Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Disputants deleting each others' posts on Talk:Nicolaus Copernicus

Wikipedians who dispute whether Copernicus's nationality was Polish or German have for the past few days been deleting, reverting, and restoring one anothers' posts on Talk:Nicolaus Copernicus (edit history). The dispute has been raging since last year at least, as the Talk page and that page's archives and the subpage Talk:Nicolaus Copernicus/Nationality and the subpage's three archives illustrate. However, eliminating an opponents' comments is unacceptable. The pretext for some of the deletions is accusations of sockpuppetry, but so far as I can tell the alleged sockpuppets have not been blocked or banned. This same nationality warring caused the Nicolaus Copernicus article itself to be protected since 23 September 2007 and on 12 prior occastions since 7 February 2006 (protection log). And that is especially shameful in view of both the importance of Copernicus as an historical figure and the sub-standard quality of Wikipedia's article on him (partly due to nationality warring edits of the article).

I do not believe that protecting the Talk page of a protected article is a good solution. Rather, I suggest that the several Wikipedians who are deleting others' comments be warned and, if necessary, blocked or banned.

This board may not be the perfect place for this incident, but the problem is that parts of the incident fall within scope of several other notice boards. So, this seemed to me to be the best place to address the overall problem. Thank you. Finell (Talk) 01:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Support. The sub-standard quality of Wikipedia article on Nicolaus Copernicus is a result of a relentless campaign of a small number of deletionists interested in promoting their own POVs. I believe this issue will never be resolved and so at least some preventive measures have to be taken (and upheld) in order to maintain the principles of an open source format. --Poeticbent talk 18:33, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I've expressed my views on the matter here. Raymond Arritt 01:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmph. User:H.J. was being disruptive about all Prussian/German/Polish matters back in 2001, Copernicus just one of them. Corvus cornix 02:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but the remarks of User:Finell are hardly understandable to me. He should know better, he encountered one of User:Serafin's sock puppets here. Serafin made a mess out of the Copernicus article, and continues to do so on the talk page. Please have a closer look at Category:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Serafin, and regarding "so far as I can tell the alleged sockpuppets have not been blocked or banned", also Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Serafin and User:Luna Santin/Sockwatch/Serafin. -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       03:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The deleted comments originate from a banned user. Doesn't policy require that we remove them? --Ckatz^chat_spy 10:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I do not agree at all to the description of the problem, which I not even consider a problem. I believe to understand this thread, it is essential to read Talk:Nicolaus Copernicus#Shame on you. It is not hard to find out that 131.104.219.176 is Serafin, is it? Contrary to Finell's above assumption that "the alleged sockpuppets have not been blocked or banned", they have, except for the most recent one, User:Lobby1 (just compare the time of the account's creation to another puppet, say User:Buggo1). I would like admins reading this to place User:Luna Santin/Sockwatch/Serafin on their watchlists and act upon new reports. I have also wanted Finell to report them and I explained to him the wrong implications that are likely to be drawn if only those who hold another view are forced to report and remove the comments of a banned user, but Finell did not grant my request the way I had hoped for. Sciurinæ 15:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Dear Sciurinæ: If you want to report suspected sockpuppets, go ahead, but don't expect me to carry out this chore for you. I have no idea who Serafin is (although I did confirm for myself that he was banned), and have no expertise in recognizing his sockpuppets. However, it is clear that one editor's, or even a group of editors', suspicion of sockpuppetry is not justification to delete another editor's posts. Report it to the admins and let them deal with it; that is what admins are for. The Wikipedia community will not tolerate vigilantes deleting other editors' comments, especially when the deleters are partisans in the dispute: that is the road to anarchy. Admin Raymond Arritt expressed this view clearly, and those who ignore his warning do so at their peril. Finell (Talk) 23:28, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I just read the talk page guidelines and unfortunately, they are stunningly vague about deleting talk page comments. They allow "deletion of prohibited material" which one person apparently interprets to include "sock puppets", and "deletion of irrelevant material" which certainly includes some of the recently appearing off-topic comments about more modern German-Polish relations, and they even speak softly of the "refactoring" of talk pages, which opens the gates to anything that might not have been allowed by the first two policies. Under the circumstances it seems wrong to ban anyone, or protect the page, to prevent violations of a policy which is at best unclear and perhaps nonexistent. If this controversy gets the attention of an admin, perhaps that attention is better spent nailing down the policy first. At least one person in the discussion sounds like he'd follow it if he knew what it was. 70.15.116.59 18:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and to top it off, they're talk page guidelines. Can you even ban or block based on a violation of guidelines that "are not set in stone" etc.? Is there any policy at all on talk page deletions? 70.15.116.59 19:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The policy which applies is WP:BAN#Enforcement_by_reverting_edits. User:Serafin's comments should be removed and those who seek to obstruct tackling him persistently should be blocked. Sciurinæ 20:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The absurdity of Finell's suggestion to block or ban users who have removed comments of the banned User:Serafin on Talk:Nicolaus_Copernicus becomes clear when it is applied to Finell himself. Maybe he forgot that he, too, removed one of Serafin's comments (ie as often as I have) and one could now easily recall Finell's rhetoric about vigilance and the wikipedia community and anarchy; the only difference being that a person can only speak for their own motives and that means a lot given that Finell speaks of bad faith in deleting an opponent's comments and has deleted a then opponent's (otherwise ally) comment although he does not know or care whether it is a banned user or not. Finell also did not report the user as a possible sockpuppet of Serafin, leaving this "chore" to those he now wants to get blocked or banned if they delete Serafin's comments restored again and again by Serafin's sockpuppets that were blocked shortly afterwards. Surely, a victory of Serafin in this issue is further encouragement for him to continue ban evasions. Sciurinæ 19:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Dear Sciurinæ: Please do not misrepresent what I said; that is dishonest. I have no objection to deleting the postings or edits of a blocked or banned user. What I object to is someone deleting posts becasue of an unconfirmed (by an admin) suspicion or accusation of sockpuppetry. Finell (Talk) 21:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I consider your entire thread a misrepresentation and there's no honesty when I explain to someone how something might be mistaken and that someone comes to AN/I and tries to convince everybody of that this mistake was the truth. You should make clear in which way you have been misrepresented.

So what is your problem? Most of the time, the comments of the banned User:Serafin have been removed and rightly so. Should you seriously discover anytime in the future unbanned people who remove each others' comments, like you claimed, you might have a reason for a thread like this. It's a real shame that those who share Serafin's POV connive at his block evasions, but one cannot force people to do something against those they agree with. Still, you refuse to participate against (rather than for) the banned user, though I think that might be a fair chance for you to make up for this thread. The indifference of admins towards this thread at least should show you that it's not the admins alone who are going to clean up the mess of banned users. Oh, look - now that he's got his comments back in place, Serafin also wants the sock-tags removed ([1]). Sciurinæ 21:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't start the thread, but the problem I see is that an admin actually said he was going to block the next person who removed on-topic talk page comments. While I don't think that would be a bad policy it doesn't exist yet. So either this threat should be retracted or somebody should start writing a policy. 70.15.116.59 03:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Views of Lyndon LaRouche article fully protected

I have just full-protected the article Views of Lyndon LaRouche indefinitely (no expiration set). I wanted to notify other administrators and explain this action, for community review.

This article subject has been the subject of a long-running sustained edit war, and three completed Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Lyndon_LaRouche Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lyndon LaRouche 2 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Nobs01 and others) and one pending (WP:RFAR#Cberlet and Dking) Arbitration Committee cases. An extremely persistent LaRouche supporter User:Herschelkrustofsky has been banned and returned repeatedly (most recent sockpuppet Gelsomina (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) blocked last night based on CU and editing; had been a participant on the article but not the primary one).

The specific case findings I believe apply to this action include:

• Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Lyndon_LaRouche - Principles 1, 2; Remedies 1, 4; Enforcement 3
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lyndon LaRouche 2 - Principles 2, 3, 5
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Nobs01 and others - Principles 5, 6, 11

Normal policy allows administrators to protect pages to end particularly tedentious edit wars. This edit war has been actively ongoing since 2004.

Under Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lyndon LaRouche Enforcement 3 administrators are allowed to protect articles on other topics in a version without LaRouche content added. I am going to trivially extend that ruling and protected the article in a version which was not the last, but the last non-LaRouche-supporter-edited version. I believe this action is in accord with the spirit of the Arbcom ruling.

Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Supporters of Lyndon LaRouche have clearly been attempting to turn that article (and others) into soapboxes for his political views. These activities have been persistent. They have broken WP policy to the extent of four separate arbcom cases in 3 years. They have utilized sockpuppets to an extent which is at best difficult to follow and monitor.

The common hope that two opposing camps on an article will over time come to an agreeable middle solution which is NPOV (and so forth) appears to be false related to articles on this topic.

I have left advice on the article Talk page for editors who want changes in the article to leave a talk page note detailing the change desired and discuss there; changes which appear consistent with Wikipedia policy can then be made by administrators watching the talk page. I will continue to watch the talk page to monitor for such requests, and I hope other admins will do likewise.

It may be appropriate to apply this solution to other related articles on the same topic. At this point I have no firm intention to do so but I am going to review them in more detail.

As always, I am open to input from other administrators and editors on any of my admin actions, either here on ANI or on my talk page. Georgewilliamherbert 01:02, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I forwarded your WikiEN-L message to the arbcom list. I find this initiative against dedicated COI POV-pushers and their sock drawer most heartening - David Gerard 01:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Hear, hear! El_C 08:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

He's going to "trivially extend" the arbcom ruling? He's rewriting it altogether! --Marvin Diode 14:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Echoes of El C. Three cheers, stopping a massive edit war, showing initiative, and an action that shows exactly why IAR is policy. My mood has been lifted. It's Oktoberfest, Bratwurst and beer for all! -M^ask? 15:21, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Yay. Tenacious POV-pushers give us much bigger headaches than simple vandals and trolls. And they strike at the heart of the project by consciously making our content unreliable. Raymond Arritt 15:45, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The nice thing too is that "indefinite" here does not mean "forever" - the FlaggedRevisions extension, should it prove fit for purpose, will serve nicely to keep pages like this under control - David Gerard 17:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a new and innovative approach that renders Wikipedia:Dispute resolution obsolete. Where there is a protracted content dispute, an admin may simply decide that he prefers one gang of POV pushers over the other, then join the gang that is to his liking and enforce its version of the article. No need for consensus, either. And what is more, there is no further need for the arbcom, now that User:Georgewilliamherbert has ignored all rules, stepped up to the plate, and simply done their job for them. --Marvin Diode 20:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

That you have been a pro-LaRouche POV pusher on this article has no bearing on your opinion, of course - David Gerard 20:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Would you care to provide some evidence to substantiate this personal attack? --Marvin Diode 12:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

your removal of critical information and removal of his anti-semitism from the article linked here would seem to make it less of an attack and more a statement of fact. -M^ask? 18:23, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

In your first example, I hid a twenty year old comment by the Post which might belong in the article but not in the lead, since I doubt that it is still accurate today. In the second example, I removed OR by Dking, which puts words in LaRouche's mouth in a defamatory way. Any responsible editor would do that. NOR and BLP are core policies. --Marvin Diode 14:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Violation of page protection policy

Wikipedia:Protection policy#Content disputes says that:

During edit wars, administrators should not protect pages when they are involved as a party to the dispute, except in the case of simple vandalism or libel issues against living people.

User: Georgewilliamherbert has been a participant in a recent content dispute at Views of Lyndon LaRouche. Today he reverted to his preferred version of the article, then protected it, in violation of policy. --Marvin Diode 05:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Except he's ignoring all rules to end a pernicious edit war on this page. It makes sense in this context, and is buttressed by the ArbCom rulings on the topic. See the above section — the pernicious LaRouche edit-wars have already led to special provisions against pro-LaRouche versions of articles, against regular policy. This is a logical extension thereof. --Haemo 06:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The arbcom decisions don't say anything of the sort. They say that if someone adds references to LaRouche to an article where it is inappropriate, then admins may protect the version that doesn't mention LaRouche. This is an article about LaRouche, and it appears to me that GWH is protecting a BLP violation (which is never supposed to happen.) --Marvin Diode 14:02, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

You are welcome to enter the BLP discussion on the article talk page. If a reasonable case is made to that effect then I or another administrator can fix the article text. Protected articles are not frozen; they are just not currently world-editable. Georgewilliamherbert 22:02, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I fully support Georgewilliamherbert in this. (If you would really prefer, I'll go unprotect it and protect it myself, since I've not been involved.) POV pushes need stopping, period. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Same here. It's not an IAR, it's entirely per the spirit of the arbcom ruling. - David Gerard 17:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Three cheers for User: Georgewilliamherbert and common sense. WAS 4.250 18:31, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Why is full protection required? What's wrong with semi-protection and liberal blocking of edit warriors? --Tango 00:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, all the edit warriors here have long-standing accounts. --Carnildo 01:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

That's what the blocks are for. If certain people are persistently edit warring on an article, it is generally best to block them, rather than protect the article - protecting is good for forcing discussion and resolving the war, it doesn't sound like this war is ever going to be resolved, the people involved just need to be stopped. If you are worried about them just logging out or creating new accounts and carrying on, then you can semi-protect. --Tango 14:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Georgewilliamherbert's page protection was an appropriate way to deal with an increasingly difficult situation, and might make some progress possible. Tom Harrison ^Talk 01:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

What the arbcom decision actually says, versus User:Georgewilliamherbert's "trivial extension"

If an article is protected due to edit wars over the removal of Lyndon-related material, Admins are empowered (as an exception to normal protection policy) to protect the version which does not mention Lyndon LaRouche. (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lyndon LaRouche) The essential thrust of this decision was to prevent User:Herschelkrustofsky from adding references to LaRouche to a variety of articles where LaRouche or his opinions were not notable. What User:Georgewilliamherbert is attempting to do, is to write his own arbcom decision, which says that if an article about Lyndon LaRouche or his views is protected due to edit wars over the removal of material which is alleged to violate WP:BLP, Admins are empowered (as an exception to normal protection policy) to protect the version which is the "the last non-LaRouche-supporter-edited version." A "LaRouche supporter" is defined as anyone who disputes the edits of User:Cberlet or User:Dking, who habitually violate WP:SOAP, WP:FRINGE, WP:COI, and WP:BLP on a broad range of articles, not just the LaRouche articles. I have added little or nothing about LaRouche, either positive or negative, to the LaRouche articles, or any others -- my role has been to object to policy violations by Cberlet and Dking. In the course of doing so, I have become quite familiar with the LaRouche arbcom decisions, and User:Georgewilliamherbert's "trivial extension" of them is in fact an entirely new policy which should not be represented as in any way related to what the arbcom decided. --Marvin Diode 13:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

You may notice the lack of interest and support for your wikilawyering on this point. I wonder why that is. - David Gerard 14:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

No one cares and we're all to happy that someone got out the clue-by-four to solve a legitimate problem in a unique, innovative, and emminently reasonable manner? Oh silly me, you were being rhetorical and I should have avoided using this moment to bask in the glow of a confidence-inspiring action that lets me know the project is in good hands. Whoops, there I go again. -M^ask? 18:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I apologize if I seem to be belaboring the obvious, but I get the feeling that there are one or two admins here who are either oblivious, or indifferent, to the core policies that they are supposed to be implementing. --Marvin Diode 00:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps. The other admins seem to be supporting Georgewilliamherbert's actions though. Fram 09:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Heh! El_C 09:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I endorse the decision by Georgewilliamherbert to protect Views of Lyndon LaRouche indefinitely. He is correct that it has been the subject of tendentious edit warring since 2004 The latest round has been particularly unproductive. An alternative solution would have been using Enforcement provision #1 of the first LaRouche ArbCom case, which would have resulted in the banning of Marvin Diode and others. However that probably would have been more disruptive and time consuming. The page protection is a reasonable and necessary step to bring stability to a contentious topic. The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a neutral encyclopedia and all of its rules exist only to further that goal. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 17:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I've contributed to Wikipedia for a day short of five years now, & of all of the nasty, prolonged "we're bringing machine guns to this knife fight" edit wars on Wikipedia I've seen, the LaRouche-related one has been the worst. Worse than dealing with Scientologists, Neo-nazis, circumcision, or even the proper name of Danzig Gdańsk that port city on the Baltic sea. If his action ends this dispute, then GWH deserves all of our thanks. -- llywrch 19:38, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Sadi Carnot

Sigh. After the closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Georgi Gladyshev (and my amusing, if embarrassing, original mistake there) I've spend some amount of time looking through the contributions of Sadi Carnot. What I see there is a large, elaborate a subtle walled garden of pseudoscience— probably for the purpose of hawking his books (or simple self agrandizement).

Besides Georgi Gladyshev, Human molecule, Human chemistry, Interpersonal chemistry, Heat and affinity which seem to be the core of his garden; he makes large numbers of sometimes subtle vandalism to many articles related to thermodynamics using his own website as source to justify them. Many of the edits lie at the edge of my personal knowledge of thermodynamics, but given that his sources are unfailingly looping back to his website (humanthermodynamics.com) or that of another dubious institution related to him (endeav.org), and that they feel fishy, someone with better topic knowledge should probably look at the whole bunch.

The user has already admitted to being the author and owner of the site being pushed.

I dislike making personal allegations against a specific editor, and I am loathe to run through his contributions by myself quietly (I don't want this to look like stalking), but at this time I am convinced that we are either facing the perpetrator of a long and elaborate hoax, someone working at self-promotion, or simply the promoter of a fringe theory. — Coren ^(talk) 03:20, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

In April 2007 I mediated a case between Sadi Carnot and User:Hkhenson about the Capture bonding article. We saw similar problems there. It may be useful to ask Hkhenson for further information. - Jehochman ^Talk 03:31, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, since you asked for it, the registered contact person for humanthermodynamics.com is:(DELETED personal info, no need to identify the editor here - JEH) Keith Henson 06:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Keith. I am sure you posted that publicly available info in good faith, but I don't think we need details about the user posted here. Should that information be needed, we will ask you for it confidentially. If you want to add comments about Sadi Carnot's editing, feel free to do so at the bottom of this long thread.- Jehochman ^Talk 06:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

When you are talking about something as serious as banning an editor, I disagree with you with respect to details. "Sadi Carnot" claims on his user page a double major in chemical and electrical engineering. His alter ego, Libb Thims, claims the same plus "PhD Biochemistry / MD Neuroscience (in progress) - UC Berkeley." I didn't yet and may not check up on the Berkeley claim because the claim is outside of Wikipedia. In Sadi's favor (assuming he is the identified person) he *does* have a double major in ChE and EE--which makes his connection to this fringe business all the stranger.

BTW, anyone who uses the Internet, especially when they are trying to determine the reliability of information should be aware of tools that are much like looking in the front of a book to see who published it. There are direct ways and also web based tools. For example, http://www.dnsstuff.com/. If you go there and put humanthermodynamics.com in the "whois box" it takes you to the name Jehochman deleted. From there it's just putting the name in Google. This doesn't work if someone goes to a little more trouble. For example an associated web site, humanchemistry.net takes you to a web hosting service that is a dead end for finding out who is behind it. (This site uses Time, National Geographic and Wikipedia to give it credibility.) Keith Henson 17:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

(Note: I've notified the editor) — Coren ^(talk) 03:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The referenced Capture bonding mediation can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2007-04-23_Capture-bonding . I'm glad for that record, because it shows the kind of mess that Sadi Carnot makes of any article that he takes a strong interest in. As with all pseudo-scientists, it is always difficult to distinguish the charlatan from the fool. If I assume good faith, he has no capability of distinguishing fact from fiction, and is a dangerous editor. If I trust my instincts, I lean towards an elaborate hoax. He has at least one apparent sock puppet (User:Wavesmikey). Given the use of sock puppets, and my belief that he is consciously creating fraudulent articles, I heartily recommend a lifetime ban on the editor. I think it is worth forming a committee of people with greater depth in some of these topics than I have to go through every article he has touched and verify that his edits were not harmful. Capture bonding should simply be reverted to the state before he ever touched it, and someone should send poor beleagered Keith Henson a note saying that he is free to fix it without further sabotage.Kww 04:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Keith Henson may need outside help. He's written about the topic and wants to cite some of his own work. Those citations may be appropriate, but they should be reviewed to prevent COI issues. Looking at the article history, it seems like Sadi gave up on capture bonding. The article has been sanitized. - Jehochman ^Talk 04:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

That's true, I more or less removed the BS Sadi Carnot added to capture-bonding and stuffed it into another article capture bond. If anyone want to delete capture bond, it's fine by me. Capture-bonding could still use some clean up work if anyone wants to. Sadi did "wikify" articles in addition to stuffing them with BS. Keith Henson 06:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

As for the proposed community ban, Sadi Carnot has a clear block log. Within the mediation he said he's written a ~500 page textbook. The most plausible explanation is that Sadi has WP:COI and WP:FRINGE issues. Within the mediation he cited WP:COI. He's familiar with the guideline so there's no need to warn him. If he's weaving his own book references and novel theories into Wikipedia, that needs to be stopped immediately. - Jehochman ^Talk 04:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Ack! It's worse than I thought: 132 links are peppered all over! — Coren ^(talk) 04:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC) (added:) Although many of those are in AfD for bits of his walled garden. Still around 40 in mainspace. — Coren ^(talk) 05:00, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Almost a year ago, when he created the Extra-Long Article Committee, Sadi Carnot seemed to have limited understanding of the way Wikipedia works. Since the Project was deleted, I can't provide examples, but it was quite frustrating and he tried the patience of even those who originally supported his goals.

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Extra-Long Article Committee
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Extra-Long Article Committee/Incidents. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:01, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The account hasn't edited since October 10 when the hoax was unmasked at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human chemistry. To prevent further damage or spamming, I am going to indef the account because it's clear to me that it's been used primarily for long term, subtle vandalism and COI editing, causing serious, widespread damage. Let's discuss this and see if any admin is willing to unblock. Establishing a community ban will be helpful because it will allow us to immediately revert and block any socks that show up. - Jehochman ^Talk 05:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Anyone here object to going through those contributions and scrubbing the links away? I'll do so tomorrow (now is bedtime) if so. — Coren ^(talk) 05:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I have been on a wikibreak for three weeks and just returned from a trip to London from Australia. I am surprised by this discussion. Sadi Carnot has tried my patience in the past but I have always thought he was well-meaning. His contributions to articles on thermodynamics have always been in good faith. The discussion above does not mention the wide range of articles where I have come across him. As the jet-lag fades, I will try to look into this. --Bduke 09:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

A possibility might be a ban on him adding links to his website or citing his own work (or that of the "institute"). I've looked over the website and it does seem a strange mish-mash of serious references mixed up with polls and fringe theories. There are references to articles published in mainstream journals - but I would suspect that those papers would be, well, more restrained than what is said at this website. The journal (humanthermodynamics.com/Journal.html) also looks like a self-published effort with not much I can see in the way of credibility. For the "institute" (humanthermodynamics.com/About-IOHT.html), the "who are we" (humanthermodynamics.com/about-us.html#anchor_126) list starts off poorly and rapidly gets worse (scroll down the bottom). The best qualifications I can find are a PhD in polymer chemistry and a PhD in mathematics. It is also rather small - the core group is only about 10 people. Also, see humanthermodynamics.com/Science-or-Pseudoscience.html for a discussion of science vs pseudoscience for this "human thermodynamics" topic. I have to conclude that this is a fringe theory, and at best original research. We don't want it on Wikipedia until it becomes accepted by the mainstream (and I doubt it ever will be). At the most (per undue weight, a very small footnote somewhere with one link. No more. Carcharoth 10:37, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to mention, capture-bonding and capture bond are confusingly similar and look like content forks. The issue needs to be resolved in one article, rather than splitting them like this. Though on a second look they do seem to be describing something different, but the titles are too similar and need to be disambiguated. I also agree that Keith Henson, as a researcher and publisher in that field, needs to beware conflict-of-interest concerns. Possibly someone else needs to write that article, not him. Carcharoth 10:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Capture bond is where I put the unrelated material I cleaned out of capture-bonding. If someone wants to delete capture bond in the general clean out of Sadi stuff, that would be fine by me. As to me being a "researcher and publisher in that field," it's a claim I would be reluctant to make. I used capture-bonding only as a minor example in a long article I wrote and credited John Tooby (who really is a researcher). Keith Henson 18:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I should point out that this is his editing pattern. FWIW, this is Wikipedia's greatest weakness: someone subtly weaving a POV (or pet theory) into a large number of articles by doing large number of subtle edits over a long period of time— this makes it less obvious there is a problem because when he makes one of the edits, it seems to be supported in other articles.

For that matter, he also adds lots of citations and references... but when you actually read the referenced papers they turn out to be either completely unrelated, or misrepresented so badly the author would be livid if they knew about it.

I've been checking some of the subject matter of his edits, like [2] which he's been continually trying to push on Genius, Goethe and others despite numerous attempts by everyone involved in those articles at making him stop. When he gets sufficient resistance, he simply moved to another article.

I fairly confident we can stop assuming he's doing this in good faith. He's either willingly trying to push his pet theory into WP, or he's been constructing an elaborate hoax. In either case, it should stop. — Coren ^(talk) 15:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

If Sadi Carnot wishes to continue editing, he can ask to be unblocked, and we can discuss the conditions on which that will occur. An indefinite block doesn't mean "forever." It means, "until the problem is resolved." I personally wouldn't unblock him until he recognizes that what he's been doing isn't compatible with Wikipedia's purpose, and he undertakes not to edit the articles or subject areas where problems have occurred in the past. Additionally, he should join WP:ADOPT to be paired with an experienced editor who will monitor and assist his editing to make sure there are no relapses. Bduke, I think Sadi Carnot may become a good faith editor, but right now he doesn't understand how to edit Wikipedia and he's causing tremendous damage that involves many articles. My block is designed to prevent further harm until we can come up with a better arrangement. - Jehochman ^Talk 12:26, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Please remember to block Wavesmikey as well, or he will just immediately switch to his sock when he feels the need.Kww 14:00, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Clearly the same user. Can you please check if this alternative account has been used disruptively and report back here? For now it's just blocked because the main account is indef'ed. If there is evidence of a disruptive sock puppetry that needs to be added to this case. - Jehochman ^Talk 14:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Jehochman suggested that I comment on Sadi's editing here. I had rather not and just point you to [[3]]. Keith Henson 18:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I've tagged Wavesmikey as a confirmed sockpuppet because the account suddenly stopped editing when it's contributions were exposed as pseudo-science. Activity then shifted to Sadi Carnot. The use of multiple accounts to avoid scrutiny is a form of disruptive sockpuppetry. Be on the lookout for additional socks. - Jehochman ^Talk 19:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Refactored live links to the spammed sites above, we don't want this page being locked up after blacklisting. MER-C 04:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Cross-wiki spamming

This is much, much worse than we first thought. The problem is not confined to the English Wikipedia. I ran a all-wiki spamsearch on the domains

• humanthermodynamics.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• humanchemistry.net: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• endeav.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

and this was what I found:

Can someone take these to the global spam blacklist please? MER-C 02:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear. Tsk, tsk. I've report this to m:WM:SPAM, and I feel confident that our friends there will take care of it. - Jehochman ^Talk 03:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Only some 20 links to "humanthermodynamics.com" exist outside enwiki, and I am quite convinced not all of them were added by the same user. Perhaps not so much of a problem compared to what you have here :-( /SvNH 03:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The three sites are now (globally) blacklisted and most of the links outside enwiki removed. /SvNH 19:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Community ban

Folks, User:Sadi Carnot has been indefinitely blocked. As requested by User:Coren User:Kww, this will be considered a community ban if no administrator is willing to unblock. - Jehochman ^Talk 20:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

For the record, let me point out that I did not request a ban, simply pointed out a problematic editor; although I fully support it. — Coren ^(talk) 20:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not going to unblock him at this time. I want to look into it further and also hear from him. Above I was merely pointing out that in the past he has had lots of good edits to mainstream articles such as Entropy. He also sorted out a major problem with Energy and related articles. I was not even aware of his interest in fringe science but I have worked with him in the past on mainstream science. He is a little difficult to work with, but lots of editors are. I think he needs to be told to stick to mainstream science. --Bduke 21:17, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the use of multiple accounts is very problematic. If you look at the sheer volume of self-promotional links and POV pushing, this looks like a determined COI editor who does a few good edits to establish cover. Of course, as I said above, if the editor is willing to admit mistakes and agree on editing restrictions and mentorship to avoid further problems, I am open to him returning. However, I think it would be a serious mistake to let him edit again before we have those assurances.- Jehochman ^Talk 21:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I oppose this, let's leave him blocked for a couple of week and maybe he'll cool down. VoL†ro/\/Force 21:21, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

He's been engaged in a two-year campaign to push his fringe theories, spam his own website, and twist a large number of articles. This isn't a simple edit war. - Jehochman ^Talk 21:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Note: Voltron has been blocked as a sockpuppet of a banned user. His opinion does not count.- Jehochman ^Talk 23:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse ban per extensive evidence of cross-wiki spamming above. This is one of the worst cases of x-wiki spamming I have ever seen. MER-C 02:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• It turned out that some of the links were added by unrelated users, so this isn't as bad as I first thought. Still endorse, as spammers aren't welcome here. MER-C 07:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah, looks like the droppings of our friend spread to other wikis by well-intended transwiki, not because he went there himself. The damage, however, is still just as real. — Coren ^(talk) 17:15, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse ban - socking, spamming, original fringe research pov pushing (if not warring). --Rocksanddirt 04:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose ban. Sadi Carnot certainly appears to have been a very naughty boy in his recent attempts at autopromotion, but he has also made made legitimate edits in the field of thermodynamics, particularly to entropy. As such, an indefinite block as a "disruption only account" is inappropriate.

The user page is currently tagged with {{sockpuppeteer}}. The "confirmed sockpuppet" Wavesmikey has edited exactly three times in 2007, all of those on 7 March. Other than this single occasion, the account has been inactive since December 2005. The only suspected sockpuppet of Sadi Carnot is an IP address which only ever edited on 24 May 2007. Hence, the allegation that Sadi Carnot is a disruptive sockpuppeteer has no basis in evidence.

This case stinks of a witch hunt: given the obvious weakness of the current block, I am taking the unusual step of lifting it with immediate effect, so that at least this user has the chance to comment should he so wish. Obviously, this does not imply any condonement of spamming one's own book. Physchim62 (talk) 15:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

You're entitled to do that. Should this user return to old ways, you will be responsible for the resulting damage. We didn't say that he had never made a productive edit. The situation is that the vast majority of what he's done has been spamming, COI editing and POV pushing. Have you read the above evidence, or did you unblock because WP:IDONTLIKEIT?

Do you have any evidence to back up your claim that there's been a "witch hunt", such as an indication that those presenting evidence have an axe to grind? I think it's exceptionally rude to allege bad faith against others without evidence. - Jehochman ^Talk 16:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I must point out that the "good" edits to entropy appear very suspicious to my eyes. I don't know quite enough to tell you for a fact that they are wrong, but they read off, and "mysteriously" match the vapid original research that can be found on his site. Expert attention needed. — Coren ^(talk) 17:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The reason he's marked for sockpuppetry is that he changed accounts after the first one was caught spamming. Using multiple identities to evade detection is considered disruptive sockpuppetry. The fact that he did it before indicates that he may do it again, so this information is highly relevant. It also demonstrates bad faith rather than a simple misunderstanding. - Jehochman ^Talk 16:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse ban - there's been a longstanding struggle at entropy related articles to rein in his historical obsessions and fixation about entropy being disorder. Made more difficult by him continually claiming expert knowledge then turning out to be misunderstanding what he's claiming .. dave souza, talk 22:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse ban Carnot has done nothing positive on the entropy article; instead he's raised irrelevant issues, twisted the meaning of entropy to suit his own purposes, been tendentious, argumentative and so POV as to be nauseating. He has claimed to be an expert on entropy, and yet as Dave noted, he simply cannot grasp the concepts that entropy ≠ disorder and that the entropy = disorder equation was born of ignorance. In essense, he has held the article captive to his lack of understanding. •Jim62sch• 23:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse ban Per Dave and Jim. Again, might I ask, why do we waste time with these POV warriors who are basically vile. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 01:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse ban, I was one of the editors who dealt with the Human chemistry and Human molecule AfD discussions and reading these articles was a profoundly disturbing experience. The articles misrepresented and misquoted sources and pushed blatantly misleading interpretations. This was complete junk, but written with care to give the appearance of serious scholarship. This is much worse than simple vandalism since it is intended to mislead and will easily take in those who are not experts in the subject. This editor is a liability to the project. Tim Vickers 02:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
• comment Based on a quick look at the edits by "Sadi Carnot" there is still a large amount of material this person added to Wikipedia without citation of reliable sources. Some of the content remaining from this editor looks like Uncyclopedia material. Is there anything like a special wikiproject to review all the edits from this user (including puppet accounts)? --JWSchmidt 03:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • We've reported this to the relevant WikiProjects, and also WP:COIN. That should encourage a wide variety of people to review the articles. If you do a linksearch on his website, there are still tons of articles where that spam needs to be removed. - Jehochman ^Talk 03:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I just nuked about two-thirds of the remaining mainspace spamlinks on en. The ones in references and the ones cross-wiki still remain. MER-C 09:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Project Participation

User:Sadi Carnot is listed as a participant in WikiProject Engineering and WikiProject Chemical and Bio Engineering (any maybe more). Should he be deleted from these lists or placed in an "inactive section" (if it exists for that project)? Let me know and I can make the change for the two Projects listed.--CheMechanical 03:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I suppose you could remove him from the lists for the duration of the block or ban. It would helpful to notify those projects of what we've discovered: a pattern of pushing fringe theories, spamming, and subtle vandalism. The projects should check to see whether Sadi Carnot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has damaged any of their articles. They should also watch for similar behavior coming from other accounts, as those could be sockpuppets. - Jehochman ^Talk 03:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Since I just joined these projects this afternoon and thought about it a little more, I'm reluctant to outright delete his user name at this point. I would be willing to add a NPOV (factual) notice with a link back to this incident. What link should I use so that it can be seen even if archived?--CheMechanical 03:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

 Done I added notices on both project pages linking back to here with a note that followup has been requested by Admins. I don't know how to make the link permanent, but I figure something is better than nothing if the integrity of his contributions in these areas is in question. I don't know how (yet) to find out what other projects he was involved in, so someone else will have to track these down and notify those projects.--CheMechanical 04:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Update: I just found User:Sadi_Carnot's list of projects at User:Sadi_Carnot/Miscellaneous and he's shown as being a member of only two WikiProjects...the one's I've already identified. No harm in anyone else double-checking just in case.--CheMechanical 06:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I left messages at both of the concerned projects' talk pages. MER-C 06:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Nice job. Merci, MER-C.--CheMechanical 19:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I have informed the Chemistry and Physics WikiProjects. --Bduke 07:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Unblocked

I noticed on reviewing this case (I endorse the ban for the record) that he was unblocked about an hour ago. Orderinchaos 16:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Physchim62 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) unblocked the user for unclear reasons, and in spite of a consensus that the user should be community banned. Nontheless, I have twice offered to endorse the unblock if Physchim62 would accept responsibility for Sadi Carnot's further actions by agreeing to mentor and monitor him.[4][5] Thus far, Physchim62 has not confirmed my offer, but I am still hopefully he might. If there is no acceptance of responsibility by Physchim62 or another trusted user, I think the block may needs to be restored in order to protect the encyclopedia from Sadi Carnot's long term campaign to spam his website and push his fringe theories. How do we do we resolve this impasse? - Jehochman ^Talk 18:27, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I see that you and Physchim have had that conversation now. It might be a good idea to try and get people with a background in editing articles in these areas to comment on this, rather than admins, and get a conclusive verdict that the human thermochemistry thing is, shall we say, not appropriate here. There is definitely article clean-up that needs to be done, and maybe after that has been done, an RfC could be opened on the editing pattern it reveals. Carcharoth 19:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

There was serious COI editing and spamming going on here, not a content dispute. The content questions have largely been resolved: Sadi Carnot's interlinked pseudoscience articles were nominated for deletion and deleted. From above:"Besides Georgi Gladyshev, Human molecule, Human chemistry, Interpersonal chemistry, Heat and affinity which seem to be the core of his garden; he makes large numbers of sometimes subtle vandalism to many articles related to thermodynamics using his own website as source to justify them." There's no need for an RFC; we already have established a consensus that it's bunkum. Two years ago Wavesmikey was exposed for pushing pseudoscience. He abandoned the account and returned as Sadi Carnot to cause further mayhem. We need to prevent this person from wasting any more of our time. There are two paths: (1) mentorship and supervision, or (2) community ban. We should not provide another chance to game us. - Jehochman ^Talk 19:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

My two monetary subunits: As far as I'm concerned, SC has caused vast amounts of damage to WP already; what little of it that isn't obviously garbage is suspect enough that I'd remove it preemptively (keeping open the option of adding it back after it has been verified with sources unrelated to SC). I think it's imperative that no further damage be done. It will take a long time to ferret out and clean up two year's worth of this already. Whether an outright ban is the only way to achieve this is disputable (although it is arguably the simplest), but in all cases SC should be prevented from re-adding material taken (directly or indirectly) from his original research back in. Maybe a topical bad would also be adequate? — Coren ^(talk) 19:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh sure, I agree that the content is not suitable for Wikipedia. I'm just adverse to using stronger language about the content. I do think that more than just one diff should be provided as evidence. It shouldn't be difficult to provide a list of diffs of references to that website spread over time, contributed by this user. And I thought there was a COI noticeboard for this sort of thing, anyway? Yes, we have Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard and Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. I'd be happier if this was dealt with there, or at the very least noted over there, for the record. Carcharoth 19:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I have to go to a family function now (Gak!) but I'll be back in a couple of hours and I'll ferret out a number of diffs to show exactly what I mean. — Coren ^(talk) 20:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

And I've been reading the AfDs. This doesn't look good. The one you originally mentioned, where you made an embarassing mistake, was chilling to read, especially this one and this one. I'm going to notify those editors of this discussion. Carcharoth 21:20, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I've left notes at the COI and fringe theory noticeboards. Carcharoth 19:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that the link to his own website quoted above from a talk page is a problem. He was hosting copies of Clausius's original papers in his website, and just linked to them so that others could read them without having to dust them of the library shelves (of course, if you like conspiracy theories, you can assume that he modified Clausius's before posting them in his website...). --Itub 09:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It's indispensable that we avoid wheel warring over this; it's not like SC has not already caused enough damage (directly or indirectly). I know this recommendation will feel sorta sucky, but perhaps we should involve WP:ARB sooner rather than later? — Coren ^(talk) 19:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC) Hm. Refresh before edit (keeping up on ANI takes a long time!). I see now that things are resolving nicely without escalation. Phew.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 19:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Listing the AfDs might also help:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heat and affinity WLH
• Interpersonal chemistry, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heat and affinity WLH
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human chemistry WLH
• Human molecule deleted redirect WLH
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Georgi Gladyshev WLH

Someone also needs to find the traces left behind in other articles. For instance, there is still a redlink in Chemical affinity to one of the deleted articles. Elective Affinities has a cite error in the references section, probably caused by removing a named ref but not other refs using that name. I've added "what links here" for the above deleted articles. Finally, an example of talk page discussion is here. From what I can tell, there are lots of old 19th and 18th century sources used to build a case for a modern theory. There might well be some interesting science history in there is the fringe theories can be weeded out, but that would require sources from science historians. Carcharoth 20:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I am unable to tell to what extent the contributions are an elaborate joke, and to what extent there are are desire to integrate a fringe "theory". There remains some basis. Gladyshev's original work in physical chemistry is real and orthodox, although not particularly important and most not in itself justifying an article. Goethe's Elective Affinities is famous enough, though I think some of the statements in our article on it may be over-interpretation. The general topic of chemical analogs for human relations is probably worth an article, though likely Gladyschev would not appear in it. There are other examples besides Sadi of people doing this sort of editing, and the difficulties in sorting things out afterwards are immense. I'd say that Sadi might some day make useful contributions here, but I would like to see some real sign of repentance and maturity before re-admitting him. DGG (talk) 23:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

If the guy was in high school I would be looking for developing maturity, but near as I can determine, he's 35 and really does have a double major in ChE and EE. He does not have a net presence I can locate outside of his fringe promotion operation. Keith Henson 23:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• This doesn't seem like a complicated case at all. This user has engaged in repeated self-promotion and disrutption. A few handfuls of arguably positive edits doesn't go anywhere near outweighing how bad this editor has been. And as Keith observed directly, change seems very unlikely. JoshuaZ 01:08, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• Were I an admin, I would have restored the ban at this point. While I originally felt a ban might have been a bit heavy handed, if understandable, the further we go down the rabbit hole the worse things are revealed to be. Now that other— serious— contributors to articles damaged by SC have begun to chime in and confirm what my gut feeling was telling me (I only have a few undergrad physics courses under my belt, so I am far from an expert) it has become apparent that presuming that all contributions from that editor are tainted is the only reasonable course. Having that damaged caused with obvious deliberation and over the course of over two years convinces me that this must be stopped now, and definitely. There is no doubt that this is willful, and a ban is the only way we can be certain that future socks (I am convinced there will be many to come) can be blocked on sight. — Coren ^(talk) 01:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• If I was an administrator (or at least I want to be), I would ban him indefinitely. The ban needs to be reinstated for good. Greg Jones II 01:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• I really don't see much point in banning him. He hasn't edited at all since Human chemistry got deleted, and I have my doubts that he would edit much again anyway. I think he got the message that his work here is not appreciated. I think Sadi Carnot did make many good contributions when he restricted himself to history. Although his writing style tends to be essay-like, the facts in articles such as History of quantum mechanics and History of the molecule seem generally correct. --Itub 08:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

  The point in banning him is to make the block against future socks automatic. Just as Wavesmikey disappeared and Sadi Carnot rose to take his place, you can bet that some other identity will begin using novellas as references in science article in the near future.Kww 13:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Sadi Carnot reblocked

I really don't understand why User:Physchim62 overturned the block in the face of such overwhelming and near unanimous community support for the block. My reading of the above discussion is that the community suppors the proposal and that, at this point, Physchim62 is the only person actually opposed to the block. Therefore, I have reinstated User:Jehochman's indefinite block of User:Sadi Carnot. I also support and endorse the community ban proposal. Sarah 03:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

When I overturned the ban, the community support was not "overwhelming" or "near unanimous", especially discounting the comment of two users with obvious axes to grind against Sadi Carnot. The ban has no basis in blocking policy and is based on the scantiest of evidence. I will not wheel war to remove the block once again, but nor do I feel that admins should act like robots in the face of community hysteria. Physchim62 (talk) 11:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I have had a lengthy discussion with Physchim62 about this on IRC. He agrees that Sadi Carnot is a problematic advocate of crackpottery, but feels that the extent to which SC has also been a useful contributor (on such material as the history of science) is such that it would be, and was, inappropriate to indef block him WITHOUT WARNING. Indeed, SC had not hitherto been warned or otherwise told to stop. So here is what we're going to do. I am going to unblock Sadi Carnot, conditionally: the condition being that he not do ANYTHING else pertaining to his own publications. PC62 has agreed to supervise SC's contribs (should SC in fact choose to return to the project - he may have Left Us Unappreciative Philistines after the AfD of "Human Chemistry" ten days ago), and has also agreed to re-block SC himself should SC misbehave again. DS 22:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

(e/c) For the record, I'm not sure holding that conversation on IRC was the best idea. I'm rather attached to the transparency of the wiki. Nevertheless, I am not going to argue further for a ban. I don't feel strongly about it, and I especially don't doubt PC62's desire and ability to rein SC in. — Coren ^(talk) 23:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Time to arbitrate this. Durova^Charge! 23:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I have filed a request for arbitration. - Jehochman ^Talk 00:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Georgi Gladyshev

I see that article has been recreated after it was deleted per the AfD (and then deleted again). Could an admin check the history to see what users recreated it? It may turn out to be a sock (or not) but it deserves a look. — Coren ^(talk) 02:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems to have been WAS 4.250 (talk · contribs). I suggest you ask him, and invite him to comment here, because this could be perfectly innocent. - Jehochman ^Talk 02:34, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

So I have. His editing seems to be mostly related to viral pathology (eeew!) and I see no obvious crossovers with SC. This is almost certainly innocent, but I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth. — Coren ^(talk) 02:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The conversation is taking place on my talk page. WAS 4.250 03:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• I see no reason to think that WAS 4.250 is related to SC, or that the recreation of the article was anything but a good faith attempt to salvage a deleted article by rewriting it. — Coren ^(talk) 03:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - I can vouch completely for WAS 4.250, this is a serious editor with a strong focus on influenza. Their edits are constructive and accurate. Tim Vickers 16:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Witch hunt

Some people have objected to my use of the phrase "witch hunt". I apologise. This is not a witch hunt, this is many people who are normally reasonable but who suddenly start running around crying "burn the witch, burn the witch" or something equivalent.

• Sadi Carnot is not a "disruption only account"; at least two other posters—members of WP:CHM—plus myself, have mentioned his useful, good-faith edits to thermodynamics articles. These were also mentioned on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human chemistry.
• There is no evidence that Sadi Carnot has used multiple accounts simultaneously to create controversy. He may have changed user name in December 2005—that is, before the current system of changes came about—but this is perfectly permissible. Hence, he is not a sockpuppeteer, disruptive or otherwise.
• Wavesmikey's edits were not "exposed as pseudoscience", nor even as spamming (there was a single complaint about a single inappropriate link): Human chemistry was not "unmasked as a hoax", it failed AfD for rather more mundane reasons, particularly WP:SYNTH.
• Keith Henson has a axe to grind with Sadi Carnot over Henson's referencing of his own work at Capture bonding, as Jehochman is well aware. Kww called for Sadi Carnot to be indefinitely blocked at least three times during the AfD discussion of human chemistry, without ever being able to come up with the slightest reason under blocking policy why this would be justified.

Referencing an article I wrote for a reviewed journal was never an issue, or at least I don't remember it being an issue and can't find that mentioned here: [6]. The objection I had was Sadi stuffing a _simple_ evolutionary psychology article with what is (by EP standards) unrelated SSSM nonsense. You might note that WP:COI states: "Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is notable . . . ." Keith Henson 15:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[Back to Physchim62]

• There is no reason not to assume good faith on the part of Sadi Carnot, that is, there is no reason not to assume that he really believes the rather unusual theories which he expounds in his book.

This is a routine case of WP:FRINGE and WP:COI. Wikipedia has tens of such cases every day and, most of the time, admins handle them without any difficulty. Instead, Sadi Carnot has been demonized to the point where one user is suggesting checking each one of his 8567 edits! The argument is itself a blatant violation of WP:SYNTH: the references cited simply do not support the conclusions being drawn from them.

I shouldn't need to remind people that witch-hunts invariably lead to inappropriate punishments being handed out. In this case, an indefinite block was issued without first performing a checkuser. Leaving aside the question of collateral blocks, surely if Sadi Carnot were as "dangerous" as some have hysterically pretended, a checkuser would be a useful piece of information... But no, the block was issued even though Sadi Carnot hadn't edited since the end of the AfD debate. An indefinite block, without warning, on a user who has been around for two years with a clean block record and 8537 edits to the encyclopedia! Do you see where paranoia gets us? Physchim62 (talk) 11:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Chances are blocking will turn out to be a moot point though as a bet Sadi/Libb/[real name deleted :-) ] will be back under another ID. Incidentally, I agree with you it is probable he really believes his "unusual theories." But do you really want someone with a good faith belief in nonsense to be making 12 edits a day?

Jehochman states this better: "He did widespread damage by injecting subtle inaccuracies into many articles, and misrepresented what sources said. By subtle I mean that a non-expert wouldn't know they were inaccurate. These are the most dangers types of vandalism." Keith Henson 15:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Physchim62. I just want to elaborate on why I don't think this block is justified by policy. Per WP:BLOCK, blocks are supposed to be preventive, not punitive. I don't see what's preventive about indefinitely blocking someone who hasn't even been editing since the controversy started and who IMO can still be assumed to be acting in good faith, although misguidedly. A more reasonable course of action would be to warn him, ask him not to add more links to his website and no more OR about his theories. If he decides to edit again, and violates the rules again, then one can think about preventive blocks. --Itub 12:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

We don't give people endless chances. He was notified dozens of times, and chose to continue. He did widespread damage by injecting subtle inaccuracies into many articles, and misrepresented what sources said. By subtle I mean that a non-expert wouldn't know they were inaccurate. These are the most dangers types of vandalism. Additionally, he added spams link to his own website to more than 100 pages. The block is exactly meant to be preventative. It prevents him from doing further damage. The ban, which is different from a block, allows us to immediately block and revert any contributions he makes using other accounts. Policy has been followed to the letter and the spirit. If you disagree, appeal to Arbcom. - Jehochman ^Talk 13:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Notified dozens of times? By which definition of "notify" is that? The way I see it he never got a clear warning, and everything unraveled quickly after the AfD nomination of human chemistry. --Itub 13:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You're being tendentious. Starting two years ago with his former identity Wavesmikey (talk · contribs), various people have been telling Sadi Carnot that pseudo-science, non-reliable sources, misrepresenting references, and spamming his own website aren't allowed at Wikipedia. It's beyond the pale of rational discussion to suggest that he wasn't given fair notice. - Jehochman ^Talk 13:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll take that as a personal attack, thanks. Talk page discussions about original research, which were generally civil, are not warnings by any means. Calling original research vandalism doesn't help rational discussion either. --Itub 13:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree Sadi Carnot should be allowed to defend himself (and unblocked to do so if this is requested). A topic ban has been suggested. The problem is that this sort of editing pattern is the most difficult to spot and the most difficult to repair. I agree that checkuser would be useful here. What I'm not clear about is how long this has been going on for - for all of the two years? The thing that shocked me the most was stuff like this (the stuff is being removed there). This is the sort of thing that needs sources, and the sources were dubious or not provided. Talk:Heat is also of interest. Carcharoth 12:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Looking a bit further, the boson [bogus? Keith Henson 22:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC) - no, I meant boson - it might be bogus as well, but the boson definition of heat is one of those strange edits that someone pointed out that made me go "huh?" Carcharoth 02:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)]

I can see why you went "huh?" That's like hyper weird. Keith Henson 03:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

definition of heat seems to start here (3 March 2006), but didn't enter the heat article until here (I think) on 28 June 2007. Possibly it was present in other articles related to the topic. The talk page post in March 2006 referred to a book by the Nobel Prize winning physicist Martinus J. G. Veltman. This makes it more, not less important, that Sadi Carnot's edits are verified. Presenting your own original research is one thing. Possibly distorting the research or ideas of others is another thing altogether. This sort of thing may be going on all the time, but firm action does need to be taken when it is called out. Carcharoth 13:00, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Physchim62, you are being little bit funny to apologize for for violating WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL and then to repeat the offense immediately. If you or Sadi Carnot or anybody else is unhappy with the result here, the correct path is to file an appeal with Arbcom. You have a path forward; take it if you like. You can even email an arbitrator if you think this is an emergency situation. - Jehochman ^Talk 12:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Jehochman, you also have a path forward: you can unblock this user. Physchim62 (talk) 14:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Which hunt? Have you considered, Physchim62, that you might simply be mistaken about Sadi Carnot? I don't think anyone here is calling him uncivil, or even unfriendly. From your past interactions with him it is quickly evident that you are on friendly terms with him— and he does come across as a nice guy. The facts are, however, that he has been semi-covertly weaving in material he knows will be considered unacceptable into a large number of articles over a period spanning well over two years. When he was found out the first time he ducked under a rock, switched usernames then went right back at it.

Nobody here doubts your good faith; or the fact that SC might be a friendly fellow... but can you stop and consider for a moment the fact that you are on friendly terms with him just might color your evaluation of the situation?

As it stands, he has caused a very great deal of damage to the 'pedia, and has already shown that when found out he comes back and starts all over. That is why he should be banned. Witchcraft notwithstanding.

— Coren ^(talk) 16:34, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

If we do not ban Sadi Carnot than we are going to have an editor who's every contribution must be specifically checked by an expert on the subject to guard against the addition of more misinformation and distortions. This will be a hindrance to the project and a waste of everybody's time. If you can't trust what somebody writes at even a basic level, then why allow them to cause us more problems? Tim Vickers 16:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

If I'm using strong terms, it's for a reason. I really, honestly, believe that you're all going mad in a particularly dangerous way. There is no reason to check all of Sadi Carnot's edits: the articles will be assessed, and re-edited accordingly, just as happens with much more serious questions of WP:UNDUE all over Wikipedia. Why make all of this fuss over an editor who has made many useful contributions to WP just because you think he's utterly crazy over one point? This editor is being specifically persecuted for his views: views that I myself would describe as bovine excrement, and which don't merit the attention which he tried to gain for them, but which have not prevented him from contributing usefully to Wikipedia in other, even related, areas. I stand by my statement that this is a witch hunt, although I will temper it by saying that I feel that most of the editors concerned have just been drawn along in the hysteria, rather than actually whipping it up. Physchim62 (talk) 17:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe you're acting in good faith, but that you've been misled, and your friendship with Sadi prevents you from seeing what the rest of us see. You and I are not going to agree on what to do here, and that's OK. If you want to bring this case to Arbcom for review, I will support that. Keep in mind that the block now belongs to Sarah and you can ask her if you want it undone. I'm no longer involving myself in this case because I don't want to have a conflict with you. There are lots of other things to do at Wikipedia. - Jehochman ^Talk 17:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

If this were a content dispute, I would say that it is ripe for mediation, but unfortunately it is not. It involves admin powers and the responsability of different users, even of the "community" as a whole. ANI is obviously not the right forum to discuss these at great length, as it is designed for immediate problems. As such, I agree that ArbCom is probably the best way out of this problem: if someone else beats me to listing it, I will join, otherwise I will list it myself! Physchim62 (talk) 17:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Contributions?

Physchim62 (re Sadi) "but which have not prevented him from contributing usefully to Wikipedia in other, even related, areas."

I have not seen what I consider useful contributions, but then I have not looked at more than a few of the 8500 edits he did.

Compare:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Capture-bonding&oldid=47854434

with

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Capture-bonding&oldid=125688241

For a starter, the EP concept of capture-bonding isn't abnormal psychology, indeed, nothing could be a more normal response in the human EEA (environment of evolutionary adaptiveness) to being captured than to socially reorient to your captors. But just considering the style, which of these two articles would be more useful (and readable) to someone trying to find out about the topic?

I will accept your judgment.

Keith Henson 19:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Uninvolved admin needed

I think this discussion has run its course. Could an uninvolved admin decide the result of the community ban proposal and wrap this thread in archive tags? - Jehochman ^Talk 21:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. For the record, though I was bold and already added Sadi Carnot to WP:BU some time ago— if the decision goes against a ban then that should also be undone. — Coren ^(talk) 21:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Regime change at wikipedia?

It used to be the case that you needed to be guilty of pretty severe vandalism to be banned. Sadi Carnot has been editing a few articles in a POV way and is otherwise known for his valuable contributions. This absolutely does not compare to the behavior of many other users (take e.g. the supporters of various pseudoscientific ideas) who are still tolerated on wikipedia. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be tolarated. However, either we ban all such users or we don't ban people for these reasons. Count Iblis 22:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the situation. Sadi Carnot has been spamming, COI editing, and promoting fringe theories through subtle vandalism across many articles for a long time. This is not editing "a few articles in a POV way." It's self-promotion and using Wikipedia as an advertising medium. You say "valuable contributions." Please, supply a few example articles because I'm open to reviewing any evidence you can provide. - Jehochman ^Talk 02:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• "Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia" "Repetitively and intentionally making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia will result in a block or permanent ban." Wikipedia:Vandalism I do not understand how anyone can defend "Sadi Carnot" against a permanent ban from Wikimedia Foundation projects. --JWSchmidt 02:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

vandalism is defined as "addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia". This is exactly what the problematic POV editors are not doing. They really believe in what they write. I think we should assume that Sadi Carnot believes that he made a positive contribution. However many other editors did not agree with his edits. This is not vandalism on his part as it was not his intention to damage wikipedia. This is just a content dispute. Annoying? perhaps, but we can deal with that as we deal with many worse cases every day. And in the articles were Sadi was involved in it was very straightforward to deal with because it all standard scientific stuff (chemistry, thermodynamics etc.).

Promoting fringe theories? Unfortunately there are many more editors who do this here on wikipedia. We don't ban people for such behavior unless they repeatedly violate 3RR rules, insult people on talk pages, etc. There used to be a problem with the Cold fusion article, there is a problem with the article on Heim Theory (a pseudoscientific theory), there are climate skeptic editors who repeatedly try to bring in their POV in the various articles on Global warming.

We can deal with these problematic editors, we don't ban them just because they write things that are extremely POV. COI? How would I know if some climate skeptic editor works for the oil industry? So, that's just a nonsensical guidline. How many times did we have to speedily delete a POV fork started by a well known climate skeptic editor here, I've lost the count. Did we ever ban someone for these reasons? No, unless perhaps in cases where someone's edits are really vandalism (e.g. you could create 40 new POV forks per hour or something like that). A well known skeptic has even repeatedly accused a climate scientists editor here who has made valuable contributions of COI and started various wike procedures against him. This was regarded as abuse of wiki policies, but did we ban him for that? No!

Did Carnot make some positive contributions? Of course he did. He was involved in many thermodynamics articles and also did positive things there. If Carnot is banned for the reasons given here, then I would think we should purge wikipedia of all these far more problematic POV editors. Count Iblis 03:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

You like physics. My recent contributions include gamma ray burst and gamma ray burst progenators Template:DYK-icon. I'm not an admin who hangs out at the board all day looking for somebody to ban. If you look at my initial responses on this thread, I was somewhat skeptical about the claims against Sadi. That skepticism rapidly evaporated (like a small black hole), when I actually looked at the evidence. - Jehochman ^Talk 03:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I think a major part of the problem is misrepresentation of sources. Effectively, this is quoting paper A which says B, and claiming it says C. In some cases, this seems to have merged seamlessly with original research. eg. quote 18th century book on obscure chemical analogy and modern paper on physical chemistry, and use them both to support a novel theory advanced by the editor and some other people on a website, and use these other people as references for good measure. That is not just POV editing. It is intellectually dishonest and fraudulent. The case for COI is clear-cut as well. The editor has admitted to being the author of the book which had its article deleted. Anyway, this is an requests for arbitration, so we should be able to end this thread soon. Carcharoth 03:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• "I think we should assume that Sadi Carnot believes that he made a positive contribution" <-- Red herring, anyone? I think "Sadi Carnot" knowingly made a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia, knowingly perverting the NPOV philosophy to promote personal self-interest, using well-developed writing and research skills to trick non-experts. I think we should assume that "Sadi Carnot" is laughing at Wikipedia and Wikipedians who are willing to put up with such calculated disruption of the project. Being capable of making useful edits and making some useful edits do not compensate for hundreds of disruptive edits and such a blatant attempt to use Wikipedia for self-gain. --JWSchmidt 05:30, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• You think "Sadi Carnot" knowingly made a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. That's where we disagree. Since I don't have the power to read minds, I assume nothing about Sadi's intentions. I am still assuming good faith. --Itub 06:38, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• If someone is making bad edits, I don't know that intent matters all that much when compared to results. If some mental patient gets access to one of the asylum computers and writes "JEWS DID WTC!!!" over and over on World Trade Center, he may be honestly trying to contribute something he believes to be true... but it's still disruptive and unhelpful. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 13:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm not saying that there are no problematic issues with the way Sadi has been editing. Things like misrepresenting sources, promoting your own work etc. is something that we see quite often. The POV editor in most cases really believes that some idea is somehow implied by the source while in fact it isn't. This is not really vandalism. In these cases what you do is you discuss the issue on the talk pages, the various wikiprojects etc. Usually you'll get a consensus there that the edits by the POV editor are not acceptable for the articles concerned. The problem is then almost solved, because any edits by the POV editor can be reverted. The consensus and 3RR rule makes sure that the problematic edits do not make it into the article.

If after taking these measures it is found that the POV editor is repeatedly violating the fundamental wiki rules like 3RR, or creating POV forks very often etc. to get his ideas published on wikipedia then it can argued that a ban would be apppropriate.

This is basically the approach followed in the Global Warming article and it is highly successful. Over time, what you see is that the POV editors change their behavior. If they want to make a change to an article which they know would be regarded as suspicious by others, they use the talk page first to explain what they want to do. Count Iblis 14:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Sadi Carnot has been using tactics to evade the normal controls on POV pushing. He's been at it for two years and has not changed his ways. I've spent hours looking through his contributions. The pattern is highly problematic. I've dealt with a lot of POV pushers, and this case is exceptional in that he, unlike most, backs down when confronted, and just pushes his POV elsewhere. This really looks like gaming. What seals the deal for me is that he switched identites two years ago after one of his favorite pseudoscience articles was deleted. That move was designed to avoid scrutiny. He also befriends users and seeks to use those friendships as cover for his activities. Whether the damage is intentional, or more likely just severely misguided doesn't matter. Blocks and bans are designed to prevent damage, not to punish. I am very concerned that Sadi will return again under a new identity after this case fades from memory. You also need to consider how many good faith editors have been frustrated and pushed away by his tactics. The fact that Dr. Jeckyll does good work doesn't excuse the behavior of Mr. Hyde. You can't let such an editor roam free. It's too dangerous. - Jehochman ^Talk 14:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I support Jehochman in requesting examples of Sadi's positive contributions. Surely this would not be hard with a pool of 8500 edits. So far I have seen none. Also I can tell you first hand that 3RR does not always keep BS out of articles. Keith Henson 14:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I just took a look at the entropy page. I don't think that Sadi's behavior there, see e.g. talk page was nonconstructive in any way. My opinion is that the the editors of the (bio) chemistry pages are to be blamed for what has happened. They failed to notice the POV pushing by Sadi. If Sadi is gone then tomorrow someone else can edit pages in this way. So, the only way to deal with the problem is to check the edits and use the procedures as I described above.

I really do not understand how a known issue that has existed for years was not dealt with. The fact that Sadi stoped using one account two years ago and started to use anoher account is simply irrelevant. He made certain POV edits and later the these POV edits reappeared. That is what matters and this should have been dealt with. Count Iblis 15:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment. If you look at the guy's site and Table of Contents, it's obvious that he knows his thermodynamics. Applying thermodynamics to human relationships might provide some useful insights, although I think that using it (apparently) to reinvent computer dating is less productive than say using it to try to knock some sense into illegal immigration policies which usually make futile kinetic interventions. The problem clearly is that he thinks that everything he publishes is notable and becomes a new topic or usage of a term to go into Wikipedia. I don't think that by usual standards his work would have to be excluded entirely - half the articles on Wikipedia are weighed down with "Cultural References" sections that are mostly a long list of ads for various pieces of intellectual property. I can see him getting a paragraph in one place, sentences in a few others ... it's just a shame this situation got so out of hand. 70.15.116.59 16:09, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Up thread there are people who say Sadi (in spite of a chemical engineering degree) did *not* know his thermodynamics. I admit it's been decades since I last looked deeply into thermodynamics so I have not looked into the quality of his edits in this area. Keith Henson 17:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

What's odd is that an administrator, Physchim62, knew about Sadi's editing problems, and did nothing to stop them. Warnings and a short block early on might have corrected the problem before it became so severe. A good lesson is that early, firm intervention is a favor to the editor. Coddling troubled editors only leads to more damage, and is not a service to the editor either, because they just get deeper and deeper into trouble until somebody finally has to take much stricter measures to stop them. Those crying for us to excuse Sadi should have done something before. - Jehochman ^Talk 16:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That attitude is absurd. Some of those "crying to excuse Sadi" were completely unaware of his damaging editing patterns: running into him only in thermo articles, for instance.

Regime change continued

I have to say that there's some justice in Count Iblis's remark: the reason that Sadi's consistent POV insertion is considered so severe seems to be that it wasn't caught until now. This isn't necessarily because Sadi was intentionally deceiving others: normally crackpot theories are very obvious to pick out from the article. The authors don't really understand wikipedia policy, and are often unskilled at adding information to articles even if it's not a bunch of BS. The fact that Sadi could seamlessly integrate his POV pushing into articles without raising the usual red flags isn't necessarily becuase he was trying to deceive, but because he is simply a better editor than most fringe-theory pushers. Don't crucify him only because his sins were difficult to uncover. --Starwed 16:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That argument would be more convincing if "Sadi Carnot" was this editor's first username. But, he adopted that name after his former username was told that original research is not acceptable on wikipedia. Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 17:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Starwed makes good points. The other thing Sadi did was gaming. He could and did look up all kinds of material with only the remotest connection to the article and reference (wikify) the heck out of them. That's what he did to the capture-bonding article. The editors who supported him were looking at the form and not the substance which I don't think they understood. It's a problem, and it's going to take some thought as to how to cope with it. Keith Henson 17:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

New involved user joining discussion. I, like others, have been on good terms with Sadi and have often appreciated his edits and input. I understand Physchem's concerns about a witch hunt. I too think that it may be possible for Sadi to become a good editor. I agree with the major concern here that Sadi has so effectively gamed the system and gained the confidence of users like myself through good editing only to do horrible things below the radar. He has achieved this through the good will and credibility capital that he has gained through being apparently level headed and knowledgeable on many subjects. WP does not have good systems to control this sort of behavior as evidenced by the length and extent of Sadi's misbehavior. The only control is once it is caught to prevent it with a ban or close human supervision. I would suggest to Physchem and Itub, both of whom I have the up most respect for that the confidence that you have in him *may* be simply a result of you being used and by continuing to support Sadi he may be simply cashing in on the good will capital that he has built with you. We should be level headed and not be on a witch hunt or react emotionally to being deceived but neither should we refuse to believe that we have been played for the fool when the evidence points clearly in that direction. Confidence artists gain your confidence before burning you. That is what they do. The best ones will keep your confidence even after burning you.

I am willing to trust physchem's supervision *if* he is willing to check every one of Sadi's new references for substance and relevance to the article and statements at hand and Sadi must reference every edit (good faith is clearly not warranted). Sadi has spent 2 years building confidence. I do not think that it unreasonable for him to do the same thing again: spend 2 years building confidence to get out of hot water before perpetrating the same con again. Therefore the supervision must be forever. I would not be willing to go to such lengths myself. I suspect Sadi will not reappear although I will miss his positive contributions.--Nick Y. 18:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Nick Y. makes excellent points, but let me point up a problem. Sadi edited far and wide. Unless Physchem is an incredible polymath, I doubt he would be able to pick up on all the BS a Sadi type editor introduces. That's not knocking Physchem, I don't think there is anybody who could deal with the range. Keith Henson 19:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Three arbitrators have decided to accept this so far and a case will probably open shortly. Let's bring this thread to a conclusion out of respect for the Committee and divert the relevant issues to some policy level discussions. There's a move to clarify the banning policy, and perhaps there ought to be a related discussion about complex long-term problems. Wikipedia:Disruptive editing is designed to address that at the guideline level. Although perhaps some other venue such as a WP:AN thread would be more appropriate for a discussion about investigations. Those of us who dive deep into the site's rabbit holes are a relatively small group, and dynamics that look obvious to a wikisleuth can have a very different appearance to someone who doesn't frequent these situations. (Likewise, nobody bats .1000 when they investigate and a vast number of disruptive editors raise frivolous compaints). I've noticed that a well-referenced investigative report can be a great help, and I've often considered starting an index of the better reports to facilitate other sleuthing efforts. This type of thing goes into greater depth than a typical long term abuse report, more like User:Durova/Complex vandalism at Joan of Arc. Durova^Charge! 19:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Admin User:Mikkalai blocked for 48 hours, review requested

I have blocked Mikkalai (talk · contribs) for 48 hours, after a warning for edit warring which was followed by a personal attack and a clear statement of intent to continue edit-warring with Ludvikus (talk · contribs) over the article Chinese in the Russian Revolution and in the Russian Civil War. See my extended reasons at User talk:Mikkalai#Personal_attacks_and_edit_warring.

Mikkalai is an admin, so I would be grateful if other admins could review my actions here. Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Endorse block - edit warring with a clear statement that it would continue. Viridae^Talk 08:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

According to the revision histories, you gave Mikkalai a final warning at 19.04 on 20 October and Mikkalai last edited the article at 18.30. You blocked him at 09.35 this morning. This doesn't really sit right. The block appears to be because Mikkalai refused to agree to stop disrupting but since the last warning no further disruption of the article has taken place. This can't be the right way to deal with this situation. Reading the talk page quickly it appears that the other engaged user is also being very disruptive. Have they been blocked? NO it appears not. And the article was protected at 3 am this morning - 6 hours before this block was issued. Since the article is protected I fail to see what disruption this block is supposed to prevent? Frankly this strikes me as a very poor decision given that Mikkalai had over 100,000 contributions to the project last I looked. Sure he can be difficult and uncooperative but how does this block help us build an encyclopaedia? I have unblocked Mikkalai. Spartaz ^Humbug! 09:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Spartaz, might that be a rash and quickly made decision? Would it not be better to wait until there has been more discussion before defying the block? -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 10:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Perhaps but I took the view that this was manifestly not the right way to deal with this that an unblock was the right way forward.Spartaz ^Humbug! 10:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Spartaz, we only ever block users for what we can infer about their future behaviour from their past conduct. Typically an intention to continue edit warring is inferred from recent edit warring, but a statement to that effect serves just as well. Furthermore I find your implication that having a large number of edits excuses such behaviour to be quite disgraceful. How many edits would you say are necessary to excuse wheel warring? --bainer (talk) 10:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Where am I wheel-warring? I have overturned the block once. That's not a wheelwar that's a difference of opinion. If there is a consensus that I was wrong and someone reblocks I won't unblock again so that's hardly a wheelwar. In all cases we need to consider the impact on the project of any block. Mikkalai is a long term standing editor whose contribution to the project is enormous. Of course we give editors like him more rope - just look how much rudeness and incivility and all round disruption that the arbcom accepts from other well established editors. The edit that he was blocked for took place around 9pm last night and he was blocked aprox 12 hours later without further disrupting the article. Sure we can infer but a quick look at the page history and the protection log tells us that the disruption has ceased and will not resume. Did you also see Mikkalai's request for the page to be protected to end the edit war? Spartaz ^Humbug! 10:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

. You overturned another admin's action without prior discussion: that's wheel-warring according to WP:WHEEL.

You are also wrong about the timing: the edit for which Mikkalai was blocked was made at 04:35 this morning, 7 hours after the page was protected. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

No it's not wheel warring. It's an application of Bold, Revert, Discuss to an admin action. It would become a wheel war if you re-blocked, which I trust you won't do. Guy (Help!) 12:06, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out. I now see what you mean. I still stand by my point. I don't accept that I was wheelwarring and I do not agree with the block as protecting the article has ended the disruption. Blocks for incivility are rarely effective and in this case have no value with someone like Mikkalai who is otherwise an extremely valuable contributor to the project. Especially as the problem is excacabated by his having to deal with an extremely disruptive user who has just returned from a 6m block. You seem to have decided that his being an admin means he deserves blocking more than a non-admin and that's simply not right. Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Just so you know it, Ludvikus is a known troll who since his return from a 6 months block has been badgering Mikkalai to the point where I'm amazed that he hasn't resorted to incivility yet. This is Jacob Peters all over again. Are we going to block the troll or the people who correctly reverts him (Mikkalai in this case) ? EconomicsGuy 09:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Ludvikus is indeed highly disruptive, and is under final warning, and the article is protected. But that does not alter Mikkalai's stated intention to edit war, which as it stands we can expect to resume when the protection is lifted. When other admins have already intervened and issued warnings, it is highly disruptive for an editor to states their intention to continue edit warring, and an editor who has been an admin for more than 3 years really has little excuse. I think it is highly regrettable that Spartaz lifted the block without further discussion. I don't intend to wheel-war, but having come here to discuss my actions, I expected that other admins would extend me the courtesy of discussing the block before lifting it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec)What was your block preventing? Your message on Mikkalai's talk page says that he has been blocked for personal attacks. If that was the case then why did you say that you would unblock him if he promises not to disrupt the article further? That doesn't make sense unless the reason for the block was the threatened further disruption. Since the article has been protected what benefit does the block achieve? It can't be to prevent personal attacks because you were willing to unblock if the disruption stopped. Secondly, why are you treating him differently because he is an admin? Sure, we all expect admins to behave a bit better then non-admins but imposing different block standards because if this gives admins an unwarranted extra status that we do not have or deserve. This is manifestly wrong - especially in a case where Mikkalai was not acting in his admin capacity. Finally, I thoroughly agree that Mikkalai has serious civility problems but punitive blocks are not the answer.Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Spartaz, did you actually read what I wrote? When I issued the block, I did indeed say "A block is a preventive measure, so I will of course lift the block immediately if you can promise that to stop edit warring". The threat was that Mikkalai explicitly said "I am at war with this person", which means that the differences are unlikely to be confined to one article. "You also seem to have missed that this was explicitly not a punitive block, which was why I promised to lift it if the threat of edit-warring was withdrawn.

I'm really rather annoyed abut this. I brought the block here for discussion, and rather than discussing it, you promptly overturned it. What on earth is the point of an admin bringing their own action for review if they are supported by one other editor but then promptly reverted without further discussion on a mistaken understanding of he nature of the block? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) —Preceding comment was added at 11:43, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you are upset about this. I have had my blocks overturned before and I agree its not always nice but I honestly believe that you made a dud call here. Firstly, if you are not familiar with Mikkalai, he uses very stark language that often reads very aggressively. Stuff that he has done to me in the past has left me fuming and early on in my wiki-career I got blocked after edit warring with him that happened because I was so incensed by the way that he was responding to me that I totally lost my call. I'm certainly not his friend. I do however recognise his value to the project and I have very rarely found his admins actions to be anything other than spot on. Sure he used intemperate language in the heat of the argument - and your adding a templated warning to his talk page was probably not the best way to get his attention - But you surely must have read his own request for the article to be locked to halt the edit war. The article was locked 6 hours before you blocked Mikkalai - did you notice this? - because it was the first thing I noticed when I went to review the block. In this case, what could the block have prevented? by Mikkalai's own words the edit war would have ended at that point. How could a block be anything other than punitive? Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

You are quite entitled to believe hat I made a dud call, but you should have discussed before overturning.

And yes, of course I noticed that the article was locked before I blocked Mikkalai. The reason he was blocked (rather than warned again) is that his statement that he was "at war" came about 9 hours after the page was protected. I'm sorry, Spartaz, but you really have acted very poorly here, by overturning a block when you were wrong in your understanding of the reasons for it, and wrong in your assessment of the timelines. I have therefore reinstated it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

EconomicsGuy, please take a look at User talk:Ludvikus. Admins Banno, BrownHairedGirl and Until(1 == 2) have all been in contact with Ludvikus over the last few days over this very issue; Banno particularly gives some very sage advice here. Ludvikus is under close attention and will not escape sanction should he continue to edit war or engage in other disruptive behaviour.

We don't accept provocation as a defence here. Yes, we often expect administrators to put up with all sorts of crap from disruptive editors, and maybe sometimes that's unfair, but that's just the way it is. A measure of understanding should of course be extended in this type of situation, but in no way does that go so far as to entirely excuse declaring an intention to edit war. --bainer (talk) 10:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I offer no defense against those valid counter arguments. I'm simply puzzled by why an editor who returns from a 6 months block for trolling is only blocked for 24 hours for disruption of an AfD where as an admin is blocked for 48 hours for the intention to disrupt (sorry for the borderline wikilawyering but it puzzles me greatly how this happened.) EconomicsGuy 10:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Rubbish. The edit in question was made in the heat of the moment but we then had 12 hours of no disruption and the page was protected. Where was the consideration there? Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL please Spartaz. In response to EconomicsGuy, the purpose of a bloc is to prevent disruption, not to punish. The 24-hour block on Ludvikus solved the problem at AfD; I selected 48 hours for Mikkali because as an experienced editor, Miklalai can have have been in no doubt out the unacceptability of edit-warring. However, I am open to suggestions of the appropriate length of block for Mikkalai if 48 hours is considered excessive. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

CIVIL? Beg pardon? Exactly what did I do that was uncivil? Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:43, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Referring to another editor's contribution as "rubbish", above. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

o_O That's a very interesting interpretation of incivility. Saying something is Rubbish isn't uncivil in the UK - it simply means that you strongly disagree with the point made. Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:06, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I endorse this block, actually. The edit warring, the personal attacks, and the statement of the intent to war more really makes me think a (48 hour) block is indeed justified. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 11:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• Bad idea. Mikka is here to build the encyclopaedia, and in my view solves many more problems than he creates; he is trolled by many POV-pushers as a result. Guy (Help!) 11:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't know Ludvikus, but if EconomicsGuy's statement (Ludvikus is a known troll who since his return from a 6 months block has been badgering Mikkalai to the point where I'm amazed that he hasn't resorted to incivility yet.) is correct, then I would say it makes complete sense to me to unblock Mikkalai and perhaps discuss Ludvikus's recent edits instead. --Aminz 11:23, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I think Mikkalai shouldn't have reverted BrownHairedGirl's edit-warring notice without any explanation. Instead he could have discussed the situation with BrownHairedGirl. --Aminz 11:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree with that - I'm certainly not defending Mikkalai's civility here as he could certainly benefit from improving his interaction with other editors. Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:43, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

As a fellow grumpy old bastard I can quite see where Mikka comes from on this, and my experience with him is that he will always give a straight answer to a straight question. Warnings to admins are rarely a great idea. Requests to clarify or reminders that they may be getitng a bit heated, with an offer to help if needed, are much more likely to be productive. Unlike many of busy admins, Mikka is a prolific editor of content. We absolutely do not need to lose people like him. Guy (Help!) 11:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

We wouldnt lose people like that if they didn't go around edit warring and making statements to the effect that they will continue to do so. Edit warring is inexcusable in EVERY situation and most certainly inexcusable in an admin. Viridae^Talk 12:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you tone it down a notch. El_C 12:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

And while you're toning it down, you take a look at Ludvikus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), the user Mikka was talking about reverting, you'll find masterpieces like this: [7]. Guy (Help!) 15:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Based on this discussion, I make it no consensus that this block should stand. BrownHairedGirl says that she reinstated it. Since I'm accused of wheelwarring for my actions, would anyone care to comment on whether reinstating the block is a wheelwar and whether it reflects the consensus on this page? Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Undoing the block unilaterally would be a wheel-war. Even if groups of admins and non-admins agree with each other, those groups can still engage in a wheel-war regardless of who does the actual admin actions. That's my view, anyway. When is consensus reached? Who knows? It does seem silly to let the block run down, but the best thing to do would be to persuade BrownHairedGirl that her action in reinstating the block was inappropriate and ask her to unblock. Equally, you can ask for a separate review of her action in reinstating the block. My view is that even if BrownHairedGirl had seen a case for reinstating the block, she should have said that and let others take the decision, not her. The one thing wrong with all this is that short blocks can have expired before any consensus is reached. Carcharoth 21:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Block reinstated

As noted above, I have reinstated the block, because it has become clear through discussion that the Spartaz (who lifted the block) had misunderstood the reasons for the block and the timing of the actions leading to the block, and had not even seen that at the time of the block I closed my comments to Mikkalai with a promise to immediately lift the block if Mikkalai withdrew the satement of intent to edit-war.

I'm going to leave it that. I think I have said what needs to be said, and I will leave it to others to see if they can reach a consensus on where to take this situation. However, I stand by my promise to Mikkalai that "I will of course lift the block immediately if you can promise that to stop edit warring", and invite any other admin to lift the block if they notice such an assurance before I do ... or, of course, if there is a consensus here to lift it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:27, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, that's not good, since, technically, that does count as Wheelwarring, which, itself, greatly escalates this incident. Please reconsider. El_C 12:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I most strongly disagree with this action. Its wheelwarring and there is no consensus that the block was correct. Please reverse yourself. Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The re-block was completely unnecessary; I've unblocked Mikkalai, per consensus, and per the fact that he stopped hours ago, and is discussing on the talkpage. Maxim_{(talk) (contributions)} 12:39, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

What consensus????? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

In addition to what I wrote above, I will lift my re-block if you also agree to reverse your lifting of the block, since your initial lifting of the block was based on a failure to understand the reasons for which it was applied. I came here to seek a review of my actions and to seek a consensus, not to invite the unilateral overturning of my actions by admin who didn't fully read the extended explanation which I provided for the block, despite the fact that at the time of overturning the only other commentator supported the block. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

What happened to try to make an encyclopedia better, no matter what rules there are? Mikkalai cares for the encyclopedia, and actually writes it, we need more admins like that. Blocking him, especially for 48 hours, isn't going to solve anything. And what's the point of me reblocking him so you'll unblock him?! Maxim_{(talk) (contributions)} 12:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that if you have issues with my actions you take them out on me and not on Mikkalai. Your original block was harsh and isn't supported by a clear consensus in the discussion. Reblocking was pointy, petty and wheelwarring - which is staggering given that you had criticised me for wheelwarring shortly before it. I suggest that you go and do something else before this gets even more out of hand. Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Spartaz, it really would be a very good idea for you to try and do some basic reading of wikipedia policies and guidelines before participating in discussions on issues like this ... as well as trying to read a blocking admins's reasons before you overturn a block. I'm sorry if that's difficult for you, but reading is kinda crucial around here.

I'm not taking out on Mikkalai my genuine frustration and disappointment at your failure to read before acting or or even to understand why it is a good thing to read before acting. Mikkalai was blocked for his clear statement of intent to be "at war" with another editor, when the other editor was already under warning and the page concerned had already been protected. When you have done your reading, please can you kindly tell us all where exactly in any guideline or policy it says that edit-warring is acceptable behaviour from someone who makes good contributions elsewhere?

It'd be good to know what you come up with, for future reference. Is there a quota of acceptable edit wars for those who you think of as good editors, or is there some threshold at which disruptiveness is given a free license? I look forward to the links. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

o_O That's called playing the man not the ball where I come from. If I wanted to continue this argument I might also say that you can start yourself with reading up on WP:DTTR, WP:CIVIL, WP:WHEEL and WP:AGF and WP:BLOCK since we don't do punitive blocks. I'm still very confused. Did you block Mikkalai for being uncivil or for threatening to edit war in an article that was locked? If its the latter, the threat is really meaningless given that Mikkalai had already said that he wouldn't mind the article being locked in the wrong version . Prolific good faith editors have always been given more latitude then the policies strictly allow. I don't think this argument is healthy so I'm going to step out. Perhaps I was wrong to unblock but can you honestly say that your reblock was correct given that at that point the count was 3 in favour of your block and 3 against? Feel free to have the last word but please try and address that last question. Spartaz ^Humbug! 13:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The ball here is the admin who unblocked without taking the time and trouble to actually read the blocking reasons, or to check the facts before making a whole series of demonstrably false assertions about the course of events. After all this time, you are still asking questions about why Mikkalai was blocked, the answers to which are clearly set out in the detailed reasons I gave for the block. If you haven't read and understood those, five hours after you impetuously lifted the block, please don't waste time citing anything at anyone else. Read before acting, eh? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

No it isn't. Your block was challenged, you need to justify it, not simply re-impose it. Several people have suggested that why is unliekly to help. You have not addressed those concerns. Guy (Help!) 13:55, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. If you re-read the discussion, you'll see that most of the points raised in objection were simply wrong. It was alleged that block was punitive, when it was explicitly preventive; it was claimed that the page was protected after the threat to editwar, when the protection had taken place 9 hours before the threat; I was told that the block was lifted because I should have promised Mikkalai not lift the block if the war-threat was withdrawn, which I had done. And so on. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

And if you read it you'll see that your block was widely reckoned to be wrong. And reinstating it was wheel warring - something which you know to be wrong, even if you assume that only people reversing your actions are doing it. So that's two mistakes. I recommend you stop at that. Guy (Help!) 15:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

This was not a situation that required blocks, and nor was it a situation that required wheel-warring - and yes, BrownHairedGirl, wheel-warring is exactly what you did. Nor am I seeing an explicit promise to continue edit-warring from Mikka, or even an implicit one. Blocking by rote is unlikely to help matters in any situation. A more holistic approach is needed sometimes. Moreschi ^Talk 14:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Ludvikus was being a disruptive menace, and is in the last-chance saloon; I and a few other admins have been trying to deal with the dispute by acting even-handedly. Edit-warring is always deplored, and nobody here has provided a plausible explanation of how or why it is acceptable for an admin to announce an intention to proceed with it. However, I'm not going to argue this any longer; someone else can take the trouble of dealing with these two edit warriors, and take whatever action they feel like. On the basis of what I have read here, and the jibe about blocking-by-rote, I have to wonder whether that will bear any resemblance to policy or guidelines, but if some admins want to make things up as they go along, I'll leave them to it. Have fun with Ludvikus and Mikkalai! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Wheel-warring is always deplored as well, you know. You are in no position to lecture anyone about policies and guidelines, particularly as they related to admin actions, so let's cut the hypocrisy, shall we? Moreschi ^Talk 14:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Right, let's see. I engage with the parties to a conflict follow policy and guidelines, apply a block, set out the reasoning at unusual length, go the extra mile by asking for comments at ANI, and then someone who didn't even bother reading what I had written (let alone do some of the more onerous work of actually checking the timelines before pronuncing on them) unblocks in the face despite the balance of views at that point being 2:1 in favour of the block ... and I end up getting called a hypocrite because I insisted that an unblock should be done on the basis of a consensus? Thanks a lot, pal. Now, are you going to deal with that edit war, or did you just pop in to criticise after the fact? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

What's the point in asking for a review if you're not prepared to receive criticism? ~ Riana ⁂ 15:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I expected to receive informed criticism, or . The first section of this review consisted mostly of one verbose editor who wouldn't read and who acted on that basis, and I object strongly to that. There were several more thoughtful contributions too, on both sides, which were welcome. I accept that that there has later appeared to be an emerging consensus that prolific editors should be allowed to edit war, which I accept, even though I think it is a very unwise approach. What I don't accept is the sniping, which is why I would be delighted to now leave this whole situation for someone else to sort out, safe in the knowledge that there is no penalty for inaction. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

That's the biggest pile of BS I've seen outside of a really big barn. You didn't just insist upon the supposed incorrectness of the unblock. You yourself darn well reinstated your original block, which you are not allowed to do under any circumstances. Have you actually read Wikipedia:Wheel war? If not, I highly recommend that you do so. Oh, and accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being mysteriously "wrong" apriori doesn't look good either. Moreschi ^Talk 15:46, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The principle of fairness doesn't always work on Wikipedia, sometimes, to keep the content contributors happy, you have to be sensible, but unfair. Blocking an excellent contributor such as Mikkalai just to be fair to someone who's being extremely disruptive, probably is fair, but it's completely devoid of any application of common sense. Nick 15:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not just fairness, it's also a matter of actually resolving the situation and calming the was which make some areas of wikipedia into no-go zones for anyone but the most battle-hardened. I don't see how it helps to defuse a content dispute for an editor to declare war on another editor/. There are plenty of content contributors who add a lot of content to to the encyclopedia and don't feel entitled to go around stoking conflicts, and their ability to work effectively is undermined if others appear to be given a licence to stoke conflict. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

For what it is worth I think the block was justified, and that the unblock was a little confusing. 1 != 2 15:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, saying that you are dealing with the situation even-handedly is just another way of saying you were successfully trolled -- a troll initiated a conflict, drew a productive editor into it, and then you treat both parties as if they have the same motivation, or as if they are both acting in good faith, when they don't and aren't. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I intentionally avoided making any judgement on the content; there are other channels to examine content issues and I have rarely found it helpful for an admin to try making a rapid assessment of the merits of different views of a subject with which they are unfamiliar: that's what dispute resolution is for. Ludvikus's histrionic approach makes it very difficult to determine exactly what the underlying issues are, which was why he was repeatedly warned by me and others to be civil and to set out his concerns clearly if he wanted other editors to engage. However, both editors had already been warned to take time out.

Mikkalai had not even responded to my earlier warning on his talk page, merely deleting it without comment, before making his declaration of war. Where in that is the evidence of good faith?

Mikkalai's talk page is routinely blanked, so there is no quickly-readable record of his interactions with other users, which often helps provide a picture of someone usually well-behaved who has had a momentary outburst. The evidence before me at the time (without spending hours researching Mikkali's contribs history) was of someone not just rejecting all attempts at problem-solving, but with a previous record of edit-warring on the same page and without the support of other editors on that article. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:23, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

In the future, I will do my best to listen very carefully to what User:BrownHairedGirl has to say in order to avoid any possibility of disruption. Although I do not agree with her assessment as to my alleged disruptiveness, I very highly respect her actions in practice - particilarly that she has been even-handed and imposed a 48-hour Block on such a very powerful, influencial, Administrator, such as User:Mikkalai. At the moment I see no other Administrator anywhere near her calaber. You should all learn and absorb her example. She is a great asset to Wikipedia. From what I see going on here - where the majority is ganging up on her - just because she apparently sided against one of the good old boys at Wikipedia makes me really want to leave Wikipedia forever. Nevertheless, in the immediate future, I promise to go out of my way to listen very carefully to her counsel so as to avoid any possible disruption on Wikipedia. At this stage of my experience at Wikipedia, I know no other Administrator whom I respect more than her, or vwho comes anywhere near her in fairness. I can promise you all this. All that will be required in the future from me, is a simple message from BownHairedGirl, and there will not be any indication of "disruption" whatsoever from me. As for you all, I think you should look very carefully at the amazing Conflict of Interests which clearly manifests itself when Editors are also Administrators.

Cheers, Yours truly, --Ludvikus 15:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Personal attack by said Administrator after 48-hour Block was Unblocked

It seems to me that Administrators' are just too powerful to have their misconduct curtailed. Here's the latest "personal attack" on a fello Wikipedian:

“ This remark is a clear demonstration of the unfitness of the person to logical reasoning. We have thousands of books that say nothing about the topic. Imagine if we start quoting all them in articles about a topic. `'Míkka 17:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC) ”

It seems to me that this Administrator has so many friends in the Administration at Wikipedia that he will not desists in personal attacks. Why should there be two standards for that kind of misconduct, one for Administrators, and one for the rest of us. Yours truly, --Ludvikus 17:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Peace offering rejected - edit waring to continue

Certainly not by me, User:Ludvikus.

• Here's my Peace offer to Administrator User:Mikkalai which he has summarily rejected as trolling:
• For the sake of the Article, here's my Peace offering which Mikkalai rejected as trolling.:

“

P.S. About "even handed". Reminds me of an old Jewish joke. Abraham and Chaim are in big quarel. Shouting, tufts of payot in the air. Here comes a reasonale Issac. "Oy vey, Abram and why this ruckus? You go to rabbi, he will judge you" So they go to rabbi, shouthing, tufts of payot ion the air. The rabbi frowns: "Now stop all tha noise, this is not kahal here. Talk your turns, you, Abraham, first". - Abraham: "Rebbe, it was this and that". Rabbi, after long thinking, "You are right, Abraham". - Now Chaim speaks, "No. rebbe, it was such and such". Rabbi, after long thinking and looking into thick books: "You are right, Chaim". - Now Isaac, baffled: "But Rebbe, how can it be possibe: Abraham is right and Chaim is right?" - Rabbi nodes wisely: "And you, Isaac, are right too" ... `'Míkka 15:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Mikkalai, I don't understand what you are trying to achieve here. if you are not prepared to give a brief explanation of the situation as you see it, why should admins take the time to read up the whole history of a dispute in an attempt to infer your position?

If you believe that you are being let down and need to be defended from a troll, why will you not either respond to admins who intervene or post to WP:ANI? It's fine want help, but why are you so reluctant to help those who might want to help you? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I heard that joke too, but I never heard that it was a Jewish joke. Neither did I hear it as a Biblical joke.

Anyway, I would like to make Peace with you.

Is that possible? And let's skip the Rabbi above, he will not help, just telling us that we are both right.

I'm even willing to go to a Polish priest (maybe he will do a better job than that Jewish Rabbi above), if that helps.

But maybe - just maybe - that Rabbi was right: I am right, and you are right. Or am I crazy to say that?

Unfortunately, the great Polish Pope is no longer with us. Peace? & Cheers! Yours truly, --Ludvikus 16:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

”

I truly would like to make Peace with Mikkalai. But I cannot figure out what I should do - except that he implies that that I need lessons in logic or visit a shrink - both of which I disagree with. Yours truly, --Ludvikus 19:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

focus on the main block

Rather than arguing about wheel-warring, we should first resolve the main issue: should the block on Mikkalai be lifted early? The reasons for the block are listed here. I see opinions in both directions (lift vs. let stand) above; it should be possible to reach a consensus, possibly by compromising on a shorter block length. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• Yes it should be lifted, and then we should talk to Mikka about what the problem is. Guy (Help!) 15:26, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment: A block because of promised action ("war") until confirmation of good conduct is obtained, is a correct use of a block. To unblock isn't wheeling, but was rash, especially given that 1/ someone else had endorsed so far and 2/ the matter was brought for discussion. The fact that uses "stark" language is his/her lookout... if he states, as an admin, he is "at war", he must expect this will be taken as such unless confirmed otherwise. Editors and admins are not expected to be perfect, but their general judgement is expected to be good.

That said, BrownHairedGirl was deeply incorrect to reinstate. The fact that in her perception and view, "it had become clear" he was in error is not the same as consensus (if consensus had existed, others would have acted too). That reinstatement is a canonical example of a wheel, though not the worst degree of it.

So now we have two issues,:

1. An administrator who has stated as hyperbole that they are "at war" (but is also a "prolific creator" of good content), who knows well that policy prohibits disruptive approaches and that this will be taken as provocation, declaration or incitement, and whose words were reasonably and predictably taken at face value, and
2. An administrator who acted on reasonable grounds, sought additional eyeballs when appropriate, and then due to feeling others had not read the matter and were in clear obvious error, has wrongly wheeled by reinstating their block when reversed.

That is where it stands. The concerns are likely to be future conduct. Would anyone object if both administrators were asked to comment if they will avoid such actions in future? I think that is one of the first things that needs to happen to resolve this. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• An admin has no need to promise good conduct before being allowed to get on with controlling the disruptive edits of a tendentious editor. Ludvikus is the problem here, as a look at the history of the dispute will immediately establish beyond any possible doubt, and right now I imagine he's laughing up his sleeve. Guy (Help!) 15:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you'll find widespread disagreement with the notion that such statements are a necessary, desirable, acceptable or essential aspect of being "allowed to get on with controlling the disruptive edits of a tendentious editor". Administrators have to deal with far, far more disruptive editors than Ludvikus. I've never found such wording to be other than inflammatory and unhelpful. The purpose of blocks is to prevent disruptive conduct. It is hard to argue that words which inflame a situation (are likely to cause a reaction, will probably provoke), won't be perceived reasonably as "disruptive" by many admins. Invariably the best course for any experienced editor is to be WP:CIVIL and calm as they do their necessary actions. So you are right that no promise is needed before controlling a disruptive editor. But the question wasn't that at all. It was: "The concerns [of others] are likely to be future conduct. Would anyone object if both administrators were asked to comment if they will avoid such actions in future?" FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:39, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

We're getting hung up on Mikkalai's use of the word war here. When read in context it's more along the lines of "I'm not going to let a troublemaker defecate all over this article." Wikipedia has a long history of protecting trolls and troublemaker's right to disrupt, for months on end, and then hammering the admins who get momentarily exasperated dealing with them. In hindsight, if anyone should have been blocked it's Ludvikus, not Mikkalai. By the way, thank you BrownHairedGirl for asking for this review. --Duk 19:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that Mikkalai's response was more than a momentary outburst, (see for example his reaction to a warning from another admin that the page would be protected) but I respect the right of other admins to differ on that point.

Thanks, though, for your your kind words about bring the issue to review; you are the first person to do so. From the way this request was received though, I can only say that it was a damn fool mistake on my part to bring it here. Not because people disagreed, but because after an initial spat of outbursts from those who someone who didn't want to read block reasons but felt absolutely entitled to denounce others as rubbish, much of the rest of it has made feel like I had arrested someone's dying granny on a trumped-up charges rather than taking the latest in a series of steps in an escalating content dispute. We could have had a perfectly sensibly discussion about how to deal with a conflict between between one histrionic and hyperbolic editor and the determinedly non-communicative edit-warring we-all-hate-police admin, but what's not what happened.

Next time I block an editor, I'll set out my reasons again on the user's talk page, and leave it all to whoever picks up the unblock request to do whatever they feel like. Coming here has been much more grief than it's worth, so I'll follow the example of the vast majority of blocking admins, and stay clear. I hope that whoever else deals with Mikkalai and/or Ludvikus has a lot of luck. They'll need it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

It is clear that over the last week botyh Mikkalai and Ludvikus have been acting in a manner that justified a block. Both have been staying just under 3RR several times now. I implore the admins here to watch this page and act fairly to both parties as neither is really coming out as "more right" in this situation. 1 != 2 15:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Promise to make every effort not to cause "Disruption"

Cut & Paste to be here on the Bottom:

In the future, I will do my best to listen very carefully to what User:BrownHairedGirl has to say in order to avoid any possibility of disruption. Although I do not agree with her assessment as to my alleged disruptiveness, I very highly respect her actions in practice - particilarly that she has been even-handed and imposed a 48-hour Block on such a very powerful, influencial, Administrator, such as User:Mikkalai. At the moment I see no other Administrator anywhere near her calaber. You should all learn and absorb her example. She is a great asset to Wikipedia. From what I see going on here - where the majority is ganging up on her - just because she apparently sided against one of the good old boys at Wikipedia makes me really want to leave Wikipedia forever. Nevertheless, in the immediate future, I promise to go out of my way to listen very carefully to her counsel so as to avoid any possible disruption on Wikipedia. At this stage of my experience at Wikipedia, I know no other Administrator whom I respect more than her, or vwho comes anywhere near her in fairness. I can promise you all this. All that will be required in the future from me, is a simple message from BownHairedGirl, and there will not be any indication of "disruption" whatsoever from me. As for you all, I think you should look very carefully at the amazing Conflict of Interests which clearly manifests itself when Editors are also Administrators.

Cheers, Yours truly, --Ludvikus 15:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment from a non-admin

I just wanted to say that the above discussion cost the 1,400+ administrators on Wikipedia a good deal of credibility in my book. It's like watching a police abuse video. Not the underlying incident but the discussion and the aftermath here are disillusioning. I won't call anyone out because I'd rather all of you guys think about how you handled yourselves but I see wheel warring, harsh language, name-calling and other incivilities, faction forming, and rashness on the part of multiple administrators. More than that I see a lack of dignity and cool-headedness. When administrators fight among themselves, how am I supposed to respect the legitimacy of their actions out in the field? I sometimes come across uninformed decisions and abuse of privilege by admins and I'd like to think it's an aberration. Ideally you should be on best behavior, rising above personal matters, because people look to you for an example. If you lose the respect of those you serve you undermine not only your own effectiveness but the whole system you're trying to uphold. It's probably a perennial proposal but this and some other incidents are a strong argument that all admin appointments should be probationary, for a limited duration after which reappointment is necessary, and/or subject to a lot more scrutiny. Wikidemo 16:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It's in the system. Admins have to work their way down to the level of qualification for ArbCom. (SEWilco 16:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC))

I would like to mostly agree with Wikidemo. This sort of thing costs the project lots of good will. I don't know about specific reforms to the admin system (I have my ideas, that don't seem like they'd get much consensus were I to propose them at this time), but I think we are headed on one of two directions 1) an increase in this type of "wheel-warring" disruption and erosion of community goodwill or 2) an arbcomm subcommittee to deal with admin actions and conflicts only. --Rocksanddirt 17:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

A brief perusal of the contributions in the last few days has been over the top. Squabbling like children is not attractive, especially when an admin is party to it. --Haemo 06:09, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Sad to say, I have seen this analogy of the law enforcement officer before. Despite claims that the position of administrator is janitorial in nature, the connection to police misconduct seems to come up more often than I care for.

One person's mop is another person's firearm, I guess. --Aarktica 17:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Resumption, as Promised, of Edit War by Administrator after 48-Hour Block Terminate

This is to inform you that this Administrator /Editor has done precisely what he has promised. And more than that. He has now unilaterally Reversed for the third time. I do not see an interest in staying on at Wikipedia much longer, if there is this kind of double standard - one for Administrators, and another for the vast majority of the rest of us editors. Yours truly, --Ludvikus 18:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Will I be weeping tears? Crocodile ones, perhaps. Given the outright nonsensicality of your edits, my sympathy is non-existent. Chinese shadows, indeed...Moreschi ^Talk 19:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Moreschi is an admin? If so I find the tone of the preceding comment highly inappropriate as per my comments in the above section.Wikidemo 20:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Bah. I'm no longer calling BS anything other than exactly that. Moreschi ^Talk 21:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of the merits of Ludvikus's complaint, he is being nearly disruptive enough (in my opinion) to earn another sabatical away from wikipedia (another 6 mo ban/block). --Rocksanddirt 21:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

No, Moreschi has already been to the article and to the talk page, so his "BS" comment is not "unhelpful". Basically, this article survived two AfDs. In the first one people from all over Eastern Europe were very embarassed to find that for the first time in years they all agreed on one thing: that the article should not be deleted. Now [User:Ludvikus|Ludvikus]] is trying to kill the article by having it renamed (and he is succeeding, they are actually voting on a new name at the talk page) and therefore is trying to get in a text which has no connection at all with the topic, except that it mentions the word "Chinese". It might as well have been "Chinese cooks", "Chinese astrologers" or even "Chinese checkers" - he would still try to get it in. I was thinking of leaving English wikipedia, but this is so over the top, I think I should stay on a little. Paul Pieniezny 21:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what the quotes around "unhelpful" are for - I don't see that anyone used the word. Inappropriate tone is more like it. IN this section's discussion an administrator is condescendingly called hypoctical and her comments here a "pile of BS." Whoever is right or wrong about the disputed article, the editors' behavior, and what is blockable I don't know and I don't really care to know. I'm just pointing out that bickering, off color language, etc., erode one's confidence in administrative deliberations.Wikidemo 01:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That's news to me. I had no idea that Eastern Europe was so interested in the Chinese in the Russian Revolution. For the sake of salvaging the interests of Wikipedia (whatever they might be) I'm certainly prepared to let the article's name stand as it is. I always thought that "a rose by any other name smells just as sweat." I had no idea that the interests of Eastern Europe turned on the name of that article. As I matter of fact, I just offerred to leave the article in the hands of Administrator User:Mikkalai. I certainly do not wish to start World War III over that article. But why hasn't anyone told me that that's what is meant by disruptiveness at Wikipedia? Cheers. --Ludvikus 05:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, Ludvikus is blocked now, for better or for worse. It is probably a good thing. But he was right about one thing, Mikallia did show an intent to continue edit warring, was blocked for that, unblocked because of some reason I don't understand, and then continued as indicated to edit war. I am glad that one disruptive editor has been blocked, thought I think for too long, but we have another who has been unblocked, and has continued since. Now that Lud is gone perhaps the disruption from Mik will stop, but I want to make it clear that we do not benefit Wikipedia by letting established editors edit war. 1 != 2 17:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Sri Lanka/LTTE blocks - reviewed

The following is a joint statement made by admins chaser, Haemo and FayssalF:

Following this archived thread and based upon a review of the evidence presented and in consultation with some other administrators about the technical details of Allocated Portable IPs and checkuser, the blocks of User:Lahiru k, User:Netmonger, User:Kaushini and User:Arsath will remain in place. The other evidence presented via emails and the CheckUser case page is either unpersuasive or of tangential relevance. It must be noted indeed that Wikipedia editors are not in a position to assess the legitimacy of a scanned document. Therefore, the "confirmed" checkuser result remains the most powerful piece of evidence available to us.

We suggest that no other accounts be created to evade this finding, as future sockpuppetry cases will be pursued thoroughly, with checkuser if necessary. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 00:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC) --chaser - t 01:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC) Haemo 01:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

fayssal, I and others have so far given you/haemo/chaser reasons why this block is unfair and erroneous. With all these evidences isn't it obvious that the original Check user had made a mistake and Lahiru_k and Arsath are not the same person ? So, your decisions to back up that wrong decision and to keep them blocking for something they didn't do, is like condemning an innocent person to death while knowing his innocence,　isn't it ? May I ask you ,after going through all the evidences and contributions of the users(mainly lahiru_k and Arsath), do you still believe they are the same ?? Could you please explain us how the confirmed check user results confirmed lahiru_k and arsaths the same(with evidences 100% contrary to it)?? This is a serious issue, which might led to the blocking of all the Sri Lankan based editors coz anyone could be labelled as Lahiru_ks socks. Only new' and comprehensive check could give a comprehensive details regarding matter.Quite frankly don't see why shouldn't we do it? After all wikipedia is not a dictatorship,is it? We don't unfairly block editors, do we ? Your attention and actions is highly appreciated here. Than you Iwazaki ^{会話。討論} 02:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Histrionics comparing a website to capital punishment and a dictatorship have no place here. Checkusers are well aware of the technicalities involved in IP allocation, and a "confirmed" checkuser result means a solid IP relationship. There's enough evidence of similarity in their contribution history to corroborate the checkuser result.--chaser - t 02:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the emails that FaysaalF, Chaser, and Haemo have seen, but I've looked at the SSP case and the Checkuser requests, and I agree with the blocks. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Some emails are really so private and contains personal data (Passport and ID documents of User:Lahiru k and meatpuppet User:Kaushini). I was the only one who has seen that (at Lahiru's request) and noticed days after that the immigration date stamped is mid-February 2006 while the metadata of this image uploaded to Commons by Lahiru k shows February 2005. Lahiru tried to prove that he is one and not a sock master. But was Lahiru k lying? I believe he is lying because after i informed him about the inaccuracy he said he forgot to set the time of his camara. Ummm! What Chaser and Haemo have seen are other details including off-wiki activities of Lahiru k which amount to campaigning and recruiting meat puppets. There's also this thing about sharing accounts (Lahiru's English goes from bad to good). In his emails Netmonger says he is Mystìc (talk · contribs) and Arsath (talk · contribs) and a muslim while Lahiru is not. I know that Muslims in Sri Lanka speak Tamil but here Netmonger does say that his mother tongue is Sinhala. Months later he said his mother tongue is Tamil. You can speak a dozen of languages but you can't have 2 mother tongues especially in the Indian subcontinent where "mother tongue" is used to indicate the language of one's ethnic group (ethnic tongue). I see no reason to assume good faith anymore and listen to weak "evidences" of innocence.

P.S. There a real issue of shared passwords. Both sides are believed to practice this unacceptable behavior. Please see this total mess. I am looking at it as well. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 03:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Both editors use Sri Lanka Telecom as their ISP, which randomly assigns IP addresses to their customer. As proof of this, Lahriu k edited his sandbox without logging in, disconnected from the internet, reconnected and edited his sandbox again. He did this more than 30 times over 20 minutes and got assigned a different IP address every time.[8] There is no way he could have faked that, and it proves that there is an undeniable possibility that Lahiru and Netmonger could easily have been assigned the same IP address at different times.

The only "behavioral evidence" presented an the SSP case is that both users have voted on a number of AFDs, both users have referred to WP:DGAF, "which not many people know about", and they both used the phrase "I'm not going to waste my time". As the comment has noted, apart from the IP addresses, the remaining evidence is "not persuasive" to indicate they are the same person.

So the only proof that FayssalF has to justify his block is that both Lahiru k and Netmonger were assigned the same IP at different times. Given the circumstances, that is no where near enough evidence to block two users. Also both users are willing to come on IRC with any admin who wishes, to confirm that they are two separate people and let the admins ping their IP addresses via IRC to prove that they both edits from SLT IPs.

Note that all three of the above admins have been involved with the users they blocked before this case came up. And when I questioned the block FayssalF promptly archived his user talk page without replying to my last post, so the opinions of uninvolved administrators will be appreciated. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 03:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You've already gotten the opinion of one uninvolved administrator (me). The IP evidence is quite compelling. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe you have read AmiDaniel's technical opinion at the Village pump (technical). We are not supposed to go further than that. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 04:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Have you read what he said?

"For the most part, no individual will be the custodian of a single portable address. I would actually say that, quite on the contrary of being static, most portable IP addresses are likely shared by multiple individuals or entities,"

Lahiru's edits to his sandbox confirm that IP addresses are shared by multiple SLT customers. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 04:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

And how many IPs there are to be allocated? Too many. How many Sri Lankan wikipedia editors are out there? Only a few. Do the math.

From AmiDaniel --> you're far, far more likely to find out the exact nature of how this IP address is used by contacting Sri Lanka Telelcom than you are by asking me :) This is not the problem of Wikipedia. This should be dealt w/ between Sri Lankan editors and their providers.

From what i know --> allocated address space is address space that is distributed to IRs for the purpose of subsequent distribution by them. And this is tricky and disturbing. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 04:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you understand how you are contradicting yourself? The edits to the sandbox confirm that SLT assigns different IP addresses to its customers every time the reconnect to the internet. Do you dispute that, or are you just trying to ignore it? So how could it be that there a greater possibility that the same IP was assigned to the same person twice, than that it was assigned to two different people?

"This should be dealt w/ between Sri Lankan editors and their providers."? Do you understand how ridiculous that comment is? AOL has a similar system, where they change the IP address they assign their customers every few minutes. Has anyone suggested everyone who users AOL stop editing Wikipedia or all the thousands of users will be banned as sockpuppets? --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 04:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Everything i've just said may sound ridiculous to you but i clearly explained it above --> And how many IPs there are to be allocated? Too many. How many Sri Lankan wikipedia editors are out there? Only a few. Do the math. Most people know about dynamically assigned IPs but assigning the same IP to 2 users (who happen to edit the same articles) out of 20 million people is enough to say "hey, weird". -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 04:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you seriously suggesting that there is a bigger possibility that an IP will be assigned to the same person twice months apart than the possibility that it be assigned to two different people?

And again, given the evidence, do you acknowledge that SLT assigns different IP addresses to its customers every time they log in?

Also, no, you haven't explained why you basically said you're going to block everyone who edits from SLT as sockpuppets, unless they some how sort it out with the ISP. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 04:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Um, if SLT is assigning different IPs to its customers when they log on, they're behaving like most ISPs. This removes the "allocated portable" concern, and means that the Checkusers were dealing with the same type of IP evidence they deal with when the suspected users are using Verizon, Roadrunner, SBC, et al. If anything, this should increase our confidence in the Checkuser results. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

What checkuser? There was no checkuser run on this case. Both editors were blocked long before a checkuser could be requested. And if you acknowledge that different IP were used, how could say that they were the same person? Because they used the same ISP? That's not how things work. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 05:08, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems that you are totally wrong. All accounts were blocked on late October 14th and early 15th. The CU case was opened at Oct. 14th afternoon w/ quite compelling evidence. There have been around 10 admins reviewing this case and i think you are just wasting your time here. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

That comment says so so much. We have an admin blocking two users for sockpuppetery, when he doesn't even know the difference between a sockpuppet case and a check user request. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 05:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

That is what you think and this is what i found. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

One, the only reason you can have to block the two editors is if Lahiru is Netmonger. The other accounts have no relevance to this case as Lahiru was already blocked for one week with regard to them.

Two, the only evidence you have to say Lahiru is Netmonger is two edits on November 22, 2006 and July 17, 2007 from an IP address which has been proven to be dynamically assigned to different people all the time. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 07:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Please stop asking these same questions repeatedly, Snowolf, because that can be disruptive. You're not going to get the answers you want to hear, and you are just filling the page with comments. If the results here make you unhappy, file an appeal with Arbcom. - Jehochman ^Talk 05:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

My ISP assigns a different IP every time you reconnect, but since I'm on DSL I rarely get re-assigned. I don't think the fact that Lahiru k demonstrated IP switching shows anything - it could be that he's learned how to disconnect his modem for five minutes to get a new IP address.--chaser - t 05:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Way to assume bad faith there. And its 32 different IP addresses within 23 minutes. Even if you have to be disconnected for "5 minutes", the edits by IPs shown to prove this were made months apart. That could easily mean the same IP was assigned to different users. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 05:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Take a closer look at the Checkuser case on Lahiru k; Lahiru k and Mystic (among other sockpuppets) were votestacking on a TfD discussion--that wasn't "months apart". --Akhilleus (talk) 05:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Lahiru k was blocked for sockpuppetry for one week after that case in November last year. End of story there. Where's the checkuser you're talking about for this latest incident, where FayssalF is claiming Lahiru k and Netmonger are sockpuppets? --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 05:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you need to make it clearer exactly what you're disputing. Checkuser showed that Lahiru k = Mystic (and others); other evidence shows that Mystic = Netmonger. I don't have to link to the transitive property, do I? --Akhilleus (talk) 05:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

What "other evidence"? The fact that they were assigned the same IP address by an ISP whom everyone here has pretty much admitted assigns IP addresses randomly to its customers? Do you have any other real evidence that the two users are the same? --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 05:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

There's one evidence and we do not care about "other evidence". We tried to review this and accepted some explanations by email BUT most of those explanations were too doubtful and in many times inaccurate(Passport stamps and Metadata at Commons, English usage, etc). Bear in mind that whether an IP is "static" or "dynamic" is determined by the way that a service provider assigns addresses to subscribers, not by the way that the IP addresses are allocated by the IANA. I already mentioned to you that allocated address space is address space that is distributed to IRs for the purpose of subsequent distribution by them. Please stop it. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Please stop it? Why don't you stop ignoring the evidence presented here that SLT does assign different IPs to its customers everytime they reconnect?

You want more proof? Straight from the SLT website

'SLT has commenced offering ADSL facilities in some parts of Colombo since April 2002. It intends to expand its coverage during the year to other areas of Colombo and its suburbs. Speeds offered by SLT are 2 Mbit/s download and 512 Kbit/s upload, or 512 Kbit/s download and 128 Kbit/s upload with dynamic IP.

And from IP address as to what a dynamic IP address is

...in situations when the computer's IP address changes frequently (such as when a user logs on to a network through dialup or through shared residential cable) it is called a Dynamic IP address.

The fact that IANA assigns ranges to ISPs "for the purpose of subsequent distribution by them" does not mean the ISP also assigns different IP addresses to its customers. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 06:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I am getting more detailed updates from emails supposedly belonging to Lahiru k and Netmonger. I am waiting for some other details from those email accounts. I see that you are more concerned about this mess than they do and probably you need to tone it down. I've been using ADSL for years now and i never saw someone (editing wikipedia) being assigned the IPs i am assigned. My point is that there are probably millions connected in Sri Lanka and the chance for a same IP to be assigned to 2 or 3 particular wikipedia users is close to zero unless they are the same users or they are based at the same place which is not the case. That's my whole point of the story. You never answered that. So please wait for the upcoming details. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 07:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

First, you have absolutely no right to tell me what I should be doing right now. If I see you unfairly blocking a user, I'll take it as far as I can. So if you made a mistake you aren't going to cover it up that easily. Second, to put it bluntly, you need to stop trying to mislead the community. How would you know if another user was assigned your IP address? Do you have checkuser privileges to find out who's using what IP? And again, more falsities, "there are millions of people using ADSL in Sri Lanka"? Nope. Coverage is limited to certain areas, and the number of users from Colombo can't exceed more than 10,000 - 20,000.

I don't want to, but I can keep saying this all day if you don't listen, the two edits you cite to show Netmonger is Lahiru k were made more than 7 months apart. So unless lahiru was connected to the internet throughout, never disconnected and was therefore never assigned a different IP address, why do you think the chances were greater that the IP would be assigned to the same person rather than to someone else? --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 07:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you assuming bad faith? I fear you are disrupting by accusing me of "falsities" and "misleading the community". Please behave better and let us work. As you have seen, more than 10 admins have seen and reviewed the case. What i asked you to do is to stop your accusations and wait. I have the right to do so while waiting for new updates. Bear in mind that i was the one who opened this case to be reviewed and it took us days to come up w/ this final review. And once more, i am reviewing it again while you are ranting. Do not disrupt the process or else you'll be blocked for disruption. You told us about your mind but do never again assume bad faith and accuse people of "falsities" and "misleading the community". -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 07:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you disputing that Netmonger=Mystic/Arsath? Arsath/Netmonger confirmed that in an email to me. If you're still arguing about the checkuser connecting those accounts to Lahiru k, then that's rather pointless speculation, considering only Dmcdevit knows the details that went into the "confirmed" result, and even he has probably forgotten those by now (assuming they're not logged when a check is performed).--chaser - t 07:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Am I assuming bad faith? The guy who blocked two editors based on some very sketchy evidence without even giving them a chance to argue their case is actually asking me that? And if you have any respect for this process, you'll answer this; Are you saying with 100 percent certainty that no other editor has even been assigned your IP address?

Also, then why did you open this case? Hoping that everyone will agree with you? And now that someone is disputing your decision all you can say is basically "shut up and go to sleep"?

Chaser, you say "Arsath/Netmonger confirmed that in an email to me". Did he also "confirm" to you that he was not Lahiru? Are you intending to selectively believe what he says, based on whether it agrees with what you want? What I am saying is the only proof you have that Netmonger = Lahiru are two edits made by the same IP (which is dynamically assigned) 7 months apart. That is just not good enough to block genuine two editors. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 08:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Didn't let them argue their case? We've probably exchanged 30 emails! As to the connection, we have a checkuser result that you seem to be ignoring. And yes, I presume that people's statements against their own interests are credible. It's their statements in their own interests that I'm always skeptical of, especially in light of the aforementioned checkuser. The reason we opened this thread was to indicate that review had taken place - not to request review.--chaser - t 08:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You exchanged 30 emails after you blocked them. They didn't even have a chance to explain the dynamic IP allocation system to the community. So you're saying he was so stupid that he was truthful in claiming that he was he was a permanently blocked account, but lied in dening he was another account which wasn't blocked?

Yes, the checkuser case said Lahiru k was Mystic, but how many times to I have to keep repeating this, he was already blocked for that. (coping from above) The only proof you have that Netmonger = Lahiru are two edits made by the same IP (which is dynamically assigned) 7 months apart. And the only reason you have to block the two users is if they are the same. No other accounts come into the picture.

First FayssalF confirms he doesn't know the difference between a suspected sock puppet case and a checkuser request. Now you seem to think that three users can decide on something and expect the community to blindly follow their decision. Coming from an admin, I find that comment astounding. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 08:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

- They didn't even have a chance to explain the dynamic IP allocation system to the community. Misleading. Check their user talk pages and see what admins who reviewed the cases thought and decided. When a CU come up w/ positive findings we block as a preventive way and then we discuss.

- First FayssalF confirms he doesn't know the difference between a suspected sock puppet case and a checkuser request. Nonsense.

- expect the community to blindly follow their decision. The community has been verifying this mess as well and all they know is what those bastard 3 admins know.

- No admin and no user (except Iwazaki for obvious reasons) has agreed w/ you. Iwazaki is so intelligent in asking for what he needs. The blocked accounts are handling civil discussions w/ me via emails. Ask Lahiru to forward to you the emails and read them carefully. You are just disrupting, shouting, ranting and accusing admins of lies and "misleadin the community" instead of handling a cool discussion. You are not far away from an appropriate block snowolf. I am not going to repeat this more than enough. You spoke and now you wait and see. Unless you keep it cool instead of disrupting and accusing admins of lying you'd certainly be blocked. Think about it. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 09:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• I've just blocked indef a sock of someone. He was speaking of the same story i mentioned above (sharing and hacking passwords). I don't care to whom it belongs but it is just obvious and unacceptable. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 03:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Netmonger

It's probably worth noting that on his User talk page Netmonger acknowledges that he was previously Mystic/Arsath. He also notes that 222.165.157.129 is an IP he uses at his office; this IP is unlikely to be dynamically assigned, so Snowolf's complaints about dynamic IPs (which are uncompelling in any case) don't apply to this address. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Unblock them

Ok.. now. I've been following this case for the last week or so.. and not everything seems right. Lahiru and Netmonger both have been very good contributors to wikipedia and have hundreds(if not thousands) of constructive edits against their name. This is no way to treat such valued contributors. If they've done something wrong, then they should and they will pay for it. On the one hand we have users like Wikiraja who have been blocked for sockpuppetry, obscenity, vandalism, disruption, 3RR and almost every other wiki-offence under the sun roaming free under the noses of these very admins who've blocked L and N; the longest wikiraja ever served was 3 months! I am sure there're dozens of other wikirajas roaming free. otoh, we have overzealous vigilantism in the case of L and N who by any yardstick are far more valuable to the community than the likes of Wikiraja. And what do they get for that? Indefs!! This is hypocrisy at its worst. If all that a multiple repeat offender like Wikiraja can get is 3 months then L and N should get a lot less.. even if they're guilty!

I request that admins immediately unblock both Lahiru and Netmonger so they can argue their case themselves. They can be 'topic banned'(no editing SL-Tamil related articles and no edits other than minor cleanup or simple vandalism reverts, spell check etc.,) or even prohibited from making any edits at all other than argue their case. And dont tell me they can argue their case from their talk pages. that is nonsense. This case has spilled into many talk pages and across wiki spaces already and is getting increasingly difficult to keep track of or make sense of. If they have to argue their cases from their talk pages, then I demand that the admins take it upon themselves to copy and paste every single comment of theirs in every relevant discussion. This is of course not going to happen and therefore, the admins should unblock them. Blocking and especially indeffing is not a joke and certainly not when it involves editors of long standing. Admins should be more circumspect in handing indefs and indeffing L and N is seeming like a knee-jerk reaction. Also Fayssal's past involvement in conflicts with the blockees render his blockings highly inappropriate.

Chaser says he exchanged thirty mails with the blockees. It is fair that the community knows what transpired(except of course, things which could violate their privacy). Just saying.. "I exchanged 30 mails and it didnt convince me" doesnt fly. If it was so unconvincing, I want to see what that is. Just as I'd have liked to know what it was if he'd found it convincing. Blocking at the first chance without a fair trial in full view of the community is just a case of overzealous admins eager to gather 'trophies' throwing their weight around. Similar misplaced machismo on part of a certain admin a few months ago laid waste WP:INDIA - that had until then been one of the most prolific wikiprojects around. Also, in this case, it is plain as day to anybody who has followed the SL wiki debacles that both sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry is rife from the Canadian tamil club. I guess even one or more of the admins involved here said just that. That being the case, admins should treat this case with more caution and be more consistent. I have myself in the past noted Taprobanus' english go from excellent to average to bad. So? Indeffing without the consent of the community is a very bad thing to do and can only exacerbate things. imo, indeffing without community consensus should be a strict no-no. Wikipedia is no oligarchy. Indeffing and then asking the blockees(who happen to be editors of long standing) to argue such a complex case from their talk pages is ridiculous and humiliating. Sarvagnya 23:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Sar, please refrain from Personal Attacks. Your allegations on wikiraja are not only personal attacks but you seem to accuse him without proof. I know that the admins have asked for both parties to take it easy and cool off, however, this is in direct violation of WP:NPA. Sar, you should immediately come to the point without pointing , without proof, your finger at anyone. Another problem here is the attack on Taprobanus. While what you may say maybe true, there is no evidence to your claim. To throw accusations around without proof is Personal Attack. Sure, everyone mistype letters and on certain occasions people do make spelling errors. However, to accuse people of sock puppetry or meat puppetry is against the core rules of wikipedia. Admins please take note of this. This is provocation of users who have been friends (Taprobanus) of Lahiru and netmonger and accusation of wikiraja who, even now, to my knowledge, has not even said a single word about this mess. I would also fiercely demand an apology for saying sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry is rife from the Canadian tamil club. This is an attack on only the Canadian Tamil editors, but to the whole community. This is tantamount of attacking an ethnicity. Sar, if you have proof of any of your allegations go ahead and show it to the community and admins but if you don't just leave others out of this. Watchdogb 00:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

This is not about WikiRaja, or anyone else. The Sri Lanka-related issues have been rife with bad behavior on all sides. If either side abuses sockpuppets, they will be blocked — community patience is running out with this group of editors as a whole. If you disagree with the assessment above, which has been reviewed by a number of different admins at this point, then there are remedies above you can pursue. --Haemo 01:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

You say some good points and fail to understand others. Admins are editors and most of them treat cases after being posted here. When you use the word "hypocrisy" you should be sure that it concerns the same admin treating related cases while failing to apply similar measures for somehow similar violations. Most of the time, it is not the same admin who treat the other related cases (i.e. WikiRaja). It is not FayssalF, it is not Haemo and it is not Chaser who dealt w/ WikiRaja.

Another point. You claim that i have had past involvment w/ the blocked users which render my blocks more innapropriate. This is totally and absolutely wrong. I've received a barnstar from Lahiru k For being BOLD without getting BOWLED on Sri Lankan issues :) while i have never been in direct contact w/ Netmonger. So your Fayssal's past involvement in conflicts with the blockees render his blockings highly inappropriate is really unfounded and inappropriate itself. If i had blocked WikiRaja, i'd have been accused of the same. It is just everytime is the same. Admins accused of bias when most of the times it is not the case.

Back to the good points. I've asked the blocked accounts to post their defense in compact way so people would understand easily. The idea was to copy and paste them here.

Back to unblocking those accounts. All admins (w/ no single exception) who reviewed this case decided that the evidence that Lahiru k and Netmonger are one is clear. See the archived case. See the talk pages. See it here. So in order for me to unblock i must have the same degree of consensus from those admins and the community. In order to achieve that i asked yesterday those accounts to leave a clear and compact defense at their talkpage so we can paste it here. Since i've been recieving emails from those accounts pledging for an opportunity to defend themselves i have no problem to copy and paste what they have to say here. The problem w/ unblocking them now in order to do so is the potential drama we would be having here. All pro and non pro Sri Lanka/LTTE editors would gather here and make this place another arena for their dispute. So my idea is simple. We'll do that but i'll urge involved editors not to participate here in order to for the community to sort this out for once. I've just pasted it below. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 11:25, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Copied from Netmonger's talk page

I am blocked on the basis, that my account is a sockpuppet account of Lahiru_k, earlier I used to edit with the name Mystìc I created this account in January 2006 see log.

• I admit I am Arsath aka Mystìc aka Netmonger
• I am not Lahiru_k (repeating it for the millionth time)
• Arsath account was renamed to Mystìc
• Once Mystìc account was blocked I recreated Arsath account to make my case for the SSP report filed against me.
• I stopped using the Arsath account and switched to Netmonger since I wanted to remain anonymous. I've not used the Arsath account for anything except for the arbComm case I opened at that time see contributions, so I was not sockpuppeting and I have clearly said that I am Mystìc.
• I edit from this ip 222.165.157.129 from my office and at home I use ADSL. Lahiru_k and I have never shared this ip you can check this as well.
• Sri Lanka Telecom ADSL connection IP's are assigned dynamically (mostly to safeguard there leased line market). this could be verifed by checking other users who edit from Sri Lanka, who are confirmed (in a rather bitter way) not us, please run a checkuser on my account and User:DoDoBirds,User:Rajkumar Kanagasingam,User:Rajsingam and User:Lahiru_k, you would find the same IP ranges. Admin FayssalF would bear witness that User:Rajsingam is not Lahiru_k or Netmonger or Arsath.

• Also check the SLT Website which says http://www.sltnet.lk/adsl/index.htm that they assign dynamic ips to customers

• About my language skills, I speak native level of English, Sinhala and Tamil, I dont want to be divisive, I have said this before see my user page Check the user boxes of Mystic, if you want to know why, I'll forward my explanation to Fayzal.

• if you guys have any more questions please email me or post them here I am more than willing to answer them.
• Could an admin with checkuser privileges get involved in this case? Please.

NëŧΜǒńğer^{Peace Talks} 20:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

A little request?

I know I flipped out here about the bot tagging my new articles as copyvios and over reacted for while I am very sorry. I hope I have not lost credibility over that. I'm calmed down now and I followed User talk:W.marsh's instructions and undid my disruptive copyvio postings as W.marsh requested, and hope to make amends. I have one little problem now which I was hoping someone could snuff out before it gets bigger. User:Cyborg Ninja seems to be following me around and entering comments on my page and the pages of others seeming to try to stir things up about me. I do not know why this person is so interested in doing this to me. Examples:

• User:Mattisse [9] using my user page as a community board not notifiy wikipedia what an awful, disruptive person I am.

[10] He is not involved in this issue. I think this kind of canvas

• User talk:Kranar drogin[11]

• User talk:IvoShandor[12] Ivo got unresasonably mad at me over a compliment I made him.

• Talk:Caisson (Asian architecture) [13][14]

• User talk:JLaTondre[15] General question about how she had been following me around and thought my tagging was strange and troublemakeing.

• User talk:W.marsh[16] - told her what a terrible, disruptive, bad for wikipedia person I was.

• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2007 October 20/Articles [17] I did baack things in copvio page.

• User talk:Dreamafter [18]more of the same

Would it be possible for someone to please ask this person to stop. (I'm just a little edgy and raw now or perhaps it would not bother me.) Thanks! --Mattisse 05:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Um, could you provide some background on what's going on? Personally, I know that there's something I'm missing. I also took the liberty to inform User:Cyborg Ninja so that he can respond if need be.[19] -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The only people I spoke to besides Dreamafter (he's part of a project for answering questions for other editors) were people who specifically had problems with you. Not canvassing. I'm asking them for comments to avoid inciting anything or getting administrators involved. I was raised to believe that problems among adults shouldn't involve authority unless absolutely necessary. Maybe it's a cultural thing? Anyway, what I talk about with those other users is allowed. And after all, you told me not to post anymore on your Talk page after I made a reply to two users, one who you moved my comment to their Talk page (W.marsh). I added the message to the copyvio page because you erased evidence of your disruption rather than striking out those messages. I and another user had referenced it in our discussions. I'm not here on Wikipedia to cause animosity; but I have noticed a strange pattern with your actions and am keeping a close watch. I really don't want to have to go further into this at the moment. I'm still working out the details. - Cyborg Ninja 06:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

All I can add is that once before I asked for help with Cyborg Ninja continually accusing my of bad faith and LessHand, I believe, told us both to calm down. At that time, Cyborg Ninaj was acusing me of bad faith constantly. I finally put a personal attack on her page, which I have never done to anyone before.

Cyborg Nina and another editor filed an RFC Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Mattisse 2 on me because of one AFD I nominated for consideration, and admitted in the AFD that I was confused about the article and did not recommend deletion. Cyborg Nina got no support on the RFC. The co-filer of the RFC apologized to me and moved on and he and I have had no interaction since.

As for anything else, I cannot explain it. The RFC was over one article, Drapetomania, that I nominated for AFD, perhaps a bad judgment on my part, but no one seemed to think it was an earthshaking offense, and I withdrew the AFD within hours after posting it. Also, it was an article that Cyborg Nina was not involved with previously, the other editor who has since moved on was quite involved with it but seemed to take the outcome of the RFC in stride and go on to other things.

The RFC responses said I was justified in putting the personal attack warning on his page, but he maintained constant accusations of bad faith were not personal attacks.

Since the RFC petered out, the Cyborg Nina and I have not worked on any articles in common or had any contact until today when he posted a bulletin on my page to warn the community at large that I was a bad person. I am quite at a loss to explain why he persists in being interested in me. We do not edit the same kind of articles at all. Cyborg Nina as indicated that I have a false persona on Wikipedia, I am pretending to be someone I am not and that I am constantly disruptive and need to be stopped. He seems to be canvasing for support in his point of view. He made comments today on Talk:Caisson (Asian architecture) which another editor and I have been discussing for some time and we have dropped at this point. So I do not know why Cyborg Nina choose to enter in now. That is all I can add, unless you have more questions. I just wish Cyborg Nina would leave me alone. My occasional, but rather normal problems I have, are not unlike other editors who stress out now and then. I have never been rude or uncivil to Cyborg Nina. We really have no reason to interact and and to not know why he is canvasing for opinions about me. --Mattisse 06:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: Cyborg Nina has now posted another comment derogatory comment on a page where it is inappropriate, on the DYK talk page. I am an active participant there. He is not. sing against me is unwarranted and causes ill will when the rest of us are trying to avoid it. Mattisse 06:54, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Addendum 2: Cyborg Nina posted a bulletin to the community at large on my talk page, warning the community at at large that I was a bad person, and as Cyborg Nina alludes to above, he is apparently working on getting the community to take action against me of some kind that sounds bad. I left the bulletin on my talk page (it is still there). I merely copied it to Wmarsh because it seemed more directed to Wmarsh than to me. I also said my talk page was not a bulletin board to post community warnings about me on it. I removed the copyvio on the copyvio page because that was what I understood Wmarsh told me to do. He did not say strike them out. Wmarsh said they were not really copyvios and should not be there. I do not know why Cyborg Nina would be linking to anything there as none of those involved her. Please help! --Mattisse 07:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Drapetomania was the article this who incident was about. I see that Ricky81682 has edited the article which explains his personal messages to Cyborg Nina. I would prefer any other person be involved if possible, if there is a chance of any fairness here. I'm sorry. Mattisse 08:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I call tell this is hopeless. I will not waste people's time. Thanks anyway. Mattisse 08:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, wait a second; I've fought through like 10 edit conflicts to try to get something here; you post a wall of text, post "Help me!" on user pages, don't let anyone respond and them delete the whole thing with a forget it? I just want to know where you are implying my adding a single space here to the article is the reason I informed him? I don't care about the article or any of this; I told him because it is fair of him to be able to respond. Second, there is obviously more going on than you are suggesting; why is there a large amount of "remove copyvio" edits from you? Are you removing the bot warnings because there was no copyright violation or were they in fact copyright violations that need to be wiped out? Along with that, why did you remove the listings here? You say all of that was done per User:W.marsh but I can't piece together where he told you to do that. Is any of this even related to Cyborg Ninja's conduct or not? I can't figure it out. The RFA just ended which I assume is probably related to this. I also notice that in all of this, you have yet to actually talk to anyone you are accusing. You tell Cyborg Ninja not to post on your talk page, you mentions he says some stuff to other users, you don't ask anyone else and you come here. There's complaints from you that he posts on other pages, including DYK where you edit, ok, but no response from you at all anywhere. He posts something on your talk page, which you have the complete right to remove, but instead of removing it and simply proving a link to us, you keep it up and point it everyone here. You make accusations against me now before because I added a single space. What would you like people to do? Are you suggesting that someone should block him?

I'm sorry but I would suggest fully explaining what the background to this whole thing is, preferable in a short paragraph (which bot? what does W.Marsh have to do with it? is any of this related to Cyborg Ninja?). Please provide some diffs as well. If not, focus your point to specific conduct; if someone else wants to drag it out, let them. Otherwise, this is really a complete waste of time. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

In the off chance that you are really interested, the long story is that I had been repeatedly personally attacked by Cybor Nina. Admin (sandyGeorge) recommended I template her for personal attacks for the repeated accusations of bad faith. That incident and also the brief ( a few hours before I withdrew) the ADF for Drapetomania. She was angry. She filed Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Mattisse 2 which dragged up settled issues from years ago and hardly addressed the issues at hand. It clearly got cleanup up in the process. which did not get the response Cyborg Nina wanted. I had done nothing worthy of an RFC. Since then she has been posting inappropriately posting derogatory statements about me on my and other users pages.

Examples of current following and polstin nasty thing about me:

• User:Mattisse [20] - a community notice board post telling the wikipedia community members how bad I was.

• User talk:Kranar drogin[21] saying she had noticed he did not like me and that she was collecting data against me more further actions as I was disruptive. (This was based on one post Kranar drogin made on the DKY page in support of his friend, Ivo, who was angry at me regarding a misunderstanding.

• User talk:IvoShandor[22] Ivo had got unreasonably angery at me because I had complimented him and called me a variety of derogatory names including profanity. His friend supported his incivility, personal attacks, and profanity.

• Talk:Caisson (Asian architecture) [23][24]

This dis cussion was settled and over. Cybor Nina added a post that was a repetition of a direct quote from of PereclusofAthen.

• User talk:JLaTondre[25]

• User talk:W.marsh[26] telling W.march was a horrible, disruptive person I was

• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2007 October 20/Articles [27] - although Cyborg Nina had no business on that page, she complained that links were gone so she was probably going to link to some of my entries as evidence of my bad, disruptive, horrible behavior.

• Cyborg Nina has now posted another comment derogatory comment on a page where it is inappropriate, on the DYK talk page. I am an active participant there. She is not.[28] are statements against me that are not called for and are merely a duplication, almost word for word of what was already stated about. It is unwarranted and causes ill will when the rest of us are trying to avoid it.

A far as Wmarsh is concerned, I was angry because a bot was deleting my new articles with in 25 seconds of their creation. I use poor judgment, and I listed all my recent articles as copyvios. Wmarsh said I was being disruptive and to please remove the copyvios from the article and from the listing page with I did, each time with the edit note per instructions of Wmarch, just to prevent what Cyborg Nina is doing now -- making a big deal of a monetary dust up that I apologized for to Wmarch and fixed according to instructions. The entire episode lasted half a day and everyone was satisfied with the outcome. There is no reason for Cyborg Nina to be involved at all, it did not concern any of Cyborg Nina's Created articles. Cyborg Nina was not a part of it in any form and there was no reason to link to it, unless Cyborg nina wanted to make a WP:Point of some kinds. None of this, nor any of the other bulletins posting for the comunity at large on my talk page were appropriate. She seems to be stalking my contributions and entering into frays that have nothing to do with her. The Caisson (Asian architecture) was over before she entered. Also, she copied word for word another entry on the subject from PericulesofAnthes, just as she did on the temple talk page. She say she is

Not canvassing. I'm asking them for comments to avoid inciting anything or getting administrators involved. I was raised to believe that problems among adults shouldn't involve authority unless absolutely necessary. Maybe it's a cultural thing? Anyway, what I talk about with those other users is allowed. And after all, you told me not to post anymore on your Talk page after I made a reply to two users, one who you moved my comment to their Talk page (W.marsh). I added the message to the copyvio page because you erased evidence of your disruption rather than striking out those messages. I and another user had referenced it in our discussions. I'm not here on Wikipedia to cause animosity; but I have noticed a strange pattern with your actions and am keeping a close watch. I really don't want to have to go further into this at the moment. I'm still working out the details.

I told her to not post on my talk page as previously she used if for personal attacks against me. This time she was using my talk page as a community bulletin board for attacks against me and to rally support for her cause to attack me for whatever awful thing I have done. I left the post on my talk page, but I copied to Wmarch as it seem more directed at him as it certainly was not directed at me.

I want Cyborg Nina to stop following me around, to stop posting on pages that I have been posting on regularly and she has not, the purpose of her posts being to alert others to my wide spread horrible behavior. I want her to leave me alone. We are not working on the same thing, we have on reason to interact. I am sorry that she is miffed that her RFC against me failed. Mattisse 10:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The who copyright issue was between me and the bot. W.march stepped in and told me to remove template and entry's on copyvio page. None of this had anything to do with Cyber Nina until she chose to involve herself by leaving a comment about me on the copyvio page. Please ask any questions you are not clear about. Mattisse 11:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• Following Mattisse's comments on my talkpage, and reviewing the diffs provided, I left a level3 NPA warning on Cyborg Ninja's talkpage - commenting that if they had any concerns regarding Mattisses editing that they should use the appropriate venues, and not place comments on the talkpages of third parties. Should Cyborg Ninja continue with this campaign I would request that another admin review the situation and determine what sanctions, if any, would be appropriate as I have been previously involved in this matter and would therefore have to recuse myself. LessHeard vanU 12:54, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Ricky and other users, please keep in mind I have never made personal attacks against Mattisse, though he continually claims so. He's done the opposite, and if you really want me to cite those attacks (rare for me, but he has done multiple towards other users), then I will. If you read my comments, you can see that they're kind, helpful, and contributory here. As for Less's comment here... I'd appreciate it if you looked into, read, and played close attention to words on both sides. For one, I can't just talk about Mattisse's edits on article talk pages because they include 300+ tagged articles a day. I mentioned this to DreamAfter, which is why I first contacted him, asking him if it was allowed. So where do you think I should go if I'm asking for commentary if I can't go to a project member who listed himself as being available to answer questions by other users, or people who personally had problems with the subject? Just AN/I, which IMO should only be a last resort because it ends up with misunderstandings and undeserved warnings, or worse, blockings? - Cyborg Ninja 19:54, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

LOL you called Matisse "passive-aggressive" and probably other things, I don't know all the instances. How is that kind, friendly and helpful?Merkinsmum 02:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with Merkinsmum. You can't say you never used personal attacks when you use words like "passive-aggressive." When you say you can't talk on the article talk pages, what is the issue that seems to permeate over the hundreds of pages edited a day? Does it fit into some policy discussion? If it is all related to just Mattisse's edits, and he asks not to respond on his talk page, then you need to find other people who agree (it sounds like maybe Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts fits). If it is just you and him in disagreement, tough luck. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Legal threats, insults and other personal comments

Dear Wikipedia staff,

I am a new and inexperienced editor and I am being harassed by other editor William R. Buckley, as follows: really lengthy comment, which has an entire discussion thread copied, verbatim, redacted by ElC

Charles Michael Collins October 27, 2007 4:25 am (EST) Fraberj 08:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but can you summarize the above for me, please? Also, what's with the uppercase title? El_C 08:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Capital letters make everything more truthy. :) Kyaa the Catlord 08:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Without reading the wall of text, I'll summarize it for you: William R. Buckley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has made a legal threat, specifically: "That would give me clear reason to sue you, for slander. Believe me, I am one who will sue you. When I get done, you will no longer hold that patent. Instead, it will be mine, and I will make it public domain. Be very, very careful of your slanderous remarks." [29] east.718 at 08:43, 10/22/2007

Wow, how did you...? Wow. You must read fast... Thanks! Anyway, user warned. El_C 08:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it was your intent, but you removed one of my comments which contained pointed out real-life stalking, which probably would have warranted a block anyway. east.718 at 13:58, 10/22/2007

It's not resolved. If I'm right, if a user violates WP:LEGAL they are blocked indefinitely until the user in question retracts the threat. So why has this user only been warned? Quote from WP:LEGAL:

Users who make legal threats will typically be blocked from editing indefinitely, while legal threats are outstanding. - so block indef please. Davnel03 11:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The content of Talk:Self-replicating machine is a concenr, particularly Mr Buckley's comments on it. I have redacted all his legal threats and a few nasty and very personal insults. Neil ☎ 12:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

While I was doing that CambridgBayWeather has blocked William R. Buckley (talk · contribs) until he agrees to stop such threats. That's probably the best course of action. Neil ☎ 12:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks clearly like a legal threat to me and I've blocked them until they withdraw it. Bleeding edit conflicts. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 12:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Some users get blocked indef for legal threats, but some don't. We need things consistent otherwise people will just get away with it. Davnel03 12:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, it must be a reflexive reaction if the policy is to be effective. We also need to be consistent for, er, legal reasons ("why was my client blocked when others were not?"). Raymond Arritt 13:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

If you want me to block for NLT on-sight, then change the policy to dictate such action. Until then, I will continue to use my discretion on whether to warn or to issue an immediate block. If it's something pressing, it's sensible to excerpt it, as I'm unlikely to review voluminous text. El_C 08:54, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

While it is not dictated, it does state that "Users who make legal threats will typically be blocked from editing indefinitely, while legal threats are outstanding." There are always exceptions possible, but as a general rule, I see no reason not to follow this. Fram 14:50, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Rubbersoul20 (2) Persistent OR, POV, {fact} removal

About Rubbersoul20 (talk · contribs), sequel to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive310#User:Rubbersoul20_-_Persistent_harassment.2Funcivility.2C_OR.2C_POV.2C_.7Bfact.7D_removal

• August–October 2007: OR and {fact} tags removal: [30][31](POV/weasel list he's untagged ever since)[32][33][34][35]
• 15 October 2007: Ricky81682 warned him for his "penis" insults (then blanked as is his wont) and left the tag removal thing for another time.
• 22 October 2007: back to tag removal and even more OR/POV/weasel dump: [36]

— Komusou ^talk @ 11:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked him for a week. He gets warned for an entire day, blanks the page, and does it again. He needs to learn to actually talk to other users. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Admin edit rights privilege abuse

• Omegatron (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A while back, the above admin made a content edit to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a page protected due to edit warring and currently under mediation. Furthermore, that edit was to a section under specific discussion on the mediation page. The admin was notified both on his talk page, and here on WP:ANI, that his actions were improper. The mediator, chair of the mediation committee, user:Daniel, agreed that edits to those sections should not occur until the mediation was completed.

Today the admin deliberately unlocks the page in order to continue his editing, even though the mediation is ongoing, although thankfully, progress is being made.

This article is a most tendentious and difficult one to keep appropriate. There has been discussions, debates, and mediation attempts on this article for years now. Recently, we have actually been having success hammering out some of the issues. Keeping the article stable during this discussion is of great importance in allowing all sides to discuss what should and should not be there. Omegatron has been informed of this AND has been invited to join the discussion and mediation process, which he has not done in earnest before using his admin rights to unlock the article. At this point, one can no longer assume good faith as the admin has been informed, and warned, about this activity before. I believe some action needs to be taken. -- Avi 12:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Not all interested parties *have* to agree to mediation. :S —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 12:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry but i don't think protecting an article for months at a time is the right way to go. Why can't parties have the mediation without the protection?Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Well during mediation it does help to have a stable article. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 13:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

So Avi's allowed to protect the entire article in his preferred version because it's "under mediation", while simultaneously keeping it "under mediation" for months at a time by refusing to reach agreement with other editors? (See smb's mediation comment from Sept 25, a month ago.) How is this not wikilawyering and an abuse of admin privileges?

This undermines the entire editing process. Wikipedia is edited by people working cooperatively to achieve a neutral point of view. If someone makes an edit that is not neutral for some reason, someone else can fix it. If there's a long drawn-out dispute about a specific part of the article, then you can go to dispute resolution, but that doesn't mean the entire article should be locked down indefinitely. In this case, the dispute is only about one particular sentence in the intro. When mediation has reached an agreement, the sentence can be updated accordingly, and people who make further changes can be referred to that decision.

But if that mediation process is going to take many more months (as it already has) then the article should remain editable in the meantime. Even if there's a moratorium on editing that particular disputed statement (and there shouldn't be), during such a large amount of time, the article's topic is sure to change drastically. — Omegatron 02:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I will say unprotecting so that you can edit a page is probably not the best way to be using the mop, but I'll let others have fun with that. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 13:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

...because the only reason I would have unprotected it is so that I could make a number of controversial edits immediately afterwards without getting tattled on?

And what if someone is "unprotecting so they can edit the page" because it was wrongly protected in the first place? — Omegatron 02:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that having a page protected for months on end is not good. There are several minor edits that could be done. For example, on my display the references section is messed up by the sister links box protruding in from above. A simple {{clear}} would sort that. I also note that while one of Omegatron's edits was to do with neutrality, the other (here) was a simple formatting edit, and that should be reinstated. I also note that although Omegatron unprotected the article, he didn't continue editing. See here: "Unprotected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: no justification for protection. mediation has been ongoing for months and is not a reason to lock the page. we don't leave entire articles in a protected state for months because of a dispute about one statement.". I'm going to add an {{editprotected}} request to the talk page to see if minor edits are being accepted or not. Carcharoth 13:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that among the edits he wishes to make is one that is at the heart of the current mediation, please read the mediation page Carcharoth. Yes, it is frustrating; it is frustrating for all of us involved, but making changes to the very portions that are under discussion is not the way to do it, especially when after being invited to partake in the discussion, Omegatron demurred. -- Avi 14:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I have read the mediation page, Avraham. If you re-read my comment, you will see that I link to the edit by Omegatron that I think is non-controversial. It is this one. Have a close look. It is only a formatting change - no content has changed. Note the edit summary: "trying to make long list of refs easier to navigate around". I completely agree that the other edit, seen here, should have been discussed at the mediation page first. My concern was whether minor edits were being ignored. I left an edit protected request, and you only partially fulfilled it. Possibly you misread what I wrote, but it wastes your time and my time if minor edits have to be done in this back-and-forth manner. If editors of the article can't control themselves, and engage in edit wars, then the conduct of the editors should be looked at, rather than protecting the page. Carcharoth 15:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Since general editing to that section, which being in the lead is under scrutiny and mediation now, should be curtailed, changing the structure to facilitate editing-only ease, which is invisible when reading the article, can wait. Regarding editor conduct, sometimes, certain articles require patience by all involved. Yes using {{editprotected}} to suggest changes is a pain, but having articles in edit wars is worse. This article, obviously, is among our most tendentious. So if it requires a bit more understanding and patience than most people in today's "instant gratification" world find bearable, that is a small price to pay for working out a firm consensus. As important, it is part of the dispute resolution process here; which will only work if respected. -- Avi 15:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, then I read this wrong, I don't think there is any admin misconduct here, at least not of the egregious sort. I think we could debate for a while whether or not full protection for months is a good thing or not, but I don't think this admin has done anything horribly wrong. I could be mistaken, but best to wait for him to comment I think ;) —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 14:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Mediation has been ongoing since May. Biased editors cannot use this as justification to lock down an article in their preferred version, and then stall in mediation to prevent others from making changes indefinitely.

Please unprotect the article. There's a lot more work to be done, and Avi cannot be allowed to assert ownership of the article in this way. — Omegatron 14:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Mediation is an integral part of Wikipedia's dispute resolution process. Showing disrespect and disregard for the process will in no way shape or form help the project. Wikipedia will be around for a long time; sometimes, patience is required for the community to come to a reasonable consensus and compromise. Making edits to sections that are at the direct heart of the ongoing mediation shows a complete lack of respect for the process, the project, and the editors involved. Those of us actively involved in the mediation have been editing this article for years, and we do know what the "hot-buttons" are. Join us in working to fix the article on a long-term basis instead of ignoring all of us, wikpedia process, and the project's integrity by making unilateral decisions and edits despite ongoing dispute resolution. You have been asked to work WITH the process before. Why do you choose not to? -- Avi 14:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Whatever are you talking about? I've left many comments on the article's talk page and the mediation page, and am not "unprotecting the page in order to edit war" or any of the other things you've made up about me. The page should not have been protected in the first place.

See the comments on my talk page, Riana's talk page, and the previous AN/I (which includes a list of my "unilateral" edits) for further information.

Will someone else please deal with this behavior and unprotect the article? — Omegatron 02:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• You can request edits by posting them on the talk page and use {{edit protected}}. This might be the best way to proceed with noncontroversial edits and after demonstrating consensus among different editors for more substantial changes. Thatcher131 14:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Out of interest, does the same "edit by committee and keep protected while discussion takes place over months" process apply to articles where editing behaviour is being examined by the Arbitration Committee? Carcharoth 15:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
• I would recommend unprotection. Ahmadinejad is a controversial public figure and is in the news often. It is quite likely a high-traffic page. Leaving such a page protected for long periods of time is extremely undesirable. If people involved in the dispute ignore the mediation discussion and continue to edit the disputed statements, take it up with them. Mr.Z-man 05:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • That has been tried. This started when Omegatron, perhaps initially unknowingly, edited one of the major parts of the article under mediation, ignoring said mediation. -- Avi 15:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Locking a high-traffic and uncomplimentary article about a national leader like this one for long periods is bound to appear to be partisan. I (misleadingly) advertise a likely POV - and did so in the full expectation that even this suspicion of partisanship would exclude me from ever wielding admin powers. PR^talk 08:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Avi: And did you bring it up on his talk page before coming here? What's wrong with just reverting and warning? Why does the article have to be protected so that almost no one can edit it just because a few people should not be editing a couple statements? Mr.Z-man 18:38, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Regarding previous communication see User talk:Omegatron#Your edits to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Regarding protection, please realize that there are 18 archives stretching back over two years that have been trying to hash this out. We are in the last phase of Dispute Resolution that does not require ArbCom. Getting ArbCom involved would be to no ones benefit, as that certainly will last months. If protection helps us solve the issues here, as having a stable article undergoing mediation does, then that is a good thing. -- Avi 18:56, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Southampton City Council...

... have made me accidentally commmit libel against one of your administrators (JPS) and are now making death threats against me —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.250.228 (talk) 14:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Pls provide details with diffs/links, that's nowhere near enough info to go on. Rlevse 14:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Busy @ work, will do later, possibly tomorrow morning. 81.149.250.228 14:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I think they mean this nonsense — iridescent 14:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

With additional illumination to be found at this talk page. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that in this case, "Registered to Southampton City Council" translates as "Public terminal in a library". I very much doubt that Council representatives are actually making edits to Catchphrase (game show), Auto Trader, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and The Greasy Chip Butty Song. Just a hunch. — iridescent 15:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I certainly hope you're right, but, given some politicians, who knows? :D --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:56, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, I have issued a 24 hour block against User:81.149.250.228 for disruptive editing and WP:CIV. A glance at his contributions finds disruptive edits outnumbering useful ones. Ronnotel 13:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Physchim62

Physchim62 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) had unblocked Sadi Carnot, against the evidence and consensus established above. After Sarah (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) reimposed the block, Physchim62 stated that he was not going to wheel war. [37]. He then reverted maintenance tags that I had added to an article that Sadi Carnot had vandalized, without fixing the problems and without discussion. [38] He also reverted a sockpuppet tag from an account that had been used by Sadi Carnot to avoid scrutiny, again without discussion. [39] I have no idea why Physchim62 is tendentiously reverting all my actions with respect to Sadi Carnot. He just issued me a warning.[40] Could an impartial administrator look at this and provide input before the situation gets out of hand? - Jehochman ^Talk 14:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I've just had a quick scan through and I see no wheel warring, Phychim62 simply remove the original block, then sarah reblocked - Phychim62 hasn't unblocked since. The removal of sock tags may be a little disruptive, especially when I see no discussion into it. Ryan Postlethwaite 14:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. For record, I modified my remarks to make sure they are not inflammatory. - Jehochman ^Talk 15:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

JH, I'm not sure that I see any point in tagging that IP as a sockpuppet. No edits have been made with that IP since May, 2005. Or is there more to that IP? Sarah 15:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

That's fine, and I am open to discussing this. My concern is that Sadi has been shifting identities. It would be useful to have a sockpuppet category with all the accounts he's ever used in case he returns with a new identity. If a new disruptive account appears, and there's a checkuser, knowing that IP could be helpful. - Jehochman ^Talk 15:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

IMHO User:Physchim62 has acted in opposition to a clear consensus to indef block User:Sadi Carnot for promotion of WP:FRINGE. The block is clearly justified by the need to protect the encyclopedia. Ronnotel 15:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

In response to this, I've proposed new wording at Wikipedia talk:Banning policy#Community Bans, and have requested arbitration to review the actions of those involved. - Jehochman ^Talk 14:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Zeq potentially violating ban

User:Zeq had been indefinitely banned from editing the articles 1948 Arab-Israeli War and Palestinian exodus due to disruption and tendentious editing. He is, however, now editing Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus (i.e. here, here and here), which had been forked from Palestinian exodus about a year after User:Zeq's block.

I don't know what the policy is regarding forks of blocked articles, but if this is a violation, I would be thankful if any admin could intervene.

User:Zeq has been warned on Talk:Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus here.

Cheers and thanks, pedro gonnet - talk - 22.10.2007 15:25

It is important to note what prompted this complaint by user:Pedro Gonnet. I participated in discussion on talk page (I am not banned from the talk page of any article) and user:Pedro Gonnet suggested[41] that my views will be ignored. The discussion has been around the sources for the article and the view I suggested was that we follow WP:RS policy. Zeq 15:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You may be interested in raising the question at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requests for clarification. Mahalo. --Ali'i 15:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I have raised the question to ArbCom. If they rule that I should not edit that article I will stay away from it.(I will also avoid editing the article in question until we get a clarification from ArbCom. In any case I would appriciate it if an Admin could leave a note to user:pedro gonnet informing him that:

1. The previous ban apply only to the article but I am not banned from discussion on talk pages.
2. He can not suggest that my views on talk page will be dismissed (because of the ban)
3. WP:RS is the policy about sources.

Tnx. Zeq 16:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:SPADE. You're banned from editing those two articles, it also applies to subarticles and forks. Will ^(talk) 16:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

What you quoted is nither a policy nor it is relevant to this case. The question has been refered to those who should answer it. Zeq 16:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a clear violation of the probation conditions imposed upon Zeq. I have blocked Zeq for 24 hours due to the violation. Kaldari 16:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This complaint against me came after I had a disagreement in a talk page with Pedro Gonnet. Since I was blocked it drove that discussion to an end without my participation. Prior to that Pedro Gonnet made the argument on the talk page that my views should be ignored. I have no idea if such behaviour violates any wikiepdia policy - I wonder if there is a policy that require a "fair play" in all dealing on talk pages and ask that editors will actually listen to one another ?Zeq 22:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Nope, that's not quite correct. When I saw User:Zeq's comments on the talk page, I was instantly reminded of the endless -- and pointless -- discussions with User:Zeq regarding the re-insertion of bogus sources and disruptive behaviour which had gotten him blocked in the first place. Then I saw that he was not only editing the talk, but also the article, which is when I posted here. Apparently, the matter is now settled. Cheers and many thanks to all involved, pedro gonnet - talk - 23.10.2007 07:21

At the request of Sandstein I have unblocked Zeq (as he has agreed on his talk page to follow both the letter and spirit of the ArbCom probation). I still stand behind the legitimacy of the block, however, and will reinstate it if there's any more funny business. Kaldari 22:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• Pedro Gonnet confuse between the timing he found out about things (firts he noticed talk and only later he notice the article) and the timing rdits actually took place (first minot edits to the article and later edits on talk on a different subject)
• Since Pedro and the blocking Admin made the same mistake and the blocking Admin noted the timing as the reason for the block (i.e. it is based on wrong facts) it seems that a review of the block is needed and if it is wrong it should be noted on my block page. Thanks. Zeq 17:48, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Deathrocker/Daddy Kindsoul/Soprani block evasion

Deathrocker, who later changed his account name to Daddy Kindsoul (talk · contribs), was under sanctions as per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Deathrocker. This user was blocked for one year by me on 2007-09-18 for continued edit warring. Within hours, this user set up a new sockpuppet, Soprani (talk · contribs), which was just brought to my attention. I have blocked Soprani indefinitely as an abusive sockpuppet and have reblocked Daddy Kindsoul indefinitely with a note that this user should not be unblocked for at least one more year. --Yamla 15:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This sockpuppeteer has already set up at least two new abusive accounts to continue vandalising. These were caught by another editor and have already been blocked. It may be time to move for a ban against this editor. --Yamla 16:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

"i could easily just stop doing the work and instead focus on making his editing time here hell" from yet another abusive sockpuppet, Revelinit (talk · contribs) (now blocked). This user appears to be hopping IPs, anything we can do about this? --Yamla 16:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't really understand why we're not giving him another chance. I am fully involved in Italian football articles, and he always proved to be a very good editor, I find all this fuss as pretty excessive to me (including all the rollback you made that generated a mess in all my watchlist). --Angelo 16:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Deathrocker. He's had a second chance. And a third chance. And a fourth chance. And a fifth chance. And a sixth chance. And many more. He has proven time and time again that he has absolutely not the slightest intention of abiding by Wikipedia policies and guidelines and has been a problem user for about two years now. --Yamla 16:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I judge users according to their contributions. And his contributions always looked very informed and valid to me, so I really fail to see the problem around. In my opinion, he evaded the block mostly because of his desire to contribute on Wikipedia. In my life as an admin, I always refused to block valid editors. And please next time look at what you are rollbacking rather than just doing it because of the contributor's name. --Angelo 17:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Support block. DK has been and still is more incivil than Ley, who got blocked about a year ago. If he's not getting the point after X blocks, let's bump it to indef. Will ^(talk) 16:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Yamla blocked my account (Soprani) without showing any evidence of his claim, he did not get a sock check and just banned my account... I have created much good articles on here, created lots of templates, uploded lots of images with correct rationeles, improved lots of articles and not once "trolled" or "vandalised".

This guy Yamla, blocked my account with no evidence and then went on to destruct Wikipedia by removing all my works (in some cases back to vandalised versions), deleted all the articles I had created (hundreds), deleted all of the images, and everything else. Including on high level articles like A.S. Roma which I'd improved to almost featured article content (thankfully, Angelo has now undelted the images).

To combat this, I created some anti-vandalism accounts today to get rid of his trolling roll backs (I couldn't however undelte the images, templates, articles he'd taken off). I would like to see my Soprani account unblocked, and all the deleted Yamla made to be undeleted. What he has done is destruct Wikipedia and its work, what I did was create, improve and much more possitive work on Italian football articles, etc. So today I Wikipedia:Ignore all rules to combat his destruction... I am willing to come back and continue the good work on Wikipedia, I have contributed much to improve this project, Yamla seems determinded to push me away from that desire to build this project, he wants me to become a troll (which isn't my preference). - Sooperani (Soprani) 17:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You aren't seriously claiming that you aren't Daddy Kindsoul (talk · contribs), are you? Nobody is going to believe that and in fact, your unblock request on this basis has already been declined. The evidence that Soprani was an abusive sockpuppet of Daddy Kindsoul was blatantly obvious, no checkuser was necessary. --Yamla 17:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You have no evidence at all, that is why you don't have the dignity to do a "checkuser". Looking on that users page, it was blocked for going on a USA band page [42] when I have 0 edits on there. Your only argument is that i edit on italian football pages and Football in general. What are you going to do now, will you block everybody who ever went on an Italian football page?

you have totally no indentions of improving this project have you? show me examples of any articles you actually do lots of work on compared to my football work? it would seem you are using wikipedia as a play thing, because that is the only place you are incontrol of anything (in showing that you deleted hundreds of pages, free images, templates of work which IMPROVED wikipedia). this is why you are trying to push away the hours of work i've put up here... you're not a big man, you're overcompensating on here because of the real world. Pathetic. - Sooperani1 17:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

On the principle of WP:DENY, I will not be responding any further to this obvious sockpuppet. If any admin (or unrelated editor) wants to discuss this matter further, I will be happy to do so. Note that this vandal has threatened me on my user discussion page (here, in Italian, roughly "I'm going to make your life a living hell. I am devoting all my effort towards this end," though my Italian is iffy at best). --Yamla 17:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You will not be responding further, because you do not have the goods (or any proofs) to answer up to anything of anything i said above.... you do not have an answer as to why you thought it would be clever to destruct our articles on football, taking off hundreds of perfectly good ones, do you? you do not have an answer for the fact that i dont go on that USA bands page and my only music edits have been opera so far.

you can try to troll me Yamla like you did with all my works, but you're not going to "win"... just because you don't like to see people actually doing hard building of documents here like all my works on Italian football, doesn't mean I'm going to let you flex your little e-muscle and troll me. Yes it is true that I wrote that message to you... but when did i write it prey-tell? after you trolled me and removed hundreds of pages of my works (weeks and weeks of document making), deleted tens of my templates and free images: basically after you destructed football on here.. it is clearly my attention you want, not the works on the project, and this is why you are desperate to prize me away from doing work into something like this.

oh, by the way: i am compiling a very interest sockpuppet case which involved YOU. I hope you will enjoy it! because to my eyes it makes for very fascinating readings. - Sooperani3 17:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I am an admin and I am going to ask for a checkuser, I want to be very sure he is actually Daddy Kindsoul. About the Italian-language message on your talkpage (a little broken Italian, btw), it means "Your (plural form) time here will become hell. Now you have all my attention, infamous". --Angelo 17:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know anything about the sockpuppets but I happen to be all for unblocking User:Daddy Kindsoul or deathrocker or w/e as I have seen many of his edits and thought they were useful...but this is just my opinion.Navnløs 18:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the history of blocks and sockpuppets, and I'm sure I'll get shot down for saying this but Yamla's reversions are destroying a lot of good work, reducing the quality of wikipedia by erasing perfectly good images [43] [44], undoing good edits and reinserting poor ones [45]destroying good information, [46] [47] in this case reverting it back to Daddykindsoul's edit, the guy he's supposed to be erasing. In fact of all of the reversions I looked at not one improved the page in question. The images that have been deleted have now had their links erased by the imageremovalbot, so in a few days they will get deleted as orphaned even if they get recreated. The whole thing looks like a knee jerk over-reaction. If the guy was vandalising, people involved in football related articles would have noticed and stopped him. To me, removing hundreds of valuable edits, deleting loads of verifiable articles and images with proper rationales, reinserting poor edits and acts of vandalism, looks itself like a grotesque act of vandalism. I'm appalled that so much decent material can be jetisoned on a point of principle, and apparently without doing a proper checkuser. In conclusion I completely oppose the use of rollback on users who have made numerous useful contributions, and think that this case is a perfect example of an admin with a grudge (justified or not) reducing the quality of wikipedia. King of the North East (T/C) 18:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This was on the principle of WP:DENY. Daddy Kindsoul (talk · contribs) (and Deathrocker (talk · contribs) before him) has a long history of abuse back to about two years ago. The one year block on Daddy Kindsoul was upheld as valid but this abusive user was unwilling to accept this. If we do not roll back all contributions, this user will continue setting up yet more sockpuppet accounts (as indeed he has done today) and continue blatantly ignoring our policies and guidelines. As I have mentioned already, this user has been given numerous second chances in the past and has blown them all. In these circumstances, it is entirely legitimate to roll back all contributions from the abusive sockpuppet account. Please make sure you have read the RfA on Deathrocker (as he was known there). --Yamla 18:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Yamla, WP:DENY is a essay and has no official value. In any case, I want to assume good faith, hoping next time you're going to look at the diffs before pushing the rollback button and thinking over before deleting good quality and notable content such as articles, templates and valid images. We all learn by past experience. --Angelo 18:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You are correct that WP:DENY is an essay and has no official value. However, deliberate block evasion is a violation of Wikipedia policy (WP:SOCK, WP:BLOCK) and thus a form of vandalism. While contributions from abusive sockpuppet accounts are not always reverted, I believe it is often appropriate to do so. I believe this is particularly the case here so as to strongly discourage this blocked vandal from further abusive sockpuppetry. If someone wishes to reinstate some of these edits, taking personal responsibility for them, they are free to do so and I would not object (provided they are reinstated, not rolled "forward"). Now, Angelo, I believe my reversions are not out of line. This sort of general rollback is often performed in similar situations (though clearly not all cases call for it). If you believe I am mistaken and that administrators never do roll back the contributions of abusive sockpuppets, please let me know. If you believe this is not a clear-cut case of sockpuppetry, I'll have to strongly disagree after looking through literally hundreds of contributions, some of which were IDENTICAL (though this is not the only evidence). But please let me know if this forms the basis of your argument. Alternatively, you may believe that general roll-backs are often performed but that you disagree with them. That's a fair point of view, though one that I disagree with. Of course, you may be disagreeing with me for other reasons; if so, please clarify. Thank you. --Yamla 19:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• Edits by indef blocked editors evading their block can be reverted regardless of the actual merits of the edits. There is nothing new about that; that is established policy. Beyond that, Deathrocker (talk · contribs) or whatever he is calling himself nowadays may have made beneficial edits to football articles, but that is offset by the tendentious and skewed editing he did on music genre articles; I daresay he's ruined as many of those with POV editing as he's improved football articles.--Isotope23 ^talk 19:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Yamla, valuable contributions are never vandalism to me, we are an encyclopedia in the end, aren't we? All you did by rollbacking all of Soprani's edit was to encourage him to create lots and lots of sockpuppets. I think admins should rollback contributions only when they are abusive/vandal-like, and this was not the case, as you deleted also entire articles about Italian nationwide football players and manager. You were right in blocking Soprani if you felt that sure he is actually Daddy Kindsoul; but you were not right in rollbacking all of his edits, many of them being quite valuable contributions. I am not the only one to feel this, since some WikiProject Football users noted it as well.

Isotope23, ban is different than indefblock. For all I know, Daddy Kindsoul/Deathrocker was just indefblocked, but never banned, so WP:BAN does not apply in this particular case. --Angelo 19:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, an indef block that no other administrator is willing to overturn is in practice a ban, so WP:BAN does apply here as long as the individual behind these accounts is continuing to edit through sockpuppets while the original account is indef blocked. The editor can request an unblock if he feels he should be reinstated. Until that time though all edits through socks are subject to immediate removal, which is why socking to get around a block is rather pointless.--Isotope23 ^talk 12:59, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Daddy Kindsoul/Deathrocker was under ARBCOM sanctions. WP:BAN applies. As Isotope23 points out, rolling back contributions from an abusive sockpuppet is certainly acceptable in a case like this. You are free to disagree but as you are now arguing about official Wikipedia policy, I'd ask that you please make your case to change this policy in the appropriate forum. To be clear, you are entitled to your opinion and are clearly acting in good faith, I'm simply stating that you are now advocating a policy change and this discussion isn't really the right forum. --Yamla 19:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Policy says "Any edits made in defiance of a ban may be reverted to enforce the ban", so it's not a mandatory thing. Your actions comply with the policy, but I still think it would be better to have a look at what you were going to revert before to push the rollback button. In any case, this is my last comment, let's close this discussion here. We have just different opinions, it can happen, there's nothing wrong in it :) --Angelo 20:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Abuse of WP:TW by Neutralhomer (in Hal Lindsey)

Resolved

Upon looking up information on Hal Lindsey (who I had never heard of until today), I find that one of the key sections (on his prophecies that didn't come true) has been mass deleted with the edit summary "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball" (I guess I could use the same argument to delete Nostradamus's prophecies...?) So, I reverted saying that his rationale is not correct and that he should discuss it on the talk page first. He reverted with the summary "Reverted 1 edit by Brian0918 identified as vandalism to last revision by Neutralhomer. using TW" — BRIAN0918 • 2007-10-22 16:13Z

Let's assume that he hit the wrong button. I've done that myself. Why don't you mention this in a friendly way and see what he says? In general, it is a good idea not to revert good faith users without talking to them first. You could start by asking why this section is not appropriate, and he'd probably give you a friendly explanation. - Jehochman ^Talk 16:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It's hard to stay friendly when you see such an idiotic mass-deletion - obviously the section should exist, and obviously his quarrel is not with the entire section, but with maybe a word or sentence in the section. So why delete the whole thing? Laziness, I suppose. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-10-22 16:25Z

Try to talk to the user. If that fails, select from the menu at dispute resolution. This page, WP:ANI, isn't part of that process. - Jehochman ^Talk 16:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I reported it here because it was misuse of a revert script. That's a separate issue from the (currently non-existent) dispute about the article's content - I only started down that path when you suggested possible dispute resolutions on this page in your first reply. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-10-22 17:20Z

There has been a massive amount of cruft, mostly from User:Bee Cliff River Slob to this page. It is my understanding that Wikipedia doesn't do "predictions" (ie: Wikipedia isn't a crystal ball). Perhaps I am mistaken, but this seems to fall under that category. Brian, yes, it was a mistake on my part by reverting your revision as vandalism, but I think we need a group comment on the content of this page. I personally have zero stake in this article, I am mostly just trying to clean up edits made by User:Bee Cliff River Slob. - NeutralHomer ^T:C 18:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You are mistaken. There is a difference between wikipedia making predictions (which is what WP:CRYSTAL is about) vs reporting on predictions made by a (presumably) notable individual. There would also be WP:WEIGHT issues if this material were included in Book of Revelation, but no such issue exists where it stands (assuming these predictions are a substantial part of what he's notable for). —Random832 18:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

As predicted, this is a content dispute. Please work it out via your talk pages, or dispute resolution. As a footnote, we have millions of users, and we can't have an ANI case every time somebody accidentally hits the wrong button. Please try to make at least one effort to resolve problems by talking before reporting them here. - Jehochman ^Talk 18:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

POINTy revert warring by MONGO

The Wikipedia:No personal attacks page is currently fully page protected. This is directly and deliberately caused by MONGO's revert warring behavior on it. Over four days, MONGO has reverted the page ten times with useless name-calling edit summaries. It is a textbook example of gaming.

I put this on the 3RR noticeboard as it involves MONGO walking up to the 3RR electric fence and pissing on it for multiple days but never crossing it. El C closed it as non-actionable because gaming 3RR isn't 3RR [48]

So ANI, what is it then? 10 reverts over the span of a few days, often three reverts in the span of an hour, than waiting a day and doing it again. This policy page has been protected 7 times this year because of this crap.

Action, or another free pass for MONGO? SchmuckyTheCat

To be fair to El_C, he didn't say that "gaming 3RR isn't 3RR". He just opined that such cases are better dealt with here rather than on WP:AN3. As far as blocking MONGO, it's pretty straightforward. The page in question is already fully protected, so the edit war is over. Blocks are preventive, not punitive. Blocking someone for edit-warring after the page in question has been protected (and the edit war thus ended) would be punitive. I doubt you'll find an admin willing to do it. MastCell ^Talk 16:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The full protection has to end sometime. Do we have any assurances from MONGO that he won't continue this edit war as soon as it does? Why should he stop when he knows that he can get away with it? -Chunky Rice 16:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The disruption caused by his unprovoked personal crusading needs to stop as well as the edit warring; protecting won't solve that. Milto LOL pia 17:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that citing edit warring as 3rr violation on an3, when one knows that, technically, there hasn't been a 3rr violation, is problematic, and unnecessary. We don't need the 3rr for that. One can be blocked for edit warring, wp:point, or gaming the system (including 3rr) violations without 3rr being cited in the block, or an3 being used. Leave an3 for 3rr violations which are, in fact, 3rr violations. El_C 08:50, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

El C's non-action is neither here nor there, I'm just pointing out why this is being posted here instead of there, and there has a diff history for anyone that wants to look. 3RR gaming should be actionable on the 3RR noticeboard, but that's a general admin discretion issue, nothing with any individual.

Full protection for a page isn't appropriate when it is primarily one contributor making it into an edit war. MONGO's actions have caused that page to be under PP multiple times this year. When does it end? SchmuckyTheCat

To be honest, I think it was a kneejerk reaction because you and Miltopia are ED editors, and he's already got enough reason to hate ED. Still, I'd block for 3RR. Will ^(talk) 16:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it against WP:NPA to use outside affiliations, "mainstream or extreme", to dismiss any editor's views? *Dan T.* 17:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Not explicitly, but commenting on the contributor vs the content they add is. MONGO violated that quite awhile ago with edit summaries like [49], [50], and [51] are. Spryde 17:15, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes explicitly. It's been (sensibly) a consideration for a while. The language comes right from the page. And for good reason, as you can see by this situation... Milto LOL pia 17:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

No one is dismissing Mr. Cat's views by noting that he is an adminstrator of Encyclopedia Dramatica, a site dedicated in part in harassing and hounding MONGO and other editors of this website. We're just putting it in context. MOASPN 17:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that is what intent seems to be. Otherwise, why keep mentioning it in edit summaries, the talk page, etc at every moment possible?

Can you read minds? I'd like that power. Are you an adminstrator of ED also? MOASPN 17:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Sigh, I give up.

On second thought. No, I am not giving up. I can't read minds. But I can take what appears to me to the be the intent (and it is fully my opinion) for bringing it up. To disparage the contributor instead of his or her argument itself. You are doing the same thing, in my opinion, here by explaining what ED is and what role that person may or may not have had. Accusing me of being an editor there is the same action as above. What part of my argument is faulty? Did my diffs not show that the person was reverting based on who the person is and not what the argument was? Did my diffs attempt to disparage the person by commenting on the person rather than their argument? I don't think so. If I might have missed it, please show it to me. Spryde 17:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not accusing you of anything - I'm asking you if you are an editor there. You seem to think I'm attributing motives to people by noting they are adminstrators of Encyclopedia Dramatica, a site dedicated in part in harassing and hounding MONGO and other editors of this website. Since they are, in fact, adminstrators of Encyclopedia Dramatica, a site dedicated in part in harassing and hounding MONGO and other editors of this website, it seems that you are able to draw connections between their being adminstrators of Encyclopedia Dramatica, a site dedicated in part in harassing and hounding MONGO and other editors of this website and their actions with respect to external links and MONGO. Why would you do that? I'm shocked, shocked that you would violate WP:NPA by assuming that adminstrators of Encyclopedia Dramatica, a site dedicated in part in harassing and hounding MONGO and other editors of this website would be harassing and hounding MONGO. MOASPN 17:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) Nope, been there, read a few pages, did not like it have not been back. Let me ask you a question, what is the point of repeating the same phrase over and over except to make a point? And to comment, the recent edits by the ED people have been mostly constructive in my opinion. Their recent contributions may have not been to MONGO's liking but IN MY OPINION, he is quick to react and has a temper which got him into trouble in the first place. He contributes quite a bit towards the project but he also grates on many people's nerves with the "fuck off" edit summaries, accusations, and basic way he steamrolls people which he suspects of being someone else. This causes valuable editors to leave/be banned/etc. Spryde 17:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

If you get the chance. please produce evidence that I have steamrolled a single "valuable" editor off of this website...on the contrary...I have seen a lot of valuable editors steamrolled off this website by ED supportors...I can name a half dozen that have left due to the harassment that has been written on that website about them. If you are going to make accusations, then you best gather your facts to substantiate them.--MONGO 06:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

MOASPN, I don't edit stuff about Wikipedia on ED. I've been editing Wikipedia going on several years now. You're not contributing to the discussion by maligning my intentions. The issue is whether MONGO's daily edit warring is disruptive. Is it? SchmuckyTheCat

Please can we not argue over who edits ED on this noticeboard. It's not relevant to anything, ever. Take it to user talk or something. Milto LOL pia 17:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Please focus on the edit warring, not the name calling, please.

It's been shown for two years that MONGO has carte blanche to be incivil and call names. Nobody cares anymore. It's me he's calling names and I'm asking everyone to please focus this only on the edit warring behavior. SchmuckyTheCat

Who is he edit warring with? Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Depends on who's online when he signs on. Last night it was myself, Privatemusings, and Schmucky. Meanwhile his only input at the talk page was the sort of insults that have disrupted the page for a while now. I'm not making an issue now of the name-calling, only that his lack of meaningful input on talk makes it clear he won't stop this warring. Milto LOL pia 17:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Why is it worse for him to revert than for you to revert? Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Because it seems to me at least that there is a burgeoning consensus building and he opposes it. Spryde 17:54, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

And, as I've said before, because of his lack of discussion on the talk page. His only input there is to sidetrack others with personal remarks. Milto LOL pia 18:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I gave MONGO a polite final warning on his long, continuous pattern of incivility and personal attacks the other day; he rebuked my warning and continued as usual, so I blocked him. The block was overturned within minutes, and he's only continued the same behavior. It seems clear at this point that the community has basically given MONGO a free pass to be as disruptive as he pleases. --krimpet⟲ 17:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Rebuking an administrator is not grounds for a block. Though if that ever changes, I'll be all over it. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

That is not the case at all. You blocked me because I removed your warning with the comment "Bye"...that was an abuse of your admin tools, period. Furthermore, Schmucky reverted my change back to the older version which used wording directly from an arbcom case which states that ED is not to be linked to. Schmucky is a contributor to ED, as is Miltopia...so there is a definite COI when these two are removing information to the NPA policy which details that we don't link to that website. Schmucky's revert also seemed, at least at first, to be random as I had not seen him making any effort to participate in the ongoing discussion on that policy talk page. Lastly, Schmucky seems to be forum shopping at this point...not getting a block for 3RR (which I have not violated), he then marches here to complain further...Nevertheless, I will self impose a 1RR restiction on myself on that policy henceforth.--MONGO 18:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The page is currently protected. I'll add it to my watchlist and help out when I can. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh whatever, Tom, you're proxy reverting for him and all you ever bothered to do on the talk was "vote" on the poorly-attended RfC that was made obsolete by my rewrite oft eh section. Milto LOL pia 18:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

MONGO, it's not forum shopping when the closing admin says it belongs in a different forum. kthx. SchmuckyTheCat

Let's remember-- these edits happened at WP:NPA. It isn't an article-- it's a policy. Regardless of what you think the policy SHOULD be, it is NEVER okay to knowingly take some highly contentious proposal text and just edit it into a policy page. If you know it hasn't gotten consensus, you should NEVER put it into policy. You just shouldn't do it-- not even once. Policies reflect consensus-- if you take a rejected proposal and even ONCE add it into a policy page-- you're being disruptive-- and I've seen people blocked for less.

Now, by my count-- MONGO has taken highly-disputed text, text he KNOWS is highly disputed, and he has added it into policy TWELVE times. Not once, not twice-- TWELVE times.

How many times are we gonna let him do this before we stop treating this as if it were "just another article content dispute" and start seeing it as a disruptive editor trying to edit-war a rejected proposal into becoming policy in order to circumvent consensus? --Alecmconroy 19:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm encouraged that MONGO has pledged to abide by 1RR in the future. This is very encouraging. But the point my comment stands-- even 1 revert is too many if you're using that revert to re-add highly disputed text into a policy. --Alecmconroy 20:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's easy to claim to only do 1RR yourself once you've organized your posse to join in. SchmuckyTheCat

Schmucky, press the extra tilde and help us all out. As far as MONGO's editing of this page goes, yesterday I asked him why he chose to revert an IP's good faith edits ([52]), and his reasons were that in his view, IP editors should not be allowed to edit policy pages ([53]). This is also a concern. As best I can see, MONGO is loath to allow this policy to exist in any form which does not include the link to his ArbCom case, I think because it expressly forbade ED linkage. This, despite it now being made defunct by the more recent and general ArbCom attack sites ruling (and the meta blacklist). The majority of editors participating see having both as pointless and potentially confusing, MONGO wants it there and thus far he has reverted 2 or 3 times a day every day using various edit summaries, but all with the same end result. Neil ☎ 21:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Schmucky and Miltopia joining up to complain about MONGO? Is this the right Wiki for this crap? Close down this thread and stop whining. --DHeyward 22:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

That's just not helpful. As I've said before elsewhere-- MONGO needs help from his friend to DISCOURAGE bad behavior, not to egg him on. With feedback from those he respects, MONGO could spend 100% of his time helping the encyclopedia-- instead of the case now, where despite incredibly positive contributions, a fraction of his behavior is highly disruptive. Help him to see this and you help him to become a better editor, and one day again, an admin. Egg him on, dismiss complaints like these as the `whinings of trolls` and you only make the problems worse for Mongo in the end. --Alecmconroy 23:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, DHeyward, I feel the wikilove. My three years of contributions here are meaningless because I've dared to call MONGO on his disruptions? I can see my presence is appreciated. SchmuckyTheCat

We just had an ArbComm case in part because of edit warring on WP:NPA, and now we have more edit warring about WP:NPA. Something needs to be done to put an end to this, and I am starting as an admin to believe that the right solution is to invite certain participants to go away and not return. MONGO's reported behaviour in this matter is not acceptable. GRBerry 02:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The bad behavior is that of ED and WR partisans who have tried to get the NPA policy altered so that they can link to their capricous websites and not be blocked doing so. Did everyone miss the part that Miltopia reverted three times as well, or is that not a big deal? This is the same song and dance I have had from this crowd for some time now...they contiue to mischaracterize my efforts and comments when I have repeatedly shown that they have a serious conflict of interest when they remove prohibitions about linking to malicious sites and they are active participants in these very same sites. In article space, we block or end up doing topic bans for COI...why is this any different? I recommend a topic ban on the partisans of these websites. In addition, the external links policy proposal so many are boasting about is still a proposal so there is no reason to remove current arbcom case of from an existing policy until (if) that external links proposal passes.--MONGO 06:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't bode well that you can't refrain from slinging insults even in a thread discussion the disruption you've caused by slinging insults.

Here's the facts-- I'm not an ED member, I'm not a WR partisan, and I have no interest in promoting ASM. The same holds for almost everyone else involved in this debate. And it's my feeling that you have tried very very hard to spread lies suggesting that I am affiliated with those psychos-- and I'm pretty damn sick of it.

• At the arbcom case, we were all having a very civil discussion about the many important issues raised. You chose to present "evidence" that said nothing of the actual issues, but just instead accused me of being part of a campaign of harassment.

• I raised concerns on the WP:NPA talk page. I politely explained my point of view, in great detail, and explained why the BADSITES text was disputed. Many valued community members expressed similar points of view. You reinserted the disputed text explaining "the only dispute is by those who contribute to WR"

• GTBacchus, a very valuable and respected member of the community, joins the discussion. You dismiss him by saying "GTBaccus is also an ED contributor and always comes to the defense of his fellows." When he takes offense, you stand by your statement: "says I 'lie'...how odd, 'cause I always see whenever ED is brought up, there he is, defending present and past editors of that website...I am not a liar, thanks!"

• When your disruption and personal attacks are reported to ANI, your justification for the disruption you've caused is simple: "Schmucky is a contributor to ED, as is Miltopia".

• Your actions are criticized, and you are given several warnings to cease making personal attacks. Your response is to declare the entire dispute to be the work of ED partisans. Think about that just for a second. When we take time to ask you to stop slinging personal attacks, you dismiss the whole lot of us with another vile personal attack????

How DARE you try to justify your own misbehavior by fabricating some link between me and ED just because I disagree with you about a content policy. How DARE you take an important discussion over the fundamental nature of this project, in which practically everyone on all sides is acting out of sincerity, and try to pass it off as just a trollish campaign to promote some hate sites.

It seems you will justify any actions whatsoever merely by alleging that one of your opponents is affiliated with ED. And if that behavior is so ingrained in you that you can't cease it even for five minutes, in the midst of a discussion about how you need to cease it-- I truly fear that in the end, you're gonna have to go.

I'm sorry to be so blunt, but this little tactic of dragging people's names through the mud every time you get into a content dispute-- it's gotten real old, and I'm quite sick of it. Stop it. Stop it right now. Don't do it again. Seriously....

The sad fact is, however, I don't think that you can stop. I bet dimes to doughnuts, even after I've warned you, even after I've asked nicely, even after I've told you I think you're unable to stop attacking people-- I bet you your response, and the responses of your allies, will still be to imply, allege, or accuse people of being trolls, ED partisans, WR loons, or ASM stalkers. --Alecmconroy 08:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. I have nothing whatsoever to do with ED, Wikipedia Review, or any other of these sites, and to be characterised as an "ED and WR partisan" and my comments dismissed is insulting. Right now the "ED and WR partisans", or as I like to call them, all the Wikipedia editors who disagree with MONGO, are coming out of this a whol;e lot better than MONGO. Neil ☎ 08:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry...I guess since Alecmconroy feels that I "have to go", I might as well.--MONGO 09:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Thirded. While I have no wish for MONGO to leave, the lies about other editors' motives and offsite activities must cease. Milto LOL pia 09:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Lies?--MONGO 09:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Lies about myself and Schmucky being active ED contributors. Lies about me and several others advocating support for ED. Lies about me or GTBacchus or several others being "ED partisans". Lies about me wanting to allow links to ED. So yes, I'd say lies. Milto LOL pia 09:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Just checked ED...you still contribute there. Inactive to me at least means no edits, nada, zero...not occasional = inactive...whats this...was this true?...I'm inclined to believe it was trolling. I think we're done here.--MONGO 09:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Did you perhaps notice that both of those diffs were from april? Viridae^Talk 09:46, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Why, yes I did...but was he a newbie then?...he started editing in Ocotber 2006...oh darn, I can't complain about other editors...this is actually the AN/M (Administrators noticeboard/MONGO)...but wait, I already have a board of my own...and no one wants to play there lately, even though I have promised barnstars that are really nifty!--MONGO 09:56, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

At this point MONGO has once again receded into incoherent rambling about me. That or he is just blatantly trolling, but I'm inclined against believing that. This is pretty much how every dispute MONGO has thrown himself into with me has gone. Milto LOL pia 10:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

For the record, during either the most recent, or next most recent, previous MONGO thread on AN/I, he accused me of being a WR/ED troller as well. It really is becoming his standard reply. And, in the interest of full disclosure, After being attacked like that, and after he refused to take it back, I went and looked. I've never registered as a member of either, and only started reading ASM last night, in regards to another thread on AN/I. So now, MONGO's made someone else into a reader of his most hated sites by accusing them. It's only a matter of time til he's a one man membership drive. MONGO needs to see the substance of their complaints, not be dismissive of them using personal attacks on them. ThuranX 11:43, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

(unindent)The accusations don't matter in any case. Let MONGO throw out his accusations. They are meaningless. Offsite actions aren't important to Wikipedia. Which, fwiw, was another ArbCom finding in a MONGO case that he chooses to ignore so he can continue to sling the accusation around. SchmuckyTheCat

Here is an interesting comment on a very similar issue from one of our most experienced and influential editors. I completely agree with the sentiment expressed; civility is non-negotiable here as without it the entire community becomes unworkable and the project fails. On the plus side I see good signs of progress here and here and MONGO's statement that he will adhere to 1RR on the policy page in future. --John 19:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

BLP violation protected by an admin boy

Please check the last dozen or so edits on this talk page. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Sonia_Gandhi&action=history No edit war was there, warranting protection. Nishkid a Hindu fanatic supporting ultra rightist politics in India just desires to keep the insinuations on Sonia Gandhi. 59.91.253.175 16:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This section should be removed as nothing but personal attacks. Corvus cornix 17:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Regardless, there was no edit war - there was a SINGLE edit (as four section edits, uninterrupted) and a SINGLE revert (as a series of undos). I haven't even so much as looked at the content of the section and I can tell the protection isn't warranted yet. I'll note, also, that WP:BLP says These principles apply to biographical material about living persons found anywhere in Wikipedia, including user and talk pages. (emphasis mine), and one of the edit summaries appears to be asserting this is not the case. —Random832 18:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I like how "admin boy" isn't a red flag at all that this is trolling. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I like how claiming you're just innocently asking if there's any truth to it gives people carte blanche to post unsourced negative speculation. Regardless of who this 59 is, or what his intentions are, that section (and its reinsertion) were blatantly inappropriate. —Random832 18:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I've looked further and can see that this user is clearly a sockpuppet of a banned troll as was stated by the protecting admin - however, the one section that I linked the diff for should still not be kept on the talk page per WP:BLP (the others that he removed don't seem to be the same sort of thing, and can probably be kept) —Random832 19:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Quite so. Unprotection and excision soon, please. Relata refero 19:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think the semi-protection was unwarranted anymore - just that the particular section I linked to should not be kept. —Random832 20:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Does Admin Boy wear a cape? What are his powers? Neil ☎ 21:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

He's the sidekick to B'cratman ;^). -Jéské ^{(Blah v^_^v)} 19:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Violation of WP:POINT?

MinsiPatches (talk · contribs) appears to be creating several AFDs on scout camps after an article in which s/he was apparently heavily involved was deleted per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Camp Minsi. Katr67 17:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Consistency is not disruptive. If he honestly believes the principle under which one article was deleted applies to other articles, he should be free to nominate those other articles for deletion as well. "Then delete those too" is a very common response to WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS yet we accuse people of violating Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point when they actually do so? —Random832 17:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

And, just to clarify, are you saying those articles should be kept? Then maybe you should add some references to independent sources and assert notability, rather than complaining about who nominated them. —Random832 17:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback--you're right about "other stuff" vs, "point" in Afds. I have no opinion as of yet whether the articles should be kept, I'm really only interested in the Oregon one, which is part of WP:ORE. I don't have much interest in scout camps, I just wanted to make sure this wasn't somehow a bad faith nom. Also s/he quoted pretty much the nomination rationale from the deleted article, so that kind of seemed pointy to me too. I suspect this isn't a violation of policy, but it made me uncomfortable to let it go by without mentioning it somewhere. Katr67 18:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec)MinsiPatches is reiterating the deletion reason for the Campi Minsi deletion. But is this strictly a POINT violation, or is the user saying "well, if that's the standard we have, then we should apply it fairly". Katr67, incidentally, it would have been helpful if you had asked MinsiPatches what the reason was before bringing this matter here. On briefly looking at some of those nominated, such as Treasure Island Scout Reservation and Resica Falls Scout Reservation, they do indeed appear to not assert notability beyond being a scout camp (no-one famous went there, nothing notable happened there, etc.). If MinsiPatches had nominated a huge swathe of articles (I count 7, I think, hardly massive) or if the articles nominated were clearly notable and the nomination reason was bogus, then that might be POINT, but I don't think this is. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:00, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

---

Here's how this can happen entirely in good faith:

1. User sees other scout camp articles, figures it's ok to have an article about one, decides to post one about the one he went to (since it's not there / he knows stuff about it / etc)
2. It gets nominated for deletion, because it's not really notable. Ok, so maybe those others didn't get noticed (maybe because they're from an earlier time when the winds were blowing in a more inclusionist direction, maybe just because they slipped under the radar of the NP watchers.) So, apparently scout camps aren't inherently notable, and ones that fall below a certain threshold get deleted
3. User nominates the other non-notable articles for deletion.

At this point, none of us have any business thinking otherwise. WP:POINT is often misapplied because its most commonly used shortcut does not mention disruptiveness. —Random832 18:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

(In partial reply to Finlay McWalter above) The problem here is that some of the nominated articles are notable, some extremely so. Treasure Island Scout Reservation is the founding place of the Order of the Arrow. E. Urner Goodman, founder of the OA and thus one of the most notable scouting figures in history, was the first director there. It is also one of the oldest, possibly the oldest, continually operating scout camps in America. Other articles nominated meet the notability standard by providing multiple independent sources, which the copied-and-pasted nomination claims do not exist. This implies that the nominator is simply trying to find articles about scout camps and nominating them for deletion without even caring what camp they are about or the content of the article. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I see one broken link to an area newspaper. Which articles are sourced to multiple independent sources? —Random832 00:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Treasure Island has several sources, and as noted is inherently notable anyway.

Camp Pioneer makes a link to an article that mentions the page, and sources several other papers. As I noted in the AfD for that page, several do appear to be trivial, but there are at least two that would appear to be of some use. Two = multiple.

The remainder I do agree are not notable, however as stated above I don't think the nominator actually bothered to check on them, just noticed they were scout camps and slapped 'em on the board. Perhaps it would have been better to phrase the above "some are notable, one extremely so", but the point still stands. No attempt seems to have been made to find sources for these, no attempt seems to have been made to make a good faith nomination. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 01:48, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

If you think this is not bad faith set of noms, check this: [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Scouting#What_a_bunch_of_pussies] and this: User_talk:MinsiPatches#What_kind_of_.5Beditor.5D_are_you.3F, which originally had the words User_talk:172.134.136.206#Welcome! (Regarding User_talk:MinsiPatches#What_kind_of_fucking_idiot_are_you.3F). Rlevse 17:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Not to go off on a tangent here, but my favorite thing I saw... That IP essentially engages in personal attacks while posting a rather pointless screed, and they get a welcome template instead of a warning. Fabulous.--Isotope23 ^talk 17:49, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• Regardless of the intent, it certainly appears to not be an overly successful set of AFDs. I'd say at this point, let the AFDs run course, stick the template on the talkpage when these are presumably kept (or not if they are merged), and if the editor continues with noms after that, deal with it at that point.--Isotope23 ^talk 17:59, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Shakesomeaction (talk · contribs · logs) and WP:LEGAL

Resolved

I responded to this comment from Shakesomeaction by leaving them this message. I received the reply I don't appreciate this and will be filing sexual harassment charges later this week. While I do not think I am at serious risk of legal action here I would be grateful if somebody could have a word with them about our legal policies. Of course, if anyone feels I have acted in any way inappropriately I would welcome constructive criticism. Thanks, --John 18:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Am I missing something? What was the sexual harrassment supposed to have been? From the looks of the discussion, I think Shakesomeaction misinterpreted your comment, and for some reason, took it personally. -- _{Folic_Acid | talk}  18:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I am at a loss myself. Perhaps it was meant to be a joke of some sort, but this is not a good thing to joke about. --John 18:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of the sense it makes (or doesn't), I've blocked for WP:NLT. -- Merope 18:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt action. --John 18:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Closing discussions contrary to apparant consensus

I thought it was an isolated incident when looking at this delete decision, but after looking at other discussions closed by this user, it appears he is using the same rationale on others as well - in short, "I can choose how to weight arguments, and I chose to simply ignore most of them", regardless of whether that action reflects any apparant consensus, policy, or anything else. I've been advised by another admin that this should be posted here for discussion, so here it is...

On the above cited discussion, there was only one delete argument - that of the nominator - and a relatively weak one as well (later stating that all categories used for collaboration should be replaced with userboxes!). The other "delete" vote was simply "Delete per nom" with no actual argument. There were five "keep" votes, all with well-reasoned arguments, including one pointing to all the past discussions for keeping the category, one stating how this category had greatly helped a user collaborate, etc., and generally completely outweighing the (single) delete argument, in terms of number, strength of argument, refutation of the single delete argument, and every other metric possibly used to determine consensus.

However, User:After Midnight closed it as "delete", providing the rationale that, in essence, he can chose to ignore any arguments he disagrees with. Since there was only one actual delete vote, this means he decided to simply ignore every keep argument, as no other action could have resulted in a delete decision.

Were this an isolated incident, it probably wouldn't belong here, but it appears to be a trend, and not isolated to this admin either. Other discussions ended in "delete" despite an apparant consensus to keep as well, and one that was kept despite an apparant consensus to delete, but the above-mentioned discussion is the most obvious example, so the one I chose to discuss here.

While we should appreciate that admins are tackling these often backlogged pages, the closer's job is to ensure the decision reflects community consensus, not to apply his or her personal opinions to determine the outcome. Regardless of these personal opinions on whether the categories mentioned should exist or not, something needs to be done about mis-closing dicussions based on them. DRVs have generally proved fruitless - no one bothers making arguments on whether the discussion was closed correctly, instead it just turns into a repeat discussion with content-based rather than process-based arguments - and the DRVs are then subject to the same mis-closings that happen with the original discussion.

For this example, the response seems pretty obvious (it was closed in error, reverse it; just need to find someone with a bot to repopulate the category, as it'll take a lot of edits!), but what should be done about this in the long term, and for other debates? Should other users make more of an effort to watch closings to ensure they reflect consensus? The one mentioned above is so blatant that I suspect someone could have immediately overturned it and discussed it later, regardless of their opinion on whether the category should exist or not. Perhaps some effort to make sure deletion reviews only discuss process-related arguments? As much as I'm not a fan of even more policies, should we create one on exactly what leeways a closing admin does and doesn't have when evaluating a discussion? Or maybe we need more guidelines on categories, rather than the-whims-of-any-discussion-and-its-closer, preventing so many extra debates? Thanks for reading (and your ideas), Bushytails 18:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC).

In this particular case, it appears that the closer reviewed the opinions and didn't find the argument of "building community" to be a compelling reason to keep based on the goal of building an encyclopedia. Given that XfD is not a numerical count or vote, Closers are usually give some level of leeway on closing provided they justify their decision. We have DRV explicitly so these decisions can be reviewed if someone feels they were not correct. Personally I don't think we need more "rules" on AFD closing... but that is just my opinion.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

But the closer shouldn't be able to arbitarily decide to ignore all arguments on one side of the issue based on a personal opinion - doing so is no different than simply deciding the outcome based on ones opinion. Unless there is foundation policy or other strong reason to invalidate arguments, they can't simply be ignored. Bushytails 01:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

But if the community consensus is that "buidling community" is a valid reason to keep, on what grounds can an admin over-ride it? Unless it is in direct opposition to policy, I think that an admin is bound to determine consensus, not to substitute their own judgment for that of the community. I don't think we need more rules, but I do think that admins need to keep their own opinions regarding an article in check when closing an AfD. -Chunky Rice 18:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Somehow I don't think 7 participants in a CFD really adequately represent community consensus either way... Regardless, I still am strongly of the opinion that additional guidelines and policies concerning XfD closure are not demonstrably warranted off of one CFD close. This is a case for DRV if the participants feel the closer got it wrong.--Isotope23 ^talk 19:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Closing admins need to be able to make judgment calls when, say, there is consensus to keep "Furry wikipedians" but also consensus to delete "identification categories". They also should take strength of argument into account: not all arguments are created equal. --Kbdank71 19:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Is there a consensus to delete self-identification user categories? I can respect the decision (but think we need to visit the issue) if there's a strong policy against grouping wikipedias by personal attributes (gender, nationality, geography, birthplace, political party, occupation, etc). If there is such a policy, though, then unless the categorization causes some technical difficulties or grave disruption, I would find it rather autocratic and out of step with the rest of the world, at least America, in terms of self-expression and personal freedom. Further, the fact that furry or GLBT users wish to self-identify is evidence of a lack of such consensus. The outcome here is anti-gay and POV in practice, even if not by intention. If there is no such policy, it exceeds a closing administrator's discretion to decide that sexual orientation isn't as worthy as some other distinction. That kind of decision has to be made project-wide and not rest on the whims and prejudices of a single Wikipedian. But why not just nominate this and the LGBT category for deletion review? Presumably the reviewing admin will overturn if there is a consensus to do so and no policy otherwise, and this admin will start to notice if his/her decisions are frequently overturned that they need to pay more heed to the arguments made. If that fails, then it may be time to consider AN/I, mediation, or whatever the next step is. What is the process if one has a reasonable dispute over the outcome of a DRV? Wikidemo 19:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

See the DRV's here and here. --Kbdank71 19:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. It looks like we have a larger issue of people pushing an agenda against Wikipedias expressing their personal differences via categories, and possibly one of anti-gay bias. Still dangerous waters for admins to wade into, and a decision that should be made in a wider forum than a category deletion or deletion review, but not a clearly improper decision by the closing admin. This isn't my issue (nor, I assure you, do I feel so passionately about anything right now at the moment), but for people who do have a principled objection to the outcome of a DRV, what's the next step up the dispute resolution chain? Wikidemo 19:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

As noted above, I nominated Category:Furry Wikipedians for deletion review. It was closed out because a small group have successfully deleted a variety of identity-based categories, and have used this to suggest that there is a "general consensus" to delete such categories. The closing admin of the deletion review apparently agreed with this, despite the significant support for the category displayed in response to the nomination. I don't think there is such a consensus, and the responses in this deletion show that others are of the same opinion. I think some editors - often the ones who are most actively interested in trimming categories - have been looking over time at various sparsely-populated or "joke" categories and saying "yeah, that's not useful". In many cases, they might be right. In this particular case, I and others think they were wrong, as was shown in responses to the original nomination. That is why these nominations got "keep" as a response rather than "delete". I don't believe they're pushing any particular POV myself - nomination does not signify an "anti-furry" or "anti-gay" bias, any more than attempting to delete a religious identity category signifies an "anti-Catholic" or "anti-Protestant" bias - but I do think that each category should be considered individually (I guess it is possible that they were attempting to implement this meta-policy in a roundabout way, but I doubt it). The assumption that they don't support collaboration is a little unconvincing, because where do you think WikiProjects come from? Successful projects are not started on a dime - they are at their root collections of users interested in a particular topic, and the easiest way to collect them in the first place and ongoing is to have an identity category. It is hard to show other tangible benefits to identity categories - just like it's hard to say why userboxes are worthwhile - but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Certainly where there is a demonstrated use for the category and no particular cost to the encyclopedia, they should be kept. Honestly, these I don't think the categories would cost anyone anything if they weren't constantly being nominated for deletion out of a sense of tidiness. The people who spent the time hunting them down and deleting them would undoubtedly like a simple rule such as "delete all identity categories", but I think an even better rule would be "don't bother nominating them unless a particular category does demonstrated harm." Then we could focus on the things that are actually causing a problem for editors - or, perhaps, on the people causing the problem ("categories don't start edit wars, people start edit wars"). GreenReaper 20:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I can agree with that... when I started the metalworking wikiproject, I had to go through quite a bit of effort to find members to consult, by looking at page histories to see who had edit patterns that looked like they'd might want to contribute to a wikiproject, etc - if there were a "Wikipedian Metalworkers" category, it would have made it much easier! Bushytails 01:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

So, let's see: you (plural) didn't get the result you wanted in the UCFd discussion, So you posted a DRV. YOu didn't get the result you wanted there, so now you're posting here. At what point is this "asking the other parent"?

As far as I can tell, all the concerns illustrated above were discussed both in the UCfD and the DRV. And please remember that consensus, not voting, is how discussions are resolved.

That aside, I understand that identification can be considered a personal thing for some people. You shouldn't take the nomination personally, however. They were (and are) about cleaning up the Wikipedian category structure. If your concern is that you'd like a larger forum for the idea that "identification-based" Wikipedian categories should be kept, then please feel free to start a Village pump discussion concerning it. But please don't start attacking good faith editors because you didn't get your way. - jc37 22:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, the result of the ucfd _was_ keep. Like everyone expected. The problem is that decision was ignored by the closing admin - "I disagree with what people are saying, so I'll just ignore them." This is not the proper way for a wikipedia administrator to act - except for foundation issues, consensus trumps just about everything, especially one person's opinions. That one category is but a drop in the lake of admin actions not agreeing with consensus or policy, and just serves as a good example. The DRV serves as another example - most of the "endorse" votes were about the content of the category, rather than the process of deletion - exactly NOT what DRV is for. Of the three remaining endorse votes, two of them were "because it's a sexuality category, and we just deleted those" - wrong because it's not a sexuality category, and wrong because having just deleted something else (in a controversial and abuse-prone decision) does not automatically make policy. That leaves only ONE actual endorse vote... the original closer defending his right to ignore all who disagree with his opinions. And he lumped it in with the unrelated sexuality categories as well. There wasn't actually ANY argument for endorsing the deletion made there other than the category-lumping one by the original closer, and several for its undeletion ("I don't really see consensus to delete in the debate, either numerically or by weight of argument. ... Starblind 16:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)", etc, indicating significant concern for consensus not being reflection in the decision) yet it was closed as "endorsed".

Your opinion is the category shouldn't exist. Fine, you are allowed to have that opinion. But you must keep in mind that the obvious result of the discussion was that it should - you were the only person to make an argument as to why it shouldn't, while every other person who made an argument said it should. As to good faith... while I try to assume it of everyone, I am forced to conclude otherwise in this case. Someone can not simply ignore one side of the debate and be assumed to be acting to benefit the community they just ignored.

This discussion isn't about a category, it's about the ability for an admin to say "my opinion is this side is wrong, thus I'll completely ignore them". As soon as that is acceptable, we might as well toss the concept of consensus out the window - something I hope no one here agrees with. Bushytails 01:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Busytails, you provided a link to the deletion discussion at Wikipedia:User categories for discussion/Archive/October 2007#Category:Furry Wikipedians. In it User:After Midnight says "Decision based on strength of arguments, precedent and the cited DRV. Many arguments to keep for a sense of community are given less weight as depreciated." However, you have stated that they said "I can choose how to weight arguments, and I chose to simply ignore most of them", "I disagree with what people are saying, so I'll just ignore them." and "my opinion is this side is wrong, thus I'll completely ignore them". Could you please provide links to where After Midnight said that he would ignore them? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 08:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe Bushytails was offering his own paraphrasing of what After Midnight was saying rather than providing direct quotes. However, that has been the effect - the consensus of the people who actually showed up at this particular UCfD was dismissed, due to prior deletions of different user categories. I was honestly surprised when I saw that closure, because it didn't seem to make sense. GreenReaper 10:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

How can what After Midnight said be turned into "ignore"? His statement is quite clear and in no way dismisses the other arguments. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 16:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

jc37, since when did being tidy become a reason to delete things that have shown themselves to be useful? Try to understand: You have deleted a whole lot of categories that nobody really cared about. This has been generally regarded as a good thing. You are now getting more people saying "keep" rather than "delete". This is the point at which to stop, and say "Mission accomplished", rather than start deleting things people have actually been using to build user communities on Wikipedia. The creation of a general rule for user identification categories to override such discussions is not required, nor desirable. These decisions should be made by individual consensus in UCfD, just like articles.

If you want a guide for nominations, consider "categories covering a topic smaller or larger than that which could reasonably be covered by a single WikiProject." This would exclude both the "silly small" categories such as "Wikipedians who are fans of Ozy and Millie" or "Wikipedians who like Amnesiac" (but not "Furry Wikipedians" or "Wikipedians who are fans of Radiohead") as well as the silly large ones, like "Wikipedians who read books" or "Wikipedians who like food". Basically, if you can't ever imagine having an "Infobox X", it's probably too small, and if that infobox would be a whole page by itself, it's possibly too big. In between that, it's the right size to start gathering a community of editors. GreenReaper 10:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the best answer to this "cause" of "IWANTIT" is to remind you all that the place to contest the closure of User:After Midnight was DRV. And DRV endorsed the closure. That pretty much puts a terminus on all your arguements about him. (And personally, I think you owe him an apology.)

But, to continue this "crusade" is risking becoming disruptive.

As I've mentioned before: If you want to start a discussion about the relevance of idetification categories in general, please feel free to start a talk page discussion somewhere. The Village Pump is an excellent place, for example. - jc37 11:33, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I did. At Wikipedia talk:User categories for discussion#Wikipedians by interest, well before the category in question was deleted. It was not significantly replied to, even though I pointed people to it in the discussion about LGBT Wikipedians. If I have to take it to the pump, I'll take it there. But I think you should ask yourself the same question about disruptive crusades. Nobody asked you to go around nominating these user categories for deletion. You thought it was a good idea, and you did it. And that's how wikis work, so I have no problem with that. But it's come to the point where what you are nominating them, and people are coming up and saying "hey, we were using that" - and actually telling you how, and have others come in without being asked and agree with that - and they're being deleted anyway. That's not good, not when there's no compelling reason for deletion but a sense of tidyness. GreenReaper 13:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree that this is starting to border on being disruptive - DRV is the place to contest the closure of an XfD, and when DRV does not get you the result you want, that does not mean the appropriate "next step" is to seek out yet another forum of complaint in hopes of getting the result one wants. There is no process of endless appeals here. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 17:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Dominic J. Solntseff (talk · contribs)

This user is an spa, who registered to defend the now deleted Marion van de Wetering article, and to hound users whom he feels have somehow wronged Van De Wetering's husband Mark Bourrie. Now that said article was deleted, he resorts to repeated recreations of it. Not to create an article, however, but to fling insults at the people who he holds responsible for the deletion of Marion van de Wetering. Oh, and this lovely message was only just posted on my talk page. Someone please block this highly obnoxious spa, who contributes nothing to the encyclopedia.--Atlan (talk) 19:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to block a newbie without at least trying to reform him first. I've left a warning on his talk page asking him to play nice. Let's see if he takes any notice. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

As if it's a newbie trait to insult and harass. Oh well.--Atlan (talk) 19:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You know not everyone in the world is aware of Wikipedia's rules on polite debate. Actually being rude is pretty much the norm on most other websites. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Alright. I just thought ignorance wasn't an excuse. Doesn't matter, I'm fine with your warning.--Atlan (talk) 20:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Update: As he readded the personal attack to Atlan's talk page I've blocked for week. This will give him the chance to cool off and the deletion review debate the chance to go ahead minus the insults. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 22:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Ombudsman banned

Ombudsman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), an editor of two years plus, with thousands of edits and no prior blocks, was recently blocked indefinitely by Jimbo Wales, who noted in the block log that the name suggests a "role account". I doubt an editor of such long standing can be considered a "role account" and I don't believe Jimbo realizes this; in any case an indefinite block for such a tenured editor is not the only means of preventing the person from posting inappropriate links. I've posted a note on Jimbo's talk but he's rarely online so I doubt he'll even see it. Obviously no one should be wheel warring with Jimbo but maybe if anyone agrees with me they can mention something on User talk:Jimbo to increase the visibility? Milto LOL pia 19:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd lean towards Jimbo's side on this one. The name could easily confuse new users into thinking the user had some special status. Is there some reason why the name can't be changed to something less confusing? Ronnotel 19:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

? What? That wasn't the meat of the block, just an indication that Jimbo didn't realize the guy has made a career here. But if the guy's been editing for over two years and the username is a problem, then why don't you point out where it has caused a problem int he two years+ the guy's been editing. Surely such a problematic username has caused such problems given the long time of his activity. Milto LOL pia 19:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

While I can understand the confusion about the name, perma-blocking the guy seems more than a bit harsh. Couldn't he just have Ombudsman's name changed? -- _{Folic_Acid | talk}  19:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The issue is also the harassment block, not just the username. Milto LOL pia 19:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not involved at all in the BADSITES nonsense (no opinion implied either way there, BTW) but Ombudsman has been a massively tendentious editor for years on vaccine and psychiatry-related articles. His behavior resulted in an RFC and an arbcom hearing, and he was almost certainly editing in violation of his arbcom-imposed restrictions. I also think the name issue was raised in the past, though I haven't dug enough to find it. I'm amazed his block log remained clean until now. Cheers, Skinwalker 19:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

That's not relevant to this issue. Milto LOL pia 19:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Um, yes it is, because you are promoting him as a good editor, when he was far from it. Skinwalker 19:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• There was some previous discussion of possible problems with this username. Concerns were also raised at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ombudsman. See also m:Ombudsman commission --JWSchmidt 19:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Ok, but there's also the issue of the harassment and whether or not an indef block is the best way to deal with it. Milto LOL pia 19:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest renaming the account. Is that possible, or does he have to create another one? -- ChrisO 19:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest looking closely at Ombudsman's contributions rather than solely the length of his tenure. He's a highly tendentious soapbox-style editor, and recognized as such and sanctioned by ArbCom. Since then he's edited less frequently but no less tendentiously, generally throwing around charges of vandalism, whitewashing, etc. Here are some recent (and entirely typical) highlights:

• "Restore unscrupulously vandalized article" (for an article PRODDED and deleted without comment)
• [54] (not even sure how to describe this)
• More of the same

It would appear that Jimbo's block was based on repetitive insertion of a particular link, but before anyone agitates too strongly that this guy be unblocked because he's been here awhile, I would strongly encourage a more detailed review of his tenure and impact here. The username thing has been done to death and deemed not to be a violation in the past, but there is more than enough reason for this editor to be banned. MastCell ^Talk 20:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Block has been reduced to a week. I suggest those of you with other problems pursue dispute resolution, but my involvement here is done. Thanks everyone for your comments. Milto LOL pia 21:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Good job, Milto LOL pia. A permaban out of the blue did not seem right, at least I could not find a reason for it. Guido den Broeder 21:15, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The one week block seems reasonable. The attempted link placement seemed like a clear cut-case of trolling/harassment. JoshuaZ 00:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Violation of COI by user:Avahram

There is an ongoing mediation about the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad initiated by myself hoping to reach a compromise with different parties.

Unfortunately the mediation has not gained any result since its beginning on 20 May. Since then, the article has been fully protected (except for a couple of days in last two weeks).

Today User:Omegatron unprotected the article with this reason "no justification for protection. mediation has been ongoing for months and is not a reason to lock the page. we don't leave entire articles in a protected state for months because of a dispute about one statement." and then User:Avraham, himself a party of mediation and previous edit-warring, reverted the article then protected it with this reason "Ongoing mediation".

The other problem is that in my opinion the current lead is clear violation of WP:BLP and completely POV for an article about a high ranking official of a state, me and some other users tried to reach a compromise with user:Avraham by adding his own response to the allegation in the lead. But this proposal was rejected by above user with the reasoning that it doesn't belong to the lead (but of course details of the allegation belong).

I would be happy if some third party user invistigate the issues of this article. --Pejman47 19:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not a BLP violation. It's distinctly less than neutral, in my opinion, but I don't think it's a reason that so egregious that it requires some kind of immediate action if there's ongoing mediation. I'm not going to offer an opinion on the utility of long-term protection like this, since I'm not familiar with the circumstances surrounding it, and the mediation. --Haemo 19:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:COI violations require edits "in order to promote yourself or the interests of other individuals, companies, or groups." I am in no way related, either personally or professionally, with any groups whose interests are either pro- or con- the article's subject; unless Pejman is implying that because I am Jewish I am automatically considered incapable of editing the Ahmadinejad article. From my previous interactions with him, I highly doubt he meant something as insulting and ridiculous as that, so I am left to assume that referencing WP:COI was a misunderstanding on his part. Any explanation would be appreciated. -- Avi 20:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It means that you are an admin and you must not use your admin's previlage in an article that you edit-warred. I also told you the same thing when you edited this article when it was fully protected. (do you remember it?)--Pejman47 20:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Restoring the article to the stable, protected state, especially after an unauthorized unlock, is maintaining and protecting the project. The unlock should have been discussed with the locking admin, user:Riana, and the mediator user:Daniel. It was not, and was an improper use of admin tools. Restoring the stable and locked version was anything but, and I believe you know better. Omegatron, as an admin, certainly should know better. -- Avi 21:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I mean in here: Talk:Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad/Archive_17#Image, I got angry in the previous case nad also in this case (even if it seems illogical to you). But please do not use your admin's privileges' in a debate that some of the users are not admins. I hope your misunderstandings have been solved --Pejman47 20:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that your use of WP:COI in the title was a mistake, and you meant possible sysop priv abuse, a completely different issue. See above how protecting the project is the responsibility of the sysops and what actually may have been the abuse here, per WP:ANI#Admin edit rights privilege abuse. -- Avi 21:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I also insist that some third party admin investigate the protection level of that article. I don't see any logic for full protection of an article for about six months. --Pejman47 20:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The page has been protected since October 2, which is 20 days; a far cry from the six months (182 days) stated. -- Avi 21:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Azstatelibrary

Resolved

Azstatelibrary (talk · contribs) apparently is attempting to use Wikipedia for their own purposes, which do not involve writing an encyclopedia. Their User page as well as the articles they have created and the edits they have made to existing articles appear to be problematic. Corvus cornix 19:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Newbie who go mixed up over what wikipedia is all about. Has asked to be removed so I wil;l delete their user page and blank thier talk page for them. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Theresa. Corvus cornix 20:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

StevenBlack repeatedly removing AfD template

Could someone else please talk to this user? I tried explaining the policy to him but he says I'm bullying him. It's my AfD nom and he's called me a whole bunch of names, so I don't feel right blocking him myself. Thanks. -- But|seriously|folks  20:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed he's now moved it to the bottom of the page. Less problematic but still not where it belongs. -- But|seriously|folks  20:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Reply by StevenBlack: My view: It is simply not proper, nor fair to volunteer contributors, to be strafing a topics within the first few minutes or hours of a topic's appearance. I live, work, and play on Lake Ontario, and I have first-hand knowledge and experience in this area. If you look at my contributions I've given a lot to Wikipedia about Eastern Ontario. I've also been a Wikipedian for many years, and I've been operating a very successful technical wiki since 1999. I must tell you: I have NEVER been bullied like I have been bullied today, firstly by the arbitrary deletion of the L.O.W. topic by Butseriouslyfolks (with no backup available!) then the slobbering of that AfD box on the topic within the first hour, well that's too much! Please knock it off, and show due respect for nascent topics. - StevenBlack 01:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you show me the policy where it says articles with insufficient content and/or context should be left alone to "cook"? JuJube 01:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Reply: C'mon, that's disingenuous. Wikipedia is, by definition, a work in process. StevenBlack 03:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

No, what's disingenuous is you bypassing my question. I repeat, show me the policy where it says articles with insufficient content/context get a pass because you think other people will expand on them someday. JuJube 11:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

We're very pleased for your contributions — however, if there are concerns about the notability of a group you've written about, the correct procedure is to address them calmly and carefully at the proper venue. In this case, AfD. It is inappropriate to attack other editors, and to unilaterally remove tags. The first deletion was not "arbitrary" — the text was a copyright violation. --Haemo 01:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Reply: Please show how the text was a copyright violation. Also, the notability of the group in question cannot be ascertained in the first hour of a topic's appearance in an outline form. No? Thank you. StevenBlack 03:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The original article consisted of four sentences. One was copied verbatim from this page. Another was taken from part of a sentence but had two words changed. The remaining sentences were copied verbatim from a single sentence in the source, but split into two sentences with a few words added to one of them. That's a copyvio. -- But|seriously|folks  05:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

As I explained in the discussion page before you deleted it, the description of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper was NOT taken from the website you cite. The website you site is a DIRECTORY full of such summary descriptions of related and allied groups. The text I posted was taken directly from the source: the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper website itself and was modified for NPOV and in other ways I deemed appropriate at the time for the very early stages, the first stages, of fleshing a completely new topic. I was only a few minutes into my work when you, sir, deleted my work in progress, with no explanation, no warning, and apparently, without ANY wider community oversight. You have been repeatedly accused of heavy handedness. I find your behavior boorish and not quite in the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia. Do you know what I did this morning? I had to completely re-trace and redo my work because of YOUR BOORISH and ARBITRARY and INSTANTANEOUS application of power. There was no historical record of my work that I could find, and I have little recourse other than, in my utter frustration, to face a plethora of roused admins that you summoned from this very page. Please, STOP THE BULLYING. I have spent far more time defending this article's right to exist than I have spent actually contributing. Does anyone else find that warped? StevenBlack 09:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

ALSO: One of the so-called "copyright infringements" was (I assume -- I have access to no records) the line "Lake Ontario Waterkeeper is led by President and environmental lawyer, Mark Mattson and vice president, Krystyn Tully." That is a simple statement of fact in an article that was, at the time, barely minutes old. Can you please explain to me how this justifies your unilateral actions, Butseriouslyfolks? StevenBlack 09:30, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

(link, since none has been provided before now.) Any particular reason not to take Chunk Rice's advice from 6.5 hours ago and userfy? Wouldn't that make everyone happy? --barneca (talk) 03:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

People: If you have problems with Lake Ontario Waterkeeper at this stage, less than a day old, then why not the same flak for San Francisco Baykeeper?? What about Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper?? What about most of those listed under "United States" in List of environmental organizations?? Is this, in fact, Wikipedia.us  ?? What's really going on here?? StevenBlack 03:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there are other articles that should not be here. We're working on it. Feel free to help out and tag them. -- But|seriously|folks  05:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That's disingenuous. Please stay on topic. The acid test here is, sir: does Butseriouslyfolks have the rectitude, and the courage of his convictions, to fight for the deletion of the San Francisco Baykeeper article, or is Butseriouslyfolks a wiki admin "bully" who is picking on a new article for petty reasons? See, in Wikepedia we have corporations documented down to the minutest detail in some cases. We have consumer-society products and excesses documented in minute detail. But is there no place in Wikipedia to document established, registered and active groups of people who speak for waterfront and the environment? I argue that there is PLENTY of scope for this in Wikipedia. Clearly you disagree. Butseriouslyfolks, plain and simple, put up, or knock it off. I wager that if you were to apply your logic to San Francisco Baykeeper, you would be soundly defeated and, in my view, rightfully so. StevenBlack 08:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It's perfectly relevant to the topic. The existence or non-existence of other similar articles doesn't give any article the right to make an end-run around policy. (Also, this is wiki.en, as in English. We have plenty of articles about things outside of the United States, as indeed we should.) shoy 12:38, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:POINT removal of sourced content by User:Pupluv

After an extended effort to add a non-notable at Clifton High School (New Jersey), User:Pupluv has gone on a WP:POINT rampage, removing a notable alumnus with a Wikipedia article, claiming that the source does not meet his definition. This comes after an earlier rampage in which WP:POINT warnings were provided by other editors, in which Pupluv was removing content from other articles I have edited. Any assistance in this issue will be greatly appreciated. Alansohn 20:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, can you state this request so that even an admin can understand it.  :) —Wknight94 (talk) 20:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• User:Pupluv has repeatedly removed Ronald F. Maxwell as a notable from the Clifton High School (New Jersey) article, claiming that the entry lacks a reliable source to demonstrate notability. This is in retaliation for an entry he had attempted to add to the article for which no sources were added to demonstrate notability or a connection to the school. He has removed other content from other articles and been warned by other users for WP:POINT violations. Alansohn 20:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• Note that I can use even simpler words if that would help. Alansohn 20:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It does read a "sour grapes" power play, and I've commented as such on the talk. ThuranX 21:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Duckhunter6424

User Duckhunter6424 refusing to participate in discussion [55], and keep pushing his original research by brute force without any sources provided [56] [57] Necator 20:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

BLP violations on Haroon Siddiqui

An anon account [70.181.35.102] has been singularly interested in violating WP:BLP in Haroon Siddiqui article for the last 10 months. Only interested in adding negative information, that too from blogs such as [58],[59].[60]. Looks very peristant. I have also reported it at the BLP violation notice board Thanks Taprobanus 21:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to note that Necator has a habit of pushing his own POV and falsely reporting people who go against him for stuff such as violating OR. This should be looked at in a bit more depth. Jtrainor 18:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Database problems?

I wasn't sure about some of the others, but I know for damned sure I didn't make this edit. Are we having database issues?--SarekOfVulcan 21:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Specifically, the edit I made with that summary was removing a {{notability}} tag -- I didn't touch anything else.--SarekOfVulcan 21:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure you weren't looking at an older version when you clicked "edit"? This diff looks like what you did, i.e., you opened version 166171808, then clicked "edit", then removed the tag, then saved. —Wknight94 (talk) 21:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Use of racial, sexual preference epithets - general policy?

My natural inclination is to come down pretty hard on the use of racial and other epithets but there doesn't seem to be a blanket policy. User:Lunkhead2 caught my attention as a potential problem a while back and I noticed this recent edit. I blocked for 48 hours, but I'd like to make sure I'm not over-reacting. The epithet was directed at a bot, after all. Any input? Ronnotel 21:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Offensive enough that nobody is likely to give you flak over it. I wouldn't. — Coren ^(talk) 21:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd say that's definitely excessive and blockable. I think the relevant policy is just gonna be WP:CIV, where under "more serious examples" we see "Racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious slurs" listed as personal attacks. --Masamage ♫ 21:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Use Common sense when no specific policies describe what to do.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 21:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Eric / Éric Cantona

As I am probably now involved, can an uninvolved admin step in and stop two French users changing all the instances of Eric in the Eric Cantona article to Éric? On one side we have prior consensus, Wikipedia policy (WP:UE), and all relevant reliable sources in English and French([61], [62], [63], [64], [65], [66], [67]) saying it's "Eric" , on the other we have a French user who insists it should be "Éric" because that's how he spells his name, and the other citing the French Wikipedia (not reliable). It's too lame for RFC and as I've edited now, I shouldn't do anything more about it personally. Neil ☎ 21:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Yup. In English we spell Montreal thusly, not as Montréal. Raymond Arritt 21:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Cooldude13233

Can someone take a look at this user's contribs? Seems to be a long history of copyright violations, uploading under misleading tags and removing speedy tags from pages. Latest is Michael Kuss - there are copyright violations left in the edit history, speedy tags being removed and the picture has been uploaded and tagged as a poster when at best it's a promotional image. Exxolon 21:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, at least Image:140 ddb-aen.gif was uploaded with false copyright claim. I'm too sleepy to decide anything but he probably should be blocked IMO. MaxSem 21:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Another instance, [68], is a copyright vio of [69], which he labelled a "poster." I believe the rest of his image contributions are thereby false, given his poor track record of labelling images with correct licensing information. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 04:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible BLP concerns, old AfD

Resolved

 – Discussion closed and article deleted. Woodym555 23:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Can an administrator please review and close Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Defense Department list of terrorist organizations other than the Taliban or al Qaeda as needed? This AfD is now seven days old, and there were extensive BLP concerns surrounding the subject article that were covered on ANI last week. Thanks! • Lawrence Cohen 21:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Irresponsible editing on Archimedes Plutonium

Although the page in question has been deleted, against the vote of the AfD, the discussion here is more relevant than ever.Likebox 23:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I have been involved in editing the page Archimedes Plutonium, and I would like to bring a matter of some concern. The case involves unfortunate editing of the page, which I tried repeatedly to correct.

The editor in question is User:Arthur Rubin. Similar additions were made by User:EdJohnston.

The subject of the page was questioned about a murder, and I didn't know very much about the case then. I wrote that the accusations were groundless (specious was the word I used), and the next thing I know, it reads (specious). While I accept that in any other circumstances this is a legitemate and supportable tag, in this case the effect of the tag on an unsuspecting reader is to sew suspicion. It would have been more responsible to rephrase this section directly, instead of putting tags which have the effect of casting shadows on the subject's character.

Just to be clear about the known facts: Archimedes Plutonium was living in another state for two years at the time of the murder, and he was at home online at the time of the murder. The murderers were two teenagers who confessed to the crime, and fingerprints, boottracks, purchases, matched the scene. Nobody considers the case in the least bit open, and the chance that anyone else was involved is zero.

Further, I was writing about this as an example of the way in which this eccentric character has been harassed because of his notability.

I changed the tags, and tried different wordings, but each time the wording changed back to again be ambiguous about his culpability. No matter what wording I chose, I could not edit this page to make it unambiguous, despite bringing up the comments on the talk page of the two users. EdJohnston placed an incriminating link on the talk page of Archimedes Plutonium, and I had to place a link to a later page on the same site, where the whole thing is solved in order to (hopefully) correct the misleading impression that the previous comments made.

After many days of back and forth, the wording eventually settled down to an acceptably unambiguous phrase, the intermediate stages were so fraught with libel, that I was on edge for many days. I tried to explain my concerns to Arthur Rubin, because at first I thought this was done out of ignorance. But his responses were so bureaucratic and unhelpful, and did not alleveate the dangerous ambiguity. Then I came to the conclusion that this was happening as a result of either gross irresponsibility or of malice.

A representative sample of the edits in question are contained in these links::[70] [71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79]. The relevant comments made on the talk page Talk:Archimedes Plutonium under the section heading "Harrasment, Specious, etc.", although I later added a link and a bolded statement to remove insinuations of culpability. The comments on Arthur Rubin's talk page were made during the same period of time, and the briefer comments on EdJohnston page also.

I would like to point out that the amount of insinuation was so large, that I personally began to think that the two users had some extra incriminating information about Archimedes Plutonium. They never made a single mention of the fact that this case is closed, either on the talk page or in the main page. I had to actively read about the case in great detail to convince myself that indeed he wasn't involved, and then fight with them to get this wording into the page, again and again.

I believe these actions are a blight on wikipedia, and reflect gross abuses by the editors in question, whether they were done out of irresponsibility or malice. I hope that something can be done to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.Likebox 21:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I may not have been clear, but LB is using "specious" to imply "unjustified", but the sources only imply "inaccurate" (and not considered credible by the local police chief, who may not have involved in the actual investigation.) As for "harassment", you would need a source other than AP that he was unjustly harassed.

For what it's worth, that AP was home online at the time of the murder was not known at the time, and would have been difficult to verify even if it had been suspected. (If I had reason to believe I would be suspected of the murder, I could easily set up an anonymizer at my home PC, and connect through it.) The parenthetical remark is WP:OR, but can easily be seen to discredit the unsourced assertion that the police knew that he was home online at the time of the murder.

The "blight" on wikipedia is the recreation of an article deleted under authority of the AfD. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This would be perfectly legalall-right to speculate if the case weren't solved and you were speculating in your own home. To speculate that AP used an anonymizer to go out to another state, put on some teenagers boots, steal a knife from their home, stab a professor and his associate, put the bloody boots back in the teenager's home, and then go back to his home state is Original Research, and more fanciful than anything that Archimedes Plutonium has ever written.

The fact that sources do not say explicitly that he wasn't involved is because it is so bloody obvious that he wasn't involved that they don't feel the need to say it. The only reason the books mention him at all is because he is so interesting and notable. After the obligatory Fun Archimedes Plutonium facts, they go back to talking about the actual case, which goes on and on, and is eventually solved. If you were actually ignorant of the facts of the case, that would have been ok. It should only take a small discussion to explain that he wasn't involved, and the page would be reasonable. But I am not completely sure that you were ignorant of the facts of the case, when you persisted in making ambiguous edits despite pleading and begging on my part. All I was asking was to find some way, any way, to state unambiguously that he was not involved. Eventually, such a way was found, by me, after many, many attempts, but it cost me a few gray hairs.

In my opinion, this is the definition of irresponsibility.Likebox 22:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. But, AfD4 has closed with a delete outcome, so it probably doesn't matter. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Whether you disagree or not, the talk page needs to be kept as evidence for other editors to take a look at, and determine if indeed you acted irresponsibly, and if so, if any other actions need to be taken. The fact that the page has been deleted does not matter, because AP is notable enough and brilliant enough for his page to be recreated along largely the same lines in the future. Your possible wrongdoing, though, is evidenced in the talk page and discussion page. The evidence is overwhelming. The talk page needs to be looked at, as also the edits.

For future reference, the vote on the AfD was a definite keep, and the person who brought it up voted to keep, with no hesitation, and once he understood who AP was, wrote "I am withdrawing my nomination for various reasons. VICTORY FOR USENET".Likebox 23:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This AN/I discussion has no relation to the page. I will only close it after the issue of irresponsibility is settled by a review by other administrators.23:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Specious and inaccurate mean different things, especially in context. If you say specious, and another user says the sources say inaccurate, then a request for souring was valid. --Haemo 01:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't read your comment carefully enough. He didn't say "inaccurate", he just put tags on the "specious" (although, to be fair, he later took out the ). Please go through the records. Then I changed it to something else. I didn't know what he wanted. I was completely at a loss.Likebox 02:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, yes. I know it follows the letter of the law. But I later changed the phrase to "Nobody suspects him of any involvement" using the present tense, and it got reverted. I tried "but he was never under serious suspicion" or words to that effect, and it got deleted, later it got to work the opposite effect of my intention. I racked my brain on this each time to come up with something new that would be OK with Rubin et al, but I couldn't think of anything they liked, and they wouldn't help. This was really jarring, because, I understand disagreements on dubious mathematical content. I also understand disagreements about notability. I understand the controversy about this page, and I sympathize. Even if the whole page is deleted, I understand. But this is an accusation of murder for God's sake. Where is the humanity? This is a human being here, and a human being that I respect very much. I thought I would get an apology at some point, or at least an acknowledgement of error. But all I got was more bureaucratese. This is not decent human behavior in my book, no matter what the disagreements on content.Likebox 02:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

A curious case

User:KXS-KXS has declared that they are a "secret user", and appear to have no intention of ever editing articles. Instead, they seem to be planning some kind of social networking activity called the "brown monster club" (possibly involving giving prizes to editors for treasure-hunting?), and are constructing numerous templates for that purpose.

I've invited them twice to come and join the encyclopedia project, and it's clear from their replies that they have no intention of doing so. What to do now? -- The Anome 23:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• Hide him in your pocket for seeecret eeeeating. JuJube 23:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
• Surreptitiously slip in a WP:NOT#MYSPACE warning. -Jéské ^{(Blah v^_^v)} 23:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Done. -- The Anome 23:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

And of course, point out to him that every 'sekrit page' of his is available in his Contribs. Poor dear. --Thespian 23:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm getting old and curmudgeonly, but I'd be inclined to block the account (at least until s/he voices some interest in building the encyclopedia) and delete everything seen here without looking back. MastCell ^Talk 23:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree, it should all be deleted right away, and the user indef blocked. It may seem harsh, it doesn't seem like they plan on doing any real editing, see this edit, [80] totally ignored the message, and showing no sign of stopping.--Jac16888 00:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Blocking and deleting. -Jéské ^{(Blah v^_^v)} 03:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Done, with help from MastCell. -Jéské ^{(Blah v^_^v)} 03:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a general subgroup of users creating "secret" pages (which aren't secret to anyone who knows Special:Prefixindex) and "autograph books" (where people can parade around huge signatures that violate WP:SIG). I think some of these people need a serious reminder that Wikipedia is not MySpace. Maybe the autograph books and secret pages aren't intrinsically harmful, but they're a waste of time and database space for those who actually want to use this site as an encyclopedia. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 01:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Autograph books have already tasted the blood of wikibattle. Keegan^talk 04:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Faye Resnick

Resolved

 – Anyone may De-prod. Send to AfD.

To whom it may concern: The above article was PRODded on October 19; the PROD notice was deleted without justification or reason by an anonymous IP, which comprised his/her sole contribution to Wikipedia.

Can the PROD 5 day notice be corrected/given credit for the time since October 19, so the PROD will expire on October 24 as it should have done as no one else has contested the PROD, instead of expiring on October 27?? Thanks. 216.194.3.161 23:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

If I read {{PROD}} and WP:PROD right, anyone can remove a PROD tag if they disagree with it, and explanations are strongly encouraged but not required. I think if anyone removes your PROD tag, your only recourse is to go to WP:AFD. Also, there's no reason to automatically think that this is their only contribution to Wikipedia; they could very easily be on a dynamic IP. Unless, of course you have only been here two days too... --barneca (talk) 00:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Barneca is right; IP users are allowed to prod and de-prod, just like people with registered accounts. If it was de-PRODded, and you still think that it should be deleted, AFD is the next step. You'll need to register an account in order to nominate the page there, though (per WP:AFD#Before_nominating_an_AfD). -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 13:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Attacks in Evangelos Venizelos article

I want to ask your keep an eye at the Evangelos Venizelos article. The article is about a greek politician. At about a month ago some people "inspired" by an article in a greek newspaper the started vandalizine the page. After that Venizelos wrote in his blog against WIkipedia and said that he will move against the persons who wrote against him using the Law. In the next days, me and other users discussed the subject in the article's talk page we ended up in a very neutral reference to the article story (since it the subject was covering in the following days by many Greek media), always taking WP:NPOV under consideration.

Some Venizelos' followers, ignoring the consensus and the discussion in the talk page, using anonymous IP adresses, are trying to remove the paragraph they think it's against him. (Obviously the still have in mind an early version made by anonymous users from the other side). I requested semiprotection until the end of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement leadership election, 2007 (November 11) where Venizelos is candidate, twice but it was rejected. Me and two other people are reverting (seldom) vandalism attacks but it's not nice at all to revert personally this kind of attacks. I am usually delaying to revert a vandalism attack on purpose in order to discourage edit war, so maybe the attacks don't look to happen so often, but in reality they are constant. What can you do for that case? -- Magioladitis 23:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I've semi-protected it. That seems like any easier solution. I have semiprotted until the 11th, but I may remove the semiprotection earlier if things quiet down. JoshuaZ 00:07, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I hope the things will calm down in the next days. -- Magioladitis 00:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Second opinions

Any second opinions about this? The editor is a 13-year old who I've recently taken on as an adoptee.--chaser - t 00:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like the right course of action, based on the lack of information in his comment. It's hard to tell if he's asking you to keep away the predators, or if he wants you to tell the kid to go play outside every now and then. --Bfigura ^(talk) 00:44, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. (and tell him the basics of ID protection, for the former, and tell him the latter flat out, LOL.) ThuranX 01:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you should perhaps inform him of certain things, such as the fact that Wikipedia is not censored, and direct him toward related pages etc. That's my 2c. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 11:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Issue with Mississippi governor article

Resolved

 – Welcomed the newbie, and encouraged Allstarecho not to be bitey. --HiDrNick!

User:Govtwatcher comes out of the blue and removes sourced content from Ronnie Musgrove then warns me for vandalism. I haven't touched the article since October 11 until today when I reverted the this users vandalism of removing sourced content and warned him/her for removing sourced content. User came and warned me again for vandalism and a ban threat. As of this writing, he/she hasn't reverted to the edit that he/she did earlier that removed the sourced content but I expect it to take place any moment. See Ronnie Musgrove history, and my talk page with users 2 warnings against me. Would someone calm this person down and get them off of the article and stop them from removing sourced content? -- ALLSTAR ECHO 01:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Blocked as sockpuppet of User:Capitolcap by an admin. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 12:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Requesting Protection on Liberal Until End of AfD

Resolved

And also requesting a look at User:Macosx’s behaviour.

I expanded the liberal article from a redirect using information available under a GFDL compatible license. Macosx chose to take the page to AfD, something I have no problem with and am willing to defend my changes in the discussion.

However, Macosx keeps changing the page back to a redirect in direct violation of two guidelines surrounding the AfD process:

• The article must not be blanked until the end of the discussion
• The AfD notice must not be removed until the end of the discussion

I have reverted his edits twice requesting that he leave the information in place and reminding him of the two guidelines he was breaching, [81][82].

I have also brought the matter up on the article talk page, Talk:Liberal#Blanking and Redirecting, however he has failed to respond to the issues I have raised and instead has claimed first that the information was stolen (it is in the public domain) and then that I was a vandal. After the second time he reverted the link I posted a notice on his page requesting that he doesn’t remove the notice or blank the article until the end of the discussion, he proceeded to call me a vandal again [83].

As such I am requesting that the page be reverted back to the article that was nominated for deletion and given full protection so that it cannot be redirected in contravention of the AfD policy until the end of the debate. I am also requesting that an admin consider Macosx’s actions in knowingly disregarding policy and assuming bad faith against my person and take appropriate action. Thankyou Conservativechuck 02:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Please tell me that you didn't create an POV fork on liberal by cutting and pasting the relevant text from Conservapedia. That site's policies are fundamentally incompatible with Wikipedia's, for reasons that your edit should make abundantly clear. The only "appropriate action" that might be warranted is to remind you not to disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. MastCell ^Talk 03:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, reviewing your contribs, you're pretty clearly not a new user either. The "block troll" button is calling me. Anyone else? MastCell ^Talk 03:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

With respect this has got nothing to do with the content of the article or its source. An editor has chosen to take the article to AfD, and until that discussion has finished the article must not be blanked or the AfD notice removed, these are guidelines clearly specified on the notice. By redirecting the page Macosx has continually violated these guidelines without providing any reason. Furthermore he has persisted in assuming bad faith in labelling me a vandal.

I am more than open to discuss any content disputes on either the article’s talk page or the relevant AfD page. I see nothing disruptive with posting a request here that wikipedia’s policies are upheld, that the article is reverted to the version that was nominated and given protection so that it cannot be turned into a redirect in contravention of the policies required by an AfD.

And no I am not a new user, nor I am currently using any other account. I see nothing trolling about i) expanding an article using a GFDL friendly source ii) attempting to ensure that the AfD process is upheld by abiding by the regulations clearly specified on the notice and iii) requesting page protection from an admin to ensure step two is taken to avoid having an edit war Conservativechuck 03:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Conservapedia's copyrightt status is not compatible with the GFDL. Individuals are of course welcome to dual-liscence content, but that's not what happened here. I'm therefore speedy closing the AfD, deleting the difs and adding the redirect back in. JoshuaZ 03:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Conservativechuck: That's just it. You've imported material which obviously and blatantly violates Wikipedia's core policies, and now you're demanding that a different policy be upheld to the letter rather than the spirit. That's Wikilawyering and it rapidly exhausts peoples' patience. MastCell ^Talk 03:33, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I apologise, I was under the impression that the content was available under the GFDL license. I shall go and see what I am able to take and re-expand at a later stage.

In the meantime can I request to know what measures will be taken against Macosx for violating AfD regulations and assuming bad faith? Conservativechuck 03:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] MastCell, just because you do not agree with something doesn’t mean that it is in “clear violation of wikipedia’s core policies”. Macosx was clearly violating both the policy of the AfD and was assuming bad faith, it is not a question of wikilawyering to adhere to the blatantly obvious notice that you can’t blank the page or remove the sign and then request page protection when someone continues to edit war in clear disregard of these policies. The article went to AfD, and it should have stayed on the article that was nominated, not turned into a redirect before the discussion was finished. I wonder what your response would be about Macosx complaining about me violating policy… Conservativechuck 03:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It's a moot point anyway, Chuck. Best to move on. -- _{Folic_Acid | talk}  03:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It was a copyvio, and was deleted. The outcome was readily apparent. I don't see any administrative action here, since there's no possible prevention anymore. We're not punitive. --Haemo 06:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Nonetheless, it would be helpful to know the puppetmaster of Conservativechuck. Any ideas? Raymond Arritt 15:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

A single-purpose role-account sockpuppet importing inflammatory material from Conservapedia and then demanding sanctions against another editor for failing to assume good faith? The possibilities are endless. MastCell ^Talk 17:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Deer creek high school

Resolved

I have been advised that admins can view deleted articles. Can this article be looked at to see if the school or others should be contacted regarding the content please? SriMesh | talk 03:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Not really. The only eyebrow raising line is "Deer creek high school isthe one school that would get bombed by one of its students." But, in context, it just sounds like it's a statement about how much the editor who wrote it thinks the school sucks. There's a bunch of griping to frame it. It's not a threat, in my opinion. --Haemo 03:33, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. This is frustration, not a threat. Keegan^talk 04:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Fellowship of Friends IP range block - reopening

I am reopenig this case because no decision has been made. At this point, I suspect that Yamla's IP range block on 10/11/07 for a supposed COI at the Fellowship of Friends article was a mistake. Because of the IP range block, 70 people at the organization's building are not able to edit any Wikipedia page from their offices. Note that the building rents offices to businesses that are not related to the organization. Please take a look at the exchange below and tell me what you think. Thanks. Mfantoni 05:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

This is related to the IP range block at the Fellowship of Friends page. I am an editor of that page and my company rents an office at a building owned by the Fellowship of Friends. Sometimes I do edits from the office, but since last Thursday I am not able to edit any Wikipedia page if I connect to the interned through the internet connection that I have at the office. Note that besides me there are more than 70 people working in this building that can’t edit any Wikipedia page at the moment. The reason that was used for blocking the building's connection is COI. I can’t understand this. Why is it that a person editing Wikipedia from this building is a case of COI but the same person editing from anywhere else is not? Wikipedia should block editors, not IP ranges, so I am asking for the IP block to be released. I am copying several administrators in this message. Mfantoni 17:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I am concerned that rather a lot of people who work on a building and are supplied with Internet by the Fellowship of Friends are actually editing that page. Could you please let me know exactly how you, for example, are related to the Fellowship of Friends. Perhaps you are entirely unconnected except that you are employed by a company which rents office space from them. Perhaps you are employed by a company owned by the parent company (if one exists). Perhaps you are employed by a company that has a closer relationship to the Fellowship of Friends than simply being a tenant. Anyway, if you could please let me know. There are some seriously troublesome issues at work here but please understand that I am not accusing you of anything. The problem is simply that a significant number of people using the IP addresses belonging to the Fellowship of Friends is editing the Fellowship of Friends article. --Yamla 17:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Note that WP:COI applies regardless of where a person is editing from. If a person is associated with the Fellowship of Friends and is violating WP:COI, they would be violating this guideline regardless of whether they edited from an IP address owned by the Fellowship of Friends or edited from a home address. The IP address range is blocked because of the substantial undisclosed conflict of interest problems with that article. However, this should not be taken to mean that it would be appropriate for people with a conflict of interest to continue editing from other addresses. Nothing could be further from the truth. --Yamla 17:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, let me try to clarify the situation. I am a current member of the Fellowship of Friends, and that is my only connection with the organization. I am not paid by the Fellowship of Friends to edit Wikipedia, or to do any type of PR for the organization. My company rents an office at the Fellowship of Friends building, and I share a Fellowship of Friends internet connection with other 70 people. Mfantoni 17:56, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

In that case, I believe it inappropriate for you to edit the article on Fellowship of Friends. It would still be appropriate for you to discuss the article on that page's talk page, however. Are you aware of anyone on that IP address range who is not associated with Fellowship of Friends (not a member, not employed by them, not employed by a related company) who is currently blocked from editing as a result of the IP address range block? --Yamla 17:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Why is it that being a member of the Fellowship of Friends is a reason for me not to edit the article? Are members of the Catholic church forbidden to edit the article on the Catholic church? Are French people not appropriate to edit the article about France? This looks like discrimination to me. Mfantoni 18:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

You are a member of the Fellowship of Friends. You are editing from an IP block owned by the Fellowship of Friends. Do you seriously not see why someone would not think this is a conflict of interest? In fact, it appears that you have a management position in the Fellowship of Friends, at least according to this source. Please reread WP:COI. --Yamla 18:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

May be you are not familiar with religious articles. Vassyana, an administrator with experience with religious articles that worked as a mediator in the past, mentioned that any page about a religious organization has editors that are current members of the organization, former members, and people that never belonged to the organization (I can find the diff if you wish). Finally, the link you mentioned above states that I was part of the management team of Kelly Services, not the Fellowship of Friends. Mfantoni 18:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

If you wish, I can bring this matter up on the conflict of interest noticeboard, WP:COIN. Do you believe this would be an appropriate forum? If not, I can come up with some other suggestions. --Yamla 18:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I also without reservation apologise for claiming that you were in a management position with the Followship of Friends. You are correct, the link I provide indicates that you are part of the management team of Kelly Services. I want to also reiterate that I am concerned about COI on Fellowship of Friends but even if you are "guilty" of violating this guideline, please understand that I am not claiming you have been acting in bad faith. It's easy enough to violate one of Wikipedia's numerous policies and guidelines while having nothing but honest intentions, as I believe to be the case here. --Yamla 18:55, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

No need to apologize - this case is not easy and you are trying to collect as much information as you can. Thanks anyway. Mfantoni 00:12, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Mfantoni, members of a faith may edit pages about their group. However, this is a case of members of a group editing from internet access owned by the group. If an employee of Ford Motors were editing from a company IP, or a member of the Community of Christ were editing from a church IP, there would be similar concerns about a conflict of interest. It is not purely membership which is a concern, but also editing from a Fellowship owned site. It is difficult in this instance, to say the least, to distinguish between edits from official Fellowship offices and those originating from leased offices in the same location. Please consider the situation and understand how outside sysops may view the matter. Vassyana 19:27, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

In my understanding the difference between somebody editing from a company owned IP (or site) and somebody editing from a church owned IP (or site) is that in the first case the editor is probably being paid by the company (he is probably an employee or a contractor) but in the second case the editor may be a member of the church with no financial compensation. I examined WP:COI in depth and couldn't find anything mentioning that affiliation to a religious organization and editing from that organization's IP (or site) is a case of COI. Mfantoni 22:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Blocking the IP address range for Fellowship of Friends clearly did not resolve the COI as editors with possible conflicts have continued to edit, presumably via other addresses. This is why I have protected the page. My offer to take this issue to WP:COIN still stands. My concern is that this article is being edited repeatedly by people who either work for the Fellowship of Friends or at least work in the same building and in many cases, are members of the Fellowship of Friends. This does not necessarily violate WP:COI but I am more than a little concerned that a significant proportion of the edits are coming from the Fellowship of Friends IP address range. I'm not singling out individual editors here. --Yamla 17:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I have been unable to find any evidence that anyone not related to the Fellowship of Friends has been editing this article from the Fellowship of Friends IP address. Can you please provide evidence of this? And please note that I have blocked all edits to this article due to COI concerns. I am not taking sides here. --Yamla 17:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Dear Yamla, what sort of evidence? How do you know you are not talking to a non member of the Fellowship of Friends right now? You have to prove what you say, not claim for evidence on the contrary! Baby Dove 07:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Yamla, why is it necessary to find an editor of the FOF page that works in the Fellowship building and is not related to the Fellowship? This implies that somebody should go to each office in the building and ask everybody (that's 70 people), "Are you editing the FOF page in Wikipedia? If yes, are you related to the FOF?" I think that you will agree that that would be a violation of people's privacy. And if somebody finds a person editing the FOF page from the FOF building that claims that he or she is not related to the FOF, will you then unblock the IP range? How can we be certain that he or she is not related to the FOF? I would appreciate if you could explain to me the rationale behind your request. Thank you. Mfantoni 09:47, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Without going into details, there's clearly a substantial conflict of interest going on here. The current position of WP:COIN appears to be disallowing anyone working in the Fellowship of Friends building from editing the Fellowship of Friends article, as per WP:COI. If you truly do not see why it is a conflict of interest for a person to edit the Fellowship of Friends from an IP address range owned by the Fellowship of Friends when we also have no reason to believe anyone who has done so is not also a member of the Fellowship of Friends then I would dispair of explaining things further because it clearly would not do any good. Yes, there's a possibility that we may hit some non-members but there's no reason to believe this has been the case so far. --Yamla 14:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Please, tell me where in WP:COI is the text that says that members of an organization can't edit articles about that organization if the internet connection they use is owned by the organization. I read WP:COI several times and couldn't find it. Thanks. Mfantoni 05:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

If an editor edits a page on an organization (religion, theatre group, store, whatever) that they are involved with, they need to be *exceptionally* careful with their edits in order to avoid conflict of interest and NPOV. I work for a store that absolutely should have a Wikipedia page (it has several unique features and a 20-year history, as well as having articles about it in the papers constantly and mentions on BoingBoing by Cory Doctorow). However, I would not be able to edit a page on it; I would not be able to do so without bias. Someone else who works at the store might well be able to. I cannot.

Now, take a look at this edit of yours[84]. Your summary reads: "removed the word "heterosexual" because it is editor's interpretation (not present in the quoted source". However, I was easily able to find this line in the cite: "Sanders claimed he felt betrayed when he discovered that Burton made a habit of having sex with rank-and-file members, most of them heterosexual males and many of them married.". So the cite is there, and you removed it, despite the fact the quoted source did indeed state that. You've mentioned being a member. You've removed things that may reflect negatively on the organization. You're editing from work at a marketing company, on an IP address registered to the Fellowship of Friends, and you're their tenant. This sends up a huge COI flag. WP:COI reads, in part: Note that if you only correct bias against your company and its interests, and not bias in its favour, your editing will be different from that of a regular Wikipedian, who would be expected to do both. I do not see that you have much of a history with that page of allowing what is good, and what is bad, as long as it is cited. --Thespian 06:48, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

user:Vulpes vulpes

user:Vulpes vulpes continuously involved in questionable activities, [85] and was informed that such approach may not fall into acceptable conduct frame [86] . However newest examples shows that user:Vulpes vulpes approach not changed, when he/she attacked good faith editor labeling his actions as vandalism, falsification and urging for ban. [87]. Can uninvolved contributor inform once more particular user:Vulpes vulpes that such approach is not acceptable. Thanks, M.K. 10:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a content dispute to me, over anglicization issues. Think you'd best go through the dispute resolution process. Rdfox 76 17:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Sir Jamset G Jeejeeboy - aka Hamset Jeejeeboy - aka ...

Resolved

Sir_Jamset_G_Jeejeeboy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Personal insults, false accusations and talk page disruption (for instance here, here, hare) by recently blocked sockpuppet Hamset Jeejeeboy. - DVdm 10:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Blockity blocked. Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 11:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

...and score another one for Mike. I guess I'm off that guy's Christmas card list eh?--Isotope23 ^talk 16:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Theft

Resolved

This page has been under vandalism attack by an anon IP for the last three weeks or more. The change of wording is the same in each case but he does not get the message. Could the page be semi-pp yet again please? --Rodhullandemu (talk - contribs) 11:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Semiprotected due to ghosts. El_C 11:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Potentially offensive comments

Resolved

 – Nothing to see here. Perfectly innocent comments involving the Cleveland Indians.

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to be reporting this but I recently saw a message from User:Sasha Callahan which could be potentially offensive to users. The message can be seen here. Thanks --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 11:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• Are you serious? I think everyone with a brain knows she is talking about the baseball teams. JuJube 11:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec)Doesn't look to me like anything worth coming to WP:ANI over...unless the comments have been changed since you posted. A "swear word" in an otherwise friendly talk page note isn't something to get worked up about. --Onorem♠Dil 11:54, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec)Please tell me that this isn't in reference to her disparaging remarks about a baseball team. Please? I'm sure we all have more important things to find "potentially offensive" than that. Somewhere on that page she advocated 'kitten bonfires' and I just missed it... right? --CBD 11:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm not reporting it because somebody may be offended by her references to the team but maybe she meant Indians as in the nationality? That is why I put potentially offensive, because I wasn't sure. --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 11:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

If someone comes to a discussion thread about baseball, sees a post saying "!@$# the Indians" and thinks they're insulting the ethnic group, they're probably not worth worrying about. I'd be more concerned about how they manage to tie their shoelaces every day. JuJube 12:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It's also really cool how you neglected to tell User:Sasha Callahan about this at all. JuJube 12:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Please can everyone calm down, this was a post made in good faith by The-G-Unit and he shouldn't be taken as an oppotunity to shoot him down. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The-G-Unit-Boss, I think that in the context of the discussion it is clear she was referring to the baseball team... at least, I don't think the Red Sox lost to a bunch of guys from Kerala. :] --CBD 12:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Well I guess it could be interpreted that way, to someone unfamiliar with Baseball. He might not know that the "Red sox" is a baseball team and might think they are some other group of some kind. A lot of militant groups have names that sound like sports teams, such as The Tamil Tigers. It's not a stretch to think that he assumed that she was insulting the ethnic group opposed to the sports team. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 16:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly the mistake that I made. I am not familiar with Baseball and so didn't realise the context of their discussion. --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 16:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I thought the Tamil Tigers were a baseball team. Neil ☎ 16:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that's what Detroit's AAA club was called before they moved to Toledo... Rdfox 76 17:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Determined

Resolved

I call attention to the Hurricane High School (West Virginia) page, and an individual who has been defacing and forcing exaggerated personal information onto the page for several months. The user has been using public terminals for a majority of edits, but through tracking the defacements made by IPs to the page and translating the times of the edits to Eastern Time, I believe I have found the defacer's home IP.

The following is a log of all evidence of defacement:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane_High_School_%28West_Virginia%29&oldid=142193651
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane_High_School_%28West_Virginia%29&oldid=142331120
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane%2C_West_Virginia&diff=prev&oldid=142324626
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane_High_School_%28West_Virginia%29&oldid=144250173
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane_High_School_%28West_Virginia%29&oldid=166192990

As this IP appears to be the only one defacer that has edits to other articles than the high school's page, has remained the same for over one month, and is in the pattern of previous defacements, I believe this is the disgruntled student.

Would it be out of line to request the page be blocked from edits by unregistered users for a period of time?

This is the high school from my old hometown. Please help me keep it safe. Thank you!

--TarrVetus 12:49, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I've semiprotected the article for 3 months to give you a bit of a break. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That is exactly what I hoped you would do. Thank you very much, Theresa!

--TarrVetus 13:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Wtimrock second notice

Resolved

Unfortunately this is the second time I am reporting this user User_talk:Wtimrock, as his behavior has not changed since the last time.

Recreated a deleted article, again [88] - this article has been deleted twice and the same user reposted it twice as well as being the original author.

Removed maintenance tags [89] - including the CSD repost tag and a news release tag.

I last reported it here on AN/I but no action was taken then. Jason Harvestdancer | Talk to me 14:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The article was deleted and a stern warning was given...if this continues, let me know. — Scientizzle 15:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It looks like Theresa knott (talk · contribs) has issued a block... — Scientizzle 15:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually whilst you were doing that I was giving him an attention grabbing block. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 15:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. Hope it works! — Scientizzle 15:48, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

THANK YOU!!! His refusal to respond has been the most frustrating part of cleaning up after him. Jason Harvestdancer | Talk to me 16:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Suspected sock of banned user

Could someone look at Vatiskaf (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? I strongly suspect this is a sock of the banned long-term abuser Roitr (talk · contribs). Videmus Omnia ^Talk 15:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Why do you think so? It doesn't look like you and he have crossed paths that much, and the only thing he and Riotr have in common seems to be that they've both edited pages on military ranks. I'm not that familiar with Riotr, so I'm sure you have more insight into that than I do. -- _{Folic_Acid | talk}  15:43, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

User Rollosmokes and the Drake Hogestyn article

Rollosmokes has repeatedly made statements that were personal attacks and statements directly indicating he will not assume good faith. Another editor tried to assist User:Firsfron and he was told on his talk page [90] that he refuses to work with me within the context of the article. See here for his refusal to be civil and assume good faith as well as here for personal attacks. And here where he refuses to take back insults. As you can see from the history of the Drake Hogestyn page, I'm am only trying to clean up the page, remove redlinks by correctly directing to the proper pages, adding citations, etc. While it does appear to be a lot of changes, that is because there are quite a few additions as well as grammatical changes to improve the article. All changes have been a good faith attempt to improve the article but Rollosmokes appears to fail to see that. I have tried explaining that the single incident where quotation marks were used was because they were part of a quoted passage. He fails to understand that. He claims to be making changes where none need to be made, i.e. directing the page to Tampa, Florida over Tampa both links going to the same page. The same is true for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Two separate, varied links are included in the article, but he keeps changing them to go to the bottom of the article. I leave one and he is not satisfied and becomes aggressive, something Firsfron has agreed with me on.

I'm simply trying to improve the article, and was compliment in doing so, but Rollosmokes is refusing to look at the article, just the edits, and is attacking me based on a single incident in a series of changes. Assistance with this hostile individual would be appreciated. IrishLass0128 17:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

There was also this personal attack/act of incivility, that should be noted. I did edit it to be more welcoming to others who might pass by. IrishLass0128 17:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I see this more as a content dispute, I'll protect the article and hope you can resolve the issue on the talk page. _→AzaToth 17:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

And yea, you shouldn't change others comments. _→AzaToth 17:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the protection. In all actuality, I believe you are half right that it is a content dispute but it is has also lead to personal attacks by Rollosmokes, and likely CelticGreen. I have tried to combine both editors versions and I was attacked, as acknowledged by Adminstrator Firsfron who warned Rollosmokes, at which time Rollosmokes told Firsfron he would not take back his attacks. Again, just looking at the talk page you can see the admission that he lacks good faith and will not attempt. He has even failed to see that I have used his edits claiming I unilaterally removed them all, which is far from true. The article has been expanded and improved, but Rollosmokes continues to be aggressive and make personal attacks. Again, thank you for protecting the page, maybe cooler heads will prevail once the block expires. IrishLass0128 17:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

And yea, you shouldn't change others comments. _→AzaToth 17:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC) ~~ I was previously told that if a comment attacked people, it was acceptable to change it. Sorry if that was wrong. IrishLass0128 17:57, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I NEED AN ADMINISTRATOR!!!

I am having an issue with User:Twsx and it's driving me crazy. We cannot reach a solution. I have taken this issue up before in conflicts of interest but nothing happened. In the music infoboxes for band pages we cannot agree whether the genres should have a line break or comma break. Apparently, no consensus has ever been made on this and we need one. There should be a conversation about it. I believe the line break between genres in the music infoboxes look much more ordered and that the comma break looks sloppy. We must have a consensus on this. He wants the genres in the infoboxes to look like they do in pages such as Linkin Park and I want them to look like they do in articles such as Judas Priest.Navnløs 19:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That's highly trivial and not something that this page needs to be used for. Try requesting for a comment or posting it on some music related projects for more outside input. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 19:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Line breaks vs Comma breaks. Thats got to be one of the lamest disputes i've heard in a while. You do not need an administrator, you need Request for comment--Jac16888 19:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Boyling Over

I happen to have been dragged into the middle of this situation. I initially reverted the blanking of User:Tim.Boyle and protected the page to stop the edit war, and because my initial thought was that there are thousands of Tim Boyle's out there, and I knew of no reason why any one in particular would be implicated. (I went to elementary school with one.) But since there are apparently good faith suggestions of potential liability (not threats), I thought it would be best to have others weigh in as well. It's certainly possible that there's something in the user's contribs that singles out a particular Tim Boyle. I'm amenable to unprotection, blanking, whatever, so don't be afraid of stepping on my toes. Thanks for looking this over! -- But|seriously|folks  19:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I have a hard time seeing how this could be libeling anyone as the IP removing the tag states; it's not like this is a unique name. That said, I think a courtesy blanking of the userpage is an option if the IP stops being so demanding.--Isotope23 ^talk 19:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Also note, anything tying this name to a specific person has been deleted.--Isotope23 ^talk 19:38, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Can an Admin. blank a User Page?

I'm new to wikipedia rules and would like to know if Admins are allowed to blank a user page. Thanks. Lookzar42 20:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)