Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Australian Greens

Could some kind admin step in and knock a few heads together at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Australian Greens. The two leading participants in the debate (User:Welshboyau11 and User:Timeshift9) seem to be having a competition over who can demonstrate the least understanding of Wikipedia policy. I've tried to explain the need for proper sourcing (which shouldn't be hard to find), but one participant seems to think that Google-mining is the answer to everything, while the other seems to be on some sort of postmodernist "there's no such thing as facts" trip. Given the subject (which surely interests contributors with a little more clue than these two), I don't think it would be any great loss to topic-ban the pair of them until they both demonstrated at least a basic understanding of Wikipedia policies regarding NPOV, sourcing, civility (yeah, I know, I should talk...) and what the heck Wikipedia is for. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:45, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I have taken the sources issue to Reliable sources/Noticeboard Welshboyau11 (talk) 02:51, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The 'sources issue' isn't the reason I raised this here. It is a basic failure to comply with (or even apparently understand) basic Wikipedia policies. Anyway, I've had enough of this nonsense - hopefully someone else can make them see sense. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:56, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I take offence to 'seem to be having a competition over who can demonstrate the least understanding of Wikipedia policy' and 'some sort of postmodernist "there's no such thing as facts" trip' especially when other Australian editors and an Australian administrator appear to agree with me. I'll let the pages speak for themselves. Timeshift (talk) 02:53, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

That you seem to think that the nationality of contributors is somehow significant is one reason I raised this here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:56, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect, you shouldnt be offended, as Andy is 100% correct.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  03:01, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Because the other editor seems to think editors are agreeing with him when they aren't. Australians don't own the article but they do hold the most sway out of it based on editors involved because that's where most of the interest comes from - this goes for any article of any nationality. It almost comes across sounding like it's being said that we don't count. Little green rosetta, so does that apply to others who are of the same view as me? And if not, why not? Timeshift (talk) 03:02, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:ROPE is cheap tonight.   little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  03:09, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Can you respond with relevance rather than glibness? Timeshift (talk) 03:13, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, BDuke worded it perfectly here. I'm going to withdraw from this discussion because it's now consuming too much time and energy, and realise that left-wing won't be allowed to be added any time in the near future, the status quo and majority of the article's editors are on my side. Timeshift (talk) 03:17, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Considering you think Austrailains hold more sway over this topic area than others, leads me to belive you have not a clue as to how this place is supposed to operate.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  03:19, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

If more non-Australians have views on this than Australians, then guess what, Australians would no longer hold sway. I'm over this debate. Timeshift (talk) 03:23, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The views of editors are not what determines anything. The views of Australian, or any other nationality's editors, indeed do not count. The views of reliable sources do. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:37, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:CONSENSUS comes to mind. While I actually disagree with Timeshift's stricter construction of it, it is true that the majority of people forming that consensus are likely to be local. If I went to an article on the Canadian NDP or the German Die Linke, I would be entirely unsurprised if the article's main contributors and the main decisions being made reflected, to a greater extent than otherwise, the views of Canadian or German editors respectively with a political disposition, or their expatriates abroad. Orderinchaos 09:00, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I've not looked into Timeshift yet, but this misquoting of the Greens magazine by Welshboyau11 (also here and here) where the Greens argue that they do not fit in a left-right schema (Welshboyau11 uses it to say they're "clearly left-wing" quoting a part that indicates he had to read and ignore all the stuff saying they're not left-wing) screams "POV-pushing" to me (ignoring problems with WP:NOR and that that Greens magazine cites Wikipedia). His accusations of POV with anyone who doesn't support him (like this) goes against WP:AGF. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:55, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The issue with the Greens article is silly. Yes, I took out a quote. I think that's reasonable. I used other sources which can be found on the discussion pages, including an Encylopedia. The article does say the party is left-wing. I sugested we take the other part into account too, in the article. Welshboyau11 (talk) 06:11, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Andy's appraisal is spot-on and it would be good if this one could be dealt with quickly rather than being allowed to develop into a full scale drama. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:55, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to note that one of our major protagonists here, Welshboyau11, has only been with us a week, and has already managed to upset quite a few other editors with his thoughts on them. This discussion is at least partly about policies. One that I would strongly recommend to Welshboyau11 is WP:Assume good faith. HiLo48 (talk) 08:25, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I actually did subject myself to reading the entire discussion on that page, and the impression I came away with is that the number 1 issue, over and above any content being raised, is Welshboyau11's "attack dog" behaviour. For the time-poor, I recommend skipping to the bits that follow Bilby's and Bduke's contributions - Bilby posted a rational, nuanced consideration of the issues with no attacks, implied or otherwise, and Welshboy went for the throat. His acquiescence to an editor who's somewhat made a name for themselves at the Julia Gillard article, Skyring/Pete, stands in stark contrast. WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL do not have clauses "these only apply when you agree with me". Orderinchaos 08:56, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Looking over others' assessments (and seeing Welshboyau11 continue to defend his overemphasizing half a sentence out of a whole magazine article on how the Greens are are not left-wing to push his "Greens are left-wing" agenda), I'm starting to think that Welshboyau11 should be topic banned from articles on Australian politics until he learns the five pillars. I wouldn't cry over more action being taken, but it's pretty clear that Welshboyau11's agenda on the Greens article is inhibiting his desire to be a good editor. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:11, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Half a sentence? The relevent section is "According to Wikipedia, the left of politics generally ‘supports social change to create a more egalitarian society. [This] usually involves a concern for those in society who are disadvantaged relative to others and an assumption that there are unjustified inequalities (which right-wing politics views as natural or traditional) that should be reduced or abolished.’ Under this definition, the Greens are clearly left-wing, and all the “four pillars” (participatory democracy, peace and non-violence, social justice and ecological sustainability) work towards these aims." That seems more like two paragraphs than half a sentence to me and seeing as it refers directly to the Wikipedia definition is seems quite relevant to me. The article is not arguing that the WA Greens are not left-wing, but that the left vs right argument is simplistic and that there is more to the reality of politics. I agree that Welshboyau11 needs to learn to slow down a bit, Wikipedia is not benefitted by undo battles or personal disputes on discussion pages, but he has only been part of the community for a couple of weeks so I think we should give him a chance to learn how things work. Welshboyau11 I have had disagreements with Timeshift9 (which does have an F)in the past but we have been able to talk them out and find common ground. Politics is inherrantly an emotive subject and leads to passionate discussion, but if we work together (not topic block someone in their first weeks) we can all learn to cooporate for the good of all. Djapa Owen 23:53, 6 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djapa84 (talk • contribs)

Arbitrary break - how to resolve this matter?

Having had a read through the thread on the noticeboard, Welshboyau11 has a major issue with anyone not agreeing to his desire to universally classify the Australian Greens and align them with Green parties around the world regardless of their history and roots. Anyone disagreeing with him is instantly accused of having some sort of political bias that skews their POV. I probably wouldn't be off the mark in saying that over half the posts in that thread are from Welshboyau11. Topic ban him for disruption, persistent WP:ABF, civil POV pushing etc etc. Blackmane (talk) 09:13, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

He's also now taken to labelling Timeshift9 "dumb and arrogant", "fascist" and "racist" on his talk page as well as in some of the debates, and referring to him as "Timeshit". Other admins might want to keep a watch on this newer development (firstly, I'm semi-involved, and secondly, I'm not around much.) Orderinchaos 09:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

He says it was an 'error'...pretty convienent one if you ask me. And his further comments are perplexing - maybe it's just the late hour, but I can't find any comments by or about Timeshift regarding his nationaility, or criticism thereof, in the above discussion? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

An error is something you might do once, but twice the same error, with no similar pattern of a missing "f" on the keyboard? Trouble is, a large number of editors while showing AGF, being smooth, sensible and giving detailed and repeated advice, are consistently ignored. The net damage is significant editorial time being channelled to damage containment instead of positive editing. I agree with AndyTheGrump, Ian.thomson and Blackmane that admin action is required to help Welshboyau11 reconsider how he might constructively contribute. Timeshift's disputed comments are discussed above and are at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Australian Greens. --ELEKHH^T 10:51, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I could probably overlook the "f" misspelling, which is a bit unfortunate in this case. I've got a keyboard that occasionally doesn't register "e", "r", "f" and "t" at work. Given how often these letters are used, you have no idea how much that drives me up the wall. Apart from that, the degeneration into name calling is entirely unnecessary. Godwin's law may kick in soon. At this point, we've managed to see the usual collection of WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL violations, WP:IDHT, general disruption, WP:ABF, POV pushing, persistent WP:ABF and probably throw in WP:TE. For a week (ish) old account, that's pretty impressive. Blackmane (talk) 11:31, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I would overlook the F misspelling if it was not in combination with other problems. At this point, I'm thinking that a block would probably be in order, since he's contributed nothing positive to the site but plenty negative. If he agrees to a topic ban on modern politics and agrees to never talk with Timeshift, I could see him having just one more chance.

Will someone just block Welshboyau11 already? Ian.thomson (talk) 12:50, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I would if I wasn't semi-involved. Orderinchaos 15:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

After only a week on wikipedia, and my only uncivl offence to call someone a racist and fascist, a block is not in order. I did misspell Timehift and it was an error. Who cares? Hardly a hanging offence anyway? I do not agree to a topic ban on modern politics - I don't think that is warranted yet. Welshboyau11 (talk) 01:37, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

People being topic-banned rarely do. And calling someone a racist and a fascist is not just a personal attack, but it could easily be construed as a BLP violation as well. If you don't want to be blocked, you need to accept when you're wrong - starting now. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:58, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I must say, I haven't seen any other of his words missing an f, and therefore seems pretty unlikely it happened on Timeshift, twice. Just sayin'. Timeshift (talk) 06:54, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Most people would have read [{WP:5P|the pillars]] and avoided attacks in the first place. You don't have to agree to a topic ban, if there is sufficient community consensus for there to be one, it will be placed and enforced upon you. Normally, I'd be sure there would be shreds of good faith still lingering here and that a one time warning for the attacks would usually be considered sufficient. However, your attacks stacked on top of the other issues is unlikely to garner you any good faith. I had been holding off on actually suggesting this, but there seems to be 2 options. (1) a 6 month topic ban on modern Australian politics broadly construed or (2) indef block for all the afore stated issues plus the increasingly battleground mentality. Blackmane (talk) 12:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Indeed - topic bans usually reflect the community doesn't trust the user's judgement when it comes to editing in a particular topic or area, and so it's imposed rather than negotiated. I would actually suggest a much shorter topic ban (say 1 month), which can then be extended out to 6 months if after the month we see the same level of disruption and drama as we've seen this week; plus a possibly indefinite interaction ban with Timeshift9. If either is breached, site-blocks starting at 48 hours are imposed. I don't believe this user is beyond learning how to properly interact with the site, but they're a long way from that stage now. I have seen editors, though, who've got into all manner of trouble after coming in from the blogging or student politics world and they've eventually become highly useful and productive editors with otherwise unremarkable histories. Orderinchaos 14:33, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Someone needs to do something! Now they're making a mess of the CLP article. Though the editor reminds me of a blocked/banned editor whom kept on returning under a few socks. Bidgee (talk) 09:20, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of the connection, but now you mention it, it seems somewhat obvious given their use of language and so on (although it's far more strident than I ever remember Watchover/Stravin using). One thing which stood out today is the attention to detail of MPs in various houses. Unfortunately any sock investigation would be unbelievably stale as those accounts were about 3 years ago. Orderinchaos 10:22, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Careful - Welshboy11 and references to socks don't go down well at all with him. Timeshift (talk) 10:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

How am I making a mess of the article? It is constructive editing. Since you disagreed, I've taken the issue to talk.

They're also doing things like this, and is engaging in much the same behaviour. Timeshift (talk) 09:48, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Timeshift has continued to follow and harass me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Country_Liberal_Party#Proposed_change_to_infobox Welshboyau11 (talk) 10:15, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

If you expect to move on without having to face what's been said to you, think again - this isn't harassment. Look at other editors comments above. You're blatantly ignoring everyone. Timeshift (talk) 10:18, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I have tried to disengage from the debate about the Australian Greens and my proposed changes. I will edit in other areas now. I am not going to get involved with or speak too Timeshift. I note he is following me and having a shot at me - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Country_Liberal_Party#Proposed_change_to_infobox. Please give me another chance and let me edit constructivley. I will learn from this experience. Welshboyau11 (talk) 10:40, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I've looked at your rationale for changing it, and quite frankly, you've made a misrepresentation to justify your changes at the article, claiming that other articles use your preferred form of wording when they actually don't, and that's very plain to see for anyone who wishes to come by and check for themselves. After your misrepresentations of sources at the Greens dispute picked up by other editors (including saying that a source said pretty much the opposite of what it actually did), I'm not sure that there is a strong basis for the community to trust you to continue editing in an area in which you seemingly have major problems in aligning your own editing goals with those of the project. Wikipedia relies essentially on honour and trust to get stuff done, and if we can't function at that basic level, then it's only fair to impose restrictions and see how you handle them in areas other than those under dispute. Orderinchaos 10:46, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I made a small mistake. I have update my post to: That's not true. I did make a mistake in saying that it said Scottish seats in the House of Commons' and 'Welsh seats in the House of Commons'. But you made a mistake too. Did you notice that Welsh Labour has 26/40 - meaning Labour holds 26 of the 40 Welsh seats. With Scottish Conservatives, it says 1 out of 59 - indicating the Scottish Conservatives hold 1 out of 59 Scottish seats. Overall, their are 650 seats in the House of Commons in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. But rather than saying 26/650, since Welsh Labour only contest seats in Wales, it says 26/40 (40 being number of Welsh seats). Or take a look at Welsh Conservative Party - that was an example I was going to use. It specifically says 'House of Commons (Welsh Seats), 8/40. Welshboyau11 (talk) 10:59, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposed actions

Based on the above, it appears that Welshboyau11 (talk · contribs) is editing tendentiously and engaging in battleground behaviour on Australian political topics after just a week on Wikipedia. Other concerning behaviour includes misrepresentation of sources, personal attacks on other editors and forum shopping.

I therefore propose that Welshboyau11 is topic-banned from editing on Australian political topics for a one-month period, enforceable by blocks starting at 48 hours. He has noted on his user page that this is not his only editing interest, so it does not seem onerous. Orderinchaos 10:46, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

• Support That seems sensible to me. The only alternative is to block him right now for tendentious editing. Nick-D (talk) 10:57, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

There has been a misunderstanding! Please read my post above. I didn't misrepresent the Welsh/Scottish parties issue. Please see above. Welshboyau11 (talk) 11:02, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose. I am a new editor. I've only been here for a week. I am sorry for all this. I did try to make a simple proposal in good faith. Unfortunately, it became sidetracked and turned into a slanging match. I am sorry for my part. I note this referal was about Timeshift too. But he is being ignored. I would like to ask editors and administrators to give me one more chance. I have leart from this. I didn't know many wikipedia rules and regulations (There are a lot!!) but I have certainly learnt a great deal now. I have a passion for this, and enthusiasm. I feel I can contribute to the project. I apologise for my mistakes. I would ask editors to consider giving me one and one only chance to contribute positivley. The best editors can get off to a rocky start. No one is perfect. And I've learnt a lot - that can only be a good thing. I'm sorry for misinterpreting and misrepresenting some sources. In the heat of the moment, I tried to skim over things and take out key points. Clearly, that was a mistake. Over to you guys. Welshboyau11 (talk) 13:13, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Comment, please don't attempt to drag me in to your aura of incivility. Timeshift (talk) 07:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• Mostly Support Welshboyau11, this isn't a full blown ban from the site. A topic ban is a community imposed limitation that is basically the community not wanting you to edit anything to do with Australian politics. This is entirely different to a community ban, which is a community sanction further enforced by an indefinite admin block to prevent you from editing at all. You are still free to edit articles, just not those to do with Australian politics. A topic ban is something you abide by but admins cannot use their tools to stop you from editing the articles you are topic banned from. However, if you do you'll be hauled back to ANI where stronger sanctions perhaps blocks will be imposed. At this point, I highly recommend you accept the topic ban and go work on other articles. In some cases, topic bans removing editors from articles has actually led them to finding other articles to edit in and making really great contributions. This topic ban lapses in a month and in that month it is our hope that you'll develop into a good contributor at which point if you go back to Australian politics and don't cause a ripple, the ban has done its work. Blackmane (talk) 13:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
• Total support - with assumed support for expanding the topic ban if necessary. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:44, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support, alas this has been proven to be necessary. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 17:02, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support, and remind Welshboyau11 that he can always come back and appeal the topic ban after he has established himself as a productive editor on other articles; I suggest waiting 6 months before applying. Never mind; I misread the topic ban period. Support without reservation. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:06, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support, is better for everyone, including Welshboyau11, who as a new editor can much better learn by working on less contentious topics first, and is obvious from his latest edits that he still has a lot to learn. I think much more prompt admin action would have been warranted already days ago and would have been highly beneficial. --ELEKHH^T 23:04, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose for now, Welshboyau11 has said he is willing to learn from this already, and as far as I can see his combativeness has been contained for the last few days. I would suggest giving him another week or so of rope. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djapa84 (talk • contribs) 00:03, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
• Total support, duh. Timeshift (talk) 07:27, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Comment. Do you Totally Support yourself being banned too, as Andythegrump suggested? Or just me? Welshboyau11 (talk) 08:55, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

How long ago, and with an admission that I wasn't looked in to? You're the problem here. Please don't attempt to drag me in to your aura of incivility. Timeshift (talk) 10:06, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Andythegrump refered you two. See above. Welshboyau11 (talk) 11:18, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

You already said that. Timeshift (talk) 12:41, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Do you feel a constant need to snipe at people? Welshboyau11 (talk) 13:22, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• cough* The pot calling the kettle black? Bidgee (talk) 13:24, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Such bans are really bandaids. I think welshboy can learn, but needs to slow down (Wikipedia is not an urgent task) and work a lot on paying more attention to what others say. A ban won't help him learn anything. HiLo48 (talk) 07:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
• Comment. People can learn without being punished. As AndyTheGrump, the user who started this admin action said: 'The opinion of 'Australian editors' regarding whether left-wing and right-wing serve a purpose is utterly irrelevant. Wikipedia articles aren't based on the opinions of editors, they are based on what reliable sources say' - that is what I was trying to say. Just not so well. Welshboyau11 (talk) 08:55, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
• Comment. Further to that, when proposing I be topic banned he said 'Frankly, given the clear failure of both the leading participants (Timeshift and me) in this discussion to understand basic Wikipedia policy, I'm beginning to wonder whether they should be topic-banned for lack of clue' So if I'm banned, so sould Timeshift. Welshboyau11 (talk) 08:55, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Welshboyau11 is a new editor, seems to be learning fast, and IMO is being harassed by Timeshif, who has an abrasive manner towards everyone who disagrees with him, not just newbies. I'd like to encourage new editors, regardless of their political leanings, rather than push them away. There are enough eyes on Australian political articles that we aren't going to find ourselves too far skewed one way or another. --Pete (talk) 09:05, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Pete out of fairness you really should have noted this and posted in time sequence. Gnangarra 11:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
    • See below, posted at the same time as above. I was going to comment anyway, as I'd been involved in the thing in a peripheral fashion. --Pete (talk) 01:16, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• noting advised Welshboy about canvassing[1], cnavssing example[2] Gnangarra 08:58, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was kind of poor form, but I'd been looking at the discussion anyway, after noting HiLo and Timeshift talking about an ANI case and wondering what it was about. Welshboyau, you should ask for comments from all participants, not just those you think might take your side. We work together here, and I find that the more eyes on a topic, the better. We generally work things out for the good of the community. --Pete (talk) 09:05, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't aware of that policy. I'm still learning! Welshboyau11 (talk) 09:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• Support. It's a minimal restriction for a minimal time and it's not as if this editor doesn't have other pages of interest to work on for a month. I note that Welshboyau11 has said he will stay away from the article in question now, but I'd much prefer to see a formal topic ban to underline this. Voluntary bans are no bans at all. I entirely see that Welshboyau11 will regard this sanction as unnecessary and draconian, but how many topic banned editors agree with their ban? If this short ban teaches him a lesson about what the community expects, he will learn to respect its norms. If he doesn't, then he knows to expect further action. He doesn't have to agree with our norms (though that would be good) as long as he agrees to adopt them while he's here. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 09:56, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support Clearly he hasn't learnt anything, time out (topic ban from Australian political articles) should given them time to learn to dos and don'ts. Bidgee (talk) 10:13, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I can learn from my mistakes without being banned. Welshboyau11 (talk) 10:26, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

If your one and a half week history is anything to go by - no, you can't. And it's not a ban proposal, it is a topic ban proposal. Timeshift (talk) 11:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Editors - this is a truly extraordinary thing. This user talking as if he was a Admin or even Jimmy Wales was actually refered here too as part of this!!!!! Welshboyau11 (talk) 11:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

please read WP:AGF Gnangarra 11:47, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, by yourself. [3] Noone else I can find in the dispute has referred to Jimmy Wales (and it's worth noting that while he is founder of the site, he has no special rights.) Orderinchaos 11:54, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. In relation to each specific claim: 1. The WP:TE linked, is an essay, not a policy or guideline. 2. WP:Battleground is the second claim. It takes two to be involved in a dispute - Timeshift was refered here along with me but no action or proposed action has been taken against him. 3. Misrepresentation of sources. I did not deliberately misrepresent sources. I did mispresent one out of many sources I qouted, by mistake. 4. Personal attacks. Again - it takes two to fight. I have apologised for my comments. 5. Forum Shopping. I don't believe that is against Wikipedia policy, and if it is I did not know. I'm not quite sure what it even is. Welshboyau11 (talk) 11:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll reply to only one point - the first. Tendentious editing is a phenomenon rather than a set of actions, hence why it is described in an essay. I shall quietly file away the irony of disputing TE and battleground in a fashion which displays exactly those two behaviours as just one of those things that happens sometimes. Orderinchaos 11:50, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

How is disputing claims you have made disrputive or 'TE'? Welshboyau11 (talk) 11:54, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Welshboyau11, I appreciate you're new and trying to learn the rules as you go, and for that, I'll definitely cut you some slack and try not to bite too much. But I still can't see evidence that you understand what this topic ban is. If you really are happy to edit something outside of Australian politics for a week or two, then the ban will have no effect on you whatsoever, and you shouldn't care who supports and opposes it here. I think we get that you're new and want to learn, so I'd advise you to give this thread a break and do some article editing. Furthermore, sometimes it's the way people reply to things that's a problem, rather than what they're replying about. --Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The reason I am so passionate about this is I consider it an injustice. If you are trying to housetrain a dog, do you cut off one of it's legs in the hope it will learn, or do you be patient and show the right way? Or, when you first learn how to ride a bike, if you fall off, should you be belted with a stick, so you can see the right way? What does punishment achieve? Nothing. It only makes people more angry than ever. Welshboyau11 (talk) 12:17, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but this isn't life or death, it's an encyclopaedia. And I'm afraid that life isn't fair, you can't always get your own way, bad things happen to people, and sometimes what you're "fighting" for really isn't worth bothering about. Arguing back against points on here isn't helping your cause, but ignoring them and editing articles will. Although it's bad form to quote my own essay at newbies, WP:EOTW may give you some advice. --Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:23, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The exact same principles apply. And while life isin't fair, we should all try to make it more fair. It's not fair to ban a new editor after only a week for non-major breaches. Welshboyau11 (talk) 12:58, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment (Non-Admin / Involved.) I am putting this here because Welshboyau11 asked me [4] to oppose his topic ban here. Welshboyau, I continue to support your position in the content dispute that brought us here. What you are still failing to see is that support for your position is not the same as support for your behavior. The way you, Timeshift, Orderinchaos, and HiLo48 have handled this issue has been awful. We are under absolutely no deadline to get that infobox fixed. What I would recommend is for you, (and the other three editors for that matter,) to voluntarily take a month off of editing the Australian Greens article until everyone has had a chance to catch their breath and is prepared for a reasonable debate on the subject. I think it's a valid discussion to have, and I was ready to join in on your side of the issue. But the tone of the debate on both sides was so horrible that I didn't have the energy to even bother. I wasn't a part of the debate on the article itself, but from the tone of your initial notification to the NPOV noticeboard you had perfectly set the stage for the acrimony that followed. Sperril (talk) 12:40, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Here's a hint: If your debate leaves AndyTheGrump too exasperated to engage in a word war, you might need to step back a bit...Sperril (talk) 12:55, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Just noticed the description above of my behaviour as "awful" and "horrible". Love to know why. HiLo48 (talk) 03:06, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Your point about Orderinchaos is so valid. He is now being all self-righteouess, calling for me to be banned and ignoring his own bad behaviour, and indeed Timeshifts - despite an equal referal of Timeshift and me here. Welshboyau11 (talk) 13:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Please read WP:BOOMERANG, stop criticising what other people have done (we get it) and start looking at your own behaviour. I don't see anyone revising their opinion to topic ban you based on anything you have said. --Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:09, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you were aware, but I arrived on the scene after the Greens edit had basically failed, and I have at least attempted to engage in good faith with Welshboy (including making a reasoned disputation of the sources he put forward which he then deleted), although it's been made more difficult by his behaviour and justifications. Orderinchaos 18:52, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

But why would they? That would look stupid. No one is likely to change their mind. Secondly, I've admitted my mistakes and apologised. I don't think punishment would achieve much. It is counterproductive. Welshboyau11 (talk) 13:14, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

For the third time, Welshboyau11, I'll put it in bold this time so you might actually pay attention to what people are trying to tell you a topic ban does not stop you from editing here, it is the community telling you we don't want you editing Australian modern politics. Go edit something else for a month. A community ban is a ban from the site. This is not a vote for a community ban. I explained it in my vote above, I even posted a more succinct version on your talk page and now I am even bolding it for you. Please read what people are telling you, because it is really exasperating explaining it repeatedly. Blackmane (talk) 13:17, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I heard you the first time. It's still a ban and it's still punishment. If you see my user page Australian Politics is one of my two wikipedia interests. And a month is a long time. Think of it. 30 days untill I can edit properly and talk again. It is punishment. After only one week and one fight, it's a harsh punishment, and I won't learn a thing by being 'topic banned'. I will learn by reading more policies and hearing from other editors. Welshboyau11 (talk) 13:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:HEAR would be an appropriate addition to your list of essays to read at this juncture, I feel. --Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:36, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

A month isn't long. There's nothing stopping you from reading the articles, creating notations in your sandbox or userpage, reading up on various policies, reading talk page discussions, digging for sources, the list goes on. it's precisely your lack of familiarity with various policies and guidelines that has gotten you into hot water. You're topic banned from editing but not studying. You might even find that looking from the outside will give you a fresh perspective. Blackmane (talk) 14:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - Look, this is a newcomer, be gentle. There's no doubt that a topic ban on the Green Party of Australia is called for. But let's not be overbroad. There's no reason that he can't contribute in a meaningful way to pages on historic Australian politics, as opposed to contemporary Australian politics. So let's refine that banned area a bit, please: ...topic banned from matters of 21st Century Australian politics. Thanks. Carrite (talk) 14:58, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
• Also - If it's felt WBAu needs a period of mentorship, I would be happy to volunteer. It is hard to learn the Ways of the Wiki without a tour guide. Carrite (talk) 15:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose as per WP:BITE and because there is not actually that much damage occurring to the article. This is actually a content dispute. It is understandable (though not acceptable) that Welshboy and Timeshift are edit warring over whether the Australian Greens are left wing, because that very topic is an internecine dispute within the Australian Greens itself![5][6]

WP:NPOV does not require us to make a decision, only to represent the major viewpoints, and I think the article would be improved if it had a (small) bit of coverage discussing the difference between the Bob Brown "Deep Green" faction (that sees itself as a new type of political party beyond left-right labels) and the Lee Rhiannon "Eastern Bloc" faction (that sees the party as left-wing). Agreement on this issue between Timeshift and Welshboy is not required for them to be able to collaborate on the article. If we include both their points of view, the article will be improved. --Surturz (talk) 16:25, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's a possible pathway, but the main dispute here was about the simplistic representation of the party in an Infobox. Infoboxes, with their encouragement of far too simplistic descriptions of complex attributes, are one of Wikipedia's worst features, IMHO. HiLo48 (talk) 01:06, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Infoboxes present a summary of information that is otherwise buried in the text. If I want a GDP or population or land area for a country, I look in the infobox. I think it's reasonable that a reader look at an infobox for a political party and get a very broad idea of the party's political stance. --Pete (talk) 01:16, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Tentative oppose. I haven't looked into Welshboyau's behavior in full, but [7] does support a "left" classification, even while making the more important point that the left-right classification seems largely irrelevant. I'm not familiar with Australian politics, but I bet that the average man on the street, asked whether the Greens are "left-wing", would agree. The editor's approach - providing a detailed description of the issue with a reference list at the NPOV noticeboard - appears correct, and I am not convinced he misrepresented the sources. Unless there's something else here, I see no reason to topic ban him. The incivility mentioned might become an issue, but is it now? And if it is, would a topic ban be the appropriate response, as opposed to a simple short block? Wnt (talk) 17:23, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The editor posted (several times) a list of random, trivial references which he got with a search term on Google Books - which shows a "form conclusion first then look for evidence to support that conclusion" rather than "consult sources and form a conclusion" kind of approach - then sticks his fingers in his ears when anyone questions their validity. Several are by non-experts in the field and the mentions are trivial, one is by an author who is an expert but freely admits they are advancing an argument with their text and thus it strays from being an "independent secondary source", another is by a particular Greens senator who is pushing a strong POV within the party that it *should* be left-wing, while others (including other senators) disagree; and at least one of the quoted sources says the opposite of what Welshboy claims it to mean, as an independent editor to this dispute clarified at one of the previous places where this discussion took place. I suggest looking at his talk page where I did so and got no reply and my comment (which was entirely in good faith, and made some suggestions for moving forward) deleted. It was that action in part which convinced me more was necessary - without engagement there is no discussion and no basis for building trust to move forward. (That and his calling another editor a "fascist" and a "racist" without justification, which might work at the student union in an argument but does not here.) Orderinchaos 18:10, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Deleting talk page comments is permitted. Using a search to find sources that agree with what you're trying to say can be misleading, but is not really wrong. Obviously there is more than one opinion here and both should have a place in the article, with some analysis of the basis for their disagreement (that article we've talked about just above does so pretty well). I would have a lot more reservations about this editor if I saw a sea of red ink in his contribution history where he'd taken out information about them not being on the traditional left-right spectrum, but I'm not. The main source of the "tendentiousness" here - as usual, I'm starting to think - is the use of an infobox, which pits editors against one another to war for the content of its narrow confines. The comments you mention sound like they run afoul of WP:NPA, but I don't see why a topic ban would be a solution for that. (To put it another way, Wikipedia editors are already topic banned from personal attacks...) A topic ban is a specialized tool to deal with editors who have shown a persistent failure to deal with one particular area over a long time - it's not something that makes sense to slap on someone after a week of editing when you have no idea how he'd perform in other areas, based on policies that really he just needs to learn to follow. Wnt (talk) 18:26, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Didn't say it wasn't allowed btw - just that it was a rebuff to the only good faith attempt at dispute resolution. When you go to DR the first thing they ask is "Did you try to resolve it with the editor concerned first?" I in fact did. His handling of that - including reiterating the sources without noting they had in fact been questioned in detail - suggested he was more interested in enforcing his will against increasingly impossible odds than reaching a reasonable compromise (and at least one was possible - they are indisputably socially liberal for instance, although not consistently so). BTW, re the source you put forward - in general, we don't use parties' self-descriptions to place them on the spectrum due to observer bias. Orderinchaos 19:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

That's a fair argument - I've formed no opinion on the content issue. But it's a pretty esoteric point of policy (guideline?). I'm only saying it's not time to topic ban based on one week and one dispute. Wnt (talk) 23:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

It's been two weeks now of confrontational rather than collaborative attitude, and clearly following political agenda (as noticeable from tendentious editing on multiple articles, self portrayal in userboxes, canvassing), rather than improving the Encyclopaedia. If you have time to follow the whole discussion, you'll see that disruptive editing was not limited to one page and entailed a broad range of "techniques". One month topic ban is if anything very mild, and already late given the amount of consumed good faith editor time. --ELEKHH^T 01:33, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

What about my userboxes? I didn't know about canvassing. And it has been only this article. Feel free to point to others (don't bother with Country Liberals, that was resolved and was not about making a political point) But you are clearly losing this argument about my ban. More and more editors, even those who disagree with me, are opposing the 'topic ban'. Welshboyau11 (talk) 01:52, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

There is a 2:1 predominance of support:oppose at this time. Of the opposers, one is yourself, another two are ideological allies, and another opposes this measure because he wants *harsher* action (an additional one can also be read that way). I think you need to read the discussion more carefully. Orderinchaos 01:58, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

That is a LIE. HiLo48 opposed my view, but backed my here. And what do you mean 'ideological ally'? I am going to raise a complaint here against you soon for selective use of the truth and for accusing me of various things such as TE which is an essay and accusing me of being involved in more than one dispute - also wrong. Welshboyau11 (talk) 03:20, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't be the first time someone in the depth of trouble you are in has complained about me. I have tried to engage with you in good faith and can easily defend myself, and I doubt I'll even need to as people can see that for themselves. You have been involved in three disputes that I'm aware of in your short time here - Greens infobox, Country Liberals infobox and Greens state/territory AfDs. Perhaps if you focused on something that doesn't involve pitting yourself against other users, you'd have an easier time of it. Orderinchaos 03:58, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I am afraid you lied. The facts speak for themselves. The Country Liberals infobox is not a 'ideological' change and is not a dispute. It has been civil. I proposed one article for deletion, because it is inconsistent with other articles. Welshboyau11 (talk) 05:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - A passing opinion - Welshboyau11, this was on the mark in terms of apology for any problems and explanation re learning the rules - if you'd left it there I reckon this debate would have come to a positive end a while ago. With all respect, trying to get the last word on everything since is not helping. Can I suggest a quick read of WP:BRD, and if it sounds good to you, a simple agreement to follow it? That statement and some evidence of putting it into practice in future edits might still blow this whole thing over. Euryalus (talk) 02:09, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Final Plea. I would really like to be allowed to continue editing pages involving the current NSW Local Elections such as the Sydney City Council elections, 2012 page I created. Welshboyau11 (talk) 06:10, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I am now also working on (and have created) the following pages: City of Botany Bay local elections, 2012, Lake Macquarie City Council elections, 2012, New South Wales local elections, 2012, Newcastle City Council elections, 2012, Warringah Council elections, 2012. I aim to create more. Please allow me to continue this constructive work. Welshboyau11 (talk) 07:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Abuse Report: Claude Closky & Marcel Duchamp Prize (both French and English Wiki Page -- 5 pgs total)

Dear Administrators,

I was wondering how I can go about reporting abuse and unwiki behavior. The pages in question are:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Closky
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp_Prize
3. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Closky
4. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prix_Marcel_Duchamp
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Williams
6. It appears that a new wiki account has been made to initiate the abuse and vandalism. User: Weakart [[8]]

Do you have any suggestions on how I might file a report or get assistance in this matter? Thank you -- --Hellartgirl (talk) 20:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The account edits have clear comments. I am following that case since a paper used a picture I made... As well as I can tell, the artist called LG Williams seems to be an artistic hoax of somekind, and his work seems to exist only on photoshop, therefore it is a problem to use a weird article of the french Huffington post (why not on the english one ?) as an insulting rhetorical question. Jean-no (talk) 23:03, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

• This seems to be a content dispute over the reliability of some article from the French edition of the Huffington Post. (I should note that on the French Wikipedia an admin came to the same conclusion [9].) So try WP:RS/N or WP:DRN. (I've left a note about this at WP:WPVA. Some experienced editor with an interest in visual arts may be able to mediate this affair.) Also please familiarize yourself with Wikipedia:NOTVANDALISM and use WP:user talk pages to post notifications, not the user pages themselves. Tijfo098 (talk) 17:03, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

  I just said « Stop » on WP:fr ! S t a r u s – ¡Dímelo! – 23:26, 5 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Starus (talk • contribs)

  Well, you didn't block either party for WP:VANDALISM but warned them to stop edit-warring, so I assumed you concluded it falls within the realm of WP:AGF-able content disputes. Of course, an edit war is not how such disputes are supposed to be solved... Tijfo098 (talk) 08:08, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

  And it looks like my assumption was correct [10]. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:31, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

• Indeed, I don't see why they are not discussing in French on the French Wikipedia. Starus is an admin there and his warning roughly reads "We are on the French Wikipedia and to write in French. This conflict is of no interest of the article and (their) spillover from other wikis (no less). The blogpost in question appears to be disputed - whatever the blog audience support -, it is (therefore) necessary to add a different secondary source, neutral and reliable for the content in the article. Unless of course that doesn't achieve consensus among contributors. Violations will lead to blocks." As for the "vandalism" and "abuse" part, such terms are not relevant here. I see personal attacks on the frwiki talk page and those need to stop as well. --Jasper Deng (talk) 23:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

  Thank you Jasper. Your translation reflects exactly my idea. Just a thing, I wrote « Unless, of course, that does achieve consensus among contributors ». I left her a last warning for her personal attacks. S t a r u s – ¡Dímelo! – - Starus (talk) 01:16, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Dear Esteemed and Concerned Wiki Colleagues: I am enjoying this conversation, thank you. Please forgive my intrusion but I am curious if any other wiki users share my concerns?

1. Should not the discussion here be oriented upon the repeated deletions from an self-confessed angry editor of a verifiable and reliable source?
2. Because the reason for the user/editor deletion has clearly been documented: "Myself, I'm just pissed off (...so I deleted the posting.). (->Jn) (d) 6 septembre 2012 à 00:25 (CEST)"
3. Clearly deleting another user's posting on this grounds is illegitimate.
4. Moreover, as far as the discussion of 'suspected' a hoax upon an international verifiable source, you are simply kidding yourselves. Where in the HuffingtonPost.fr is the article disputed? Nowhere. This claim is mere fantasy -- mere conspiracy theory.
5. As far as I can tell the HuffingtonPost.fr has 350,000 readers a day and an excellent editorial staff -- surely the editors are professionals and they would would have by now dealt quickly and effectively with any supposed 'hoax'.
6. Possible Remedy: why not simply post the article until which time some wiki editor can publish their contradiction in a similar verifiable source?

I look forward to reading your replies with great interest -- --Art4em (talk) 19:34, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

It depends who posted it and in which part of the site. See The Huffington Post#Controversies and RS/N discussion, particularly the part "In the case of aggregated content, the original source is what should be evaluated." Tijfo098 (talk) 21:26, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, are you talking about the angry wiki editor and his illegitimate deletion? Because this is the matter in question under this thread... --Art4em (talk) 21:26, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

There's no such thing as "off topic" in an AN/I thread. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:54, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Exactly! That is the wiki spirit: there is no such thing as "off topic". In which case, I would propose that we turn our attention something relevant like can 12,345,566,788,345 angels really sit comfortably today in Charlotte at the Democratic Convention? What do any other wiki editors think? --Hellartgirl (talk) 22:42, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

COI?

It would be helpful if the parties involved clarified their affiliations in this matter, as they both seem to have a WP:COI. Jean-no has stated above that a picture of his was used, although it's rather unclear what he means by that. Hellartgirl appears to have intimate knowledge of the employment place of LG Williams--the ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts--, which also "happens" to be the employment place of Julia Friedman who wrote the French Huffington Post blog entry at the center of this dispute. (Also, Friedman doesn't seem to be a regular blogger on the HuffPo, because that was her only post there insofar. If her claims were to be included in Wikipedia articles, assuming they even qualify per wp:weight, they would clearly need to be attributed to her, because the employment connection between Friedman and Williams is simply too strong to allow us to attribute her opinions to the "French Huffington Post", as Hellartgirl has done [11]. Also, 68.98.238.40, who first added this info to the French Wikipedia [12], maps to Scottsdale, Arizona--which is nearby ASU.) Art4em has been focusing on LG Williams for quite some time, including some articles which turned out to be non-notable when examined by the wider Wikipedia community. Finally, let me say that WP:COI does not require a declaration, but one would go along way towards the rest of us extending good faith in this matter, in the face of accounts whose editing appears fairly focused on this affair. Tijfo098 (talk) 12:10, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. And indeed, a novice observer might discern that your diligence deserves merit were it not for the fact that:

1. It should be clear to all by now that too many editors write upon nothing they know very little about, i.e. The Cult of the Amateur
2. This might be the first person in the modern world to describe public records and resumes viewed upon the internet as 'intimate'
3. The above comments clearly display outright prejudice and total disregard in its "oversight" in mentioning that said comments posted above were in response by a user to contest another editor's editorial summary and illegitimate deletion, "((lg williams n'existe pas!))" (● 4 septembre 2012 à 00:09‎ Qiwi (discuter | contributions)‎ m . . (19 259 octets) (-229)‎
4. The reliability of IP's and a clear disdain for anonymity on the internet and wikipedia
5. Specious expertise on just how one becomes regular? [13] [14]

Overlooking this "bad faith" summary wrapped in good faith duplicity and rhetoric, let us simply get to the point of the discussion: "Do you think the 2005 Prix Marcel Duchamp should be reattributed to LG Williams or not? [15] --Hellartgirl (talk) 14:10, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Or perhaps it would be better to say, what is preventing a wiki editor from mentioning in the wiki articles under view that there is an article in one of France's most viewed and peer-reviewed media sources wherein the merits by which an artist who has received France's preeminent art award has been discovered to be illegitimate -- either through plagiarism or ignorance. --Art4em (talk) 17:34, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Hello. What I ment is that the picture used by the Huffington post is a photograph that I took and let on Commons, this one : [16]. Of course, it is perfectly legal from the Huffpo to use this image as it is under a creative commons licence. But still, I couldn't help feeling this a little disapointing to see my work used to (obviously) harm an artist I've been working with for fifteen years now (I write computer programs for him). So this answers to my personal status upon all that. Please note that even if I quite never contribute on en:wikipedia, I know Wikipedia's functionning, as I have been very involved between 2005 ans 2010 (less now : I miss time for it). So I'm usualy careful on personal matters, and, for instance, I quite never do anything on the pages of artists I work with, except very factual stuff, as correcting dates or titles. I came to this case when I've been noticed that my picture was on the Huffington Post. Since then, I did a little research, of course. At first, I thought LG Williams didn't even exist, as I never heard his name and guessed that the pictures of his work were pure photoshoping. But the man exists, he is a teacher, essayist, and since something like two years, he shows his work. He has (forged, I think) tracks on the Internet : numerous Kindle books, websites, etc. To my guess, all this is a self-created famous artist of the internet age in the style of Paul Devautour (french artist who invented his own critics) or the excellent "Yes Men"'s debut, RTMark. These kind of pranks are very common in contemporary art... Six month after a scandal related to them, suddenly the truth is known : it was a fake, wikipedia, Slate, the Huff and whoever have been fooled,... I cannot swear for sure it's the case here, I just have hints, the first ont is that I never heard of LG Williams, the second is that this artist appears in a show in France since the day before the Huffpo's paper, and the third one is that a domain name have been bought one week before, just to relay the HuffPo's paper : http://2005prixmarcelduchamp.com/. Claude Closky is a quite famous artist, I don't see how he could have fooled the art critics for 15 years by reproducing the work of an unknown wannabe artist. I wrote to Ms Friedman by e-mail, and she answered me this : "Please post your question as a comment, I will respond in detail. I appreciate a personal message but this discussion should stay in the public forum". But guess what : my last comments on the HuffPo's site are not displayed anymore !

Now you know my background and my point of view. The rest of the story is yours. Of course, feel free to ask me anything else. Sorry for my unpracticed english. Jean-no (talk) 18:34, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Forgive me for bringing to our attention that this thread is attracting a swarm of irrelevant personal asides, unsubstantiated remarks about 'hoaxes' and 'conspiracies', cloaked biases from supposed saints, and here-say from editors whom "never do anything on the pages of art"?

Therefore, allow me to remind those learned editors that the point of this discussion is:

1. What is preventing a wiki editor from mentioning in the wiki articles under view that there is an article in one of France's most viewed and peer-reviewed media sources wherein the merits by which an artist who has received France's preeminent art award has been discovered to be illegitimate -- either through plagiarism or ignorance.[17] --Art4em (talk) 17:34, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

May we proceed with the matter at hand? --Art4em (talk) 18:51, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

come on, Art4em ! You perfectly know that this phrasing cannot be told as a truth ! I have not used the word "conspiracy", just "hoax" and "pranks". I didn't either said that I never do anything on the pages of art : I am an arts college teacher and I even gave courses where y students had to contribute to Wikipedia (first in the world ! had a little press for that...). I write a lot about art. But I also have a lot of artists among my friends and collegues, and for those ones, I try not to write on wikipedia, I feel it's not my place to do : any artist seems a great one if he is your beloved uncle, your admired neighbour or your soulmate (is that the problem, Julia ? Tell us !). So I usualy avoid editing about people I know on wikipedia, that's all.

So I told what my "personal asides" were, but did you ? Why are you using two different accounts to discuss all that ? Jean-no (talk) 19:57, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Another thing : you cannot speak about the Huffington Post's blogs as France's most viewed and peer-reviewed media sources. It is a minor website for France, that uses the formers blogs of an old website, "The Post", that was a very free website where anyone could write (and did), mostly known for conspiracy theories about illuminati or so. Now it's better I think, because there is a professional staff for the frontpage articles, leaded by Anne Sinclair (wife of the terrible former IMF president Dominique Strauss-Kahn). But if you ask in the street about the Huffington Post, most french people will have no idea about what it could be (Slate is more famous for instance). Now can you call it a peer-reviewed website ? I'm into academic research and what I know about peer reviewing is that peers have names ! I don't know who reviews the Huffpo's blogs... Do you ? Jean-no (talk) 20:05, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that is not the place for personal and irrelevant bias's, rants and diatribe's about one life or failings. But that is just my opinion. Please consult Wikipedia guidelines for verifiability and cited materials. Defaming the #86 website in the world with an estimated readership of 350,000 people a day -- and belittling the "Most Shared" article this month in HP.fr is, well, perverted.

Therefore, if I may be persistant I would like to remind those learned editors that the point of this discussion is:

1. What is preventing a wiki editor from mentioning in the wiki articles under view that there is an article in one of France's most viewed and peer-reviewed media sources wherein the merits by which an artist who has received France's preeminent art award has been discovered to be illegitimate -- either through plagiarism or ignorance.[18] --Art4em (talk) 17:34, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Please stop repeating yourself - and using the bold. Bold = shouting on the Internet. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 20:58, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

@Art4em : "defaming" ??? In French, defamation is precisely what you try to do about Claude Closky : claiming that a person did something legaly wrong. Just saying that the Huffpo is not the most famous french-speaking website (not as famous as it is in english for instance) is not defamation, it is my observation. HuffPo is quite recent here you know. And 300 000 views/day for a website with so much content doesn't seem a lot to me but that's just my opinion. Was it realy le "most shared" article of the month ? A few tweets, not even a hundred facebook "likes" don't seem a lot to me. But wether I'm wrong or right about that, the number of pagevews has never been an evidence of relevancy. If a lot of different authors told the same, if it had made a huge scandal, well, the paper would be noticeable.

I think it is wrong from you to act as if the good of Wikipedia was your only purpose : obviously you have your own interests or bias. The difference with me is that you are not very transparent about it (and never answer on it). This situation is being a little ridiculous. Jean-no (talk) 21:11, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I wish admins good luck enforcing WP:BLP in this matter. That's all I have left to say on this. Tijfo098 (talk) 01:35, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry ?

I think that User:Art4em and User:Hellartgirl might be one and only person pretending to be two with the purpose of legitimizing each other's claims. I suspected that because of their similar way to express themselves, but I have quite no doubt since I saw that User:Art4em answered to a question asked to User:Hellartgirl : [19]. I don't know how sockpuppetry is considered on the english-speaking wikipedia (on the french wikipedia it is not a felony, depends of the use), but it doesn't seem very healthy to me that a person uses several identites in a controversy. Jean-no (talk) 22:35, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I started to suspect the same but they deny it, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Art4em. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:11, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, time will tell ! Jean-no (talk) 23:18, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Jew Watch

Talk:Jew Watch (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Can an admin please review the recent edit war on the talk page and knock some sense into some people?  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  02:41, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I think it's mainly the new(?) editor, and I've warned him and will be keeping an eye out. Dougweller (talk) 10:50, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems more like some people there wants to remove comments that are indeed to the discussion about the article, but not liking when others do it about comments that are not about the discussion. hipocrisy in this case of Jim1138. do talk to himWitsBlomstein (talk) 13:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

WitsBlomstein the issue is that we do not delete other people's contributions to the talk page. That is what talk is about, healthy discussion. We edit the article and discuss the edits on the talk page in order to try to reach consensus. I appreciate that the topic of the discussion is an emotive one. It is for both sides. Try abiding by the procedures the Wikipedia community have developed and seek moderation by an administrator if it is not working OK? The same of course goes for Seb az86556, Jpgordon and Mann jess, I do not believe deleting contributions from the talk page is appropriate do you? Djapa Owen 14:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djapa84 (talk • contribs)

WitsBlomstein is a pretty obvious sock of the IP hopping anon editor 109.225.103.247, 77.53.83.107, and 77.53.83.205, who have been readding comments to a closed discussion. Given that, he's edit warring. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

And 77.53.83.46 (talk · contribs) who has also edited the same page (all the IPs are from last month). He's editing on articles to do with Jews, white supremacy, etc. Virtually every edit of his that isn't on a trivial subject has been reverted. Dougweller (talk) 16:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

True djapa, thats why he delted said article is not ok. he never did try to discuss it. Its pretty obvious that ian thomson, stephen j, jpgordon and Dougweller is Meatpuppeting. you have been adding comments to a Not forum discussion. you confused not forum with closed. given that, ian is indeed edit warring via Meatpuppetry, you dont need 3rr to edit war, you just need same editors teamtagging and meatpuppetrying it. it also seems from the list of Dougweller that he has been editing articles that has to do with jews, white supremacy(check history) and users who are jews. so its kinda ironic that every edit he made isn't on a trivial subject has been reverted. its also true that he lets the Talmud gets desecrated, but will allow other sections not to be desecrated? if that is not bias then what is?WitsBlomstein (talk) 02:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

If you get involved in a hostile way, though, then you risk the situation where people see both sides as equivalently misbehaving, and then don't act against either of them - whereas if all the fighting seems to be one way then it's much easier for neutral admins to deal with the party causing the offence. Admins are volunteers and often unaware of the wider context of what is going on, so try to understand based on what actions are taking place at that exact time. Orderinchaos 02:10, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I've filed an SPI on WitsBlomstein, though it's honestly a formality. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:27, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

WitsBlomstein's comments above are to put it mildly silly but show, again, that this isn't a constructive editor. I think he is probably a sock, but of a named account. The IPs haven't edited this month or at the same time WitsBlomstein has edited, so I doubt there will be any blocks. Dougweller (talk) 05:39, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

user:Alwaysunpctruth

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Wants to use Stormfront, the Racialist Papers, and other such sources on Amy Biehl and related articles. Refuses to engage in discussion/talkpage. More eyes needed. Thanks. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 14:08, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Blocked indef. No hope of productive edits. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:47, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

It's my opinion that we should block all usernames containing "truth" on sight. ;) Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:51, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Good idea, support. Also all usernames containing words like "justice", "fair", "balanced" etc. (Oh, look, here's a double whammy; can anybody find a username which has all three?) Improve Wikipedia, block 'em all. Bishonen | talk 15:11, 6 September 2012 (UTC).

Strongly endorse indefinite block. Completely unacceptable. If there is any more of this sort of thing I'd appreciate being notified. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:18, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

• Username suggests blatant bad faith POV vandalism, to be honest. --Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:25, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• No, not over yet. I'm going through links to flawlesslogic.com. Can someone smart build in a filter and block that Nazi propaganda site? Drmies (talk) 22:56, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

  Wouldn't blacklisting it be more acceptable? —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 17:09, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• Maybe, sure--anyway you like it, as long as those sites don't keep showing up here. See, that's why I was asking for someone smart. ;) Drmies (talk) 05:02, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

quack quack quack

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compare first edit of User:Alwaysunpctruth to first edit [20] of Politicallyincorrectfacts (talk · contribs) -- The Red Pen of Doom 17:17, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Slow brewing edit war at 16:10, has been going on for months

I'm somewhat involved in this because I've already given an opinion at RS/N [21], but I've also noticed that the article 16:10 has been the subject of recurring bouts of edit-warring. Some admin intervention may be necessary, at least in the form of warnings. There has been discussion on the talk page among disputants in the last week of August, however it looks like they've (again) resorted to reverts at the beginning of September. Mind you, there has been edit-warring around the exact same paragraph at the beginning of August and in the middle of July as well when the page was protected, so this is inching towards WP:LAME. Tijfo098 (talk) 16:53, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Given the response at Talk:16:10#3O in July and now at RS/N, I'm inclined to say that the wp:consensus seems to favor inclusion of that paragraph as having appropriate wp:weight based on the opinion of multiple technology journalists appearing in reliable sources. So, the editor User:Urklistre who (with help of the SPA User:Yokononos) keeps removing it appears to be engaging in disruptive editing at this point. (There was also a WP:DRN discussion in July, which was closed due to Urklistre's non-participation.) Tijfo098 (talk) 17:42, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify (I'm one of the editors involved), the paragraph has been disputed since 9 July, which is when I first added the content in question [22]. There has since been one attempt at WP:DRN and two attempts at WP:3O, a few other editors have become involved, and in fact the dispute seemed to have been more or less resolved, until the most recent bout of edits and reverts, by the editors mentioned above. While this has been accompanied by attempts of discussion on the talk page (see Talk:16:10#Questioned part about opinions), I have to agree that User:Urklistre's behaviour points to a disruptive editor (I filed an ANI report about it about a month ago, but it didn't receive any response). Indrek (talk) 17:48, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Tijfo's assessment. This is a good example of how an editor who went through almost every dispute resolution available was unable to solve the dispute because another editor (and I'd say two possible socks) has no problem just being aggressive. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:37, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

• This is too lame for words. I have protected this article for two weeks, which is enough time for anyone with a bit of common sense to propose an RfC on the talk page--one which proposes something simple like a choice between two different paragraphs, or which asks in addition to that whether a given source is to be used or not. You all hurry up and get that show on the road, because if you don't I will ban all of you from editing that particular article, and I will burn the talk page (I can't believe I read it) and merge the whole damn thing into 16:9. Good luck. Drmies (talk) 22:50, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Checkuser note. Urklistre (talk · contribs) and Yokononos (talk · contribs) are a  Confirmed match. I have indeffed the latter, but, considering the article just got protected, was leaning towards just warning the former. If a fellow admin is feeling less lenient than I, do feel free to block. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 23:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
    • You are a more generous person than I am with socks. I'm very patient with disagreements between editors or content disputes, but not deception (lying) which is the goal of socking. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 00:12, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Haha, I was waiting for a CU to come by: it looked all too easy. I'm going to unprotect the article and block the Urk for two weeks for socking and editwarring and being a complete disruptor. If they come back and do it again Dennis B. can do this thing. Drmies (talk) 00:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
      • I had filed the SPI right after I saw this, it just took a while for a CU to get freed up. I almost duck blocked. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 00:22, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
        • It looks like WP:GIANTDICK applied here. Thanks guys. Tijfo098 (talk) 09:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
        • Thanks for the swift response, everyone. I assume this wraps up the issue and the article is OK to edit again? Indrek (talk) 12:33, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
          • The article has been unprotected, so whoever isn't blocked can edit it. Hopefully this was a learning experience for Urklistre and he'll be more collaborative in the future. Tijfo098 (talk) 12:47, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

User:Yummy Dunn

Formerly Vtr1781249, this user was brought to ANI for a policy issue regarding WP:UKNATIONALS recently, and though he said he read the policy, this, this, and this indicate that there is a unilateral application/removal of the word "British" being applied. The latter removal in fact contradicts a UK government site's terminology. MSJapan (talk) 22:43, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Nationality and ethnicity are not the same thing, Nationality refers to a persons heritage whereas, ethnicity refers to ethnic status. For example, to say I was a Greenlandic Asian would be incorrect, I'm either Greenlandic or I'm an Asian but clearly not both, however, I can be a White Greenlandic or Black Greenlandic &c. The British Government data collection statistics were not contradicted, they refer to both nationality AND ethnicity and are, in any case consolidated statistics Yummy Dunn (talk) 23:13, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

If you are going to quote British Government statistics, you must quote the exact terms they use. They ask people if they are Black British, Asian British etc deliberately, and the terms should not be deprecated. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I would not personally rely on Government statistics, but use independently compiled statistics, however, to answer your point the British Government stats are Consolidated for both nationality & ethnicity, in the article which was corrected, the topic was "Nationality", so the quoted statistics were wrongly applied Yummy Dunn (talk) 23:49, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Its a clear pattern of disruption. If you check Yummy Dunn's contribution record you will see similar edits on other articles. In each case s/he was reverted and asked to use the talk page but simply reinstated the edits. We now have another spate on another set of articles, with the same arguments about nationality and ethnicity with no reference to sources. We have a single Issue, disruptive editor who seems willing to ignore the community. ----Snowded ^TALK 12:13, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yummy Dunn's assertions are not true. The quoted statistics are for the Census findings for ethnicity and say nothing about nationality. The Census asks separately about ethnicity and nationality; the ethnicity classification is set as "Black and Black British" subdivided into 'Caribbean', 'African' and 'Any other black background'. Incidentally it is wrong to describe these as 'Government statistics' as they are produced by the Office of National Statistics, which is an independent agency collecting its own data and deciding its own policy; the ONS is capable of reproving Governments if they mishandle the information it provides. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

That particular comment was specifically referring to http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk in the Cambridge article, which should be a government entity given the web address. MSJapan (talk) 14:14, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

That is to misunderstand what is meant by 'Government'. Neighbourhood Statistics is part of the UK Statistics Authority, which is an independent agency of the public sector providing statistics to the Government and to the public. It is in a fundamentally different situation to (e.g.) the Department of Health; Government departments also publish statistics but there can be a political input in deciding what they publish and when. UK Statistics Authority is studiously politically neutral and so should not really be referred to as a 'government entity' in that sense. Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:06, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I think I get it (although "public sector" and ".gov.uk" still seem an odd combination), but I also think we're detracting a bit from the issue, so let me put it back on track. Assuming that there is no question about the reliability of the statistics, what the source may or may not be is semantics - the article was changed such that it did not reflect the terminology as used in the source, and in such a way as to conform to a prior pattern of editing. MSJapan (talk) 21:35, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Please Fix and correct wiki page: Alex Gilbert

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Please fix page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Gilbert as he is an award winning film maker: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4338251/

The page was deleted in late 2007 which was over 5 years ago. This needs to be corrected. Please just unprotect so I can work on a small article for the page. Your help would be much appreciated. He has worked with Film Director - Peter Webber. Worked on Children TV in NZ. Won the film award in the USA as he is a NZ Film maker. Is the youngest TV On Air Director in NZ. https://twitter.com/alexgilbertnz He also worked with 'Stuart Dryburgh' on the Emperor film as he was the Camera Intern for the Film. Please fix and correct.

Thank You --Filmsandtv2012report (talk) 04:38, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest you start a draft article in your userspace, such as User:Filmsandtv2012report/Alex Gilbert. Then when you have a draft that you think shows he meets our notability guidelines you can submit it to articles for creation for review. GB fan 04:53, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

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Filmsandtv2012report (talk) 04:54, 7 September 2012 (UTC)---

Thank You!

Note, even if we take everything claimed at imdb as true, which we can't as it is not a reliable source, the award your talking about was given to a film where his role was "Audio Recordist and Additional Camera", and the award was from the 2012 Utah Arts Festival, not an award of particular note. Everyone who works on a film isn't automatically notable if the film wins a major award, and not every awards is that notable. To get it approved at Articles for Creation, you are going to need to provide much more evidence of notability then you provided here. Monty₈₄₅ 04:58, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Requesting to please fix Wikipedia page

Ok I have tried to contact a Wikipedia Administrator about the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Gilbert It has a deletion log all throughout the page. Please correct this. I have created http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Filmsandtv2012report/Alex_Gilbert and I really want to put that page onto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Gilbert . Please help me out if you can. I am asking nicely for this to be corrected. I am still new to all of this on Wikipedia so I am asking any Admin to please help me out on Wikipedia even if they can please put the page onto here. Thanks again! --Filmsandtv2012report (talk) 19:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi there, and welcome to Wikipedia. The page in question has been deleted numerous times and therefore shouldn't be recreated without a clear assertion of notability, which seems to be the main issue. If you want to create the article, you can submit it to the articles for creation page and an editor will review it. And lastly, don't worry about not fully understanding Wikipedia's policies. If you want to see a good example of that, look at my early contributions. You learn over time. Happy editing! Go Phightins! (talk) 20:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

And as an aside, the right place for this discussion is probably at WP:N/N. This page is more for discussing problems regarding editors, threats, or other issues such as those. But again, no problem, you never stop learning. Go Phightins! (talk) 20:06, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Requesting the administrative action of removing the protection or moving the new article over it is within the scope of WP:AN and isn't unreasonable at WP:AN/I. But as I tried to explain to the editor in the previous discussions, the underlying notability issue has still not adequately been resolved in the draft version. Monty₈₄₅ 20:13, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Intentionally disruptive editing by USER:StillStanding-247

Not something to be solved on AN/I. Use other forms of Dispute Resolution. Horologium (talk) 20:50, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. Still has been here long enough to know that [23] and [24] are way out of bounds with respect to POV. I haven't bothered to check his other recent edits, but in light of these and his refactoring/deleting other users comments on ANI last night during his faux outing, I can't shake the feeling that he is doing this to annoy other editors or to make some grand point. This has got to stop. User will be notified.  little green rosetta(talk) central scrutinizer  04:50, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Content dispute. Please assume good faith, take it to the talk page, and discuss the problem as you see it calmly like rational Wikipedians, with the goal of resolving the dispute, not escalating it. Move to close this thread. Viriditas (talk) 04:55, 7 September 2012 (UTC) This is a content dispute, suggest it be closed. TFD (talk) 05:02, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Please note that I have already closed the above discussion. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 05:03, 7 September 2012 (UTC) And I have reopened this. This is not a content dispute, but about a recent pattern of disruption.  little green rosetta(talk) central scrutinizer  05:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC) As an uninvolved user, I think Still's edits seem to be puzzling. If these edits have a pattern of disruption, then I suspect that this might be a serious problem. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 05:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Looking at the first of the two edits presented, I hardly see how that one makes a huge difference. The second edit is somewhat of a problem because it presents an opinion as if it is fact. This could be reworded to fix the problems. Like others have said, this seems to be a content issue, and would probably best be solved by educating StillStanding on how things like this should be presented in Wikipedia. -- Avanu (talk) 05:39, 7 September 2012 (UTC) (edit conflict)Looking at those two diffs, while I disagree with both of them, I don't think they are so far outside the norms of reasonable editing that administrative action is warranted. In the first case, while the Republican Party is largely the party OF christian conservatives in the US, that does not make IT a christian conservative party, there are many other constituencies represented in the party, and it isn't primarily defined as such; but all that is the content dispute and nuance. Pushing a POV isn't actionable in and of itself, and I don't see conduct that rises to the point deserving any sanction at this point. Monty845 05:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC) It ain't the POV in our articles, it's the disruption in our pedia. I can promise you I would never bring anyone to ANI over simple POV issues. Still has been advised to stand down by many editors and stop being confrontational. A random sampling of his talk page diffs will demonstrate this attitude.  little green rosetta(talk) central scrutinizer  06:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Have you attempted to resolve this problem on the talk page? As far as I can tell, it looks like you are trying to use ANI to get the upper hand in a content dispute. That's actually more disruptive than an editor adding content you disagree with. Viriditas (talk) 06:18, 7 September 2012 (UTC) This is a content issue that's being discussed on the articles' talk pages. I'm not sure why you're trying to make drama here, but it's counterproductive. If you disagree with the edits, come talk with me and the other editors. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 06:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. I'd like to point out that Still closed this and Viriditas did an improper rollback and removed another editors comment in the process.   little green rosetta(talk) central scrutinizer  06:58, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Although I clearly opined against the OP, I strongly object to the summary closure of recent, active, unresolved threads in general, and even more so when done by non-admins before even a single administrator can offer their input. It seems bitey and unhelpful. Even if admin action isn't warranted, ANI threads can still be productive, whether it's helping users work out an issue or educating newer users on what is and isn't appropriate for ANI without biting their heads off. Our primary goal as administrators should be to help people, and if you're a non-admin who wants to assist on this page, that should be your goal as well, rather than policing whether threads should be closed. Swarm X 07:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Quick side note: As I am involved, I never made any attempt to close this report. Two other editors did. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 07:51, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Correction, three separate, uninvolved editors attempted to close this thread. I'm not sure I understand Swarm's objection. Viriditas (talk) 08:09, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Swarm's objection appears to be based on the misconception that admins are better equipped, smarter or more knowledgeable than other users. In many cases this may be true, but I know of no overall magic transformation that occurs when you get the bit; what you get is the ability to block and delete and etc., not better judgment or deeper knowledge about Wikipedia. It is said here many, many times that this is not a place for generalized discussion, nor is it part of dispute resolution. It is a place for complaints which require admin action. If there's nothing for admins to do, then there's nothing for admins to do. Too many threads hang on well past their sell-by date and become magnets for incivility and antagonism, so threads should be closed as soon as it's clear that they're not about the need for admin action. They can alays be re-opened if others disagree. Whether the thread is closed by an admin or non-admin is irrelevant. Beyond My Ken (talk) 12:34, 7 September 2012 (UTC) This is most definitely not a content dispute - this is about Still's apparent continuous disruption. My recommendation: WP:RFC/U because this is a pattern of unwelcome behaviour dangerouspanda 10:02, 7 September 2012 (UTC) The specific complaint above shows no evidence of a pattern of "continuous disruption", since only two diffs were presented. What appears in the complaint itself is a content dispute, which was brought here in order to see if an admin would step in and favor the OP's side, but since (as you apparently agree, since filing an RFC/U is not an admin action) there is nothing in the complaint to warrant that action, closing was appopriate. AN/I is not advice to the lovelorn. Beyond My Ken (talk) 12:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC) As you aren't Kreskin I can see how you made that assumption. And as I have made a grand total of 1 edits to the articles in question, and that in a completely different section I think its safe to say that I am not involved in any content dispute on either of those articles. Yes my complaint here was not crafted sufficiently to give the uninvilved a better prospective. I apologize for posting this to the wrong venue. Perhaps Panda is right about an RFC/U, but that is going to be a major waste of time for all involved. Or maybe an uninvolved admin could sift through Still's (and anyone else's for that matter) edits and they can see for themselves this disruption. There are plenty of POV editors from all sides, but none even rise close to the level of disruption caused by Still. Just look at his recent talk page where other editors advise him to step away from the politics. I've had my say, and I apologize for putting this poorly crafted,(bit not without merit) incident forward.  little green rosetta(talk) central scrutinizer  13:25, 7 September 2012 (UTC) As noone here is Kreskin, it is encumbent on you to present sufficient evidence. You did not. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:35, 7 September 2012 (UTC) This appears to be yet another skirmish in the ongoing political warfare between two editing factions (StillStanding belonging to one, LGR belonging to the other). The war has been spilling out all over Wikipedia in recent weeks, including here, DRN, NPOVN, and user talk pages, and it's becoming highly disruptive. I would encourage someone to open an RfC on something (whatever it is everyone's actually fighting about, preferably? Whatever that is, at its root...) to lance this boil. I suspect I'm not the only uninvolved editor here who's getting rather sick of seeing the same names having the same fight over the same issues daily. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC) I don't belong to any faction. A careful look at my edits to the articles in question which intersect with Still show that im not solely in one camp, and I have changed my positions based upon evidence and logic from other editors. And furthermore this isn't a left vs right POV, but one editor making this a personal battleground. While Still has some "allies" that appear to share his POV, they are not an issue because their behavior is not disruptive.  little green rosetta(talk) central scrutinizer  17:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC) The crux of the matter seems to be whether to sanction StillStanding for politically partisan editing. I see two possible solutions: 1) we decide that partisan battleground editing is a major problem and come down hard on it, which would probably involve sanctioning StillStanding and a list of about a dozen other editors who are equally devoted to using this site as an ideological battleground. Or 2) we dismiss this as a content dispute. Either option is reasonable. I have a personal preference for option #1; the volume of ideological battleground behavior has been out of control for at least the last few months and will only increase further as the U.S. Presidential election approaches. But #2 is the safer option, since any decision about where to draw the line with sanctions will be highly controversial and, on some level, inherently arbitrary. MastCell Talk 17:46, 7 September 2012 (UTC) As sympathetic as I am to MastCell's suggestion that we engage in a more proactive way with limiting the ability of partisan editors to disrupt the 'pedia, and as much as I agree with him that it will only get worse between now and the election, there is no actual difference between politics and any other highly charged subject, except that politics is more seasonal. It would probably help if uninvolved admins keep a closer eye on political articles, but regarding this specific incident, it is clearly a content dispute, and as such was correctly closed by however many admins it is now. Suggest we also close this post-mortem. KillerChihuahua?!? 17:57, 7 September 2012 (UTC) I strongly disagree this is a content dispute, but have no problems closing this PM.  little green rosetta(talk) central scrutinizer  18:02, 7 September 2012 (UTC) It is preposterous to claim that this is only a content dispute. But we do have to give the admins credit for honestly stating up-front that they will endorse bad behavior when there are certain political questions in-play. Belchfire-TALK 23:50, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Akemi Loli Mokoto seems to be vandalizing his own user page

I didn't do a checkuser, but based on editing style it looks like User:Akemi Loli Mokoto has vandalized his own user page multiple times. This guy is actually the indef banned User:Saikano who was causing trouble in 2007, but I unblocked him in 2009 and have been keeping an eye on his edits since then, which have not been especially troublesome or controversial. Anyway since this is a "community ban" which I arbitrarily ignored I think it's about time for me to turn this over to the community, and maybe think about:

1. confirming who is doing the vandalism with checkuser, if anyone thinks that will be helpful
2. getting other people to watch his edits
3. or just banning him again if that really seems like the best solution.

Shii (tock) 06:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you should do a usercheck because I have not vandalized anything. Since I have been allowed back to Wikipedia, I have done what I should have done before my ban(edit pages without bias, not insult other users, not use the "talk" page as a forum, etc). I was pretty child-ish back then so I regret my actions in the past. I hope, if it comes to it, the community understands that and lets me stay. Beside that, I am completely lost on what the hell just happened to my user page since I was asleep and I would like it if Wikipedia investigated it. I guess announcing the fact I was going to sleep to Twitter was not the best idea since I am often targeted due to my blunt tweets. I am going to fix the minor damage now. The edit done to my page are not "like me" by the way. I'd never be caught dead using idiotic words like "weeaboo". I do however get the feeling that despite my edits on other pages(most of which were minor), I am facing a ban for something I did NOT do. If I edited my own page, it was done using this user name and I did not edit to the point of violating Wikipedia's rules. That is all I have to say. --Akemi Loli Mokoto (talk) 11:46, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• Checkuser note. It seems unlikely that the two accounts are operated by the same person. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 12:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks, I thought they were the same for sure but I'll assume good faith that they are not. Anyone can close this conversation if they check it over and see that nothing unusual has happened here. Shii (tock) 12:49, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Loli?

Akemi Loli Mokoto, on your website that you link to on your user page, you have the following disclaimer:

Lolicon(some of the pics you see on this site) is LEGAL in the US, Japan, and other countries. But this will only be about the US. In 2002 the US Supreme Courts ruled in a 7-2 ruling that virtual child porn is LEGAL![link] This was affirmed in 2003. It was upheld in 2008.[link 1] [link 2][Link 3]. In Ohio the high courts also ruled that Virtual Child Porn is LEGAL[link 1] [link 2]. My host does NOT prohibit sexual or pornographic content if it is legal. This blog is UNTOUCHABLE! So do not waste your time bitching.

I'm curious - what is the meaning of the "Loli" in your username? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 12:59, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, when you were User:Saikano, you used to sign as "Lolicon3043910" - is this related? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:05, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh yes, Loli is(to me) short for Lolicon. Over the past 1(maybe 2) years, I have strayed away from using "Loli" and "Lolicon" in my usernames and about mes since I am moving towards a correspondences contract with CNN next year(hopefully). Since I am unable to change my username on Wikipedia to something more desirable(Akemi_Mokoto, Akemi-Mokoto, Akemi.Mokoto, or even AkemiCNN) I have been forced to keep the "Loli" in Akemi_loli_mokoto. As for the Saikano and Lolicon3043910 usernames. I am unsure. I know I was User: Saikano but I do not know where the Lolicon3043910 username came from or anything else about. I know I made it but that is all I know about it. Is it a problem? If I could redo what I did in the past, I would. --Akemi Loli Mokoto (talk) 13:31, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Is it a problem? No, not at all. After I saw your defense of "virtual child porn" on your site, I was curious if your username was promoting it. I think you have answered that. Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:47, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Sure thing. All the best. --Akemi Loli Mokoto (talk) 13:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• Changing username is permitted, so I see no reason not to allow a change to Akemi Mokoto (note that spaces are allowed in usernames, if you want). Though as that policy says, you might want to think twice about using your real name on Wikipedia, especially if you're already being harassed. I don't think that a past agreement not to use sockpuppets (whether or not it is still active) should be interpreted to prohibit a name change - does anyone disagree? Wnt (talk) 15:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I didn't know. Would I be able to use the username of one of my Sockpupets without having one of the bureaucrats ban me? I'd like to take Akemi Mokoto(Akemi_Mokoto). --Akemi Loli Mokoto (talk) 01:49, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

According to the block notice on the talk page of User:Akemi Mokoto, that account was "blocked for pedophilia-related disruption including attempting to operate violative sock accounts". Perhaps that account wouldn't be a good choice. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:28, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

75.70.221.14

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

75.70.221.14 (talk) continuously adds advertising material to the Is Anyone Up? article talk page and based on his contribution is starting to harass other editors. Jonjonjohny (talk) 13:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The IP has been blocked for 48 hours by User:KillerChihuahua for vandalism and personal attacks. I would have blocked as well, just for this.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:18, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Extra eyes requested: libel accusations and edit-warring on Robert O. Young

I'd like to ask for some outside administrative attention to our article on Robert O. Young (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). This is a BLP where a new editor, Adecoratingmom (talk · contribs), has arrived and repeatedly removed material, much of which appears to be well-sourced but negative. The editor has gone well over 3RR. A number of her edit summaries allege libel ([25], [26]); she states that "the newspapers references are false"; and she claims that the reliable sources used in the article (e.g. San Diego Union-Tribune, Deseret News, etc) have been served with "cease-and-desist orders" and retraction requests ([27], [28]).

This editor is also altering reference titles to advance their contentions. Some of her contributions (e.g. edit summary here, commentary here and here) suggest significant familiarity with the article subject and a possible conflict of interest, although I'm reluctant to pursue that avenue any further given some of the precedents established by ArbCom.

In any case, I've edited this article in the past and so would like some fresh eyes to review this situation. I am not convinced that all of the sourcing is up to par (for example, in the "Kim Tinkham" section). At the same time, other (negative) elements of the BLP appear appropriately sourced, to newspaper articles which do not appear to have been corrected or retracted. Any input would be appreciated, particularly as I see active edit-warring and legal threats apparent at this BLP. MastCell ^Talk 18:13, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Strangely enough, I find the positive material (his claims) to be more troubling than the negative. So much of the article is cited to sources written by him (I've tagged the article), and so much of it is self-serving. I've removed some of that material, but more probably needs to be done. As for the Tinkham section, I've trimmed it to one sentence. There was only one source I thought was reliable, so I removed the other two. At this point, it probably doesn't deserve a separate section.

As an aside, this topic would probably be better dealt with at WP:BLPN.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:01, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that may be for the best. As a note, we've also been trying to deal with this at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions. The user doesn't appear to understand all of the subtle nuance of Wikipedia's verification policies, so I think handling with kid gloves at this point is a good idea. This person sounds like they need help more than anything, so lets keep that in mind. --Jayron32 19:47, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I did a quick overview of your links and the user's talk page and my initial analysis is this: she appears to be a good faith editor with little to no understanding of either the five pillars or the verifiability policy. Therefore, I think some sort of adoption program (or continued mentorship at the Teahouse) could rectify the situation. I agree that she made a legal threat by calling material libel, but I think at the end of the day she is acting in good faith. Go Phightins! (talk) 20:01, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. I brought it here (rather than WP:BLP/N because the active issues with edit-warring and potential legal threats were concerning, but I'm comfortable with more BLP-aware eyes on the article. I agree that we shouldn't come down too hard on the editor; some of their concerns stem from a lack of familiarity with Wikipedia's practices (for example, the concern that we were disrespecting the article subject by not referring to him as "Dr.", when this is simply part of our standard house style for all such titles). I appreciate the input, and would welcome continued input at the article/talkpage by you or any other interested editors. MastCell ^Talk 20:19, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

You're right, MastCell, the issues are broader than just BLP policy, so I've struck my comment.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:41, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll add it to my watchlist. Thanks for bringing up the issue...new editors not acting in accordance with policies, but in good faith is always somewhat dicey. Go Phightins! (talk) 20:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

It may or may not be relevant here, but it should probably be noted that the article has a history of COI editing by its subject, according to a template on the talkpage. Formerip (talk) 20:54, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

User:Ofthehighest

I was hoping it wouldn't come to it, and I tried warning him civilly, but User:Ofthehighest isn't stopping making personal attacks on everyone who has disagreed with him on a content dispute at Eternity clause - the edit summaries of the article history show quite a few examples. Also, he has been continuing the accusations at Talk:Eternity clause#Reversion and other matters - and there's more on that talk page. I can understand that he's upset that all his work has been reverted - you can see the reasons at the talk page if you're interested - but he can't just go on with these attacks, and doesn't seem to get the old collegiality/consensus thing. I warned him once myself here, and would try to explain/warn further on his talk page with a view to blocking if he doesn't stop, but I have become involved in reviewing the content dispute and cannot do so now - and I've become an object of his attacks myself. It appears he's been blocked from German Wikipedia for something similar. Can anyone else review what's been happening, and act if you think anything is warranted? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:22, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

OTH does seem to be getting worked up. I've attempted some calming comments both on his user talk page and the article's talk page. Let's see if they work. JanetteDoe (talk) 00:07, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. If we can get him to stop digging himself in deeper and stop lashing out at everyone, we might be able to discuss the article content itself - but while everyone who disagrees with anything he says is a VANDAL (sic), it's not really possible -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 00:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Not an administrator but I am also trying to talk with him hoping a 'neutral' editor can get him to listen and stop editing for awhile. Not sure I should be trying to intervene. Usually giving unsolicited advice is poor judgment. We'll see. Jobberone (talk) 05:42, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Continued edit-warring on Paul Ryan article

Ugh, this article already got full protection for a day just a little bit ago and all the combatants have jumped right back into the edit war after protection ended. It needs to be locked for longer and there probably needs to be a serious look at some of the editors repeatedly reverting on this article.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 02:56, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Note: In lieu of individual notifications, I have left a comment on the talk page linking to this discussion.

Fully protected for a period of 1 month, after which the page will be automatically unprotected.. In the future, you can also take this to WP:RFPP. --Jayron32 03:04, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

There are concerns other than protection as I noted. I am concerned about the general conduct issues in question as well.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:09, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't take sides. If someone wants to do so after me, that's fine. Protection hits all offenders equally. And from what I can see in the article history, I'm not sure I see any reason to suppose someone deserves credit for taking "the high road". But whatever. If some admin after me feels that blocks are in order, fine. But the protection has stopped people from reverting the article, and they now need to use the talk page to discuss and establish consensus first. I should note that, on one particularly conntentious article of a similar ilk, Presidency of Barack Obama, there have been some good custodians who have worked very hard to keep the article under control. Perhaps some of them could be brought in here to restore some sanity. --Jayron32 03:12, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Just going to point out the obvious here that StillStanding-247 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is involved in this. His third ANI thread in as many days, must be some sort of record. Hot Stop (Edits) 03:14, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Yeah. I predicted "next week"... maybe that was too optimistic. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 03:21, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
    • The last thread about him only closed a few hours ago. This is getting just a smidge ridiculous, and I'm tempted to propose article or topic bans for the handful of names I keep seeing come up in these threads, starting with StillStanding-247 (talk · contribs). This level of disruption - whether in good faith or not - is getting, well, disruptive. It's apparent that SS, and quite possibly a number of other actors in these "Wikiproject Conservatism vs the people-who-don't-seem-to-much-like-conservatives" clashes, are unable to contribute to the topic of Paul Ryan, and perhaps the American electoral season as a whole, without causing disruption.

      Historically, articles and editing related to American presidential elections go, er, what's the kind term, sort of insane in the lead-up to November of presidential election years, and I'm becoming increasingly persuaded that we should keep articles in this area on a short leash during that time. It may be that we need an arbcom case for that, or it may be that the community is capable of imposing that short leash on its own. I'm hoping it's the latter, because there's no reason we should have to rely on Arbcom to say things as obvious as "This is a hotly contentious area, with a lot of emotion on both sides, and editors who cannot be on their best behavior for the duration of their editing should look elsewhere for something to do." A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 03:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• I have been thinking that something of that nature may be necessary as well. Also should note that I actually suggested that Still stay away from these topics for a while, but the response was unfavorable.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:44, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• I really don't think you can single out StillStanding-247 (talk · contribs) here. In particular, the conduct of Rtmcrrctr (talk · contribs) needs serious review. Kerfuffler (talk) 04:26, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

You can't single out any pair of editors; once we've stopped them, more will show up, since this is a high-profile article about an important public figure. No, the only answer is protection, I'm afraid pbp 04:34, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

That's somewhat true, but I think it misses my point. We have a particularly problematic user who's done 6 reverts on the same article in 24+epsilon hours, and has made numerous personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith. And it's not StillStanding-247 (talk · contribs), it's Rtmcrrctr (talk · contribs). The record is there for anyone who wants to look. Kerfuffler (talk) 04:43, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

There were more editors causing problems than that and several were brought up in the previous ANI cases. You are actually one of the other participants in the edit war yourself having restored the material in contention with a revert once before protection and again after protection. On the other side I would say Belchfire (talk · contribs) and Arzel (talk · contribs), who have had many problematic interactions with Still recently, were two of the more prolific edit-warriors. Another of the newbie editors SPECIFICO (talk · contribs) had already been blocked for 3RR over that very same material. However, that editor is apparently new and just reverted once since that block and Rtm is presumably also a new editor and thus unfamiliar with 3RR, having just been warned after the fifth revert of the day without any subsequent reverts on the article. Honestly, I don't really like listing people here, but I do not want this to become a dog-pile on Still. Lots of bad behavior to go around and there are still others I have not mentioned.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:24, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Make it two months full-protection: If we're going to gold-lock this, might as well extend it 'till after the election. If 2008 is any indication, the four candidates' articles will be gold-locked in mid-to-late October anyway. pbp 03:49, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Seems like a good idea. Anything that comes up about Ryan between now and then is probably going to be partisan (for one side or the other) and need a great deal of care to straighten out, since the media will report just about anythting about anybody as long as it's "out there". I'd think the same would be true about the Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Joe Biden articles: we're not a newspaper, and it's not going to hurt our status as an encyclopedia to be a bit out of date with the latest scandals and PR. There's plenty of time after the election's over to add whatever still seems significant then. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, I was about to make same suggestion. 1 month protection is silly since things will be even crazier 1 month from now. If keeping article protected that long is tolerable at all, then protect til after the election (might be a day or two longer than two months). Alternative: put on PC2. Yeah there's no policy for that. Policy schmolicy, if it doesn't work it can be undone. 67.119.15.30 (talk) 04:52, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Topic bans and general sanctions

I'm going to take a scattershot approach here and propose a number of different remedies which I think may address some or all of the issues here. These are all possible routes, some of which may be more preferable than others, and I welcome all input into which, if any, of these options is useful to the community. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 04:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Just a general statement: I could be convinced that a ban or sanction on SS247 is justified, but certainly not in the absence of a similar ban or sanction on his antagonists. It takes (at least) two to tango, and there are been a lot of repeat names popping up in those AN/I reports from the other side of the aisle as well. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

In any event, wasn't the latest advice to open an RFC/U on SS247? Are we going for bans and sanctions before the issues with his editing have been aired out in the proper forum? Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:45, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I believe this would definitely be the appropriate forum for a discussion of whether General Sanctions are appropriate. As far as topic bans/editing-behavior issues, such things are commonly handled here, though there's no reason they could not instead be handled by an RfC if someone started one. I'm responding to this set of issues from the perspective of someone who's not involved in the topic area and has seen the same name(s) pop up repeatedly, fighting the same ways, on the same issues, all over our noticeboards, which means that I personally tend to feel ANI is an adequate venue for discussion of that issue. YMMV, and you're by no means required to agree with me. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 04:52, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't clear: AN/I is the right place to bring up bans and sanctions (well, actually, WP:AN is, but put that aside), what I was questioning is whether we're putting the horse before the cart by talking about bans and sanctions when there's been no RFC/U, which is normally the first step in dealing with an editor's perceived behavioral problems. How many times have you read someone saying on AN/I, "Why are we dealing with this here when Wikipedia:Requests for comment/StillStanding-247 is a red-link?" Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:24, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: Topic ban for StillStanding-247 (talk · contribs)

I see a couple possible areas that may serve as an area of topic-ban for StillStanding. Each of these should last a minimum of three months (which would put us post-election), though I would recommend an indefinite time frame, with SS allowed to appeal after 3 months. Possibilities:

Expand for options

StillStanding-247 (talk · contribs) is topic-banned from articles related to American politics and politicians, broadly construed StillStanding-247 (talk · contribs) is topic-banned from articles related to Conservatism in the United States, broadly construed StillStanding-247 (talk · contribs) is topic-banned from articles related to US Presidential and Vice-presidential candidates and their campaigns, broadly construed StillStanding-247 (talk · contribs) is topic-banned from Paul Ryan

A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 04:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• As proposer: Support option 1. I think SS needs to step away from American political articles entirely. I would note that my support of this sanction does not absolve any other users in the topic area of responsibility for their behavior, and that I may support similar topic bans on other users if they're proposed. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 04:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support option 1. We will then have to look at general sanctions (see below) to put some of the other re-appearing names on notice. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:54, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support in principle, but if there is going to be a T-ban, it really needs to include all LGBT articles and all articles concerning SPLC or organizations listed as hate groups by SPLC. Belchfire-TALK 05:04, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there's plenty of grossly inappropriate behavior at Talk:Southern Poverty Law Center as well, including flat out refusal to comply with the result of a RfC, and rehashing the same argument over and over again, and serious personal attacks on other editors. I sincerely hope an administrator takes the time to look at it. I will add another ANI if necessary. Kerfuffler (talk) 05:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

It's also worth mentioning that he started 2 DRNs in quick succession at Focus on the Family, then refused to abide by the results when the DRNs failed to produce the result he was looking for. Much as he stated here [29], he's not looking to build an encyclopedia; he wants to "fix some articles". Belchfire-TALK 05:33, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree to a topic ban from Southern Poverty Law Center due to concerns about grossly inappropriate behavior at the TP.--Calm As Midnight 05:27, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose focusing on a single editor, in preference to handling the issue in a systematic and consistent way. My survey of these articles suggests there are a dozen or so editors from across the political spectrum -- including several participants in the present thread -- who should be put on ice until 7 November 2012. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 05:30, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose per my comments above, since there has been no RFC/U, and the supports above me are among those same editors who appear to be aligned on the opposite political side from SS247. If there is a behavioral problem, the RFC/U is the proper first step to take. If, while the RFC/U is proceeding, SS247's behavior appears to an admin to be truly disruptive or tendenitious, a block would be in order, but I am strongly opposed to a community topic ban or sanction discussion used as a hammer top squealch one's political opponents. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:34, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• (ec) To clarify in light of Boris's comment above: If admins (perhaps a triumvirate?) want to do a survey of the political editing situation and hand down blocks to a number of different editors, I have no problem with that. It's the specific focus on SS247 (without proper groundwork) to the exclusion of other editors that concerns me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Jumping straight to an indef with a required wait of three months before appeal is woefully overdoing it and the focus on Still is, as noted by Boris above, focusing too much on one editor when there are many editors involved whose conduct is at issue.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose As Boris explains above, focusing on a single editor is the wrong approach here. It is typically heavy-handed and elephant gun approaches that AN/I threads seem to reach for first, rather than exploring something simple like full protection for an extended period. These debates at these various article are going to only get more partisan and more silly, and rather than make it sound like one editor is the solitary 'problem', why not focus on the real issue at hand? Focus on solutions that don't single people out, especially when there is a larger problem to consider. -- Avanu (talk) 05:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

If the user continues, we can always start another an/i thread.--Calm As Midnight 05:38, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

This is exactly what's wrong with the usual results of AN/I complaints: Wikipedia punishes the innocent and lets the editor causing the problem off the hook. Articles get frozen so that nobody can edit them, and the behavior issue is never addressed. It's nonsense, and we just wind up back here over and over. (And I note, this is only Still-24's most recent trip to the woodshed. Last time I checked, a few weeks ago, he's been the subject of AN reports something like 7 times in 21 days.) Belchfire-TALK 05:45, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

It should be the ones who are causing problems to be topic-banned.--Calm As Midnight 05:48, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

So what's your criteria to determine that? A sustained pattern of disruptive behavior, perhaps? Like this? [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36]. That's just up through 8/17, I'm pretty sure the list would be a little longer if I went to the trouble of making it exhaustive. (For example, it doesn't include the report just a few threads above this one.) Belchfire-TALK 06:01, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

If you're going to complain about grossly inappropriate behavior on someone else's part: [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]

That is just barely the tip of the iceberg. Kerfuffler (talk) 07:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment In reference to the point about singling out Still, see my comment above where I name some of the other participants. Note that it is not an exhaustive list by any measure.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:51, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Devil's advocate. Still's edits seem far less objectionable than the civil POV pushing from the pro Republicans. Rather than reward them, a better solution might be to fully protect the most sensitive article(s), until after the election, and for a team of 2 or 3 impartial admins to update them based on the balance of discussion on the talk pages. FeydHuxtable (talk) 05:55, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I concur with FeydHuxtable's idea to have the pages fully protected rather then enforce a TB.--Calm As Midnight 05:58, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose unless the same sanction is applied to all the problematic combatants in this area. Dragging SS along to ANI repeatedly (sometimes on the thinnest of pretexts) and then claiming he should be topic banned "because his name is always getting brought up at ANI" would be funny if it wasn't actually borderline disruptive. WP:BOOMERANG should be kept in mind here. Black Kite (talk) 06:09, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. General sanctions applying to all users is preferable to any topic ban applied to one user. Viriditas (talk) 06:14, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose As others have pointed out, there are many editors with problematic behaviors, from across the political spectrum - including some who have commented in this thread. A blanket sanction should probably be imposed on a whole list of people. This proposal feels too much like some edit warriors working the system to get an 'enemy' removed. FurrySings (talk) 06:20, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose in favor of General Sanctions below. Mojoworker (talk) 06:38, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose; Still's editing is not more problematic, and may be less so, than that of his "opponents" in the topic area, and I will not support any sanction that favors one "side" when both have been misbehaving or when the favored side has been misbehaving more. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: Roscelese hit the nail on the head here. Support for sanctions against this editora is driven primarily by the political motives of editors whose behavior is more troubling than Still's. It's hard for me to assume good faith here. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 06:50, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose Still has done nothing wrong, this is a strong case of WP:WITCHHUNT GimliDotNet ^{(Speak to me,Stuff I've done)} 07:14, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: General Sanctions authorized by the community

Similarly, a couple of possible ways to handle community-imposed sanctions.

Expand for list of proposals

Possible areas: Articles about American presidential and vice-presidential candidates and their campaigns, broadly construed, are placed under Community article probation Articles about American electoral politics, broadly construed, are placed under Community article probation Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan are placed under Community article probation [Some other group of articles or topics that I haven't thought of, feel free to suggest below] are placed under Community article probation Possible time frames: General sanctions on the area(s) described above will expire 3 months from their imposition General sanctions on the area(s) described above may be lifted after 3 months from their imposition, pending community approval General sanctions on the area(s) described above will expire 6 months from their imposition General sanctions on the area(s) described above may be lifted after 6 months from their imposition, pending community approval General sanctions on the area(s) described above will remain in place indefinitely, until lifted by the community.

A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 04:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• As proposer: Support option 1 from areas and option 1 from time frames (that means "Articles about American presidential and vice-presidential candidates and their campaigns, broadly construed" under the GS, with the GS to automatically expire after 3 months). A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 04:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support options 1 and 1 per Fluffernutter. These articles are rapidly spinning out of control. Admins should enforce these sanctions on a near-zero tolerance basis. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 05:34, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose in preference to a T-ban, as proposed above. Still-24's early history suggests he has potential to be a highly valuable contributor to the overall project; he just has trouble in certain topic areas. If sanctions are imposed, they should be narrowly crafted to protect Wikipedia while still allowing the user to contribute, if possible. Belchfire-TALK 05:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support 1 from areas and 5 from time frames, or sanctions to be reapplied automatically starting 3 months before each election. I do not see any reason why the situation is likely to get better for future election cycles. We also should not expect topics bans to resolve this for the future - note that most of the editors in the current set of disputes joined after 2008, so probably this would be the same case for 2016. Arc de Ciel (talk) 05:46, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Opppose per my comments above. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:53, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • ?? Your comments above say "seems like a good idea" for full protection. So you'd rather completely lock'em down instead of probation? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:04, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Support 1/1 Thanks for that, I misread the suggested sanctions. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:32, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Request for clarification There seems to be some confusion as to whether the proposed sanctions are addressed specifically to Still24/7, or are meant to be broadly applicable to all editors. It would be helpful for the proposer to make this explicit. (My support is conditional on the latter interpretation.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 05:59, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • This is meant for everyone and anyone. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:01, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • That's what I had assumed as well. Arc de Ciel (talk) 06:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support 1/1 for all editors. Black Kite (talk) 06:06, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• The suggestion is for allowing stricter sanctions for misconduct on these articles, not sanctions on specific editors.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:08, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• I know, I was making it clear per the request for clarification just above my posting. Black Kite (talk) 06:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Support. About time. Viriditas (talk) 06:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• 1/1 is a good idea. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:15, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Support proposal 2 - 1. Political BLPs are getting all kinds of crap from partisans involved in the elections. FurrySings (talk) 06:27, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support option 1 (though should we specify 2012 candidates? anyway, this covers biographies, campaigns, conventions without picking up a lot of articles that have had no or unrelated problems) with timeframe 1. If agenda-driven editors continue to be a problem after the election, sanctions can be re-imposed. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:47, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support 1/1 for all editors, without making reference to Still or any other particular editor, withour prejudice against expanding the timeframe should problems with partisan editors continue. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 06:55, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support 2/5 There are plenty of congressional races which invite the same sort of problematic editing behavior. Or as Arc en Ciel suggested, sanctions to be reapplied automatically starting 3 months before each election, since it's likely to be a recurring problem each election cycle. Mojoworker (talk) 06:58, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Am I paranoid or...

Kinda random, I noticed two IPs with no prior edits that geolocate to different countries 92.48.194.168 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 84.244.183.114 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (now blocked) have started going around reverting my edits and/or editing pages I created tonight. Just seems odd. Hot Stop (Edits) 03:24, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

And now add 64.38.198.61 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 64.38.197.202 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) to the mix (both from Arizona) Hot Stop (Edits) 03:28, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I suppose it could be a coincidence, but I agree, that's somewhat weird. I don't quite know what to tell you. Go Phightins! (talk) 03:42, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Toronto too now. 38.117.79.41 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 38.117.79.55 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Hot Stop (Edits) 04:04, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
• It could be an open proxy thing, WP:OP would be the place to ask for help. Or it could be a coordinated attack; something like a 4chan thread where someone asks random people to revert you, and a few dozen people hop on board to do so. Not sure which it is. --Jayron32 04:06, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

These IPs are all very weird. Look at the WHOIS data. Each one is a static IP registered to some obscure company in various parts of the world. If this was a coordinated attack you should be seeing dynamic IPs registered to major ISPs. Only explanation to me is that the attacker is using some type of proxy service. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:31, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Add 92.48.194.185 (talk · contribs) and 64.38.197.224 (talk · contribs) and 64.38.226.77 (talk · contribs) to the list as well.--Jayron32 04:55, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm heading to bed, but it is starting to look like we're developing into a limited number of obvious ranges. If this continues for much longer, perhaps a rangeblock is in order. Anyone want to try to put something like that together? --Jayron32 05:18, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm skeptical that will all be possible. Perhaps Hot Stop should stop editing for a while and reassess what exactly he did wrong that pissed that person or people off. I hate to say it, but I don't think we can do much at all here. --MuZemike 05:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

User:Oxycut

This new user (first edit on 23 July 2012) seems to either have significant WP:COMPETENCE issues, or possibly we are being trolled. After a grossly-inappropriate first edit at Talk:Julian Assange [47], Oxycut has proceeded to engage in further bizarre edits to the Assange article, labelling him an Ecuadorian [48], label multiple individuals as members of Category:Monorchid people without any source, repeatedly recreate categories related to Monorchism (see [49]), and, amongst other things, add a bizarre selection of WP:OR, off-topic material, and a dubious image with a WP:BLP-violating caption to our article on Sexual intercourse (see history, and note the bizarre edit summaries 'goatbuggery clarify' and '2006 research (Denmark)' - the latter of which is nothing to do With either Denmark, or 2006 research, as far as I can see. [50]). After the issies with the latest article were raised at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Editor repeatedly adding original research, poorly-sourced and/or irrelevant material to the Sexual intercourse article, Oxycut went on to add further bizarre material at Talk:Sexual intercourse. A charitable interpretation of this might put this down to language difficulties, but given the subject matter, I'm reluctant to extend WP:AGF too far to someone who seems to think that 'goatbuggery clarify' is an appropriate edit summary, seems to be obsessed with testicles (or rather a deficiency of them), and seems to think that our article on Adolf Hitler needs "a more smiling and conducive depiction of the Fuhrer as lead image" [51]. I'll refrain from commenting further, and suggest that others look at Oxycut's contribution history [52], and then decide an appropriate course of action. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Oxycut has also been involved in quite a few disputes involving Syrian civil war articles, including a previous AN/I that was archived without ever being commented on an admin. Jeancey (talk) 04:47, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

And he has introduced a lot of incorrect information and original research. I think a block might be mandatory if the user becomes involved in any more edit wars.--Calm As Midnight 05:16, 8 September 2012 (UTC)