly supports what I've been opposing.

This is the short version of examples for the first dispute between Fainites and myself that he has so elegantly "resolved" just now.

• The second one is Talk:Draža Mihailović, a discussion that lasted for months now. I will see about finding time to read and post diffs for all the numerous disputes and individual issues where Fainites directly opposed and opposes my position there, while participating fully in the discussion, naturally like any other user. The current dispute on that talkpage is the one which I have already pointed to. On Talk:Draža Mihailović/ethnic conflict drafts you will find two proposals: "1st Proposal" by User:Nuujin (yes the very same Nuujinn lobbying to get me banned), which is supported by Sunray and Fainites; and the "2nd proposal", which is supported by User:PRODUCER and myself.

Now, with PRODUCER apparently on a summer wikibreak, the users who support the "1st Proposal" (Nuujinn, Fainites, Sunray), along with users who are opposed to my position on Talk:Serbia under German occupation (PANONIAN, No such user) have banned me by abusing WP:ARBMAC for POV-pushing, and are lobbying to make sure I stay gone for good - no doubt so they may enjoy their "Schhliivvvovisshhishishish" in peace.

Whatever transgressions from a period of seven months my opponents in these discussions might've cherry-picked, de-contextualized and collected together here all in one place, it is not for any of them to decide whether or not I should be sanctioned, and how severely. To do so, if I'm not mistaken, is admin abuse. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 13:17, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

By no means do I mean to imply that anyone should particularly care, but if opponents from content disputes are indeed able to ban me for six months at will, and if I am, from now on, to be followed about and constantly singled-out by one hostile admin (who as a side note has about half (61%) my edits in Wikipedia articles), then its not so much that I don't want to contribute any longer in this excellent project - its that I can't anymore. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 00:52, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Possible sockpuppetry involved

Here is possible sockpuppet of DIREKTOR. Looks that he used IP number to avoid block: [8] (note similarity with his last edit there). Can somebody perform a checkuser to confirm is this DIREKTOR or not? PANONIAN 18:15, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I opened an official checkuser request in relation to this case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/DIREKTOR PANONIAN 18:37, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think DIREKTOR is blocked, and I think that if it is DIREKTOR who made the edit, that it was a simple mistake and not any attempt to evade anything. I'm sure he'll comment one way or the other. --Nuujinn (talk) 18:52, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I saw that and wanted to post something on the talkpage to point out it wasn't me, but I didn't want to break my ban by pointing out I did not break my ban. It isn't me. I don't even agree with the edit and would link to the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia redirect and not directly to the SFRY. Do a check if you like. ("Off the record", PANONIAN, you really can't have a flag that was instituted in early 1947 representing anything from 1944. Its anachronistic and misleading. As I said, the Serbian federal unit was called Federal State of Serbia, not PR Serbia or "Federal Serbia", and it had no flag as yet.)

For the record, this is the second time I've been baselessly accused of deliberately evading my ban. I had a look at the address. If I recognize it correctly - its from North America. The continents don't match (as Nuujinn must've guessed). --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:46, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Re "Involved"

I have posted here in a sandbox brief details of all Balkans articles edited in any by me, including how I came to arrive at the article and brief details of what I was doing there. In view of DIREKTORs allegations I have also indicated whether he was one of the editors there.Fainites ^barleyscribs 01:06, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

My allegation is not that my edits and I are your only interest on Balkans articles, but that everywhere I have engaged in discussion for the past seven months, you have appeared as well - and in opposition. That clarified, please explain how exactly does this make you less involved in the two current content disputes with myself? --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 01:13, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

It is really hard to beleave that DIREKTOR´s missinformation of the facts has driven this process into this situation. DIREKTOR has been an extremely problematic, uncivil and disruptive editor for long time now, and it is completely impossible for other editors to work and build consensus with him in a series of controversial articles he intentionally chooses to tendentiously edit. My first contact with him was at Draža Mihailović article where he, along with another editor, had been radically changing the article content for some time, and when I tried to restore and correct some of their edits I was inmeditelly reverted with agressive acusations of being a nationalist and a POV pusher (!?). I checked the article edit history and looked at the past discussions and I noteced that DIREKTOR has been acting in this one and other related articles totaly against WP:OWN and has menaged to remove other editors by several means including edit-warring, incredible nonsensical neverending discussions, phalse accusations towards his opponents of everything immaginable including uncknolledge, nationalism, POV agenda and several similar ones) and most of them had give up to challenging him. As I noteced all of that, I engaged an useless discussion with him that ended up with me asking for some external help in form of mediation request, something DIREKTOR opposed for month while continued to edit war and restore hs contoversial insulting version. Even when most other participants signed the mediation request, DIREKTOR still tried to avoid it for yet more months and only accepted to sign it when he had no other chance but to. In the meantime he has been heavily changing the content in all related articles including desruptive editing, POV pushing, edit-warring and intentional missinterpretation of sources, even against all evidence. A tipical behavior from DIREKTOR in discussions can be seen in the following exemples:

• Talk:Flag_of_Yugoslavia#The_flags_of_the_Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia_should_be_restored_to_the_article and Talk:Flag_of_Yugoslavia#Yugoslavia_flags_separation, where he shows incredible lack of civility and consensus building. If you all notece, he is doing his best to remove the monarchic period flags simply because the King at the time was Serbian (!?). Please spend some time and read all the following discussions until the last (2 more) because these are a great exemple of his behaviour.
• Talk:Ustaše#Invasion_of_SFR_Yugoslavia_in_1941_.28.3F.3F.3F.29 here you can see how despite disagreement of all editors, DIREKTOR against all evidence does the possible and impossible to just remove Kingdom of Yugoslavia from the article, and you can have a clearer view of the ammount of bias and tendentious editing of this user. At the end of this discussion you can also see me complaining towards User:Fainites softness towards DIREKTOR clear disruption, and Fainites by then had menaged to convince Fainites with his rethoric that he was a victim, similarly as he seems to be doing here towards some unfamilirised admins with this issues. By then DIREKTOR has been quite glad Fainites had involved himself, and other editors including myself had been poining out with time to Fainites that he has been being influenced by DIREKTOR´s constant victimization, something that soon Fainites started to see himself by disruptive behavior of DIREKTOR.

These two exemples are just minor accidents, but a good way for all of you to observe his behavior which is the same in much more complex issues, as well.

Resumingly, Fainites has offered himself as an admin to help numerous editors from these controverial articles to work out some solution. At beggining, DIREKTOR made an effort to influence him towards his side, and he even menaged a bit, however Fainites soon had the chance to see how editors from different points of view can work together, however DIREKTOR is/was a much difficult editor to work with. DIREKTOR is an editor who disruptively edits articles with a clear agenda and refuses all types of consensus building. When pressure is on him, he does his best to victimize himself and attacks with all possible ways everyone not accepting his version. This has been ongoing for too long now, and he has been blocked many times, however he has menaged to be forgiven in much more ocasions. In this mediation process, for exemple, we all had to work towards consensus, however he is the only one being inflexible despite all evindence against his position. This controversial area is already sensitive by nature, and having an editor who is disruptive, edit wars, intentionally missinterprets sources, and who is completely incapable of being civil in discussions, should really be considered disruptive. Fainites has been very helpfull by assisting numerous discussions and regarding DIREKTOR, his only mistake was not to take action earlier. FkpCascais (talk) 03:22, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

FkpCascais is something of my "arch-nemesis", as some of the good people here will remember from the constant reports and counter-reports. He and I have been engaged in one of the longest single disputes in Wikipedia history, lasting two years and counting (the Draža Mihailović mess). If I were gone tomorrow, his place is where the party would be. :) I think that's pretty much everyone now. I will stress again: these persons, yes, all six of them, are my opponents in bitter and long-lasting content disputes. They are by no means objective, neutral users. Anyone reading this thread should take their diffs for out-of-context, cherry-picked incidents from a long, LONG time ago, without the whoel story and fished out after a lot of work to make sure the disputes are over for good.

Users such as User:FkpCascais in particular, are good examples of what I'm talking about, and are the very last persons who should talk about civility. I need only post this ANI thread or this one to demonstrate, and a few of his cherry-picked quotes ("shit out your words", "imbecile", "simpleton", "terrorist", "abnormal", "very ill person", "learn some education, or go kick some rocks in your village..."). I imagine its only because he and I were in a content dispute, that he got away with these sort of PAs when I reported them.

User:FkpCascais, User:PANONIAN (who has an incredible history of violence and abuse towards me and others [9], so much so I cannot believe he's still around trying to slander users). These sort of massive "PLEASE BAN HIM!" posts, posted in the wrong place, are imo disruptive to the discussion. You're forcing me to go around digging for your dirt and posting it here to demonstrate how reciprocal these exchanges are, and to provide at least some context for your attempts at character assassination. Which is something I really don't care about right now and don't want to do. I asked Fainites a question above. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 08:26, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

DIREKTOR, this history of my "violence and abuse" is in fact history of accusations against me that were not proven (and you can also see that these accusations were raised by some users who are blocked indefinitely). I was blocked only 2 times in 2006 and 2007 for 3rr violation and revert warring: [10]. Contrary to this, you was blocked 8 times: [11] If you think that I am "conducting violence against you", you are free to open new thread about my behavior. PANONIAN 08:47, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

And by the way, I never said "PLEASE BAN HIM" - I only warned you on the article talk page that you might be banned one day because of your behavior and I am only presenting my opinion about this whole issue, but I never said directly that you should be baned (I only said that you might be banned, which is not same thing). PANONIAN 10:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Please stop disrupting the thread. These exchanges are not productive. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 10:07, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes DIREKTOR, you can consider me your "arch-nemesis" because I am an enemy of all disruptive editors. Yes, those reports from 2 years ago are the best you have against me, but unfortunatelly they don´t say nothing about your behavior other that you drive other users to the edge, and I could make a long list of reports and incidents I made against you, but my point was just to deliver exemples of your behavior at discussions. FkpCascais (talk) 14:52, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Experiment

OK, I want to conduct one small experiment about DIREKTOR's behavior. One of the examples of his disruptive behavior is the fact that he simply repeating over and over that flag, coat of arms and anthem were not symbols of WW2 Serbia, but that they were "symbols of Serbian puppet government". He also repeated that here. Now, if any constructive user state something like that and if he is asked for sources, he would provide such sources, whether these sources are web addresses or published sources. When I asked DIREKTOR for sources for these claims he failed to provide them and instead he just repeated his unsourced statement for several times. Now, I am asking him here to say which sources are confirming his claim that these symbols were "symbols of the government"? I just want to see would he provide sources or he will continue to argue that these were not symbols of Serbia (or perhaps he will ignore my post). This would be good live example about disruptive behavior. I really do not understand why anybody would have problem to present his sources to other users. Sourcing of Wiki content is among basic rules of Wikipedia. PANONIAN 07:17, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that would help. There are plenty of sources that those were the symbols of the de facto government of Serbia during WWII. There's also plenty of sources that the Serbian resistance used a different set of symbols. The problem is - what accommodation do you come to when you have a period of externally controlled government in your history. Do you regard it as legitimate? Do you insist that the 'real' government continued elsewhere. The situation is analogous to that of the French, with the Vichy government operating in France, and the Free French 'government in exile' under de Gaulle elsewhere - which do you call the 'real' France? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:29, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Elen of the Roads, I do not think that you understand the problem. I scaned images of flag and coat of arms from a published source which claim that these were "symbols of Serbia", and not "symbols of the government". Are your sources claiming that these symbols represented Serbia or government of Serbia? Nobody denying that government adopted and used these symbols, but disputed issue is what exactly these symbols represented - territory of Serbia that was governed by that government or government itself. Can you please post quotation from some of your sources so that we can examine what exactly these symbols represented according to these sources. PANONIAN 16:24, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

La goutte de pluie's personal agenda

There is this problem with this editor La goutte de pluie and this has been going from months on pages related to Singaporean politicians/politics, in particular those related to PAP (People's Action Party). The precise affected pages are Teo Ser Luck, Tin Pei Ling and Vivian Balakrishnan. I really do not know what is her problem and I seriously believe she should have her tools removed as she is unable to do neutral edits on their pages.

The incident I need to pinpoint is currently happening on Singaporean general election 2011 where La goutte de pluie is back to her old ways of editing of the subheading related to Vivian Balakrishnan. For some reason, she seems rather persistent to change the subheading from "Balakrishnan accuses SDP of "suppressing video" to "Balakrishnan accuses SDP of "gay agenda". This happened because of what happened at Vivian Balakrishnan's page earlier, where La goutte de pluie had wikilink words like "agenda" to gay agenda" and the idiom "come out of the closet" to "coming out of the closet". I had spotted it and removed it because I did not feel it was right to insinuate instead of letting readers judge by themselves when they can simply read up the references. She went back to revert it several times. It wasn't until User_talk:Zhanzhao who intervened that the matter got settled.

When I checked on the Singaporean general election 2011 page in early July, I spotted the same wikiwords insinuating gay issues and subheading "addressing "gay agenda". I then edited the subheading to a more neutral tone to fit the issue which surfaced from a video and removed the inappropriate wikiwords. However La goutte de pluie just couldn't accept and again started another reverting war regarding the subheading. Zhanzhao had more or less settled it in the Talk section and now it's August and once again, La goutte de pluie has started reverting back.

The other issues :

1. Page Protection Violation on Teo Ser Luck by User/EditorElle which resulted after a dispute with her for adding trivia matter and attempting to support it with a less-than-convincing reference. She attempts to add it back again after the issue was finally over.

2. La goutte de pluie's ilogical edits on Tin Pei Ling page which has caused the page to appear more like a tabloid page, packed with trivia quotes. She also seems to hate her so much that she bothered to upload the image here and another on Tin Pei Ling's page which I have requested it to be checked and removed.

I would like to clarify I am not a sockpuppet. I was on the IP 218.186.16.x and now am usually on the IP add 202.156.13.x. The dynamic IP also tends to flip between 2 from time to time. This clarification is here just in case you confuse me with the other anonymous IP users on Vivian Balakrishnan's page (which added his photo). I am not related to those IPs in any manner.202.156.13.11 (talk) 21:46, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

User notified. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 21:51, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a chronic problem with this admin. I almost blocked her a few weeks ago after she violated 3RR on Teo Ser Luck. There were some calls for an RFC/U and desysopping at that time since she edited through full protection to continue her edit war on this topc. I'd support a topic ban on singaporean politics at a minimum. This problem is not going away by ignoring it. Toddst1 (talk) 22:02, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

for the record, I never came close to violating WP:3RR on that article, and I repeatedly asked for a discussion. You should note that the same IP repeatedly tried to delete my comments off that talk page. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 00:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I suppose the question is - what administrative action does the original poster want? A topic ban requires a community discussion, removal of tools requires a request to Arbcom, and we'd probably want an RFC/U first. Has the admin in question done anything actually blockable? Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:38, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

If true, wouldn't the "edited through full protection" claimed by Toddst1 be immediately blockable? (Unless it is something admins don't immediately recognize because of the ability to edit still being present) If such changes weren't reverted immediately after discovering the accident, then what is the point of 'full protection'? -- Avanu (talk) 17:55, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

That as I said, was a mistake. I posted on Toddst's talk page, saying his protection was a mistake, that the anonymous users involved were reluctant to engage in discussion and use the talk pages; most dispute blocks expire within 72-96 hours (as is the norm and the policy -- do not issue protections of excessive lengths) -- Toddst, who is an active admin, didn't reply to me within 72-96 hours, so I thought he had seen my proposal to restore the disputed edit if the IPs didn't use the talk pages within that time. And they didn't -- in general, they only reverted when their desired version was not on the page, never checking the talk pages when their desired revision was in place; they did not understand policy nor were they willing to engage in compromise in discussion, whereas I was seeking compromise and understanding with every step. It was my expectation that within that time protection would be over. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 18:14, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Response

My personal agenda, if I have one, is in protecting Wikipedia from conflict of interest agents that have descended upon the article lately; see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Geneva2011, where an absurd amount of sockpuppetry and anonymous IPs -- some which trace back to government institutions and ministry addresses -- do various things like remove various criticisms without explanation, add in promotional material of their own (for various ministries or programmes). The Young PAP by the way, have long been suspected by the Singaporean internet community of being hired trolls. It is very clear for example, that User:Eggsauto99 and others are "public relations managers" -- note the high-resolution official photos uploaded, and constant reversion to their favoured language, blatantly taken from government websites -- I would simply like for these editors to declare their affiliation and their COIs.

We have good evidence that these users are part of a government-endorsed smear campaign, by trying to include the accusations of "gay agenda" on opposition politicians' articles, but deleting all mentions of such accusations from politicians who made them, i.e. Vivian Balakrishnan. It is a terrible twist on BLP policy when homophobic accusers are allowed to escape "scot free" while their accusations are freely piled on on their victims' articles. See: contributions of one such user to Vincent Wijeysingha, where this user tried to add material accusing Wijeysingha of having a gay agenda (to scare off religious voters) at the same time his proven sockpuppet removed "gay agenda" material from his employer's article (this diff accessible to administrators only).

That Vivian Balakrishnan accused a Singaporean opposition politician of having a gay agenda is well-known issue among Singaporeans (shown by any google search). To reduce the summary of his actions (as titles are supposed to do) to "suppressing video" is nothing more than a government-supported attempt at whitewashing the article. I would like to draw attention to the matter I am drafting an RFC about this; the only reason why no one pays attention is because most editors hail from the United States. If a Congressman or a US government entity were doing this, there would be immense uproar: see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Congress.

elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:45, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of anything else, citing a random-uploaders prob (c) YouTube clip, and posting WP:OR in an article, with this edit is against many policies; do you accept that, or do we need to explain it?  Chzz  ►  23:40, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not against policy to cite a television interview by Channel 5 (Singapore). In fact, I kept it as a reference, without the link, if only to avoid potential copyright problems (but even then, fair use can be claimed for keeping a referenced link). There's nothing wrong with using Youtube videos as a source, if they are not self-published sources. Since when was a television interview a self-published source? YouTube is merely a host. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 01:31, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

La goutte de pluie, it seems evident from your own statement just above that you have too much COI in this general issue to use admin tools in this area. If people need to be blocked, or articles protected, or edits made on protected pages, you really should let other admins do it. If the troll situation is as bad as you say, the most helpful thing you could do is to use your experience to bring the various COI editors and sockpuppets to community attention in the appropriate places, instead of dealing with them personally, just as you would if you did not have admin tools. DGG ( talk ) 00:22, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I have used my tools in this very sparingly, precisely for the concerns stated. I have repeatedly made pleas on various noticeboards, but usually people are a) new to the dispute b) do not realise I am an already an administrator trying to fight a long-term problem (for example, posting to the COI board generally brings a very specific block or remedy, and does not solve the sockpuppetry problem). I was about to make an RFC for this reason, to draw greater attention to this problem.

I do not think I have a COI, unless you take the IPs' word that being LGBT somehow is an inherent COI. My biggest ambition is to make the editors involve learn that a) they cannot make COI edits with impunity b) they should declare their conflict of interest c) some basic respect for the project. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 01:38, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

• I have been invited to comment here by the complaining IP editor on my talk page. I have made my views known previously at the first ANI link he provides above. I have no doubt that La goutte de pluie has a major COI in this area and would be well served laying off these pages, but the same goes for the countless IPs (more likely one user who's been socking; see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Geneva2011/Archive) — this is not a one-way street. The IP editor himself has a COI and POV in this area and should likewise be sanctioned here; this to me is a WP:BOOMERANG case. Both sides are strongly at fault. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 00:33, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the link has proven that I am a sockpuppet or part of the government conspiracy that La goutte de pluie has been insisting is happening.202.156.13.11 (talk) 00:44, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Probably not as I'd like it to, because CheckUsers don't like linking accounts to IP addresses. So, it really is impossible to tell unless I take your word for it, which I'm sorry to say I'm not prepared to.

At this moment, I would strongly support a ban for both La goutte de pluie and the IP editor, certainly at the very least from interacting with each other; and in the longer run a topic ban from Singapore politics. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 00:47, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Get someone to check then. I am not afraid. Kindly advise why I should be banned then. I do not see how this is fair. You have semi-protected Tin Pei Ling page and Vivian Balakrishnan page to deter IP editors from editing on several occasions and each time La goutte de pluie would go back to revert back to her edits. As I have have pointed out earlier, the problem with her edits lies with her POV which can never be kept neutral. I would also like to point out I am constantly updating Singaporean presidential election, 2011 at the moment but once again La goutte de pluie feels the need to question the anonymous editors on the page. Is there a need to declare government conspiracy on every single politician talk page and threaten semi-protection each time I do an edit on someone's page?202.156.13.11 (talk) 01:08, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

These issues would be easily solved by getting an account, but you have refused to do so. What is my POV/COI, may I ask? The only reason I use semi-protection -- and I have used it sparingly -- is to prevent abusive sock/meatpuppetry when it is especially rampant on some articles, as your allies are wont to do. Get an account. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 01:38, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps some ground rules would help. These are standard for all admins and all articles:-

• You can't admin and edit in the same article

  An admin may not semi or protect an article where they are editing the article. If the page is being vandalised, take it to RFPP

  An admin may not edit through protection to put their own preferred version in an article, and the admin who protected it may not edit the article AT ALL while it is protected.

  If you think a user is a sock, make a sockpuppet investigation request

Elle, if you breach these rules, you are likely to end up without your admin tools.

At the same time, it does sound as if the area could do with more eyes to help achieve neutrality. Any volunteers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elen of the Roads (talk • contribs)

I don't actually think your "ground rules" match current practice. Simple non-controversial admin actions such as anti-Vandalism work (including routine semiprotection, vandal blocks, obvious sock blocks etc.) have always been exempt from "involvement" rules. What admins need to avoid is using their admin status to further their own position in a content dispute; where there is no content dispute -- e.g. with vandals or banned users --, involvement problems don't come into play. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:06, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I thought we could take it as read that normally editors would not have a problem with an otherwise involved admin dealing with a vandal who replaced the entire lede with the word 'penis' 5 times. However, this is not your standard vandalism, is it. What we have here is an admin reverting content edits and insisting that they are vandalism by agents of the government, I think the instruction to post a request at RFPP is one that the community would expect as de minimis to avoid the appearance of bias. Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:38, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I do think if the users in question end up using sockpuppets and rapidly switching IPs ten times in a row to circumvent 3RR, then anti-IP-hopping action can be taken. In the past, these users' IPs were blocked for using open proxies, and would, despite my requested entreaties, refuse to use the talk page. None of this would occur if the users in question would stick to one IP (the hopping is far from accidental) or use accounts. Some of this action is probably coordinated from the YPAP messageboard (now hidden). elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 13:48, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

At the same time, I've always waited for other administrators to come in, i.e. hence my posts at ANI and the COI noticeboard, but the intervening admins treat it as a matter of routine, rather than looking at the overall pattern, so it is quite frequent that they simply block the latest incarnation and mark the issue as "resolved". Sometimes, they issue a rangeblock, but they do not at all address the continuing pattern that government-backed resources are being used to push a certain COI on Wikipedia, and thus many IP ranges are open to these editors' use. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 13:55, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

La goutte de pluie, I see you do not accept that this edit is a problematic effort, and thus unfortunately it seems I do need to explain this very important point of policies;

The point of 'verifiability' is, so that the reader is able to check the facts. If the referenced material is not available (such as, a TV show that was broadcast once, not published), it is not verifiable.

Occasionally, a television station will provide archives, or the broadcast could be available on media such as DVD, or they might have an official YouTube channel.

That is not the case here. The YouTube video was uploaded by a random-person-on-the-internet; we have no evidence to suggest it is free of copyright. That is covered in WP:LINKVIO.

I have no idea what you mean by "fair use can be claimed for keeping a referenced link"; frankly, that makes no sense to me.  Chzz  ►  12:26, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

In addition, your demands above, that users get an account, are totally inappropriate. This is the encyc. that anyone can edit; registration is not required.  Chzz  ►  12:52, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

That video was actually linked via Temasek Review and Google News; plus CNA does actually archive all its news shows. Considering it was an interview with Lee Hsien Loong, you know, the Prime Minister of Singapore. If you are using a video as a source (albeit a primary one) and are not transcluding it in the actual article, it is not violation on our part to simply cite it (as opposed to transcluding any of its content in the article). elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 13:48, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

It is a violation of our copyright policies to link to a site that contains a copyvio - that includes in a citiation. This is one of the reasons why YouTube citations are often removed on sight. The question is - is this particular upload part of CNA's archive, or was it uploaded by some random who had recorded it off their tv? Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:00, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

That video does have an arguable claim for fair use though. It is less than 5-10% of the entire work (the episode). YouTube videos have been used as verifiable sources for various articles (see Christine O'Donnell and "I'm not a witch"), and very short clips from interviews and parodies are cited. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 20:39, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

No, you see that's a complete misunderstanding of what the copyright policy says. The YouTube clip is a copyvio. We cannot link to copyvios. Non-copyvio videos can be a source - the organisation I work for hosts an entire set of videos on YouTube. Those are not copyvios. Those could be linked to if they provided a source for something. None of the Christine O'Donnell clips are copyvios because they are genuine transformative fair use. Ripping off the first 10 minutes of a 50 minute programme is not fair use, it is a copyvio. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:17, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but I already amended my citation to not include a YouTube link, just to be sure. I would have clipped the entire clip to a 20-second-statement if necessary, but there is nothing wrong with the citation itself. It still is a reliable source. My beef with the IP is that he was out to game the system; he did not actually care about the spirit of the policy he cited; he did not try to change material to comply with policy (i.e. simply removing the link, rather than the entire reference), rather he cherrypicked policy to push a POV. We do after all, have Template:Cite video. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 23:28, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I had removed it because of copyrights and because it was totally redundant towards bulding up her page. I find it most absurd that you argued for it to be placed there just because "It's a comment made by the revered and mighty PM Lee. How can that not justify an inclusion? ". PM Lee made remarks on overseas politicians. Why don't you try to add it on their pages?202.156.13.245 (talk) 21:37, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Temasek

Should we really be using this "Temasek Review" as a reference? It's 'about' page says it is an internet socio-political blog, and their tagline is An Online Community Of Daft Singaporean Noises.

Currently, the article in question has a whole section dedicated to this purported "Cooling-off day controversy" - as I understand it, it's about a controversial comment posted on Tin Pei Ling's Facebook page, and the question of who posted it, with Tin saying it wasn't her, but an admin. The ref we use from Temasek declares this a lie, because on an election declaration, Tin filled in "moderator" as herself. This seems like tabloid pap, and I don't think it belongs on Wikipedia; at the least, it seems WP:UNDUE, and weakly-sourced for a strong BLP claim.

I apologize in advance, as I do realise this is a content concern, not normally for ANI; but given the above, it seems specific and apposite as an example, in relation to the actual complaint. Plus, of course, as a BLP issue it deserves our consideration.  Chzz  ►  15:10, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

No, we shouldn't, imo, and this has previously been reaffirmed at WP:RSN. It's been my experience that La goutte de pluie insists this and another anti-government site, The Online Citizen, are legitimate reliable sources, although this has been rejected in the past at RSN. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 15:14, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a link to the RSN discussion? So far, what we have here is a lot of pebbles going down a mountain, rather than a single clear offence that is by itself sufficient for any action. As such, an RFC/U followed by an RfAR if required, is looking like the correct way to go. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:48, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

electronic Singapore press sources at RS/N (drive-by link) 71.234.215.133 (talk) 17:04, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

It's a supplementary source, which is supported by a primary source taken from a government website -- the election forms themselves are public. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 18:08, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Could you please explain which policy/guideline applies to use of such a 'supplementary source'? Or do you accept it is OR?  Chzz  ►  18:22, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

The rationale given to avoid using these 2 sources are rightly explained in the RSN link. Especially with many of the articles there written by "Anonymous", reliability and verifiability is a big issue. Even when they claim to have a board of editors overseeing the content. The forms are indeed validly linked. However its the reported controversy surrounding the alleged offence on which the forms are based that is the point of contention here, specifically the accusation made by the blog, that is in contention here. As I recall, the incident was also reported by the mainstream press, so those sources are preferred. DanS76 (talk) 18:25, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, DanS76, but - the mainstream covers that posted on FB and that the police are investigating re. 'cooling off' but... they don't talk of this form, and the ""Tin Pei Ling is the ONLY approved moderator of her Facebook".

Again, sincere apologies for fixating on this example, but if we could establish the actual problem with that one case, which La goutte de pluie seems to say isn't problematic, perhaps we could make progress.

Maybe we cannot, and maybe an RFC/U is necessary; I admit it looks likely. But if we can avoid it, by getting somewhere re. the specifics, that'd be better. Right now, I think La goutte de pluie is misunderstanding several important policies; I was hoping through some discussion they might agree voluntarily to stepping away from this, from avoiding WP:INVOLVED, to adhere carefully to RS/V/BLP, and so forth.  Chzz  ►  18:40, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Anonymity is a necessity because of the government's reputation of prosecuting political opponents. (I'd like to remind everyone that the press freedom of Singapore has an international rank of 154....i.e. very very bad.) I see no reason why the references from both sides of the dispute should not be included. The "mainstream press" has a well-known pro-government bias. Normally TR sources have borderline issues, but if they file an Exposé supported by verifiable sources, then I believe it deserves to be reported, as an important check on the mainstream press. That's the problem with sources in Singapore -- all sources in Singapore have issues. Fann Sim is a professional journalist hired by Yahoo (who by the way, writes very professional articles), who, on the topic of Teo Ser Luck, reported what everyone was thinking, but journalists working in Singapore Press Holdings were more reluctant to say. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 18:37, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I sympathize to some extent but, frankly, that is not Wikipedia's problem. If there are no RS, there are no RS, and we cannot fall back on user-generated content. You can't make the rules.

The journalist isn't important. If the most-respected journalist in the world writes on her facebook page, it's not a reliable source for news.

La goutte de pluie, can you think of a way forward here, other than RFC/U, to resolve these issues?  Chzz  ►  18:49, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

But I argue that it is not user-generated content, given that TR already has a journalistic reputation, and that government censors pay a lot of attention to it, and has repeatedly tried to bully it into submission (by restricting its donations). The New Paper is not any less tabloidy than Temasek Review, if not more, and yet it is also treated as a reliable source. Surely it cannot be worse than MoveOn.org (which AFAIK, is also a verifiable source) or sources from well-known activist organisations. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 19:50, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

My gosh, La goutte de pluie, you are not still fixated on that satire piece by Fann Simm, are you.... Yes, I call it that, because I doubt a serious news piece would include these lines "Teo Ser Luck transformed himself into somewhat of an overaged, over-enthusiastic cheerleader during one of the PAP rallies by yelling all the names of six-man Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC team. The Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports saved the best for last when he shouted for the estimated 1,000-crowd to chant his own name. The response was, er, less than encouraging.". Or in any case, it should not be taken seriously as was done in your edit here [12]. Which was already discussed to death in the subject's talk page. I think what we have here is a general confusion about what is/is not acceptable as a reliable source, on top of everything being discussed here.DanS76 (talk) 19:00, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Articles and blog posts from well-known journalists, despite scathing language, are frequently accepted as sources (see The Guardian, Huffington Post, The Register, etc. etc.) Furthermore, I reported as an opinion, rather than as a fact. The most important thing is editorial discretion, which Yahoo News! Singapore clearly has (after all, the tagline of their series is "Fit to Post"). elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 19:46, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

A wildly uninvolved editor

The only reason I have seen this is because I was following my posting to this board. As far as I know, I have never interacted with anyone posting in this section beyond the drive-by link I supplied earlier.

Having said this, I think User:La goutte de pluie's actions have been beyond the bounds of a WP Admin. "elle" has been involved in edit warring, page protection violation, source protection argument, primary sourcing...

Editors must trust the Administrators as they are Administrators, yet I do not trust the Administrator as an editor. Wrap your brain around this as you will. 71.234.215.133 (talk) 19:52, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I don't get what's so controversial about reverting blatant copyright violations taken verbatim from government websites, especially when socks are involved. The edit through protection was a mistake, as I explained above. It has been my constant and every desire to have civil collaboration with every editor involved; however when there are anonymous editors editing on the behalf of an employer, whose interests are a higher priority than that of a project (the very definition of a conflict of interest) I cannot help my suspicion. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 20:10, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Is there a way forward avoiding RFC/U and following

Maybe we can avoid this getting messy simply by restating policy and asking Elle to confirm that she is fully signed up to it. Elle, would you be amenable to confirming that you understand and agree to stick to the following

Involvement (lifted from WP:ADMIN

• Conflict of interest, non-neutrality, or content dispute – Administrators should not use their tools to advantage, or in a content dispute (or article) where they are a party (or significant editor), or where a significant conflict of interest is likely to exist. With few specific exceptions (like obvious vandalism) where tool use is allowed by any admin, administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools.
• Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute.
• it is still best practice in cases where an administrator may be seen to be involved to pass the matter to another administrator via the relevant noticeboards.

Copyright (from WP:LINKVIO)

• If you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States (Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry [1]). Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors.

Reliable sources (from WP:USERG)

• Some news outlets host interactive columns they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professional journalists or are professionals in the field on which they write AND (emphasis mine) the blog is subject to the news outlet's full editorial control. Posts left by readers may never be used as sources. Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer

If you can agree to the above, and agree to take any disagreements over sources to WP:RS/N and seek wider consensus, then I believe the community will be reassured.Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:03, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I am of course agreeable to all of this. I would also like for the community would pay more attention to the matter at hand. That has been my every desire -- my approach so far has been to wait several days to see if anyone would intervene -- posting on noticeboards if necessary. Can I ask the community to notice:

• Pay attention to the entire issue, especially the COI involved:
• Notice that long-term abuse, and widespread IP-hopping is involved

Other Singaporean administrators have been inactive. I have been taking it to other noticeboards, but what happens is that intervening administrators issue short-term remedies and then I am left at a loss when perpetrators switch to a different IP range, hit a different article (after it has been semi-protected by an intervening admin) or try a new way to game the system. It has been my every desire to avoid using the tools in an involved manner. In the rare cases where I do use my tools in the area, it generally has been to follow-up on another administrator's similar, but incomplete action.

The IPs involved have a very interesting conception of "abusing the tools" -- being queer, or posting one's suspicions on a talk page -- count as guilty for these IPs. At one time, the IP constantly reverted my additions to an article talk page (see the page history of Talk:Teo Ser Luck), and I saw it as uncontroversial to reinstate my own comments.

My suspicion is that if this were a matter concerning Western politics, there would be widespread attention quite quickly. More vigilant (and complete!) eyes is what I ask for. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 20:23, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Does it really matter that other administrators be Singaporean to be eligible to intervene? In fact, by getting non-Singaporean administrators involved, the likelyhood of COI is greately reduced, as they can remain more objective. And Elle, although you do make use of the talk pages, there have been cases when you dont and basically ignore discussions when editing. I.e.this edit when I had already for a discussion of the content on the talk pages. Plus the edit history basically shows an war in progress. And its not that other administrators have not taken action. They have been issuing warnings to both the IP and Elle, but both sides are choosing to ignore the warnings. Would you have them take punitive action immediately ratther than engage you in dialogue?Zhanzhao (talk) 20:57, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Wait what? I waited for a reply from the intervening IP on that talk page for weeks...which never came. I made two reverts, one was because the reversion by the IP was given without explanation, and the second time was with my own explanation. Upon getting reverted once more, I promptly ceased.

It seems to me that the IP simply has no interest in the project, other than that of his employer's. All that matters for that IP is to ensure that his/her employer is not associated with the remarks he himself made. I consider this especially grievous, since the accusation was splattered all over Vincent Wijeysingha's page by accounts linked to the government (User:Alverya was declared a "likely" sock of User:Geneva2011, and both edited from government IPs). elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 21:13, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

The call for discussion was made to any and all editors who were making the changes/revisions that I asked to be settled in Talk before another edit war occurs. Which it did again. That includes both the IP AND you, Elle. If you had responded earlier, and not now, only the IP would have been guilty of not following protocol. As it is, both you and the IP are basically just warring with each other and reverting the exact same changes repeatedly, which if occuring within 24 hrs would have been an outright 3RRR matter. As it is, its still a 3RRR in spirit. As an admin, pardon the cliche, with great power comes great responsibility to do what is right. This is not the first time the issue is raised to you. Zhanzhao (talk) 21:54, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

There was a gap of 2-3 weeks in which the IP never returned to discussion, satisfied that the right version had been reinstated, and never responded to my arguments. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 21:59, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) x some,

It sounds very much as though you are saying the ends justify the means; that you believe it acceptable for an admin to disregard policy, guidelines, consensus and due process because of exceptional circumstances. It is not.

I am sure that a number of us here sympathize with your concerns over freedom of the press in Singa. However, that is not, will never be, an excuse for disregarding WP:V, WP:BLP, WP:INVOLVED and other policy/guidelines. You cannot make claims, without proof. You cannot make accusations such as "socking" without launching an SPI.

Right now, here, we are teetering on the brink of requesting formal procedures toward sanctions, to enforce regard for established guidelines.

We're trying to find a way to avoid it. You'll need to make considerable concessions; perhaps agreeing to not edit any articles in this area for some time. You'll also need to accept that the aforementioned policies are not to be disregarded "because you think it is RIGHT".  Chzz  ►  22:01, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

My concern is actually not actually who "is right"; my gravest concern is WP:COI; I simply want these IPs to follow policy and I would prefer that the project not gain a reputation with government astroturfers that Wikipedia is an open hunting ground, or that criticisms can be removed with impunity. I disagree with a topic ban, if only because a) the users involved are anonymous b) too little attention is paid in this area. I have been very reluctant to use my tools but I will become even more so.

I am quite puzzled by the idea that I am making claims without proof. Users have generally agreed with me, that socks are involved; the SPI was launched by Strange Passerby after it happened after the nth time; I have in fact, posted previous evidence and proof on ANI before. I believe there is also "if it quacks like a duck" principle; initially, in the very early days of the dispute, and because CheckUser would be excessive (especially since it is likely only to catch registered users), I did not file an SPI report. SPI is not very good at identifying links between unregistered IPs.

I have never "disregarded" any policies and I have always considered the issues involved "carefully". For example, when a like to an interview used as a reference reverted by an anonymous user (linked in pattern to those with a likely COI and those who wish to game the system) on the grounds of "no Youtube videos" allowed; I have always double-checked policy to see if there are any grounds for such a removal. YouTube videos are frequently removed because a) of the fear of SPS b) of the fear of infringing copyright. I also read up regularly on fair use case law. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:14, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

So basically you assumed consensus after a period of inactivity to enter your edit which restarted the edit war. Even though there was already a Talk topic on the area of conflict. I would like to point out that this is almost the exact same pattern of behaviour that got you into the last ANI report, the only difference being that instead of editing through a protected page, you edited in spite of an existing Talk topic that specifically requested input from the warring parties (you included, as yoi were very actively defending your edit), changing what was a safer wording (which was taking directly from the source) to something you SYNTHESISED. Do you see the problem yet? Zhanzhao (talk) 22:11, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Hold on, where did I synthesise anything? My summary was taken straight from news sources. One of the headlines from the mainstream press (TodayOnline) was: "PAP: Will Wijeysingha pursue gay agenda? SDP: No, we will not". I cited this repeatedly (in addition to other mainstream mentions that Balakrishnan basically had a tiff with the SDP over an alleged gay agenda).

I disagree that it was "a safer wording" -- it is something that I believe is being used to whitewash the topic in favour of an employer. I actually don't really care what the title says or "the Truth" -- it is in the intention of the anonymous editing that concerns me most. For example, look at the history of Vivian Balakrishnan/deleted revisions (the original article was deleted because of six-year-old foundational copyvio issues) and look at the unexplained removals from likely government employee User:Eggsauto99 (and his related socks), where similar removals took place in order to whitewash articles that put his employer in a bad light. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:21, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

For the others -- you should take a look at the insertions of User:Geneva2011/ User:Eggsauto99 (among his IP allies) regarding text and photos taken verbatim from government sources, or from high-resolution privileged perspectives that betray being a government employee. This, in addition to occasional WHOIS of IPs contributing to socking occasionally turning up government ministries (I have cited the specific instances before in past reports), creates a very strong suspicion of COI. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:21, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Q what do you mean by "SPS" in the above?  Chzz  ►  22:19, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Self-published sources. SPS depends on author, the publishing organisation and editorial discretion; it is not a question of format. YouTube is frequently used to make SPS, but is not always used to make SPS. The IP who reverted me in that instance was out to game the system and cherrypick policy (oh Youtube videos are looked down upon! revert) without looking at the spirit of the policy or guideline, which in this case, is to inhibit the use of SPS. We can reference television interviews which have been broadcast; in fact, sources do this all the time. Under the fair use case law that I have seen, I never seen where already-broadcast news reports have been treated as unpublished material, and the use of citations of interviews and excerpts is supported by fair use case law.elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:27, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

You cannot reference something that cannot be verified. A broadcast TV interview is, often, not verifiable. Your 'evidence' of a person uploading it to YouTube, apart from almost certainly being a copyright violation, is not a reliable source.  Chzz  ►  22:33, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Where is this supported by policy? There are tons of authoritative guides on how to cite TV interviews. The archives are physically accessible in Singaporean archives and libraries. (We have a National Archives of all past news broadcasts and publications, you know, and SPH is owned by the government.) In any case, even if the link to the video was problematic (which I removed as a concession, but I consider our link to it, fair use), its citation is not.

Some example articles where YouTube links to interviews are used without objection:

• Barack Obama
• Christine O'Donnell
• Milton Friedman
• Bob McDonnell
• Virginia gubernatorial election, 2009

Use for cases of critique or commentary, use for informational purposes, and nonfringing market share strengthen a claim for fair use. (The uploader is a press freedom watchdog organisation)elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:44, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

The applicable policy is WP:V.

I checked Barack_Obama, and saw uploads from users "BarackObamadotcom" and "MoxNewsDotCom". Those are, apparently, official channels. I did not check the others.  Chzz  ►  03:27, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

If you revisit the source, you will see that the question was targeted at just one party member (individual) asking if he will pursue his "agenda" in the political arena, and the SDP (party) was only asked "about their position on their matter", to quote the article. And yet, you arrived at "Balakrishnan accuses the SDP of a "gay agenda"." Where its the whole party itself rather than the person being "accused". I'd like to further point out that the term "accused" was only used with the act of suppressing a videos in the related issue, not in the context of how that one member was questioned. Accused is a strong, and potentially non-neutral word, that should be used carefully.

Yes, Elle, this is a case of SYNTHESIS. What you call "whitewash", I call "safer wording", or insurance against prevent embellishment and exaggeration. Zhanzhao (talk) 22:54, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

It is certainly whitewashing if performed by editors with a likely conflict of interest. That fact concerns me the most.

Zhanzhao, the press source still basically says Vivian Balakrishnan (as spokesman for the PAP -- it is common to use synecdoche in the news) accused the SDP of having a gay agenda. That is their summary -- which they cannot make lightly -- and since we were talking about summaries, this supports my argument to summarise it that way. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 23:04, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

You still don't get it. You are trying to explain that your summary says its SDP the party being accused, but the actual source only has one of the SDP members being questioned, while the party was only asked about their position or stance on the matter. I think you are starting to get confused yourself when you try to lump everything together, so thats why, with this case being a good example, it might be necessary to stick to the source wording rather than attempt to do a misleading summary. This could have been trashed out in talk instead of being discussed here. Hence the need for protocol. Zhanzhao (talk) 23:12, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and the source interpreted this as the entire party being accused. I believe it is correct to use this source's interpretation to support what is clearly obvious to everyone: Balakrishnan accused an SDP politician (and the party he represents) of having a gay agenda. That a press source made this interpretation should be sufficient evidence. The claim that Balakrishnan made his initial "suppressing remark" without consciously trying to insinuate that the SDP had a gay agenda, is a fringe claim and should not be factored in titling the summary. Plenty of press sources make this interpretation, and no press sources make any opposing interpretations.

I am afraid Zhanzhao, what what you are doing is synthesis in itself. The idea then, that based "strictly on their original remarks" that it was possible, however unlikely, that Balakrishnan asked his "question" innocently is an original research statement unsupported by press sources. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 23:22, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

The press did not make any such intepretation. 2 different questions were asked, one to the party member, one to the party. The article mentioned them together because it was from the same interview and on a related issue, but the 2 specific questions (and their targets )were still left separate. This is the exact quote ofrom the article

"The issue is not Wijeysingha's sexual orientation. That is a matter for him," said the team from Holland-Bukit Timah GRC in a joint statement. Rather, "the video raises the question on whether Wijeysingha will now pursue this cause in the political arena and what is the SDP's position on the matter".

You on the other hand, are trying to combine the 2 into a singular sentence that was very misleading, as explained above. which lead to the claim that it was the party that was being accused directly. This should have been discussed on the talk pages, but if you really wish to continue to justify your attempt at SYNTHESIS here, be my guest. Zhanzhao (talk) 23:39, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

The headline was "PAP: Will Wijeysingha pursue gay agenda? SDP: No, we will not". How can that seriously be "two specific questions"? I would appreciate if you do not make bad faith accusations.

• The mainstream press referred to this accusation (otherwise why would the SDP have to defend itself against a phantom accusation of a gay agenda?)
• Temasek Review, Alex Au, and opposition press sources abundantly refer to this interpretation
• According to the Economist: "Social-networking sites filled up with the rebukes of Singaporeans disgusted at the PAP tactic."
• According to a New Zealand website: "Vivian Balakrishnan, on the SDP’s Vincent Wijeysingha. Balakrishnan via his Facebook and the media began what can only be described as a smear campaign, accusing SDP of having “a gay agenda”."

At some point, it really is a matter of semantics. If not "Balakrishnan accuses the SDP of having a gay agenda", then we can be inspired by The Economist's words. How about "Balakrishnan and the SDP's gay agenda", but that would assume the SDP actually has one. So then I would use "alleged gay agenda", and then "alleged by whom"? A mysterious person who is not Balakrishnan? I think we can use some NPOV and good common sense. In any case, I really would like if you took back the statement that I am a person who goes around sythesising original arguments to articles. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 23:52, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I am afraid I am unable to take back my statement as you still do not see the problem. For the umtempth time, according to the source, 2 different questions were mentioned. One to the individual, one to the party. The problem is that the individual party member did not give his answer (If he did, I may have missed it so correct me if I am wrong here since it was not mentioned in the same article). Instead, it was the party who attempted to answer both questions together. "Let me state categorically, we are not pursuing the gay agenda and none of our Members of Parliament will," said Dr Chee(SDP Secretary General).". Problem is they were not asked if they had such an agenda,, just their position on their member's agenda. They assumed that the party itself was being questioned. The news report had no choice but to report it as it was. Just because the SDP chose to answer the question in that manner does not change the fact that the original question about the agenda was not directed at them. I.e. If I asked a person if he was from Singapore, and he answered that he was poor. Would I stand accused of calling him poor, even though he was the one that answered the question different from what I expected? As for the other points you mentioned, I just explained the mainsteam media bit, other admins already questioned the reliability of some of the sources, and the economist does not say what the tactic was or how it is evidence of the SDP being accused. Until you are able to objectively read what is being said without jumping to your own conclusions, or discern objective writeups from subjective ones, its quite difficult to continue editing like this. Zhanzhao (talk) 00:11, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Your explanation does not change the headline or the newspaper's succinct summary, and it is not OR to use an existing headline. Furthermore, I have already given you a source which echoes what everyone else was thinking: Balakrishnan was making a thinly-veiled accusation. The Economist uses very good prose -- how explicit does it have to be in order for a reader to link "the PAP tactic" with the accusation at hand? I am saying even if we do not call it an accusation of a gay agenda, it is Balakrishnan hinting that the SDP has some sort of agenda (oh by the way, it's a gay one) and I think it's fairly ridiculous to reject the title in light of three different sources basically supporting that in some way or other, Balakrishnan was adopting coercive tactics towards the SDP, associating it with "gay agenda". If there is a problem, it is not one of OR. I would really really really appreciate it if you would then accuse me of something else other than being a someone who would freely violate WP:SYNTH. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 01:33, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Pretty interesting you should say that, because imo, you just did. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 01:35, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I employed heavy reliance on sources in that addition. Can you explicitly point out which statements are OR? elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 02:11, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Motion for topic ban on La goutte de pluie relating to Singaporean politics

Taking all the above into account; the fact that La goutte de pluie (hereafter "Elle" or "Lgdp") has misused her admin tools while WP:INVOLVED; the fact that Lgdp has edited through page protection to restore her preferred version of an article' the fact that she has repeatedly ignored WP:RSN advice and included unreliable sources and original research; and that she has failed to and refused to recognise her inappropriate actions in doing so;

I hereby move for an indefinite topic ban on La goutte de pluie (talk · contribs) on all articles relating to Singapore politics, broadly construed. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 01:28, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 01:28, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - I've been looking at the evidence so far and don't see a justification for a topic ban. As far as editing through a page protection, is there evidence of whether the edits were reverted or an apology was made? -- Avanu (talk) 02:24, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Let me try to wrap my head around this. You're perfectly happy for a page listing what admins have "done wrong" to exist, but when it comes to actually sanctioning them for doing wrong, you're against it? Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 02:54, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm ok with sanctioning someone, but I want to be clear it is warranted. The same is true with the other debate. Also, I would tend to err in favor of speech being allowed in userspace (versus mainspace). I tend to dislike topic bans, because I think they are harder to enforce than just a simple block or removal of power, etc. Suppose someone is topic banned from editing about hot dogs, and they edit a page about processed meat, or a page about sausage? violation or not? -- Avanu (talk) 03:31, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Gosh, Strange Passerby. I am unaware of where I have repeatedly ignored WP:RSN advice -- I have constantly listened to advice, but while Temasek Review is indeed a blog, it is a significant and notable one and can be cited in certain circumstances. When I have done so, I have been careful. Citing a TV interview is hardly using an unreliable source. Where I have been notified, I have corrected or made a compromise.

I have tried to use my tools very cautiously, and only in very blatant cases; my default mode of action is to post on a noticeboard or wait for intervention. I am unaware of where I have violated WP:INVOLVED since the last notice; the one case that I remember was an IP involved as a copyvio sock where other copyvio socks had been already been blocked by other admins -- I would also like for the community to note the circumstances where page protection was mistakenly edited through (most protections do not last more than 4 days, and I explicitly petitioned for discussion in multiple fora). elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 02:10, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

La goutte de pluie, did you revert your edits when you edited through page protection? If not, why, and what was your action instead, and how do you justify it? -- Avanu (talk) 02:27, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

See my request to Toddst1 here-- after 3-4 days, he never replied and I thought he saw my message. When it was first brought to ANI I was initially puzzled -- especially since I thought I had notified Toddst beforehand -- but after realising I had mistakenly edited through protection I wanted to wait to see if he agreed or not. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 04:03, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. La goutte de pluie makes positive (adding & updating content) & negative (breaching WP:OR) contributions to Singapore-related articles; the negatives are not on a scale where a ban is justified, and most of the time is dealt with swiftly by other editors.

A word of advice for La goutte de pluie: Your intransigence is digging yourself into a deeper and deeper hole. I understand and admire your zeal in trying to prevent government-linked accounts from making COI edits and copyright violations, but you are losing the battle of wits against them by overplaying your hand. You misused your admin tools and were warned about it, in addition to being advised by multiple admins to keep in line with WP:RS, WP:LINKVIO and WP:OR. Instead of heeding community advice, you keep making exceptions for yourself, blaming the Singapore's lack of free press, which is really utterly irrelevant in Wikipedia. In fact, in most of the controversial articles you have been involved in, I noticed that most of the negative information on the subject you wished to add can readily be sourced from reliable internet news sites (like Yahoo! News). Your refusal to humbly accept other admins' courteous advice is making you look arrogant, and is probably what led to this topic ban proposal.

Your attitude has brought you on the verge of being topic-banned, which can only be good news for the government-linked COI and CCI violators. See what I'm saying? Sometimes you have to take a step back before you can move forward. — Yk ʏк yƙ  talk ~ contrib 02:57, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

• • I'm sorry if I seemed arrogant. I am simply trying to explain my individual actions, and how I had carefully considered policy each time. In fact, initially -- having returned from a long break, I assumed many of the policies of 2006 were still in place, and then independent websites had less issues in being used as sources, albeit with the knowledge they were potentially partisan. With time, I used an assortment of different sources to give different positions on the same issue. I want to emphasise that I do take advice very seriously -- I am simply explaining my own position. I in fact intended to take many things to the RSN noticeboard, especially to challenge the idea that TR and TOC, etc. should never be cited (to me, they are comparable to such activist sites as MoveOn.org, which are citable), rather than argue endlessly about sourcing on talk pages, but due to real life, I simply did not have time to. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 04:03, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support but only to a temporary topic ban. She has been a good editor in other areas, and the election fevour may still be in the air, sitting on the sidelines for a while would allow her to cool off. But if possible, her admin tools in these same areas should be withheld for a much longer period than the topic ban jist in case. On our part we other admins and editors must pay more attention to the legitimate complaints that she makes rwgarding NPOV edits made by the IPs and take action on her behalf more actively. StrangePasserby and Todd are 2 that attempted to help her before, and their lack of COI made their action more objective based, which should be continued. Can I suggest that some senior admin be designated as her "conteoller/advisor" in a more permanant basis for the duration? By having an objective admin step in for legitimate concerns we are maintaining the neutrality of wikipedia while also making Elle tone down on her over-enthusiasm in this area if she has to ask properly and make convincing arguments to get action taken rather than herself making drastic and possibly COI action in the edits and administrative tool usage. Zhanzhao (talk) 08:36, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support - the user has been disrupting that area since they returned - seems to think he is defending against some conspiracy that hasn't been an issue till he showed up. As a clear political activist and a single purpose account in regard to attacking the opposition politicians using dubious picture uploads, youtube links and blog citations, (all of them living people and BLP articles) a topic ban is a very good idea. Off2riorob (talk) 08:38, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
  • For what it's worth, Rob, she's "attacking" the government politicians, not the opposition. Not that it makes a difference, of course; either way her actions are questionable at best. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:14, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Whoa, what? Single purpose account? elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 15:40, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
• I'll hate doing this but Support – disruption would be blockable, when we get to discuss it, we could do the final decision. We shouldn't start something too big. ~~Ebe123~~ ^talk_Contribs 13:02, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
• I was planning to support this, as I have very definite feelings about admins using their power or prestige in matters involving COI, but looking over the discussion, I think she now understands, and no further purpose would be served by a formal restriction. DGG ( talk ) 21:39, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Elle/La goutte de pluie is still making edits over at Singaporean presidential election 2011 (which currently I didn't spot any COI between editors, I suppose it was targeted towards me), Vivian Balakrishan's page (I find nothing wrong with the line "elected unopposed", but Elle seems to like to introduce sarcastic remarks like "enjoyed a second walkover". "Enjoy"??? Seriously? Aside from that she's adding new references from Scoop. Refer talk page) and on Tin Pei Ling's page (where she re-added the reference link (youtube video). I had brought it up that it had no relevance much earlier on the talk page and she could not even back up with a proper claim on why it's required.)202.156.13.10 (talk) 21:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Um, there's no Youtube video cited in that link. I cited the news report directly (as with the original). Also "enjoy" is not sarcastic in this phrase has multiple meanings, including "benefit from". elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 00:17, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I'm supporting the topic-ban, as I think it could help with the immediate concern. However, I hesitate to do so, as I believe it will not resolve the core problem - that La goutte de pluie seems to continue to think it is acceptable to act outside of accepted practice because of the actions of others. The above requests, asking La goutte de pluie to agree to abide by policy/guideline norms, have been side-tracked by discussions of the IP-users. As StrangePasserby said, it's not a one-way street; however, two wrongs don't make a right, and a defence of I disagree with a topic ban, if only because a) the users involved are anonymous b) too little attention is paid in this area are not valid rationales for opposing this; again, it's WP:NOTTHEM. The user continued to add controversial material, even during this discussion [13] and their apparent misunderstanding of RS and copyvio still concerns me - even though it has been explained by several users above, e.g. still thinking it OK to cite something that was broadcast, despite it not being verifiable, just because we've got a "Cite video" template; also claims it is somehow more acceptable to use a non-RS when it is a 'supplementary source'; also saying blog posts from well-known journalists, despite scathing language, are frequently accepted as sources (which worries me particularly, in terms of BLP). The above specific discussions regarding SYNTH/OR belong on the article talk-page, not here - but, the concern right here is, that - despite past cautions about the same issues - the user continues to impose their interpretation without working towards consensus.  Chzz  ►  13:11, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I am not familiar with any legal or academic opinions in which broadcast items can be considered "not published". In all fairness, looking at various copyright case law sources, being broadcast is equivalent to being published. Furthermore, my use of "supplementary source" was an attempt at compromise; additional sources published from heavily-censored environments can be considered when cross-referenced with more reliable sources. I think this is a fairly reasonable thing to propose.

I would also request a clarification why you think I do not work towards consensus, a comment I am fairly surprised at, when that has always been my goal. I have always tried to compromise -- it is fairly easy to work with established editors. However, anonymous IPs have a tendency to revert without explanation, or the use of compromise. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 00:17, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support: per my comments above. Toddst1 (talk) 22:53, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Admin and editor are two different hats, and the bulk of valid points in this complaint appear to be relating to actions taken by the user while wearing the admin-hat (ie. admin tools misuse). The issues related to the validity and interpretation of the sources while the user is wearing their editor-hat don't warrant a topic ban. Deal with the admin-hat issues through appropriate channels, there's not enough to justify simultaneously sanctioning the user's ability to act under their editor-hat as well. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 01:42, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Re La goutte de pluie's use of sources, all I have to say is that I think we need to allow considerably more latitude in sourcing articles about a country where its government controls what appears in its "mainstream" media. More important is that, like others here, I also have the strong impression that our articles on Singaporean politics are the target of a coordinated government propaganda campaign, and that anon IP hoppers are a large part of that. It would seem naive to me to imagine that editors who act in opposition to this campaign, as La goutte de pluie does, would not be attacked by anonymous users in such a context. Also, while I recognize that using a named account isn't required, it doesn't impress me much when I see long-term established editors attacked here by IP users. If someone isn't committed enough to our community to even create an account ( e.g. to allow proper scrutiny ) then I generally apply a pretty steep discount to their credibility re a complaint like this one. That seems particularly called for in this subject area, where objectivity is so consistently and aggressively threatened by COI edits from socks, paid government propagandists, and IP hoppers. Having said that, I'll also say that these comments are not meant to apply to any particular user, and certainly not to any registered and long-established users, whose good faith I have absolutely zero basis to doubt or question.  – OhioStandard (talk) 05:55, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support. While Ohiostandard raises mentions the valid possibility that the IPs are possible coordinated attacks, these can be easily controlled by a semi-protect. But then how about the need to protect the page from named editors who have anti-government sentiments, or worse, admins who can edit through normal protection as La goutte was shown to have done? She said it was a mistake, but still, it would not have been possible if she was not an admin in the first place, and as pointed out by a few others above, has COI issues to boot. 

Lets not forget that wikipedia is a literally a free-for-all battleground for both sides. I speak from past experience from having to keep another unrelated page neutral from the actions of a anti-government leaning editor who was so blatant that he was even recruiting meatpuppets from external forums to wage their ideological war here, so I know such editors exist. The case is clearly "chronicaled" in my talk page if you guys care to read it. 

Also, I note that from La goutte's edit history, she only resumed active duty around the period of the general elections (the last one and the current one). Even her user page comments on her desire to be more vocal regarding politics. That, plus her habit of using selective sources and attempting to bulldoze her way through via wikilawyering makes her a questionable editor in the political articles. Sometimes she even uses guidelines in opposing ways to support her objectives. Her quoting copyvio on the V.Balakrishnan articles is acceptable, but then she switches tact and plays free and easy with copyvio when she wants to insert something that is copyrighted [14]. Who watches the watchers? 

Especially since she was already warned recently in another ANI of similar behaviour which is still being highlighted here. I suppose we can go through all this again if yetanother report is raised about her. After all, she does not seem to take corrective criticism to heart. Or a serious warning can be given to her this time, something that she finally has to take seriously. DanS76 (talk) 09:15, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Alternative: Put disputed articles on 1RR

An alternative proposal to consider: Given the above-established facts, and noting the repeated edit warring between Elle and the anonymous IPs, all additions to the contested articles: Vivian Balakrishnan, Tin Pei Ling, Teo Ser Luck, Vincent Wijeysingha and Singaporean general election, 2011, are to be put under a one-revert-rule per user per article per 24 hours. On the IPs' side, this would apply to all anonymous editors restoring the content. This much more sufficiently deals with the fact that this isn't a one-way street and only sanctioning Elle will not work in the long run. Elle would not be allowed to use her admin tools in this area, even to block for violations of the 1RR. This will hopefully foster a more conducive environment where all additions, contentious or otherwise, are first proposed and discussed on the talk pages. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:53, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:53, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support 1RR on the contested articles and a full administration ban on Elle on the contested articles for the duration of the sanction. Considering it appears the flashpoint here is a current event, I'd support a sanction length of 3 months. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 04:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. In part for the reasons I gave above re SPB's initial proposal, but also because I think semi-protection would be a much more appropriate response to deal with the problem. I don't see that any other action or sanction is at all called for at this point. I don't edit in this topic area, btw.  – OhioStandard (talk) 05:55, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support We are heading in the rigth direction here as we are putting in some form of control. Admins should stay uninvolved, and know when they cross the threshhold. Whatever works. I feel that a semiprotect unbalances the playing field though. For example, I see that 202.156.13.10 is an IP that appears consistently and frequently, which means it is possibly a static IP, so it is unfair to him/her. The other IPs are quite random and e edits are outright disruptive without being participative so for all intent and purposes we can take them as one single bunch which can be ignored. Is there anyway we can do selecrive filtering of IPs for the semiprotect? DanS76 (talk) 09:35, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
  • No, the 202.156.13.10 editor has been hopping across several other IPs too (self-admittedly), and actually claims that simultaneously other editors have also been on this IP of his, so it's both shared and dynamic. It's long past the point where for this person to insist on his "right" to edit logged-out has become disruptive. He needs to get an account and stick to it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:59, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm you are right, I was only basing off the frequency of the IP appearing but guess I was off. In which case it still does not change my vote, but the the semiprotect would cut down on the warring from one side at least.DanS76 (talk) 13:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I dislike reverting more than once, and I would like it if some accountability was stressed on the part of the IP editors. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 16:33, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Disagreement with content should be resolved in Talk. As for the semiprotect, I guess this is unavoidable and I have no objections to it as I had already previously pitched the idea to them to register so as to faciliatate easier communication, plus this makes it easier to keep track of diacussions with him/her/them. Zhanzhao (talk) 18:31, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikistalking by anonymous editors

Can I ask for some intervention against wikistalking here by one of the anonymous IP ranges. For example, I just noticed this IP reversed the uncontroversial revert I made (I had removed agenda-pushing linkspam from The Clinton Chronicles). I am not sure what interest user:220.255.1.100 had in The Clinton Chronicles except to stalk my contributions. This is just one case out of many. In cases like these, I would see it fit to block on sight, since I would deem this incontroversial. In the past, when I have referred this other noticeboards, they taken very narrow remedies, and the editors involved are free to switch to some other IP range; I would like some help in dealing with these anonymous editors as a whole. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 03:38, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

wouldn't semi-protection deal with it? I can see in context of this discussion that you'd rather not apply it yourself, but just let me know on or off wiki and I'll do it for you, in anything unrelated to singapore politics at least. I just did it for this one. I'd also block, but if they switch to other ip ranges, what would that accomplish? DGG ( talk ) 20:52, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I would like some help (a more aggressive CheckUser) or perhaps some way of separating the IPs in question. I am definitely not in favour of WP:OUTING any individuals, but given that Eggsauto99 and Geneva2011 were in all likelihood, editing on behalf of some organisation, I would like help in determining what that organisation is. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 01:04, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

No, semi-protection wouldn't solve it either, given that switching to another article is also easy, but thanks. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 01:06, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I find it funny you constantly like to play victim when you are the one doing wiki-stalking. Reverting edits I've made, undoing the IP talk pages which I've cleaned up. 202.156.13.10 (talk) 23:07, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

You cannot clean up IP talk pages that you don't own, especially if you are deleting comments left by established members of the community. Individuals are allowed to patrol the edits of problematic IP such as yours, especially since it's a public IP. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 23:41, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I was told it's fine to clean up. 202.156.13.10 (talk) 00:02, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

That only applies to users who do not share accounts, or with unique identities. With public or sockpuppeteering IPs, it is less clear; it is better to err on the side of more info. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 00:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with OhioStandard in the sections above at least about one thing: the IP trolling needs to stop. Sure, it's one of our principles that we don't require registration, but that principle is meant to enable newcomers to quickly and easily make some uncontroversial fix here and there. It is not meant to enable people to engage in long-standing, personalized disputes with other, registered editors, while themselves evading WP:SCRUTINY. If you want to uphold a sustained presence in a dispute, especially in an area where disruptive sockpuppetry has already occurred, and especially if you are also willing to edit-war, and if you have repeatedly been asked to create an account, then you should damn well stick to an account, or be discounted as a malicious element. So, official admin warning to 202.156.13.10/202.156.13.11/202.156.13.226: stick to an account or be blocked. (And I encourage fellow administrators to respond to any more disruptive IP editing with liberal use of blocks and semiprotections). Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:42, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

There is no rule that I must get an account. I have already explained why the IP jumps and that it is beyond my control that they flip even within seconds. It is you and LDPG who do not believe in it and the latter often accuses me of using some IP-jumping equipment. I would like to ask why LDGP couldn't keep her hands off articles I'm editing in then and start accusing me of sockpuppetry whenever she can even when I was reverting edits made done to vandalism on S.R. Nathan page. 202.156.13.11 (talk) 15:27, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm replying here since I can't seem to add it in at the top where La goutte de pluie questioned why I deleted her comment in Teo Ser Luck's talk page. This isthe comment which LDGP added with her sockpuppet (obvious sockpuppet since she reverted back to LDGP's edit to include the Yahoo! article). Was it wrong to remove a baseless accusation? So is she going to bring your government conspiracy talk to every single page? I see that LDGP have done so by adding COI in Tony Tan Keng Yam when there wasn't even much going on. And when COI was removed by another editor, LDGP's reply was that "Tempwikisc works in Tony Tan's office (by his own admission). hard to think of a more explicit COI." Baseless accusation again. As it isn't bad enough, what's with changing a perfectly normal heading "political career" to "rise to power"? Are you writing about Hitler? LDGP has some serious anti-governement issues. 202.156.13.11 (talk) 15:57, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Harassment by User:Viriditas

Resolved

 – No administrative action required. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:05, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

User http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Viriditas has repeatedly harassed me on my talk page. Firstly he has accused me of being a sockpuppet without providing any evidence to back up this claim. After I provided an extensive explanation of my time on Wikipedia he proceeded to question the value of my contributions to Wikipedia as a whole. I then proceeded to tell him that it was not his place to question whether my edits were valuable and I asked him to stop posting on my talk page unless he had anything further to say about sockpuppetry. Despite this request he has continued to post on my talk page and ask rhetorical questions about the value of my contributions on Wikipedia. This whole incident began after I expressed an opinion on the ongoing Requested Move at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#Requested_Move . I have never had any contact with this user prior to my entrance into the discussion on the Requested Move, and it appears that he is posting on my talk page in an attempt to intimidate me out of making further contributions to said Requested Move. Vietminh (talk) 05:27, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Vietminh has not informed Viriditas of this report. Vietminh's editing history is slightly odd. There was an inital gap of several months between creating the account and making the first edit. These edits amongst others are odd.[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] He has also admitted to editing as 174.114.87.236 (talk · contribs). The editing on the named account did suddenly change about three weeks ago.[25] Mathsci (talk) 07:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Vietminh's account was created at 02:26, 26 September 2006. At 02:35, 26 September 2006 Vietminh edited Russell Hayne. That's an initial gap of 9 minutes, not several months. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 11:18, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Non-administrators cannot see the deleted edits. Mathsci (talk) 20:51, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

If he did, that edit is hidden or deleted. The first edit currently showing is in January of 2007. The most curious oddity is a gap of nearly 33 months, between March of 2007 and December of 2009. December of 2009 is also when 174.114.87.236 started editing. Its possible he had other IP's prior to that, and overall may just have a casual attitude about whether he's logged in or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:01, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

A large number of users do not emerge as Minerva making large numbers of edits after springing from Jupiter's head. The gap of 33 months is pretty much meaningless as a result. It is moreover important that if a person believes that socking is occurring, that they post on appropriate boards and not post accusations of what appears to have been valid use of IPs as being some heinous violation (perhaps the fact that the IPs have zero temporal overlap is a clue? ). Have a cup of tea everyone. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, not everyone who has a username logs in every time he or she edits; my husband has a username (complete with a userpage and even a barnstar), yet seldom edits under his username because he doesn't have the "remember me" box checked on the login page. Only the really committed (or the anal-retentive) worry about logging in for every edit. Horologium (talk) 20:53, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The report doesn't require any administrative action. Vietminh (talk · contribs) has simultaneously requested an SPI. Best forgotten. Mathsci (talk) 21:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll respond to all in one paragraph: I informed Viriditas that I would initiate this action if he continued to harass me on my talk page, and I specifically asked him to cease posting on my talk page unless he had something to say in regard to his sockpuppet accusation. Despite this he continued to harass me without making any further mention of his sockpuppet accusation. In short: he was informed of what I would do if he continued, and he choose to continue despite knowing what would result. Also I provide an explanation of my use of my IP address on my IP's talk page, and I provide an explanation of why I started to use my account on my account user page. As for the SPI I initiated (which has since been closed without action), this has little to do with the action I have initiated here. That SPI has to do with the sockpuppet accusation which was made against my IP 1 year ago which was seemingly initiated by a sockpuppet account itself. The issue here is with Viriditas' accusation of sockpuppetry against my user account and his comments thereafter on my talk page. Vietminh (talk) 07:23, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you looking for the 'random rant at user' page? Because this isn't it.... (I'm being facetious of course. You're welcome to take this matter up at a more appropriate place like WP:WQA if you really feel it necessary. It's clear no admin action is warranted.) Nil Einne (talk) 22:15, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Falkland Islands

Could admins take a look at this section please.

An IP, 209.36.57.10 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), with a history of posting long and disruptive rants on Talk:Falkland Islands (such as [26]) went to Falkland Islands (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) a couple of days ago and tagged a dozen or so points with an "unbalanced opinion" tag, arguing that the neutral facts taken from reliable sources should be "counterbalanced" with mostly-unspecified Argentine POV material. He reached 3RR, having been reverted by four separate editors. This IP is strongly believed to be Alex79818 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for reasons that I would prefer not to discuss in public.

At the end of May, Alex, in his first acknowledged edits on the subject in three and a half years, posted an Arbcom case regarding the Falklands. It was rejected here. Since then, Alex has made threats to try and take us back to Arbcom - see here, and note that he was warned by an uninvolved admin here. Alex's communication, as can be seen throughout his edit history, consistently fails to assume good faith and is frequently uncivil, with personal attacks thrown in for good measure - see for example this, written today.

The IP, meanwhile, posted this on Tuesday. In it he says that "[w]e are documenting, everything you say, on every issue" and that "we're just going through the motions" in preparation for Arbcom. It is clear to me that the intention is to try to bully editors into letting him have his way with the article. I note also this comment, which I put out there for general information.

The uninvolved admin who warned Alex when he previously issued threats advised that ANI be the next step with any future issues. As such, I am now doing this. Pfainuk talk 20:35, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Without commenting on the claims of the potential chilling effect of some of some of the ip's comments, I would note generally that it is entirely within the remit of WP:NPOV to include Argentinian sources addressing the pov of that nation - being the other party in the dispute of the sovereignity of the islands. What due weight such references should be given is a matter for discussion and consensus; however, denying the discussion of such matters is as non collegiate as threatening continued "disruption by process". LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:59, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The point I would make is that this is intended to be a history of the islands, not a discussion of a dispute. It is is the nature of this dispute that what are claimed to be historical facts by one or other side often turn out to have little or no historical basis at all according to reliable sources. In some cases, indeed, they are directly contradicted by both historical evidence and reliable sources. While I have no issue with including Argentine sources, this is different from presenting an Argentine POV that has little apparent basis in history.

However, when it comes down to it, it is very difficult to have a collegiate discussion on any subject that involves Alex, simply because of the persistent incivility, personal attacks and accusations of bad faith. WP:BATTLEGROUND comes to mind. Pfainuk talk 21:06, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

T M F L - D R    How 'bout a "Readers Digest" Version ?
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I completely agree that an impasse has been reached in the discussion of the article such that Admin involvement is necessary. I welcome it with open arms and in this response I shall attempt to be as brief as I can in responding to the accusations made by Pfainuk, and will address them point by point so as to be concise. 1 - Regarding the accusation that I am the editor behind the posts made by : I will bring to the attention of administrators the fact that a number of editors have been accused of being sock puppeteers, including Smackyrod, Mummy34; Mercy11, et.c. This appears to be a recurring accusation made by certain editors in the article (on whose activites I shall later expand upon), which curiously enough always seem to surface whenever the discussion's consensus lines up against what heretofore was the status quo as to the manner in which facts are presented. Pfainuk and Wee Curry Monster have numerous times stated they have evidence that backs up their accusations, yet they never seem to present them. I have denied these falsities and do so again here, and add that if they have any evidence it be submitted for examination. 2 - That Pfainuk is an "uninvolved admin": I find that suggestion to be blatantly false. A cursory review of the article's discussion history will demonstrate that Pfainuk is very much an involved admin whose input and opinions consistently fall on the side of a certain group of editors, never with the editors who hold opposing viewpoints. Without delving into the countless examples of this since Pfainuk's initial involvement in the article, I will direct Admins to the Arbcom case linked above, and the large number of editors who in that forum expressed views that supported my complaints. The objection I and others have raised is that this article has a devoted cabal of editors who are consistently violating WP:NPOV by inserting a pro-British bias in the way that facts are presented. This can take many forms, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, and includes the elimination of sources based on how they interpret or report historical events to have taken place; specific phrasing and punctuation, use of terms that WP guidelines say should be avoided (latest example: "claim" as a verb), et.c. Further, that this group of editors consistently over the years have engaged in countless violations of WP:GAMES in order to stiffle any opposition to their views, no matter how small the issue being discussed is - to the degree that there have been EW's over silly things like punctuation. Such instances of violations of WP:GAMES involve accusations like the one now leveled against me. Other methods include: -Playing "tag-team", or functioning as a block by coordinating their editing behavior to feign consensus or wear down editors who hold opposing views, such that they will no longer desire to participate - thereby assuring their continued hegemony over the text; -Taking turns to revert other editors' changes to avoid WP:3RR, while making it seem other editors are engaging in an EW; -Framing opposing editors' viewpoints as "disruptive editing" so as to eliminate or stifle the discussion altogether; -Dismissing other editors' academically-reliable sources (whose conclusions are different from the ones their chosen sources espouse); -Giving arbitrary reasons for their rejection to the aforementioned sources' conclusions being included in the text (examples: they're "simplistic", "irrelevant", or "not robust enough"), and so furthering their WP:NPOV violations; -In the odd chance consensus does manage to line up against them, declaring the subject to be "irrelevant" to the article so they can create a related article to relegate the information there, where slowly over time they use their methods to remove the content altogether; -finally, when editors like me do challenge them regarding their behavior, they level accusations that we are not adhering to WP:AGF. Indeed, I find it ironic that, given the large number of editors who have been so aggrieved over the years, they would accuse only little old me of disruption or sock puppetry, given that so many would ostensibly have similar motivations. The truth, however, is plain to see in the discussion history of the article, that certain editors (and I will specify exactly who, if asked of me by Admins, but I prefer not to level new accusations at this time) have collectively engaged in countless violations of WP:NPOV, WP:GAMES, WP:PSTS, WP:OR, WP:RFC, WP:3RR, and most every other WP rule there is at one point or another. I invite admins to peruse through the article's discussion history to examine for themselves whether this is true or not, suggesting special attention be paid to the following discussion threads: "British bias and edit warring and POV pushing" June 2009 "UN Resolutions and more Argentinian references need to be included in this article" Feb 2010 "Nootka Sound Conventions vs. Argentine POV" September 2007 (MEDCAB, unresolved) "Phrasing and Sourcing" Jan 2009 "Starting Over" April 2009 "Respecting while rejecting Argentine claims" Feb 2009 "CIA World Factbook" August 2009 Many users, not just me, have observed that just such a group of coordinated editors exists, as documented in the Arbcom page and discussion history by its numerous nicknames, i.e. "the cabal", "the law", etc. In that respect, I have before and continue to observe that Pfainuk's contributions continue to fall in line with that group's overall views on every single subject, without exception (that I've seen). It is my opinion that Pfainuk is very much an involved admin, who acts as 'muscle' for that group, and I personally believe that he has taken advantage of his Admin position for this purpose - a question which I will most graciously allow his fellow Admins to answer themselves. 3 - The definition of "Reliable Sources": I refer you to Pfainuk's post above: "It is is the nature of this dispute that what are claimed to be historical facts by one or other side often turn out to have little or no historical basis at all according to reliable sources. In some cases, indeed, they are directly contradicted by both historical evidence and reliable sources." What I object to is that it seems the aforementioned group are the only editors who decide what is a "reliable source". Going to the heart of the issue is the fact that the text is based on these sources, and there is a total exclusion of any source whose conclusions about historical events or their importance are not reflected in the text. If these sources were truly unreliable, I would not object. However, there is an arbitrary exclusion of sources by these editors, not because they're "unreliable", but because they present a POV that conflicts with the conclusions that support the British sovereignty claim - and this is true of sources not only from Argentina, but also from Britain and the United States. Thus, the true determining factor for whether or not a source is reliable, and whether or not its conclusions should be reflected on the article's text, is whether or not the conclusion supports the British sovereignty claim and the facts that it is based upon. In almost all controversial and contentious issues, there are reputable academic sources whose conclusions are in direct contradiction with each other. Clearly, this does not necessarily mean one conclusion makes a source "reliable" while another conclusion makes a source "unreliable", or that it is "propaganda" by default, meriting exclusion. The very fact that this is brought up in an accusation against me discloses the underlying bias that I am referring to in Pfainuk's editing and Admin activities. Lastly, let me repost my belief that such coordinated editing activity, along with the countless instances of WP policy which I and other editors believe these users have violated with total impunity over the years, has created a discussion environment that is poisonous, given these editors' behavior and consistently rude, dictatorial approach. There is no doubt in my mind that these actions have resulted in many editors abandoning their participation both in this article and all related articles. Surely, I admit that I was one of them. However, my prolonged absence from WP bears no effect on these editors' actions - and indeed, part of my motivation for continuing to stay away long after the return of my interest, choosing instead to silently watch the discussion, was so that at this point I could provide examples of this behavior that did not personally include me, but a number of other editors. Since the renewal of my active participation, my position has been to consistently confront these individuals regarding their apparent activities. To that end, I reserve the right, as any other editor does, to utilize WP dispute resolution methods in the pursuit of fairness and neutrality of the Falkland Island article's contents. My statements and promises of doing as much are not threats, only courteous reminders that I retain and am quite willing to use those dispute resolution resources, just as every other WP editor has that right. I believe in WP and I believe this method will ultimately result in the end of the repeated WP:NPOV violations to which I've referred in this article. Without a doubt, after this has been achieved in the primary article, my consistent and unwaivering efforts will spread to all other Falklands-related articles, until I and other aggrieved editors feel satisfied that at least a minimum level of neutrality has been achieved. I will not be dissuaded from my intent by any act of intimidation, of which this complaint is the latest manifestation. I certainly make no apology for using processes which clearly exist in WP for a reason and are equally available to all. While the Arbcom case was rejected, I point to the fact that there was no factual decision taken, and that the rejection of the case was due to the fact that there had not been enough dispute resolution steps taken before the case was brought up to Arbcom, with committee members' explicit suggestion that such lower echelons be tried before proceeding upwards. My statements indicate my willingness to follow ARBCOM's suggestion on how to proceed, and I have not pursued any further dispute resolution procedures since the Arbcom case in order to give some detente to all editors, and attempt to reset discussion to try to put our personal accusations aside. Clearly, this has not worked. I therefore support Admin involvement in this and all related articles, exhorting them to carefully examine the discussion history of the Falkland Islands page and their unusually high rate of archival - especially the discussion threads I cited above - paying special attention to the effects of the coordinated actions of the group of WP:NPOV-violating editors, the reaction of users who proposed different opinions, their continued permanence or absence from further participation as a result of these exchanges, and in particular, Pfainuk's activities as an administrator during these occasions. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alex79818 (talk • contribs)

Even though I'm not closely involved in the related articles as I once was, let me say a couple of things.

First, we are mixing two things. If there are reasons to believe a certain IP is a socket-puppy of a user, this can be easily checked by a checkuser, and I see no reason why it shouldn't be used.

Secondly, Alex79818 seams to be in a lone and long crusade to have more of the Argentina POV in the articles related to the Falkland Islands, which in principle is not a bad thing. I have to sadly concur with him when he says that Argentine POV is swiftly removed by a quick consent between pro-UK users. Two months ago I added a link to news of an event related to the article that involved the Argentine acting president which was removed without any comments on the talk page. When I brought up the issue to the talk page (I was careful not to revert the article not even once) I was told that it was just Argentine propaganda, and should thus be removed without more ado. But perhaps the worse part was that once they made their mind they didn't care explaining their point, giving references to what they claimed, answered sarcastically and cared not for maintaining the balance of the article. And this has systematically happened any time anyone brought anything pro-Argentine. Now I went further that I intended on this subject; I was just trying to illustrate how hard and frustrating it is to bring anything that doesn't appeal the overwhelming majority of pro-UK users.

But back to the issue; do a check user if you think this IP is really Alex79818 or not. But remember that consensus is something that should emerge from both sides, and not imposed unilaterally.

--Mariano(t/c) 06:18, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

(I must admit I had always assumed that the editor you refer to as editing sarcastically was Latin American if not Argentine - though I note that there is no evidence for that on his/her user page. That doesn't say anything about his politics, of course, but does put some things in perspective.) Pfainuk talk 06:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Admins may wish to note that this discussion has now been WP:CANVASSed to multiple editors with no involvement in the recent discussion ([27][28][29][30][31][32]). This is not untypical of Alex's recent habit of slinging mud at any admin-related discussion to do with any kind of dispute that has happened on those articles over a period of years: his Arbcom case included most people who have posted to the article since 2007 as parties, even when those editors had not edited the article for years, had been indefinitely blocked, were sockpuppeteers and so on. It is also very long, and I suggest that it be collapsed. This is also not unusual - Wikipedia:FILIBUSTER, along with WP:BATTLEGROUND, is another point that comes to mind when thinking of my dealings with Alex.

The substance of the above is all fairly standard stuff that we've seen several times from Alex on the talk page and I do not propose to respond in detail. You're welcome, of course, to look through my record - and you will note that I have been more willing than most to discuss issues when they arise. In particular, I have stated that I have no objection to a change in text to remove the word "claim". The trouble comes when I am then promptly accused of things and when people start issuing threats. When Alex persistently engages in threats and personal attacks, outright refuses to assume good faith and will never allow discussion to remain on the topic of the article, it is very difficult to come to a consensus.

(Since he brings up the September 2007 Medcab - his only previous involvement at Falkland Islands - this refusal to assume good faith is not new. The discussions were here and continued here and here. It's worth mentioning in this context that his argument relied heavily on his own heavy interpretation of a primary source, and his refusal, demonstrated by this post to the mediator by an otherwise entirely uninvolved editor, to acknowledge sources that disagreed. As far as I'm concerned it's ancient history, but he apparently still bears a grudge.) Pfainuk talk 06:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

This thread has "verbose" on maximum verbosity, apparently. Doc talk 06:44, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

My point, as an admin, is that there is no basis on removing cited content because the contributor might be the ip/sock of a vexatious pov warrior. You can remove content because it is unreferenced or fails to reach the standard for cited material, and you can ask for sanctions against an editor who consistently adds unsourced content to support a pov that ignores consensus; what you cannot do is remove cited content because the contributor advocates a pov that is outside of current consensus (and I would question the consensus of any article that seeks to exclude, as a matter of course, pov's that are not that of the other editors). I see a lot of how bad an editor and/or an ip is in attempting to add a particular viewpoint, but not a lot on why the sources are unreliable - even the claim that Argentinian sources may be biased propoganda is insufficient; it is still the viewpoint of that party. I do not think that this issue needs "admin action", I think it needs a RfC so outside opinion can be found on whether NPOV is being properly provided. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:12, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

As an involved editor, I'd like to say a few things:

a) I don't fully understand the point for this ANI. Is it to take actions regarding the IP, or against the user? If the later, a checkuser should be conducted first;

b) I understand the feeling of Alex79818, tho I can't support his ways. Pfainuk, you say you have no objection to change the verb "claim" but you never help me bringing WCM back to reason. It has happened before, for example with the "Salem Gazette" passage or the word "although", IIRC. Even if me and Alex have expressed in favor of changing it, and you have said (no voting) that it could be benefical, we both know that WCM will fight like hell against this change. And that's how always the status quo prevails -- it's very frustrating. And silence/inaction is complicity.

For a quick understanding of how British POV subtly prevails, compare how the Antarctica region is treated in the Argentina and Chile article, and how it's treated as part of the UK here. In these months I've learned that trying to change any of them should be nearly impossible, specially if WCM is around, yet I still don't give up... for now.

Regards. --Langus (talk) 15:05, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

One final thought: NPOV is one of the Five Pillars of WP, and the reason why it doesn't have publicity, even being the 5th most popular website on the net. At the same time, for months I've been reading news about how WP is losing editors. Could it be that people is losing his faith in WP? Could it be that established editors tend to "bite" and disregard the new ones in favor of "their friends"? Just some thoughts, from a personal experience perspective. --Langus (talk) 17:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

When it comes down to it, in many of these cases, I simply don't care that much. I think "claim" is neutral here. In which case it can reasonably be replaced with any other word that is both neutral and accurate. Which means that I'm not really the one you need to persuade. I would note that some people - and I don't necessarily exclude myself here - are likely inclined to the view that Alex's tactics should not be allowed to prevail because that will encourage him to repeat them. It's not how we're supposed to think - I accept it's not what is supposed to happen or how editors am supposed to react - but when someone acts in the way Alex does I rather think it's inevitable. This is, in part, why we have rules against it. Pfainuk talk 21:09, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm complaining because I am being threatened by this editor and this IP. I'm complaining about being continually accused of bad faith by this editor and this IP. I'm complaining because of the total lack of civility that pervades this editor and this IP's comments on talk. I'm complaining because of the personal attacks that this editor and this IP have repeatedly subjected me to. I am complaining about the rants that this editor and this IP have repeatedly subjected myself and other readers of the talk page to. None of this should I have to put up with. If it is the opinion of admins that it acceptable to for an editor or an IP to break just about every behavioural rule the encyclopædia has, then it is a very sad day for the encyclopædia. Pfainuk talk 21:09, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Just to set the record straight, folks, I'm not any of the editors listed above. Pfainuk, understand that I & other editors are also complaining about you, as well as Wee Curry Monster and all the other editors who make up "the gang", "the cabal", "the law", whatever u want to call it. We think the things you do, that Alex79818 described above, are just as bad (even though I can't really say whether or not they're all true, but I have seen some instances of what he's talkin about). We think it's you people that show a 'total lack of civility'. We don't think we should have to put up with it. Our sources are "propaganda". Our discussion attempts are "rants". Our viewpoints are "not robust enough". We say "Enough!" and you ignore us. We can't make any progress and the status qup remains. It's true what Langus said, it's very frustrating when established editors tend to "bite". Well don't be surprised when some editors decide to use WP dispute resolution to "bite back". We think when someone acts in the way "the cabal" has been acting, such measure are...how did you put it?..."rather inevitable". I hope you read LessHeard vanU's post above. If you'd abide by that, we wouldn't have a problem.

There, now getting back to the main issue: I think the "unbalanced opinion" tags should restored, or the text changed to reflect both positions equally. If you want sources I will provide sources for each instance. If you challenge those sources for trivial or arbitrary reasons we'll all end up right back here. I prefer to discuss and compromise and follow the rules of WP. I would hope you do too.209.36.57.10 (talk) 15:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I invite editors to compare and contrast this message with Alex's collapsed one above. The tone here is basically the same the tone adopted by both Alex and the IP on the talk page. It does not change, regardless of the discussion topic. Posts that one would expect to be on content matters are generally no less ad-hominem and generally do not generally contain any significantly greater proportion of discussion related to content. If anything, the opposite is true in many cases. The threats there are more obvious, the accusations of bad faith more blatant, the personal attacks more objectionable.

And I would finally note that the "discussion attempts" the IP refers to earned him a three month block. Make of that what you will. Pfainuk talk 17:17, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

User:68.194.239.60 needs a time out

Resolved

 – Sockpuppet IP account hardblocked. — Satori Son 02:11, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I warned 68.194.239.60 (talk · contribs) that:

Comments such as "U ANNOYIN BIITCH.. WHY U KEEP ON REVERTIN WAT I JUS DID? SMH LOSER ASS CRACKA WHO WANNA BE PUERTO RICAN" and "YOU ARE A CRACKA A55 BiiTCH" are completely beyond the pale here.

The response was "FUcK U". Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Notified. IP seems pretty static: all contributions have been to subjects related to Puerto Rico, Latinos, etc. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:11, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

It's been linked to this fellow, and it's obviously the same user who's made all the contributions from the IP. He was just as charming back in April.[33][34] Doc talk 22:26, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Exactly right. Hardblocked for 3 months. — Satori Son 22:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I've temporarily removed the "resolved" tag. Can someone who is familiar with AFROdr look at the edits of User:65.8.153.6 to see if this is the same person? No profanity, but the same focus, and a near personal attack. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:18, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Never mind, seems to have been blocked already. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:10, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Image copyright violations by User:Kenlukus

Resolved

 – All socks blocked by Elen of the Roads, and I've CSD'd the ones that were mis-attributed (I think I got them all). ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 11:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I am reporting image copyright violations by Kenlukus (talk · contribs), at least a few of which are blatant. This seems to be an ongoing thing, continuing as of yesterday. This is a new account (07/28/2011). I have checked four images so far, and all four are copyvios. I have filed F9's on them already.

Here are the details:

• Note this diff[35] where Kenlukus indicates "Originally took the photo in the 1950's, when I was younger, and made it into a drawing on Paint.net a cuple days ago. From there I added words to make it look more authentic, as if it was a postcard from the 50's." (emphasis mine). The picture, as noted in the CSD selection, was taken from a website that has had it online for at least 4 years. Blatant misrepresentation.

• Note all four filed speedies here[36] - each are copyvios (possibly all blatant), attributed to Kenlukus in the image copyright info he posted here.

• Additionally, he is trying to list a few as "entered into public domain" when he does not have the rights to do so.

The list:

• • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:St._Anne%27s_Church.jpg&action=edit&redlink=1
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burgess_mills.jpg
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Insiderussianchurch.jpg
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holy_resurrection_orthodox_church_nh.jpg

I have not yet checked the last few images Kenlukus has uploaded, and do not have the time to at this moment. Kenlukus will be notified of this AN, as well as User:C.Fred (simply because, as noted in the first diff, and later conversations, he was at least indirectly involved and may wish to contribute to this). Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 06:18, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment, Having had a look at the Burgess mills file's source. Many of those images are postcard that are sufficiently old that they are now PD images - {{PD-US-1923}} would apply IMHO. Just because they've been taken from a website that claims copyright doesn't necessarily mean that the website owns said copyright. Mjroots (talk) 10:27, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I've warned Kenlukus against claiming to be the author of images when he is not. Am willing to assist in getting licencing correct should he wish to work with the project and not commit copyvios. Mjroots (talk) 10:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, do you know that? Those images on those post cards are still sold (with copyrights I'd suspect). I happened to catch the first one as one of the places I spend a bunch of time has a few restaurants that are decorated with such images on the post cards, with numbers on the backs from where you can buy them. You may wish not to assume they are PD - especially as they are not the original images, but derivative works that are currently available for sale. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 10:44, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

The original postcards would be PD, as is File:Upper Deal 1907.jpg. As there would appear to be no artistic creativity in creating a digital copy of a postcard, not copyright is assignable to the copy, is it? The difference here is that postcards from my collection are correctly attributed as to the original source (i.e. the card itself, and publisher if known) and I have not claimed to be the author of such images. Mjroots (talk) 10:54, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Concur that if someone has digitized a postcard from 1910 to make a new print run, they will not acquire copyright under US law. If Kenlukus had taken a photo from 1910 and photoshopped it to make it look like a postcard, he would hold the copyright in the new image (creative input). However, telling fibs about it is a poor way to go. Also concur that the copyright claim on many websites does not stand up under close scrutiny. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elen of the Roads (talk • contribs)

• Elen, you missed a few vital factors and may wish to check the deleted images. (1) He did not make them look like post cards (the images he grabbed from other sites already looked like that). (2) The pics online predate his uploads. (3) Some of the pics are brand new color images (such as the church one from the church's site no less). (4) see below - you of all people know we can't simply guess whether the new post cards (available to this day) are simply duplicates of the original photos, or if like most companies doing such for money, they modified them sufficiently for copyright status. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 11:13, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)"A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”." - which we would not be able to determine without access to the original picture. We cannot (without access to the original or verifiable copy) determine what modifications were or were not done. And of course, we all know that copyright claims and claims of public domain aren't "I think it is..." or "It probably is". That aside, while the date of the picture may be known, is the date of the postcard known? And is that site a suitable site for using as a reference for a public domain claim? Worse of course are the new images that Kenlukus tried claiming as his and tried "entering" into the public domain. The one picture that may be PD aside (which, due to the source it was taken from and no way of determining the veracity of that, I'd strongly advise against restoring), the real issue (which I thank you for offering to assist with) are the bogus copyright claims, especially the one linked to in the ref above. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 11:09, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not minded to restore any images at the moment. I am displeased when an editor attempts to fraudulent claim authorship of images that they have not taken themselves. I would suggest the Kenlukus asks at WP:MCQ and provides links to any images that he wishes to be uploaded. This would give those experienced in such matters chance to comment and a decision made on the merits and copyright status of the images in question. Mjroots (talk) 11:22, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Which addresses my far larger concern. Thanks, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 11:35, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

@RobertMfromLI - no I understand the issues. My remarks directed at Mjroots were of a general nature, however I believe I did observe that fibbing about the source of an image was a poor show. After that, I wouldn't be inclined to accept any of his explanations before checking thoroughly, at which point the generic comments do have some significance. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:48, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm involved with this as I discovered one of the images on 5 August and asked Kenlukus where he acquired the image and whether he had just made a copy of a postcard.[File:St. Anne's Church.jpg] He replied that he had photographed the church in the 1950s. I had no evidence to disprove that claim, so I didn't pursue it any further. When RobertMfromLI found a source where the image already existed, then I deleted the image on two grounds: (1) the image was under copyright, as it existed on a postcard, and (2) Kenlukus had grossly misrepresented the nature of the image by claiming it as his own image that he manipulated to look like an old postcard.

It seems to not be an uncommon perception, either, that by photographing or scanning an old photograph, one gains a new license in the image. It seems pretty straightforward in this case what's going on; however, I think Mjroots is right that if Kenlukus wants to upload any further images, he should get advice from WP:MCQ first. —C.Fred (talk) 13:33, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal:

As debating copyrights and such was never my intent, I'd like to suggest we move forward with Mjroots' proposal. So it's not open ended, I am suggesting a time frame (feel free to revise the proposal if any of you have better ideas)

Propose: for the next 3 months or 50 uploads (whichever occurs last) all future image uploads by User:Kenlukus are completed (including proper copyright attribution) with the assistance, review and approval of the gang at WP:MCQ. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:29, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support with the caveat that I may remove my support and/or ask for a modification of the proposal after Kenlukus responds (for either stiffer or lesser sanctions depending on the explanation and his understanding of the issue). ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:29, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Side note: I'd be willing to assist if needed. Wouldn't be the first editor in a similar predicament I've done so with. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:29, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Withdrawing support due to multiple socks uncovered, which also (imo) evidences an ongoing pattern. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 05:31, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Guys, I'm quite certain I tried to give this guy another chance under a different account. I think this user needs mentorship if he's going to edit here at all. I'm assuming that he's another sockpuppet of User:1shields1/User:Berlinnh1 (who engaged in other copyvio edits). By their own admission, they live in the same area. They also edit the same low-traffic articles (including two that 1shields1 created, Brown Company and At the River's Edge), and share the same idiosyncratic misspelling of cousin, "cusin" (1shields1's, Kenlukus's). Kenlukus's account appeared shortly after Berlinnh1 was blocked and 1shields1 was given a final warning for pretty much everything, and he picked up right where they left off except for one thing:

The first two accounts actively pushed a few blogs on Weebly with clear personal investment (one of the blogs claims to be by a Delano descendant, which Kenlukus claims to be in the first version of his userpage). (Edit: Also, 1shields1 and Kenlukus advocated similar theories regarding the Delano family). Kenlukus asked for one to be relinked again on Talk:Berlin, New Hampshire where I explained for the "first" time that blogs are almost never accepted as sources or links, but that I would be willing to look the other way if "that other editor" had come back attempting to follow the guidelines. However, seeing how much continued copyright problems these three accounts have brought, I'm thinking it's time I say something.

If I am to assume good faith, I can only say that he has mistakenly made numerous statements which did not match reality, and has repeatedly made mistakes concerning the ownership of copyright. However, his continued sock activity makes it harder for me to not just say "he appears to be completely dishonest, assuming he's of a right mind." Ian.thomson (talk) 20:33, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Q: Do you think it enough for (and warranting an) SPI? If confirmed, it shows an intentional pattern. If not, I would be willing to mentor. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:57, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

If I'm correct, this is the third account to cause trouble of different sorts, but I acknowledge the possibility that he may only be trying to learn either way (as he has learned to back off on Weebly, and is otherwise useful except for the copyvio). Ian.thomson (talk) 21:00, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:11, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Notes

Kenlukus (talk · contribs) is aware of this conversation and has responded on his talk page[37]. I have left a suggestion[38] that he join the discussion here, which also included suggestions on what issues I thought were relevant for him to address. Additionally, Ian.thompson has already notified him that a claim of suspected SP has been made.[39]. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 22:29, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Sock Puppetry Confirmed

Kenlukus has been confirmed as a sock[40], as has one additional account (Nova-Gnostic). After the last case under two weeks ago[41], I suspect it could be thought that the actions are entirely uncaring and intentional. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 04:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, that was my impression. All accounts blocked indefinitely for socking and other problems. User:1shields1 appears to be the master account ( at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/1shields1/Archive he said that User:Berlinnh1 was his cousin. Should the editor develop WP:CLUE at any time, an unblock on terms can be arranged. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:21, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Seeing as he claims to be descended from Cathars, I regret missing the opportunity to say "Block them all, God will know his own." Ian.thomson (talk) 15:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of material for BLP reasons by Administrator who then protected the article

This is similar to the situation discussed above at WP:ANI#Admin engaging in edit war, violates three revert rule, then locks page except there was no 3RR. And in fact, I am that administrator, reporting myself. I saw a discussion at WP:BLPN#Paul Lendavai, went into the article and removed what looked like BLP violations, and semi'd the article as the BLP content invovles a current highly political issue. My removal was reverted, so I restored my 'cleansed' version and fully protected the article. I also put some comments on the talk page. The article was unprotected by another administrator (who agrees their edit summary was unfortunate), and I can understand that action but think it was wrong. I think that Administrators should be able to remove BLP violations and then protect the article and that this is quite different from simply changing content you don't like and protecting. I've never seen this article before and don't want to get involved in editing it. And of course I don't want to edit war and replace the protection, but I think the article needs full protection still. Was my protection "completely inappropriate protection by an involved user"? Dougweller (talk) 08:40, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• NOTE: BLPN entry is here: WP:BLPN#Paul_Lendvai (typo above) and article is here: Paul Lendvai. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 09:21, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support Actions: I believe, IIRC, carrying out solely administrative duties, including content changes/reversions for the purpose of removing BLP violations and/or copyvio do not meet the criteria to consider the admin in question "involved", even though in those instances I listed, it the administrator's actions may have required some form of article "editing". I am not familiar with the article subject, but, if your actions as deemed by others is considered removal of definite BLP violations (just as if it were copyvio), (1) I would not consider you involved, and (2) cannot see fault with your actions. In that vein, I have reviewed what edits you have made (at least in recent history) and see nothing more than BLP violation repairs. For that, I would not consider you involved. I suspect the other admin may have seen your earlier edits and not noted that they were correcting BLP issues. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 09:18, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I support your edit [42] and protection of the page to enforce discussion of non-compliant BLP content pending discussion, per WP:BLP. It may have been more advisable to ask someone else to protect it. Further edits would have been better handled via requests on the talk page; due to prot removal, some inappropriate content was reinstated [43] - however, I do note that editor is acting in good faith, and removing badly-sourced content subsequently [44].

I think Ironholds removal of prot was too hurried, and should have been discussed with you, and/or others, first. But, I'm sure that was a good-faith attempt to resolve things too - and, I see xe has since apologized [45].

I think the article should be protected again, in the near future but, only after a bit more discussion/opinions here.  Chzz  ►  09:23, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support actions Protection was called for and you chose to give priority to the BLP issue rather than guard your posterior. Putting in a request at WP:RFPP might have been politically prudent, but would also have caused a delay. I don's see your actions as violating the spirit of WP:INVOLVED. Favonian (talk) 09:34, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Agree with your actions, since this is the second time today this has come up, should WP:INVOLVED be amended to make it clear that ( like WP:3RR) that "Removal of libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced contentious material that violates the policy on biographies of living persons and protection of an article" by any administrator is a exception to WP:INVOLVED ? Mtking ^(edits) 09:43, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• • I think that needs to be done and Ironholds (who acted in good faith but maybe hastily) and I discussed this yesterday and I've posted to his talk page about this thread (obviously) and amending WP:INVOLVED. Dougweller (talk) 10:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to see a small caveat there - without wishing to get creepy, could it say something like, erm... I want to add a mention of BLP, but without removing the fact that it's best to ask others where possible. How about just this small addition to the example exceptions, in context, bolded? ;

In cases which are straightforward, (e.g. blatant vandalism or blp violations), the community has historically endorsed the obvious action of any administrator – even if involved – on the basis that any reasonable administrator would have probably come to the same conclusion. Although there are exceptions to the prohibition on involved editors taking administrative action, it is still best practice in cases where an administrator may be seen to be involved to pass the matter to another administrator via the relevant noticeboards.

Would that be enough? Maybe even with the link, "BLP violations" isn't clear enough; maybe "violations to the policy regarding living people". I don't know; I'm trying to KISS. Further ideas very welcome; this is a very rough draft/first thought.  Chzz  ►  10:11, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support Dougweller's action and agree on some change in the wording to the policy if a form can be agreed on. I've been criticised for exactly the same thing once - reverted what I believed to be a troublesome IP adding unsourced information that might be contentious and which was being reverted by other editors, and locking article with note on talkpage, only to be told I was "involved" by virtue of the revert and note on the talkpage, and should not have locked the article. Never edited the article before, never edited it since.Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:52, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Wording change would be nice and make sense. If I am reading it correctly, BLP violation reverts are not an issue... ad-inifinitum till another admin can be rounded up to do the protection because doing the revert may cause others to think the original admin was involved? Seems kinda silly. You all can drop me on the list of any such proposal there or on Village Pump (or wherever such would take place). ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 12:10, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• By no means was User:Dougweller WP:INVOLVED - and even if he was, WP:BLP takes precedence. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:13, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Hi BWilkins! I said that above in my first (excessively verbose) post on the matter (right below my link clarification) - hence my support for a clarification of the guidelines so that other editors can't erroneously jump on the "he's involved" bandwagon. :-) ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:14, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I think the policy is best left alone. Discretion is available to admins as to whether they exercise tools, whether in response to a perceived BLP violation, or in response to another admin who is perceived to have 'crossed the line'. Adding an explicit exemption for admins seems like it would discourage caution rather than the simple act of asking another of the 1,545 administrators for a hand. -- Avanu (talk) 12:18, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Avanu, the above 2-word addition isn't such an explicit exemption though; it just helps by mentioning that, in the case of BLPs, it might be more acceptable than usual for an admin to swiftly take action, such as protecting an article. I don't think admins will go crazy with it. So - do you actually object to that 2-word change, or can you accept it?  Chzz  ►  12:26, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

@Bwilkins, exactly so; you said it better than I did.  Chzz  ►  12:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I keep thinking this over and over, and "blp violations" (or similar) is a lot more open to interpretation than "blatant vandalism". For example, if a person adds "John Smith is a cheeseball!!!" to the John Smith article, and nothing else, we can assume it is just a bit of vandalism, and any editor can safely remove it without concern. However, let's say it is sourced by a RS now. According to reports from the Mew Nork Bimes newspaper, "John Smith is a pasteurized-in-the-wool cheeseball." It now comes to an editor to discern whether it is a BLP violation. If you are 'involved', it only complicates the matter. The Standard and Poor's article in AN/I wasn't necessarily a BLP issue, but more of a primary source/secondary source issue, but the Admin who locked the article did so citing BLP, which was hovering nearby, but wasn't the primary concern. -- Avanu (talk) 12:59, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Hm. You do have a good point. I think the real problem is, we have a clash-of-policies - or, at least, a clash of de jure accepted practice

Note: I do not consider this specific case to be problematic; I think we pretty much agree. But, in the larger scheme, I think this needs resolution;

The INVOLVED principles suggests admins who are - for wont of better terminology - significantly involved in an issue, should not use their admin-power in that arena. However, BLP concerns are often considered to supersede such niceties, and we always endeavour to err on the side of caution - for example, removing dubious material until there is agreement, instead of simply leaving whatever-version-happens-to-be-there whilst discussion takes place.

So, which is it? As I said, I don't want excess instruction - but, perhaps we do need this to be explicit. Should an involved admin shout here on AN about action required (beyond trivial/vandalism), even if it is a BLP concern, or should they take immediate action? Put another way, which is the greater concern in these cases - the chance of "admin abuse", or the change of BLP vio's?  Chzz  ►  13:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Can I just bring up the question of the Paul Lendvai article which is still unprotected? And being fairly heavily edited? Dougweller (talk) 14:22, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think we're all agreed that your original action was correct and does not make you involved. The current main editor seems keen to abide by policy and to discuss the matter with other editors, but suggest if you get a repeat, it can be protected again. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:39, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Can we get someone who speaks Hungarian to help with that? http://www.utolag.com/ doesn't look like a reliable source. Thus, I'm not sure edits like this are appropriate. Chzz  ►  14:45, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

That site seems full of copyvio videos from television programs. I don't think in any case we can have a sentence reading "While Lendvai was never recruited as a spy, in a July 24, 1963 report, the archived documents refer to Lendvai as "one of the best contacts". The actual page seems to be from an article in Magyar Nemzet which (the article) is discussed in this blog [46] which of course has it's own political perspective. Dougweller (talk) 15:31, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

It's because the article was sourced almost exclusively to conservative to right-wing Hungarian sources that I suggested the use of this article On the March Hungary’s Ascendant Right Wing in the Boston Review which discussed Lendvai and Heti válasz. I think it needs to be sourced mainly from independent sources that don't have an obvious stake. Dougweller (talk) 15:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yup; this is why I provided the editor with 147 pages of LexisNexis sourced news articles. Ironholds (talk) 20:26, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Serial IP Vandal

I have been monitoring an individual for over a year now who has been a serial vandal of Wikipedia operating on numerous different IP accounts. I am lead to believe he may of re-surfaced in the form of 86.31.216.175. Previous carnations include 81.109.92.88 which was dealt with in July, as well as 82.5.224.162, 81.109.92.81 and 81.109.94.184 which were all blocked IP accounts operated by this individual that have been dealth with over the last twelve months or so.

This vandal normally clings to Television related articles but has been known to wonder on to other pages related to association football, namely Grimsby Town F.C., Don't Scare the Hare, Coach Trip and Supernanny amongst many others. He has been involved in numerous edit wars, but often dumbs down articles, writes with poor spelling and grammar, adds incorrect infomation, or simply broadens the simplification of certain articles. He never contributes to any talk pages and simply ignores any message from other editors and admins, be it warnings or simply help and guidance in an attempt to tell him about the standard of his edits. He persists in trying to force his material onto articles. He appears to have a Dynamic IP, as this user has been dealt with and blocked on numerous occasions. Footballgy (talk) 15:14, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Also I forgot to add, the current IP has yet to vandalise from what I have seen, but his editing habits are identical to his previous carnations, for example the amount of edits on one page at any one time such as Coach Trip and the fact he returns to edits the same articles he was under his previous account's. Footballgy (talk) 15:27, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

This is an NTL (UK) dynamic pool IP, the ranges are far too large and busy for any type of rangeblock, and so if the articles attacked are always the same ones, it may be worth asking for semi-protection there. Blocking the IP for a short time is a quick fix, but won't solve the overall problem. Black Kite (t) (c) 22:24, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

A seriously disruptive case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT

I'm having a problem with a disruptive editor. On Celtic F.C. supporters, Adam4267 (talk · contribs) keeps inserting information that is not reliably sourced or not notable, as a consensus on the talk page indicates. See the history: I made three individual edits ([47], [48], and [49]), edit summaries and all, removing mostly puffery based on company sources. Adam4267 reverts, without rhyme, reason, or explanation, here, I revert and explain why here, and so on, until he finally asks for an explanation on the talk page. Adam is apparently incapable of reading edit summaries, and does not write them gladly. Funny thing is, the talk page already had extensive discussion of the sources and statements involved.

Another point of contention, raised on the talk page by another editor, was some claim about Celtic having the third-largest fanbase in the UK, based on this link--which obviously says nothing of the kind. That also was removed, with a consensus on the talk page and no participation from Adam--and they reinstated it, together with all the Celtic fan puffery, in this edit--without edit summary, of course.

This pattern of not listening, not paying attention to consensus, not explaining, and not taking into account relevant policies on reliable sources and original research, he exercises also on Green Brigade, where he continues to remove sourced information (as he did again today, here), despite broad talk page agreement on most parts of the content--and also keeps inserting an image that violates our OR policy.

I'm tired of dealing with this person, who has managed to rub a lot of feathers, and I will notify those editors, as well as the editor who warned me for edit warring on Celtic F.C. supporters (just for fairness' sake). Possible administrative solutions I could conceive of are a temporary block, or an injunction to stay away from at the very least the aforementioned two articles. Drmies (talk) 15:17, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• (ec with Warburton) Or maybe someone can tell him what the problem is--apparently I am incapable of doing so, and I have lost patience. Drmies (talk) 15:33, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

There is no need for any bans in this case they way forward on this matter is already laid out on the talkpage of the article in question the way forward is through discussion on that. Both users have there own points that they see as valid dispute resoloution would be a better way to deal with it a ban is not appropriate. Warburton1368 (talk) 15:31, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Warburton, and I appreciate your attempt at diplomacy, but that was laid out yesterday already, if not earlier, and today's edits suggested that it didn't help. Drmies (talk) 15:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't have time for a complete reply to Drmies as I am about to go, but one point I would like to make is with this why did you choose this edit for your example and not my next edit here In which I stated 2 edits per WP:BRD. I have given my opinion of your editing style here. I do not appreciate your editing style as I made clear and it seems I am not the only one. I appreciate you said this was a joke on your talk page but it was not nice. Your response to me may have been sarcasm if it was then it is an example of the style which I do not like. If it wasn't then I am glad you will consider my opinion. And while some of your jokes are funny there is a time and a place and serious discussions are not the place especially when tensions are already running high. Anyway as I have already stated (too many times) I am going to the Celtic match so I may be on later tonight to see what has happens. I will try and get some pictures and hopefully they will meet wiki standards. Adam4267 (talk) 15:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I am dead serious about WP:OR (the image on Green Brigade, for instance) and WP:RS (the staff about Celtic's huge fan base in Kenya, for instance). That you don't like my editing style, well, that's neither here nor there. You should address the issues at hand. I am not the only one who's troubled by your editing. Drmies (talk) 15:55, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Drmies here. Attempts at discussion have gone no where. Adam bluntly refuses to follow wiki guidelines about dispute resolution.

I think User Adam suffers from a serious case of COI in this subject. He states he is a Celtic fan and even leaves comments like this [50], reinforcing this COI. For quite a while now I have debated certain aspects with Adam on both Green Brigade and Celtic F.C. supporters where by he bluntly refuses to get outside help for disagreements even after being pointed to the correct place to ask.

In the debate surrounding sources on Green Brigade it was left up to myself to go to the RS noticeboard and get some outside feedback, after Adam made this reply [51]. He has also left a reply like this to an extensive reason as to why some sources and other material is not suitable (especially an image which has been reinserted by adam about two dozen times)

On the Celtic F.C. supporters I attempted to alter some information that was not neutral and add some tags to show where the article was not up to standard but Adam continually removed them Stating that they were irrational and petty even though since then the tags have proved to be correct. For my trouble of adding tags I was reported for edit warring. Which has put me off editing the article. I also see Adams staunch views and editing has put others off even attempting to improve the articles.

It disappoints me that it has come to this but after going over and over the same points with Adam about where his general contributions and editing fail wiki standards it does not surprise me.Monkeymanman (talk) 15:57, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I suspect the underlying problem is that Adam is clearly very passionate about Celtic and sees Wikipedia as a way of promoting the club. This leads to a kind of spin doctoring approach whereby he vigorously pushes anything he sees as positive and vigorously challenges anything he sees negative. He pays scant attention to wikipolicies on areas such as reliable sources etc. The irony of this is that it leads to a one-sided approach that doesn't read well as people will see it isn't balanced. Hearing the other point of view makes both stronger. Puff pieces are simply not convincing.

The second problem, again probably because he has strong feelings on the matter, is that he isn't really taking on board what people are telling him, pretty much presuming that any critisism is some form of personal attack. Or, the alternative is that he really doesn't understand some of the core wiki policies.

The third problem is that he bears a grudge. A number of us, including Adam, Monkeyman and myself, have had disagreements in the past. Where as the rest of us have taken lessons onboard and are, i think, editing with more diplomacy and greater attention to wiki policies, Adam is still ploughing the same old fields. He has to learn to take olive branches when offered, compromise and accept sometimes things will not go his way.

He has, in my opinion beyond any doubt, become seriously disruptive. I would suggest some form of mentoring would be the way forwards, with an editor who knows the ins-and-outs of wiki policy, which seems few and far between TBH (I would have suggested Drmies!). Certainly we need to put a stop to this behaviour and move forward in a more constructive manner.

One exercise that taught me a lot abbout wikipedia was editing the page Vang Vieng where I was tasked with putting forward the positive side of the argument, even though my own opinions are more to the negative. These things really help to focus on making wikipedia better, rather than trying to turn it into a soapbox. Mattun0211 (talk) 17:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Would WP:DRN not a be a better way of dealing with this. Warburton1368 (talk) 17:11, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

The thing about that noticeboard Warburton is that it will likely redirect to other noticeboards that are relavent i.e. Reliable sources noticeboard, ANI etc. I myself alone have repeatedly asked Adam to go to these noticeboards if he disagrees (e.g. if sources are reliable). He has never done so, not once. It was left to others. The main problem raised here is Adams general editing, i.e. reverting numerous times when viable reasons have been given on discussion, reinserting material that has been justifiably disputed etc.Monkeymanman (talk) 17:26, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I hadn't thought of the COI being a real issue. Since I haven't plowed through Adam's other edits, I have no basis to judge, and as far as I'm concerned it's not the most important thing. For the record, Mattun has, in the past, come to my talk page to ask me to look at articles and edits (see my archive) ever since we butted heads on Green Brigade--I think I notified them about edit-warring, but I don't remember who the other involved editor was. I think Monkeymanman was involved in that dispute as well. But Mattun and others have clearly learned from the experience and are, in my opinion, helpful and productive editors.

Warburton, I considered DRN, or some other kind of resolution, and have urged involved editors to go that route, and they have--all but one. That means that dispute resolution in that fashion is not going to work. Now, I have tried, as Mattun suggests above, to mediate, and initially (on Green Brigade, a while ago), that seemed to have worked, but by now I am too involved to be independent, which is why I come to this board rather than continuing to warn and perhaps block for disruption. Surely there must be some seasoned editors who care for footy (what a silly word--just call it voetbal) and who are not fans of Celtic, or their rival, or the IRA, or whatever, and who can apply their knowledge of WP to come to judicious decisions--but those can only be attained if all participants are willing to play by the rules, the most important one of which is, in this case, to abide by consensus. Drmies (talk) 18:04, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support topic ban per WP:COI. --John (talk) 18:13, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

FYI warburton, Adam seems to shy away from the resolution noticeboards. But if he's reading, this from WP:COI is very relevant I think. "If you do write an article on an area in which you are personally involved, be sure to write in a neutral tone and cite reliable, third-party, independent published sources, and beware of unintentional bias. Neutral point of view is one of Wikipedia's five pillars.

If other editors suggest that your editing violates Wikipedia's standards, take that advice seriously and consider stepping back, reassessing your edits, and discussing your intentions with the community. In particular, consider whether you are editing tendentiously."

If he took that onboard, I think this issue would be resolved. Mattun0211 (talk) 19:50, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

We would not normally refer to a fan as having a conflict of interest. That term is reserved for situations where the individual has a financial interest, a commercial or business interest, an interest concerning their academic reputation, a family relationship or similar. Which is not to say that a fan will edit neutrally, just that COI is not the problem you need to address - WP:NPOV is.Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:34, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Note: though claiming others are acting as if they WP:OWN the article, Adam seems to do just that here[52] where undoing others' changes, he claims he will continue to do so and is unwilling to discuss such - but that the other editors involved need to discuss undoing his changes. "No, I will not be forced to clear every single addition I want to make to this page with the pair of you and/or the reliable sources board. You two do not own this page and have no right to attempt to make me do so. I will continue to make additions and if you have a problem with anything I add or any references I use feel free to bring it up here". That leaves, in my opinion, the (his) issues of "ownership" and unwillingness to collaborate the more important issues - issues that may indeed warrant the article/topic ban if they cannot be resolved. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 22:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

The reason I said that is because when I made an addition it was removed then had to be discussed to be re-added. If one of the other three editors made an addition it was kept and had to be discussed to be removed. Which I think is unfair. Adam4267 (talk) 11:05, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Someone employed WP:BRD. You were bold, someone reverted, then it's time to discuss. Perhaps this can be cleared up by you reading that link. And remember, if the article isn't perfect for a few days while you all hash it out, it's no big deal. As for another editor of the three, after having discussed the changes, implementing them... that's a bit different. Fact is, you may not get your way... or you may. But this is a collaborative effort. The only winner should be Wikipedia. Hopefully after you read up on WP:BRD and WP:CONSENSUS and WP:RS and WP:VERIFIABILITY (via reliable sources, you'll have a better understanding of what's been happening. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 11:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I concur with Elen that this isn't really a COI issue. But we don't need a COI established to issue a topic ban. If Adam is being disruptive and is incapable of editing in a neutral manner on this topic, a ban from this topic might be warranted. -- Atama頭 17:04, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

User:Igomaa

Can an administrator please review the edits of User:Igomaa (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) please. I first encountered this user at Jon Toral, an article which had been deleted via AfD. A speedy deletion tag was added by a colleague at WP:FOOTBALL and it was removed by this user several times. I advised them what is and isn't acceptable but all I got in return was hostility. I don't think edits like this are acceptable in any way, shape or form, regardless of whether this user is a newcomer or not (I was as green as they come back in the day but never removed verifiable content, let alone categories, sorting, links to other languages, etc). I have become more involved than I would like to so I'm leaving it here for further discussion. Argyle 4 Life^talk 15:34, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Seeing as I am the one being reported, I believe that I should say that what I did was an accident. Honestly, deleting the Jon Toral tags issue is true. But I only did it twice (not knowing what exactly that was) and with out so called "hostility".

For Jack Wilshere, I was simply trying to add information as it asked in the above tag, but due to some random computer error, I accidently deleted some information with it, which I did not under any circumstance mean to do. Igomaa (talk) 15:52, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

With reference to [53] [54]; I've had a look, and I hope I have understood this correctly. Let me know if I'm wrong;

Argyle 4 Life (talk · contribs);

• When you removed the edit the first time [55] - why didn't you tell the user? And, why did you use 'revert' - it wasn't really vandalism, and an edir summary of "Reverted edits by Igomaa" doesn't tell the user what they did wrong. WP:AGF. Second time [56] I see you did, but, we shouldn't expect a new user to understand, Unsourced. Poorly written. Overlinked. Crystal-balling. - or, really, to find an edit-summary.

It's good that you started to discuss it, but, that was after posting to ANI. I see, since, they've also had a 'final warning' (for this, incidentally - which seems a bit harsh) - so, really, probably nothing more needs to be done, until/unless they continue disruptive editing?

Igomaa (talk · contribs);

Don't add claims without a reliable source. It must be verifiable. That's essential for all claims, but it's especially important on bio's of living people.

And, if someone disagrees with your edit, don't just repeat it - instead, talk about it on the talk page - in that case, Talk:Jack Wilshere. Or ask for help. Just, don't get into a battle over it. If you need help, ask. OK?

Both of you, please respond, below. And then we can get back to improving the articles. Thanks,  Chzz  ►  21:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok thank you Igomaa (talk) 08:38, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

HarmonySEQ

Resolved

Joe Chill (talk) 18:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I nominated HarmonySEQ for deletion. It was previously deleted in an AfD. Can an admin check to see if this article can be speedily deleted as a recreated article? Joe Chill (talk) 17:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I just checked. The subject is the same, and the amount of text is similar, but the current version does have more references. It's a borderline case, but given the additional references, it may be worthwhile to just let it run a second time through AFD. --Jayron32 17:47, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks. Joe Chill (talk) 18:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Disruption at Mona Lisa

Resolved

 – User has been blocked. CycloneGU (talk) 02:50, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

User:Simple Blue has repeatedly attempted to add the personal theory of one "Roni Kempler" that the Mona Lisa depicts Leonardo da Vinci's mother. The identity of Simple Blue with Roni Kemplar has been discussed elsewhere, as has the reliability of the source for Kempler's theory: see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_102#Mona_Lisa. Simple Blue has continued to edit war - slowly - over some months. Recently I attempted to rewrite the disputed paragraph, explaining my reasons in detail at Talk:Mona_Lisa#Changes. Simple Blue continues to revert, usually after adding a nonsensical reply which does not address any of the substantive issues. This, I presume, is to claim that there is an ongoing debate, which justifies his reversion to the "status quo ante". I do not think that any form of dispute resolution will work with this editor. Anyone who thinks the sentence I have bolded in the discussion section is acceptable English is impervious to reason. Yet Simple Blue continues to revert to it and to reassert his claims. One other editor has already left after losing his rag [57] I also feel myself entering the twilight zone. I think the time has come for administrators' intervention. Paul B (talk) 18:16, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Blocked 24 hours. --John (talk) 18:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks.Paul B (talk) 18:46, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• I was the one who started the RSN discussion on this, because I'd noted the issue cropping up several times. It's fairly obvious that Simple Blue and Relpmek (talk · contribs) are SPAs with this view; Relpmek self-identifies as Kempler. It appears there's not going to be much success in the way of sober discussion on this, and since I'm now somewhat involved using my tools is probably a bad idea. Further admin analysis would be appreciated. Tony Fox (arf!) 22:05, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Koavf

I see from this board that this editor User: Koavf has been sanctioned before. He's back. Looking at his contributions list over the last few days, he is making the same repetitive edit into thousands of articles, reporting bare links. He is making several edits a minute, there can be no possible quality control or checking in his work. It is simple defacement that now appears as a top banner above every article he has touched in the last few days. As I suggest in his talk page, IF he has a problem with the content of an article, he should present specifics in the talk page, rather than a bold announcement on the top of the main article. This vandalism now displays his one man's opinion above the work, in the case of some articles, made over years and multiple editors. He should be stopped and a bot designed to revert all of these mainspace edits. Trackinfo (talk) 06:47, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

In the time it took me to write this and notify him of its presence, he has gone back to revert my cleanup of the articles I specified in his talk page. Trackinfo (talk) 06:53, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) This isn't a major issue as far as I'm concerned: Koavf is simply implementing current policy by adding cleanup banners. He's using a semi-automated tool to do so (WP:AWB). Adding WP:TC banners isn't "defacement" or vandalism. The whole point of adding them is that the problem with the content of the article is the use of barelinks in references, and no "specifics" need to be provided. It is no concern that he can do a number of these a minute: that's what AWB is for. It's not "one man's opinion" of the work, it's a cleanup banner. No admin action required. —Tom Morris (talk) 07:38, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

---

edit conflict with Tom Morris from above

Okay First off, this provides some of my rationale. In sum, maintenance templates make it easier to fix the problems that exist in articles (especially obscure ones) and this particular maintenance template highlights a very straightforward issue which is altogether easy to resolve (versus, say a POV dispute, which would require discussion on talk--this does not.) Also, semi-automated tools make it fairly easy for users to fix these problems.

That having been said, I decided that I would simply ignore the more bombastic parts of Trackinfo's posts to my talk and give him as much charity as possible. Since he's now posted at AN, I'll go ahead and address those more outlandish claims.

First off, he initially said that I added {{cleanup-linkrot}} to pages that did not include bare URLs. This is a serious assertion, so I took a look. Sure enough, I couldn't find any. I took this opportunity to improve a few random pages and then posted to his talk asking him to give me an example of a mistagged page. The example he gave was Never Let Go (live), which sure enough, has a bare URL as a source. (He reverted the tag erroneously claiming that there are no bare sources.) This is a simple empirical question and he's provided no proof that I've actually done what he claims. On the contrary, I took my time to go back and review my edits and found no substance to this allegation.

Then, the made the much bolder claim that adding maintenance templates at the volume and frequency with which I added them constituted (what he considers) vandalism. I suppose that his reasoning is that I am "adding, removing, or changing content in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia" because maintenance tags "defame [sic] [deface?] the look of every article." Of course, this is not the case. I am not trying to make Wikipedia worse off by adding maintenance templates--I am trying to make it better. The aesthetics of the templates themselves are there to draw attention to the potential problems of articles for the benefit of readers and editors. This doesn't constitute vandalism per WP:VAND nor per common sense.

He went on to claim that rather than using maintenance templates, I should post to talk or fix them myself, which would be far more productive. He's half-right: fixing them myself would certainly be better, but I am not interested in that, nor am I obliged to do so. Fixing it is a good idea, but one that I am not interested in doing, except to articles that matter to me. If I tag articles that don't matter to me, the users who care about them can fix them. As I pointed out above (and as Trackinfo was concerned himself), obscure articles|this is more likely to improve the quality of obscure articles, as it brings attentive and skilled users to them. This is partially mitigated by the fact that there are plenty of resources and tools to help with this problem in a semi-automated fashion, which would be impossible with (e.g.) unsourced biographies or articles with peacock terminology. Also, Wikipedia isn't on a timeline and since there are no due dates, we can address problems on our schedules as volunteer editors. However, we cannot address problems (such as link rot) if they are never specified by other users in the first place. He is also half-wrong: posting to the talk pages of all of the articles with link rot issues would be a huge waste of my time as it would require me to point out in detail very straight-forward maintenance issues and they would be far less likely to be fixed, as they would never be added to Category:Articles needing link rot cleanup. What purpose would it serve to post to the talk pages of all of these articles and only a small minority of them would ever be addressed?

He ended his initial message by saying that "this streak of damage does nothing positive but discredits the work of thousands of editors and the wikipedia project itself." I find it hard to believe that even he believes that. Tagging articles that have bare links as URLs undermines the integrity of Wikipedia? How could pointing out its flaws in an attempt to fix them in a systematic way be bad for the encyclopedia?

His second post to my talk continues a similar line of argument ("what you are doing is wholesale destruction"), but with this post he seems to misunderstand the entire point of tagging a page as vulnerable to link rot. As he points out, Never Let Go (live) has two links and both of them are live, pointing you to the proper source. This is fine and well, but the purpose of {{barelinks}} is not the same as {{deadlink}}. The former alerts you that references are written in a poor manner that makes them unverifiable; the latter alerts you that a link is dead. It's irrelevant whether or not the links are live now or whether or not they always will be: {{barelinks}} lets you know that the links could die and that the presentation of attribution in the article as it stands is insufficient.

The real meat of his problem might be here: "At the speed you are leaving these announcements, there can not possibly be any quality control to your edits." Certainly, this is a serious criticism as well, but let's take an example of adding {{dn}} to pages. If an article has an ambiguous link in it--say to Georgia--then the quality of the encyclopedia is only enhanced by replacing [[Georgia]] with [[Georgia]]{{dn}} and adding them immediately enhances the quality of Wikipedia immediately. If I am reading an article about Mikheil Saakashvili or Magnapop and I run across the text "left Georgia for the Netherlands" I know which Georgia they mean and many other users will likely know, but will everyone? If they click on those links, will the dab pages be helpful? I can (and have) disambiguated hundreds of pages in long runs before and it really helps to have {{dn}} added to instances like this--otherwise, I would have to trudge through instances of "What links here" and see all the instances of [[Georgia]] on each page. The same thing goes for those who like to to fix linkrot issues: if {{barelinks}} is never added, they will have a virtually impossible time finding that problem to fix.

Finally, he makes this allegation which shows that he has a fundamental misunderstanding of what I'm doing: "[the articles that I have tagged] are not deserving of having their credibility questioned on their header by your un-researched one man's opinion." Articles that have statements with no attribution constitute original research and Wikipedia cannot have that and any original research can and should be removed immediately. Articles which give poor or unverifiable attribution are susceptible to original research. These are two of the core content policies and are non-negotiable in every instance in every article. Every article which has bare URLs has either a dead link in it (meaning that the claims are unsourced and constitute original research) or they have live links (meaning that they have claims which are on the cusp of being unverifiable and since they do not feature full attribution of authors, publishers, etc. are not clearly credible sources.) By adding {{cleanup-linkrot}} to articles, I am not claiming that verifiable and credible articles are no longer credible, I am claiming that unverifiable and in-credible claims on articles must be sourced properly or removed. This is not "a small wikipidian oriented technicality" that is essentially my "opinion"--this is a key problem that affects every claim on every article throughout the project.

I really didn't want to have to go to all of this trouble and I wouldn't have to if my interlocutor could simply point to an actual mis-tagged page (again, I haven't found one, but I'm willing to believe that it's possible) or if he understood exactly how important it is to have credible and verifiable sources on Wikipedia. Including bare URLs as sources is not a trivial aesthetic problem that's a matter of my opinion--it's a crucial issue that needs to be addressed precisely for the strength and integrity of the project. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

---

Right Tom essentially said what I was trying to say in a more eloquent manner. Read my lengthy response if you want a fleshed-out and possibly less intelligible ramble. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:47, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment 1 Tagging a whole article for a single bare URL seems less desirable than tagging the specific section. Note that I'm an anti-fan of bare URLs as much as the next editor.

Comment 2 Since it's AWB, can it not invoke reflinks and just try to do the desired repair, and if it fails, then tag the article?

Just sayin.' --Lexein (talk) 08:09, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

In the specific case of Never Let Go (live) the "bare link" he was supposedly reporting, and reenforcing with a reverted edit, happens to have an internal link on it which takes you directly to the information that is obviously a source to the original article. here. Because he was too lazy, or better phrased since he obviously is taking less than 20 seconds on average to look at an article, in too big of a hurry to post these tags, he never looked below the horizon of the article. He probably never even clicked on the source article in his first stab at it. The absence of an internal link is common amongst external web designers. We can't control the formatting of external sources. Some articles are sourced by one paragraph buried in the midst of a huge pdf. The fact is, the source information is ON THE PAGE THE ARTICLE LISTS AS A SOURCE, without the internal link being needed. He didn't read it or look for it. Instead he indiscriminantly tagged and moved on to thousands of other articles that he defaced in the same fashion. It could take editors months or years of effort to break down each individual article and look at the case by case situation he is supposedly reporting. Meanwhile every one of those thousands of articles is defaced with a tag ABOVE THE CONTENT. His poorly researched, one man's POV, over and above the efforts of all other editor's work, advertising to every reader that is might be bad information. These tags might be intended to improve article quality, but they are for Internal usage by the few wikipedia editors who understand what they are talking about. They should be on talk pages and more importantly should specify what the problem is, rather than this repetitive GENERIC complaint. This announcement at the top of every one of these thousands of articles is a public scream that brings down the look and reputation of the entire wikipedia project. Trackinfo (talk) 17:42, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

User:The Teaching of the rapture and User:Vbsouthern

Resolved

 – Secondary account (User:The Teaching of the rapture) used to circumvent has been blocked and page content from that userpage has been removed by EyeSerene. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 10:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Could an admin please do whatever is appropriate to address the content at User:The Teaching of the rapture written by User:Vbsouthern (I assume the 2 users are the same person), and also Vbsouthern adding the user page essay as an external link to the here. The ext link was only spotted today after 10 days and removed. Thanks. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:57, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• This would seem to be recreation of material put into article space and previously submitted for deletion by User:DJ Clayworth (notified[58]) and subsequently deleted followed by the page being turned into a redirect to Rapture[59]. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 08:24, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I've deleted the essay and left them a note (well, two in fact - thanks Robert for your additional information). EyeSerene^talk 08:59, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Any time. Which begs a question... should the 2nd user account be blocked as it was apparently simply an attempt to use userspace to recreate his/her deleted article? I suspect they don't need two accounts anymore. :-) Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 09:07, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Yep, done. Thanks for the reminder (you'd think it was a Monday morning...) EyeSerene^talk 09:57, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

LoL, it feels that way over here. Thanks. Marking resolved. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 10:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. That all went very smoothly. Sean.hoyland - talk 10:19, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

And quickly. Like a velocirapture. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Unresolved

UNFAIR TREATMENT I am Vbsouthern and I am writing this because of EyeSerene's treatment of me and my article The Teaching of the Rapture has been completely unfair. Your reason You had created the essay using a second account named to draw attention to that essay. is false. I never did this or intended to to this.

I can only conclude that you disagree with the content of this article and removed it for that reason only.

vbsouthern (talk) 13:09, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Vbsouthern (talk • contribs) 12:38, 10 August 2011 (UTC) 

Have you read the rest of the message I left you as well? You used a userpage to post your essay (which had been removed from Wikipedia before) and created that account to do it. There are all sorts of problems with doing this, some of which I've tried to explain on your talk page. You're welcome to conclude whatever you wish but Wikipedia policy is very clear about using our charitably donated resources as a vehicle for advocacy. Most of us see this as an abuse of both the money that's been given to the Wikimedia Foundation and of the time of the volunteers that have to clean it up. Instead of posting personal essays, have you considered contributing neutrally presented, reliably sourced content to the Rapture article as I suggested? EyeSerene^talk 12:52, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

"Unfair treatment"?? It's a nice WP:ESSAY full of original research, and Wikipedia is not meant for that - it doesn't matter who the author is, or what the subject is. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:09, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

UNFAIR TREATMENT by EyeSerene removal of article (The Teaching of the Rapture)

I am Vbsouthern and I am writing this because of EyeSerene's treatment of me and my article The Teaching of the Rapture has been completely unfair. Your reason You had created the essay using a second account named to draw attention to that essay. is false. I never did this or intended to to this.

I can only conclude that you disagree with the content of this article and removed it for that reason only. this TYPE OF BEHAVIOR is BULLYING and should not be allow on Wikipedia.

My article on the Rapture are as valid as the theory of the Rapture itself. A valid counter-point on the subject should be available, if for no other reason to show that not all Christians believe the theory. Removing my article is tantamount to CENSORSHIP of other religious points of view!

vbsouthern (talk) 13:07, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you pursue the appropriate steps outlined on our dispute resolution page if you feel there is an issue. I would also suggest to you that a calmer tone and rational arguments will get you much farther than shouting and accusations. TNXMan 13:09, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

(See also Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:The_Teaching_of_the_rapture_and_User:Vbsouthern two threads up the page. EyeSerene^talk 13:16, 10 August 2011 (UTC))

(Joined together for clarity. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:25, 10 August 2011 (UTC))

Thank you for your comment Tnxman307. It is that EyeSerene removed the article that I object to instead of moving it or asking me to move it or change the necessary information. No notice of this was sent to me. I would have gladly fixed any problems if I had been told a problem existed.

vbsouthern (talk) 13:35, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry Vbsouthern, but it doesn't belong on Wikipedia in any shape or form. I (or possibly another admin) would be willing to email you a copy if you don't have it backed up somewhere, but only on the condition that it doesn't end up back on this site. Have you considered starting a blog or something, where you are in control of what gets published and you can post what you like? EyeSerene^talk 13:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

And by "it doesn't belong on Wikipedia in any shape or form," that of course means to not try to create The Teaching of the rapture again.[60] —C.Fred (talk) 14:13, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

... and based on clear WP:CONSENSUS (one of the cornerstones of the Wikipedia project), I would bet that additional attempts to re-add the essay to Wikipedia might lead to an enforced Wikibreak (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 14:28, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

They just have, after the third recreation. 48 hours as a final shot across the bows, but if vbsouthern keeps this up when that expires I'd imagine the next will be quite bit longer. EyeSerene^talk 14:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• NOTE: Portions are copyvio. Here[61] he claims authorship. Yet here[62] a large portion of it can be seen as marked "© 2007, Columbia University Press". Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 14:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

So, not only is it an essay, it's a partly-plagiarized essay because he fails to list his sources appropriately. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 15:44, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

COI, promotion and username

Moved across from WP:AN#COI, promotion and username EyeSerene^talk 11:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Michizane (talk · contribs) JacklynFMPR (talk · contribs)

Hmmm, I hope this is the right place, multiple issues, I think admins needed.

Okay, starting here, Avery Watts, I am planning to depuff and list for deletion. Looking into contributors I noticed user:Michizane (who I believe to be his publicist working for Papillon Entertainment which I have just csd'd as blatant advertising), who also contributes heavily to articles about Kari Feinstein, Mike McGuiness and their company Feinstein/McGuiness Public Relations amongst others.

As if by magic, both companies are based in LA, there seems to be a lot of COI, if someone has some free time to go and review Michizane's edits that would be revealing I believe, maybe the FMPR agency is notable, but I don't think the two founders reach WP notability standards, so this appears to be a lot of free self-promotion.

Also, JacklynFMPR is an spa, obviously working for the company, hasn't edited since October 2010, but that's a banned username if ever I saw one and a blatant COI.

A bit of a can of worms, I'm sure by digging deeper that you'll find a whole bunch of interesting 'stuff'. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 20:21, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• Addendum Posting to JacklynFMPR's tp, I saw this, [63], which makes me believe that the user 'went underground' and has probably morphed into another username, should be able to identify POV, COI editors by checking the edit history of the articles concerned. CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 20:27, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• ANI might be a better venue for this. However, the articles seem to be fairly typical puff-pieces though some effort has been made to adhere to WP policy. The sources are pretty low-quality and some of them don't support the article content. I've made some effort to tidy up Kari Feinstein, but as the FMPR agency is probably the most notable of the bunch per WP:CORP my gut feeling is that both Kari Feinstein and Mike McGuiness should be redirected to that.

  I've blocked JacklynFMPR as a promotional username (procedural really as they haven't edited in a while). I note that there have been concerns about the promotional nature of Michizane's editing since Sept 2010. The more I look at the history of some of those articles the more uncomfortable I'm getting, but I'll dig around a bit more before posting anything else here. EyeSerene^talk 11:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• Adding to the above the editing activities of Matsiltala (talk · contribs), Pvisi111 (talk · contribs) and Brandstrong (talk · contribs). Also, The Tax Club is the fourth incarnation of that article, the others having been deleted. EyeSerene^talk 11:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• ...and Coconutty13 (talk · contribs), and 70.187.191.18 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) which geolocates to California (possibly also 76.91.116.25 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)). They mostly look like single-use accounts that are created then abandoned, but I think it's clear that we're being targeted for PR reasons by someone(s) sockfarm. Would a checkuser prove useful? EyeSerene^talk 12:16, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks EyeSerene, I just got the feel that this was like a big can of worms, isn't the recreation of an article (3 times!) the grounds for a speedy? Guess not if the article is substantially different, but that I cannot see. I see OrangeMike is already on the case, if I see anything more connected to this I'll flag it here. Cheers! CaptainScreebo ^Parley! 14:44, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Please do. To be honest I'm hoping someone else will pick this up because I'm going to busy until tomorrow afternoon, but I'll check back when I can. I see that OrangeMike has blocked Brandstrong and I'm leaning towards indeffing most of the other accounts including Michizane per WP:DUCK/WP:SOCK. I'd like to know that this isn't the tip of a bigger iceberg though, so checkuser input might be valuable. EyeSerene^talk 16:17, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

• I have AfD'd Mike McGuiness (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mike McGuiness) and The Tax Club (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Tax Club (2nd nomination)). Looking at the others now. Black Kite (t) (c) 17:52, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Which way forward?

I have concerns regarding the editing of editor User:Mackoy20 which may or may not be related to competence issues, or perhaps a language barrier. As can be viewed from their talk page, they are repeatedly creating poorly written and poorly referenced BLPs on individuals of questionable notability, and have a history uploading copyright violations which they attribute as their own work (deleted examples are viewable by admins here). In July I noted my concerns to Mackoy 20 and suggested that they seek a mentor in order to assist them with their editing and gave them a final warning regarding the copyright violations. This was disregarded entirely and the copyvios continued resulting in a 24 hour block. Since the block has expired the user has continued to create borderline BLPs and has now uploaded the logo File:School Seal of Santa Isabel College.jpg under fair use, but claiming it as their own property ("This is own property"). Note that Mackoy20 has not responded to a single editor's concern in the three months they have been editing. Given their enthusiasm for editing it would be fantastic if they could find a mentor to help them, however given their non-communicative editing style I don't see it as likely they will actually seek one out. At what point does the community decide that the amount of work required to monitor and clean-up an editor's good faith but often nonconstructive edits is too much? Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 15:35, 10 August 2011 (UTC)