Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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

Now that we've got our little nice discussion out of the way, hopefully... User:Thousandsons has, on his user page, a declaration that he's a member of the Crips -- a criminal street gang, by California's definition, and I'm sure by many other jurisdictions'. The question is -- is there a policy against such a declaration on a user page? If so, what might be an appropriate action to take about this? --Nlu (talk) 07:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

IMO harmless until he starts trolling. NSLE _(T+C) at 07:14 UTC (2006-03-21)

If he starts dealing drugs on out-of-the-way talk pages, or does a drive-by shooting of house, then call the cops. Otherwise, treat him like any other user. --Carnildo 09:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

lol ElectricRay 01:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... This user has both red and blue on his user page. Maybe he's just a part-time Crip, or was placed in a position in the organization through a temp-agency. He probably just does clerical work, or maybe he logs minutes in Blood beatdowns. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 09:53, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Present: Ice Dogg, CaPiTaL lEtTa AlTeRnAtA, Madd Hamsta, Masta Bater

Apologies: E-Z Vauxhall Driver

Secretary: Thousand Sons

1. Beatdown productivity down by 12% on last month. Madd Hamsta to look into. Suggested this may be a temporary blip resulting from the recent shift of focus from 'critical' to 'lyrical' beatdowns.

2. Ice Dogg complained that CaPiTaL lEtTa AlTeRnAtA had owed the crack kitty $2.67 for two months. AlTeRnAtA replied that Dogg could "stuff it up his ass in pennies". A full and frank exchange of views was held.

3. Full and frank exchange of views aborted due to running out of bullets.

4. Mad Hamsta to order more bullets.

5. Any other business: Masta Bater questioned the long-standing constitutional policy of "Bros before hos". Argued that this was unrealistic, and that particularly fine hos should surely take precedence over some particularly fronting bros. Agreed to form a sub-committee to research how fine a ho needs to be. Members and budget to be decided later.

Next meeting will be 28th March 2006 if anyone is still alive. Agenda will be posted with a spraycan on the side of the Church of St Gareth of Glitter. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 10:44, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

BJAODN'd [1]. — Mar. 21, '06 [13:44] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

• Brilliant! – ClockworkSoul 17:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Attack of anonims on the color scheme of Harry Potter articles

Moved from Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism:

* 71.140.221.92 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (Wed night) + 71.138.70.75 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (Thurs night) + User:71.138.164.227 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (tonight)

All these vandals have edited Harry Potter character pages and changed the default Harry Potter colour scheme to something ridiculous . The first one was given a serious warning by Drini as well as myself, the second and third were both warned by me. This is starting to get out of hand as I've had to revert every change made. Check the user's contributions and you'll see what I mean. — File:Ottawa flag.png nathanrdotcom ^{(T • C • W)} - 05:40, 24 March 2006 (UTC) (posted via NathanHP)

Apparently, I'm wrong. — natha(?)nrdotcom ^{(T • C • W)} 03:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

• • Formally this not a vandalism, but a content dispute. Maybe you should report them 3RR assuming this is one user with socks. I can sprotect all the articles to prevent sockpupeeting. abakharev 07:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
    • The one I looked at changed a background colour to black which made the black text unreadable!Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 15:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Note that if it's a dynamic ip like AOL, it might not be sockpuppeting so much as 3RR under multiple IPs. Sockpuppeting refers to using multiple accounts or purposely changing IPs. Ral315 (talk) 14:55, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
      • The ISP of the user(s?) concerned is Comcast (an American cable ISP). — nathanrdotcom ^{(T • C • W)} 01:02, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
        • In that case, he might be purposefully resetting his connection so that he can vandalize more... Ashibaka tock 12:39, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
          • Actually, that's what I was thinking. :) — natha(?)nrdotcom ^{(T • C • W)} 04:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I think sprotecting the articles concerned for a couple of weeks may be the best solution. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 15:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

• That would (unfortunately) be every Harry Potter character's article on Wikipedia. — nathanrdotcom ^{(T • C • W)} 01:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

• Here's another one: 71.140.106.74 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). — NathanHP ^{(T • C • W)} 08:22, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
• ...and another: 71.130.199.35 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• ....and yet another: 71.130.202.21 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Please stop the insanity? — NathanHP ^{(T • C • W)} 07:22, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Definition of colors

The colors are here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Harry_Potter/Templates#Colours. I don't know what alls been going on, but I found some reversions where Nathan was reverting to the wrong color scheme. Check to make sure any color changes are consistent with this guide, and discuss any changes that you wish to make to that on the Talk page of the HP WikiProject. Thank you. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 00:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

OrphanBot

OrphanBot (talk · contribs) must be blocked immediately. It meets several criteria for blocking. First of all, it disrupts the editing process. It basically spams Wikipedians who then must go back and (re-)tag images. True, these Wikipedians were responsible in the first place for not following image-tagging rules, but we must decide what we want this project to be. Are we going to let the rules fill talk-pages and make Wikipedian morale suffer? The way I see it, OrphanBot is a horrible thing that invariably acts in *bad faith*. I saw one case where a user left due to OrphanBot’s incessant spamming of him and ultimate deletion of his content, which could have been very important content.

OrphanBot is also inefficient inasmuch as many users will simply appease it by placing the wrong tag, just to save their important images and to get the obnoxious OrphanBot to leave them alone. It would be much better to simply have Wikipedians looking out for image-policy violations, since Wikipedians are able to follow-up. OrphanBot is easily fooled and I have to wonder how many great images it’s caused us to lose for no reason other than to stroke its creator’s ego.

Please take this proposal seriously; this bot is hated among Wikipedians and must go now. ^juppiter bon giorno #c 06:16, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with this comment. The OrphanBot is doing a huge amount of tedious but good work. If administrators would write to you about an image, the message would be basically the same.

Destruction is good work? I thought Wikipedia was about information. We would be slower using human beings, but what rush are we in? It's not like the English Wikipedia is being published next month and all copyrights must be secure. We have plenty of time, and all this bot does is get things deleted. Isn't the goal to keep the images on wikipedia and just tag them? ^juppiter bon giorno #c 06:48, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

No, but Wikipedia is rapidly becoming a highly-popular site, which makes us more of a magnet for litigation. And who said that we have to wait until we publish to secure copyright? Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 07:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it *is* becoming highly-popular. But the masses will abandon us if they start finding that every time they come here, the deletionists have gotten their hands on something else. I'm all for rules, but this adherence to the rules is much much too strict. We must put it in the hands of Wikipedians to control this privately, and not with this bot. ^juppiter bon giorno #c 07:08, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

We are published now - this isn't a private site by any means. Secretlondon 15:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Could you please provide evidence on who left Wikipedia because of "OrphanBot’s incessant spamming"? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:42, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Someone on OrphanBot's talk page said they were leaving because of it. Who knows if they actually did? The comment was unsigned. But coming on and finding 10 image tag messages definitely does not put one in a good mood. It's very discouraging and makes this a more contentious atmosphere than it should be. ^juppiter bon giorno #c 06:48, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia takes copyrights seriously, and properly tagging images is required to verify its license. I'd rather be notified that an image I uploaded is lacking a proper tag so that I could quickly correct it, rather than later finding it deleted per Wikipedia policy. — TheKMan^talk 06:55, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you 100% that copyright should not be taken a joke, but like I said OrphanBot is not efficient. People get so annoyed with it that they'll just stick any old tag on their image (& I know because I've done it) and then not learn their lesson. In addition, the bot makes mistakes and will continue harassing you sometimes even after you've put everything on the page that logically needs to be there (i.e. the times when you actually put the right tag on instead of just trying to shut the damn thing up.) A peer-to-peer system is much better since the templates would not pile up on talk pages so much (I have about 5 on mine right now) and it would decrease aggravation. Remember, Wikipedia could survive without the bot. Without users, it cannot. ^juppiter bon giorno #c 07:05, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for admitting that you've deliberately mistagged images. We are currently far too lenient on people who upload non-free material. There is no way that humans could realistically tag all unknown uploads. Secretlondon 15:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

If people leave over orphan bot, those are the type of people that should leave the project anyways, since copyright violations bring harm to the project. Oprhanbot, and it;s creator, are doing a good job. The uploaders are notified, and if the license is changed to something false, we catch it and run orphan bot again. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 06:58, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

It is not always a violation, maybe just a general ignorance of image policy! The bot certainly doesn’t help with educating people on that (maybe its text says something about it, it’s very unlikely that anyone does more than skim the message.) I don’t think rules were meant to be broken, but there needs to be leeway. It’s raising acrimony. Acrimony is bad. ^juppiter bon giorno #c 07:05, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

We cannot afford to have ignorance as an excuse for contributing to more avenues of attack that third parties have on us. If someone comes along and uploads something which has been copyrighted, and some litigious content owner sues Wikimedia, we are up the creek without a paddle, and no amount of "I didn't know" is going to help us. The image upload page makes it very very plain as to the responsibilities of anyone uploading any media file to this web site. Rob Church 19:52, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The bot message does point you to Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:Image copyright tags. I'm not exactly sure how a message that you say no one really reads causes acrimony. Personally, I find the wording to be rather friendly, though I can see how things could get redundant if multiple images are involved. — TheKMan^talk 07:17, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem is the image taggers. OrphanBot merely carries the image tags out. Some people continue to tag an image as "no source" despite it being self-evident that the user created it. For example, I have uploaded an image with the summary, "by me" and it was still tagged as no source because I used the GFDL template rather than GFDL-self. I later found out it was deleted. This infuriated me quite a bit. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 15:32, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

The way I look at it is simply that Orphanbot is far better than having nothing (ie, hoping some wikipedians decide to sort through the then-massive backlog of untagged images). Sure, some people may find it annoying, but think of it this way: Once you learn how to properly tag images, you never hear from it again. Sure, incorrect tagging is a big problem, but not one that should be blamed on Orphanbot. I have a feeling that users that mistag images would do the same thing if told by another person that their image was untagged. --InShaneee 17:23, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Yep. I think OrphanBot's doing a great service with image tagging; the actual humans doing the tagging and deleting are the ones who occasionally screw up, and would do so, bot or no. This is a really humongous problem, to the point where it would be impossible for a human to tackle without automated assistance, and from what I've seen of OrphanBot it does its task quite well. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 01:23, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I think OrphanBot is acticvely helping us make a better encyclopedia, and if there are failings here, they're all on the part of the human editors. -Colin Kimbrell 20:12, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the functions that OrphanBot are undertaking are good ones, but I think it should be taken down a notch. It is behaving a bit over-zealously. I am particularly concerned about the occasional user that visits less frequently than once a week, who may not see the tag and find their contributions deleted. I was working with someone trying to track down a source and a picture got deleted. Here are some possible modifications to its behavior:

1. Extend the time period to longer than a week. I'd vote for a month. I've seen several images deleted from users that do not visit frequently, and thus are unaware that their images were deleted. I'm afraid to go on vacation.
2. Many images were uploaded before there were tags or rules. Assume good faith on any old images by putting them in a category to be reviewed by a human who can make sense of an edit history that says "by me".
3. Create an easy way for people to remove the image from the destructive powers of the bot. Perhaps a template for images that are being researched. Also have instructions with the bot's warning about how to add such a tag.
4. Create some standard templates for adding source material that is independent of the language of the Wikipedia version an image is uploaded to. I've copied many images from Japanese Wikipedia and it is very difficult to determine who the creator of the image is without being able to read Japanese. An iconic format would make it possible to get the information no matter what the language. Create new fields in the image upload page that must get completed (date of copyright, photographer, etc..), with options to say "unknown". These would be automatically inserted into the iconic image-information-template.

-- Samuel Wantman 04:43, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

1. The seven-day limit is official policy, decreed by Jimbo Wales. If you want it changed, bring it up with him. (And before R.D.H starts shouting Nuremberg Defense again, it's a policy I agree with)
2. Image tagging has only been a policy for a little over two years now. Any image that hasn't been tagged or sourced despite extensive warnings, two major tagging drives, and plenty of notice probably won't ever be. If the upload history says "by me", then presumably the person who tagged the image and the person who deleted it had good reason to ignore it.
3. You've got seven days from the day the tag is put on. If that's not long enough, save the image to your hard drive and re-upload it once you've found the answer.
4. A good idea, if you can come up with something. In the mean time, there's WP:BABEL.

--Carnildo 05:37, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

It's difficult to respond, because many of the premises of the argument are factually incorrect. Orphanbot doesn't make any decision with regards to any image, it doesn't decide something is not sourced or licensed, human editors do. It also doesn't delete image, human administrators do. Orphanbot's main roles are informing uploaders that the image might be deleted (a service not at all required by policy) and delinking the image from articles, which is a way to notify people who may be interesting in the articles that something is wrong, and help the admins when we are deleting images that are at least 7 days old (almost always longer since we are very backlogged). Assuming your only complaint is that you are notified about images that might be deleted (since all other aspects of your argument are substantively false) I don't know what would be more helpful. I agree that if you are a new user uploading, say, 15 unsourced images the amount of messages and general response might be overwhelming, but you are, in fact, creating a lot of work for people. I think the message the bot leaves is fairly helpful, but you also seem to think no one will read it, so that might be moot. If the bot didn't help at all the messages usually used are {{image source}} and {{image copyright}}, which, to me, seem pretty similar in tone and content to what orphanbot does. We have also recently created Wikipedia:Image legality questions for people to get help with images they have been notified about, and links to that page are included in the two templates listed above as well as orphanbot's message.

I guess my question is, I understand your frustration with having to tag images and say where the source was, and with the general copyright law of the US, but what would be the solution? It sounds like maybe you would prefer us to not worry about it? Also, remember that hundreds of images are uploaded everyday with incomplete information, so any solution needs to take that into account. As people have said above, if there is a mistake it's some human editor's mistake, we all make them, but remember for every mistake that an image tagger makes there are probably 1000 images they have tagged correctly and saved from being deleted. That's the ultimate goal, to save images we can, and lessen the legal liability of Wikipedia by removing the ones we can't. There are tens of thousands of untagged images, and as of now we just don't have enough people to not use any automation - cohesion^t 06:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I would feel better if the seven days began to tick when the uploader was notified or when the image was removed from articles (thus notifying the articles' community). Often the person doing the tagging does neither, and since OrphanBot typically doesn't visit until the fifth day, both the uploader and article's editors sometimes only discover two days in advance that the picture is in danger. Many nonwikipediaholics will miss that window entirely, and the burden of trying to research and save the image falls to the admin on day 8. I propose that either OrphanBot visit tagged images earlier in the week, or that it postdate the NL/NS tags to 7 days after its visit. ×Meegs 12:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The user notification is almost immediatly after tagging from my experience, the delinking from the article happens later though. From what I understand the bot makes many passes on each image, so it's not a one-time thing right before the image is up for deletion. - cohesion^t 05:46, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

True, but I think the image removal is often the more important of the two notifications, since the unloaders of long-standing images have often left Wikipedia. OrphanBot's detractors don't realize that the image removal is, in large part, an attempt to help save the image; I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be done at the earliest possible time. ×Meegs 18:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, removing the link a week before deleting the picture would help with my frustration. I work on scores of articles in which I did not contribute the picture. I am trying to source some of these images, and the tagging by the bot has inspired me to do this (along with Carnildo's prompting). But almost every day I find out that an image on an article I watch has been deleted and there is nothing I can do at that point to save them, other than try and get the original contributor to upload them again with proper tags. -- Samuel Wantman 22:14, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Unblock  Bonaparte 

Bonaparte has more than 4000 edits. He was blocked for more than 3 months now. I request an unblock for him.  Bonaparte  talk & contribs— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.106.70.104 (talk • contribs)

Interesting how this IP refers to Bonaparte in the third person (particularly in this edit's edit summary) but uses his signature, complete with colour coding. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 14:40, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a cut-and-paste Ashibaka tock 00:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

On behalf of Wikipedia I have this to say Bonaparte, uhhh no. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 03:16, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Also the IP that placed this request is an open proxy. Open proxy fraud was exactly the activity that got Bonaparte permabanned. Should the IP be blocked as well? --Irpen 06:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, per Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Anonymous_and_open_proxies. Rob Church 19:55, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Vote Stacking at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Turkish Kurdistan

User:Bertilvidets posting of this VfD on 14 talk pages. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]

--Cool Cat^Talk|@ 19:09, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

IMO it complies with the proposed policy Wikipedia:Vote Stacking. All Bertil is doing is posting a link to the AFD. He's not telling people what to vote Without him informing me, I wouldn't have known about the debate. --Latinus 19:16, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

It does say that 'Notifing only people who you believe would agree with "your" position is a violation of this guideline'. I haven't checked yet, but it would seriously surprise me if any of the people he notified didn't vote with him, in which case I think action is still warranted. --InShaneee 01:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked two sockpuppets participatig in the debate and will be keeping an eye on matters. Mackensen (talk) 19:41, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

You only blocked Hybridlily (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), one of the sockpuppets for 24 hours, whereas Shanex (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was blocked indefinitely. --Latinus 19:43, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

That was negligent of me. Moment. Mackensen (talk) 19:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Will anyone adress my request? --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 20:35, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

As a part in this case, I am curious to know what exactly is requested. Bertilvidet 13:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

And do what? Strike out all the "keep" votes? I don't think that's possible... also, I think that it would be assuming bad faith (i.e. violating WP:AGF) to assume that Bertil only notified user who he believed would vote keep - there is no evidence that he believed any such thing (this is not wikilawyering - it is a defect in the proposed guideline and I have brought it to the attention of the guideline's authors so that they can remedy it). --Latinus 20:40, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Nonono. First, you (Latinus) already have a conflicting bias in this situation: you have been notified (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Latinus&diff=prev&oldid=45344415) via talk page, and have voted keep. It's not your fault, but you can already be considered tainted. Second: the following people who have been contacted have voted on the AFD:

• DuncanBCS - keep
• Hectorian - keep
• Mukadderat - keep
• Latinus - Strong keep
• Nikosilver - Keep
• Scranchuse - Keep
• Choalbaton - Keep
• Bhoeble - Keep
• Moby Dick - Strong Keep
• Tazmaniacs - Keep
• Mais oui! - Keep

Three of the editors that were contacted did not participate in the AFD: Green Giant, Staffelde, and KillerChihuahua. You state that you think it would be assuming bad faith to assume that Bertil notified only users who he believed would vote keep... there's a difference between assuming good faith and being dense. Of course he only notified people that would agree with him; why would he notify people who would disagree with him? I mean, come on. Whatever your take on the issue is, it's blatantly obvious what has happened here. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 00:14, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I had edited Turkish Kurdistan twice [16][17] prior to it being placed on AFD and prior to Bertilvidet's message to me, so I would have expressed my view, message or not. I have had only minor communication with Bertilvidet, so it is rather presumptuous to assume that he could know what my view would be.

Where's this ridiculous policy going to go in the end? Disenfranchise all users who receive such a message? Now there's an idea with potential for abuse. --Moby 08:50, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I have changed my 'vote' on the AFD to Strong Keep and am now updating the list above. --Moby 09:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I just got aware of this post. Cool Cat, when you posted a complaint about me I believe it would have been decent if you informed me about it.

The debate on the AfD became quite unpleasant, so I dont find it fruitful to advance my case there. Retrospectively, I can see that my spread of the word about the AfD could seem abusive. However, I want to underline that on purpose I sent it to people who I believe are open for arguments, and I didnt expect a common outcome. Furthermore I avoided to send it to people personally involved in the issue (didn't sent it to people I know as Kurdish or Turkish users). I also noticed that the message was passed on to the Turkish and Iranian users, who I would expect to support deletion - in most cases with the argument that voters should be gathered to get majority for deletion. In that situation I believed that a broad range of users with different backgrounds should have the possibility to voice their views on the issue.

In a short time, there have been several proposals for deletion of categories, stubs and articles related to Kurds - which has become rather trite, and probably created an atmosphere of irritation with lots of inappropriate comments (including personal attacks, semi racist and anti-Turkish comments). May I suggest that we from now on concentrate our efforts on improving Wikipedia, and consider our different approaches as an advantagde in order to write NPOV and balanced articles. Bertilvidet 10:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

As the accused part I am eager to get comments, including criticism if I did anything wrong. I do however demand my exculpation. 1) Taking into account that the AfD is controversial I believe that the request for deletion should be widely known. It is not satisfying that only one part is informed - and I believe outsiders with interest in the subject, but not personally involved, should be invited to weigh in. The side in favour of deletion cannot have the monoply on deciding who should be infromed. 2) I consider Wikipedia as a global site, and thus I believe in a broad inclusion of people taking decisions. Is it only up to Turks and Kurds to determine whether there should be an article on Turkish Kurdistan? I sincerely dont think so. 3) The policy that I am charged for, and plead not guilty, violating is only proposed, not passed nor implemented.

(Despite this debate I recently made another AfD, please tell me if I violated anything by posting this).Bertilvidet 09:32, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

You dont gather "artificial concensus" bu just adveritising people you know will vote as you do. If you have to advertise you generaly ask one or two people who would write a rationale to make up a case either supporting ot opposing the deletion rather than gathering plain keep/delete votes.

The vote is advertised on AfD page to everyone, Turk/Kurd or not. If you didn't mass advertised the result would be similar to Syrian Kurdistan.

Gathering tens of votes agreeing with you is NOT good practice. Do you really think it is aproporate to collect one sided votes?

Sorry I am the most 'indecent' person out there, I do not advertise WP:ANI/I posts I make. I also do not advertise any vote to more than 2 people.

--Cool Cat^Talk|@ 16:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

1) By insisting on claiming that I knew how people would vote, despite my refusal of this, is a breach of WP:AGF. 2) I do not agree that a vote is more fair the fewer that participate in the debate. 3) It is still a proposed policy. This little debate has inspired me to suggest that the rule about vote stacking should go hand in hand with an obligation to inform involved parties about a AfD. See Wikipedia_talk:Vote_Stacking#And_nominators_obligation_to_inform... Bertilvidet 19:43, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Even if that's the case - next time, do it by e-mail (it happens a lot - you have no idea how many e-mails of this nature I get from various users). The fact that TuzsuzDeliBekir indulged in the same practice [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24] doesn't seem to bother Cool Cat... I'll refrain from comment... --Latinus 19:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

1) I'll rather defend my actions here than acting secretly through mail. 2) TuzsuzDeliBekir followed a very different practice than me by stating votes are collected to delete and redirect the Turkish Kurdistan article. Bertilvidet 20:40, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

User:R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine)

According to Wikipedia policy, fair use images cannot be placed in the user namespace, per Wikipedia:Fair use#Policy and Wikipedia:User page#What can I not have on my user page?. R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) has been asked to remove such images from his page by four separate users thus far, in four completely separate incidents:

1. Bunchofgrapes on 00:15, 4 February 2006 here. The request was not acted upon, and was deleted in this edit as "harassment, trolling and botspam."
2. Scm83x on 10:20, 9 March 2006 here. The request was responded to with complete incivility and a misunderstanding of policy here and deleted in this same edit as "harassment, trolling and botspam."
3. MattKingston on 23:38, 14 March 2006 here. The entire talk page was subsequently archived in this edit, though MattKingston's section was cut out.
4. Rebelguys2 on 01:51, 21 March 2006 here. The message was blanked in this edit.

There is no doubt that he understands how fair use works on Wikipedia; it has been explained to him many times over. Regardless, in this edit, he explicitly calls for the "challenge and defiance" of copyright law. Though copyright law may be unpopular and too restrictive at times, Wikipedia is certainly not the place to start his revolution.

After the user was given time to remove fair use images from his user page, but failed to do so, a number of editors have manually removed the offending images from his page. User page and fair use policy states that users are free to remove fair use images from others' user pages – especially after the user has been warned:

1. MattKingston on 00:26, 25 March 2006 here. The edit was reverted as vandalism here.
2. Scm83x on 03:33, 26 March 2006 here. The edit was reverted as "[v]andalism by a novice, petty official" here.
3. Rebelguys2 on 08:31, 26 March 2006 here. The edit was reverted as vandalism here. Notice that, by now, R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) is bordering on a violation of Wikipedia:Three-revert rule, for what is now three reversions at 02:48, 04:07, and 08:39 on the same day.

In summary, this user steadfastly refuses to comply with fair use policy, is completely uncivil in his responses, and is about to violate WP:3RR. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 09:18, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• I protected his userpage. He is being civil elsewhere. Ashibaka tock 12:18, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• Can I just but in here and point out that "about to violate WP:3RR" is not something you can anticipate, fairly comment on or act upon until he actually breaks the rule. Even discussing anticipated crimes smacks to me of a little over eagerness on your part. My imagination I'm sure. I find the man deeply trying, but he is entitled to the same considerations as everyone else no matter how vexing he may be to one's patience. Giano | talk 15:38, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• Revert warring, even if it doesn't break WP:3RR, and especially when it is breaking other policies, is frowned upon; that is what I was commenting on. Excuses if I didn't make it clear enough that he wasn't breaking WP:3RR, or he would have been reported elsewhere. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 19:11, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• It is misleading to say that "he explicitly calls for the 'challenge and defiance' of copyright law" since he was referring to the DMCA and software patents, which (IIRC) have nothing to do with fair use. Johnleemk | Talk 16:13, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• The reason the line in question raised my eyebrows is that it followed a discussion with Natalinasmpf regarding a fair use rationale. I don't know enough to comment on the contents of DMCA. However, he has certainly challenged and been defiant of fair use policy on Wikipedia, and the whole issue here does, in the end, boil down to intellectual protectionism. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 19:11, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• To be honest do you not think in disallowing the man to display his favourite album cover on his own user page is just being a teeny weeny bit over zealous. Is it actually harming anyone, is the copyright holder likely to say "Oi! Stop that now" or "Thank you good Wikipedians for stopping one of our fans displaying our album cover". No in short they don't give a stuff about that sort of thing. It's not as though he is claiming he designed it himself, is a member of whatever group it is, he's just one of millions of fans - nothing more - nothing sinister - and more importantly he is not deriving financial gain from the cover. There must be so many more important things you could devote your worthy time too, now why don't you just give him back his album cover and find something more useful to do with your time. Giano | talk 16:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• Protecting the integrity of the project is a pretty high priority around here. Ghost is lucky not to find himself blocked. -Splash^talk 16:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• What constitutes the integrity of this project seems to be open to personal interpretation[25] as I'm sure you realise. So at least you agree we have some leeway here. That's always a good start, shall we move on from there? Giano | talk 20:29, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• No, this isn't a negotiable policy. And it isn't about how we interprete the law. Ultimately, this is foundation policy and it is absolute. Now, we need to allow latitude for those who don't get it, and make mistakes, but not for a deliberate breachs. He is in violation of the conditions under which we may use this site, and if he will not comply, he cannot continue to use the site. We cannot all turn into lawyers and reach 'consensus' as to where this policy matters and where it does not. That way lies madness. And will those who say 'it doesn't matter' underwrite wikipedia legally if a liberal attitude to copyright gets the foundation into trouble? No. Anyway, there is also a moral argument. Copyright owners cannot go around this massive website checking where their rights may have been infringed. Their rights will often be infringed. The onus is on us to make sure we eliminate every violation we can. --Doc ^ask? 16:51, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with Doc. R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) must understand the policy by now, as it appears he's been warned about many times over. this needs to stop.--Alhutch 16:55, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• Are you quite sure though though that he is in in fact breach of copyright law? If he is - then under the licence template Albumcover were he to accompany the image with a few words describing the album then he would be 100% legal even in your eyes. Would it not be better to try and help him find a solution rather than keep issuing him with repeated "tickets" rather like over zealous traffic wardens, because at the moment it seems to me a rather unimportant action is being escalated and inflamed into what is an unnecessarily angry and hostile exchange. Something which wikipedia has quite enough of already. Administrators should remember they are here to assist and advise editors. At the moment he is being ordered around in an inflammatory way, when he should be being shown a way out of the problem. You are the admins not him. Giano | talk 18:39, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• The problem is that he is in violation of what is apparently Wikimedia Foundation policy. If you would like to restructure Wikimedia policy, it needs to be taken up over there, not here on Wikipedia. R.D.H. has been guided through these policies by several editors, including administrators, over the course of nearly 2 months. However, he has not acted on their advice. Therefore, a page lock was justified. I am also unsure why you accused me of removing your comments here; that was an accident by Tom harrison here. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 20:39, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• I have also mentioned the policy violation once in an unrelated note to him [26] (I just happened to notice all the images) but I didn't actually remove them, I thought maybe he would have himself. - cohesion^t 03:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• Rebelguys and M.Kingston are not admins. And if I have anything to say about it they never will be. The only admin actions taken here, apart from Ashibaka's protection of my userpage, was undertaken by Reb's friend/roomie/frat brother Scm83x. Among whose first acts as a newly appointed admin was to remove most all the images from my userpage and not just the copyrighted ones. All because he thought I was being a bit "rude" to him earlier. I argued that at least my images were being used in a way that was related to the 'Pedia itself, for "community building" purposes and to illustrate subjects brought up on said page. Unlike PERSONAL images, which have nothing to do with either building the 'Pedia or the community and are perhaps better suited for a blog and/or personal photo album. I would not grudge them their pics at all, except they grudge me mine. First certain userboxes are verboden, now certain images. It is only a matter of time before personal pics are taken away too. This is clearly a case of petty vindictiveness, justified under the aegis of policy. Hardly the reward I would expect for all my contributions here... Wikipedia:Harassment [27] and Wikistalking Mr. Kingston. All in an attempt to make my continued participation here unpleasant enough so I might leave the project. Also disturbing is the fact that the only ones who have come to my defense are Ashibaka, who I mainly know of from the infamous unpleasantness of last month, and my arch WikiNemesis Giano. I now find myself in the especially akward position of having to THANK Giano for his astute and welcomed help on this matter. But I must also warn him that if he keeps this up, I will be forced to start respecting him also:>--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 07:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• It was not an "admin action" to remove images from your user page; our user page and fair use guidelines allow any user to do so freely if there is a fair use violation. In addition, only copyrighted images were removed from your user pages, of which there were four. No other images have been touched; I'm not sure why you believed others were. Please don't falsely accuse other users of ulterior motives and of actions they certainly did not undertake. Thanks. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 10:52, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• In the interest of further resolving this mess, I have proposed a Compromise to Ashibaka. Another evening I intended to use working on articles, I've now been forced to devote to defending myself instead. As Giano pointed out, we do actually have better things to do with our time than browbeating a stubborn old man into compliance with a policy he regards as unfair, unduly oppressive and in this case unnecessary (Those images have been sitting peacefully on my page since last year...and we havent gotten a cease and desist order from Sting's or Mr. Gilliam's lawyers so far). This is exactly the sort of petty bullshit which is destroying this community and project. It's getting UGLY here, kiddos...and I fear it is only going to get uglier.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 07:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• I think that everyone should take a breath, relax, and realize what the central issue is here. We should simply recall that our fair use guidelines prohibit the use of fair use images outside the main namespace, save for case-by-case exceptions (i.e., templates for the main page). Any other arguments, such as R.D.H.'s false and bad faith assumptions of "petty vindictiveness," "petty bullshit," "Wikistalking," "harrassment," and collaborations with a "friend/roomie/frat brother," are moot; in addition, our allowance for personal images is in no way related to fair use. Issues such as these stem from Wikimedia Foundation policies, and discussion should be taken to channels there. It is unlikely that you will get anywhere hurling false accusations. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 10:42, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• Rightly or wrongly you have pushed him into a corner back against the wall. So you now have the problem how are you going to help him out. For how much longer is he to be prevented from editing his own user page? I cannot understand why this has been allowed to escalate into such a huge issue which seems to be going nowhere. I am wondering where the more senior and respected admins are while this has been going on. (Another reason for training inexperienced admins!) Were this particular copyright issue to be taken to a legal court the chances are RDS would be allowed to continue his limited use of the image. However, in the absence of a court case, you have to decide how zealously you wish to interpret and administer policy, bearing in mind, who has he hurt?- What harm is it realistically likely to cause? and finally, has anyone actually complained or made official protest over Ghost's actions and use of the image? Bearing those questions and their answers in mind one can then assess the gravity of this case and where you wish to take it.........Without doubt, as I know to my own experience, and you must know surely too, he can be a very belligerent, pig headed and irritating person, but would Wikipedia be a better place without him? I don't think so - He is not one of those non-page-writing editors who flit about the site distributing wise opinions and advice to those that seldom want it, he actually writes pages on encyclopedic subjects, and for that deserves our respect and some consideration given to his views. You appear to have him now back against the wall into a corner, and for some reason seem surprised he is barking and shouting. Calm down and help the poor man out of the mess you have all got yourselves into, exercise a little tact and diplomacy when dealing with difficult customers - and it will be a better place for all. Giano | talk 12:39, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• A number of us had been courteously explaining policy to R.D.H. for the course of two months to which he made no response. We're not "interpreting policy" – it is one of the few fair use Wikimedia Foundation policies that are explicitly stated and unlikely to be misconstrued. It has come up many, many times, and never have I seen such a response. Never have I said that he isn't a worthwhile contributor; never have I said that he should be banned. I don't understand why you brought the issue of his departure up. We have only repeated to him: whether right or wrong, the issue is that this is one of the most clear-cut fair use policies we have on Wikipedia – here's why – here's what you need to do. I have also told him that, in all honestly, he should just drop the issue, as people were coming in every week or two to ask him to remove the images. We have never retracted our offers for assistance, our guidance through the bureaucratic web of Foundation copyright guidelines, or anything else he needs. If that isn't tact and diplomacy, I don't know what else you could want. We can and still offer help, but it is up to R.D.H. to accept it. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 16:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• I bring up the subject of his hypothetical departure because if you bothered to visit his talk page you would see the way he is thinking [28]. There is a whole world outside of "Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents" and perhaps some people would do well to explore it. It does seem very sad that one can't have the image of one's favourite album on one's own page (with a few words about it), and yet can write on a main page about it and use the image, I wonder what, or whose logic, that is? Life is complicated poor old RDS no wonder he's upset, I'm totally perplexed by it all. You see if one was writing about oneself as one should on that page, and that particular album had had a huge bearing on one's life, then, by your logic, were one notable the image would be legit wouldn't it, because that user page could then be a legitimate main page, so it all boils down to interpretation of notability. I wonder if RDS is in anyway notable? He's becoming more infamous here by the moment. Giano | talk 17:50, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• You misunderstand. I certainly do "bother to visit his talk page;" various editors have been dropped in and out for two months regarding this issue. Do you really think I don't understand his position, or that I have such a severe case of tunnel vision that I don't bother looking elsewhere? I'm not as ignorant of what's going on as you think. I've read through his talk page, my talk page, the messages you left on ALoan's talk page, and the rest. Be civil, please. I certainly understand his position. However, it's not my logic; I'm going by the logic of the Wikimedia Foundation. If I was wrong here, I'd have backed out a long time ago, but the policy is currently not up for negotiation. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 18:11, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• If you knew then why ask me "I don't understand why you brought the issue of his departure"? Giano | talk 18:26, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• Because his departure wasn't and isn't the issue. This issue is Wikimedia Foundation policy. I think User:Doc glasgow put it best at the beginning of this discussion: "[T]his isn't a negotiable policy. And it isn't about how we interprete [sic] the law. Ultimately, this is foundation policy and it is absolute." — Rebelguys2 ^talk 18:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• Of course by the strictest letter of Wikipedia law your are probably correct in your understanding, but then I read, from just this page, the comments made by those discussing RDS's behaviour:

1. "it's not my logic"
2. Can I just but in here and point out that "about to violate WP:3RR is not something you can anticipate"
3. "It is misleading to say that "he explicitly calls for the 'challenge and defiance' of copyright law"
4. "we need to allow latitude for those who don't get it'"
5. "Ghost is lucky not to find himself blocked"
6. "never have I said that he should be banned"
7. "if he will not comply, he cannot continue to use the site"
8. "Please don't falsely accuse other users of ulterior motives and of actions they certainly did not undertake"
9. "Rightly or wrongly you have pushed him into a corner back against the wall"
10. "..his departure wasn't and isn't the issue"

There does seem too a confused hymn sheet here. The English have this marvellous word for people who take their responsibilities too seriously and officiously, it called a Jobsworth have you heard it? Giano | talk 20:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• Frankly, the whole thing seems pretty stupid all around, but given that the Foundation has chosen to have a very strict policy about fair use images, and that policy includes a ban on fair use images on user pages, the matter, while stupid, seems pretty clear-cut. If you keep restoring them to your (or anyone else's) user page, expect zealous enforcecement of the (possibly misguided, but entirely clear) policy. - Jmabel | Talk 20:59, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• I have to say I am coming to agree with Jmabel (above). The upside is that it gives those who never had the opportunity to be a prefect at school a few moments of glory enforcing those rules which to most seem pointless and frankly rather silly. Giano | talk 21:10, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you, Jmabel. The only thing I have been trying to get across is that we can't have fair use images on user pages. I simply have not been able to comprehend why others continue to stray away from clear-cut foundation policy, and continue to ask for exceptions and discussing issues marginally related to unnegotiable guidelines. — Rebelguys2 ^talk

• Jmabel has the right of it. The policy seems clear-cut, and if Ghost is concerned about people enforcing "arbitrary" rules against him, he shouldn't violate policy and give them the ammunition. -Colin Kimbrell 16:48, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

User:R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine)/Sandbox

Following the end of page protection at User:R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine), R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk · contribs) has made this page a redirect to User:R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine)/Sandbox which is a copy of his old user page where he has removed only 2 of the 4 fair use images that he has been told repeatedly to remove in the past. I would say something, but I will almost certainly be ignored as I have been previously, although I hope that wouldn't be the case. If another admin could take a look at this new incident, all of us involved would really appreciate it, I'm sure. — Scm83x ^{hook 'em} 06:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your report Lt. Scmmy83x....and for protecting us from this arch-villian of the peace! It is good to know that energetic, enthusiastic young admins such as yourself are diligently on patrol for such disobedient and disorderly discontents. Please rest assured you have the full power of the enforcemnt apparatus behind you. All rulebreakers must be beaten into conformity. All who dare dissent must be beaten into silence. Strict enforcement of sacred policy and procedures must be our top priority here at WikiGulag. All other priorties (such as building an encyclopedia, fighting vandals etc) are secondary. We must never lose sight of this, young Leutmann! Once again, well done! (I best hush now before I start sounding like Giano;)--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 08:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks like you remembered to Wikipedia:Assume bad faith! Ashibaka tock 16:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Probably Sarfatti

An anon (71.139.55.87 (talk · contribs)), probably Jack Sarfatti (some of the edits from this IP refer to JackSarfatti (talk · contribs) in the first person, some in the third person), recently bombarded diff1 diff2 my userpage with some pretty heavy duty legal threats. He's apparently under the impression that I put some information about him changing his name into his article. I banned the anon account for 48 hours, but after reading WP:AN/I/Archive48#Sarfatti, I wonder if I should consider a longer (permanent?) ban, given his past record and our past dealings with him. These anon accounts have been pouring oceans of email textdumps into Talk:Jack Sarfatti lately, and there were legal threats against me there as well, but only when he brought it to my userpage did I think to ban. I haven't been an admin long, and this was my first ban (exciting! now I'm drunk with power!), so I'm not really sure how these things work. At the very least, maybe I'll start keeping track of all the IPs that do textdumps into the talk page.

By the way, not that this matters as far as our policy and response goes, but as for this name business, I never added anything about him changing his name to his article, I think he just hasn't gotten the hang of how Wikipedia works, and who is writing what. Furthermore, by his own admission with these vandalisms, he did in fact get his name legally changed, so the information that he's complaining about is not wrong (though perhaps a little misleading). -lethe ^{talk +} 01:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

68.124.23.189 (talk · contribs) did me again, I've blocked 1 week. -lethe ^{talk +} 02:10, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

68.125.8.213 (talk · contribs) is doing it too now. *Dan T.* 04:53, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I blocked that one indef. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 04:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Join the club, User:Lethe. Sarfatti came after me just for replacing the birthdate once in the article after he'd deleted it (it's a well-known date that he has often mentioned in his Usenet postings due to a mystical importance of some kind). He declared me his political enemy and followed up with off-Wikipedia threats. For his other hijinks Wales banned him permanently but he is irrepressible. User:Mperel is trying to bring the article to a better place and with luck and support he/she may succeed. It is probably worthwhile to track the IPs he's using though it may not be possible to block them cleanly. S-protecting the article/talk page may be a necessity if he is being disruptive. -Will Beback 07:47, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I have been reverting most of Mperel's efforts. She is of the opinion that Sarfatti is a "brilliant physicist", and wants the article to be much more in line with that thinking. On the other hand, I think Sarfatti is a crackpot of the purest breed, and do not want a Wikipedia article that makes him look like a scientist. Therefore I don't think Mperel will have much success with her efforts. I suppose this is the ultimate reason why Sarfatti wants to get me, claims about his last name notwithstanding. -lethe ^{talk +} 17:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

"Brilliant:" and "crackpot" are sometimes difficult to distinguish. My impression was that Mperel is trying to write a article that Sarfatti would approve of enough to stop interfering. If that isn't possible then the effort is wasted. -Will Beback 21:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

MPerel does seem to have good intentions, though I don't agree with her goals (in particular, I think an accurate portrayal of Sarfatti is necessarily negative, and so he wouldn't be satisfied with it), and don't really appreciate the way she insinuates that I have ulterior motives. -lethe ^{talk +} 21:47, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm in the club now, too, what with Jack bombarding me with a dozen or more childish e-mail rants over the last couple of days -- every one of which he CC's to a long list of people, most of whom I assume are people unlucky enough to have crossed his path (ferchrissakes, Jimbo Wales is on the CC list).

Frankly, I think MPerel is pursuing a lost cause: I've known of this guy from ten years back, and Jack's ego allows no contradiction of anything he says. --Calton | Talk 07:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that a properly NPOV article should not directly call him either brilliant or a crackpot; it should merely present the facts about him so readers can make up their own minds. *Dan T.* 00:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you about that. -lethe ^{talk +} 02:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Striver-Eric L. Haney

The user Striver has create the Eric L. Haney page already with an afd tag because by his own words:

Im tired of geting my stuff deleted, so i dont even bother anymore, just create them with the AFD sign on it and get it over with. --Striver 02:23, 26 March 2006 (UTC) [29]

• This is the first version of the page he created with the afd tag already placed.
• This is the Afd page itself.

I believe that this breaks with WP:POINT and interferes with the regular afd process.--Jersey Devil 05:47, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

LOL. Don't overreact. But maybe it should be pointed out to him before he repeats that stunt that such articles are immediate speedy candidates under CSD G7 :-) Lupo 08:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Stalking by user:AKMask

• Featured list vote
• Vfd vote
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Davenbelle and Stereotek

User has participating on any vote I am a part of in the opposing corner. User does not regularly vote on featured lists or vfds. Since I have a history of getting stalked by user:Davenbelle (23:01, 11 January 2006 Viajero deleted "User:Davenbelle" (per request of user via email)) and since he claims to have left wikipedia I suspect he may be a new alias as he has very few edits ^[30] prior to davenbelles departure. I also find this rfc vote being his 8^th edit rather strange. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 14:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

It could also very well be user:MARMOT but then again I always suspect user:MARMOT but still something to look into perhaps. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 14:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Does AKMask know this discussion is taking place? I've informed him - there may be an explanation or all this may be a coincidence. While I do find this conspiracy intriguing ;-) It may be better to assume good faith, at least until a serious problem appears. Appearing on three polls/RFCs could be a perfectly reasonable coincidence... AFAIK even if he is stalking you, I don't think the administrators here can do anything about it. --Latinus 15:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I do not assume good faith when stalked. Appearing on two polls is ok and can be a coincidence if the person regularly votes on afds and rfcs or if the votes are related. We dont observe this. There are wikipedia policies just AKMask isn't exempt of one being Harassment which covers stalking. If he is stalking me he will perhaps get away with a warning, if he continues he will eventualy end up getting banned.

People have been banned from wikipedia indefinately for stalking in the past. Infact Jimbo personaly banned the person in question and it is rare for Jimbo to get involved on anything on wikipedia that direct.

The point of Administrators noticeboard is to notify the administrators. Thank you for notifying AKMask you saved me the trobble. Know that notifying him was always optional.

--Cool Cat^Talk|@ 18:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Rather simple explanation: I am a member of the Star Trek wikiproject, and was poking around those topics for a day or so before joining. As for the Turkish Kurdistan vote, I saw the link on his talk page while we were discussing the star trek page (look it up on his talk page) and a former girlfriend/summer fling of mine went to Turkey on Exchange. Minor interest. And I regularly participate in VfD's... over a hundred votes, actually. With a user at around 750 edits, thats a bunch. The RfC was last fricken year. Theres no way thats relevent. If I were truly wikistalking I'd have continued to vote on more current RfC's that you're involved in. Or I would've voted against one of your RfA's. This is purly coincidence from a shared wikiproject and reading your talkpage. -M^ask 19:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Edit: I never made an edit to the RfC you have linked.... I reviewed the date, then the history. Never touched it. -M^ask 19:02, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

As a disinterested party who has interacted regularly neither with AKMask nor with Latinus, and after readily conceding that we oughtn't perhaps to clutter the noticeboard with this discussion, I think it is eminently clear that what Mask is doing is not wikistalking, and, more importantly, in no way proves deletrious vis-à-vis the project. One observes many AfD, FAC, and RfA votes by Mask; notwithstanding questions about whether Mask is Davenbelle, toward the proving of which proposition Cool Cat adduces Mask's having failed to make many edits prior to the departure of Davenbelle, surely Mask's voting on a few Wikipedia questions with which Cool Cat was involved does not wikistalking make. Finally, assuming arguendo that Mask has voted on sundry Wikipedia questions in order to express disagreement with Cool Cat, wikistalking would be demonstrated, in my mind, only to the extent that it was plain that his sole purpose for voting was to express disagreement; I can imagine, for example, that if Mask thought Cool Cat to have exercised bad judgment in voting in the past (and I surely don't impute malign motive or bad judgment to Cool Cat, about whom I know nothing), he might frequent pages at which he/she voted in order to express contrary viewpoints in such cases as Mask found Cool Cat's votes to be poorly supported. Joe 19:11, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Voting on vfds and afds as a personal cause against a user is wikistalking. From where I am standing this is the case. AKMask how many votes have you shared a vote with me prior to the encouter at List of Starfleet ship classes ? Just what I thouht, none. I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen every day. But I don't trust coincidences. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 19:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, you are quite wrong. see this diff to my usertalk from december where you THANK me for trying to fix some copyright issues on a featured list vote you were having. I wanted it to pass, I did some image removal, you thanked me. We've shared votes. -M^ask 20:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, If I recal correctly you originaly voted oppose to that too. I still however do not feel your vote on the Afd was in good faith. I am way beyond frustrated. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 20:11, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I did, because of copyright issues. It would be silly to support something that would get us sued. I then listed my problems, fixed them, and changed to support. As for you feeling whether my vote on the Turkish AfD was in good faith, that is of absolutly no concern to me. It was, it will be counted, and thats it. Your feelings on my vote are fluff. Take a wikibreak if you're that frustrated. -M^ask 20:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I find this most insightful. You act like a dick and annoy people then suggest they take a wikibreak. Seems like you got this all worked out. Except it wont work. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 22:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I have not acted like a dick anywhere, and have not done anything out of the ordinary to annoy you or anyone else. If you get annoyed by my general presence, well, I'm afraid I can't help that. As to it not working... what wont work? I hardly think I'm going to end up blocked because you don't agree with me. It happens. Sometimes you'll win, sometimes my side will. But thats just how it goes. The wikibreak is something I'd suggest to anyone who says they're way beyond frustrated. Do you support someone who is under a lot of stress continuing to place themselves in a situation where more can be added? I hate seeing posts where users blow up and declare they quit or leave in a huff. I don't like seeing that happen to anyone. My remarks were intended for nothing beyond the statement that it appears obvious that Turkish Kurdistan is going to be no consensus, hence keep, and you can't really change that. Take a break, cool down before you get so frustrated you up and quit. -M^ask 23:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

There's really no evidence here that AKMask is doing anything stalkerish. And this discussion is stretching the limits of WP:CIVIL. Calm down, step away from the computer if you need to, and find something to do that's more rewarding and productive than this argument. FreplySpang (talk) 03:10, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I have no intention of letting this nonsense continue, I do not like seeing the same person on votes I participate in the opposing corner. This is exactly like RickK's case however I havent yet been stalked to excess... --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 16:12, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

What nonsense? I'm not stalking. And I fail to see how you will invalidate any votes I have placed. They are all legit, so you have no right to strike them, and you are not an admin, so you're not going to block me. And I have shown that I've not done anything wrong, or even attempted to do anything wrong, so your not going to get someone else to block me. Frankly, I'm considering opening a RfC because of some of your basless allegations here and harassing messages elsewhere. -M^ask 17:14, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Start an rfc and watch hordes of people support you. I have a feeling I am not liked on wikipedia at all. Getting me blocked is easy. Go right ahead. I have been levied restrictions for getting stalked in the past so I doubt you'd have any problems. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 06:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Thread closed

This is rather non-standard, I know, but I'm fairly sure it is warranted under the circumstances.

I think we've fleshed this one out enough. Cool Cat, please assume good faith and not jump to conspiratorial conclusions. If there is a substantative issue that needs to be dealt with, please take it to WP:RFC - the administrator's noticeboard is not the place to debate issues, as it is intended to be a place to inform administrators of matters which warrant administrative attention versus being a place for criticism of user conduct. Thank you. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 20:37, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes I reopened the thread, do not close threads like that. Stalking requires administrative action, at the very least a warning.

I am sick and tired of people annoying me and being told to go to RfC. I do so and it is just ignored. No one even cares to review it. If I commit or suggest to commit remotely similar behaviour people are quick to block me or threaten to block me. Why cant we have one solid standard? I know almost no one gives a damn about enforcing wikipedia policies when I request it but at least dont slience me.

--Cool Cat^Talk|@ 06:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that stalking should be dealt with. But your case blew up in your face Cool_Cat. I'm not stalking you now, nor was I ever. You're just being paranoid. An Admin closed the thread because the accusations are baseless. You're just digging a bigger and bigger hole for yourself. -M^ask 17:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

That remains to be seen. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 17:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Quite right. We're all out to get you. It's a massive conspiracy, and we're all in it. Face it, the Cabal wants you out of here.

Grow up. Rob Church 17:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I consider that as a personal attack. Then again compared to stuff you had done to me on IRC its nothing --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 17:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Gnome (Bot)

I have blocked Gnome (Bot) (talk · contribs) indefinitely. This bot is removing cleanup tags and replacing them with stub tags or, if there is already a stub tag, just deleting the cleanup tag. How is this useful? User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:45, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, Eagle explains here why he thinks it appropriate to replace cleanup tags with stub tags for articles under 225 words (and to remove cleanup tags where a similarly-sized article is tagged for cleanup and as a stub (I agree with Zoe's reasoning and block--although I'd imagine that, inasmuch as the bot seems to be performing other salutary tasks, once the cleanup/stub function is removed, the bot should be unblocked--but I thought if might be helpful for users to see the reasoning of the bot's owner). Joe 23:52, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Bot operator response

First things first I've never been here before, so I'm not sure what to do to explain this...In a nutshell I have gotten agreement from several members of WP:CU(the page that takes care of the cleanup backlog), and approval to run on WP:BRFA

These activites have been proposed here and here

The reasoning behind this is, how do you "cleanup" a article that is so small. ---what the article needs is to be expanded (when the article is expanded all "cleanup" that has been done will be lost).

Also please remember we have a cleanup backlog of almost 14000 articles... The person who requested that I would create this bot resquested it to reduce the backlog...That way the articles that need only cleanup are on the list.

By the way every stub belongs in the cleanup category...After all they are all small, some are not wikified, some have grammer problems... ect.

I will disable the function for now...but I believe that this issue needs to be debated in a more public forum. (looking at the merits of the idea alone), as I am not the only person who feels that this is a good idea.Eagle (talk) (desk) 02:12, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Also Zoe, will you be more specific next time you post to my talk page, or the bot...Which articles were you talking about??? I had to look in your contributions to find out that you had posted it on this page as well... Would have been nice to have a heads up...(than agian the block message might have pointed me here...but the bot shuts off as soon as you post a message on its page...So I will never know)

The bot operator is of course meEagle (talk) (desk) 02:12, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Sleeping Dogs Don't Lay

Zoe--you blocked the bot because of the edit it made to this page...the reasoning for the block is "(inappropriate bot)"...You left a message on my talk page that said this "Why would arbitrary deletion of cleanup tags serve any function?"...YOu left a message on the bot's talk page that said "This bot has no purpose other than to remove cleanup tags which apparently were put there for very appropriate reasons. Please stop."

I just want to make sure that you realize that the bot does not "arbitrarily" delete cleanup tags, It only does it if the article is a stub or should be a stub. The reason why I mention this is because you reverted both the removal of the cleanup tag, and the addition of the stub tag. (now the article is only tagged as cleanup, but it is a stub (cleanup or not).

by your definition all stubs should be in the cleanup category????

Sorry if I sound rude... but I had to look in your contributes to find this page and to find out what articles you had problems with... and even then I had to read inbetween the lines, If it were not for joe, I would be in the dark.

Eagle (talk) (desk) 02:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

• I have to agree with Eagle, this feels a bit heavy handed. He has been trying to get GnomeBot ready for trial for some time and largely been ignored. Then, when he puts a tentative model up for trial he gets knocked back, hard. CleanUp needs CleanedUp and Eagle is trying to do something positive about it. I had a look at the recommendations that GnomeBot was making and found that I agreed with almost all of them, they appeared to be both sensible and desirable. I would suggest that this Bot is given the trial that was intended and then we can discuss the results.

ping 08:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

• • "Cleaning up" does not mean random deletion of cleanup tags, it means actually going to the pages being tagged and trying to determine why and how it should be cleaned up. Removing cleanup tags without actually cleaning anything up is vandalism. User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Reblocked

I've reblocked the bot for exactly the same reason that Zoe did originally (the original block seems to have been removed). There is NO justification WHATSOEVER for removing {{cleanup}} from stubs, and I am getting heartily sick of rolling back this bot's activity, which I've now had to do to over a dozen articles. A {{stub}} tag simply indicates that an article is too short and needs expansion - a {{cleanup}} tag indicates deeper problems, such as grammar, layout, wikification, translation, style, context or inapproriate language. The two are NOT interchangable, and freuqntly an article needs both tags. Grutness...wha? 12:40, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Hm...looking again, maybe I've just added a second block over the top of the first - both indefinite though, so it shouldn't affect anything. Grutness...wha? 12:46, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

You are correct this bot has not been editing since it's original block, this there is NO WAY the bot could have changed any more articles.Eagle (talk) (desk) 18:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Bot oprerator response

In light of this contriversy, I will remove the replace stub with cleanup feature. (Would it still be alright to add {{stub}} to short articles 225 words or less.) I the bot operator has tried to be as good about this mistake as possible...The reblock above was merealy adding a second block over the first block.Eagle (talk) (desk) 18:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Please stop deleting cleanup tags. User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:14, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

A strange case

I am blocking Harpercanada (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) indefinitely (after a question and a warning went ignored) because they are apparently creating articles solely to promote books published by HarperCollins Canada. As far as I know, this is the first time a major book publisher has decided to advertise on Wikipedia. If there's no complaint I will delete all their articles within a few days. Ashibaka tock 01:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't wait too long. The articles are horrible. For example: "The Continuity Girl"

• This book, published in 2006 by HarperCollins Canada is one that readers will laugh out loud.

I hope this editor is not an editor at HarperCollins. -Will Beback 03:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I see no problem with speedying the lot; they're probably all copyvios. Mackensen (talk) 03:18, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I've taken my own advice. Mackensen (talk) 03:37, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I concur with your decision. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Call it a stretch, but this could also be a Username violation (Harper is the current PM for Canada). User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:07, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Harper's not an uncommon surname, though, and it was all book spam (admittedly, that was my first thought too). Mackensen (talk) 12:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Template:User feminist

The user NicholasTurnbull speedily deleted the template Template:User feminist on the grounds: (Speedy deletion T1 - divisive in respect that feminism, or any other discrimination on the basis of gender, is unacceptable on Wikipedia and has no place here.) I don't believe that this template meets CSD T1. I believe that taking feminism to be "discrimination on the basis of gender" is itself POV, and hence the judgment that the template meets CSD T1 is itself a violation of WP:NPOV. I'd like to see this template recreated since it was speedily deleted in an out-of-process way. Catamorphism 06:27, 28 March 2006 (UTC) Never mind, taking it to the appropriate forum. Catamorphism 07:48, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

You have to take it through Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates.Geni 07:42, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I didn't know that page existed. Catamorphism 07:48, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Croatian historian

This user has been engaging in personal attacks and has been removing properly placed warnings from his talk page. Seems to have been warned many times yet still does so and has a watchlist of people he claims to be vandals etc. I've blocked for a short while though his attitude to the block seems to suggest he will continue to be disruptive after that. Anyone care to take a look? --pgk^(talk) 09:18, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked him for his behavior for 31 hours on the 26th. Since then, he has only worsen his behavior. I suggest a much longer block. Since his latest block, he has personally attacked me, pgk and OrbitOne. I have once again sprotected his user talk page until/if his block expires --LBMixPro^{<Speak|on|it!>} 09:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

There's something odd about all this, and I wonder if other admins could look in on it. I've unblocked Croatian historian (talk • contribs • historian page moves • block user • historian block log), and unprotected his Talk page. Some, at least, of the supposed personal attacks have not been (e.g., [31], and I've seen little to justify a block. Those attacking Croatian historian, on the other hand, such as User:Bormalagurski (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log), have been behaving very badly, with genuine personal attacks, the removal of AfD notices from pages while discussion is continuing, and the removal of comments from article Talk pages. I'm sure that the admins involved haven't in fact been taking sides, but their actions have at least appeared a little one-sided. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

To clarify, clearly Mel Etitis has looked into the background of this more than I did. I saw the user posting {{bv}} tags to an admins talk page in response to that admin reverting the removal of warnings from his talk page. WP:TALK states "Furthermore WP:VAND states: Removing warnings, whether for vandalism or other forms of prohibited/discouraged behavior, from one's talk page is also considered vandalism." Additionally the user was maintaining a "watchlist" on his page listing individuals as vandals, admin abusers etc. I consider this to be uncivil at best if not a personal attack. This *proposed* arbcom decision. anticipates similar behaviour as being unacceptable. Additionally the user had been blocked a couple of days previously for similar. As a potentially controversial block hence the posting here. --pgk^(talk) 17:57, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Meanwhile, after another blanking/restoring flurry this morning (in which Croatian historian has again labelled restorers vandals in the edit summaries), I've reprotected the page but did not block Croatian historian. Mel, with all due respect, I think your actions simply encouraged Croatian historian's behavior, and I don't think it should have been encouraged in any way. --Nlu (talk) 15:41, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I will file a complaint against you for adminship abuse. Vandalizing a talk page is a serious offense, editing a protected page is a serious offense. Not only are vandals reinstating bad faith use of templates by Boris Malagurski (trolling), they are also deleting my own replies at my own talk page. Croatian historian ( ) 16:00, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Editing a protected page is not a serious offense, because obviously the only people that can edit it are the ones who are allowed to- that's the whole point. As for deleting your replies, god mode light does not selectively rollback sections; you shouldn't have replied and vandalized your warnings at the same time (and it is vandalism, as it violates WP:VAND). Again, please stop calling us vandals and assuming bad faith. --Rory096 16:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I dont think the behaviour of Boris Malagurski, Nlu and their friends should be encouraged. Their behaviour is appalling. Croatian historian ( ) 16:00, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I've warned you twice for personal attacks. I've quoted or linked you the policy multiple times. And still you keep vandalizing, and then have the balls to accuse upstanding editors like myself, Nlu and rory? I rarely get pissed, but this user deserves an indefinate block. ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 16:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks? Incivility? Here you go: [32], [33], [34], tells me to shutup, [35] etc.⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 16:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm inclined to sympathise with Croatian historian; too many admins have looked at the page, seen a warning template being removed, and knee-jerked into attacks on the User, without bothering to check the validity of the template. It was a mischievous use of the template by another editor who has been harassing Croatian historian. "Vandal" may be the wrong word, but given the pressure he's been put under, and the many admins who have piled in against him without bothering to find out what's been going on, I think that he can be forgiven. I'm unprotecting the page, so that he can clear it of the junk that's been piling up. Ny advice to him is to archive the whole page, and start afresh. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

"WP:VAND states: Removing warnings, whether for vandalism or other forms of prohibited/discouraged behavior, from one's talk page is also considered vandalism." He was told this. Multiple times, and still reverted. Then he took it onto other user talk pages, and then tells me to shut up when I show him the policy. ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 16:15, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I find it very disconcerting that a user can personally attack other users, including upstanding editors and admins, act incredibly rude and uncivil, threaten them, delete his warnings, ignore other warnings, and then get off unblocked. That's disgusting to me. ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 16:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I blocked Croatian historian for 48 hours for personal attacks, and then Mel Etitis unblocked, and then I reblocked. Pardon me for wheel warring, but I think in this case it's justified. Mel, you can't say with a straight face that these edits by Croatian historian were not personal attacks, or that they did not come after repeated warnings. --Nlu (talk) 16:45, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Finally, my comment

Since I see my name is mentioned several times, I feel I should comment on the issue. I would like to start by writing a Croatian historian quote:

• "Not all nationalism is genocidal or aggressive expansionist/irredentist like the Serbian one." [36]

I'm a Serb. I find that very offensive. So, I posted a "no personal attacks" template on his page. He just deleted it. He claims that I'm mad at him because he voted against me when I applied for an administrator on English Wikipedia, but that is not the reason at all. We're all a little biased, some more than others. But this next quote by Croatian historian is too much:

• "Alojzije Cardinal Stepinac was perhaps the most honourable man in history of Croatia of the 20th century, also if compared to great statesmen like Franjo Tuđman." [37]

Doesn't that seem a little too biased. I would even dare to call it nationalist. This is an encyclopaedia, not a blog. I'd also like to mention some other edits he made to actual articles, which I find are extremely biased, and quite frankly should be considered as vandalism:

• • "Serb irredentism and attempt to create a Greater Serbia under Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic led to the Yugoslav wars..."

• • "Serb war criminal Slobodan Milošević in the Hague..."

• • -just erased a bunch of text-

• • -here as well-

And that's just what I could find in a few minutes... Not to mention, he's very rude: [38]. Also, here's what he wrote about User:Lbmixpro - "vandalize user pages, needs to be banned", and the same for User:Rory096; "vandalize user pages (restoring personal attacks/trolling, deleting content), needs to be banned" for User:OrbitOne and "adminship abuse, removing properly placed warning templates" for User:Pgk.

Enough said. I don't know if he is blocked at the moment, some users keep unblocking him, maybe they think he might change his ways. Not likely. Block him for good - he is a vandal. --Boris Malagurski ₪ 04:27, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The praises of the Croats might be biased and POV, but "Serb war criminal Slobodan Milosevic" would be fine if the word "accused" is added. That would then be an accurate description, as Milosevic was indeed an accused war criminal. --Nlu (talk) 06:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I would like to note Boris I found multiple uncivil quotes by you on his talk page as well. I think this issue is not just his behavior, but includes the tiff between the two of you.--OrbitOne ^[Talk|Babel] 06:50, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

"Attack is the best defense". I'm not the perfect Wikipedian, but please, if you have something against me, don't discuss it here, we're talking about Croatian historian.

Also, Croatian historian did not add the word accused, and he didn't do it on purpose. If he had added that word, I would have nothing against the edit. But both of you didn't really comment on the more troubling issues, and you're obviously taking sides on this discussion, without rationally analyzing all aspects of the topic. --Boris Malagurski ₪ 06:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

When two feuding parties are both accusing me of taking sides, that is usually a good indicator that I'm not. I'll take it as a compliment. --Nlu (talk) 07:02, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, the difference between me and Croatian user is that this is the first time I've accused someone of taking sides. Croatian user accuses everyone who is against him of taking sides with me, so if you don't like him, you're a Boris Malagurski supporter. I don't see how you can take that as a compliment, but if it makes you feel better, sure, why not... --Boris Malagurski ₪ 07:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree on several points. Croatian history is being discussed here, however it shouldn't be all about his actions and only his actions; he isn't mass editing with no interuser interactions. I am not taking sides between the two of you, but I am going to note the shots between the two of you. I will also note not all of your shots have been 100% clean. Thus I come to the second point where I disagree. I am not taking sides here. I want to keep my hands clean. I do suggest finding an arbitrator though; any problems the two of you have with each other is not good for wikipedia. Three: This problem has more than one side and two users. If Croatian historian is a troll, then there are also people who feed the troll. I am not saying anyone, you and Croatian historian included, should be banned or any other admin actions should be taken though; such actions are up to the admins to decide, not me. I am saying though all sides need to walk away from this learning lessons and changing how we act, even if only a little bit.--OrbitOne ^[Talk|Babel] 10:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Still, noone is commenting on the links I posted, and if that's not taking sides, I don't know what is. Could anyone say why Croatian historian should be a part of this Wikipedia, even though he writes stuff like that (honestly, read the links)? Once again, I'm not the perfect Wikipedian, noone is, and I've made a few mistakes, but I've tried since to correct them: [39].

But what Croatian historian has done, and what he is still constantly doing, is unacceptable. Unlike me, he will never change. So, if you still think that you're going to save this user from being blocked by attacking the edits I've made, think again, because the reasons I've given are good enough to block him, and you can't deny that just because I made a few mistakes in the past. --Boris Malagurski ₪ 20:30, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Privacy Harassment from 67.160.251.14 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

I received this on my talk page last night. I warned the user not to harass and threatened a block if he did it again. Thoughts?Gator (talk) 14:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

As I posted at WP:AN, you're not under any obligation to disclose any personal information to anyone and I certainly wouldn't give anyone your license to practice law license number.--MONGO 14:50, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Mass move-protections

I'd like to seek some external feedback on Freakofnurture (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)'s use of the sysop-move protection feature. He has move protected approximately 50 high-profile pages in recent days, though they had no move wars and in few, if any, cases have ever exhibited any. In few cases have they ever even been moved. I recognise that Albert Einstein, for example, is unlikely to need a move for some time to come, but we really don't want to go slapping protection on articles "just in case the apocyalypse comes". It seems to me to run directly counter to the spirit of open editing and trusting editors.

FoN cites the database troubles that might, hypothetically, be caused by a vandalistic move of such an article. This seems a weak justification for amending (by fiat) the way we do things that has worked fine and dandy for a number of years. My feeling is that these protections have no basis in policy, guideline, practise, precedent or practicality and that they should be reversed. If people don't want vandals in their work, they should be writing on paper. Vandals (or, more accurately, admins' nightmares of them) are not the biggest problem round here. Should we be mass-protecting pre-emptively? -Splash^talk 15:12, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

If it weren't so mind-numbingly easy to create an account and use it for pagemove vandalism only a week later, it wouldn't be a concern. If moving pages was actually as simple as changing which title pertains to a stationary stack of edits, it wouldn't be a concern. If it wasn't so easy to unintentionally delete a large stack of edits whilst performing a page move, perhaps if the software generated some kind of warning similar to that of an edit conflict, it wouldn't be a concern. If restoring 7312 deleted edits wasn't a task requiring developer access, it wouldn't be a concern. If this was some kind of Wiki-Utopia completely bereft of vandalism, it wouldn't be a concern. Unfortunately the sum of these conditions indicates that it is, in fact, a major concern. Even RuneScape, for example, an article about a video game that none of us would think to take seriously, now has more edits than United States did on the day that it got moved to FUCK SHlT COCK WHORE SLUT PUSSY DlCK NIGGER CHINK and subsequently disappeared for an hour, before Brion VIBBER was able to bring it back. Perhaps I'm assuming universal bad faith, maybe it's the way I was raised, I don't know, but immediately upon seeing Special:Mostrevisions, I realized the level of damage that would occur if this information was read by the wrong set of eyes. If there is any legitimate reason to move RuneScape or Canada to an alternate title, anybody who is acting in good faith should see no problem in posting their thoughts at requested moves or asking an admin, or starting a discussion on the talk page of the article. These are not run-of-the-mill road-and-school cruft articles being discussed, these are a relatively significant percentage of all total edits. — Mar. 28, '06 [15:39] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

Oh and, just for old times' sake, here's that "annoying" screenshot from December back to haunt us all, in case anybody wants it. If it gets deleted, don't worry, I got an extra copy. — Mar. 28, '06 [15:45] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

If you can't bear a bit of vandalism, then either write your work on paper, or use a different website. Here, we are open and welcoming, and not working on the assumption os imagined apocalypses to come. Less caffeine, less panic, and less protection. If people are going to go around slapping protection on anything that'd be edited a lot, then gradually there will be fewer and fewer things getting edited. I don't see any circumstance under which that is viable in short-, medium- or long term. Using move protection (somewhat under the radar, I add: no discussion, no announcement, no tags, no warnings, no notes anywhere) is just a rather quiet step in a profoundly wrong direction. If the servers have a problem, it is for the sysadmins and developers to fix it. It is not for admins here to lock the site down in quivering fear of a bad edit. -Splash^talk 15:49, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Move protection has no effect on the amount of editing that goes on, which is a significant amount, otherwise this discussion wouldn't be taking place. Show me the bugzilla request and I'll campaign in support of it. Show me a legitimate title that one of those pages might be moved to, and I'll say yeah, unprotect it, move it, but re-protect it if and when you get done. — Mar. 28, '06 [16:09] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

We protect high profile templates to avoid the disruption that causes when updated, surely that's also just a technical issue or vandalism paranoia, are we going to unprotect those also? similarly the main page is protected, United States has been almost permenantly protected against moves since the incident [40]. Personally I'm not currently 100% convinced that it's required to protect these against moves, but nor do I see it as being the beginning of the end to do so. --pgk^(talk) 16:20, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I equally dispute the need to protect the high-visibility templates and can think of several that are not protected without the sky having fallen in. You are quite right that is simply vandalism paranoia, and allowing the vandals to have an effect on us when they should not be allowed one. -Splash^talk 16:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

You can't be serious. What's next then? Unprotect the MediaWiki namespace? The main page? Where do you draw the line, sir? — Mar. 28, '06 [16:36] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

I don't recall saying, ever, that we should unprotect those pages. These are articles, for goodness' sake, not part of the interface of the website. -Splash^talk 17:31, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

You said "I equally dispute the need to protect the high-visibility templates" though such templates not articles, but rather part of the interface of the website, and should not be edited on a whim. Also (as I stated somewhere in this hopeless thread), protecting an article from pagemove vandalism does not hamper the progress of actual editing in any way, shape, or form. — Mar. 28, '06 [18:42] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

Equally there are plenty which have been protected and wikipedia hasn't stopped functioning as a result. --pgk^(talk) 16:34, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't think of a good reason not to move-protect these high-profile articles. 99.9999% of editors won't be affected by this at all. Other proposals (such as semi-protecting main page FAs) do drastically affect new editors (and vandals as well), but move-protection only harms the vandals. Besides, if something ever happens to warrant moving United States, I'm sure a bunch of admins would be edit-conflicting in trying to move the article. (High-profile articles get most of the attention, remember?) Johnleemk | Talk 16:42, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

No-one has any call to move these pages, so move-protecting them is at worst harmless. Henry^Flower 17:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not. It says "oh well, none of us admins trust any of those editors. Must take cover from vandals! Must run! Must hide!" -Splash^talk 17:31, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I trust most (not all) editors not to be malicious; I don't trust most editors not to cock up. Reducing the number and seriousness of potential cock-ups is a Good Thing. Henry^Flower 17:47, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by that. It seems to imply that it's good-faith editors you would protect against, rather than the usual excuse of "vandals-mean-end-of-world-nigh-repent". I don't suppose you mean that, but it is more or less what it says. It's good-faith editors, who are the vast bulk of our community that are the reason we do not pre-emptively protect things: we trust them, or we don't participate in this kind of a project. -Splash^talk 17:59, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd protect against both. Henry^Flower 18:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I want to hear from the developers about whether this is actually a problem from the database; often times, as we saw with the transcluded templates thing, people will make fanciful claims about how this or that is hard on the servers without substantiating it. I honestly don't know myself, although I remember that the database went read-only for about 10 minutes when Ed Poor deleted VFD. So it's definitely conceivable that moving an article with a huge edit history could be a problem. And I don't think it will be that much of a bother to ask on WP:RFPP for an unprotect in twenty or so years when someone thinks of a reason to move Albert Einstein, so I generally agree with John here. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 17:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Albert Einstein (original source DNA) after the Albert Einstein (evil clone 23552) incident in 2022. =D --Syrthiss 17:32, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Is that helpful? -Splash^talk 17:34, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Not intended to be helpful or harmful. Intended to add some humor to lighten a discussion among friends. --Syrthiss 17:40, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Wrong thead evidently. :( — Mar. 28, '06 [18:28] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

Then consider where we stop. I wrote Electronic Travel Authority the other day. Noone has any call to move it. Why don't we move protect it? Why not move protect everything by default and say everybody has to flutter their eyelashes at an admin before they can move it? -Splash^talk 17:34, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

An article which all of three editors (and zero vandals) have heard of makes a particularly poor strawman in this discussion, and borders on being a shameless plug. I guess I'll go undercover and anonymously edit it up to featured status, then put it on wheels. No, not really. I have neither the writing skill to do the former, nor the malice to do the latter, but I'm not the average person either. — Mar. 28, '06 [18:28] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

I'm not sure why I should need to advertise an article. It was just one that came to mind that I wrote and could have move protected on these grounds. -Splash^talk 19:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

And this is a slippery slope. Next week, another IRC-crazed vandal fighter will say "per ANI discussion last week, I'm protecting the second set of 50 popular articles from moves". Ok, we say. Then it carries on, because now there's precedent: it's the done thing to protect-in-panic on a just-in-case. Just because it doesn't need a tag on an article doesn't make it a good thing. -Splash^talk 17:38, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Should I take offense to such labeling, or is it being used affectionately? I can't distinguish sarcasm from seriousness in Splash's words anymore. For the record I stopped at the end of page one because I got bored, and, in the capacity of thinking like a vandal I assumed that an actual vandal would get bored at the same point and go back to whatever he was previously doing, be it playing RuneScape or watching football (soccer) on the telly. I assumed good faith from #51 onward? It's hard to say with any certainty. Seriously, though, a better solution would be to increase the threshhold of account age and experience required for an account to perform page moves. As it is, they sit and do nothing, until some kid with an index card logs back into the accounts and wreaks havoc. Perhaps establish a minimum number of edits, at which point we can reasonably assume that if a user hasn't yet been indefinitely blocked as a vandal, he probably won't be. Hopefully good faith and common sense won't always be mutually exclusive goals, and hopefully (in the absence of protection) Abortion won't be moved to Nine-months-after pill at the drop of a hat, no pun intended. — Mar. 28, '06 [18:16] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

People do seem to emerge from IRC slightly vandal-crazed. Usually into #wikipedia in capital letters about needing a hundredthousand username blocks yesterday and all rollback buttons in action right now. Sitting in the anti-vandal channel for too long seems to give the impression that every edit is, with good probability, bad. It's not the full RC list, after all, by design it's only the dodgy stuff you get to see. This leads, I think, to a feeling of being taken over and needing to slam the doors (the horse having already both bolted and invaded doesn't seem to matter). I don't think you assumed good faith at any point (nor necessarily bad, though there has to be an element in preemptivity). I think you stopped probably unsure of whether you should carry on. If you do carry on, I will lift the further protections. Those pages further down have a few thousand edits, and the servers, I know for a fact, can handle that. I moved WP:PP a while back and nobody batted an eyelid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Splash (talk • contribs)

• I support Freakofnurture (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)'s page protections. Assuming good faith is not the same as leaving ourselves vulnerable to quite predictable attack that will significantly eat up people's time to fix. The "oppenness" of the wiki is not seriously hampered by this action. Performing a page-move is not some kind of God-given right that every user must have for every page. I support establishing some kind of guideline as to what the protection-threshold should be. In the meantime, I see nothing wrong with FoN's protections. Johntex\^talk 18:22, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, actually, I think it is. The wiki is fundamentally based on trust: that's why you can "edit this page", to coin a phrase. Preemptive protection is an explicit statement of distrust. Sowing such seeds when they need not be sowed can't be a great idea. -Splash^talk 19:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't. Johntex\^talk 07:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
• I also think this protection is a good idea. It does not make it any harder for non-admins to move a page such as United States: moving this page has to go through WP:RM anyway. The only question is whether an admin is needed to close the move request. Kusma (討論) 18:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, good point about controversial moves going through RM anyway, so why not protect against the possibility of page move vandalism/error. Petros471 19:12, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The point is that we don't have to ask before editing. WP:BOLD and all. -Splash^talk 19:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The distinction between editing and moving pages has been quite clarified. — Mar. 28, '06 [19:48] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

Clearly I have to adjust my thinking somewhat. Whilst I do not accept that these move protections are either good or necessary clearly some people do. I won't lift them. But I do not think this discussion mandates any further widespread move protections without a discussion first. -Splash^talk 19:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The number of revisions in the database corresponding to a page does not factor into the page move operation, so moving a page with 1000 revisions is no different than moving one with one revision in terms of database server load. Rob Church 21:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. So there being no technical basis for the blocks, nor any editorial basis and a move-revert being a single click (doable by any editor in most cases over a redirect), we can lift these protections unless someone's got a new reason. ("but they don't need moving" isn't really good enough.) -Splash^talk 22:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Well I think the technical explanation doesn't cover the actual issue suffered, which was as a result of the move United States ended up being deleted and restoring the large number of revisions required developer intervention. --pgk^(talk) 06:53, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll echo what Pgk said. If undoing a vandal move of United States or Albert Einstein with a single move-revert always worked, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. Unfortunately – unless I'm mistaken, developer comments welcome – articles with extremely long edit histories (which also often happen to be targets for vandals; many edits are reverts) tend to get mucked up when we try to put them back. With United States, I gather that fixing the problem required developer intervention. The result was that we were without an important and high-traffic article for a significant length of time.

I see the move-protection of these frequently-edited pages as a low-cost way to prevent a rather inconvenient and embarrassing sort of harm ("What do you mean Wikipedia doesn't have an article on George W. Bush?") that doesn't inconvenience regular, good-faith editors one bit. If the issue with the database/engine goes away to the point that we can reliably repair these large-history page moves, then we could discuss the philosophical reasons for unprotecting them.

While we wish to present a trusting, assume-good-faith, welcoming, open face to the world, we shouldn't be idiots about it. I'm usually a pretty open and trusting individual, but I don't leave my car unlocked. FoN has just closed off a potentially nasty avenue for attack.

All the arguments against the protections here seem to be based on principles (It's unwiki, it assumes bad faith, yada yada yada). Think practical, will you. When will we really need to move United States, Canada or Albert Einstein. Honestly? This only hurts the vandals. Therefore everybody who opposes it is a vandal. Just kidding. Seriously though, why argue over the principle when the fact is that the only way these articles would be moved in the foreseeable future would be because of a vandal attack. Werdna648^T/_C\^@ 07:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Principles and precedent are important. They are a valid base to argue from. -lethe ^{talk +} 07:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

• Here are two important things we should strive for: Robustness and Efficiency. Allowing moves of these articles invites something to go wrong, as in the United States example above - that harms the robustness of wikipedia. Undoing vandalism takes time away from other important tasks - that hurts the efficiency of the encyclopedia building process. Protecting these pages against willy-nilly moves is a perfectly legitimate step to enhance our robustness and efficiency. Johntex\^talk 07:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Ee could protect things against moves by default, but make it easy to have them unprotected. Or you could just ask an admin to move it for you, or we could protect all pages against moves. Practical harm: very low. Practical utility: not demonstrated, estimates vary wildly. Harm to paradigm: moderate. Thus, based upon lack of evidence presented that uility outweighs harm, unprotect. - brenneman^{L} 01:39, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Ok now say that in english you jargon monkey!  ALKIVAR™ 02:07, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
• I think protecting well-established and high profile pages from moves would be a very good idea. As has already been pointed out, these pages would have to go through Wikipedia:Requested moves anyway. So, as far as I see it, protecting these pages from moves would have zero effect on good faith users, and a significant effect on vandals. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 06:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Sneaky move-protection

I don't know if anyone cares, but this is clearly an effort to keep people from moving Yellow River back to Huang He... Tomer^talk 15:41, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

And a good thing too. Henry^Flower 16:59, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Not really. The move was completely undiscussed, and the article location has previously been a source of contention. Tomer^talk 08:26, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding my above statement, in case anyone comes along and says "What are you talking about? I see no evidence of contention!", let me clarify by pointing out that the contention is not specifically with this article, but rather with respect to excessive acrimony, IMHO, in a number article naming disputes which have cited the article's location at Huang He. Personally, I call the river the "Huang Ho", but that's probably just a reflection of my background as a geography and ethnolinguistics buff. To find the disputes citing Huang He, you'll hafta dig through the talk pages in Special:Whatlinkshere/Huang He. I didn't bring this up to point out the move of Huang He → Yellow River, but rather, in light of the previous section of this page at the time I originally mentioned it, what was clearly an editor's effort to prevent anyone undoing hir completely undiscussed page move, bad wikiquette IMHO, and using substandard wikimarkup to do it. Tomer^talk 05:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

User:The sinister Myst

Vandal account that has a strange obsession with redirecting random articles to the Myst article. I went through all of his contributions just recently and reverted all of his vandal edits. Its a vandal-only account so I'm humbly requesting an indefinite block. -Zero^Talk 16:58, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Update: user is currently in the process of vandalism as I construct this post. I will continue to revert until a block can be issued. -Zero^Talk 17:02, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, they were blocked by Gator1 at 17:00. --Syrthiss 17:04, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

That's lovely. I caught his vandalism quite promptly too, so there's no mess to clean up. -Zero^Talk 17:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

There are a number of sockpuppets: The sinister Myst (talk · contribs), Sinister MystMan (talk · contribs), Synister Myst (talk · contribs), Sinister Myst (talk · contribs), Sonoster Myst (talk · contribs). It would be nice to have a redirect log, similar to the current move log. -- Curps 09:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I blocked another user (don't remember the username) for the same behavior yesterday. Fortunately, redirecting involves a mass-blanking, so it's caught by a few of the automated vandalism-watchers out there. I don't know how feasible a redirect-log would be, as creating a redirect is (currently, at least) done within the page's code while a move is done with the toolbar and can trigger other actions more easily. (ESkog)^(Talk) 21:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Sussexman

I received the following [41]:

Attorney?

As an English barrister I find it impossible to believe that you are a lawyer, given the grossly defamatory and entirely POV post you made on Lord Nicholas Hervey's page. Sussexman 07:59, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure this legal threat was intended for me; my only edit related to Nicholas Hervey was to oppose the move request (on the talk page) on the grounds that the Style War should not be stirred up; but please act on it anyway. Septentrionalis 17:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Sussexman seems to be someone with a history of involvement in the rightwing fringes of the UK Conservative party, and an occasional problem crossing the line between adding useful information about that area of his past, and adding trivia and whitewash to articles about his former chums. The stuff he was objecting to in Nicholas Hervey is actually rather mild considering the Hervey family's "interesting" lives, and I suspect he'll not be pleased with the more detailed additions someone else has made this evening. --ajn (talk) 21:38, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The post isn't a legal threat: it doesn't say that anyone is going to sue anyone. It just says, "I don't believe your credentials, because you did something that a person with your credentials should know better than to do." --FOo 17:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that there is a threat behind all this, especially the use of "grossly defamatory", which would be actionable. But it appears to have been meant for User:Suze1, and Sussexman's talk page suggests they are getting along all right for now. Septentrionalis 17:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

There is also the minor point that in most legal systems, certainly including the English one, you can't defame someone who is dead (and the "defamatory" stuff is taken from the Daily Telegraph, a Tory newspaper not noted for its disrespectful attitude to the aristocracy). So far, it's bluster from someone with a strong POV who hasn't yet learned that he can't insist that articles must reflect his views or exclude facts he finds distasteful. If it goes beyond bluster, there seem to be a few of us keeping an eye on him now. --ajn (talk) 17:51, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Miskin

Interesting morning I've been having. I also received this[42]

I was very tempted to just grab the opportunity and make public denouncements against you, but my moral values held me back this one time. As I'm determined to go through anything in order to keep your POV out of the article, I don't know long I can hold back before I rationalize my actions and take extreme measures against you. Thought you should know that. Miskin 13:32, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Septentrionalis 17:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I've warned the user against further personal attacks. --InShaneee 18:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Didn't respond well ("Oh, I'm so scared"), someone might want to keep an eye on him. --InShaneee 04:14, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Rovno

Rovno (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been submitting a number of copyrighted lyrics and blanking other pages. RJFJR 17:35, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Confirmed. The insertion persisted after several warnings; I'd recommend a 48 hour block. Rob Church 20:02, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for 24 hours.Gator (talk) 20:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

24.155.128.3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) School ip vandal Antonrojo 17:38, 28 March 2006 (UTC) 216.26.133.2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Blatant school ip vandal Antonrojo 17:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

This isn't Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. Rob Church 19:59, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Nevertheless, both have been blocked.Gator (talk) 20:09, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Reporting User:Hatchet

I'd like to report User:Hatchet. He has been vandalizing many articles for months now. You can see here Special:Contributions/User:Hatchet the list of his disruptions. Most of problems were on Cradle of Filth page. He has been changing the genre category entry witch is already under heavy dispute. Changes are against WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, and WP:POINT. The user hasn't been warned until recently, but I wasn't aware of his deeds and User:Leyasu would just revert his statements. I have properly warned him but if you could take some sort of standard measures for those types of offenses it would make things easier for fellow editors. Thank you! (talk) Death2 19:20, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Why Blocked

Why am I blocked when I have just created an account? hollandave

Hi there. The reason for the block will be listed on the "you're blocked" page, along with the name of the blocking administrator, and your IP address. We need these pieces of information before we can assess your situation. Welcome to Wikipedia, and thanks for creating an account; hopefully, this was just a simple misunderstanding. Rob Church 19:57, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, according to your block log, you're not blocked....and you edited here....so...I'm confused.Gator (talk) 20:02, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Possibly an AOL address blocked, so one edit works another doesn't... --pgk^(talk) 20:03, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe. Without his IP address, we'll never know.Gator (talk) 20:12, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

User: 168.105.175.xx

This user (I'm assuming it's a single user with dynamic IP) persistently inserts unsupported allegations of sexual molestation on the page James Levine (history).

Grover cleveland 21:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Unblock  Bonaparte 

Bonaparte has more than 4000 edits. He was blocked for more than 3 months now. I request an unblock for him.  Bonaparte  talk & contribs

IP has been blocked as sock of Bonaparte.Gator (talk) 22:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

when was this user banned? I can see "11 January 2006 Jtkiefer blocked "Bonaparte (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (malicious sockpuppetry and running a botnet)", but no notice appears to have been posted to his talkpage; where is the evidence or arbcom finding that he did run a botnet? Sorry, I am not familiar with the case (but that's precisely why I would appreciate the relevant link to figure prominently on the banned user's page. From the "banned" template, it is not even evident if he was banned by Jimbo, the arbcom, or community consensus). dab (ᛏ) 12:38, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

See this and this. He sent me an e-mail the other day, apparently, he was offended by this edit - he told me that he wants to be unblocked and if he is will not use sockpuppets. I didn't know what to tell him, I advised him to take it to IRC or the mailing list. I don't know what he's done, but these posts keep reappearing. --Latinus 12:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe the ban is a "community one" since we went off the checkuser information. I still support the block.User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 16:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

User:DMorpheus and User:Phillipsbourg

Requesting the assistance of a more experienced admin.

These two users have been waging a back and forth revert war on DMorpheus' talk page. Both are well over 3RR. I've blocked Phillipsbourg for the 3RR, but am uncertain as to whether DMorpheus deserves a similar block. It is DMorpheus' own talk page, after all, and these are not administrative warnings that are being fought over, so part of me says DMorpheus has the right to remove them from his page. But I'm not totally certain. - TexasAndroid 21:32, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Personal information posted by 68.229.66.61 (talk · contribs)

I have been in previous discussions with a handful of members about blogs specific to Julie Andrews. 68.229.66.61 (talk · contribs) has just posted personal information about one of those editors on my talk page. I'd like an administrator to look into whatever preventative action needs to be taken; more importantly, if the history of that edit can be erased to protect the person's identity, with haste, please. RadioKirk talk to me 05:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Anyone? RadioKirk talk to me 05:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Working on it.--MONGO 05:40, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

My thanks :) RadioKirk talk to me 05:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Potential spam

See Special:Contributions/70.32.115.124; an example diff is [43]. It seems obvious that if we keep these links they don't need their own section, but should they be reverted as spam? Christopher Parham (talk) 05:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

• Never mind, bit late now. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Blocked 24h. --Golbez 05:20, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Talk:McGill Redmen

Monicasdude (talk · contribs) attacked me at Talk:McGill Redmen and I could use some help, please. Ardenn 05:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

As much as he's usually incredibly blunt, I really don't see anything here that remotely constitutes an attack. Please take the content dispute to dispute resolution if you'd like, but there does appear to be a consensus already about not including the hazing. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 05:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Dianetics...again

There's currently a massive revert war going on for over a week now at Dianetics. Though all sides are very careful to not violate the 3RR, it's incredibly disruptive to the article. Any users that step in with an outside opinion, such as myself (I tried to put an npov template on the page) are instantly reverted and harassed with personal attacks in the edit summaries (even though per WP:NPOVD the template would be justified). It's part of an ongoing revert/edit/personal attacks war between scientologists and non-scientologists that previously disrupted the Neuro-linguistic programming page enough to force ArbCom to appoint mentors. I'd appreciate if an admin stepped in somewhere and helped stop the disruptive editing of the article. (note: I've already filed an RfC which went nowhere.) ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 07:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

difficult -- was there no arbcom ruling whatsoever? We need the arbcom to declare special measures (blocks, protection, rollbacks) for articles suffering from organized pov-pushing. As long as all editors remain polite, all that mere admins can do is help reverting and block for 3RR I suppose. Any ideas? dab (ᛏ) 10:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

This revert war has actually been going on for nearly three months now - not just on Dianetics but on a whole range of related articles. I don't think either side would come out smelling of roses, but some users are clearly behaving far worse than others; I've filed a Request for Arbitration on one, Terryeo. If (and hopefully when) he gets banned I think you'll see a good deal of the tension and hostility lifting. His frankly dreadful editing tactics seem to have set a lot of editors' teeth on edge, which probably explains the hostile reaction that you got (which I don't for a moment condone, obviously). -- ChrisO 23:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Racist link

Hello there.

I don't know if this is the right place to ask...

I wonder if it is tolerated to have a direct link to a racist message from a user page? I refer to User:Karl_Meier who links to a page with the message "And so....from all Danes to the entire Muslim world,we just wanna say; FUCK YOU!!" Luckily, only a very small minority of Danes takes so radical rancourous positions - I am personally very disgusted by such statements, and hope some administrators will have a look at the case. Bertilvidet 09:26, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

this is hardly a "racist" link, and while I'm concerned with taunts on userpages, "Project SIIEG" and other borderline on-site behaviour, I don't think a link to a site by outraged Danes is racist or illegitimate, or even "rancourous". Just let him have his link and avoid fanning this any further. dab (ᛏ) 09:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd actually ask him to add a warning to his link. NSLE _(T+C) at 09:33 UTC (2006-03-29)

Actually, while I quite liberal on userpages, this is too much. It is obviously inflammetory trolling and likely to bring wikipedia into disrepute. Declaring POV on a userpage is perhaps beneficial to the project, but saying 'Fuck You' to the muslim world is not. I'd support an enforced removal of this link. But I'll wait for a consensus here. --Doc ^ask? 09:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

maybe. we lack a clear userpage external link policy. It's not a link I'd host on my userpage, but it's not one of the worse hatemongeing islamophobic sites I've seen; it seems to be a good-faith site by Danes outraged about the cartoon hubbub, not a site by Nazis or confused fundamentalists. The question is, does it matter? What sort of links do we allow on userpages? Whatever you do, be sure to be evenhanded. We might need "userpage guidelines" where such precedents can be recorded. dab (ᛏ) 10:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

'Be evenhanded' is normally an excuse to do nothing without creating some complicated process, and taking on an impossible task of clearing up all the idiocy on the site at once. A commonsense revolution can proceed case by case. --Doc ^ask? 11:18, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

hey, I'm not saying that you should deal with all cases at once. I am all for unbureaucratic clamping down in blatant cases. I am not too sure about the blatancy of this one, but go ahead and deal with it, with common sense. I am just saying that we need to keep a record of such cases and how they were dealt with for the orientation of admins in future cases, so they have a possibility to estimate what was considered "fair" in the past. I would do nothing here, but if you think the user should be forced to remove the link, I will not object since I agree the link is in poor taste. I am also all against instruction creep, but userpage policies are clearly a desideratum, just look at the resources wasted over the userbox wars and what not. We all have a vague idea of what is acceptable on userpages and what isn't. All we need to do is make the limits a little clearer so newbies will have an easier time finding out about these unwritten things. I can understand that editors seeing all these fancy userpages with lots of personal and political stuff will try to make one that is even 'better'; the obvious result of this process will be that wikipedia becomes a host for personal homepages. We need clear guidelines to discourage that and draw lines. dab (ᛏ) 11:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

IMHO there is a huge difference between displaying political convictions and insulting a certain group. Bertilvidet 15:14, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've asked him nicely to remove the link [44], or at least indicate it in a less trolling manner. This is really the equivalent of putting a link to a Nazi site on a userpage with the instruction 'Jews click here'. It is really not acceptable. Let's hope he is willing to remove it. --Doc ^ask? 15:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Userpages are Userpages and should somehow serve to provide information usefull to wikipedia such as the users interests. By reading the userpage one can thell about a persons interests and maybe seek assitance. I however prefer my userpage not to be infuriating and instead welcoming. I don't like Karl Meier so I doubt this is an objective argument. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 16:51, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

As a disinterested 3rd who regularly reads here, I'd support forcible removal in this case, for two reasons: it's aimed at "the entire Muslim world", which constitutes many millions of people in virtually every country on Earth, and it purports to come "from all Danes", which the author cannot begin to back up. RadioKirk talk to me 18:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Inflammatory use of userpage cont.

Karl Meier (talk · contribs) has linked this offensive 'F*** all muslims' site [45] from his userpage with the title 'Dear muslims, we are so sorry'. As above, I asked him nicely to remove the link [46]. He modified it to include an offense warning, but the effect was still clearly inflammatory. I asked him again to remove it [47], but he has declined. I'm a liberal on userpage content, you are entitle to declare any POV you want, but this has stepped over the line into bringing this project into disrepute, incivility, and downright trolling. Freedom of speech is one thing, but this is an abuse of our encyclopedia. I am now forcably removing the link. I expect to be reverted. If I am, I will take no further action. I invite other admins to consider what action should be taken in that case, and strongly suggest protection of the page. --Doc ^ask? 21:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. That website is a disgrace and its presence on Karl Meier's userpage cannot help him to work with other editors, many of whom may be the very muslims he is telling to go and get fucked. --Tony Sidaway 21:31, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

There's no free speech on Wikipedia, anyway. We allow for the removal of racially offensive or libellous article talk page comments, I don't see why we should allow that sort of thing to hang out on someone's user pages either. · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 21:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

No, it doesn't says "Fuck all Muslims", and I think you should spend you life and wiki-time on something else than my userpage. Maybe the external link is a bit of a silly response to the flag-burning and the hateful campaign against my country all over the islamic world, but I still don't like the idea of you running around telling me and other users what we can and can't have in our userspace. I've personally been asked to "go fuck myself" in a users personal space, and no action was taken. Why don't you go write an article or do something else that is actually useful. This is just too ridicules, and we shouldn't waste our time on it. -- Karl Meier 21:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

In fact, there are rules about what you can and can't have in your userspace -- or anybody's userspace. User space is the property of the Wikimedia Foundation; users have no personal "ownership" over their user space, which exists at the foundation's pleasure. There has been a lot of discussion about what is and is not appropriate to have in one's userspace, including anything at all (i.e. some folks would like to do away with it period). From Wikipedia:User pages: Generally, you should avoid substantial content on your user page that is unrelated to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a general hosting service, so your user page is not a personal homepage. Your page is about you as a Wikipedian. Examples of unrelated content include: Personal statements that could be considered polemical, such as opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia. · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 22:09, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

And no, noone should have told you to go fuck yourself; that's obviously not all right. · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 22:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

And what do you think abour Cool Cat's request that I should "go fuck myself" Mr. Sidaway? I remember that you had no comments re that... -- Karl Meier 21:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Last tine Cool Cat attacked you, I banned him from an article for a week. If he's attacking you again, please show me the diff. --Tony Sidaway 21:56, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I asked you why you did nothing and made no comment when he asked me and Davenbelle to "go fuck ourselves" on his userpage. No action was taken, eventhough he entered a revert-war to keep these comments on his userpage, so apparently the "rules" must have changed.. -- Karl Meier 22:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Please provide the relevant diff for this, Karl, I'm interested inseeing it and I could not find it.Gator (talk) 22:14, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

It isn't worth time. Cool Cat makes thousands of edits to his userpace, and I have no problem with him now. Also, Sidaway know what I am talking about. -- Karl Meier 22:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

He's just trying to change the subject.

Karl Meier has replaced that link to an anti-muslim website with a link to another equally virulent anti-muslim website. I have asked him to remove it. --Tony Sidaway 22:20, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry. This latest thought-crime in my userspace, has already been censored by Doc glasgow. -- Karl Meier 22:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

All credit to Karl, he has accepted the removal of all the offending content, with even a little humour in his part. If only all disputes could end like this. :) --Doc ^ask? 23:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I actually hoped that you would have made a fast revert of my latest edit... That could have been quite amusing. -- Karl Meier 23:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

So, when you changed the offensive link to a disneyland link, you were what? Trolling? I don't understand? --Doc ^ask? 23:18, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah.. Forget it. It was just a joke. -- Karl Meier 23:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Anyway. Forgetting about specific links, I think this whole thing raise some questions, re what is allowed on a userpage. What if I want to link to Xenu.net in my userspace, or what about the drawing of Muhammad on my userpage? What is "inflamatory" and who is to decide what is allowed and what is not allowed in a users personal space? -- Karl Meier 23:41, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

You were trolling, and that's not allowed. Stop trying to dress it up as wiki-philosopy raising profound questions. It doesn't wash. The only question this raises is the question of your motives. --Doc ^ask? 23:53, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I want to ask you to stop harassing me on these public forums, and to stop making nasty personal attacks and comments about me in your userspace. -- Karl Meier 00:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

What public forum? This is not a forum. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:45, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

OK then. I want him to quit harrassing me on the "Administrators noticeboard", and in his userspace. -- Karl Meier 00:56, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

And now I noticed that he did just that: [48]. No problem then. -- Karl Meier 01:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

More generally

a.k.a. back to the subject: I'd consider any link that's only "one deep" to be as if it were on my user page. I wouldn't be allowed to write my nazi midget clown poem about Katefan0 on my user page, so linking directly to it on my livejournal is different how?
brenneman^{L} 00:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Shhh. That was supposed to be secret. · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 18:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your point is here Karl; quit trying to make a point. I personally can't answer that question for you. People put items of varying degrees of offensiveness on their userpages, and I have said nothing. If you (or others) choose to portray yourself as someone who is intolerant of other faiths and viewpoints, that is your prerogative. Just make sure that intolerance stays on your user page and doesn't extend to the rest of Wikipedia. I know there are many who are going to be quick to disagree with me, but I've seen people with pages devoted to nudity and others (such as Karl) who make a point to lambaste or insult religions. Until I see a crackdown on content on all userpages or a disturbance due to the page (which to this point, I have seen none), I fail to see the problem. However, I must point out that if your point here is to troll (as I suspect may be the motive behind the Scientology link), that is not condoned by me. joturner 00:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Doc's law: The oldest troll tactic on the wiki is to say, 'hey my offensive noise raises profound questions of the freedom of speech' and then sit back whilst otherwise sane editors defend their right to troll--Doc ^ask? 00:12, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Seriously. Don't you have anything better to do than to herass me and whine about what I have in my user space? Get a life please. My usespace is none of your business. Anyway I am not going to spend more time discussing with you. You can yell and scream all you want, and I dont care. There is no point in discussion anything with you. -- Karl Meier 00:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

82.198.250.5

I just reverted a large deletion at Wikipedia:Most wanted articles made by 82.198.250.5. Looking at the talk page, this IP has been warned repeatedly about vandalism. It has been blocked once, but has continued to vandalize articles (at least three more times if this one is counted). Assuming it is not a dynamic IP, perhaps another block is in order. Thanks, Kjkolb 11:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Blocked. Please use WP:AIVin future to report this type of stuff. --Doc ^ask? 11:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. While I am experienced in fighting vandalism, I am unfamiliar with the blocking process. -- Kjkolb 11:26, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

User: Fraberj

This user has blatantly, patently, and obviously personally attacked users in response to delete votes and the vote for deletion of his created page, Independent operability. He has, in four seperate rants, made no less than ten seperate personal attacks towards users involved in the discussion, questioning their intelligence, lifestyle, and most prominently of all their religion, picking on a user for being a scientologist. We have given him fair warning multiple times and been extremely patient, but he has crossed the line, his vulgar insults continuing even after he was given his final warning. I'm sure you'll no doubt agree he has earned a block.

For two of his rants, see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Independent_operability. For another, the first rant, see Talk: Independent operability. And the other rant is on his talk page. -Jetman123 11:53, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think these rise to the level needing a block. He's not apparently disrupting the AfD process, although I haven't read the longer of his rants in detail. The two rants on the AfD don't seem to contain much of concern. Certainly, Talk:Independent operability is pretty unpleasant, but I don't see a great deal of need to block him for it. I'm not sure why his talk page has been plastered with all kinds of hands and crosses and HUGE BOLD MESSAGES because it's unlikely to help. The AfD will be over in a day or so. (I would observe that what at a glance appears to be a legal threat on that talk page isn't, since it's about infringing a patent, which is legally prosecutable.) -Splash^talk 12:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think a block is needed. He is probably never going to come back after how he was treated. I found it troubling that people were quick to {{npa}} him while allowing everyone else to call him a crank or make comparisons to Time cube. That isn't an excuse for his actions of course. kotepho 20:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Admin Koot Abuse of admin privileges

Admin Koot reverted chiropractic without discussion. Despite my request at the time, Koot has still not explained why he abused his admin privileges 3RR states "Except in cases of spam and vandalism, an administrator should not block users for 3RR if they themselves have reverted that user's edits on that page. Instead, administrators in this situation should make a request at the administrators' noticeboard if they believe 3RR has been broken."

Could someone please remind Koot that he needs to think more carefully before he acts.

His bulk revert reverted good edits, including by Arbitrator Charles Matthews. This is not the first time he has acted inappropriately. By his own admission:

• 21:35, 8 March 2006 R. Koot unprotected Al-Khwarizmi (i'm too closely involved to protect)
• 21:28, 8 March 2006 R. Koot protected Al-Khwarizmi (edit war [edit=sysop:move=sysop])

The following Koot blocks need explanation. Their timing appears to confirm a tendency not to review matters carefully before blocking .

• 19:07, 6 March 2006 R. Koot blocked "Arianitr (contribs)" with an expiry time of 8 hours (3rr violation on Gostivar)
• 19:06, 6 March 2006 R. Koot unblocked Arianitr (contribs) (shortening block)
• 19:03, 6 March 2006 R. Koot blocked "Arianitr (contribs)" with an expiry time of 24 hours (3RR violation at Gostivar)

The recent block by Koot of User:tbeatty repeats the pattern of acting too quickly.

• Mccready 12:58, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Take it to RfC if you think it's a recurrent problem. -Splash^talk 16:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to deny that I f**ked up with User:tbeatty's block, however have already apologized to him by e-mail. In case of User:Arianitr this was a simple blocking conflict with User:William M. Connolley and did not feel strongly about overriding his WMC's 8 hour block. —Ruud 04:46, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Croatian historian and admins

A couple of admins have been behaving in a disturbingly emotional way in attacking this user. His user page had been twice protected, and he has just been blocked for 48 hours, supposedly for personal attacks; the evidence for these appears to be:[49], [50], [51], tells me to shutup, [52].

Frankly, this is absurd. Even if most of these in fact counted as attacks, there's something unpleasant about blocking an editor for attacking oneself; the case should have been placed before other admins, here. The other "crime" that Croatian historian has committed is to remove bad-faith and mischievous additions of warning templates from his own talk page — templates placed there by editors who are in dispute with him, and who are using the templates to attack him.

Admins such as User:Nlu and User:Swatjester are at best being overly sensitive, and acting without bothering to look any deeper into the situation than what is on the surface. Could other, experienced admins look into this, and help to sort it out? I've unblocked him and unprotected his page. Perhaps the two admins involved could step back and let others take over. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Mel....I'm not an admin. ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 16:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's my reasoning: The first warnings may or may not have been bad-faith. It doesn't really matter, the proper solution is to ask an admin to review and remove them. Hell, I've got a bad-faith 3rr warning on my page, I just struck it threw and kept it on there until the user retracted it. So a couple different users start reverting his blankings of the warnings, and he keeps on referring to us as "vandals" and claiming he has full rights to his talk page (which is not true as evidenced in WP:TALK). Deletion of warnings is vandalism per WP:VANDAL. He was informed of this, he blanked again. He was informed again, he blanked again. It spread to another user's talk, where be was uncivil and referring to us as "kids". He was explained to AGAIN there, at which time he told me to "Shut up", an obvious personal attack. I added the NPA template to his page, just before Nlu protected it. I asked Nlu to add a spacing between my warning and the last one from rory, which had gotten entangled, that was the only "protected page editing" I can think of. From there on, Croatian begins accusing Nlu of admin abuse, threatening that their admin powers will be removed, and all sorts of other uncivil behavior. I don't care what kind of stress he's under: If he is that stressed, he needs to step back from the computer and not edit. Oh, and I didn't even mention that before any of this had begun, last night, I got a message from another editor to watch Croatians edits, along with 3 others, as he's been harassing them. It's still up on my talk page if you want to check. I fail to see how I'm being emotional and overly sensitive., and acting without bothering to look, especially when Mel thinks I'm an admin, and I'm not (doesn't bode well for standing to make claims that I bothered to look into situations). I feel I've maintained a professional and civil attitude. Ironically, I received an award from another user during all of this (up on my talk). I consider myself, Rory, and Nlu upstanding editors (and in nlu's case admin), and vigorously protest this categorization. ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 16:51, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

But you are SWAT! :) --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 16:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Apparently that's going right over my head, cause I don't get it. Have I been up too long? ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 17:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

NOTE: See also WP:AN/I#User:Croatian_historian. --Rory096 17:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Fine, Swatjester's not an admin; the rest of my comments stand. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

For more details on this topic, see User_talk:Lbmixpro#Problem_with_Rory096.

This has continued to flood to my talk page, and as it is right now, I want other admins input about this. --LBMixPro^{<Speak|on|it!>} 19:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Let me just add one comment on this:

I find it absolutely mindboggling that Mel is claiming that Croatian historian's edits were not personal attacks. (See User talk:Nlu on even harsher language that Mel used on my talk page.) As I've written lately with regard to an unrelated matter, think how you would react if it were anybody else. If we do not allow anonymous IPs and other users to make this type of personal attacks without being blocked, then it is hypocritical to not to block Croatian historian for this type of personal attacks. There is no justification that I see for Mel to further have removed the 48-hour block that I placed on Croatian historian. If there is someone who's abusing admin powers, I feel strongly that it wasn't I. --Nlu (talk) 18:50, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Boris' comment

I feel I should comment on the issue. I would like to start by writing a Croatian historian quote:

• "Not all nationalism is genocidal or aggressive expansionist/irredentist like the Serbian one." [53]

I'm a Serb. I find that very offensive. So, I posted a "no personal attacks" template on his page. He just deleted it. He claims that I'm mad at him because he voted against me when I applied for an administrator on English Wikipedia, but that is not the reason at all. We're all a little biased, some more than others. But this next quote by Croatian historian is too much:

• "Alojzije Cardinal Stepinac was perhaps the most honourable man in history of Croatia of the 20th century, also if compared to great statesmen like Franjo Tuđman." [54]

Doesn't that seem a little too biased. I would even dare to call it nationalist. This is an encyclopaedia, not a blog. I'd also like to mention some other edits he made to actual articles, which I find are extremely biased, and quite frankly should be considered as vandalism:

• "Serb irredentism and attempt to create a Greater Serbia under Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic led to the Yugoslav wars...", *"Serb war criminal Slobodan Milošević in the Hague...", *<<just erased a bunch of text>>, *<<here as well>>

And that's just what I could find in a few minutes... Not to mention, he's very rude: [55]. Also, here's what he wrote about User:Lbmixpro - "vandalize user pages, needs to be banned", and the same for User:Rory096; "vandalize user pages (restoring personal attacks/trolling, deleting content), needs to be banned" for User:OrbitOne and "adminship abuse, removing properly placed warning templates" for User:Pgk.

Enough said. I don't know if he is blocked at the moment, some users keep unblocking him, maybe they think he might change his ways. Not likely. Block him for good - he is a vandal. --Boris Malagurski ₪ 04:27, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a good example of what I'm talking about:

"*"Not all nationalism is genocidal or aggressive expansionist/irredentist like the Serbian one." [56]

"I'm a Serb. I find that very offensive. So, I posted a "no personal attacks" template on his page."

There was clearly no personal attack. Most of the supposed personal attacks atributed to Croatian historian are of the same kind. That Bormalagurski made this mistake is perhaps excusable, but that admins made it and blocked the user on this basis isn't. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 07:17, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, this is just too unfair. YOU DIDN'T COMMENT ON ANY OF THE EDITS THAT CROATIAN HISTORIAN MADE TO THE ARTICLES. DO YOU NOT FIND HIS COMMENT ON SERBS SLIGHTLY NATIONALIST???You are clearly not looking at the facts from a neutral point of view. Mel, how would you react if I said that every member of your nationality is a genocidal or aggressive expansionist/irredentist nationalist. Would that offend you? Plus, what Croatian user wrote, offends 10 million people! And you're saying it wasn't offensive? Jesus, Mel, open you're eyes, Croatian user should be blocked!!! --Boris Malagurski ₪ 07:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

There clearly is a difference between Serbs and "Serb nationalism". Are you suggesting all Serbs are nationalists? If a Chinese, whose family had been murdered by Japanese occupiers, said "Japanese nationalism is genocidal, aggressive etc.", on a talk page, I would not have a problem with that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.240.214.92A11:08, 30 March 2006 (talk • contribs)

I'm not sure who wrote this, but I agree. I'd add only that I detest all nationalism, and that in the context of Wikipedia it probably causes more than half all our porblems with vandalism, pointless edit wars, and emotional blow ups like this one. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I would agree too if it was written in that context. Unfortunatly, he stated that Serbian nationalism's the worst, which is quitte different. --HolyRomanEmperor 14:47, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand this comment, I'm afraid, especially as it's factually incorrect. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Thats it! I don't care what you do with Croatian historian, Mel is obviously always going to unblock him, and there is no point in discussing this with him. Mel, if you had a sense of what is right and what is wrong, you would stop protecting this Croatian nationalist, and block him for good. But, of course, you will never do that. Plus, you're arguments for helping Croatian nationalism are very bad, and I just don't understand who could've made you an administrator. I'm just shocked how the quality of Wikipedia is going down, when a vandal is being protected by an admin, it's over. I give up, Croatian nationalism has won, it's Operation Storm all over again. --Boris Malagurski ₪ 21:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Pro123tester adding personal info

Pro123tester (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) is editing Jefferson Poland in an inappropriate manner. I reverted an edit in external links that supposedly contained details about the subject of articles residence, plus details of this editors sleuthing to find this info. Unaware of any history about this user, I put a note on the article talk explaining WP:BLP and headed to User:Pro123tester talk to leave message. I saw the IP notice and message left by User:Pro123tester him(her)self. In the meantime, User:Pro123tester left odd posts on the article talk and my talk page. [57] [58] Does this user have arbcom ruling against them under another name? Or does anyone recognize as a known sockpuppet editor. FloNight ^talk 18:09, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

This needs attention from an administrator. User:Pro123tester is looking for attention by adding comments like this. [59] FloNight ^talk 19:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Block for one hour. Hopefully, he'll wake up.Gator (talk) 19:53, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I found this in the AN/I archives Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive29#Amorrow/Pinktulip. Since User:Pro123tester first edits were to [60], [61], [62] I think there is a connection. FloNight ^talk 22:59, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Good catch. I just blocked indefinitely as a reincarnation of a banned user. Jkelly 23:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Jkelly, thanks for your quick response. --FloNight ^talk 23:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Roguesysop blocked indefinitely

Roguesysop (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log)

I've blocked the above user indefinitely for blatant vandalism, an inappropriate username, and because this user (through judicious use of the {{unblock}} template in various inappropriate articles) appears to be the sockpuppet of a banned user. Hopefully I'm not a Roguesysop for doing so, as I think this user needed to be blocked immediately to prevent further vandalism. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Clear case.Gator (talk) 18:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Endorse, should have been blocked on sight for having a misleading/confusing username containing the word "sysop", regardless of his behavior. — Mar. 29, '06 [21:40] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

Sock of who?

Since Roguesysop vandalised Nlu's page, I took a quick look at Nlu's block log and I think it might be a sockpuppet of Croatian historian, as Nlu blocked this user at 16:42, and Roguesysop's first edit, using the unblock template on Nlu's user page, occurred at 17:58. I don't think this case is so serious as to warrant a CheckUser, but it's something to think about if it goes further up the WP:DR ladder. Of course, it might just be 165.138.22.12 or 216.47.187.221. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Chad "Corntassel" Smith

I think this is a clear BLP issue - Johnc1 (talk · contribs) is posting unsourced criticisms of Smith (Principle Chief of the Cherokees) - using fairly strong language ("Dictator" and worse) which, IMO, may put us at risk for defamation. I have already communicated with the editor on this issue, but it doesn't seem to have had much of an effect on him. There are other issues with the article (a large amount of text has been added from the Cherokee article); in the course of reverting Johnc1 I removed it, but that's a content issue to be sorted out by involved editors. I would appreciate some other people having a look at the situation. Guettarda 18:47, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

He has re-added his unsourced edits and a link to his personal site. I removed the link to his site, but not reverted his edits, including his claim that Smith is a DICTATOR (caps his) because I think I'm at three reverts and would appreciate someone else looking at this. Johnc1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is at four reverts, but as I have been involved (I wrote the original article also) I feel someone else should block him. Would another admin take a look, to block him, either for 3RR or inserting unsourced attacks on a living person (elected leader), and revert the article? I feel it might be inappropriate for me to do so. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Block-evading sockpuppet of Mr.Do!

User:Mr.Do! was indefinitely blocked because of uploading Warez to Wikimedia servers. User:Mr. Do! is very likely a sockpuppet. My observations are at User talk:Mr. Do!. TerokNor 19:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

• Good catch. Blocked. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:40, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Open proxy vandal on Google

There's an open proxy vandal currently attacking Google and possibly other articles. I'm somewhat reluctant to s-protect this article, as the vandal will go elsewhere and harder to find them. The IPs keep jumping around, so it's difficult to pick them out of the recent changes. But, if you are watching recent changes, be alert for this vandal. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 22:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Though, I'm guessing they might hit Microsoft if Google is s-protected. They cut & pasted material from Microsoft into the google article. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 22:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Jamesnice

This user has been placing links to what is presumably their music publishing site on a lot of pages. I presume this is not acceptable? Arniep 22:56, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly unideal. I'm busy rolling back the changes and will warn him about WP:SPAM. Stifle 23:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Dakota d

User:DakotaKahn blocked this user with the following rationale: Username to close DakotaKahn. I don't see this at all. DakotaKahn shouldn't be allowed to have the only User name with the word Dakota in it. The user hadn't even made a single edit. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. First of all, we can't ban everybody in Dakota! Secondly, I'm not sure DakotaKahn has such a high profile that people are into impersonating her (I might be wrong, and either way no offence intended). --kingboyk 23:57, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and we need a page for admins to report non-obvious username blocks, so that the community can investigate. I'm unblocking. --Golbez 23:59, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I just created Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Usernames, WP:AN/U and WP:ANU. User:Zoe|^(talk) 00:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Unneeded its why we have Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names.  ALKIVAR™ 01:58, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. RFC should be used when a username's suitability is in doubt, and improper blocks for usernames are, AFAIK, rare enough that we don't need a separate noticeboard to report them. I've MfDed it here - I hope that's the right place to discuss whether we need this. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 10:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I speedy deleted it after Zoe said she wasn't aware of the RFC sub-section and didn't mind it being deleted. Technically this speedy is questionable as a) Splash edited it after Zoe created it, making a speedy on the grounds of Zoe's request potentially invalid and b) I nominated it for MfD in the first place. But I don't see Splash as likely to object, or why someone else should have to do it. I didn't even bother mentioning it on the MfD closing notice, but since this is the AN, no reason not to make it clear here. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 23:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• shhh, the vandals have ears, of course so does corn, but then corn has never been blocked for moving pages to pagename ...on wheels]], probably because corn is a vegtable, not a person, but you never know--Minasota von haippymeils 00:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to leave that account blocked. DakotaKahn has been stalked by AMorrow, and it's possible this is him. It's not the first account that's been set up recently that sounds close to her name or to one of her relatives. It's also suspicious that the account was set up, but apparently not used. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I should really read this page more often. Long before reading this discussion, I noticed that these five accounts were all created within a couple of hours:

• Dakota_d (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Dakota_d_on_Wheels! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• DakotaKahn_on_Wheels! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• DakotaKahn_and_Dakota_d_sitting_in_a_tree_C.U.R.P.S.ING! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• DakotaKahn_and_Dakota_d_sitting_on_Wheels!_C.U.R.P.S.ING! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• DakotaKahn_is_a_bitch (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Note that "new users" with zero edits generally do not get "put on wheels" or become the subject of "attack accounts" in this manner. Barring evidence to the contrary, I firmly believe that these five accounts were created by the same person, regardless of whether this person has any connection to the so-called "real Willy on Wheels". — Mar. 30, '06 [08:40] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

Thanks for finding those, FoN. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 08:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks too; having seen those, I have much less problem with the block, though it should have had a note. Mindspillage's note below also contains wisdom. --Golbez 15:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

While the usernames created afterward look suspicious, this isn't the sort of username I would block without at least leaving a note on the talk page, and more likely not at all. Dakota is a pretty popular name, though more so for people who are just barely old enough to edit Wikipedia, and I wouldn't expect someone newly registering to check that their name doesn't clash with an admin's first, and "Dakota d" is somewhat far off to look like a deliberate attempt to confuse or impersonate. As for the names afterward, well, it could have been malicious all long, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is our dear friend who likes to create names riffing off of the current block log and current discussions. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 15:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

tinWiki.orG

Could someone do us a favor and tell them that their logo is a trademark violation?Geni 01:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually its not... it falls quite clearly under a Parody use.  ALKIVAR™ 22:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Really? What is you case that tinWiki is parodying wikipedia or it's logo?Geni 08:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

User:infinity0

I've been trying everything I can to keep from getting in an edit war with User:infinity0 on An Anarchist FAQ. To keep from getting into an edit war with him I put POV tag on the top of the article and have been engaging in voluminous discussion on the [Discussion page] there. He keeps taking the tag off knowing full well that the dispute is very much alive (he knows because he's engaging in the dispute on the Discussion page). Whenever I put it back on, he takes it off: [63] [64] Then, when I note on the Discussion page that he's taking off the POV tag he keep reverting my mention of the fact that he's taking the tag off: [65] [66] --which amounts to vandalizing the Discussion page. It's just crazy. What he's doing is all very disruptive to the process at trying to arrive at a consensus. The article has a real POV problem and I am not the only one who thinks this. I don't know what to do in this situation other than to ask if someone can please put a block on him for awhile. Maybe that will force him to refrain from these antics. RJII 02:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

If no one is willing to take any action over this, then what am I supposed to do? Is there a policy against repeatedly deleting someone else's messages on Discussion pages? (by the way, he deleted a message of mine from another article's Talk page today as well: [67] )Is there a policy against repeatedly removing an NPOV tag from an article when the NPOV dispute is still going on and a consensus as not been reached? Please advise. RJII 03:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• Maybe find another pond to fish in for the moment? Isn't there any way you two can stay out of each other's faces? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 03:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The only way I can do that is to sit back and let him make the article POV and keep important information out of it. It doesn't matter if I go to other articles --he often follows me to them --puts things I create up for deletion votes just because I'm the one that created them, goes into an article that I edited that he's never visited before right after I make an edit and immediately deletes them, etc. Believe me, I'd like to stay away from him. But, I don't think I should be the one to allow him to get his way when he's the one that's obviously being disruptive. I'm just supposed to allow him to delete my messages on Discussion pages? That's crazy. RJII 03:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It isn't obvious that admin intervention is needed. Have you considered WP:3O? Jkelly 03:27, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll stop by the article and try and give some suggestions on WP:DR. --FloNight ^talk 03:46, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Noting that he's deleting people's comments on other pages as well. Here is someone complaining on his Talk page about deleting comments on the Socialism talk page. [68] I don't understand why you guys are letting him get away with this clearly disruptive behavior. RJII 19:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• I did not mean to delete the comment on the socialism talk page [69].
• RJII kept harassing me on my talk page (see history) and WP:POINT on the talk page of that article, so I removed the attacks.
• RJII is the one circumventing consensus; none of the other editors have agreed with what he is trying to add, yet he has the cheek to report me for this.
• Furthermore, RJII is currently on probation FOR POV pushing.

-- infinity0 23:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Possible Zephram Stark sockpuppet?

Carla Pehlke (talk · contribs). Second Wikipedia edit is a post on another user's talk page regarding a dispute at Thomas Jefferson. Zephram also made many posts and edits at United States Declaration of Independence related to Jefferson and the authorship of the DoI. He even cited the same link to TJ's biography. Carla's 4th edit is to accuse various unnamed people of "rewriting history". Sounds like something ZS would say. --Frank 02:30, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

User 154.5.19.185

I have unfortunately had a disagreement with user 154.5.19.185. I will admit, that the argument was concerning subject matter not particularly relevant to Wikipedia, and that I myself said inappropriate things to him/her that no doubt provoked him/her... My concern is with the final response that was left on my talk page (I have deleted it, but it's in my history). This is possibly the most demeaing, insulting and hurtful comment anyone has ever left me... by far. I make a habit of NEVER insulting or attacking other users, but admit that on this occassion, I was overly abrasive and came too close (he/she on the other hand, did not hold back). I admit that I said things which clearly sparked anger. I don't know what can/should be done, but I felt it necessary that I report it. --Arch26 02:46, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Anti-Aaron

This user should be banned just for their name, which judging by this edit and this edit is merely an account meant to attack User: AaronS. A check user on Anti-Aaron would also be helpful to find out who this is (I'm not sure if you need to have a specific target in mind to check the user to, or what, but if not this would be good to use). I will put a request at the check user page. The Ungovernable Force 02:58, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I just went to the check user request page and it says not to use it on throwaway accounts, so I guess I won't make the request. Still, it would be nice to know if an established wikipedian did this. The Ungovernable Force 03:02, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, Valento (talk · contribs) is complaining on his talk page about being blocked, even though no one has blocked him (yet). Now, the IP blocklist does indicate an autoblock on Anti-Aaron's IP, which seems to be what Valento tripped over. I'm not terribly surprised. His principal contributions at this point then are userboxen and vandalism. I wouldn't mind blocking this account too. Mackensen (talk) 03:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Range Block needed

Range 203.166.99.(...) is creating a ton of back and forth vandalism all over the place. Need a range block (I don't know how to do it). --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 04:18, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Reporting Serious Bug in Wikipedia Website

Hi, I edit on several Native American Wiki's and while editing this site at | WikiGadugi I noticed that while I am logged in as "Hotch" on the website, I am able at the same time to create articles without the normal warnings and blocking for a user who is not logged into the Wikipedia site while I was logged into both sites at the same time. I also noticed that I can edit articles with Sysop privileges on Wikipedia and Admin due to some issue with the cookies since I have a Sysop/Bearucrat status on the other Wiki. I don't know if this website has some code doing this, but it looks like a bug in Wikimedia rather than something malicious. I did not perform any admin actions on this site (Wikipedia), but the extra tabs for protect and other areas seemed to appear. It happens when I am logged into both sites, so it looks like a bug in the MediaWiki Software. PeyoteMan 07:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

They may appear but do they work is the key point. There are a number of ways to get the tabs to appear. Try protecting your userpage.Geni 07:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

No, they do not work here. I click and nothing happens. Looks like a cosmetic issue of some sort. Probably should report it though to the programers. PeyoteMan 07:18, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Doubtful. Sounds like a browser side issue.Geni 08:13, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

What happens if you clear your cache? —BorgHunter ^ubx (talk) 08:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

After I clear the Cache (did this already) I am no longer able to create pages without logging in. PeyoteMan 08:46, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I am able to create pages without being logged in if I logout from Wikipedia, however. That's a bug. PeyoteMan 07:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, but this kind of suggests that it might be possible to reverse-engineer cookies (ie, decipher the cookie encoding) used by Wikipedia, potentially allowing logging in as any arbitrary user, which if some troll organization like Bantown managed to pull off would result in all manner of hilarity ensuing. One anon on Slashdot claimed to have pulled this off something like this for myspace.com [70]. Who knows. The very slow pace of software development and bugfixing of Wikimedia bodes ill for the future... the vandals are getting wilier while the software we critically depend on is basically standing still. -- Curps 07:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

user:Molobo

Comments needed about disruption block

I'd appreciate comments at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RR#User:Molobo_..._again. User Molobo has been blocked for 3RR for a week. I think this is unfair, but I rarely get involved with blocking and unblocking, and I certainly don't want to get involved in a block war, so I'd appreciate comments from some experienced admins there.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 04:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Given that this user has violated 3RR many many many times, I don't have a problem with the long block. (I am, indeed, concerned by your overly-broad definition of vandalism. "Removing tags" is only vandalism if it is vandalism. Do you really justifiably think that the other editors reverts were a deliberate bad faith attempt to harm the integrity of the encyclopedia? If so, try it again with WP:AGF in mind.) In any case, someone who has had that many blocks for 3RR clearly is not getting it, so it may be time to think about a more substantial block (along these lines). Dmcdevit·t 04:42, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Ahem...sorry for intruding (I'm not an admin). But, what I see here is a classic example of a behavior I've been witnessing for some time. Example: you write a text on a subject. Someone incessantly vandalizes it. So, there is a problem. A mess goes to the public wiki "courtroom". But-if frequently ends in condemning, one way or another, those who tried to save the text from vandalization by reverting it. So, vandals get a tacit approval for vandalisation. A kafkaesque ending. That's what I see is in user Molobo's case. Mir Harven 07:49, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

3RR policies (moved from WP:AN)

Molobo (talk · contribs), whose edits largely consist of endless reverts and who is permanently one revert away from breaking 3RR on a dozen articles, was blocked the total of six times in March, mainly for violating 3RR. Given his previous record of 3RR violations, each time the revert warrior broke 3RR, his block was increased: from 24 hours on 3 March to 3 days on 8 March to 4 days on 17 March to 7 days on 30 March. Last year, when Molobo violated 3RR, he would be typically unblocked by his comrade User:Piotrus and went unpunished for months. Last time Molobo was blocked, Piotrus approached the blocking admin on his talk page and the block was abolished. This time, given his propensity for wheel warring, Piotrus went on to proclaim that 7-day-block was too harsh and didn't comply with the existing policy and started to pressure the blocking admin into setting Molobo free for another reverting spree. You are welcome to voice your views of the matter below. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, don't; AN/3RR is not the place for extended discussion. Piotrus already started a thread on ANI to which I have responded, here. Please other admins weigh in there. Dmcdevit·t 08:47, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Molobo ... again

This is copied in from WP:3RR, because it was getting long and verging into policy William M. Connolley 08:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Three revert rule violation on German Empire (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Molobo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log):

• 1st revert: 12:41, March 29, 2006
• 2nd revert: 12:32, March 29, 2006
• 3rd revert: 12:15, March 29, 2006
• 4th revert: 12:06, March 29, 2006
• 5th revert: 10:48, March 29, 2006

Reported by: Chris 73 | Talk 13:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Comments: Molobo is a well known revert warrior, having been blocked for a 3RR about 9 times before, 4 times alone in this month. See also above for 3RR accusation on Otto Bismarck-- Chris 73 | Talk 13:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

No 3RR, simply restored a tag for disputed section. Remember that removing tags is considered vandalism. Removing simple vandalism isn't 3RR.--Molobo 13:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I don' think removing a tag is simple vandalism, but I leave this up to another admin to decide -- Chris 73 | Talk 13:39, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Also you are mistaken as they are two different contents here that have been related.. Had I restored tag over 3 times or info over 3times I agree that could be considered violation of 3RR however this isn't the case. Also you are mistaken-I was blocked on 3 times for 3RR, one of which was sadly for restoration of my comments on discussion page that were being deleted and which sadly is considered 3RR also. --Molobo 13:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

You reverted content three times, then added a tag, and reverte the tag removal two times, hence 5 reverts. The number of reverts is per page, not per paragraph or disputed text. YOU of all people should know that, you do know that, and yet you try to get away with this excuse every time again. -- Chris 73 | Talk 13:45, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

This is the text that I believe states that removing tags is vandalism. In this case the tag was removed without any comment to my statement on proper discussion page where I explained why the tag was added: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism Improper use of dispute tags. Dispute tags are important way for people to show that there are problems with the article. Do not remove them unless you are sure that the dispute is settled. --Molobo 13:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC) The number of reverts is per page, not per paragraph or disputed text. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3RR For the purposes of counting reverts, these are excluded:

• self-reverts
• correction of simple vandalism

Removing a tag without any explanation and without adressing the issue on discussion page seemed to me like simple vandalism. --Molobo 13:50, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear pan Molobo, the things you do may be classified as tag vandalism. I believe we need a separate policy on those who, without contributing anything helpful, add tons of tags on any article they cast their eyes on. Please stop vandalizing existing articles and write some new ones at last. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm rather sick of people trying to pretend that they are reverting "simple vandalism" as an excuse for their edit warring. Molobo has form and get 1 week for this William M. Connolley 15:46, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I always thought that removing a dispute (or similar) tag without providing an explanation for one's action, or when the issue is actively disputed at the article's talk page, is vandalism and can be reverted as many times as necessary. Those tags serve an important purpose, and those who remove them before the issues are resolved are simply pushing their POV and censoring all critique of it (no matter if deserved or not). I believe that in this particluar case Molobo is innocent, and it is his opponents, who removed the tag, who should be punnished. I most vehemntly oppose this block.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm surprized that your previous wheel warring - when you repeatedly unblocked Molobo after he violated 3RR - did not learn you anything. Actually, such disruptive editors as Molobo who are permanently one revert away from violating 3RR on scores of articles should be blocked for three reverts only. That their trolling is particularly nasty is no excuse for looking down on them. Unfortunately, Molobo has become such a problem and threat to the Wikicommunity only because he is encouraged by such Polish editors as Piotrus who joins his rabid reverting more often then not. Just a few days ago, Molobo was unblocked on Piotr's petition and instantly proceeded to turn dozens articles into a mess. Enough is enough. --Ghirla -трёп- 14:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Molobo didn't quote the whole section. Wikipedia:Vandalism goes on saying "Do not place dispute tags improperly, as in when there is no dispute, and the reason for placing the dispute tag is because a suggested edit has failed to meet consensus. Instead, follow WP:CON and accept that some edits will not meet consensus." I fail to see that just because a very small proportion somewhere in a unimportant place deserves a totally dispute tag on German Empire, only because Molobo noticed he was not about to "win" the edit war. There was no dispute on the talk page and the text he quickly posted was only to justify the tag. Sciurinæ 17:56, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, inappropriately adding "disputed tags" is also vandalism and users are required to explain why they added it - marking the articles that one just doesn't agree with is not enough. I do think that this block is excessive though - I thought the maximum bar is 24 hours (WP:3RR: sysops may block for up to 24 hours) and while sysops are entitled to exercise their discretion in imposing longer blocks, in my opinion they should be reported to WP:ANI. While a longer block may have been deserved in Molobo's case, purely due to the fact that he's been revert warring on so many articles and evidently causing much disruption (and having been blocked so many times before), this is also taking into account the fact that it takes two or more to revert war. We could have reasonably expected Molobo to realise that more users are reverting against him than for him, IMO that is a sufficient reason for him to give up and discuss on the article's talk page or on the talk page of the user in question. I think the block should be shortened but not to something less than 24 hours. --Latinus 17:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Latinus, I'm afraid you are deluded here. You have not enough experience with Molobo if you expect him to give up reverting by his own volition. What will he do then? Is there any other purpose for his edits other than revert warring? He is always one revert away from 3RR on scores of articles. To a disinterested observer, he seems like a reverting bot run by Piotrus and Halibutt in order to spread their nationalist propaganda. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 18:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it's just like in real life: if you break the law, you're punished. If you do it again, the punishment increases. It worked somehow in Space Cadet's case (if Space Cadet really is not a number of other accounts). Molobo is not an autist but a university student so his being a "vigilante" as he puts it can become a matter of the past if he realises it is not the way he'd better be walking. I think it becomes more and more obvious that the only solution is the ArbCom. Until then conventional methods will solve it. Sciurinæ 18:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Since I blocked I'd better defend my action. I don't think removing tags can be called reverting vandalism (note: it currently says so explicitly in the 3RR header, but only cos I just inserted it; if you consider that disputable, remove it and we'll talk it over). The 1 week was what Inshaneee (sp?) gave then removed; it appeared to me to be the natural progression. I would consider a shorter block; especially if you consider this a bit doubtful. The 24h limit is long dead, though - check the logs. Also note that I removed another Molobo report from this page as now-irrelevant - if anyone is thinking of unblocking, best to check that out. And finally - he current state of his talk page doesn't exactly inspire confidence in his NPOV state William M. Connolley 18:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Furthermore, if Molobo breaks 3RR again, the block should be extended to one month. Currently, half a dozen editors have to stop adding new stuff to Wikipedia in order to revert Molobo's pointless reverts, usually encouraged by Piotrus. All things considered, he is the worst troll to haunt Eastern Europe-related topics since Bonaparte was permabanned earlier this year. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 18:15, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah Bonapare, his most active days were before my time, but I do remember those mysterious open proxies that kept turning up and trying to present the Aromanians and Meglenites as an oppressed Romanian minority in Greece. Kept everyone busy... --Latinus 18:27, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Blocks which are solely for 3RR violations are barred by policy from exceeding 24 hours. However, I would argue (and others appear to be practicing as well) that editors who violate 3RR repeatedly can be blocked longer for general disruption, rather than requiring that the ArbCom be called in every time we have a highly problematic revert-warrior. (ESkog)^(Talk) 18:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I am really disappointed to see so much vehemence and ill will directed towards Molobo. Through he has been known for breaking the 3RR occcasionally, so are his opponents. Ghirla, who seems to be enjoying this incident so much (and labels Molobo as a troll in every second post), should be reminded of his recent RfC (and yes, Molobo also had an RfC, although IMHO he came out of it much better (that being a purely personal opinion, of course). Now, back to the case at hand: as the talk page shows Molobo did engage in discussion with his opponents, and although using a smaller tag like {{dubious}} might have been more appopriate than using {{totallydisputed}}, I think his opponents (which in that particular case number two - not a 'very large number') are as guilty of failure to talk as he is. A case can be made that removal of tags is breaking the 3RR (although I would not support it) - but let it rest. There is, however, no justification for blocking a creative (if sometimes to wild) user like Molobo for a week. I certainly don't see that Molobo is a 'general disruption' any more than Girlandajo is (please comapare their RfC if you need proof) and I will not support support such a ban on such flimsy ground. If one wants to bring this to an RfArb, then please do - hopefully this will finally put an end to anti-Molobo crusade by certain users (or prove me wrong - I am not saying I am perfect and unbiased here - but I am really fed up with some people 'throwing proverbial rocks' when they are no better).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I too deplore the ill-will. Back to your case: Molobo is not being blocked for failure to talk, but for (repeatedly) breaking 3RR. If anyone else has, report them and they will get the same treatment. The 24h limit is, effectively, a dead duck. There has been no real discussion of this (as far as I can see) but thats how it is: policy has evolved. I've considered raising it explicitly, but always decided to let well enough alone. Now: please address my point re Molobos talk page: it appears to be deliberately imflammatory and does not show good faith (I mean: the pictures, and the multiple to-remembers that are clearly there as messages to others, not to Molobo). Also note his response to the block: I shall return in one week and restore all information about Nazi and Soviet atrocities... which practically promises a return to edit-warring. If you can persuade him to calm down, great, then his block can be reduced. William M. Connolley 20:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

That's your personal interpretation of facts, to which you are of course entirely entitled, but which cannot be used to overrule our policies if it is disputed (and I am afraid I have to dispute it). I see nothing that goes against our policies in his talk, and as for his reply, it is a well known fact that Molobo contributes to the controversial areas of G/P/R history. This is not the place for content dispute or the analysis of his additions, but he is obviously a content editor, and I see nothing strange in him saying that he will be back to edit the articles he likes. If people think he is not a good content creator, then ArbCom is that way. But using arbitrary blocks without any official policy to support them, just one's view of how the policy has evolved, is not the best way to solve it, not when it is - as you can see from my reply - disputed. I know you are acting in good faith. So am I, and I think - putting all my wiki-experience and reputation in those words - that it is unfair and counterproductive to block Molobo for a week. I have talked to him recently and he told me he will watch his edits more carefully. Therefore I'd like to ask you to change the block on Molobo to 24h - the period clearly supported by the rules.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, I can understand that some Polish wikipedians - definitely not all (learn from Alx-pl rather than protect the black sheep) - feel the need to defend him because the anti-German, anti-Russian and Pro-Polish POV pushing coming from him may be the wrong attitude towards Wikipedia but at least he has the right POV. If there's a war crime by Germans against Poles, he's there for you. Whether Germans would die too (example Potulice camp) does not only not matter to him but he is quick to dismiss any source, accusing his opponents of denial. If there's ongoing discussion over Copernicus' nationality, Molobo is there to revert and disturb the discussion. You certainly know of Molobo's forum presence less than a year ago. Has he changed? Has he improved since his RfC? And what do you think: is he going to change? Sure, he will promise anything. It is not an arbitrary interpretation of the rules but one considering the sense of 3RR. It is the same thing with simple vandalism except that vandalism (like adding nonsense words) is often less hurtful to Wikipedia than POV pushing. If the offenders of either keep it this way, their punishments will increase until they've smarted from it till they're smart enough not to do it anymore. That's the way dealt with offenders both in the real world and in Wikipedia. There is nothing constructive in the way Molobo contributes like this and if Molobo starts discussing first before shooting, this will be the last block. Four violations within the month March - the block could have lasted longer. Sciurinæ 22:53, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with some of your points. If we vote on a policy to make blocking more severe, for example by adding an additional day for each 3RR block in a given month to a consecutive block, I'll support it. But until such a official policy is voted through by the community, I oppose arbitrary reinterpretation of existing policies. Second, I never said Molobo is perfect: he has a strong POV (as you noted), and as was pointed here, his 3RR record is a proof that he could talk more. I don't follow his edits closely and I don't know if his behaviour is getting better or worse (if this is the case, please present the evidence in a new RfC or a RfArb). But I have seen in many cases that he provides references for his edits and that he creats new content (like Potulice concentration camp or Hans Krüger). He is also much more civil than many of his 'sparring partner' - I have yet to see where he calls editors who revert him 'a pet troll' or make other personal attacks, even through his opponents feel that the Wikipedia:No personal attacks or Wikipedia:Civility rules does not apply to them ([71], [72]). That convinces me that he is clearly not a vandal or a troll, but a content creator with strong POV - like thousands of other wiki editors. If his POV is too strong and he is a liability for this project, than I again would ask those who think so to use the appopriate venues to prove their case (RfArb). Otherwise, I'll follow the innocent until proven guilty assumption in that (and other) cases.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 23:38, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course he doesn't call other people names - these are easy mistakes. He implies they're vandals or would try to cover up war crimes. I fail to see the arbitrariness in the block: why should it be any different than with normal vandals? Or with other people breaking the 3RR? If the user is new and probably unaware of the rules, the block should last for a short time. Same with teenagers committing a crime. If that user should know better, the usual punishment is 24h. If it is a repeated offender, the verdict will be more severe. I can see it isn't formulated in the rules. But it isn't forbidden in the rules, either, maybe even taken for granted as decision in line with other blocks. If Molobo needs to edit pages urgently, he won't be ignored on the talk page. I made an unsuccessful attempt to discuss with him on the subject of the Kulturkampf. Let him be forced to limit his influence to discussion for once, even though I doubt his discussions had a positive effect on Groeck, Wiglaf or Shauri. After a one-week holiday, which means some more peace in Wikipedia to me, he'll either see things differently or slip right into an RfAr. Sciurinæ 00:13, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

So easy mistakes (offences against PA and CIVIL) are ok and we don't mind them, but more elaborate and disputable 'mind games' are the reason for calling one a troll? His deletion of your post on his talk is dissapointing, although it's a tactic I have seen his opponents use, too. Of course two wrongs do not make one right, and I have sent him a message that he shouldnt' be doing that. But you ignore my point above: if our rules don't allow blocking for a week in this period, then it shouldn't be done. Of course if everybody would agree that such an exceptionto the rules is beneficial, than that's not a problem, wiki-lawyering should be avoided. However here I disagree with a 7-day ban on a contributor I view as mostly positive, and therefore there is no consensus for an extraordinary ban. You say it's possible that the 7 week vacation will 'cool him down'. First, predicting the future is hard: it may or may not. Second, I know that his forced absence from wiki will make the life that much easier for various other POV-pushers and force many of us to waste our time dealing with them. I have conceded above that a 24h block serves as a valid punishment, but a 7 day ban is not fair, not legal, and is also disruptive for content creation (our primary purpose). Please don't make me repeat myself.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:33, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't call him a troll. To me, Molobo is an efficient contributor but who works into the wrong direction, which makes him - in my eyes - more negative than a poor editor. Ghost in a machine's summary of Molobo's user conduct in the RfC describes it the best IMO. However, there is only one way to discourage someone from doing sth negative and that's what your and my state and probably most states recognised. An increase in the severity of verdicts. It's not wiki-lawyering but common sense. The time span between his blocks this month has widened after each and Space Cadet doesn't seem likely to me to be reported here in the near future. The block isn't hard but too weak. Look what happened to Bonaparte or bigoted and radical people in forums. Molobo prepares and can save content he wants to create in future so his his contents creations aren't at stake. He hasn't had a one-week break (if I remember correctly) since I met him in August. I know I can't predict the future at all, yet I'm positive his restriction to discussion space can only have a good effect unless one week is too short. He's a student of journalism and Social communication, not reverting. If this attempt should prove futile, then I agree with referring the issue to ArbCom. Sciurinæ 01:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. But. The rules don't allow blocking for 3RR for over 24h. I agree they should. There are procedures we can follow to change the rules. I'll be happy to help with that. I don't agree Molobo deserves a 7-day block under current rules, and even in my variant of tough rules he wouldn't get a 7-day block (unless he got blocked 6 times this month already). If the rules are bended here, they are more likely to be bended more and more until they break. Molobo should be unblocked after 24h elapse on his block.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 02:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Being a 1 step under 3RR in dozens of article in a single day is a general disruption. In disruption blocks the admin's discretion is allowed. This whole thing started off the wrong foot. This behavior discussion belongs to WP:ANI (or indeed RfC or an ArbCom). If the latter is ever compiled, it should bring the verdict that limits his right to revert, paste and delete rather than a general ban. Then he may still create content, which he occasionally does, and be stripped of the tools he uses to disrupt.

Anyway, he was running amok lately and a week cool-off he can use to write articles is a good idea. Repeated general dispurtions warrant an admin block within reasonable discretion. The extent of this disruption, encouragement in trolling instead of mentorship from his wikifriends and his past history certainly make the extent of the block reasonable. You may call it a disruption block if more than 24h 3RR is not allowed for what I care. The time span is appropriate. If he wants to post something to talk pages, he is free to email me the text and/or post it at his talk. I will post it for him. Again, I am not for censoring the info of atrocities others committed against the Poles. I am for the proper coverage of them rather than making a mess out of such broad articles as History of Poland, Red Army, Catherine the Great, Alexander Suvorov and even Soviet partisan, Tyutchev and Ded Moroz (!) . Most of the latter are not polonocentric topics and should not be made as such. These articles have turned into a mess mostly thanks to Molobo's hysterical participation in them. I'd like him back cooled off a little and talked to by other Polish contributors into a more constructive behavior. I don't want to see another RfC and/or ArbCom on this. --Irpen 02:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

For one, I am an administrator too and I don't support this block (for longer than 24h). Second, I don't see that Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Disruption fits Molobo actions. The disruption lists: changing other users' signed comments, making deliberately misleading edits, harassment, and excessive personal attacks, none of which fits Molobo's actions. I could make the same case against Ghirlandajo (talk · contribs), who is 'making a mess' and 'forcing dozens of editors to fix it' at articles such as Congress Poland, History of Poland (1939–1945), Silesian Uprisings, August II the Strong or Polish contribution to World War II, just to name the few. Should we block him for 'general disruption' too? Blocking policy states that disruption is controversial reason to block and should be avoided. I repeat again: if you want a block longer than 24h, than go to arbcom, who is definetly more neutral than any of us here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 04:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Pan Prokonsul, as I said many times before, if you don't stop likening one of the most prolific and active wikipedians who contributed about 500 new articles to this project with your pet troll who has not contributed a single article which survived WP:AfD, I'm afraid we'll have to continue this discussion on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Piotrus. The difference lies in the fact that while I have never violated 3RR, your pet troll breaks the rules on weekly basis.

While you have been having great time all the time Molobo was trolling, I was busy reverting his edits (as may be seen in the links you provided above), because you use Molobo as a ram weapon to spread the nationalist propaganda in Wikipedia. Yet I never added new stuff to the articles you mention above, therefore you allegations of 'making a mess' and 'forcing dozens of editors to fix it' are simply outrageous.

Please face the facts: Molobo fits to a T to the description contained in WP:TROLL and will be treated accordingly. Your tag team of Polish POV-pushers has already ousted from Wikipedia such precious contributors (and admins) as User:Wiglaf and User:Shauri and may claim many more casualties if we let you and Molobo proceed.

I'm still waiting for your apologies for this as for previous attacks, yet I feel from my previous experience with you that to expect an apology from yourself is quite useless. At least have a decency not to mention me on every other talk page you edit. Pestering and intimidation of editors you disagree with and dismissing those with almost 30,000 edits as "vandals" are unlikely to further your cause or Molobo's. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 09:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Ghirla: you are not helping much. The fact that you are a much more productive contributor than Molobo does not give you the right to call him troll, and me his 'troll master'. Molobo has contributed valuable content, like in the creation of Potulice concentration camp. It would be also nice if you were to provide evidence that would support your personal attacks against him or me - like that 'our team' was resonspible for Shauri's or Wilgalf Wikiholidays (WP:CABAL, anyone?). And while you have not broken the 3RR, I'd like to point out that the reason for prolonged block Molobo received here was the disruption caused by his many near 3RR violations - something you are just as guilty of (see history of articles I listed above). The fact that you have not added content to the above article does not change the fact that you were engaged in the revert wars there, and did not provide any justification for your reverts other than revert trolling (read: revert of relevant see also link), giving no explanation for reverting of sourced additions, same here, or simple and clear WP:POINT vandalism. It is obvious to me that when it comes to content creation, you are a valuable contributor, but when it comes to any content dispute, your actions are no better then that of Molobo's - they are even worse, because he at least uses talk and provides some references, while you just revert. Of course there are exceptions: I love your argument that Katyn massacre was a CIA forgery :) I can see that arguments brought by others against Molobo have some value, but honestly I can't see what you are trying to prove other than that you are just as disruptive as him.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm as guilty of this here as anyone else, but please note from the top of the page that If you feel the need to leave a comment of more than a couple of lines you are probably using the wrong channel. Can we take the philosophical policy stuff somewhere else and de-clog this page? (ESkog)^(Talk) 05:12, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Should it be moved to WP:ANI? I don't mind. Piotrus, by your proposal of no more than 24h block without an ArbCom, Bonaparte should be immediately unblocked. Amount of aggravtion brought my Molobo to a whole bunch of articles is huge. This was a huge disruption. If he wants to write articles, he can write many now and post them all at once in a week. Everything else he was doing is harmful for Wikipedia. And don't try to compare him to your favorite Nemesis. This simply doesn't fly. You should have took it upon yourself to mentor your "valuable contributor" rather than encourage his actions. I was telling you about this all along. For more, see talk:Soviet partisan as well as my recent calls at dozens of talk pages. --Irpen 07:09, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it here. William M. Connolley 08:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm also involved in an edit war at a different article which is over a tag being added. And yes, tags are subject to 3RR like anything else. If there's not enough support for them that an editor has to break 3RR to keep them on, then they shouldn't be on. That's the entire point of 3RR. I also support progressively longer blocks for persistent violators - as far as I'm concerned such blocks are still preventative rather than punitive, as they should be, because of the valid deterrence effect. I support William's actions 100%. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 10:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I want to thank people who took time to read this debate through and offer me their advise. Any further comments would be appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

User:SPUI blanking page

SPUI has repeatedly blanked the following page Template:Portal US Roads after his attempt at a TFD was rejected. Gateman1997 09:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

...and after the template was restored, he removed the template tag from about 80 pages.[73] --phh 23:46, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It might help if you looked at the portal and realized it hasn't been updated in over a month. AFTER I listed it at TFD. Stop harassing me and go harass your neighbors or something. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 01:34, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing here requiring, or even recommending, that portal pages be updated at any particular rate or interval. You are free to take the matter back to TfD with an updated argument in favor of deletion. --phh 02:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

This aside, Portals are mostly built to guide the reader about the subject and directs them to the WikiProjects, which are the ones that deal with the editing of the articles and all of that stuff. However, if the template was declared kept at TFD, you cannot remove it from all pages and try to TFD it again. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 02:34, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I take issue with the linking of the portal from the main namespace. The portal is built like a topic-specific version of the main page, but has been static for over a month. The TFD result has nothing to do with whether it's used on specific pages. And apparently this discussion is moot - Wikipedia:Requests for comment/SPUI. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 02:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

If you dislike the portal then why don't you WP:MFD it? Or update it too. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:05, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind the existence of the portal - I've left all links to it from wikiprojects. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 03:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

But you say that you removed the links because the portal was too old? How does that work? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 06:03, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey, if I cared about the maintenance of a specific article of mine I'd wipe the portal boxes from it too. While there was a consensus to create Portal space (because they're at worst harmless if nobody maintains them) there's definitely no consensus to link to unused, crappy portals from article space in fancy little pastel boxes. Ashibaka tock 17:01, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Is User:209.123.28.250 vandalizing using a bot?

I just blocked 209.123.28.250 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), for 31 hours only, since it's an IP. But I'd really like to block for longer. Could somebody please look to see what kind of IP this is, and, especially, click on the contribs and tell me: is the person using a bot, or is it possible to edit that fast without it? Man, I wish Wikipedia was ever that fast for me. Bishonen | talk 17:33, 30 March 2006 (UTC).

P. S. I see Celestianpower did the exact same block at the very same moment. Bishonen | talk 17:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC).

Likely not a bot. I would guess he used a WoW style multiple tab editing to pull that off. I do similar when I'm doing multiple repetetive edits on a number of pages. Open all the pages, work through making the changes. If I'm cut&pasting the same change, I can go fairly quickly through the pages, clicking submit on each as I go. - TexasAndroid 17:39, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It's listed in the Spamhaus XBL, which means it's almost certainly a compromised computer. However, it doesn't appear to be a normal open proxy from my tests. It's probably being controlled remotely via a bot network. --GraemeL ^(talk) 17:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with above. I've had experience vandalising like this on other wikis so know how it works. 15 per minute isn't that high using that method. --Celestianpower ^háblame 17:50, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'd really like to block if not permanently then at least substantially. Would that risk catching virtuous users, or not, do you think? Bishonen | talk 17:48, 30 March 2006 (UTC).

Peronally, I only block open proxies that I can get to proxy for me. I have let quite a few slip perma blocks and instituted a short block when my testing methods fail to get them to proxy, even if I'm reaonably sure they are open and the failure is in my checking script. I would start off with a 24 hour block and monitor it when the block expires. If it continues, keep escalating the length of the blocks. --GraemeL ^(talk) 17:58, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Ahha! whois says "West Milford Public Schools" with a contact of wb at nac.net. I suspect not a bot, but lots of little 'bots'. --GraemeL ^(talk) 18:02, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Zephram Stark sockpuppet

Society of Friends (talk · contribs). "New" user suddenly accusing me of being a sockpuppet and reverting my changes [74]. Also, has a crazy picture on his user page. Got to be Zephram. --JW1805 (Talk) 20:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• OK, it is definitely him. this edit at United States Declaration of Independence is identical to that made by several other of his sockpuppets. (For example, this one by History Repeats). Someone please block. --JW1805 (Talk) 20:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• this edit really gives him away. --JW1805 (Talk) 20:33, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Gone. Document, please. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Another likely Zephram Stark sockpuppets

• Epiboly (talk · contribs). Quite obvious. Very strange edits for a new user. --JW1805 (Talk) 20:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
• Harold M. Gauss (talk · contribs). Similar name to other sock Harold Mead Gauss (talk · contribs). --JW1805 (Talk) 20:56, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Poof and poof. Lunch time for me. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:58, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• Speak for yourself, JPG. JW1805, you really have a thing about Zephram, don't you? ElectricRay 11:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

RJII disruptive and POV editing

Note: RJII is currently on probation as per Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RJII_v._Firebug#Remedies and has already been banned four times as a result of it.

The majority consensus on Talk:An Anarchist FAQ is that the anti-individualist-anarchism position of the authors is not a major point for the article since they do not mispresent individualist anarchism nor make untruthful statements in the FAQ. However, RJII keeps wanting to give undue weight to this in the article to try to discredit it.

[75]

Previous version has one sentence on the issue: "The authors also explain why they disagree with some anarchist tendencies, such as individualist anarchism."

RJII's version has one paragraph (half the section) on the issue: "They say that they "social anarchists reject the individualists conception of anarchy, simply because it can, unfortunately, allow hierarchy (i.e. government) back into a free society in the name of "liberty" and "free contracts....However, while social anarchists disagree with the proposals of individualist anarchists, we do still consider them to be a form of anarchism -- one with many flaws one with many flaws and one perhaps more suited to an earlier age when capitalism was less developed and its impact upon society far less than it is now." Why Social Anarchists Reject Individualist Anarchism" - note that this page is about 1/100 of the whole FAQ.

-- infinity0 21:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't fall for it. There is no "majority consensus." At least 3 others disagree with what infinity wants for the article. infinity is being very disruptive. He keeps removing NPOV tags knowning full well that their is a dispute going on and even deleting my comments from the Talk page of that article. (And I am not the only one putting a POV dispute tag on it). I'm trying to provide direct quotes in order to make it as NPOV as possible --that way no one can twist what they are saying. RJII 21:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC) There are indeed others who agree with me. For example, "You folks are arguing different points. RJII is quite correct that the authors of the FAQ have a non-neutral POV. In order to preserve the NPOV of the entry, it might be appropriate to note that fact. As RJII considers it important, and as it is entirely accurate to note their rejection, maybe you should just relent on this one. Libertatia 21:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)" RJII 21:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

RJII is lying. I don't want anything for the article; 3 others disagree with him and his POV version. There has been extensive rebuttal of what he has been trying to add. I only remove his point-making disruptions. -- infinity0 21:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Now he's making a personal attack. When is someone going to do something about this guy? See my complaints about him a couple sections above. RJII 21:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

RJII is falsifying quotes from other editors. Libertatia does not support his POV version.

• But the meat of the FAQ is elsewhere. Libertatia 21:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
• The real disagreement is that you present the FAQ to be a 'sectarian' social anarchist FAQ, while the FAQ declaratively attempts a more 'ecumenical' approach, while preserving a socialist identity. There is a huge difference between the two, and I have only your unsupported opinion to contradict such declarations of the FAQ. --Aryah 07:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

-- infinity0 22:30, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

here's an idea

block them both... indefintly, at least we won't have to listen to either of them anymore--172.168.140.68 21:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Sure, that's the easy way out, instead of taking the time to analyze who is truly disruptive here. It's also irresponsible. RJII 21:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not really the easy way out, and stating the most obvious conclusion that you're simply a troll, won't actually resolve the situation, so blocking both is the way to go, that way you won't feel compelled to violate your block(s) and come back a sockpuppets.

besides if I really had the power to block either of you, do you think I'd be communicating so mysteriously from an ip with only 2 contributions on it?

Were I a sysop, do you think I'd be giving you a final warning to take this dispute somewhere else or be blocked? no of course not, you absolutely shouldn't read too much into this because you're in absolutely no danger of being blocked by an annoyed sysop who is giving you one last warning. absolutely none --172.168.140.68 22:10, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• Let's see. How many things can I quote from the top of this page?
  1. This page is for reporting and discussing incidents that require the intervention of administrators, such as blocked users evading blocks.
  2. Please be aware that these pages aren't the place to bring disputes over content
  3. Please take such disputes to mediation, requests for comment, or requests for arbitration rather than here.
  4. Please do not post slurs of any kind on this page
  • This is a content dispute. infinity0, stop pretending it's anything otherwise, and stop using RJII's probation as a weapon against him; it cheapens whatever argument you're making. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 23:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• • • Fine, I shall remain on the talk page, though please take note that I have been through this with him for a long time, and that in my eyes he is being clearly disruptive. Could you at least have a look through it as a neutral party and leave some comments? That would be appreciated. -- infinity0 23:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

This does not require administrator intervention. Take it to the talk page of whatever article you are discussing. - FrancisTyers 23:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Open proxy vandal is back on Google Maps

The open proxy vandal from yesterday has returned. I have temporarily sprotected both Google Maps and Google. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 00:55, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

User:PeyoteMan blocked

I've just blocked User:PeyoteMan indefinitely for making threats of legal action against other editors (see his contribs; I would prefer not to link directly). Also, for being a reincarnation of Jeff Merkey. FreplySpang (talk) 01:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

... and protected his talk page. FreplySpang (talk) 01:52, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Linkspam

The following user has been adding a bunch of spam links to medical related pages [76] --Limegreen 01:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

This must be some sort of open-proxy bot. We've been getting mass linkspam for some time now from various ip's, all with an edit summary of ' " '. --InShaneee 01:26, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Let us know if you find any more of those; I thought they'd all been rolled back. It's a spambot using open proxies; they can all be safely blocked indefinitely. Antandrus (talk) 01:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think I got them all now; it wouldn't hurt if someone else wants to give it a try (look at the last 5000 anonymous edits, search for (") and look at the contribs; some had only one or two) Antandrus (talk) 01:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Nope, looks like they're still coming. --InShaneee 02:14, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

• Sounds like time to add these sites to that spam domain blacklist on meta. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 03:50, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I put them on the spam blacklist. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 04:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Possible Zephram Stark sockpuppets

• Burke's voracious guile (talk · contribs), second edit is revert to version by previous sockpuppet Society of Friends (talk · contribs).
  • It's him. this edit is same as previous sockpuppets. Please ban. --JW1805 (Talk) 02:45, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  • He's also now posting at SR Bryant's talk page [77] See below:
• Also, check out the user that is reverting his Flag of Texas edits: SR Bryant (talk · contribs), who is editing several Terrorism related articles....maybe this ZS as well, thinking he can establish some credibility by reverting the edits of another sockpuppet? Do I sound paranoid.... --JW1805 (Talk) 02:40, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

• • In a word, yes, you do. You sound to me like you've completely lost all sense of perspective. ElectricRay 11:40, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Burke's voracious guile confirmed. SR Bryant is unrelated. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, just wondering. Maybe I am getting paranoid. --JW1805 (Talk) 05:00, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Herschelkrustofsky

I would like to block Herschelkrustofsky (talk · contribs) for violation of LaRouche 1, LaRouche 2, and Nobs01, which placed him on indefinite probation and prohibited him from making edits related to Lyndon LaRouche.

He recently engaged in an edit war at Synarchism, deleting or modifying criticism of LaRouche six times over a couple of days. [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] I left a note on his talk page warning him that his edits were a violation of the arbcom rulings. [84] [85]

He stopped editing the article, but yesterday left a note for another LaRouche activist, BirdsOfFire (talk · contribs), asking him to make the edits instead, [86] which BirdsOfFire did a few hours later, even though he's only an occasional editor (90 edits in four months.) [87] I see Herschelkrustofsky's use of BirdsOfFire, whether as a sockpuppet or meatpuppet, as a violation of the ruling and of his probation, and I'd therefore like to block Herschel for three days and reset the ban on LaRouche-related editing. Other input would be much appreciated. I've pasted the pertinent rulings below. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest getting an immediate ip check on BirdsOfFire because if it is indeed a sock (as the patterns appear to be the same and the infrequency of the BirdsOfFire edits seem to suggest) then indef. block... I would also suggest bringing this back up to the arbcom if this continues for potential re-evaluation of the ruling to see if an indef. ban might be needed for Herschelkrustofsky. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pegasus1138 (talk • contribs)

• CheckUser confirms both userids are using the same IP ranges. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Jay and Pegasus. I've blocked BirdsOfFire indefinitely as a sockpuppet and I'm going to block Herschel for three days and reset the ban. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:05, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I've also banned Herschel from editing Synarchism in accordance with Nobs01 and Wikipedia:Probation. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, at this point it may be worth it to ask the arbcom to revisit the ruling since Hershcel has repeatedly violated the ruling and has created numerous sockpuppets to try to get around it, though for the love of me I don't see how anyone can be so obsessed about Lyndon Larouche to purposefully violate 5 or 6 major guidelines at a time trying to POV skew the article about him. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 05:47, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

This is getting absurd. I don't mind spending time or conceding points to get articles right, but it ticks me off when it turns out that other editors are pulling stunts that make the job more difficult or that take advantage of the system. The aggressive POV pushing by HK and (what have turned out to be) his puppets is an abuse consensus and of our open editing. In previous ArbCom cases HK could argue that he aided the project on topics unrelated (or barely-related) to LaRouche, like classical music, but recently he has only worked on LaRouche-related articles. I don't think that anopther ArbCom case is needed - the previous cases included addtional enforcement procedures that we just need to follow. -Will Beback 06:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

What the Herschelkrustofsky rulings say

• (Nobs01) Herschelkrustofsky is placed indefinitely on Wikipedia:Probation. If in the opinion of any three administrators, for good cause, he is responsible for disrupting the functioning of Wikipedia, restrictions may be placed on his editing, up to and including a general ban of one year." [88]
• (LaRouche 2)"Herschelkrustofsky is restricted to one account for editing. All other accounts showing the same editing patterns are to be blocked indefinitely." [89]
• "Herschelkrustofsky is placed on POV parole for up to and including one year. If he re-inserts any edits which are judged by a majority of those commenting on the relevant talk page in a 24-hour poll to be a violation of the NPOV policy, then he shall be temp-banned for a short time, up to one week. Repeat deletions of text, similarly judged to result in a violation of NPOV, shall be treated in the same way." [90]
• "Herschelkrustofsky is banned from editing any article relating to Lyndon LaRouche for up to and including one year. If he edits any LaRouche-related article, he may be blocked for up to one week by any administrator. Administrators may use their discretion in determining what constitutes a LaRouche-related article. The prohibition against inserting La Rouche material into other articles remains in effect." [91]
• "If, in the judgement of any administrator, Herschelkrustofsky or any user who is considered a sockpuppet of Hershelkrustofsky edits any article which relates to Lyndon LaRouche or inserts material which relates to Lyndon LaRouche into any other article he may be banned for up to one week. Any ban shall reset the one-year ban on editing LaRouche related articles and the ban on inserting LaRouche material into unrelated articles ..." [92]
• (LaRouche1) "Supporters of Lyndon LaRouche are instructed not to add references to Lyndon directly to articles except where they are highly relevant, and not to engage in activities that might be perceived as 'promotion' of Lyndon LaRouche." [93]

69.196.139.250 (talk · contribs)

This user was recently blocked for posting various accusations on Wikipedia talk pages and user pages. Looks like he's back with more of the same, accusing me of vandalism/racism. Appropriate action should be taken to stop this. Aucaman^Talk 04:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

RJII

On March 11, I banned RJII (talk · contribs) from posting to AN and AN/I for three months, per his ArbCom probation. I count more than 20 posts in violation of this ban (at which point I stopped counting). Given that I was the one to institute the ban, and was involved in a two-week general-probation ban, I don't feel comfortable placing the enforcement block. Would another admin please place an appropriate block for violation of the ban? The following may be of help:

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/RJII v. Firebug
• Announcement of the three month ban

I appreciate others looking into it; also, don't forget to log the block on the arbitration page. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 05:27, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

It was my understanding that the ban was for two weeks. But, isn't banning me from here a bit unjust? Others can make claims here against me but I can't defend myself? And, I can't complain here when someone is being disruptive? I don't get it. RJII 05:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC) Ah, I just checkd on my Talk page. You're right --it was 3 months. Honest to God, I didn't realize it was that long. Sorry. Can someone overturn that block please? It makes no sense at all. You can see above that I had to defend myself from someone (the same person I always have to defend myself from over and over). Banning me from here is unjust. (This is my last post to here, per my 3 month ban. Please reconsider this unjust ban. Thanks) RJII 05:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Considering that blocks are meant to stop disruption and are not meant to be punitive I think that he should be unblocked so that he can get on with contributing. The only purpose keeping him blocked would serve would be a punitive measure since he's already stated that he made a mistake and apologized for it. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 05:49, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. In the spirit of WP:AGF, I suggest that there not be a block for this instance. However, please be more careful in the future. As to the propriety, the issue of whether a ban from AN & AN/I was appropriate was raised with the Arbitration Committee before the ban was placed, and the word from the AC was that it was indeed appropraite. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 06:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

• Given what's been going on, I suggest that the ban be modified to allow him to respond to accusations against himself -- or that those who have made repeated attacks on him here in an attempt to get him banned be subject to the same limitation. (Or, it might be simple to just have a rule. Use AN or AN/I for content-related thrashes after being warned not to and become persona non grata.) --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:56, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

New user making legal threats?

There is a relatively new user User:Tommysun who has just made a rather strange legal threat on Talk:Plasma cosmology. Other users and myself have spent a lot of time trying to address the problematic behaviors of this user to no avail. Could an admin pop over and help, look over his contributions and address specifically this legal threat? Thanks, --ScienceApologist 06:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

48 hour block issued. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 06:59, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Roads... again

Blocked User:Locke Cole. This user was mass moving Washington State Route pages. If I recall correctly, that is blockable (section got archived). If another admin disagrees with the block, let me know and I'll reconsider. But I did warn the user as well. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 06:48, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Unblocked, since they agreed to not mass move pages. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 07:05, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Blatant flouting of community consensus by administrator Kelly Martin, Template:User_review

There was a huge consensus to keep this page after being listed on TfD and succeeding a Vote for Undeletion after being arbitrarily deleted by MarkSweep (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

Now, the page has been deleted again by Kelly Martin (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) who has completely flouted community consensus to impose her own Point of View on others.

According to policy, and for those administrators that have any respect for the community who are not admins whatsoever, this should be speedily undeleted. If Kelly Martin wants the template deleted she should seek consensus, not force her own view on others with her administrative powers. Bob, just Bob 08:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I have restored it. For the relevant discussions to prove that this is an "obvious out of process deletion" validating a speedy undelete, refer to

• DRV majority to undelete and send to TFD
• TFD discussion with unanimous keep

Hence, community consensus that this is not a T1 candidate. Try to be a bit kind to Kelly however, she only did what she thought was best for the encyclopedia, found the box offensive, and didn't know about the previous discussions. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:07, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I have also restored two more userboxes which were previously restored following DRV consensus and determined to not be T1 candidates at this DRV debate. They are:

• Template:User antitheist
• Template:User antiatheism Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your opinion on the "User review" template, but don't you think you should have taken the issue up with the deleting admin before undeleting? This seems to be the approach that the Committee is recommending these days.

On Template:User antiatheism, TfD doesn't make determinations on whether a template is a T1 candidate. Moreover the reference you gave appears to be for a block deletion of religious userboxes in mid-February, some six weeks ago now. TfD decisions are not "always and for all time." I think you were probably wrong to perform this undeletion on the basis you have cited here, and certainly wrong to do so without any prior discussion at all. --Tony Sidaway 09:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The Template:User antiatheism userbox was in the series of userboxes undeleted by the religion DRV userbox debate. If the community consensus, which came forward at DRV, does not decide which userboxes fall, and which don't fall, within T1, who does? Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

There was a link to the deletion debate in the article history not long before the deletion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:User_review?action=history - hard to assume good faith here.

The user who put the T1 notice on it (you're right it does not fall under T1 as per community consensus - and this should be obvious anyway, it does little more than state the user has an account on a website akin to the Blogger template), Grace Note, has been banned from the forum for repeated trolling - from this likely stems why he wants the site removed. From talking to people at the site he was making a lot of personal attacks, publishing peoples' personal details and generally being very unpleasant. Bob, just Bob 09:49, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe that I made the right decision in deleting the {{User review}} template; this userbox is inherently divisive and serves no encyclopedic purpose. I won't redelete it, but just because of gang of ill-informed individuals on DRV and TFD have decided to keep it doesn't mean that it should be kept. I weep for the state of Wikipedia. Kelly Martin (talk) 12:37, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Now listed on Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates, so we can comment there. These debates are often a little, well ... unrepresentative, so new contributers would be welcome. --Doc ^ask? 12:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

ttttttttttttttttt El_C 14:00, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Using profanity in an edit summary: disruption?

MONGO is threatening to block me for what he calls "disruption" - using the word fuck in edit summaries. Have we really gone this far downhill? It seems like just the other day (four moths ago in fact) that Avar congratulated me for being "#1 on the list of users ordered by the number of edit summaries they've used fuck in". Looking through the history of my talk page to find that, I also found this use of fuck by David Gerard, an arbitrator. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 09:04, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[comment I left on "MONGO"'s "talk" page] Oh, so now we're (well, not me, you) enforcing being nicey-nice? What's next: Singaporean-style laws? Sucks. --ILike2BeAnonymous 09:10, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I resent that comment, ILike2BeAnonymous... NSLE _(T+C) at 09:13 UTC (2006-03-31)

I suppose that in article space it is a bit different than it may be in a dispute page...what outsiders query dispute pages anyway? I asked SPUI to not use that edit summaries such as he did, [94]...it serves no purpose, especially when just correcting a simple mistake...it may be a bit more understandable if the edit summary was due to reverting some kind of vandalism.--MONGO 09:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of the issue of "disruption", is there any reason to continue using that word in edit summaries when you know it causes offence to some? It's not as if you have to choose between offending some people by using it and offending others by not using it. There's no difficult choice to make here. And while it may be difficult to hold back a word that slips out in speech before you've had time to think, that's not the case when you're typing edit summaries. If it's possible to avoid something that offends others and that is not in any way necessary, why even have a discussion about it? AnnH ♫ 09:23, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to be too hard on SPUI here. It seems that type of language is often used in edit summaries, however it isn't good. Words placed on a page can be retracted if they later are found to offend, edit summaries can't. I'd happy see a tightening of what is acceptable in an edit summary - such should be CIVIL, informative descriptions of what you are doing, and not attacks, comments, dialogues or rants. Keep discussion to talk pages. And before anyone trawls through my edit summaries, I'm not taking the moral highground here, I'm just saying...--Doc ^ask? 09:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

To answer the question in the header, using "what the fuck" in an edit summary, by and in itself, is not disruption. It may express legitimate exasperation at the preceding edit. People have varying standards of what they consider profanity. But yes, do try to be nice, also in your edit summaries. dab (ᛏ) 10:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Fcuk! - David Gerard 10:26, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Charlotte Brontë would find that an improvement ;-) AnnH ♫ 10:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

If anyone's wondering, [95] is the specific edit he was referring to - someone, possibly long ago, had linked [[Interstate]] 15. More amusing is something like [[Interstate highway system|Interstate highway]] system that I found somewhere, and probably more annoying is [[Interstate|I-82]] ([96]). --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 10:34, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not commenting on the issue here, but I've changed the section header to omit the phrase being discussed; by having it in the section header, it is included in the edit summary by default everytime someone commments here. Seems to me if there is going to be a discussion of the propriety of such summaries, we should at least avoid doing what is being questioned. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 10:59, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I guess SPUI is right...he should maybe start writing some lyrics for Neil Young if he is so full of prose:)[97]. I can cuss, therefore I shall...oh well....everybody's got ta have a hobby.--MONGO 11:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

SPUI is on Wikipedia:probation and may be banned from any page he disrupts and banned from Wikipedia for up to a week for any provocative edit. As a party uninvolved in this dispute, and noting SPUI's egregious and evidently calculated use of profanity in edit summaries [98] [99] [100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105] (and in one case, as a clear personal attack) and his continued attempts at self-justification in the face of warnings from an administrator and his prior censure from the Arbitration Committee, I hereby ban SPUI from Route_128_(Massachusetts) and its talk page, Woodstock, CT, Poweshiek_County, Iowa, Denny's, Helena National Forest, Virginia State Highway 288, Mountain_Dell_Dam and List of State Routes in Delaware for one week and from Wikipedia itself for two days, to run concurrently and to be enforced, where necessary, by block.

• Concurrent two-day ban from Wikipedia ends April 2, 1130 UTC.
• Concurrent one-week ban from Route_128_(Massachusetts) and its talk page, Woodstock, CT, Poweshiek_County, Iowa, Denny's, Helena National Forest, Virginia State Highway 288, Mountain_Dell_Dam and List of State Routes in Delaware ends April 7, 1130 UTC.
• The article bans do not apply to talk pages except where noted, but I warn SPUI to take care in edit summaries and comments, lest I reset the ban and extend it to talk pages. If he is out to provoke, he will certainly succeed in the case of this administrator to the extent that his probation allows.

I shall note these bans on the log of the Pedophile Userbox case. --Tony Sidaway 11:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

• I'd say the block is justified, noting diff [106] which Tony links to above is a clear personal attack. Steve block talk 11:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

  Based on that edit, yes I definitely concur, but I hope my request to him to not use that type of edit summary didn't provoke him to try and test the water. I was just not understanding why an edit summary such as that was needed in the context of the edit he was making.--MONGO 11:56, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism: it's fun for the whole family!

This Usenet thread sure tickled my funnybone, wherein "Boron" proudly tells how she and her kids vandalise Wikipedia for entertainment. I'd like to show the proper appreciation for their comedic talents. As far as I can tell it's a DHCP address on optonline.net in north New Jersey. If anyone sees anything suspicious in that sort of IP range, please do feel free to block anything up to a /16 with a link to the Usenet thread in question and suggesting those affected by collateral damage contact Optonline abuse over the matter - David Gerard 10:26, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

What's the IP range? I only ask because I (and much of the population of Long Island) come to WIkipedia via Optonline, and the collateral damage could be significant. – ClockworkSoul 13:17, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry she feels that way. Being acessescible to the public makes wikipedia a better source of knowledge, not a playground. Simply because vandalism can occur doesn't mean it should happen or be tolerated. -Zero^Talk 12:04, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

This would be quite interesting, of course, if there were so much as one shred of evidence whatsoever of wrongdoing, let alone any Wiki editing except for this piece I am typing. It is kind that Gary (Huey) Callison has passed this on to you through David Gerard.

If you can find evidence of any editing to Wiki from this address other than this post, please feel free to contact me about it. Until then, I do not appreciate threats.-— Preceding unsigned comment added by Boron elgar (talk • contribs) (Boron)

Given that account was created, oooh, fifty-four minutes ago, it's not surprising it has a nice clean history... Shimgray | talk | 13:55, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't Gary Callison or any other person who posted repeatedly advocating vandalism and bragging about how she and her kids thought it was a great fun activity for the whole family. It was you and no-one else - David Gerard 14:26, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The range is Optimum Online (Cablevision Systems) OL-CPE-OKLDNJ-69-125-192-0-19 (NET-69-125-192-0-1) 69.125.192.0 - 69.125.223.255. Yeah, there'll be a lot of collateral damage from blocking the range. However, look for the IPs - David Gerard 14:26, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Jeans revolution

Hey guys an gals,

User:Spyros Pantenas is removing sourced numbers and replacing them with unsourced numbers. There is also a wonderful reference to the fascist US government at the bottom. I reverted them, and he has immediately reverted them back. I smell a revert war looming, and since I reverted him, I automatically lose if I dont want to break WP:3RR. I would appreciate it if somebody with blocking tools would take a look.

Cheers, The Minister of War ^(Peace) 11:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I have warned the user. --Doc ^ask? 11:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

*tips hat* The Minister of War ^(Peace) 11:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

See also: Alexander Lukashenko, Group psychological research, Communist Party of Austria (all now repaired). --ajn (talk) 12:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I am keeping Lukashenko under watch. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 14:47, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Repeated self-aggrandising vandalism of Archaeogeodesy article

Hi, this is a request for a block to deal with vandalism by a single individual of the archaeogeodesy article. It is repeatedly being vandalised by someone who is continually reverting to a self-promoting text that is 90% devoted to his own works. On occasion he has also included his business-name registration info in the entry.

He has used several IP addresses (listed below). He has also registered the user-name "Archaeogeodesy" and has begun to vandalise under that name too. All of his acts of vandalism are designed to present himself as practically the owner of the field.

On 8+ occasions I have reverted to a version that simply lists the different approaches to the field, of which the aforementioned individual's is one only. He has stated that he considers such reversion to be akin to 'book burning'.

I requested semi-protection but learnt that the vandalism has been insufficiently heavy to justify this, so I was advised to consider requesting a block. This I am now doing.

The individual has also posted my name and email address in the summary to one of his edits.

IP addresses he has used:

70.58.156.200; 4.242.108.232; 4.242.108.232; 67.42.194.251; 4.242.138.69; 4.242.141.205; 4.242.108.213; 4.242.144.186; 4.242.108.176

User name he has used:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Archaeogeodesy

Many thanks.

Neil 12:50, 31 March 2006 (BST)

As a non admin I took a look at the article and I have a few comments. This is basically a content dispute. The article as of this moment is a stub; it seems like there could be a lot more content and if Mr. Jacobs is knowledgable in the area his contributions should be welcomed provided he sticks to WP policies on verifiability and no original research. (He should be free to summarize significant work in the field provided it is properly supported by references). I suggest semi-protection to force the user to stick to one user name. I also suggest other editors remember WP:CIVIL and avoid using words like "kook." I thirdly suggest that the user's perferred version be edited to improve it (by removing original research and adding citations) rather than simply reverting it. If the user persists in owning the article even after these measures, perhaps an RfC. Thatcher131 15:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Johnc1 at Chad "Corntassel" Smith

Johnc1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has resumed inapproprite edits to Chad "Corntassel" Smith after block expired. I've reverted twice, leaving a reminder comment after the first revert. User:Johnc1 was warned several times about adding inappropriate content to this article prior to 3RR block. FloNight ^talk 13:34, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Indef block issued. 26 hours didn't wake him up and its clear that the account is just being used for vandalism and defamation.Gator (talk) 13:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Gator, thank you for your quick response. FloNight ^talk 14:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Gator1, I think an indef block is way too harsh. He's been blocked once for 24 hours for 3RR, and it's true that he started inserting the same type of thing again into the article, but the next step should've been to block him for longer, not to unilaterally decide that he's of no good to the project. Please reconsider. · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 14:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah you said the same thing on my talk page too and I responded. Feel free to reduce the block if you'd like. reasonable people can come to different but still reasonable opinions and conclusions. I won't take offense. But I stand by it.Gator (talk) 14:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I posted at your talk page first, then checked my watchlist and noticed that there was a related thread here. I'll repost my response on your talk page: The block log shows blocks for one incident; they appear to be several because both I and R. Koot blocked him for the same 3RR, then R. Koot rescinded and reapplied his blocks when he changed his mind about the time period for which the block should occur. This is all over the same incident. An indef block is way too harsh, and while I appreciate your willingness to have your decision reversed, that you don't see how this was a hasty action worries me a little. · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 14:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

It's OK to have different opinions, but to become "worried" because someone has a different opnion you worries me. I can see where you're coming from, why can't you see where I and FloNight are coming from? Like I said, feel free to reduce the block as you see fit, I really won't mind.Gator (talk) 14:22, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Look, no hard feelings. Against my better judgment, I unblocked. Feel free to reinstate the time you see fit.Gator (talk) 14:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

No, none taken on my end. Nothing personal at all. But indef blocking is not something to be done lightly, when an administrator does it in place of the arbcom it's justified under the "blocked by the community" portion of blocking policy, which means the action needs to be presented to the community for their comment, which I've given. Look, there are times when folks need to be indef blocked without going through arbcom because they're just that obvious, I fully support that as a practice and have done it myself. Maybe this one will end up being that way, too. I just thought an indef block at this stage was too fast; he's obviously knowledgeable about the subject and I feel should have at least one more chance to contribute positively. Thank you for being openminded. · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 16:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

the vandalstrator / adminivandal User:Postdlf

User:Postdlf, an admin, keeps harrasssing me by vandalizing my user page. when the cops break the law, where do you turn? someone please help me escape this abuser of admin priveleges. --Ghetteaux 14:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

No, he's not vandalising. You are inappropriatly putting your usepage into an article category. Stop it. --Doc ^ask? 14:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I gave Ghetteaux a warning that I was prepared to block him for 3RR and continuing personal attacks. But hopefully this post means it won't be necessary. --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 15:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

yo, Ghetteaux don't need no warning! I'm just out there keepin it reel. sometimes you folx b getting all block happy on the littel man whose just trying to make a contribution. cliques b everywhere, from the hood 2 tha internets. --Ghetteaux 15:25, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Amen to that brother. Please see here for further information. And respect to you for fighting the system by placing your user page into an article/mainspace category - it must be hard being a lone warrior against the beligerent powers that be, be they hood in or here on the 'pedia. Kudos bro. --kingboyk 16:07, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

mad propz for tha shout out. thanx 4 lettin a brutha noe he ain't alone. --Ghetteaux 17:47, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Technical question

Hi there,I tried to block "Izula wow" but in the box it showed as Izula+wow and red error messages came 3 times to tell me there was no such user. I removed the + and blocked it as Izula wow but I am not sure I blocked Izula+wow [107]. You are more techno adept can you tell me why it would'nt block as Izula+wow and if it really blocked. Hit the block button on it and you will see. Maybe nothing but maybe it is. --Dakota ~ ° 17:05, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I tried to come back to this to copy the link and got a big red Flashing WIKIPEDIA IS COMMUNISM. I think that needs to be reported here.--Dakota ~ ° 17:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

• Could you explain why "Izula wow" is a blockable username? Or "Gfffff"? Or "Dungbeatle"? (I know you're fighting hard and well against raging assholism, but I'm curious about these ones.) --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:50, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  • WOW = Willy on Wheels Zzyzx11 (Talk) 19:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
• Did this user perform any page moves that don't show up in the contribs? As I've seen before, WOW might actually stand for "World of Warcraft" or maybe an expression of amazement. --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:25, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

User:62.14.212.229

This user has vandalised the article about Republic of Macedonia several times. I have to state that he does the same thing as some other users do (NikoSilver, Miskin etc.), so he is a possible sockpuppet. I suggest this user be blocked. Bomac 17:22, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I looked at this IP's edits. They were not vandalism; the edits mention some issue with the name of the subject of the article. Vandalism is when an editor replaces text with nonsense, profanity, graffiti, that sort of thing. Check out WP:VANDAL. -lethe ^{talk +} 17:54, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know, but this case is specific. You see, there was a compromise from few months ago when it was decided the name dispute to be described in a proper section (as it is now). A footnote leads to that section. Unfortunatelly, no matter of the footnote, this user (and the others mentioned before) try to put redundant edit in the beggining of the article. That's the whole problem. Bomac 18:03, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

So you have a content dispute with a user. Anon thinks some stuff should go in the intro, you disagree. I don't think admin actions are how we resolve content disputes. Check out WP:DR. -lethe ^{talk +} 18:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Bomac. We can't expect every user to be aware of compromise decisions made in the past, or agree to them when they're explained. Lethe is correct in noting that this is not Wikipedia:Vandalism. That said, if the IP keeps reverting, report that at WP:AN/3RR. If it is an editor logging out to avoid breaking WP:3RR, they will get caught in the auto-block as well. But, really, both of the users that you mention above are reasonable editors who are willing to discuss solutions to content disputes. I have faith that a reasonable discussion could take place if both sides would go easier on the reverting and stay on-topic on the Talk page. Jkelly 18:16, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that someone is obviously using the anon editing in order to avoid the 3RR and force his version. We, ordinary users that don’t want to break 3RR rule are powerless in such situations. I really don’t know what is appropriate to do in case like this. Bitola 18:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Using a different address doesn't let you bypass 3RR, it only makes it harder to spot the violation. Now, is someone claiming that this IP is a person who violated 3RR? I haven't seen that claim yet. -lethe ^{talk +} 18:45, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I can see, 62.14.212.229 recently made 5 edits:[108], [109], [110],[111], [112], and then user:Nejtralitet which can be the same user continued with reverts:[113]. It will be interesting to check if the IP address of user:Nejtralitet has the same range (or maybe it is the same) as the one of 62.14.212.229. Bitola 19:03, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

If nejtralitet is the same person, then there has been a violation of 3RR as of nejtralitet's first edit. However I don't think these edits fall under the aegis of the m:Checkuser policy. Wait longer and see if he persists, perhaps? -lethe ^{talk +} 19:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Roitr

Please block the following sockpuppets of Roitr (see [114] for more information):

• Markdanil (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Mikhai (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Valentinnaksh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Kirilof (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

--Nixer 18:17, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

done. -lethe ^{talk +} 19:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

48hr block on User:Grue - Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates

I have given Grue (talk · contribs) a 48 hour block due to his persistent incivility and combative behaviour on Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates; see his contribs and look at the past few edits, and their summaries. I felt, as I explained on his talk page a 48hr cool down was necessary, as for example his incivil edit summaries, assumptions of bad faith, blanking of a deletion debate etc. really were unacceptable, especially from an administrator. I really, really hate having to do this, what with Grue being a valued contributor, but under the circumstances I can't see any other remedy being applicable, looking at other people's efforts to warn him. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 20:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

You are hardly a nurtral party since you yourself have done what User:Grue was oposeing. At 19:33, 27 March 2006 to be exact.Geni 20:32, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear Geni: May I ask what you were referring to? I haven't participated in the deletion review for userboxes save for a perfunctory note indicating that I'd restored the userbox in question after a number of users had pointed out to me that my T1 speedy was incorrect. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 20:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

So you don't know anything about this?Geni 21:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear Geni: Yes, of course I do; but I can't see what relationship that has to the issue at play here other than that it involved userboxes. Note after the userboxes were undeleted I did not only not delete them, I accepted the undeletion [115] and again, I reiterate, I haven't been involved in the userbox DRV page so far other than to note that I restored a set of userboxes that I formerly deleted. I hope you can determine by viewing my contributions for yourself that I have made sure to discuss with others as a consequence of them raising issue with my decisions as an administrator; I consider it a personal maxim to remain open to civil discussion on all matters relating to Wikipedia. I haven't had any other interactions with Grue, nor any other editor, on the userbox subpage - I thus cannot see how my neutrality could be compromised. If I may say so, your attempts to impugn my ethics are somewhat of an assumption of bad faith, and not really reasonable. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 21:20, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Did you or did you not delete "Template:User antitheist" at 19:33, 27 March 2006 with the reason(Speedy delete. Criterion T1 - divisive/inflammatory)? That tempate has been through DRV. As has Template:User review. You carried out exactly the actions User:Grue was acting against.Geni 21:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Several editors appear to have warned this user of his needless leap into a combative and confrontational stance. One's edit summaries and words can reveal one's attitude in a matter of moments, and this holds true here. Reviewing this user's contributions, I'd like to comment on a couple.

[116]: "Speedy deletion can't override a consensus to keep"

I'm of the opinion that this depends upon where the deletion criterion comes from. Since this was a top-down alteration to the CSD (and I'm well aware that this is a controversial one), I'd be inclined to state that it can. Nevertheless, that's germane to the reason I'm flagging this edit, which is to draw attention to the snide undertones of cabalism.

[117]: "I will block anyone who redeletes it for wheel-warring and disruption"

Which could be considered wheel warring in itself, and would be disruptive.

[118] : No need to blank the discussion; I'm surprised, since I thought Grue was a consensus-based sort of person

I see no reason this block ought not to be left to run its course; and I see benefits both for the blocked user, for the Wikipedia community, and to a large part, I appeal to common sense. Give it a rest. Rob Church 20:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

• I am not an admin and I have been participating in the debate (my view is also undelete) however if I may be permitted an observation this edit alone (blanking the entire discussion) deserves at least a short cooling off period. Thatcher131 21:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't have strong objections to the block, but I think 48 hours crosses the line from preventative to punitive. 24 hours is more than enough for someone to cool down (if they're going to). (Since most people will have had a good night's sleep before it expires.) --Sam Blanning (formerly Malthusian) (talk) 21:23, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

While I personally agree that ignoring an ongoing DRV or TFD discussion is disruptive, a block is way out of order here. Where were the admins blocking Tony Sidaway and MarkSweep when they were taking the iniatiative to speedy delete templates with strong consensus to keep that were undergoing discussion on TFD? --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 21:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)