Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Personal attacks need to be redacted

• User:Writegeist (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

I've been in a discussion on User_talk:Jimbo Wales about paid editing and talking to editors about my experience. This user has been spreading ad hominems. They've said that defending myself is a crime and then went on to insult me and assume some serious bad faith. It was pointed out to them that they've crossed the line and their response was to throw more personal attack at that user. Writegeist's comments should be redacted.--v/r - TP 21:43, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I note this paid-to-edit administrator takes my comments as insulting etc. I think my points were well made, I totally disagree with his pejorative labels, and it's absolutely no problem to me to strike the comments to satisfy him, so I shall now do so. I have already struck my reply to attacks--unfounded, in my view--by another editor, as that part of the discussion was off topic and threatened to become disruptive if continued. Writegeist (talk) 22:14, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

It isn't "well made" when you assume bad faith about some attribute of them that you don't like, poke them about it, and they defend themselves. As I've already said, that's circular reasoning. You are the cause of your own conclusions. It is wrong to expect someone not to defend themselves and to assume that the act of, not even the content of but the act itself, defending oneself is in itself evidence of wrongdoing. If you have a problem with me, show a policy I've violated. Otherwise, keep the personal comments about me to yourself. You're not going to get a WP:CIVILITY free pass just because I got paid once to write an article for which even User:Smallbones, as one of my sharpest critics, said was a good article.--v/r - TP 22:18, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I looked for my comment, but the best I could find was "the article is ok." I might have said "good" somewhere, I guess but it would have been a somewhat inflated "good". Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:03, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

...and yet Writegeist, you used the edit-summary for your post above to take cheap pot-shots? That's pathetic behaviour, and unbecoming of anyone on this project. Based on that, I think action needs to be taken - this BS has to be stopped for the protection of the project and its editors ES&L 22:21, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh please. The project and its editors don't need protection from paid-to-edit administrators being openly referred to as paid-to-edit administrators. The project and its editors need protection from paid-to-edit administrators. Writegeist (talk) 01:04, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Nice opinion, unfortunately the two relevant policies WP:NPA and WP:COI don't support it. When you use paid-to-edit as a pejorative, it is a personal attack.--v/r - TP 01:23, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

...and you do it again here? Wow, I could tell you what you are, but that would break WP:NPA ES&L 22:24, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

The editing is indeed getting a bit hot over at Jimbo's talk page. The topic is naturally quite incendiary. Who would have thought up the idea that administrators should be allowed to accept pay for writing Wikipedia articles? It just astounds me that anybody would think this proper. But another admin is minimizing the practice, and TP admits it, and I'll say that he aggressively confronted me with the accusation that I was assuming bad faith by saying that this is improper. With such a hot topic, it is easy to see offense where none was intended. In 2 cases where I was involved, I was sure that the other admin was intentionally patronizing me, but TP pointed out the misunderstanding. Of course I noticed that TP had just been on the other side of a misunderstanding and had in effect done the same thing as I'd done. The only problem is that TP started waving around talk of banning, accusations of bad faith, NPA, etc. It's a lot worse when admins do it, and TP has been the worst of the lot, IMHO. I think if everybody calms down a bit, we'll all be ok. But I don't expect that this will ever be a friendly topic to discuss. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:03, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

It is a hot topic and there are a lot of editors who are throwing around assumptions as fact because there is no "face" of paid editing. I'm arguably a paid editor, arguably not but I've taken the position that I am to demonstrate that the assumptions are far worse than reality. But being bombarded with those assumptions, which are actually quite poor and exaggerated, and being the only one defending a position (and then being told that defending that position is itself a bad thing, including by you) is quite a bit taxing. You've stated even here that "It just astounds me that anybody would think this proper" which to me says that not only do you disagree with me, but you don't think anyone should even be defending this. Which then begs the question, are you even open to discussion? You should expect that others, on a project as large as this, won't all share your opinion. You really shouldn't be astounded that some don't. There is no consensus against this and harassing an editor, by going around and calling me a "paid-to-edit administrator" at every chance like Writegeist is doing, is unacceptable behavior. That needs to be stopped. A lesson should be taken out of Jimbo's book. Jimbo does not always agree with everyone, but you'll never see him tell someone they arn't allowed to make a counter argument to his views. He gives folks' arguments an objective assessment before he writes them off. For example, in your earlier comment to me, you said "I'll then go over them and show you examples of what I think is wrong." That's a pretty bad assumption. Without even looking, you assumed you would find something wrong. (ps, when I said you said it was "good", I didn't mean the positive "it's a good article" but the more mild "there are no glaring problems, we're good here.") I want an objective ear, not a predisposed one.--v/r - TP 00:23, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I officially ask that his edit of "Um -- someone might point out that it's no surprise to see you swing by to misrepresent my comments. Someone might point out ignorance of a well-known Shakespeare quote; and further, that "parasitic practices" really rather clearly describes practices, and not any individual editor, as parasitic; and that the words "awareness of venality" do not, in fact, say "User:So-and-so is venal." So someone might point out your comments imply a level of comprehension that's on a par with the example already noted. But thank you for your contribution to the topic at hand. be actually excised instead of cutely struck out. WG used the edit summary of struck at the request of paid-to-edit administrator at 22:17 6 Nov, which I think is a bit beyond snarky. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:38, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Yet another misrepresentation from this user. The edit history clearly shows that when I struck my response to the attack in which he recast and thereby misrepresented my comments to TParis, my actual edit summary said: "striking, as off-topic conflict with this user is unhelpful". [1] Writegeist (talk) 00:49, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the edit history clearly shows "struck at the request of paid-to-edit administrator" ES&L 01:01, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Read Collect's comments here again. They clearly refer to my comments to him, not to TParis. These are the comments he wants "excised". He misrepresents my edit summary on those comments by claiming I used a summary which in fact I used on comments to another user. That's about as clear an example of misrepresentation as I've ever seen here. I'm slightly surprised to see an administrator going along with it. I even gave you a link to the actual edit summary on my comments to Collect. "Wow, I could tell you what you are, but that would break WP:NPA" Writegeist (talk) 01:13, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

No, Collect says outright that the edit summary comment was in the "22:17 6 Nov" edit.--v/r - TP 01:21, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. The time and date were dropped in devoid of the link that would help clarify—to (most, I bet) readers who don't go ferreting around for the quoted summary in the edit history—that this summary, contrary to the clear impression given, was not the one used on the comments to which Collect devotes the entire preceding substance of his complaint. And by juxtaposing the words "...struck out", which close his complaint about my comments to him, with the words "WG used the edit summary of 'struck at the request...,' which open the sentence immediately following, the totally false impression is given that the struck comments he is complaining about carried the 'struck at the request...' edit summary. Smallbones's incisive comments aside, I'm finding this all rather tedious now, so I'll leave you to it. Writegeist (talk) 03:36, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I noticed something that is interesting (at least to me). I would normally think that a personal attack would need to require some negative element. However, consider the following in a hypothetical discussion whether some user should be blocked. user:xxxx Is opposed. In the discussion one editor remarks:

As we discuss this, it may be relevant to note that user:xxxx, who is opposing this block, has been blocked three times.

In contrast, consider the following:

Multiply -blocked user:xxxx is opposed.

In both cases, an editor is sharing the information that some has been blocked. Yet the second form seems more negative. Usually a term as a modifier seems a message that it is a pejorative, even if the underlying facts aren't all that negative. TParis appears to have admitted accepting pay for editing, and is an admin, yet in a discussion, I think there's a difference between:

As we discuss this, it may be relevant to note that user: TParis, who is making this point, is an admin and has received payment for editing.

Versus

Paid-to-edit administrator user: TParis, who is making this point

I'm no semantic expert, and it seems like the factual content is the same, but the second sounds like a personal attack. I don't think we should permit it, although I'm not sure it fits squarely into our definition of a personal attack.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:03, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

If I said "aren't you fucking brilliant" would you take that as a compliment or an insult? It's all in the context, just like the second statement - it was intended to draw attention and belittle TParis as a leper. ES&L 00:13, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

• In my opinion it is about time to lower the boom on individuals who taunt, bait, template, or unjustly block COI editors who are not in violation of NPOV. Already existing stalking rules should apply. Carrite (talk) 22:15, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Reporting User:DIREKTOR because keeps reverting sourced edits but refuses to discuss

I reported User:DIREKTOR for edit warring noticeboard about ten days ago because he or she has been reverting a sourced edits refusing to discuss about the materiality and the grounds of the revert. The page was protected (with the last version, i.e. with my edit reverted as I moved away from the issue to keep my hands clean).

I insisted with several requests to participate to the discussion and I showed extreme patience but this has proven to be useless. The editor declares "to be disgusted by my conduct", "qualifies my proficency in English insufficient to participate to the discussion", "that my only intention is to enter spicy sentences", "that I enter nationalist edits" and so on. The user replied (I quote): Get other people involved, or find someone who understands English at a reasonable level to discuss for you. Otherwise, I say openly: I will just revert everything you do to this article. It is NOT my job to spend time "policing" your attempts at fraudulent referencing, and not a single user can be asked to discuss with someone who reads every other post because he barely understands the language. It is also not my job to fix your faulty grammar: if you don't understand English up to a certain level - you're not supposed to edit articles on enWiki..

I have the feeling that the issue is rather that, I just participated bringing a view that is different from his views but that is equally well sourced. The edit I posted was literally copied (I am sorry for that) from a English book from a Reputable institution but even this did not work: the edit was reverted without any reason. All all my requests to know why did not work.

I requested a 3O but this could not be processed because no discussion had place before. So I found myself between a rock and a hard place. For this reason I report this incident. My primary concern is to find a solution. Useless to say, if the community confirms that Direktor has behaved in conformity with WP's rules I will accept the judgement. For what I could see on other discussions, Direktor usually talks like that. So may be this is normal and acceptable.Silvio1973 (talk) 11:25, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

• At a glance it seems User:DIREKTOR (Silvio1973, please note you linked another user above - user names are case sensitive apparently) has WP:OWN behaviour on Talk:Istrian exodus. Refusal to comment on what seems a decent source-based addition looks disruptive to me. I suspect there is some pro-Yugoslavian POV on the part of DIREKTOR, but I am the son of Istrian exiles, and as such I'm quite biased on the issue, most probably.--cyclopia^speak! 11:48, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

That is most certainly not the case. I have not expanded that article in any significant way and absolutely do not consider myself the "owner". As for "refusing to comment", I have filled an entire talkpage archive and more trying my best to work this out with Silvio. Then we rolled back to an old version and basically agreed not to edit without consensus... until the user typically disregarded all agreements and started another edit war. I explain my position in detail at the talkpage [2]. The bottom line is that, whichever way you look at it, Silvio and myself certainly seem unable to discuss properly - and discussion is very much required on this complex, sensitive, and highly controversial issue, which is in fact the subject of something of an international dispute.

What is required is neutral input. More users. Someone who's willing to help and work with us (or perhaps against us :)) towards a neutral representation of the source material. And yes Cyclopia, while I certainly do not mean to say this "disqualifies" you somehow, it would indeed obviously be better if the input (if any) would come from users who aren't personally connected to this issue, especially actual victims of these tragic events. For the record, I am a "Yugoslav" (Croat) of Italian ancestry myself, hailing originally from Veneto. -- Director (talk) 13:05, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough. I further commented on the talk page, but I fully acknowledge I have a bias -also detailed in the talk page. I'll see if I can maintain restraint or if I should leave, and for sure neutral editors should be encouraged there. However, regardless of Silvio1973 previous edits/behaviour, which I didn't analyze in detail, the last edit seemed at least worth of discussion, and not of such blunt dismissal -and you yourself actually half-acknowledged that on the talk page. In any case, I am asking there just if you can both list what are the points of contention and the sources you both use; then probably it becomes easier for editors uninvolved in the issue to see what to do.--cyclopia^speak! 14:15, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

No DIREKTOR, it's not the case. You are a responsible person and I am an incompetent, aggressive and nationalist user. And on top of that, as you correctly say my English is very poor. OK, now the entire community knows what a bad editor I am. But now please tell us what is wrong with the sources provided in support of the edit. We have been all extremely patient. Yes this issue is controversial and you do very little (if anything) to contribute to make things running more smoothly. But this time you have passed the limit. And quite a long time ago. Silvio1973 (talk) 14:11, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Please note that the above editors are currently at DRN concerning a related page (See Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Republic of Kosovo). I believe both pages are covered under Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia --Guy Macon (talk) 16:55, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Well yes, but nothing untoward is or was happening in relation to that issue. I often edit Kosovo articles, Silvio just followed my contribs there to harass. But still, besides the arguable WIKIHOUNDING there's nothing there that might warrant mention at ANI.. -- Director (talk) 20:55, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Please remain focused on the reason of the AN/I

Direktor continue to add useless comment on the other users, but I have reported this issue on AN/I because I want to know why Direktor keeps reverting a sourced edit about the Istrian Exodus and not to give him an additional occasion to insult me.

The edit reverted is:

A second wave left at the end of the war with the beginning of killings, expropriation and other forms of pressure from the Yugoslavs authorities to estabilish control.

There are 3 sources:

1)Ethnic Cleansing and the European Union - Page 136, Lynn Tesser - It contains the exact sentence of the proposed edit.

2)History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans - Pamela Ballinger, Princetown University Press, UK, 2003 - Page 77 - It contains the following sentence about the second period of the exodus : A second wave followed at war's end as Yugoslavs used force and intimidation to install the facto control.

3)People on the move: forced population movements in Europe after WWII and its aftermath - Pertti Ahonen et al., Berg, USA, 2008 - Page 106 - Concerning the exodus from Rijeka/Fiume that had place during the second wave of the exodus it is written : The liberators carried out a series of public murders and instituted an intense policy of Croatization of the city.

If these sources are not good, I want to know why. Otherwise the edit has to be restored and the disruptive comportment of Direktor must be stopped.Silvio1973 (talk) 21:16, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of who is pushing what POV, the behaviour of DIREKTOR (talk · contribs) on Talk:Istrian exodus leaves a lot to be desired. Continuous apparently unfounded accusations that Silvio1973 does not understand English and stubborn refusal to discuss several edits are seriously problematic. Granted, in some cases it seems, by reading the talk page, that DIREKTOR is right on some points, but this does not justifies his behaviour apparently. --cyclopia^speak! 22:35, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

..And you're posting this after my having reverted myself [3], and after having read on the talkpage that I did so? [4] I may be out of bounds on this specific sentence, and that not by any great margin - but this is such an tiny part of the main problem, it hardly even warrants discussion here. The central issue is Silvio's disruption that makes trying to discuss with him an unbelievably annoying and time-consuming chore. Were that not the case, we would likely already have solved any problems. As I said before:

“ As regards the Istrian exodus business, its a huge mess to read, but I believe any who take the time may well be surprised anyone has invested so much painstaking effort to unravel Silvio1973's fraudulent referencing and misrepresentation to try and arrive at a source-based lede. The user has no understanding of WP:SYNTH, has trouble with complex English forms, quotes references that have nothing to do with his text, those sources he does read he misrepresents in an incredibly biased manner (taking fragments from various sentences and piecing them together in such a way that entirely distorts the position of the author). He cherry-picks sentences without regard to their context; he attributes text to authors who did not write it; when I add text that is actually based directly on the ref, he demands the right to modify it in accordance with his personal views or else forbids its entry, he outright lies (for lack of a better term) and claims sources support him when, upon investigation, - they do not. He enters into these long monologues where he attempts to convince me of the validity of his own personal theories regarding these events, etc. All this is just childishly obvious and easily-demonstrable.

I could go on and on. Frankly its incredible. A nightmare for any Wikipedian. I probably should just have reverted and ignored the user after discovering the deception(s), or reported him for all this disruption, but I honestly thought we were slowly getting somewhere and decided to invest the time. My mistake.

”

I say yet again - Silvio does understand English, he just doesn't read it very often during discussion because that apparently presents an effort for him. I invite anyone to review Archive 3 and see it for themselves, particularly as the discussion really starts going (the Archive actually starts with Silvio's first misquoted reference). In fact I hope he doesn't understand English, because the alternative is that he's been deliberately making quite the fool of me, the user who invested immense effort in spite of the barrier to try and work this out. -- Director (talk) 23:36, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

For example, let me present one case here (then I'll go to work to present more cases :)). Here's me writing a 5,000-character post where I go into some detail regarding a complex attempt at sourcing fraud with two references [5]; which followed another such attempt [6]. Only after some research was I even able to divine which one of the several piled-on references is actually used as the support for the text Silvio introduced at the time, and discover that the rest are just fluff to make the thing "stick". Then I go into how the one source that's actually the basis for the edit ("Ahonen") has been misrepresented, in both its position being distorted, and through just plain lying. On top of all that's mentioned there, I also later discovered that "Ahonen", referred to as the author in Silvio's citation - isn't the author.

With the second ref, I go on about how the user attempted to deceive me by posting an obvious sentence fragment (perhaps less obvious to him), that turned out (when I finally found the book) only to refer to claims made by Stalin during his confrontation with Yugoslavia. I.e. the author was just talking about Stalin's claims, and not presenting her own position. But Silvio1973 won't tell you things like that. He'll say its "sourced" and repeatedly refuse to complete the fraudulent sentence fragment he presented, etc.

But its the user's response [7] that's really interesting. Without even the slightest attempt at apology, he writes a brief comment about how I've spent a lot of my limited time on that post (he clearly didn't read it), and then starts a new section for no reason [8], just continuing on as if nothing had happened, and repeatedly making strange and dishonest claims about my supposedly not having participated in a DRN thread (where I obviously did participate). This sort of thing is generally how it goes, as Cyclopia seems to have noted reviewing the latest threads. -- Director (talk) 01:16, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Apologies -I didn't notice yet your self revert before writing that comment, and it is indeed a very good demonstration of good faith on your part. Now, the thread you cite is indeed worrying on the part of Silvio1973, even if I would not go as far as to present it as "fraudulent" -he is selectively quoting out of context and nobody denies it's bad, but it does not seem the full context flatly contradicts the kind of reasoning Silvio1973 wanted to add -after all, it does not state it was just Stalin's claim, only that the claim has been used by Stalin. However yes, it is problematic, refusal to give context is also very problematic, and you are mostly correct debating his edits in that context, from what I can read. However in general, DIREKTOR, your confrontational attitude does not help. Just keep cool and keep arguments based on sourcing. I honestly think both of you should (1)list the individual points of contention (2)go on some relevant wikiproject and ask for outside help, perhaps via a RfC or something. --cyclopia^speak! 10:31, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm hardly objective of course, but I wouldn't describe it as "confrontational". You'd be surprised how fast one gets annoyed with WP:ICANTHEARYOU, and having to repeat oneself every single time. "Fraud" may be a harsh-sounding word, but its accurate. I know that's how we call it in medicine when someone posts fake sources (over and over again).

Again, while I know this is not the venue to request participation, I hope the thread will draw attention to the dysfunction of the talkpage over there: we need at least one more user. Silvio and I alone just don't get anywhere. We of course tried 3O, RfCs, and DRN already. Otherwise I don't see how we can proceed. -- Director (talk) 10:58, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I can only be happy if more users participate. However, if Stalin used a specific fact to the benefit of his propaganda, this does not mean the fact is false. Indeed the source say that it's true (although Direktor claimed at least 10 times my English is poor and I did not understan). However I will bring, when we will discuss of that point, more sources supporting the fact. Concerning the context, everything now it's provided. And yes 4 sources describe the same context. Feel free to read. Direktor, please tell us what is wrong. Silvio1973 (talk) 13:30, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Sigh... no, Ballinger does not confirm the claim, I read almost all of her book. And Corni 2008 specifically contradicts said claim (p.106), explaining that there was "no official decision for expelling Italians", and that "modern historiography places social and economic factors to the forefront" (p.109), etc... Goodness only knows what it is (if anything) that's making you think Ballinger "say it's true". I honestly suspect more OR, or nothing. Never mind the dishonest presentation of claims by Joesph Stalin, as "facts" by prof. Ballinger, and the deliberate, repeated refusal to finish an obvious sentence fragment to avoid the deception being exposed... -- Director (talk) 18:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Direktor, this is a separate matter. I opened to ANI for an edit that you kept reverting. Apparently this issue is solved. Please refer to the talk page if you want to add something. Silvio1973 (talk) 19:30, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I believe it is relevant. And I do not think the issue is solved at all, as even now you're pushing for a new set of controversial changes. After I filled-out an entire talkpage archive, you accused me of not discussing with you. So naturally I want to explain why I stopped doing so, and why I believe its your behavior that's truly at the core of the problem - and not mine (at least not to a comparable extent). -- Director (talk) 21:08, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

@Direktor, going trough your posts - with everyone, not only when you discuss with me - it looks that it´s always someone's else fault. You are never responsible. The others are never competent enough. Look I did you behaved on the DRN concerning the discussion about the Republic of Kosovo. You are a competent and experienced editor but you are too confrontational and you fail to recognise when (sometime) you are wrong. But the worse is that you concentrate on the users and not on their contributions. For someone of your experience it's regrettable. You should be less confrontational. It is in your own interest, other users won't take you less seriously because you are calmer. Silvio1973 (talk) 05:13, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposed topic ban for User:Blade-of-the-South

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

---

Blade-of-the-South (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user has consistently pushed their POV on articles related to the Syrian civil war, particularly on but not limited to Ghouta chemical attack. The user has been quite explicit on their user talk page and the article talk page that he intends to continue pushing until their POV is presented as fact, and indeed appears to take pride in the fact that he is a POV warrior: [9], [10]. He also makes it clear that he intends to exhaust other editors until he can establish the POV that he views as Truth: [11], [12].

His editing history could be a checklist for WP:TE:

• One who is blocked for violating the three revert rule more than once
  • Yup, per their block log (technically, one revert rule in this case).
• One who repeats the penalised edit
  • Their very first edit after their last block for edit warring was to continue to edit war the same diff.
• One who accuses others of malice
  • Editor seems to be under the impression that anyone who disagrees with him must be on the payroll of a shadowy government association, [13], [14]. His talk page edits are rife with personal attacks and snipes, ie [15], [16], [17], [18].
• One who disputes the reliability of apparently good sources
  • Good lord, about 50% of the article's talk page archives. The editor's primary criterion for evaluating sources appears to be whether they support his views.
• One who repeats the same argument without convincing people
  • [19], [20], [21]
• One who deletes the cited additions of others
  • [22], [23]

Diff of one of several attempts to address problems with the user: [24]

Diff of notification of this discussion section: [25]

It is my opinion that this editor is too emotionally attached to their personal beliefs to contribute constructively to articles related to the Syrian civil war. I am proposing that Blade-of-the-South be topic banned from all articles related to the Syrian conflict, broadly construed, for six months. VQuakr (talk) 09:29, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

• Just a quick observation, having perused only a few of the diffs reported here: "No one has the right to delete others stuff" blatantly contradicts Blade of the South's edit here (with no comment on whether that brief note should be in the article). But in this edit part of the information that was removed was done so correctly (Facebook stuff), though their edit summary was very faulty. But this is madness: "intel agencies" are to blame for a whitewashing on the Ghouta talk page? Besides a personal attack on the integrity and good faith of the editors active on that talk page, that's just another whacky conspiracy theory (that whole thread on the user's talk page is full of it) and in itself could be enough to disqualify the editor, since they obviously have issues that prevent them from editing neutrally. I'm leaning toward supporting a topic ban. Drmies (talk) 16:38, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm obviously an involved editor here who has repeatedly clashed with Blade-of-the-South (there was an incident some weeks ago that raised my suspicions enough to open an SPI, but an administrator I hold in high regard and believe to have been impartial concluded he did not intentionally break Wikipedia site rules) and who does not share Blade-of-the-South's oft-professed POV on the Syrian conflict. That being said, I've worked with editors on any number of articles during my years of editing Wikipedia with whom I haven't always seen eye-to-eye, and I have found Blade-of-the-South to be a highly tendentious and problematic "partner" on Ghouta chemical attack. His only criterion for determining what to include in the article seems to be whether it aligns with his POV. He is persistent in making unfounded and untoward accusations toward fellow editors. He openly professes his strategy is to wait other editors out so he can eventually have free rein to make conforming changes to bring the article in line with his fringe beliefs. This isn't the behavior of someone whom I believe can ever be counseled to contribute constructively on this topic. He obviously either has much stronger feelings about it than I do, or less of an ability to shelve his POV and edit from a neutral stance than most other Wikipedians with whom I've collaborated over the years. You can discount my vote as that of an involved editor if you'd like, but I reluctantly support a topic ban. That's not a decision I come to lightly, but it's well past tiresome to deal with this editor's repeated attempts to skew the article's POV and slime fellow editors on Talk. -Kudzu1 (talk) 17:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

It could just be my geographical bias, but I'm really not seeing a good reason not to just block this editor. Throwing around wild conspiracy theories and relentlessly attacking everyone in sight doesn't seem like the type of editing we need here. I see no realistic chance of improvement, and a topic ban would just be delaying the inevitable. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:26, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm of two minds on that. My instinct is to say I think that would be overly harsh, as I've seen no evidence Blade-of-the-South cannot contribute constructively on other topics. But in reviewing his contribs history, he seems to almost exclusively edit Ghouta chemical attack, occasionally shopping his warped belief that "some editors" on that page are paid intelligence operatives over to the likes of Wikipedia talk:No paid advocacy. I don't know if that qualifies him as a WP:SPA; a cursory look at my contribs page shows the overwhelming majority of my recent edits are to that article as well (although I helped expand Same-sex marriage in New Mexico a couple of months ago), so I don't want to paint with an overly broad brush -- glass houses and all. -Kudzu1 (talk) 22:38, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

• I've blocked Blade of the South twice pursuant to the general sanctions. My concern is he doesn't seem to learn. His reactions to the blocks while blocked are refreshingly civil, and you infer from his comments that he knows what he did wrong and won't do it again, but then he does. I'm not going to dredge up the diff, but my recollection after the second block is he fairly quickly went back to the article and restored his version. I didn't notice it right away, and perhaps over generously, I did not block him again, even though the revert merited a longer block. I suspect that his apparent inability to change his behavior is not because he doesn't get it but because his biases outweigh his intellectual grasp of policy. The Intel conspiracy issue truly bothers me as well. I would support a topic ban although I would add talk pages to the language. The Blade of the Northern Lights's feeling that he be blocked is not warranted at this point, in my view, although the probable effect of a topic ban for Blade of the South would be a block (too many blades here, I gotta be careful) as he doesn't edit much outside the topic area. Plus, any sanction should be tailored to preventing future misconduct.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:25, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

@Bbb23: personally, I did not find either of these edits while blocked to be particularly apologetic. VQuakr (talk) 01:11, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

First, I never said he was "apologetic". Second, those comments were directed at you; I don't think you're one of his favorite people. I was referring to his comments posted, as I recall, after my block notices.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:20, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply and clarification. I was not attempting to mischaracterize your post, sorry about that. VQuakr (talk) 01:47, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

It would take a lot of checking to find what I refer to. Who has the time? However I offer a view. What has propmted this activity here by the editing duo VQuakr and Kudzu1 is my success in bypassing their edit monopoly recently. I did this here [26] and here [27] I changed tactic, by using the rules. I have played legit the last two weeks by learning the processes, despite the taunts (as some editors have a proclivity toward taking something like this and running as far as they can with it to the point of breaking WP:NPOV. Kudzu1) and sarcasm (Wait, so let me get this straight. U.S. government agency says the Syrian government almost definitely gassed civilians in Ghouta, which is pure lies and propaganda. But other U.S. government agency says the weather in Syria was a certain thing at a certain time, which is irrefutable and undeniable fact. Got it. -Kudzu1 (talk) 06:58, 8 November 2013 (UTC)0

They did not like this, and are playing the previous cards where I just took them on and got banned etc. Why, because I learnt how to get neutral editors involved. There has also been a run of discouraged editiors who identified the US POV and tried to fix it, these two VQ and K have chased them away including. [28] [29] It would take a sustained effort to research and see this pattern of editing to retain the US version of the Syrian Gas attack. They would not like this conversation either. [30]

VQ is a passive aggresssive. This is his style left on my talk page. ‘There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved’. And he is not a favourite of mine. Hes disengenuos with WP IMHO. Hes Non NPOV. To give him his credit VQ knows the system. But he plays it to get the pro US POV in the article relentlessly. Hes playing it now. I will call it as I see it. IMHO they are both paid advocates who play the WP System because its their job. It makes no difference if Im topic banned or worse. Its a minor inconvenience. YOU remain with an article thats biased and the probably never to be resolved issue of paid editors who taint WP. Blade-of-the-South talk 03:31, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

VQ may or may not be "passive-aggresive", I have no idea, but the text you quoted is not evidence of anything, since it's the language of the standard notification template ANI-notice which editors are suggested to use when notifying other editors that an AN/I thread has been opened. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:18, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

A few things here.

1) I had literally no involvement in proposing this topic ban. The first I heard of it was when I was checking User talk:Blade-of-the-South this afternoon (FYI, Blade-of-the-South, something I do semi-regularly with editors who contribute to pages with which I'm involved, as a means of making sure I'm not missing any conversations happening off article Talk, such as your fascinating dialogue with a new editor you appeared to encourage to edit-war -- glad he didn't take your advice -- a couple of days ago on Talk:Ghouta chemical attack).

2) Following onto that, for all your repeated insinuations that VQuakr and/or I am working on behalf of some sort of intelligence operation, you have yet to come anywhere close to the neighborhood of offering evidence to support your outlandish (and insulting) claim. I am not a government employee or contractor of any type, I have next to no personal stake in Syria or the broader region, and although VQuakr and I apparently do live within the same metropolitan area of 2.64 million people, as far as I know, we've never even met.

3) I would apologize for the "taunts" and sarcasm, but the "taunt" was not any such thing -- I think it's perfectly reasonable to request that a potentially controversial change be workshopped somewhat before being boldly inserted, and I think some involved editors, including Blade-of-the-South, have misconstrued statements by other editors as the go-ahead to make objectionable additions and removals or word things in an unencyclopedic way. I myself have been rapped at times by editors who object to bold changes I've made, per the bold-revert-discuss process, which I believe is valuable and which I've done my level best to respect. And as for the sarcasm, sure, my tone was probably unhelpful, as another editor pointed out. But it seems like you're trying to pretend that you've been keeping your head down and I've been beating up on you for no apparent reason, and that's downright laughable -- considering the absurd accusations and personal attacks you've made that VQuakr documented in his initial post.

4) As far as I'm concerned, Swawa and any other editor is free to raise points and contribute constructively anywhere on Wikipedia. My response to his effort to introduce claims from his self-published blog and promote that website under the eponymous handle User:Whoghouta was admittedly short, while VQuakr did take a tougher tack by first hatting and then removing the thread -- and was backed up by Orangemike, an uninvolved administrator. This isn't about Swawa, who has accepted administrators' recommendation to create a new account and back off promotion of his blog, and I don't feel I've done anything to "chase off" Swawa at all.

5) I've seen the "intel agencies" conversation to which you're referring. Congratulations -- you have found a couple of other like-minded individuals on Wikipedia. Do I think it's unreasonable to think that some Wikipedia editors may be employees of intelligence services of one country or another? No, I don't. But what is both unreasonable and uncivil is to repeatedly suggest that the only reason you aren't able to run roughshod inserting your own POV on an article like Ghouta chemical attack is that your fellow editors are spooks being paid to stymie you.

6) I have to applaud you on finally coming out and saying outright, rather than just insinuating it, that you think VQuakr (for whom I can't speak, but whom I do believe is a responsible and generally even-handed editor, even though I don't always agree with his edits or comments) and I are "paid advocates". I was getting really sick of you beating around the bush, and it's nice to see you've finally mustered the courage to lay your bad-faith conspiracy theory out there in plain wording.

I don't have too much else to say, other than that I sort of do wonder about that SPI sometimes, considering the lengths this tendentious editors has gone to since then in order to smear opposing editors and sidestep Wikipedia policy and guidelines in order to advance his POV by any means necessary. But what's done is done.

I will say Blade-of-the-South's utterly graceless response to this proposal, including his slam on VQuakr for using what appears to be a generic and inoffensive template text to inform him of the discussion, has hardened my belief and reduced my reluctance to support this suggested topic ban. -Kudzu1 (talk) 04:41, 9 November 2013 (UTC) -- updated 05:06 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Kudzu1 re point 1. Hardly encouraging a war. Read what I replied to. People are aware you are a tandem outfit and political. Point 2. Its hard to prove. You havn't denied it yet. At best you are true believers in the American view. Either way you are biased to a high degree . Point 3. You are aggressive. I dont mind that in a person who is honest about it, Im ex military and its a good quality at times, but you lack insight and it just comes across as nasty. Point 4. You play the system, read his parting note. He knew that. You and VQ discourage WP as it should be. Its effective I'll give you that. Someone posts, bam your on it. Like your working. Its very naive to think WP is not on the intel radar. But most people dont want to know. Hell after Snowden, youd have to be in a hole to not know all data is intercepted. WP is certainly a high search engine asset not to be left to chance. If your just doing your job, congratulations, youre doing it well. The article is still US POV. But like Iraq it will fall apart in time. Point 5. You know my so called POV is called the other perspective. While I say both views should be in you try hard to exclude Russias view. Thats POV. You know that. Next. Point 6. I dont care what you think because you edit by agenda. And thats why I dont trust you. Accounts are easy to come by, morals far more so. I know I am open to both sides of this story to be included. Like the Iraq WMD fiasco, your Pro USA POV will unravel. I'll see you on the page then. Adios. Blade-of-the-South talk 06:16, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I have absolutely, repeatedly, and categorically denied it. What's more, I find it utterly insulting you expect that I should have to respond to such malicious nonsense. And as for me trying to exclude Russia and "edit by agenda", hmm, let's find some examples. You mean like this? Or this? Maybe it was this? I suppose it could have been this? And I see you're closing out your post with yet another ominous prediction about how this will turn out like Iraq and a promise to hold out with your POV until then. Lovely. All right, well, I've said my piece and I should probably leave this for uninvolved editors and administrators to decide -- I just wanted to give my perspective on how Blade-of-the-South has been, IMO, a disingenuous, tendentious, and stubbornly unconstructive editor in my months of experience with him. Obviously, he is more than welcome to think whatever he thinks about me, and I don't expect to lose much sleep over it. -Kudzu1 (talk) 06:39, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Nice try Kudzu1> There is no doubt in the minds of many WP is an intel target. [31] [32]. [33] Ghouta is especially relevant. Of the editors, all of them, who is likely. You two only. I dont care about the account. But this sort of thing is why WP fails in some respects. Blade-of-the-South talk 06:43, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't much care about your view that that "WP is an intel target". Editors, both named and anonymous, create all sorts of problems at Wikipedia because of their biases and their conflicts of interest. The one example you cite above is just that, one example, in this instance of an edit from the U.S. Senate that made one inappropriate edit to the Snowden article that was quickly reverted. It's not that different from an IP editing from a corporation or a political campaign or anything else and trying to denigrate or promote something in an article. Making a generalized statement, though, about biased edits is quite different from accusing specific editors of having a nefarious agenda. You don't back that up. All you've shown is that your views on the topic area differ from theirs. If that was the only criterion for determining underhanded shennanigans, almost every editor, including you, in these controversial topic areas would fit into your paradigm. What your attitude here confirms - and this is generally the case that editors make things worse in their comments at ANI - is that you deserve to be topic-banned because you can't edit neutrally and because when some editors disagree with you, you sling accusations of conspiracy and what-not to impugn their motives and their edits.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:05, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Of course Im aware commenting here highlights my views, that's why I did it. WP relies on communal trust, as we all do even walking down the St. There is trust VQ is not a sock puppet of Kudzu1 or vice versa. They could be one person. They come from the same area. They edit in tandem. They tag team. How can you know? You cant if its done well i.e set persona's. No problem for an agent trained well. That's how the trust can be abused on WP. Most people have no idea how things are really done, Snowden has opened a window. You admins are just like putty in a system (WP) with good ideals but built like a sieve. I can come back tomorrow Dynamic IP, Tor, different PC, dif Nic. Your being played and there's nothing you can do about it, you dont have the tools or policy, know where to start or even the will. You are a microcosm of the USA, debt to your eyeballs, shot full of holes and failures like Obamacare. Still hoping in the face of a slow collapse Blade-of-the-South talk 01:49, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

After the above screeds, I'm still more convinced that just blocking and being done with it is the best way to resolve this. You've done exactly nothing above to show that you have any potential of being a useful editor. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:51, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

You are entitled to your view. My purpose above was to show you how flawed WP is when up against the determined cheat. Thats useful. Blade-of-the-South talk 04:11, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• I just blocked the Southern Blade for 31 hours for harassment/personal attack: "Update. Im a target of intel boys" with a link to this discussion is a personal attack on the integrity of all the boys and girls participating in this thread. (It's canvassing and all that too, but never mind.) In my opinion, those kinds of comments are unacceptable since they go to the core of AGF. Whatever else should be done with this editors I leave to the other intel boys. Drmies (talk) 04:24, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe he has invited you to "bite" him, Drmies. -Kudzu1 (talk) 05:02, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, he thinks this matters, that he's actually accomplishing something by exposing blah blah blah. Drmies (talk) 14:29, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Support skipping directly to the indef block per wp:nothere or wp:notherapy or wp:cir or wp:de; you just know that's how this going to turn out. NE Ent 15:01, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

After subsequent comments by Blade-of-the-South, or as The Blade of the Northern Lights aptly calls them "screeds", I now lean in favor of an indefinite block.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:41, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Since VQuakr and I are apparently the same paid intelligence agent, does it count as two votes if I say I think it's appropriate to skip straight to the indef? :P -Kudzu1 (talk) 21:51, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• After several rants on his talk page, his latest is: "Im done here. Im deleting this password user on my PC. Im banning WP as a waste of time in your current mode. I feel sorry for you guys." I'm not fond of retirement announcements that later turn out to be fake. I'm inclined to indef the user without a consensus for doing so. Strictly speaking, a block doesn't require consensus.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:42, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Two is a consensus, right? Drmies (talk) 01:50, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Unretirement is a mostly harmless wiki tradition, that's not really the issue here. NE Ent 02:09, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Heh, I count more than two. It's just two lately. He's now talking about socking (he's alluded to that before), although it makes no sense because on the one hand he says he wants to ban WP from his world, but then he says he already has another account he's going to use. I thought of talk page revocation, but ... Oh, yeah, thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:03, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Might be worth keeping an eye on User:Valkyrie 06, the account Blade-of-the-South appeared to use either as a sock or meatpuppet to harass me and chide Bbb23 a couple months ago -- but I think it's likelier Blade-of-the-South will reemerge under a different user handle entirely. Hopefully it will take less time to sniff him out than it did with some of the other socks I've had to deal with (DanielUmel, a particularly prolific ChronicalUsual sock, comes to mind). -Kudzu1 (talk) 02:34, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

No need to keep an eye on that anymore; good call. I actually ran into that editor's work a few days ago, by chance. Blocked indefinitely--not as meat, but as a straight-up sock. It's possible, of course, that Blade is indeed married, but the linguistics tell me that this is not a case of meat. Now, go ahead and start that SPI if you like, for future reference, and request CU to create a record. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 02:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The SPI is located at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Blade-of-the-South/Archive. I actually opened it up some time ago, and Bbb23 decided to let Blade-of-the-South off with a warning at the time after Hoverfish, a third-party editor who indicated some knowledge of Blade-of-the-South's personal life, stopped by to vouch for him. -Kudzu1 (talk) 03:09, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Reaper Eternal and Drmies have rooted out a handful of BotS socks. They've been tagged and BotS is now marked as a sockpuppeteer, which will hopefully help out if he comes back to make mischief in the future. -Kudzu1 (talk) 04:50, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

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

User:ProudIrishAspie and Infobox flags

I don't like having to come to this board for any reason, but due to the continued actions of the user listed above, I find myself with no other options. For several months, I've noticed that User:ProudIrishAspie has gone on long tears of adding flags to military history info boxes - generally for biographies, ships, and battles. The problems are that a) I don't think WP:INFOBOXFLAG supports such wholesale use of flags, but more importantly, it doesn't support the use of ahistorical and fantastical flags. For instance, this user has added the Gadsden flag to numerous articles as the flag of the Continental Army; this flag simply was never used in any such capacity. See an example of this here. In another set of instances, s/he has added a template with the Red Ensign to symbolize the Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War; this is also incorrect, as the Royal Navy was also represented by a White Ensign and a Blue Ensign, and there is no consensus that the Red version ought to represent the Royal Navy as a whole. See an example of this here. Not all of PIA's flag additions are inaccurate, but enough are that a whole lot of reverting will need to take place. Even if accurate, as I expressed on his/her talk, I don't believe they add any more information other than what the words say.

• A look at his/her recent contributions will show you the extent of this user's single-mindedness. I would guesstimate that the user has made over 1,500 infobox flag edits since October 1; in my opinion (based on my knowledge and frequent work in and around American Revolutionary War issues), nearly all of his contributions to 18th century military history articles will be inaccurate. Even if not, he's cluttering up thousands of info boxes.
• I attempted to converse with the user three times, once in May, here, and twice more in the past week, here and here.
• This user has previously been blocked at least once because of this same issue this year; that discussion is at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive797#ProudIrishAspie.
• I understand the user has self-identified as being a person with Aspergers Syndrome; while I would in no way ever denigrate or "pick on" another user because of his disability, I do not believe a disability should allow a user to continue to edit disruptively - and to avoid talking about it. If he thought I was wrong, all he'd have to do is answer my multiple comments.

I am willing to answer any questions or concerns, particularly about the subject matter, which I know is unfamiliar to many. Cdtew (talk) 07:25, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

• Notice left on the user's talk here. Cdtew (talk) 07:27, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

• Cdtew, I was involved in the discussion last time that led to the block, which I fully supported. I have a few questions for you and for the general audience: 1. WP:INFOBOXFLAG seems to support no flags at all in infoboxes in biographies, except for sportspeople in very specific contexts. I know it's customary to have them in military people's infoboxes, but I don't even see that supported. Did I misread? What does MILHIST have to say? 2. Can you identify (for the non-specialist) incorrect flags after your second recent note? 3. Do you (and others) think that the ratio of incorrect vs. correct is high enough to warrant mass rollback? It's a drastic step, but it may be legitimate if there's simply too many incorrect flags.

  I'm going to leave another note for them, a kind of cease and desist note, though I don't anticipate any answer--this is one of the things that make working with the editor so impossible. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 13:55, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

  • I'm struggling to remember the last time I even participated in a thread at ANI but I think it's worth doing so here... I agree that INFOBOXFLAG appears to support not using flags in infoboxes as a general rule. I don't know if this was always the case. When I started editing military articles (primarily biographies) in around 2007, infoboxes always used little flags for nationality/allegiance and service, so I followed suit. Sometime in the past year my attention was drawn to the guideline and I stopped using infobox flags in my new articles and removed them from existing articles that I was improving. The world did not end; several other MilHist editors have adopted a similar practice. I don't think the issue is necessarily bad enough to systematically remove all flags in all articles, but I'd strongly discourage systematically adding flags (whether they're 'correct' or not) to articles -- it's imagecruft at best, misleading at worst, and is one of those WP behaviours that strikes me as plain obsessive. I'd have no issue with a mass rollback in this particular case. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:27, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Thank you Ian, for that useful narrative. (I always like stories.) I'm hoping for a bit more input from your fellow editors there. Drmies (talk) 23:35, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
      • The issue of flags in infoboxes in ship articles was recently discussed at WT:SHIPS and it was consensus that for them it was appropriate due to flag variations, ensigns, etc. I think it was discussed awhile back at MILHIST that flags for battles and such in infoboxes were not, but I'm drawing a blank on finding it. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
        • @Drmies: I think you have most of an answer for (1) - I'm with Ian, but my position is that because a nation/kingdom's name is generally found in the "allegiance" and "service" fields, the flag adds no additional information, and serves to disproportionately emphasize the importance of those sections, which is contrary to INFOBOXFLAG. As for (2), here are some examples of edits that came after my recent warnings:
          1. Theophile Aube - This edit ignores the actual article, inserting the Kingdom of France's flag and the white French Navy flag for an admiral who served only under the Tricolour; PIA relied solely on the apparently incorrect dates in the infobox to add the wrong flag; this is emblematic of this editor's modus operandi: in previous discussions, he's stated that he makes these edits quickly, and acknowledges this leads to mistakes.
          2. Armand Blanquet du Chayla - Here, the editor removed the tricolor and replaced it with the Kingdom of France flag and the French royal naval ensign; this ignores the fact that the article expressly mentions du Chayla's service in the post-revolutionary navy, thus under the tricolor.
          3. Frank Matteson Bostwick - This is another systemic issue; throughout an untold number of articles, the editor has placed the Flag of the United States Navy (which was adopted in 1959) in infoboxes of people who died before 1959. This is ahistorical and should be rolled back.
          4. Samuel Hood - Here's one showing the Royal Navy flag issue.
          5. George Little - Another U.S. Navy flag issue, but this also includes a US flag issue; the reason flags are so messy for this period are that there were multiple U.S. flags between 1775-1800. So, this subject served in the American revolution under the 13-star flag, but also served in the U.S. navy under the 15-star flag (adopted in 1795); PIA has only chosen to put one, which is misleading. Multiple flags, though, will be too much.
          6. Francis Nash - This one is what initially caught my attention; note this was before my warnings. In this one, a U.S. flag issue appears (Nash would have in theory served under the Grand Union Flag of 1775-6, and the 13-star flag of 1777). Most importantly, though, this is an appearance of the Gadsden flag issue, which is now in a multitude of articles about Continental Army soldiers.
        • That's just some, for now. Admittedly, the last one came before my warning, but I wanted to explain to be clear. Cdtew (talk) 03:03, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Warning given: I will block if there's any more flag edits pending this discussion. Drmies (talk) 13:58, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
• Such edits were indeed made since the warning was given: here, for instance. That warrants a block, unfortunately. In addition, there is enough doubt here about the editor's competence that I believe mass rollback is warranted, as painful as it is: this probably undoes a large number of valid edits, but taking samples from the last 500 edits confirms that many of these edits are problematic, especially since none of them come with any kind of explanation. Drmies (talk) 04:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

• Instead of an outright block, is there a way to topic ban the user from the narrow point of adding flags, rank insignia, or other images and icons to the infoboxes of military history biographies? Cdtew (talk) 14:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

• Sure--the moment they start talking. Drmies (talk) 14:58, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Sadly, we can open a discussion and even enact it without their discussion input - which appears to be necessary ES&L 15:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I happened to see this section heading pop on my watchlist, and bells went off. I can't put my finger on anything specific, but this first edit to the user page stands out. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:23, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

[Comment redacted by author]

Oh my. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

• I've seen equipment - ships mostly, but occasionally other military vehicles if there has been a long enough history of said vehicles being in operation - use flags to denote operators or allegiances, but in most cases save for specific ships the use of flags in such an article is limited to a section on foreign use and is not in the infobox. In most cases battle or war articles will use flags to denote the allegiance of the military commander in the battle or the faction that fights the battle in the infobox, but again this is only done in a limited capacity, particularly since we get anal about citations and verifiability at MILHIST for articles on such material. Personally I think it a bad idea since most of the flags used have long since fallen out of use by a nation and the addition of flags to infoboxes A) unnecessarily increases the size of an infobox, B) can be said to violate POV by assigning a specific nation or allegiance to the subject of the infobox, and C) adds nothing to the infobox that could not be expanded upon in better, more accurate, and well cited way within the article body itself. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:32, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

• @TomStar81: Tom, I agree that there are instances where it appears flag use has become acceptable. I personally don't use flags in biography infoboxes, as I think the flag places undue emphasis on allegiance/branch of service. For instance, I think we can all agree that Elvis Presley shouldn't have a portion of his infobox with flags for allegiance and branch of service, as those were minor factors in his life. My main problem with the flags that PIA is putting in infoboxes is that many of them are erroneous. In the 18th century, flags (aside from naval ensigns and those flown from fortifications) didn't have much consistency or official backing.

To further confuse issues, there are a ton of flags that were adopted in the 19th/20th centuries that people want to impose on 18th century conflicts and figures. Look at the Seven Years' War article as an example, where the infobox will occasionally be littered by things like the Iroquois flag (a 20th century creation), the Russian flag {not made official until the 19th century), or variations of the Austrian/Holy Roman Empire/Austro-Hungarian flag (all either 19th century creations or representative of something larger than "Austria"). Or, on the other hand, look at problems with Civil War articles like 7th Arkansas Field Battery, where, despite constant warning, another editor continues to create articles on Arkansas confederate units featuring the Arkansas flag (for the record: not even thought of in concept until 1912).

So, in short, there's a huge issue with Wikipedia's credibility at stake because of something as silly as flag icons, and users like ProudIrishAspie, who appears to be a single-issue (or dual-issue, along with the subject of mass killings) editor undermining that credibility. That being said, Proud made a note on his talk page here, calling Drmies a prick and asking why he'd been blocked. Drmies and I both responded here asking for him to please talk with us, but since then Proud has not attempted further contact. I'm not an admin, but I would ask for a narrow topic ban now that Proud's edits have been rolled back. Cdtew (talk) 15:38, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

• I just removed the flag at 7th Arkansas Field Battery; as I said in my edit summary, today's Arkansas is not that of 1865--at least I hope not. "Prick"--ah well, I've been called worse, and since I blocked the editors and rolled back a bunch of their edits a bit of anger is understandable. Mind you, I did not roll back all their edits: it's like drowning puppies, it gets to one after a while. (And it seems that mass rollback only rolls back one screen--I went 50 edits per screen to try and prevent my browser from crashing with 100 windows open.) A topic ban is fine with me, as I said before, but the unblocking will have to come after an unblock request--or perhaps someone can volunteer as a kind of mentor, at least initially. But since the editor doesn't wish to communicate there's little to go on right now. Please note that I derive no pleasure from rolling back good-faith though erroneous edits, or from imposing this indefinite block. Drmies (talk) 16:58, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

• I've restored this from the archive, because this still needs formal action. Please, anyone else, have a comment. Cdtew (talk) 13:33, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

• The editor is blocked; that's formal action. I assume you want this possible topic ban discussed? If so, expand below. Drmies (talk) 14:30, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Topic ban for ProudIrishAspie

(Non-Admin proposal here) I'll propose that ProudIrishAspie be topic-banned from adding flags, icons, rank insignia, and other images to military biography infoboxes indefinitely. Cdtew (talk) 16:13, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support. To prevent trouble for us and for them. Drmies (talk) 16:44, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
• Comment please read WP:AUTISM if you have not already. Action is required and I support it, but please implement it in such a manner that the editor understands. Fiddle Faddle 17:08, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Tim, if you want to be involved with phrasing or implementing it, you're more than welcome. Drmies (talk) 00:03, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support, per Drmies, who always puts things more succinctly than me. bobrayner (talk) 22:41, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support as per evidence of behaviour, and evidence of being continually unwilling/unable to amend behaviour in the face of community consensus ES&L 16:35, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support topic ban unless and until PIA discusses the edits that led to this thread, recognizes his errors, and agrees not to repeat them. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 01:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support per Drmies. And it needs to be made clear that any breach of the topic ban will result in a substantive block - possibly indefinite. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:00, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - I have my doubts of this actually succeeding, but this is definitely the first line of defense, as it were; the lightest possible sanction. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:04, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

user talk:2607:F0D0:2002:69:0:0:0:20

This IPV6 editor keeps disrupting Wikipedia. At first, he makes some simple request at my talk page, posing as 31.170.166.23 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Then he gets blocked as sockpuppet of blocked user, who has been interested in code2000, for one year. Then all hell breaks loose, yet this account is blocked for three days. However, that can't stop him from screaming and yelling and spewing words that he used inappropriately. --George Ho (talk) 18:04, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

• As someone who has been dealing with this user as well, I would recommend they be blocked from editing their talk page since they have not done anything besides delete constructive comments and make personal attacks. RA0808 ^talk_contribs 18:13, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
• Talk page access revoked, and I've lengthened the block given the obvious pattern of vandalism and disruption. Can someone smart (Elockid? Kww?) look at the situation? There was a proxy block. I'm looking at the other IPs and accounts in a minute. Drmies (talk) 18:36, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
• On a technical note, this IP is likely an open proxy, given that it's registered to a hosting company, and blocked on the Dutch and French Wikipedias as such.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:03, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, he/she now is trying to reach George at Commons. We hope (talk) 20:16, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

The blocked proxy admits that he is the blocked user Sourceforge (talk · contribs). Let's verify that he is, shall we? George Ho (talk) 20:43, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

The IPv6 has been blocked globally. If you're talking about CheckUser, it won't normally connect an account to its IP.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:48, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Any other methods? George Ho (talk) 22:17, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

We have to go on behavioral evidence alone.--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:28, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There are only three ways to connect an accountname to an IP address (whether IPv4 or IPv6).

• Give Checkuser a really good reason. They are very cautious around privacy.
• Get the editor to admit it.
• Find a good correlation among edits, whether it's making identical reverts/!votes, or more subtle behavioural stuff.

But why would you need to verify? bobrayner (talk) 22:33, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Um, this user is using the second method himself by admitting as Sourceforge and evading blocks by using 31.170.166.23 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) in Commons. Update: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sourceforge is created. George Ho (talk) 22:51, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

It's User:Wikinger, of course. Everybody just please block any IP he uses on sight; always use hardblocks for a year and with talkpage access revoked immediately, without further warnings; these are always open proxies. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:10, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• From what I remember, we usually hardblock this ISP. For future reference, it might be a good idea to get a Steward to block these IPs globally once they've been identified/blocked here. Elockid ^(Talk) 21:43, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
  • The entire /32 is globally hardblocked.--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:25, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

31.170.166.23 was acting up at Commons earlier and is now blocked for 3 days there. This IP is just continuing the quest of the IPv6 one. We hope (talk) 22:30, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Tendentious behaviour by User: Christopher Theodore at Talk:State of nature and elsewhere.

User:ChristopherTheodore, a new account, seems to have severe difficulties comprehending our policies regarding original research, and has been filling Talk:State of nature with an unsourced and repetitive argument to effect the that 'state of nature' is a synonym for 'universe' - rather than a specific concept within political philosophy, the (properly sourced and defined) subject of the existing article - based entirely on an unsupported assertion that this is an 'axiom'. Having failed to win the argument there, and despite the efforts of multiple contributors to explain why his argument has no relevance within the context of the existing article, he has raised exactly the same unsourced and questionable 'axiom' and arguments at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources [34] and at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard [35]. At no point has Christopher Theodore acknowledged that his proposal is not only unsourced, and clearly based on original research, but completely and utterly off-topic with regard to the present content of the article. Given the repetitive nature of the argument, combined with what seems to be a bad case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, I think his behaviour has strayed well into tendentiousness, if not exhibiting a lack of basic competence, and that it may be that a block and/or a topic ban may be necessary, at least until he gives an indication of understanding why articles about one subject shouldn't go off at a tangent and discuss something else entirely. Incidentally, it is worth noting that a previous contributor, User:Aksis was making exactly the same argument, in almost exactly the same words, [36] some five years ago. It seems not unreasonable to ask whether Christopher Theodore and Aksis are one and the same person - if so, we seem to also have a bad case of beating the proverbial deceased equine. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:04, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Rebuttal:

1. "User:ChristopherTheodore, a new account, seems to have severe difficulties comprehending our policies regarding original research, and has been filling Talk:State of nature with an unsourced and repetitive argument to effect the that 'state of nature' is a synonym for 'universe' - rather than a specific concept within political philosophy, the (properly sourced and defined) subject of the existing article - based entirely on an unsupported assertion that this is an 'axiom'."

• This misconstrues the actual issue. (see Talk:State_of_nature#The_actual_state_of_nature) The account is 3 years old. Is this "new?" (or is this an attempt to skew the facts to some purpose that is lost on me?)

• Example of what I mean by "misconstrues the actual issue" from my talk page:

"This will be my last statement regarding the dispute. It is true that "state of nature" could be interpreted to mean "the current state of the universe". Nobody is disputing that this is a linguistically correct interpretation of those words. Let's consider a different example: capital flight. This is a topic in the field of economics. However, someone approaching the topic with no knowledge whatsoever, such as your hypothetical collage student, could conclude that it means airline flights to a capital city. This is a legitimate interpretation of those words, but it would be ludicrous to include information about Reagan National Airport in the capital flight article. The state of nature article is about the concept in the field of philosophy. Political philosophers do not use the term to mean the physical state of the universe; they use it to mean the hypothetical social structures which existed before the emergence of governments. Your attempt to expand the scope of the topic, without showing any evidence that published philosophers recognized that expanded scope, is unambiguously original research. Pburka (talk) 23:16, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

• If my use of the dictionary as a source to so grossly distort the concept of the article like they are providing here (and many other examples of this same kind), then i could comprehend why it's OR), but this is not what I did. Further, my "hypothetical collage student" was actual someone still in high-school. Further still, not only is "this is a linguistically correct interpretation of those words" but it is exactly on point. The state of nature is Nature... and the various theories presented in the philosophers works discuss what life might have been like in Nature before civilization.

1. "Having failed to win the argument there, and despite the efforts of multiple contributors to explain why his argument has no relevance within the context of the existing article, he has raised exactly the same unsourced and questionable 'axiom' and arguments at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources [37] and at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard [38]."

• After misconstruing the actual issue, I made a serious good faith effort to clarify it. The use of the term "axiom" was made in it's purest sense: "3. An established rule or principle or a self-evident truth" -- Websters

1. "At no point has Christopher Theodore acknowledged that his proposal is not only unsourced, and clearly based on original research, but completely and utterly off-topic with regard to the present content of the article. Given the repetitive nature of the argument, combined with what seems to be a bad case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, I think his behaviour has strayed well into tendentiousness, if not exhibiting a lack of basic competence, and that it may be that a block and/or a topic ban may be necessary, at least until he gives an indication of understanding why articles about one subject shouldn't go off at a tangent and discuss something else entirely."

• After seeing the real issue was being misconstrued, I tried to re-state it in a number of ways in hopes of clarifying it. There was no repeating, there was no repeating, there was no repeating, there was no repeating. ;-)

• After misconstruing the real issue, the claims of OR are suspect. I am still unclear on certain points regarding OR policy and my questions along those lines remain unaddressed (other then with what feels like a condescending off handed dismissal and links to policy which didn't seem to support the interpretation or application of that policy with regards to the issue).

1. "Incidentally, it is worth noting that a previous contributor, User:Aksis was making exactly the same argument, in almost exactly the same words, [39] some five years ago. It seems not unreasonable to ask whether Christopher Theodore and Aksis are one and the same person - if so, we seem to also have a bad case of beating the proverbial deceased equine."

• Before editing the article, I checked the Talk Page (and Archived it), after a review of it I decided one of the points that User:Aksis was making had merit, so I decided to champion his/her cause on that point. I am not the same person as User:Aksis. This can be verified via my IP.

In addition:

[diff]

As can be seen from the diff, I had made a good faith effort to provide references to support this statement, but persist it a self evident truth. Further, I never deleted any portion of the article and edited it in a manner that not only preserved much of the existing text, but most importantly, the real concept of what the article is about, and in my opinion improved it.

William M. Connolley gave this as the reason for the reversion in the tag line: (rv. Don't like it. See talk), and you can see for your self how things went from there.

I don't think the claim of OR is valid, I think it is a strawman and the real reason for the accusation is there is no grounds to simply revert an edit based on the fact that William "didn't like it," but there is for OR. I feel like the people contributing to the article are friends or know each other via wikipedia and are working together and supporting each other, which in most instances is a good thing, but in this instance I feel a bit harassed and bullied.

I also don't believe my points were honestly comprehended. I also don't think the issue[s] I raised regarding the interpretation of the OR policy or with the current lead were ever honestly addressed.

There was nothing I found in the OR policy that prohibited relying upon definitions as sources, only that other kinds of sources are more desirable (I pointed this out on the Talk page). This seems to have been interpreted as some absolute rule, rather then what I gathered the spirit of the policy is, to prevent relying upon definitions to grossly distort a topic. No contradicting primary source information was presented to rebut the definitions I presented in support of that statement. Just a repetitive, and in my honest opinion, baseless accusation of OR.

And now I am being accused of many things.. I may be a "newb" at wikipedia, but I am not new to the concept of people using a greater knowledge of policy (and how to manipulate them contrary to the spirit of those policies), to abuse someone who doesn't have as great an understanding. Christopher Theodore (talk) 23:27, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Just checking in here, but it seems from a perusal of the talk page that Andy has roughly the right read (though I don't think a similarity to a 5 year old account is relevant even if they're the same person). The proposed changes to the page don't seem to be supported by sourcing, specifically a source which indicates the whole thought this change expresses. And the discussion on the talk page seems like a waste of time as Andy describes. Protonk (talk) 23:48, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Also see the comments there by User:Atethnekos. ChistopherTheodore still doesn't grasp our policies at WP:NOR and WP:VERIFIABILITY. The charge that policy is being manipulated is ridiculous and I fail to understand how this new user who has a lesser understanding of policy (if others have a greater understanding as he says) at the same time has a greater understanding of the spirit of those policies. Dougweller (talk) 12:05, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

You mistook my use of the word "policy" to mean wiki policy when I wrote "I am not new to the concept of people using a greater knowledge of policy (and how to manipulate them contrary to the spirit of those policies), to abuse someone who doesn't have as great an understanding," I was using the term generally. There is life out-side of the wiki-paradigm. Christopher Theodore (talk) 22:22, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Note that Christopher Theodore's response to this has been to add yet more original research (or more accurately unsourced and unverifiable assertions) to the State of nature article. [40] AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:03, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Making rebuttals in debate is getting me accused of WP:TEDIOUS. Christopher Theodore (talk) 22:22, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

How long has this article been nothing more then a "Start Class" article for all the WPProjects involved? Seems like it's been years now (but I'm not sure how to verify that.) I think I can see why it's not improving after this very educational experiance. Christopher Theodore (talk) 22:22, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Initially I had hoped that I'd be able to engage this user in discussion. However he seems unwilling to consider that he may be in error, and insists on adding unreferenced or poorly referenced material to the article despite a clear consensus against the changes on the talk page. Most recently he has attempted to use primary sources attributed to Emer de Vattel (d. 1767) to reference a claim about contemporary theories of the origin of rights. At this point Mr. Theodore has alienated all of the other editors who participated in the discussion. I strongly advise him to find some other topics to edit, and to understand the importance of providing relevant references from reliable secondary sources. Pburka (talk) 23:08, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Blocked

I just blocked him for a week for edit warring, tendentious editing, editing to prove a WP:POINT and most of the above. I don't see a shorter block as providing enough time to engage w/ Christopher Theodore and see if the editing issues are something which can be resolved. Protonk (talk) 23:58, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Repeated Copyright violation etc by User:Blueyefinity

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

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User:Blueyefinity, who states that s/he has been a "Wikipedia member since 2007", but only has an edit history under that name since July 2011, seems unable to comply with Wikipedia policy regarding copyright, despite multiple warnings regarding the issue. [41]. While editing the contentious Morgellons article, Blueyefinity not only violated copyright by copy-pasting from a source cited [42] to our article [43] (see the paragraph beginning "The belief held by mainstream medicine...") but also added images which had clearly been uploaded from the same source - by Blueyefinity (the images have now been deleted after I tagged them). When one adds the fact that Blueyefinity seems unable to adhere to WP:NPOV and/or proper sourcing policy - see the discussion at Talk:Morgellons - and the fact that Blueyefinity has also today vandalised the article Chemtrail conspiracy theory by editing image captions to assert that they depict "chemtrails", rather than the contrails depicted, it seems reasonable to conclude that Blueyefinity is not here to contribute usefully to Wikipedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:52, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

A peek at a pre cleaned up version of this user's talk page can be quite instructive. He/she has also been edit warring at the Morgellons page, and was warned but just deleted the warning. [44]. Dbrodbeck (talk) 02:57, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the Morgellon, wikipedia should not ignore scientific proof just because is badly added/edited by other users (me). There are enough references to rewrite the entire article and being neutral about it. But hey, after what I see here, not only on Morgellon, surely Wikipedia can't be OBJECTIVE. I really tend to believe most of the editors are just some failed writers/scientist/etc, other just astroturfing to keep the sheeple in line.

Regarding the contrails vs chemtrails, is anyone here a chemist and if yes, what method did they use to determine beyond doubt, that the plane lines in certain photos are only water vapors (contrail) and not other chemical mixture? Superficial quantities of water vapors tend to dissipate quickly, not to expand creating cloud-like formations. .... Blueyefinity (talk) 03:18, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Sheeple? Astroturfing? Chemtrails? Like I said, WP:NOTHERE... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:42, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Dbrodbeck. Looking through this disruptive editor's talk page history is very instructive. We're dealing with abusive language, evidence of a total lack of good faith, and serious personal attacks. I see little evidence of competence, understanding of policies, or willingness to collaborate. Instead we see plenty of edit warring and blocks. It's time we see this editor for what they are. They are not here to build an encyclopedia, but to push a fringe POV, even to the point of vandalizing article content. It's time for a very long block and topic bans. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:07, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

You're not bringing any new "evidence" for your position to the table. If you'd looked through the talk:Morgellons archive like some other editors recommended, you'd see that the articles you want to include information from (plaguarized or not) have been brought up before, discussed, and very soundly dismissed as not meeting Wikipedia standards. Per Wikipedia policies we do not replace information from good sources with information from bad sources. I have to agree that you're engaging in behaviors characteristic of bad editors. The questions are, do you understand why this is not good behavior and will you change? 69.23.116.182 (talk) 12:11, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

His comments above seem to confirm the position he is coming from. He was probably wise to delete his response to my last year's warning today - it was "fuck you bitch. and fuck you lousy and misleading wikipedia:chemtrail page". Dougweller (talk) 13:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Deletion doesn't mean a change of heart. The comments reveal his attitude, and we don't need that type of attitude here. I see no evidence of a positive learning curve, or attempt to even better his abilities as an editor. I concur that a block is in order. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:56, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Propose indefinite block

Given the above I am proposing that this editor be blocked indefinitely. Dougweller (talk) 13:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support, editor is not here to build an encyclopedia, and really has no desire to learn policy. Dbrodbeck (talk) 13:46, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Why are we jumping to such drastic measures? Start with a topic-ban or limited-duration block. Joefromrandb (talk) 19:29, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

What sort of topic ban would that be? All topics where there is a conspiracy theory? (I know this sounds sarcastic, it is not meant to be, I can't think of another way to word my question). Dbrodbeck (talk) 19:31, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't sound sarcastic at all. It sounds fairly reasonable. Joefromrandb (talk) 19:36, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support. NOTHERE is a bit much considering the editor is not a vandal or troll, but block anyways on the charges of tendentious editing. KonveyorBelt 20:21, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support. His comments reveal his attitude, and we don't need that type of attitude here. I see no evidence of a positive learning curve, or attempt to even better his abilities as an editor. I concur that an indef block is in order. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:58, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support, obviously. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:40, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - A review of Blueyefinity's contribs shows: Copyright violations, personal attacks, BLP problems, battleground behavior, adding unsourced content in one article followed by removing content in another article because it wasn't sourced, major edits marked minor, thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories sourced to YouTube videos, more personal attacks, edit-warring, failure to take into account long-resolved discussions on Talk pages controversial articles, more copyright violations, and more personal attacks. Yes, Wikipedia can do without this editor. Zad68 03:14, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support per NOTHERE, If the user cant be arsed reading numerous policies regarding copyright & heeding the warnings given, then an indef block's the best solution here I think ....→Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 03:26, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Definitely not here to build the encyclopedia. The editor is only here to push fringe viewpoints. Binksternet (talk) 04:42, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - A POV-pushing, copyright-violating editor that needs to be pushed out of the door and locked out. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:05, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

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

Odd infobox edits by User:Therequiembellishere

I had rather hoped this would not all reach this stage, but I'm at the point where I don't think this can continue without the scrutiny of other editors. A year ago, I noticed User:Therequiembellishere had removed an office order from an American politician's infobox. In the grand scheme of things, nothing important. However, he yielded no explanation when asked, and I then began to notice a talk page, littered with years of complaints against infobox edits that go against established consensus, including the removal of office orders. When no response was forthcoming, I said his edits were against consensus, and that I would put back in orders when I saw they had been removed. Unfortunately, this has now devolved into months of repairing the changes, and despite numerous entreaties that we just simply talk (dated 31 December, 24 March, 29 September), I have never received a word of response. Finally, after seeing another warning left on his talk page by another user about his infobox edits in general, I left one more request. However, the fact he edited thereafter, but more importantly my fear that higher scrutiny is unavoidable at this stage, I have decided to raise this now.

My concern is thus; infobox edits are not the most glamorous topic, but I have become increasingly convinced that, for whatever reason, Therequiembellishere has engaged in a years-long campaign to reformat infoboxes to his own desired format, even when such format goes against established consensus. My own specific concern is over his strange fixation with removing office orders, but from what others users have said on his talk page, he seems to like removing all sorts of other things, though I declare myself no particular expert witness on that aspect - his edits are mostly labelled as 'Formatting infobox/succession boxes'.

To be frank, one way or another, I would like this to end. I didn't join Wikipedia to police other editors. To be honest, I don't mind if I end up getting judged to be wrong - though I don't think I am - but whatever else, I think some community judgement on the validity of Therequiembellishere's edits is long overdue. Redverton (talk) 03:27, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Could you provide some diffs of the contentious edits and maybe some link to where consensus was established? I do agree that the lack of communication is an issue. John Reaves 17:06, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I am not aware of any centralised discussion where consensus was reached. On the matter of office orders, my awareness of a consensus has come through localised discussions I've seen, and through being told by other editors that such a consensus existed. I know that hardly sounds definitive, but more pertinently we do have a standardised infobox format, such as the example at Template:Infobox officeholder. There, we can see the standard format includes an order field, as well as other filled-in fields that Therequiembellishere has removed over countless articles, examples of which I provide at the end. At first, I thought of this as a content dispute. Indeed, in my entreaty of 29 September, I suggested we hold an RFC (again, no response). However, I began to see his edits as, to be frank, disruptive, when I concluded that years of infobox edits against the standard format and - as you noted - doing the silent treatment when often questioned about the changes by other editors, meant this evolved from a content dispute to something much more disruptive. Whilst I still welcome an RFC or some kind of a centralised discussion - whether over office orders or infobox formats in general - I think his editing behaviour has become an entirely separate discussion.

I've picked some of his most recent edits. They show him removing the 'order' field, and removing the order itself. I've also tried to pick edits that highlight some of the other concerns editors have raised, such as when he removes filled-in fields like professions and places of residence. To be honest, these are not some of his most pronounced changes - whenever an editor like me questions him about his edits, he noticeably scales down the kind of changes he makes (even without responding to those queries), but then seems to pick up again after a short while after the attention has passed. When I intervene over his office orders removals, he does let them stay in for awhile, but then inevitably goes back to trying again. [45] [46] [47] [48], [49]. Redverton (talk) 18:17, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

If I may opinion, I think all that's needed atm is a community warning that he edit infoboxes according to the standard format. If he wants the standard format to change, he should pursue consensus before editing so. If, however, he does persist in editing without seeking a change beforehand to the standard format, some kind of topic ban on editing infoboxes might have to be considered, but hopefully it won't reach that stage. Redverton (talk) 11:50, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

User Unable to Follow Basic Wikipedia Editing Protocol

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

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Although there have been long standing calls [[50]] [[51]] to discus any reverts or further edits to the Criticism section of the Airlines for America article on the associated talk:Airlines for America page, User:intermittentgardener simply entered a couple weeks ago by blanking the entire section in question [[52]] [[53]] [[54]] and then writing a POV addition [[55]] by using existing fragments from the blanked section. I reverted that noting again that this section should be discussed. Instead of doing that, the user in question once again Reverted [[56]] the edits to his version, and ran to an admin User:Mark Arsten to have the page frozen in his vision. I've warned him multiple times about his violations of WP guidelines. Although he has the time to return to issue snide comments about my persistence that he adhere to the conduct and protocol outlined by Wikipadia, he refuses to edit in WP:Good Faith. All he ever comments in the edit notes is "Removing POV material". I've told him to explain his position. I'm always greeted with silence.

WP:HEAR, WP:YESPOV, WP:DISCUSSION Section: Follow the normal protocol and section Discuss with the other party

I'm requesting the page be reverted to the this version, [[57]], before user:Intermittentgardener's edit warring, and is then protected. If user:Intermittentgardener wants to follow Wikipedia protocol, I'm willing to discus his and other absent editors opinions that these sections are not NPOV and make them more POV. There seems to be a number of other absent editors that think they're fine the way they are. It could be user:Intermittentgardener is right but, he's going about it the wrong way.

PS. I might be asked to be away on a 3 day business trip beginning tomorrow, but I'll return should that occur.--50.128.155.168 (talk) 06:59, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

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

Long term vandalism from a user with a dynamic IP address

Please could people experienced in dealing with long-term vandalism from users with a dynamic IP address please assist at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Why isn't IP 86.158.105.73 blocked yet?.

The same user has been inserting various nonsense into articles about UK railways for months now - the thread in question goes back to August and the title indicates that it has been going on longer than that. They've used over two dozen IP addresses, almost all from BT (UK's largest ISP), rarely staying on the same one for more than a week.

Short of semi-protecting every article about UK train operating companies, rolling stock and stations (thousands of articles) or catching hundreds of thousands of innocent bystanders with range blocks, is there anything that we can do to stop simply firefighting? Thryduulf (talk) 10:59, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Since you have exhausted all the normal measures, I suggest the use of stronger medicine. We can certainly achieve the equivalent of semi-protecting articles on all those subjects, but in a way that applies to BT broadband customers only, using the edit filter. This would not inconvenience BT broadband IP editors editing non-British-transport articles, nor would it affect IP editors from any other ISP editing any kind of article. Even BT customers editing British transport-related articles would only be inconvenienced to the extent of having to create an account to be able to edit those articles. This would not be hard -- we've done it before for, for example, an editor from Croatia that used addresses that spanned over several of that country's large ISPs that persisted in making curious edits to Nazi-related topics. After a couple of months, they went away, and the filter was removed without them coming back. If you give me some keywords that identify the topics in question, I will happily create the filter. -- The Anome (talk) 16:43, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

There's a filter already (545), but it's mostly logging false positives, and it's unlikely that many users in Croatia will be editing pages in English about Nazi-related topics, but UK-based users are likely to edit UK-related topics. Peter James (talk) 19:52, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

There's a description of a possible edit filter at User talk:Master of Puppets#Your block of 86.154.165.236. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

The edit filter I created has, since being refined a bit, caught mostly-related edits. I've been slowly tuning it as we see what it finds as false-positive (which, admittedly, was a lot at the beginning) - if you look at the newest page of the log, it's been catching almost exclusively relevant edits. m.o.p 01:10, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The most recent I can see are 86.155.193.248 and 86.170.48.51, both probably unrelated. Edits to articles in some categories, such as railway stations have been 100% false positives. Peter James (talk) 06:27, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Neither of those is our man, who (so far) has ignored non-British topics and heritage railways. The primary "tell" is that he adds unsourced information about a future transfer of rolling stock to or from South West Trains, but does so on a variety of pages, always related to British railways. He also goes for London buses, but I've not yet worked out a "tell" for those; the only link is that the same IP address is used within the same hour. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:48, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The filter can only go so far - I can only narrow down which pages are being affected and possibly tag them in the edit history, but I can't include anything that specific in the regex. m.o.p 20:48, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Hiding RfC talk comments, deleting WP:CONSENSUS summaries and WP:TAGTEAM

This is the second ANI I've had to bring due to User:SchroCat editing or altering other people's comments and this is the second ANI regarding WP:TAGTEAM involving SchroCat. That ANI started by User:Light show is here. The first ANI where every administrator admonished ShroCat for interjecting his comments in other people's edits is here.

There's an RfC at Talk:Peter Sellers regarding specific use of the word "Jewish" to describe a character in some commercials he played (RfC here). After a week of very grueling and confusing debate with multiple opinions as to exact content, I created a straight forward non-partial "Survey summary". If I in good faith misrepresented anyone's opinion in any way, I would be happy to, and in a couple of cases did, correct that. [58]

Apparently unhappy with the survey results (a vast majority of editors are not agreeing with him), ShroCat is now attempting to hide this survey and all the other editors' subsequent comments. [59]. User:Dr. Blofeld, one of the few editors steadfastly resisting any altering of the wording to the article, in an apparent effort to circumvent WP:3RR using WP:TAGTEAM now has reverted my restoration of my comments.

ShroCat has been blocked for edit warring earlier this year and this behavior is continuing. There's multiple other examples of consistent WP:NPA, WP:HOUND and WP:OWN behavior which is another ANI in itself. Can something please be done about his editor? --Oakshade (talk) 18:46, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the real issue here is your troll like behaviour on the Peter Sellers talk page and false edit summaries such as this which falsly claim Schrod to be removing editor's comments. And it takes two to edit war, so bringing up Schrod's past history as if he's some serial edt warrer is just silly. I doubt you'll get much support coming here. Why don't you just walk away and start doing something useful?♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:14, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld—here you are calling me a "troll". Is that sort of language necessary or constructive? (Above you are referring to Oakshade's "troll like behavior") Bus stop (talk) 05:38, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld, I'd say that trying to stop tendentious editing, attempted bullying, and the forceful insertion of utter bollocks counts as something useful. As opposed to, say, calling people trolls and demanding that they leave off of productive editing, perhaps. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 06:05, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Two wrongs don't make a right. Three rights make a left, of course. Doc talk 06:15, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Just want to highlight Dr. Blofeld's last comment there as an example of this team's approach to those who disagree with them. When I brought up concern for the term "Jewish," this was the kind of response I got. Now with wider community RfC input, it's clear this was a valid concern. Saying "walk away and start doing something useful" is no help to your cause. Constructive discussion as must of us have been doing from the beginning would help your and ShroCat's case much better.--Oakshade (talk) 19:47, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

How tiresome, yet another misleading set of half facts from Oakshade.

1. "editing or altering other people's comments": hatting inappropriate comments is not editing or altering anything. As at least one other has pointed out, it is not advisable for an involved editor to try and summarise an RfC – especially if you are the one who has started it, and especially if you do such a bad job of it that you end up aggravating others by providing a misleading situation.

2. "second ANI regarding WP:TAGTEAM": no, Light show did not accuse me of tag-teaming, and the term (or any related accusation) does not appear in that ANI. (In passing, that ANI turned more boomerang on Light show than anything else)

3. "I created a straight forward non-partial "Survey summary"." No, it was not "non-partial" (whatever that means). It was one-sided and misleading and misrepresented the opinions of at least four other editors

4. "If I in good faith misrepresented anyone's opinion in any way": you did, and there are still misrepresentations in your "summary" which you have failed to correct. I raised these in the thread and you have not done anything about them. I struggle to keep hold of my good faith, considering the circumstances

5. "Apparently unhappy with the survey results": actually, given the selection of different replacements, more people want the current version than any of the other versions

6. "ShroCat is now attempting to hide this survey": as per my point 1 above, hatting is appropriate: the comments are still there and can be seen, if required.

7. "an apparent effort to circumvent WP:3RR using WP:TAGTEAM": Oakshade should try and learn that having people disagree with him is not tag teaming, it's people disagreeing with him.

8. "ShroCat has been blocked for edit warring earlier this year": temporarily and was lifted quickly when the admin realised I had reverted because it was a BLP breach.

9. "this behavior is continuing": Are you trying to drag me through ANI for Tag teaming or edit warring? Both are wrong, whichever the choice

10. "WP:NPA, WP:HOUND and WP:OWN behavior": More unfounded and ridiculous mud-slinging - I refute it all utterly.

- SchroCat (talk) 19:10, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll just respond to the most obvious and confirm-able non-truth above. Only 4 out of 15 16 editors so far want the current version. ShroCat is one of those 4 editors. --Oakshade (talk) 19:39, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Before I revert to base Anglo-Saxon because of another of your turgid little smears, there is no "non-truth" here. You have lied in your accusation. You have lied in your "summary" of opinions and now you smear by lying again: there is no non-truth: there is a different way to looking at the opinions of the other editors and you are looking at it differently to me: it is not a non-truth, so stop with the loaded language. - SchroCat (talk) 20:05, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it's the truth. You're way out WP:CONSENSUS. You don't have to like consensus, but you always have to respect it. Claims of "turgid little smears" with absolutely nothing to back up such claims isn't going to help you build a consensus your way. --Oakshade (talk) 19:14, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

No, your statement contained a number of lies: they were outlined below. Can I suggest you deal with the points below, about Tag teaming being an essay and neither guideline or policy, and the opinion of some that an involved editor summarising their own RfC is a bad thing? We may be able to move on to more constructive things sooner if you could. - SchroCat (talk) 19:29, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

You've still never explained what exactly currently are the "lies" in the summery. But it's likely going to stay hatted so it's pointless to argue about it. I'm aware WP:TAGTEAM is an essay but it's an effective essay demonstrating the circumvention of WP:CONSENSUS as you and two other editors have done like as pointed out below your out-of-consensus removing of infoboxes from the Peter Sellers and a couple of other articles. --Oakshade (talk) 19:38, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you are not really making sense now, or are at least clutching at straw here. I am not circumventing any consensus whatsoever, so stop throwing around the accusations please. You may have a beef about me, but try and keep it real, could you? Are there any more things you want to raise, or can we all drop the dramah and get back to doing what we were doing before? - SchroCat (talk) 20:05, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Wow. A summary midstream of an RfC, that's not unheard of. Nor is hatting such a section, if only for convenience sake. And then you all have a survey over whether or not to hat the comments and what the survey is saying? Drmies (talk) 19:31, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Hatting is in effect hiding it. The discussion has so many different proposals for alternate wording with so many different editors preferring so many different alternates (with only a small percentage preferring the current version), there had to be some kind of summarizing so editors can at least gauge all the different options. Now SchroCat is hiding this from editors. --Oakshade (talk) 19:39, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

People can read the thread, which contains reference to the sources and counter arguments. You decided to allot opinions to people who had not expressed such an opinion: that is abysmally poor practice. You are too involved to provide a neutral summary, especially when there are so many different parties going for so many different options, with more people wanting the status quo than any other. The thread is still there, and accusing an editor of deleting comments in your summary really takes the cake! - SchroCat (talk) 19:50, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Bullshit, Oakshade. "In effect hiding it"--whatever. You're not being oppressed here. Drmies (talk) 21:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I've always felt hats are neon pointers to "the good stuff is in here." NE Ent 21:55, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Drmies likes this.
• Uhm, a quick comment - in my purely professional capacity, of course - NE Ent? That comment is full of win.  :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 03:43, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Looks at Oakshade's contributions to wikipedia in recent months, I don't think this is the sort of troll we want on wikipedia. It's disruptive, and he's continuing to waste time with this here.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:41, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Anyone who disagrees with this tag team is called a "troll." I've been editing here since 2006 and have created some major articles and never has anyone thrown such attacks at me until I dared to disagree with editors of this article a couple of weeks ago. This is their M.O.. --Oakshade (talk) 19:47, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• At the moment, the only problematic behaviour I see in this thread is two edtors calling Oakshade a "troll" and a "liar". THis is an editor who has been here a long time - longer than me - and whilst I have often disagreed with him, especially at AfD, I have never seen any evidence of such behaviour. And none has been presented here, either. Black Kite (talk) 20:38, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• As per my comments above: "second ANI regarding WP:TAGTEAM": untrue. " I created a straight forward non-partial": untrue. "this behavior is continuing": untrue. " consistent WP:NPA, WP:HOUND and WP:OWN behavior": untrue. And that's just in this thread. I'll happily outline the ones in the RfC, if you'd like? I do not consider pointing out such untruths as "problematic". I am not sure what the length of someone's history has to do with anything, tbh: if we're playing that game, Blofeld has been here longer than Oakshade - and that means absolutely nothing too! - SchroCat (talk) 20:53, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• An untruth does not liar make; "lie" implies intention to deceive, so, unless you can provide evidence an editor is being intentionally duplicitous it's best not to call them a liar. NE Ent 21:56, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Very true, NE Ent, but when I see someone summarise a thread and misrepresent the opinions of others, and then file at ANI with a series of "untruths" all strung together, I'm afraid my AGF facility takes too much of a battering to think anything else! - SchroCat (talk) 22:38, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• What's the misrepresentation? Where exactly are you claiming I'm intentionally deceiving anyone? As I've said, if you point out exactly, I will happilly correct it (as I've done twice, btw [60][61]).--Oakshade (talk) 22:59, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• And yet, despite having to twice alter it after some very basic misrepresentation was found, it's STILL misleading. I've already pointed out in the talk thread where it is misleading and you still haven't corrected it. Even if you correct now, for a third time, it is rather self-evident that for such an involved editor to try and summarise something using your opinions was a mistake. If you had simply tried to report the situation it may (and only just may) have been acceptable, but you tried to interpret the opinions of others - and you've made something of a mess. "Non-neutral" is the nicest way that your efforts can be described. - SchroCat (talk) 23:33, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• I've read what you wrote in the talk thread and I don't see what you're talking about that's "misleading." For the sake of everyone here, can you please explain what exactly is currently "misleading" about the summery?--Oakshade (talk) 23:39, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

It's unclear to me what purpose the summary is intended to provide; I'd expect both participants and the eventual RFC closer to read the entire discussion in its entirety. NE Ent 00:09, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

There were so many proposals for the re-wording of the content by multiple editors and so many preferences for those proposals from so many editors, as well as those who wanted no re-write or elimination of the section as a whole, and with the thread meandering on for what seemed like forever, there needed to be a place that had some sort of easy references to those who came onto the RfC so they can get an understanding of even what was being debated. That's all the purpose was and I think it was a good purpose.--Oakshade (talk) 00:16, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

@Blackkite and Oakshade, what percentage of Oakshade's contributions in the last three months have gone into constructive mainspace editing? DO you really consider him a constructive editor Blackkite? The fact is you're not a productive editor, I've looked at your contributions since August on here and your continued posting on the Sellers talk page and here is wasting a lot of time for everybody involved. The way you and Light show obsessively keep posting on the Sellers page pushing either infoboxes or trivial article "issues" for weeks on end while contributing bugger all to the encyclopedia. It's destructive behaviour and a drain on good editors here who really should not have to be dealing with this and be editing themselves. I suggest you take a break from here for a bit and come back when you're willing to improve the encyclopedia and edit something else.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:05, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Ernst, Black Kite is a hardworking admin, but do you really want them to dig through those edits to find evidence for your position? This is the third time this week, I think, that I have to point out the usefulness of RfC/U. Your interest here should be to disprove the allegations; throwing mud right back at the plaintiff is rarely useful. Think tactics, evil one. Drmies (talk) 21:10, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
• Besides multiple improvements to multiple articles, in the last three months alone I've created the articles Brian Kelley (intelligence), Sanja Bizjak, Daniela Knapp, The Disaster Artist and Christine Schorn. If you feel such activity is "unconstructive," you can start a formal investigation. This smear/attack-anyone-who-disagrees WP:NOTTHEM defense is just what we're dealing with with these editors and this is prime example. I have certainly disagreed with Blackkite over the years but never have I doubted his sincerity nor his ability to constructively work with other editors. I recommend you begin that approach with editors you don't see eye to eye with.--Oakshade (talk) 23:12, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

In fairness you have made some additions pre October but in the last few weeks or so you've been worryingly focused on Talk:Peter Sellers haven't you? Why not continue to create articles and ignore it?♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:39, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the hat itself as worth arguing about, but editors should sign them per the instructions at {{hat}} (and WP:TPG) NE Ent 21:58, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Yep, my bad - thanks for adding it. - SchroCat (talk) 22:44, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Titling the hatting in bold "misleading and one-sided" and "twisting to your own opinion" as SchroCat has done is most certainly worth arguing about. Instead of taking my word for it, everyone is certainly invited to look at the summary and decide if there is anything "misleading" or has the intention of anything but a convenient summary to a very long and arduous debate. --Oakshade (talk) 23:18, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Ah OK. So, all this boils down to someone having mistitled something. And you started an ANI thread over that. Thanks for reminding us why these are called dramah boards. Moving right along--the Peyton Manning show is on. Drmies (talk) 23:37, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• It was started over the tag teaming in order to circumvent WP:CONSENSUS. That opinion stands. But I did have to point out that relatively less-major issue of SchroCat's inappropriate title. Believe me, there are many other issues of WP:CIVIL and other violations, some of which has been demonstrated on this board, but there's only so much that can be covered in a single ANI. --Oakshade (talk) 23:50, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• There was no breach of an essay, and you've provided no evidence of it anyway. I have struck the elements of that hat's title that are inappropriate. - SchroCat (talk) 22:29, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Other editors may wish to have a look at the discussion. I can not BELIEVE what absolute bollocks is being passed off as reasoning there. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 23:42, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
• Comment One of the very few things I agreed with Jack Merridew about is the pitched-battle mentality of the "key authors" of this article resisting the inclusion of an infobox at all costs. There is an extremely limited consensus to exclude the infobox, and it's tiresome and frustrating to argue with those that control every nuance of the article. So please don't kill the messenger. Doc talk 02:37, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Agreed on that...I wonder if they even realise how amateurish the article looks without one? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:31, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• Not giving an opinion on this situation, but on a narrow note, WP:TAGTEAM is not a policy or even a guideline, it is an essay, and rightly so, especially considering how often it gets misued mis-invoked. North8000 (talk) 11:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Since doing !vote summaries in the middle of an RFC or RM discussion is considered a bad, bad thing ... and is usually an attempt to skew the continued !votes (remember, it's the POLICY-BASED discussion that counts, not the COUNT) ... hatting such an egregious attempt to change the course of the RFC was an absolute necessity. So, I'd say that WP:BRD kicks in, but no ... in this case, we stop at Bold - hat it, and move on, don't even dream of reverting the hat because whoever hatted it stopped you from being considered disruptive ES&L 11:56, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

COI editing at Naveen Jain yet again

• Naveen Jain (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• 173.160.176.110 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 173.160.176.111 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 70.103.74.91 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

• Oct'13 COIN Report

This article has a long history of editors attempting to whitewash the article against a conflict of interest (COIN January 2008). In the past, most of the problems have been managed with partial protection of the article. After the latest potential IPO of Jain's company Intelius was pulled, the article settled down and protection was removed.

173.160.176.110/111 are new WP:SPA ips registered to "NAVEEN JAIN NAVEENJAIN". The ip's have repeatedly violated WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, and WP:COI with their editing, and have attacked other editors.

70.103.74.91 is an Intelius ip. Similar problems from this ip, though the editor is more civil.

70.103.74.91 and 173.160.176.111 have continued after the COIN report.

I can provide diffs if necessary, but given the article history, the blatant coi's, and the short editing histories, I hope we can get through this quickly. Minimally, I'd like to see 173.160.176.111 blocked. --Ronz (talk) 19:43, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Ronz, what are the odds that I come across this languishing thread, and I'm the one who semi-protected the article last year. I just did the same, and will have a look at the rest of the bizniz. Drmies (talk) 03:56, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• I'd block the 173 IP(s)--that last edit of theirs is pretty clearly evidence of COI editing and BLP violating--but I see little point after I semi-protected the article. Please do drop me/us a line if their behavior elsewhere becomes disruptive. Drmies (talk) 04:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

  Thanks and will do! --Ronz (talk) 16:45, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Balloftwine continuing disruption on Robin Spielberg

User:Balloftwine along with an IP editor removed most of the content from this article before the IP tagged it for AfD. I have restored much of the removed content and added sources, but Balloftwine has continued to remove sourced content. I have warned them but they have continued with edits that not only remove content but 'break' the article by leaving references hanging without any content. This is disrupting the AfD, which should itself be looked at as somewhat suspicious. Having made major edits to the article I am now 'involved' so to speak and would welcome some independent intervention. Thanks. --Michig (talk) 20:06, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

User Michig kept reverting spurious advertising-type non-encyclopedic content. Balloftwine (talk) 20:13, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Michig clearly has a personal interest in keeping advertising up on Wikipedia.Balloftwine (talk) 20:14, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Off to give them last warning.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:15, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

The article talk page is empty. Why not discuss problems with the article there instead of edit-warring and then complaining here? Just as an aside, the article looks fine, well-sourced, and judging by the length of the discography, clearly notable. --Pete (talk) 21:26, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Sopher99

This user had been notorious for his edit-warrings and other bad behaviour in articles related to the Syrian civil war, but I think this time he had gone too far. He had deleted with no reason other user section on the talk page of the Battle of Aleppo detailed map, as can be seen here.--HCPUNXKID (talk) 23:28, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

It looks like Sopher99 believes the IP editor he reverted is notorious sockmaster User:Deonis 2012; I don't know what evidence he has for that belief. -Kudzu1 (talk) 01:37, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Right. The blind are reporting the blind: neither of them follow any kind of proper procedure. If Sopher thinks HCPUNXKID is a sock, they should file an SPI (strikes me as very unlikely, since KID started three years before Deonis did, but hey, everyone is entitled to their opinion, I hear). HCPUNXKID, in turn, has no business reporting to ANI after one single revert. And we're done, Drmies (talk) 01:43, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

It seems that you had not understanded most of it, Sopher99 believes that the IP user who added the section is a sockmaster, not me. Better read things carefully before stating anything about it, dont you think so?.--HCPUNXKID (talk) 18:19, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, pal--I only do English grammar to connect English words. What are you doing at ANI? Sopher removed a comment thinking it was a sock, it was restored. Anything here requiring admin intervention? Or do you want an admin to go to Sopher's talk page and say WRONG WRONG WRONG? You can do that yourself, and all you have to do is copy and paste. Drmies (talk) 20:52, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Colton Cosmic is back

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

---

174.252.36.49 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

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

spa sock

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

---

I am concerned about the closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alvaro Dias Huizar by a new user, User:Venezuelan GM, who is not an admin. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:00, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Next time you can revert it yourself, done and warned. Also looks like a single purpose account so a checkuser should be alerted. Secret ^account 03:07, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I've never done anything like that. And I nominated it, so I didn't feel right about reverting the closure. Most of the ones that voted to keep are SPAs. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:26, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Don't feel bad, Bubba; Secret has a very special nose for this. But when an SPA closes something, there's probably something going on, so thanks for notifying here. Drmies (talk) 03:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• And blocked as such, while I was sticking a VOA template on their talk page. Drmies (talk) 03:12, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Venezuelan GM? Lol. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 03:51, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

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

Suburban Express

Hello. I would like to bring before a group of uninvolved admins a significant edit that recently occurred on the Suburban Express page. But first, I find it appropriate to give you the backdrop of this situation.

Over a 3 month period, CorporateM has been helping monitor and mediate edits to the page via the Suburban Express Talk page. Involved in the discussion have been numerous COIs, including myself, the owner of the company, and many other paid editors (the reward board, Biosthmors, and SirCharlesofDriftwood). Due to outing editors (here and here), the owner of Suburban Express Arri_at_Suburban_Express was blocked.

Once blocked, the owner of Suburban Express continued posting private information about WP editors on the Suburban Express website (web address not shown since they contain names) as seen here for AlmostGrad and here for Gulugawa, and here for NegatedVoid. He also posted about a Wikimedia admin here.

As you all can see, there has been quite a bit of controversy, which leads me to my main concern. As described above, the article has been monitored and mediated by CorporateM. He has worked tirelessly and was even recognized for his work here. As things have progressed, SlimVirgin has taken the stance that s/he believes no COIs should discuss or edit the main Suburban Express page or its Talk page as seen in this example and again in this example. Prior to both comments directed at AlmostGrad, s/he solicited Suburban Express for feedback. When AlmostGrad inquired as to why this was fair, SlimVirgin ignored the comment.

This leads up to the most serious edit. On November 9th, this major edit was done marked as a copy-edit. This edit was done without any prior discussion, negating over 3 months of edits under the supervision of CorporateM. Once these edits were completed, many admins displayed their disagreements with the shift in POV, even if subtly like in this response. Other editors were more bold in their response here and also here referring to "whitewashing". One editor, N2e suggested that SlimVirgin was making a WP:BOLD edit. However, as another IP pointed out in this edit, you need to be WP:CAREFUL. Some would argue that copy-edits do not fall under this category, however; SlimVirgin’s edit was far from a “simple copyedit” as the rule describes. In essence, SlimVirgin has whitewashed the criticism, for which 45 largely-reliable secondary sources exist, while adding self-published primary sources and interviews to promote the subject.

Once these edits were completed, AlmostGrad attempted to give examples of notable facts that should be addressed here. To these suggestions, SlimVirgin was again silent. Furthermore, SlimVirgin used admin privileges to dig out non visible (and irrelevant) material. This received a response from AlmostGrad to which I agree.

In closing, the article should be reverted back, pre-SlimVirgin’s “copyedit” here since it reflects vigorous conversation and mediation. I would also like to request that SlimVirgin refrain from asking others to not engage in discussion about the topic on talk pages, since those are intended to reach a consensus (which was not reached for SlimVirgin’s latest copyedit). 24.15.78.1 (talk) 04:53, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

On User_talk:Arri_at_Suburban_Express, I saw the following comment:

I've placed this discussion  On hold per private discussion. LFaraone 19:39, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Does this mean we should wait for the "private discussion" to end right now, or get started with the ANI talk? 135.0.167.2 (talk) 05:53, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

My reason for posting here is not due to the unblock request on that talk page, but rather a substantial un-discussed edit on the Suburban Express and requests by SlimVirgin for editors to stop editing.24.15.78.1 (talk) 06:10, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I see. That edit was quite a problem, especially combined with the discouragement of discussion considering its boldness. While it is arguably acceptable to reduce the emphasis on Suburban Exp's disputes with students, there was clearly no consensus for raising the article's rhetoric on Suburban Exp's "rigorously enforcing" it's "terms of service." 135.0.167.2 (talk) 07:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

This looks like a content dispute to me, and not something that requires admin action. If you cannot settle your disagreements on the talk page, I would say that the best thing to do is to take it to the dispute resolution noticeboard. Given SlimVirgin's copy edits to the article I would say that she is involved, but I don't see her advice for the COI editors to stay away as being problematic, as long as it is only advice and not a demand. The main guiding policies here are verifiability, neutral point of view and consensus, and I can't see that she has broken any of these, especially given her well-reasoned post here. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:02, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

There was no consensus reached for that copyedit, nor are the edits a neutral point of view. An example can be seen in these edits marked in my second to last paragraph above: "while adding self-published primary sources and interviews to promote the subject." These edits (which are and advertisement and quote from the owner about riding statistics, which display no verifiability) coupled with the release of private info available to admins creates a significant problem.24.15.78.1 (talk) 15:00, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• "SlimVirgin used admin privileges to dig out non visible (and irrelevant) material"--where? how? pretty significant charge (I suppose we're aiming for a cumulative effect here), but I don't see what she did wrong in that comment. Drmies (talk) 14:26, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

  The AFC submission SV references in her comment was deleted at AlmostGrad's request and is thus currently visible only to admins. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:44, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Correct, and it is improperly used. SV says in the link, "It's worth noting that AlmostGrad created Dennis Toeppen via articles for creation; the submission was rejected because it was a largely negative article about a living person, but someone else posted it (a shorter version, but in several sections identical). AlmostGrad crossed a line by doing that..." BUT, AlmostGrad is correct is stating, " In any case, an AfC submission by me is no justification or defense for outing NegatedVoid. Also, I'm not sure if submitting a well-sourced draft to AfC (where it is reviewed for potential tone/NPOV/sourcing issues before being published in articlespace) is comparable to outing - the draft was merely declined, and the deletion was a G7, not G10 as would have been the case if it were a BLP violation."24.15.78.1 (talk) 15:11, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• So, the AfC should have been G10ed instead of G7ed. Why can't SlimVirgin refer to something only admins can see? Where does this new charge--if I read IP24's comments correctly--of outing someone come from? I'm beginning to think that both articles should be deleted under G14:More Trouble Than It's Worth. Drmies (talk) 16:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Drmies, it was NOT deleted under G10, so stating what "should" have been is not applicable to this discussion and "should" be disregarded. In a formal court, "should" haves would also not be a valid argument by either party. If it "should" have been, it would have been. Also, SV used his/her admin privileges to violate policy. These privileges were incorrectly used to prove a "point", of which did not relate to the Suburban Express article in itself. This privilege was used to publicly take a personal stance against an editor 24.15.78.1 (talk) 17:20, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• "If it should have been it would have been" is nonsense. If someone says that G7 was an error, perhaps they're right. Not a huge deal. Your links are all fine and dandy, but I still don't see the violation. What I do see is that you misrepresent SlimVirgin's "major edit", which was not marked (perhaps only abbreviated) as a copy edit in the edit summary or on the talk page. Drmies (talk) 18:10, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

@Drmies:, that is incorrect. It was explicitly called a copyedit by SV...the section is even called Copy edit. You cannot make the assumption that G7 was in error. That was not mentioned anywhere, except not so subtly by SV. You may also want to note this24.15.78.1 (talk) 18:47, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• I must have landed in some alternate universe. Let's see. You say AlmostGrad is correct in stating it was deleted as G7 but should have been deleted as G10 if it were a BLP violation. I say it was deleted as G7 and maybe should have been deleted as G10. You say that's wrong of me to say, since I can't say "should" since I can't use the word "should" in a court of law. I suppose you're right in principle that I cannot make the assumption that G7 was in error, but as it happens I am an administrator and I saw no request for G7 nor a blanking in that AfC, so I surmise that G7 was in error. "Copyedit"--it was called a whole bunch of things, not just "copyedit". The edit summaries and talk page discussions aren't hidden, so anyone can see that you're incorrect. What the hell, I'll cite the edit summary: "tightened, some rewriting, rmvd some repetitive refs, blogs".

  One more thing. You're here trying to get some kind of administrative action. From an administrator, I presume. I am an administrator. You're not doing much to make me want to act--besides, I can't tell anymore what it is you want. There is something, though, that I'm aching to do: disallow you from editing the article and the talk page, of the bus outfit and of Toeppen. You're nothing but disruption and I can say with some confidence that I don't have a COI here, and can act in an uninvolved manner. In fact, I think I would like someone to close this since it's too long, too uninteresting, too poorly written, too contradictory. And that's my comment. I'll only be back here should a boomerang fly by and input is requested. Drmies (talk) 21:55, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• It was G7'ed at my request, not in error. If it were G10-worthy, it would have been immediately G10'ed by the AfC reviewer. It was declined at AfC for tone and balance issues - I was asked to find positive material to balance out the negative stuff - which is not really possible when the subject is only known for owning a bus service that sues customers, and for cybersquatting - as you can see from the current version of the article.

Why SlimVirgin should not dig up and use material visible only to admins is because they are an involved party here, with a strong, decidedly non-neutral point of view, and using admin-only access (or even knowledge of existence, which only admins will readily have) of a deleted G7 draft from several months back as an argument for defending the owner, who is currently blocked and is outing people off-wiki (on-wiki near-outing was part of the reason for this editor's block), means that SlimVirgin is using privileges not available to regular editors to further their point of view. This sets regular editors up at a disadvantage, and makes the discussion an uneven playing field. One could argue that if SlimVirgin were not an admin they could still have requested a copy of the deleted draft from an admin, but I think it is quite improbable that a non-admin editor would have easily found out the existence of the deleted draft, then requested it from an admin, and then investigated its history. I also doubt an admin would have readily provided them the draft without them showing good cause, like wanting to further work on the draft and a desire to fix the issues it had - I don't think an admin would have provided the draft in order to aid collectoin of information to use against another editor. What is SlimVirgin trying to prove anyway? That I have issues with the company? I have already explicitly declared my CoI on my userpage long back. SlimVirgin says:

"It's worth noting that AlmostGrad created Dennis Toeppen via articles for creation... AlmostGrad crossed a line by doing that, just as Arri at Suburban Express crossed a line by posting real names on his website."

As I responded, I am not sure if submitting a well-sourced draft to AfC (where it is reviewed for potential tone/NPOV/sourcing issues before being published in articlespace) is comparable to outing, or is an appropriate justification/defense/minimization rationale for the latter.

I am not sure if admins are expected to stick together (or whether that was said in jest), but it seems like a lack of AGF to me when Drmies accuses the inexperienced IP of misrepresentation for using the phrase "marked as copy edit", while dismissing the use of "copy edit" by SlimVirgin as a mere abbreviation - the IP never said the "marked" in their post referred to the edit summary - and the corresponding talk page section by Slimirgin is indeed titled "Copy edit" - which is a misleading term for an experienced editor to use for such a significant edit, especially since copy edit is about the only kind of change an editor is allowed to make to a contentious article without discussion or before seeking consensus. AlmostGrad (talk) 22:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

@Drmies:, that is not fair. In my link above SV even labels the link you show as a copyedit, please click the link and look. S/he just adds a different note on the edit itself. Additionally, My request is clear in the last paragraph of the initial post. If you feel the need to block me due to my proposal/incident, I will accept it because my copyedit comment is 100% accurate. I also have never attempted, nor will attempt to edit the Dennis Toeppen page/talk OR Suburban Express article page. You can block me on those anyway. Sj 24.15.78.1 (talk) 22:20, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand why this thread was started - SlimVirgin is making a solid attempt at improving the article, and it is getting better as a result. Please continue to work through its talk page. Suggesting specific content changes and compromises is more helpful than challenging someone else's work or meta-challenging their use of process. There's no admin abuse here; starting drama on ANI will not improve the article. (Also: That is a confusing use of my username; could you move it or label it with 'cc:' ? It is better to ping people at the start of a comment.) – SJ + 01:31, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't really understand, and don't want to bother to try to understand whether or not SV was correct in the point they made that you mention. But I do think you're concentrating way too much on the admin abuse thing. As I understand it, the AFC page was deleted on request of the sole contributor. AFAIK, this is mainly do with the fact that AFC is not intended to be some sort of repository so if the original creator isn't interested in proceeding with the AFC there's likely no point keeping it. But if someone asked for it to be kept and indicated they planned to continue with it, it's likely it would be kept. Besides that, plenty of admins will provide a copy of a deleted page, assuming it wasn't deleted for copyright or as an attack page or similar reasons. Even in the case of a courtesy deletion (which doesn't seem to be the case here), if you had legitimate reasons to want to look in to someone's history, it's likely an admin would help (exceptions would be cases would be where privacy would be a major concern like if someone accidentally revealed their IP or real name or something although those cases should generally be suppressed anyway). Perhaps SV could have asked an another admin instead of looking themselves but really from the limited I've seen, I don't see anything majorly wrong with SV checking out the deleted AFC. Nil Einne (talk) 17:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

This article has had several non-neutral closely involved editors who are also in a real-world battle with each other. This has involved not only locking horns with each other, but also critiquing neutral editors and their work as a way of further their causes. As a result the article, several noticeboards, and some user talk pages have all been turned into a drama-fest, and the neutral and near-neutral editors trying to help have been given a whole lot of grief and subject to numerous ginned-up accusations. North8000 (talk) 17:43, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll insert in here just one point on which I very much agree with User:North8000. As a nuetral editor with no COI relative to Suburban Express, who happened to weigh in with a few comments on that Talk page in the past week or two, and to date, has made a very few relatively minor edits (and one of those only after a BRD on the Talk page), I will just say that having these real-world intellectual enemies arguing and screwing up Wikipedia over their quite public disagreements, and then excessive wiki-lawyering and trollish behavior by many on both sides, has made it nearly impossible to make any progress with improving the article. (or, at least, to make any progress at a cost low enough that any sane volunteer editor would put up with it!)

So whomever suggested a topic-ban for all the (now) identified COI folks on both sides, or at least for a designated period for a cooling off period, would be fine by me. Then the few of us neutral editors who are left could actually work collaboratively on describing encyclopedically this small US company, in a way that endeavors to be neutral and reflect both sides, as well as not put undue emphasis on any part of the history or the current wiki-spat. Cheers. N2e (talk) 22:13, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that identifying them (one is currently blocked) and giving them a strong warning to 99% stick to content in discussions, and if they going to a noticeboard with something weak it is likely to boomerang on them.North8000 (talk) 17:47, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

As described above, AlmostGrad was strictly sticking to content and was left with zero responses. I also attempted to give productive responses to content since SV made such a dramatic copyedit.....However, that discussion is about content, which is not applicable on this board. 24.15.78.1 (talk) 18:03, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

First, after seeing the real-world battle (and what has spilled over into Wikipedia), out in the real world battle I'd be 100% with you, but we're not there. That said, whether it was right or wrong, taking SV to ani just for referring to using some non-visible material to inform her thoughts is an example of what I complained about in my previous post. North8000 (talk) 18:18, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Please take North8000's comment to heart, rather than arguing it. Be patient, and content discussions will get a response. If you alienate editors who take an interest in the article by drawing them into unwanted drama, you may end up without any neutral editors willing to get involved. – SJ + 01:31, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll take the comments to heart. I think I am either confused on the rules or don't understand the proper process to have my original concern (last paragraph of initial post) addressed. A dramatic edit was done on a controversial topic without discussion after a long 3 month chain of mediated edits. After well sourced suggestions are proposed/presented, they are completely ignored on the talk page by that same editor who made the dramatic change. Finally, that same editor tells everyone to stay away and refrain from even discussing. I'll attempt to re-read the rules, but I'm baffled on on this one. 24.15.78.1 (talk) 01:57, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know whether SV's edits should stay or not, but it looks to me like none of the neutral-ish people there even reverted or disputed them, and you have essentially (by coming here) gone far beyond disputing the edits onto alleging improper behavior by SV. You might have not understood that you did this, but you did. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:42, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

There were a few who did dispute the edits, but given the amount of controversy that had already ensued around the article, none attempted to revert the edits (and to be honest, I don't blame them). Here are some examples: "It looks better(ish) I think, though probably a bit too far the other way" and "I don't completely agree with SlimVirgin's whitewash under BLP rules. However, I digress. I will leave that for all of you to decide. 24.15.78.1 (talk) 04:52, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Removal of unsafe links

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

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Hello Wikipedia,

Unfortunately I have found it required that I bring admin attention to a slightly bizarre situation occurring with the Patriotic Nigras page. Basically, originally I wanted a link to be placed somewhere else because it was better placed however after further thought I believe the link should be removed permanently from the article as it poses a blatant threat to the safety of fellow editors and readers. The simple reason is because this group is supposed to be well known for hacking and trolling well known internet sites, why would a Wikipedia article then direct users to their Official Website when the activities they participate in involve the hacking and disruption of computer based systems. It is like having official websites displayed for well known criminal syndicates on a Wikipedia article, in my mind it makes no sense. I hope this issue can be resolved, thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olowe2011 (talk • contribs) 06:54, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Is there a reason listed at WP:ELNO for which you think the page should not include an official website link? -- Jreferee (talk) 07:15, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I think Olowe2011's argument is basically that visiting the website at all places the person at risk of security compromise. So basically WP:ELNO#EL3. I don't see any evidence that it's an attack page or anything like that though. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 07:31, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

My point does relate to WP:ELNO#EL3. The fact that the whole organizations aims are around exploiting weaknesses in the Internet and committing unlawful acts would in my mind create a reasonable doubt as to if those who visit their official website are going to be safe. The organization has a history of exploiting internet users in various ways and visiting their website would allow them to gain the IP addresses of those who visit their website. This can be misused in itself. The website also offers its users illegal content such as hacked Second Life clients / Viewers and various other questionable materials. To be honest with the nature of the group, I personally would find it unjustifiable to show a link to their website but I thought that it needed a broader sought opinion. --Olowe2011 (talk) 08:01, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I really don't think that's a credible concern in this day and age. Hell, ever since XP Service Pack 2, the vast majority of computer users have some form of firewall enabled. There's maybe some concern that they could in fact put content on their website that would cause the link to violate WP:ELNO#EL3, but I don't see that future possible concern as meriting action now. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 08:17, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

That is true in the most part because people like us know how to correctly secure our computers. But I don't think its correct for us, as responsible editors to allow those who trust what we create to be able to click on a link to an organization that clearly dedicates itself to the disruption of the internet community through hacking and forms of unlawful invasion of computer systems. But I do agree that most computer systems are secure with firewalls ect however I still don't think it holds sense to have a link to a website hosted by internet trolls and hackers. I also wanted to add thanks a lot for commenting on this Mendaliv because it gives a broader opinion on the subject, I will be sure to come to you if I need help with something :). --Olowe2011 (talk) 09:11, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

As long as there isn't any present security danger from the site, I can't see any grounds for immediate removal of the link. Rather, it should stay if there is a consensus to include it, and it should be removed if there is a consensus to remove it. I also note that in the case of no consensus in disputes about external links, then the link should be removed (see WP:NOCONSENSUS). However, from the discussion on the talk page and Mendaliv's comments here, I would say that there is presently a weak consensus to include the link. Olowe2011, perhaps you could start an RfC about this on the article's talk page? While I don't think any admin action is required here, getting the opinion of more uninvolved editors would be a good way to resolve this. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:36, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

*Done - Thank you for your idea Mr.Stradivarius, I have made a request for comments on the talk page Here. --Olowe2011 (talk) 10:26, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

That's a fair amount of anti-bold bureaucratic advice. Does Olowe2011 think the link belongs? No. Have they previously reverted it? No. The wiki thing to do is just take the darn thing out and leave a note on the talk page explaining their reasoning.It certainly doesn't hurt the encyclopedia or the reader not to have the link -- after all We're number six!; we're not stopping any interesting reader from finding the site. NE Ent 10:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Please note that this is in fact Olowe2011's 4th attempt to remove the URL. The RfC he has just opened represents his 5th attempt. Please join the conversation if anyone is so inclined. -Thibbs (talk) 12:37, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

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

Problematic user page at User:Bandi Namit

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

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User:Bandi Namit is a user page that seems to me to fall firmly within the remit of WP:FAKEARTICLE, as it appears to be a biography of an investigative journalist - Pushp Sharma - but it is almost entirely unsourced. I left a note regarding this at User talk:Bandi Namit over six weeks ago, but although Bandi Namit has made several Wikipedia edits (uploading images of Sharma), nothing has been done to address the issue. I understand that the normal course of action would probably be WP:MfD, but given the fact that this is a biography, and given that it makes unsourced assertions of criminality regarding several people, I wonder whether the appropriate course of action might be immediate blanking? That at least might get User:Bandi Namit to respond. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:54, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I see you told the editor that you aren't supposed to have article drafts on your user page? Pretty sure WP:UP says userpage drafting and sandboxing is fine. Otherwise, meh. Given the formatting and general look and feel of the userpage, I think this is more likely someone looking for WP:MYSPACE than actually drafting an article. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:03, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• I deleted it, since I share Andy's concerns. If the editor wants to do something with it, he can ask for it to be restored in a subpage to be submitted to AfC, minus the accusations and talk of high-ranking officials perverting some course of justice. Drmies (talk) 17:08, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

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

Disruptive editing and personal attacks by Johnsmith2116

Johnsmith2116 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Beginning about here[62] this editor began doing edits to golfer articles. If you look at the win boxes you'll see he starts it but leaves it half empty. His edit summary reads 'someone please complete the information, thank you'

Similar edits can be found to golfer or golf tournament articles here[63], here[64] , here[65], here[66], here[67], here[68], here[69], here[70], here[71], and here[72]. All with similar edit summaries. There are more, but this is just meant as a sampling and meant to show this editor's track history.

In early June I asked[73] this editor on his talk page to do complete and stop the incomplete ones. After no reply and further instances of this editing, I asked administrator The Bushranger to have a word with JS2116. He did here[74] and after further edits of the same type, TBR issued a even stronger warning[75] for him to stop doing the incomplete edits

For a while JS2116 made correct edits but then in September went back to his old ways with an edit like this[76] which actually contained question marks in place of the player's scores. TBR issued yet another warning[77]

Not too long after that, Jsmith did this edit[78] which was incorrect because the tournament was still ongoing. I told TBR about it, and for the first time Jsmith replied back on a talk page. It can be found here. He accused me[79] of trying to intimidate him. TNR said I wasn't and Jsmith replied back[80]

Which brings us to yesterday and today. He made this edit[81] to the [Chris Kirk]] article with the edit summary 'there's a glitch in here, don't know how to fix it)' His edit was going to make a mess of Kirk's win box and knew it but went ahead and did it anyway. I reverted[82] the edit before properly editing Kirk's victory from yesterday[83] into the box.

I didn't raise this edit with TBR not till today when without explanation, Jsmith reverted[84] an edit of mine to Fonty Flock. My edit had corrected information about Flock's death and included a source for it but Jsmith for whatever inexplicable reason reverted it. I then told TBR about this and the Chris Kirk edit.

Since then Jsmith has accused me of lying today to TBR without proof(and there is none) and accusing me of bullying him. Check his posts to TBR's here[85] and to another editor's talk page[86]. That editor had left a message[87] on my talk page warning me of what Jsmith had said to TBR.

As I've written[88], Wikipedia might have the best golf recordkeeping around. I wouldn't have any problem with Jsmith if he'd just stop making incomplete edits. Jsmith's refused to do so on multiple occasions even though they have been asked not to and been warned by an administrator that some of his work is disruptive. Now he is conducting personal attacks against me too....William 18:56, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

We refuse to tolerate this anymore - 2+ years is long enough; WilliamJE's e-bullying days are over

I was notified through Yahoo Messenger a few minutes ago, by one of the above editors' many victims that he has tried to e-bully over the last 2 years, that there was a message waiting here for me. So I'm going to jump right in.

Before I get started, I'll say that when you have an editor who stlks the section, waiting to catch someone in the middle of a 2-part edit, and then in the middle of it report it as false, instead of waiting to see if it maybe was a mistake, or if possibly unfinished and that it'll be finished in good faith in a few minutes, you've got a rogue editor who just wants to start trouble with people. Users don't need a trouble-making stalker waiting for them every weekend.

Now I'll say what I was going to say: I wanted to let you know that that the person in question has a 2-plus year history of abusing this system to intimidate several users. And he's lied several times in the past, and today is no exception. But it's more than that - on weekends. he stalks the place in waiting, in the hope that he catches people in the MIDDLE of an edit, one in which we have every intention of getting right, but when we don't complete it in 10 seconds, he steps in to mess with it and goes running to the Wikipedia principal to tattle. Fact is there's probably a lot about him that you aren't aware of. There are 2 sides to the story, and you've mainly just gotten the one from him in which he either highly stretched the truth or flat out lied, to you and several others. I'm sorry if you got caught in the middle. Hopefully this kind of thing will stop, but with his type (because I've had the misfortune of knowing his type in real life), it's unlikely to stop. But please keep in mind, even THE most active golf editor in all of Wikipedia (who I won't name, as it would be unfair to him) has never had a problem, he's left me alone and never gotten on my case. Only this one guy has, because he likes to play internet tough guy and thinks he's a lot more important than he is, and doesn't allow for temporary, easily repairable mistake by anyone, for whatever reasons that only a warped mind like his could possibly understand. If that person Bushranger would like to intervene and take the statements of several other good users who he has tried to cowardly e-intimidate, then it shall be so.

He also tried to claim that I falsely accused him of lying. This is pitiful, and yet predictable - every liar always says they are falsely accused of lying. He has lied on SEVERAL occasions about users, today is not the first. .. Fact is he falsely accuses me of making an inexcusable edit when in fact I went to edit the wrong page by MISTAKE -- but instead of trying to find out what happened, he did what an opportunistic bullies like him do and used it as a means to lie and say it was malicious. Please don't fall for that.

I'll not stand for this and won't be intimidated. I've dealt with scum the likes that that user can't imagine, and I will NOT let a "keyboard warrior" like him pretend to be Mr. Tough Guy at my expense.

And he just LIED to you today at least TWICE, on top of everything else. First, I made no "replacing" or whatever garbage he calls it. Second, heaven forbid I make an honest mistake, "oh my god the sky is falling someone made a mistake! Keyboard warrior to the rescue, how dare that person make an honest human mistake, can't have that, I'll teach him, I'm the keyboard warrior! I'll fix him and go crying to the principal again!" This garbage of his has gotten old and pathetic and MANY other's are sick of his garbage and petty stuff. He needs seriously to get a life. I'll continue to do my editing as the rest of the others have without being intimidated by him. —

He also tried to claim that I falsely accused him of lying. This is pitiful, and yet predictable - every liar always says they are falsely accused of lying. He has lied on SEVERAL occasions about users, today is not the first. .. Fact is he falsely accuses me of making an inexcusable edit when in fact I went to edit the wrong page by mistake -- but instead of trying to find out what happened, he did what an opportunistic bully like him does and used it as a means to lie and say it was malicious. Please don't fall for his BS. Darn right this has to end -- WilliamJE's 2-year reign as the bully of Wikipedia will stop.

I, along with all the others that he tried to intimidate and failed at intimidating, will continue our good faith editing with the very rare, unwitting, unintentional mistake without fear of some e-bully trying to play God and throw his weight around.

Not every editor here makes 100 edits per day, not every editor here knows all the ins and outs of the system and is allowed to make a small technical error once in a while without The Gooch of Wikipedia trying to come along and steal his lunch money in the schoolyard. I didn't tolerate bullies in REAL life, and I'll be damned if I'm going to allow an internet bully obviously with too much time on his hands to bully me here either.

And oh by the way, as pointed out to me by one of his countless would-be victims in a private chat, you'll notice that he has a lot more RED next to his edits than he has GREEN. He likes to take people's hard work and creativity and with the push of a button make it disappear, for now reason, obviously because he doesn't have enough else going on in life. He gets off on trying to make people miserable. He must have been rejected when he was a kid and wants to take it out on the world in his aduly years, I don't know.

I've had this account for 6 years, and only started editing last year. And I'll CONTINUE editing. I'm not afraid of some rogue e-bully. There are millions of them just like him here in the USA, and they're aren't tough, and I'll not be intimidated. Johnsmith2116 (talk) 19:22, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

There's something else to keep in mind -- as with all people with social problems, he lets things linger and carry over and use it as an excuse a long time down the road - he remembers from a few months ago how I didn't let him intimidate me THEN, and now he is still trying to do it, so, since he's realized that after 2 months I'm STILL not allowing him to intimidate me, he can't stand it, and he lashes out. Johnsmith2116 (talk) 20:09, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

TLDR. Provide diffs to prove your points. People here are busy and are not going to go running looking for the information you're claiming. Please provide links or your claims are baseless. Oh and be careful of the boomerang over there, looking at your edit history and talk page you've been asked to be more careful on your edits and you've ignore them and refused to discuss, make sure it doesn't hit you (though I think I can see it on it's way back.) Canterbury Tail talk 19:41, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Click here to see a list of where they both edited together, and how far apart, and how many edits each made to that page. Dream Focus 19:51, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• I have advised User:WilliamJE of this posting as required. JodyB _talk 20:14, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• And I was also not notified, despite being mentioned, as is required. As I've advised this user before, regardless of how he feels about another editor, personal attacks are never acceptable, and the sheer volume of them in the above screed makes it impossible to regard with anything other than a hefted WP:BOOMERANG, especially when there is blatant "following and reverting" like this being done.. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 20:39, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

My apologies, Bushranger and company, on not notifying - this whole thing with this back and forth protesting is new to me, and I'm not up on the protocol. If I had known, I'd have notified you. Also I'd like to mention, what I said about that particular editor was not meant as a personal attack, but rather more of a possible statement of fact. But I'll take your advice and keep that type of talk out of it. Thank you. Johnsmith2116 (talk) 21:02, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I suggest starting with the Editor Interaction Analyzer and then use diffs with all the edits that are close in time to explain your position.I am One of Many (talk) 22:45, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I've blocked Johnsmith for one week for disruptive editing, including personal attacks, WP:IDHT, the obvious bad edits to articles, and sock puppet threats. John's contributions here made things worse, not better. And even after he posted here, he added this paragraph to an earlier screed. He has steadfastly refused to acknowledge any of the problems he has created; instead he just lashes out at his accuser, and with no evidence to back it up.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:00, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

User:AfricaTanz

I am seeking help with User:AfricaTanz for soapboxing, loading articles with content only tangentially pertinent to them (and then in a prescriptive, agenda-laden way), and for refusing categorically to engage with anyone who tries to speak with him.

He has persisted in using articles on LGBT rights in a set of at least thirteen African nations as a forum for soapboxing. The user has dropped large blocks of identical text into these articles, almost entirely addressing international agreements that often don't even mention the country in question at all, with the implication being that each country in question is supposed to be abiding by these agreements. This intent is made manifest by such section headings as "Ghana's obligations under international law and treaties".

Over time (this has now been going on for over a year), several of us have removed this content and attempted numerous times to reason with AfricaTanz. I suggested, for example, that the material could go in one place and that each of the articles could make reference to it to the extent it could be given relevance to each country. His response has been to ban us from his Talk page, to refuse to respond to any of the points we make, and to attack us in edit summaries.

The issue went to Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_53#LGBT_rights dispute resolution and AfricaTanz declined to participate in any way. At the time, User:TransporterMan suggested we could go to Rfc/U or here. Since AfricaTanz declines to participate and won't listen to anybody, and since Rfc/U has no enforcement power, I didn't see any value in seeking help there. Therefore, I've come here.

Most of the pertinent facts and links to related discussions are at the DR Noticeboard archive linked above. Recent activities can be seen in the histories of LGBT rights in Senegal and LGBT rights in Ghana (example diffs: [89] and [90]).

I see that User:AfricaTanz, who until the last time I looked had an "on vacation" notice that ended earlier this month, now has one that started yesterday and ends in May. Yet he's editing today. For what it's worth. —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the edit history for LGBT rights in Ghana, it seems that AfricaTanz is edit-warring to include this material. I'd suggest this, together with the contributors apparent refusal to discuss the matter in the past, may well be grounds for a block, at least until AfricaTanz agrees to participate in discussions over the issue. Engaging appropriately in discussions over disputed material is a necessary part of being a Wikipedia contributor, and AfricaTanz needs to show willing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:53, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The material AfricaTanz is reinserting into LGBT rights in Ghana and other articles was already the subject of an RFC at Talk:LGBT rights under international law#Duplicated text on countries' obligations under international law. The consensus was that the material is original research, a novel synthesis, and/or not directly relevant to country-specific articles. To date all attempts to engage AfricaTanz in discussion about this material have been unsuccessful: messages posted on his user talk page are immediately removed, sometimes followed by a statement that the poster is now "banned" from his page, and discussions on project or article talk pages are likewise either ignored or boycotted. I'm at a loss as to what else can be done to get this user to start editing collaboratively rather than combatively. —Psychonaut (talk) 20:07, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The issue may be a little more complex. Back in August 2013, AfricaTanz was removing lots of stuff like this: [91] - which had previously been edit-warred into many articles by a (dynamic) IP editor. What's going on here? bobrayner (talk) 20:11, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The IP accounts almost certainly are User:AfricaTanz, before he created an account. The accounts got blocked for the same sort of edit warring (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive199#User:70.253.75.84 reported by User:Jenova20 (Result: 1 week)), and IIRC the pages also got semi-protected. This forced whoever was operating the IP accounts to create a named account, and they've continued ever since. The removals in question were apparently precipitated by the RFC; almost immediately after the RFC page got accidentally deleted he started reposting the material. —Psychonaut (talk) 20:20, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up! I agree that the material should go... bobrayner (talk) 20:34, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

At the risk of duplication, here are the search results for AfricaTanz on admin noticeboards. Two ANIs and two AN3 reports. Blocked once for a week as an IP in November 2012 and then once for 48 hours in June 2013 as a registered account. A complaint about AfricaTanz's edits on LGBT rights was filed at DRN in November 2012 but he chose not to respond. In my opinion we're getting close to an indef block if the editor has no intention of joining in discussions. Communication isn't negotiable. EdJohnston (talk) 22:30, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I've just removed some problematic content from many of the LGBT-rigts-in-Africa articles. These articles often seem to have other problems - IE. lengthy quotes from legislation and standardised exerpts from country-by-country reposts on human rights &c - which would probably need to be fixed, but we can deal with that later. Now is not the time for scope creep. bobrayner (talk) 01:25, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Banned user maintaining ArbCom election guide

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

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• Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

In addition to carrying on other continued wiki dealings from his talk page, this user is now actively maintaining an ArbCom "voter guide" for "Election 2013". He was banned indefinitely by ArbCom in August 2013. It may be of note that this user has maintained ArbCom voter guides in the past.

Full disclosure, User:Richwales, a potential candidate who is projected somewhat negatively in this guide, brought this issue up at the 2013 election info talk page, which is the only reason I know about it. I have absolutely no idea who Richwales or Kiefer.Wolfowitz are, I don't think I've ever voted in an ArbCom election, and I don't plan to this year. This just seemed like inappropriate activity for an indefinitely banned editor. equazcion → 23:19, 11 Nov 2013 (UTC)

What was Kiefer Wolfowitz banned indefinitely from doing, and has he breached that ban? He's not banned from posting on his talk page is he? Eric Corbett 23:24, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Don't see the harm personally, he's usuallyinvariably quite insightful. But it surely is an Arbcom enforcement matter if anything. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement Leaky Caldron 23:27, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I commented on the linked page where the question was raised, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Kiefer was "indefinitely banned from the English Language Wikipedia" by ArbCom last August (see the Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds arbitration case). Per WP:BAN, a site-banned editor is not considered to be a member of the Wikipedia community and is not allowed to make any edit, good or bad, anywhere on Wikipedia. The only recognized exception to this is that a banned editor who still has talk page access may use their talk page to lodge an appeal of their ban — though it should be noted here that Kiefer, per the terms of his ban, is not allowed to ask ArbCom for reinstatement until August 2014 at the earliest. It should be noted, FWIW, that the prohibition on banned editors using their talk page is not consistently enforced in practice. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 23:50, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Strictly speaking, he is not allowed to do that, but, strictly speaking, I don't really give a shit and fail to see why anyone else should.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't care personally, but it seems like a strict adherence might prevent things like this from being a way to post a veiled enemies list, of sorts, or soapbox against the types of ArbCom people who would have agreed with a user's ban, etc. I haven't actually read this particular guide much, but if it were up to me, I'd want to avoid creating a situation where we'd need to judge content, and simply disallow significant project stuff altogether from banned users' talk pages. equazcion → 00:18, 12 Nov 2013 (UTC)
    • Precisely - it's WP:WIKILAWYERING of the ban at best, and seems very much like a "I'm not really proxying" attempt to proxy-influence Wikipedia in defiance of his community ban. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:21, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• Sigh. I'll take the OP at his word that he knows nothing of the background here. Keifer (more accurately the operator of the Keifer account) is a 4chan troll, as I've been pointing out for years. Quite admire his/her skill actually. Let's not feed. Pedro :  Chat  00:17, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• Okay, I'll bite, what is a "4chan troll"? Someone who trolls in Fortran? :-) As an aside, I agree with everything Rich said above.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:21, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I am posting a link to this discussion at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Coordination, which seems to be the right place to get the attention of the people running the election. At least, that is where you go when you click on "Contact the coordinators" on the election template. It seems that nobody has actually signed up to be a "coordinator" yet, but we do have three appointed Election Commissioners, and I would say this is an issue for them. (And I would also say the real issue is not that the user in question is posting about the election on his talk page, but that his talk page is listed in the Voter Guide section of the "official" election template.) Neutron (talk) 01:07, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

From reading the outcome of the Arbitration case, it is clear that the intent of the Arbitration Committee was to remove Kiefer.Wolofowitz from all of en.wp for at least 12 months. Attempting to engage the community is in my opinion a clear violation of the spirit of that ban and a clear violation of the spirit of allowing banned users talk page access. I would recommend removing the voter guide and removing his talk page access until August 2014 when he may choose to appeal his ban. As I intend to vote in this year's election (and maybe write a guide myself if I find time) I will not take action myself. Thryduulf (talk) 02:37, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• Well, I've NEVER heard of Kiefer, nor of ArbCom. Ahem. As far as I'm concerned this isn't a big deal, and Richwales is right that this is probably not OK but also inconsistently enforced. I do wonder about Nikkimaria's adding KW's guide to the ACE2013 template; removing that reduces exposure and lowers the barometric pressure of any possible shit storm system. Or heightens it, whatever makes for less storm. Drmies (talk) 03:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• Strong meh per Devil's Advocate. Reyk _YO! 03:18, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• Agree with the "meh" sentiment as for KW's action. But I don't think condoning it by listing it on the candidate guides page is a good idea. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:22, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• If a person is maintaining some kind of guide for this ArbCom election, but who is, for various reasons, prevented from editing or adding to content, then they could be seen as doing us all a favour, because it takes the pressure off the rest of us to do one. That means we can be avoiding unnecessary drama so we can get on adding and editing content. It does depend on how neutral and unbiased the guide is. However, it seems to me that an automatic complaint is just a means of creating or perpetuating drama when there's far more important things to do (editing and adding to content!) than feeling outrage or looking for things to object to on administrative grounds. It's as The Devil's Advocate wrote (I almost spelt the name as "The Devil's Advocaat"!)  DDStretch  (talk) 03:35, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• Seeing as Kiefer's ban was enacted by Arbcom and not the community, Arbcom would be the people to ask about this. While banned users usually do not have access to their talk pages, there may have been internal Arbcom discussion about what the block settings should be for Kiefer's block, so I wouldn't want to change them without consulting Arbcom first. How about making a request for clarification? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:44, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Ha. No thanks. I wonder if ArbCom could be bothered to just respond here when needed, instead of requiring us to determine when reports need to go to them. I'm about as likely to start this over again someplace else as a green snake is to deliberately crawl under under a sugarcane truck. I brought this here to inform others, in case the community felt it was something to be concerned with. If anyone feels like doing whatever the rules have determined is the proper course here, they should go ahead. equazcion → 07:00, 12 Nov 2013 (UTC)
• As long as the voters guide remains just that I don't see a problem with it being on his talk page. Almost regardless of the reason for someone being banned or blocked it is a positive if they can continue to engage constructively via their talkpage. Of course there are occasions where even that access has needed to be removed, but I'm not seeing that here. ϢereSpielChequers 07:51, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support revocation I have no background with this banned user (although I have taken it upon myself to learn about the circumstances of his banishment), but I think it is unwise to be lax with this policy. If the user cannot appeal his banishment until next August, then there is little reason for him to have talk page access. Whether he is using it to edit "constructively" is actually quite beside the point. Everyone involved in Kiefer's case agreed that he is a fine content editor. That he was banned despite these contributions underscores the need for separation between him and the community until he can appeal his ban and demonstrate that he belongs here. The "net positive" approach seems odd when discussing a banned user. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 09:02, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• What's this project supposed to be about, constructive collaboration or the mindless (and intermittent) enforcement of petty rules? K.W has a lot of experience and is offering us some insightful thoughts. Is that collaborative and constructive? Of course it is. People need to stop whining and get on with the election (and the encyclopedia) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:12, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't think "whining" is a very charitable way to describe a good-faith request for input. Is it not a legitimate policy question how we enforce bans? --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 09:42, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
    • If what you're interested in is the blind enforcing of rules, go ahead and fill yer boots. But if more people stopped and asked the simple question "Is this actually helping or hindering the project?" before engaging in discussions like this, there'd be a lot less drama round here. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm off to do something constructive - bye. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:50, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• What Devil's Advocate said. And what Boing! said Zebedee said. Joefromrandb (talk) 09:25, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• I'd like Kiefer to be allowed to put an election guide on his talk page. Cardamon (talk) 09:36, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I'll also add that with the amount of banned users that sock, troll, vandalize, harass, and threaten, the fact that someone wants to sanction a banned user who is actively attempting to improve the encyclopedia is troubling, but unsurprising. Joefromrandb (talk) 09:40, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
    • But what is the purpose of a ban, then? By judgment of the Arbcom, this user's conduct merited a complete dissociation between himself and Wikipedia for at least a year, until he could appeal that judgment. This user was not banned for editing in poor faith (i.e., that they were NOTHERE), and nobody denied prior to the ban that this user could make constructive edits. The judgment of the Arbcom was that the need for this user to be separated from the community outweighed those constructive edits. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 09:49, 12 November 2013 (UTC) (edit conflict)
    • (edit conflict) I think it's anybody's guess whether the intent is to improve the encyclopedia, but either way I'd rather we didn't have to make that call. Banned users were banned because it was already determined that they shouldn't be involved in the project, no matter what it might look like they're attempting. So yes, I think something sactionesque should likely happen here and in other similar situations (troubling as that may seem to some). It deoesn't make sense, to me, to leave the door open for ban discussion #2 once userspace starts getting used this way. equazcion → 09:56, 12 Nov 2013 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) x a lot. OK, I've now removed K.W's candidate guide from {{Template:ACE2013}}. My rationale for this is that a banned user should not have their views included in a template like this. I did this with a full understanding of its possible consequences. If sh*rt happens as a result, then hey - sh*rt happens. Pete aka --Shirt58 (talk) 09:47, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I've reverted, on the basis that it was added in good faith by a user in good standing, and we should wait for this discussion to conclude. Joefromrandb (talk) 10:05, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• The purpose of a user's talkpage while blocked or banned is to permit them to formulate a a return to the community via an unblock request, and then to submit that request for discussion. Banned users should not be attempting to influence Wikipedia policy, edits to the project, or other things related to Wikipedia while banned. Banning is, after all, a social creation, often effected by a block. KW has been editing his talkpage extensively since his ban ... all in contravention of the Banning Policy. If we need to lock talkpage access fur the duration of the ban to fully implement the social ban, then someone needs to do it ... and remove material that he should not have been creating to begin with. This is not an IAR situation, it's policy ES&L 10:19, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
  • IAR clearly allows for suspension of policy for actions that improve the encyclopedia. And IAR is policy. Saying: "this isn't an IAR situation, it's policy", is like saying: "that's not an animal, it's a horse. Joefromrandb (talk) 10:32, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• This is being discussed in multiple fora and should be centralized. Joefromrandb (talk) 10:46, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

The closest thing to a consensus are the various iterations which state that "this is a matter for Arbcom to decide"; I agree. Therefore I have filed a request for clarification[92] as I think the question deserves a proper answer.—John Cline (talk) 11:04, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I spoke at the first venue, said so here (the second), - do we now have to go to the next? - My experience with the last arb "clarification" were not promising, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:15, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• It's now at Arb Clarification ... this one can be shut down ES&L 11:16, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• Let him have his say also...Modernist (talk) 11:37, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

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

Revdelete please?

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

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Anyone mind revdeleting this? It's a user revealing her password. We don't want a compromised account here. Taylor Trescott - ^{my talk} + _{my edits} 23:34, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Revision deleted and user blocked indefinitely. See User talk:Christine Cherney#Blocked. - Rjd0060 (talk) 23:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

For future reference though, this noticeboard is not the place to request revdeletion. See Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents for instructions. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:14, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

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

Polemical use of sandboxes by thewolfchild

thewolfchild (talk · contribs) appears to be using his/her sandbox histories as places to store WP:UP#POLEMIC information regarding folks s/he is holding a grudge against. The chronicling followed by blanking is far too consistent to be anything other than a sneaky way around WP:UP#POLEMIC. Users and discussions chronicled:

• BilCat (talk · contribs) [93]
• Nick Thorne (talk · contribs) [94], [95], [96]
• Toddst1 (talk · contribs) [97], [98]

This is not the first time this has been a problem with this editor: This user has previously been blocked for maintaining similar, more obviously polemical lists after this discussion on ANI.

I think that at the bare minimum, these sandbox pages should be deleted or the many polemical edits subject to revision deletion.

There was a proposal to indefinitely block thewolfchild on ANI last month put forth by EatsShootsAndLeaves (talk · contribs) and Rklawton (talk · contribs) as thewolfchild was previously "unblocked with the understanding that any such repeat of CIVIL and BATTLE would mean an indef block immediately with no chance of unblock" and appeared once again to be violating those standards. The motion was archived without achieving consensus. Toddst1 (talk) 13:02, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Couple of items of disruptive I noted, it seems the old problems never went away:

Talk:Aircraft carrier [99] (and yes, we all know bill and nick hate this and are completely opposed. thanks anyway) Don't think that was needed or helped really given the previous irritations with this editor. See also [100] removing content where there is clearly no consensus to do so in Talk:Aircraft carrier and then wikilawyering over WP:BRD [101]

[102] Requested not to post at User talk:BilCat [103] when that user had already indicated they were disengaging. Wee Curry Monster talk 13:55, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the most recent status of the sandbox before it was blanked [104], it appears he was drafting a complaint to be filed somewhere. I am inclined to let it slide given the relatively conciliatory message he left BilCat after blanking the page. Whether his overall behavior was worthy of an indef block is not something I looked into, but I don't think this user was trying to publicly shame the above editors by using his sandbox in that way. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 15:32, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

A "concilliatory" message posted directly after he was specifically asked not to...sometimes you cool things off by not posting. Wee Curry Monster talk 16:25, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Conduct in Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 November 7

Hi.

I checked every other noticeboard fineprints and this place looked the most appropriate. I have a couple of question, but first some context: The problem is that some comments in Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 November 7 are growing to unnecessarily hostile, to the point that ... well, here is what they look like: [105]. These comments actually hurt. For instance, Niemti's unsolicited comment in a side discussion between me and The Bushranger, which I still struggle to fathom, looks retort-like and accusatory. What's make it worse is: This category and its discussions has already attracted the attention of my office. My colleagues read it together, discuss it and make mock readings of comments. They'll have a field day tomorrow. Hopefully, they don't know that I am this user name (although they'd be fired on the spot if caught telling any of these things to me or each other.)

The strange thing is Neimti and I worked together on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children article and he was rather a pal. But in the last CfD for the same cat, somehow he interpreted our difference of POV as I having the same POV as him but lying. (Though he didn't explain what would I stand to gain by this lie.) Is it natural that friends become suddenly so hostile on Wikipedia? Or am I overreacting?

Overall, is there anything I can do?

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 13:05, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Geez, I never thought or told you I'm your friend, and I know nothing about your workplace drama. Anyway, you were calling yourself in third person "the nominator" (of the previous nomination), as in talking about someone else other than yourself, which is misleading or at least very odd. --Niemti (talk) 13:20, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, great, but any comment on the actual point of the discussion - your hostility? Sergecross73 msg me 15:01, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I am searching the word "nominator" and yes, I have used it once to refer to, why, the nominator. The nominator is "Justin (koavf)". Okay, what about it? Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 17:00, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Lisa, on your side of things, do you have anything more overt? Sadly, it doesn't seem like there's much as far as repercussions go when its minor civility infractions like this. Yes, he's got an attitude...but usually there's not much that is done unless it crosses over into personal attacks or accusations. This just looks like Niemti's typical rambling anger, that is enough to irritate people, but not enough to actually do anything against him. Sergecross73 msg me 15:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the most overt thing that I have is Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 October 2#Category:Video games featuring female protagonists. Look for a section titled "Misinformation in the nomination". It came along a talk page warning. He's been denying the assumption of good faith ever since, referring to it as misinformation, though others disputed it. But, I was hoping I can get here before things get overt, so I am a bit surprised: The fineprint doesn't say this place is for admin sanctions and blocks. I am a bit unfamiliar with this area of Wikipedia, so would you please put me wise? If this area is for admin sanctions what are Wikipedia:Long-term abuse and Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee are for? And I am quite sure RFC-C and DRN don't apply to this case either. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 17:00, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Lisa, I understand the maze of fora can be difficult to navigate. The Arbcom is the absolute last resort when dealing with problematic users. In most cases, the community can deal with problems before reaching that stage. ANI is a place where "incidents" are brought to administrators' attention and where, if a flagrant violation of policy has been committed, they will sanction the user accordingly. Sometimes, this only happens after significant community input. (Non-administrators, such as myself, are free to comment, but the purpose of the board is to allow administrators to become aware of community concerns.) I think it is admirable that you want to prevent the recent friction between you two to become overtly hostile. However, ANI is not a good place for that, generally. The first step is to discuss it on the other user's talk page. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 17:09, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for nice message. Thanks for the the other nice message. And thanks for being nice in general. So, I understand that ANI is like a police station: One should try to avoid it, no matter if one is a crook or a plaintiff. That would make WP:LTA a circuit court and WP:ArbCom the supreme court. Well, I guess someone should write these in the fineprint.

So, I guess this topic can be closed. Am I free to close it or do it need to sign a paper or fill form or something? Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 18:10, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

That's kind of it. Maybe ANI is a police station (with a district court on the premises if necessary) and Arbcom is the supreme court, and LTA is more of a database of serial offenders. In any case, generally an admin or a nosy non-admin (yours truly) will close the thread for you if you withdraw your complaint. I would close it now, but I'll let the thread stay open for a little while in case other users would like to comment. Thank you for your patience. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 18:37, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Lisa: snide remarks are not fun. On their own however, they don't typically lead to any administrative sanction. Repeated incivility, even if it is not block-worthy, will inflict its own toll on the user by damaging their reputation for editing in a collaborative environment. My advice for now is to take the high road and continue editing. Niemti, meanwhile, should remember to focus on content, not the contributor. But personally, I don't see a need for administrative intervention at this point. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 15:23, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

May be both parties should stay cool and keep the tone down a bit, but it does not seem to me that this issue requires any attention from the administrators.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:05, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Not so sure: I wish I hadn't given my opinion, as it's led to snarky and unhelpful commemts from Niemti. - SchroCat (talk) 17:37, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Are these comments sufficient for administrator sanction? If so, can you provide diffs? --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 17:40, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Niemti has been warned many many times, about civility issues. But he knows how to keep it just under what is unacceptable, so not much happens anymore. It's just what you get when you interact with him. Either snide remarks, or winding, angry rants. But he knows how to keep it just under anything actionable. Sad but true. Sergecross73 msg me 17:54, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that case with almost all interactions in the Video Game and Japanese cultural stuff as of late? And by stuff I'm being polite - its a kick to read these boards, but the situation here seems to be someone who reasonably doesn't like such incivility and someone who drips in it, but manages it so they don't get in trouble. There is the spirit and the letter of such things and purposely walking the line or extending it is not only problematic, but endemic. 209.255.230.32 (talk) 18:47, 12 November 2013 (UTC)