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    Repeated false Accusations and Insults by User Supreme Deliciousness (SD)

    Ever since I became an editor on Wikipedia, User Supreme Deliciousness has been falsely accusing me of being a sockpuppet of another user, Arab Cowboy. SD has even made a formal request for investigation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Arab_Cowboy, the conclusion of which has shown that Arab Cowboy and me are unrelated editors. Yet, SD has continued to make these false accusations and to call AC and me liars on this Talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Asmahan#Identity_Section and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Asmahan#Sockpuppetry_Allegations. SD’s false accusations and insults are not acceptable. He is stifling my freedom of expression and impeding my ability to freely contribute to Wikipedia. He should be reprimanded, blocked, or banned altogether. --Nefer Tweety (talk) 23:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    That is not, in fact, what the SPI said. It said that there was not enough evidence to justify looking at your information. → ROUX ₪ 23:41, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict, as usual) While the US Congress may not make a law abridging your freedom of speech, Wikipedia can - a policy, that is. That said, I looked through the threads you linked to, and I can see no admin action necessary or even remotely warranted. Tan | 39 23:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Tan, do we take your response to mean that SD's false allegations and insults to be acceptable behavior on Wikipedia? Shall we start calling each other "liars" and other names? What kind of civilized discourse would that leave us? --Arab Cowboy (talk) 23:54, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I hear the voice of the duck, calling "Plaxico!" Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 00:16, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Nothing has shown that you two are related or unrelated yet, just that there is currently insufficient evidence to warrant CheckUser. MuZemike 00:25, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am still waiting for some replies: do we take your response to mean that SD's false allegations and insults to be acceptable behavior on Wikipedia? Shall we start calling each other "liars" and other names? What kind of civilized discourse would that leave us?
    • The burden of proof that Nefer Tweety is my sockpuppet is upon SD, and if he has "insufficient evidence" to support this accusation, then he should be reprimanded for making it, especially that he has already done so through a formal route. And to start calling NT and myself "liars" will open the door to a very different kind of dialogue on Wiki pages.
    • Tan has stated that Wikipedia can stifle a user's freedom of expression by policy. What kind of violation has NT or myself committed to warrant that action? --Arab Cowboy (talk) 04:47, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Were I an admin, you and Nefer would have been blocked some time ago for the sheer obviousness of the fact that you are either sockpuppets or meatpuppets. Perhaps it's a good thing I'm not. → ROUX ₪ 04:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Roux, obviously, it's a good thing that you are not. --Arab Cowboy (talk) 04:56, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    There is no such thing as "freedom of speech" here. There is no constitutional right to edit wikipedia. Maybe you should just focus on good editing, and leave the personal stuff alone? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 04:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The "logic" of some of the users here is pathetic. --Arab Cowboy (talk) 05:03, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    From where are you getting the idea that there is "freedom of speech" here? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 05:06, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Forget the constitution if you so desire, but to intimidate users through allegations of sockpuppetry and lying is not the sign of civilized behavior. If you find that to be an acceptable norm, then so be it, but from the way the answers have been coming here, it's more like a madhouse than a place to have an intelligent discourse. --Arab Cowboy (talk) 05:10, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    "Forget the constitution" is a red herring. How do you figure the constitution comes into play here? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 05:11, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    AC, knock off the disruption here. This constitutes an only warning. Tan | 39 05:15, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Exactly, it doesn't. It wasn't I who brought the constitution into play here. It was Tan who brought up Congress and the Constitution in the first place, and diverted attention from the real issue. On your user page, you state, "Wikipedia is a community, not a crazy den of pigs!", yet you have shown it to be exactly the latter. --Arab Cowboy (talk) 05:20, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Blocked for 72 hours. Tan | 39 05:23, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Easy folks! I am not AC, I have no idea who this person is! Honestly, it is kinda funny to see that some users still think we are the same, even though I tried to clarify it!!! Is there a way I can prove it, as obviously what I keep repeating isn't of much value :( --Nefer Tweety (talk) 06:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    With edits so close together, this would be a good time for a checkuser to take another look at these two redlinks and see if there is any additional evidence tying them together. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 12:34, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    There was a sock investigation, but it was declined due to lack of evidence. How does one go about reopening it? — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 13:02, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, now Nefer Tweety is on AC's talk page, offering help. And there's the usual calling for "thorough investigations" into my "abuse of power". Meanwhile, a second unblock request is pending - anyone want to tackle it? Tan | 39 14:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    They are acting, at the very least, as meatpuppets. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 14:10, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It wasn't a second unblock request: this individual didn't like my decline & removed it. (And he & Roux edit-warred over this for a short while.) For that reason, I've gone ahead & protected his talk page for the remainder of his 72-hour block. Since an uninvolved Admin might consider this a conflict of interest, review of my acts welcomed -- & I'm stepping away from this matter unless further developments require my input. -- llywrch (talk) 16:04, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The version you just recently reverted - this one - seemed to have both the request you declined and a new, second unblock request. As far as I see, he does have the right to an appeal of your decline. Perhaps reconsider? Or am I missing something? Tan | 39 16:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Well no, I am. A nearlier version here had him deleting the decline, & the following comments to AC & Roux's reverts convinced me that they were edit warring over this template. He does have the right to appeal my decline; I never meant to imply otherwise. I'm reverting my change & the protection -- & won't intervene again. -- llywrch (talk) 21:09, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    You might want to leave a note on his talk page explaining the situation. Tan | 39 21:14, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I left an apology. Does that work? -- llywrch (talk) 04:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, sure. It was clearly a mistake on your part; I was just suggesting that you leave an adequate explanation of the block on his page. Tan | 39 04:33, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Well, regardless of whether a CheckUser confirms that they are related or not, it is somewhat suspicious that Arab Cowboy first edited on June 25th. Only a week later, Tweety first edited July 2nd. My logic on this one may be a little tainted somehow, but the fact remains, they are both VERY NEW editors who's first edits were only A WEEK apart.--The LegendarySky Attacker 04:03, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Maybe you are right, but as far as I've known Supreme Deliciousness' way of speaking is quite disruptive and hostile, and he has carries out strong agendas to the article in question and other Arabic related articles such as Talk:Hummus by repeatedly asserting of "Israeli culture theft" and making relentless attacks to people who disagree with him. Therefore, I think the original complaint seems legitimate but everyone steered the main point with wrong ways.--Caspian blue 04:15, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's generally considered a really bad idea to come off a block and have your first edit be accusing admins of having personal agendas. I'd advise against it. → ROUX ₪ 07:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Norcalal & User:Highspeed

    Resolved

    These users have worked together to make disruptive edits including vandalizing my talk page, and wikistalk articles I have created or contributed to and nominate them for deletion. I have blocked User:Highspeed as a sock of User:Biaswarrior per WP:DUCK as Biaswarrior had engaged in previous similar stunts, but Norcalal considers that I am biased against him and so I'll let an uninvolved admin figure out whether he's a sock, a problem, or whatever. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 17:55, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I fail to see where Norcalal has 'vandalised [your] talk page'. Would you please back this up with a diff(s)? — neuro(talk) 18:20, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    He posted this to Highspeed's talk the same day that Highspeed vandalized my talk page, it's clear who the personal attack was refering to. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:59, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Long thread on the larger topic here, WT:WikiProject Cities#Systematic inclusion of GNIS unincorporated communities. Pfly (talk) 07:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That provides some background, but that issue and vandalism/wikistalking/sock puppetry is what we're discussing, unless you think that others in that discussion are involved? I don't but maybe you know something more, please advise. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 15:18, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I take exception to the following: "These users have worked together to make disruptive edits including vandalizing my talk page, and wikistalk articles I have created or contributed to and nominate them for deletion." ---I have never vandalized anyone's talk page or nominated any article for deletion. Therefore, I could not have wiki-stalked articles for deletion. Its true that a lot of article creation in California counties has been a cause for concern, if not occasional ire but the charges from Carlossuarez46 are unfounded or untrue. However at this time, I would make the point that it looks like said editor is willing to trump up charges against me over a difference of opinion related to the value of some (not all) of the articles created. I do not know what a sock is. I imagine it has something to do with a ghost account that an editor might use to look like someone else. But as far as I can see that has nothing to do with the articles in Humboldt County that I am mostly concerned with. It is true that I have been trying to make sense of the rapid article development as of late in many counties, but I have made mostly small adjustments related to some of additions in articles I know quite well. I think that is normal editing. No one has ownership of any article. In at least one case, I made a very clear point in the City of Arcata. If San Francisco was briefly called Yerba Buena why is it not listed as "(formerly Yerba Buena)" in its header. But the information related to use of Arcata's brief original name, that information was ALREADY cited and placed in the history section long before any more recent changes. As I read the interesting arguments about the use of GNIS I see that there has been much considerate deliberation. I hope it all leads to more complete, well organized articles and templates. But one thing is for sure at the moment. There are repetitions and errors in templates that are ill conceived by relying totally on the GNIS. The issue with Bucksport and Buck's Port in Humboldt County is one of the issues around recent prolific stub article creation that needs clarifying-there was only one and the same location, but references may have developed from old sources to confuse that. Even so, there should be an (single) entry about this (single) historic location now completely absorbed by the City of Eureka. Again, I have seen some similarity in concern in Mono County and Monterrey County for what I saw happening in Humboldt, but I have never wittingly worked together with anyone in the manner described above. It is not in my nature despite being upset at the onset of this period of massive article creation in many counties in California that I am familiar with. Norcalal (talk) 05:21, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    What caused you to post on Highspeed's talk page about me on the day he vandalized my talk page? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 05:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I have no knowledge of vandalism from Highspeed toward you or anyone else. My perception was that he was having a similar reaction in Monterrey as I was having in Humboldt. The posts of his that I noted were only related to your edits/article creation that he tagged for "speedy deletion" related to obscure article stubs related to the GNIS source debate (a real debate going on parallel to this issue here). I assumed Good Faith (not knowing otherwise) and had no idea that he had tampered with anything. I still have not researched the claim of vandalism to your talk page...mostly because I only look for discussion on the GNIS issue, which has taught me quite a lot about the process of development around here. I track a lot of coastal articles (and their counties and templates for that matter) related to my many interests, so there is good reason for me to watch this issue and others in the larger California setting. My issue is only this: If you created an article related to a mistaken/misspelled name of a locale in GNIS, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find a resource to say that a place that never was never existed. I resent being brought on trial here and lumped in with this "Highspeed" character because there is no connection. This is the last I will engage this discussion. Norcalal (talk)
    So, you see that he is trying to delete geographic article - a kindred spirit you had no prior contact with and leave a negative comment about me after he vandalizes my talk page, which you didn't notice per WP:AGF. OK. FWIW, if an article's title is mistaken/misspelled, you can always WP:MOVE it to its correct title, but after being here as long as you, I assume you know that. Just make sure that you have a reference that verifies that title. Cheers, Carlossuarez46 (talk) 06:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I did not research why he was trying to delete an article, I saw others as well suggesting articles for deletion...again I assumed he was a real editor with a vested interest in the locale. You still seem surprised at the undertone of antagonism that comes your way. Perhaps your responses where you decide calling other editors a "DICK" might be inflammatory. I have not had a stranger call me that since the 7th grade so I know I was taken aback...perhaps others are/were too. On the flip side, I have had extraordinarily patient editors and admins have reason to be upset with a mistake I or others have made, take time to help make sense of it all and none of those reduce their interaction to orders and demands as you do. So whatever. Your use of "Kindred spirit" in the above may relate to what I expected (assumed) to find in Highspeed: A local editor in shock over your rapid article creation (without knowing otherwise). The statements made here and in other posts related to the GNIS mess as I see it are honest ones from an editor who has been here a while. I don't research everything in a controversy, just the stuff that matters to me. I bet in that respect I am not alone. Norcalal (talk) 07:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    FWIW, I'm sure I've ever been called "rapacious" before. So we all have new experiences here. We're here to write an encyclopedia, to increase the knowledge available to the world. Where the inclusion of articles that are referenced is met with so much antagonism, attempts at deletion of notable articles with little more than "it's not notable" as a rationale, and now vandalism seems heavy handed. I'm not saying that all the articles can be expanded quickly to more than stubs, but Kneeland, California demonstrates that is quite possible. Now, you know more first hand about Humboldt County than I do, but I can use sources that are reliable to put together a little something. Perhaps by focusing your efforts from deleting articles like Kneeland, you can put it into improving them and expanding them. Anyway, this seems resolved and I'll take you on your good faith that you didn't know Highspeed from before. And will mark it such. If you want to continue the conversation, my talk page is open.... Carlossuarez46 (talk) 17:03, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    My term "rapacious" resulted you AFTER you ordered me to move on AND after you called me a dick. Secondly, I have not deleted any articles. Even in the resolve (according to you) you sting because you can. It is unnecessary and you continue to retain the inflammatory tone that you are now, perhaps, (in)famous for. Thanks for that contribution. BTW, there are other editors, many of whom have been around for a good long while, who have questioned not only your reliance on GNIS and one other admin questioned your attitude of what could be described as bullying or heavy handed use of admin privilege. I will consider this resolved if you stop the attack of words. Norcalal (talk) 03:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    probation, or something at Talk:Centrifugal force

    Nearly a year ago I initiated this RFC , and ended up giving up in disgust and un-watchlisting the page. Random Wiki-happenstance led to me viewing the current talk page today, and guess what? Nothing has been resolved in over a year of argument. I'm no physicist, but it looks to me like the same conversation spiraling on and on endlessly, mostly with the same users who were doing the same thing last July. The talk page sometimes sees 100 edits in a day, from only three or four users! Personally, I'm not going to wade back into this mess, but I thought a post here might prompt... something, anything, some attempt at sanity through article probation or other WP:SANCTIONS or, something else that can end this madness. Honestly, this is one of the most screwed up things I've ever seen on Wikipedia, a circular argument that never ends, and users who apparently never tire of arguing on the same subject. Beeblebrox (talk) 09:07, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Ah, so you visited WP:WQA today :-) The problem when people who are involved in the sciences is this:
    • in science, you're more important the more you write
    • many scientists have different points of view on any given topic
    • all scientists are right
    These corollaries cause all the problems. (Note: the second is the only one that is actually true). (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:49, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I've popped over there and said that my gut feeling is that this saga won't stop without a topic ban. It is probably time to do something about it, it's been going on far too long and the discussions on that talk page would put anyone off from trying to edit the article, and we shouldn't allow that situation to persist. Dougweller (talk) 10:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This showed up at ANI in November last year (here) and was eventually closed after David Tombe and Brewers_ohare resolved to take their discussion off-wiki. Those two users (plus a couple of others) are clearly still up to the same endless arguing; I'm thinking topic bans may become necessary if this doesn't abate. ~ mazca talk 12:00, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The pattern I am seeing at Centrifugal force and related pages is one of long term POV pushing by David Tombe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). Basically, David Tombe is attempting to bring Wikipedia into line with his own peculiar views about physics. This is being resisted by several users. Recently, David Tombe has been [forum shopping in an unsuccessful attempt to gain an advantage over FyzixFighter, who is one of those resisting David Tombe. Cardamon (talk) 19:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Alright, it seems others are seeing what I see, let's take this to the next step:

    Topic Ban on User:Brews ohare and User:David Tombe

    • Should these two editors be banned from editing this article and it's talk page, and related articles due to their extremely prolonged arguments on the talk page?

    Support

    So the numbers mount up for censorship as the pressure mounts up on FyzixFighter to reveal his reasons for trying to deny that the convective term in equation 3-12 of Goldstein is the centrifugal force. Six so far, including FyzixFighter himself! And how many of the other five have got a background in physics? David Tombe (talk) 18:04, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    OK you seven, you've hung your colours to the mast, so now it's time to do your homework. Six of you do not have a physics background and therefore couldn't possibly know what the dispute is about. So I would suggest that you all run along and and come back when you have carefully gone through the last edit of mine that FyzixFighter deleted, and present your evidence here in a clear and concise manner. We will be looking for evidence of unsourced material and/or original research. David Tombe (talk) 21:17, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    You're not doing yourself any favours you know. Wikipedia is not an encyclopaedia for experts, and consensus rarely favours the "I'm an expert so leave me alone" approach. If FyzigFighter is deleting sourced material, show us some diffs and we can all look at them.Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Mr. Tombe, you do not hold a Ph.D. in physics, so by the standards of many people you have no physics background. I read through the Talk page of Centrifugal Force and I googled your name and then followed the links to crankish websites where you expound your views in the face of opposition from real physicists. I am sorry but I feel that a topic ban is the best solution for all concerned. --Goodmorningworld (talk) 13:19, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose

    1. I see no reason to assert that the article proper is excessively edited, and I tend to think that long discourses on article talk pages are not intrinsically evil. A solution in search of a problem. Collect (talk) 17:27, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    1. I completely disagree with both the points you make here, as the facts do not support them. The article is being edited much too often for such a trivial topic, and the talk pages for this topic isn't just 'long' is positively obscene. At one point I did the archive and the talk page archives were about a megabyte; and most of that was people arguing with David Tombe; it died right down when he was banned.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:21, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Nice to see you Wolfkeeper. I knew it was only a matter of time before you'd come along and join the party. But you need to get your facts straight. Those facts are very easy to check. I was banned from the end of July 2008 until mid-October 2008. The edit war raged continuously during that period. It is very easy to check. In fact, I was very upset at the time that because I wanted to join in, in order to back up editor Fugal. It was my attempts to communicate with Fugal on the side that got me banned permanently. What kind of justice was that? David Tombe (talk) 21:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, you used sockpuppets when banned. You were trying to push your POV even when banned. Which part of banned don't you understand?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Any evidence for that? Even at this stage he could still be called on it.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:57, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    If I recall, most of the "sockpuppetry" was done on User talk:Fugal, where Tim Carrington West and the 217.- and 81.- anon IP's were David, and on other user talk pages. David did use the anon IPs 217.44.75.36 and 217.42.108.55 to participate in a debate on a centrifugal force article talk page while under a block. --FyzixFighter (talk) 23:10, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, that's right. Check out the indefinite block he received because of it: [1]- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:29, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    You've just ducked the important point that the edit war raged continuously even when I was banned. You claimed otherwsie. You misrepresented the facts. David Tombe (talk) 21:41, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, you used a sockpuppet ensure that, while you were blocked.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:29, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    1. As an interested party, my view is that the discussion is just normal WP back and forth. Brews ohare (talk) 19:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    1. As an interested party, my view is that the argument has gone on much longer than necessary because the controversial material in question was initially opposed as a knee jerk reaction on the erroneous belief that is was unsourced original research. Although that idea has now been dispelled, the momentum of those who opposed the material in the first place has kept the argument going. A wider investigation needs to be conducted before individual editors are singled out for sanction. This needs to be done by editors that are knowledgeable about the content matter of the dispute. David Tombe (talk) 20:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose for full disclosure I know David off-wiki from another online community. From what I know of David and this situation, a topical ban isn't appropriate. I am on a mobile right now, and will expand my reasons shortly (3 hours aprox.) -- Ned Scott 02:01, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Article probation

    Should the article and talk page Centrifugal force be placed on probation, with editors subject to WP:SANCTIONS?

    Support

    • Comment As somebody who is at the very least peripherally involved in this debate, it wouldn't bother me if myself, David Tombe, FyzixFighter and Brews Ohare were all topic banned. There's enough people around that understand this topic to stop it going to hell in a handbasket, whereas with David Tombe on-wiki it requires constant watching.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:59, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose

    1. A solution in search of a problem - I see no reason to object to the number of edits on the article page, so it boils down to being upset at excessive use of a talk page - which I think is insufficient to invoke any specific actions. Collect (talk) 17:29, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    2. Banning people from entering into discussion is always going to be a bad idea, and will never solve any underlying issue/problem. ╟─TreasuryTag►most serene─╢ 17:34, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Further discussion

    • I haven't informed the involved parties about this thread, out of concern that they would jam up this page with their usual fifty or sixty edits to make one point, but I guess somebody should probably tell them. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:39, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • You really do need to let people know about this page. IF they are excessively verbal that would strengthen any point you were trying to make. I have no particular comment to make, apart from to ask editors/admins to look at brews contribs to the 'wavelength' discussions. Perhaps someone could help brews contribute in a more constructive manner? 87.113.86.207 (talk) 17:53, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've taken the liberty of analyzing the last 100 changes to the article, ending with this version. Seven users have one edit each, including four IPs. One user has two edits, and another has three; a third has six. The remaining eighty-two edits are accounted for by three people. These 100 edits took place over a period of thirty days, of which fourteen days passed with no edit; but the article has been edited every day from the ninth onward, with 79 edits in those six days, or thirteen edits a day. Only seven edits are not by the same three people mentioned above, and of that, and four of those are two IP vandalisms and their reversions. Mangoe (talk) 18:26, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply to opposers The problem as I see it is that this overly long horribly belabored debates intimidate users new to the page, and it seems the two main antagonists are never going to agree. While I realize the need to discuss changes, this endless circular debate has the effect of making previously uninvolved users not want to join in to such a protracted debate. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    If you can't be bothered to follow the discussion, you shouldn't raise this problem (unless the problem is a straghtforward disruption of wikipedia, of course). Neverending discussions in physics topics can be effectively dealt with by letting an expert to take final decisions. If you are no an expert in physics, you are not the right person to get involved here at all. Count Iblis (talk) 20:02, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • As one of the involved editors, in my view there are two issues with respect to David Tombe that make it difficult to work cooperatively with him. The first is David's complete disregard for reliable sources. The long talk page debates are due in part to other editors trying to teach David correct physics (and him teaching them his version of physics) usually without directly talking about sources. For the last little while I've tried to eschew such behavior and to keep strictly to quoting and discussing sources. This has had very limited effectiveness. However, it was through a source provided by another editor that I became aware of the Lagrangian mechanics usage of the term which I was previously unaware of. The second and more problematic issue is David's interactions with editors that disagree and resist his fringe POV pushing, which the report I made at WP:WQA touches upon. When a request for a source results in something like this, what can you do? Since I'm an involved party, I won't "vote", but I definitely support a topic ban for David Tombe. --FyzixFighter (talk) 20:11, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • My two cents, from a somewhat-involved editor: An argument with David Tombe about physics is like an argument with Jim Marrs about who assassinated JFK. If this was an argument about whether JFK was killed by aliens, we would have long ago banned the editor who was actively researching and promoting fringe theories. But David Tombe, who is actively researching and promoting ([4] [5]) his own fringe physics theories, is still here and still editing. Why? I don't know. Probably because most administrators don't know any physics so can't follow what's going on. --Steve (talk) 20:38, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Would it be possible to have separate sections for the proposed topic ban for Brews and proposed topic ban for David? I'm betting that several editors have stronger feelings with respect to one of them - I know I do. Some of the responses below are about one of the editors, only a few are talking about both. The WQA reported that might have partially precipitated this report was about only one of these editors. It could also help to focus the discussion a bit. --FyzixFighter (talk) 02:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • FyzixFighter, there was an opportunity for compromise tonight on the centrifugal force page. You turned it down. You reverted my edit once again. You are getting bold because you have seen favourable noises on this page coming from editors who haven't got the first clue about the subject matter. But even any honest editor who doesn't know about physics would be able to see that my edit tonight was a genuine attempt to solve the impasse. You clearly don't want a compromise. I would request that anybody considering your suggestion here should look at the last two edits at centrifugal force before making any important decisions. If that were to be done by an honest and objective administrator I think that it would be you that would be subjected to the topic ban. David Tombe (talk) 02:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Editing physics and math articles requires extensive discussions

    I've not interacted a lot with Brews, but from what I've seen he has the right approach toward editing physics articles. There was a dispute on the wavelength article that we at wikiproject physics were alerted to. When I took a quick look at the talk page there, I saw that while Brews was arguing on the basis of physics, the others shot that discussion down by citing from other sources and disputing things based on wiki law procedure etc.

    Now, if you're dealing with a kook who doesn't know much about physics, then sticking to wki law may be appropriate, any discussions of the actual physics would be a waste of time. But Brews is an expert in physics and there can sometimes be difficult issues that one has to talk about even in case of elementary physics topics (usually this then has to do with finding rigorous definitions).

    Let me give one typical example of a article in which things went terribly wrong. It was never discussed here, precisely because there was never a dispute between editors. The article Helmholtz free energy contained many mistakes for many years, until 2008. Not just small minor mistakes but huge mistakes that were never corrected. this was the latest flawed version, the section "mathematical development" was totally wrong. And similar mistakes were corrected by me in many other thermodynamics articles, so it was a systematic problem.


    The only realistic way this error could have been corrected earlier is if someone had questioned the derivation and discussed that on the talk page, basically the way Brews goes about his business. The tradional wiki way of arguing on the basis of sources alone does not work well for these sorts of topics. The error is most conspicuous when you actually study the equations using paper and pencil and write about any problems on the talk page. The fact that what was written is in conflict with the literature would not easily lead to someone noticing the error. It may als be the case that there exist sources in which the erroneous derivation can be found. It is well known that in engineering and chemistry texts you can often find flawed derivations.

    Of course, there are then other textbooks in which you can find the correct derivation. The problem is then that if you have someone who is resisting the correction being made, he could always dispute your source in the basis if his source. If you want to discuss the actual physics to settle the dispute, he could shoot that discussion down.

    This is how Brews is being treated and that is completely wrong. Count Iblis (talk) 18:57, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment: I disagree. It would seem to me that the core Policies effectively insist that we absolutely do not derive any equations ourselves, obviously this is WP:OR and not WP:RS, no matter how correct your derivation. If "expert[s] in physics ... dicuss the actual physics to settle the dispute," you are then conducting research, and using the talk page of the article as your secondary source. Obviously this will not work. The issue of errors in existing secondary sources seems well-handled by WP:NPOV. I think the erroneous approach that User:Count Iblis advises here is a common and systemic flaw in articles on science and engineering. IMHO. Eaglizard (talk) 21:55, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The core policies clearly led to severely flawed articles on thermodynamics and then Count Iblis came along in 2008 and rewrote them based on his notes he uses for teaching. So, it seems to me that I would be justified to invoke WP:IAR here. The articles I'm talking about were so flawed that any Prof. who teaches this subject who would have stumbled on the pages, should have warned his students to ignore the pages. Worse then not having studied a subject is having it learned wrongly.
    Note that when we at university discuss teaching this subject with grad students and think about problems for students, we sometimes discuss things on the blackboard amongst ourselves. Is that "original Research"? Of course not! Why can't we look everything up in a book? We do do this, but a book doesn't always give you all the relevant details. Some subtle things are sometimes missing, some details are found in some other chapters. Note that the very reason why students are given difficult practice problems is precisely because you need to actually solve problems yourself to master the subject.
    Writing a wiki article that explains things from first principles is as hard as teaching the subject at university. This can thus only be done by someone who is expert enough to be able to derive everything from first principles. And he must actually derive everything that goes in the wiki article himself to be absolutely sure it is explained correctly.
    The mathematical derivation is the ultimate verification, not the citation to some book. Because what's in the book "Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics" on page 432 is only verifiable to someone who has the necessary physics background to be able to understand this book and has read the first 431 pages. So, a statement quoted from page 432 in isolation is not really a good verification of any statement. Count Iblis (talk) 22:55, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not a good excuse to ignore all rules. But it is a good characterization of Brews's attitude that whatever he can derive, or whatever connection he can show to the topic, is fair game, whether he can find in support in sources or not. Dicklyon (talk) 23:19, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with many of the points made by Count Iblis, but especially the last. The biggest problem with Wikipedia is lack of authority, and that is why a derivation is very important in WP: it provides credibility. Some editors think math is gobbledy gook, but in fact it is a succinct language devised to avoid logical error, or enable error to be traced back to the initial assumptions. It is not window dressing. It is exposition. It is not equivalent to its conclusions because it helps make the concepts clear. Brews ohare (talk) 23:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    But WP:V says otherwise. You need verifiability without requiring the reader to have the expertise to check your derivation. You've made enough mistakes in your math-heavy stuff that you can't credibly claim that this "succinct language" is inherently more accurate or reliable than any other creation of fallible editors. Without verifiability, we have nothing to restrain you with. Dicklyon (talk) 06:09, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    If that's what WP:V says, then that is not applicable to some physics and math articles because if someone cannot understand the mathematical derivation, that person would not be able to understand the source. Often it is possible for an expert to explain a result from some technical physics subject that is taught at upper level graduate university, in such a way that it is understandable to high school students. But then just writing down the result without explanation and just giving a citation to the source which the target audiance cannot understand is a nonsensical thing to do. It is far better to present a taylor made derivation that can be understood by the target audience. Only then does the stament become verifiable to the target audience.
    The examples of the flawed thermodynamics articles I gave prove my point. The flawed versions contained more references and were verifiable in the way WP:V requires. However, no one actually verified the content in that way, which explains why the huge mistakes coulkd have remained in the article for so many years. When I rewrote the articles, I decided not to give references to the literature. It is not that such references cannot be given, but giving the references would probably lead people to not check for errors. I derived everything from first principles in the articles, so these derivations themselves serve as the verification.
    Giving a ref. where the derivation can be found is pointless, because if someone needs to verify the derivation in that way, then that person doesn't have sufficient knowledge to understand the article. Also, in some cases a suitable derivation cannot be found in any book at all, e.g. when the topic is typically discussed in textbooks for grad students or in reference books for researchers. Count Iblis (talk) 13:30, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Gah. What's you're espousing is somewhere between highly admirable and slightly stupid. It's admirable, because you can IAR to make it work, but it's stupid because without verifiability somebody sooner or later will come along and fix it (i.e. mess it up) from sources. The wikipedia holds verifiability higher than truth. You're saying that truth is more important, but it's unstable in the wiki, unless it's also verifiable. You're nearly always much better off finding a reliable source that actually gets it right and pointing to that- there's no prohibition at all against linking to grad-level textbooks.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:17, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm highly impressed with everything that Count Ibliss has said. It's time that those truths were spoken. Sources can be used maliciously, and that is happening right now on the centrifugal force page. I am being billed as the villain who doesn't abide by sources, and attempts are being made to get me removed from the project. But the truth is that certain elements are trying to keep well sourced key facts about centrifugal force off the page in the name of scientific political correctness, and hiding behind wikipedia's rules and regulations on consenus. I should emphasize the word 'consensus' because ultimately it has got nothing to do with sources. Any group of three can gang up against a single editor and claim to be on the side of sources. If the single editor produces a conflicting source, the other three only need to deny the contents of that source, and they will prevail by playing the consensus card while claiming to be playing the sources card. This has been going on at centrifugal force for over two years. And this entire thread here is a misrepresentation of the facts. Brews ohare is not my opponent in this. I have done collaborative editing with Brews ohare on other physics articles and it has never led to an edit war. The difference with centrifugal force is that there are certain other editors involved who are destroying any positive outcome from the discussions by continually opposing any important edit that I make. You can see that right now. If anybody wants to know the truth about this, go to 'centrifugal force' now and watch FyzixFighter playing his game of 'textbook whist'. Look at the history section for the last few days and you will see that it is only FyzixFighter who wants to remove my edits. But this thread has created a situation in which I am in the dock and FyzixFighter has been able to come along and act as an innocent prosecution witness. If you want to talk about topic bans then you should start by bringing in personnel who actually understand what the dispute is about, and you should bring every involved editor into the dock. This thread, by its very nature is totally biased because it has arbitrarily sought out two editors in particular without the slightest explanation as to why those two editors have been singled out, and then allowed their opponents in the dispute to come along as if they were innocent upstanding victims and make their complaints. David Tombe (talk) 00:22, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Right, FyzixFighter just wants to remove your edits; and I just want to remove Brews's edits. Anyone interested in finding out why will need to do some work, rather than just reading these complaints. Dicklyon (talk) 06:12, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Dick, I would certainly hope that somebody does indeed do that work. They could start with the very last edit of mine that FyzixFighter removed. David Tombe (talk) 21:08, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    Let me give two examples of successful talk page discussions were disputes were settled. In both cases discussing the physics form first principles was essential while direct quotes from sources were misleading.

    Example 1:

    Discussion with Ed Gerck

    Ed Gerck is basically quoting things out of context from the literature and coming to erroneous conclusions. To see that he is wrong requires a working knowledge of special relativity. Refuting qoutes by Ed Gerck by directly by other quotes would not be a practical way to end the dispute. I'm pretty sure that had there been no expert editors at the special relativity page, Ed Gerck's edits would not have beeen opposed, because to lay persons, everything looks ok: You have statements directly sourced from the literature and Ed Gerck provides direct quotes, so what could possiblly be wrong?  :)

    Example 2:

    Discussion with anon on Helmholtz energy

    Here the anon claims that the constant volume condition is not necessary, he has a source that says so. Of course, I have a source that claims that it is necessary, but merely stating that would not end the dispute. It is essential that one understands why the sources make different statements and that cannot be easily extracted from a source in the form of a single quote. You must have mastered the subject to see this. So, I explain in detail what is going on here. Count Iblis (talk) 23:46, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I am not involved in the centrifugal force dispute, but I edit primarily mathematics articles, so I have a great deal of perspective on these issues. Count Iblis' comments are very apt: one cannot solve these sorts of disagreements by just throwing around random quotes from sources. As Cout Iblis has said, verifying a reference to page 401 in a book really requires understanding what the author has done in the first 400 pages, and the conventions she has established. A broad understanding of the literature is necessary to determine which statements are in agreement with the literature and which are idiosyncratic or taken out of context. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not really the place to discuss this, but I will note that stating the facts in a reasonable form in the article, and including multiple references to reliable, notable sources that support the case is the correct way to proceed in the wikipedia; but they need not be presented identically to the source, provided they are equivalent. If the references are challenged then they can be discussed on the talk page. If references are not given, under the wikipedia's policies the material can be removed at any time. For fundamental epistemological reasons this is probably the only way it can work here; ultimately we do rely on experts, just not expert editors here, but experts that have written books and such like.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 00:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    In practice, at least in mathematics, we do rely heavily on expert editors. I have no reason to suspect that things are different in other sciences. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:39, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Example 1 that Count Iblis mentions above is IMO very similar to what we have going on with David. He's got his hands on a few sources and adopts a very fringe interpretation of what those sources say. When a wide spectrum of sources are provided that contradict his conclusions and interpretations, he disregards the mountains of additional sources as "rubbish". Multiple editors including myself have tried walking David through the derivation, but he adopts some rather strange limitations to the derivation (his vector triangle argument) and uses very nonstandard terminology (like what he calls radial acceleration). The exercise gets repeated over and over with David refusing to admit that his interpretation of the derivation is wrong. It is because of the futility of the past endeavors that I've stopped indulging David, and now try to limit discussion to talking about sources and how the sources can be synthesized together for the article. --FyzixFighter (talk) 00:56, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I will be away for a few days, but I would be willing to attempt to mediate the dispute when I return in the coming week. As I have said I am not involved or even familiar with the dispute at this point, although I am familiar with both WP policy and practice. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Some comments from Brews_ohare

    I agree that a lot of debate has circulated on the various centrifugal force pages, which include Centrifugal force; Centrifugal force (rotating reference frame); Reactive centrifugal force and so forth. This debate is not all about the same thing, however, and none of these debates requires intervention limiting editors or topics for discussion, as is detailed next.

    One subject has been a revolving discussion between D Tombe and various editors over the intuitive aspects of centrifugal force. D Tombe has his own perspective, and this discussion has generally not adopted his view. Nonetheless, IMO the articles have benefited by these discussions in becoming clearer and in adding particular examples that arose from these discussions. At the moment, this discussion is not prominent on the Talk pages. Related to this discussion is the desire by D. Tombe to eliminate Reactive centrifugal force on the basis that it is not distinct. I don't think that is supported by anyone else, and is not a topic consuming great space.

    A second subject, also involving D Tombe, is the status of the planetary orbit example as a significant departure from other examples, warranting special discussion. This debate is presently ongoing, and I do not wish to state an opinion upon its eventual outcome. It is largely a judgment call upon the significance of this topic and whether it warrants a lot of attention. That might be settled "objectively" by google counting, by logic, by eloquence, or by WP lawyering such as this present attempt to curtail discussion.

    A third subject, that involved many editors over a long period of time is the so-called "curvilinear Centrifugal force". This is a terminology that is rather mathematical in origin and relates to the use of (for example) polar coordinates, and to the interpretation of the radial equation in terms of centrifugal force. This particular issue has proved very difficult to deal with. The debate has been correspondingly extensive. At the moment, it has somewhat calmed down with the introduction of the Lagrangian approach to mechanics, which appears to subsume the "curvilinear Centrifugal force" as a special case. Unfortunately, this topic will arise periodically because there are schools of opinion that take the view that "curvilinear Centrifugal force" is the only kind, and with sources that refer only to this interpretation. Thus, the talk page often is a long discussion that eventually acquaints editors with the existence of disparate sourced viewpoints. That discussion will recur as editors believing in the "one and only one" centrifugal force show up. I do not think any action to suppress this discussion by banning editors from participation makes any kind of sense. Censorship may well lead to a complete distortion of the articles by removal of one point of view in favor of the others.

    A fourth subject of recent origin concerns the inclusion of the topic of absolute rotation in the article Centrifugal force. Here again, my view is that this is simply a normal WP discussion, and it is at least so far, not long-lived. It is not a suitable subject for any action in banning editors. Brews ohare (talk) 19:47, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Some comments by David Tombe

    I might be able to summarize the root cause of the dispute. It lies in the fact that the literature does not give a consistent view on the subject matter, and that the slant in the literature has been changing even in recent times. So part of the dispute even involves a conflict between two generations. On the issue of sources, we should take note of the very valid point that Count Ibliss has made. He correctly pointed out that sources can be used destructively against a person who has an overall comprehension of a topic. This is especially true when the literature contains a wide selection of confused and contradictory sources. This dispute is not a simple case of any particular editor ignoring sources.

    The approach which I have wanted to promote (The Leibniz approach) is found in the modern literature. It is legitimate and its authenticity is no longer the subject of the dispute. But the Leibniz approach is not the approach which is being pushed as an introductory approach to centrifugal force in most modern textbooks. I have already conceded that point. The question is how to introduce the Leibniz approach into the article at the right level, bearing in mind that it not simply history.

    The article has improved alot as a result of this ongoing debate. All editors involved have learned alot. A topic ban on any particular editor would merely give unfair advantage to a particular point of view. David Tombe (talk) 20:21, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    No, a topic ban on one particular editor will allow them some time to think about the difference between finding the truth and including only information that can be gleaned from reliable sources (emphasis on reliable). We still hold articles about the Earth being flat, but thankfully reliable sources have proven otherwise. Once alternative theories of this article have valid reliable sources, then we'll move on to them. Hey, how about a section in the article that is called "recent research" or something ... use only reliable sources, take 2 paragraphs to explain what the heck it is you insist belongs. Draft it in you own sandbox first. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:35, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    In physics it is normally more to do with WP:UNDUE, if you look hard enough you can find at least some evidence to support the idea that the earth is flat... and that's what Tombe has been doing.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    BWilkins, you obviously haven't got the first clue what you are talking about. Planetary orbital theory is long established fact, still taught in the universities. It ill becomes you to come along here and compare it to the flat Earth theory. You have simply swallowed the lie that I have been trying to insert unsourced original research. I suggest that you check your facts before you speak. Do you have a physics background? David Tombe (talk) 17:41, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I assume you actually read what the real argument was that I was making, and didn't just focus on an pithy example. Besides, who gives a Massachusetts if I have a background in physics (read this illuminating essay)?! Policy is clear: abide by it. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:19, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    OK BWilkins, so can you please repeat which policy that you think I am in breach of and then give us all a detailed explanation in relation to a particular edit which I have made? David Tombe (talk) 21:06, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments by uninvolved user Collect

    Scientists are prone to disputes. This is a given. Are those disputes as seen on article talk pages wrong? No. It is how scientists work. It may not be how some writers on other stuff work, but it is a fact, and trying to use topic bans and the like is not the way to go in my opinion. In the case at hand, neither editor appears anxious to lose the colloquy with the other. That is sufficient, in my opinion again, to drop this matter. Collect (talk) 21:02, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Disputes between scientist I can stand. Such disputes on talk pages here should be civil and should respect policies of WP:RS and WP:V. Derivations on the talk pages are fine when everyone agrees on the same basic foundational definitions. However, when working with David, none of this happens. Just look at the latest response from him on the talk page [6]. (I've never gotten anything so vitriolic from Brews.) David has been warned before that such disregard for WP:AGF is unacceptable. If not a topic ban, then what will work to prevent such behavior? --FyzixFighter (talk) 14:08, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Show me Tombes edit warring on the article proper maybe ... but such has not been shown. The issue at hand is the question of whether people can post on talk pages freely. Tombe, ohare, and Dicklyon seem to cover most of the usage (seems that DL is also part of the excessive post problem in that case). None of them appear to be making excessive article edits AFAICT. IMHO, Topic Bans for using talk pages too much are not justifiable. Collect (talk) 18:04, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    FyzixFighter, I stand by exactly what I wrote in that reply. You have been trying to turn the truth upside down. The convective term in Goldsetin's equation 3-12 is the centrifugal force. You are trying to tell us that it is the centripetal force. Put that equation side by side with the Leibniz equation. Now check off the two inverse square law gravity terms. They have negative signs and are attractive. They are the centripetal force. Now check off the two positive inverse cube law terms. They are the centrifugal force. And that's what Goldstein and Leibniz both call it. Why are you trying to suppress this equation? What is your ulterior motive? It's a pity that nobody is asking you this. David Tombe (talk) 17:46, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    More Coments From An Involved User

    It seems to me that the idea of censoring Mr Tombe, an editor who seems to be the most informed of the editors and who has worked very very hard to make this article a physically accurate and meaningful one, is misplaced. The problem is not Mr Tombe but the inability of the other editors to actually open up to the fact that their ideas may not be as correct as they beleive. I wonder why censorsip is necessary if the ideas of Mr Tombe opponents are able to stand alone by themselves. Obviously they can not stand up to his criticism. I oppose censorship of any editor of wikipedia. Mr Tombe has done more for wikipedia and been appreciated less than any editor I know here. Instead of censoring him you should be giving him an award for his efforts to get the correct physics into this article. I oppose this proposed action. That would seem to go against the purpose of wikipedia, don't you think?71.251.185.49 (talk) 21:53, 14 July 2009 (UTC) — 71.251.185.49 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at 07:08 15 July 2009 (UTC) [the only edits by this IP are here - perhaps they forgot to login and will identify themselves] (UTC). No. I have seen many edits from an IP server like that over the last couple of years on centrifugal force and other physics articles. David Tombe (talk) 17:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • his efforts to get the correct physics into this article - unfortunately Wikipedia is not about "correct" physics. Wikipedia is about the physics in reliable sources, even if that physics is incorrect. You'll see this happen with newspaper articles. They'll be used to support something in an article, but the correction printed a few days later (which might totally destroy the newspaper report) does not get mentioned. 87.113.86.207 (talk) 22:22, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    You got it. Straying from WP:V always ends in tears.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:00, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments by involved user Dicklyon

    I've been actively involved in these disputes at Centrifugal force, too, and just saw this via the notification to Brews. In these articles, David Tombe is the outlier who has been forcing the protracted debates for 15 months or so. He is unyielding in his illogical and wrong-headed misunderstandings of all that the sources and other editors say. Brews, on the other hand, is also pretty much unyielding, and generally responds to David's and others' pushback by adding more and more mathematical and explanatory content, usually in runs of several dozen edits in a day, bloating articles and sections to big messes out of proportion to their relevance or importance. I'm sort of unyielding myself when I see people doing stuff like that, which is why I've been in an edit war with Brews at Wavelength (and now also Wave and Dispersion relation), where he has actually been a much bigger problem than at Centrifugal force.

    If I had my way, I'd say ban both of them on any topics where they've demonstrated an inability to collaborate with other editors. Of course, I'd risk having someone judge me the same way, so I haven't pushed that approach. I've tried to get help via Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics#Need more opinions at Wavelength and other sections there, but what little I got, Brews felt free to ignore. He continues to work hard on expanding the article, which is not all bad, but which makes life very hard for anyone who doesn't want to just let him run away in his idiosyncratic directions with it. Dicklyon (talk) 22:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Whether an explanation is out of proportion is a hard call. Maybe in a printed encyclopaedia one weighting applies, and in WP a different weighting for this simple reason: the printed case is written by one or maybe a few authors who can set the balance as they see it, and let's say for the sake of argument, make a sound judgment. However, that same article on WP would not fly because there are readers & editors that have different questions than those addressed (whatever their importance in some Platonic universe) and there are controversies that crop up that must be addressed somehow or they will go on forever. The basic points are these: WP is an interactive encyclopaedia with a very diverse audience. It is not a print encyclopaedia. Dicklyon complains about my bloated expansions; I have my complaints about his unduly brief oversimplifications. Brews ohare (talk) 23:13, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    But hard calls can be made in collaboration with others. On Wavelength, you proved your ability to go it alone in the face of unanimous opposition. On Centrifugal force, which I created as a summary-style alternative to the messes you had created on the Centrifugal force (rotating reference frame) and other articles, you insisted on bloating it similarly. Nobody supported you in that. Dicklyon (talk) 23:22, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I was not under the impression that this forum was a soap box to present personal opinions of each other, which cannot be supported properly without far more detail than a newspaper banner. It's objective is to assess the discussion at Centrifugal force, as I have done above Brews ohare (talk) 23:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't know about objective, but there are other things to discuss when trying to decide what community sanctions to put on editors. Dicklyon (talk) 23:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    tl;dr. Why is this even here, to begin with, and why is it still being discussed? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 00:44, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Irreverent comments by Tim Shuba

    This is all too typical, and a good example of why I choose not to work much on trying to provide serious content for this project.

    David Tombe is a physics crank, and it is highly detrimental to treat him as if he is just another editor with the best interests of the encyclopedia in mind. It's easy enough to check Tombe's record off-wiki, where you may find a connection with a group of physics cranks called the Natural Philosphy Alliance, which I not so coincidentally tagged earlier for a g4 speedy deletion.

    Cranks like Tombe run rampant on wikipedia, which is a big reason why physics articles in general are highly unreliable in spite of a lot of well-meaning contributors. Certain areas have undergone significant improvement since I've been paying attention, in part due to the Fringe Noticeboard and a collection of reasonably sane editors, but the idea that someone wishing to work on an article like centrifugal force should have to worry more about coutering obvious cranks than producing good information is ridiculous. It's little wonder that so many articles are substandard.

    I don't particularly blame the average admin for these crank-induced problems, but I doubt things will improve much unless admins with an understanding of the subject are allowed to keep cranks out of such articles. I know how it goes: someone like me who says exectly what many others are thinking -- in this case, that Tombe is a detrimental crank and should be shown the door if we are a proper reference source -- is not showing good faith and is not following the doctrines of civility, et cetera. Well I don't care about that. I will continue (along with perhaps one or more of my legitimate sockpuppets) to do a very small amount to counter the large number of cranks found here, and let the chips fall where they may. Mostly, I have learned to just laugh at the pathetic state of the many articles that are crap due to this failure of the system.

    So, whatever. Topic banning Tombe would be good for the other editors who are contributing to the article. In the wider context of cranks who soil many articles, it really doesn't matter. Until wikipedia decides that proper content is preferable to mollycoddling cranks and vandals, nothing substantial will change. Tim Shuba (talk) 01:53, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Tim, I challenge you to produce a single edit of mine that you consider to be a crank edit, and explain to everybody here exactly why you think that it is a crank edit. David Tombe (talk) 02:00, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that if Tim picked one of your edits at random, you could get me and several others to document why it's crank. Want to try? Dicklyon (talk) 05:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Tim, I think that counting on admins is not going to help. You need to speak up and help us get to community sanctions when such things are happening. I just saw what you mean about his off-wiki activities; his Open Letter to the President of the Royal Society is quite a hoot, as is his "Journal"; I thought he was just confused, but now I see that he is actually much worse than that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Dick. I am not counting on admins for anything. This entire ridiculously long section should be collapsed or dev-nulled. No admin should be expected to wade into it, unless a particular admin has a serious interest in the subject. I only added to this nonsense because I saw it already in progress, and felt like gassing off. This is my final comment here. If the spirit moves me, I'll make a comment on your talk page or at the article talk. Tim Shuba (talk) 08:13, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Regarding Tim Shuba's parliamentary immunity

    Tim Shuba openly admits above that he "is not showing good faith and is not following the doctrines of civility, et cetera." and that he doesn't care, and that he will continue to do so along with his sockpuppets. He seems to possess some kind of confidence that he has got parliamentary immunity from sanction, and that he is free to deliver insults and unsubstantiated allegations.

    Can we all share in that immunity on this page? David Tombe (talk) 13:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    FyzixFighter Is The Current Problem Here

    Despite the current opinion expressed here, there was a lot of progress, and most of the issues were resolved until Mr FyzixFighter wiped out all of the progress. So he is the one who should be banned. His action was uninformed and arbitrary. He was not involved in the compromises and then just wiped out all of the progress because of his personal dislike for Mr Tombe. This is not about the facts but about the personal ego trip of Mr FixitFighter who sees wikipedai as his personal play pen. I think you need to be discussing restrictions on him and slap his hand and ban him for awhile. Or better yet, ban him permanently as he is a big trouble maker. He doesn't know much about physics either. And that is another good reason to ban him.72.84.65.202 (talk) 12:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    IP's only edit, but geolocates to the same area that the SPA IP above does. Obviously a regular user. Dougweller (talk) 13:45, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This IP pops up every time Tombe is under discussion to demand the banning of all who disagree with Tombe. No connection at all to Tombe, who has a distinctive writing style and who is in another part of the world anyway , and not very helpful. Acroterion (talk) 13:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't think it was Tombe, if I did I wouldn't have posted here, but would have asked for an SPI. Thanks though, I didn't realise that about the IP's behaviour over time. Dougweller (talk) 14:30, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The "not very helpful" was meant to describe the the IP, not you - sorry if it read that way. Acroterion (talk) 14:35, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Don't worry, I didn't take it that way. :-) Dougweller (talk) 14:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It seems to be a different user, probably User:Fugal [7]. He nearly always supports David Tombe.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:09, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I've always thought the 72/71.-- anon IP from Virginia was User:Electrodynamicist. --FyzixFighter (talk) 22:20, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Dougweller, I think that it's time that you took a look at the details of the argument. Do you have a physics background? I seem to recall at one stage reading that you do. The argument largely centres on one equation. That equation appears at 3-12 in Goldstein's 'Classical Mechanics'. It is identical in purpose to Leibniz's planetary orbital equation. It is a force equation in the radial direction. One of those forces is the gravitational inverse square law force. Nobody is disputing that. The other force is the inverse cube law centrifugal force. FyzixFighter is doing all that he can to keep this equation off the page, outside of the history section. That is what the dispute is all about. There is no point in all this talk about sources. The facts are well sourced. You need to be asking FyzixFighter, and some others, as to why they are so keen to hide this equation. In FyzixFighter's latest edit on the talk page, he attempted to claim that the inverse cube law term was the centripetal force. This is this kind of blatant distortion of the facts that have caused all the problem. And at the same time, he is trying to falsely accuse me of inserting unsourced material.
    This is not about original research. This is about the total intolerance that comes with scientific political correctness. This explicit illustration of centrifugal force as a radially outward push that is induced by transverse motion is an intolerable fact in the eyes of many modern scientists because it is evidence of an absolute frame of reference for rotational purposes. It's for these same reasons that we are now witnessing a new editor, Martin Hogbin, wanting to remove the section on absolute rotation. I didn't even write that section. It is a modified version of a section on centrifugal potential energy that was on the centrifugal force article that I first saw in 2007.
    There is absolutely no need for all your groundless and malicious allegations above. You need to show to everybody that you understand the subject matter before you can start making those kind of allegations.
    Wikipedia needs to decide which way it wants to go. Is it going to be shown up now as an on-line encyclopaedia that strives to get information correct? Or is it going to be shown up as an on-line encyclopaedia that panders to mob rule and political correctness? David Tombe (talk) 17:22, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    You know, even if you were right on the physics, I'd support a ban because of your behaviour. Dougweller (talk) 17:58, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I know you would. You made your animosity towards me clear last year, even though we had never met before. Can you please elaborate on exactly what behaviour you are talking about. You admit that you don't know who is correct. So why are you getting involved in this at all? David Tombe (talk) 18:09, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Can we just ban him because he can't even indent his discussions? Seriously, he's been here a long time... sheesh.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:09, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment from uninvolved user Elen of the Roads

    I have never edited this article or interacted with David Tombe. However I have been involved with another physics article (Black hole), where an editor made repeated attempts to include material representing his view on the current understanding of General Relativity.

    In the end, Wikipedia is not a place for scientists to debate theories with each other, and the talk pages should not be full of people lecturing each other on the correct interpretation of X theory or Y theory. Articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources - the knowledge of the editors is required to (a) find the sources and (b) rewrite the content in a form that avoids copyvio and is intelligible to the general reader.

    Keeping that in mind provides a way to deal with the disputes of scientists that may not be to their taste, but is the one that meets the policies of Wikipedia.Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:35, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Elen of the Roads, If it was a simple matter of keeping to sources, the problem would have been solved two years ago. David Tombe (talk) 17:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Elen of the Roads, you have expressed an idealized picture that sometimes works. However, it evolves that sourced material is not invariably correct or correctly interpreted. I believe this point is made by Count Iblis, and accords with my own experience. He has suggested that at least in technical arguments a mathematical derivation sometimes can settle matters, although WP guidelines may not support such an approach.
    I'd add that requiring an entire article be intelligible to the general reader is not always desirable, and is in fact not true of WP as a whole (see particularly the math articles, which are impenetrable in many cases). I'd suggest that the typical article should in fact have a gradation of levels, some intelligible to the general reader and some of interest to the more interested or demanding reader. Brews ohare (talk) 17:31, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with your point about correct interpretation of a source, some sources can be less than crystal clear. But the answer is not to go into reams of what is at the end of the day your own opinion (howevermuch based on your expert knowledge) on what the source means. It is to go and find other sources that clarify what the first source meant. Wikipedia is a tertiary source - it is a collection of the wisdom of secondary sources. If source X is advancing a view that can be interpreted as (say) a challenge to Newton's 3rd law of motion, you go out and find what the scientific consensus is - or if there is no consensus, you find out whether this view is regarded as an acceptable theory by the scientific community, or whether it is disregarded as fringe nonsense. I do wonder whether this is more difficult to do if one is an established expert (I mean, you might be a Cambridge professor of Newtonian mechanics for all I know, and actually be extremely well placed to say whether X interpretation is brilliant or barking), as what one would expect to do is explain it onesself.Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:10, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    You've hit the nail on the head here. The expert is not likely to spend a ton of time trying to track down hundreds of sources so he can outnumber the wrong view. He's likely to say, look Landau and Lifshitz and Schwinger say this, and they are experts. The opposing view will not necessarily agree upon the expertise. So one derives the result and says: look you guys, if you don't like it, show where it is mistaken. That will shut them up. They now will turn instead to Wikilawyering. Brews ohare (talk) 05:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm not convinced deriving the result shuts up the fringe theorists with perpetual motion machines anyway, but it may work with those who are just terminally confused, and I can understand why you do it. It certainly makes some talk pages very interesting, and I've learned a lot, but it's an unsatisfactory process if the other guy carries on peddling his perpetual motion solution. Wikilawyering is a downside whatever you do I suspect, a product of the personality type.Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Adjournment

    I suggest that this thread be adjourned while the prosecution prepares their case. The seven prosecution witnesses have been referred to the last edit which I made to the centrifugal force page, and which was reverted by FyzixFighter. When they return with their indictment, I expect that they will be very carefully cross examined for clear evidence of original research and/or unsourced material. David Tombe (talk) 21:26, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment by an uninvolved admin

    Would anyone object too loudly to me blocking David Tombe for three months to give the rest of us a break? He seems to be the catalyst for the pages upon pages of discussion; without him, I expect things to quiet down. --Carnildo (talk) 22:05, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    As someone staring at this mess from the outside, I'd say go for it. If nothing changes, then at least he will have proved his point that it's not him. Incidentally, I note a report above that the last time he was blocked, he took to sock farming. Someone might watch out for that.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:12, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh ... my ... God. David Tombe -- do you remember that it was me who unblocked you, giving you a last chance in October 2008, while others were calling for, and had just about succeeded in obtaining, your permanent ban? Looking at this massive gas-cloud that has quite suffocated the ANI page, not to mention several article talk pages, I'm starting to think I made a bad decision. Yep, I'm with Carnildo here. Antandrus (talk) 23:14, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Are not science (or fringe aspects of science) articles under some kind of arbcom sanction? (apologies if i got the wrong term) and with previous consent for permanent ban, isn't there a possiility that david tombe would get a long block or even a an that no-one is prepared to lift? and would other editos see that, and then reflect upon the importance of 5 pillars???87.113.86.207 (talk) 00:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I take a nice long break, come back, and find arguments about physics clogging up half of ANI. I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from that... Anyway, support a nice long block for Tombe and a stern wag of the finger at Brews for perpetuating the situation. Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:06, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Care to point out just what I have "perpetuated"? Perhaps my introduction of the Lagrangian approach to centrifugal force (a well sourced mainstream approach) "prolonged the argument? Perhaps the hashing out of several concrete examples of Centrifugal force "prolonged the argument? My view is that you have made a snap judgment here based upon column inches rather than content and ultimate impact upon the articles. Brews ohare (talk) 15:57, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Let's not lose track of the facts here. This began as a complaint by one editor that there was too much talking going on at the centrifugal force talk page. Brews ohare and I were singled out for special mention despite clear evidence that others are involved on that talk page. A topic ban was then proposed for the two of us. It has rapidly turned into an arena where certain editors are campaigning to have a ban imposed on me. Let's not forget the fact that absolutely no offences have been committed. There are alot of malicious allegations being brandished by persons who admit to not knowing about the details of the situation. Nobody is prepared to elaborate or indeed give any details of their allegations. The entire situation will become clear if FyzixFighter's last revert on the centrifugal force main page is fully investigated. David Tombe (talk) 06:43, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, he kind of did break a rule - I pointed out to him that he had gone over WP:3RR here. But more disruptively to the cooperative effort than this, he routinely disregards WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL making interactions with him on the talk page completely disruptive (see the WQA report for tip of the iceberg examples) since it is impossible to disagree with him or draw his attention to sources that contradict his view without being accused of having ulterior selfish motives or being part of a conspiracy to cover up the truth or just being an idiot. This is David's consistent modus operandi. Is such behavior really acceptable interaction on talk pages? --FyzixFighter (talk) 06:54, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    He's already been permanently banned for sockpuppetting and edit warring. But even when given a last chance he's never stopped edit warring, he just doesn't (often) hit 3RR, but he's still edit warring, continously. How many 'last' chances do you give him? This is it: he got to go.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:16, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support permanent block/ban; he has been given every chance to be a useful contributor, and has proved that that's impossible. I also support the "stern wag of the finger at Brews for perpetuating the situation". Dicklyon (talk) 07:01, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I would agree that discussion has been circular at times, or maybe a spiral is a better description. However, the complaining editors here don't have to engage in these discussions if they don't want to. They are simply annoyed that they cannot deliver the pithy one-two punch that settles an issue. That hurts their self image as amazing savants. There is no substantive reason to curtail these discussions. Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Dicklyon, you cannot be serious! This just exposes the thread for the pantomine that it is. You are one of the contributing editors to the centrifugal force talk page and you have now seen this thread as a golden opportunity to deliver a punch against your two opponents. It's only a farce like this that could permit a situation where Brews and I have suddenly ended up in the dock while you FyzixFighter, and Wolfkeeper can now throw cabbages. It's all becoming a bit of an Alice in Wonderland situation. A proper investigation into the situation, if there had actually been a problem at all, would have involved clear indictments against all editors concerned. How come that you and FyzixFighter got off the hook? David Tombe (talk) 15:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support I've tried to wade through this and sort it out; I'm getting the same feeling that David Tombe is not going to be able to interact here productively which looks to me like an indefinite ban is called for. I agree with Dicklyon as well, that Brewer should remember not to make situations worse. Shell babelfish 12:26, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sorry Shell but I have to respond to what you have just said. You seem to think that the fruitful discussions between myself and Brews, which have greatly expanded both our knowledge of this topic, seem to represent some kind of problem for wikipedia that warrants me being permanently banned. Last year I argued alot with Brews. The situation changed dramatically when Brews discovered Lagrangian mechanics. That was new to me, but the concepts were so closely related to what I had been explaining about polar coordinates that it changed the whole nature of the debate. Even FyzixFighter has admitted that he hadn't previously been aware of centrifugal force in polar coordinates. I think that you need to study the debate more carefully before advocating draconian measures. If you can't understand the subject matter, you shouldn't be involved here. David Tombe (talk) 13:40, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not about whether or not someone understands the subject and its a bit offensive that you assumed the lack here and asserted it as a reason to invalidate my opinion (I see you've done this with many others throughout the thread). This is about your ability or lack thereof to conform to the standards expected of Wikipedia editors. You seem to be under the misunderstanding that your assertion that you know more about the subject than others somehow excludes you from the policies and guidelines that every editor is expected to follow. I think everyone had hoped for better when you got a second chance after the last indef block. Shell babelfish 13:56, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I have seen no problems with D Tombe following the block. I agree that one can identify abusive behavior without understanding the subject. (I'd say that Wolfkeeper and Dicklyon have shown very obvious indications of same.) However, much of the objections raised are not about abusive behavior, but about the length or course of the discussion, and these objections are not useful if they are not based upon explicit examples that probably cannot be evaluated without an understanding. Brews ohare (talk) 19:11, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    He's causing nothing but article problems. To my knowledge off-hand none of his edits has ever survived in the article... but he keeps on editing... over several years. There's never been any realistic claim by anyone that this is just the other editors ganging up on him either, there's no RFCs on that anywhere, it's just his edits are consistently poor quality, over several years, and people are having to constantly revert him.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:42, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strongly oppose D Tombe has raised good points that have improved the articles. His ideas have led to clarifications, examples, citation of sources, and rewording even where his thesis has not made it into the article. It is a very bad precedent to ban an editor that is trying to improve WP just because of the impatience of some hot-heads. Brews ohare (talk) 15:39, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Shell, show us all the evidence of what you have just said. This thread began as an allegation that there was too much talk going on on a talk page. It has now been transformed into an opportunist theatre for FyzixFighter, Wolfkeeper, and Dicklyon to try and get me off the project.
    There hasn't been a single substantiated allegation of any wrong doing on my part. There is no edit war going on and the discussion on the talk page is not unreasonable. I can't imagine myself ever intervening on a discussion page about a topic which I had no interest in, nor knew anything about, and then singling out an individual editor for a permanent ban as a means of reducing the amount of discussion. This whole thread has become one monumental farce. If any administrator takes the draconian action which is being demanded here by my opponents on that talk page and also by the continuing stream of uninvolved editors, then it will be a gross abuse of the administrator tool.
    On this thread, there is alot of noise going on about nothing. I have already suggested that the accusers produce their evidence, but so far we have seen nothing of any substance. Equally, there has been a total refusal to examine FyzixFighter's last revert on the centrifugal force article. David Tombe (talk) 15:36, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hey there Brews, I know you don't like this and are offended by it, as I'm sure anyone would be in your position, but I'd really appreciate it if you could dial back the personal attacks. I don't believe it's at all fair to characterize me as a "hot-head" since I've been aware of this for over a year before coming to ANI, and the idea that the only problem here is that I or others are "simply annoyed that they cannot deliver the pithy one-two punch that settles an issue. That hurts their self image as amazing savants." Since I'm the one who brought this here, I can only assume you are at least partially referring to me, and, aside from being dead wrong about my motivations, it's just not very nice. I would also remind all of you that you don't have to be an expert to contribute to an article, that's just not how Wikipedia works. The purpose here is to try and prevent this article from being a walled garden, where only those who have been arguing for a year can even wrap their mind around what is being discussed on the talk page. I don't understand how anyone could look at the absurd length of these discussions and conclude that they are only reasonable discussion of the article itself. There seems to be a larger debate going on here about the accuracy of the underlying science behind the sources, making this a discussion that probably does not belong on Wikipedia at all, no matter it's length. It's not up to us to interpret the source material, or to create new theories, but merely to report on what is already available. I'm sure you guys are aware of this, but you would never know it from that talk page. And David, badgering everyone (even those who don't want you banned!) and acting like this is a court of law is not helping you at all, although it from my perspective it is helpful as it demonstrates what it is like to try and interact with you. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:29, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Beeblebrox: Actually, I wasn't thinking about you in these remarks about "hot-heads" (I won't trouble to list who I was thinking about). I am very unsure why you have elected the role of taking out the garbage here; you seem to have little interest in contributing to this topic, so I guess it's "general principles" or "the good of WP", or something. However, the parameters demarcating a "reasonable discussion" are pretty hard to pin down. They depend upon personalities, temperature of the debate, subtlety of the topic, and many factors other than what might seem sensible for a simple exchange of opinion about sources.
    Your walled garden reference is a misuse of the terminology, but you seem to feel left out of the Talk page because you can't grasp what is going on there. That is not an issue, really, because you can start up a discussion of your own on any topic you wish without any requirement that other issues be settled before you join in. Brews ohare (talk) 16:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Admin incident involving 3RR block being lifted on basis of personal attacks

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
    Resolved
     – nothing to see here. Admins are allowed to revisit their blocks and change their mind. Spartaz Humbug! 20:53, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Extended content

    A rather clear cut case of a 72 hour block issued for edit warring was lifted by an admin, William M. Connolley, here upon the blocked editor making personal attacks against the reporting editor in an appeal to the block here. Are personal attacks against reporting editors now an accepted defense against 3RR blocks? Admin User:William M. Connolley is apparently worried about being de-sysopped, as noted here. Yaf (talk) 12:04, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Oh dear. weburiedourdramainthegarden 12:08, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, to be fair, he did self-revert and offer to talk here. weburiedourdramainthegarden 12:13, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    And then he reverted another 4 times or so, while making the same changes, showing the self reverts were not in good faith, since he continued edit warring. 6 Reverts or even 5 reverts in much less than 24 hours is clearly in violation of 3RR. As for making an offer to talk, you might take a look at: this. Yaf (talk) 12:15, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    No opinion on the case as a whole yet, but I also see no personal attack in SaltyBoatr's unblock request. Plus, Yaf's method of apparently trying to cast aspersions on WMC's authority as an admin by mentioning the (entirely unrelated) arbcom case, does not cast a very positive light on his conduct here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:25, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The MedCom case recommended for ArbCom was a case of the same editor "offering to talk" once before. It is entirely related, since it was about the same POV edit warrior and his "talk", regarding the exact same article for which he is now edit warring. Looks very much related to me. Yaf (talk) 12:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    We seem to be talking about different things. I was referring to your snide remark about WMC being "worried about being desysoped". Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:35, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Just the facts, sir. He made the statement, not me. As for the personal attack, the comment regarding "And, the reporting editor Yaf is one who flatly refuses[8] to follow WP:DR.", which is entirely false, hence is a personal attack the way I see it. Also, the mention of me removing a note from my talk page after the block was granted. The note was removed from my talk page prior to the block being issued. The personal attacks through lying about facts regarding an unrelated editor (Yaf) to escape a block seem rather clear, but perhaps I am just taking the falsehoods personally, being they were directed at me. Yaf (talk) 12:38, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Asking here in the bright light of day: Yaf, will you agree to full good faith participation in the procedures outlined at WP:Dispute Resolution to resolve our dispute? For my part, I make such a commitment wholeheartedly, here publicly in front of these witnesses. Yaf, do you make this public commitment? SaltyBoatr (talk) 20:08, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Stating that someone "flatly refused" is a personal attack? No. Not even close. Tan | 39 14:23, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    You know, it might be. Using the word "fuck" in an exasperated sense already is. Sceptre (talk) 16:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Contrary to Yaf's original assertion, my block of SB wasn't clear cut. Unusually, I did it on the basis of the reported diffs, rather than on looking through the history myself. Because of that, I missed SB's self revert. That made the block questionnable, and on another inspection I couldn't see 4 clear R. Furthermore, Yaf's failure to mention the self-rv showed bad faith. So I unblocked SB, because I was no longer happy to sustain the block. William M. Connolley (talk) 22:09, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Closing comment

    I object to the closing comment. Referring to a "snide whiney" comment is basically a WP:Personal attack and counterproductive. Please strike it out.Ferrylodge (talk) 19:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    It does not reach anywhere close to being a violation of WP:NPA. It's a comment about an EDIT and not an EDITOR. Please don't extend the drama any further than needed. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 19:59, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Saying that someone behaves like a fucking prick is not better than calling the person a fucking prick. If there's going to be an accusation that someone was snide and whining, then let's have a quote.Ferrylodge (talk) 20:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Massive AWB use to remove image placeholders

    Stephen (talk · contribs) is removing hundreds or thousands of image placeholders. Another editor and I have expressed our concern about this, asking for a reference to a discussion on the subject. Can we revoke his AWB rights till he answers? Do you perhaps have other suggestions? Debresser (talk) 16:31, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Short answer: No, admins are approved by default. Long answer: I left this message on his talk page - if this task has consensus, you should file a BRFA so the edits can be done with a bot flag, if this task doesn't have consensus...well, then you shouldn't be doing it! =) He's not presently editing, so no immediate action is required, but I think a BRFA would be Stephen's best bet. –xenotalk 16:36, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It actually appears there may be some consensus for this.
    While there isn't a clear consensus to remove the images, it appears there is one that they shouldn't actually be used.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, there's loose consensus not to continue adding it, but doesn't that final link somewhat prove that removing the image en masse doesn't enjoy consensus? –xenotalk 16:44, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec)I've been removing the image placeholders when I come accross them as well. Mainly I've based the removal on this conversation, which states at the top:
    • "From 11 April to 23 April 2008, a centralized discussion considered the appropriateness of using "from-owner" image placeholders on biographies of living persons. A carefully structured discussion clarified the objections to this practice as well as its benefits. There was significant opposition to the use of images such as Replace this image female and Replace this image male. 35 editors (66%) agreed with the question, "placeholder images should not be used at all on the main page of articles", however, only 14 editors (45%) agreed with any particular recommendation".
    Although I do think they look slightly garish myself, I have no strong aversion to them and was removing them based on what appeared to be concensus that they should not be used. Perhaps there is a more recent discussion that I missed? ponyo (talk) 16:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That bot request above was more recent, and it seems that the main objection was that there were too many ways for the bot to break things. I would urge that these removals not be reverted until a consensus to put them back in is obtained, since the consensus for having them there seems weak-to-nonexistent.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    If consensus truly exists for these not to appear on articles, could we not just replace the image with a single transparent pixel? –xenotalk 16:51, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I hate those bloody single-pixel images. Let's not, and say we didn't....--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    On the one hand, I'm a touch uncomfortable seeing AWB used for anything that even smells a smidge controversial. On the other hand, there seems to be consensus that these images shouldn't be used (I say that having supported their use, previously, mind you). It was a good experiment, but hasn't worked out as well as we hoped it might. If there's consensus not to use them, why on earth wouldn't we remove them? – Luna Santin (talk) 21:36, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Uh, because we like arguing about whether or not to remove them? ;-) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 21:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Mhm, it seems to be a catch-22 situation. No consensus to add them, no consensus to remove them. I support the removal, though if someone wants to edit war to keep the placeholder on I'm not gonna bother reverting the guy, it's a silly thing to edit war over. Wizardman 21:44, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Respectfully disagree, part of the non-consensus here is that they do work. Some see them as ugly, a POV and style issue IMHO, but they remain in the area of things we wish we had a better alternative for so leave them until we do. I like them and wouldn't use them if they didn't work. Until a better alternative - likely an image not seen as "ugly" - is produced there seems not overwhelming consensus to remove them. -- Banjeboi 21:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed, have you read the anecdotal evidence at User talk:Stephen? "I work WP:OTRS, and we get several image submissions per day, almost all of which are for articles with the placeholder image. It really does work for getting us free images. Sandstein 15:17, 14 July 2009 (UTC) " –xenotalk 21:47, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Precisely. No consensus to add means: don't add any more. no consensus to remove means: don't remove them either. C'est simple. Debresser (talk) 22:10, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Not exactly, I see no directive or concensus to forbid adding them, that would seem to be the same reason there is no consensus for removing them. There is just general dislike of their appearance from everything I've read. -- Banjeboi 22:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    What's wrong with them? Is it that they're an embarassing reminder of wikipedia's schizoid attitude towards fair use? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 02:25, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Lol. I used to be bitter a bit as well, the goal is to produce free content for the world so really, ultimately, we want free images with no fair use requirements. Those can be seen worldwide whereas everything else gets masked in various ways. As our uploading images protocols is overhauled and more images are uploaded to commons the tide will change. -- Banjeboi 03:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Having the sihouettes there might at least encourage someone to go get their Brownie and do a little celebrity-stalking. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 04:05, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Unfortunately that centralised discussion got rather disjointed and highjacked but there was a very promising solution evolving out of the discussion before the politics tired us out and the solution lost momentum. It was the The text placeholder solution illustrated here. DoubleBlue (talk) 04:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Personally I wouldn't have supported that as a solution, it uses a small line of text, and in that example is rather lost in the shuffle. I think the placeholders work because they are obvious and seen by all who look at the article. I also believe they may help inspire folks to contribute who may not think of that as an option. -- Banjeboi 05:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The silhouette seems like a better answer - it tells the viewer that we would like a photo but we don't have one. It's like IMDB uses. Unless we're consciously trying to avoid looking like IMDB. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 07:53, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I think the above shows that there still is some discussion needed on this issue. So maybe we can consider the following as what to do next:

    1. All editors are reminded not to remove those placeholders for now until community has decided that this is indeed consensus
    2. A new RFC is opened to discuss the pros and cons of those images which is advertised to the wider community using a watchlist notice. The RFC should include the question whether removal of those images should be sought.
    3. If (and only if) the RFC shows that there is indeed consensus for those removals, then a bot account will be requested to remove those images.

    This way, we can avoid cries of "stop him, there is no consensus!" and maybe settle the question once and for all. Even if said proposed RFC does result in "no consensus", we will have a result that allows us to deal with such situations in the future. Talking about the issue itself here will not yield any productive results and Stephen seems to have stopped to allow discussion to take place, so there is no further need for ANI discussion. Regards SoWhy 08:08, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Hi, I am a WP:OTRS volunteer who occasionally works the photo submission queue. I can attest that these placeholders are very successful at getting us free photographs. We get on the order of several dozens of photograph submissions per week for articles that have such placeholders. That's why I consider it disruptive to remove all these images without consensus. I propose that a bot revert these removals and I agree that we should have a RfC on the question whether we want such placeholders and whether they should be automatically added to or removed from articles.  Sandstein  08:55, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    A bot wouldn't be necessary, one could use mass rollback; with the caveat that it would also roll back the cosmetic changes made. –xenotalk 12:46, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    (I feel a bit bad for not knowing how to use mass rollback despite having been an admin for 3+ years). Per WP:BRD, I suggest to mass-revert all these changes and to ask Stephen to find more support for his actions first. Kusma (talk) 14:08, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    See here. Probably best to enter a rollback edit summary before doing it: User:Mr.Z-man/rollbackSummary.js. –xenotalk 14:10, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Mass rollback to restore placeholder?

    I don't really have an opinion one way or the other, I can, however, use mass-rollback to restore these placeholders, with the above-noted caveat that cosmetic changes made in conjunction with the removal will be rolled back as well. Thoughts? –xenotalk 14:18, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I'd support it based on the fact that it would send a strong signal to every user not to make potentially controversial edits automated on a larger scale. If we just sit back and say "oh well, now it has already happened", we invite people to do similar things because they will not have to worry to be reverted... On the other hand, that would be quite many edits to rollback and as such, potentially, an unneeded drain on our servers that might be re-reversed if a consensus is found to allow such removals. I think the best course of action will be to quickly establish any kind of preliminary consensus by asking for input at multiple venues at the same time. Regards SoWhy 21:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd support mass rollback as well.  Sandstein  07:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    DDo it, I personally detest mass edits like these without support. ViridaeTalk 07:29, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Nukes4Tots back from a week-long block and back to uncivil behavior

    Resolved
     – Blocked one month ACB by Tanthalas39. — neuro(talk) 22:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    after returning from a week long block [[9]] for WP:NPA, i noticed that User:Nukes4Tots has been reverting some run-of-the-mill content disputes with the edit summary "RVV" (revert vandalism). I warned him about misusing the edit summary 'rvv' in cases where it is not actually vandalism, as that could be construed as uncivil, and he deleted my warning as 'destalkerized. go away.' I wasn't sure if he understood the message I was trying to convey to him, since I used a generic template to send the first message, so I left this personalized message with another example of when not to use 'rvv' (the misused rvv this time was here.) he then reverted my message with the edit summary rvv. I don't believe that he has interests in working well with others.

    furthermore, he is leaving what could be construed as racist edit summaries. someone tried to add the mexican flag to an article and his edit summary was rv: el bandito. someone tried to add the filipino flag to an article and he reverts it as rv: filipino bandit, rv: cambodian bandit, filipino bandit strikes again, rv: filipino bandit, filipino bandit strikes again, turkish bandit.

    Theserialcomma (talk) 19:43, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Theserialcomma baiting block review

    Another admin reviewed independently a few hours ago and passed on doing anything, but Theserialcomma just posted a malformed (probably won't show up on the unblock requests category properly) unblock request on his talk page User talk:Theserialcomma. If another uninvolved admin can go take a look I'd appreciate it.
    Please note that contrary to TSC's claim in the unblock I am asserting no defense for Nukes4Tots actions here and not arguing for him to be unblocked. Theserialcomma caused a very large number of ANI threads over the last few months, though they were usually the victim in terms of direct abuse. This evolved into a situation where they pestered someone they knew did not want to talk to them at all, replaced a warning on their talk page after it was removed once. If this was the first time, AGF would presume this was neither intentional nor malicious. This is far, far from the first time. Even if it was still unintentional and innocent, the quantity of incidents rises to disruptive, and I can no longer AGF on the matter. There have been too many - a user who genuinely understands that getting along with the community is important would have stopped poking the stick in months ago.
    The current civility poll section on baiting supports a community consensus that baiting is a problem and has been under-recognized in abuse cases.
    I do invite review, but I am hopeful that we can start to set the precedent that if you appear on ANI too often even as the victim, there's probably something you're doing very wrong, and that you should expect to be held responsible for that. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have procedurally declined the unblock request pending resolution of this review. I am on record saying that "baiting" is not a useful description of blockable misconduct. Still, Georgewilliamherbert, could you please provide the diffs of the edits that you believe constitute the misconduct that triggered your block, and could you explain why you chose a block length of one month for an editor who had not previously been blocked?  Sandstein  07:30, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • A month does seem a tad excessive given the previously-unpopulated block log and lack of warnings. → ROUX ₪ 07:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I will follow up with diffs, but the proximate cause was the pair of warnings about misuse of "rvv" as a revert summary for nonvandalism. As I indicated to Theserialcomma on his talk page, he has been engaged in enough conflict with Nukes4Tots that he should not have been leaving warnings there - Nukes had repeatedly told him to leave him alone and not post on his talk page. TSC had a point about "rvv" - but should have sought an uninvolved user or admin to talk to Nukes about it. TSC knew or reasonably should have been expected to have known that any criticism he leveled on Nukes would be taken badly by now and would likely result in rude behavior. Even if we assume that the first warning was in innocent ignorance of that, putting it back after Nukes deleted it is either malign baiting or operating in sufficient ignorance of the effects of ones actions upon others that it rises to the level of negligence and disruption. The next response was to come to ANI.
    One can assume good faith about malign intent in this - I don't anymore, but I can see how others might - but any reasonable person who had been in such conflict with another editor would know that acting in that manner would be provocative. The 1-2-ANI sequence was telling.
    I do not factually know what TSC intended by this - but what he did was clearly poking a stick repeatedly at an editor he had been in conflict with multiple times over multiple months. If he was malignly baiting, then he should go. If he really didn't realize that this was provocative, that he was poking a stick in, then there is a serious lack of judgement regarding interpersonal communications, serious enough that it rises to the level of disruption.
    The number of times he's come to ANI indicates the scope of the issue. I'll need to dig up the diffs. Those provided the background - this would not be a necessary or appropriate response to a first incident which could be characterized as baiting.
    Regarding block length - I submit that if one is baiting, one should be held as responsible as the effects were upon the baitee. Nukes was blocked for a month.
    If there's widescale disagreement with proportional responsibility (half or more of admins responding here disagree) then I agree in advance with any admin reducing that to two weeks or one week. I would like to see some healthy discussion on it first, though.
    I don't intend to argue that Nukes4Tots has any lack of responsibility here - a number of admins have stated that they feel that WPMILHIST / WPGUNS editors have been acting insular and hostile, with Nukes being one of the two main culprits blamed. There is no support in the poll on civility for allowing baited people to get away with having responded aggressively in an uncivil manner. But there is clear support that baiting is not ok, and that it's been under-responded-to. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:40, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think we got TSC's attention but a month is way too long, even a week is excessive for a first block. More punitive then preventative. I'd suggest commuting this to time served or 24 hours. If there is a repetition then something longer can be imposed. Spartaz Humbug! 21:30, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't consider Theserialcomma to be as innocent as he claims to be. His decision to continuously converse with Nukes4Tots, despite the fact that Nukes4Tots no longer wishes to communicate with this user (to elaborate, Theserialcomma was the one who initiated the SPI reports on Nukes4Tots and created the AN/I notices on Nukes' behavior), gives off an impression of baiting. Although this is a serious issue, this is only the first block for this user, so a month might seem punitive. I support the block being reduced to a few days or a week at most. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 21:56, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Eyes requested

    Resolved
     – indef blocked by Tan, two unblocks refused by Tnxman307 and Cambridge Bay Weather --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:19, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I came across this watching recent changes and it looked strange. I thought I'd bring it here to see if anything needs to be done. Thanks Tiderolls 01:00, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Jccort and Scpmarlins

    The user Jccort is removing "AfD" (Article for Deletion) nomination tags on two pages; Greek Life at the University of Florida, and Greek Life at Florida State University. I nominated both of these articles for deletion because they do not meet the general notability requirements of WP:UNIGUIDE and because they contain Indiscriminate list of fraternities and sororities.

    The user contends that this is vandalism because I am an alumni of a rival school, and because our schools Greek Life page was nominated for deletion a week ago. I explained to the user that I nominated Greek Life articles that did not met the preceding requirements, leaving others that meet the requirements. One can check this. I nominated four or five separate articles. In addition, the user is using their rollback privileges to do this. Rollback privileges are not supposed to be used in articles unless it is a clear violation of policy, which these edits are not. Even if someone believes that I did do this for vandalism purposes, which is open to your own interpretation, the articles nomination for deletion lists valid reasons and the user can list their respective grievances on the articles nomination for deletion page.

    As well, the editors user page states that he is "RETIRED - no longer active on Wikipedia", when fact he is. This is purposefully misleading.

    I will change it to "Semi-Retired" Jccort (talk) 02:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I am a proud UCF Alumni of 1986, and while I am not a big UF or FSU fan, the nomination for deletion lists valid reasons and should not be removed willy nilly because this one editor believes it bias, that is what the debate is for.

    Any interpretation is welcome at this time. --Scpmarlins (talk) 02:13, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    The AfD templates have been re-added. As notability reqs have not been met, any unwarranted removal of AfD tags should be reverted on sight. ~ Troy (talk) 02:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That is fine I will debate why they should not be deleted on the talk page. I have no problem with that. Jccort (talk) 02:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It's alumnus. Alumni is plural. Do they not teach you anything at University these days? SimonTrew (talk) 18:36, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Ouch! That's an ad hominem comment if ever I saw one... – ukexpat Latin nerd comment (talk) 18:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm rigid, yet flexible (and recyclable!), so I'm aluminum. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:47, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm English, therefore am aluminium. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:21, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm English and ancient, therefore aluminum. Ironholds (talk) 13:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Scpmarlins

    • Look the fact is User:Scpmarlins only decided to nominate to delete the UF/FSU Greek Life articles after another poster nominated the deletion of Greek Life at the University of Central Florida. The poster also started the Wikiproject University of Central Florida, and copied wikiproject UF and wikiproject FSU to a tee. Also the posters has not done a mass purge of Greek Life articles on Wikipedia (you only nominated 3 total). Scpmarlins specifically targeted UF & FSU. Also the posters is in fact guilty of deleting the nomination for deletion for the UCF Greek Life article, and then tried to cover it up on the poster's talk page.Jccort (talk) 02:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I did in fact nominate the Greek Life articles only after the UCF article was nominated. I will not debate that. Yet FSU and UF were not singled out, 4 were nominated for deletion. As well I never deleted the "AfD" tag on the Greek Life at the University of Central Florida page (As you can see for yourself). I argued my point on the pages article for deletion page as is policy. The part, as you mention, that was deleted was the notification on my talk page. As per the WikiProject, I have edited the page, on my own time, so that it is no longer like UF or FSU's. --Scpmarlins (talk) 02:53, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This dispute does not belong at ANI. It's shameful that Americans would act like the nationalist boneheads who make editing miserable at Balkan and Middle East articles, but if you insist on this sort of bickering, do it at the AfDs. Looie496 (talk) 03:08, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Radiokid1010

    Resolved
     – he removed the unblock request right after Sarek of Vulcan told him not to, so now he's also blocked from editing his talk page --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:25, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Radiokid1010 (talk · contribs) is removing his unblock requests and the denials from his Talk page. Isn't that disallowed as long as the block is in place? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 03:25, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    The guideline says 'may', but in practice it is not allowed. And personally I think it indicates they are attempting to pretend any unblock they put up is the first one. Admins should check, of course, but it's just a bad idea. → ROUX ₪ 03:29, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, per WP:BLANKING, one of the things they are NOT supposed to remove is block notices and declined unblock requests while the block is still active. Once the block expires or is lifted, they are free to do what they want with them. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 07:00, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I know what WP:BLANKING says (emphasis mine): "Important exceptions may include declined unblock requests". But y'know, since policies and guidelines are supposed to be descriptive and not proscriptive, I'm going to go ahead and change that. → ROUX ₪ 07:20, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    BorgQueen tried to give Radiokid a second chance, and he immediately went back to removing interwiki links, so BorgQueen blocked him again for 72 hours, he's now requesting an unblock. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 07:14, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Disruptive editing over Early life and career of Barack Obama

    Editor Barwick (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) continues to edit disruptively by re-introducing a the birther argument to Early life and career of Barack Obama over the birth certificate that various editors, including two admins, have said was going no where, was denigrating into a forum discussion, and had no consensus. This editor then first went and created a sub page [10] (Barwick later said they misunderstood archiving and thought it was fine to create a sub page.) and then edited out the other comments of other editors leaving only Barwick's edits [11] with the summary of: "Archiving old rants from multiple parties (see Archive 1), and cleaning up to discuss the facts and items under dispute". User:DJ Clayworth closed and deleted the re-hashing of the argument [12] "This dicussion was moved to another page and then closed down". Shortly there after Barwick re-inserted the section [13] with the edit summary of "No, it was not "discussed", it turned into a "forum', and was useless "my dad can beat up your dad" pettyness. This is a discussion of the facts,". I then deleted it and then Barwick re-introduced it again. All through this, no new reliable sources were presented to back up the argument. This editor continues to not understand that the argument was closed. Brothejr (talk) 16:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    This is the latest form the Barwick has shaped the section [14] with the summary: "Here, let's make it even easier and separate the facts section so you can find it..." Brothejr (talk) 16:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I am aware of this notice, and I agree with Brothejr's summary. Barwick has several times attempted to restart a debate on the 'truth' of Obama's birthplace. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:35, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    As per precedent, disruption on Obama articles should lead to blocks after one good faith warning. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 17:45, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This story, if it proves to have any legs, could complicate matters: [15] Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 17:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That story is already documented at Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories#Cook_v._Obama --guyzero | talk 17:59, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That would be the place for it, then. Until, or if, something comes of this issue, it should be confined to that page. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 18:03, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Technically Barwick is only disrupting the talk page. However if another admin would like to block him that might be a good idea. Even though I came to the article as a neutral arbiter (he's not my president!) I've probably been there too long to be considered neutral now. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Disruption of the Talk page has led to numerous blocks. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Just warned Barwick that he could be blocked for disrupting the talk page. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:53, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Looks like a tag team of sorts now; one hits the talk page, while the other does the article. Already earned a 1-day block just 2 days ago, and appears to be back at it as soon as that expired, already racking up 2 today. Tarc (talk) 18:06, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Jawesome98's block expired. Looks like it's time for a renewal. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 18:10, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Renewed, 3 days. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This discusoin here seems to intesect with the Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories they have contributed extensively to. i was wondering if anyone here can ehlp me stabilzie this article be looking up some minutiate points regardin some of the minor people who hare involved with this subject, princiaplly the lawyer in the Cook case, a Mrs. Orly Taitz who has been listed as both a dentist and lawyer on this page. if we can clear up this confusion, I am confident that user Jawesome and User:Brawick will be willing to come to a negotiation on that talkpage instead of messing with the Early Life of Barack Obama page. Smith Jones (talk) 18:46, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Jawesome98's Talk page has drive-by edits saying that he was mentioned at WND. I tried finding the mention at their website, but couldn't. Does anybody know what the IP editor is talking about? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:51, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    have you considered my proposal? re: WND, I launched an exhaustive inquery into the nonreggies claim on Mr Jawesomes talk page on the website of both World Net Daily and several of its affiliates websites. There was no matches as can be evidenced here. I think that Jawesome98 might have posted on WND's forum under a diferent username than the one he uses for Wikipedia, or maybe the non-reggie had him confused with someone else with similar plitical leanings. Anyway, I think it might be ared herring and not material to the nature of Orly Taitz Smith Jones (talk) 18:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Just saw the last two entries about Jawesome98... Why does everyone assume people are tag teaming? This makes no sense. Regardless... I have already brought this matter up by asking the Mediation Cabal to review the actions of the two editors whom I believe have slowly lost their neutrality on this issue. The reason I believe this is because over the three days I have been advocating this discussion, while my main facts have never been addressed, the administrator's demands went from "Let's discuss this on the talk page", to "Provide reliable sources", to "This isn't relevant to the topic", to "Everybody else believes this has been settled", to "Only conspiracy theorists believe this", to "This has already been discussed", all while still failing to address the main facts presented.

    This discussion I brought up was going nowhere because *nobody* was responding to the facts I presented, or responding to the claims that were made based on those facts. That doesn't mean the argument has no merit, it means the opposing viewpoint so far has not presented a defense.

    The link to the Mediation Cabal is here Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-07-15/Talk:Early_life_and_career_of_Barack_Obama--Barwick (talk) 19:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    There is nothing to really mediate. The matter of Birther conspiracies in Obama-related articles is quite settled on the grounds of WP:RS, WP:FRINGE, and WP:UNDUE. Continuously edit-warring to jam it in wherever possible is disruptive and usually dealt with accordingly, via Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Obama articles or Talk:Barack Obama/Article probation. Tarc (talk) 19:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry/COI/physical threats

    i don't know where to start. User:Avianraptor claims to be a student of Frank Dux, ninja extraordinaire. He is probably teh article subject in question, but the more important thing right now is that he's making threats of physical violence. He also appears to be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/76.121.103.42, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Oni.maru53, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Publius352, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Pamela_lee33, based on the similar vernacular, and the fact that they are all SPA's that only edit Frank Dux. Theserialcomma (talk) 19:15, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Report him to WP:AIV for those things, and they should cool his jets in short order. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 20:06, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Indef'ed. I saw this on AIV but came here to see the genus of the complaint. Let me know if the other accounts start making the same kind of noises. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:39, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Not again. We don't care if Bruce Springsteen is his shidoshi. MuZemike 20:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Disclaimer: I met Mr. (er... Colonel) Dux IRL on one occasion, years ago. He's a bit of a douche and a self-promoter (to put it mildly), and I don't condone threats of legal action or violence, but I can't blame him for being irate with the state of his bio. Though there are some solid references, much of it is sourced to self-published material or primary-source court rulings. It could do with a bit of editing from those versed in BLP problems. Skinwalker (talk) 03:08, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK, let me weigh in here, as I have become the focus of User:Avianraptor's ire and the focus of what I strongly suspect are two of his sock puppets. First thing today, User:Avianraptor posted this to me: "Yeah and the other hand will be going up side your head if you don't start talking to me with a little respect you worthless little prick."[16]. Serialcomma came along and removed a large chunk of the exchange. Soon after, a new account User:Justice4allseeker registered (45 minutes after Avianraptor was indef blocked) and jumped in, claiming I removed this and was somehow involved in a big conspiracy to supress something I had no involvement in editing in the first place. After I denied remving anything (which is clear in the diffs) and asked for an apology, yet another SPA User:76.22.87.15 comes along and claims I am really a sockpuppet of serialcomma (or vice versa). Comma's account is over a year old and there is no similarity in the articles or really even the types of articles we edit. I invite anyone to compare them and see if there is even a passing similarity. I am considering going through the tedious process of a SPI and I invited Avianraptor/Justice4allseeker/76.22.87.15 to do the same because I know I have nothing to worry about. Niteshift36 (talk) 05:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Aarontw's copyvios & bad FU rationales

    As Aarontw (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has not edited in over nine months and may never return, perhaps there's no point in doing anything about this beyond what I'm already doing, which is reviewing his uploads one-by-one, but this editor has repeatedly uploaded copyvio images he claims were self-created, and adding to other uploads FU rationales it'd be hard to see as anything but bad-faith -- for instance, characterizing copyrighted photographic portraits of (living) human subjects as "historically significant paintings". Among the user's uploads are indeed a few low-res images of paintings which perhaps meet NFCC; the rest are really problematic. I'd attribute this to newbieism, except that the user was still uploading copyvios five months after first being notified there were problems with his uploads. That's plenty of time to become familiar with the policies he was being notified about if he'd really wanted to. --Rrburke(talk) 20:09, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Indefblocked for apparent copyright violations. If they contact us and turn out to be the actual image owner they can be unblocked immediately, but until then they're blocked. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:52, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Alansohn

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
    Resolved
     – This doesn't look like its going anywhere Spartaz Humbug! 06:00, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Extended content

    This editor and I have clashed on any number of occasions and will likely continue to clash in the future. So take this concern for what it's worth, bearing that history in mind. I have no intention of getting into a he said/he said pissing match with him over this concern, so I hope that responses along the lines of "well, Otto did such-and-such" will not be allowed to draw focus from the concern at hand. Alansohn becomes very passionate about the CFD process. That's fine, I do too, again, this isn't about me. His passion leads him to adopt a number of inappropriate tactics in CFD discussions. His latest tactics, most recently employed here, is to rage against the system itself, deriding it as a "game". He couples this tactic with a blanket accusation that deleting categories that he finds personally acceptable but that a CFD has found should be deleted is automatically "disruption", the false assertion that categories are deleted because "one editor doesn't like them" and the distortion that editors routinely nominate categories, not for the reasons they state in their nominations, but again because they don't "like" the categories. Using any one of these tactics without some supporting evidence by any editor is enough to call the actions of that editor into question. Combining all of them and repeatedly employing them in what amount to boilerplate keep opinions constitutes an utter and abject failure to assume good faith. It is also blatant incivility, which is bad enough in general but also particularly ironic given that Alansohn routinely accuses other editors of being uncivil toward him. I have repeatedly advised him of these concerns and asked him not to engage in such behaviour, to no avail. Whatever remedy the community feels is appropriate to stop this constant bad conduct is fine, but at the least I would hope the editor will be instructed to stop making bad-faith accusations about his fellow editors. Otto4711 (talk) 20:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    It seems like an attempt at WP:WQA should precede an appeal to ANI for this issue. Looie496 (talk) 20:49, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    If it were simply an etiquette problem I would agree, but my feeling is that 1) an appeal on the etiquette issue would be unproductive given the editor's history and 2) the bad-faith accusations of "disruption" and the "they just don't like it" business goes beyond the scope of simple etiquette. Otto4711 (talk) 20:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    As I am unfamiliar with the dispute at CfD and as no evidence has been presented to illustrate a problem, it is difficult for me to consider whether this request is actionable. Generally, however, I would say that if an editor's conduct was usually satisfactory but tended to deteriorate at CfD, then a topic ban from category deletion discussions might be the best way forward. AGK 21:04, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure what else you're looking for in the way of evidence. There is a link in my above comment to the most recent incident. Otto4711 (talk) 21:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    For reference, his Arbcom editing restrictions are set out here. I have had a disagreement with Alansohn at DRV about one of my CFD closes, so I will not involve myself further. BencherliteTalk 21:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    A lot of usually good editors have been boiling over lately. But honestly, not Alansohn too?!--The LegendarySky Attacker 21:58, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Looks to me that he has been blocked 6 times for violating his Arbcom restrictions, most recently (and most lengthily) for 55hrs. The arbcomm restriction reads "... he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one month" 142.58.118.218 (talk) 22:13, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, it's a good thing you brought this here 142.58.118.218 his block log is one of the chunkiest I've seen. This discovery changes everything. Yes, a block should be needed. It sucks though, because up until now, I've always kept this editor in high regard.--The LegendarySky Attacker 22:24, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Although it does appear Otto, looking at what the other party has stated below, that your activity has not been so fantastic either. You truly have been launching a few incivil remarks and other attacks here and there, haven't you?--The LegendarySky Attacker 22:30, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I never claimed to be Caeser's wife, which is why I said what I said in my opening remarks. Otto4711 (talk) 22:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    And how exactly does that make your comments appropiate?--The LegendarySky Attacker 22:35, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I never claimed that it did. Otto4711 (talk) 22:43, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I have been careful to try to restrain my remarks and to avoid personal attacks. Unlike Otto4711, I have based all of my arguments on Wikipedia policy and never said "fuck admins in their fucking necks because they fucking suck" (see edit summary here), characterized the opinions of other editors as "bullshit" (see here) or told someone that "If your stream of crap helps you make it through the day then more power to you" (see here). I have never misrepresented someone's argument and called the other party "arrogant" (see here) or told them to "shut up about it" (see here). I do acknowledge that I have a firm belief in the use of reliable and verifiable sources while Otto insists that "Reliable sources are not and have never been the standard for categories, regardless of your many failed attempts to demand otherwise. I have to wonder if after all this time you still actually don't understand that..." (see here). I don't think that anything I have ever said or done in my 200,000 edits approaches any of this small sample of Otto's incivility problem, but I guess that his example may encourage me to be more brusk than I should be. I do agree that I should do a better job of ignoring Otto's provocations and will continue my efforts to deal with Otto's disruptions more productively and not respond in kind. Alansohn (talk) 22:25, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    1) You're suggesting that an angry outburst from April 2007, a year or more before I knew of your existence, serves as justification for your actions today. As noted in my opening remarks, "Otto did such and such" doesn't excuse your actions. 2) Neither your stated reliance or non-reliance on RS or V nor my opinions about them in relation to categorization has anything to do with your bad-faith accusations of disruption. Otto4711 (talk) 22:55, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    If I may Alansohn, naturally, your pledge not to respond to pestering incivility with incivil responses is a good thing, but does not go to the matter at hand. which seems to be that when you said "In the disruptive game that is CfD, "process" only applies to anything necessary to delete categories any one editor doesn't like. Neither consensus nor reliable sources can stand in the way of this "process" that you were being dishonest in your characterization of previous consensus decisions as being the decision of one person, who was disruptively gaming the system. The suggestion was not that you were using naughty words, but that your failure to attribute good faith to the views of the community when it opposes your views amounts to disruption. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.58.118.218 (talk) 22:57, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    IP, your two edits here are so far your only two. I am not accusing you of anything, rather asking a simple yes or no question. Are you the IP of Otto4711?--The LegendarySky Attacker 23:05, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    No. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.58.118.218 (talk) 23:30, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    For the record, my IP address starts with 70.226. I have not been in contact with the anon or anyone else regarding this matter outside of this discussion. Otto4711 (talk) 04:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm tending to agree with AGK here: lots of heat & smoke but no light. So Alansohn thinks the processes in a given forum is a joke. I've thought that too, if I haven't voiced it. However, unless someone wants to provide diffs that show Alansohn was incivil or abusive in stating that opinion, please take this dispute elsewhere -- & maybe that would be best not back to WP:CfD. -- llywrch (talk) 00:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Unfortunately I don't have every instance of Alansohn's incivility bookmarked, but a quick look back yields a few diffs. I can look for more, especially those that establish his pattern of bad-faith accusations. here he suggests that I'm ignorant. here he suggests I'm "foolish" and "nonsensical" and uses the same attack language in his edit summary. In this DRV he makes the rather serious accusation that administrators are vote-stacking through the use of so-called "supervotes" and makes the bad-faith accusations that the closing admin engaged in "clear administrative misconduct" and that he and other unnamed admins are "pushing a personal agenda". When asked to offer proof, his response was "res ipsa loquitur" (along with an acknowledgement of months spent tracking my movements). Another bad-faith accusation of disruption. A bad-faith accusation of "abuse" and of the nominator nominating a category because he doesn't like it. There are plenty of others. In too many instances, Alansohn's first line of approach in discussing a CFD or DRV is to claim that the process is defective, that deleting categories is "disruptive", that nominating categories is "abuse" and that the people making and supporting the nomination are doing so solely because they do not "like" the category. At DRV he often adds accusations of bad conduct and bad faith on the part of closing admins. His intent seems to be to shift the focus of the discussion from the relative merits of the category to the motive and character of other participants. It's quite telling that his response to this discussion was not to discuss the specifics of the situation at hand but to go bak into his bookmarked diffs to attempt to shift the focus away from his conduct and try to make this about me, along with blaming me for his inability to control himself. If the consensus is that he's violated his editing restrictions (I knew he was under some restriction but did not know the specifics until reading the above link) then he should be subject to the sanction called for by those restrictions. If not then at the very least the result of this discussion should be that Alansohn is put on notice that continued bad-faith accusations and claims will result in sanctions. Otto4711 (talk) 04:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I see nothing recent that would be grounds for a block. Apparently, neither has anyone else. In that light, let's all drop this. Tan | 39 05:01, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I looked at the diffs Otto provided & independently came to much the same conclusion as Tan. While his language in the first two diffs are borderline, they are fairly close to his last block & could be either momentary slips or poor choices of words: nowhere close to falling under the terms of his restrictions. Incidentally, in the other two cases Otto linked to, Alansohn interacted with Good Ol'factory -- the same Admin who blocked him twice -- & had Alansohn been out of line I trust he would have done something like given him a warning, a block, or asked another Admin to block Alansohn. BTW, I note the last time Alansohn & Otto4711 were blocked was the same day. In other words, "Pot. Kettle. Black." Let's move on now. -- llywrch (talk) 05:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Otto does not distinguish between what he sees as incivility -- of the type best evidenced by his vicious personal attacks and repeated use of the most vulgar profanities and insults -- and issues raised regarding legitimate concerns of use of Wikipedia policy. Where there are such concerns they have been raised, and calling discussion of these issues at DRV "incivility", especially where a half-dozen other editors have raised the same concerns in the same discussion, is not evidence of a real issue. Any and all editing restrictions expired a month ago, as Otto is well aware. As stated above, I will work further to avoid further provocations and trolling from Otto and to ensure that any comments focus exclusively on issues directly related to Wikipedia policy. I have made repeated suggestions to Otto to try to work cooperatively to de-escalate his conflict, which he has consistently refused to accept (see here for an example). Any suggestions from uninvolved editors to help mitigate further conflict with Otto will be greatly appreciated. Alansohn (talk) 05:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Germany (terminology)

    Resolved
     – No administrative intervention required (yet). In case there's edit warring in the future, please report it on WP:AN3. — Aitias // discussion 22:04, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello, in that article someone is replacing the content by a redirect. I do not want to start an edit-war, and I easily admit that I am not very familiar with the rules in en.wp. Could someone have a look at the case? Thank you in advance --Ziko (talk) 21:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Consensus seems to exist in favor of the redirect on the talk page but it's quite weak and mainly based on the fact that the article does not cite sources at all for any content. You can try to invite members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany into the discussion or start a request for comments but I would advise against reverting the redirect until more discussion has taken place. See also Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Regards SoWhy 21:50, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I reverted the redirect - I don't see a consensus for it on the talk page. In any event this is not a matter for ANI (yet). – ukexpat (talk) 21:53, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I think this is now resolved: User:Cs32en has moved the content to History of Germany and restored the redirect. – ukexpat (talk) 22:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Block summary

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
    Resolved
     – nothing to see here Spartaz Humbug! 05:58, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Extended content

    Am I the only one who thinks that this block summary is improper? I (and User:Caspian blue) have asked the blocking administrator to change that summary, though, his reaction was to remove Caspian blue's request and to ignore mine. Regards, — Aitias // discussion 22:24, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I think this can be added to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley.--Caspian blue 22:39, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    @A: CB is trouble-making; no great surprise. I didn't ignore your request; I replied to it William M. Connolley (talk) 23:05, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    William M. Connolley, the ArbCom case with your name speaks for itself (your fourth ArbCom case?); no wonder. --Caspian blue 23:11, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) @WMC: I don't know what CB's intentions are, though, as I am WP:AGF I don't think he wants to make trouble at all. In any case, however, my only intention is that you change your improper block summary; if you simply were to go ahead and do it, we could just archive this thread without any trouble. :) — Aitias // discussion 23:13, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Geese, bored admin? or just drama mongering? And "threats" about arb-com. Give it a break - a valid explanation was given re the block on the user's talk. Why don't we move along and actually edit an article rather than raising a silly ker-fluffle here. Yeah - now you can complain about me 'cause I didn't do something "proper" or dot some i somewhere. Vsmith (talk) 23:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    "Malaise, n. (1) A feeling of general bodily discomfort or unpleasantness, often at the onset of illness." From wiktionairy. What's wrong with the block summary, given that the block was proper (obviously if the block was improper, there are other issues)? Protonk (talk) 00:19, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Protonk, hi. As I said at WP:WQA.... "A good block summary identifies the specific behavior that the block is intended to prevent. It's not a message to the person being blocked; it's a record of who blocked whom, and why. I haven't suggested that WMC's summary was uncivil, but I have suggested that it was callow and unprofessional. I stand by that, and I'll add that such block summaries make the logs less useful."

    Yeah. That's my issue with it. It's not an example of "best practices". Admins are expected to model best practices; otherwise, what right have we to complain about people following our examples? -GTBacchus(talk) 02:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Nah, if one individual is going to complain with false or misleading statements again and again, then they should be called out for their *ahem* more than lively candor not all that long ago. seicer | talk | contribs 01:30, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hey, I'm not making judgments on WMC, but truth be told, he's an admin. that has been involved in a fair number of controversial actions lately. I see no reason whatsoever to cast disparaging remarks on another editor/admin who asks for some explanation. I'm not defending either editor, I'm not supporting either editor - but that post was not in line with what we should be doing here. If you have an issue with Aitias, then you should take it up on his/her talk page - if it is something you feel that needs to be addressed by the community, then file an RFC/U or RFAR. — Ched :  ?  01:52, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • sigh, you're absolutely right Julian - my apologies. (pretty odd thing when someone half my age can tell me to "grow up", and actually be right about it.) — Ched :  ?  02:11, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    IP disruption, possible off-wiki tag team coordination on Epirotes

    I have recently become involved in a dispute with User:Sarandioti and User:I Pakapshem at Epirotes. Because the topic is contentious, I have opened a discussion on the talkpage. I thought the matter settled when I brought a couple of sources to back what I'm saying, but then, an IP editor popped out of nowhere and promptly undid my edit [17]. This IP has popped up at just the "right" time in the past [18], whenever I happened to be involved in a dispute with I Pakapshem [19], specifically, on June 8 at Sarande, Gjirokaster and Paramythia. I then notified admin User:J.delanoy here, User talk:J.delanoy#Sarandioti, Pakapshem, and a suspicious IP, who deemed it sufficiently fishy to ask for a checkuser. Although the checkuser was inconclusive, the suspicion lingered. I then performed several more edits, which were also swiftly undone by I Pakapshem [20] and the IP [21]. I again notified J.delanoy User talk:J.delanoy#IP disruption in Epirotes, who advised me to post here.

    Now, a while back a number of Albanian editors organized off-wiki, on MSN, as can be seen here [[22]] (Goole translation here: [23]). Then we have Sarandioti asking Aigest to send in his msn [24] (translation: [25]). Then yesterday, we have User:Aigest adding material on an individual named Cerciz Topulli in Gjirokaster [26] [27], and today, presto, we have Sarandioti posting an image of the same individual in the same article [28]. Aigest has also been following me around, editing articles that he seldom does, such as Epirotes and Gjirokaster (after Sarandioti started edit-warring there). This creates the suspicion that these two, and possibly more, are coordinating off-wiki. The IP, which appears unrelated, could be an anonymous member of this group that only interevenes when summoned on MSN. Then, we also have User:Taulant23 saying here [29] "The IP understands English" (translation: [30]). When asked by Future Perfect to translate what he just wrote [31], Taulant disingenuously refused [32]. The above, and the fact the the IP appears only when I am involved in a dispute with Sarandioti or I Pakapshem makes me think we could be dealing with a tag-team that coordinates off-wiki.

    Throughout these proceedings, User:Sarandioti has been following me around in a disruptive manner, defending the IP editors and making bogus accusations against me [33] [[34] ("another fals accusation", even though it's about the IP, not Sarandioti)] [35] [36] [37]. The disruption reached the point that J.delanoy threatened him with a block if he persisted [38].

    While this situation is complex and I realize it many not be possible to prove off-wiki coordination, for the time being I would like to request that someone semi-protect Epirotes as the IP disruption there shows no sign of abatement. --Athenean (talk) 01:37, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Continued personal attacks by User:Valkyrie Red

    User has been continuously making personal attacks at other editors and refuses to act in a civil manner. See comments made [39], [40] in response to informing him about violating 3RR [41] and [42] (in which I have also informed another user that is on 3RR, User:Kung Fu Man, see [43]). User has also been engaging in slight incivility at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Runescape Riots. MuZemike 02:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    The diffs aren't really personal attacks in the strictest sense of the phrase, but still. I note that you haven't brought this thread to the users attention (which should probably be done) and I don't see any kind of warning for his comments, only the edit-warring. Sorry to play devil's advocate. Ironholds (talk) 06:11, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:WQA is the first step if one-to-one communication is unsuccessful. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 08:59, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. Haven't seen anything pop up since. Hope I didn't scare him off. Just needs some direction. MuZemike 15:49, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Revert move of Jewish lobby, done without discussion?

    The name was moved to Jewish American lobby without discussion, and despite the fact that the article is tagged with “discretionary sanctions imposed at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles” because of past controversies. Could someone move it back until proper discussion occurs? Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I moved it back. I don't know that the Arbcom case stuff directly applies - this wasn't a revert, just an overly BOLD move without discussion. Can you please notify User:Historicist about this thread and ask that they take any further proposal to article talk? Also, see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Geopolitical_ethnic_and_religious_conflicts#Pro-_and_Anti-Israel_Lobby_articles. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:01, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I am about to go home (finally) because the process crashed (sigh), so I don't want to do anything myself at this time, but if we can get an active awake admin to take a look at Historicist (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) and their recent contributions, the AN thread, etc. I am concerned. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It was obviously a mistake so I don't think action needs to be taken. He was the principal editor of the Anti-Israel lobby and there was discussion about merging into another article. Perhaps this has something to do with it? Anyways, discussion has been pretty heated and Carol posted some not-so-friendly opinions at one of Historicist's article's. Just an FYI. Wikifan12345 (talk) 07:47, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I confess, pointing out an editor has improperly moved two articles and supporting deletion of that editor's new POV WP:Attack page could be seen as "unfriendly." CarolMooreDC (talk) 12:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Woohookitty: vandal or administrator or both?

    Resolved
     – Or neither? Regardless, no admin intervention needed. BJTalk 04:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Woohookitty (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) committed what appears to me be to an act of vandalism by redirecting two references to "Republican" to the Liberal Republican Party (United States). One (at Republican) should have remained at Republican Party, the other (at Subprime mortgage crisis solutions debate) should have been directed to Republican Party (United States) (a quite different political party). JRSpriggs (talk) 03:52, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Did you even try to start a conversation with this user? ANI is not the place you first run to when you have a question about somebody's editing. The first place you go is that person. Ask politely on their page, and they will likely answer you. It is seriously jumping the gun to come to ANI for something like this... --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 04:01, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The point is that these two edits are such that (unless he was blind drunk) he would have to have known that they were wrong. And on his user page, he claims that he is an administrator (confirmed by the fact that he blocked and unblocked himself), thus someone who should know better. JRSpriggs (talk) 05:50, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry? Speaking as a Brit, I (on the face of it) don't know which setup would be correct. I'm perfectly sober (it's 7am, my drinking doesn't start until 9). There's no need to cry vandalism; please read what vandalism is defined as and the need to assume good faith with others edits. Being an administrator means that the community trusts you, not that you're some Oracle of Delphi for content issues, and administrator status isn't something to be used as ammunition. I'll echo Jay above - discuss it with the editor. Read the disclaimer at the top: "Frivolous complaints and unsubstantiated requests for administrator intervention do not belong here. Please do not clutter this page with accusations or side-discussions within a discussion. Before posting a grievance about a user here, it is advised that you discuss the issue with them on their user talk page." Ironholds (talk) 06:09, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Next time, please alert me when you post about me on AN/I. Secondly, it's called a mistake. :) It happens. If you look at the Disam Challenge page, I have fixed nearly 5,000 disam links just from that page this month. So mistakes are going to happen. If you look at just the day in question, I had several hundred fixes, 99% of which are correct. I'm not trying to trump my own horn here. I'm more just saying that out of that many edits, honest mistakes are going to happen. In this case, it was just a misclick. If you see those and feel like I'm seriously going down the wrong path, definitely let me know and I will correct myself (it's happened a couple of times where I simply was picking the wrong link). Otherwise, simply fix the links. Thanks. --User:Woohookitty Diamming fool! 07:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    As far as my experience this kitty has fixed various disambiguation links which improved the articles. Not sure admin or not but hard working editor. Mistakes happen, try discussing with editors before posting to ANI which is a last resort. Kasaalan (talk) 16:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Problem re. the user log

    Would someone else please take a look at what's going on? There's a problem on the user log which is circumventing the user creation log. If you have CU rights, please take an additional look at the creations in question. You'll see examples on the block log of some of what I've been dealing with. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 06:21, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, there is a way to create an account without creating an entry in the user account creation log. Yes, Grawp knows how do that. I discussed this with Brion some time back, but the bug hasn't been fixed so far. Dragons flight (talk) 10:36, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    PS: It's a Grawp attack and it's clear they're monitoring my edits and have been doing so all day long.--PMDrive1061 (talk) 06:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    User:72.228.4.52

    Could somebody take a look at 72.228.4.52 (talk · contribs)'s Talk page? It's full of bot warnings about improper external links, but they keep using them anyway. They are also repeatedly removing the nowiki tags from User:Lalacourtney/The hicks which are being used to keep the categories out of User space, despite multiple warnings. I was about to warn them for a third time about removing the nowikis, but with the daunting Talk page, I don't see any point. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 07:00, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 16:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    This anon's relatively new; his first contribution was just a couple of months ago. Also, there's been no other contributions from the anon since 23:30, 15 July 2009. I also don't see any final warning on the talk page. I think you should try using a final warning - one which specifies what is likely to happen if there is no change in his linking (aka an editing restriction, most likely in the form of a block). If there's still no change, even after the final warning, then please come back here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:59, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I figured the extensive blocks of text with multiple warnings were sufficient. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    As a matter of fact, they just repeated their disruptive edit two hours ago. I've issued a final warning, just to make sure all of the bureaucratic dots and tittles are covered. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:23, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Complaint Against User:Tanthalas39 for Abuse of Admin Authority

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
    Resolved
     – Tan acted properly to a disruptive situation; complaint appears vexatious; editors are reminded to get along with their lives and let this drop. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 13:24, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    This is a formal complaint against admin User:Tanthalas39.

    Tan and I were engaged in a discussion in this thread, in which Tan digressed the original complaint by User:Nefer Tweety to a discussion about "Congress" and "Freedom of Speech". Other users chipped in with their own jargon; what appeared to be "insider jokes" using Wikipedia coined terms such as "ducks", which they did not link to their respective pages. When I tried to steer the discussion back to the original complaint, Tan issued a vague, unitelligible "warning" in the same thread of discussion in which he was personally involved. A couple of minutes later, Tan blocked my account for 72 hours.

    Tan's "warning," "AC, knock off the disruption here. This constitutes an only warning," was ambiguous, written in informal English, and not understood by me. Before I had the chance to ask for clarification, Tan had already blocked my account, obviously to stifle further response from me to the discussion in which he was participating, so as to not oppose his oppinion. Tan did not place a formally written warning on my Talk page with proper links to the alleged violation, Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. In fact, when Tan finally placed a block on my Talk page, within minutes of his unintelligible "warning" within the thread on this page, he claimed that I had been blocked for Wikipedia:Vandalism. I had no idea what "disruptive editing" was, and Tan provided no link to that page or offer me a chance to inquire about it. I certainly had not vandalised any articles or other pages. I have since reviewed the pages related to Disruptive Editing and Vandalism and have found that my responses within the thread in reference were very far from either violation. In any case, I have served the 72-hour block period and the case is now agaisnt Tan for abuse of administrative privileges.

    This is clearly a case of abuse of administrative authority due to Conflict of Interest (COI) and not following proper, Wikipedia warning guidelines. It was, in fact, Tan and the other users who were engaged in disruptive editing by digressing the discussion to matters unrelated to the original complaint and engaging in insider jokes. Tan should have asked for an uninterested admin to review the thread and issue a proper warning, if necessary, to the offending parties, since he had already been party to the discussion in the thread.

    --Arab Cowboy (talk) 08:25, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    The warning looked perfectly unambiguous and fine to me. By the way, did you read the top of the page where it states "For incidents involving the possible misuse of administrative powers, please attempt to engage in discussions with the admin before posting here."? Trying to get back at someone after a block never ends well... (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 08:57, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Can I just note that the person making "insider jokes" was not Tan. The related essay is at WP:DUCK, which isn't too difficult to locate. Furthermore, using bold text does not make your point any more convincing and this reads like a retaliation more than a complaint. weburiedourdramainthegarden 09:08, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I let Tan know this conversation is taking place. Law type! snype? 09:19, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    (I'll put money down that Tan won't even need to reply) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    By the way - "This constitutes an only warning" is in no way "ambiguous". weburiedourdramainthegarden 09:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Even if you didn't understand "knock off" in this connection (the only term, I would think, that could be considered informal), at least the words "warning" and "disruptive" should have attracted your attention. Instead however of asking what User:Tanthalas39 had meant exactly or to reconsider your approach here, you kept your manner of expression - therefore I see absolutely no need for you to agitate yourself about the block. By the way I'm sure that by reading Wikipedia:Disruptive editing, you have crossed also Refusal to 'get the point'.
    You've come to the wrong place. ANI is thoroughly hostile to everyone. New users get bitten (hard), experience users are trashed, editors bicker, a few editors throw insults that'd get others blocked PDQ. 'abandon hope' etc. There are still a couple of things you can't do on ANI - Biography of Living Persons would be enforced, and you couldn't directly call another editor a useless fucking cunt (although thinking about it, there's possibly a few situations where you'd get away with it). The thread you link to is unfortunate - many people continue to accuse you of being a sock when you're complaining that people are calling you a sock.
    PERHAPS someone might help you with a technical process where you can demonstrate that you're not a sock account?
    Perhaps you can explain why you did not understand the warning? It seems clear to me. Were you expecting a series of templates? If I was to assume ad faith I could say it feels as if you were going to push edits through an escalating series of warnings, stopping when you got a final warning. As others have said - you really aren't going to be happy at the outcome of this thread. 87.113.86.207 (talk) 10:01, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Phoe, On reading Wikipedia:Disruptive editing and even Refusal to 'get the point', they seem to refer to the editing of Wikipedia articles, not discussions on a page like this one. But, this is besides the point of this complaint.
    • 87.113.86.207, I did not understand the warning because I did not know that "knock off the disruption here" was in reference to a "coined" Wikipedia violation, Wikipedia:Disruptive editing that has a formal definition. I did not understand the warning because Tan did not give me the chance to ask him to elaborate; the block came exactly 2 minutes after my response, which edit-conflicted with his "warning". I did not understand the warning, because Tan had not identified himself as an admin earlier on in the discussion or while issuing the warning; anyone could have written that statement without having any authority to block, and it is clear that users bicker here all the time. I did not understand the warning because it was not placed on my Talk page with a proper link to the alleged violation of which I was being warned. I did not understand the warning because Tan had been sarcastically involved in the discussion prior to issuing the "warning". How could he turn around and issue a warning just to enforce his point of view?
    • I've had two respected admins write to me in private indicating that my complaint is indeed legitimate and that Tan may have very well abused his authority on the grounds that I listed. I'd rather they posted on this page at their own convenience.
    • It is clear that people here are again digressing from the main complaint. This thread is NOT about whether I deserved the warning, or even whether the warning was ambiguous. I have already served the 72-hour block duration. The issue here is about whether Tan abused his admin authority in issuing the warning through: (a) conflict of interest (he was engaged in the discussion and issued the warning to enforce his opinion, and never identified himself as an admin in the midst of "insider jokers"); (b) not requesting an uninvolved admin to review the thread and have that admin issue a proper warning and/or block, where necessary; and (c) not following formal warning guidelines by placing the warning with a link to the respective alleged violation on my Talk page and allowing me enough time to view and comprehend it.
    --Arab Cowboy (talk) 10:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    ANY editor on Wikipedia can give you a warning that is just as valid as any admin's warning, based on the circumstances. Tan does not need to identify as an admin to make it valid. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:57, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Well that and it's a simple click on "Tan" to see the admin symbol on his userpage.  GARDEN  says no to drama 10:58, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    In either case, since Tan had been involved in the discussion, it was only appropriate for a third party to issue the block. --Arab Cowboy (talk) 11:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Not really. Most other admins would have had the same stance as he.  GARDEN  says no to drama 11:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not true. See, for example, comments by admin Graeme Bartlett on this page. --Arab Cowboy (talk) 11:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Wait, so, basically you wanted him to find a lenient admin? That sounds fair...  GARDEN  says no to drama 11:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    No, I wanted to find a fair and wise one. I never asked for leniency. --Arab Cowboy (talk) 11:30, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    As much as I hate to see ANI turned into some kind of "court" (except for maybe beach volleyball), Arab Cowboy will need to provide evidence in the form of diffs. You're asking us to go back more than 3 days to hunt down a situation - not going to happen. More than half of your original post has already been determined to be fine, so let's narrow it down to prove that some form of policy violation occurred. Indeed, if there was a technical problem with the block, it should have been entered during your unblock requests. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:01, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    The thread is still at the top of this page. I have been unfairly blocked for 3 days, so I could not post any earlier. --Arab Cowboy (talk) 11:06, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Frankly this doesn't read well from the start. ArabCowboy doesn't start well when he misrepresents the situation (Tan warned him then a couple of minutes later issued a block? Tan warned him at quarter past, he then continued alng the disruptive vein at 20 past and after that was blocked). It appears Tan typo'd in the warning (or used a very odd form of local grammar) but it is far easier to understand than some of our English as a Secondary Language users' normal typing style so I can't see it as being unreasonable for ArabCowboy to be expected to understand it. The accusation of CoI presumes that Tan was in conflict with ArabCowboy. He wasn't that I can see. If we ban admin from dealing with any situation that arises in a thread or page on which they have commented, we have made these noticeboards rather pointless. --Narson ~ Talk • 12:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    "...knock off the disruption" might be regional to the US; it wasn't a typo and it means "stop" here. Beyond that, I have no comment. Tan | 39 13:09, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I was more referring to 'This constitutes an only warning'. 'Constitutes your only warning' would perhaps have been clearer or 'constitutes a final warning'. Somehow 'This constitutes an only warning' just jars a little. It is completely understandable either way though so as I say, I see it as a bit of a red herring. If someone can't understand that level of English, they perhaps should be looking to contribute on their native language wiki or perhaps should be less proactive in assuming the fault of others. --Narson ~ Talk • 13:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I see no reason for the drama-fest to continue. Arab, you began with a misrepresented rant against Tan, and offered up false pretenses for the rationale that you were blocked with. His block was fair and it was a block that other administrators would and should have made. With that, I certainly endorse the block length. What pressing administrator intervention is needed here? None that I can see. seicer | talk | contribs 13:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Refusal to engage arguments

    There is a discussion on Talk:Martin Luther King about the inclusion of a quote that may be illuminating of his character. Some editors refuse to accept that character may be a relevant aspect of the man. User:Jonund has presented arguments why he thinks it is relevant. They have been met with a dogged refusal to engage the arguments or answer concrete questions. This is a violation of WP:DE#Signs_of_disruptive_editing, which describes a disruptive editor as one who does not engage in consensus building:

    • repeatedly disregards other editors' questions or requests for explanations concerning edits or objections to edits;
    • repeatedly disregards other editors' explanations for their edits.

    Two RfC:s have been submitted. One led to intervention by an editor (and administrator) that engages in the same kind of behavior that has been described as disruptive editing. The other led to intervention by an editor who takes the opposite position. The discussion on the talk page is long; much of the relevant material is found under the section RfC King's sexual conduct.

    The behavior of some editors prevents progress in the article. In my opinion, it's a serious treath to wp:s integrity and credibility if a number of dedicated editors are able to stop the addition of material that they apparently oppose on dogmatic grounds. I ask for proper measure to be taken to guarantee that the editing process is not obstructed. I suppose a warning is the best way to start. --Årvasbåo (talk) 10:08, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Allright. I'll hereby warn you not to misrepresent the arguments used by people with a different opinion. They have reviewed the sources, and concluded that the four sources given are actually one source plus three repeaters, and the first source is most probably based on hearsay from the FBI, not on proper research. I have also noted that people oppose the inclusion not only because of reasons of verifiability, but for WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. No one opposes the section on his extramarital affairs, but the inclusion of one piece of dirty talk, based on such poor sourcing, is not warranted at all. This has nothing to do with "refusing to accept that character is a relevant aspect" and even less with disruptive editing. This is standard policy application. After two RfC's, it may be best to quietly drop this instead of continuing like this. Fram (talk) 10:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    As one of the many editors accused in this notice, I will add that Fram's summary pretty much covers it. The only editor who is really insistent on including the material under dispute feels that one exclamation that Hoover's COINTELPRO-era FBI claimed King made in a moment of passion, is so incredibly revelatory of King's nastiness that it must, simply must be included in the article, because otherwise people won't realize what a horrible, skanky blasphemer King was. (Full disclosures: I have belonged to at least one organization destroyed by FBI manipulations during this era; and still belong to AFSCME, the union on behalf of whose garbageworkers King was speaking when he was assassinated.) The insistent editor backs this up with references to how important this issue is to all the best theologians of his (the editor's) religious tradition as he interprets it. --Orange Mike | Talk 12:50, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I am also one of the many editors accused, I think perhaps the admin who is alleged to be engaging in disruptive behavior. A review of the talk page will reveal two things: (1) that there is pretty much a single editor insisting that additional material regarding King's sexual conduct be included so that the article will conform to that single editor's POV regarding how the individuals who are regarded by some as a form of "religious icon" seemingly must, by definition, have their known shortcomings explored in detail, and (2) another editor who, as far as I can tell, thinks that a quote from King must be included because of "insights" it offers into King's personality, despite the fact that I am aware of no encyclopedias that include such information for such purposes, and that doing so very likely even runs against the spirit of encyclopedias, which is to present unbiased factual information. I would very much welcome a clear reference to either a policy or a guideline which indicates that either is considered acceptable, something I believe I have to date never seen. Otherwise, I have to very much question the motivations of an editor who starts a discussion such as this one regarding, basically, how editors who are ltimately trying to ensure the article remain NPOV are somehow behaving so badly that it has to be brought to a noticeboard. John Carter (talk) 14:08, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Hey, I thought I was the admin alleged to be engaging in disruptive behavior. The OP does have a point; I'm not bothering engaging in the sourcing and verifiability issues, because I don't think the quote belongs in the article for reasons unrelated to the sourcing. I also don't think there's any admin intervention required here; nobody has taken any administrative actions in regard to this discussion, nor suggested any is necessary (except when a bit of edit warring was going on a few weeks ago, but that's ceased.) Slightly heated discussion is ensuing on the talk page, which is exactly where such discussion belongs. --jpgordon::==( o ) 14:26, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    As yet another one of the editors alleged to be engaging in disruptive behavior, I don't care whether the sources are reliable, although I have my doubts. My view is that what King may or may not have exclaimed during orgasm doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article, period. — [[::User:Malik Shabazz|Malik Shabazz]] (talk · contribs) 16:43, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    We should be firmer about sanctioning editors who abuse the dispute resolution process (whether ANI or other venues). Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:24, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    My position is simple. There was an RfC, I came and commented, the majority of commentators did not agree with the POV of the editor who posted the RfC, the discussion continued, despite the consensus being against one editor. The RfC was closed, and I stated that as the RfC was closed and because the consensus was that there was no weight in the argument for inserting the material (drawing on several WP policies) I made it clear that was my position, and that as far as I was concerned the matter was closed, and took the page off my watchlist. So, I am surprised to see this is ongoing still. My understanding is that if one makes an RfC, and consensus is against the proposal on grounds in line with WP policies and guidelines, that is the conclusion - not that a single editor persists in agitating discussion until (through a process of attrition) he gets his own way. The arguments have all been laid out quite clearly, so I see no reason why we need to keep going over this, unless some new information has come to light. There ought to be a process where editors who place an RfC, but do not like the responses of commentators, then malign those who do not respond in ways that would favour them, are disciplined. What is the point of placing an RfC if you aren't prepared to accept the response you get? Those who responded in a way that contradicted the wishes of this editor were accused of various things - when clearly the bias was on the part of the editor who appears to have an axe to grind. Mish (talk) 17:27, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, if an RfC is questioned, then the apparent next step is to seek mediation. I have already indicated as much on the talk page of the article in question. Why this step was instead taken is something I have very serious difficulty understanding. John Carter (talk) 18:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I responded to the RFC and argued in favour of inclusion. I've loosely followed the discussion since. After the RFC Jonund continued to put his case and, in my eyes, did so with very cogent argument. He raised several points which, as far as I saw, were not answered with anything other than claims that he was trying to insert a POV. I didn't see it that way at all and I have no idea what his POV is. I've no opinion on whether ANI is an appropriate venue for this, or whether the disruptive editing policy is applicable. Consensus is not about head counts. In my opinion Jonund has presented the superior and most convincing argument. John's suggestion of mediation sounds reasonable to me--MoreThings (talk) 18:37, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    My apologies for having not looked over the previous discussion before posting here, and having forgotten that there were additional supporters of the idea. John Carter (talk) 19:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    No worries. I think there have also been at least a couple of IPs arguing in favour. The first paragraph from this post by one of them sums up the way it looked to me, too, from a distance. --MoreThings (talk) 20:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    As I recall there were a couple of supporters, and they fell quiet, but the consensus seemed to be not to insert. The issue of POV was raised by Jonund initially, as I recall, when people wouldn't accept his reasoning, which was basically along the lines that the information was relevant because of certain religious beliefs; it is a problem, and when accusing disinterested editors who respond to an RfC of having a POV, one shouldn't be surprised if it is pointed out that the reasoning for inclusion appears to reflect a certain POV itself. As I recall, the argument was that most Christians believed something, and this was evidence that King transgressed this standard of what a Christian leader should be, and that made the information relevant. I didn't think that Wikipedia was about endorsing specific religious views, and basing the eligibility of entries on that basis. The issue about the source was that it was an allegation about what a primary source said, that in itself being a problematic primary source as it was part of a counter-intellegence operation aimed at discrediting King, and that the material was challenged at the time and still is. As I recall, it was thought that if it were to be included, it should be so on the basis that it was an allegation that had been refuted, and not as something that could be verified beyond 'so-and-so said this', as we do not have access to the original source, and the allegation was based on a transcript. There was also the issue that the RfC was based on the wrong link - i.e., the link given in the RfC did not relate to a relevant source at all. This became clear at the close of the RfC, and was the point at which I felt I had little more energy to engage with the discussion further. With hindisght, however, I think that simply including a source on the basis that 'all Christians' believe 'such and such', and this source will make them realise 'so and so' was 'something-or-other' is bogus - especially when there is already extensive discussion about the guys philandering. The only sense I got that this source was worth including was because from this it would be clear to 'most Christians' that he was a blasphemer, and therefore not 'a man of God'. Sorry, I don't see this as a valid reason for including dubious material. To me that is not a POV, it is a no-brainer where Wikipedia is concerned. Of course, my memory is not infallible, and I don't have time or energy to go through the (long) discussion right now. Mish (talk) 20:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I tend to basically agree with the above. The quote in question was challenged at the time, and thus would require indicating it was an "alleged" statement or something similar. If there were a specific reliable source which said something to the effect of, "based on this comment, it is clear that King committed one mortal sin while in the act of committing another mortal sin, and thus cannot be seen as being even a weak Christian", I could maybe, maybe, see that being included. But to argue that information must be included to substantiate an argument which no one produced evidence of a reliable source as ever making is at best crossing into POV pushing. John Carter (talk) 21:08, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Problematic edit and subsequent comments by User:Kasaalan

    A content dispute has been going on recently about some pro-Israel organizations in the United States. One of the editors in the dispute contacted me asking for my involvement, and while I replied to the question, will of course not get involved or take a side in the content dispute. However, because most will probably consider me an involved administrator anyway, I'm taking this here. Basically one of the editors in the dispute, User:Kasaalan, has made this edit, which separates Jewish criticism of the organization from non-Jewish criticism of it. Here is a permanent link.

    I have contacted Kasaalan over this obviously problematic edit (again, I don't care about the underlying content issue and strongly urge admins in this ANI to ignore it, and leave it for content RfC or something), and what's really concerning is that he defended making a separate section for Jewish criticism, in a way that clearly misses the point and confusing pro-Israel groups with Jews in general. I will not go into a long soapbox to remind anyone reading this what parts of Jewish history this separation reminds of. Administrators: Please take a look and decide for yourselves. —Ynhockey (Talk) 10:40, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't like to confuse all Jew with pro-Israel lobby or anything, however I can't use a title as pro-Israel for Jewish Virtual Library unless there is RS saying so. I tried to use a more broad title, since "Criticism by Jewish and pro-Israel parties" got deleted, I didn't understand you before however do you now claim "Criticism by Jewish parties" is being offensive. If so you may just offer a general and less offending title, however a categorisation is needed since all parties has conflict of interest to the case, and accusing the involved party as Nazi, anti-semitic or such.
    Do you specifically offended by "Criticism by Jewish and pro-Israel parties", "Criticism by Jewish parties" or by both.
    The original title I added was "Criticism by Jewish and pro-Israel parties" now it is "Criticism by Jewish parties" to include as more general and less POV, however the title may change per discussion and if any more neutral title is offered I certainly use it, however except 1 source [National Post (note: National_Post#Criticism which is criticised for being anti-muslim etc. yet by a Conflict of Interest party Canadian Islamic Congress so not sure if criticism is accurate)] all criticism in the article is by Jewish or pro-Israel lobby or media watchdog organizations, Some organisations are clearly WP:POV such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_Accuracy_in_Middle_East_Reporting_in_America#CAMERA_Israeli_lobby_campaign_in_Wikipedia, some self-statedly "defenders of Israel". So there is possible WP:NPOV and WP:COI conflict exist on criticism section. Kasaalan (talk) 11:00, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Personally I support using Criticism by Jewish and pro-Israel parties if no better title is offered
    Criticism by pro-Israel parties might not be accurate
    Criticism by Jewish parties general (not sure it is any way offended, however if it is offended to you instead removal can you offer a better and more NPOV title)

    The issue is the criticism section in the article is only limited to WP:COI parties so a note or title is needed somehow. Kasaalan (talk) 11:00, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Do you get offended by "criticism by jewish parties" title, if so offer a general, better and more NPOV title, however since all the parties and Jewish and their criticism is being anti-Israel or antisemitic, they have a conflict of interest to the case per ethnically and religiously one way or another. We are offering a vast criticism section which consumes more than half of the article, and the organisations origin should be noted one way or another. I tried to generelize the title, if anyone offers a better one we can use it. You should use discussion page, ask a RFC or 3rd party view before ANI anyway. Kasaalan (talk) 11:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Created a discussion page title http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Washington_Report_on_Middle_East_Affairs#ANI_over_Criticism_by_Jewish_.5Band_pro-Israel.5D_parties_subtitle over subtitle suggestion and discussions. Kasaalan (talk) 11:32, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm not sure whether it's the well-poisoning or the yellow-badging that's more disturbing here, but this needs to be nipped in the bud ASAP. IronDuke 16:23, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This editing is highly problematic. You need to stop labeling Jews. It reminds me of this and other problematic articles you've been involved in. Enigmamsg 16:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    List of Jewish pacifists and peace activists is a good list article that needs expansion, I am proud of my additions, not sure why would anyone opposes List of Jewish pacifists and peace activists article or tries to delete it in the first place anyway My edits definitely improved the article [44] while you try to delete entries [45]
    Since we had personal conflict over your and my edits, I read your adminship review while stood highly against your adminship for any Middle-Eastern or Israel related IP article we should first note that.
    According to your Adminship Review, Pauly Shore is one of your "best contribution" per your self statement
    So your reply reminds me of your proudly Huge content removal from Pauly Shore which I checked earlier
    You proudly removed [46] his critical Raspberry Awards from Pauly Shore claiming defamation as "removing a ton of garbage and defamation"
    Removed "He was raised in a Jewish family[1] and has two brothers, Scott and Peter." claiming "bad source, does not even reflect what is stated here" while he has a jewish family for sure You may read article
    You removed criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pauly_Shore&diff=next&oldid=270336536
    You removing Jew categories http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pauly_Shore&diff=next&oldid=270389413
    Since you are proud of your best contribution as anti defamatory, we can't agree in any way.
    Stating anyone's origin is not defamatory, nothing to be proud of or ashamed in any way. Telling someone is Jew or Arab or Black is not labeling them. Kasaalan (talk) 20:25, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I have no idea what you're talking about. Please endeavour to use English. I saw a link to Pauly Shore. What I did there was remove a lot of uncited and often negative material. If you don't like that, perhaps bring it up on the relevant talk page. Not sure what Pauly Shore has to do with the underlying problem here. Please stop labeling. Enigmamsg 21:52, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I renamed the title to "Criticism by Jewish community" as a general title with {{dubious}} tag until a consensus reached.
    I don't even know what you mean by that terms. If you have any suggestion for the title, join discussion page so we can find a solution. Kasaalan (talk) 16:30, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Kasaalan continues to begin everything that is remotely Jewish/Israel with Pro-Israel, Pro-Jewish, Pro-Jewistan, Pro-Jewniverse, pro-Jew World Order...etc..etc..etc. Then he even created a criticism section that said, "Criticisms by Pro-Jewish and pro-Israel organizations." I provided more thorough responses in talk which obviously didn't phase the user. I don't really care about punishment I just want some moderation or an uninvolved party to tell me what to do before this becomes a hate crime. Hahaha. Wikifan12345 (talk) 19:26, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Possibly you didn't know what canvas is as an inexperienced editor, so possibly there is not much reason for you to be worried about getting punished. You called me some names, yet I don't care about that either personally. Main purpose is finding a solution for the case. Yet more editor comments are required for finding a proper solution.
    I tagged the "Criticism by Jewish community" as a general title with {{dubious}} tag until a consensus reached.
    The case is all the critical parties in the article belongs to Jewish community and has conflict of interest to the case, some of the are completely unreliable source, morever they harshly accuses the party as anti-Semitic anti-Israel acting like Nazi etc. So one way or another I am in favor of keeping criticism, yet with proper notes about political stances of the sources. As I do in other articles.
    What is remotely Jewish Israel I referred as pro Israel. Anti Defamation League is pro Israel per foundation statements. Honest Reporting and Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America are pro-Israel media watchdogs. If you have any objections try requesting a RFC, 3rd review or Arbitrary Process, I created titles under project Israel, Palestine and Israel-Palestine contribution pages. If more people comments we may find a solution. Without more editors involved hard to find a proper solution. Kasaalan (talk) 20:36, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll be removing those "criticisms by Jews" subheaders. They're just not appropriate. --jpgordon::==( o ) 20:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Complaint Against User:JD because of vandalism in Annemarie Eilfeld

    Hi, yesterday I was blocked for some hours, because I reverted a notorious German vandal, who is an admin in de too. I have my own thoughts about his motivation, but the fact is that he has a special meaning about pop idol contestant Annemarie Eilfeld, which he executes as an admin in de. And he tries this now in the same matter in en. For a quick review you need only two eyes and no knowledge of the German language.(as Tanthalas:(Protected Annemarie Eilfeld: persistent unsourced additions/speculation/external links)

    Just on the face of it, an IP calling an admin on another project a "notorious vandal" doesn't seem to require much investigation. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I looked at the history of this article, & for the life of me I can't figure out what the dispute is about. At most, there appears to be a dispute over whether one Tom Saenger of RTL played a part in her selection on DSdS -- which could be settled by supplying a source. BTW, I seriously doubt anyone with the Admin bit is a "vandal" -- maybe someone who emphatically disagrees with you. If any editor goes around inserting nonsense into articles or blanking them, that person will lose Administrator rights rather quickly. -- llywrch (talk) 16:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I get the feeling that the IP editor does not like the fact that JD keeps removing material that they keep adding - it led to a 3RR warning on JD. It is a content dispute, and may need WP:3O. The IP editor also doesn't understand the meaning of "vandal". (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:54, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This all started here on en.wikipedia when I, while I was on recent changes patrol, noticed JD using edit summaries in German while removing content from the article. A couple days later I noticed the article was going through an edit war between some IPs, JD, and User:Buchweizen, and posted to WP:BLPN, causing Tan to step in and semi-protect the article.
    Between 14:45 on the 12th and 12:52 on the 15th, JD has performed 11 reverts. He has also ordered Buchweizen to stop annoying me, and has used WP:COI as a reason to tell Buchweizen to stop editing [47]. As noted, he has been warned for 3RR, and he's also been warned for using German in edit summaries and on talk pages.
    Regardless of whether he was "right" or not, I feel that there are some serious problems with JD's conduct heretofore, and that regardless of the IP's misunderstandings, they should be addressed. McJeff (talk) 18:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    oh, so there are "serious problems with my conduct heretofore"... let's say "my conduct towards somebody bothering since weeks on de.wp already, someone who is calling me and other users vandals, someone who is talking about us "fakers" all the time, someone who..." - the same holds true to earlier contribs of user:buchweizen on de.wp: "wannabe insider", "wikipedia means 'anti annemarie board' for JD",...
    i've given my point of view many times now, i think. this edit-war has its beginning @de.wp where, for example, the IP already had revert wars with other users; later, user:buchweizen came up from the official bulletin board and being rude many times for which he got warnings; now exactly the same arguments occur on en.wp. it's obvious - at least to me - that i am not the nice guy then who behaves like he has first contact with some new editor here. even if i surpassed 3RR one has to have a look at the edits by the IP which often even had wrong edit summaries to camouflage the real purpose (repaired broken link + sources, +, ++, that's the best link you can get. The Germans name it de:Geständnis (the given information can not not be sourced with this link), reflink and more => see external links that got added over and over again without any discussion; on de.wp these external links got discussed widely already).
    i won't get back to this diskussion again as it's making me upset. so drive back the article protection and let's see what's the outcome. fancruft galore! and i'm pretty sure nobody else will have a closer look at this 'cause eilfeld ain't the most known person out there up to now. --JD {æ} 20:32, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Note that JD and Buchweizen are edit warring on the article on the German Wikipedia. I can't read the German, but it looks like they're using automatic tools to revert each other. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:26, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    are you joking!? where the heck is there an edit war on de.wp? what brings you to the conclusion that there are any kind of revert bots active? --JD {æ} 20:32, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I never said there were any revert bots, but automatisch gesichtet looks like an automatic tool to me, though I'm not clear what "gesichtet" means. Babelfish says "sighted", which doesn't sound right. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:56, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    you said (1) that there is a edit war going on. it is not. you said (2) "it looks like they're using automatic tools to revert each other" which means to me some kind of revert bot. the answer to this "problem" is Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions; on de.wp this feature is rolled out since months and gesichtet really means "sighted". --JD {æ} 21:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    What gives people the idea that there are revert bots active? Well, judging by the history of de.wikipedia's Annemarie Eilfeld article, there are dozens of edits marked "automatisch". McJeff (talk) 20:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    sorry, i really don't get the point: what do you see? can you give an exact link to it? a screenshot? ...? --JD {æ} 20:57, 16 July 2009 (UTC) see above.[reply]
    By the way, I have notified Buchweizen of this discussion since no one has yet. McJeff (talk) 20:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    "„Bild“ hat es mit ihrer Kampagne für Annemarie Eilfeld allerdings versucht. Wie sehen Sie diese Aktion?
    Das kann "Bild" gerne versuchen. Dem stelle ich mich gerne und es ist mir auch Recht. Es gab aber keinen Kooperationsvertrag, wie uns immer wieder unterstellt wird. Eine gemeinsame Entwicklung der Themen mit anderen Medien gibt es nicht. Ich möchte allein für die Sendung inhaltlich verantwortlich sein und das auch bleiben. This is a de:Geständnis aka confession, nothing else.79.194.84.244 (talk) 21:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • what is wrong with the summaries...? well, you didn't repair a link, you didn't add new things but reverted older stuff, i didn't miss any reflink,...
    • your quote says that tom sänger sees himself as the responsible man in the making of "DSDS" and that there is no contract whatsoever between "bild" and "DSDS". there ain't no word about pushing eilfeld into the "super-bitch" role. firstly, this labelling was given to her by other media and not "DSDS". secondly, it's still not tom sänger himself who was pushing her into this role. thirdly, you are calling it a "confession". => you are doing original research then. --JD {æ} 21:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Which media? I am very curious 79.194.84.244 (talk) 21:49, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    well, as i added it before here including ref-link: tagesspiegel, for example. --JD {æ} 21:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Lügen haben kurze Beine. Tagesspiegel doesn't state this, but the opposite: Annemarie Eilfeld wird aber nun nicht erneut als Superzicke inszeniert, heißt es bei GZSZ (=also RTL, also under the leadership of Tom Sänger) 79.194.84.244 (talk) 22:05, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Robert Garside

    Resolved
     – Blocked 48hrs by OverlordQ for a 3RR violation there. ~ mazca talk 18:59, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    A user at Robert Garside (possibly the subject, but I'm not sure) is removing content (notably criticism) and structure, and adding puff ("the runningman" after every mention of the subject's name). diff. Can someone step in here please? Rd232 talk 16:30, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    also constantly recreating variations of The runningman day. No response to my user talk page comment that I created Runningman Day as a redirect to Robert Garside. Rd232 talk 16:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    AIV Backlog

    Resolved

    AIV is in a slight backlog. If an admin could take a look, it would be appreciated. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 16:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Looks like it's been taken care of. –Juliancolton | Talk 16:58, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Would an uninvolved administrator handle this please?

    Resolved
     – mazca closed the discussion 17:51, 16 July 2009 as a delete. -- llywrch (talk) 18:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    This deletion discussion is past its expiration, and should be closed. The article itself is getting worse and worse, and the problems with WP:BLP in the article are mounting by the moment it seems. The sooner it's deleted and salted, the better. Unitanode 17:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Ah, someone was asking for it to be closed at the same time I was gaining a headache weighing up the discussion. Now closed; though given the strong feelings on both sides I suspect it's going to end up at DRV regardless of what decision was made. Cheers ~ mazca talk 18:43, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    (now at DRV, for anyone stalkin'.) ~ mazca talk 19:19, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Spate of user page creations

    Resolved
     – This is a valid project designed to bring people with specialized knowledge in to help build the encyclopedia. No admin action necessary. Welcome to all the NIH people. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 18:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Looking at the new user^page log just now, I noticed an odd pattern: a sudden burst (between 1721 and 1723) of very small user pages with almost identical edit summaries. From the looks of it, it's a bunch of students all simultaneously getting started with Wikipedia editing. Someone more experienced with classroom-assigned editing may wish to go over and greet/keep an eye on/advise them. --Calton | Talk 17:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Given the contents of new pages like User:NIH instructor for a day & User:Newlyon18, it looks like a bunch of scientists may be learning how to edit the 'pedia. I know the Society for Neuroscience has developed an effort over the past year to increase the presence of new expert editors, maybe this is an NIH-directed effort? I hope so...more scientists would be a great thing 'round these parts. — Scientizzle 17:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Follow-up: yep, I was right. NIH and Wikimedia Foundation Collaborate to Improve Online Health Information. — Scientizzle 17:56, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    SchnitzelMannGreek's mistake

    SchnitzelMannGreek, a well known admin falsly accused me of vandalism a few weeks ago with this edit to my talk page. The only thing I did was redirect the article Summer Romance (Anti-Gravity Love Song) to its original album article S.C.I.E.N.C.E., i left him a message on his talk page about this and he ignored it and deleted it 2 days later without responding which really ticked me off because I didn't have an answer yet, can some admin please drop him the message about why he accused me of vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RandomGuy666 (talk • contribs) 17:51, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    A) He's not an admin. B) He didn't accuse you of anything. He raised a question, which you appear to have answered. No harm, no foul. C) He read your message, and had nothing else to say. The article currently redirects as you intended. Seriously, there's no reason to come here to "force" someone to apologize because you perceive a slight. Let it drop, and get on with other editing. I have no idea why you are getting bent out of shape over a single incident 2 days ago. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 18:08, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Without commenting on the incident itself: SchnitzelMannGreek is not an admin. The original removal is here, but it's not against the rules. - Jarry1250 [ humorous – discuss ] 18:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    New User Takes Issue With 3RR Warning

    So...I'm just cruising along...minding my own business...when in the recent changes, I see this edit summary. It piqued my interest...so I clicked on the article history and saw that Danwilson82 (talk · contribs) had made 14RR on the page. Pretty straightforward block...except I saw he was a brand new user and no one had given him a 3RR warning...so I do just that. Thinking it might be the end of it...I get this lovely message on my talk page. I re-explain to him that he is violating 3RR...and I explain that he is consistently re-adding copyrighted material onto the page. I thought that would clarify things further...and I was totally wrong. His response is some bizarre rant about how I did not contact him (which, of course, is how this whole thing started), threatens to report me and calls me a 12 year old. I notified him that the entire reason this started was by notifying him. And - with admitted snarkiness - asked if he was going to report me for not blocking him. He responds, logically, by again calling me a vandal and saying he has "reported" me. I asked if he wanted to continue with the personal attacks. Apparently, his answer was yes...and he's apparently threatened to have "1000 other fans" vandalize the page. Of course, I could protect it...considering I've never actually made an edit on it. So...twofold problem...I can't block the user straight up since I'm engaged in communication with him...and the second is...can we get some extra eyes on that page in case we need to protect...because, despite never touching it...I feel like I'd be accused of admin abuse if I did it. --Smashvilletalk 18:25, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I have left a stern but friendly note on his talk page asking him to disengage and review our policies on these issues. He has also been informed of the consequences of continuing. Let's see where this goes from here. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 18:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I have even money on a Plaxico. --Smashvilletalk 18:36, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, I suspect you are right, but new accounts are showing up to re-add the picture. I have rolled back to the non-copyvio problem one, and protected the page for a day as well. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 18:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I have also left a note at commons Admin Noticeboard to let them know about the situation. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 18:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Deleted the copyright violations that Jayron reported. --Kanonkas :  Talk  18:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I would have a bit of sympathy with him, although his attitude it a bit ott, but he is new. Can someone not trim the picture to only show his head, because until the new fans have a picture it will continue. (Off2riorob (talk) 18:52, 16 July 2009 (UTC))[reply]

    There's an existing picture (albeit a poor quality one) in the article which is appropriately liscenced, see File:Stewart Downing Middlesbrough v. Chelsea 1.png. Per WP:IUP, we may not replace a free image with a copyright image merely for image quality or other such trivial matters. If someone takes a new picture themselves, and releases it under a free-use lisence, then it may be valid to replace the current image. However, it is never kosher to replace a free, properly lisenced image with a copyrighted one. Also, one cannot merely crop or modify the existing image; such modifications still are based on a copyrigthed work, and the copyright protection carries to the cropped image. So no, merely cutting his headshot out of the copyright image will not solve the problem. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 19:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Edit conflict. :Thanks. I get all that, I was suggesting croping the poor quality one that is there now to turn it into a headshot, removing the team colours until the new team come uo with a free photo. (Off2riorob (talk) 19:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC))[reply]
    Sorry, I thought you were talking about cropping the other one. Yes, that may be a good idea then! --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 19:29, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course, someone might have picture of him at a Starbucks that they took on their digital camera, like the one on Chris Chelios. --Smashvilletalk 19:06, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Canvassing and lack of good faith from User:Gregbard

    This user has notified WikiProjects on Rational Skepticism, Philosophy and Atheism about Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christian violence: 1, 2, 3. By itself, this isn't a problem, though it's odd it never occurred to him to notify, say, WikiProject Catholicism, WikiProject Christianity, and so on - you'd think they'd have something to say about a Christianity-related AfD. No, the problem lies in the wording of the message: "I am pretty sure the proposal is another religiously motivated one. We could use some rational input..." This breaches the "campaigning" section of WP:CANVASS: "Campaigning is an attempt to sway the person reading the message, through the use of non-neutral tone, wording, or intent". It also demonstrates a clear lack of good faith: nowhere at the AfD did I (the nominator) or any "delete" voter express religious-based reasoning for deletion. Every deletion rationale is firmly grounded in policy. His language even skirts the "comment on content, not on the contributor" injunction of WP:NPA, and the implication that religious participants are "non-rational" is equally an attack.

    At the AfD itself, Gregbard's comments have been no less inflammatory. See here and here for particularly egregious remarks. It's fine to disagree with a nomination, but it's not acceptable to call a nomination the "insane" "work of Christian apologists". - Biruitorul Talk 19:39, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Need assistance with personal attacks

    Could I ask an uninvolved admin to look at these comments from Giano and decide whether they're personal attacks that need to be removed? [48] [49] [50] Many thanks, SlimVirgin talk|contribs 20:13, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Yeah. I think the 2nd and 3rd one are pretty personal. Law type! snype? 20:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It has been well and publicly established that the editor in question's judgement has been demonstrated to be flawed. Wiser editors never mention the D-word, however.--Wetman (talk) 20:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I would say they're blockable, actually. I'm going to warn him that that's as far as he can go, no more. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:37, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Well you would say that, but which statement is untrue? Giano (talk) 20:40, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    (ec) Would someone please just refactor the thread and let this rest? It's mildly amusing to read accusations that I'm racist against my own ethnic heritage, but there's nothing useful to be accomplished by making more of this. Durova278 20:42, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    refactor and I will revert - your evidence is stil in circulation so you cannot deny it. Speaking German is not proof of sock puppetry. In fact, it;s a very unkind thing to say - full stop. Giano (talk) 20:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Truth or untruth is not relevant. Truth spoken in an abusive way, as a personal attack and rudely, is not acceptable here. It does not need to be false to be uncivil and abusive. You do not have to like her, or respect her, but you may not attack her or anyone else in that manner. Stop, now. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I have struck the personal attacks. (Off2riorob (talk) 20:47, 16 July 2009 (UTC))[reply]
    and I have reverted you. The truth is the truth and history os something we need to, and should, learn from. Giano (talk) 20:49, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    edit conflict.We have nothing to learn from personal attacks on other editors. He has reverted my edit and replaced the personal attacks, that is the same as repeating them. (Off2riorob (talk) 20:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC))[reply]
    Oh whine, whine, whine, poor Off2riorob! Editors are entitled to remove your input, however valuable, from their page. How about leaving Giano and his page alone? Have you considered that? Bishonen | talk 21:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC).[reply]
    Why you are permitted to be an admin with the sort of scorn you heap on people is beyond me, but that is not acceptable behaviour. It would also help if you actually knew what was going on: Giano didn't revert Off2riorob's posting on his talkpage--which he would have been entitled to do. He reverted Off2's strikeout of the personal attacks. → ROUX ₪ 21:06, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Fwiw, am heading back to Photoshop to continue restoration on a seventeenth century map. There's nothing to be gained by quarreling. Durova278 20:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    And this is one of the people the ArbCom wants representing them. It seems to me like quite a few of the members of the advisory council could use a time out in their continuous personal attacks and ill-advised statements. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:59, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Blocked

    I invite uninvolved admin review, but as Giano reverted the strikeout after a final warning and there's a rapid but significant consensus that the comments were personal attacks, I have blocked him for NPA for 24 hrs. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:00, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Edit conflict. I have struck the comments again and an editor has done the correct thing and blocked him for 24 hours. (Off2riorob (talk) 21:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC))[reply]
    Your ability to divine "rapid but significant consensus" with the tiniest of fraction of input from regulars at this board is remarkable indeed Georgewilliamherbert. Pedro :  Chat  21:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure consensus is needed to block for the actions noted above. This isn't something sneaky or ambiguous. These are clear personal attacks, and Giano is maintaining them despite several requests to retract them. We frequently block other users for less strenuous attacks, and Giano has not earned a free pass to make comments like this merely because he has been here a long time. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 21:11, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Whether the block required or did not require consensus is immaterial here. GWH claimed "rapid consensus" in the post above as at the very least partial justification for his actions. Call me a fool if you wish, but "rapid" and "consensus" do not seem to be happy bedfellows. If GWH wants to block he would do well not to claim a community consensus that did not exist at the time he performed the action.Pedro :  Chat  21:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    "A procedural error made in posting anything, such as an idea or nomination, is not grounds for invalidating". There is no need to raise objections over the specific wording here. The block was justified at the time it was made on the content of the personal attacks alone, and that should be enough. Also, see most of the comments below.--Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 21:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It would be proper to challenge if continuing consensus development indicated that I had erred and that they were not personal attacks. But I think that calling a developing consensus after 4 opinions is not grossly unreasonable, and the ongoing consensus that has developed is overwhelming by now. There is no here, here. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Good block. There's no reason and no justification to carry on such personal attacks after repeated warnings. RxS (talk) 21:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Endorse the block. Calling someone "stupid" and a "racist" are defaming personal attacks. There are ways of criticising people which do not involve insults, defamation of character, or name calling in this manner. Additionally, Giano is not new to the project, and is also not new to these sorts of problems in controlling what is in his edit box when he chooses to press the "save page" button. Additionally, that he refuses to acknowledge these blatant violations as such, and instead not only maintains his position in using those exact words, but is edit warring to keep them in the page in question, only reinforces the preventative nature of this block. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 21:05, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    If he was new, he would have been blocked longer, as a new user would not have been so tolerated. Law type! snype? 21:09, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse block. It's not so much because of what specifically he said, but because he chose to persistently derail an ongoing debate where these attacks were patently off-topic, only serving to warm up an old grudge completely unrelated to the issue being discussed on that page. That's very immature behaviour indeed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:12, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I endorse the action, but think 24 hours are not enough to allow Giano to cool down again, would suggest extending to at least 72 hours. →AzaToth 21:12, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    And that still won't be good enough given the diff below. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 21:17, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not an admin, but anyway, good job, though I would like the block to be for a week. I would like to bring everyone's attentions to this, and quote "What a funny little man you are George William Herbert" - I view that as a direct attack against the blocking admin, and I propose that an admin extend the block to 1 week for continued attacks. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 21:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure extending the block would be a good idea, even if I endorse this block. Lets see what happens when the block expires. If he does not resume the attacks once the block expires, then it served its purpose. If he does, he can be reblocked. If the attacks intensify at his talk page, we can always just protect it for the duration of the block, but at this point I think 24 hours is fine. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 21:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I understand that if the attacks do not persist that the block has served it's purpose, but making attacks like that continually even after an administrator tells the user "I have blocked you for personal attacks" is extend-worthy, in my opinion. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 21:27, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec) Nah, an extension is precisely what we do not need to get this episode over with. He had to be removed from the discussion he was disrupting; now if he needs to continue hollering on his own user talk, that's just routine to be best ignored. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • (edit conflict)I'm not so sure that extending the block would be 'going overboard'. Giano's is the longest block log I have ever seen (that hasn't ended in an outright ban), and I somehow doubt at this point that 24h blocks even register to him. A significantly long block might drive home that his relentless personal attacks are not allowed. → ROUX ₪ 21:23, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec) Two things: blocks are not used as "cool downs", and calling someone a "funny little man" is hardly a personal attack and is a poor reason for extending the block. Nev1 (talk) 21:25, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse 24hr block. I contemplated doing it myself at the time, before deciding that one dramatic action was enough from me for tonight. If that user had been anyone other than Giano I doubt this would even be contentious; particularly the second two diffs were definite personal attacks and were over the line. However, let's not go overboard on extending the block. ~ mazca talk 21:17, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also endorse, but agree with Azatoth on increasing to 72 hours, not to cool down (no never!) but because it's warranted after multiple instances. Blocks should be increased to have a credible deterrent effect. R. Baley (talk) 21:21, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Lets not grasp at straws. "What a funny little man", and similar comments are rude, obnoxious, and disrespectful, but are not personal attacks. The only personal attack here was this one. Perhaps a warning would have been better suited. Prodego talk 21:21, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    For the record - I did warn; after which he reverted the comments back in (all 3) after someone else struck them. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:25, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • In line with my often-stated stance that I encourage not piling on additional block time for users who vent after being blocked, I would like to request that other administrators not extend the block. I am not suprised but nor was the comment anywhere near threatening enough to worry or offend me under the circumstances. If Giano cannot be civil 24 hrs from now, he is unlikely to be more civil in 48 or 72 hrs or a week from now. I AGF that he will not continue the particular behavior immediately in any case. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:23, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Though I don't endorse or oppose the initial divination of "a rapid but significant consensus" by Gwh, extending the block would be punitive and would serve no real purpose other than punishment. Unitanode 21:27, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Persistently showing poor conduct after being blocked, whether you're acting that way while blocked or not is irrelevant. An extension would serve far more than punishment, in fact, not punishment at all. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 21:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • At some point we need to recognise that the current way of doing things is not preventing Giano from making outrageous personal attacks whenever he feels like it. Here's what happens: Giano makes some attack. He gets blocked. DRAMA. Someone else unblocks him. MOAR DRAMA. We wait a couple weeks or months, and then Giano makes some attack. He gets blocked. DRAMA. Someone else unblocks him. MOAR DRAMA. We wait a couple weeks or months...
      • Nothing is working to prevent these outbursts. Either he needs to be community banned (unlikely, to say the least; DRAMA), or the blocks need to be of significant duration in order to prevent more attacks coming. → ROUX ₪ 21:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I have repeatedly been subject to much worse attacks from admins and sole-co-founders than anything I have ever seen Giano say about anyone, yet none of them ever get blocked for it. DuncanHill (talk) 21:39, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That doesn't excuse the behavior, however. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 21:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Why not? Surely we should follow the example set by such trusted members of the community? Or is it just another case of hypocrisy - those in favour can get away with anything, those out of favour get jumped on for things which would not be a problem if said by anyone else. DuncanHill (talk) 21:49, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Personal attacks + warning + persistence = Block. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 21:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Only for some. DuncanHill (talk) 21:54, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    You understandably ignore the very valid point that DuncanHill raised above Mythodon, which is that administartors routinely get away with the most outrageous personal atacks, with hardly a word said, much less a block. It's understandable that you ignore it, because it's indefensible. --Malleus Fatuorum 21:56, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    If that's the case, then something definitely needs to be done. Are you saying admins seem to feel unbound by policy? —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 21:59, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    An olive branch

    Was hoping to resolve the matter without any block. But since one has happened, let's be better than our worst moments. As a gesture of respect toward Giano's content work and his profession, am interrupting other work to restore a scan from an original aerial perspective for an office building in Singapore. Would be delighted if Giano agrees to put this behind us and perhaps fill in the redlink for Francesco Muttoni, an eighteenth century architect (there's a restored illustration all ready to go; it's been hard to find biographical sources). Let's shake hands and get back to building the encyclopedia. Durova278 21:49, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    That's just about the most sensible comment I've seen in this thread Durova. --Malleus Fatuorum 21:52, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Giano needs to gain respect for his politeness and respect of other editors. He is actually well known as a rude person. I for one, care less about whatever he has written. He has no special importance here at all. If his is rude, he goes. If he continues to be rude he goes for a longer period. (Off2riorob (talk) 22:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC))[reply]
    1. ^ JewishJournal.com
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